"I Have a Secret Life".(personal accounts: women who lead double lives)

We all tell fibs, but these women have elevated truth-twisting to an art form out of necessity...or just for the thrill. Read on as they rely how they con those closest to them--without getting caught.

As told to Britt Kazmac

Brutal Babe Sofia [*], 28

One night five years ago, my mischievous best friend Liz dared me to respond to a job ad in an alternative New York City newspaper for a position at a house of domination. I had nothing to lose, really. Armed with a master's degree in English education, I'd been pounding the pavement unsuccessfully for months, watching my checking account dwindle. After a quickie interview in a garish fuchsia room strewn with whips, paddles, ropes, and gags and complete with a miniature jail cell in the corner, the owner hired me on the spot. Within minutes of stepping in the door, I was a dominatrix. That night, I was thrown into a dimly lit room with a guy who got off watching me step on crickets. (In future sessions, other clients would request that I act out an evil nurse/naughty patient scenario or spank them for their misdeeds.) An hour and a half later, I walked out of the dungeon with $125 in my pocket and an exotic new career. To prepare myself for this new vocation, I rented videos, caught some S&M seminars, and win ged it. In no time, I found my self growing attached to my whip-wielding, leather-clad alter ego. Plus, the money was phenomenal. Dominating an average of four guys a day for three days, I was pulling down $1,000 to $1,500 a week. Five months later, when I finally received a call from a small liberal arts college offering me an evening teaching position, I decided to take that on too. Now, I'm Mistress Sofia by day and Professor S by night.

On a typical day, after an afternoon shift at the dungeon, I tug my pants on over my fishnets and race to school just in time to teach my 5:45 P.M. writing course. At times, shielding such a huge part of myself from my coworkers, friends, and family is a challenge. The only person (aside from Liz) who knows I'm a dominatrix is my live-in boyfriend, Mike, He deals with it partly because he gets the fringe benefit of my sexy getups and also because I don't have sex with the men I dominate. In fact, I don't even take my clothes off, and I have very limited body contact with clients. In some ways, what I do is less promiscuous than being a stripper, at least in my opinion. My parents think I tend bar (I invented a dive in a seedy neighborhood so they would never be tempted to pop in). And of course, my students and colleagues have no idea. Can you imagine? "Sorry, I can't attend the faculty meeting tomorrow. I have to let some guy smell my shoes." I've compartmentalized myself so much that sometimes I no longer feel like one person--and that can be a little scary. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to synthesize both parts of my personality...or hang up my whips altogether. But right now, after almost five years of leading a double life, Mistress Sofia is as much me as Professor S is.

Her Lovers Are Clueless Beth, 30

A little over a year ago, my boyfriend of eight years dropped the breakup bomb, devastating me. Though I worried I'd never recover, within 12 months, I landed a dream job as a flight attendant on a private jet, and I was soon crisscrossing the globe from one exotic place to another. I found myself celebrating Christmas on the French Riviera, sunbathing in Monte Carlo, and riding on a luxury boat across the Aegean Sea. One day, I suddenly thought, Stop pining. Why should I wait for some guy to call when I have access to so many charming and diverse men? So I kicked off a parade of one-night stands without caring whether I ever saw the guys again. It was liberating. I felt sexy, powerful, and desirable. I'd been man-hopping for a year when I finally decided I was ready for a relationship--with four of them.