The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

I always had a hunch my Mum might be good at femdom. She does not mince words. She used to say to me, about relationships, ‘I’ve had 2 husbands, and most men are looking for a mother-figure they can go to bed with.’ Except she didn’t say ‘go to bed with’. I also remember when the subject of sex work came up, she would always say blithely, ‘oh darling, I always said to my girlfriends back in the seventies, because some of them used to bad-mouth ‘prostitutes’ or ‘tarts’ that they shouldn’t judge- I used to say to them- listen, we’ve all of us been sitting on a fortune for years. You’ve just been giving it away for nothing.’ She’s always been a feminist. When I was a kid, after her divorce, she used to have a pin badge that said ‘a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.’ She has somewhat revised her view these days, although she would hardly say a woman ‘needs’ a man, but that they are nice to have around. On your terms. These days she says things like ‘Men are wonderful but most of them are just little boys at heart. They tell fibs and they try and wriggle out of things, and they’re obsessed with their penises, but it’s just what they do; they can’t help it.’

Perhaps my ‘bolshy’ nature, and refusal to be intimidated by men runs in the family. Some time before the divorce, and perhaps a small indication that things were not entirely harmonious, my mother threw a whole tray of eggs at my stepfather’s head during a heated argument. Not all at once, mind, and it was tray of 24 eggs (that sounds like a lot of eggs but they used to hold some major 70s dinner parties). She threw them at him one by one while he stood in the doorway of the kitchen yelling at her. My brother told me, a few years ago, that he felt our Mum ‘emasculated’ him sometimes. In response she said, ‘oh for goodness sake, what does the silly little boy think he’s talking about? Men do talk some nonsense sometimes don’t they. Why on earth does he think that?!’

When men clearly step out of line, my Mother has no issue firmly putting them back in their place. I took her to Egypt for a holiday when I worked in the travel industry years ago. While strolling through the market in Luxor, a burly Perfumier blocked our path to give us the spiel about perfume, demonstrating that you can dab some here (neck) here (armpits) and, to attract the men, here (lewd gesture at the groin area). A triangle of seduction! My mother stepped in front of him and commanded ‘Get out of our way. Now.’ He stood aside meekly. This is not to say she is prudish. On the same trip in Egypt we were given a private tour of a tomb. Our guide (who was tall as a lamp-post) offered to lift me into the open tomb where a Mummy had laid for centuries, and, thinking it would be fabulous, I agreed. My mother took a few photos of me in there, then, once I started to feel a little spooked he offered to lift me back down. The tomb was chest-height. He lifted me out, and, to avoid hitting the floor quickly, I clung to him like a Koala bear, and slowly slid all the way down, almost straight onto his waiting erection. My mother still gets the giggles when recalling the sight.

We often get mistaken as sisters, something I find very funny but she does not- she gets offended on my part. It’s not that I look old, it’s that she had me when she was very young, and still looks great at every age. In my twenties I once came home with a new boyfriend, and they both stopped in their tracks and said ‘You!’ It turns out he had chatted her up in our local wine bar a few months before. She’d said no thanks, but perhaps I should have paid attention. Later in our relationship, he slept with one of my mother’s friends, and she found out. He had not told me about this, so she threatened that either he did or she would, marching him to the hairdresser’s where I was having my hair done, where he confessed shamefacedly as I sat under the dryer waiting for my highlights to take, and I dumped him then and there.

My mother has always been very supportive about my work as a Pro disciplinarian. and what she does not understand she asks me about. She sometimes says she wishes she could tell all of her friends, although she is mindful that some of them wouldn’t get it. One of her friends is an outspoken ex charge nurse now in her 80s, (She used to drink with us in the wine bar in the nineties, and she would stride in and, in a booming voice, hail the group of men clutching their glasses, ‘Afternoon, wankers, whose round is it?’) Let’s call her Betty. When my mother told her about my work Betty just said ‘Oh jolly good for her! What, and she gets paid well to do that, does she? Super.’ Never underestimate old women.

My choice of career (made later in life) was no surprise to Mum initially, as she has always known I am kinky and ‘alternative’, and we are very close as mother and daughter. I consider myself very lucky to have this relationship with her. Then again, one of her favourite films is ‘Personal Services’ which she quotes gaily at me sometimes ‘- retired officer of the RAF twice decorated! Two hundred and seven missions over occupied territory- in bra and panties’. I think part of the reason she accepts and understands what I do and why I do it, is this film. She sees that I am a domestic spanker, that I engage in role play and discipline, and that I care for my clients. I don’t serve them up poached eggs on toast after they’ve handed over their luncheon vouchers for their ‘personal services’ but there are certain parallels. She says ‘you’re just providing a service, dear, a very much-needed one. A bit like therapy. I have a lot of respect for these men who express themselves like this, and know what they want, and it’s great that you can give that to them. Imagine where they’d be if they couldn’t get it. And besides, it’s nobody else’s business and it doesn’t do anyone any harm. They just need it, nothing wrong with that. They’re just naughty boys. And Girls.’

So, her attitude always made me think Mum would be good at Femdom. When my hunch was put to the test, she passed with flying colours. The first time I spanked my spanking partner in front of her, she started giggling when I told him to drop his trousers and pants and get over my knee, and he’d better not flash that horrid thing in my mother’s direction or he’d be in way more trouble than he already was. She smirked when she saw him biting his bottom lip and squirming with embarrassment. (As many ‘vanilla’ women do when invited in to observe what we do. It is a thrill for them to realise that you can treat men like this, that you can tease them, tell them off, belittle them and dominate them. It’s like pulling back the curtain on Oz and seeing a little man twiddling his knobs. ‘Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!’ But it’s too late once you’ve seen it. The artifice falls away quite suddenly. Nothing is stopping us taking control.) When I sent him to face the wall, hands on head, pants down, and instructed him not to fidget, Mum kept a watchful eye on him and she even told on him- ‘Oh look! He just looked round, he wasn’t standing still like you told him to! I think you should spank him for that.’

This is how we got here: a few years into my Pro Spanking, Mum offered to stand in and observe my sessions for me. I was telling her I was trying to recruit ‘aunty’ types to observe sessions but was having trouble finding reliable women who were not already Pro, and could do the job. She said simply ‘Well, I can do that for you, if that helps. I’ll come up to London and sit in on some of your sessions if you like.’ I pointed out that there would be not only bottoms but dicks. A lot of them, and some of them tumescent. And dangling scrotums, wouldn’t she mind? Her reply was, ’Darling, at my age I’ve seen a few of those, that’s not going to bother me’. It turned out she was great at it. She made it clear she had no desire to spank anyone but was happy to watch and comment. And she got it intuitively, even though it was all new to her. I had made it clear in advance that bookings would be, rather than a double-domme session, with my actual Mum observing, which frankly, should be embarrassment enough. That she would not engage in anything sexual, and I preferred for now to stick to less severe corporal punishment. Age play, role play, school scenes, domestic discipline, petticoat punishment, mild humiliation, all these things would work.

One of our first sessions was a role play where my Mum and I were Nannies who knew each other from the Nannysphere, a nebulous fantasy realm of playgrounds and parks, tea rooms, coffee mornings and school drop-offs. I was in charge of a little boy, (my client) and she was in charge of a little girl called Chrissy. While playing together in the park, he had pulled Chrissy’s hair, pushed her into the mud, made her cry, and stolen her toys. But Chrissy hadn’t let her nanny know all the details until later. I scolded him, and lectured him on how you should treat little girls, or anyone else for that matter. My Mother nodded and pursed her lips. ‘Terrible, very disappointing.’ ‘I know, I did not bring him up to behave like this. I am very displeased with him.’ ‘I should think you are. Chrissy was very upset. She didn’t want to tell on him, but she was in a state about her lovely dress getting all covered in mud…’ and so on. We crushed him between us with threats of spankings worse than anything he could imagine- learning his lesson, teaching him the hard way to respect girls and women. As I ordered him to stand by the school desk, face the other Nanny, drop his shorts and then his pants, and apologise, hands on head, he was trembling with shame and the anticipation of what was to come. My Mum raised a stern eyebrow as he blushed beetroot, and she grinned at me when he bent over the desk. I knew my mother was really into it when, at the end of all his spankings, I told him I was going to take him round to apologise to Chrissy tomorrow afternoon. In fact, why didn’t the two of them have a playdate as a way to make it up to her? Under our supervision they could play nicely together. A whole afternoon with a little girl a couple of years younger than him, wouldn’t that be wonderful? ‘Oh yes’ Mum agreed, a slight smile on her lips. ‘In fact, Chrissy has some very pretty dresses. Really pretty and frilly. And some nice knickers. Perhaps we should dress him up? Then she can pretend she’s playing with another little girl and she can get her dollies. She’d love that.’ By Jove, I think she’s got it!

As the week progressed and we saw a few of my regular clients, it became clear that Mum was getting the hang of this. Very quickly. During a group domestic scene where I was Mum and she was Nana, one of my young middles, told to sit down on the floor while his friend was being spanked, put his hand on her leg and tried to have a ‘cuddle’. ‘Get your hand off my leg right now, young man.’ she commanded in a spine-chilling tone of voice., Even I jumped. Half an hour earlier, as three high-energy middles had been running about the apartment getting ready, Mum had turned to me and said, ‘Good lord, it’s as if they are actual children isn’t it? So over-excited! It means a lot to them doesn’t it? They really need to let off steam. How on earth do you calm them down… ah yes, of course…’

Mum came into her own with age play. I had suspected that petticoat punishment and age play would be the most natural to her. We had a little who comes to see me regularly, who, in role, is a truculent and sulky little boy. I explained in advanced what age play was, and that she just had to teat him like a silly boy. I asked if she was ok with me putting him in a nappy as part of his humiliation, and regressing him from a ‘stroppy teenager’ to an even stroppier little boy. She said ‘I’ve had two sons. Of course, it’ll be easy. I know how to deal with boys.’ It turned out she absolutely shone as Nan, to my Aunty. She reprimanded him, teased him, told him what a very silly boy he was being, and I could see she found it endearing when he stamped his foot, stuck out his lip, and huffed and puffed. She even initiated a great part of the session, nearer the end, when he was left in his room with a very sore bottom and we went through to the sitting room, leaving him in corner time with his pants down. As we left the room she carried on, in a very natural tone, discussing how we would deal with him, what discipline we were going to use on him next, and as we sat in the living room she continued to discuss him and his behaviour, something he later told us had triggered ‘little-space’ and kept him there, the muted sound of the women in the other part of the house talking about him as he waited, grounded to his room and in corner-time. As I suspected, my Mum had a born understanding of domestic domination and the language and headspace that is needed.

Given what I’ve told you, you might think she spanked me as a child, but you’d be wrong. She is a gentle person, albeit very assertive, and does not believe in corporal punishment for children. I was spanked by my step-father, but never by her. Despite my clients pleading and cajoling, Mum was not interested in putting them across her knee or hitting them with anything. She enjoyed the verbal admonishments, psychological elements of domination and has a great understanding of, and tolerance for, what men need. She enjoyed the giddy female energy produced by domming men together, and I think she liked seeing me work, and of course meeting some of my clients, who she found charming. She has always asked about my work, and is fascinated when I tell her about it. But then, she has always been the most open-minded person I know. I tell her that when she is too frail to live on her own, she can come and live with us.

‘Can I be Dolly?’ she asks, grinning. ‘Can I show them in and take the money? Make the cups of tea and answer the phone? It’d give me something useful to do. I’d love that.’