She nodded. "A friend. An actual professor. He's a great teacher and totally discrete."
"He'll have to be really trustworthy. He'll have to show complete discretion and he'll have to agree that I remain anonymous."
"I understand. I'm meeting with him later this week. In the meantime, I have this." She reached into her huge briefcase filled with files. "It's a template I use to get subs thinking about what they want. Fill in the blanks, cross things out, as if you were really interested and get it back to me. I'll give it to him and he can think about how he'd train you if you really were his new sub, and then you can meet and discuss it."
"He knows this is all just theoretical."
"Of course, sweetie," she said, but there was this tone in her voice that said otherwise.
I took the contract and flipped through it. The first paragraph said it all:
SUBMISSION CONTRACT BETWEEN _____________________ hereinafter referred to as "Master", AND _______________________, hereinafter referred to as "slave" in this Submission Contract. Said Contract refers to total dominance and control of Master in his relationship with said slave.
A total novice to this world, I had only my very upsetting experience with Kurt. Sure, I read a few novels and non-fiction books since we broke up, spent some time on the website reading, but I was still new to this. Lara knew the ropes. She'd done this dozens of times and had connections.
"What's this Dom like?"
"He's a god, Kate. He's absolutely gorgeous. Experienced. Buff. Hung," she said and wagged her eyebrows.
"How do you know?"
"I trained him myself. He's healthy. Safe. Smart. Wealthy. He's everything a submissive like you could want."
"I'm not a submissive."
"Not experienced, no. But I suspect there's one buried deep inside of you."
I shrugged, not wanting to argue with her. "He's not into pain, is he?"
"He isn't a sadist, if that's what you mean, although he would probably spank you for punishment. He's just a plain old sexual dominant, into a bit of bondage, especially leather, but mostly D/s and mindfucks."
"Mindfucks?"
"You know, getting right into your mind, knowing exactly how to get you off so you experience the most pleasure. He's studied psychology. Wanted to be a psychoanalyst. He's not into pain."
"How old is he?"
"Mid-thirties."
"He isn't married?"
"Divorced."
"What does he do? You said he's a professor. What does he teach?"
"Uh, uh," she said and shook her head. "I've given you as much as I can at this point. Just know that he's a friend and a real professional. Top in his field. Seriously, if you needed his services, you'd want him. Just hope you never need his services."
"That's cryptic. Is he an undertaker or something?"
She grinned. "No. Far from it. No more, Kate. You want anonymity. So does he. Maybe one day, you'll sign that for real." She pointed to the contract, "Then you two can know each other, but now? No. He needs anonymity as much as you."
"All right." I read over a few more pages. "I'm just so curious." I thought of the excerpt she sent. "Who wrote that piece you emailed me?"
"Not telling." She shook her head. "That's just something that some of us use to explain to new subs how Doms see sexual domination."
I felt a bit saddened to think I wasn't meeting the writer and I wondered what he was like, this man who liked to control a woman's sexual pleasure. After reading that excerpt, I couldn't get the idea of sexual submission out of my mind. I told myself this was just to gather research for an investigative reporting piece for Geist. But I was really just so damn titillated…
"Look, you know my situation," I said, anxious that I remain completely anonymous. "Can you imagine if it ever got out that the Ethan McDermott's daughter is interested in this, even if it's only academic?"