I strongly suggest you read the earlier chapters of the series, as they provide important context about the characters and themes of the series.
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I had been back on campus for a couple of weeks after completing my first series of observations and interviews for my study of dommes and their female clients. I was excited that the majority of the participants who I had contacted were willing to participate in the study. That had been one of major concerns when I was designing it, that I would not find willing participants. But so far, that hadn't been an issue.
I was in my office in the psychology building, going through some of my observation notes, when there was a knock on the door.
"C'mon in," I responded.
In walked Tara, my research assistant on the project. She was a third year doctoral student in our department, and had worked with me as an RA for all three years. Like me, she had returned to graduate school a little older, after having had a career as a teacher, so she was already 33. Because she was older than most of the graduate students, and we were not that far apart in age, we had quickly bonded and became friendly shortly after she started working for me.
"Hi Susan," she said upon entering and plopping down in the chair across my desk, laptop in hand. We were familiar enough with each other that she always called me by my first name. "I had a question about this one interview I was transcribing."
"Sure, what is it?"
"It was the interview with subject 1-02, I couldn't make out some of the words at one point, I think because of the background noise. I thought maybe if I played it for you, you would remember what she said."
"Okay," I said, "I'll do my best. Why don't you go ahead and play it, and turn the sound up as high as you can."
"Great, let me just find it." She fiddled with her keyboard until she found the sound file that I had emailed her from my iPhone. She clicked on it, and was looking for the section in question. After a few moments, she found it and clicked "play" on the transcribing program.
I leaned across the desk so I could hear it clearly. I remembered who this woman was; she was 41, married, bisexual, and her husband knew she was a client of Mistress Cecilia's, or MC as I referred to her in my notes. Her husband had no interest in BDSM, and she told me that he was fine with his wife visiting MC on occasion.
As the transcribing program played the recording, I could see why Tara was struggling. There was a lot of background noise in the restaurant where I had met this subject. I listened and took some notes.
After Tara stopped the recording, I said, "Okay, I think what she was talking about there was how she got started in BDSM. She was saying that she had had a girlfriend shortly after college who had introduced her to it."
"Don't worry about getting the exact words," I continued, "just capture the gist of what she told me, that will be fine."
Tara was taking notes on her keyboard as I spoke. "Okay, thanks, that's helpful." She stopped typing, and looked up at me. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, what it is?"
"It's been really interesting transcribing the interviews, both with the clients and the dommes. I mean, this is a whole new world to me before I started working on this project with you, so it's been fascinating."
"Yes, I know this is new to you," I replied. When I first got approval for the project from the university's Institutional Review Board, I talked to Tara at length about how she would feel working on it with me, given the subject matter. She was enthusiastic from the beginning, and hadn't shown any hesitation. In fact, I was planning on taking her with me to my next set of site visits in Chicago the following week, so she could conduct some of the interviews for me. I hadn't brought her on the first set of site visits, as I felt it would be better for me to do those on my own and see how they went.
"So I'm just curious about one thing," Tara continued. "What was it like to observe the sessions?"
Tara had access to all of my field notes that we stored in the shared virtual drive I set up for the project, and I knew from other conversations we had had that she had read some of the notes I wrote from the observations of the sessions that the dommes had conducted with their clients.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, was it hard for you to be watching all of that sexual activity, and maintain your objective, removed role as the researcher? Especially the last one with Mistress Cecilia, where you were right in the room?"
I hesitated a moment before replying. As close as Tara and I had gotten over the last three years, I didn't feel like I could open up to her about how aroused I had gotten in observing some of the sessions. To be truthful, I found all of the sessions arousing to some extent or another. My observation notes from the sessions didn't say anything about how I was reacting, as that was not relevant to the research. And I was also a little embarrassed about how aroused I had felt.
"I'll admit it was difficult," I told her. "I mean, I've never been in a situation like that, watching people engaging in that kind of behavior, including explicit sex. As much as you try to remain detached as a researcher, it certainly does affect you." As it came out of my mouth, I realized what kind of door I had opened in the conversation.
"Affect you how?" Tara asked.
I didn't want to lie to her, yet also didn't feel like I could be totally honest, so I hedged a little bit in my response. "I'll admit that at times it was hard to maintain my position as a detached researcher. Sometimes I would just be mesmerized, watching what was occurring, and forget to take notes. Then I'd catch myself, and get back to my role as researcher."
Now it was Tara's turn to hesitate. I could see that there was something she wanted to follow up on, but was nervous. Finally, she asked, in somewhat of a shy voice. "Did you find it, you know, erotic?"
At this point, I figured in for a penny, in for a pound. "Yes, I'll admit that I found some of what was going on arousing."
"Even though it was two women?"
"Yes, even though it was two women. I guess for me, Tara, it didn't really matter what the genders were. What mattered was that what they were doing was very erotic, and it was hard not to react to that."
I was a little worried that she was going to push for more information, but at that point she backed off. "Okay, I was just curious, thanks for being willing to talk to me about it."
I breathed a sigh of relief. "No worries, happy to talk to you."
Tara got up and left my office. I was glad that she didn't push for more details, because I didn't want to let her know what kind of affect what I saw had had on me. Right before she had walked in, I had been reviewing my notes from subject 1-05, the young woman who had engaged in a teacher-student role play with MC. As I thought back to that session a couple of weeks earlier, I found the memory stirring a reaction in me. I recalled how I was thinking about the roles of both the domme and her submissive client, and wondering what it would be like to be in either role. The memories were so clear in my mind that it was as if I could almost rerun a video and see everything that happened vividly, from the young woman removing her t-shirt and showing off her pert breasts with their pierced nipples, to how she licked her mistress's pussy as her ass was being cropped. As I recalled these scenes, I found my arousal growing, and it was probably a good thing that Tara had come in and interrupted my reminiscing.
**********
It was a week later, and Tara and I had arrived at O'Hare Airport in Chicago in mid-morning. As usual, the traffic on the expressway was brutal, and it took almost an hour for our cab to deposit us to our hotel in the Loop. I had an appointment that evening with Lady Amber, the domme who MC had recommended to me. I had called her when I returned to campus a couple of weeks earlier, and she was friendly on the phone, having indicated that MC had already sent her a note about me. But she said she wanted to hold off on a decision about whether to participate in my study until she had a chance to meet me in person.
After we checked in and as we headed to the elevator in our hotel, pulling our suitcases behind us, Tara said to me, "We don't have any appointments this afternoon, you want to walk up to Michigan Avenue and do some shopping? It's supposed to be a nice afternoon."
"I don't think so," I replied. "I want to work on a few things."
"Oh c'mon, don't be such a grind, Susan," Tara said with a smile. "We've got a lot of appointments set up over the next week, so we're not going to have much downtime. This is our one chance to get out and see Chicago."
As much as I wanted to get caught up on work, I knew she had a point. As we got into the elevator, I said with a sigh, "You're right, I do need to take more time for myself and stop working obsessively. Maybe we can grab a bite and walk up to Michigan Avenue."
Tara clapped her hands as I was pressing the button for the 10th floor. "Great, it'll be fun. Maybe I can even get you to update your wardrobe," she said with a wink. Tara was always working on me to dress more stylishly, and less as a "school marm," as she jokingly called my normal work outfits.
We got off on the 10th floor, and walked to our room. Because I had limited funds from the foundation that was paying for the travel expenses for the site visits, I had decided we'd save money by sharing a room.
We got into the room, unpacked, and went back down to the hotel lobby. We started walking toward the Miracle Mile, North Michigan Avenue, where the nice shops were located. We grabbed a quick sandwich, and headed first for Nordstrom's. I had to admit that I was looking forward to at least browsing in some nice shops because I rarely took the opportunity to shop for myself. If I needed new clothes I usually just bought online or went into a store and bought the first things I could see that looked reasonable.
And I knew that Tara would be great to have along for clothes shopping. She pushed me to buy some things that were more stylish than I would normally get, including some outfits for this trip. She convinced me that I didn't have to dress as an academic all the time, even when I was working.
I was also self-conscious about my body. I was carrying about 30-40 pounds more than I wish I had for my height, and I didn't like the way it made me look. Because of this, I tended to wear baggier clothes that didn't show my shape as much. But Tara was great at finding some clothes that were tighter, and showed off my shape, without making me look too fat. In fact, with one knit dress I turned on, she said, "Wow, you look hot," when I walked out of the dressing room.
I blushed, but was pleased. "Really?"
