So, the bondage workshop went very well today....

Monk was also there selling his pretty hemp rope. I like hemp, too - it's just a different type of rope. I was kind of giving him the business because he sells (and plays with) 6 millimeter rope, and I think that stuff is too skinny. I like the 8 mil, which is bigger. "But 6 mil is traditional," he says, looking at me all innocent-like. Cuz, yeah, I'm such a traditional girl, Monk.

A post I saw on another blog reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a friend who's an escort. She's been in the game for a few years now, but I've been in it longer and she likes to get my take on certain aspects of the biz.

"There's this guy," she began. "I saw him once and he was a total jerk. Not scary, but just pushy and creepy and a weird energy. He's been trying to make another appointment, and I was just dodging his calls for a while. But he kept on calling and leaving messages, and I know you've always told me sometimes it's easier to just tell them that you don't want to see them than keep trying to avoid them forever."

I nod, because she's right. Sometimes the jerks will give up and go away, but other times you have to be straight with them. It takes a little judgment to tell the difference, though.

"So, he next time he called, I picked up and talked to him and told him that he made me uncomfortable last time I saw him and that I didn't think we were compatible and that I was sure he'd be better off seeing someone who was a better match for him."

I nod again – this is exactly what I have told her to say in these situations. There's no reason to be nasty about it – it just makes them get defensive. Much better to be calm and polite.

"Well, he wanted to know what he did wrong, and then he said he really wanted to see me again, and would I give him another chance, and" – Wait for it – "that he'd give me a thousand dollars for an hour if I'd see him again." Yep, there it is. The number-one most common response of a jerky client to being 86ed: offering more money.

Not that offering more cash is an inherently evil thing to do. Like Madonna once said, we are living in a material world. And we are definitely material girls. There are some professional conflicts that can be mitigated by money. No-showing for a scheduled appointment, for example: money fixes that. As long as the client pays for the time, I'll happily make appointments with him again. But if you dislike someone enough to actually fire them as a client, it is always, but always, a bad idea to let them bribe you into reversing that decision.

So when she asked me, "What should I do? It would be nice to have a thousand dollars, but…" I shook my head. "Nope. Don't do it. Let me tell you why: you've told this guy "no" about something. If he convinces you to change your mind by promising you more money, what you've taught him is that your "no" doesn't really mean "no". That's a real bad precedent to set with a client."

"And," I went on, "I would be very surprised if you ever got that thousand dollars. Because now that you've taught this guy he can move you around, he's gonna start jacking that figure down. It's a thousand now, but if you say yes, he'll call you an hour before the appointment and say, 'oh, I can only get eight hundred from the cash machine, can he write you a check for the rest?' And then when you get there, it'll be 'whoops, I thought I had eight hundred, looks like I've only got five, and you are gonna stay two hours for that much, right?' I mean, he's not an idiot, he knows the market rate in Seattle and he knows there are other women around. Once he's got you there with him, why should he pay more? He's gambling that once you're actually there, you'll take the money and stay rather than walk out empty-handed."

"Shit," she said. "You're probably right."

"The only way I'd do it is this: number one, make him Paypal you half the money before you ever leave the house. Number two, do it as an outcall - he stays in a hotel, right? Have your boyfriend go with you up to the room, but stay outside in the hall. Go in and collect the other half of the money and discreetly give it to your boyfriend. Remember that there's probably a security camera in the hallway, so don't flash the cash, just give him a hug and slip it in his pocket. Then stay and see the client and have your boyfriend ring the room when it's time to go. And be nice, you know, be good to the guy. This isn't about ripping him off. I mean, you know you don't like him, but if you decide to do it, do it right."

She nodded slowly. "That sounds like a good plan."

"Well, it is, but I really doubt it'll happen, because I doubt he'll agree to the terms. I mean, looking at it from his point of view, even if he's sincere in his offer, he's taking a risk. If he gives you the half up front, how does he know you'll show up at all?"

"I would," she said. "Because taking his money like that and not showing up would be stealing. But I can see how he wouldn't know that I don't steal from people."

"Yeah, I agree – it's very bad karma. But my theory is that he isn't sincere and he doesn't actually intend to pay you any extra money at all, and that's the real reason why paying you five hundred beforehand isn't gonna fly with him." I shrugged. "I could be wrong. But I've just seen this too many times, and it always plays out the same. Test the theory if you want. Just be prepared to walk out if he welshes on the deal. Because if you let him talk you into seeing him again for less than what you agreed to, you're going to be so mad at him, it'll be an awful session, and you'll feel shitty about yourself afterwards because you compromised your own boundaries for nothing."

So – she made him the offer I told her, and he said he'd call her back. Thus far, he hasn't called. Score one for honesty and good boundaries.

Postscript: This guy didn't seem like a violence risk, but this conversation did remind me of my favorite reading suggestion for working girls: Gavin De Becker's The Gift of Fear : Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence "In this extraordinary groundbreaking book, the nation's leading expert on predicting violent behavior unlocks the puzzle of human violence and shows that, like every creature on earth, we have within us the ability to predict the harm others might do us and get out of its way. Contrary to popular myth, human violence almost always has a discernible motive and is preceded by clear warning signs. Through dozens of compelling examples from his own career, Gavin de Becker teaches us how to read the signs, using our most basic but often most discounted survival skill - our intuition.

It's a fabulous book - fascinating to read and extremely helpful in learning to tell who the bad people are...

I'm sort of bummed...my brother is leaving Seattle to move back to Florida on Monday. He's been here about a year and a half and it's been nice having him around. Before that, I don't think we'd lived in the same city since I graduated from high school.
He moved here after living in LA and getting burned out working in the TV industry down there, and I thought Seattle would be a great antidote to LA - such a different energy here.
He gave it the college try, but...things just didn't jell for him here. The type of work he does (and the stuff he'd like to do) isn't so sought-after here. So he decided to go where the ducks are, rather than trying to create something from scratch. I can understand that. He's going back to Orlando, where he's got connections.
I will say that it'll be nice to have him be living nearer our parents - cuz, you know, they get older and stuff. It's not an issue now, but in ten years, well...
We'll be hanging out a bit this weekend - and then on Monday he drives away and I'll once again be the only only member of my family on the west coast.

I'll do a real entry later, but for the moment, a brief commercial reminder...my sweetie is teaching Japanese-style rope-bondage suspension classes this weekend at The Wet Spot. (That means, you tie people up and hang them up in the air. Big fun.)
You need not be a Wet Spot member to attend the class. For more info, check out his website...

I have dinner every week with my very best friend, Miss K. It's sort of a ritual – we go to Hana and eat sushi and teriyaki chicken, and a portion of our conversations will frequently revolve around stuff like, "So, this certain event happened, and I thought it was really weird, but I wanted to hear what you thought about it." Because Miss K and I are very much on the same wavelength when it comes to sensing what we refer to as "psycho behavior".

Right now, for example, she has someone in her life who's struggling to kick drugs, and I have someone in my life who's just…struggling, on a lot of levels. Both Miss K and I are having to work pretty hard to not get sucked into their struggle and try to rescue them, because we are both major control queens who think that if only everyone would just do as we say, then everything would be all right.

I mean, we don't really think that, because we know better. And we know it based on bitter and bloody personal experience, so it's not a fact we'll be forgetting, uh-uh. But that reflex is there, and we have both have to stop ourselves from trying to fix things, because we can't, and we'll just wind up frustrated and emotionally drained.

So I told Miss K about the latest chapter of my struggling friend's story, and she told me about the most recent installments on her end, and we both agreed that boundaries were really fucking difficult things to maintain sometimes. But I'm so blessed to have her as a friend, because she understands me so perfectly about these kinds of things. I can tell her all the un-evolved, bad-boundary-esque things I really wish I could do around my struggling friend and her various problems, and she knows exactly what I mean. And then - glory hallelujah - I'm over it. I stop thinking about it, obsessing over what's not mine to change, and that's wonderful, because I don't need someone else's life, that I have no control over, taking up valuable real estate in my head.

Still trying to get caught back up on my life, which moves at a rocketlike pace even when I haven't been away for a few days. (If you've sent me email or called, and I haven't gotten back, be patient. I'm working my way through the list.)

But my friend Malixe was over at the house for dinner tonight, and he gave me a CD of the shots he took of me at the last Club Medusa show. Here's one I liked of me with porn reviewer/model Jane Duvall...
.
More later…

Well, I'm back, and I had a very good time at Kinkfest. My workshop went well, and BDSM author/activist Patrick Califa attended it and complimented me on it afterwards, which was really nice for me. So yay for that...

Of course, I'm exhausted, both mentally and phsyically. That's pretty par for the course after a weekend-long conference. But I've got to try to organize myself for my week, which promises to be a busy one. For one thing, my partner is teaching back-to-back suspension bondage workshops at the Wet Spot this weekend and I'm going to be helping him prep for that.

And now I need to go start a rough-draft for my column. Oy. I'm telling myself if I work for an hour and a half, then I can go curl up in bed with my cat and read something fluffy and unchallenging, because that's what I'd really like to be doing.

I got a phone call yesterday from an unknown guy who said, "I'd like to book an appointment with you for a really hard spanking."
"That sounds fine," I answered.
"But I'm married and I can't have any marks."
"Well," I said, "that makes it more difficult. I can spank you lightly, until I think you've reached the point where I might leave red marks if I continue, and then stop. Or I can spank you very hard, and you can take the risk of having marks. But I can't do a hard spanking and promise you no marks."
"But I've heard there are ways to it so that you don't get marks."
"None that I'm aware of – at least, none that I'm willing to personally guarantee."
"But, there has to be a way!" He's sounding kind of pouty now.
"As I said - none that I'm willing to personally guarantee."
"What about clothes? What if I wear clothes?"
This is getting tedious. "Look, honey, if there were a simple way to do this, I'd know it, and I'd tell you what it was. I'm perfectly willing to spank you as hard as you want, with or without clothes. But you'll have to deal with the consequences, because there is no reliable way of ensuring that you won't have a red butt afterwards."
"But I can't have marks!"
"Then I guess you can't have a hard spanking." This is like talking to a two-year-old.
He hangs up.
It's nice to be perceived as powerful, but it's annoying when people seem to think I'm God and can alter the basic tenets of human physiology at will.

Interesting new experience today: I went to one of those tanning salons where they have the booths the spray self-tanner on you. I've done self-tanners at home before, but I've wanted to try this, and since I'm going to be prancing around in skimpy outfits -or less - this weekend, I thought now would be a good time to check it out.

The setup had a slightly kinky feel to it…you go into a room with a big metal booth it. You take off all your clothes, obviously, and step into this steel box and shut the door. You have to position yourself exactly so, and then you push a button that activated this row of nozzles. They rotate up and down, spraying a fine mist of chemicals for (I think) about thirty seconds. Then it pauses, and you turn your back to the nozzles, and then they spray your back.
The bad part: It's cold as shit, for one thing, and I was also trying to hold my breath as much as I could, so I inhaled as little of the chemical as possible. And of course I'm trying to stay in position properly so I don't get streaks or white patches. The noise of the machine is kind of loud and it reverberates around in the metal booth. So it's kinda creepy.

But I'm pleased with the results…It looks nice and even and not orange-y at all. (One small note to self: next time, lean forward slightly when getting your back sprayed, so you don't get faint white patches under your butt cheeks.)

And while self-tanners never look quite as good as a real tan, this won't turn my skin to leather and give me cancer. Unless I inhale too much of it.

Cool self-tanner resource for other vain types like me..Sunless: Your Sunless Tanning Guide

Shitshitshit I am sooo not ready to go to Portland on Thursday! RunErrandsFinishColumnFinishWorkshopSeeClientsWorkoutPack – aaaaahhhhh!

(It'll be fine, it always is, breathe, Matisse, breathe…)

Sunday is not a day of rest around here...I need to pay some bills online (I love that, so convenient), shovel out the pile of papers that's completely masking my desk, and try to do something about the many stacks of books on the floor that have turned simply walking into my office into an obstacle course.
I love books. No, I mean I really love books. And I have way, way too many of them. Every inch of wall space in my office is covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, they're all jammed full, and there are two large plastic storage boxes overflowing in a corner, and then there are several knee-high stacks against one side of my desk. If we have another earthquake, anyone standing in the room directly downstairs from my office will buried in my books as the ceiling caves in.

And this even after I just unloaded three good-sized boxes on Half Price Books earlier this week. (Of course, I bought another armful while I was there, but hey, it was substantially fewer than I came in with!)

I'm going to have to start storing some of my books in my office at the studio, but...I like having all my books with me all the time. I'm weirdly...I don't know - sentimental? Superstitious? Something. I mean, what if I'm home and I want to read one of them and it's at the studio? What if there was a fire? I know, this makes no sense. It's bibliomania. But hey, there are worse addictions to have. Like, say, teddy bears. Or unicorn figurines. That would be terrible...

A small rant about fetishwear shopping online…

So, a very sweet client generously gave me a substantial gift certificate to Demask, which is a fetish store in NY. I'm sure it's a very cool place to shop in person, but since I'm not there, I'm trying to shop on their website, and Jesus, it's a nightmare. The whole thing is hard to navigate, they won't let you open links in new windows, the pictures are very small and unhelpful, and they don't have pictures at all for a lot of their merchandise.

And this is high-end stuff, too – I really expect better in this price range. Hey, you want me to spend five or six hundred dollars on a single piece of clothing, then I want to see big photos, from all angles. God, places like Zappos and Bluefly have way better navigation and photos than this. It's sort of amazing that it's so badly done.

On the plus side, they were very nice about the fact that this GC is over a year old and I have lost any paperwork I ever had for it. I'm remembering now why I never used it - it's because the website was so impossible to deal with. (The paper catalogue is equally unhelpful.) But they had the paperwork on file and were very polite about agreeing to still honor it. So: Demask customer relations, thumbs up, Demask website design, thumbs down.

I am not a person who tends to rank things hierarchically…Either I like something (or someone) or I don't, I don't put them into lists based on how much or how little…
That being said – I had a client today who is definitely on my "like" list. He's just a great guy – smart, funny, and fun to play with, both because of how he responds to me and because he's always willing to try new things. He and I were trying to decide how long we've been seeing each other and we figured that it's since the middle of 1999, so we've really gotten to know each other, which I value. It was a nice way to end my week.


Speaking of getting to know people…Last night Jae and I went to a somewhat unusual social event. There's a group of people who get together periodically to sing karaoke and socialize in different bars. The unusual part is that these folks are all sex industry workers and, shall we say, the men who admire them. Nothing sexy actually happens at the bar – it's just a social mixer, as it were.
I don't usually attend stuff like this, because for one thing, I'm just too damn busy. And besides, I put myself out in the world a fair amount. I usually feel not-so-interested in attending yet another event where I have to be "on", if you know what I mean. I mean, they're all nice people, I'm just not so into hanging out in a bar and I am definitely not going to be singing!
But I've heard good things about this group, and one does feel a certain obligation to show the flag occasionally. So I called Jae and said, "We're going - I'll pick you up."
Well, the smoke about killed me, my throat was sore this morning when I woke up. But other than that it was fine. I saw some people I knew, met some new folks, all quite pleasant. Several of the women were extremely sweet to me, and told me how much they liked the column, which is always nice to hear. But after about an hour I could feel my throat getting raspy and I thought, "I have to get out of here." So we split.
But I was thinking about it afterwards. It's really kind of a trip, because when I first started in the industry, you would never have found something like that. I mean, the idea of socializing with (past or potential) clients in a group situation like that, not for money, but just because they're nice guys (and also because it's good long-term marketing) was completely unheard of. Of course, this is all simply a statement of my personal experience. But my experience is pretty wide.
That's all really changed, and it's been interesting watching the evolution. The internet, and email, has made it possible to organize social outings like this without much difficulty, which is cool. The sex industry is extremely flexible and it adapts quickly to new cultural forces. That's one of the things about it that makes it an interesting place to work.

Speaking of weird phone calls…my column this week got rather brutally edited down. Wah. I hate it when that happens. However, I'm thinking it was for length, rather than as a statement of my editor's poor opinion of my literary efforts. All the line breaks I specified take up a lot of room.
But for my devoted readers, I will post the entire version, uncut, here….Read and (hopefully) enjoy.

Someone just called me on the biz line, whistled "Deck The Halls" - you know, "with boughs of holly", the Xmas song - and then hung up.

He did have some trouble with the higher notes on the "fa-la-la-la-la" bit. That part needs polishing.

Weird-o-rama. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

I'm feeling a little frustrated right now, because I wish there were two of me. One of me to attend to my regular daily life, and one of me who'd get to play with all the tempting boys and girls who are throwing themself in my path lately. (These would be personal partners, not clients.)

There's the sweetest little dark-haired girl (Okay, she's thirty, but she has a very girlish air about her...) that I've played with twice, and I'd like to do it again, but Jesus, I have no time. To be fair to myself, she's pretty busy too. But there are just so many scrumptious people that I don't dare let myself get involved with, because I really don't want to hurt their feelings when I don't have time to see them on any kind of regular basis.

I know, I know - it's a nice problem to have, isn't it? Too many cute potential partners and not enough time for them all. Sucks to be me, I know. And it isn't as if my daily life is boring drudgery, either - quite the opposite! I love what I do for a living, I'm getting some nice attention to my column, and my other writing is going very well.

But I do get frustrated sometimes, because I can remember a time in my life - oh, ten years ago - when I had oodles of time for different partners. Of course, I don't want to give up all the things I'm doing now that are taking up all that previously-free time. Greedy, aren't I? It's part of my charm.
I tell myself that life goes in cycles and I'm just in a very busy career/creative cycle right now, and in time the wheel will spin and I'll have more space in my life for secondary/play partners.

But it's damn hard to wait.

I would like to give Howard Stern and Mel Gibson a lap dance...

All right, some small measure of my faith in humanity has been restored. She (for it was a she) did, indeed, apologize promptly when I told her that Mistress Matisse = Marcella. And, at my suggestion, she wrote to my editor retracting her accusation.
This the second time this has happened, though. And wow, it's very annoying. Both these people seemed so sure that I was NOT Marcella. Now as I see it, the intelligent person's thought process should go something like this: well, gee, Marcella and Matisse are both caucasian women with brown hair and brown eyes with a similar build and facial structure and they seem to be more or less the same age. They're both in the sex industry. Hmmn, maybe, just maybe it IS possible that they are the same freakin person.
And it's not like either person wrote to me and simply asked me if I was Marcella. No, they both just assumed they were right and wrote me (and my editor at the Stranger) snarky emails accusing me of plagiarism. Jump to conclusions much, people?

Sigh. Okay, okay, I'm over it, really. Just had to rant a little more...

Geeze. Some twit just sent me an email accusing me of plagiarism. Only it's me that s/he thinks I'm plagiarizing.

You see, I've done writing and given interviews under other names - one of them being "Marcella" which is the name I used when I was a dancer. So this bird reads my column this week in The Stranger, which is about my first sugar daddy. They remember something else he/she has read. (I don't know the gender of my accuser, they didn't sign a name to the email.) They go pull my friend Erika Langley's book off the shelf and read me - as Marcella - telling the same story in only slightly different words. They decide that Marcella and Mistress Matisse can't possibly be the same person, and they send me (and my editor) an email accusing me of plagiarizing.

Good god...I mean, there are freaking pictures of me in the book! Yeah, I've changed - I'm seven years older, my hair is longer, and I'm slimmer - but my coloring and my face are the same. I'd hate to see this person trying to pick their mugger out of a police lineup...Bad visual skills.
So I wrote them back explaining their error to them, and I was more polite than I think they really deserve. We'll see if they apologize. I bet they don't...

I (mostly) ran two freakin miles at the gym last night, and now my legs are letting me know how much they really don't appreciate that. I'm groaning like an old man every time I stand up. Fuck you, Covert Bailey, you sadistic bastard.

I've never been much on cardio - I have slight exercise-induced asthma, so I've avoided it in the past, focusing instead on weight-training. But the meds I'm on now seem effective at preventing me from having a real attack, so that's cool. But what I wanna know is: how long before I get used to the running and don't hobble around the next day looking like an old Tim Conway comedy sketch?