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....

Tech Toys

So, I got a new toy today – a laptop. I’ve never had one before, and I’m very excited about it. It’s a Dell Latitude, very sleek and fast, and it’s great. I definitely feel like one of the cool kids now.

And a new toy is, of course, an excuse to do a little shopping. I’m going to need a laptop case. Now, I’ve heard good things about the Aussie Crumpler bags. (Though I hate their website. Hate. It. Unlabelled icons, annoying music, and a slider bar that defaults back to the starting position every time you click on an item? Very bad.)

From this list, I think I like the Oakley bag best. But I'm still shopping. I want something stylish for under, say, two hundred dollars. Do any of ya'll have a bag that you love and that you'd recommend?

Also, I need a (legal) copy of MS Word. Max is checking to see if he’s got a license I can have, but if that falls though – anyone got a good connection for that? I just know somebody out there knows Bill and could score me a deal.

Oh, and the one thing about my laptop that made me giggle: the graphic from the plastic bag it was wrapped in.

I think this is the international symbol for: “If you’re very unhappy, put this bag over your head and hold it tightly around your neck. You’ll look like your face is on TV and that’ll cheer you up. But then you’ll die.”

Ring Ring!

Me: Hello?
Caller: Is this Mistress Matisse? I’m calling to get some information.
Me: Okay, what do you want to know?
Caller: So you’re like, what, a dominatrix?

He says the last word like it’s a species of beings he’s been told about, but doesn’t quite believe exists. This doesn’t bode well.

Me: (sigh) Yes, that’s what I am.
Caller: So you’re not like, an escort or anything?
Me: (very firmly) No.
Caller: You don’t do like, a massage, or anything?
Me: No, I do not.
Caller: So what exactly do you do with people?
Me: Every session is different. It’s something that’s agreed upon between the individual and I, depending on just what they’re looking for. Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for, and I can tell you if it’s something I do.
Caller: Well, what do you charge for, you know, just an average session?
Me: My time is two-hundred and fifty dollars an hour.
Caller: Two-fifty! Wow, that’s a lot. I think that’s pretty high. Don’t you think that’s pretty high? Can you do any better for me?

Okay, we’ll leave aside the fact that my rate isn’t any higher than several other dommes in town, and hey, buddy, I am Mistress fucking Matisse, thankyouverymuch. Of course, this yabbo doesn’t know that my rate isn’t unusually steep, because he hasn’t done any market research. If he had, perhaps he’d understand what a dominatrix is, for god’s sake.

But yes, ignoring all that – this is quite possibly the worst and lamest attempt to bargain with me I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard more than I’d like. What answer can he possibly imagine I would make to his flattering little gambit? “Why, yes, I hadn’t noticed, but now that you mention it, I guess it is pretty high. Two-fifty? Yep, you caught me, I’m really not worth that much money. Let me just slash my prices just for you, for being such a perceptive and smooth-talking guy.”

And you know, gentlemen, if you do talk to a lady – in any branch of the sex industry – who instantly agrees to lower her base rate when asked by a stranger: be afraid. That’s a sign of something bad, and whatever her reason for doing it is, you so don’t want to be in a room with that gal. Trust me.

But I don’t feel like giving this guy a lesson in either sex worker etiquette or in Bargaining 101.

Me: No, I don’t think it’s high. But if you do, I suggest you call somewhere else. Goodbye.

Click. I hang up. I can’t do any better for you, pal, but I can definitely do better than you, with one of my good clients.

Hollywood Musings

(I have nothing meaningful to say today, so instead I'll talk about other people's love lives.)

I am so not a celeb-o-phile. I don’t even watch TV. But I do go to the grocery store, and this little feud with Heather Locklear and Denise Richards over Heather’s soon-to-be-ex-husband is almost impossible not to notice, emblazoned as it is across every glossy People-esque magazine on the racks by the checkout lanes. I will read trash while I stand in line, always. I won't buy the magazines, you understand, but when there are four carts in front of you at QFC, one has to do something. So it's the classic dog-in-the-manger scenario: Heather breaks up with her husband, but gets pissy because Denise wants him, and he wants Denise. Now, I’m not saying I’ve never felt that way myself. But it's more dignified not to display one’s irrational impulses so publicly.

It all seems pretty ho-hum to me, though, because in my little kinky circle, things are pretty incestuous, especially if you back up and look at it over, say, a five-year period. Not everyone gets all coupled up, you understand, but my sage old leatherdyke daddy once said to me, about ten years ago, when I was wailing about the unavailability of a certain woman I wanted: “Honey, ain’t neither one of you dead yet. If you just wait long enough, everything comes around.” She was right – over time, one does see some play-partner pairings that seem highly unlikely at first glance. (And there are also some very discreet ones which would dumbfound the general public. Trust me.) This is why you should never announce your deepest phobias to a kinky dinner party, because years later, you’ll be bottoming to one of the guests and boom, out come the incredibly lifelike plastic spiders.

And just for the record, I can see why Heather is dating David Spade, but then I have a weakness for nerdy boys. Too-handsome men usually make me suspicious*. Spade’s not exactly George Clooney, but he is funny, cute in offbeat quirky sort of way, and – most importantly - I bet he treats Heather like a princess and knocks himself out when he’s in bed with her. After being married to a couple of rock stars who probably treated her like a groupie with a day job, having a guy who thinks that seeing her naked is the best thing that’ll ever happen to him is probably a very charming thing to Ms. Locklear.

(*Which should not be interpreted to mean that Max and Roman are anything less than extremely yummy. )

I owe ya'll a post. But I'm writing this at one-thirty in the morning Sunday night, and I just got home and unpacked from Max's bondage class and the bondage party. It was great fun, but it's a long day and evening, and wow, I'm pretty wiped. Plus I have a busy day ahead of me - two busy days, actually, and a column to write. So I predict everything is going to be a little sketchy around here until Wednesday. Compose your souls in patience, please.

Happy Friday, everyone….

Here’s this week’s column.

A reminder about the bondage class Max is teaching Sunday afternoon, which will be followed by the “Bondage Is The Point” party. Should be big fun.

Not kinky, but something I have always felt strongly about: How you treat waitstaff (and other service people) says a lot about who you really are.

Speaking of which…I’m toying with the idea of going dancing next weekend. If you’re a local club-kid, tell me where I should go.

Hey, cool... Matt has created a photo essay showing the rope bondage lesson he and Silver had with Max. Nicely done, Matt.

When I stop and think about it, I know a lot of other sex workers. I mean – a lot. Sometimes for me, looking through the “Eros Guide” site for Seattle is like looking through MySpace or Tribe or Friendster. “Oh, look - there’s Claudia, she’s back in town and doing incall…. And Grace got some new pictures, very nice, they look like Tommy Edwards’ work. Huh, I didn’t know Meredith had switched from escorting to doing massage, interesting…”

I was thinking about this because a woman I know, who isn’t a sex worker, has made a remark to me about wanting to ask a few questions - the implication being that she’s considering a foray into the industry herself. I’ve given professional advice to a lot of friends over the years, and I’m always happy to do it. I sort of consider it my way of paying the universe back for giving me such overwhelmingly positive sex work experiences myself.

So I was thinking, considering what she might ask, and what I might tell her, when the phone rang. It was another friend, who is a sex worker, who also wanted some advice.

“I got this voicemail on the business line,” she began. “And I thought I recognized the voice, and then I realized – shit, I know this guy. I mean, I know him socially.”

“Wow, that’s unusual.” I replied. “Does he know it’s you? I mean, was it just coincidence or…?”

“No, he knows what I do, and he must have hunted around and found me somehow. But he wants to see me, and I just can’t – that’s too weird, I can’t do it.”

“I don’t blame you, it would be kinda strange.” I thought about it. “I’m not sure I’ve ever known someone socially and then had them as a client. But I’ve had people as clients first and then started seeing them around the community. You have to be careful not to out them, but it’s never been a problem.”

“Well, that’s the thing – he said he’s never done this before, and he went on and on about how confidentiality was really, really, super important to him, and how it was like a big deal to call me and give me his number to call him back at, and like that.”

“Let me get this straight – confidentiality is the biggest deal to him, and so to preserve his anonymity he called a sex worker who knows him in his real life? Oh, that’s not so smart.”

She paused. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I guess that is kinda dumb, isn’t it?”

“I would guess that he’s thinking that at least he knows you’re not a cop. Guys who aren’t very experienced always worry way more than they need to about that. And he probably feels reasonably sure you won’t have some killer pimp hiding behind the door, either. But he’d have done better to ask you for a referral.”

“Yeah, because I definitely don’t want to see him.”

“So just tell him nicely that it’s too close to home and send him to someone else. Or if even that’s too weird, just point him towards one of the escort review boards and let him pick someone from there.”

“Okay, that’s what I’ll do. Thanks, Matisse.”

We hung up. It’s really nice to be at a point in my career where there are very few professional situations that I feel I have no solution to.

What a cool weekend I had.

Friday: Roman shows up with Stellar’s pizza and entertains me with stories about tying up out-of-town visitors while I eat dinner. Then we discover that the new Goldfrapp CD is perfect music for our brand of growling, biting, bed-wrestling. No Mexican wrestler hoods, though.

Saturday: I sleep in while Roman goes off at the crack of dawn to deliver rope to the students at Max’s rope bondage intensive, and give Mrs. Roman a kiss, as she’s attending the class as well. He returns as I’m getting out of the shower and demands a rematch, perhaps feeling that I took some unfair advantage the night before? We agree, after a while, to call it a draw.

We rehydrate, and decide to go do a late lunch and a movie. Lunch is a Mexican place downtown I’ve never been before, and it turns out to be quite good. As we eat, I talk to Roman about a writing class I’d like to take in the fall, and suggest to him that he take it with me, although I know he’s as busy as I am, perhaps even busier, and that I shouldn’t put more on his plate. But I can’t resist asking.

Roman’s choice of movies, Brick, turns out to be fabulous. (Did I mention it was fabulous? It was fab-u-lous, my friends. If you have any love for the classic film noir, you must go see this fast, clever twist on the genre. Plus, the star is the former Third Rock From The Sun actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, all grown up and looking damn hot in this movie. Think of an edgier Daniel Radcliffe, all messy dark curls and a thousand-yard stare from behind wire-rimmed glasses.)

Knowing I can be hard to please, Roman is triumphant at having chosen both a new restaurant and a movie that I loved. He says finding new things – food, music, films – that I’ll like has become something of a fetish for him. I tell him it’s one I support. We kiss and part company.

Sunday: My turn to get up at the crack of dawn to help with Day Two of the intensive, although at least class today starts a half an hour later than Saturday’s. But still, seven-thirty am is no friend of mine. There is no method of caffeine delivery fast enough or strong enough to make me feel perky at that hour.

But I’d do (just about) anything for my Max, so up we go, off to the Wet Spot, to rig fifteen suspension points. I’m up on a ladder, musing that if these people knew how not a morning person I am, they might think twice about dangling so blithely from these same points.

But Max makes sure it’s all done to spec, of course. All the students arrive, many of them pals of mine, and we get underway. From then on, it’s helping with knots, dealing with the slightly fascinated caterer as she sets up lunch, playing bondage stunt model for my opportunistically sadistic sweetheart, making sure everyone’s getting what they need. It’s fun, but still, just one day of this will leave me very tired, it always amazes me that Max can do two full days.

Sometimes I think I need a Monday to rest up from my weekends. But hey, I had a good time.

We’re gearing up for a busy couple of days around here, because the two-day bondage intensive Max is teaching this weekend. (Not to be confused with the regular bondage class May 7th, "Bondage For Sex.) The intensives are a lot to orchestrate – registration, space, caterers, equipment, et cetera. But you know, I’m really proud of Max and how he makes things happen: these two-day events, and the regular monthly bondage classes. All the teaching he does is a responsibility, but he’s good at it, and I’m pleased by the fact that a lot of people acknowledge that and look up to him for what he does. I’m a very driven, achievement-oriented person myself, and that’s something I really respect about Max. My work (and there are a lot of different activities that fall under that umbrella) is important to me. I need to have that in a partner. (Roman is this way as well.) I’m always sort of puzzled by people who don’t seem to have any goals. They don’t necessarily have to be the same type of goals I would have – but shouldn’t we be striving for something?

Speaking of goals, here’s the weekly column.

Another smart, driven woman - who happens to be a pal of mine - would be local pro domme Mistress Lydia. She apparently gets emails that are just as stupid as some of the ones I get.

I am eBaying, BTW. Just clothes and shoes at the moment – and I don’t mean used panties, I mean real clothes. I need to go through the toy closet at the dungeon, too, though, I’ve got boxes of stuff just sitting there.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone…

Men, unless you are a serious metrosexual, this entry will probably bore you. It’s mostly about clothes.

I’ve decided my closet needs an overhaul. Time to get rid of the things I don’t wear, and get some new outfits. I’ve bought stuff on eBay, but I’ve never actually sold anything there – however, I think the time has come. I’ve got an armful of dresses and such I don’t wear and they’re too cute to give to Goodwill. So today I’ll get out the camera, snap some pics of what I’ve got, and see if I can get rid of it. I’m told it’s easy, but if any of ya’ll are veteran eBay sellers, feel free to give me tips.

Meanwhile, I’m lusting after summer dresses. Isn’t this cute? And this one, too. And you can’t go wrong with Diane von Furstenberg, can you?

Look who’s giving Rose Algren a run for her money: Norma Kamali. Okay, not really – for thing, it’s not PVC, and no easy-access zippers. But still, it’s a sexy catsuit and I definitely want one.

For shoes, though, I’ll wait a bit – my mom lives in Atlanta, where there are many, many designer shoe outlets, and I’m going to visit her soon. I’ll just bring a spare suitcase.

But I'm not totally lost to vanity and fickle fashion today. I'm also eagerly anticipating reading this book, which I'm told is stupendous: A Writer's Life, by Gay Talese. "Thy Neighbor's Wife" was a fascinating, if meandering, examination of the swinger and sex work culture, far ahead of it's time, and I'm interested to see what Talese has to say about the experience of writing.

A woman who I have known casually for a few years has recently become involved in the local BDSM community. Of course I always knew she was kinky, but people have to be in the right place in their lives to act on things. And Scarlett is now, apparently, which is good. In a recent email she mentioned an incident that happened a couple of years ago at a non-kinky cocktail party…

"…some mutual (vanilla) friends of mine and Matisse’s were throwing a party, and Matisse came with Max and Jae and I forget who else, and oh, what a scene got created that night...when it came time for Matisse and Max to leave I threw a fit and wouldn't let Matisse up off the couch (she was sitting next to me) and Max took that as invitation to threaten to cut my stockings off with a large serrated bread knife (from the kitchen), and then one of the other vanilla guests went berserk. (Editor’s note: we had all had a few cocktails, which perhaps led Max and I to be slightly less discreet than we might have otherwise. Oh well.)
The rest of the story wasn't as funny but, you know, there's a reason why neither Matisse nor myself hang out in that crowd anymore... I sometimes think you can find more crazies at a vanilla party than a kinky party any day of the week."

Yeah, it seems that way sometimes. No one could have thought that Max was seriously threatening to harm Scarlett, but lord, that other girl absolutely freaked out. Of course, if that girl had seen some of the things Scarlett's been up to lately, I’m guessing she’d flip out even more.
Not that all vanilla people are uptight or anything. But it’s one reason why kinky people tend to stick to their own social circles. What seems like mild, innocent flirtation to us seems to induce full-on PTSD in certain other people.

Well, I had a nice weekend. Roman’s lovely wife was out of town, so he and I decided to take advantage of that to do something unusual: spend a weekend together. We rarely get two nights in a row together, and it was perfect in that it fell on a weekend where neither of us had any pressing social obligations.

It’s one of the nice fringe benefits to living with a partner but having a separate house for my professional space – I have a place where Roman and I can be together on our dates. (Roman has a lovely house, but he also has a sweet, friendly, furry dog to whom I am so very allergic.)

And I like my new house so much that I’m happy to spend time there. My old place was okay, but it was a charming older house with some really uncharming features like inefficient heating, capricious plumbing and the occasional four-footed visitor. I didn’t want to be there very much. My new place is a happy place to be.

So Roman and I just hung out together, ate yummy Stellar's pizza, lazed in the benevolent sunshine on my deck, cuddled in bed and watched two excellent movies (A History Of Violence, and The Ice Harvest) and just generally had a delightful weekend together.

Oh, what - you want to hear about the sexy parts? What makes you think we did anything sexy? Ah, yes, I suppose you have a point. Well, we did do some other, less innocent things as well, involving rope and clothespins. And we conducted a little electrical experiment – purely educational, really – in which we discovered that if you put one sticky pad on one person’s naughty bits and the other sticky pad on the other person’s naughty bits and you put those naughty bits together…you’ll get a tingle. A very noticeable tingle.

We like tingling.

Hey, Blogger is back up, cool! Here's this week's column and calendar. Now I have a hot date with my hairdresser, so - Happy Friday, everyone. Bye!

Okay, ready to find out how well you guessed? Here we go.

AA Model 1
Yep, sold this one, even though one of my strobes didn’t fire half the time, totally screwing up some of the shots. Slide film is not a forgiving medium. So not my best work by any means, and I’m sure they had to tweak the images a lot, but she just had a look they liked: very all-American, slim, long hair, kind of a Jennifer Garner type.

AA Model 2
No. She was actually my first shoot, and they didn’t like the couch/floor setting, said it was too boring. They were right - it wasn’t very good. But jeeze, look at the abs on that girl, and such a nice smile, too. She was extremely – ahem - enthusiastic about the more intimate parts of the shoot, too, really got into it.

AA Model 4
Oh yeah. They thought she was great. Who wouldn’t? She’s lovely. And no, that’s not Sarah Blake, although this girl had done a fair amount of modeling and it’s not impossible you’ll see her somewhere else online.

AA Model 6
No, they declined. She’s only model I ever took a chance and booked a shoot with sight-unseen, because she worked at a strip club, and I thought, okay, she has to be cute. And she is, definitely – but when I saw her, I had a feeling they’d decline. They didn’t like the Goth/alternative thing, and they felt she was just a little too curvy for NN - although of course she’s too slim for the voluptuous girls mags. Caught in the middle. But she had such amazing, glamorous eyes and a sexy energy that I thought it was worth a try.

AA Model 7
No, they turned her down without really saying why. I was surprised, I thought she had a great, sort of gawky/adorable young girl look. But the weird thing is: I found out later she’d already been in one of the Hustler “young girl” magazines! So maybe they recognized her and didn’t want to present her as an amateur.

AA Model 10
Yes. They loved her. (Which why I was baffled by them declining Stevie, who I think has a very similar look.) And this lady has actually gone on to be quite the busy porn model. I’m fairly sure I was one of the first to shoot her, though, and that tickles me.

AA Model 12
Yep. I had her do a cute bathtub scene shaving her legs…and et cetera, and they liked that. I think this model has a lovely, Bambi-like quality on camera, which is amusing since in real life, she’s not the delicate, vulnerable type at all. She’s sweet and all, but oooh, don’t piss her off. Nosiree. I was at a club with her and a bunch of other people, and some stupid guy was being rude and physically intrusive, and Bambi-girl here turned around and ripped him a new one just like that. He slunk away and we all went “Wow.”
(Bonus points if you recognized this model from my fetish video, Inflamed, which was her first first adult modeling experience ever. She was great. )

So now you’ve played photo editor. If any of you ever start your own porno mag and want me to shoot for you, you just let me know. I’m good at getting women to take their clothes off for me.

Porn Shoots, Part II

Okay, here’s the game. These are all models I shot for a porn mag. Some of them sold, some of them didn’t. To give you better odds, I’ll show you two images of each model. You submit your guesses and Wednesday I’ll reveal the facts.

A clue: do not be misled by what you think is the technical quality of the photo. For one thing, as I said yesterday, my scanner isn’t very good, and my Photoshop skills are fairly basic. A set is 180-200 transparencies, and the magazine often uses only half a dozen of them. If they like the model and the concept, they can almost always find 6 shots and magically tweak them, no problem.

One last remark: bear in mind that these women are real people, with feelings, and it’s not impossible that they might come upon their picture and your comments about them. So be polite.

With two exceptions (because they're just too beautiful) I have elected not to put any of the more revealing pictures here. But nonetheless, as usual: Not Work Safe!

AA Model 1, and 1a

AA Model 2, and 2a

AA Model 4 and 4a

AA Model 6 and 6a

AA Model 7 and 7a

AA Model 10 and 10a

AA Model 12 and 12a

Porn shots I couldn’t sell….

I was looking through the stack of porn magazines that I have work in the other day. (And by that I mean, photos I’ve taken, not photos I’ve modeled for.) I miss shooting, and I had a pretty good little system going for a while with finding amateur girlie-porn models, shooting them, and selling the sets to one particular magazine that specialized in amateur ladies. "Naughty Neighbors"- isn't that a great name for a magazine? It's so British-sounding, somehow. Even the total newbies felt comfortable working with me, a female photographer, and I found it an interesting sideline to being the Mistress.

But my luck took a turn for the worse when NN got a new art director, because after that, they began to inexplicably reject about a third of the sets I’d done. Since I was just a freelancer, this would leave me stuck footing the bill a model fee and the processing costs for five rolls of film. Not like I was going to starve to death, but annoying, because having shot it according to their particular guidelines, I had nowhere else to go with it.

Sometimes I knew a model was a gamble when I shot her, but sometimes I was completely mystified as to why they would turn down a certain girl.

(Note: Pictures not work safe, obviously. Also, these are scans of slide film, and my scanner is only so-so. Just saying.)

Take this girl: Elizabeth. Okay, yeah, she’s got a few tattoos, but jesus, she had a tiny little waist and beautiful (real) breasts, and she’s a natural redhead. I was knocked out when they said “No thanks”.

And Danielle – slim, long hair, and unshaved, everywhere – that’s a whole little fetish in itself.

Kendra: another petite, eighteen-year-old cutie declined. Inconceivable!

It was when they turned down Stevie that I decided to quit. Slim, blonde, big breasts, I shot her splashing around in a kiddie pool, and they said no? I just had to go back to a universe where things made sense again. See, that’s one of the good things about being a writer: if an editor says no, you can always rewrite it and send it somewhere else.

Happy

Last night Roman and I went to The Frontier Room and once again, I devoured delicious barbeque. It makes me happy.

Also - my taxes are not going to exsanguinate me quite as badly as I feared. Yay, tax-preparer man!

Here's this week's column and calendar. Plus, thanks to two alert readers who sent me two funny kink-related cartoons...... One here, and one here.

I was talking to a blog reader recently who asked when Roman and I were going to post some more video clips. We should, really. (And I did hear a rumor about him shooting some educational footage... But not yet.)
So until he and I get the time to shoot some more, enjoy the blasts from the past here, hosted on OnFuego...

Ring Ring!

Me: Hello?
Caller: Hi, Mistress Matisse?
Me: Yes, this is she.
Caller: Uh, I was wondering where you were located?

This isn’t the best way to start out talking to me. I’m not like The Lusty Lady, you can’t just drop by. I certainly do not give out my address to anyone who calls and demands it. But I’ll give him a few more seconds before I write him off.

Me: I’m in Seattle, about four miles from downtown.
Caller: I mean like, where exactly?
Me: No, I don’t tell you that unless you have an appointment. And you don’t.

And he probably won’t, based on my instinct about such things. The idea that this caller’s main criteria for choosing a dominatrix seems to be based on whether she’s in The U-District or Seward Park does not auger well for him. There are many important characteristics of a Mistress that should feature more heavily than whether you have to travel ten minutes more or less to reach her.

Caller: Well, I’m in Northgate.
Me: I see.

No, I don’t, actually. But hopefully he’ll get to the point.

Caller: Do you ever come here?
Me: No, I do not do outcall, sorry.
Caller: No, I’d want to come to your place.
Me: Okay – then why did you ask me if I came to Northgate?
Caller: I was hoping you could come pick me up.

Oh, good lord, what am I, the dominatrix taxi-driver?

Me: Pick you up?
Caller: Yeah, and take me by the bank. I’d need to get some money for you.

Amazing. Simply amazing. I consider pointing out that, uh gee, he could take a cab since that is, in fact, what they are for. Cabdrivers and I have a deal – I don’t drive strangers around in my car, and they don’t spank people. (Although I’m told they occasionally do a little verbal humiliation. And come to think of it, I had a cab ride in Manhattan that was truly a Fear and Terror scene. But I still don’t drive strangers around in my car.)

Also, while I think he means his, “I’d get some money for you” to be enticing, what comes into my head is the fact that many ATMs have a two-hundred dollar limit on cash withdrawals per day, and my fee is two-fifty. I can just see how this would go already. “Oh, gee, I’m sorry, this is all I get, could we just go do a quick session?” No. Oh, so very no. That’s not how I operate.

Me: No, I won’t do that.
Caller: But I don’t have any way to get to you.

Thank god for that, at least. Anyone who is so lacking in intellectual resources that he cannot cope with this problem is not someone I want naked in the same room with me.

An interesting essay about how to get over being jealous.... The whole site is worth exploring, if you haven't already done so.

Me? I have a favorite guy and a lovely lady friend of his coming to visit me today. So imagine me wreaking a bit of erotic havoc with them, and then going out for a decadent dinner somewhere. All of my vices in one day, oooh.

Bye!

So Roman and I keep toying with the idea of doing some kind of informal "personal profiles" on our blogs. By that I mean, we both know people, in our personal circle, who are looking for playdates, and we both get emails from readers talking about how they’re looking for people to play with, and it seems like a shame not to do something about bringing these two groups together. I admit I have a slight match-making fetish, but it wouldn't be personal ads per se, as much as “Here’s a cool person I know, if you want to meet them, write them here…”

Granted, most of the people we know personally are not looking for true love as much as kinky fun and games. And a lot of the letters I get are people who want a primary partner. (Although I do know one nice male rope-top who’s single, so there's that…) So that’s not perfect. But, still, there’s no reason you should sit at home until The One comes along, right? My mother always used to tell me that the best way to get dates was to go on dates, if you follow me.

I don’t really know how effective this would be, though. A lot of the people in the personal-friends category are straight men, and conventional wisdom says that women don’t usually answer personal ads. But perhaps it might be different with a reputable third-party endorsing them and guaranteeing that they are (like, probably, I’m pretty sure, I’m sure I’d notice if they were...) not a serial killer.

Just off the top of our heads, Roman and I thought of two straight guys, both rope-tops (one single guy and one poly, in-a-relationship-but-not-married guy), who are open to new partners and who might be fun people to profile. There is a female switch whom I see playing with a lot of people these days, but I don’t know if she’s actively looking for new partners. And I know a cute lesbian bottom (who switches a little), who’s single and interested in meeting fierce femme tops for whatever. Not boys, though, sorry.

So, hypothetically, would any of you local kinksters pay any attention to such things?

***

On another subject completely: Max has asked me to note that his two-day rope bondage intensive on April 29th/30th is filling up fast, so if you’ve been waffling about going, screw your courage to the sticking place. He’s capping it at 25, and 19 slots are already filled. Interestingly, we’re going to have a very heavy female attendance at this class, bigger than we’ve ever had. Look for a fresh deluge of hot woman rope-tops in the wake of it. w00t!

Enter It On The Line Where It Says, "Yeah, Right".

Tax stuff is very much on my mind right now. Of course, making jokes, in public, about the IRS is a lot like wisecracking about bombs in the airport - they have no sense of humor about that shit.

But still, I laughed when I read this:

Publication 525:
Illegal income. Illegal income, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.

I think I should not say any more about exactly why I find that so humorous. But it's definitely amusing.

Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income.

Huh. I wonder if Tom Delay's H&R Block guy knows that?

Last night Max and I went to see The Pillowman, a play at The ACT Theatre. It’s an interesting examination of the responsibility of the artist for his art. What I mean is: if I write about, say, piercing, and someone reads it and then sticks needles in themself, or someone else, what responsibility do I have for that? It's easy to say, "Why, none whatsoever." But is that really always true?
The performances by the actors were good, but the playwright painted his points in rather broad strokes. And it could have been thirty minutes shorter without sacrificing anything important. Definitely a bit self-indulgent.

Nothing like having a word count to keep one’s writing tight – it’s good discipline. Here’s the latest column and calendar.

Postscript: I just heard that Jan Lyon, one of the founders of the National Leather Association, died recently. I'm sorry to hear that. I haven't seen Jan in years, but once, oh, a very long time ago, when I was living in Tampa, she and I hooked up through the NLA newsletter (yes, the kind that came in the snail mail, this was pre-internet) and had....an intimate evening together. She was just in town for one night, and I didn't run into her again for a long time. But the baby kinkster that I was had a lot of fun with her. Godspeed, Jan.

I got permission from my friend Rossi to link to her pictures and journal entry about getting huuuuuuge needles stuck in her at Kinkfest two weeks ago. I mean, I've stuck a lot of needles in people, but these thing looked like barbeque skewers. All who saw her were quite impressed. She's just a little slip of a girl, but she's high-capacity.

Of course, my partner Max, never one to let an opportunity go by, graciously volunteered to thump on the needles a bit - okay, a lot - while they were in. Rossi agreed to this. She's such a generous girl. I was there when Max took the needles out, and damn, they were pretty bowed. Talk about making paper clips.

Obviously, if needles squick you, don't go look here. (And kids, do not try this at home.)

Ring ring!

Me: Hello?

Caller: Um, hello, I was ordered to call you?

Oh, damn, I hate it when guys do this. This caller, who has kind of a snarky, frat-boy sounding voice, is trying to draw me into a role play with him. I’m supposed to say something like, “Oh, you were, were you? Do you need to be punished?” Or something like that. Then he'd respond with some story about his wife or his secretary giving him this number because they were mad at him, and gee, he doesn’t understand what it’s all about, but they said if he was punished they’d forgive him, so…. Do I punish people? What would I do to him?

This kind of thing is fine as a role play once we’ve laid down a baseline negotiation. But that’s not how you start a conversation with me. If you call me up to talk about booking a session with me, you talk to me on the phone like a regular person, no games, no protocol, no “kneel on the floor while you’re on the phone with me” stuff. For one thing, I think BDSM is more piquant when you start out as equals - and then I tie you up and have my evil way with you. For another, a lot of time these guys are just looking for free phone sex, and I don’t provide that.

Besides, there’s the small matter of consent, and I haven’t consented to do a verbal role- play with this guy. Let’s see if we can redirect him.

Me: Are you calling about having a session with me?
Caller: Uh, gee, I was just ordered to call you.

He’s sticking to his line. We’ll try a different tack.

Me: Who ordered you to call me, and why?
Caller: (Pause) Someone gave me this number and told me to call.

He’s not really thought this out well, has he? I wonder what I’d have to say to get a different answer out of him.

Me: Look, if you want to talk to me about a session, then talk. Otherwise I’m hanging up.
Caller: But I was ordered to call you!

Click. I hang up. I am way too busy for pointless conversation.

High point of my day yesterday: an amazingly yummy lunch at The Frontier Room on 1^st Ave. I used to go drinking there (back when that seemed like fun to me) when it was the old Frontier Room, for you Seattle folks who remember that delightfully trashy dive. It was a little odd to walk in the door and smell the enticing aroma of smoked meat, as opposed to stale spilled booze and cigarettes. But for Yankee barbeque, the pulled-pork sandwich was pretty dang good.

Low point of my day yesterday: an appointment with my tax preparer. Oh, it’s not going to be pretty, boys and girls. For the next few weeks, the Federal Government is going to be my pimp. I am so Uncle Sam’s bitch until I write that check on April 14th. Ouch.

How fitting, then, that I get to have a little fun at the Fed's expense in this week’s column.

See you at the Bondage Class and Party!

Dominatrii In The News!

Geeze Louise – three hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars? That's sort of depressing. I am obviously doing something wrong…Although I'm guessing the Mistress in question is now getting a veritable tsunami of extremely annoying phone calls.

But this (relatively work-safe) little video clip is delightful…Leave it to the Brits to make a sexy ad about global warming. (Google video, 44 seconds)

Back From Kinkfest

Well, I had a very good time at Kinkfest this year. But then, I’ve never had a bad time there. I saw lots of friends, went to some good classes, and Max and I had fun at the dungeon parties.

The dangerous part about going to kink conventions, though, is that I invariably see new toys I want. I was so busy socializing this year that I didn’t get to shop the vendor area very effectively. So now I’ll have to order stuff, because I definitely saw some things I'm now lusting for.

I’ve been meaning to get a saline inflation kit and have a nurse-pal of mine give me a refresher session on that technique, because it’s big fun. Really, really big, if you use enough saline – a man I know inflates his balls to the size of a melon. But that’s a bit extreme - normally one puffs up the balls (or the nipples, or the labium) just enough to make them extra-sensitive. The sterile water is absorbed safely into the body within a relatively short time and it’s all good.

I was thinking one had to use a largish IV bag for this, but at KF I learned that you can actually buy cute little syringes pre-loaded with saline, all sealed and safe, for small infusion scenes. How convenient!

And I was reminded that I really need to get a surgical stapler. They seem fierce, but in fact, the staples don’t even go as deep as needles. You can use them almost anywhere, too. So there’s a call to my friend Bruce at KinkyMedical.net in my near future.

The medical stuff won’t set me back a whole lot. But then, damn, I saw one of these: The PES Samurai. Woot! I want one. (They say it's just for girls, but...heh. That's what they think.) It's not cheap, though - electrical stuff never is. Even going to the PES site is dangerous – I want another buttplug from them, too, and I need some new scrotal straps. I swear I could max out my Visa without even breaking a sweat.

I did get one fun new toy, though, from Seattle kink-artist Scott Paul. Many of us think of Scott Paul as “the cage guy”, but he actually makes a whole line of stuff besides cages, and it’s all beautifully designed and lovely to look at. He certainly has some very imaginative gags. And I imagine this little instrument will be delightful to wield.

Kinksters will recognize it as a variation on the classic medical Wartenberg Wheel, but sharper and meaner. I can’t wait to use it. Volunteers, anyone?

I am horrified by this. As far as I am aware, I don’t know anyone involved, but it’s a terrible tragedy. I can’t imagine losing someone I loved to such an apparently senseless crime, and I definitely cannot imagine being at a party where someone came in with a gun and started shooting.

I have known a few people who died suddenly and violently. Each time, I recall something my father, who was in Vietnam, used to say: “We are all only an instant away.” Death can come for us anywhere, at anytime.

My sympathy to all of those who are touched by this.

Barely-controlled bedlam here. Fetish clothes and BDSM toys are being tossed about the room in a frenzy of packing. iPods are being loaded with road tunes. Cats are sulking at the sight of suitcases (What? she thinks, my slave is leaving town? Inconceivable!). And SEAF-related spontaneous houseguests have materialized, because Max and I are so the Hotel Kink in Seattle.

But this is not your chaos to organize. Go read about how not to pick people up, based on an extensive survey of a dozen of my pals at a brunch party two weeks ago. Plus (ahem) years of personal experiences, both triumphant and catastrophic.

And go see SEAF. It's great.

Bye!

I’m busy!
I'm finishing a piece of writing for a April 1 deadline.
Getting ready to go out of town tomorrow.
Going to the VIP reception for SEAF tonight.
And trying to conduct the rest of my life as usual. I’m pretty swamped.

But color me excited: I just found out that Coinstar doesn’t take the service fee if you take Amazon vouchers instead of cash for your change. Yes, yes, I know, Amazon is evil, but I have a ton of change around the house in various jars, and so I think I can make an exception in this case. I haven’t been spending money on books lately, what with the new dungeon and all, but I want these:

A Devil's Dictionary of Business: Monkey Business; High Finance and Low; Money, the Making, Losing, and Printing Thereof; Commerce, Trade; Clever Tricks; Tours de Force; Globalism and Globaloney, by Nicholas Von Hoffman. I’ve never had an office job in my life, so the whole corporate thing is very alien and mysterious to me. This will be like reading a book about a foreign country.

The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque : A Novel by Jeffrey Ford I read his other novel, The Girl in the Glass, and liked it. I didn’t love it, but I liked it, so I’ll give ole Jeffery another spin.

Flashman on the March by George MacDonald Fraser. Love the Flashman books. Love them! Have them all. Good trashy-historical fun.

Ten Percent of Nothing: The Case of the Literary Agent from Hell, by Jim Fisher. Because while I’ve already researched the whole idea exhaustively, and feel sure that I’d know a legit agent from a scam artist… Information is never a waste.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. This one’s just going to piss me off, I'm sure. And I hate the idea of contributing even a tiny amount to the royalties of a guy I suspect is a total jackass. But I admit it: I’m curious about what he has to say.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Historical thriller – woot! I’m in heaven.


And in a completely unrelated note: The President of Oglala Sioux Tribe strikes back at South Dakota anti-choicers! “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.” Cecilia Fire Thunder, you rock!

News, Both Good And Bad

Well, this is depressing. The anti-sex, pro-censorship regime we’re living under continues to chip away at what adults are allowed to see and read. Please make a donation to the NCSF as they fight for our right to be sexy.
March 20, 2006 - Washington D.C. Today the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the
Federal District Court's decision in Barbara Nitke and NCSF v. Alberto Gonzales,
the challenge to the Communications Decency Act, #01 CIV 11476 (RMB). The Supreme Court has affirmed the lower court's decision without hearing oral arguments,
sending a clear signal that the court will not protect free speech rights when it
comes to sexually explicit materials....(Read More.)

In more fun news: Max is teaching another 2-day rope bondage intensive on April 29/30th. Go from clueless newbie to black-belt Nawashi, overnight! Okay, not really. But seriously, Max starts at the basic, 101-level stuff and takes you all the way through full suspension. He doesn’t teach suspension as a stand-alone class, so if you want to learn it from him – and there is no one better to learn it from, I assure you – this is the opportunity. It’s a limited class size and it will absolutely fill up quickly, so register now and save your spot.

There’s also a bondage class with fetish photographer Michele Serchuk and her partner, Delano, of DelanoInDistress.com – that’s coming up on Sunday April 2nd. There will be a slide show of Michele’s work with Delano. Mmmmm, pictures of a cute guy all tied up – sounds yummy.


Finally, a shopping question. This stuff, Sex Grease, is my lube of choice. I used to buy it at Babeland, but it seems they no longer sell it. Wah. Has anyone seen it being sold around Seattle anywhere? I can order it online somewhere, but I'd be happy to support a local business if it was convenient.

My romance with my new house continues. I’m thinking about remodeling my dungeon bathroom sometime next year – because it’ll take me that long to save up the money – and after looking through lots of design books, I realize that what I want looks a lot like the bathroom on the first floor of the house Max and I share.

You see, our sexy bathroom was actually designed to be a handicapped-accessible bathroom. What that means is that it’s kind of a big open room with a showerhead and a drain in the middle of the floor, and shiny chrome handrails. Because I don’t give a damn about bathtubs, what I like are sexy showers. Mmmm-hmmnn. They're so useful for all kinds of scenes.

I've certainly photographed it a lot. The first porn shoot I ever sold to a magazine, I think about 2002, was shot there, with model Rose Algren.

I did some pictures of porn-reviewer Jane Duvall there too. In spite of all the sexy wet shots we went on to do in this shoot, I love this one because it’s such a very Jane facial expression.

And of course I did some self-portraits there too.

So yeah, I want a big open space - big for a shower, I mean, perhaps eight by eight? Done in dark stone, because that blinding-white tile thing is not my kink. I think several water sources – showerheads, hoses, you know. And ADA handrails all around, the kind that are set deeply into the wall and designed to take lots of stress and pressure. That’s a sexy remodel.

Happy Friday, everyone.... Here's the new column. And for you dead-tree readers, I heard yesterday that I am absolutely back in the paper version all the time now. Yay!

Also: I see that the Lusty Lady is hiring. The LL is the only sex work job I ever had where I actually recieved a paycheck. Being a bona fide employee was weird. But it's a good gig for some girls, so if you go audition, remember two things:
1. You don't have to be able to dance like Madonna. It's a small room that you're in, with three or four other girls, so if you have the ability to wiggle your hips more or less in time to music, you're fine. (And hell, if you're cute and sexy enough, they don't even care about that.)
2. Make eye contact and smile. Like all other forms of sexy entertainment, they're looking for ladies who seem happy and engaged with the customers. Pick a window, get close to it, show the candy, look him in the eye, and smile. Not rocket science.

It’s nice when you have cute girls delivered, bound and gagged and blindfolded, to your door. It’s even nicer when cupcakes come with them.

Unfortunately UPS doesn’t provide this service. Last night Roman and I, with Griffin’s able and evil assistance, put Operation Abduction Scene into action. I had the easy part: wait at my dungeon for the victim to arrive, then be mean to her. No problem!

Roman and Griffin had to tie poor girl up, gag her, blindfold her, and stuff her (mostly) into a burlap sack. And then get her into the back of a car and get her over to my place, chuckling evilly and making Playfully Threatening Remarks at intervals.

Her partner was actually present the whole time, but she didn’t know it, as we kept her blindfolded the entire scene. I swear, Roman and Griffin and I should do one of those old-fashioned mystery radio shows. We love riffing off each other and throwing out red herrings. (“Holy Toldeo steel, Griffin, look at the size of that knife she’s holding! Jesus, she’s going to get blood everywhere.” Blindfolded and gagged bottom quivers and moans delightfully. “Hey Roman, do you think this one light bulb will be enough to scare all the rats away? You know how aggressive they are down here by the docks.” More moaning.)

Needless to say: no knife, no rats, no docks, and not very much blood. Just a few drops, really. She giggled through the gag the whole time we were sticking needles in her.

And the cupcakes? Fabulous. Trust Roman’s friends to cater their own scenes.

I’m sure there will be more about this on his blog, so do check for that. But a lovely little scene for me, definitely.

From March 1^st until April 15^th is traditionally an unpredictable time of year for ladies in the industry, and while I don’t have to fret about my year-end bottom line, I do have slower weeks. And this is looking like one of them.

So if you’ve been unable to get time with me, now would be a good time to try. If you are someone I know, I have time today until 5. (Why only guys I know? Because new guy + impulsive same-day appointment often = no show, in my experience.)

I also have time available tomorrow starting at 2pm or 3pm, or something in the evening, say, 7pm.

Thursday I have an appointment open from 5-6pm.

And Friday before five is open.

That’s all current as of this moment, but of course, the phone will ring soon, as it always does, and that’ll change. So carpe diem.

Oh, and by the way: Bill Napoli, Bill Napoli, Bill Napoli.

I admit it: I do read trashy novels sometimes. But only good trashy novels, so before I go on a trashy-novel-buying-spree, I always check in with the ladies at the “Smart Bitches, Trashy Books” site, who do fabulous trashy novel reviews. So while the clueful Kate posted a comment about it a few days ago, I have indeed been following, with glee, their successful Google-bombing of Bill Napoli, the Republican state senator and official-asshole-with-a-Messiah-complex for South Dakota.

Now, abortion is one of those issues I prefer not to argue with people about here, because it’s just so useless to even try to have a reasoned dialogue about it online. I think abortion should be legal, I vote and contribute money according to that belief, and that’s the end of the discussion for me. Obviously if you feel differently, you can act in accordance with your beliefs.

But regardless of what your views on when and how abortion should be legal – or not – Bill Napoli having the brass-balled temerity to set himself up as the arbitrator of what kind of rape victim deserves to be granted an abortion is so unbe-fucking-lievably oppressive, sexist and wrong that it makes Rick Santorum look like a Sensitive New Age Guy. Putting forth the idea that a rape victim who’s a religious virgin is entitled to have an exception made for her, while a married agnostic woman should have to have to grin and bear her rapist’s child is evidence of a deeply flawed moral compass.

I fear for the women of South Dakota, and on a larger scale, I fear for all women who don’t have the resources that I do. Come what may in this country, if I get pregnant and I don’t want to bear a child – which is pretty much a given - I can get in my car and drive to Vancouver, BC and get the medical care I need. The wives and daughters and girlfriends of rich Republicans will have those kinds of options, too, so why should they worry? But there are a lot of women who don’t have that kind of time, money and emotional support. Some of them live in South Dakota.

So, to keep a good thing going, here’s a link to the story in which Bill Napoli publicly inserted his head into his ass, and here's a link to the Smart Bitches definition page, from which I will now quote:

Bill Napoli (R-SD)

napoli (not to be confused with the proper noun, which indicates the Italian city)

Function: verb

Inflected Form(s): napolied

Pronunciation: nA'poli

1. To brutalize and rape, sodomize as bad as you can possibly make it, a young, religious virgin woman who was saving herself for marriage.

2. To hella rape somebody.

Etymology: From State Senator Bill Napoli's (R-SD) description of an acceptable rape that would merit an exemption from South Dakota's abortion ban.

Example of usage: "Did you hear? Laura's dad totally napolied her, but according to Utah law, she still has to obtain his permission before getting an abortion."

Happy Friday, everyone… I’m looking forward to a pretty quiet weekend, and that’s good, because I’ve got writing to do.

Speaking of writing, here’s this week’s column. Yes, I know it’s not in the paper version, no, I have no idea when I’ll be back in that all the time. The choice is not mine, I assure you.

Local note: if you haven’t been to The Kingfish Café yet, you really must go. Roman and I had an extremely yummy dinner there last night, served to us by one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life.

You see, the Kingfish does Southern food, and it’s owned by two women of color who I believe are sisters, and all the waitstaff that I’ve ever seen there have also been people of color. Many of them are women, and they’re all pretty.

But our server last night was just jaw-droppingly beautiful. Tall, very willowy figure, beautiful features, especially her perfectly shaped cheekbones and jawline - very queenly. And her perfect skin was the color of deep, rich Turkish coffee without even a hint of cream. Words don’t do her justice, she was stunning. I wanted to photograph her so badly! Why this girl is waiting tables instead of modeling, I don’t know. She’s a muse if I ever saw one. I just stared at her while she was taking our order, and then I told her she was a beautiful girl. I'm guessing she's been told that before, but I don't think a woman ever get tired of hearing it.

The food was great too, of course. Roman and I had saved up our calories and we indulged: red beans and rice, fried chicken, yam fries, collard greens, and a huge slab of chocolate cake, all served by this sweetly-smiling gorgeous woman.

And then we came home and proceeded to burn off a few of those calories. Life is good.

Another Email

> Date: March 6, 2006 11:15:18 PM PST
> To: matisse AT thestranger.com
> Subject: question for mistress matisse
>
> Dear Mistress Matisse,
>
> This is perhaps the lamest question you will ever receive; it is
> definitely the lamest question I have ever asked myself or anyone
> else.
>
> Here is the deal. I am a sub. That is how I identify sexually as
> much as someone so solidly gay they have known since age 6. And while
> on the face of it this seems like it should make dating easy (roles
> delineated a priori; you're not going to stick a whip in my hand at
> any point and expect me to *do* something with it; you're not going to
> be asking me every minute what I want to be doing, etc.), it doesn't.
>
> I am very pretty, I have a great body, I'm smart and engaging and
> have a great real-life life, and I am a great sub. Here is what I
> hope to know from you: in what ways is dating in the bdsm world
> inherently different? Why can I have such success with regular guys
> but not with finding a dom that is looking for a long-term
> relationship with a stellar sub and partner?
>
> At this point in my life, I really don't want to have a normal
> relationship. If I am having a sexual relationship, I want all of my
> sexuality to be included and cultivated. That means I want to be
> submissive, and not just sexually. That is the way I am drawn to
> respond in a sexual relationship/interaction. It is real, it is
> genuine, and it is something I wish to embrace, not ignore or supress.
>
> I do understand the statistics of it all: I am drawing from a far
> smaller pool, just as I would be if in vanilla criteria I decided I
> needed someone with an exhaustive list of very specific attributes.
> But I am not looking for Any Living Purported Dom; there has to be a
> connection, and an intellectual as well as personality fit.
>
> Do you have advice? Do you think the Internet makes any sense?
> Should I just play forever, whenever I can, just like maybe joining
> every club in vanilla dating life, in hopes that one day...
>
> I just don't think it should be this hard. Damn it, I'm hot and I'm a
> catch, but it has to be someone worth submitting to.
>
> Thanks…
(Signed with a female name)



This isn’t a lame question. I think most kinksters ask themselves this at one time or another – how can I find the right partner? Hell, I think most vanilla people ask themselves the same thing. Why else would When Harry Met Sally be such a big hit? So, my answer, and some advice.

The answer is: yes, you just have to keep looking, and yes, it’s going to be a bitch. You are seeking all the same kinds of things a vanilla person seeks in a partner: a smart, well-balanced person who’s physically attractive to you, shares your basic values, likes cats, foreign films, and Indian food, no outstanding warrants for their arrest – the usual. And in addition to that, you want a sexually unusual person who shares your specific BDSM tastes – a man, I assume, since you didn’t say otherwise. That’s a tall order.

Notice I said “specific” – I mean very specific. It’s not like there are dominants and there are submissives, and you can match up any two and what they like to do in the dungeon will naturally follow. Uh-uh. Your way of being submissive (or dominant) is unique to you. I myself, for example, tend to like spunky, sassy play-partners. (You get points if you make me laugh. You get gagged if you don’t.) The uber-meek, never-raise-their-eyes-from-the-floor type of submissive doesn’t generally turn me on. My point is that it’s not a generic thing, so you’ll need to find not only a competent, worthy top who you want to date, but one whose style and preferred activities mirror your own.

So you are drawing from a very, very small pool indeed, and yes, based on my experience, it is going to be that hard. Unless you are astoundingly lucky, you are going to kiss a lot of froggy dominants, have a certain number of underwhelming kink experiences, and you are going to have to be very patient. Welcome to life as a sexual minority.

Now that I’ve said all the depressing stuff, let me also reassure you: I think finding the right person for you is absolutely possible. Heck, you might even find several of them. I have found some truly amazing people in my life as a kinky person, so I know they’re out there. When you do hook up with someone you really like and whose kinks line up with yours – wow, it’s fabulous. It makes all the churning worthwhile.

To find your someone-amazing, you must go where the ducks are, whatever that means in your current life-situation. I think getting involved in real-life BDSM community is always better than only searching through the personal ads. Doing both is optimum. However, if kinky personal ads are all you have access to, use them. For more info about how one goes about getting involved in the real-life BDSM community, go here.

I also think you should try to look upon the journey to your future partner as a positive experience in itself. All those underwhelming experiences are going to really sharpen your understanding of what you want, and that’s a good thing. Plus, you have to have some it’s-funny-in-retrospect stories to share about the terrible dominant, Count Chocula, who’d read every single Gor novel ever published and whose hairpiece fell off while he was flogging you.

In closing, a small nit to pick: if you do use personal ads, the first impression you make on people will be via your words on a screen. And you, my dear, may need to fine-tune your approach. If I had to make a snap judgment on you based on just this email, I’d have to say - you come off a bit like a spoiled princess. The several reiterations of how hot you are, your success with vanilla men, and how deserving you are of someone Worthy… It makes you sound as if you think you’re entitled to special treatment. All the advice I just gave you is the exact same advice I’d give to someone who claimed to be dumpy, dull and unpopular, because they are actually just as deserving of True Kinky Love as you are. It is far more becoming to at least pretend a little modesty in these matters. Upload a photo with your ad, speak truthfully about your accomplishments without attaching too many flattering adjectives, and let other people tell you how hot you are, as opposed to you telling them.