The Pleasure's All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive by Joan Kelly Page B

into a private chat one afternoon not long after. His onscreen name was “T,” and while he didn’t say anything especially intriguing in his profile, the sheer absence of any kind of clownish posturing was fairly stunning to me by that point. The only problem was that he’d checked “attached” in his marital status section.
         So, was that a mistake or are you actually with someone? I typed to him that first day. This may sound unbelievably naive, but I didn’t get why someone who openly admitted to having a partner would be contacting me. I thought most guys would try to hide being attached if they were on the prowl to cheat, or at least complain that it was a miserable situation that they would be getting out of any minute now.
         No, it wasn’t a mistake, T typed back.
         Well, are you married to this person? I asked.
         Yes, he wrote without elaborating.
         Are you in love with her?
         Very much so, yes.
        By this point I was both confused and angry. Why did the only non-spastic man I’d communicated with so far on this contraption have to wave himself in my face tauntingly if he wasn’t available? Fine, you’re sadistic, but this is a little out of bounds even for kink, I thought.
         Why are you writing to me, then? I typed.
         I’m looking for a submissive. I particularly enjoy training novices, which your profile says you are; and I liked that you were clearly intelligent and polite.
        I paused for a moment, and then typed thank you automatically, proving his point. I just don’t want to be messing around with someone else’s husband, that’s all. I would feel guilty about it, plus I don’t like to share.
         Understood. So you know, my wife is aware of my search for a dominant/submissive relationship outside of our marriage. We have an arrangement, which allows both for my consideration for her feelings and for her awareness that I seek submissives to train.
         I’m happy for you and your wife, but I don’t want to be with a married man.
        I was irritated now and would have had the urge to slam down a receiver if we’d been talking on the phone instead of online. How dare he think I’d settle for a fraction of someone else’s man? How dare he think I wanted so little for myself, arrangement or no arrangement with his wife?
         Okay, he typed. If you’d like, I would still be interested in mentoring you to whatever degree you’d be comfortable with.
         What exactly would that mean, for you to mentor me?
         Well, it means that instead of being completely adrift in this new situation, you’d have someone to answer your questions, someone who wasn’t trying to get anything from you.
        My irritation of moments before disappeared, and, in its place, I felt the beginnings of what I thought would be a safe, and distant, crush. He was here to help me, and as a guy of forty-five, who’d been in the scene almost as long as I’d been alive, he undoubtedly had information that I needed. When he offered to call me that day so we could talk without the lag of typing time, I agreed. When he informed me that I was to call him “sir” and follow whatever instructions he gave me during our actual conversation, I was doubly happy. It seemed I would get to have the safety of a purely platonic involvement, while still experiencing some of the rituals of dominance and submission that I’d already found stimulating. I logged off and sank into the beat-up couch next to the telephone in our living room. When the phone jingled loudly, I made myself wait until the third ring to pick up.
        “Hello?”
        “Hello, Joan.” His voice had an almost whispery quality.
        “Hello, sir.” I tried to think of what to say next. What would be good kinky-stranger etiquette? Do I launch into my questions, or wait for him to guide the conversation?
        “Tell me, Joan, do you have a