James May
Lady Seraphina
Lady Seraphina puts the beat-down on Fast Forward writer
I’m stripping off my tight vintage camo shirt and Levis in front of a woman I barely know. Just an hour ago I was soaking in a claw-foot bathtub steaming shaving and scrubbing every part of my body in preparation for a date with this woman who I wanted desperately to please. On an unusually cold evening we’ve scurried inside her non descript Beltline condo together and things are about to get very warm.
The woman is Lady Seraphina a professional lifestyle dominatrix who lives and works in Calgary. Tonight I am hers and she is mine: for about the same amount of money it costs to visit a fancy day spa I have an hour-long date with a lady who knows a thing or two about whips chains and black leather.
I know enough about BDSM to ask for what I want and to recognize the difference between misconceptions and the kinds of darkly erotic experiences that the world of kink opens up. Lady Seraphina or My Lady as I’ve been instructed to call her tonight suggests that “most people think that a session with a professional domme is all about violence and pain.” Instead she likens sado-masochism more to the familiar forms of touch therapy that are available at the spa massage therapist or physiotherapist. During a pre-session consultation I find that she’s a gentle multi-dimensional person with varied interests outside of the dungeon including knitting and microbrewed beer. On top of it all she’s also an avid walker and a practising Buddhist.
For now I’m standing naked inside her playroom boxed in by four custom pieces of furniture in dark purple and heavy cherry-coloured wood. There’s a large cage for very bad boys a chair that I’m sure is reserved for My Lady only a spanking bench capable of supporting a much bigger person than I and a cross. She also has a long rack of toys that I’ve seen before and various implements of torture that I can’t even begin to name.
Without clothes I have no protection from her other than our words. The words that came before she locked me in a collar and cuffs before I stepped into this room of torture and even before she agreed to do a session with me in the first place are my reassurance of our trust. “I don’t book full sessions unless there is trust or chemistry with the individual. Another reason not to go forward might be that they are looking for services that I do not offer” she says. We’ve had a complex discussion about the things I am fascinated to feel and I’m confident that she can carry it out with skill and efficiency.
The biggest question on my mind as I am being buckled onto the spanking bench at my ankles knees waist and wrists is: can I really endure this? I could say she is staring imposingly at me while I desperately wish for special disappearing powers but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The benevolent look that she greets me with now tells me without words that I will be able to enjoy even the heaviest punishment meted out by My Lady. I’m encouraged by something that she mentioned to me before the session: “when someone plays with me they receive a high level of care compassion kindness and skill. I invest a lot of emotional and creative energy in play.”
Then My Lady is off to the races with a dark red birch paddle. Next is a weapon of Scottish origin called a tawse once used by schoolmasters as a form of discipline for delinquent students followed by a rubber flogger from a cheap sex toy store with individual falls so thin that they contact my ass with just a gentle brushing sensation. This one offers relief in between tougher toys but as soon as a gentle blush spreads evenly across my entire backside we’re back to a heavy rubber tool that feels like a club an even thicker leather strap and a clear polycarbonate peanut paddle that is truly evil. This unyielding high-density plastic offers a substantial smack over a broad area of the skin and rocks me hard.
Despite this I’m laughing with delight as she smacks me and explains the toys that she’s using at the same time and I’m really getting into our lighthearted repartee as a counterpoint to the extreme sensation. Now that we’ve moved onto the big guns Lady Seraphina restrains me even further with silver nipple clamps connected by a thin chain. I arrogantly assume that these will be a cinch but she counsels me not to underestimate the pain that will rush through my nipples when the clamps are removed. When she finally rips them off and pinches the blood back into my shriveled nipples a scream escapes unwittingly from my throat — and even I am surprised. She also decides on a whim to clip two rubber-tipped stainless steel clamps that you might find in a hardware store onto my pinkest most tender bits. This is supposedly a demonstration of how merciful she is. Given my compromising position I know this is the time to thank her excessively for showing mercy on me as I spy inside the toy box at least 10 more clamps of various sizes waiting to bite into me.
I approach being caned with trepidation. Given that it is one of Lady Seraphina’s specialties and this suggestion seems to please her I’m up for the challenge. “Doing a slow warm-up enables people who want to push their limits to go further” she reassures me. After accepting My Lady’s invitation to stay for a second hour I was plenty warm.
The four rattan canes are in ascending weights — two polycarbonate and two stainless steel — each producing a subtly different sensation. “For example a good warm-up can mean the difference between taking five strokes with a cane and being able to take 50 strokes and still leave the session feeling contented” she says. I feel her dedication to precise technique as each set of five strokes lands deftly on the right cheek of my ass then quickly she follows with the left side. I think she caned the fleshiest parts of my thighs five times apiece too but after swimming in the sensation of the first 20 or so strokes I am losing count and blissing out. By the time the thickest steel cane is making contact I see stars and crave the soft touch of her hand to soothe me. I’m also cussing like a filthy sailor.
I first read about bastinado as an SM activity in Concertina: The Life and Loves of a Dominatrix by Susan Winemaker. I was curious what the peculiar erotic draw of this activity is considering that bastinado is primarily known as an infamously cruel form of corporal punishment used during the Ottoman empire and in many extreme political regimes since. All intellectual baggage aside I agree to try five strokes on the sole of each foot. This is the single experience in Lady Seraphina’s playroom that I cannot find a way to translate into pleasure. Instead I counter loudly with another impressive string of expletives and silently thank my lucky stars that my political views are not punishable by bastinado in Canada.
Other clients ask specifically to be caned repeatedly Seraphina informs me. “Once I was doing a consensual scene with a boy who had just endured some heavy corporal punishment. I asked him if he felt abused and he sighed blissfully and said ‘No Lady I feel very well taken care of.’”
SM is like any other endurance activity that tests the physical limits of the body. I’ve heard people say this before and now I know it from experience. I’m breathing deeply my body heat is radiating off my skin in waves and my thoughts are focused. Lady Seraphina is behind me with a thick leather dragon’s tongue and all I can feel is the tender spot where this whip is making contact with my ass. Like yoga or running I reach a point of being hit that feels as if I could stay there forever hold that pose for eternity or keep pressing on one foot in front of the other in a steady rhythm.
Our scene wraps up with some heavy hair-pulling — she grabs a thick handful of the hair just above the nape of my neck and proceeds to yank my head around till it feels loose — combined with some light “cool down” sensations on my back. Hairbrushes curry combs used in horse grooming a tiny spiked Wartenburg wheel plus fingernails and finally the occasional warming touch of My Lady’s hand.
My final mistake is inquiring about what appears to be a small child’s tennis racket hanging on the edge of Lady Seraphina’s toy rack alongside straps paddles and floggers. It stands out because unlike the dark menacing tools the toy is a cartoonishly bright yellow plastic. “Oh haven’t you seen these bug zappers before?” she coos. I had just dressed and we obviously weren’t in play space anymore but her tone changes on a dime as she demands that I hold out my hand. Even after (mostly) obeying her for over two hours I protest. As a final gesture of domination and humour Lady Seraphina administers two short excruciating zaps of electricity designed to fry bugs from the inside out.
With sincere parting thanks we say goodbye and I leave My Lady to head out into the frosty December evening. I am thoroughly exhausted but as I march my sorry black-and-blue ass down the block it is with a happy lightness that I enjoy the walk home through the freshly falling snow.
