October 2004

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Service: N/A

Food: N/A

Ambience: * * *

Babe Count: * * * 1/2

We’re in the dungeon at Cool Runnings. Yes. It’s ACTUALLY called the dungeon. Which is appropriate, cos this is the monthly meeting of a bondage and discipline group. It used to take place at Merlin’s Pub a block and a half up the road, but that place is being sold, so Burning Lash, our alpha dom, has negotiated a new space.

Tonight’s topic is tattooing. Shani is the guest speaker, and she’s set up a computer showing some of her proudest tats.

I’m here with Karen. Yes, it’s true that we’re no longer a couple. But we’ve agreed that we’ll be seeing each other “extramurally”. And it’s working very nicely. Now that we’re not doing coupledom, there’s no pressure to fall in love or anything mushy. Which makes things very pleasant. Especially when she’s on my bed and I bring out the chains. Chains are our friend. We love chains.

The talk starts, and Shani is clearly heavily passionate about tattooing. “People ALWAYS ask me, ‘Does it hurt?’ And I always tell them, ‘HELLLLLL YESSSSSS!’ But then I also tell them that it’s a good pain.”

Several of the submissives in the audience start giggling, and their doms give them affectionate pats on the head. I give Karen an affectionate hard tug on the hair. “Hmmmmm!” she says.

When question and answer time comes up, one of the doms asks, “What’s the MOST painful place to tattoo someone?”

Shani points to the top of her head. “That’s bad,” she says. “But a lot of people say the base of the spine is really hectic.”

“Ah, cool,” says the dom. “Base of the spine it is then!”

I say, “Is there any way to make the tattoo hurt even more?”

Shani just rolls her eyes at me.

Just then, there’s a weird drunken chuckle from the back of the room. It’s in shadows, so it takes a while to notice that we’ve got visitors. A trio of very smoked-up rasta guys. They’ve slipped in through the back door, and they’re now getting heavily entertained by these odd people. My bum is lifting off my chair to help get rid of them when Burning Lash steps up to the plate.

“This is a private function, I’m afraid,” he says. And it’s clear he’s afraid of nothing. “So you guys must leave.”

One of them says, feebly, “Oh, sorry, man, hey, like, we didn’t, like, know, hey? Cool brother? One love.” And they leave.

Shani tells us about ultra-violet tattoo ink. “Invisible under normal light,” she says, “but amazing under ultra-violet light. A bitch to work with though, cos you’ve got to do the tattoo in the dark.”

Burning Lash exclaims, “Bar codes!!!” Several of the doms echo him. From his enthusiasm, and from his rushing up to Shani at the end to get her business cards, it’s very clear that his slave may very well have his ownership barcode drilled into her skull sometime very soon.

While we’re milling around, someone whips out a handmade flogger. It’s basically a stick with a dozen or so light leather thongs attached to it. A bit like a cat o’ nine tails, but without the embedded bits of lead. Buring Lash orders his slave to bend over, and he gives it a test. It swishes like a martial arts move, and connects like twenty thunderclaps.

I’ve never used one before, so I’m curious. I watch his technique, and when he’s finished, I ask if I can try it. He hands it to me, and Karen bends over without needing to be ordered. I give her a couple of hard strokes, and find it a little bit puny. “How was that?” I ask her.

“Very light. But you got me warmed up a bit there at the end.”

She’s spending the night at my place tonight. Looks like we’re both a bit warmed up.

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Monday, October 25, 2004

Service: *

Food: *

Ambience: * * 1/2

Babe Count: * * *

Tonight I’m doing battle against the mighty Tony Lelliot.

“What are you doing for coffee now that your Ethiopian supply has dried up?” I ask. Tony’s a coffee aficionado, and a buddy of his was based in Ethiopia for a while.

“Oh, I just buy stuff at ridiculously high prices,” he says.

We set up the backgammon board, and I start pounding him with heavy artillery. I take a convincing lead early on, and it looks like tonight’s gonna be a cinch for me. I spot an opportunity to shed some blood. Tony’s blood. I offer him the cube. He takes. A few quick blows later and he’s got five blots on the bar! That’s FIVE! Count ‘em!!! Viva! I smash him down, and beat him not with a gammon (which is a double game), but by a backgammon — a triple game. That’s six points.

“Hey, Peter!” I shout. “Do you want my ten bucks now?” Anyone who beats someone by a backgammon in our club has to pay ten rand into a kitty. At the end of the year, all of the winners in the kitty draw to win the full amount. Winning a triple game is non-trivial. It takes balls of steel and a certain amount of foolish play to pull it off.

I’m gloating deluxe when suddenly Tony sits back in his chair, concentrates, then rubs his fingers up and down his moustache. “Right,” he says, and starts flinging dice across the board. Suddenly my 14–4 lead starts narrowing. Suddenly we’re at 16–15 to me. I stay just ahead, but Tony’s playing fearsome backgammon.

My phone rings. It’s an international call. “Tony, do you mind if I take this?”

“No problem,” he says, and rubs his moustache again.

“Hi,” I say to the phone, “this is Roy.”

“Hi, Roy,” says an American voice on the other end of the line. It’s one of the people we’re interviewing for Go_Open, the tv show I’m co-directing. He chuckles, “Are you deposing me?”

I’m a bit baffled, but I assume he’s being playful, so I laugh with him and ask him what he means.

“Well,” he says, “the video link-up centre you’re asking me to go to? Well, it’s a deposition centre, and I can’t go to a deposition centre. It’s just not possible for me.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. A deposition centre??? This is so weird. “Uh…” I say, “I’m not sure why that’s a bad thing.”

“Well, how do I know you guys aren’t working for S.C.O.?”

The way I hear him, over a muffled international cellphone connection, I hear some weird US government agency acronym. What he’s ACTUALLY referring to is a company that’s systematically suing huge corporations who use Linux, claiming that Linux has a piece of code in its kernel that they own, and that they want royalties from. So because I mis-hear him, I make a complete fool of myself by saying, “Working for S.C.O.? I don’t even know what that IS?”

“You don’t know what S.C.O. is???” he says. “You’re doing a show on open source! I think you’d better do your research.”

Oh man. This conversation is tanking fast.

He says, “Well, whatever, how do I know you’re not working for them?”

I’ve twigged by this point what he’s talking about, but there’s no graceful way out.

I tell him that we’ve done a video link-up with Richard Stallman.

“Did Richard Stallman go down to a deposition centre for his link?” he asks. “I don’t think so.”

I explain how this video conferencing thing works. “There’s a South African video conferencing company we outsource to,” I say, “and they find a venue closest to the person we’re interviewing. We have no idea what type of facility it is. I has no idea that we were sending you to a deposition centre.” (And frankly, even if I’d known, I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that it would be quite such a hectic place to go to.)

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Anything can be explained away.”

This guy genuinely thinks that some two-bit television production company in South Africa is trying to trap him into saying something on camera that could ruin his career. I dunno. If I WERE working for some major conspiracy, I’m sure I would know my mark a bit better, and I’m absolutely certain I wouldn’t have attempted to get him to do his video conference link-up in a place that would scare him. If I were a conspiracy dude, I’d probably try and lull him somehow. Sheesh. I dunno.

“Well,” I say, “how do we get around this?”

“Well,” he says, “why don’t we just use the video link-up system at my office?”

WHAT??? This is just not believable. Who has a video link-up facility in their own goddamn office??? If we’d known this from the beginning, there’d have been no problems at all.

I end the conversation by letting him know that he won’t be forced to do the link-up at the deposition centre, that our researcher will send him the list of questions we intend asking, and that our production manager will sort out how to do the link-up at his office.

I go back to the backgammon board.

My supper has finally arrived. I ordered the tuna salad. This is simply one of the worst salads I’ve encountered. It’s basically dollops of mayo with about a third of a tin of tuna splayed over it, on a bed of lettuce, with some cherry tomatoes and onion. Ugh!

Tony plays like an S.C.O. agent… aggressively, mercilessly, and with vast amounts of money backing him. He beats me 21–20.

I guess I’d better wake up and smell his Ethiopian coffee.

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