A fine line between pleasure and pain

MELISSA Febos teetered in borrowed 18cm stilettos, towering over the body of a naked middle-aged man.

ebos, whose dungeon name was "Mistress Justine" (after the Marquis de Sade's submissive heroine), began her S&M double life in 2002. By day, she was a top-earning dominatrix; by night, a university student majoring in English.

"I didn't end up at the dungeon out of financial desperation," writes Febos in her upcoming memoir Whip Smart. "I was not a tourist but a member of that world, with reasons for being there similar to those of everyone else: an obsession with power."