Control Tower

Male Fraud

by Mistress Matisse

I’ve said it before: I have some of the best clients a sex worker could ask for. They’re honest, they treat me with respect, and I genuinely like many of them.

However, that hasn’t always been the case. When I first went into business for myself as Mistress Matisse—well, let’s just say there was definitely a frog-kissing period there. Let me tell you about a client I had once, many years ago, who demonstrated a rather creative way of being a chintzy asshole.

He was a Canadian who came to Seattle on business, and I referred to him “the Professor” because, while he wasn’t a teacher, he dressed in tweedy jackets with leather-patched elbows, and his conversational style was didactic, to put it mildly. I think he was probably that way with everyone, but I’m guessing he was particularly pedantic with me. It was his way of emotionally distancing himself from the fact that he was in my dungeon because he wanted to be whipped and pissed on and generally humiliated. I always chat a bit with my boys, especially after the session is over; it helps bring them back down to earth and get them ready for the real world again. But the Professor used our conversations to try to reestablish what he saw as the proper power dynamic. Him, the intellectual, over me, the presumably ignorant sensualist. He’d sit on my couch, fully dressed and in control of himself again, and he’d talk at me, in a condescending fashion, about Art with a capital A, or politics, or philosophy. I say “talk,” but he was actually lecturing me. He had this trick where he’d say, “Well, Matisse, let me tell you something,” and then he’d take off his glasses, rest them on his chest, and stare up at ceiling for 30 seconds or so. He’d sigh heavily, as if the weight of his profound intellectual thought wearied him beyond my feeble comprehension. I was supposed to wait, worshipfully, for whatever pearls of wisdom were about to fall from his lips. Getting him to shut up and leave became the biggest challenge in the session.

In short, he was a pompous, patronizing asshole who was deeply conflicted about his sexually submissive side. After about a half-dozen sessions with the guy, I was ready to shove those horn-rimmed glasses of his up his ass, except that he would have liked it too much. But when you’re just getting started, you have to put up with the less attractive clients. He obeyed my rules and his money was green, so I kept booking appointments with him even thought I thought he was a jackass.

Then one afternoon the inevitable happened: He talked so long that he was still there when my next client arrived.

“Shit. You’ll have to go out the back door,” I said. He went with alacrity, and I laughed to myself. Bet he’ll be out of here faster next time, I thought.

It wasn’t until I was halfway through the next session when a thought popped into my head: Damn, I hustled him out of here so fast, I forgot to collect the money from him.

I was annoyed but not distraught. This had happened a few times before in my career, and the gentlemen in question had never failed to make it right. It’s one of the nice things about having good regular clients. So, later that afternoon, I called him.

“Oh, my, yes, here’s your envelope here in my pocket. Well, what shall we do about this?”

“You can bring it to me next time you see me,” I said. “Or you can mail it to me.”

“Why don’t I mail it to you, dear. I might be busy for a few weeks, I’m not sure when I’ll get down again. Besides…”

He paused. I pictured him holding his glasses on his chest and rolled my eyes.

“Besides,” he said again, “I want to send you some fetish pictures I found on the web, they’re really quite interesting.”

I gave him my P.O. box address and said goodbye. A few days later, a letter with a Canadian postmark arrived for me. A rather odd-looking letter—it seemed to have been sealed in the usual way, but one end appeared to have been slit open and then taped shut again.

I opened it and found a single sheet of paper with a blurry inkjet picture of a nude woman flogging a nude man tied to a spanking bench. Under the picture was written: “Here’s your cash, Matisse. Isn’t this a sexy picture? See you soon. Sincerely…”

But written further down on the sheet of paper, in a different pen, were the words, “It is illegal to send pornography through the Canadian mail. We have confiscated this money.” It was signed, “Canada Post.”

Needless to say, there was no money in the envelope.

I went home and stomped into the living room where my lover was sitting. “Oh, you will not believe what this fucking idiot did.” I showed him the letter.

“He actually believes I’m going to fall for this? He thinks I’m so stupid I’ll buy the idea that the Canadian post office just randomly decided to open this letter, saw this picture, decided it was porn and therefore in violation of some law, and decided they’d therefore keep the cash, but put the supposedly illegal picture back in the envelope and send it on its way. Does he think I’m that fucking dumb?”

My lover pursed his lips thoughtfully as he looked over the sheet of paper. “Yeah, that seems to be what he thinks.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get your money, babe.”

“Money? I don’t give a good goddamn about the money. This is just such an unbelievable insult to my intelligence. That’s why I’m so furious.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Listen to this.” I turned to the phone, hit the “speaker” button, and called the Professor. “Hi, honey, it’s Matisse—yeah, I got your letter. But listen, there seems to have been a problem. Let me ask you a question: Does anyone have access to your mail before you send it out? I’m thinking maybe a kid, or maybe someone who’s just not very smart? Because here’s what happened…”

I then described the contents of the envelope. “Now, of course, no intelligent person would really believe the Canadian post office operates this way. So, like I said, could someone else have gotten to your mail and stolen the money? Someone stupid enough to actually dream that anyone would credit such a story? Because they’d have to be a complete idiot to come up with such a ludicrous idea, don’t you agree? It’s preposterous.”

There was some hemming and hawing on the other end of the phone, but no intelligible words.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to sort it out on your end. Anyone so foolish probably won’t hide their tracks very cleverly. Tell you what, you let me know when you’re going to be in town again and we’ll just handle the money thing in person, all right? Thanks a lot, buh-bye.” I hung up.

That was the last time I talked to the Professor.

Cost of forgetting to collect the fee: $200.

Getting to tell that pompous twit what I thought of his little scheme, and knowing I’d never, ever have to deal with him again: Priceless.