I opened another book, and this seemed of the Hispanic school. The colors were violent, the reds suggested blood or fire. . . . Here the artist had dwelled at greater length on the woman’s form. I compared her face, her bosom, her curving thighs with the statue of the Virgin I had seen. . . . The line was different, but this mulier also seemed very beautiful to me. I thought I should not dwell on these notions, and I turned several more pages. I found another woman, but this time it was the whore of Babylon. I was not so much struck by her form as by the thought that she, too, was a woman like the other, and yet this one was the vessel of every vice, whereas the other was the receptacle of every virtue. But the forms were womanly in both cases, and at a certain point I could no longer understand what distinguished them. Again I felt an inner agitation; the image of the Virgin in the church became superimposed on that of the beautiful Margaret. “I am damned!” I said to myself. Or, “I am mad.”

– Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (1983, 241)

I once gave Henry and June to a lover.  He said he felt intrusive and uncomfortable reading such intimate thoughts and personal notes.  

I love reading personal thoughts, and hearing them.  They reveal who a person really is.  Knowing Nin’s thoughts about her marriage, her wonderment at her lover’s cunt, her conflict over Henry, is what makes her so erotic to me.  She’s accessible and human and sexual.  I can see where her bare honesty could make some people uncomfortable.  

One of my favorite Anais Nin quotes:

                            There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and
                            staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by
                            fragment, on a small scale, by   successive developments, cellularly,
                            like a laborious mosaic.

I want to share the delights of the Cry Baby with those who like to enjoy themselves secretly, in public. The beauty of the Cry Baby is that your co-conspirator can control you, at various frequencies, from the hotel lobby, while you’re waiting at the hotel bar (or any scenario of similar physical distance).

I wasn’t aware of the Cry Baby’s remote control when I first received mine, as it was delivered with only the main apparatus and limited instructions. Upon my return from the restroom, all became clear. I finished my cocktail and the conversation, under very pleasurable circumstances.

If a couple of glasses of Tattinger gets you going, like me, this thing will have you begging to French kiss in the elevator and taking off the imaginary underwear you didn’t put on for your date before you can get the key in the door.

The gloves smelt of leather and were the first thing he put on me.  I breathed them in and focused on the high-rise buildings in the background – one structure after another jutting upwards out of the earth.  Wrist restraints were buckled around my wrists as I tried to keep  a straight face – a little too much champagne.  My wrists were hooked together with a latch and a thick, black, leather collar secured around my neck – thick enough to cover the span from neckline to chin.  A leash was hooked onto the collar.  I was still laughing a little, possibly out of nervousness.  I trust M implicitly and had no doubt that whatever was going to transpire, he would hurt me only in the nicest possible way   Actually, pain was not the  objective.  Being my first seriously submissive experience however, I think a little apprehension is understandbale.

I’d shopped especially for the event, as I  sometimes do when a fun, intricate or special evening is planned. I found a very structured, black corset I thought would work well and the shop assistant brought my size to the dressing room. She stood behind in me her short, pink uniform, double Ds pressing against my back as she did the hooks up one by one, promising that it was meant to be that tight.

My nipples sat above the edge of the brassiere as I sat on the edge of the bed.  A round-edged metal hook was latched under each of my nostrils, the outer extremities tied around the back of my head with pink ribbon. My nose pressed back against my face; the device could have done serious damage with a single yank of the string.  As my vulnerability became self-apparent, nervousness gave way to concentration and alertness.  The danger was strangely comfortable – something I’ve though about since the event.

I had been asked to produce a homework assignment – a writing task – and moved slowly, wrists latched together – collared, corseted, gloved and hooked, in shiny, purple heels – toward my bag near the edge of the room.  Retrieving a set of written notes, I handed the first, neatly written paper to M.  He admired my handwriting and attention to detail.

The evening continued with various requirements and instructions and I did my best to fulfill them.

If you asked the people who’ve known me a while, they probably wouldn’t expect me to be so successful at submission.  I guess that’s the point.

From Le Sainte Vierge by Kendell Geers