During our little getting-to-know-you chat in her living room, I sipping my wine in a wingbacked chair admiring her body and she on her knees on the floor in front of me deliciously close to the source of all male motivations, Marti told me her divorce had been very liberating - we had that in common - and since then she'd spent about six months with a Dom who apparently spent his life traveling the country in an RV training subs.
Lucky bastard.
"What did you learn?" I asked.
"Lots of things," she said, "but especially that I was very anal. I never realized it before."
We weren't in the same context at that moment. I had been admiring her home, a grand old Victorian that she - She - had been remodeling and restoring. Amazing work. Her most recent grand opus was completion of a five-person shower with two overhead shower heads and four side nozzles, "for parties."
At that moment I thought "anal" meant she'd learned how fussy she was. Everything just so.
That wasn't it at all.
"I see," I said. "What else?"
"I love restraints but don't really like being tied up with rope. Of course, that's up to You, Sir."
Not a rope bunny, check.
"Limits?"
"Kids, blood scat."
"That's it?"
"Yes, Sir"
As she led me through the house and down to "the Playroom," she gave me the nickle tour. I noticed more of her restoration work. What imagination. A spare bedroom was her current project. I peeked in to see the only completed piece - a built-in queen-sized bed dead center of the room, and raised up high enough to be properly called a dais. The bed was made up. Pillows with quilted shams, bolster, quilt. Odd, and yet very erotic.
The basement, in contrast, was half finished in casual, 90's-era rumpus room - mismatched furniture pieces and throw rugs, stereo components and TV installed in a long, low cabinet. Casual. Comfortable.
But the rear half was completely walled off, with a sliding door dead center secured with a padlock and hasp.
She produced a key from somewhere and slid the door open.
The space was open, unfinished, dark, a little musty, and when she flicked a light switch and the odd combination of black, red and conventional lights came on, the whole place screamed "dungeon."
To be honest, I thought I might be in over my head.
Some interesting carpentry had taken place down here, too. Some kind of modified futon with a big pile of pillows and faux-fur blankets - for recovery, I thought.
A block-and-tackle arrangement hanging from a joist above with a bar like a trapeze - suspension. Several lengths of chain hanging here.and there, one pair with leather cuffs already fixed to them. Something about the size and configuration of a child's picnic table but with very narrow seats and top, each upholstered in black fake leather with about an inch of padding underneath - A breeding table?
A pegboard hung with about half a dozen floggers in several sizes and with falls of various materials - leather, horsehair, even light chainlink.
Good lord, her traveling Dom had been busy. Or had she done all this herself?
My glass was nearly empty, and we'd left the bottle upstairs.
"Go get the wine, Marti," I said, in what I hoped was a commanding voice.
'I want to look around."
[More to come]