His parents named him Dandelion and I’ll bet he got beaten up for that even at Montessori school.  My name is Miriam.  I’m a professional dominatrix but I tell most people I teach piano lessons.  They might not believe me anyway, if I told the truth. I’m just shy of five-foot three (if you count the dreads) and Jewish - nothing at all like the Teutonic goddess of their fantasies.  Well, fuck them.

Dandelion’s a wiry guy with curly, orange hair and gentle eyes.  He does something inscrutable, maybe grant-writing, for a non-profit with an office on the other side of the Bay.  I met them - him and his wife, Michelle - at the Hatha Yoga Center on Divisadero.  Dandelion was wearing a Tori Amos T-shirt, just the sort of tragically sensitive guy you expect in a yoga class.  His voice was so gentle it could never possibly hurt you, and he smelled faintly of sandalwood.

But he was clever and funny, and I was pleased to learn that he and Michelle owned all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD.  We became fast friends.  He and Michelle invited me to their apartment for dinner one Thursday evening. That’s when I admitted, after a glass of Shiraz and another of Muscat, that I do not earn my living teaching piano lessons.

When I tell people what I do, they often take it as a license to tell me all sorts of things about themselves, things I would rather not know. But this time I was happy to listen, because Michelle has long, blonde hair, the legs of a Nordic skier, and the healthy glow of a neurotic who exercises every morning just to remain sane.  She’s the principal of a largish high school and she told the usual story: “When I’m at work I always have to be in control…”  As if any of us really knows why we want what we do.

Dandelion, they told me tipsily, was not comfortable dominating his wife in the way she wanted, which surprised me not at all.  He and Michelle hovered awkwardly around this topic until finally I explained to them that, while I do not offer discounts to friends, I was more than happy to dominate Michelle for my usual rate and even abuse Dandelion for no extra charge.  We made an appointment for Sunday.  On Saturday they chickened out and rescheduled it for the following Friday.

I knocked on their door at precisely 8:05pm Friday evening.  Dandelion opened the door and I did my best to walk in like I owned the place.

“Hi, kids,” I said, “Are you ready to play?  Do you remember the rules?”

“We say ‘kumquat’ if we want you to slow down,” said Dandelion.

“And ‘cantaloupe’ if we want you to stop,” Michelle added.

“Indeed,” I said, shrugging my trench coat off my shoulders.

I held it out and looked at Dandelion expectantly.  A few moments later he understood; took my coat and hung it in the closet.  I didn’t have to ask and that’s how I like it.

I checked to make sure Michelle was looking, then slid my hands slowly down my sides, smoothing the tight, black dress I like to wear for these occasions.  Michelle’s eyes followed my hands down from my breasts to my hips.  I winked at her and began the game.

“Dandelion, fetch me a martini.”

His eyes widened and he stood still for a moment.  I raised my right eyebrow as far as I possibly could and that seemed to break his paralysis.  He scurried away to the kitchen, leaving me alone with his wife.

I set my bag - a canvas guitar case, actually - on the coffee table and sat on their black leather couch.  I stretched luxuriously, enjoying the smooth leather slide on my bare arms, crossing one booted leg over the other and mentally peeling off Michelle’s white evening gown.  She blushed and put her hands together in front of her.

I heard glass clinking in the kitchen.

“Come sit with me,” I said to Michelle - sweetly, but an order, not a request.

She came to me with tiny, hesitant steps, and I noticed dampness between my thighs.  There’s something marvelous about women when they yield to me, when their eyes are wide, liquid, and nervous.

She sat down a few inches away from me, but I slid my arm around her waist and tugged her close.  Her breathing was heavy but uneven, so I massaged her shoulders to relax her.  I wanted to embrace her and lose myself in her softness, but that was not my role.  I had to maintain control, dominate them both, and make it all look easy.

Michelle and I were playing with each other’s hair and giggling when Dandelion came back with my martini.  His eyes went wide and he paid no attention at all to my drink, which was dribbling onto the floor.  He was about to lose an olive.

“You’re spilling,” I said.

That took him a few seconds to process.

“Oh,” he said, paling.

He was so cute that I almost felt guilty.  But if I’d forgiven him for spilling I would have been a failure as a dominatrix.  I stood up, imagining myself an uncoiling cobra, staring at him with eyes I hoped were hypnotic and predatory.  I took the martini imperiously, never letting my eyes leave his as I tilted the rim to my lips.

I sipped and was unpleasantly surprised.

“This is vodka!” I snarled.

Dandelion’s mouth opened and closed as though he were blowing small bubbles.

“And vermouth?” he added, hopefully.

“A real martini is made with gin.  If I wanted a vodka martini, Dandy, I would have

asked for a vodka martini.”

Lousy service is one thing, but the coarsening of Western culture is another.  I set the martini on the coffee table and then slapped him across the face.  His wife gasped behind me.

Cringing, he was closer to my height.  His eyes met mine for a moment, then dropped.

“I’m sorry, mistress,” he said, pitifully.

I thanked a god unknown for making me a domme.

“You will address me as Mistress Miriam,” I corrected him.

“Yes, mistress,” he said, then caught himself: “Mistress Miriam.”

“Bring me my bag, slave.  I should be able to find something in there with which to punish you.”

“Yes, Mistress Miriam.”

Still cringing, he went over, picked up the guitar case, and brought it to me.

“Put it on the table and unzip it for me.”

He obeyed.  I reached down and parted the lips of the bag lovingly, pondering the treasures within.  I sorted through until I found my thin-tipped riding crop.  I took it out, held it in one hand and flexed the tip with the other, and chuckled.  Time to play.

“The bedroom,” I said to them both, slinging the bag over my shoulder.  “Now.”

Pausing in the doorway, I felt like a newly crowned queen surveying her realm.  I made a mental list of the resources at my disposal: Candles, a compact disc player, tall, wrought iron bedposts.  Dandelion and Michelle scurried for me, lit the candles, switched out the god-awful Belle & Sebastion for some Crystal Method.  I made them kneel before me and poked Dandelion in the cheek with the riding crop.

“Kiss it, slaves.”

Dandelion drew his head back awkwardly, then curled his lips around the tip with obvious distaste.  Michelle leaned in and dabbed it gingerly with the very tip of her tongue.  The room swirled and the rest of the world faded away as a thousand euphoric chemicals flooded my brain.  I love this so much.

“Now suck.”

Dandelion drew the tip of the crop into his mouth and sucked it for a while, then let his wife do the same while he watched her ravenously.  When I was satisfied with their efforts, I grabbed Dandelion’s hair gently in my hand, knelt down, and pulled him close just long enough for him to get the wrong idea.  I sneered.

“Lick my boots, slaves.”

Dandelion sighed, frustrated, but he leaned down to my feet and put his tongue tentatively on the patent leather.  I flicked his neck a bit with the crop and he began lapping.  Michelle followed soon after.  They were so cute like that, eyes closed, lips parted.  The music’s beat electrified me.

I laughed wickedly, then grabbed each of them by the hair and pulled them sharply to their feet.

“Get up!” I barked.  “Take off his shirt!”

Michelle made a little choking sound and her legs wobbled.  She eyed the riding crop warily as she reached around from behind him and unbuttoned his shirt.  I expected she’d do it from the front but I liked this: it was like she was offering him to me.

His chest looked delicious.  As soon as she had the shirt off his arms I lashed him with the riding crop.  He groaned, she gasped.  I laughed.

She spoke, unexpectedly.  “Thank you, Mistress Miriam.”

So polite!  I stepped around Dandelion, grabbed Michelle’s hair by the roots and kissed her carnivorously, pulled her close so her little breasts pressed against mine.  She whimpered, muffled little sounds.

I pulled away and growled at her, “Are you going to be a good little girl for me?”

“Yes!” she whispered.

I smiled sweetly.

“Yes WHAT?”

I love it when they forget.

“Yes, Mistress Miriam,” she whimpered, “I’ll be your good little girl.”

“Good,” I say.  “I think we’ll all have fun that way.  Now, get the handcuffs from my bag.”

Michelle shuddered a little while she was looking through my bag.  Maybe something in there scared the poor thing?  I stifled a laugh.  She brought me the handcuffs and I shackled her husband’s wrists to the bedposts so that he stood at the foot of the bed, facing away from it.

That’s when my fun truly began.  Michelle and I stood right in front of her husband and made out hungrily, biting necks, pawing, licking ears, making little noises to show how excited we were.  I turned her around a few times to make sure Dandelion saw us from every angle.

Poor Dandelion!  Comically Christ-like, suffering strung up like that, except that I’ve never seen Christ portrayed with such an obvious erection.  I slipped the strap of Michelle’s gown off her shoulder while looking Dandelion straight in the eye.  His eyes were hungry and his breath ragged.

After some squirming, laughing, and panting, Michelle and I had each other down to our lacy underthings.

“Let’s take these off on the bed,” I suggested, and we retreated behind Dandelion, where he couldn’t see.

He craned his neck but he could catch only glimpses.  While I enjoyed Michelle, I let half my mind imagine things as Dandelion experienced them - the giggles; Michelle’s white bra sailing over his head; my black one tossed after it, landing draped over his shoulder.  Michelle’s little shriek when I slapped her ass, hard.  I could smell Michelle’s excitement and my own.  I’m sure he could, too.  His skin was flushed and his hair damp with perspiration.  He groaned aloud when I slipped his wife’s panties over his head.

Once she was naked I brought out my bag.  First the flogger, until her pale breasts blushed pink.  Then the riding crop, just a little, gently, on her buttocks and legs.  Next, an ostrich plume, just to mix things up.  I put banjo picks on all my fingers and scratched her soft stomach.  Then the flogger again, gently on her pussy, and finally I rolled her over and slapped her ass with a ping-pong paddle until her eyes got damp.  Every so often I let something brush against Dandelion’s back - fingers, toes, the crop.  His neck was too tired to try looking back at us any more, but I’m certain his imagination painted him a lovely picture.

I took the last thing out of the bag.  I suspect it’s what Michelle shuddered at earlier.  Once again, I imagined things as Dandelion heard them:

“Has anyone ever used one of these on you?”

“No.  Never, Mistress Miriam.”

“Help me put it on.”

Giggles.

“How does it go?”

“Around my legs, like this.  And this clips in here.”

“Oh, God.”

More giggles.

“Suck it.”

“Yes, Mistress Miriam.”

Then only quiet noises for a while.

“Such a good girl.”

“Are you going to…?”

“Of course.”

A pause.

“Oh, God.”

“Beg for it.”

“Oh, God.  Please fuck me.”

SMACK!

“Ow…please fuck me, Mistress Miriam!”

Another pause.

“You’re so wet.”

I fucked her savagely from behind, her hair wrapped around my hand.  She moaned every time I pushed into her.  I found the flogger with my other hand and beat her in counterpoint to my thrusts.

“Play with yourself!”

She fell nearly fell over when she tried that, so I tossed aside the flogger and rubbed her clit with my fingers until she was almost ready to come.

Then I stopped. Michelle whimpered unhappily but I ignored her.  I slipped out of the harness, leaving her impaled, the rubber cock jutting out obscenely and the straps dangling like the tentacles of some alien, rubber squid.  I grabbed the riding crop, slipped off the bed, took Michelle’s panties off Dandelion’s head, and studied him.  His eyes were glassy and his lips slightly parted; his expression came from someplace deep and primitive.

His body glistened delightfully by candlelight.  I envied Michelle a little for what was about to happen, but I observe strict limits with my male clients.  I menaced Dandelion with the crop.  When he cringed away, I unlocked the handcuffs from one bedpost and then the other.  He looked at me without understanding.  I waved the crop at the half-fucked woman on the bed.

“Your wife needs you.”

He blinked twice, then laughed, astonished, between heavy breaths.  His eyes flashed darkly and I knew he had a demon inside him just like mine.

He pounced on her from behind, an escaped monster with handcuffs dangling from his wrists.  He threw away the dildo, scrambled out of his pants, and pushed into her roughly.  With each thrust, she shrieked wildly and his balls noisily slapped her behind.  He found the flogger somehow, thrashed her without pity while he forced her head down on the mattress with his other hand.

Her shrieks became a continuous, sobbing wail.  I simply watched, basking in the fury of Dandelion unleashed.