Picture this. It is Saturday night and I am spent after a long week, scrolling through vegan recipes in bed (I am not vegan, though I do have a weakness for a vegetal forward dish now and then). Dinner plans are floating in my head when my phone lights up with a well written enquiry.

Ned. Thirty five, six foot six, eager to see me bound in rope. The first thing I noticed was his need to mention his height. A small detail, but it told me he had read my profile closely, noticed my own six foot four frame, and knew I would appreciate the dominance of a taller man. It is funny, enquiries are all so personal and so different. It might be my favourite part of meeting someone new, seeing how they choose to put their first foot forward. It always tells me so much.

I am not one to cancel Saturday night self care for work, but something about the way he asked had me intrigued. I told him I was dressing down, and he replied that he would be too. A quick shower, an outfit change, and my newly gifted Reh Studios bag (thank you, Mr V) was packed with restraint. Inside went my small collection from my favourite adult store, High Tide: bondage cuffs, thigh cuffs, ankle cuffs, a chain and collar. He had hinted he had toys of his own but wanted me to bring mine for a side by side.

The car ride over was a blur of limits, boundaries, wants and expectations exchanged by text. By the time I arrived, I felt already undone by anticipation. Ned was waiting out front. He wrapped a hand around my head, pulled me into a kiss that was anything but subtle. Bold. I will admit, I am a sucker for a display of public affection, especially when it is carried out with such intent and desire. I am hot, you are hot, he is hot, it would be a shame for the stranger walking by not to get a taste of what was to come.

Upstairs, he asked me to unpack his toys beside mine. The familiar collection spilled out: rope, restraints, duct tape, each piece heavy with promise. And then, to my surprise, an anal hook. I froze for a moment. My face betrayed me. Curiosity. Excitement. Joy. He caught it instantly and smiled, as if he had been waiting for that reaction all along.

What followed I cannot fully reveal. Rope slipped around my throat, tape sealed my wrists, his voice firm as he commanded me to spit. The hook pressed inside, the pressure sharp and steady in all the right places. My body was bound, my movement gone, yet I was calm. Unnervingly calm.

For the first time in a long while, I was not thinking about my body, my identity, or the relentless weight of what the world demands of me. I was not thinking about performance, about composure, about control. Instead, I felt what I had written about before, that rare moment of surrender. The kind that does not make me weaker, but sharper. The kind that allows me to pause, to be present, to reinvent myself in the stillness of restraint.

There was only the drag of rope, the weight of tape, the stretch of steel, and the sound of his breath above mine. Only the pressure. Only the stillness. Only the racing of my mind.

Time blurred. What was meant to be three hours unravelled into six. Waves of tension and release, his hands alternating between control and care, left me breathless and undone. I lost track of where I ended and he began, my body caught between ache and anticipation, my mind suspended in a haze of restraint and desire.

By the end I was in the shower, him washing my hair as though I were something fragile, my body aching, my head light. The contrast was almost unbearable. Moments earlier I had been bound and silenced, now I was tended to with a gentleness I rarely allow myself to receive. He kissed my forehead, called me his good girl, and reminded me of my beauty in a thick British accent.

As I left his room, my head was spinning. Not just from the ache in my body or the rope marks on my skin, but from the calm he left behind. For hours he had given me something I rarely encounter in quite that way, a balance of chivalry, caution, creativity and control. All of my clients hold these qualities in their own ways, but each balances them differently, leaving their own distinct impression on me. With Ned, the way it all came together felt uniquely special, and unlike anything I had experienced before.

Dating, if I am honest, has been nothing short of a horror show. Endless swipes. Empty messages. Men who confuse height with strength and bravado with depth. On Hinge, I feel like a curiosity, never quite met, never quite understood. Yet here, in a hotel room with a man I had never seen until that night, I felt more cared for, more challenged, more alive than I have on a dozen failed dates.

And that is what stayed with me. Every client I meet teaches me something, about my worth, my boundaries, my hunger for connection. Sex work is so often shamed, and yet it has been my way of reclaiming power, of becoming the woman I once only dreamt of.

And still, there is the question. Who else is out there? Who else will make me pause, surrender, discover? Who will draw out the parts of me I have not yet touched, the edges I have not yet explored? These encounters remind me that my work is not only about pleasure or performance, but about uncovering pieces of myself I did not know were waiting.

Pieces that are worth being found.