Ready for Mistress Kayla, The Dungeon.
I came off 18th Street, went up the elevator and entered. It was like a film set or backstage at a theatre. I was stunned by the sense of performance and the level at which the interiors had been constructed, how the walls were painted, and how each room had its own identity — the Versailles room, the medical room, the dungeon. I was fascinated by the ways in which the mistresses chose their clients and the clients chose their mistresses. - S.M.
Client lounge.
Sketch of Floor Plan at Pandora's Box, 1995
Asphyxiation by boot, The Versailles Room.
Pandora's Box client sheet, 1995
Mistress Rose eavesdropping.
Mistress Natasha's Rules I, The Versailles Room.
Over many years I had been looking at enforced violence and the corresponding trauma. At Pandora’s Box I was witnessing the individual’s choice to participate in a violent act. It represented play in a controlled setting where the man could say, ’Mercy mistress’, and it stopped. This was the very opposite of what happens in interrogation cells. I have seen those spaces. These pictures were ten years before Abu Ghraib. - S.M.
Mistress Catherine after the Whipping I, The Versailles Room.
Mistress Delilah's Tender Touch II, The Role Play Room.
Mistress Brigitte, The Dungeon.
Security TV II.
Whipping of Maria I, The Role Play Room.
Entombed by Mistress Kayla, The Dungeon.
Notebook, 1995
Despite the sense of being on the edge, Pandora’s Box was still a safe confined space and I knew the boundaries. The underground slave culture is amorphous and terrifyingly real. Its current could drag you under. There is a subtle process here: you allow yourself to give in and then you have to pull out. - S.M.
Slave Auction, The Dungeon.
Asphyxiation by Mistress Beatrice III, the Medical Room.
The School Room, Ravenswood Academy.
A letter to Goddess Raven from a client
The Dungeon.