"Come on, seriously, what's her real name?" I type in confusion during a Facebook Chat conversation with a friend who knew someone who could assist me.
"I'm serious, her name is Miss Hunter. She doesn't have a first name."
Whether or not my friend is giggling behind her computer as we talk doesn't matter. At that moment, it is made very clear to me that what I am about to get myself into isn't something to be messed around with.
During my journalistic career I've taken mild risks and partaken in ballsy activities in the hopes of giving chaps a guide on how to be fully gratified in their own sexual relationships. But thus far I've been playing it safe and just writing about things I already know I could do. What I am about to do I know nothing of.
Though I've always been intrigued by the darker side of sex, it's never really turned me on. I admit to liking a rougher type of romp, with a few hard palms and playful misogyny spurts, but the sight of a whip or chain sends my penis directly into the timed scenario of a trial from the film series Saw. A gag is not something I have used, and, to be honest, it's not something I've ever wished I've used.
I begin an email conversation with Miss Hunter, an opera singer from London, who also earns a bit of cash slapping about rich blokes. She at first rejects the proposal of a meeting, but I'm able to sneak something she calls a "taster session" from her. I'm not one to play games, so to show my enthusiasm for her profession, I tell her that I want to experience what she does firsthand, and not just take her for coffee. I wince slightly when she used terms like "sense restriction" and "torture," but for the cause, I go with it.
I agree to meet her at the station at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. I know very little, but I do know that this sort of sexual endeavor is appealing to the powerful and successful. It's something you do the first moment you have time to spare, as you hightail it from the office after a week of telling people what to do and stumble into the chambers wanting the opposite.
I stop myself from guessing any longer and prepare myself for what should be one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I call a highly recommended psychiatrist and book an appointment in advance.
The Meeting
Running approximately 15 minutes late, I finally meet Miss Hunter. With red hair folding down on either side of her black-rimmed glasses, she is pretty much what I had expected. Admittedly, more attractive than I had anticipated, which makes me a little bit more aware of my naked arse, but I put that in the back of my mind.
She walks me down to the venue, which resembles any old council house kitchen, really. Only with one difference: the apparatus that's waiting for me.
She asks me to take a seat and starts by telling me that she's been doing this for about seven years, entertaining clients of all ages and creeds with various levels of weaponry. She admits that it was something she had been on the receiving end of first and over time learned the practice. Work hasn't been a problem for her since.
"I'd feel I would be cheating the clients if I was just doing it for the money. Plus, the level of insight you need to be successful at doing this requires a passion that you wouldn't have if you didn't enjoy it. People can require very specific things."
Interesting. How specific, I wonder?
"I get people coming to see me from literally all ages. I saw someone recently who was well into his 90s, whereas another lad had just turned 21. Luckily, he started talking about university or I would have asked him for ID.
"I get clients asking me to perform a vast range of scenarios. The cane, for example, is often requested by the older guys who remember what it felt like when they were young. I pretend to be their tutor. A tutor who isn't happy with them.
"Then you have the hairbrush, which tends to accompany a more mothering scenario. I'll take on the scenario of someone who has a caring voice but needs to punish them."
As she speaks, she smiles constantly. Not in a strange Bond villain way but as someone who speaks openly, almost trivially about the topic. I return us to ground and remind her that what we're talking about is the dark and strange fantasies. She slightly drops tone.
"That's why I [take] my clients' discretion extremely seriously. I have two names, two addresses, two date of births and keep both lives completely separate. Not for tax reasons, obviously, [but] just because I am wary about the repercussions of what might happen if this information got out."
She continues to talk about the mindset that you have to be in to be good at this, but I can't concentrate. The desk of tools sits in the corner, the elephant in the room not worth ignoring any longer. We go over to the desk.
The Spanking
After being lectured slightly on each item, I inquire about the best way of testing them out.
"Now, how do you feel about getting your arse out?"
Wow. Erm, yes, who am I to say no? My arse being out doesn't really worry me. I've got a decent backside, my dear -- let's get cracking. What worries me is the seat placed in the middle of the floor. She sits on it and asks me to bend over her knee.
"This isn't a doctor's surgery -- come over here," she requests, as I stand a good meter away with my trousers around my ankles and my best boxers on display. I waddle over to her right side and carefully, yet completely awkwardly, lower myself over her knees. As I stare into the floor, Miss Hunter slips my boxers down and gives me one firm slap on my right cheek, then on my left, and alternates until she completes eight slaps. On the eighth, I am breaking up.
I ask her how long that particular practice goes on for. She replies that most guys tend to do this for several minutes. I find this absurd. She points to the leather sofa and asks me to lie myself flat across it, so I stumble and flop myself on the seat as she walks over to her tools.
She takes a longish leather paddle and tells me that we will start with the medium-strength ones and work our way up. The paddle is light and bendy, and hurts exactly as I imagine it will. It stings, but as the pain fades, I start to get a feel for why people enjoy this. She jokes that she won't let me "bash one out" during the session, but, in fact, I'm really not that sexually aroused. It's a different kind of pleasure.
She next grabs something called a tawse, which is a strong leather belt that's split into either two or three tongues at the end. The three-tongued tawse is firm and leaves more of a thudding pain. At this stage my backside is extremely red. I think it's bad then, but it's about to get serious.
I have a feeling that the more homely and rudimentary tools will be more painful. They are. She brings over the two brushes first, ones you would see at Cinderella's dressing table. The first is made of wood, and as she hits each cheek, I feel the pain shoot through my pelvis. She leaves it for a minute and exchanges the brush for the ebony one. It's brutal. My fondness for this activity begins to wane.
I get why the belts would be a turn-on in concept, but actually being hit by brushes and slippers seems silly. She has two slippers: One is something you would see your grandfather wearing in front of the TV. The second is a tennis shoe, or a plimsoll as some call it.
As I suspect, the thudding pain of the grandfather slipper is worse. It feels more like a punch to my cheek. I really have to take a few breaths at this point, and Miss Hunter instructs me to rub the red skin to improve the blood circulation. We joke that as I'm here in a professional capacity, she shouldn't assist in the recovery.
Feeling like a pathetically useless and red-arsed Kate Winslet while lying flat on the black leather sofa, I ask Miss Hunter more questions. While I'm stuck deciding whether pulling up my boxers would be considered a bit weird and ruin the flow of the conversation, Miss Hunter explains more about the pain itself and how she was easy on me. I ask if anyone has broken down during a session, either because of the pain, regret or the emotional distress of being a silent subject to punishment. To have your autonomy taken from you and exchanged with physical damage can be a tough thing to take.
"In terms of regret, that really doesn't happen. In fact, I have clients that are encouraged by their other halves to do this to make them happy. Yes, you get the odd bloke who uses me as a form of escapism, but they never feel bad afterward. The ones who are tentative about this tend to be time wasters anyway. The whole point of me doing this is to make sure my client gets what he wants, and we don't go too far."
I nod along to all of her offerings, still with my backside on display. I finally go to slip my underwear back on. I'm stopped.
"Not so fast. We have one more thing to do. Stand up, place your hands on the wall and bend over…"
I walk in front of the tall mirror, look myself in the eye and see the large cane being lifted from the kitchen table. She informs me this will be the worst of all the strikes I receive this afternoon. I don't dare to disagree, as the weapon looks like it will do damage. I leave my eyes open, as she gently taps my blushing behind, building anticipation with each flick. I ask her if she's enjoying this, and she says yes. We giggle. She coils back her arm and follows through with the velocity of Thor. I straighten my back in response.
I bite my lip hard and bang my foot against the floor to get rid of the pain, which actually leaves very quickly. Like wasabi, it shoots and dies. I turn to see that along with the spanking, Miss Hunter has sneaked a small shark into the experience and surreptitiously gets the thing to rip a chunk out of my arse. Well, that's what it looks like anyway.
Home time
Miss Hunter draws down the metal shutters as we leave to walk to the station. We part ways at the traffic lights, and she asks if I want to go for coffee to discuss things further. I reject the proposal in favor of alcohol. She leaves, and I get on the train feeling that everyone else knows what I've done. I feel a nonexistent beacon emanating from my body. A bat signal saying, "Stay away from this man -- he's weird." I already look like a freak as I fail to masquerade the rubbing of the attacked area as an attempt to reach my wallet.
But I want this again. It makes you feel manly, like you can take on any onslaught. It makes you feel alive, awake and aware of your own pain barriers. As modern society becomes more and more like a slow and sluggish stumble between computer screens and pubs, our actual limits are only exposed if we stub our toe on an electrical device. This was needed, but for completely abnormal reasons.
