So if you read his blog, you already know. But if you just got here: My other partner, Monk (usually referred to here by his blog nickname, Roman) had a fire in his shop Wednesday night.

Not a good thing. Quite bad, in fact. In what I’m told is the usual way, the water from the sprinklers, and the firefighter’s axes, did more damage than the actual fire. (Not that I’m dissing the firefighters, you understand.) Monk, Nerdy and Tambo spent all yesterday mopping and sweeping and carrying loads of now-worthless merchandise out to the dumpster. And then I bought them stiff drinks.

Today, they are able to summon, barely, some flickers of optimism about the future. But it’s a helluva mess. He sent me some pictures. Here’s Monk and Nerdy (I think that’s Nerdy?) looking at the outside of the building. A shot of the standing water on the floor, and a box of Bridget Harrington’s new bondage book, ruined by water damage.

He'll get everything going again, of course, and there is insurance, although god knows what getting money out of them will entail. (I do not have good experiences with insurance companies.)

In the wake of this, I’ve gotten several emails from kind readers asking me if they can donate to a relief fund. It’s a very sweet idea. I mentioned it to Monk, and his reply was: “Wow, that’s very kind and generous of people. We’ll definitely get back up and running no matter what, but if readers want to do something to help us along and speed up the process, I would think that was a really nice gesture on their part. It would certainly help me make sure all my employees still get paid on time.”

So if you want to, you can donate whatever you want here, through Paypal, and I’ll see that it gets to Monk.

Monk also said that cookies, supportive emails, and some patience are very much appreciated. Oh, and pictures of naked boobies. Those help, too.

Oh, and the usual Friday fodder: My new column, and the calendar...

Cat Suspension

I've been meaning to post this for a while, because it's funny. I'll pause while everyone makes the obvious joke to themselves....

And now I'll tell you the story behind it.

There are two ladies in Seattle (both of whom read this blog, I believe) who like rope bondage. One of them apparently bet the other that she could suspend her cat. I forget what the stakes of the bet were - perhaps someone will remind me - but this photo was offered as proof that in fact, you can do a two-point horizontal suspension on a cat. Although I don't recommend this as practice for suspending humans.

I would also point out: I think this is an extraordinarily accomodating feline. I myself have a cat, she's nineteen years old, and never, at any point since I plucked her from that mobile home in Tampa with the "Free Kittens" sign, would she have been willing to tolerate such lese majeste.

Given her humble beginnings, I don't know where she gets her severe and imperious attitude. Yes, I've had her since she was a tiny kitten. What does that have to do with it? Hey, are you trying to imply something?

(Thanks to Midori and Kelly for the photo.)

Also: I have time available this week Wednesday and Thursday.

Domestic Stress

This is going stun some of you newer readers, but in fact, I do not get my house cleaned by saucy little slaves dressed in French maid uniforms who do it just because they worship me. (Or Max.) That kind of arrangement is always more trouble than it’s worth, in my experience. We pay people to do it.

I’ve paid people to clean up after me for years. I’m not a huge slob – I’d call myself medium-tidy. That means I won’t let dirty dishes sit around, but stacks of books and piles of papers do tend to accumulate, and I’ll often just throw down my jacket wherever. Stuff like that.

And really, what is the point of making good money if you don’t use it to make your life easier? So I hire people. My first housecleaner was great. Then she became a sex worker and started making ten times as much money per hour, and so of course she quit. I had a couple of cool but transitory people after that, and a few flakes, and for several years I’ve had a very nice woman, V, doing our house. I’ve known V for years, we have a lot of acquaintances in common - including some of her other clients - and she’s a lovely person. However, either she’s got more clients than she can really handle, or she’s got some other issues going on, because Max and I feel she’s canceling her days with us – with no notice - more than we’d like. We entertain a lot, and we have a lot of houseguests, and so it’s often an issue for us that the house actually does get cleaned that day. So we’re exploring our other options.

We’ve talked about using Merry Maids or some outfit like that, but I don’t trust those big services. I want to hire an individual person, preferably a sole proprietor, who I can meet and look in the eye and decide that I trust them – or not - and have that person and no other be in my house. I mean, V has her own key, for god’s sake, she usually comes and goes without us being here. I totally trust her. So that’s one of the requirements.

They also need to be if not kink-friendly, at least kink-tolerant, because there’s a lot of kinky stuff around the house. I don’t mean we leave used sex toys around, we’re much too polite to ask anyone else to deal with those. I mean the big ole cage in the bedroom, for one thing, and a lot of somewhat pervy art on the walls, and various magazines and such. V did also vacuum and dust the basement playroom, because the dungeon furniture didn’t bother her a bit. But we’d be willing to excuse a new person that duty, at least until they got used to the idea.

So if you are know (or if you are yourself) an open-minded, professional, reliable housecleaner, with references, in the Seattle area, drop me a note. Good help is hard to find, but we need it.

(A brief note to be super-clear, because some people don’t read very carefully: this is not a personal ad. I want someone who does this for a living, not for erotic gratification, or because they want attention from the Mistress. Professional. For the money. Not sexy. Got it?)

Round-Up of Recent Events

The Human Sexuality class: Went just fine. I’ve done stuff like that a lot, although usually they just want me to talk about one specific aspect of who I am: being kinky, or being poly, or being bi, or being a sex worker. This class got sort of an overview of the whole crazy salad of my life. A one-hour class isn’t really enough to cover everything in a satisfactory way, and I think some of them walked out with their heads kinda spinning with all the bits of information I gave them, but they were great kids and I enjoyed talking to them.

The Mom: Is indeed here, although she leaves today to go up to Victoria for a few days. Saturday night I took her to the Late Night Catechism show at The Act. I’m a second-generation Catholic schoolgirl - my mother went to Catholic school back in the day when the nuns ruled their student with an iron ruler. (Yes, both of us went all twelve years.)

She and her husband loved it, but the show was actually much gentler than I’d expected. It pokes fun at the church, but it’s clearly geared to not offend practicing Catholics. So while the actress, Aubrey Manning, is very quick-witted in her improvisational schticks with the audience, overall the show is amusing but toothless. Although I suppose there are worse things for entertaining one’s mother. I took them to the B&O Café for dessert afterwards, which was also a big hit.

Bondage is the Point Party: Grand as always. It’s great to have a regular party where I can count on most all of my friends showing up. I mean, a party I don’t have to throw myself.

The Kaotians, aka "the Darlington Sex Slave Cult": I got this email a day or so ago.

Tal Matisse

Came across your blog just a moment ago.

I see my father has been doing the rounds again.

I liked your comments after his letter *grins*

wish everybody saw things like you did.

To set the record straight, i only knew lee for about 3 weeks before meeting him - not 7 or 8 months as my father claims.

anyway, good post.

Regards

Zach Nicodemous.

“Tal” is not a badly-spelled indication that he thinks I’m above-average height. Rather it is how people in the Gor books greet each other.

Pervy Phrase of the Day: “…a peeping cyclops”. Isn’t that a cool phrase? I think you should all try and guess what it means. I’ll tell you the right answer tomorrow.

Kink Cults, Continued...
In my column this week, I make reference to an incident in Darlington, England involving something that mainstream journalists were delighted to call "a sex slave cult". You can read coverage of the story here or here, or just Google “sex slavery cult Darlington”.

It all looked to me like a rather messy private drama that worked its way to the local papers simply because of the kink angle. It must have been a slow news day, although newspapers and the TV news love it when they can run leering stories about sex while simultaneously seeming to denounce such nasty perversion. (Hey, did someone say "Robert Jamieson"? Huh, I thought I heard someone say... Oh, never mind.)

And I actually just used it as a jumping-off place to talk generally about the BDSM commune fantasy. So imagine my surprise when I got the following email.

Hello there Mistress Matisse,

It was I that originally broke this story to the local, national and international press. I am the father of the young teenager that Lee Thompson recruited into his Kaotian cult. My name is Tony Nicodemous, my son is Zachary.

Lee Thompson groomed my son over the internet from age 17 for six to eight months before my son decided to up and leave to join him. His mother and I, along with a family friend, have been campaigning for his 'release'. I say 'release' because it has been our firm belief that Zach has been manipulated, mentally brainwashed into accepting the values of this 'man' and is emotionally enslaved to this man. I recently managed to get a TV programme to 'go with the story' called The Trisha Show (similar to Jerry Springer format and they convinced my son and Thompson to attend. My son would not talk to me or even look at me.

Let me also clarify that Thompson is on the sex offenders register for having sex with a minor and has a history of mental health problems. He was beaten at age 10 and sexually abuse by his uncle at age 13. He was in a displaced family and in foster care for all his young life. It is this man’s values that I object to. And to this man being a mentor to my son withy Zach being at such a tender, naive and gullible age.

Please see www.spaces.msn.com/worried999 this is the family friends efforts to help us.

If you require any additional information or elaboration on any point please do let me know.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Nicodemous.

Okay, Tony, since you opened up a conversation, here’s my take on this.

I hear that your son has a friend you don’t approve of and he’s not pursuing the professional goals you want him to achieve. He’s adopted a type of personal/sexual self expression you can’t stand. Well, I think that’s what often happens when one’s children grow up. I myself have people as friends that my parents probably wouldn’t approve of, and my mother definitely would not have chosen for me to be a sex worker. I chose a life less ordinary, and I’m quite happy with the choices I’ve made, so I have some sympathy for your son’s point of view.

Your remarks about Thompson’s background do not strengthen your case in my eyes. I hate to tell you this, but having an unhappy, abusive childhood actually doesn’t disqualify you from having sex. Even kinky sex. Neither does having “mental health problems”. If that was true, a lot of people in the world would have to be celibate.

The “sex with a minor” thing? According to this source, he was 16 and his partner was 15. I don't call that child molestation. He was younger than your son is now, and you’re anxious to assure me that your kid isn’t capable of making adult decisions. (Oh, and please tell whoever put that MSN site up: the word is "pedophile". What the heck with that “Peed Oh File” thing? That’s incredibly annoying. In fact, the whole page is written so badly it's often hard to understand what the writer is trying to say.)

There are some allegations on that MSN site about Thompson doing BDSM in front of his kids. None of the news stories I found said anything about children. However, I agree that you should not do BDSM in front of children. If that has happened, that’s not okay.

Nothing I’ve read indicates your son has been brainwashed, as I understand the term. Introducing someone to a new idea he thinks is cool actually isn’t brainwashing, even if it’s an idea his parents don’t like.

Now that I’ve said all that, I will grant you that even allowing for the usual media distortion, Lee Thompson doesn’t come off like someone I’d want in my circle of friends. He sounds like a needy insecure guy who wants attention and isn’t picky about how he gets it. Some of his behavior seems very socially inappropriate and disrespectful to others. He might very well be mentally out of balance. However, this talk about “cults”… it’s one man, his partner, his submissive and now your son. That’s not exactly a compound in Waco. I think calling this particular group of people a “cult” is wildly inflammatory, at least by any of these definitions. Dominance and submission is an avenue of personal and sexual expression. Yes, Thompson and his people do share certain styles of expression with people the world over. Not surprising, given that they have based their play on popular (if really trite and badly-written) science fiction novels. But that doesn’t make Thompson a powerful cult leader with the power to brainwash anyone. (Although I sense he might enjoy having people think he's that powerful.)

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, Tony, just as I gave Thompson. I’m sure you love your son. But you handled this badly. This should have been kept private. By going to the media you’ve made it impossible for your son to abandon his friendship with Thompson even if he wanted to. His pride is at stake, and to a young person, pride means a lot. You’ve publicly painted him as a passive victim when he obviously wants to be seen as powerful.

He listens to you and he hears his parents telling him “you’re too dumb to pick your friends, your method of expressing yourself isn’t okay, and you need to behave yourself and obey us, now.” On the other side, he’s got an older man giving him attention and respect and telling him he can be in control of that intimidating group of people, women. Which way do you think he’s going to go?

It’s quite possible that this guy Thompson may be a total loser and a bad egg, and your son may wind up regretting the steps he’s taken. Everybody makes dumb choices sometimes, especially when they’re quite young. That’s part of life. Your son has to make his own mistakes. Unfortunately for him, you’ve made his name and his choice extremely public, so it’s going to stay a part of his life a lot longer than it would have if you’d kept it out of the papers. You went on TV? What the hell were you thinking?

If you love him, just make sure he knows you’ll be there for him if he decides he wants your help. Aside from that, the best thing you can do at this stage is shut up, back off, let him make his own choices and let him learn from them.

A quick note: I'm now booked solid til next week. Thank you for your swift response to my previous post, gentlemen.

Tomorrow, a link to the new column, and my answer to an email I recieved in response to it...

I've Got Time

So, gentlemen, if you've been wanting to see me, call this week. I haven't got much on the books, which is quite rare. As of this moment, I could even do something today, which is just about unheard-of.

If I know you, you can either call or email me. If you haven't seen me before, go here first: Mistress Matisse session information. After you've read that, then call me. Note that I do not process new people via email only, you must talk to me on the phone.

Now I'm off to talk to a college Human Sexuality class. They're going to love me.

Comings And Goings

Roman arrived back in Seattle late last night. Max arrives home this evening. It’s been very nice having time alone - and I had several delightful evenings with various friends both new and old - but I’ll be happy to have my sweethearts back. Max and I have Cirque du Soleil tickets for Friday night, which is always sort of a romantic date for us.

And then, Thursday – my mother arrives for a visit. Now, I love my mom and I do enjoy her company. But I actually prefer to going to Atlanta to visit her, because when she’s here, I struggle with trying to keep one foot in the routine of my life, while also entertaining her. It’s a bit much. (Other posts about Mom here and here, because people always ask me the same questions...)

But visiting relatives is reason #426 to have a workspace separate from one's home. “Okay, Mom, I’m going to work now, I’ll see you later.” And I have sweet boys who will let me vent any stress I feel on their willing behinds. So how can I complain?

People ask me: don’t you worry about getting a bad client who’ll hurt you? Actually, I don’t much worry about that, mainly because I see mostly regular clients these days. No, what I worry about more often is me hurting them.

Not on purpose, you understand. But things do go wrong sometimes, and while I know a lot about dungeon safety, anyone who logs as many hours playing as I do is going to have a mishap once on a while. It’s my job to make them as minor as possible, and I’ve – so far – succeeded in that. But God, sometimes things happen that scare the piss right out of me.

Example A: A few months ago, I was playing with Milo. I had him seated in the bondage chair, strapped in firmly, and we were doing some medium-level CBT, nothing we hadn’t done lots of times before. He also had nipple clamps on.

We were going along fine, but then I glanced up from his bits to his face. Whoa, something’s wrong. He’s turned an ashy-pale shade that says “Danger, danger!” to me.

“Hey, sweetheart, are you okay? You don’t look so good. Talk to me.” I was already removing the bondage around his balls as fast as I could

“Yeah….I feel a little….funny…” His voice was weak. He’d also broken out in a cold sweat all over his body.

Shit, shit, shit. I needed to remove the nipple clamps, too, and that was going to shake him up even more. I took them off. He didn’t respond much - not a good sign. His head had rolled back and his eyelids were fluttering. I untied his hands and legs, and then I put my hand on the strap around his chest and paused.

It had only been about thirty seconds since I first noticed something was wrong, and I had to make a lighting-fast decision. I think Milo is about to faint. He needs to be horizontal with his legs elevated to get his blood pressure normalized. With a different guy this might not be such a serious crisis, but Milo is six-foot-five and easily weighs 250 pounds or so. I’m not a weak girl, but if I try to move him when he’s out cold, he’s so much bigger than I am that I could very well lose control of him and drop him, or fall with him, injuring either or both of us.

So what to do: Leave him strapped in the chair until he passes out and then comes to – assuming he does - or take the chance, unstrap him and try to get him down to the floor? Decide, right now, Matisse.

“Milo! Milo! Talk to me, stay with me! I need to get you down to the floor, but you have to stay with me!”

His eyes opened and focused on me, and he nodded slightly. Okay, here we go. Holding his gaze, I unbuckled the last strap and prayed fervently that he didn’t go limp in the next few seconds.

He leaned forward and stumbled out of the chair, while I used all my strength to support and guide him. He sank down to his hands and knees, and then down on his stomach, his face to one side. Once he was safely flat on the floor – thank you jesus, he didn’t fall and hit his head – I knelt next to him, watching him tensely. Is he breathing? Is he going to go deeply unconscious? Is he going to throw up? Have convulsions?

The seconds ticked by as I waited. The answers seemed to be yes, he’s breathing, he’s not throwing up or convulsing, and I don’t think he’s deeply unconscious – there isn’t that utter slackness to his body that I’ve seen in other passed-out people. I went quickly and got a large bolster-type pillow and a blanket.

“Milo, roll over. Roll over on your back,” I said, tugging at his shoulder. He obeyed and I lifted his legs up onto the pillow. Some color had returned to his face, although he was still pale. I waited and watched for another sixty seconds or so before he opened his eyes and looked at me.

Okay, that’s good. He’s conscious and he sees me. “Milo, how do you feel? Does your chest hurt? Does your arm hurt? Say something to me, can you talk?”

He moved his head a little. “M’okay, all right.”

“Can you move both your hands and feet? Wiggle your arms and legs a little for me.”

He does.

All right, so hopefully not a stroke or a heart attack. Just a simple faint, please god. Because, wow, if I have to call 911, it’s really going to ruin the day for both of us.

I watched him closely for a few more minutes as the color returned to his face. He shivered and I tucked the blanket in around him more tightly.

And within a few minutes, he sat up, drank some water, and was okay again. I’ve seen him lots of times since, played with him, and there’s been no recurrence. It was just one of those things: a warm room, an empty stomach, a little too much pressure here and there. But it’s not the first time someone’s gone out on me, although it’s the time I was most worried about being able to get someone down safely, because there wasn't much warning, and just because he’s so damn big. That’s the thing: if I have anyone in any bondage position other than lying flat, I always have to think about how I would get them safely down if they passed out. Because I may be a sadist, but that doesn’t mean I want anybody to get hurt.

It’s Friday, and that means…

There’s a new column and calendar, here.

Also: Get your rope gossip fix: Roman’s off vending rope to the masses at Shibaricon, and he’s going to be doing a live SKYPE cast (sorta like a podcast, but listeners can ask questions in real time) with bondage blogger Graydancer. Get the app, listen and chat with the kinky rope guys! It’s happening today, Friday, at 6:30 Central time, which means 4:30 Seattle time.

In Other News: I very rarely talk about my clients here, not because they aren't fabulous, because they are, all of them. (Or else they wouldn't be my clients.) But if I talk about what a good time I had with one of them... well, the others often seem to get a bit - dare I say it? - jealous. Or maybe it's just a competitive thing - you know, the testosterone. But regardless, I don't wish anyone to feel left out, or that I didn't have an equally good time with them, too. So I generally just don't talk about anyone at all, even though I often wish I could.

But still, I must blow a kiss to the two boys who have lately showed up with the most charming pervertibles imaginable. Last week: Golf shoes. Yeah, with the sharp spikes on the bottom. No, I don’t play golf - these shoes will never see grass. But skin? Oh yes, they're really nice for walking on people. Oh, well, but walking isn't really the right word. I actually think of them as dance shoes. Like tap dancing, a little moonwalking, the twist, and some pirouettes.

This week: A reciprocating saw, minus the blade, fitted up with a dildo on the business end. It makes a really cool noise! The saw, I mean - although other cool noises were made also...

So, a new twist in my relationship with The Stranger – I’ve now been given Slogging rights. The slog is The Stranger’s blog, and I made my first post there yesterday. I’ll mainly be posting short snippets with links, as opposed to the longer pieces I usually put up here. I have a list of sites I’ll be culling for interesting tidbits, like this one and this one. But if you see a news story, especially a local one, about sex, sex work, polyamory, BDSM, or abortion/birth control rights, feel free to send it along to me. Personal-essay blog posts are also a possibility, although it would have to something well-written, and something of more than just vague prurient interest.

In other news: Roman left yesterday and I miss him. Max leaves today, and I'm going to miss him, too. But I am being sort of deluged by pals who are taking advantage of this free weekend to call me and make dates. It's nice to have friends.

Browsing on Amazon

Yes, I know, it’s the evil empire. But I get a lot of gift cards for them from my very sweet clients, which I like, so here we go….

First, a book I've had on my list to buy for awhile:

The Glorious Deception : The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the "Marvelous Chinese Conjurer" by Jim Steinmeyer.
I have kind of a thing about nineteenth century magicians. Sure, Houdini was cool, but where do you think he got the ideas for a lot of his tricks? He even named himself after a famous French illusionist, Jean Robert-Houdin. I also dig stuff about the “spirit mediums” of the time - fascinating examples of how people will overlook the most blatant fraud to believe what they want to be true.

Amazon thinks I'd like Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, and they're probably right. The publishers blurb: “Do you know what makes you happy? Daniel Gilbert would bet that you think you do, but you are most likely wrong. In his witty and engaging new book, Harvard professor Gilbert reveals his take on how our minds work, and how the limitations of our imaginations may be getting in the way of our ability to know what happiness is.” Well, I’m a pretty happy person overall, and I think I know why I’m happy, so it’ll be interesting to see if that lines up what Dr. Gilbert thinks is making me happy.

From this book, I clicked on another intriguing-looking title, The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car! by Tim Harford. Another pop-economics book, but it looks at least as interesting as Freakonomics, which I (mostly) enjoyed. Add it to the list.

From pop economics to pop psychology: The Psychology of Harry Potter : The Boy Who Lived by Neil Mulholland. Yep, I’m a fan. Mildly embarrassing but true. Plus I'm on this roll with popular culture analysis, so why stop now?

Speaking of culture – or the lack thereof- this looks worth reading: Choosing Civility : The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct by P. M. Forni I’m guessing (hoping!) I know them already, but hey, it’s not something one should leave to chance. Plus, as someone who's often admonishing people about bad manners, it might have some instructional concepts I could steal – I mean, be inspired by.

I had a really lovely weekend with some of my pervy friends, and now it’s Monday again. Max and Roman are both leaving me this week! Not for long, of course. They’re going to Shibaricon, which I elected to skip. I’m sure it’ll be a fine event, but I just didn’t want to spend the time and money. (Plus, you know, some of those kimono boys, they’d be cranky with me.)

So Roman will sell oodles of rope, and both he and Max will tie up and torment various ladies (and perhaps a boy or two, who knows), and I’m sure they’ll both have a grand time. While I’ll miss them both terribly, I think I will enjoy having some time alone. I’m going to hang out with some pals of mine – like Jake, for example - who’ve gotten lost in the extreme busyness that has been my life lately.

I do have one play-date lined up, and I’m looking forward to that. It’s a second date, which in some ways I enjoy more than the first. First play-dates are, for me, always a bit cautious. I’m exploring the territory, seeing what happens when I push here, what happens when I poke there, making sure my play-partner doesn’t go anywhere I cannot safely retrieve them from when I’m finished. But second dates – well, having some knowledge of the terrain, I always feel like I can relax and enjoy myself more. So I have some fun ideas* in mind, although since he graciously offered to cook me dinner afterwards, I suppose I shouldn’t ruin him so completely that he's unable to make a demi-glaze.

Oh, what the hell, we can always call out for pizza.

*However, my play-partner for this scene can be assured of one thing: whatever I do to him will not involve Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Which is not true of a certain other man who is now on my Boys I Really Need To Torment Until They Howl Like Rabid Jackals list. Yeah. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon, my yellow-shirted pal, your number is so going to come up. Did you know I once rented a funeral home to create an appropriate setting for a scene? And Krispy Kreme isn’t open twenty-four hours anymore. I bet if I bribed the cleaning people sufficiently I could get an hour alone with you in there, late at night, with all those dangerous-looking machines. I wonder how hot that glaze is when they dribble it all over those doughnuts? I could take pictures of you, tied to the conveyer belt, and put them here on the blog, as a warning to those who would - against my express wishes - bring those sweet, delicious little pastries of high-calorie evil into my house.

Happy Friday, everyone. Here’s a fresh column and calendar…

And in addition to it being Friday, this is also the official weekend of Max’s Birthday (Observed). (His actual birthday was last week, but he was out of town.) I’m really, really happy that he’s in the world, and most especially, in my world. Happy Birthday, darling, I love you…

Dance Fever

So Roman will write his view of our evening soon, and I'm sure that'll be fun, but this is mine....

As I mentioned, Max was away a few days, so Roman and I had arranged to spend the weekend together. We went out for dinner at the Brooklyn Friday night, which was lovely, and Saturday we had lunch on Broadway and went shopping for some PVC pants for Roman, and then went for a run by Lake Washington – for which our tibialis anteriors punished us for several days, gym bunnies that we are. Big difference between running on a treadmill and running outside. But it was pretty.

We had certain plans for early Saturday night, which are not to be made public, sorry. But somewhere along the line, Roman revealed that he’d never been to a gay bar.

“You’re kidding me. You have tons of gay friends.”

“I know, I know, I just never went clubbing with them. I’m not really a nightclub kinda guy.”

Well, this simply could not be. I spent just about every Saturday night of my life between 19 and 25 dancing in a nightclub, and ninety-nine percent of the time, it was a gay bar. Why? Well, because they’re cooler, that’s why. Plus half the time I had a girlfriend anyway, so it seemed like the logical place to go. And since Roman is a card-carrying member of the My Sexuality Terrifies Other People Party, he just needed to have that cherry popped, pronto. So off we went to Capitol Hill.

We stopped off in a place I hadn’t been in years, R Place, mainly because… well, actually, I don’t really recall why we went in there. It’s an okay-enough bar, although hardly the beautiful people. But then I decided we should go to The Cuff.

Now the Cuff is not the hippest queer club in town, and it’s not a really traditional leather bar anymore either. (Especially since they did away with “the dog run”, that dark little fenced-off alley where…things happened.) It’s kind of blend of the two. But I felt that Roman should see it, because, you know, it’s The Cuff. A bit of Seattle leather history. (There’s The Eagle, too, but we’ll hit that another time.)

So we went in through the non-dance bar, and there were some guys in leather and various other slightly fetishy looking clothing, although most people weren’t wearing anything unusual. I had hoped to get Roman’s boots shined by the cute boy bootblacks, but alas, they’re only there on Friday. So down the stairs we went to the dance bar.

Now, I’m completely comfortable in this environment. There are a few other women there, although the ratio is easily twenty to one. But it all feels quite familiar to me. I’m watching Roman to make sure he’s cool. He is, totally. But now, the acid test.

“Let’s dance.”

Roman had told me he wasn’t so big on dancing. But if you go to a club with me, you must dance. It’s absolutely imperative.

Never one to not rise to an occasion, Roman agreed and we got out on the floor. Just as I suspected, he’s a good dancer. Although really, it’s so crowded that John-Travolta-style moves were not an option. We were almost shoulder-to-shoulder with the other dancers, although there was some ebb and flow.

And speaking of shoulders, I glanced around and noticed about half the guys on the floor had their shirts off. Many of them were not nearly as cute as Roman. I pulled his ear down to my mouth and yelled over the thundering music. “Take your shirt off!”

He cocked an eyebrow at me quizzically. I grabbed the front of his shirttail and tugged it upwards. He looked unconvinced.

I pulled his ear back down. “I’ll take off mine if you take off yours!”

Now, before you get too excited – I was, in fact, wearing a bra. A sexy-looking bra, but still, I was totally street-legal.

Roman saw the charm of this suggestion. Plus, we’d been dancing for a while, and sweat was running off us both pretty freely by that point. So he took off his shirt, and I took off mine.

A woman taking off clothing in a gay bar does show you, very quickly, who the bi men are. Most of the men around us didn’t even glance at me. I did get some wide smiles from a few of them, though.

The majority of them, however, looked approvingly at Roman, and the general flirtation level around us ratcheted upward noticeably. There was one beautiful black man who was quite taken with Roman, and one slender, exotic-looking young man who seemed to like both of us very much, given the way he kept caressing Roman's arms and my hair. It was great fun.

So we danced and danced and danced, and finally our quads gave out and we staggered off the floor, slick with sweat. We gulped down bottles of water and watched for awhile. We both sort of wanted to give it one more round out there, but it was getting late and we were flagging. So we put our shirts on and wandered out into the 3am night, to breakfast at Minnies. I’m glad we did it, it was a nostalgia trip for me. It’s not how I want to spend all my weekends anymore, but once upon a time it was my idea of a good time, and I’m glad I got to revisit that with Roman.

Good lord, it’s Wednesday, and I haven’t even begun to tell you about how I got my he-only-pretends-to-be-gay Roman to take (some of) his clothes off in a men’s bar last weekend. (Hint: They liked him. He was so being flirted with by a beautiful black man who looked like he’d stepped out of Mapplethorpe’s wet dream…Talk about a girl’s boy-on-boy fantasy.)

Ah, but I don’t have time for that story now. How does the time get away from me? Would it help if I told you I’m preparing for a slightly belated celebration of Max’s birthday, complete with out-of-town houseguests and various private entertainments? Sometimes this social-diva thing is very time-consuming.

More later. Really.

Subject: (no subject)
Date: 5/15/06 5:26:59 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
From: DELETED@yahoo.com
To: inquiry@ DELETED.com, DELETED @hotmail.com, DELETED @yahoo.com, DELETED @yahoo.com, DELETED @comcast.net, DELETED @yahoo.com, MistressMatisse @aol.com

Hey
I'm a horny 19 year old male and was looking to have fun with you. Was wondering really how much it would cost to get a blowjob. Let me know as soon as possible, I'm very horny and ready

Nothing quite like getting a completely clueless and inappropriate email that’s been CC’ed to half a dozen other women. If he ever succeeds in getting in the same room with an actual woman, I hope he only gets a blowjob. I’d hate to think that someone as dumb as this might accidentally breed.

I had a very good time this weekend. Details to come, but right now I need to go bury all the bodies - whoops, I mean to say: get ready to fetch my darling Max home from the airport.
So more later.

Happy Friday, my friends. Max is out of town visiting family for the weekend and so I've lured Roman away from work to spend some extra time with me over the next two days, mmmm....

I should note: In the wake of yesterday's post, I got lots of sweet offers for MS software, and that's all good to go now. So thanks to all of ya'll who were so kind.

Meanwhile, enjoy the new column, and my thanks to Tess and Otis for giving me the interview....