New Animal Ella Baxter (best books to read non fiction txt) 📖

of red lipstick. I look down at my own outfit, which is jeans paired with a denim shirt and sneakers, and as I lean my head to the side, a sour waft of unwashed clothing greets me. I try to ignore my smell and how blunt the edges of her hair are as she shakes my hand formally.

‘Let’s get sorted with the paperwork first.’ She tosses the remote onto the desk as two women walk through the front door laughing. Tanya shushes them but they seem unfazed, though they lower their voices into hushed whispers as they exit through a door on the left. She watches them go while clicking her pen and shaking her head, before reaching into a filing cabinet and pulling out a form.

‘You’re required to answer a few questions, if that’s okay.’ She writes my name in capital letters at the top of the page. ‘Anything you’re not comfortable with doing?’ Her pen hovers over the form as she begins reading from a checklist: ‘Anal? Strap-on? Double penetration? Triple penetration? Flogger? Retractors? Mummifying? Electrodes?’ She looks at me expectantly. ‘Most newcomers have a limit, that’s why we have the glossary on our website. Did you see it?’

‘Can’t I just decide when I’m in there playing?’

She shakes her head. ‘Definitely not, sorry. All hard limits have got to be documented now.’

‘I’m happy doing everything,’ I say, though I’m not sure it’s true. I won’t know till I try it, I reason.

‘And you identify as a sub or a domme—or would you be both: a switch?’

‘Switch,’ I say, unsure. ‘Actually, maybe more of a domme.’

She slurps loudly from her coffee mug and clicks her pen a few more times.

‘And breath play? That has its own consent form.’

‘Yep, whatever.’

She ticks all the boxes and signs her name at the bottom, and then hands the page to me to sign. I scrawl something not dissimilar to my signature. She passes me three more pages—a disclaimer, the breath form and a confidentiality agreement—and I sign them all without reading.

‘I’ll give you a tour later, but let’s begin in the aftercare room; your email seemed particularly focused on aftercare.’

‘I’m fine now,’ I say.

‘Good to hear.’ She leads me down a corridor.

We pass a cactus that must be almost two metres high. I press my finger to one of its prickles and a tiny drop of blood appears, which I wipe along the wall, as Tanya prattles on about opening hours and upcoming events. I immediately feel more in control, even though I recognise that this behaviour is not acceptable, not even by my standards.

I follow her into a large room with three plush sofas and two lounge chairs, upholstered in red and scattered with black-and-gold cushions. In the centre of the room is a huge hamper full of faux fur blankets, and there’s a tall bench along one side, with a bar fridge beneath and a coffee maker on the counter. Above are shelves on which I see boxes of tissues and jars of teabags and lollies. The room matches Tanya’s demeanour; both she and the Widow Maker announce that they represent people who love sex, but the lurid saturation of it all makes me suspicious. Is this sexual? I imagine her asking herself before making every tax-deductible purchase.

Within five minutes Tanya has told me how old she is (seventy-two), and how she keeps so slim (starvation). She acknowledges that she is taller than me, which is rare for a woman of her age given the poor nutrition after the war. Then she turns her attention to me.

‘I’m not sure where you got this ensemble’—she frowns—‘but it’s really unbecoming.’ She inhales deeply, looking at my torso. ‘Never wear that volume of denim again. It’s not flattering even to the most slender of us.’ She sweeps one arm down the length of her body.

‘Now,’ she continues, ‘I want you to meet Steven. We’ve been working together for over fourteen years and I use him for all my training sessions.’

‘Great,’ I say. ‘Looking forward to it.’

‘Steven!’ she yells, and within seconds a nude man appears in the doorway, panting melodramatically. He bumps into the corner of one of the lounges as he scurries in and crouches at her feet. She responds by landing a heavy-footed kick in the middle of his thigh.

‘Four seconds too long, you fucking eunuch.’

Steven continues kneeling at her feet and staring ahead.

‘Hi, Steven,’ I say, but he doesn’t respond.

‘He won’t answer you because I haven’t given him permission. He’s very loyal and committed to the theatre of it all.’ She pushes her knee into his ear.

I notice that every time she addresses him it’s in the same frustrated tone of voice that librarians use when people unwrap food near any of the books.

‘The first rule of domming,’ Tanya tells me, ‘is that it’s important to know why people need pain. If you know, you can take them right up to the edge and then pretend to push them off.’

I’m not sure if I should be taking notes, but I left my bag over near the door and it would break the flow of this interaction to get it now.

‘Domming is an art form. It is about tension and release, and it involves an understanding of what control is, and what it is not.’

I shift my weight onto my left leg and clasp my hands together, arranging my listening face.

‘A lot of things are referred to as scenes, just like in a movie. A fear scene, a kidnap scene, a crushing scene. You have to learn to say scene on the end so there’s no confusion as to what you or your partner are asking for.’

‘That’s interesting,’ I say.

‘It is a restorative practice. Whether you are domming or subbing, you are the point of solace for the other person. There is a momentous amount of trust involved: kill your ego as a sacrifice to being a good scene partner. Don’t ever let the feeling of controlling another be greater than suspending