The Pleasure's All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive by Joan Kelly Page A

charge.
        “Hello, and what can we do for you?” her tone was formal, but her smile was slightly warmer.
        “Well,” the young man said, clasping his hands together, “I was hoping to see about a tickling session today.”
        “Okay? So tell us, are you looking for a submissive or a mistress?” Vanessa fixed him with a prying gaze.
        “A submissive, hopefully,” he answered politely.
        “Well, our Marnie is a submissive, hopefully,” Vanessa smirked playfully over at me, and I caught the man’s gaze for a moment before looking away. He had a huge, delighted grin on his face. I had been standing between the desk and where Taylor sat while we’d all been talking. I wasn’t sure if he’d been looking past me at her.
        “What’s your name, please?” Vanessa asked.
        “Daniel.”
        “Marnie, would you like to take Daniel to the Dean Martin for an interview?”
        I felt my neck and face start to color. What if he wasn’t smiling at me, and now Vanessa’s put him on the spot?
        “Um, would you like to…?” I looked at Daniel, trying for an expression that conveyed a polite and non-pushy openness, to cut down on any awkwardness in case he wanted to back out.
        “I’d love to,” he grinned more broadly, and this time, for sure, he was looking directly at me.
        “I feel like I should tell you up front,” I said as soon as he’d closed the door behind us, “that I’m not really a ticklish person, nor would I be very good at faking it.” I hoped he wouldn’t be irritated that I’d wasted his time by doing the interview.
        “Really?” he smiled at me, unfazed. “I could’ve sworn you looked like someone who’d be a lot of fun to tickle.”
        “Well, thank you,” I said, not even sure why I took this as a compliment, “and I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you that I really wouldn’t be. You seem nice, for what it’s worth. I wish I were the type of person who’d be good for you.” I shrugged apologetically.
        “That’s sweet,” Daniel said, seemingly unmoved by the discouraging news. “But honestly, I’d like to do this anyway. You’re very cute. I’d like to session with you, please,” he finished. I felt my face growing warm again.
        “Thank you—”
        “Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re blushing,” he laughed. “I haven’t seen anyone blush in years. How cute is that?” he said, embarrassing me and fondling my ego at the same time. I tried to will my skin back to its natural color, and began again.
        “I worry that I’d disappoint you, is all.”
        “I understand that. Consider me fairly warned. If it works, it works, and if not, no harm done. I really just want to be alone with you, now. I’m not even sure I care about the tickling part. Unless you’re just not interested in playing with me at all?”
        He looked at me with his cute young face, wide brown eyes pretending to fear rejection. Even knowing it was some kind of a game, I didn’t have it in me to blow him off. It was the guy-like-him-finding-me-so-cute part that killed me. I’d wanted guys like him to find me cute since puberty had wrecked me at age thirteen. Even after I’d started looking good again as an adult, living in L.A. had made it almost irrelevant. The standards of beauty here were such that any woman without a tan, fake boobs, and a twenty-two inch waist was rendered all but invisible.
        “No, I am. I mean, yes I would,” I stuttered. “Be interested in a session with you.”
        I couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that I’d be getting paid to be touched by someone who might have ignored me for free if we’d been out at a club. It wouldn’t be the last time, by a long shot, that I would have the sensation of having been deposited into someone else’s body, someone else’s life. Sometimes I had to check the mirror to