I don't purchase many books outright, instead availing myself use of the public library, but every once in a while something comes along that catches my eye. Usually, it's a book that will never ever find it's way onto a library shelf.

That's just what happened the other day while I was at downtown Phoenix's Perihelion Bookstore and spotted a brand spanking new title that called out to me. It was I Was A Teenage Dominatrix by Shawna Kenney and it demanded to be bought. Being the cuckold reader that I am, I had no choice but to OBEY.

A literary 'child' of Susie Bright and Hunter S. Thompson, Kenney's memoir chronicles her life's journey into womanhood, as experienced through the "niche" sex work industry of BDSM/DS. (BD = "bondage & dominance" or "bondage & discipline." SM = "sadism & masochism." DS = "dominance & submission.") No touching (other than with instruments/toys), no actual sex involved - it's a job, not an adventure.

Attending college by day while humiliating men by night (working for an in-call/out-call Dominatrix Service), she takes the reader behind the closed doors of Washington DC, where her powerful clients - often times successful area businessmen, politicians and lobbyists - turn the "reins of power" over to her, quite literally, for one hour sessions, in which they live out their sexual fantasies and fetishes.

Spankings, bondage, whippings and verbal abuse predominate, with the occasional dildo training and golden shower thrown in for good measure. In fact, water sports were evidently Kenney's specialty. She had the mad skills when it came to peeing on men.

As she writes, "Nothing could've been more natural to me. I pee all the time anyway - why not get paid for it?"

Yet, the writing never segues into pornographically graphic descriptions, but is told in a matter-of-fact way softened with a sense of humor informed by a "punk rock" sensibility. (In fact, her lyrical inspiration - in the form of occasionally quoted song lines - comes from the Dead Kennedys and Henry Rollins, amongst others.)

The juxtaposition of her day and night lives also adds a spice of observational humor, such as the passage in which Kenney describes a house party hosted by the Dom-girls and attended by some of the regular client-slaves:

"Some of the slaves would serve champagne and hors d'oeuvres... Doms would do sessions in each of the rooms, and we'd all generally mingle and have a good time. It was NOTHING like the boring frat-parties I'd attended. Women ruled, and I liked that - a lot."

Or what she was learning in school versus her greater education:

"No one could've made me study harder than I did. Days I inhaled Spanish, World History, African-American Literature and Human Anatomy. I collapsed each night afterward, my muscles aching, a book by my side and a new thought to ponder. On other nights I was learning things I was sure my classmates knew nothing about. (How much weight could a set of human balls hold? Is it possible to pinch a nipple entirely off? Professor? Professor? Can you answer me?)"