Money Honey

The best sex I've had in my life has been with prodommes. Granted, I have an expansive, poly-fetishistic view of what constitutes sex. I related to Unspeakable Axe's term "fuckless fucking". Virtually all of my experiences with prodommes have not involved "penetrative sexual intercourse". But for me, nearly all my escapades with prodommes have been deeply and profoundly sexual.

These days, I'm just not much for booking appointments. Despite the deep allure of the clandestine sado-sneak away, it has been sometime since I've ticked off a session wishlist and handed over a envelope stuffed with tribute lucre. Mind you, I have nothing against pro sessions. I'm not saying for a moment I would not do it again. But for right now, I like trying to meet kinky people and seeing where those relationships go.

For some time I've been thinking about the deeper functions of tribute in a prodomme session. Unadorned it is simply a fair wage for a safe, sane, and skilled service. The existance of the market encourages dommes to hone a craft that must be learned, practiced, and refined. The market allows someone like me, who can't dedicate a tremendous amount of time to lifestyle searching, to satisfy deep needs that a vanilla relationship, no matter how close and committed, will never satisfy. A tribute frees me to say "this is exactly what I want" and frees her to respond or not based upon scenes and skills she likes and possesses or dislikes and has not developed.

When a prodomme-client relationship evolves into something more than the not-so-arm's-length business transaction it is at its heart; tribute takes on a more complicated role. I have not become friends with many dommes I've sessioned with. But in the few instances I have I've variously experienced tribute or a financial arrangement of some sort to both allow a deeper closeness and maintain a stronger buffer that helps one or the other of us feel more comfortable. After all, if you're paying for it or being paid for it, in spite of how deep your feelings for the other may be, how really personal can that scene be?

A financial arrangement lets both domme and client walk the down and dirty and not have to face each other over cornflakes in the morning. Money supports the esoteric. It allows a domme to practice and hone an intricate rope bondage predicament and find a willing stream of appreciative playmates who reward her study. There are so many good and positive things about the market for professional bdsm services.

But for now, for me, the cash in the envelope paid for session doesn't ring the bell of my heart. Because I think at bottom, money changes everything. Wait ... are Cyndi's feet bare? Ya want how much to lick 'em?

One Sweet Song

Just a quickie. One Sweet Song is a music blog I stumbled on this morning. Bitchy Jones to the Bloggies to well whaddaya know they have best music bloggie awards wow I need a steady stream of music, cool music for Client Nine, let's see, cool - One Sweet Song - no ... she gives away a song a day just for reading?? Now that's whacha call tight! Ms. Gina Pensiero of the band Palmyra writes the blog.

I am kink blogger. I am music blogger. I say - Vote for Gina for The Best Weblog About Music Bloggie!!! What totally sold me was she'd never really heard Joe Jackson much. Had to ask her step-mom about him. Now here's a girl I can count on for cool new music. Thanks, Gina. Hey, now votes from perverts are votes, right. Look, if you're offended, I promise I'll take this down. But something tells me if you're willing to have Debbie Harry's baby, you're cool with votes from the bdsm set.

Gina says her blog is a never ending mix tape of her life. Ya bring tears to my eyes, girl. Tears I tell ya! But it's different for girls isn't it?

Harder Than November Rain

My pals HMP and Aarkey recently traded blog thought on the role of corporal "punishment" in bdsm relationships. The question? Is it really punishment or is it just something a submissive maso bottom wants and the dominant sado-top loves to dish out? To simplify a complicated subject, HMP thought that percussion play ought, for him, to be just that - play. Aarkey responded and came at the question by explaining that for him, even an intense corporal experience was, at its heart and soul, a "corporal punishment scene". Their point and counterpoint initially had me thinking that I just did not really have the experience base either of them have to really comment or meaningfully share my thoughts or know-how on the subject because I didn't have much. But, as is my wont, I ruminated on the subject and, never really at a loss for words, I figured I'd share.

I have to say, I initially thought that practically all my "beat me, beat me" scenes had been play. I've never really had a dominant hit me to actually punish me for something she thought I'd done wrong - or so my thought pattern went. Sure, I've been cropped, smacked and slapped silly because she said I'd been a bad, bad boy. But it was all in good fun, wasn't it? But then I got to thinking...hmmm. There were actually some very powerful times I'd really been "punished". Not always by being physically hit, but I'd been well and truly "marked" by her anger and sincere displeasure at something I'd done to actually and justly offend her.

"She-Who-Visits" and I have had at least three very powerful, substantially punitive, interactions that for me were real, retributive reprimands which have both emphasized her dominance over me and solidified my submission to her.

First up was our last cash-in-the-envelope session which happened over two years ago now. At the time and place in question I did something that really upset her. I was overcome with an almost magnetic need to do what I did. I'm much too embarassed to confess my transgression publicly, but suffice it to say - it was just flat-out wrong. I later learned that there was a genuine, bona fide, oh-so-poignant reason for her rage. Anyway, I did what I did and she proceeded to mercilessly, verbally chastise me and just brutally bitch slap me about the face so hard it made me burst into uncontrollable tears. I'm talkin' racking, blubbering, sobbing. I was genuinely and deeply sorry, both for my sin and for displeasing her. For, as you dear reader may gather, I love "She-Who-Visits" with all my heart. We made up on the spot as I melted in her arms and she brought me home from lose-it-land.

Second was an off handed, stupid remark I made to her in an email after I was unable to bring myself to sneak away to her for a long weekend. After she'd left New York I'd begged her for this quality time. She invited me and I thought I could tell all the lies necessary to steal away. But alas, I found I could not. She seemed to understand when I honestly confessed I just couldn't manage to pull it off. As a penalty, she asked me to buy her something she really needed. I brainlessly and dimly suggested that she'd gone all "prodomme" on me. Well, you can imagine her reaction! All "prodomme" huh? Ya wanna see all prodomme? I'll give you prodomme. Open a PayPal account and pay me for each and every email, phone call and sweet nothing you get, she wrote. Then she proceeded to simply cut me off. She gave me the silent treatment. For four long months. Thankfully, she relented one sunny October day after I'd sent her only the lyrics to "Old Habits Die Hard" -

We haven't spoken in months
You see i've been counting the days
I dream of such inanities, such insanities
I'm lost like a kid in a maze
But i've never taken your calls
You see, I put a block on my phone
I act like an addict, I just got to have it
I never can leave it alone

Finally, this past August, after she made me hers, we had a wonderful night out on the town at Paddles, a local kink club. Among my duties that enchanted evening was to mind her purse. During my dommy date, we found ourselves in a dark little corner, she in full domme regalia, me wearing my new collar - my long desired gift from her. I had just happily finished serving as her personal chocolate caddy, on my knees of course, as she dragged me up and away in tow. We got about five steps from our former perch and she stopped dead and pointed. There, in truthful, humiliating plain view - on the floor in the corner - was her purse. She yanked me close and pointed. "You were going to leave that?" she snarled menacingly. "I give you one task and you fail?" she spat. "It has my driver's license in it. With my real name on it." I fell onto the floor in real fear. I desperately kicked my foot at the purse to try, to snag it, to retrieve it with-all-my-might verve. She leaned on my leash. She's really strong from her island paradise outdoor expert job. I couldn't budge. She bent down, grabbed my face and growled, "Go get it. Don't lose it again!"

So, though I love her, I actually have a healthy, heaping dollop of fear of her. It strikes me that this deepens my submission to her and makes me love her love for me even more. In some measure, these punishments have helped mold me and bind me to her. Despite our distance, she can always walk through my walls like a ghost.

A Bad Word For A Good Thing

Last night my wife and I were watching "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" on HBO. I'm always slightly worried when this show comes on and she and I are watching together. Guaranteed, dollars to doughnuts, Hannah/Belle, played by the very hot Billie Piper, gets up to something that causes the trouble and strife to make a snide comment. I was not disappointed last night. Not to ruin the plot for you if you like the show and haven't seen it, but there's a golden shower scene. Yah, no big deal. Even "Sex In The City" had a shower thing when Carrie was dating John Slattery, the "Mad Men" guy, and he wanted her to piss on him. Come on! It's good clean fun, Carrie! Plus, he was way cooler than Big. Alas, Ms. Bradshaw dumped him because of his kink.

Even Belle, who last season tried out domming, actually seemed kinda put off. The guy supplies wardrobe and stage direction leading to a classic straddle over the tub. That's all I'm sayin'. So as Ms. Belle lets fly to the deeply satisfied look on her client's face, the spouse exclaims sarcastically, "Advo, this is right up your alley, isn't it?"

Now, I just let these comments alone these days. When money gets less tight, we're going to try a separation to see if we can be together more separately. No sense in antagonizing the situation further. My last attempt at strained bonhomie was the purchase of "When Someone You Love Is Kinky". My suggestion that maybe we read it together was met with incredulous rage. So I just laughed uneasily at her accurate observation of me and domme pee. When we met twenty years ago I honestly told her what I'd gotten up to - though since I met her I have never confessed to my forays. These days she's angry enough that she neglects no opportunity to impale me on my selective honesty.

She pressed on by saying, "You paid for women to do that to you, right?" Silence from your ill at ease author. "Probably not as cute as her though." Whoa! Now wait a minute! I think Billie Piper is pretty hot, but I've seen waaaay cuter prodommes. Much cooler, smarter, more interesting, more caring. While "Secret Diary" seems to get some of the sex worker conflict right - it's treatment of bdsm relegates it to the extreme, wierd, and esoteric. And here was my wife, who I really love, certain and convinced that all dommes are mean, disfunctional, whip-toting, manhaters who are ugly to boot. Look, I'm not surprised. But now that my kink, which was compartmentalized away in a dark freezer, has begun to see the light of day, it has melted and seeped everywhere. It has throughly soaked the very fabric of my life. Kinda like Billie's hot shower!

I held my tongue again because responding with the truth would be too much for her to bear. Too much that many prodommes are facinating, beautiful, accomplished women. Too much that lots of submissive men are smart, talented, thoughtful guys struggling just like everyone else to be happy. Too much that we pay our hard earned money for what, as Yin suggests this week, can often be a compassionately choreographed healing ritual. Why can't people just get this?


Maybe it's because what we like is just a bad word for a good thing.

Climb the highest mountain, walk the wildest street
Won't somebody tell me, can't somebody see?
Go into the valley, go into the swamp
Won't somebody tell me where I can get me some?
I need a bad word, for a good thing.

-The Friggs- "Bad Word"

New Year's Fun - Part II

Didja catch the foot service scene in the Stones "Saint of Me" clip I put in last week's post? I thought it was ha-ha-ha-hawt!!

So ... fun with Crimson! You may recall that just before the holidays I was whining that I wanted playtime! I whimpered;

And tonight, real fun would be a chastity playmate who loves the intense tease of semi-prolonged denial. A dominant woman who liked to play in a hot, hot kitchen with me. One who lives in the same town I do. One who wants to be friends.

So Crimson, who leads a busy, active and fascinating life in Chicago, reads this and takes pity on me. We became friends when she was here in Manhattan last summer. Before she arrived and by a complete coincidence, I had helped a domme at the suggestion of another without knowing who I was helping. We did it that way to protect identities. Then, through interactions on The Hang, Crimson and I (we'd become acquainted on message threads) discovered that it was her I had helped, or at least tried to help.

Based on this bit of kismet we decided to meet for dinner. From a list I provided, she chose a Kosher vegan joint in Chelsea. She's a dedicated vegetarian and actually quite picky and particular about her diet. In addition, I had learned by reading her back posts that she had a special fondness for Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. Of course, I brought her some. At dessert, we got busted for cupcake scarfing in violation of ancient dairy laws. Such gangstas! We've been fast friends ever since this daring brush with the law.

And so, as Crimson planned her trip to New York for first week of January '09, she read my kvetchy post and said:

You aren't on chastity detail with [she-who-lives-far-away-but-sometimes-visits] currently are you? Cause if you are, and want to stay that way until at least Thursday, that would be ok with me......

Mwahahaha!

Gotta love the laugh, huh? Truth be told, I was not on chastity detail with "She-Who-Visits" and Crimson's letter made me wonder just why I wasn't. Not to be deterred, I figured, "What's the harm in an innocent little request?". Consequently and with sincere ardor, I wrote "She-Who-Visits" and confessed Crimson's musings. Brazenly, I proposed the following:

So ... I'm checking with you to see if you'd consider putting me in on-my-honor chastity. I promise not be be needy and whiny and will only beg for your permission to cum if you tell me it's ok to beg you. Otherwise, my orgasm is yours to control. I recognize this in itself is a high maintenance type request as the hornier I get the more I'll want to talk to you about it. I totally understand if you don't want to do it, especially starting a new job and all. As your devoted, personal submissive who loves and adores you, I promise to try to be as low maintenance as I can. Please .... pretty pleeeeeeeze!!

Her answer, which shows why I love her so, was;

Okay. No jerking off until she gets to town. If she would like to give you permission to get off and directions of how you are to do it - perfect. If she does not give it, wait until after she leaves, catch me by phone and ask me when you can do it.

Crimson's thought after I told her of my newly chaste state:

Excellent! I love dining with boys who are suffering a bit.

And thus it came to pass that for a heavenly ten days, I was in on-my-honor chastity, beholden to both "She-Who-Visits" and Crimson. Ms. C sent very hot pictures of herself, "Backstabber" by the Dresden Dolls for mood, and plenty of suggestive little comments in our email exchanges.

Finally, we met for breakfast at Brasserie. We chatted about what she was doing, her dreams, hopes and plans. But every now and then she'd make a little comment like, "I hope it hasn't been too difficult" ... or "It's been a little torturous, hasn't it?" As our all too short time together was ending she asked if I had my briefcase with me. I had checked it so she just handed over the pair of pink stockings with the black Cuban heels, black back seam and black lasts. With it she gave me a folded piece of paper with "instructions". "Give me a little power and I take it!", she leered.
We hugged goodbye outside the restaurant and on the subway platform, waiting for the downtown Lex I greedily read:

Congratulations on completing your assignment. I hope it was at least slightly torturous. You can release today, but there are two caveats: you have to masturbate with one of these in your mouth and the other in your hand, rubbing your cock, and it has to be before 10pm. Enjoy!
xxx,
C

Whew...now I see why she said so sweetly, "Have a nice day at work, Advo." Luckily, I was spared doing the deed in the in-suite bathroom at the office! With the wife away, I had at myself with abandon in the privacy of my own apartment, thank you very much!

There were these amazing runners in the feet of the stockings, they were stretched out in all the right places and the aroma of her perfume was utterly intoxicating! It's amazing what you can tie up with the foot and ankle portion of a nice nylon and still have plenty left over for rubbing!

I duly reported my performance to both Ms. C and "She". Even though there were no dungeon doors, fetish fashions, or squirreled away tributes - this was one of the sexiest and hottest things I've ever done. Directed by dommes, both of whom are my dear friends.

"so don’t tell me what to write
and don’t tell me that I’m wrong……
and don’t tell me not to reference my songs within my songs"
-- Dresden Dolls - "Backstabber"

Do ya think Ms. C and "She" - Missed Me? Come on ... what can I say? I just couldn't find them doing "Pretty In Pink"!

New Year's Fun - Part I

During the week between Christmas and New Year I was whining about how pure gantin' furrit I get during that stretch of time. Now I don't mean this blog to be a confessional. It's one thing to try and not lead a compulsively secret life. Even for me, there's a limit on sharing every last little thing I get up to when it comes to the kinky stuff. Then again, these two escapades are waaaay too good not to share. Two nice, imaginative, kinky ladies actually took pity on me and put me to good use.

First, Alisa from "Kink In Exile" sent me on a "wild goose chase". Instead of geese I was chasing tea, which she adores. In this town, finding tea is really not too hard and finding an exotic tea is only slightly more difficult. But she wanted the truly unusual. An interesting story about processing or origin. I love a challenge, so I researched tea places and became reassured that the city I love really is not in imminent danger of becoming one big multiplex mall, as I often worry it may be. I found "Sympathy For The Kettle" in the East Village. Their website lists many different flavored black teas which was my quarry. So off I went to Saint Mark's Place between First and A.

When I first moved to New York City in the 70's I worked in this neighborhood at a shelter for runaway teenage girls. It was a crazy, gritty, dangerous, wild neighborhood. Now there's a great little tea boutique there. I walked in and announced my search for a flavorful black tea with a unique backstory. Without missing a beat - almost as though I had meant to pose her this question - the lovely, pregnant, slightly mystical propriatrix produced their Harlequin tea. She told me that she and her husband love the countryside in Oxfordshire, England and were exploring it one day when they came upon huge patches of wild, sweet blackberries. Since they love to blend natural fruits into their stout black teas they were overjoyed.

However, the perfect luscious berries were surrounded by great swathes of stinging nettles. Undeterred, and being consumately intrepid tea minglers, they braved the nettles and harvested a crop of the sweetest, tartest, most perfect berries imaginable. They did, however, pay the price inflicted by the nettles. I like to think they did so willingly, gladly, and joyously.

In flawless recognition of the true nature of their harvest they mixed in the stinging nettles with the succulent berries to create what I can only describe as the perfect bdsm tea. Don't you agree? The sweetness of the berry ... the lash of the nettle?

I presented the tea and a card with a shorter version of the backstory pasted neatly on one side and a little hand written note on the other to Alisa at our lunch at Balthazar. (She had a salad, I had the omlette with gruyere) On a gloomy, chilly, rainy New York winter's day, the whole process brightened my New Year's mood. I hope she likes the sipping as much as I liked the questing.

But hey, that's an awfully tame story for a bdsm blog. Didn't I say there was another hot kinky lady who took pity on me? I did didn't I. It was my friend Crimson ... and does she have one deliciously devious mind!!! But yer gonna have to wait on that one, dear readers. Same Bat-time ... same Bat-channel. And if ya think I'm some kinda hunter gatherer saint, just you wait ... you'll never make a saint of me.

Postscript

She's wearing a tight, white, man-beater t-shirt; oh-so-short, faded denim cutoffs with frayed holes in the backpockets to intentionally allow a teasing glimpse of flesh; and rugged, tight-laced hiking boots. She directs him to strip. As she lightly smacks the switch she just had him cut from the nearby birch against the palm of her well tanned hand, she tells him to clear a path through the nettles. If she's stung once he'll be beaten mercilessly.

Later, his aging, well muscled body covered in welts from the stinging nettles, but sadly spared the cut of the rod as he had done his job properly, he lies beneath her as she sits in the small, folding, single seat they brought. She happily munches on the succulent blackberries she bid him gather. He eagerly rubs her tired feet, sore from the day's search for tea ingredients. As she feeds him a berry wrapped in a nettle leaf she says, "I think we should call it Harlequin."

How Would Broken Find The Bone?

I've been reading back posts from Alisa's Kink in Exile blog. She's an excellent writer, very insightful, funny, worldly wise, and since I'm having lunch with her next week during her road trip East, I'm shamelessly sucking up to her. Anyway, she wrote a piece about a year and a half ago called "You're Not Alone" in which she talked about not really ever feeling by her lonesome with her kinkiness because she had the Internet. She asked the following questions:

"For those of you who were kinky before the internet what did it look like? When and how did you get the language to talk about it and with whom did you talk about it? How did being kinky feel before you had the words or the context to describe it?"

I was very kinky before the Internet. I had my first pro session in about 1977 and was haunting bdsm magazine stores well before that. Screw Magazine ads were my source of contact with dommes. Letters to P.O. boxes were the email or Googletalk of the day. It all seemed very underground, clandestine and dangerous. I remember not really believing that dommes existed. Forget language to discuss kink, I really did very little talking about it. Up until this past year the only people who ever knew I was kinky were my former wife, long-term girlfriend, wife, shrink and all the prodommes I saw over the years. Being kinky felt isolated, lonely, volatile, uncontrollable, unstable, hot blooded and delicious. But I ended up feeling ashamed. I was a freak and a pervert because I was all alone.

In another post entitled "On Being and Doing" Alisa reminisced about kink, community and her exile as a relief worker in a remote area of Southeast Asia.

"I had the benefit of coming out in a college town, and of having patient mentors and a supportive community. And of course I have been lucky enough to play with some amazing people who never cease to challenge and inspire me.

So what happens when you divorce kink from community? From context and availability? One of the questions that I kept asking myself when I moved from my supportive college town to a rural rice farming community is 'am I still kinky?'"

Over the past year I've become intensely proud to be a member of a misunderstood minority - a card carrying constituent of an "outlaw" community. For me, kink divorced from community meant lost and isolated. I think Alisa is right that with the internet came a better chance at connection and social contact. In their best incarnations places like The Hang, Fetlife and the blog rounds I've made feel like the good high school experience I never had. It has been so liberating to be part of something, to develop language to talk about it, and to make friends. Lots more understanding and support.

Then again ...

If we lived in a world without tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon?
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into?
How would broken find the bone?