Not Your Ordinary Housewife: How the man I loved led me into a world I had never imagined (21 page)

‘I’ll teach you.’ He said it was easy—I just had to figure out what they wanted. ‘I know we can charge an absolute fortune for this stuff. We’ll call you Mistress Nikki.’

‘And what about my safety?’ I didn’t feel comfortable being alone with these men. It wouldn’t be like the Watch & Wanks or porn, where they wanted both of us.

‘They’re pussy cats,’ said Paul, explaining that the whole point was that they wanted
me
to dominate
them
. But, anyway, he had an idea as to how he could secure my safety: I would carry a bug with me on my dominating assignments.

In the days that followed, I rented the cult classic
Eating Raoul
from the video library to give me some insights and inspiration, and Paul researched his latest idea: a bug. Neil gave Paul the specifications he needed and put him in touch with a contact at an electronics shop who would build a listening device for us, albeit at a hefty price. All that would be required was a battery-operated transistor radio tuned to a pre-determined frequency and a pair of headphones.

A visit to the atelier of renowned couturier Laurie Lane was organised. In his crowded workshop off Chapel Street, the smell of leather permeated the premises while opera music drowned out the traffic noise. We commissioned Laurie to design a chic leather shoulder bag in which we could hide the bug. While he catered mainly to the gay leather scene, he was not averse to turning his hand to our project. The resulting satchel hid the bug beautifully, with perforated leather, necessary to allow the transmission of soundwaves, cleverly incorporated into the design.

In addition, we commissioned Laurie to design a dominatrix outfit he called the Bitch Goddess From Hell. All black leather, it comprised a torsolette, suspenders, long gloves and wraparound skirt. A small pillbox hat with metal spikes completed the outfit—a masterpiece of design and artistry.

‘So, you’ve got no excuse now
not
to be a dom,’ Paul said. He reminded me how many clients were begging me to do it.

But it still didn’t feel right. ‘You’d be better at it than me,’ I said.

‘Unfortunately, they don’t want a male, so it’s gotta be you.’ He assured me he’d help: all I had to do was take control and be bossy. ‘Just pretend you’re shitty with me. That should be easy.’ And so Paul coached me in the art of domination. With his help, I compiled a mental list of key commands and insults like: ‘Lick my boots!’, ‘Down on your knees!’ and ‘You wicked little wimp!’ Instinctively he knew what to say and, although antithetical to my nature, after a few weeks I was able to become the Bitch Goddess From Hell.

Nevertheless, I felt like a fraud taking clients’ money for what I saw as my sub-standard service. Thankfully, I thought, I wasn’t expected to fuck anybody. Getting into character wasn’t easy and I had to curb my natural tendency to giggle. Before one session, Paul helped me practise cracking my whip in the garden—I wondered what the neighbours would have thought if they’d seen me. Meanwhile, we had worked out a way whereby we could squeeze the bondage horse into the Volvo and cart it round to our sessions. I hadn’t a clue what we’d say if the police ever pulled us over.

When we arrived at an appointment, I would strategically place the bug bag, as I called it, with the microphone pointing towards me. Paul would ask if there was a spare room where he could wait. There, while reading a book, he would listen via headphones to the crystal-clear conversation. Later he would give me notes, fine-tuning my performance in his didactic style. Thankfully, there was never any occasion when he needed to intervene and not a single john ever suspected they were being monitored.

Each client seemed to have their own fetishes, to which I would try to cater.

There was Hector, who came prepared with two jam tarts, a doughnut and a packet of brown cigarettes. I was to verbally humiliate him while smoking cigarettes and butting them out in the pastry. Using my riding crop and long stockwhip as props, I struggled through my repertoire with phrases such as ‘You’re not a man—you’re a grovelling little turd,’ and ‘What you need is a dominant woman you can follow round like a puppy dog.’ He filmed me while I spent the entire hour insulting him—one of the most difficult sessions I’d ever done, because he was mute throughout. At the conclusion, he went in for a close up of the plate—a sickening mess of ash, butts, jam and pastry. He was a sensitive, and not unattractive, young man with a pleasant disposition; I wondered what caused him to seek sexual gratification in this manner. My psychology training taught me to question behaviour, but I knew that this was well beyond my understanding.

Then there was submissive Donald, a softly spoken, bespectacled gentleman who liked being dressed in baby attire and disciplined with whips and paddles. He became a regular and I agreed to allow him to visit our home. He’d recently returned from the UK and brought with him his own baby apparel. Like a child at Show and Tell, he brought out his goodies. ‘This shop I visited in London—it’s totally devoted to adult baby gear,’ he said excitedly. For him it was paradise: apparently there were giant cots and highchairs and he’d ordered some nappies. ‘Look, I’ve got an adult-sized dummy and bib to match my little sailor top.’

Wearing my bitch goddess outfit and in my fiercest dom voice, I commanded him to take off his business suit and put on his gear, so we could get started. ‘Forget about the dummy, though, so I can gag you . . . And you’ll need an extra whipping because you’ve turned up late to your appointment.’ So I manacled him spread-eagled to the bondage horse, praying that Paul’s carpentry competence could withstand the weight of this slightly tubby middle-aged man.

I ordered him to be quiet while I put on his gag and blindfold. I always insisted on a blindfold to give me some leeway if I started to crack up laughing and had to stifle it. Obediently he complied as I donned my surgical gloves in preparation for giving him an enema. Donald relished enemas, and I was about to administer his when there was an unexpected knock at the door.

‘Hang on a minute,’ I yelled out, panicking slightly. I called to Paul, who was listening in via his headphones in the spare room, to quickly go answer the door.

He came running in. ‘But what about Donald?’ he asked.

I didn’t know what we were going to do. Whoever was there would see Donald as soon as the front door was opened—unfortunately, he was in plain sight. Ironically, the open floor plan that had originally attracted us to this Robin Boyd design was now creating an unforeseen hitch.

There was further, more persistent knocking as we scurried around.

‘I know,’ said Paul, in a quick-thinking moment. ‘I’ll find a sheet to throw over him and you go get the door.’

‘But I’m in my bitch goddess outfit.’

Paul suggested I open the door on the safety chain, so only my head was visible. ‘They’ll never know what you’re wearing so long as you don’t let them in,’ he said. ‘Just take off the surgical gloves.’

I struggled with the latex, which had become stuck to my skin; Paul grabbed at them roughly.

Donald tensed visibly as Paul threw a sheet over his spread-eagled form. Thankfully, he was unable to call out because of the ball-gag in his mouth, although I heard little whelps as he strained to follow what was happening. Paul’s carpentry skills were tested as he struggled unsuccessfully to release himself.

The knock became even more insistent as I ran to the entrance in my high heels, peeking out from behind the solid wooden door as I opened it.

It was our teenage neighbour, Nora, who agisted her horse on our property in exchange for babysitting occasionally—apparently her pedigree palomino had escaped and was cantering along busy Kangaroo Ground Road. I sent Paul out to help her locate it.

Thinking I’d compensate Donald with his favourite—a golden shower—I stood astride him as he lay on the slate floor, his mouth agape. Nothing. Not a drop of urine could I force from my bladder. In desperation, I finally finished him off with a whipping and an enema, which he voided into a large nappy bucket.

Removing his gag, I pressed him over his lateness; he admitted he was an eminent doctor, and had given expert witness testimony at a case in the Supreme Court that day.

‘Poor Donald,’ I said after he left. ‘No wonder he tried to escape—I think he thought we’d betrayed his trust.’ I knew he would have panicked when he heard the knocking.

‘Yeah, I don’t think we’ll ever hear from him again,’ said Paul.

And we never did.

‘I don’t know if I can keep doing this shit,’ I announced to Paul. Acting dominant just wasn’t coming naturally to me, and we couldn’t afford to have another debacle like Donald and the horse. ‘And this golden shower thing they all want . . .’ It wasn’t that I was pee-shy, but I just couldn’t do it on command, no matter how many glasses of water I drank.

Paul reminded me that I’d managed some ‘water sports’ for our video, but that had been somehow different—I was less self-conscious. I could be a dominatrix but with difficulty, and it was draining. ‘I feel terrible being such a bitch—I’m no good at mind games. It’s much easier doing porn or Watch & Wanks—all we have to do is fuck.’

‘Maybe we should consider doing horny phone calls,’ he suggested.

‘Yeah, you could do gay ones.’ I’d found the few I’d attempted difficult. Clients frequently tried to persuade me to talk dirty to them, but I’d get embarrassed.

‘Well,’ said Paul. ‘I think I’ve got a way I could do them for hetero men.’ I knew from his expression that he’d had an idea.

We combed the electronic and music stores, looking for a voice modulator that would transpose Paul’s baritone into a higher register. Inevitably the shop assistants enquired as to why we wanted to alter his voice. Eventually we simply came out with the truth: he wanted to do phone sex and needed the dulcet tones of a female to pose as a woman. Invariably this revelation was met with great mirth. After an exhaustive effort, however, we decided that technology just couldn’t keep pace with Paul’s creative acumen, so we shelved his idea.

Out of the blue, we received a reply to one of our ads from a local respondent who was talent scouting for an American porn producer. We met with Archie, who showed us a letter of authority to prove he was bona fide. He had himself starred in many bisexual movies in LA with big-name production houses. He was looking for males for gay roles, but told us he was happy to perform on both sides of the camera if we needed some extra footage, which we did. Over the coming months, we shot several sessions for our own porn library with him and Tim.

Archie was a man of many talents: not only did he have a whopping nine-and-a-half-inch penis, but he was an artist of some ability. His house was adorned with his photo-realist oils—large canvases of flowers and faces. He seemed to have an idyllic lifestyle, painting from his home studio and supporting himself by making movies for several months each year.

Archie broached the subject of Paul starring in gay movies, explaining that, before recommending him to the American producers, he’d have to give him a screen test. I was convinced that no definite movie role existed and was most unhappy that Paul seemed so determined to oblige. My parting advice as I dropped him off was simply to make sure he used a sturdy condom.

I picked him up from his ‘sleepover’ the next morning only to learn that no footage was actually shot. ‘Why don’t you just come out as gay?’ I said.

‘Because I’m not.’

‘Well, bi then. Anyone who says they sleep with a guy at fifteen “just to do them a favour” is bullshitting.’

‘Pet, I fancy you and only you. I love
you
,’ he said, insisting that he was doing this because there might be a movie deal in it.

The thought of the two of them together was unbearable. I told Paul I just wanted him to be honest. I had nothing against gays, and reminded him how I’d grown up in a household frequented by Dory’s numerous homosexual friends—dancers from the Bodenwieser Ballet, the Australian Ballet, the Opera Orchestra. The list was endless. They all had a standing invitation for Sunday lunch and would buy her flowers on Mother’s Day. She was the classic ‘fag hag’ and I was the beneficiary of her broadmindedness. ‘So, I don’t care if you’re gay, but I need to know.’