Breakfast in Stilettos

by Liz Kingswood

  He shook his head. “I thought you two were over.”

  “As in over and over and over again.” I didn’t meet his eyes, which I knew would reflect his pointed censure. He had heard me whine about Frank far too often. “I know. I know. I’m sick and need psychological counseling. I can’t afford it, so, how about a raise?”

  Ignoring me, he pointed to the monitor. “Is it any good?”

  “The story? Sure. Different.” Just like Frank. As much as I hated to admit it, I liked him in part because he was different. I mean a woman who writes about the strange and unusual can’t date a normal Joe.

  I glanced at the closing lines, wondering how it ended. “I haven’t finished reading.” And it struck me how that summed up my feelings about Frank. Something remained undone. I had the unsettling sense that was about to change.

  Kenner grunted as he stood into his full 6’4” frame. “As it turns out, I have an assignment that appears to coincide with your friend’s story. Look up this URL.” He handed me a Post-it.

  I typed in the URL and gawked at the faint sketch of a woman’s naked torso that backed the text in the window. “Uh, boss, those are breasts. Isn’t that against company policy?”

  “They are artistic breasts. Now be quiet and read.”

  The website was for a place called The Slutterati Salon. I read out loud. “For an evening of beauty, art and the erotic.” I looked up at him. “Does the Sun even allow the word ‘erotic’ to appear within its hallowed folds?”

  He ignored me. “It’s supposed to be some literary place where artists go to get a thrill.”

  “ ‘Slutterati’? As in literati with a twist?”

  “They consider themselves an eccentric group of well-educated liberals who have a taste for highbrow smut. Or so they claim. They’re getting some press elsewhere. I thought you might want to check it out. See if there’s a story in it for us.”

  I noticed that the thrilling ticket price was printed at the very top. A whopping $40 for singles. “Is there a budget?”

  “Standard deal: ticket, food and fuel. If you do your homework, you can make Saturday’s show and have a piece written up by early next week.”

  This was a Saturday-only place, 9:00 p.m. to 1 a.m. I wondered how they made a living with one show a week. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

  A single’s price meant that there might be single people there. A definite plus. As long as I wasn’t going to end up naked by the end of the night. At least not publicly naked. There were some things a girl just didn’t do.

  Kenner turned to leave and gave my cubicle one backward glance. “And Emily, try to enjoy yourself.”

  What, no Shakespeare? But even as I thought it, he had proclaimed, “Now go we, in content to liberty, and not to banishment.”

  “Doh!” For every Shakespeare, there should be an equal and opposite Homer Simpson. I turned back to the Web page in front of me.

  I scrolled down to see that the torso was, in fact, a full torso with shoulders and legs and all that went in between. I could barely read the black type over the sketched-in darkness of the figure’s mons veneris. I really had to work the mouse to adjust the window so there wasn’t some naughty bit staring me in the face. If I scrolled the top to just below the nipple I could read the bulk of the text without the upper or lower distraction.

  I jotted down the number for reservations and pressed “print,” knowing the background wouldn’t show up on the paper and I could read the rest in peace. Then I quickly closed the browser window. I didn’t want to get sued for sexual harassment if a co-worker just happened by. I’d continue my homework later—in the shadowy, sexually repressed solitude of my bedroom.

  And yes, I was just too damned embarrassed to look at tits at work.

  I tabbed back to Frank’s article to finish reading. It was well written, though not funny, as if Frank had grown up just a little. Provided I ignored the subject matter. I’d been wanting an excuse to call him. Find out what he was up to. I knew it would come to no good, but I was bored. And even a fight with Frank was more interesting than the leftover lasagna awaiting me at home.

  I reached for the phone, but stopped.

  This impulse was my biggest weakness.

  But why not? This was, after all, a professional issue.

  I looked back at the screen and read the article’s byline—a bit about Frank and also a couple lines about this Mistress Maven. Coincidentally, it said that she appeared regularly at The Slutterati Salon.

  Without hesitation, I dialed the number that I seemed unable to purge from my memory.

  Chapter 2: Phoning Frank

  The phone rang a few times before it clicked and Frank’s smooth voice came across the line. I could picture him standing there, barefoot in a worn pair of 501s, an untucked Oxford Shirt hastily buttoned and his dark hair a just-toweled tousle. He was a night owl and invariably woke up late but always showered first thing. If nothing else, Frank was clean. And, let’s face it, a hunk.

  “Hello Em.” He had at least picked up the phone, so he wasn’t maintaining an Emily-free zone. But I heard the familiar edge of impatience that said he was being interrupted.

  I got right to the point. “Hey, I read your story about Mistress Maven.”

  “Is that why you called?”

  No. I called to say ‘Fuck You,’ but that I wanted to see you anyway.

  I put the thought away and slipped on my happy face. “Actually, Kenner gave me an assignment to check out The Slutterati Salon for a possible piece and I noticed that your Mistress Maven appears there periodically. I thought you might be able to give me some insight.”

  I could hear him shuffling papers in the background. He sounded distracted. “Huh? Oh, sure. I first met her online, in a chat room she hosts.”

  I wasn’t going to ask him what he was doing in a chat room hosted by a Mistress. Although it might explain some of why our relationship hadn’t worked out. Besides all the arguing and him never having any money. I did a quick search for Mistress Maven while I listened to Frank talk about her. She had a website. Surprisingly, she looked pretty normal, except for the latex and thigh-high boots. And the mask. The general business-like tone of her site made me think she might have run a large corporation if she hadn’t chosen to tie people up for a living instead.

  Frank was still talking about her. “Of course, she wouldn’t talk to me off topic while she was working, but I messaged her afterward and she was intrigued enough to tell me what it would take to meet her in person. Eventually we hooked up at the Salon.”

  He paused for a moment and I was about to go ahead and ask him about the chat room when he blurted, “The Sun is doing a story on the Slutterati Salon? You’re kidding, right?”

  Frank finally checks into the conversation.

  “No. I’m not kidding. Kenner gave me the assignment. He wants me to go Saturday night.”

  “Well, from what I remember, you don’t know squat about the fetish world.”

  “Thank you for those encouraging words. And, until I read your article about Mistress Maven, I didn’t think you knew squat either. But we’ll save that for a later conversation.” Here it was. Frank and me at our best. He always said I couldn’t take criticism with grace. Which was probably true, but he couldn’t offer it with any, so I figured we were even. “And no, I don’t know much, but that’s why it is called research. Which is what I’m doing now. If I only wrote about what I knew, I wouldn’t have much to write about.”

  I could almost see his shrug. “So what do you want to know?”

  All I knew about the fetish world is what I had watched on mainstream TV—women with leather whips, big boots and even bigger attitudes. Morticia Addams meets Wonder Woman. “Is there something specific I should know to do a story?”

  “Well, you should know what you are getting into.” That sounded ominous. “Do a little research into BDSM?”

  “BDSM?”

  He sighed. “Officially? It’s three acrony
ms: Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadism and Masochism. Some people are into B&D, some D&S, some S&M. They are all a bit different. Anyway, you can read that all online; I would suggest you do that before you go. And lurk in a couple of chat rooms. That’ll give you a sense.”

  Yes Sir, Dr. Frank. I made a couple of notes. “OK. Research BDSM. Lurk in chat rooms.”

  He rattled off a few URLs to check out. “Oh, and you better come up with an anonymous-sounding email that you can shut down once you’re done. Don’t use your work one or personal one. You’ll get a ton of spam, not to mention that people will know who you are. Sign up for a Yahoo or Gmail account.”

  There was a pause before he continued. “I assume you have already looked at the Salon’s website.”

  “Naked breasts aside, I get the sense that the place is fairly tame. It isn’t really BDSM, right? I mean, there’s no dungeon or anything?” I suddenly wanted his reassurance.

  “No, there’s no dungeon, but BDSM isn’t necessarily about that. That’s kind of a stereotype. People can be in the midst of a scene and it could look no different than a couple walking the street or cleaning house. You have to drop some of your preconceived notions to really understand.”

  I wasn’t sure how far I should wade into that pond. True, I wanted a story, and that meant getting my feet wet, but to truly understand might take me deeper than my deadlines and desires would allow. “Got anything else that might help?”

  He gave a huff of impatience and I knew it was time to cut it short. “Well, thanks for the info.” Part of me wanted to ask him to go with me, but it wasn’t the intelligent part of me, so I reconsidered and said my goodbyes.

  But he cut in before I could hang up. “Hey, if you need a cruise director to The Salon, just let me know. I’d be happy to tag along and give you some pointers.”

  I suppressed my Pavlovian response to say yes, thinking how casually he called it “The Salon.” Was that a nickname? “Thanks. I’ll let you know.”

  With that, I hung up. My heart was pounding a rumba and I felt lightheaded as I made my way to the window. Rain pattered against the window framing the dark winter sky. Below me, the afternoon commute was just beginning its daily snarl—taillights and traffic signals winking red and green through the drizzle. In the distance, Lake Union lay nestled between the condo-laden hills, ringed all around by moored boats and floating homes.

  Seattleites love the water, and I was no exception. We had to. It’s everywhere—hemming us in on every side and falling from the sky an average of 225 days per year. We rarely carry umbrellas. Instead we wear yards of Gortex or we simply don’t mind being wet. If the Seattle people were a sign of the zodiac, we would definitely be a water sign—intuitive, emotional, imaginative, nurturing, secretive, and dreamy.

  A small seaplane was taking off from the lake, probably headed for the San Juan Islands. It was flying right over the houseboat where they filmed Sleepless in Seattle. I remember when I went to see that movie back in the 90s, the entire theater audience had murmured in protest at the boat trip taken by the Tom Hanks character and his son from their Lake Union houseboat to Alki Beach. In reality, this was no quick tootle, implied by Meg Ryan’s tailing along in her rental car. In fact, the trek would have had them going from the Lake through Salmon Bay, into and out of the Hiram C. Chittenden locks, into Shilshole Bay and out into the great Puget Sound before heading back into Elliot Bay, all the while dodging ferries and freighters.

  Maybe this was indicative of romance in Seattle. It looked deceptively easy, but was in fact an arduous trek filled with obstacles of every sort. But they did fall in love in the end. So I held on to the hope that somewhere, out there in the drizzle, was a slightly damp, incredibly smart and absolutely gorgeous man I could stalk for my very own.

  Chapter 3: Research

  I slumped back in my chair and read my scribbled notes. Research BDSM. Get anonymous email. Lurk in chat rooms.

  I figured I’d save nombre trois for a more private locale.

  Instead it was Wiki-time! Research was sometimes humdrum, but I sensed that this topic would skate dangerously close to passionnant.

  I typed in “BDSM Wiki” into the Google field. This truly had to be a first—officially researching porn at work. I tilted my monitor in such a way that the casual but nosy passerby wouldn’t see the screen. A photo of a woman holding up her hair to display a leather collar sat in the corner photo slot. And Frank’s description of what it stood for seemed right on.

  I scrolled down the screen to see a series of photos, including two women in black latex chained to iron bars with black tape over their mouths. Then down to a woman bent forward with her hands tied behind her back and suspended from the ceiling by a rope. Her feet were spread open and cuffed to a bar. This was apparently called Strappado bondage and looked decidedly uncomfortable. Then down to a bunch of Nazi-looking guys tying each other up, a woman spanking another with a brush, and a woman dressed up in a leather teddy and thigh-high boots with a horse bit in her mouth, pulling a man in a cart.

  Whoa. I stopped here. What was that about? There was a caption underneath describing the photo as “Petplay” with a link I just had to click.

  The link went to another Wikipedia article on animal role-play that included such provocative classifications as the before-mentioned petplay, ponyplay, ponyism, kittenplay or pup-play. This larger category could be broken down into non-sexual events—young children who enjoy getting dressed up in animal costumes—or erotic events—when this same activity becomes the purview of adults. Petplay apparently has a long lineage of supplicants; the Wiki referenced Aristotle himself, who apparently enjoyed being ridden like a horse.

  Well, there you go. BDSM meets classical literature via Greek philosophy. I wondered how we missed that in class. I was out of my depth. Time to consult a gay man. Gay men always seemed to know certain things and could speak in ways that a woman could understand. I listened for a moment. Jason wasn’t on the phone.

  I thumped the gray cloth side of my cube. “Hey Jason.”

  His chair squeaked as he leaned back. “Yes, Miss Emily?”

  “What do you know about BDSM?”

  His crystal blue eyes peered instantly over the top of my cubical wall. “Excuse me?”

  “Yes, you heard me right. My assignment du jour concerns a place called The Slutterati Salon. You ever hear of the place?”

  He disappeared. I could hear him grab his chair and scoot it around the corner into my cube, waiving me to be quiet. “Shhhh. Oh my God, did you get that story?” He actually squealed. “I did a review of their little bistro and suggested that we cover the club, but of course Kenner wouldn’t let me near it.”

  This was news. “They have a restaurant, too?”

  “A very sexy little place, all dark and red. Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm. The food is delicious. So are the waiters. Look up the review.”

  I made a note. “Got it. However, food I understand. Where I’m a little content-free is concerning sex clubs. I called Frank when I got the story and he suggested I research BDSM.”

  Jason gave me that cautionary look that I have come to associate with all my family, friends and co-workers when I mention the “F” word, and I held up my hand. “No I’m not going out with Frank. I’m just doing research. BDSM.”

  He shrugged and then moved in closer with that conspiratorial look so well executed by all my gay men friends. He leaned out of the cube to make sure no one was within earshot. “Well, I didn’t get a tour of the club when I was there. And frankly, I’m not much of a resource when it comes to—you know—S and M, but I have seen some interesting scenes. Lots of gay guys are into leather, you know, leathermen.” He made Jazz Hands with the monkey “o” mouth, which was his code word for all hunky men. “But the Slutterati Salon isn’t really a gay place. Mostly straight or bi.”

  He looked at my screen. It still showed the animal role-play page, which had a duplicate image of the pony girl. He shook his head
, whispering. “I don’t think you’ll see much of that there.” Then he pointed to the screen. “If you got that link from Frank, he is clearly fantasizing. You run girl.”

  “No, Frank just said I should look into BDSM. But he wasn’t too specific.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “The Salon is a pretty tame place, from what I understand. You should maybe start with BDSM 101 instead.”

  He patted my arm and then gave a thumb’s up as he scooted back out of my cube. “I better get back to it. Some of us have real work to do.” But he smiled before disappearing into his cube.

  I stared a moment more at Someone’s Little Pony and decided I needed a change of venue. Maybe Sal was home. I needed a woman’s perspective. And no Jazz Hands.

  Chapter 4: Home with Sal

  The drive home was faster than I expected. Since the freeway was at its usual standstill, I took a meandering route of back streets, through Fremont and past Green Lake. Even on such a cold, rainy day, the usual hard-core group of exercisers were walking or running the three mile paved perimeter. I’m a fair-weather exerciser.

  Even on a nice day, I prefer to walk on the treadmill at the club rather than circle the lake. I can listen to an audio book and not worry about tripping over tiny rat dogs, navigating stroller clusters, or getting side-swiped by newbie rollerbladers. Jogging should never be a contact sport.

  As I drove along, I took the time once again to admire my neighborhood. Green Lake is just across the freeway from the University of Washington. A row of regal old mansions line the lake, with tidy bungalows clustered along all the back streets between the lake and the more upscale Ravenna district. Ravenna’s mansions are perched on either side of a gorgeous little ravine that slices through a pristine, foresty path from Ravenna to the University District, where the old mansions have been transformed into frat and sorority houses.

  I didn’t live in any of these mansions, but rather in a quaint little Craftsman-style bungalow within easy walking distance of all.