Weird sex work jobs I have known: I once worked for a stripper telegram service. You know, the more-or-less legit ones, where you show up at someone’s office and pretend to be a delivery person or a job applicant or something, and then you surprise the person by taking your clothes off.

I wasn’t crazy about it. I didn’t mind if someone knew it was coming, but the sneak-attack ones didn’t sit well with me. It’s that consent thing. Often the surprised recipient – or should I say victim? - seemed uncomfortable with the whole thing. I’m fine with doing some sexy entertainment for someone, but I didn’t like feeling like a tool for his friends to embarrass him with, for their entertainment.

I refused to do the ones in restaurants and bars and such. No way. Even if it was only a down-to-my-lingerie gig, I wasn’t up for that. Offices were about as public as I’d get, and even that was iffy.

The bachelor parties presented a different set of challenges. The service I worked for was one of the mainstream, franchised outfits, that also had clowns and magicians and other non-sexy performers featured prominently in the Yellow Pages ad, and they did make the point to the customers that nothing illegal was allowed to happen at these shindigs. But still, anytime you’ve got a bunch of guys, drinking, and two or maybe three girls, you need to manage the situation carefully.

Balanced against that was one’s willingness to perhaps let a guy’s hands wander a bit, if the right financial incentive were offered. But you also had to weigh the possibility that if you did that, one of the other girls might rat you out to management and get you into trouble. Unless, of course, she did it too. (Although I have known of instances where both girls broke the rules and then one tattled on the other anyway. So much for honor among thieves.)

I wasn’t making a big living off it, but it was some extra cash. (I honestly cannot recall what my main income stream was at the time.) But the job took a strange turn one night when I was told I'd been booked for a boy’s high school graduation party. By his mother.

O-kay, I thought. She’s the cool-mom type, very relaxed about her son’s sexuality. Or, she’s got no personal boundaries whatsoever.

And when I got there, it wasn’t the boy and a bunch of his adolescent friends, as I’d thought. No, it was a family party. So there’s his parents, and his aunts and uncles, and his four-year-old little sister, and his grandmother. Yeah, I said his grandma. I’m supposed to do a striptease for this kid in front of his whole damn family. Jesus Christ.

His mom took me aside to pay me and I said, “Are you sure you want me to do this? In front of everyone?”

She kinda looked at me like she couldn’t understand why I’d ask. “Yes, I’ve been telling everyone you were coming.” And then she starts introducing me to everyone, like I’m some long-lost cousin or something. “This is Marcella, she’s going to do a little show for us.” Now I know: this woman has no personal boundaries.

Then I met the graduate. It was immediately clear to me that he didn’t have a sex life for his mom to be relaxed about. There was no girlfriend present at the party, and he was not – to be blunt – terribly attractive. I imagined he would be nice-looking when he grew up a bit, but I pegged him as still a virgin.

Now imagine this nervous, obviously uncomfortable teenage boy sitting on a chair in his living room, with all his relatives ranged in a semi-circle around him, waiting to watch him try not to pop a woody when some sexy girl puts her cleavage in his face. The poor kid. I felt so sorry for him.

I was pretty uncomfortable with it myself. But dedicated professional that I was, I put my music on and took a position in front of him. Under the cover of the Prince tune, I leaned forward and whispered to him, “Kinda bizarre doing this with all these people here, huh?”

He rolled his eyes slightly. “Yeah - way.”

“Yeah, I feel a little strange too. But don’t worry, we’ll be cool.”

It was one of the longer five minutes of my life, and I’m guessing he felt the same way. I was definitely doing the PG version of my show, but even without putting my ass right in his lap, I could see that he wasn’t completely in control his teenage-boy hormones. The look on his face, however, would have been more appropriate to someone suffering from a deep gastro-intestinal disorder.

I did try to minimize the erotic effect by not making much eye contact with him, which was tricky, because I was also trying to not look at anyone else in the room. Not everyone was so inhibited. In my peripheral vision, I could see Uncle Al, over to my left, turning pink and sweating slightly as he bobbed his head to the music, an odd little smile on his lips. The kid’s father was also watching me very closely, apparently unaware that his wife was watching him watch me and looking none too pleased about it. (Hello, lady, did you not think of that when you booked me?)

Grandma was saying in a quavering voice, “Goodness, I think the ladies should have left the room for this. This is for gentlemen only.”

And the four-year-old girl had to be restrained from coming right up to me to dance along with me. I’m sure that would caused her brother’s head to implode.

So we got through it. When the song ended, I scooped up my clothes and retreated into the bathroom to get dressed and try to compose myself. When I came out, the boy had vanished into his room, for which I did not blame him one bit. The mother suddenly seemed quite ready for me to leave, but as I walked towards the door, the little girl attached herself to my leg and announced that she wanted to dance just like me when she grew up.

Boom, that’s it, my weirdness meter just went into the red. I am so quitting this job.

A few links for your enjoyment...

A cool new-ish blog by a local poly and kinky guy…

Is this for real? I wish some Aussie person would tell me if this is a gag site or not. If it’s real, well, all I can say is: Context is everything, apparently. (Caution: Annoying sound file when you open the link.)

Interesting article about the sex industry – and the debate about decriminalization – in Europe.

Upcoming event: On Thursday, February 2nd, Max will be doing bondage performance art at the Traveling Erotic Art Show in Seattle's Pioneer Square. Come watch him tie up cute girls and check out the cool art.

Well, we had a busy weekend – so busy I didn’t even get to post yesterday. Max’s pal Tom (and his girlfriend) came up from California to co-present the Exotic Bondage Gear class. When Tom arrived on Saturday afternoon, he opened up his bags and started stacking all the gear up on the kitchen table. I seriously wondered if it might buckle under the weight by time he was finished unloading.

And the TSA had a field day with Tom’s suitcases - note the forms saying, "We opened your bag."

Yeah, I bet they opened them up. This isn't even all the stuff. Not shown in this shot, for example, are the two Secretary-style neck-and-wrist stocks. Those had to have looked pretty wild on the X-ray. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when they unpacked Tom’s stuff and looked at it. He's convinced they just did it out of curiosity, as opposed to really thinking he might be dangerous. (Although, now that I say it that way: Tom, you are dangerous. Cute, but dangerous.)

This week in the New House department: the painters come! (Hopefully they’ll clean up after themselves, though.)
And next week: new carpet. Yes, did get the 8-pound pad and all nylon fibers. Thanks for the tips, kids.

I’m taking time off from house stuff to teach my class at Wicked Women, and then to thrash the living daylights out of Jae on Saturday night. That should be delightful. I have some general ideas for the scene – especially after talking to a pal of mine who’s an electrical engineer - but I’m still soliciting really, really vile and terrible suggestions, if anyone’s got any. She’s tough, that girl, and I’ve been playing with her for a number of years, so it’s a challenging to keep topping myself, so to speak. But I have some schemes.

Note: yes, I got bumped out of the paper edition of The Stranger this past week. That happens to most of us at one time or another, if the paper is running thin. But no fear, I’ll be back as usual this coming week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

Here’s a cute boy with a big smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resistance Was Futile

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From the press release:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Silly story I stole from the AP.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cleaning Diet Coke Off My Keyboard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

Today, not only is there a new column and kink calendar, but you also get to bid on something fun for Christmas: me! And not just me - me and some of Monk's finest hemp rope. It's Strangercrombie 2005, The Stranger's fourth annual holiday auction to benefit Northwest Harvest. They've got a lot of cool and unusual gift packages, and some time with me is one of them.

But there's lots of cool stuff, so buy something! It's for a good cause.

Another good cause: helping women get the birth control pills they've been prescribed. As you have probably heard, some pharmacists around the US have taken it upon themselves to refuse to fill prescriptions for BC pills, because they think contraception is morally wrong. This is bullshit. It's a legal prescription, and a pharmacist has no right to interfere with a medical decision made by a woman and her doctor.

Some pharmacy chains are not supporting a woman's right to choose to take The Pill. Target is one of them. So this site has started a photo petition to show Target the faces of people who won't be shopping there because of their failure to protect pharmacy customers from the interference of unethical pharmacists. I'll be sending them a picture. I hope you do too.

An example of how Max is so much nicer than I am…

The other day, Max goes into a busy bank on Capitol Hill and gets in line for the teller. There’s a woman, a stranger, standing in front of him, and when he joins the queue, she turns around and looks him up and down. Not politely, either. Kinda like: what the hell are you doing there?

Well, Max thinks, I’m standing in line behind you, obviously.

Her gaze alights on the logo on his t-shirt.

And she says, “'Thunder In The Mountains' – what’s that?”

Now, as I said, Max is a much friendlier and kinder person than me. My response to being questioned like this - and yes, it’s happened - is generally to fix the person with a cold eye and say, “I think you’ve got all the information I’m interested in sharing.”

Or, if I’m really feeling pissy, “Why don’t you explain to me just exactly why you think I should answer your questions?” I almost never talk to strangers in public places, and I very much resent having my thoughts intruded upon by rude people like this woman.

But Max said, “It’s a conference in Denver.” A polite but brief answer that should have been her cue to be quiet.

She didn’t take it. “I know that,” she said in this very exasperated tone of voice, as if he were being just so tiresomely obtuse. “What kind of conference?”

Now, she’d be way into “it’s none of your business” territory with me. But both Max and Roman have a sometime charming, sometimes alarming, willingness to come out to random strangers, if said random stranger asks enough questions. I will not do this. I think it’s a gender thing.

So Max replied, “A rope bondage conference.” (Technical note: yes, TITM is actually a BDSM con, not just a rope-bondage con. Max knows that. He just didn’t feel it was a really crucial distinction to make at the moment.)

When Max was relating this story to me, I laughed out loud and said, “I can’t believe you said that to her! What did she say then?”

“Her eyes got big,” he replied. “And she just looked at me for a minute and then said, 'I gotta get out of this town. It is just way too weird here, I gotta get back to Portland'.”

Huh. I wonder if she knows about this….

More news on Heidi Fliess’s plan to build an all-male brothel in Nevada. Color me very skeptical about the whole venture, although it certainly would be amusing if she actually did it.

I’m struck by this quote from Fliess, though:

"I have heard from very wealthy, very beautiful women who say they'll be first in line...”

Very beautiful? Hmmm, why the insistence on the women’s looks? If they’re paying the boys, why does it matter? Just take some Viagra and get the job done, gentlemen.

No, I think Heidi is playing to the gigolo fantasy that a lot of boys have, sending them the message that they’d get paid to fuck women they found attractive anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if she’d cooked up some scheme to make money off the would-be male prostitutes, perhaps charging them a very high “room and board” fee, or something like that. That’s not uncommon in the industry – Lord knows the strip clubs right here in Seattle make the vast majority of their money off the “house fees” that the dancers pay to work there. The cover-charge and the soft-drink revenue is chump change by comparison.

I’ll be watching to see if any ground ever gets broken on this, or if it just dwindles into smaller and smaller news items.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

And that’s always a weird time of year for me. I like Christmas, don’t get me wrong. But I think I’d like it a lot better if the whole “holiday season” was about a week long. Maybe two weeks. But six plus weeks of being beaten over the head with it? Bah humbug. By the time December 25^th actually rolls around, I’m over it.

Then there's the whole present thing. I like giving people I love presents. But in the past, I have sometimes had a hard time accepting them. I’ve gotten better at it, but still, I have to remind myself from time to time that people give gifts because it honestly gives them pleasure to do so, and I don’t have to put pressure on myself to instantly reciprocate in some way, just because I think I need to keep some invisible set of scales neatly balanced. I know if I give someone something, it’s just because I think they’d like it and I enjoy the act of giving it to them and seeing them be happy about it. But that’s been something I’ve had to learn to trust in others.

All that said, I do have some very sweet and generous boys who have asked me for a Christmas gift list. So, okay, here goes.

Books are always good. Here's some stuff off my Amazon list I'd like to read over the holidays:

Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz

The Girl in the Glass : A Novel, by Jeffrey Ford

London 1849 : A Victorian Murder Story, by Michael Alpert

The Virgin's Lover, by Philippa Gregory

A Breath of Snow and Ashes, by Diana Gabaldon

The Kinky Girl's Guide to Dating, by Luna Grey

Polyamory: Roadmaps for the Clueless & Hopeful, by Anthony D. Ravenscroft

Something more personal? Well, I love this bracelet. (Of course this is nice, too, but it seems a bit excessive. I don't really move in a diamond-wearing crowd.)

I am also lusting after this jacket. This coat is pretty as well, although I've never worn such a long coat. But it looks warm, and I am a girl who's often wearing skimpy little outfits when it's cold outside. I'd have to have it in black, of course.

Boots. I love pretty boots. Love 'em. Size 8.5, if anyone's wondering.

Then there's kinky stuff. It's great when people bring me naughty things, because my rule is: you bring it to me, you're asking me to use it on you. Heh.
I do seriously want this sling. And while I have one fucking machine, this one looks uber-cool.
I could play some wickedly fun games with this little device, too.

Geek stuff? Gee, Santa, I want a laptop. Do the elves makes those? I also want one of these, although I'm still researching brands and models.

Of course, I'm not sure exactly how good of a girl I've been this year, but we'll see what the guy in the red suit does for me. Hey, even if he puts switches in my stocking, I'm sure I can think of something fun to do with them.

Yay, I've been saved from snow - real, sticky, snowed-in snow - once again. Whew. I'm sure that soon the Weather God is going to get tired of me telling him, "Snow tomorrow, and snow yesterday - but never snow today".
However, I feel like I dodged a frosty bullet, because baby, I've got things to do. Ain't got no time for no snow.
So while I go do them, read all about it.

Oh, and don't forget Cirque Du Noc on Saturday, and Max's bondage workshop on Sunday. Big fun.

Tonight, I’m going to an industry party. A sex industry party, that is. I don’t usually go to such things - they’re really geared more towards the escorts and sensual-touch ladies. I am considered a niche service, and a lot of the vanilla boys just don’t know what to make of me. (Some of them know what they’d like to make of me, though. I admit that it can be entertaining to tease them.)

No, I’m not telling you where it is, sorry. Those who know, know, and I haven't been empowered to give out information about it. Besides, it’s not that exciting to the naked eye (so to speak). It’s just a cocktail party-type thing where the professional ladies smile and flirt and pass business cards to interested parties. People make conversation about the weather and sports teams and the monorails crashing into each other, and oh by the way, sweetie, do you have a website? What are your hours? But if you were watching through a window, it wouldn’t look so different than lots of other social events.

The street workers usually don’t come to stuff like this. No, it’s mostly the middle-tier of sex workers - the largest group by far - that you’ll meet at these events. (What would upper-tier be? Porn star-escorts who get a thouand dollars or more for dates. That's a relatively small group.)

It’s a nice system in some ways. There’s no question that having met someone at a party like this makes booking an initial appointment with them much less fraught with tension. You’re less likely to get no-showed by a guy who’s met you already, and when he shows up, you already know something about who he is, in terms of personality and looks. It removes the whole blind-date anxiety - on both sides, I imagine.

I’ve been to a few of these things, and as I said, a lot of the boys don’t know quite what to say to me. Some of them email me after the fact and tell me they were afraid to come talk to me, as if I might pull out my riding crop and thrash them on the spot. But my entire purpose in going to firmly establish the fact that I actually don’t have snakes for hair, and I don’t turn men into stone with my glance, and some of the boys clearly enjoy getting to hang out with me a bit. Oddly, though, the guys who can chat with me in a perfectly relaxed and friendly manner usually aren’t the ones who wind up calling the next day to schedule with me. It’ll be the boy who stutters and shuffles and barely meets my eye that I’ll be hearing from. Which I suppose is sort of charming, when I think about it.

A brief note about scheduling with me this week: As of this moment, I have time available Wednesday starting at 4:30, Thursday starting at 3:00, and Friday starting at 4:30. Also, I will be seeing people this Saturday, which is rare, so if you’ve been waiting for a weekend availability, carpe diem.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...

This is cruel, and even rather kink-negative, but even I have to admit it’s sorta funny.

This, on the other hand, is rather sweet, even though I wouldn’t say it’s a stunning likeness. Gee, how'd the artist know I had that outfit?

This is so sublimely ridiculous that it’s classic. I hope this page stays up forever. Notice the copyright date – this gentleman copyrighted his web page before the web even existed! Amazing!

This is so not my kind of fetish, but hey, if you get off on the idea of being scanned like a toaster at Target, mazel tov.

My parting remark: I'm posting this before I go to bed, and let me tell you, there just better not be any white shit on the ground when I get up.
I will be seriously annoyed.
I'm just sayin'.

I hate snow.

Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to do phone-call entries anymore, but once in a while, I just have to….

Ring Ring!

Me: hello?
Caller: (in a hostile voice) Wow, you’re really hard to get a hold of, you know that?

Well, I can’t accuse the guy of stringing me along and getting my hopes up, can I? I hate him already. I let ten seconds tick off on the clock and then say, very slowly:

Me: That’s not how you begin a conversation with me. Who is this?

Caller: Uh, we haven’t met, because every time I call you I get your voicemail.

What a shame I broke up my winning streak by answering this time. Again I pause, lengthily, to indicate I don’t like this remark, either. I consider pointing out that he’s talking to me now, but it’s not going to do him any good, because if you’re rude to me in the first 3 seconds of our acquaintance, you’re unlikely to recover.

Me: What do you want?

Caller: I know you said you don’t do same-day appointments, but you know, I’m sort of a creature of whim. Booking in advance really doesn’t work for me because I’ll be out of the mood. What do you have available in the next couple of hours?

Oh, right, because I am here on this earth to accommodate your moods and whims, aren’t I? Jesus. Any suggestion that I should instantly change my rules and limits to acommodate someone else's whims is pretty much guaranteed to have the opposite effect. It's amazing that he thinks this kind of attitude is going to fly with me - I'm a dominatrix, for god's sake.

The irony here is that, if you’re one of my good regular boys, and you catch me on a day when someone has canceled or something, I actually will do a same-day. It’s rare for me not to be booked up, but if I know you, I don't mind you asking.

However, if you’re a stranger, and more noticeably, a rude twit who thinks I should jump when he snaps his fingers, I’d be happy to make an appointment for you on the first frosty day in Hell. I'm tempted to tell him so, but brevity is the best way to deal with people like this. You simply cannot engage with them, it’s pointless.

Me: Nothing.

Caller: Nothing? Come on, you can’t be totally busy, you’re talking to me on the phone right now, aren’t you?

Some people write my exit lines for me.

Me: Goodbye.

Click.

I had a lovely afternoon yesterday, spending time with old friends and new. I ate yummy food, a talented musician played her cello for us, and we talked about different ways of branding people. Delightful.

And as we all emerge from our L-Tryptophan haze... here is the new column and calendar.

Happy Bird Day, everyone…

What am I thankful for? I’m thankful that this damn holiday only comes once a year, because sex workers, this is the week from hell. If one wants to actually see clients, that is. The phone is always very quiet Thanksgiving week - most of my good regular guys are understandably busy with family. But those of us who are buying houses soon are sitting around drumming our fingers and staring at the phone, because we would like to conduct business as usual Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

And when the phone does ring, I let guys who I know, absolutely know, are dodgy and unreliable sweet talk me into booking time with them. I know they’re unreliable because they’ve made and then cancelled appointments before, or I know because I can just hear it in their voices. But having nothing else to do, I give them a chance….And then they call back and cancel. Grr.

No, I haven’t actually been stood up, thank god, and yes, I understand, things do happen, at least they’re letting me know, yeah yeah yeah. But I’ve had four cancellations this week. Normally I get about one or two cancellations a month. It’s frustrating. I don’t know why Thanksgiving is so much worse than any other holiday, even Christmas, for this kind of thing, but it is.

Oh well - it’s over now, and I even got to rant about it a little, which helps. And I’m thankful for the cool guys who have made and kept appointments with me. Enjoy your bird.

I was in bed last night, reading this: Extreme Encounters: How It Feels to Be Drowned in Quicksand, Shredded by Piranhas, Swept Up in a Tornado, and Dozens of Other Unpleasant Experiences.

It's an interesting book. But then I'm the girl who really liked Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, and The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.

However, I did have very odd dreams.

So, since some of you seem to know it anyway – yesterday was my birthday. (And no, I’m not telling you how old I am. Nope. No way.) I didn’t not-say anything on purpose, I’m just so focused on everything else in my world right now that frankly, I hardly noticed. Max had some plans for us to do something special over the weekend, but they were scuttled by the fact that I had caught a touch of that cold that's been going around town. I feel fine today, but I was sort of blah and uninterested in going out for a fancy dinner, etc.

Roman has some bizarre bit of birthday performance-art in store for me, which, knowing him, probably involves lawn gnomes, some duct tape, and a gallon of Marshmallow Fluff. (To read about last year's birthday surprise, go here.) But based on both our schedules, we decided we'd wait until Friday to have that little party.

And I'm not upset about any of this, because in general, I’m not interested in making a really big deal about my birthday. My theory is that I get to be a diva on a regular basis, so it’s not like I have to save it all up for once a year and then demand that everyone fuss over me. I get fussed over a lot year-round. Lucky me.

It's also that I prefer to take my moments of happiness and celebration of life more spontaneously, rather than scheduling them. I’m like that about all the publicly-observed holidays as well. I don’t have a strong objection to them, they just seem sort of contrived.

(I don’t mind presents, you understand. Presents are always a nice thing. And I got some very lovely ones, so thank you, thank you, to the sweet people who gifted me so generously.)

I’m currently rather preoccupied with my real estate situation, which is coming along nicely, thank you. I'm not going to talk it about much now, because I’m superstitious about talking about anything until it’s a done deal. Can’t jinx it, you know. However, I have chosen a house, and everything is progressing as it should at this stage. I will reveal more about that as it become appropriate.

Max is cooking a traditional dinner for us and a few friends on Thursday. Of all the holidays, T-day is the one I’m the most what-ever about. Left to my own devices, I’d order pizza and go to the movies. But Max likes to cook, and it’s always nice to have people for dinner, so, as long as there’s no televised football involved, I’m fine with it. (Actually there is never, ever, televised football in our house anyway. It’s one of the reasons why Max is so right for me – he hates sports.)

So, yes, birthday - thank you, Mom, for not drowning me at birth, or any other time, even though I’m sure I deserved it. And yes, Thanksgiving, after which I can return to my regularly-scheduled crazy life that I am so fond of.

A relatively quiet weekend, which was nice. Max and I did go see the new Harry Potter movie. The theater was packed, luckily we got there early and snagged decent seats.

The movie itself? Eh, not bad. I enjoyed it well enough because I’ve read the books. But I think it’s the weakest HP movie so far.

(Here follows a critique of the movie. Yes, I’m a professional dominatrix. Yes, I’m a perverted sex freak. And yes, I like Harry Potter. Give me any shit about that and I’ll set your genitals on fire*.)

I think the movie suffered mainly because the source material was so long. Since the book is 700+ pages, the movie disposed of about the first quarter of it in the first seven minutes, completely eliminating certain characters and great swathes of action. And instead of the actual movie, I sort of felt like I was watching a ninety-minute trailer, because it was all quick cuts and selected scenes, with big jumps in the storyline. If I hadn’t read the book, I would have been very puzzled by certain parts. Perhaps the DVD will have some deleted scenes, but I doubt it’s got, oh, another hour or so, which is what it would take to really do the book justice. Even watching certain parts with Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon, I felt like they were almost rushing through their lines, as if someone was saying, “Hurry, hurry, we only have a few seconds for this scene!”

That said, I enjoyed visiting the characters again – although there wasn’t nearly enough Severus Snape in this film, and I missed him. When he was onscreen, though, Alan Rickman definitely didn’t rush any of his lines - God bless his nasty heart. Makes me want to go rent that stealth-kink classic Closetland once again. (If you ever wanted a how-to movie for mindfuck scenes, Closetland would be it.) With Alan Rickman, it's The Voice, you know, and The Stare. I've seen guys try and pull off The Voice and The Stare in real life, and they usually come across like silly posers, but with Alan, he makes you think he'd be that way over breakfast.

And Daniel Radcliffe is turning into nice eye candy, if you like young boys. Which I usually don’t, but one can make exceptions.

Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort? Um, not bad, I guess. Not particularly creepy, though. The fact that he had no nose was distracting to me, although I understood that they were trying to suggest a resemblance to his snake. His dress was definitely too billowy, though. At one point, it bore an unfortunate resemblance to a gown worn by Julie Andrew in a very different movie. “The cemetery is alive with the sound of music…!”

Overall, not the HP movie to start off with, especially if you haven’t read the books, but entertaining enough as such things go.

*And yes, I do know how to do that.

Bad Business Strategy, Example #267

No Tanning Beds Were at Salon, Police Say

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (Nov. 18) - Undercover officers noticed something conspicuously absent from a tanning salon - tanning beds. The only tanning bed on the property of VIP Tann Spa was found in a wooden box on the porch, officer Jerry Miller said Thursday.

Miller said the so-called tanning salon was actually a very different kind of business: Three employees and two customers were charged with prostitution and related charges after the undercover visit last month.

The undercover officer found makeshift beds and other evidence people were being paid for sex, Miller said.

Investigators took business receipts, credit card statements and cash before closing the salon. The County Council revoked the owner's business license.

People, I keep telling you - in sex work, it's those pesky little details that'll make you or break you. Like, if you're posing as a tanning salon, you should actually have the tanning bed unpacked from the box. That's always helpful.

And "makeshift" beds? I'm not sure I want to know what those might be. Seems like if you're going to be ballsy enough to leave your tanning bed in a box on the porch, you'd just say what the hell and have real beds. I mean, why be coy? God knows the "tanning-salon" dodge has got whiskers on it anyway.

Happy Friday, everyone...

This week's colum and calendar.

And an interesting piece in The Stranger about the FBI crackdown on SM porn.
Several people nudged me to write something about this topic, but I knew a feature writer would get more word count and thus do it more justice. Interesting slant, using the prisoner/torture issue to point out just how fucked up the Bush administration's obscenity stance really is.

Wow, I seem to be very, very busy this week. It's all good stuff, but lordy... And of course, I'm spending my off time thinking about things like furnaces and wall-to-wall carpet. Oooh, how kinky am I?

Miss K, my best friend and official decorating consultant, loves it. We spent our last dinner talking about replacing mantles and painting faux-finishes.

Still, I'll be pleased when all my housing stuff is settled and I get back to being focused on the more salacious aspects of my life. All this Better Dungeons and Gardens stuff is getting to me.

***

But Wait: One bit of amusing news I noticed today. All you guys who asked me about this, start polishing up your resumes - or something - because Heidi Fleiss is opening a male brothel.

The Real Estate Obsession Continues...

Some more houses I will (almost certainly) not be buying. But these I actually looked at, and I gave all of them serious consideration.

This one's large and pretty and it has a nice flow to the upstairs. But there's no garage or carport or anything, and while the basement is large and very nicely finished, it's very low-ceilinged.

This one's got great space and lovely vaulted ceilings - but it's in a development, in a cul-de-sac. Four other front doors looking right at yours. I don't like that, it doesn't feel private, and privacy is a very big issue to me.

This one is nice, and it's a great location for me. But the basement is too small - in fact, the house is a bit small overall. Color me skeptical about the quoted square footage.

Pretty, and in many ways a serious contender, but - not quite. It just felt sort of over-remodeled, if you know what I mean? Almost bland.

This is very funny – to me. But only because I know how silly it really is. It's a video-clip of a Heineken ad, so I would call it fairly work-safe, although it does feature - you guessed it - a dominatrix.

It’s not that no one in the kink community ever does scenes that look like this – at least, like the first few seconds of this. But tops coming off with that heavy “you don’t deserve to be in the same room with me” attitude is rarer than a vanilla person would think. Particularly here in Seattle, that kind of MO will draw about as much snickering as it will cowering.

There's also the unfortunate it’s-only-funny-because-it’s-true angle of the unprofessional pro domme taking a cell phone call in the middle of a session and ignoring her client. Needless to say, one should never do that, and I never would. But I do hear about other ladies answering their phones in the middle of a session all the time. Lordy.

However, I do think it’s cute that she’s cooing sweetly into the phone to her supposed lover. I’ve done that with Max and Roman. But not on my client’s time, of course...

Ah, a sweet date with Roman last night. We ate Ezell's and gave each other massages - before moving on to more...intense activities.
Now I'm off into my day. Enjoy the new column and calendar...

Several houses that I will not be buying. Way out of my price range. But ooh, they're pretty....

Nice light...

Pretty view - plus, you can check traffic!

Love the woodwork.

And hell, as long as we're in the no-possible-way department, check this one out, it's got it's own elevator. I know someone who'd like to do a suspension bondage scene in the shaft.

An article on kink in Psychology Today. It's a not a bad piece, I suppose, although someone really needs to tell the author - identified only as "PT Staff" - to stop saying "s AND m". That's soooooo dated. Just say "SM".

But overall, it's just a lot of cliches couched in comforting therapist-speak. I don't strongly object to that - there are certainly worse ways to have my community depicted. Can someone send this piece to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, please?

But snippets like this make me giggle....

"A common female masochistic fantasy is submission based on having one's body displayed to others. One of Baumeister's favorite--perhaps apocryphal--stories is that of a woman whose husband threw her a birthday party, inviting lots of people. She was posed nude and spread-eagle on the hors d'oeuvre table. Every party-goer who reached for a cracker or the vegetable dip had to reach across her bare self."

First of all, they're confusing - or perhaps equating - "masochism" with "submission". That's wrong, they're two different things. Masochism is about the desire for intense physical sensation, and submission involves emotional/phychological states. What's being described here doesn't seem to involve any intense sensation, so I would not call this a "masochistic" scene.

Also note the soothing suggestion that this story couldn't have really happened. Oh, my goodness, a woman being nude and helpess in front of lots of people? Shocking! Shocking, I tell you! I'm thinking that "PT Staff" would probably have a stroke if they ever came to the Wet Spot. Or a party at my house, for that matter. Lots of people doing a lot more than just being naked. Why, just Sunday night, I put chopsticks on a woman's outer labia, poked them with a bamboo skewer, and smacked them with a small wooden spoon. This, after Roman had stuck her lovely tits full of needles. That's my idea of a "common female masochistic fantasy".

Amusing things I did this past weekend…

Well, in the more vanilla portion of my weekend, I looked at lots of houses. Some of them were cute, but small. I like old houses, but a lot of them have dinky little rooms.

I looked at one house that was pretty from the outside, and large, with tall ceilings. It had big rooms, but unfortunately those rooms looked like the Parisian rioters had come through them. Actually, it looked like Parisian rioters had come in, installed hideous fake wood paneling, rioted, and then left. I could have dealt with holes in the walls and shredded carpet. But fake paneling? Save me.

When Max and my kink-friendly agent and I go look at houses, we immediately go down into the basement and look up. Good ceiling height? Okay, let’s go see the rest of the house. Are we banging our heads? Screw it, we don’t care about the Pergo or the patio or the jetted tub, we’re outa here. I’m sure any normal house-buyer would think we were very, very strange.

Sunday I hung out with Roman at Max’s bondage class, and then a bunch of us went to dinner before coming back for the bondage party. I had a date to teach Griffin how to do a cutting on Liss; meaning, how to take a scalpel and do a light, decorative incision on her skin. Yeah, it’s kinda painful. But not as much as you might think.

It's tough to practice a skill like cutting before you get to the actual scene. I’m not a big proponent of having people rehearse on objects like, say, tomatoes. I just don’t see the point unless you’re trying to hone your purely artistic skills, as opposed to your technical ones. People’s skin and the skin of a tomato – I just don’t feel like they’re that similar. I don’t know, do medical people practice on fruits and vegetables? (Eddie, wanna field this one?)

So Griffin had not handled a scalpel before. And it was also to be Liss’s first cutting. A double-cherry situation, how charming. Now, I’ve seen Liss do some extreme stuff as a bottom, but still, cutting can be intense. So I took the basic precaution of having Liss lie down for the scene. That’s always best, because that way, if someone passes out, hey, they can’t fall down.

I know Griffin does needle-play, so I was pretty sure he’d be fine. But just in case, I asked him, “You don’t faint at the sight of blood, do you?”
He grinned. “Not other people's.”

Well, all righty then. So after having some “materials, safety and technique” discussion with him, I took the blade and did one stroke on the ever-intrepid Liss myself. Not big, maybe two inches long. It elicited a small breathy noise from Liss and a pleased “ooooo” sound from Griffin.

First things first. “Liss, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

She looked and sounded fine, too, so that was cool. I talked to Griffin a little more about what we were doing. When you cut, you don’t see anything for a few seconds, and then a thin red line suddenly appears. So cutting is most often a slow-paced, contemplative scene. (Yeah, yeah – some of us know a few people for whom it is something different. But let’s not frighten the other kids too much, all right?) You cut, you pause and wait and look at what you've got, and then you cut the next stroke.

Gauging how much pressure to put into the stroke is the key to safe cutting, and that’s a thing that’s hard to communicate verbally. Someone has to be sensitive enough to feel the skin responding to the blade as they go, and instantly make the tiny adjustment to go a little lighter, or a little more firmly. Lighter is always better, though. I always tell people: you can go back and recut, if it’s too light. If it’s too deep, though, that’s a problem less easily solved.

So I showed Griffin how to hold the scalpel – like a pencil – and said "Okay, here we go".

Watching someone open up skin for the first time is a kick. I vividly recall my first cutting, with a tall, green-eyed dyke standing behind me, coaching me like I was coaching Griffin. I remember being nervous, but tremendously excited. Griffin was just the same - later he remarked to me, “There’s all this excitement in your body, and you have to be careful not to let too much of it flow into your hand.”

The end result: he did a very good job – I think he’s got a knack for it. And Liss did very well, too. I’m not sure if she got a buzz off it or not, but she’ll have a pretty little design on her back to show for it. I do like teaching people new ways to express their kink.

Notes about my professional availability...

Well, the appointment with the mortgage broker went reasonably well. Based on that, I'm talking to an agent, letting him show me some houses, and thinking about all of my different options. But the end result of this is going to be me writing some mighty large checks. I've been preparing for that, financially, for a while. But things always cost a little more than you think they will, don't they?

What that means to you, dear beloved clients of mine, is that for the next two months or so, I’m going to be a little more professionally available than I usually am.

Here’s how that will look: I generally book appointments starting at two pm and ending at eight pm, and I don’t see people on the weekends. However, I’m going to relax those rules temporarily. As of today, I’ll book appointments as early as twelve noon, and if you’re someone I’ve met before, I’ll take appointments with an ending time of up to ten pm.

I’m also going to be so somewhat available on the weekends. I have social engagements booked for every Saturday night from now through Christmas, so Saturday night is right out. But Saturday afternoon, and Sunday afternoon or evening, will be possible.

As far as evening appointments go, notice what I said: if I’ve met you before. I absolutely will not make late appointments with new people, just because there’s a very high no-show rate for first-timers on late appointments. Don’t ask me why, there just is. People call on a whim, and then they flake out, and I don’t have time for that.

Or they don’t flake out, and you wish they had, because they’ve been drinking or otherwise impairing their judgment. Bad, bad, bad.

So I’m not ever going to put myself in a situation of dealing with someone I’m not comfortable with, even to buy myself a mansion. I’m just expanding my hours a trifle, and it’s probably only until I close on the house. So this is a limited-time opportunity.

(Unless I decide I want to remodel or something…)

You know, I’ve gone pretty much my whole adult life thinking of myself as a renegade. A societal outlaw. A cultural desperado, if you will.

But as of today, all that ends.

For today, I have an appointment with a mortgage broker.

Sigh.

So while I try to reassemble my personal identity to include this experience, go read the newest column and calendar.

Various silliness…

Cute men’s restroom art in New Zealand.

And more Kiwi-related information: The Blokes Guide To Taking A Leak. You boys worry way too much about this stuff, did you know that? Catching one glimpse of another guy's dick will not make you gay. If that was true, there would be way, way more lesbians in the world, because we all see other women naked at some point or other.

And speaking of naked women, apparently Scooter Libby has written a smutty book. (It doesn't sound like a very good smutty book, you understand. Young girls forced to have sex with bears? Ew. )
Those silly Republicans! Don't they know dirty books like that are all part of a Communist plot to take over the free world? Tsk, tsk.

Interesting thread about a often touchy topic: weight and body image. In this case, specifically about the bodies of people in the BDSM community.

It does seem like there are a lot of big people in the community. Why is that? Well, I don't know, and I usually refrain from speculation. It's one of those topics where I think you have to be a member of the group (meaning, a big person) to speak with authority about it, and I ain't, so I shut up.

I listen, though, and some of the things I hear said are:

-It's just a reflection of our culture in general.
-It's a way for big chicks to get dates/laid. (I heard this from a large female-bodied person.)
-It's because BDSM people value other things over traditional beauty.
-You don't have to be thin to get dates in the BDSM community, so people "let themselves go".

Now, if I believe any of these theories, it's probably the first one: lots of Americans are big, and the BDSM community is no exception. I can't believe any woman would do BDSM if they didn't really want to, just to get guys. And I'm so sorry, kinky people are not somehow "above" being attracted to traditional beauty. I don't buy the "let themselves go" theory, either. (Go where?)

But I'm curious to know what some of ya'll might think.