First, a quick digression for New Yorkers into costuming or sewing:

Check out the fabric store Paron, especially their 50%-off Annex next door. I’ve been twice lately and it seems like an oasis in the fashion district, which I find expensive and overwhelming. When I moved here I didn’t know a crepe from a georgette from a charmeuse. I have trouble remembering whether rayon is a synthetic. My grandmother had taught me to sew, a little: I had made a skirt once, remembered how to slipstitch and press a hem. But when I picked up the hobby as an adult I did not (still don’t!) really know how to sew.

Sewing from vintage patterns — especially blouses and shirtdresses — has given me the utmost respect for the women of the New Look era. If only it weren’t the painstaking details I fetishize: the carefully pressed plackets and pleats at the cuffs of a shirt, the doubled buttonhole of a French cuff, the crisp- but not stiffness of a properly interfaced collar.

I notice these details in menswear, too. I am a casual dresser and no couture snob (I shop at H&M, for crying out loud) but I do see some fabulous suits in my line of business.

Tips on buttonholing (I shall now arbitrarily verb my nouns!) are much appreciated. I adore my machine but on buttonholes it’s sloppy. Women used to send out their garments to sewing shops — is that ever done anymore? Would they laugh at me? I’ve got probably three projects that need it.

Where’s all this time coming from? Well, this week I didn’t have as many shifts as I am accustomed to, due to all the hot young things hired lately. One must be zen about the ebb and flow of sex work, but this particular trend kind of sinks my heart. The structure of a dungeon like mine is not conducive to regulars. Like dishes on a menu, the house wants you to try us all. That’s fine with me: it spares me from clients desiring deeply meaningful D/s relationships, for which I am neither interested nor equipped; and if there is a lack of old, it often means a stream of delightful and new.

Apparently the downside is in my decreasing value. The dungeon at which I work markets itself as “polite”, as “sensual”. Most of my clients aren’t into pain or elaborate bondage — you know, the things I’m best at. Many want inexperience, as if it lends authenticity. We are often more valuable for our novelty than our talent.

None of this is wrong. It is just… an unfortunate system for me. My physical appeal does not exceed my talent. I’ve been there more than a year, and I’m starting to think it really is time to pick up that second job. Let us hope I am wrong and my boss has simply overhired.

Posted in pro domination, sex work, domesticity, costuming