The weekly column and calendar... Enjoy! See you all at the Bondage Class Sunday...

So, I’m preparing for the class I’m teaching at the Wicked Women conference in ten days: “Pro Domme 101”. Which might also be entitled, “Everything You Always Thought You Knew About Becoming A Professional Dominatrix, Debunked.”

Seriously, I am going to try to touch at least briefly on every aspect that I can think of regarding starting up a business as a pro domme. It’s only 90 minutes, so this will be the Cliff notes version, but hopefully I can make it a learning experience. (If you have questions or suggestions about things you think should be covered in such a class, BTW, you’re welcome to send them in. I don’t promise to answer you all personally, but I’ll consider your input for the class.)

Someone asked me, “I’d love to attend that class, but I’m not going to WW. How come you don’t teach a class like this at Babeland or somewhere?” My response: A.) Why the hell not? And B.) Because I don't want to.

It's an issue of who I want to spend my time teaching. Understand, I definitely don't make big money teaching classes - often, as with WW, I get nothing at all but a comp to the event. So if I teach a class, it's just for the pleasure of passing on my knowledge. And I do feel a certain moral obligation to teach the next generation of perverts, seeing as how lots of patient people shared their information with me when I was just a pup.

But I reserve the right to be picky about who I give my time to. There are a lot of not-particularly-kinky women around who are taken with the idea of being a pro domme because they think it would be easy money. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what I think about that. If I taught a class where anyone on the street with twenty bucks could walk in, I’d get a lot of “show me the money” girls, and they would annoy the fool out of me.

But it’s different at a leather conference. You see, when you teach at a leather conference, you know something about the attendees before you ever stand up and start talking. And what you know is: they’ve made a certain level of commitment to the theory and practice of being a kinky person. They shelled out a not-insubstantial number of dollars to attend the conference, and a lot of them spent time and money traveling to get to it, too. To me that means that they’re willing to self-identify as a kinkster, and they’re willing to mix and mingle with a whole bunch of other people who also identify as such.

Not everyone will do that, and it signifies something to me. It’s not that I have an issue with bedroom-only perves. Hey, however you want to get your freak on is okay with me. Mazel tov.

But if you want to take it into the business realm – well, now I have some ideas about where the bar should be placed for you. You could call it professional rigor, although there’s almost something religious about it for me. Anyone can worship in the church, but if you want to get into the pulpit and start passing the collection plate? Oh, my dear, you got to have the true religion to do that.

So before I start teaching you how to be a pro domme, I need to know that you’ve got faith. One of the ways you can demonstrate an adherence to what I consider to be the basic principles of good kinksmanship (kinkswomanship?) is by going to a BDSM conference. It’s not the only way - far from it. And god knows there are few dangerous assholes (that I know of) who go to conventions. But since I can’t personally interview everyone who attends my class, it’s a good shorthand method of determining whether I am sowing my seeds of my knowledge and experience on fertile ground.

A clarification, because someone asked: I am not "closed for business" right now. I'll be seeing people as usual in my current space until my new space is ready, and then, towards the end of this month I'll move, most likely over a weekend when I normally wouldn't be seeing people anyway. I may take a Friday or Monday off, I suppose, but no more than that. Otherwise, for you, my dear clients, the transition should be fairly seamless.

Consumer porn of the day: Really beautiful couch. Gorgeous.

You should all brace yourself for a wave of non-kinky consumer porn around here, because there's going to be a lot of shopping-for-the-house in the next few weeks. Roman is trying to warn me against going to the Seattle Home Show next month, as he swears that the predatory vendors there can smell new homeowners - and their money - a mile away. But what can I say, it's a fetish. I'm obsessed with my new toy.

Like my gas stove. Now, I have a wood-burning fireplace in the living room, and that's nice, but in the playroom-to-be, there's a freestanding gas stove, which looks more or less like this:



I hate it. I mean, it does kick out the heat, and that's great, but christ, it's so old-fashioned looking. It is un-sexy, to the nth degree. I am thinking about just tearing it out completely, but it seems like a shame somehow, as it's fairly new.

And I did some looking around, but all gas stoves seemed to be similarly ugly... Until I found this one. This is pretty. Of course, it's also hideously expensive. The top one on this page is cute, too, and I'm guessing it's also pricey. My bad luck, to have champange tastes.

Okay, enough house stuff. On a much sexier note: Check out Miss Candy's kinky personal training. It's a niche service, but she's a great trainer, and I'm betting there are some pervy, paunchy boys who'd love her to beat them into shape. Yowza!

Happy New Year, everyone. I had a good 2005, but I’m looking forward to 2006, too. And I had fun bringing in the new year with an intimate little gathering of friends. Big parties are fun, but I just wasn’t up for a seventy-plus-people event after the madness of the last six weeks, so we just had a few close pals. Thus, there are no cage-stuffing pictures this year. (More blasts from the past here.)

We did get a few shots of other fun activities, however. (Note: Pics are not work-safe.)

Here’s a cute boy with a big smile.

And while I can’t see her face, Rossi was probably smiling, since she usually is when you play with her. It's a wicked smile, too.

I myself did not play, preferring to follow my once-a-year tradition of drinking champagne until I am...slightly uninhibited. It’s rare for me to drink alcohol at all, but I allow myself this indulgence on NYE. Still, I was very good this year. I did not forcibly disrobe and spank my attorney, nor did I piss on anyone nonconsensually. Roman and I did sing some show tunes, but you know, I can sort of stay on key if someone sings in my ear. Sort of.

Someone who drank less than I did has decided that my memorable line for the evening was, “Mommy needs some more champagne!” You may have to know me to realize just how lit I must have been if I actually referred to myself as Mommy. And while I don't usually have much of an accent, apparently I dropped back into my Georgia drawl last night, too. Lordy.

So, now that the debauched festivities are over, I’m preparing to plunge into The New House, Phase Two. I’ve got appointments with people to give me bids on new interior paint and new carpet. (The paint guy is someone Max has used before and liked, but if anyone local has a recommendation on a good carpet supplier/installer, I’d be interested.)

Less Fun: I also need to start packing and/or getting rid of everything at the current dungeon. I’ll be moving a lot of stuff, naturally, but there’s a ton of stuff I just need to get rid of. I have a feeling Craig’s List: Free Stuff will be seeing something of me in the next few weeks.

And I’m thinking about having a kinky rummage sale. Seriously. I have all kinds of various weird stuff that I don’t use – in some cases, have never used – and I should just get rid of it. I don’t want to bother with Ebay. I’d probably just make big piles and say, “Everything in this pile is a dollar, everything in that pile is five dollars”… ect. I just want to get it gone.

My next big social events: the bondage party this Sunday. Max’s good friend Tom is coming up to co-present the Exotic Bondage Equipment class, and then there’s party afterwards. The weekend after that: The Wicked Womyn conference, where I’ll be teaching "Pro Domme 101". And I have date to thrash Jae at that event, too - always a pleasure. My life doesn’t slow down much, does it?

While I amuse my family, please amuse yourself with the new column and calendar.

The webpage tackles the question of the ages: How many condoms can you wear at once?
I believe them that you shouldn't try this with a real penis, although I can think of some guys who find tremendous pressure on their cocks to be fun. But I doubt they'd care for the removal process pictured here.

Having my family here visiting really, really distracts me. It's not a bad thing, per se, but you know you're really scattered when you pick up a can of deodorant and spray it on your hair. Thank god I haven't tried to brush my teeth with with my eye cream.

So if you're one of the people from whom I'm being distracted: sorry. I'll be normal again on Saturday.

So, Mom is here, my older brother and his girlfriend are arriving later today, it'll be the whole family fiesta. And they're all very impressed with my new house. Of course, they have no idea what debauched and evil deeds I'm going to be committing in it, heh. They think I'm going to rent it out.

My brother, alone of all my family members, has some slight notion of my alternate persona, because he lived here in Seattle for awhile. Basically, he knows about the column in The Stranger. He carefully cultivated ignorance about the rest of the sticky details.

But then, my whole family does that, which is quite fine with me. I've had people close to me be outed to their families about being kinky or poly or whatever, but if you tried to tell my family any juicy details about my sex life, they'd probably stick their fingers in their ears and go, "La-La-La-La-La-La-Laaaaaa, I can't hear you..." It's a convenient attitude. In fact, years ago, in the midst of our spectacularly unpleasant break up, my ex-husband actually did out me to my mom about being poly. She asked me about it, and we discussed it calmly for about five minutes. And then she sort of sighed, and we started talking about something else. The topic did not arise again until I brought it up three years later.

But all that aside, I thought I was doing a pretty good job of, shall we say, maintaining the boundaries between my lives. But my confidence about that has wavered slightly, because Christmas day, my mother told me that my brother's girlfriend was somewhat intimidated about meeting me.
"About meeting me? Why on earth would she be?"
My mother shrugged. "I don't know, he's told her some stories about you, or something."

Now my brother likes to make a good story out of things - he's an actor and a writer, it's an occupational hazard. But still, that surprised me. I mean: me? I'm a pussycat. I'm sugar and spice and everything nice. Aren't I? Damn, I thought I was. Unless, of course, we agree that it's going to be otherwise, but you know, with my brother's sweetie, that's just not a situation that's going to arise. (Yes, I do know that for sure. Some lines you do not cross.)

So I do wonder exactly what kinds of stories my dearest brother has told his sweet little girlfriend that she's scared of me. It's not the kind of thing you can ask outright, either. "So, did my brother tell you I'm a professional dominatrix?" At least, you don't say that kind of thing in my family. "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" cuts both ways.

While I'm off signing my life away: the new column and calendar...

Okay, I finally feel sure enough about this to reveal what all the mystery and busyness has been about lately: I’m closing on a house on Friday morning.

The act of actually buying a house for the first time feels strange. It’s such a grown-up, mainstream thing to do. And frankly, it's made me uneasy. I have strutted naked on stages in front of a crowd, I have made personal revelations to hostile audiences, I have done deeply intimate things with people whose names I didn’t know, I have looked into a stranger’s eyes and made a split second decision about whether or not I could trust them with my safety. None of those things make me particularly nervous.

Sitting across a desk from a mortgage broker made me nervous. That's why I've been unwilling to blog about the whole house-buying adventure step-by-step, because of my feeling that the mortgage process might very well go sideways at any moment. Max reassured me, and so did Roman. "These people want to give you a mortgage, really they do," they both told me. "When you get a mortgage, they make money." Well, that's a motivation I can certainly understand.

But still...I am not the kind of person banks like to lend money to. Don’t get me wrong, I pay my taxes and my bills. But my life simply does not fit into those little boxes on their forms. Dealing with banks makes me feel like Supergirl confronted with Kryptonite. The powers that serve me very well in most of my life do not work in the offices of financial institutions.

Except one – my ability to generate and save (reasonably) large chunks of money. Banks like that. Hence the recent hectic schedule.

I was on track to buy a house anyway – but I was thinking, oh, March of next year. Then in late October my landlord called and said “We want to sell the house – how soon do you think you could move out?” So my plans had to be fast-forwarded. I can do fast-forward, though, if I have to. So I did.

Of course, I had help. A lot of my guys were extra-generous during this period. But one particular guy - even more so than all my other really fabulous boys - was my angel in this matter, and for that, he merits special mention. He knows who he is so, thank you to him!

The other thank you goes to my terrific real estate agent, Ted Allison. I am not your average home-buyer, to put it mildly, but when I told Ted what I wanted, he listened without raising an eyebrow and got right into the spirit of it. He never tried to push me when I said, “It’s nice…but it’s not quite right”. And he worked really hard to get the deal I wanted on the house I wanted. He’s just been great, and I’d recommend him to anyone.

A point of clarification for my friends: I’m not moving out of Max’s house. The house that I’m buying will serve as the headquarters and private dungeon of Mistress Matisse, Inc. Note my use of the first person singular pronoun - I have always felt that in the same sense that good fences make good neighbors, having some separate financial investments makes for good relationships.

Now I have a new place for my dungeon, which I am looking forward to. And now I have to pack up the dungeon and move it, which I am not looking forward to. My new place isn’t far at all from where I am now, so those of you who know the way won’t have to learn a whole new route. Just go about half a mile further south, is all.

So now you know. I’ve always been something of a capitalist. But Friday, Mistress Matisse becomes part of the land-owning bourgeois.

Resistance Was Futile

Okay, okay, I give up. Everyone else has already read them, I’m way behind the cutting edge on this. (In fact, I think they've now become un-cool.) But lately I did at last succumb to the genre-novel pleasures of the early Laurel K. Hamilton “Anita Blake” books.

Notice I said the early ones. Because I’ve now read all of them, and my verdict is that the later ones? Are not so good. I think after book seven, Laurel’s agent came to her and said “Laurel, honey? Put in a lot more sex. Actually – put in a lot more kinky sex. We’ll make more money.” And Laurel did, and I’m sure they have made more money, but the books are not nearly as entertaining anymore.

You’d think I’d like kinky sex in novels, wouldn’t you? But you know, when you are kinky, it’s hard not to be really picky about the details. For me, it’s kinda like watching porn – since I’m a part of the sex industry, I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to not notice the shadow of the boom mike in the money shot. I don’t know if Ms Hamilton is a member of the BDSM community or not, but the way she writes about it – well, it just doesn’t feel like something she knows intimately. Maybe she does, and she’s just distancing herself from it a bit to keep from alienating the more squeamish readers. But it sure doesn’t get me wet. I usually find myself skimming quickly through the long (way too long) sex scenes, because they don’t ring any bells in my head.

Then there's the character herself. In the beginning, Anita Blake, as a zombie-raiser and vampire hunter, was a charming twist on the Dashiel Hammett hard-boiled detective type. She was tough, she got pissed easily and mouthed off to people a lot, and if they fucked with her, she killed them. Whoo-hoo, big fun.

Then she started fucking the vampires, and werewolves, too. Which is fine with me, but she’s so damn angsty about it that she comes across as whiny. I mean, a little angst about sleeping with monsters for one book, maybe two – okay, fine, it’s a growth opportunity. But my personal stance is: you can complain about something once or twice, and I’ll give you sympathy. After that, I’m going to ask you what you’re doing to change the situation, and if your answer is “nothing”, then I’m pretty much out of sympathy for you. This applies to fictional characters as well as real life. So Anita, face it: you’re kinky. And since you have practically a whole stable of male lovers, you’re poly, too. And you really need to get over all the whinging about it, because I’m tired of listening to it. It’s a good thing you’re not bi, because I’m sure we’d never hear the end of that.

All that aside: yes, they’re fun to read, and I’ve turned Roman onto them too. I’ve been so busy lately that light stuff I can pick up and put down has been just the thing. Ms. Blake has got two more Anita books coming out in 2006, and I’m still game to give her a chance on them. Better late than never.

I'm busy today, so just a PSA for now about the women's BDSM conference coming up here in Seattle next month... I'm a presenter, by the way, as are a number of my pervy friends. The conference is January 13-16, 2006.

From the press release:

The Wicked Womyn 2006 Conference is just around the corner and is expected to be a fantastic event. The mail-in registration deadline has ended but you can still register online between December 16, 2005 and January 7, 2006 and pay via PayPal. Go tohttp://wickedwomyn.com to register on-line.

After January 7th you can register at the door for $130.00.

Out of towners, take note: The host hotel, LaQuinta Inn, is almost sold out. So make your reservations soon, before the rooms are all gone.

Well, I had a busy but fun weekend. Saturday night I went to the last hurrah at The Catwalk, a bar that’s been open and hosting sexy events since I was just a pup in this town. It’s kinda sad to know that it's closing down. But the final event was good - Max and I got to see Miss Candy shaking her tail-feathers in some of Imp Of Satan’s newest creations, Nerdygirl do her best carnival barker impersonation, and Silver demonstrating her equestrian training skills. Charming. And we didn’t reek of cigarette smoke afterwards, what a nice change. Want to see a few pictures from Malixe? Go here.

I wore my black latex pants to this event, and when I got them out earlier that evening, I paused and realized that while they aren’t quite as old as The Catwalk, I have indeed had them a number of years. They’ve held up very well. There’s no label in them, but I’m pretty sure I got them from latex designer Naughty Nancy, back when she was here in Seattle. It’s a shame she went back to Canada, I always liked her stuff.

But still, perhaps it’s time for a new pair. Oh, look, Syren seems to be having a sale – how convenient. I think a bit of shopping is in order.

The other latex thing I want is one of these: a vacuum bed. Yes, I think I’m going to have to see about one of these quite soon. I have tried them, and they’re quite intense. I'd have to have one custom made, though, as I would want certain special features.

And now it’s Monday, the closing week of pre-Christmas insanity. My mother and brother get here Christmas day, so in addition to everything else that’s happening – and that’s a lot – I have that to prepare for.

But I’m looking forward to the next two weeks. Lots of big changes and events. My life is many things, but dull is simply not one of them.

Silly story I stole from the AP.

It's Not the Pipes, It's a Naked Man in Your Basement
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - A plumbing problem at a Spokane home turned out to be a naked man. Police say a woman who thought she was having a problem with water pipes beneath the floor called the Water Department. Employees found the basement barricaded, and when they determined there was someone behind the door, they called police.

Police broke through the door, found the naked man and took him into custody. They searched the basement but found no clothing for the man. They also found that a pipe had been broken and repaired.

The 36-year-old was booked into jail for investigation of burglary.

Hey, at least it wasn't a dead rat.

Late night: In bed with Roman, on his laptop... Clothespins and rope scattered around us.
Go read the new column.
Bye!

I have been very, very busy with clients lately. And that’s been a good thing. But wow - busy.

Fortunately for me, about 98% of my clients are really cool guys, and I like them. (There are about 2% who make me think, “I so do not understand this person,” but that’s another story. Most of them don't come see me very often, anyway.)

The thing is, I cannot talk specifically about any of my cool clients, because it would take more time than I’ve got to talk about all of them, and I don’t want to make any of them feel left out by not being mentioned on the blog. So I usually try to express my pleasure in their company in person, rather than putting it here.

But I have to say something, because I have some amazingly fabulous boys and they are so great, they just knock me out.

Yeah, you know you who are. You so rock, and I’m really glad you come to see me.

***

The other people I have to blow kisses to are Max, Roman and Miss K, all of whom have gotten much less of my time and attention than usual for the last few weeks, because I've been preparing for The Big Event*. I love you all. Thanks for your understanding...

(*What Big Event, you ask? I'll talk about it next week. Possess your souls in patience.)

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So I promised to talk about the party, didn’t I? Well, it all started out innocently enough with a platter of kinky gingerbread-people from Tambo and NerdyGirl. The image is a bit on the large side, because I’ve included a guide in this image, so you can tell what the various decorations are supposed to represent. This is actually only some of the cookies, because we were eating them pretty rapidly – they were yummy.

In many ways it was a typical private party for the crowd I hang around with. Max had a date to single-tail a pretty girl, which he did very nicely and at some length. Monk did terrible things to his wife, which made her giggle and try to bite him. I exposed Jae’s breasts to a roomful of people – which really didn’t raise any eyebrows - and complimented R on the colorful bruises I found there. I chatted, I gossiped, I ogled, I smooched.

And then my host, J, repeated an offer he’d made to me a week earlier – his body as a pincushion. I like piercing people, and he’d also invited R to join in, and so that just made us a happy little threesome.

This is why I love being at private parties as opposed to someplace like the Wet Spot. The Spot is great in lots of ways, but they have rules about things like where you can do bloodsports, and you have to obey them. (Yes, even me. Mostly.)

But since we were at J’s house, we just sat down on the couch and started sticking him, and if anyone didn’t want to watch, they were free to walk out of the room. We did lose two very nice - but not especially kinky - girls that were friends of one of the other guests. They’d gotten a bit quiet watching Max wield the single-tail, but I think the needles pushed them over the edge. Oh well.

People were sort of drifting in and out behind us, and apparently R and I missed some hot scenes in the other room, but we had a hell of a good time. We made J roar really nicely, and in between roars he looked very, very endorphin-stoned. I like that.

Then R got out her knife and started poking at the needles with it. She’s so mean! People think I am the evilest girl in town, but let me tell you, I have never taken hold of the hub of a needle and rotated the whole damn thing one hundred and eighty degrees clockwise in someone’s skin. (Of course, now that I’ve seen it done I will. Woot!) She got lots of roaring on that one. I thought J might levitate off the couch for a minute there.

Pinching needles is more my specialty, and we did lots of that too. Then J impressed us by putting two needles in his own chest. He was quite, quite stoned when we finished, and R and I had a nice little sadistic contact-high, too.*

It was a really good time. I should play at parties more, and I’m usually too busy talking and hanging out with pals. But it was a nice reminder of what I like about spontaneous scenes.

*Note: Piercing is not a 100% safe activity. You should never do anything like this without the supervision of people who have already done it and know what they are doing. Be sure to use only fresh, sterile needles, and use rubbing alcohol to clean the area before and after you do the piercings. Wear latex (or nitrile) gloves, and change them if you play for a long period or touch unclean stuff during the scene. Use needles once, on one person, then dispose of them in a bio-hazardous waste receptacle (sharps container). Even if it’s done correctly, you may bleed, bruise or possibly even scar from this activity.

Cleaning Diet Coke Off My Keyboard

Complete text of an extremely (unintentionally?) hilarious email sent to me, in the wake of Friday's post:

"A friend of mine runs a clothing store for men. He chooses not to sell jeans. He is a snappy dresser and disapproves of jeans. He doesn't like them so he doesn't sell them. In a way, he is imposing his opinion upon others. Even though he has no right to interfere with a sartorial decision made by a man, perhaps even with the advice of a fashion consultant. Are you truly saying that a person who owns a business can't decide what they want to sell and what they don't want to sell?

The nice thing about controlling birth control pills is that it keeps women in check. So long a women get pregnant they will need men to take care of them and their relative submission to proper male authority is assured. This is good because women are somewhere on the developmental scale between children and adults. They are not fully capable of making good decisions for themselves. They are not truly adult and, like children, the mentally retarded, animals, and members of some lesser races, are best herded along by the white male shepards who have made America the number one country in the history of mankind.

Now that you have a better understanding of the issues involved, perhaps you should retract your opinion and/or remove it from your website.

No need to thank me. Consider it noblesse oblige."

I'm really not sure what part of this is the most snicker-inspiring: is it the fact that he (and it was signed with a male name) thinks men's fashion and women's medical care are of equal importance? The fact that he's equating a doctor with a "fashion consultant"? ("Take two pairs of Miss Sixty jeans and call me in the morning.")

Or is it that he's pretending to think I'm now going to agree with him that women should be submissive to men? (White men, that is - you don't want those "lesser-race" men getting any ideas.) Oh yeah, sure, hold on a minute while I abandon my career and totally reverse my entire worldview based on your email. Uh-huh. Because I've certainly never had anyone tell me that white men are supposed to be in control of everything, all the time. That's a really fresh idea.

However, I don't believe this is sincere. I think it's just a troll. The spelling is far too correct, for one thing. A real sexist, racist butthead would write something like:

U KNOW U WEEMUN GOTS TO KNUW YER PLACE ALUNG WIT THEM COLOREED PEEPLE SO YU BETTR GET PREGNINT REEL SUUN MISSY.

So let that be a lesson to you, flame-baiters. Real fascists don't use commas correctly!

***

Tomorrow: pictures and commentary about a fun party I was at Saturday night. Sneak previews of some of the madness here, here and here. (Not-work-safe picture here.)