Strange creatures; or, dances with she-wolves (June 18-20)

Note to those that know me personally: if you read the following, you'll be able to infer some things about my sex life, if I haven't told you already. But that's okay. If you haven't told me already, I've probably inferred a few things about yours too. When they put me in the ground, I'd like it remembered: I lived, damn it.

Note the date: I've been recovering faster than I can blog about it. That is a good thing. I'll backfill later, but for now, the short version: Once I started to be able to sleep at night around June 6 or so, and the physical symptoms abated, and I'd cleared my space some, things turned around. The first two weeks were murderous physically and mentally, and the last two have been much better by comparison. I'm not questioning it, you understand.

All of which found me, on Wednesday, at a munch at a cafe on Commercial. Now a munch, for those of you who don't have familiarity with the term, is a kind of coffee klatch for the leather and PVC set to meet up in civvies and get to know one another under relaxed circumstances. Think of it as a community-based defence mechanism against predators, a kind of secret handshake. I'd only been to one since L went to Asia, and this one had moved from an old location under, ah, political circumstances while I wasn't paying attention. But still, it was good to go out and practice my social skills again. I only knew a couple of the people there, and them distantly, as most of my and L's old running crew has scattered either to marriage or sadder fates far from the city. But this kind of gathering was where I first met L, and if you want to get back in the habit of meeting people, you have to go where the people you'll want to meet are. This was a small one, only about a dozen people, with a few vets but mostly younger people.

And it's all about the people. I'll get to the three leatherdykes and the gorgeous Asian boy I spent Saturday night with in a minute, but first, let me say this: as far as I am concerned, there are two and only two truly great Star Trek authors, Diane Duane and the late John M. Ford. And Duane wrote one truly amazing and transcenent novel, called The Wounded Sky. In it, the Enterprise must save the universe from being consumed by a kind of anti-entropy, a higher plane which is for all intents and purposes indistiguishable from Heaven. A Heaven in which people can, at long last, become the version of themselves they are inside.

You know the Matrix, where everyone is an idealized version of themselves? Pretty cool, right? But it's actually tame compared to Duane's version, which predates it by at least a decade. If you could really become who you are inside for everyone else to see, why would everyone stay the same gender? Why would everyone stay, say, human?

So anyway, at the Munch I met Prince, (a pseudonym that's not based on the singer, just a kind of riddle. A prize to anyone who solves it) a very nice 22 year old University student, cute, shy, slender and Asian, who'd managed to get out to a couple events but been too shy to approach someone. An interest in rope, and being tied up by strong women. All kind of...familiar. And I recognize Karma when I see it.

Prince, you're with me, I said, Let's go to Rascal's on Saturday. I'll help you get your feet wet, introduce you to some people.

"But would anyone want to play with me?" He says.

I smile at everyone else at the table, all of whom smile back at me. "Prince, you're young, cute, and want to be tied up...." Everyone else is grinning as I finish, "I don't think you'll have any trouble."

I arrange to pick him up at the cafe on Saturday after he clears dinner with his folks, and practically skip as I head back to Richmond and my gaming crew. I know Karma when I see it. And I know what it was like to be 22 in an age before the internet or Savage Love, and have no idea how to proceed, and I know what it was like to have to wait until I was 27 and random chance put a prodomme in my local comic store for a visit. I'm not saying those five intervening years weren't good years, but, would I have taken the plunge at 22 if I could have?

Instantly. Once you pass through some doors, you can never go back. But for some of them, why would you ever want to?

So, skipping ahead two days (wherein, I bought a new outfit, bought a new computer, and had beer with !L), I found myself back at the same cafe, where I stolled in, flagged the newly arrived Prince, and bustled him into my car for a drive up Commercial Drive.

"What is this place?", says Prince.

"A concert venue, normally. It's an old dance hall from the 20's, I think. But anyone can rent it, and that's what Rascal's does."

"Do the neighbours complain?"

"They're used to loud music, and we try not to go outside in anything outlandish"

Prince is in his basic black outfit, dress shirt and pants, and once we get inside I will duck into the washroom and change into a millworker ensemble for the evening. Something loose, comfy, not really designed to attract anybody, just something different. It's a world of makebelieve, really, a kind of theatre, and it's contributing to the atmosphere if you dress up somewhat. Some events in town are more clubby, and insist on fetishwear, but here it's much more about socializing and play. Besides, all that PVC, latex and leather gets pricey, you know.

At the door, I introduce Prince with a smile as we pay the cover. "He's completely new", I say, and the lean sixtyish man in the thong and hawaiian shirt and the Operatic-sized woman with the breastplate the size of a Buick both break into broad smiles. "Welcome", they say, and lay out some suggestions for newbies - you don't have to play with anyone, and the first time can be overwhelming, so it might be best not to play at all.

Even though we're relatively early, the place is pretty full and we take a table near the playfloor. It's a bit like cabaret, with a front area for sitting and socializing, and a play area for apparatuses. Think of it this way: your average apartment dweller doesn't have room for a St. Andrew's Cross and a rack in their living room, especially in this city. A lot of folks are here just for the chance to just hang out and be themselves, but if you want to do some real play, you need to go to a private club or one of these events. Lots of room to swing a flogger, no neighbours, freedom to be loud, 9PM-1AM, cover charge $20. Come on down.

It's not for the faint of heart, though, and your first time can be overwhelming. Mine was (a long story in itself, for another time) but Prince is eager, full of questions about the history of the devices, the conduct of the room. I brought some books on the subject, but he drinks in the room and the atmosphere like a man emerging from a desert. I know that look, I remember it. It's like being gay and entering a gay bar for the first time. You'll either run screaming or think to yourself, At long last, I am home.

A group of visitors from the Okanagan settle down next to us, middle aged and smiling, one in a Chadour that she quickly doffs due to the heat, revealing the sleek black dress so common here. Common, but not omnipresent, as there's always variety. Lingerie, camisoles, fishnet body suits, all around. Transvestites, ponies, every variety of body type and ethnicity, even if the majority are still white. All so human, all so beautiful.

The visitors introduce themselves and I do the same. "This is Prince. It's his first time". They all grin. "This is Larry. It's his first time", one woman says, indcating a sixtyish grey-haired man in black. We are, all of us, home.

I had hoped to play with !L tonight, but she won't show up in the end, which is a disappointment. Perhaps I misunderstood something. And again, none of my old crew are on hand. A few familiar faces, sure, but no one I really knew. But the evening goes in an unexpected and welcome direction when Teak, chief dungeon monitor for the evening, stops by.

Now a party like this needs a lot of volunteers, and the monitors' job is to walk the floor and make sure that everyone is playing safely and following the legal and safety rules. Partly for liability reasons, partly to make sure everyone's being safe and willing, partly for legal protection. What's going on here is not even remotely an orgy (Hint: orgies have sex) but Fraser Q Constable may not know that, and that's why every public party has a set of rules that are posted and everyone is expected to read, thus affirming we are obeying the letter of the law. The fire code says no open flames, hence, no candlewax, for example.

T. is a charming and adorable sadist, a bookish dyke in a utilikilt, shirt, librarian glasses and cap that's been bejewelled with a rhinestone skull and crossbones. It seems Prince told a friend on Facebook I was bringing him here, and that friend dropped a bug in the ear of T. to keep an eye out for Prince, not knowing she's basically running the room tonight.

T. quickly assesses the situation and sets about finding someone to top Prince. Her initial idea is a charming woman in a fishnet top and breastless basque, who unfortunately looks like a dominant but is in fact a sub. When I chat her up, recognizing her from Appropriately-Themed-Personals-Website (ATPW), she complains about the constant confusion. people don't read the profile, she sighs, they look at one toppy photo out of eight, and the deluge begins. Male profiles on APTW outnumber women about 5 to 1, but 4 of those 5 are idiots who are pretty much indistinguishable from spammers. Can't spell? Have a picture of your cock and not your face for an introduction? buh-bye. We wind up talking about theatre, and she suggests I look at an auditions list on the VPL website. Might be worth a go.

T, meanwhile, ventures into another part of the room and comes back with a young female couple she knows who, it turns out, wouldn't mind practicing their knots on someone new. They're about Prince's age, and a bit shy, but practically luminous with joy at being here. Xi, the bottom, is a butchy South Asian boi with shaved hair and large friendly curves, while N is white, cute, and practically bouncing with energy, as if hopped up on sugar smacks. Their delight is infectious.

N reminds me of someone, but then a lot of people here do. The woman hosting the guests from the Okanagan looks uncannily like my grad school advisor, and I say so, but she obligingly musses her hair into something ridden hard and put away wet to break the spell. Larry in fact went to school with my advisor, and doesn't see the resemblance. "I've seen her more recently, Larry" I say, which settles things.

N and Xi quickly decide to haul Prince off to the back of the raised stage, which is semi-secluded. I haul some red rope (from a genuine Japanese sex shop!) and a neoprene blindfold out of my toybag, hand the rope to N and the blindfold to Prince (it helps you feel less inhibited in public, I say), and watch them go, giving Prince a push with both hands as they go. Best best case scenario ever.

"T", I ask, "do you see that couple over there?" indicating a lesbian top in a red latex dress crouching behind her petticoated partner who's down on her hands and knees with her pretty ass in the air, the top punching her partner's thighs and buttocks, a kind of impact play resembling heavy massage. "What is she using? I can't see what she's got on her hands."

"Those are actually a kind of pink boxing glove", says T. "I gave a workshop on punching a few events ago." A twinkle forms in her eye. "It's a good technique to use on bigger people. I completely messed it up when I said it, though, I think I said 'fat' and insulted half the people there. I was loopy on cough medication"

Did I just hear...

"Bigger people eh?" I put a finger to my lips. "Say....I'm a bigger person"

She puts her hand to her mouth, forming an O of mock surprise, eyes dancing. "Why...you're right!"

Oh Yes.

The Okanaganites indicate Prince up on the stage, a bit obscured from this distance, but shirtless and losing a kind of virginity as he walks through a door he has imagined his entire life, with exquisite style. Even I've never played with two female tops, however young and inexperienced.

"Looks like Prince is having a great time, eh?" Says Larry.

"Absolutely. I met him on Wednesday, he reminded me of me at that age, I said, kid, I'm taking you to Rascal's". The smiles are genuine. We all turn and watch a rite of passage - well, and a lot of other things as well, for by this point the floor is full of all kinds of remarkable things. A woman in a clown nose flogging her sub with a rubber chicken, a couple of tall and graceful ponies in full regalia and headresses - with plumes, even! -being very naughty and trying to undo each other's bridles with their teeth. And always, always, the sound of flat surfaces striking skin.

Later, Teak settles in behind me, a little tired. We've been talking a lot all evening. At some point the story of L and I, which is my explanation of why I haven't been out in public in years, came tumbling out and T has lent me her perspective and her thoughts. She's in a long distance relationship herself, she's seen many similar cases of a drift from bisexuality into lesbianism. We swap geek talk, academics and sci fi conventions, her love of Archives and my survival of Archival and Library School.

We regard Prince and smile, conspiratorially. "We've done a great thing", I say. "We've earned a lot of Karma today"
"Absolutely".

She leans on my shoulder, tired, her ankle bothering her. The weight is reassuring.

"So...boxing gloves, eh?"

"Yes, I think we can arrange something"

"You can lean harder", I say.

"I know", she says, putting weight on me, pulling me into her, subtly. "It's okay". Letting me lean into her arm, just a hint of her chest, a deep breath escaping me, almost on the verge of crying for the first time in days, my first human contact of a certain kind in a year and a half. So warm, so soft. It's just...been so long, I've been so starved for...

"I just...have such a case of Skin hunger", I say...

"I have to be clear, though," she says, "Just to be up front. I am poly, but men do nothing for me sexually any more." Once you walk through some doors...

Is that all? I try to explain that sex isn't really the point right now, for me, where I'm at. Our discussion continues, common ground forms. She tells me of her parents, both bi, and her late Father, three years gone. I speak of my double loss of ten years ago. She's very busy the next couple months, but at some point...quite possibly. I'll add her on facebook, and we'll keep talking. The discussion is wide ranging, delightful, we compare our inner sadists, she describes her relationship with her partner in California, it's all very good. She regales me with leatherdyke tales and stories of new women, rituals of going M to F, opening windows on a subculture I'd never really had a chance to contemplate. The narrative turns, looks left and right, as the worldview expands, suggesting glimpses of whole other realms previously unknown that I will never visit, save perhaps in dreams. C.S. Lewis would be proud. Well, stylistically, anyway. I don't think he'd be down with the man to our right in the chinese dress being turned into a human macrame hanging. But Lewis's vision of Heaven and Diane Duane's aren't so far apart.

"I love this place", she says, "everyone is so happy," indicating the room "...and all these people are so...normal. There's a few classic beauties, but everyone is so...normal looking. And everyone here, everyone, is just free to be themselves, as they truly are inside".

"How old are you, T?" I try to think. She seems so young, and yet...early, mid twenties?

"29."

"I thought you were younger."

"How about you?"

"I'm older than you might think. I run with a younger crowd, always have. Young outlook. I'm 38."

"You're remarkably well-preserved. Do you sleep in a cryogenic capsule?"

"It's the blonde hair. The white just blends in seamlessly."

I propose coffee afterwards for the five of us and T is down with that. I do have to stay until closing, she says, which is fine.

Prince and his captors eventually return a little after midnight, happy and exhausted, N on the verge of crashing, Prince in a light but definite subspace. We wait out the rest of the hour, watching various scenes wind up as we do, chatting about this and that, changing back into our mundane (or at least more mundane) clothes, settling on a coffee shop. The lights come up, we help stack a few chairs, and get into our cars to head back down Commerical.

Over coffee, the theme is transformation. "You know", jokes T, "one simple operation and you could become a woman, get her back, all this could be yours..."

"I think she'd see through such a transparent ploy, really". And besides, it's not like she thought to ask. The idea of crossing that line briefly? Always intriguing. Permanently? Not unless it's really who you are inside. And yet later, the thought bobs up: What if she had?

N is fading, but Teke describes a kind of Japanese full-torso sheath/ facemask combination for transvestites, that laces up behind the head and has a wig built in. "Almost like dolls", I say, And she nods, but gushes "that would be so incredibly hot!" Xi chats about furries versus animal masks. Ponies, like we saw tonight, or mask play, that can be fun. But furries, something about the cartoon googly eyes sets Xi off. I mention the infamous CSI episode and Xi has none of it. CSI completely distorted the subculture, it turns out. Not that furries aren't wierd, and not that we're "normal", as we talk about a woman who spent a party in a cage as a cat, or an online picture of a woman who pony played as a Zebra in fill body paint, or the sad lack of horsehair tails for the ponies we saw tonight. But...those damn googly eyes. And plushy isn't sexy. T tells a hilarious story of being at NorwesCon in a massive troop of Klingons in full battle regalia, all terrified of the one friendly guy who showed up at the dance in a cartoon Squirrel outfit.

They're all incredibly geeky, and horribly shy, says Xi. They relate better to people from inside their costume.

I accidentally refer to Xi as she, which is evidently a faux pas. "He", corrects T, patiently, and I murmur apologies. Good to know that even now I can still feel like a hayseed sometimes. I thus stay quiet as T regales us with a story of turning up at some kind of Catholic-themed sex party dressed up as altar boys, and giving her drag name, which is evidently Irish, which leads into an in-joke that Prince and I don't get, which she apologises for.

I don't mention my catholic upbringing, the legion of priests and nuns in the deep grass surrounding my family tree, or the fact that T's drag name is my father's and grandfather's real one. Let's save that for another time, I think.

We talk about music, and evidently MSI is a better band than I give them credit for. I must give them a better listen. Depeche Mode was evidently a lot less metaphorical in their BDSM than I thought.

(My Mom is still wrong, though, the lyric is "Why does a man HATE another man", not "Why does a man TAKE another man".)

I suggest T. check out Goldfrapp's Strict Machine, not mentioning the Man-Wolf hybrid aspects of its charming mashup of D/S, sex machines, and Little Red Riding Hood, then promise to send her the link on Facebook. She'll be pleasantly surprised.

We're all exhausted, but it's a happy exhaustion, when, at 2AM, I announce, "Let's go home, Team Leather" to general snickering. We scatter, Prince and I dropping off T and she and I parting with a hug, and friendly words. On the way home I chat with Prince about his experience, he still full of questions, and we make plans to hit the next party, in two weeks. I leave one of my books with him when I finally drop him off, just before crossing the bridge to Richmond.

3AM when I peel Cat off the old iBook, firing it up before adding Prince and T as friends. A good day, a very good day, and I crash, Goldfrapp running through my head:

I'm dressed in white noise, you know just what I want, so please...
Wonderful, Electric
Wonderful, Electric
Wonderful, Electric


....

7AM when the sun wakes me, after this, the shortest night of the year. 4 hours light sleep.

Goddamn it.