Behind the Camera, My Mistress Wasn’t Faking the Blows

Vera had spent five years in the industry and had built a name for herself as one of the most sought-after dominatrices in the catalog. Not because of scandal, but because of method: she never improvised a blow she hadn’t measured first, never let out a humiliation that wasn’t already written on the face of the one receiving it. That morning she was due to shoot with Aldo, a middle-aged, burly, shaved-headed man who paid his bills by letting himself be mistreated in front of a camera.

Aldo’s specialty was a single one, and everyone who bought those videos knew it well: offering his groin as a target. His member was small, almost an excuse, and that was what he lived off. He accepted mockery the way others accept a compliment. The only thing he never showed was his face; for that there was the black leather mask he strapped on just before every take, like someone putting on a work uniform.

—Ready, Vera? —Renata asked from behind the camera, not taking her eyes off the viewfinder.

—Ready —she replied, and turned toward the submissive—. And you, Aldo? Shall we begin?

He nodded in silence. He adjusted the mask with two fingers, checked that the straps weren’t too tight, and at that moment ceased to be the man who had checked his email that very morning. He became something else.

***

The studio had bought a secluded tract of land precisely so they could shoot outdoors without witnesses. A stretch of coast, a dirt path, an empty park. That freedom was gold: they could walk their talent down the street like an animal and no one would interrupt the shoot. That morning they chose the dirt track that ran alongside some pines.

Aldo entered the frame naked, with a wide collar cinched around his neck and a chastity cage fitted over his groin. Vera held the leash in one hand and brushed her hair back with the other. She wore a short, sheer dress, chosen so the camera would capture her without him ever being the center of the image. The center was her.

—Mistress, I want to go home —he recited, dragging his knees through the dirt.

—Silence, dog —Vera snapped, giving the leash a sharp yank that twisted his neck.

She walked him for a long stretch. She tied him to a post for a few minutes and moved away as if she had forgotten him, letting the camera catch the image of the man chained out in the open. Then she untied him and they kept walking. Renata silently calculated how many minutes of usable footage they were piling up; these filler shots were what gave the final video its length.

When they’d been going about ten minutes, Vera led him to a wooden bench and sat down. Aldo knelt in front of her, turned away, offering his backside.

—More —he begged through clenched teeth, true to the script—. Harder, mistress.

She obeyed her own character. Every lash landed on his skin with a clean crack, and he growled, half performance, half truth. Vera knew the difference between the two sounds and knew when one turned into the other. In the middle of the set, without warning, she brought her foot up to the exact spot and kicked. Aldo folded in on himself, the air leaving him in a sudden rush.

—You should be grateful, dog —she said, setting the sole of her foot on his back, pinning him to the ground.

—Thank you… thank you, mistress —he gasped—. I love getting your kicks.

The humiliations and blows continued along the path. Vera especially liked those empty stretches, that sense of absolute power with no one around. When she decided the shot was complete, she looked at Renata and gave the agreed signal. The camera stopped rolling.

***

The break was part of the job. Aldo sat on the bench, caught his breath, and Renata brought him a bottle of water. For a moment the three of them stopped being dominatrix, submissive, and operator, and were once again just three people sharing a workday under the sun.

—It’s gotten hard —Aldo remarked matter-of-factly, showing what the cage no longer contained.

—You call that hard? —Vera laughed, and Renata joined in.

He nodded without taking offense. They were right, and it was part of the character and the person at the same time. Vera handed him a bag of ice.

—Cool it down; we need to put the cage back on —she said—. Cold works miracles.

The ice did its job. Within minutes, the erection had softened enough to fit the device back in place. It was pure logistics, the kind of detail the public would never see and yet that held the whole illusion together.

***

They resumed shooting at another point along the path. This time Aldo got down on all fours and Vera took position behind him. The camera first found his masked face and then dropped to frame the movement. She worked with a watchmaker’s precision: no more and no less than necessary for the scene to feel believable without tipping into accident.

—Hold the position —she told him under her breath, out of character.

—I’m holding —he answered, also quietly.

They stayed like that for a good while, alternating measured blows with pauses that Renata used to change angle. Then came the next break. What made Aldo so profitable was not his anatomy, but his ability to withstand humiliation without breaking, to deliver exactly the reaction the script called for at the precise second.

—You’re the best at this and you know it —Vera told him while drinking water—. Half the men who come here can’t make it through the first take.

—I’ve been doing this a while —he simply replied with a shrug.

***

The final sequence of the day was the most theatrical. They had set up a set that imitated a veterinarian’s office: a metal exam table, cold lights, props for instruments. A third woman, Sabrina, entered the frame wearing a white coat and a face covering that hid half her face, the same precaution he took with his mask. Renata held the camera. Vera directed.

Aldo, lying on the exam table, pretended to struggle against the restraints. His role was that of someone trying to escape something inevitable.

—I’m sorry —Vera said, approaching with studied calm—, but you’ve behaved far too badly. We’re going to do to you what’s done to dogs that can’t be controlled.

—It won’t hurt —Sabrina added, without conviction, because the script required the opposite.

—No —Vera corrected, lowering her voice a notch—. I want him to feel it.

She took from the prop instruments a tool designed to look convincing to the lens without causing any real harm. She brought it close to the submissive’s groin, leaned in, and left him a brief kiss on the mask.

—You’ll serve me better this way —she whispered, loud enough for the microphone—. You’ll be a perfect dog.

The camera first caught the two women and the tool in position, then rose to Aldo’s black leather face. Vera marked the count.

—One… two… and… three!

At that instant Renata played a dry sound effect from her phone, a recorded crunch. Aldo let out a howl and began to writhe in a perfectly acted convulsion, while the lens closed in on Vera’s satisfied face, tool held high. Ten seconds of theatrical agony, not one more. Then, cut.

***

Aldo slowly sat up and removed the mask. His face was soaked and his hair was stuck to his forehead.

—Good take —Vera told him, handing him the water—. That convulsion was textbook.

—I almost believed it myself —he joked.

The three of them sat around the provisional editing screen and reviewed the raw footage, commenting on the scenes between laughs. There, seeing themselves from the outside, it was impossible not to notice the distance between the pain the video promised and the meticulous craft that had produced it.

—I really felt that kick on the bench —Aldo admitted, putting a hand to his groin.

—I overdid that one a bit —Vera said, without sounding all that sorry—. Well, actually, no.

—You’re something else —he laughed.

—Shall we do it again soon? —she asked—. With this video we’re going to recoup the week’s investment.

—We’ll do it again —said Aldo—, but on one condition.

—What condition?

—I want to shoot on the coast. And I want the two actresses I worked with last winter to be there.

Vera took a drink and nodded. No problem; on the contrary, those names sold themselves.

Renata filled three glasses and handed them out.

—To the next one —she said, raising hers.

—To the next one —Vera and Aldo answered at the same time, and they toasted amid laughter, already thinking about the numbers that shoot was going to bring in.

***

That night, in the shower, Aldo let the hot water loosen his tight muscles. He touched himself without urgency, checking that everything responded normally; there were seasons when an intense session left him sore for days, unable to get hard. But this time his body responded well, and as he thought about the next shoot on the coast, about the two actresses, about everything his character would have to endure in front of the camera, something in his head switched fully on. He finished with an intensity he hadn’t felt in a long time.

From the following day on, he decided to wait. No touching himself until the date of the new shoot. He wanted to arrive loaded, tense, with his body primed, so that the performance would be perfect and the surrender total. His life as a professional submissive paid the bills and, as a bonus, gave him a pleasure few would understand: turning pain into craft and craft into desire, take after take, always with the mask on.