My name story is on my mind for a few reasons. There’s a thread on MaxFisch right now where a scene professional found someone else using her name commercially. I’d weigh in but, well, I ain’t the only “Troy” in New York. In fact, I remember meeting my first ProDomme at The Nutcracker Suite– Mistress Marina Montague, PhD. — when I went in for an informational interview.
That’s how non-scene I was. All my friends were at Columbia Business School. I wanted to know what the chick did, I didn’t want to actually DO it. When Marina handed me an application, I looked at her like she had two heads.
“What’s your name?” she asked me.
“Uh, Mistress Troy?” I said, having decided on the name the night before during a frenzied IM with the friend who’d arranged this introduction.
Marina dropped her pen and rolled her eyes at me. Clearly I was sporting a second head of my own now.
“You DO realize that only THE most well-known Black Domme in New York is named Mistress Troy, don’t you? And there’s another blonde Mistress Troy as well,” she huffed in her crisp English accent. “You’ll have to change your name.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” I assured her. “I just picked the name for today. I’m not going to actually USE it for anything. I’m not really trying to BE a domme.”
Uhhh…. sorry, Marina. I meant it at the time. I swear I did.
So the other reason I’m thinking about my name is that yesterday I met up with …. let’s call him Bond. He’s the guy who introduced me to Marina and he was the one on the other end of that AIM window who, as I flipped through character names in my Pelican Shakespeare and typed, “Helen? No.” He replied, “You mean ‘of Troy’?” and I said, “Yeah. Actually, I like ‘Troy.’ That could work.” We’ve managed to keep in touch over the years. He likes to tell people that he named me and that I wouldn’t be here were it not for him. I roll my eyes at this but I don’t disagree. Bond was the first “scene” guy I ever met. He’d briefly dated a mutual friend who, when I told her I’d decided that now that I’d turned 30 I was only going to wear good lingerie and garters and stockings and stilettos she replied, “Oh! I know a guy who’d do pretty much anything you want if you were wearing garters and stockings!”
Turned out that wasn’t true, but Bond was the very first guy I officially played with, if you could call it that. I was housesitting for a friend over the Christmas holidays and, using my best domme voice, I invited him over to teach me some stuff. I remember kneeling as he showed me how to tie a rope body harness and marveling at the way the rope pattern looked on my skin in the candlelight. When he untied me, I tried to put some keychain/vibrator in his ass. I felt so thrilled and yet so fumblingly awkward. I couldn’t wait to do it again. But better.
Bond told me stories about all the ProDommes he knew — well enough to know their real names, too, he was sure to point out — and I was curious. Other than a couple of strippers, I’d never met any sex workers. What did they DO? How did they start? Did they LIKE it?
He said his friend Marina was a manager of one of the best houses in New York. I was still freelance writing at the time. I started fantasizing about getting inside the world of professional domination and writing some big investigative feature story for the Sunday Times Magazine. Or Esquire. Not that either’d ever published me. But this mightcould be the story that would get me noticed.
And that was part of the truth.
Part of the reason I wanted to meet a prodomme was …. well, I just didn’t live a lifestyle where I had occasion to meet a real, live, actual sex worker. I mean, not that would tell me. I wanted to know if … I dunno. Did sex workers smell different? Could I look at them and see it in them once I knew it was there? Did they all wear Manolos and carry little purses with lipstick, breath mints and ball gags instead of condoms? Did they sit in a dungeon all wearing shiny black clothing and speaking in German accents and idly tapping their whip on the heel of their thigh high stiletto boot? Was there a pimp? Or underage girls? Or wads of cash and coke everywhere?
(Answer: There is as much of that as there is none of that in this business. Just depends on where you’re looking.)
So I met Marina and I met some of the Nutcracker girls and part of me was utterly grossed out: Why were all the girls walking around in cheap, sleazy looking lingerie? How they talked to each other! How young they were! What do you mean strange men pay you to lick your feet?
And part of me was titillated, fascinated, and so hungry for more. There was one Mistress who came in while I was still talking with Marina. She was in a fitted wife beater, jacket, and jeans. Her deli lunch was in a bag. She looked like an Ivory girl. Twenty minutes later she was in a modest leather bra, shorts and beautiful black pumps. She looked like a Domme.
“You make sense to me,” I thought to myself, eying at her admiringly.
“Hey, I’m Tess, ” she said, introducing herself.
I grinned and held out my hand to her. “Hi, my name’s Troy.”
What a perfect way to end this story.
Anyone that knows you can imagine that smile on your face as well.
I bet you’ll get that story published eventually, but it might be on the NYTimes bestseller list and not a featured article.
Miss Troy,
That account resonated within me because like you, I’ve occasionally flirted with the idea of writing an article, a brief monograph or a short novel on the subject of pro dommes and their lives, both personal and professional.
You have the advantage of having punished (or should I say played with) hundreds, if not thousands of individuals with every different type of kink imaginable, while I’ve been with less than a dozen dommes in my lifetime, and with each I’ve tended to pursue my own narrow range of scene interests, almost to the exclusion of learning about
new things that might be turnons if I could summon the courage to try them.
I sometimes justify (at least to myself) the cowardly impulses that surface the moment the whip really bites and I wonder (for the umpteenth time) what I’m the hell I’m doing here. At times like that, I tell myself that I’m doing research for an article, but I know that probably it’ll never get printed, and in any case, I’d have to change these ladies’ names to protect their professional privacy.
My latest obsession is to spend some time with you, before a session, and have a long chat during which you would get me to articulate the basis of my kinkiness, where it originated, and a pretty detailed confession of the details (the embarrassing ones, too) of the amusing, scary, satisfying experiences I’ve had with pro dommes. My loftiest aspiration is to stimulate some recall from your own memory banks and in some way inspire you to write some more erotic stuff, not about me and my aberrations, but about the world of kink as seen through the eyes of the domme and the sub, simultaneously.
I have this need to share the joy I’ve found on the receiving end of a whip. but cannot share with any of my friends in my vanilla world.
Does any of this make sense?
Hugs,
Jack T
Troy Orleans is a good name. It sounds sort of like a soap opera actors name. Just enough of a hint of “stage” in it. I’m curious if you ever meet the other domuinatrix named Troy. I wonder what they thought about someone else using the same name.
Miss Orleans,
Interesting how the responses have tended more toward your writing ability than the direct subject of this entry.
It dovetails with something I’ve been thinking about the last several weeks. I’ve been considering buying one of those Introduction to Domination type books. It’s for someone I’m quite close with. I’ve researched the books by Elise Sutton, Claudia Varrin and others. They just don’t quite seem to have what I’m looking for.
I keep thinking to myself, “If only Troy would write a book of her own. That would do the trick.” Your intelligence. Your style. Your depth. Your wit. Your incredible use of language. Your philosophy about all this. Your stories – oh my, your stories!!! It could all fit.
It would certainly be a big seller. I know your privacy remains so very important to you – so book tours and television interviews would be somewhat of a challenge. Still, it would add a new dimension – if not change the face – of what BDSM is all about. You make it all so natural and “normal”!!
Interesting idea?
I’m glad I got to mention this now and not the next time I see you. Our time together will be far too short. I’ll still be feeling the hello hug when it’s time for the goodbye embrace! I swear the laws of physics cease to exist at Salon de Orleans. The time will flash by in an instant.
Would you like a “Troy” from Starbucks?
Yours,
Whizzer
You fill the name uniquely, just as you fill the scene with your vibrant personality. There is enough room in every city for excellent Dominas, especially one as legendary as Troy.
see you in Shibaricon!
xxY
Ahhh … sweet success! Couldn’t get the word verification to show up for the life of me. Here’s the comment, live and for public consumption.
I really loved this story. As posters have noted, you’re a dead-on writer who gets to the inside and just grabs the subject. I know or have known some of the players in your lovely little name novella and it made the read all the more striking and poigniant. Like, I can now claim I know (or at least have met) both Salt and Peppa.
But what really got me was the forge ahead optimism that seemed to spring from that final scene over the bag deli lunch. Very cool.
Two weeks with no posts! I guess are fearless leader has abandoned us. I guess its time to start heckling the Rapture blogs again. Fairwell my fellow intrepid readers!