The dominatrix
Mistress Leigh, early thirties, Prospect Heights
Mistress Leigh doesn’t mind blurring the lines between professional and personal. In fact, she sometimes brings her partner to work with her. “A few weeks ago, I brought him into a session with an Italian couple that I see,” she says of her squeeze, whom she’s been with in a consensually nonmonogamous relationship for five years and who also identifies as queer. “I used him as my henchman for evil deeds with them, and it was hot and sexy and just so much fun.”
No session is the same for Leigh, who plans to apply to a Ph.D. program in sex research and also does data coding for the Casual Sex Project. “Maybe [the sessions] have crossover interests or activities, but things never happen the same way,” she says. Leigh’s clients run the gamut from straight Caucasian men to mixed-race couples. Her longest client relationship is with a Jewish woman, and she’s also done a lot of work with people who have physical impairments or high functioning autism. “I’ve found that kink has been really great for helping people connect with their minds and bodies,” she says. “It can really help empower them.”
So is there a type of client she won’t work with? “I don’t like to play with SAMs, which is what I call smart-ass masochists,” she says. “I like more power play and for people to have more protocol and submission.” She thinks of her service as a luxury item. “I don’t want to waste anyone’s time or money, so we both have to be into it.”
And she has no time for the common misconception that cruelty is a facet of fetish workers. “Everything I do is consensual,” she says. “If it’s not consensual, it’s not BDSM.”
