Looking back, it's astonishing to realize I've seen more than 610 expatriate men naked here in Shanghai.
Naked not just in the physical sense — though that, too — but stripped bare of their masks, pretenses, and carefully curated identities. When they step into my domain, they leave behind the illusion of control and enter my world, where I dictate every detail. I am Alessandra. Shanghai's dominatrix. Their confessor, their punishment, their release.
And yet, one of them has haunted me more than most.
He came to me a submissive, fully and irreversibly. His kink isn't novelty — it's need. He is turned on by humiliation. Not roleplay, not mild teasing, but real, visceral degradation. He doesn't want to pretend he's small. He wants to feel it, believe it, and be reminded of it. And I gave that to him, flawlessly.
He once told me, in a moment of unguarded honesty, "No woman would want me if she knew who I really am." And I believed he believed it.
Out there, in the real world, he plays the role well. Educated, successful, even charming — on the surface, a catch. But he lives in fear of being seen. Truly seen. And when he kneels for me, it's not just physical submission — it's a surrender of his shame. His dilemma becomes evident: to be known is to be rejected, and yet to hide is to suffocate.
Over the course of our sessions, I came to know him more intimately than most lovers ever know each other. I know what degrades him, what breaks him open, what humiliates him into arousal. I know the exact tone that makes his knees go weak, the words that crush his pride and flood his body with want.
But I also saw beyond that.
Despite his need to be humiliated, I couldn't ignore the way he looked at me with quiet reverence. I couldn't ignore the way I felt drawn to him — against all better judgment. He is sexy. Not in the traditional sense, but in the raw, wounded, human way that makes something inside me soften. And that's the complication. That's where his dilemma became mine.
Because when I think of him now, I struggle.
I shouldn't. He is just another submissive — number 611. But he's not. He lives somewhere in my imagination, and in those moments of weakness, I miss him. Not the broken version of him — the one that begged to be stepped on and shamed — but the possibility of a different version. One who owns who he is. One who stands in his submission without guilt. One who knows that being vulnerable is not the same as being unworthy.
So I made peace with it. I made a reconciliation with myself, and with the ghost of him I still carry.
When I miss him, I don't reach for the man who knelt and sobbed. I reach for the version I've crafted in my mind — a better version of him. Still submissive. Still mine. But proud. Whole.
It's strange, the things we inherit from those we dominate. His dilemma was never mine to carry. And yet, I do.
But I carry it on my terms.