English Kitty (sessions)

Sometimes it seems that the San Francisco Bay Area has nearly as many professional dominants as it has restaurants. But because one man's meat is another man's poison, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and because I say tomayto / you say tomahto, there seems little point in trying to rate our local Pro-Doms as if they were burgers in the Bay Guardian's annual "Best of" Grand Prix. Instead of reviewing Mistresses, therefore, or perpetuating popular fantasies about The Mistress on the Hill, Spectator plans to publish an ongoing series of interviews that will take you behind the black leather door where you can meet some of the real women who specialize in the arts of dominance.

This interview is with Oakland's English Mistress, Mistress Kitty.

You do psychotherapy? That's really interesting.

WILLIAM HENKIN: (laughs) Certainly you see psychotherapists here!

Maybe more than I know. At first, who knows what people really do? They bring another persona.

What do you know about your clients?

I have clients I've been seeing for years. After awhile people confide in me. They become friends, so I know quite a lot about those clients: who they are, where they live, what they do for a living, what their interests are, whether they have wives, children, girlfriends whatever.

That's relatively a lot of intimacy.

Yes. I never ask clients too much about themselves. I find that they tell me when they're ready. The first time they see me I usually only ask about their interests as far as sessions are concerned.

What seems to make people ready to tell you about themselves?

I think they feel safe. They know me, they trust me, so they're willing to trust me with other parts of themselves, not just the B and D part. I only see people I'm interested in, who want to do what I want to do, and when people I get along with in sessions start to tell me about themselves we often turn out to have other interests in common. Then we have conversations, just like any other people would talk and have conversations.

Both in professional sessions and otherwise, what do you like to do as a mistress?

I have quite a few favorites, but I like bondage best of all from leather and light restraints to my specialty, which is very tight, restrictive, you-can't-get-out-of-it Rope bondage.

What do you like about bondage?

Everything I get into is sort of an extension of childhood games. That was where I started.

Tying up the kids down the block?

Tying up my cousin (laughs). In the summer, when I was 12 or 13, I used to stay with my aunt, who was a nurse in a boys' boarding school a big old rambling building. Most of the boys went home for the summer, but a few stayed, as well as one other little girl. We used to go see this serial movie called Perils of Pauline on Saturday morning. Pauline was always getting kidnapped, which the boys thought was fun, and you never knew if she was going to get tortured, if she'd escape, or if she'd get rescued, until the next week's episode. There were also westerns: cowboy and Indian movies where someone was always getting tied to the post. Now, two of the boys would act really badly at the movie. They'd clap and cheer when a girl got tied up, and think it was fun if she got tortured. So one afternoon the other little girl and I chased them down, got a clothes line, took them in the laundry room, and tied them to the laundry tables. We blindfolded them with scarves, gagged them with handkerchiefs and just went off and left them, like "we'll be back next Saturday to rescue you (laughing)." Of course, they had their clothes on.

Did you find this erotic?

It's hard to say what it was at that age. It became erotic, because after we'd left the boys tied up for a little while we went back to check on them and started tweaking their nipples and smacking their faces a little bit you know, "wake up, wake up," and pretending we were going to torture them. Then we took them down into the cellar under the laundry room where it was really dark, and tied them to the wine rack. This time we did strip their clothes off, and told them we were really going to torture them.

When you where 12?

Mm-hmm. We found clothespins to be a really good torture weapon (laughs).

You're a natural. When you took their clothes off, did you intend that to be erotic?

I really don't know if it was erotic at that age or not: we were just playing.

What do you remember about your response?

It was lethal (sadistic laugh). For me it was really about playing, having fun. I don't take myself real seriously, and even today my torture is more playful than serious: I do like to inflict pain, but I don't like extreme pain. I prefer to pinch and squeeze, and that's what we did to the boys.

How did they respond? Was it fun for them?

Well, they could run faster than we could. If they didn't want to let us do these things they could have gotten away, so they were obviously willing.

What happened after you took their clothes off and found the clothespins?

Then there was a lot of teasing, and a lot of bargaining to be set free. That was when we decided that in order get free they had to pay a forfeit. They might have to kiss our feet and beg us for their freedom, or they might have to agree to be our slaves and do our dishes or our chores for us. I think my favorite was to make them clean all our shoes.

And did they?

Yes!

How often did you do this?

Oh , it became a daily game. Later on it progressed to where we might say they had to eat worms, and when they wouldn't, well, that was a forfeit with a consequence.

For not eating worms?

Yes. And the consequence was often that they had to do our chores, like put on an apron and wash our dishes. In those days I was the oldest, and since my whole purpose for being there was to take care of the boys and be in charge of them, I already was an authority over them and had the power to punish them if they were bad, to spank them if they didn't do as they were told, and to generally keep them in line.

And did you spank them?

Oh yah!

Often?

Oh yes!

Did you enjoy it?

Of course! I enjoyed seeing their bottoms turn red, and afterwards they would be very good for awhile.

Do you still enjoy spanking?

Yes, yes. Spanking is another of my favorite things. And caning and corporal punishment in general. You saw a lot of spanking and caning at a boys' English boarding school, and my aunt was very strict: she spanked a lot and you really had to toe the line. For my aunt spanking was very ritualistic, and I was taught how to spank the boys. I still enjoy spankings that are not so much about pain but about the ritual, the punishment, the humiliation, the embarrassment. I enjoy the game of it.

What other games did you play?

One good game was shoe shop. We got out all the shoes in the place, and the boys were the salesmen, the girls were the customers. We'd be really mean to them. We'd do things like slap them and say "Those are not the shoes I asked for" and make them put the shoes on our feet. We'd make them kneel at our feet. This is where the shoe fetish came in (laughs).

You have a shoe fetish?

No, I don't have a shoe fetish, but I do like to play with shoe fetishists.

Because you like them to do what the boys did?

Yes. And that sometimes takes the form of playing shoe shop.

Do you like to have boys at your feet?

Yes!

What do you like about it?

It's the game: threatening to sit on them like a rug, calling them our footrests I think I just like to play with boys (laughs).

Did playing shoe shop lead you to have a lot of wardrobe?

Lots. Lots of shoes. Lots of clothes. Lots and lots and lots. I have a very, very large crossdressing wardrobe. When I was 12 one of my cousins had to wear my clothes and be a girl on occasion because my aunt wanted a little girl and she had two boys. One day we decided that my cousin David should be the little girl because I was always afraid my aunt wanted me to be that little girl, and that she would keep me and not send me home at the end of the summer. It was my devious little plan that if we could make David into a little girl she'd be happy and I could go home. So one of the punishments I devised for David to get untied was that he would now be Margaret. We dressed him all up in my clothes and brought him to my aunt. We told her he was a little girl we found wandering without a mother or a father, and asked if we could keep her. My aunt agreed; she played right along with the game, so David had to be Margaret whenever we decided (laughs). David later married the girl we used to play with most. He still gets to be Margaret (laughs). It's no wonder like I really like crossdressers. I love making boys into girls!

Are you willing to tell me something more about your family, your childhood, how you got here?

It was pretty ordinary. I was an only child, but my mother had six sisters and all my aunts were very Victorian, very strict. The only other kids in the family were my two boy cousins I've mentioned, John and David. I probably went to Sunday school for every religion ever invented, but I never belonged to one: nobody in the family was particularly involved in a religion.

How did you come to go to lots of different churches?

On Sunday whichever aunt I was with on the weekend sent me to the nearest Sunday school that all the neighborhood kids went to. I went to Baptist Sunday school, missionary Sunday school, Methodist Sunday school, Catholic church. One of my aunts was a spiritualist, so we went to seances on Sunday nights with her. That was fun.

Did you contact anybody?

I was once contacted (laughs). The medium said I had something in my possession that belonged to someone who had passed over, and one of my aunts had just given me a shawl that had belonged to my grandmother who was dead, so I figured it must be the shawl. I didn't really think anything of it. Everybody was Christian but nobody was particularly religious.

How did you get along with the family?

Just fine. My aunts weren't unaffectionate, but they were kind of distant and strict. English people tend to not to be demonstratively affectionate.

Are you?

Sometimes. My playfulness tends to be kind of affectionate. I like the people I play with, so I'm frequently affectionate with them. I care about them. I care whether they're enjoying what we are doing. I'm caring as a mistress.

What do you do with your evenings?

I like dancing, I like movies, I like to read books.

What kind of dancing? Do you ballroom dance?

Actually I can ballroom dance (laughs). I don't anymore, but I can. I was a naked dancer on Broadway in San Francisco in my exhibitionist youth, which was not what my aunts had in mind when they had me take dance lessons. I like to jump up and down. I like reggae and hip hop (laughs). I like music. Sometimes I run into people in clubs whom I've seen in sessions.

What do you do then?

It depends on the person, and how comfortable he is seeing me in a social situation. If he feels comfortable enough to acknowledge me then I acknowledge him. If he's single we may even talk or dance together for a minute. We're friends if we run into each other, just as we're friends in my house. Maybe 50% of the people who come to see me are married, but I don't run into married guys in clubs often, though I do run into them elsewhere. I've had guys introduce their kids to me in stores.

Interview Page Two

In terms of playing shoe shop, as well as in terms of spanking and of having somebody at your feet, you've talked about the "game." What is the "game" for you?

The game is that we're going to play and I can literally make this person do anything I want. In the context of sessions the submissive is always calling the game: I want to be your foot slave. I want to be your bondage toy. I want to be your sex slave. I want to be your whipping boy. I want to be your girl, your houseboy, whatever. But when someone has been your submissive for a length of time then you get to call the game. Then you say what you feel like doing today, and even if it's something the person's never done before he'll be willing because he trusts you. At that point he knows you're not going to do anything that's beyond his limits, so you can take him to that little edge that's maybe a little more than he thought he could do.

What is the pleasure in that for you?

Everything. A compatible dominant and submissive take pleasure in each other. I like being able to touch a person any way I want. With bondage, especially tight bondage, I can touch you any way I want to and you can only have what I give you.

What do you want in that situation?

I want a reaction. I want the person to squirm. I want him to be turned on. When he gets good and turned on I want to pinch him and make it hurt so he's not turned on anymore (laughs). I want to play roller coaster, taking him up and down on a ride, and making him feel things he doesn't normally feel. A lot of people don't allow themselves to feel especially men, who think they have to be in charge and in control all the time. They are frequently not in touch with their own feelings, what they can experience, what their bodies will do. So whether they're on the floor at my feet or I've tied them up completely, I like to find out what they really react to, whether it's pain, tickling, being touched lightly, stroked, petted, hugged, spanked, whipped, caned, whatever. I like a lot of feedback, even if it's silent feedback. I'll go by body language. I rarely use safe words. I don't like safe words at all.

Even with novices?

Even with novices. It's not playing the game, it's not truly being submissive. Oh, if I see that a person really needs a safe word to feel comfortable I'll give him one, but I've never actually had anyone use a safe word with me. Part of the pleasure for me in domination is knowing when a submissive is right at the edge of his limit and being able to stop there. Limits are fleeting things, after all, and vary with a person's mood and circumstances. Sometimes it's part of the fun for both me and a submissive to feel those limits and to push them a little, because to truly be submissive you do get to set the limits, but once we've agreed to play within your limits then you have to trust me.

What if the novice doesn't know you enough to trust you?

By the time we play I've talked with someone about limits and the possibilities of the games and what we can and cannot do. I want him to feel confident and comfortable enough with me emotionally to know I'm not going to do anything that will be outside his limits. Frequently sessions are about emotional release, and I think it's important that a dominant not push emotional limits in a negative way. I can usually tell by a person's body language whether he's liking something or not. It's easy to tell whether a submissive is enjoying what you're doing.

Well, it's pretty easy to tell about physical things, about sensation. But is it so easy to tell when an emotional limit is coming up?

Yes, through body language. People tend to pull away from things that don't feel good. I don't think it's too difficult to tell the difference between a squirm that says "I don't like that" and a squirm that says "do that again" (laughs). The thing is, I like to play games both ways. I think if you play both ways and you have been submissive then you know what it feels like, so you have a better idea of what feels good and what doesn't feel good. For example, you know that if you tie someone in a very uncomfortable position there's a limit to the length of time he can tolerate it, and you can't lead him past that limit because he's uncomfortable and the bondage stops being fun. I also think that if a submissive tolerates a really uncomfortable position for some length of time he should be rewarded with a much more comfortable position (laughs).

It sounds as if trust is important for you.

Trust is the most important thing. If you're going to rule you have to be a wise ruler.

Do you bottom often?

No. But I did start out with bondage photography for about five years at a place in Hayward. People tied us up and took pictures, or we tied them up and took pictures. It was a very voyeuristic thing, so it was somewhat benign: bottoming just meant being tied up.

How did you start mistressing other than tying up the boys in school?

I was a licensed masseuse in what I thought was a very legitimate massage place with a steam bath and the whole bit. One day the owner said, "Do you know anything about B and D?" I said "No, what is it?" He said "This guy wants to get tied up." And I said "I can do that!" (laughs). I tied him up and gave him a massage, but I was teasing and pinching and all the usual stuff I used to do to my cousin. It turned out the place wasn't quite as legitimate as I had first thought it was. The guy who owned it was really into B and D, and was bringing in people he knew. But I was Little Miss Innocence, you know: Miss Middle-Class. I'm from a very conservative place on the south coast of England where I had been a health visitor a job somewhere between a visiting nurse and a social worker that's part of socialized medicine and doesn't really have a U.S. equivalent. I had worked for a health department, going from house to house dealing with problem families what we would now call dysfunctional families and terminally ill people. When I came to California the Bay Area was a cultural shock to me. It was full of hippies and flower children, and all kinds of wild things were going on I had never been exposed to.

And you became a masseuse?

The qualifications I had in England were for a job that didn't exist here. To continue on with that sort of work I'd have had to go back to school for four years, and I didn't want to go to school any more. I went to a massage parlor because I knew how to massage. I was very naive. I didn't realize that other activities went on there than massage.

And the man you tied up was your introduction to those other activities?

Yes. Most of the scene was in massage parlors in those days. There were hundreds and hundreds of massage parlors, most of which had a B and D room. If you wanted to get into B and D or S and M, you went to a massage parlor and asked for a dominant massage. The photography studio I worked in was like that too, with one or two ladies doing dominance. Not everybody who came in there wanted bondage. A lot of them were simply avid voyeurs. They had all kinds of cameras and photography equipment and basically wanted to go home with pictures to look at. But there was a whole group of guys who didn't care about pictures: for them the camera was just a prop to hide behind. We even stopped putting film in their cameras. Pretty soon they'd put the cameras down and start telling us what they really wanted to do to lick our feet, or to play with our shoes and sessions sort of evolved. Robin Roberts was opening BackDrop in Hayward, Spectator was evolving out of the Berkeley Barb, an entire B and D scene was emerging in the East Bay and separating from the massage parlors. I've tried to think what it was in my ad at that time attracted all the submissives, and I think it was "English." I advertised as English Kitty, and that word was taken as a euphemism for B and D.

It still is, for caning.

Yes. At that time boots were very much in fashion too, and the basic dress code for masseuses and other adult entertainers was black body suits and boots. So there I was with this visual mistress image attracting submissives who proceeded to tell me that they liked games I liked and was familiar with (laughs). I just evolved as professional mistress. For a time I worked with a friend in a hilarious place called The Balcony, based on Jean Genet's play. The rooms were like stage sets, all very theatrical and theme oriented. We had a chapel, a medical examination room, and a witches' lab. Playing a nun in the chapel with stained glass windows was a lot of fun (laughs). It's amazing what people will confess to.

Did you make them confess?

Oh, yes. And sometimes we confessed.

What did you confess to, Mistress Nun?

I sometimes confessed to not wearing panties, which was a little disconcerting for some supplicant kneeling at my feet if I pulled my dress up. I guess I just like to mess with people (laughs) in a playful way.

How did you come to open up your own house?

As I got into the scene at The Balcony more I liked the theatrics more, too, so I wanted a more elaborate playroom. No one had elaborate equipment or elaborate playrooms at that time. Except for The Balcony and maybe one other place, all we had was a cubicle, or a small room with a massage table or a mattress or a bed in it. As I've said, The Balcony was very theatrical, and I wanted more of that: I wanted each session to be like a little drama, and I wanted my room to look like a dungeon. I had a room in my house that I thought would make a great dungeon, and I turned it into one.

Was that this house? [Interview location]

Yes.

Do you use all the rooms here?

I might. I don't always like being confined to the dungeon or boudoir instead of one room, it's not realistic enough. I might decide it would be fun to spank someone all tied up in the living room in the middle of the afternoon. It would be really decadent. And, of course, maids and houseboys have duties in various parts of the house.

You're in a residential neighborhood, how does your work fit in here?

I've lived here a very long time, I know my neighbors well, we've all lived here about the same amount of time, and they've all thought I was a bookkeeper. I keep bookkeepers' hours, 10 to 6, I don't do sessions in the evening very often, and I'm actually kind of a quiet person: I don't have a lot of company, and I don't make a lot of noise. If you keep the grass cut and don't make a lot of noise, then in this neighborhood you're okay.

Interview Page Three

What is your usual system? You have an ad in Spectator, so let's say somebody calls you, how do you proceed?

I ask the person what his interests are, I tell him that I usually make my appointments on the same day I'm going to see someone the first time, and if our interests overlap then we might make an appointment. When he comes in I'll usually get to know him a little bit, have him expand on his interests a little more, and get an idea of things he wouldn't like. First-timers frequently don't know what they want, so I'll talk to the person, toss some ideas out, and see what he says Yes to, see what sounds like fun to him, see what he's willing to try. Then we go into a session. But I always establish the boundaries, the limits, and the ground rules before we start to play. After somebody has been here once he can make appointments ahead. Very organized people plan their play ahead of time, people coming in from out of town frequently plan ahead, but most people book the day they want a session because they naturally want to play when they're in the mood, and it doesn't work for some people to say "I'm going to be in the mood at 2 o'clock next Wednesday." I also see people frequently sometimes two or three times a week if they're moving, buying a house, having a baby, getting divorced, changing jobs, or going through some other kind of stressful situation in their lives.

Why do you suppose that is?

Because they need to relax more. They're giving up all responsibility for an hour or two, giving themselves over to what another person wants, knowing it's going to be enjoyable for both people. It's like going to another world and having a little vacation.

How do you see to the safety of your clients?

Being safe is sort of second nature to me by now. Sexual safety is easy, since I don't have sex with my clients. There is a lot of physical contact involved you can't tie someone up without touching him and I'm a clean freak anyway, so I spread a lot of bleach around to disinfect equipment. Physically, I don't do anything that's unsafe, like I don't do blood sports. I think it's important to know some things about a person before you begin playing, so that you don't put him in a position that could hurt him or aggravate an injury. I think it's necessary to find out if the person you're playing with has high blood pressure, for example, in which case you wouldn't want to hang him upside down or to keep him in a head-down position for any period of time. You need to know if a person has any back problems, or injuries that may preclude certain positions and certain games. I have lots of older guys with bad knees who just can't kneel anymore. I personally don't like to gag anybody for any length of time. If somebody enjoys being gagged I only want to leave it in for like ten - fifteen minutes before I take it out and give him a chance to swallow and breathe. If you have someone in a standing position you really can't leave a blindfold on for any length of time or he'll start to sway and get dizzy. Part of what the dominant is engaged in is watching the submissive to make sure he's okay at all times.

How do you take care of your own needs outside your work?

I have a pretty smooth life. I don't have any angst, although there is the downside of being a professional mistress, which is the foolishness you have to deal with on the phone. If people I know disrespect my time in this way they don't get to see me anymore. But there are other people for whom our ads are simply targets to play games with on the telephone. They are men who call and make appointments and, I suspect, feel they have something important to do today because they've made an appointment with a mistress. They feel powerful that they have taken up our time, and maybe we're waiting for them when they have no intention of showing up as they said they would. We know them all by their names, their voices, and their scenarios I don't know why they think we wouldn't know them.

That suggests to me that you think they have pretty empty lives.

I think the people who make these phone calls do have very empty lives. Most mistresses who have been professionals for a long time recognize their scenarios.

How?

The people who do these things have an M. O. that always remains the same even if they make ten calls a day from ten different places with ten different names. They're not terribly aggravating because we know who they are, but they take up time and they can make it difficult to schedule appointments. There's also a percentage of people who make appointments and simply chicken out, but eventually get up the courage and do show up. We recognize them, too. Still other people call and make appointments and don't show up because they just don't think it's important enough. Then when they call again for another appointment and you tell them that they didn't keep their last one they get upset. Other times talking on the phone can be difficult because some people call who really don't know what to ask, and they don't even listen to our questions. A lot of people think you just call someone up and they do what you want. It isn't really like that: it's a little more personal, a little more intimate. Before we make an appointment with someone we need to know a little about him. We'd like to know who he is and what he'd like to do. We want to establish that this is someone we'd like to see.

You're really talking about the whole system of disrespect as a problem.

Yes. I was very gratified to find out that people disrespect airlines, doctors, and dentists in the same way. I don't see someone very long if he doesn't keep his appointments and doesn't respect my time. The first couple of times I will explain to him what a problem it is, and I will explain that it is important to let me know if he can't show up. It's okay if people change their plans as long as they let me know in a reasonable amount of time. But if they're still disrespectful after that I just don't give them appointments anymore.

If that's the biggest downside it's not so bad.

No. It's not bad.

It's not like being a soldier or something.

Oh, no! (laughs) I don't have to shoot anyone. Not for real. Although I have done snuff scenarios. Back in the photography place I used to have someone who did a detective switch scenario and filmed it in 8 mm. First he would attack and murder me, and he didn't always murder me the same way. Sometimes he would tie me up, sometimes I was shot, sometimes I was stabbed, sometimes I was strangled. Then he would leave money in the top of my nylons, leave me as the body in the room, and go out and put on a hat and jacket and change his whole outfit and come back in as the detective. He would be totally involved in this scenario. One time he was looking for a place to hide the body and decided to put it under the couch, but he couldn't get me under the couch so he lifted up the couch and rolled me underneath it. He was about to put the couch down on top of me when the body had to wake up and say "Wait a minute, I can't fit under here" (laughs). And I've had lots of people who had rape and strangulation fantasies, people who wanted to be strangled which does not mean I am willing to choke anyone to unconsciousness!

Why do you suppose men come to you with these fantasies?

It comes back to the safe sex thing. Everybody wants an erotic sexual outlet that's safe, and I think that's why more people are open to it in the 90's than they were in the 70's and the 80's. It's like Victorian times in England: when syphilis was a killer disease B&D was very popular. Anyway, this country's still kind of puritanical, compared to Europe. B&D is most out here in California and in New York, but it's become more out and more popular nationwide in the last five to seven years, except maybe in the bible belt (laughs).

It was very brave of you to let somebody tie you up, strangle you, and nominally kill you.

I think the men who come to see me are very brave. After all, they're meeting a stranger the first time, and very often telling me their most intimate secrets. Even if I'm playing the submissive I'm naturally a dominant personality, and I've always found that if someone was doing anything I didn't like I could change it with just my tone of voice. When I say, "Hey! Stop!" even a dominant tends to jump back and say "What did I do?" I don't think there are many people out there who really want to hurt someone or do anything bad to anybody. For dominant men trying to find women to dominate in a session context I think it's a mine field out there. There are fewer professional submissives than dominants, and for some reason submissive ladies seem to find it more difficult than dominants to communicate what things are acceptable and enjoyable to them, and what their limits really are.

In the context of professional sessions I think the women who are the most successful as submissives are those who are able to top from the bottom, because even though some guy may want to be the dominant and play the dominant role, and may even be a very dominant person, he's still a little nervous about what he can and cannot do in a scene: he usually does not want to offend or upset the submissive because then she won't play with him. On the other hand, my friend Katherine is not really submissive but likes to switch. She has absolutely no problem saying how much she'd like to be whipped, spanked, or caned, and therefore is wonderful at teaching novice dominants or dominating submissives.

You're really talking now about communication.

As a mistress and a dominant it may be easier to control the communication and ask the submissive questions to get a better handle on what's good for them and what isn't. It's harder for a dominant male making a call to an ad to find out from a submissive lady what she would and would not like to do.

I'd imagine that if you're a professional in this business you have a certain obligation both to your clients and to yourself to learn how to communicate, in terms of speaking as well as listening. Because whether you're topping or bottoming, if you can't say what you need and if you can't hear what somebody else is saying he needs, you can mess up your scene.

Yes. You have absolutely got to know how to communicate with people, including how to listen, and you also have to be able to read the non-verbal cues, which are probably even more important than what people are actually saying.

How do you learn to read non-verbal cues?

Experience. Paying attention to everything. Whether the person's squirming in his chair when you're talking about something he might like, or shaking his head while saying yes to something he might not like. You have to be able to listen between the lines and read some body language. And I think that comes with experience. A lot of people who play with me feel that I'm reading their minds.

You talk a lot about playing and having fun, having a good time. Do you regard that you have a philosophy about what you do?

(Laughs) It's a clich, but it should be fun! I'm pretty much me all the time. I am not about an image. One of my biggest interests is gardening I am British, after all I have a really big garden, and I have lots of people who are gardeners. People bring me seeds, they bring me plants I used to have a very sweet little house boy/girl named Wendy who started out bringing me flowers but ended up bringing me little plants. Now there's a lot of little Wendy plants all over my garden (laughs). There have been times a submissive friend has arrived early for an appointment only to find me with muddy hands, planting flowers. Then I have to wash off the mud and change into something more appropriate for a play session.

Of course I do enjoy wearing leather, latex, lingerie, garters, spike heels, and other sexy costumes for play, but I am only changing my clothes, not myself or my personality. I am always Kitty whether I have a flower or a cane in my hand: a dominant woman who likes the beach, the ocean, gardening, dancing, and playing kinky games with submissive and sometimes with dominant men. You could say that being a professional mistress is just something I happened to fall into something that is me, and that is fun.

To reach English Mistress Kitty -- and other Mistresses and Submissives,

• call (510) 532-8895 or email englishmistress@hotmail.com

External links

• http://TheEnglishMistress.com

A Personal Note from Robin

It might be of interest that Mistress Kitty, Mistress Monique (Terry), Mistress Lana and Mistress Mara were on Staff at BackDrop, Hayward in 1974.