We had spent about four hours walking through Richmond park. It was summer’s parting gift to the otherwise gloomy English autumn. The sun blared down on us throughout the afternoon, permeating through our poorly decided outfits. Mine a chunky knit jumper (loose sleeves, boxy fit, thank God), grey pleated skirt, tights, and platform boots, my cousin, an all-black outfit and leather gilet. We trekked through the enormity of Richmond Park, passing ancient, overarching trees, small lakes and brooks, and wispy wild grass. After a few hours of walking and equipped only with water, we decide to make our way back to Richmond high street for some post-hike retail therapy and a little wander. Both wearing boots, our feet are starting to feel it, toes and heels feeling pinched and rubbed. After finally finding a bathroom using the large park map situated by one of the many car parks (come on A level geography) and with growing cognisance of our dwindling phone batteries we head off. The map app says it’s 2.9 miles to the high street from our location in the park, and with just our sugary pumpkin spice latte’s from the early afternoon fuelling us, we trudge along.
Starved and most importantly, ready to sit down, we decide on a little Italian restaurant along the high street to satiate our hunger. We sit outside Pizzeria Portofino at one of their small rustic tables, and as the evening softly arrives, we grow increasingly reliant on the overhead outdoor heaters. We order a bottle of red and a pasta dish each. We have now arrived at yap city, filling up each other’s glass when its burgundy contents seemingly diminish. Taking a break from our conversation, we notice an older woman sitting at the table beside us, wearing a chicly dishevelled blonde bob, cherry red lipstick, and a big black wool jacket. As she sits nursing a large glass of white wine with ice, she audibly huffs, and me and my cousin look at each other. She looks over and starts to make conversation, asking if either of us our married, to which we answer no. “Can I give you some advice” she asks, to which we both enthusiastically nod our heads, “never lose yourself to a man”. We listen to her with almost a kind of reverence and take this in. She is clearly a woman who has lived a colourful life, you can tell by her grandeur.
She tells us of her affair with her tutor at university, a younger man who at the time was 24, and she in her late 40s. “I fell in love with my tutor” she says, strikingly and still starry eyed. She tells us she’s supposed to meet him tomorrow for the first time in 15 years as he’s visiting London. She sits back further into her chair, pausing to take a sip of her ice cold wine. She huffs again and changes the subject. We weave in and out of various topics when a gentleman distracts her from her conversation with us, midsentence. As he takes a seat opposite her, me and my cousin return back to our conversation and yummy dishes.
As I’m deep in discussion, I can’t help but feel the eyes of a stranger. I try to ignore the man and his gaze in my periphery as I attempt to finish my sentences. In all honesty, I hadn’t had a man stare at me so brazenly in a little while and the very gall of it was distracting me to the point that my sentences were broken up with long ‘ums’ and ‘anyways’. Sadly, it wasn’t distracting in a fun, ‘when-will-he-just-say-something’ way, but instead in a borderline uncomfortable way. Like it was funny at first, but now you need to lower your gaze. He interrupts my conversation to introduce himself and shakes my hand. I hear the older woman tell him off in parts, because he sounded too boastful in a prior conversation with her. “Well, I’ve had those experiences, I have a suite at The Ritz and live in Mayfair” she bites back. Me and my cousin widen our eyes in exaggeration and eavesdrop some more. Strangers are so intriguing.
This man was alarmingly posh, with a tall stocky frame, Boris-blonde hair, and most likely mid to late thirties. He was not my cup of tea. Again, mid conversation I could see he was staring but tried to ignore it, before I overheard the woman say “if you keep staring at that woman I’m going to get up and leave. Just say something”. No, I thought in my head. He proceeded to catch my attention and asked what I did, where I was from, the sorts. The woman labelled him as one of the world’s best musicians, and he shyly looked down at the table. He was a classically trained pianist. “So, Chloe, what are you in to?” he asked, “Reading and writing” I answered, which was ‘perfect’ as apparently the older woman was a writer herself. He asked me where I studied at university and where I went to school, asking if I enjoyed it before telling me about the awful time he had at boarding school. The conversation then came to an awkward close.
I could hear them going back and forth about something but couldn’t make it out, only the woman telling him ‘he’ll blow it’ if he asks me this certain question I was trying to decipher. Me and my cousin glance back and forth at each other, wondering what will ensue. Eventually, she gets up and leaves, barely saying goodbye. He sits in his chair for a moment, then gets up to go. “Can I ask you something?” he requests, as he goes to leave the outdoor terrace of the restaurant. Based on my prior experiences, what follows from a random man asking this can never be good. “Are you into female supremacy?” he asks, smiley and docile. I laugh, finding it funny that I thought it was going to be an inappropriate question. How silly of me, I think. “Of course,” I enthuse, “I’m a woman, aren’t I?”
In my naivety, I assume he is referring to some notion of (radical) feminism. Matriarchy now! In an instant he is seated again, grinning and staring at me in wonderment. “Really?” he asks, encouragingly. I look at my cousin who is now also smiling and trying not to laugh, am I missing something? I ask, ‘well what do you mean, in what context?’ and he proceeds to tell me that he enjoys being dominated by women. “I’ve always loved it” he grins, and probing further he asks, “are you into that, femdom?” Now his sudden excitement makes sense. He must have thought he lucked out. I insist it is not my thing, and that I have a boyfriend in the hopes that would bring the conversation to a close. My cousin is sat opposite dying of laughter, and the table to the left of his, a couple, look over. Digging, and perhaps hoping he can sway my take on femdom, he asks why not. What happened to enjoying a quiet dinner on a Friday night? Can you no longer having a little chat over some wine without being exposed to the fetishes of a man who has his heart set on finding a female dom before it’s even turned 9 o’clock. Now call me old fashioned, but I do not typically disclose my sexual proclivities over rigatoni, or at least not with him.
When I tell my mum the next day, she looks puzzled, and jokingly asks if I had my trench coat on. ‘No’ I laugh, though it was on the back of my chair. Maybe just the sight of it draping behind me was enough to set him off. Perhaps it was the boots. I later tell my friend over the phone, to which he says I ‘fumbled the bag’. He said I should have known exactly what a man like that meant in an area like that (affluent), and that if it was roles reversed, he would have played along. I laugh, “at least I’d be the one dominating and not the other way around” and we both chuckle.
Reading up about the world of female supremacy later, I reflect on what my friend said on the phone. I think back to the infamous quote from Julia Fox’s memoir, Down the Drain which I devoured this time last year. She wrote, ‘I don’t have experience as a dominatrix, but I certainly have some experience in hating men.’ Though I’m not contemplating becoming a dominatrix (although with the current postgrad job market…), this section of the kink community is interesting to say the least. One anonymous sub in a relationship with his ‘Mistress’ writes “I am so eager to please her that my physical weakness shames me profoundly” (Bala, 2017). Is it bad I find that poetic?
Submissives and dominants aside, if you’re looking for a great Italian restaurant, then Richmond is your place! They’re scattered along the highstreet, and Pizzeria Portofino did not disappoint with great hospitality, generous portion sizes, and even more generous offerings of parmesan. And if the world of subs and doms is what you’re hoping to seek out alongside a bowl of pasta, then perhaps that’s another reason to go. Or really anywhere with rich and repressed men. Me and my cousin finished our evening with gelato from Amorino, giggling from the evening we just had (and half a bottle of wine). When we got back to our homes and wished each other goodnight, she texted me “Ima be dreaming of femdoms and pianos tonight”. Me too, I thought. Me too.
Queencoc0 Talks 
Leave a comment