MODERN EMPRESS

Illustration by Linnéa Borg

Modern Empress in the sheet and Lucy in the street. She is ‘a real girl with a fabulous bossy streak’ and she’s been a dominatrix for a decade, writes Kine

Lucy had just lost her job when her husband at the time confessed to having enormous debts. The confession came after they got married, and it forced her to think out of the box, thinking: “which business models would require the smallest expenses, but give the biggest reward?” Sex work came out on top, but she didn’t want to have sex. Being a dominatrix allowed her to keep her sexual intimacy for her partner, but still make money from the sex industry. It was a business decision.

The time is 10:15 PM in Finland when we Skype. She’s running fifteen minutes late but still takes the time to learn how to pronounce my name. I don’t see her face, but her voice is like talking to an old friend you’ve known for years. It’s a safe space.

Being in her mid-30s, Lucy has achieved a lot thanks to her line of profession. Having two post-graduate qualifications under her belt, she says she’s “travelled the world on other people’s dimes.” From trekking across the Wadi Rum in Jordan, seeing the Lost City of Petra to all over Japan and Russia, being a dominatrix sounds tempting. Over the ten years she’s been a ‘domme’, she’s been allowed to do and see things she wouldn’t ordinarily be able to do.

“My favourite things are things that allows me to preserve my sense of who I am and be paid handsomely at the same time”, she says and laughs. It sounds easier said than done, but she swears by it. Pretending to be someone else can drain her emotionally, therefore roleplay isn’t her favourite thing to do with a client. There could be three-hours long roleplay sessions where she has to pretend to be somebody’s mother, which is alright. Then they might be of another race than her, and then they might be 65-year-old and she’s half the age. “That’s quite the stretch for the imagination.” Her favourite things are the ones where she doesn’t have to suspend her own personality traits. She stresses the importance of good chemistry with a client. Good chemistry where she can be herself equals a nice time at work. Her work is not about acting as someone else. The best times are when she can be herself.

Lucy only sees regulars. She says that not only is it the best business model, it also saves her the extra work of always having to prepare for new clients. Cleaning equipment, memorising new information “like three pages of emails” where clients goes back and forth trying to make it clear what they want from her. She built regulars from short sessions with different people when she started out. Then she would see new people all the time, now she never sees anyone new. It’s a regulars only club now.

She’s never short of stories to tell at the dinner table. From having clients who want her to forcibly dress them as a woman, but also make them a dog and having to spend hours on emails back and forth just trying to clarify if that makes them a female dog or a transvestite being made to act like a dog. She also has clients interested in being sploshed, covered in food, so she invites friends over and they throw baked beans and eggs at them. She says: “I don’t even notice when they’re weird anymore.”

On a more serious note, she tells me that the most affecting request she once got was someone who had no sexual interest in being dominated but wanted to be abused. The person wanted to be beaten and yelled at because of an abusive childhood, and this was the only way to feel comfortable. She says: “Nobody could do that for him, other than a dominatrix, and even I struggled to do that.” Then the person would take half an hour on his own to cry, like a therapeutic cry. While most of her requests are for something sexual, this was weird for her in that sense that it wasn’t anything sexual. It was intense. She says the person needed a place where it was okay for an abuser to abuse him in a controlled way, and that person was Lucy.

Having gone to an all-girls school in London, coming out as a dominatrix to her friends didn’t go too well. “They felt it was undignified and that women like me were the reason husbands might cheat.” She felt hurt and confused how girls her age weren’t encouraging her to do this because “ultimately it’s entirely a feminist act”. Lucy recalls one of the things that made her fall out with her friends was the fact that she offers water sport: peeing on clients. To her friends, having someone else see your vagina like that is shameful. To Lucy, there’s nothing shameful about a vagina.

Her parents, on the other hand, were absolutely fine with it. Her now 80-year-old dad simply said “good for you”.

According to Lucy, March marks the start of the busiest time for sex workers in the city. Spring and summer are when the wealthiest people come to London. She says: “London has a huge amount of money being spent in the non-taxed economy on sex work.” While her request stays the same, the demand always increases in March. It’s a busy time.

While some of her then ‘so-called’ friends would feel ashamed of her line of profession, Lucy feels the opposite. “The only thing that prevents me from telling some people is that I know it would make them feel embarrassed.” In her eyes, what she’s doing is something to be proud of. She’s providing a forum for clients in which “they can truly be honest without any judgment…I just let them be themselves”, she says and blows her nose like any other human being. It’s getting late in Finland now and Lucy has to go.

“I’m not ashamed, though many people think I should be,” she says and laughs. “Fuck’em.”