It was stunning. I felt a pang instantly and deeply, wanting this girl for myself, for her to stay just like this, so timeless, so assured, but still a hungry student of love. She could be one of the great ones, and that is what she seemed to be saying to me. Her supplication was clear. Teach me, daddy.

She was giddy when I met her afterwards, so eager to feel my reaction. "Thank you for that," I told her, "I am very proud of you" and I meant it - she had just destroyed me, with one of my favorite songs! She crawled onto my lap, her breath like an ashtray dumped into a glass of champagne, slurring into my ear.

"Did you see me touch my pussy, daddy? Did you see me do it on national TV, in front of everyone? I did that for you, daddy...to show you..."

"I know, babyslut. I was so pleased to see that." I couldn't help but frown a little then.

"So you think you are ready, eh?"

She sighed and hugged me. "Teach me, daddy...this is the perfect spot to learn..."

My hand came up behind her neck and I took a fistful of her raven hair, holding her head firm. I bent her face back to mine, feeling her go limp as her throat was exposed to me. The perfect spot for my collar, but a place to learn? I am sure I grimaced with the realizations I was having as I breathed in the smell of her debauched London nightscapes, the doom of super stardom that already seemed her destiny. An intervention was in order.

"Where you should learn is in America. You should come back with me, live in a trailer and get fat on greasy Southern fried food. You should gig for weeks and months on end in sleazy roadhouse dives and motel lounges, for crap pay and boorish audiences. You would be too poor to afford any fancy dope and you'd meet the best musicians in the world, who would be just as broke as you but richer than you could ever be. If you were true to the music, maybe you could earn their respect. You could jam with them and maybe learn a thing or two about jazz, get some wisdom that maybe just isn't available in your English academies and London recording studios. Maybe you could make it in the backwaters of my homeland, where the blues was born, where the only fame that really matters is the tips you got for killing that last number, where you have to prove yourself every night in order to survive. You would grow up. You could pay your dues."

I paused and thought I could hear her blinking, her eyes large and suddenly not so hazy as daddy buzzkill seemed to be sweeping away her girlish dreams and pooping on her party. I let go my hand from her hair and she rolled off my lap, only to turn and confront me.

"Pay my dues? Are you sure you don't just want me all to yourself, to be a Ronnie to your Phil, with a rusting Airstream in the Everglades instead of a Beverly Hills mansion?"

I was calm, resolute in my answer.

"Perhaps. It's either that or you stay here and become a superstar and probably drink yourself to death."

She began to blubber and then weep.

"Oh, daddy, how can I be your slave when I want to go to number one?" She lurched and clung to me in a pitiful embrace. "I need the other boys, daddy...I need to use them to get to the top."

"They are using you, actually," I rejoined.

Low and guttural was her final confession. "I need the drama...I need to be bad..." Her voice trailed off into sobs.

I took her face in my hands and used the sleeve of my yukata to blot her wet cheeks, murmuring the truth to her. "You don't need it, babyslut, you just want it. It is your unfortunate muse."

"I want YOU, daddy!" she wailed. "Didn't I sing Dinah Washington good for you?"

"Yesssss, dear." I tired to reassure her, but I had to be honest. "It was beautiful. But this life is about more than pulling off one good set. It's..." She interrupted me in a flash of quiet sober seriousness.

"Daddy, I can never be your jazz diva." This admission she uttered as if disclosing a fatal infirmity, and to use the parlance of D/s, she seemed to be setting a limit. Then I realized "teach me tonight" is hardly a supplication, it is a command. As Amy began to gush and lobby for a counter future, I had to smile. In D/s lingo, my babyslut was topping from the bottom.

"I'm no good, daddy. I don't want to be your jewel, I want to be your play toy, I want to be your obscene beehive hairdo wearing mascara dripping soul singing baby fuck doll. For real! In the flesh! I want a big tattoo that says 'Daddy's Girl' so everyone can see what I am, all the time. I want to be a beautiful disgrace for you." She straddled my thigh and ground her cunny into me. "I want you to punish me for not being Dinah Washington. I want you to punish me for begging you to stay, for needing you here to love me and hurt me."

How could I resist? Contemplating the sordid path laid before me, I knew then that Amy Winehouse would learn more about the blues than I could ever teach her, perhaps more than I could ever know.

NEXT >