Training My First BDSM Slave Helped Me Embrace My Bossy Side

My First Time is a column and podcast series exploring sexuality, gender, and kink with the wide-eyed curiosity of a virgin. We all know your "first time" is about a lot more than just popping your cherry. From experimenting with kink to just trying something new and wild, everyone experiences thousands of first times in the bedroom—that's how sex stays fun, right?

This week we're talking to professional dominatrix Mistress Eva about the first time she ever trained a BDSM slave.

An ex-boyfriend of mine had mentioned that I should consider doing dominatrix work professionally, but I hadn’t thought much about it at the time. Later, when I was reassessing my career, it came to mind.

I typed “dominatrix, Sydney” into Google, and I ended up at a dungeon called Salon Kitty’s a day or two later for an interview. I started about two days after that. That was it! I’ve been a mistress for six years now.

I grew up in a female-dominated household, and it influenced my perspective on the world, and how I navigated relationships. I wasn’t necessarily that into BDSM sex before I became a dominatrix, but I was definitely interested in the idea of female dominance. Female dominance has always been my natural go-to.

Walking into Salon Kitty’s, I was curious. Inside, there were two dungeons, and a cross-dressing room, a couple of softer rooms, and a medical room. Everything was incredibly dark. There were drapes, and fireplaces, and an umbrella stand full of canes.

First I met with the receptionist, and then I met with the headmistress and headmaster. They asked me about whether I’d ever been in the sex industry before, whether I did full service sex work, and when I could start. They said I’d have to assist one of the established mistresses for a few weeks, watching from the side. It’s kind of a tradition for mistresses to bring apprentices into their sessions to assist—maybe you tie someone up, or put something here.

I assisted this mistress who had a client who wanted to be mummified. I didn’t actually know what that meant. We were in the hugest dungeon in the house, and it was pitch black. There was this guy lying on the stretcher, totally naked. And she said, "Get the saran wrap." We completely wrapped this guy apart from his face. And she started digging her nails into his crotch and nipples, and basically purring at him with all these hints of what’s to come… She was an incredibly talented mistress.

The first time I trained a slave, it was with a client I’d met at Salon Kitty’s a couple of times. He was a foot fetish client: let’s call him Steve. We’d been doing some pretty light foot fetish stuff. This time, he asked for foot fetish, spitting, and verbal humiliation. He came in and showered, and I got everything ready. I walked into the room, and he’d folded all his clothes so beautifully. And there was something about that which triggered something in me. I have a bit of a protocol fetish, and it made me feel really present. I felt respectful of how he’d folded the clothes to respect me. And then something shifted, and I thought, You want this? Strap in, let’s do it.

He was already in the slave position, which is a fetal position, with your forehead on the ground. From that point on, I felt like I could instruct him in a way that I hadn’t done with anybody else before. I told him to kneel, and move here, and suck this, and lick that. This beautiful choreography began to emerge: I would shove my toes into his mouth when he was on the ground, or restrain him and dangle my feet in front of his face to tease him.

At the end I told him to come on my feet and lick it off, and he started to cry afterwards. That had never happened to me before. The power of being able to bring out that kind of an emotional reaction in him was really touching. That’s when I realized the power that I had, and I started to think about the experience of slave training from a much more holistic approach. Before, I used to think about clients in terms of sessions, but the experience with Steve was a turning point. I started to approach it more as slave training.

Now I'm semi-retired from dominatrix work, I just choose the jobs that are interesting to me. It would be hard to write a job description for what I do, but I skew more heavily towards the mental domination side of things. I'm further on in my career now, so I tend to only work around four days a month. I'll tour to Singapore, Hong Kong, or Tokyo, and do two or three sessions a day. I've molded my career into something that's not necessarily the industry standard, where you work shifts in a dungeon, but it works for me.

It’s only in the last three years that I’ve been able to say, "I’m a mistress, and I’m good at what I do." Before that I was more uncertain. Like any other job, you only really step into it when you let go of the self-doubt and stop being so hard on yourself. Early on, I used to be quite hard on myself to deliver, but now I just try and approach things as authentically as I can.

The main thing I’ve learned from this job is how to frame desire, power, and dominance in a much healthier way. Particularly when you’re female, dominance is not seen as a good thing. But for me, being a mistress has been an incredible channel to experience desire, power, and dominance, in a way that is healthy, and in a way that I can accept within myself, and that others can enjoy.

As an Asian woman, being quite bossy and demanding can be seen as negative in a social context. It's difficult to have those traits and not experience quite a lot of prejudice—often from my western or westernised friends. So on a day-to-day basis, I tone down that aspect of my personality in my communication with people. But when it comes to being Mistress Eva, I feel much more free to be that side of myself. It's liberating.