A tribute to Grace Marie: Dominatrix, Writer, Artist & friend

I usually use this space differently. Normally, I would update you on My goings-on: new reviews, latest shoots, just announced travel dates–what I’m doing, where you can find Me, and how to be useful, and so on. however, I’m going to take a hard left. For those sensitive to the topic of suicide, I want to give you a content warning up front. 

Today, I want to use this space to honor My dear friend and fellow dominatrix, the late great Grace Marie, who I learned passed away last week. If you’ve been in My orbit for a while now, you might have known Grace, and you might have even been lucky enough to play with her. For those unfamiliar, Grace was a curvy redhead with a gaze that could draw out even the most reserved among us. Our paths first crossed when she began renting at the first dungeon I ran with Ms. Eden Winter named Submission LA (2012-2014), and I could feel immediately that our sparks flew in parallel paths. Vivacious and engaging, I was excited that she had stumbled across our little lair, and after only a short period of time, it felt as if she had been part of our Domme community all along. 

As I got to know Grace over the next months and years, I discovered that we both shared a passion for art making, a proclivity to giggle during session, and a desire to live our lives beyond the bounds of what society dictates. When Grace talked, her voice drew you close, and sometimes she spoke as if she had already lived many lives in her short 30-something years on this Earth. To be in conversation with her was an experience in enchantment, which sometimes entailed suspending your disbelief to fall under her spell. She used this mastery of language to craft beautiful essays full of power, intimacy, and vulnerability that she posted on her blog which she started when we were roommates in 2015. I don’t know if I ever told her this at the time, but observing how she transformed the churning of her thoughts into prose helped inspire Me to start writing a few years later. In what feels like a full rotation, we were both chosen as winners of Slixa’s $10,000 Essay Contest in 2019. You can read her essay here and my essay here on Slixa.

That’s how Grace was: magnetic, boundless, and always finding humor even in the heart of darkness. From 2015-2016, I lived and worked with her at The Decameron–a radical experiment in commerce and community that incorporated myself, Grace Marie, Iris Ichiya, the recently retired Rebecca Knox, and the many Dommes, both local and international, who passed through our dungeon doors. We altered the space to fit our kinky lifestyles, had cleaning slaves to help us maintain order, and threw innovative one-of-a-kind lifestyle events. The Decameron was a FemDom fantasy come to life, and Grace was the lynchpin who helped us get it all off the ground. Over drinks in a dark bar downtown, she was the first person with whom I spoke about the idea. She not only believed in the vision, but she brought the main players together, became its #1 cheerleader, and once we were moved in, acted as our de facto house mom–a bonafide yummy mummy as it were… 

In this liminal space between mundane reality and embodied fantasy was where Grace and I grew close. To get a glimpse if The Decameron lifestyle, I invite you to peruse its archived tweets here. I was always excited when we booked doubles, because irregardless of the sub in question, I knew that she and I would have a blast. One of my favorite memories of us is seran wrapping our dirty sneakers to a willing victim’s face in a highschool mean girl scene. We went all out and no detail was spared as Grace donned a custom-made cheerleader outfit for the role! Radically non-judgemental, naturally empathetic, and impossible to shock, she was someone who danced between the profane and prophetic. Grace used to say that she had “squishy energy” which I think was one of her greatest strengths inside the dungeon. She was secure in her ability to transmute the energy in the room, and no matter how deviant the desire laid bare before her, she would find an angle to enter and make you feel as if she’d been there all along. It was magic to watch, and I feel honored to have shared in the space of BDSM with her. 

Being a part of the Decameron was like living off ether–to quote Kurt Vonnegut “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”. But as our reputation grew, we joked that we became “the worst kept secret in LA”. And so despite our best efforts to stay the course and keep things on track, our little slice of paradise ultimately clashed with the powers that be. It was a time of chaos, fear, and uncertainty, and during this period I often heard myself saying “Hope dies last”, as a sort of dark humor mantra I picked up from Grace. As our FemDom headquarters dissolved she moved out and I stayed on to pick up the shattered pieces. Looking back, this ending was as traumatic as it was inevitable, and it severed us from one another in many ways.  It’s closing not only took away our shared live/work space, but it also popped the delicate bubble of shared reality we had spoken into existence. 

Over the next couple years, our paths slowly diverged–and though we remained friends, we had our own preoccupations and struggles after the Decameron’s closure. I remained wrapped up in the tangle of The Decameron’s legal loose ends long after we moved out, and Grace began to struggle with her mental health with increasing severity. Still, when I would visit her or bump into her at art events, she still wore her same mischievous smirk and searching eyes that seemed to invite you out for a spin…

When I learned recently that Grace had taken her own life, I was in shock. In many ways I still am, and writing this in tribute is a way for me to process my own grief and share her memory with others who have also basked in her glow. For those in our BDSM community who never knew Grace, I want you to know her legacy–and to know what a gift she was to us all. Considering that this is just one small sliver of her big beautiful life, I wonder how many others have experienced her just as, if not more, intensely? How many other memories full of love, laughter, and magic are there of Grace, just waiting for the opportunity to come to be heard?

Dear Grace,

Even when you were with us, you had an otherworldly quality about you–so on the bright side I hope you’re more comfortable now that you’re not bound by the restrictions that a flesh suit (even a really nice one like your’s) requires. But I am sad and I miss you, Grace. And I know that like me, there are so, so many people who already miss you dearly and will continue to feel your absence each and every day. I knew you very much as a communally-minded spirit, and even in your death, I feel your energy gathering all of us together for a big, bawdy goodbye. My heart goes out to everyone who was a node of your wide and wondrous network, and I hope you are in a place to savor the collective love that’s pouring out for you right now. Even though it pains us to see you go, I wonder if you have found your most natural state for the time being: a flow of boundless love that circulates without limits or borders. 

You were always one of My witchiest and wiliest friends, Ms. Grace Marie, and part of me wonders who or what you will come back as next time around. I hope with all my heart that you’ve found peace and power in your transition to your next life and I can’t wait until our paths cross again on this mystical mobius strip. I’ve still so much to learn from you…

Rest in Power my friend,

L