Page 6 of Room One Hundred and Seven: Catch and Claim

Sure, I’ve held onto my control so tightly because I don’t trusteasily. Or at all.

I’ve earned that need for control. It’s not like I wanted to live my life this way, but trauma was thrust upon me and changed my life. Even after all this time, I don’t think about when I was taken. At least, I try not to.

Does it sneak into my thoughts and nightmares sometimes? Unfortunately.

After a shit ton of therapy and a lot of physical training, which was recommended by my therapist and included weapons and hand-to-hand training, I’ve accepted that my past will never leave me entirely. I’ve made peace with that; well, as much as possible.

As much as I’ve dreaded this trip from the moment that I booked it, I’m also proud as hell at myself. I’m here. In Seattle.

I haven’t been here in ten years after spending the first 18 years of my life here. It’s a bittersweet return because the reason I left is valid as hell, but I still abandoned everything I knew. My mom, since she was the only parent I’ve had for as long as I can remember, understood why I needed to leave. That doesn’t mean she liked it.

I think she wanted to be able to slay my demons because she’s a damn good mom, but it wasn’t possible. Even when I was safe and no longer being held by men who broke me and intended to sell me, I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder all the time. There was no way I could relax while expecting someone to pop out of the shadows and grab me again.

No matter how much I tried to empower myself with learning physical defense techniques and proper use of a weapon, while also seeing my therapist, they didn’t help. Nothing helped me feel safe. My mom and my therapist told me to give it time.

I didn’t believe I would ever feel safe in Seattle again and after a few months, I decided that I needed to leave.

It took me time to get my confidence back, even with the training and therapy. Feeling like I wasn’t about to jump out of my own skin was a feat, but when I started to tackle the sexual component of becoming whole, I didn’t even know where to start.

It was a twist of fate that led me to enter a kink club for the first time. It was all happenstance because I overheard a conversation about it at the coffee shop where I was working on the other side of the country since going as far as possible was the only logical conclusion when I started running.

The first time I went to the club, I just observed. Thankfully, I met someone who was willing to walk me through everything. She became a great friend, eventually, after she got past the walls that I used to guard myself and my emotions from anyone getting close to me. Now I can look back and see that I still felt broken and used. It was easier to keep people at a distance than letting them in and risking them seeing who I was underneath the mask I was desperate to keep in place.

The more I learned about the kink world, the more I found a sense of control. It’s what I needed in order to find any semblance of my sexuality again. I couldn’t give up control, that became clear very early on in my exploration of everything the kink world had to offer. Giving up control required trust, and I simply didn’t have the capacity for that.

Even though I started exploring the kink world for myself, to find something that had been taken from me, I found more than I expected. I turned it into so much more than a quest to find my own pleasure. As I sought to be responsible with the controlI demanded, I found out something I would have never thought before—there are men out there who crave giving up control.

Becoming a dominatrix, especially one that has created a business around my need for control, wasn’t something I could have foreseen for myself. But it’s changed my life.

Not only am I in control of my sexuality now and empowered, but my job has allowed me to explore the world in ways I wouldn’t have been able to without my job.

And just to be clear—my job doesn’t necessarily require me to have sex with the men I dominate. Does it happen? Sometimes. But it’s not a given nor is it a requirement in the contract I have with a sub.

Normally, it’s not even the men I dominate that is hiring me. It’s really the club that hires me to come to their club and work. I’ll do demonstrations and scenes for club members, and I’ll take on subs while I’m working out of a club.

My job is what has brought me back to Seattle. I’ll be working in Seattle’s Club Sin. It’s not the first time I’ve worked for Club Sin since they have locations across the country. It must have been luck that prevented them from asking me to visit their Seattle location before now.

Fuck.

I’m sweating.

Just being in this city has me on edge. I know that the men who took me, the ones who tortured me and changed the path of my life, are no longer breathing. But that’s not helping the fear clawing at my soul. Part of me wishes I had been with it enough back then to ask to watch the life drain out of all the men there.

But I wasn’t.

Still, I believe the men who rescued me from that warehouse of horrors when they said those men were dead. I don’t remember many of the men’s faces who saved us, but I remember the leather cuts they wore. I was already aware of the Devil’s Saints MC, but it was the first time I had any contact with them.

One of the women being held with me kept mumbling about her brother saving her and that his club would help him. At the time, I thought it was all just wishful thinking on her part. Then the warehouse was stormed, and we got to experience freedom again.

Not every man who rescued us were wearing leather cuts. No, three men stood out because of they weren’t wearing cuts. That wasn’t the only thing different about them, but so much of that night is a blur. I remember how it felt more than exactly what happened.

I’ve accepted that there are things from that time that I’ve lost. Even as much as fear wanted to drown me when we were rescued after being surrounded by evil men, the three men who weren’t wearing cuts felt so fucking solid to me. There was just something about them.

I shake off the feeling as I enter The Centennial building where Club Sin sits at the top. I came by yesterday after I arrived in Seattle to make sure everything was in order and to get a little tour. The main floor, which sits on the 36thfloor of The Centennial, is gorgeous. The large windows give a great view of Seattle, even though I tried not to focus on the city surrounding us when I saw the club yesterday.

After finding my reserved table in the lounge, which is where I’ll be interviewing those who have applied to be dominated by me while I’m visiting, I try and force myself to relax. It’s not easyand I know it has nothing to do with who I’ll be meeting. I have three interviews tonight and I’m not sure if I’ll even get through those.

Everything in me is screaming to run back to my hotel and hide in the dark under the blanket on the giant bed.

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