My "Unconventional Impact Play" class had just been scheduled, and I needed a demo bottom.

And not just :any: demo bottom. No. Given the subject of the class, I needed a most exceptional demo bottom. Or insane. Unconventional, most definitely. To put a fine point on it, I needed a demo bottom who was going to let me thwack them with a meat tenderizer.

Thus it was that I made the acquaintance of the lovely zhaira.

I'd met zhaira once, last year, at a dinner in her honor. Then she went... read more

Originally published in Spectator Magazine
#1403
19 September, 2005 - 2 October, 2005

Half an hour after finishing the 2005 San Francisco Pride March, I was crouched down in the parking lot behind the Wells Fargo building, critically appraising the few toys I’d thrown into my backpack. I‘d happily answered the call put out a few weeks earlier to volunteer as a Top at Leather Alley, that informational and social haven for the kink community at Pride. Fun and flirty, oh my yes! But also? I... read more

Originally published in Spectator Magazine
Issue #1401
22 August, 2005 - 5 September, 2005

The first time someone called me an edge player, I felt a warm glow of precocious grandiosity - as any good attention whore would. "Oh yeah, that's right. I'm soooooo hardcore! Uh-huh. Hey, that's *Miss* Badass to you! Whoop! Whoop!" Then I watched "Fight Club" again and remembered that I am not a beautiful or unique snowflake. Thank goodness.

The longer I'm in the scene, the more I learn…''' an... read more

Notes From The Top
by Deja Black

Originally published in Spectator Magazine
Issue #1399
25 July, 2005 - 31 July, 2005

Last year at the San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration, I marched. I marched with pride. But not with just any pride, no! I marched with Leather Pride. In fact, I proudly marched my friend Julia blindfolded and bound down the entire route. She enjoyed herself so much that she wrote a story about her experience that was published in the Society of Janus newsletter... read more