📞 Every domination session starts with a conversation.☎️

A few days before I flew home to Kuala Lumpur, a new client wrote to me about domination.

He was clear about what he didn’t want. No restraints. No blindfold. No pain. Nothing elaborate. What he kept saying, in slightly different words each time, was that he wanted me to tell him what to do.

I asked him what I always ask. What being told what to do actually meant to him. How firm. What belonged only in fantasy. What should never happen.

Over the years, the part of the work I call Dark Chocolate has taught me that no two people mean exactly the same thing by it.

One client discovers his threshold for pain is much lower than he imagined. Another realises he dislikes being restrained once it actually happens.

Some enjoy calling me “Mistress”. Others want none of that language at all. They simply want the instructions, plainly given.

Whatever shape the session takes, we agree on the words beforehand. “No” can still belong inside the role play. “Red” always means stop.

We wrote back and forth for several days. By the end I understood him far better than I had from his first message.

While he was texting me, my mother was calling from Kuala Lumpur.

“I’ll cook your favourites. Tell me what you want when you get home.”

I didn’t need long.

“Fuzhou steamed fish…

The bitter melon, stuffed properly this time with minced pork and salted fish, errr…not the plain version.”

She laughed.

“I’ll see what I can find.”

The booking was set for a few days before my flight. That morning, he cancelled. He hadn’t slept well and didn’t feel right. I was disappointed, but I thought he’d made the right call. The session never happened.

A few days later, I landed in Kuala Lumpur.

I had barely taken off my shoes before my mother started.

“Go shower first.”

“Dinner’s ready.”

“Don’t take too long.”

At the table, the fish was there. The bitter melon was there. Beside them sat another dish I hadn’t asked for.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know.”

Then she pointed at the fish.

“Eat that first while it’s still hot…”

I reached for the bitter melon.

“No.”

“The fish.”

My mother always asks what I’d like because she genuinely wants to know. She just has her own ideas about what I should eat.

My grandmother was the same. So are my aunties.

The women in my family have always known who looks tired, who needs another bowl of soup, which dish should be eaten first and which can wait.

The men are not weak. They’ve simply learned that when one of these women tells you to eat the fish while it’s still hot, there’s usually a reason.

They rarely explain it.

They don’t need to.

Sitting at that table, I understood him a little better. For a little while, he had wanted someone else to decide what happened next.

The client and I never reached the room. We only reached the conversation before it.

My mother, meanwhile, had already cooked the meal and placed it on the table before I walked through the door.

One understanding had taken a few days.

The other had taken a lifetime.

He didn’t turn up. I did.

She was right about the fish.