Sensitive Research

I strongly suggest you read Chapter 1 of the series, as it provides important context for the characters and themes of the rest of the series.

**********

We were seated in a booth in an upscale coffee shop not more than a couple of miles from Mistress Cecilia's house. It was a couple of days after I had observed her client, sitting across from me, having a session with the domme. The client, who called herself "Mary," was sipping a cappuccino while I had a cup of tea in front of me. She was only the second client of MC's who I had had the opportunity to interview face-to-face for my research study on dommes and their female clients.

Mary was casually dressed, much more so than when I had seen her earlier. She was wearing a pair of worn jeans, sandals, and a t-shirt, and her blonde hair was loose around her shoulders. She was expanding on some of the information she had provided in the on-line survey that I had asked her to fill-out, and which she had done the day after her session. I knew from the survey that, like I had suspected when I first saw her, she was only a couple of years younger than my own 43, was married to a business executive, had two children, and lived in a suburb a couple of towns away. My iPhone was on the table between us, with the Voice Memo app operating.

"How did you first find out about MC, Mary?" I asked her. I was using the shorthand for Mistress Cecilia that I used in my notes, both of us agreeing that this would probably be safer than hearing us talking a mistress should anyone walk by.

As she responded in a quiet voice, I moved my iPhone a little closer to her. While the booth we were in provided quite a bit of privacy, and at mid-day the coffee shop was relatively deserted, I could tell that she was a little nervous.

"Well, it all started with my book group," she began. "I joined it about five years ago, shortly after we moved to this area."

"Why did you move here?" I interrupted.

"Oh, it was for my husband's job. He had worked in sales for his company his whole career, moving his way up from a sales job, to a local sales manager, then regional manager, and then five years ago was offered a promotion to VP for sales and marketing for the whole company here in the corporate offices."

In the demographic part of her survey she had indicated the highest category for her family's income, $500,000+, so I wasn't surprised to hear that this was the kind of job her husband held.

"Sorry for interrupting, please go on."

"No problem," she replied, continuing. "So a couple of years ago my book club was meeting, and like most times, we spent a lot of time sitting around and just schmoozing after we finished discussing that month's book. I think that most of enjoyed talking with each other as much about life in general as we did discussing the book – sometimes even more," she chuckled.

"What's the makeup of your book club?" I asked.

"It's all women, 15 of us, mostly similar to me – middle-aged, with kids, we all live in the same town or not too far away," she replied. "I really enjoy it; even if the book is not so great, I do enjoy the discussion about it, and I've become very friendly with a few of the women in the group."

I jotted a few notes with some potential follow-up questions on the interview protocol that I had in front of me.

"So after the book discussion that month, we were sitting around drinking wine, as we usually did during book club, and one woman asked if anyone had read 50 Shades of Gray? It had come out just a couple of months earlier, and there was all the buzz about it at the time. Pretty much everyone knew about it, there were just one or two who had not, but only a few had actually read it."

"Had you read it?"

"I hadn't. I had heard about it, and was curious, but I think I was probably more embarrassed at that point to be seen with it, so I hadn't bought it. But a few of the women had, so we were all peppering them with questions. One woman said that she had bought it at the local Barnes & Noble, came home, locked herself in her bedroom, and read it cover to cover straight through. She even told her husband to take the kids out for pizza when he got home from work," she said with a laugh, "so she could finish it."

"Since I was curious, I asked a lot of questions about it, as did a few others, and I was intrigued enough that I decided I did want to read it. I was still a little embarrassed to be seen with it, so my solution was to purchase the audiobook for my iPod," she said with a little bit of a triumphant smile.

I smiled back at her. "Well I guess that solved the problem for you?"

"Yes it did. I listened to it, not quite cover to cover, but finished it within a couple of days. I was very intrigued, and I admit, turned on by some of what was in there. Have you read it?" she asked me.

"Yes I did," I replied, "but only recently as preparation for this study."

**********

I was completing my fifth and final observation of a session with Mistress Cecilia. I had hoped to see sessions with a couple of other clients of hers before I flew back home, but we weren't able to get the schedules worked out.

I had received an email from MC earlier in the day confirming the session was still on for that evening, and she ended her message by saying somewhat mysteriously, "This one's going to be a little different than the others, I think you'll find it interesting."

I replied to ask her how it would be different, but did not hear back from her. So I drove my rental car to her house, arriving about 15 minutes before the scheduled session. She greeted me at the door, and I saw that she was not dressed in her typical domme clothing that I had seen in the other four sessions. She was wearing a rather plain blouse, a calf-length wraparound skirt, and her make-up was much plainer than in the past sessions. Her severe, tight ponytail was missing as well, and her only jewelry was a very classy looking set of pearls around her neck, with matching pearl earrings.

My first thought was that I must have gotten the time wrong, and had arrived early before she had time to prepare. "I'm sorry, am I early?" I asked her.

She laughed, and must have seen the look of surprise on my face when she opened the door. "No, not at all. Come in."

We walked into her living room, where I had conducted my first interview with her a week before. She sat, and I followed.

"Let me explain," she began. "As I said in my email, this session will be different from the others. This client is somewhat atypical from most of my others. Rather than being into strong dominance and submission, she's more into role playing. So that's why I'm dressed differently."

"Role playing?" I inquired.

"Yes, but rather than spoiling it for you, I'll just let you watch and follow along."

"Okay, that's fine with me." I was somewhat intrigued, but figured I could handle whatever it was. "Is she a member of your private club?" The "private club" was for women who desired a higher level of service than women who just paid on a fee-for-service basis.

"Yes, she just joined a few months ago. And there's one other thing that will be different about this sessions as well," MC went on.

"What's that?"

"You're not going to be in the observation room, as you had for the other sessions."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

She smiled at me. "You're going to be in the room with us."

I was shocked at this revelation, and not sure how I felt about it. In the other four observations, I was seated in a dark room adjacent to where MC conducted her sessions, peering in a small gap between two solid sliding doors. "I'm not sure about this," I said with a bit of hesitation in my voice. "I mean, won't that affect things, how the session goes and everything." The concern that I raised with MC was how my being in the room would affect the session. I was worried about what researchers call the Hawthorne Effect, or the possibility that a subject's behavior would be altered by the knowledge that they were being observed as part of a research study.

MC's clients certainly knew I was there, as they had to consent to participating in my study and to allow me to observe their session. But because I was largely hidden away during the session, I had hoped that this made it easier for them to forget that they were being watched, and to minimize any Hawthorne Effect. In fact, this was a condition of the approval of the study by my university's Institutional Review Board, that any observations I conducted had to be done in a way that precluded as much as possible the chance that the Hawthorne Effect would impact my findings.

"I don't know about this, MC, I don't think it would work," I said to her.

"Why not, my dear?" Again, she was using that familiar term with me that she had used in our earlier interview. I tried to ignore it and whatever implications it might have had.

"I'm just worried about how it will affect the session. Don't you think your client will object?"

"Oh no," she laughed. "It was her idea."

I just stared at her, not believing what she said. "Really?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes, truly. When we were discussing the session, and I started to explain where you'd be, she's the one who said, 'Just have her sit in the room.' I asked her why, and she said she'd just be more comfortable than having you watching from the other room. She said that she felt like you'd be a Peeping Tom or something."

This clearly raised issues with my research protocol, and I was worried about how it would affect the study. But as I thought about it for a few moments, I figured the worst case was that I could just throw out the observation and not use it in the study.

"Okay," I agreed, somewhat reluctantly. "If you think it will be okay, I'm willing to give it a try."

MC clapped her hands together once. "Great," she said with a big smile. "I think you'll find it to be a very interesting experience. Let's go get ready.

I grabbed my briefcase, and followed her downstairs to the room where she conducted her sessions. She pointed to an upholstered side chair in one of the corners of the room. "I thought I'd give you a little more comfortable place to sit, since you'll be right here with us."

"Thank you," I replied, as I put down my briefcase next to the chair. "How do you want to do this – do you want me to wait here, or should I wait outside the room and come in with the two of you?"

"No, you can go ahead and sit down and just wait for us." She looked at her watch. "She should be here in a few minutes."

I sat down, and started to get my laptop out of my briefcase, but then hesitated. I looked at MC, and asked, "Will the tapping on the keyboard be distracting, do you want me to just take notes instead?"

"Oh no, go ahead and use your laptop, I'm sure it will be just fine."

"Okay," I replied, as MC left the room. I began to set up my observation sheet on the laptop, recording that this was an observation of subject 1-05, the time, information about the setting, etc. I had seen this client's survey earlier in the day, and I knew she was a 25 year-old woman, single, and had been a client of MC's for about a year. I looked around the room and noticed that it was arranged slightly differently than it had been for the other sessions. The table that had been placed against one wall was now pulled out into the middle of the room, and it had an executive-type leather swivel chair on one side, and a wood side chair opposite. It was a very plain table, nothing more than a wood top, maybe two and a half by five feet, and four plain wooden legs. There were some papers, trays, pads, and pencils on top of the desk. There was a small trash can underneath it.

A few minutes later, I heard steps coming down the stairs, and the two women walked into the room. My first inclination was to rise and introduce myself to the client, as if we were in a business meeting of some kind or another, but just as I was about to get up, I hesitated and decided it would be better for me to wait and take my cue from MC. So I sat back in my chair.

Sure enough, both MC and her client totally ignored me as they came into the room chatting, as if I were not there at all. I concluded that this must have been the way her client wanted the session to play out. Subject 1-05, while I knew was 25, looked much younger. She was dressed in jeans with holes in them, flip flops, and a t-shirt with the name of what I assumed was some band on it that I had never heard of. She was chewing gum.

I began to take some notes on my laptop, and the tapping of the keyboard seemed excruciatingly loud in the silent room. After a few letters I stopped, looking up with fear. But the two women were still ignoring me, continuing to chat with each other, so I continued typing.

"Well sit down, Miss Stevenson," MC said to her client, pointing to the wooden chair on one side of the desk, as she sat down in the swivel chair. Subject 1-05 sat in the chair, and immediately slumped back, feet splayed in front of her.

"Sit up straight young, lady" MC almost barked at her, and her client slowly pulled herself more upright. "And is that gum in your mouth?"

"Yes, ma'am," her client responded in a quiet voice. I was mesmerized, watching this, wondering what the hell was going on.

"Then spit it out immediately, you know the rules." The domme nudged the trash can with her foot, pushing it closer to her client, who took the gum out of her mouth and dropped it into the can.

"I'm going to have to write that up as another infraction for you," MC continued, reaching for one of the pads of paper and a pencil. She began scribbling on it. "This school can't abide young ladies who cannot follow the rules."

As MC said this, I began to understand what she meant by the role playing that would be conducted in this session. And I now understood why her client was dressed the way she was; in her outfit, she easily looked seven or eight years younger than her 25 years, as if she could still be in high school. And MC was clearly dressed up as a principal or something like that. I was taking notes furiously on my laptop.

"So you do know why you've been called down here?" MC asked the younger woman.

"No, not really."

"No, not really, what?"

"Sorry – no, ma'am."

"That's better. You've been called to my office because you've reached your limit of absences this term, and you were also caught cheating on your math test. And from the clothes you're wearing, I can tell that you choose not to comply with the school's dress code as well."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I know I shouldn't have cheated, and I should be better about getting here to school. I promise I'll do better the rest of the term."

"Apologizing doesn't cut it," MC said in a stern voice. "We had the same problems with you last term, and it hasn't gotten any better. We're going to have to resort to other disciplinary measures."

"Wh, wh, what do you mean, ma'am," subject 1-05 stuttered, fear creeping into her voice.

"I'm going to impose discipline on you that I am sure you will be more likely to remember, and that will be more likely to influence your future behavior. Stand up."

The young woman stood up from her chair, and stood facing MC. I was sitting facing one of the narrow sides of the table, with MC sitting to my left and her client now standing on the right side of the table.

MC got up from her chair, walked around the table, and stood behind her client. She stood there for a moment, and then grabbed her long hair, yanking it down her back. I saw her head jerk backward. "Take off those skanky jeans," she hissed at her.

The young woman's hands went to the button of her jeans, but then for the first time since she'd come into the room she looked over at me and stopped. I stopped typing and froze, afraid that my presence in the room had in fact influenced her.

"Who's that in the corner, ma'am?" she asked of her domme, who was walking toward the cabinet mounted on the wall of the room, where I knew MC kept her implements.

I was confused, because MC told me that it was her client's idea that I sit in the room, and she clearly knew who I was since she had signed the consent form and completed the survey for the study. I looked down at my laptop screen, not wanting to make eye contact with her.

"That's Ms. Phillips, she's in training to be the assistant principal of the school. She's here to learn how I handle discipline."

I was somewhat shocked by this response, but now understood more clearly what was going on in the role play. I was a little uncomfortable being included as part of the role play, and once again fretted about the Hawthorne Effect, but I realized I had little choice at this point but to go along. I was afraid if I raised an objection, the session would be brought to a close, and I would lose another research subject.

"Oh, okay," the young woman said, as though it were a perfectly reasonable explanation, and she continued what she had started. I looked up again, and I saw her undo the button of her jeans, lower the zipper, and start to shimmy them off of her hips and down her legs. MC was still over at the cabinet retrieving something, ignoring her client.

As the jeans went down her legs, I was shocked to see that she had nothing on underneath them. From my angle, I could see that she was shaved perfectly smooth in her pubic region.

MC walked back from the cabinet, and I could see that she had some kind of small riding crop in her hand. As she got back to the table, standing behind her client, she said, "Where are your panties, you little slut?"

The young woman responded in a quivering voice, "I didn't wear any today, ma'am."

"You are a little slut," her mistress responded. "Bend over, and grab your ankles with your hands, and present yourself to me." The young woman immediately complied, and I suspected that this wasn't the first time she had performed this action for her domme. I noticed that she turned herself away from me when she did so, so that as she bent, her smooth, taut ass was pointed directly at me. I realized the young woman had quite a body – she looked to be about 5'5" or 5"6", and couldn't have weighed more than 110 pounds. Her ass was very tight, and like her pussy, she didn't appear to have a single hair anywhere in her crack.

As her client waited, MC swished the crop a few times, and I saw the young woman flinch with each one. "Okay, you little slut, I'm going to give you ten hits with the crop, five on each cheek, and you need to thank me for each one. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am."

MC stepped backwards a couple of feet, and positioned herself to the side of the woman. She pulled back the crop, and swung it sharply forward. It didn't look like she had swung very hard, but there was a loud slapping sound as the crop hit her client's left cheek, and I heard her grunt and say, "Thank you, ma'am." I noticed there was a very faint red line on her cheek.

**********

I was discussing the book 50 Shades of Gray with MC's third client that I had observed.

"Well, you're a professor, so I'm sure you realize it's not great literature. But the ideas in it definitely got me thinking."

"Had you ever engaged in BDSM play with your husband or other partners?" I asked. I knew from her survey that she had been married to her husband for about fifteen years, had not been married before, but had had a number of other sexual partners before meeting her husband.

"Oh god no!" she quickly replied. "To be truthful, I don't think I had ever even considered it before. I mean, I certainly had heard of BDSM, I'm not naïve, but I never had really thought about it for myself, and I can't imagine my husband being interested."

"Why not?"

Mary hesitated for a moment, and gave this question some thought before she answered. "To be honest, Paul is very straight-laced. We have a very traditional sex life – not much variety, and to be even more truthful, not very often either. In his defense, he has a very stressful job, he works and travels a lot, and when he is home he just seems exhausted."