Fun fact: Multiperv had me edit and voice a short piece he wrote for a kink convention class. It sparked this entire story… which was only supposed to be a quick short but turned into a long novella. And it’s awesome!
Another fun fact: Multiperv objected to the cover because he couldn’t see the dominant female’s face. Further, he felt that Pierre would not want the cover to showcase him, either. I laughed and told him that I’d put a caveat in the author’s note (which I did… and you’ll have to actually go to the preview to read it!).
At the age of forty-three, proud service sub, Pierre Jonker, goes on his very first interview. What could go wrong? With a glowing letter of reference and twenty years of service experience, he is full of confidence.
But Pierre is in for a surprise.
He learns that he must compete against eleven other applicants just for a chance to win an interview and service Lady Crimson. All but one of his fellow competitors are much younger and in great condition, but do they have the talent and technique you can only get after decades of experience?
The battle is on!
Perhaps Pierre would be wiser not to challenge Lady Crimson when she strays from power exchange protocols, but he is compelled to face her wrath even if it blows his chances of winning.
As the competition continues, Pierre naturally excels but grows ever more frustrated by Lady Crimson’s lack of behavior befitting a Domme.
Will Pierre walk away from the competition?
Will Lady Crimson kick him out?
Who will win… if anyone?
A psychological power exchange battle from the kinky mind of B.J. Frazier.
Severe Content Warning: B.J. Frazier books contain *plots* and *well-developed characters*
A Legend in Kink Art
You may not know the name Dirk Hooper but I’ll bet you’d recognize his artwork. I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with him in the past, and I’m in his femdom authors group, but I had no idea of his widespread reach of fame!
Dirk is featured in the April issue of Darkside Magazine, which is a magazine for fetish and BDSM lovers. The issue is over 100 pages and contains interviews, articles, artwork, and more… and also includes an in-depth interview with Dirk Hooper.
Not only is the interview interesting but it contains Dirk’s artwork, with an extra spread of images. There’s also a [broken] link to an awesome two-minute video clip of how one of Dirk Hooper’s pictures gets created. It’s condensed from eight hours and well worth your two minutes.
I say broken because the link was split in the article, thereby adding a hyphen that is not part of the actual link. If you get the issue and click the link, remember to remove the extra hyphen. Or you can click this link and go directly to the Twitter post.
Time-Sensitive!
Here’s the best part–Darkside will give you this issue for FREE if you email them. It’s for a limited time only, so make sure you do it now. Here’s their Twitter link to a free issue.
Enjoy; and let me know what you think!
This just in: Dirk will be releasing his first ever femdom comic! Check it out here.
Update! Thanks again to Multiperv, rubbug and toymax for testing out a new chatroom to host our book club.
Happy and excited to report that we’ve found one! We can move forward… I’m looking at Tuesday, April 11th during the day, Eastern Standard Time. I will be sending out an email shortly with more information to those of you who have already signed up.
How in the Heck Can I Join?
“I liked and reblogged your Book Club post” in smedia; did I join? No, sorry. I am not monitoring those posts. [If someone reblogs and/or posts his own Book Club post, it creates new permalinks, and I cannot access and monitor all of them]
If you want to be a part of the online book club, please contact me in any of the following places. Also, send me your email, the username you’ll be using and what days/times EST work best for you.
bdsmlr ~ Not Safe for Work
Tumblr ~ Questionably Safe for Work
Twitter ~ Safe for Work
TwitterNSFW ~ Not Safe for Work
FetLife ~ Safe for Work
Right Here ~ Safe for Work
Remember, you have a say in what book we will be discussing first! Right now, the frontrunner is “Caught in Chastity” but you can change it by voting in the poll.
BDSM Checklists are FREE!
If you haven’t heard, I created two BDSM Checklists to initiate communication. One is grouped by fetish and the other is an alphabetical listing of kinks, and both have places for you to fill in additional ones.
Make sure you check out the Checklists!
Warning Against Video Tellers – B.J.’s Bank Rant
If you had a bad day, I’m sorry. I’m not quantifying that my rant is worse or better than what you’re going through; I’m saying misery loves company. So if you’re in the mood for spewing, “What the fuck?!” and “Are you fucking kidding me?!”, then settle in: I’ve got a story for you.
Background
I recently learned that not many European countries have drive-thru bank tellers. It’s a combination of an ATM and talking to a live teller, as you would inside a bank; except you drive your car through it, much like going through a drive-thru fast food place for “take away”.
For decades in the U.S., a bank’s drive-thru was easy. You pulled into a lane, opened a drawer, if you were right next to the bank, and the teller opened it on her end and performed the transaction. You got a receipt through the same method, or cash back if you asked for it.
If you were in another lane, instead of a drawer, you sent and received items through a tube that was sucked through a channel between you and the teller.
The Present
Nowadays, everything is digital. My bank has been undergoing major renovations. One of which is to switch from a live drive-thru teller to a video teller. No longer do you get to talk to a person who is live and working at the same branch. Instead, an image of a video teller appears on the screen.
What they don’t tell us was that this video teller is centrally located and handling ALL of the branches in the area. My first time, I was first in line with no other cars around, and I got pissed quickly (you may have heard that I am NOT friends with “patience”) when no image immediately popped up. Mind you, there was no message, either, saying, hey, you’re first at *this* location, but there are several others waiting ahead of you all over town.
Anyway, my first encounter with a live video feed went well. He walked me through that first transaction… and I understood that if I had a bank card, I’d be able to use the drive-thru much faster next time.
The next time I went–earlier this month–I stopped by to deposit on my way to the airport. Pulled up, first in line, had my card, knew what I was doing, and deposited checks into my personal account. Bingo-bango, everything went like clockwork, and it printed the receipt.
I was even impressed, when I searched for my business bank card, that the machine beeped at me and flashed a message, reminding me to remove the bank card from the previous transaction. Huh, I thought, technology’s not so bad.
Then came the second transaction. I put the bank card in, entered my PIN, and told it I was depositing checks. The machine lifted its opening so I could enter my checks. Which I did.
And then the machine pulled the two checks in a bit…
And then the fucking screen went black!
The only thing on it was a white cursor arrow that didn’t even blink.
The entire thing was completely frozen!
Knowing how I am with patience, I decided not to panic and give it some time. I mean, SOMEone had to be monitoring this machine, right?
RIGHT?!
Nope. That’d be a big fat zero of a response. From anyone.
And nowadays, you can’t call branch directly. So I called the main number, calmly but quickly told the receptionist where I was, that the machine had eaten my transaction, and I needed her to contact the branch to send someone outside to fix it. NOW!
I mean, that seems like a logical thing to do, right?
Four minutes later, she comes back on the line to tell me that she talked with someone at the branch and has anyone come out yet?
Uh, no. No one has been out.
I also inform her that I’m on my way to catch a plane, so I don’t have any time to fool around. I ask her questions which she can’t answer, and she dumps me back into “ignore” (that’s “on hold” for our non-native English speakers).
She comes back on the line to tell me that “they’ve” been notified and are on their way, and she wants me to wait until they get there. I again tell her I can’t wait. And again, I’m put on ignore.
Meanwhile, someone pulls up next to me and is talking with a video teller. I walk over to ask him to inform his teller that my machine is frozen. He does.
But as I’m walking back to my car, I hear the teller say something, to which the guy replies, “I dunno, she just asked me to tell you.”
THE FUCK?!
Well, now that I’m out of my car, I walk into the branch, carrying my phone that’s on ignore. I tell the first person I see to get someone outside immediately and fix the machine.
She looks at me like I’ve made the most absolutely ridiculous request.
To be fair, she was watering plants. Probably not who I should’ve gone to first.
Luckily, the branch manager happened to be walking by and had overheard my request. At the same time that she is answering me, the receptionist on the phone also comes back and they both tell me the same thing:
That the video teller machine is NOT RUN BY THE BANK!
THE FUCK?!
None of the branch’s workers (nor the entire bank, for that matter) have any authorization over the machines. They contract with a third party to monitor, maintain and whatever else they do to the machines.
THE FUCK?!
The receptionist tells me this no-name third party has been dispatched to come to my location and fix the machine, and she wants me to wait until they get there. I again remind her that I need to leave. She says they’ll only be two minutes.
I am calm telling you this three weeks after the event. I was calm with the receptionist at the beginning of the call. I was more demanding when I went into the branch itself.
But when the receptionist told me repeatedly that I had to wait… my professional tone ceased to exist. I have zero patience–yes, in general… but especially so with incompetence.
I told her that this was bullshit (yep, used that naughty word), that it was their machines that malfunctioned, that I don’t have time to wait, and it’s her responsibility to complete the transaction and mail me my bank card back.
Would you believe that she *again* told me I needed to wait? Because she did.
That’s when I yelled. I said you have not heard a word I’ve said. I cannot wait. I have to leave. You have to complete the transaction.
She hung up.
I returned to the branch manager and explained–quickly but nicer–that everything was stuck in the machine and I had to leave, despite being told I had to wait. She took down my information–I was lucky that I happened to know the exact amounts of the checks I was depositing–and made her sign something so I’d have proof later.
And I drove away.
Over an hour later, the bank manager called to tell me that she’d processed my checks and removed a hold on them (didn’t need it but okay), and she had to order a new bank card, which would be sent in the mail.
As for the third party “fixers” who were on their way in two minutes? They still hadn’t shown up!
Lemme repeat–it had been OVER AN HOUR!
Moral of the story: I will never use another video teller drive-thru again. And I’m sharing this with you because I don’t think it’s common knowledge that they’re not run by the banks themselves. Further, these third party companies aren’t monitoring the machines, either, because they had to be contacted by the bank and told of the malfunction.
When I told a friend, she said, yeah, it’s why I’ve never deposited anything at an ATM, because I’m afraid of the same thing happening, and I’d have no way to prove I was there.
And it dawned on me–that’s EXACTLY why I’ve never deposited anything at an ATM. So why I thought it would be different… well, that’s not true. I think I likened it more to a “teller” because they’re calling it video TELLERS. And I even called it “going to the drive-thru” because that’s how they’ve named it. In short, I got duped.
A few days later, I called the bank manager, supervisor or someone above the manager I had dealt with to tell her 1) her branch manager was awesome and did everything right; and 2) that the idiot on the phone needs some serious retraining.
She obviously loved to hear the good things. But when it came to the malfunction and the idiot receptionist, there was zero apology–nay, zero accountability for the breakdown.
Instead, she admonished me for “vulgar language”. To which I immediately said, since you listened to the recording, you know the ‘vulgar language’ only occurred AFTER the idiot provided misinformation and did not listen to me AT ALL. [I said “receptionist”, not “idiot”… but you can handle the truth]
She did acknowledge that fact, said the idiot would be spoken to and retrained, and boasted how good of a job her manager did by releasing 
the funds and mailing a new card. However, there was never an acknowledgment that the third party took forever in getting there nor that the machines had malfunctioned.
I thought I was over it. Problem solved: never use the video tellers again. But as I write this now, I’m aggravated again by the complete lack of responsibility corporatocracy has!
So how did that compare with your situation? Message me and let me know… because misery loves company!
If you’re looking for a much better read, I suggest my latest, “The Service Sub” ~ released today! 🙂
Do you have a kinky question you’d like answered? Use the contact form to submit your question. All questions will be kept anonymous unless you’d prefer to be named.
Thanks for the great questions and comments!
For other kinky advice, check my blog archives.
Happy reading,
~B.J.
