Kristi, in her dominant guise of Kristina, was wandering halfheartedly around AOL. It was late on a Friday night, and I just couldn’t get up the energy to be charming in a chatroom. A polite guy requested my link (he must have done a search in the member directory) and came back to chat a few moments later.
He was young, but he asked intelligent questions about phone calls, and then inquired if there was anything specific that I wouldn’t do.
I gave him my standard answer: anything with a lot of blood or mutilation, and anything involving human waste products.
“What about choking?” he asked.
I hesitated. “Real choking or fantasy choking?”
“Maybe a little of both,” he answered.
“No,” I responded immediately. “No way. That’s too dangerous. And you shouldn’t do it either. That’s how people kill themselves.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a few minutes. Then:
“You’re a professional. Do you know a safe way to do it?”
“No,” I said. “Because there isn’t one.”
I started to add “especially by yourself on the phone,” but then didn’t. I didn’t want to imply that doing it with a partner was any safer.
“All right.”
I was already feeling disturbed. I started to look up some “dangers of erotic asphyxia” sites in case he asked again.
He didn’t. He said:
“Do you think I’m sick because I have that fantasy?”
That question always softens me. I have a special fondness for people who worry that their kinks are sick.
“No, I don’t. I don’t think any fantasy is sick.”
Pause.
“And it’s not an uncommon fantasy,” I added. “It’s just too dangerous to enact.”
“You think it’s okay to fantasize about it?”
“Sure. Fantasy is just fantasy. They’re all okay.”
“So if I called you,” he asked, “would you do that fantasy with me?”
Damn.
I didn’t want to. I should have just walked away from this guy right there. But I also felt a little bit obligated. I realize that believing that any fantasy is acceptable doesn’t imply that I have to play with any fantasy, but I hated the idea that he’d lose that fragile “maybe I’m not sick” feeling.
And deep down, I was afraid – very afraid – that this kid was going to do something stupid. I don’t know why I thought I could stop him, or why I should put myself into this situation at all. I don’t know.
But I said, “I’ll talk to you, if you want. You can tell me about it. We can see how it goes.”
“Fair enough. What’s the number?”
•
He seemed likable enough and he talked to Kristina like a person, not some dominatrix goddess. I appreciated that.
The first question he asked was, “So this is really dangerous, huh?”
I assured him that it was. I told him all I knew about accidental death and erotic asphyxia, including that you can do damage that you don’t even feel until you just drop dead the next day. (I couldn’t remember the details about that, but all I really wanted to do was scare the shit out of him. I wanted him to understand how serious this was.)
Finally I had to ask. “Is this something you’re thinking about trying?”
“No,” he answered. “Not really. I fantasize about it all the time, but I don’t want to do it.”
I was relieved.
“Except…”
“Except?”
“Well, a girlfriend kind of did it to me once, a while ago. I guess it was pretty stupid.”
He started to tell me about the girlfriend. They played dominance and submission games. One night she wrapped a belt around his neck and attached it to a doorknob. She threatened to hang him, he said, and she very nearly did it. He found the experience to be incredibly erotic.
I was getting more and more uncomfortable. I found the whole conversation to be non-erotic and terrifying.
He laughed and shrugged off the memory.
“Have you ever heard anything so weird?”
“Don’t worry,” I tried to reassure him. “I’ve heard much weirder.”
We talked a bit about fantasies and about dominance, and he started to tell me how exciting he found it to submit. He loved the idea of being the plaything of a strong woman, bound, blindfolded, helpless to her whims.
I felt on sturdier territory there. Just your average everyday submissive guy – strip, kneel, kiss my feet. No problem.
Then he started whispering about feeling my hands around his neck. I thought, I have to do this. This is his fantasy. It’s just fantasy, and I believe fantasy is fine, whatever the subject matter. Put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.
One of the reasons I think I’m good at phone sex is that I seem to have the ability to find a way to make the fantasy work for both of us. I’m not always turned on by the same images as they are, but I can usually find an aspect of the fantasy that I like, and use that to get into it with them.
I’ve discovered that a number of men have fantasies based on fear. I don’t mean sensual anticipation, or even anxiety, but genuine gut-wrenching cold-sweat terror. Kristina gets all sorts of requests like this one:
“If I send you a picture of me orally servicing another man, and a few e-mail addresses, would you use them to blackmail me for me to send you money every week so you won’t send the picture?”
I thought it was just a game, but apparently it wasn’t. Blackmail seems to be its own special kink, and at least half a dozen guys have approached me with variations on that same theme. They really like to play with fire, because phone sex girls have their real names and addresses. Apparently fear is a genuine turn-on for them.
So I realized, almost belatedly, that fear must be at the root of the choking fantasy. He wanted to be pushed further and further, never knowing just how far his Mistress would go.
And that was my way in. I started to talk softly to him, to tell him about my hands caressing his neck, wrapping a scarf around him. I soon discovered that choking isn’t what he wanted. He wanted me to threaten to hang him.
I pushed back the revulsion and tried.
“I’m tying your hands behind your back,” I whispered. “You won’t be able to stop yourself from falling, will you?”
“No,” he moaned. “Oh god, no, I won’t.”
“I’m going to blindfold you too,” I crooned. “You can’t see a thing. You’ll never know what’s coming.”
I was really getting to him. He was wildly aroused, groaning loudly.
“Is today the day?” I whispered. “Is today the day I’m really going to do it?”
I got ready for the pleas for mercy, wondering whether I could end the scene or whether it had to go further.
“Yes,” he whispered fiercely, “yes, Mistress, please… I want you to.”
“What?”
“Do it,” he repeated. “Hang me!”
I was horrified. That’s not at all what I expected. I thought that the fantasy was to push him closer and closer to the edge without going over.
I had misjudged it badly. He wasn’t interested in fear. He wasn’t afraid at all. He was anticipating it. He wanted it. He wanted the fantasy of being hung and choked to go all the way to the end.
I tried to ignore the realization, tried desperately to push him in another direction. He wouldn’t go. He pleaded for me to “do it, do it now.”
I was chanting to myself over and over: it’s a fantasy, it’s okay, his kink is okay, he’s not really hurting himself, it’s just a fantasy. I was trying to make myself believe it, trying to keep myself from hanging up on him, trying not to let him see my revulsion.
I have no idea what I actually said in those few minutes, but suddenly he started making horrible noises. Not gasping or moaning, but real choking and gurgling sounds – noises that made me physically ill. Thinking about them still nauseates me. I can’t get them out of my head.
I was frozen, terrified that despite everything I said, he was choking himself on the phone.
It felt like hours before I was able to stop it. I know it was only a minute or two, but it was far too long. I literally couldn’t speak.
“Jason!” I said finally. I was scared silly.
To my vast relief, the noises stopped immediately. It took me another few deep breaths before I was able to say anything else.
“Jason, you’re getting into an area here that makes me very uncomfortable.”
He suddenly sounded perfectly normal and cheerful. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m okay. I’m not really doing it!”
I was so relieved that I was shaking. “Okay.”
He laughed a little bit. “I really freaked you out, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry, it’s okay.”
“Okay.”
A minute or two on how tickled he was to freak out a phone sex girl. Then:
“That was turning me on so much. I really like the idea… the idea of sacrificing myself for my Mistress.”
Oh god. How did I get myself into this?
“I’m almost ready to come,” he said softly. “Please, finish the fantasy with me? Just help me come…”
All I wanted was to get this guy off the phone. I knew that the quickest, simplest way was to make him come. I didn’t want to argue with him. I didn’t want him to tell me why it was no big deal.
So I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and listened to exactly what he wanted me to say.
And then I said it. I told him how I was going to tie a rope around his neck, and how I was going to kick the stool out from under his feet. And I suppressed the violent nausea and told him how his neck was going to crack. That’s what he really wanted to hear. That’s what made him come.
I shuddered the whole time. Even now, writing about it, I feel cold. I can feel the gorge rising in my throat. I don’t know how to shake it.
“You’re open-minded,” he said just before he hung up. “I like that. I’ll call you again.”
Never. Never again for any reason. Some things aren’t worth the money.