Dominatrix

You can lick the heels of her black knee-high boots or spend a few hours locked in her cage, but no sexual contact is allowed. She'll tie you up and ride you like a pony, but she won't take off her clothes. And you never tell Sara Akeera what to say or do.

Akeera, 26, is a professional dominatrix.

"Male submission arouses me. It's a power exchange and it's intoxicating to the mind," Akeera says. "[Being submissive] just doesn't turn me on. I don't want to come off as a victim or weak. I don't want to serve anyone."

Today she is wearing a black cardigan and a dress down to her knees, but when she meets her clients, she dons a tiny leather outfit, ties on long lace-up boots and shows a whole lotta skin.

Most of Akeera's patrons are men, but a few women and couples also pay her to enslave and humiliate them. Her clients are usually intelligent and play very dominant roles--such as CEO--in everyday life, she says.

"The more evolved a man is," Akeera states, "the more he knows he should be submissive."

All dominatrices, also known as pro-dommes, have a dungeon. Akeera's is in her downtown high-rise apartment. Her equipment includes a cage, a bondage bench, handcuffs, and various whips and floggers.

"But I don't beat people that much," she tells me. "Some clients are not into pain at all and it's completely mental."

The dark-haired seductress has been swearing at men and tying them up for ten years. When she dated as a teenager she turned herself and boys on by treating them badly. "But being a supremacist doesn't make you rude," she claims. "I'm almost always polite."

This dominatrix believes what she does is art.

"I often compare [the human body] to an instrument; it's only as good as you play it," she explains. "And if you know how to play the body, it can become beautiful."

On average, Akeera sees five clients a week and sessions vary from one to eight hours. Each session has similarities: she ties clients up with rope or zap straps; she treats them like human furniture, stepping or sitting on their backs; and she teaches them how to behave, punishing them if they don't.

Sessions vary depending on the Akeera's mood, a client's wants and a client's limits, which are established through questionnaires and emails beforehand. Games include medical fantasies and treating the client like a dog or pony. In her mind, the strangest request Akeera's had is "cruel riding," that is, riding her client like a pony and cutting him with spurs.

"Because it hurts," she says. "It really hurts."

Akeera's favourite clients are eager and do whatever she wants, although most men "want the same old games," she says. "Feminization is very common--dressing them up like a woman and teaching them how to be one. And foot fetishes too--sucking my heels and boots."

Although many women participate in domination fantasies, Akeera is one of the few skilled pro-dommes in Vancouver. But she says that status is insignificant in the rest of the world.

"In Europe, they are doing things that you've never heard of, for example, people in latex bags thrown into a pool."

Research and exploration with her now-fiancé fine-tuned Akeera's dominatrix skills and they decided together that she would hire her services out for a fee. Her partner doesn't get jealous because no fluid is exchanged, she says, but if someone weren't paying, he'd get upset.

Akeera rents her time out for sado-masochist sexual practices on a full-time basis. She wouldn't say how much she charges but says she can "make a living." Other dominatrix websites advertise services for $150 to $300 per hour.

Akeera hopes to be professional dominatrix for at least 20 years. "It's who I am."

If you're interested in being one of her submissives, check out naughtyclub.ca.