Community Note: A friend of mine, who's a sweet wonderful guy, has a room for rent in his darling house house near UW. Call him if you're interested...
**************************************************************
For Rent
Large, lovely room on 2nd floor, with lots of oak built-in drawers and
bookshelves. Carpeting, ceiling fan, skylight and little meditation room off
the main room. Own bathroom with shower. Some furniture available at no
extra cost.

Share kitchen, small yard with garden, washer/dryer, basement
storage, high-speed DSL, and off-street parking with live-in owner.

Owner has 2 friendly cats, no other pets please. No smoking indoors.

Available April 1st. Rent is $550.00 per month. No lease, no deposit, first and last
month's rent moves you in, most utilities included. References expected.
Please call for an interview. (206)325-6833

I'm a busy girl today, but here's the new column.... And hopefully I'll see ya'll at Max's Bondage Workshop and party on Sunday.

Edited to add: It's about time to do another "Ask The Mistress" column, so if there's something you've always wanted to ask me, either as a pro domme, a practicing kinkster, or a poly person, fire away. If I don't use your question for this round, I'll save it for future columns. You can post it here, or email it me if you're shy....

Edited one more time: Can you tell my head is a little disorganized today? It's all Roman's fault. Anyway, here's a humorous rebuttal to my column about all the silly things men do when placing personal ads. Read and learn, ladies.

Top 25 Most Played On Matisse’s iPod.

I’m not sure what this says about me, but here goes….

25. Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor Doctor) - Robert Palmer. This is going to sound strange, but this song reminds me of my mom. She’s a rock and roll fan, and I remember being a very, very little girl and watching her dance to this song in our living room.

24. Brass In Pocket – The Pretenders. There’s nobody else here, no one like me…

23. The District Sleeps Alone – The Postal Service.

22. Brave And Crazy – Melissa Etheridge. That’s me, taming all the lions.

21. Born Under A Bad Sign – The Neville Brothers with Buddy Guy.

20. I Need A Man - Eurhythmics. Actually I’m doing just fine in that department. But I love hearing Annie scream.

19. Strangelove – Depeche Mode.

18. Going Out West – Tom Waits.

17. The Continental – Prince. Come and let me do you like you want to be - done. Oh, yes, Your Purpleness, do me - now and always.

16. Erotic City – Prince.

15. Brilliant Mistake – Kate Nauta. Give it up, baby, you’re not in control.

14. Show Me How To Live - Audioslave

13. Boogie Nights – Heatwave. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But I actually have a sneaking fondness for (some) disco.

12. Take Out Some Insurance On Me Baby - Jimmy Reed

11. Somebody Told Me – The Killers.

10. Hung Up – Madonna.

9. Rock and Roll Nigger – Patti Smith

8. Superstition – Stevie Wonder. Awesome. Never get tired of this song.

7. Twilight Zone – Golden Earring. In spite of the fact that I have no earthly idea what this song is about. “My beacon's been moved under moon and star” - what?

6. Burn – Nine Inch Nails.

5. Gratitude – Oingo Boingo.

4. Always On The Run – Lenny Kravitz. Fabulous guitar riff.

3. All My Life – Foo Fighters.

2. Like It Or Not - Madonna. It’s so high school, but still, it’s an anthem for all intimidating women everywhere. “This is who I am, you can like it or not, you can love me or leave me, but I'm never going to stop.”

And the number one most-played song is….

1. I Thought You Were My Boyfriend – Magnetic Fields. Roman turned me onto them. Totally addictive melody and keyboards.

Ring Ring!

Me: hello?
Caller: Hi, do you see couples?
Me: Sometimes. Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for.
Caller: Well, I’m a very successful businessman, and I’m in town with my girlfriend, we’re here in a suite at the Westin. She’s a really beautiful petite Asian lady, very very lovely, and we’d like to see you.

It’s apparently some kind of reflex for certain men to start right out by trying to impress me. Frankly, I don’t care what hotel you’re staying at (since I won’t be coming there) and I really don’t much care how successful you are. I care whether I like you or not. I have great clients who are very wealthy and high-powered guys, and I have great clients who are bartenders and carpenters. You leave all that stuff at the dungeon door as far as I’m concerned. A flogger is a great equalizer.

Me: So, what kinds of activities are you looking for in a session?
Caller: Do you do trampling?

Ah, a trample fan. I like trampling, but I often think it should be classed as a gymnastic event, because damn, even with someone lying flat on the floor, it’s tricky to stand on them and balance on top of them in such a way that you’re pressing down only on well-protected places and not, say, an easily-cracked rib. But I suppose that’s all part of the seem-really-fierce, but-actually-do-no-serious-harm service I provide.

Me: Yes.
Caller: With shoes on?
Me: Possibly, if I think that’s safe for you, yes.
Caller: Full-weight trampling?

Full-weight meaning: you don’t lean against a wall, or hang onto anything. You just stand right up on them. Serious gymnastic balancing - in high heels, no less. On the occasions when I've done this, I always wonder which would be worse: If I hurt someone else doing this, or if I break my bloody ankle falling off them. Either way, it's not something I want to explain to the ER doc.

Me: It depends – have you had full-weight trampling before?
Caller: Oh, it’s my girl-friend, she’s a big masochist, she really likes it.

Huh. That’s unusual, because for whatever reason, trampling is one of those fetishes that has always seemed exclusively male to me. I have never had a woman ask me for it, and I have never seen a woman doing it in a dungeon. I’m not saying a woman never has or never could – but this is a very uncommon request, and it stirs a flicker of response from my bullshit-detector. Not a full-blown wrongness, but definitely a not-quite-rightness.

And even giving this guy the full benefit of the doubt: I may not weigh a lot, but still, the idea of standing, with my shoes on, atop a petite Asian woman – well, unless she’s a bodybuilder with some muscle mass to protect her, I very much doubt that’s going to be safe for her.

Me: I’d have to see her, see her build, and then I’d consider it. I’m not going to do anything that I think is going to injure her.
Caller: Have you done full-weight trampling on a woman before?
Me: No.
Caller: But you’d do it with my girlfriend?
Me: That’s not what I said. I said if it’s possible to do it without injuring her, I will.
Caller: But she really, really wants it.

Bing. Something about his tone sends the bullshit-meter way into the red. Let’s try something…

Me: Can I speak to your girlfriend, please? Maybe she and I should talk about this.

Click. Dead air. He hung up, the wanker. Beautiful Asian girlfriend and a suite at the Westin, my ass. His number came up on caller id - he’s lucky I don’t chase down rude boys. Of course, he’d probably offer to let me walk all over him as punishment.

Piercings



I lost a bead from my Body Circle earring last Thursday night, and so Friday I dropped into a body piercing shop on Broadway to get another one. As I explained what I needed, I pushed back my hair and indicated the bead-less earring with my finger.
“No, no,” the girl behind the counter cried, “while you’re in the shop, don’t touch your piercings.”
I’ve seen signs to this effect in various piercing places - I’m told it's about cross-contamination. You know, touch yourself, touch the counter, leave icky germs on the counter. What I don’t really get – given all those studies about how many people don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom - is why they think telling you not to touch your jewelry means your hands will be clean.
And I thought to myself, wow, I bet you really wouldn’t approve of what I did with the piercings I did last night. Thursday night in my dungeon, to be exact - I stuck Roman’s chest full of needles and pounded on them so hard they bent. I used a riding crop at first, but then I used just my hand. Slapping needles has to be done carefully, lest one catch one’s fingers on the sharp end of the business. But it can be done, even when one’s target is writhing around and roaring curses at you. The tricky part is that the needles, when impacted, want to start working themselves out. And when the tip is under the skin and you hit it – oh, it gets really noisy. And the skin gets very bruised. Oh darn.
Roman and I refer to this type of play as “making paper clips”, although I don’t think it would be embraced by the paper-clip manufacturers any more readily that professional body-piercers. However, we did not concern ourselves in the least with either office-product design or biological cross-contamination, and we had a marvelous time.


Obligatory Disclaimer: Piercing is not a 100% safe activity. If you are not experienced, you should not 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, get an infection or possibly even scar from this activity. You’ve been warned, proceed at your own risk.

This week's column - hopefully the last one that won't be entirely run in the paper....

And, in a sort of stunning example of kink working it's way into the mainstream, Ms. Claire Adams, a lovely lady with whom I have the pleasure of being acquainted, rigged actor Peter Sarsgaard into a rope-bondage suspension for this month's Vanity Fair magazine. (Here's a link to some other images, also.) I mean, wow - fucking Vanity Fair! Amazing. Good for her, and good for all of us, I think.

Pick and Choose

Today on a local escort-review board, a new escort was apologizing for not being able to answer all of the hundreds of emails and many dozens of phone calls she’d been besieged with every day since she began offering her services. She was so overwhelmed, she said, she was considering quitting.

I’m not surprised she got that reaction. Her pictures show a pretty young blond girl, and ladies like that always get a huge response, especially when they first appear on the escort scene. And it can be really overwhelming. As a pro domme, I do not get the same enormous volume of calls and email that a lot of escorts do. But I remember what that was like, and I still get quite a lot even now. I don’t know this young woman, and I tend not to proffer unasked-for advice. But if I were a friend of hers, here’s what I’d say:

Darlin’, you really don’t need to answer every single phone call and every single email you get. Yes, in a perfect world, you’d at least give everyone the courtesy of a, “No thank you,” and if you have time to do that, go ahead. But the truth is you could spend hours on the phone and the keyboard only doing that, and it’s not a profitable use of your time. What you need to do is categorize them into “Yes, Answer ASAP”, “Maybe” and “No”.

The No category will be big. I have mentored a few sex workers and I usually tell them they should be turning down at least half of the new clients who contact them, and sometimes more. There are just that many not-right guys out there.

Here’s who goes into the No category. Anyone who isn’t polite and appropriate when communicating with you. Anyone who says anything about sex. Anyone who flips you shit for not answering email instantly. Anyone who sends you a one-line email that says something like, “hey sxy wHen RU availbe?” Anyone who claims to be a pimp. Anyone who mentions drugs. Anyone who pressures you. Anyone who sounds like he’s drunk and/or calling from a bar. Anyone who says he wants to pay you with an iPod or a computer or a diamond ring. Anyone who acts like you should jump when he snaps his fingers. Anyone who calls and you hear a lot of other voices in the background. Anyone who elicits the response, “I don’t think I like this guy,” after listening to his message or reading his email. Boom, straight to the curb. Don’t return the call, don’t answer the email.

Does that sound mean? Hey, baby, it’s a survival skill. A lot of the unsuitable guys will take it as a challenge if you call/email back to say no, and they’ll keep coming back, trying and trying to change your mind. You don’t need that.

Besides, if you don’t get a good vibe from the guy, don’t take his money, because you won’t be able to give him a good experience if you don’t like him. If he’s a genuinely okay guy, he’ll move on and meet someone else who’s a better fit for him and have a better experience with her anyway, so you’re doing him a favor in the long run. And if he’s not a genuinely okay guy - well, then…

The Maybe list is composed of guys who you had a mixed reaction to. First-time clients are often nervous and can sometimes come off badly when in fact, they’d be fine if they just relaxed a little. I suggest stringing out the screening process with guys like this. Get a few additional calls/emails from them and see how your response to them evolves. Don’t be afraid to say, “You know, I’m new at this and I get a little nervous sometimes. Would you might just chatting with me on the phone for a few minutes so I can kinda get to know you a little bit?” And then ask him where he’s from, what he does for fun – just make innocuous conversation for five minutes, it’ll tell you a lot about him. If he reacts to this like you’re being hugely unreasonable, then he’s a No.

Also on this list: anyone who says he wants something you don’t provide: incall or outcall, or overnight dates, or half-hour dates, whatever it is you’d generally prefer not to do. If they seem okay in other ways, it’s worth trying to steer them towards your preferred method, but be prepared to let it go.

The Yes men are guys you’ve seen before and liked, and guys who you liked in the initial communication and who’ve gone through whatever screening method you’ve chosen: references, personal info, gut instinct, whatever. Answer them as soon as you can, but I don’t consider a few hours to be an unreasonable length of time before returning voicemail/email. I often take longer even with guys I really like, just because I’m so busy. Fortunately they’re all pretty patient with me.

I recommend you don’t use instant messaging or text messages to process appointment inquiries. Calls and emails are enough to keep track of.

Now gentlemen, I know how sensitive you all are, but I don’t want you to get your feelings hurt by anything I've said here. If you’re a nice, honest guy who treats ladies fairly, then you shouldn’t take any of this as a slight to you. And just to keep things in balance, I will be writing a follow-up piece for the gentlemen about how to choose an escort who will provide a safe and satisfying experience, because I know that it’s challenging for the guys to find reputable and un-flaky ladies as well. All the more reason for me to give a little guidance to the professional women who you’d like to stay in the game.

A number of people have asked me to comment on issue of Travis Frey and his wife's "slave contract". But frankly, I don’t have a whole lot to say. I’m aware of it, yes, and I do see that some people seem to think that BDSM folks should be all over this, either supporting the guy’s ‘right’ to create a sex contract for his wife, or verbally tar-and-feathering him for making all us right-thinking kinksters look bad.

But unlike some people, I have a hard time getting terribly worked up about it either way. Do I think the contract as it’s written is rather petty, adolescent and trite? Yes, but that’s probably because contracts aren’t my kink. I think clear communication about one’s expectations is a good thing. To me, though, slave contracts in this style seem about as erotic as a tax form.

However, do I know people who’ve happily signed rather similar documents? Not in my immediate circle, but yes, I’ve met folks who had and enjoyed this kind of arrangement with their partners, and I get people writing to me all the time asking me to create not-very-different contracts with them. It’s not uncommon.

Are they legally binding? Not for a minute. There’s been a lot of back-and-forth on Metafilter and elsewhere about whether the wife actually signed a copy of this or not. We don't know if she ever did consent to these rules, but it doesn’t matter one little bit. Even if she thought this contract was the sexiest thing in the world on a Tuesday and signed it in her blood, she could change her mind Wednesday morning, and she has the absolute right to do so. You cannot sign away your right to withdraw consent, ever.

Let’s remember, too, that the guy hasn’t actually been convicted of any of the charges yet - it’s still all he-said/she-said at this point. So while it’s quite possible he’s a criminally abusive rapist asshole, it’s also possible that he’s just a juvenile twit with bad relationship skills. This document reads to me like the guy would be happiest having a relationship with a blow-up doll, but that’s just my bias and doesn’t prove a thing. There’s the always-icky child porn charge, but that’s unrelated to the “slave contract” issue.

To some degree, the imagery, culture, and vocabulary of BDSM has become part of mainstream consciousness. Bad people are going to use it to create a frame and a justification for doing bad things, just as they’ve used other cultural institutions. If I, as a kinkster, start taking every instance of that really personally, I’m not going to get much sleep at night.

So I celebrated Presidents Day by spending a thousand damn dollars on a new washing machine and dryer, and I have to say, I’m a little flipped out by the experience. I’m not sure why – I’m all poised to buy a couch that’s going to run me nearly that much, as soon as I can make time to get back to Ikea.

But somehow slapping down a credit card at Sears for all that white porcelain seems so terrifyingly homeowner-ish, especially when I don’t know diddly about major appliances. Yeek. Max, as usual with this kind of thing, sort of steered me through it. He’s done it before, and plus, he’s just so generally clever about such things. (Even though he confided to me, as we were standing at the cash register, that just having testicles does not mean you automatically know everything about everything. I was aware of that, really. But Max often knows things I don’t, which is, of course, one of the reasons why I love him. Yay, smart people.)

But the appliance-buying is done with now, thank god, and I’d much rather think about the evil things I’d like to do to, say, Roman. I’m definitely feeling like being evil, evil, evil lately. More than usual, I mean - I have no idea why. And since I don’t get to be terrible to Max, well, the burden falls to Roman, poor man.

Plus, Roman and I have a new bed that we have yet to have a date on, because we were both too insanely busy last week. Hopefully that situation will be rectified soon. It seems like I’ve been spending a lot of time in various department stores with my two partners lately, and not enough time in less public surroundings. I think that needs fixing.

So, I had a really good time this weekend at BodyBound. Max and I drove down Friday afternoon and arrived in time to catch Midori's opening talk about sort of the myths and the realities of Japanese bondage. She's a very entertaining speaker. Max and I chatted with her for a few minutes after the class, but she was only at BB Friday night, as she had the Bang For The Buck party here in Seattle to host. Amusingly enough, she and her partner actually stayed here at our house this weekend, even though we were down in Portland. She’s a great houseguest and she’s stayed here lots of times, so we were fine just handing her the keys to our house and asking her to feed my cat. I’m sure the Bang For The Buck party was cool, and I’m sorry I missed it. Hopefully some of the women who went will blog about it.

But BB was fun. Max’s class went very well. I know I’m biased, but he is such a good instructor, and I'm so proud of him when we teaches. We did see some other good classes, though, and we also got to see and catch up with people we don’t see all the time, like James Mogul, and Claire Adams, and Eddie T. and his wife. I enjoyed that.

Monk was there, of course, and sold a ton of rope - there was such a crowd of eager people around his booth all weekend that I swear, I hardly got to talk to him and Tambo, but I'm glad they did so well.

Saturday night at the play party, I was entertained to note that a lot of the women present – and two of the men – were attired in the Imp Of Satan’s clothes. I, of course, was one of them. A PVC catsuit is a boon to the traveling girl, as it’s a complete outfit in itself and it packs down to about the size of a hardback novel. Easy.

I did not get to go to Powells, which is sad for me. But we’ll be back in Portland next month for Kinkfest, so I’ll definitely go then.

Aside from my other pals, I saw two different individuals this weekend that I’d really like to top. (Separately, not together. They aren’t a couple or anything.) There were moments this weekend when I looked at them, and thought about what I’d like to do to them, and I felt a little electric shock run up my spine.

I’ve wanted both of them for awhile now. Trouble is, I don’t think either one of them would go there, for different reasons. I haven't ever strongly pursued either of them, so I don't really know for sure, it's just a feeling. I've known them both for some time, and I have nice social relationships with them both, and most of the time it seems better not to jeopardize that.

But sometimes, oh, sometimes when I think about it, I feel my hands flex slightly, and I feel my lips draw back from my teeth in what would probably not ever be mistaken for a friendly smile. I swear I can almost feel my fangs lengthening. It would not be slap-and-tickle, the things I’d like to do to them.

(I'm not talking about a relationship, you understand. I'm just talking about us spending several hours in an alternate universe where deep respect and friendly affection are expressed in rather different ways than they are here on Earth. Like, with needles, and canes, and rope, and certain types of electrical devices.)

It's not likely I'll ever get the chance. But then again, you never know. Sometimes you have to wait for things. Patience isn’t my strong suit in day-to-day life, but for some things I can wait, if waiting is what’s needed. I once carefully wooed someone for ten years before I got them to bottom to me. Yeah, that’s right, I said ten years. It’s a good thing they held out all that time, too, because the raw novice top that I was when I first met them would never have been able to deliver the experience that I successfully created for them a decade later.

And I do feel quite certain I could create something fiendishly good for these two people as well. So while I think the answer would probably be a polite, no thank you, it does seem like a shame not to ask at all. So perhaps I’ll just drop a tiny whisper of possibility into certain ears sometime and see what happens.

A few notes as I gear up to leave for Portland for the BodyBound event…

So, the column for this week is actually…the same column from last week: the "kimono boys" piece. I’m very pleased that it wound up getting printed in the paper copy of The Stranger after all. However, it means that I don’t have a link to a new column for you. I’m not exactly sure why it turned out this way. Sometimes The Stranger moves in mysterious ways, it’s wonders to behold.

And yesterday I did a podcast interview with GrayDancer, about the whole “kimono boys” thing. Gray's podcast is called "Rope Weekly" and it's all about erotic rope bondage. (If you didn't already figure that out.) I haven't met Gray in person, but both Max and Roman have, and they say he's a cool guy. I certainly had a good experience with him. I like people with an active sense of humor, and Gray has a comic persona named “NawaMarquishiDeSade" who, as he says, is “a parody of precisely that brand of self-importance," which I was writing about. That’s who interviewed me, so it was all very tongue-in-cheek - although I think the essential message of "Dudes, don't take yourself quite so seriously," was underneath. In any case, I hope it’ll be funny to listen to. Not sure when it'll be available to listen to, but I imagine it'll go up here.

Midori took time out from her insanely busy schedule – I swear, she makes my life look uneventful – to comment here, and there has actually been a fresh round of comments on the original post last Friday, so scroll down and read over those if you haven’t lately.

Meanwhile, I'm off to Portland to help teach people how to be pervy rope tops. Have a good weekend...

Nice Problem To Have, But...

So I had a conversation yesterday with one of my several friends who’s a call girl. She asked me to pass a message along to all the otherwise-cool clients out there: please, please - don’t leave presents on a professional lady’s doorstep.

Yes, it’s very sweet that you want to give a girl you’re fond of a Valentines gift. No one doubts that your heart is in the right place. But it’s an issue of discretion. Because what if you tiptoe up to the door of her incall, bend down to put your bundle of flowers or your box of Godiva’s on her step, and just as you do, another gentleman opens the door to leave? There you both are, staring at each other, terribly embarrassed, everyone’s privacy totally comprised.

Think how you’d feel if you were the guy on his way out. How long has this weirdo been bent over with his ear at the door? you’d think, and justifiably so.

You could just as easily spook a guy who's on his way in to a scheduled appointment. Many people are a bit nervous when coming to visit an escort, and encountering a strange man hanging around the door (as they would see it) of her place would make a lot of people very uncomfortable.

And while many ladies – like me - don’t live where they work, some do, and that creates the potential for even more issues. What if the door opens and it’s her mother who had just dropped by for a visit? What are you going to say? How she is going to explain you?

Even if you don’t get caught outright, your gift could still create complications if the wrong person sees it on her doorstep. “Oh, look, someone left you a Valentine! Do you have a boyfriend? You didn’t tell us! Who is he, when do we get to meet him?” Yeah. Definitely a problem.

I’ve gotten some very sweet and generous gifts over the years and I appreciate the guys who’ve given them to me. But I'm glad to say I haven't had to deal with very many instances of the surprise-gift-drop. However, I'm also considerably more out about my life than many sex workers, so while I definitely don't encourage it, I would not completely freak out if it happened. (Although I am quite zealous about protecting my client's privacy, so that part certainly applies.)

So my friend is quite right in saying that the best way to present gifts is in person. I don't think any woman I know would be ungracious about you simply waiting and giving her the gift when next you meet, even if it's not on the actual holiday.

Or, if she gives you permission, you could mail them. (Or FedEx them, or UPS, or whatever.) But only if she's okay with that, because often the name she gives you is not the same name by which she recieves mail, and getting a package addressed to her nom de negligee could be awkward if the wrong person sees it. (If it gets delivered properly at all.)

If you really can't wait to give her something - call and ask if it's okay to drop off a gift, so she can make sure the coast is clear.

But the surprise-personal-delivery method? Don't go there. It's way too fraught with perilous possibilities.

Cool toy! I want one of these...

This is sort of disturbing to me, although I don't know why exactly. I certainly support free enterprise, although I always thought most hair-fetishists liked it still attached to people's heads. (And while human-hair wigs are quite expensive, prices in the $700-1100 range definitely suggest "fetish" to me, not wigmaker.)

Amusing: Several people have sent me this bit of viral video. Definitely not work safe. But funny.

Edit: Oh, and happy day of over-hyped, anxiety-fueled, corporate-dictated “love” that somehow got tagged with a Christian martyr’s name, in spite of the fact that his death had nothing whatsoever to do with romantic love.

Notable Events of Late

A client I’ve only met once before told I seemed “driven”. He meant it nicely, and I took it so. But it stuck in my head for some reason. Driven? Am I? What does that mean? I do say of myself that I’m like a shark – for me, to stop swimming is to die. Maybe that’s what being driven is. It's an interesting way of thinking about myself.

********************************

Roman and I went and bought a new bed together. We both have beds at our respective homes, of course, that we share with our primary partners. But the good thing about me having a dungeon of my own is that it provides a space for us to be when we spend time together. So this bed will live in a special room at my place, to be used on our dates. (I did have a bed already, but it was getting rather old and it's been due to be retired, so to speak.)

I’ve never bought a bed from a department store. Being a bargain-conscious girl, I’ve always gone the warehouse-store route when I was bed shopping. But Roman has had good dealings with Macy’s, so off we went. We lay on all the beds, and I giggled a lot. I think we were both sort of oddly nervous. Neither of us have ever done something like this – meaning, buy a piece of furniture – with a secondary partner.

Observation on bed-shopping number one: Having a creepy-looking salesman stare down at you while you roll around on a bed is, well...creepy. We kept trying to shoo him off, but he’d just stand there, staring at us with this gaze that somehow managed to combine bovine sloth with a serial-killer-like blankness.

Observation number two: It’s amazing how intimate I am with Roman in some ways, and yet there’s still so much to learn about him. Watching someone move through a business transaction – and a fairly large financial expenditure – you just see a whole different side of them than you do at say, The Wet Spot or when you’re alone together. It’s interesting.

After we’d made a choice and were making arrangements for delivery, I thought to myself: Great, now Creepy Salesguy knows my name and address, too.

Then Creepy Salesguy wanted to sell us the extended warranty. “So you know, if you’re having a romantic evening and you spill red wine on the mattress, we’ll either come clean it or give you a new one free.”

I did not like this guy looking at me as I rolled around on a bed, and definitely didn’t like him looking at me and speculating about my romantic evenings. Ew. I considered saying, “You know, on our bed, it’s more likely to be blood. Your warranty cover that?” But I decided I didn’t want to get into it.

So, god willing and the creek don’t rise, the bed will be delivered Wednesday. Another poly landmark that Roman and I – with the support of Mrs. Roman and Max – have successfully negotiated.

An unexpected editorial decision on The Stranger’s part means my column-that’s-going-to-piss-people-off is actually up on the website now, instead of next week, as originally scheduled.

(The downside to that is it means this particular column will never see ink, which is a bummer. I’m told that in two weeks I should be reliably back in the print version, so keep your fingers crossed about that.)

So I will now prepare to be flamed in absentia on rope-bondage lists and boards nationwide. Good thing I wasn’t planning on attending Shibaricon anyway, they'd probably lynch me.

Also: What you can see in this week's Stranger is a picture of Miss Candy, who’s deservedly been named one of Seattle’s Sexiest People. The website photo is badly overexposed and doesn’t nearly do her yumminess justice, though. The pic in the print version is better, albeit black-and-white. And really, real life is the only way to truly experience her.

Interesting website for those involved in - or thinking of entering - the sex industry. It's a Canadian site, and so some of the customs are a little different here. But certainly worth a read.

And I think this little gadget looks like fun. Of course, I wouldn't put it on people who were sleeping... But that's just me.

Don’t Steal This Picture

Apparently I have both modeled for and taken one of the more popular fetish-art images floating around on the web, and at the time, I had no idea I’d done it.





It was several years ago, and I was deep in a self-portrait phase with my photography. I often said that I was my own best model – I worked for free, I was always available when I wanted to shoot, and I always understood the look I was going for. And having modeled for other people a fair amount, I understood how to hold my body for the best effect. The camera I was using back then didn’t have a remote release, so I was forced to use the ten-second timer. Ten seconds is not a lot of time to get from in back of a camera to in front of the lens and into a pose, but I did wind up getting some good images. (And while I really like film, the nice thing about digital is that you just delete the ones that suck.) It took some effort to get good shots, but it was a very educational process for me.

And thus one night, I was shooting in our dining room, which has wood floors and these cool pocket doors, and I thought I’d try some single-light techniques with them. I did a bunch of different poses, but this is the keeper from that session.

Now, I used to call this the “here come the aliens!” picture. Or else, “the X-files shot”. I suppose one might even read a religious undertone to this, someone “seeing the light”, or something like that. Doors and windows are a constant theme in a lot of my images. But I actually didn’t take it intending to suggest a submissive woman. If I’d wanted that, I would have used a second model, say, opening the doors or something. And I would have posed in a more traditionally submissive way - hands behind the back, and head down.

I have never posted it on any BDSM site. It originally went up for artistic and technical critique (without the red text) on Photo.net, a very serious photography site where I used to hang around. But apparently I wasn't the only kinkster there, and it must read like a female-submissive image to everyone but me, because I swear, not a week goes by that I don’t get an email from some kind and honorable person telling me they saw this image on someone else’s fetish-oriented website.

I will usually go scold the person in question and quote copyright law to them, and try to badger them into taking my picture down, because, hey, that’s my art, and that’s my body, and you didn’t ask me for permission. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Short of hiring a lawyer to send them a cease-and-desist letter, there's little I can really do.

It’s especially annoying when some woman is using the image in such a way that strongly suggests it’s a picture of her – like in a personal ad. Hey lady, you get to the gym three times a week and run five miles and then you take a picture of your own naked butt, okay? I earned that behind and I don't like having other people use it to troll for dates.

Lately I haven’t had time to follow up on all the image-thief sightings, although rest assured, I appreciate the information, and it does annoy me when people steal images. I just wish I had a dollar for every perve who’s using this picture without permission. I had no idea what a monster I was creating.

No, I haven't forgotten you, but you know the drill: I'm quite busy. I'm still unpacking and settling into my new dungeon, my cat needs to go to the vet, and my car needs to go to the shop. The mundane world threatens to swamp me.

But on the creative side, I've been invited to submit a short story to an interesting-sounding new publication. I've created a plot in my head, and I think it'll work very well for what they want. Of course, that means I have to actually sit down and write it.

I'm currently in the middle of writing a column that will be extremely unpopular with a certain segment of the BDSM community. Should be fun. I can't be nice and diplomatic all the time...

All of you who enjoy the "weird phone calls" will like the new column...

And ooooh, I can't wait to see this. I've never worshipped Bettie Page the way some kinksters do, but I think she's cool and she was, without ever setting out to be, an early icon in the fetish world.

And the guy who talks to her in the trailer about how she must want to punish men? I have so talked to that guy. Hundreds of times. Things don't change much in some ways.

Old And New

Over the last week I have thrown away, given away, and sold a whole bunch of stuff that I had left in the old house, because it was time for the Mistress to do a purge. Most of it wasn’t really kinky – random bits of clothing, housewares, unneeded furniture. Some of it was a trifle odd, I suppose, like the animal skulls give me by a flirtatious taxidermist, the statue of a nude woman in chains brought to me by a client, and the antique barber’s chair that looked really cool but weighed a freakin’ ton. Lots of people wanted the barber chair, but I had begun to think I’d never find anyone who’d actually be willing to come and take it away. (I did, finally.) I’ve still got the antique block and tackle (Max’s impulse purchase from a garage sale) that needs to go away, but I’ve thought of someone who would like it, so I’m planning to present it to him as a gift.

So the old house is almost finally empty. But there are two slightly kinky items left sitting on the porch, waiting to be adopted by someone. This, which has been sat on exactly twice, by me, and not a whole lot exciting happened. And this, which would surely fit in with someone's roleplaying fantasy. Want them? Drop me a note in the next 24 hours and I’ll give you the address. After that, I call the junk-man.

What I really need now is: A kink-friendly upholsterer. You see, I have this special fabulous bondage table, with two removable inserts, and the vinyl is cracking. That’s not okay. It needs to be recovered. And because of the insert pieces, it’s not a matter of just putting a sheet of vinyl over it and tacking down the edges. I need someone with the skills and the equipment to make a pattern and sew heavy-duty, marine-grade vinyl. (The original upholsterer is unavailable.)

The kink-friendly part is non-negotiable. I will not going to deal with a vanilla person around this, because there is no conceivable way it could be passed off as anything except exactly what it is, a table designed to facilitate bondage and torment. No way at all.

So I'm using my "second" bondage table for now, which is interesting because it has wheels, being a surgical table, but it's not as cool. I want my good table back.

Anyone have a suggestion?