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The world’s a big place, filled with mostly boring people. A few freaks still slip through, though. The four-way taught me what hope meant. No matter how high I climb, there will always be a taller mountain.

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When I was 19 and in my second year of college in New York, I was hell bent on having full financial independence as quickly as possible. I found myself perusing Craigslist for odd jobs and modeling gigs, and a vaguely-worded listing with a pay rate of $80/hour caught my attention.

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E.L. James could not have written a character less likely to dominate in bed than Christian Grey.

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I had many clients who were wealthy executives, married with children — supposedly upstanding citizens — but who led double lives as drug-hungry perverts.

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There’s a tendency to think of us as semi-mythical creatures who only come out at night and who don’t exist in the prosaic humdrum world of everyday life.

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A dominatrix pretending to be blogger Lindy West stood before me in white patent-leather gear.

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Here’s what every fledgling dominatrix should have in her kit.

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He wants it. He wants it so bad that he’s facedown on his mattress with his legs spread waiting for me to give him what he wants.