I WAS A TEENAGE DOMINATRIX
by Shawna Kenney
Published 1999, 2002
Published by Last Gasp of San Francisco. 1999 Shawna Kenney. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of nonfiction, however names and other identifying details of real persons have been changed. Any similarities to any persons living, dead or otherwise humiliated is purely coincidental.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
About the Author
Shawna Kenney
Shawna Kenney is the author of Imposters and I Was a Teenage Dominatrix, which won a Firecracker Alternative Book award, enjoyed international translation and has been optioned for television. Her personal essays appear in numerous anthologies while she has covered arts and pop culture for Swindle Magazine, Juxtapoz, Veg News, Transworld Skateboarding and the Indianapolis Star, among others. Kenney received a BA in Communications from American University and an MFA in Creative Writing from University of North Carolina Wilmington. She teaches creative writing online at www.lifesabitchbooks.com.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Before
Chapter 2: Fantasy
Chapter 3: Reality
Chapter 4: Metamorphosis
Chapter 5: Lessons
Chapter 6: Miranda
Chapter 7: Pets
Chapter 8: Honesty
Chapter 9: Duplicity
Chapter 10: Rewards
Chapter 11: Pupils
Chapter 12: Graduation
Chapter 13: Goodbye
THANK YOUS
Love and hugs to Cara Bruce, Carrie Dolce, Ron Turner, Shira Tarrant, Celeste Cleary, Mark Portier, Ann "Eagle Eyes" Cleary, Harriette Wimms, Patty Rocha, Brandy, Missy Kenney, Pleasant Gehman, Denise White, Beth Porta, Pam Gendell, Tim Crean, Anja Gustavsen, Lisa Holland, Maggie Holliday, the whole St. Mary’s Crew, the 9:30 Club, Cesar Cabrera, Dito Montiel and Rich Dolinger. Also to anyone who has ever given me a place to live or eat—you have kept me and my faith in humanity alive!
Also big thanks to the indie bookstores, both surviving and deceased, who support indie authors like myself and fight the power each and every day of their existence.
This book is dedicated to Rich, the “beautiful boy.”
Before
When I was around six years old, like most kids in my neighborhood, my sister and I spent summer days swimming at the YMCA. Some of the other kids got there earlier than us—they’d been swimming for hours already because they had swim lessons every morning. I asked my mom for lessons but we couldn’t afford them. I was jealous—not just because of their extra swim-time, but that they were already racing each other with awkward strokes back and forth across the pool, doing handstands and having underwater “tea-parties,” while my sister Ali and I were gripping the edges of the pool for dear life, still holding our noses like babies and taking turns going under.
I decided I would not be left out. When my mom was at the snack bar, I said goodbye to Ali and told her I was going to the forbidden zone—where I couldn’t touch bottom. She protested with tears and four-year-old panic, threatening to tell mom, but the decision was made. I had to push off that edge. I was going to make myself learn to swim. If I died, I died. I pushed off and my legs flailed in the blue depths beneath me. Kids all around splashed and screamed as usual, and I went down like the Titanic. Water rushed in everywhere it wasn’t supposed to be. I turned my head in silent slow motion, from side to side, watching the colorful bathing suits and little legs around me. The lifeguard, still in her stand, was a distant red blob up above. I wondered when someone would see me drowning and come save me. No one did. My chest burned with chlorinated inhalations. Seconds seemed like hours until finally I flapped my arms and thrashed and wiggled my way to the surface. Sweet air filled my lungs and my nose burned like hell inside. I was near the middle of the pool, a good five feet from our precious edge. My sister was crying, waiting and watching in horror. I dog-paddled over to her and pulled up a wall. “I can swim now,” I said smugly. She didn’t speak to me the rest of the day. That’s pretty much been my life. Sink or swim, trial-by-water. Whatever you want to call it. Sometimes you just have to get off that wall.
So, how did a nice girl like me get to be a dominatrix? Well, first of all, I’m a woman, not a girl. And what makes you think I’m so nice? Second, it’s not as weird as you might think. I get plenty of questions and looks when people find out about my past employment experience. (Not exactly the kinda thing I put on my resume, mind you.) True, I guess I don’t fit society’s caricatured idea of a “dominant woman.” I’m a college-educated, petite, natural-looking woman with an ‘Ivory-Girl’ sort of face. A pacifist. A former nanny, into music and literature. I don’t dress in black leather and I wasn’t molested as a child or any of that crap. And I don’t hate men. I like everyone, until they give me a reason not to. I’d love to tell you that I just woke up one day around age thirteen and said, “I wanna be a dominatrix when I grow up!” But it didn’t happen that way. I never knew that was a real option.
I always wanted to be rich and famous. Or rich and powerful, at least. Of course I had no idea how to reach these vague aspirations, but what kid does? So how did I come to spank men for a living? I suppose you want to know where I’m from—what my background is, what lead me to this profession, and all that other Holden Caufield kind of shit. All you really need to know is that I could be your neighbor. Your babysitter. Your student. Your waitress. Your friend. Your daughter. Maybe even your mother. We were all larvae in a cocoon before we became butterflies. Everyone’s got a story. Here goes mine.
From goldfish and stray cats to lice epidemics and phonics, my childhood is alive and vivid in my head. Time-periods are mentally filed by television shows and places I’ve lived. The Sesame Street years were spent in Malone Village, a housing project in upstate NY, where I was born to twenty-one-year-old parents. My father received a telegram while aboard a Naval aircraft carrier off the coast of Viet Nam, announcing my birth. Eighteen months later, I had a little sister. My mom says there was never any jealousy between us, due to the fact that she prepped me for ‘big sisterhood.’ I liked helping with the care and feeding of the baby, and later took the role more seriously in preparing her for pre-school while I was in kindergarten. The Fat Albert years had us moving into a two-family home, which looked like a giant house from the outside but was split right down the middle inside. It was an orderly existence. The home was a tight ship run by my mom, with dad enforcing the discipline. Like most kids back then, we feared the belt, but didn’t get it too often. If I was good, Sunday nights I could watch the Disney movie, savoring my one-Coke-per week snack allowance. If I was bad, bedtime was as soon as I acted up.
In school I was a quiet kid—so much so that teachers complained to my mother that I never raised my hand or spoke out loud at all. She was shocked, because at home and in the neighborhood it was a whole different story. Even though I was small and younger than the kids who lived near us, I bossed them around quite easily. Bake sales, dance routines and games were all directed by me and run according to my rules, and if the gang didn’t play right, then I refused to participate. Looking back I realize how lucky I am that I never got my ass kicked, but for some reason, my tactic usually worked. At home I was the same with Ali, but in a more benevolent way. Playing school, I had to be the teacher because I felt she had to know certain things before going on to each grade. I prepared lessons for her, showing her how to print numbers and pronounce vowels, just as my teachers did for me. So maybe I was a kid dominatrix and didn’t know it. I don’t know. Suffice it to say I had a great, if somewhat strict, childhood.