Devo Diary Chapter 40

The Needles

August 2003

On a Sunday afternoon, I find myself without any plans, feeling bored and restless, so I call Atom the Archaeologist and invite myself over to his apartment. He reluctantly agrees. When I arrive, his roommates are watching football on TV.

"It's too fucking noisy here," he says with a sour face. "Let's go for a drive."

We hop in his pickup truck and he drives aimlessly through the back roads behind his apartment. Even though he lives in the city, it's a somewhat wooded area with nice views.

"Sorry the radio is busted," he says as we start out, driving in silence. "I'm too hard on my things."

I don't say anything. It seems like a strange statement to me. How can you not want to take care of your things? I suppose I'm far too attached to my possessions, though. But if you know this about yourself, why wouldn't you at least try to keep from breaking things? Anyway this bit of personal insight is a reminder that I know almost nothing about Atom. Even though we've been hooking up regularly, he's stayed distant.

"So I'm moving to Hawaii in a few weeks," he says out of nowhere.

"What? So suddenly? Why?"

"Freelance archaeology doesn't pay for shit here. I'm almost thirty-two, you know? I've gotta start getting my shit together. I found a better paying dig on Maui, so I'm going there."

"Oh." I feel unexpectedly bad about this news. "I wish you had told me sooner."

"Why? What does it matter?"

"Because I like you, you jerk! I'm going to miss you!"

"Come on," he sneers. "You're just some chick from The Onion."

I don't say anything, but just sort of stare at him with my mouth open. I'm a little slow on the uptake, so it takes me a good long while to fully understand what Atom means by this. We met through a personal ad I posted on Nerve.com, a sex and kink positive website that I trusted to deliver like-minded guys. But I forgot that the personal ad service for Nerve is shared among a bunch of different websites, including The Onion. When my ad was chosen as an ad of the week, my photo and tag line appeared on the front page of The Onion, alongside jokey headlines about President Bush and Area Man. I had no idea Atom found my ad through The Onion. No wonder he never took me seriously.

I'm so committed to my cool girl act with him that I don't say anything about how surprised and hurt I am by his comment. I can't think of anything much to say at all. I've known all along that this was a sex-only relationship. It was stupid of me to expect anything more of him.

We chat awkwardly about Hawaii until we circle around back to his apartment. Anyway after all that he's definitely not getting any. I say goodbye, get in my own car and drive home, feeling even more lonely and frustrated than before. Each time I see Atom I feel like it's the last, but this time I'm really sure I won't hear from him again. At least I don't plan to contact him again. What the fuck, man? Why does everything have to be so hard?

I get a message from Warren saying that he's back from the wedding in Edmonton, Frank has delivered the human cage to his house and do I want to lock him in it next weekend? I have rehearsal Friday night and all day Sunday so I can't do it the whole weekend like he envisioned, but I offer to come over Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning. He's satisfied with that arrangement.

When I arrive at Warren's house with my overnight bag, I don't get into character with him right away. We need to establish some ground rules first.

The cage is set up in the dining room, next to the table and under the giant porno print. That fucking print, man, every time I see it I realize more and more how gross and tacky it is.

 The cage is a huge hulking thing, about three feet high and six feet long, with thick steel bars. Warren shows me how to work the door mechanism, which releases at the top. It's pretty easy to open from the outside, but can't be reached from the inside. We agree on a safe word, and timing of bathroom breaks because no way am I cleaning anything up.

There's something else on my mind too, that I want to clear up before we start. "Do you have a girlfriend?" I ask.

"No," he replies expressionlessly.

"Ok, but Marty said you went to Edmonton with some woman named Keiko."

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Are you sure? Does she think of herself as your girlfriend?"

"Nah, we're just friends," he insists.

I'm not asking because I'm jealous. I just don't want to get in the middle of any stupid drama. I haven't met this Keiko person, but Marty seemed pretty sure they are an item. Warren says they're not though so I'm not sure what else I can do short of calling her out of the blue, which would be weird. Anyway I'm here now. I let it go and order him to get in the cage.

Warren strips down to his underwear, then crawls inside the cage. I lock the door with a resounding crash.

It's so exciting to see him in there. He wants to get out but he can't. For a while, I just tease him with dirty talk and reminding him how he can't get out unless I allow it, which I won't. I wander into the kitchen, still in sight of the cage, and help myself to some ice cream from the freezer, and eat it in front of him. I tell him he's not allowed to even speak without permission.

When I've finished eating, I pour him some dry cereal in a bowl then set it down inside the cage and make him eat it like a dog. He really gets into it, and I scold him for making a mess.

Then I do a sexy striptease, touching myself all over and reminding him of how he wants to touch me but can't. I raid his toy collection and find a high end vibrator coated with soft silicone and a little fluttery bit at the end that flicks around enticingly when I turn it on. I lie down on the floor right in front of the cage and use the vibrator for a good long time. He watches me with huge, hungry eyes. I tell him he's not allowed to touch himself until after I've finished.

At this point, as fun as it all is, I've sort of run out of ideas. That's the thing about SM, you can build up a scenario in your mind and kind of live in that moment eternally in fantasy, but in reality it can be tricky to make the moment last. Either you're too excited and come too soon, then it's over, or you have to keep coming up with new ideas to drag things out.

I decide to take an extended break. In our pre-scene negotiation, Warren said I don't have to entertain him every minute, or even stay in the room with him the whole time. I get the feeling he would be just as happy being locked in the cage on his own the whole weekend, without anyone else around, but it's not safe. What if there were a fire, or some other emergency? I'm mainly there as a kind of babysitter.

So like any other babysitter, I order a pizza and spend the rest of the evening watching TV in the living room. And none of that Terminator crap either. I find a good slow moving British period drama, the kind of thing he would hate, and settle in to enjoy it.

At the agreed-upon times, I let him out for a bathroom break. Later, I go back to the dining room to tease him some more, parading around naked in front of him and making him tell me how much he wishes he could touch me. Then I brush my teeth and go to bed.

It feels a bit weird to be sleeping alone in his bed, but it's bigger and more comfortable than my own bed at home, so I try to just relax and enjoy it. The next morning, still in my pajamas, I go back into the dining room to check on Warren. He's awake but looking a little dazed. I open the cage and order him to the bathroom. He stumbles back a few minutes later, then sits down at the dining room table. I guess we're finished now.

"Well?" I ask. "Was it all you hoped for?"

He looks at me with a slight smile, but his face is kind of glowing. "It was awesome, thank you." This is the most emotion I've ever seen from him. It's strangely sweet.

As much as I enjoy playing with Warren, he's got nothing on The Mantis. With rehearsals increasing, I haven't had time to see him for a few weeks, but we still maintain an overheated email correspondence. He tells me what a pathetic worm he is, and I remind him how unworthy he is to even kiss the feet of the Cruel Mistress. I invent ways for him to punish himself, to keep him in line until he sees me in person again.

I order you to slam your fingers in a drawer, I write to him.

Yes Mistress, the wretched Mantis will obey, he writes back.

The next day he sends me an update: Oh my god, that hurt like hell.

I laugh to myself as I read his email in my basement apartment late at night.

I know, I accidentally slammed my fingers in a drawer a few days ago while I was getting some clothing out, and I couldn't believe how much it hurt. That's where I got the idea.

That was a good one, he replies. So I was wondering if we could try something new next time. I've always wanted to try needle play. What do you think?

I have never done anything like that before, but upon consulting my SM how-to books and websites, it seems surprisingly easy and straightforward. When I was in middle school, the kids used to stick straight pins through the top layer of skin on their fingers and wave them around. It was gross but no one ever got hurt. It's basically the same principle. I tell him yes, as soon as I can get the proper equipment.

I find an online seller specializing in medical fetish gear, and order a box of Terumo needles, a hundred in assorted sizes, along with a box of alcohol wipes and a box of surgical gloves. While I'm looking around the site, I also add some plastic scissor type clamps and a Wartenberg wheel, a small stainless steel pinwheel type device that used to be used to test nerve sensitivity.

A week later, the package arrives in the mail. I tear it open eagerly. The needles are not exactly what I expected. I guess I was picturing something like a straight pin, but these are meant to be used with a syringe--they are hollow with a plastic connector at the bottom. The whole idea with needle play is to poke the needle in and out through the top layer of skin only. If you do it properly, there shouldn't be any blood, and the pain is minor, but the repeated pricks will eventually create an endorphin rush. The key is to keep everything as clean as possible, which is what the gloves and alcohol wipes are for, and why each needle has to be sterile and used only once. I guess this is the only kind of sterile needle there is, but the hollow part does make me a little nervous.

My how-to book recommends practicing first on an orange to get the hang of guiding the needle in and out at just the right depth. I don't have any oranges so I practice a few times on a red plum. I take a picture of the box of needles with the plum sitting in front, a single needle of the smallest gauge jabbed through its red flesh. Then I send an email to The Mantis that consists of only the photo and the subject line "Terumo." He writes back with just one word:

When?

He comes over late on a weeknight, the only time I don't have work or rehearsal. I show him the box of needles and his eyes glitter with excitement.

"Ooooh, it's gonna hurt," he says with nervous anticipation.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"No. I mean yes. Come on, let's just start before I change my mind."

He wheels to the bedroom and as I watch, he transfers to the bed and unbuttons his shirt, all the while staring at me with that sub boy look I find so irresistible. Like he's scared but trusting, and so turned on.

I put on my sexy vinyl nurse outfit. It's still a bit stained with body paint from Halloween last year, but it doesn't matter. I snap on the rubber gloves, trying to look intimidating.

"Lie down," I order, and flip on the bedside light. With the rubber gloves on, I rip open the packet and take out an alcohol wipes and rub it on his upper chest. Then I select a needle with a flourish, and tear open the wrapper with as much drama as I can muster. I pop off the plastic cap and save it carefully on the bedside table for disposal later.

Now comes the hard part. The bigger gauge needles hurt more, so for the first time I have selected the smallest gauge, a thin, almost dainty needle with a green plastic base and an angled tip, terrifyingly sharp. I aim at the spot where I rubbed the alcohol. We both hold our breath as I slide it in and out the top layer of skin, the way you might if you were sewing and holding the fabric together with straight pins. Getting the angle just right is tricky, so that it's deep enough to stay in place but not too deep. I do a few more, neatly lined up along his pecs, on either side of the breastbone. Once I have inserted four needles on each side, I pause to check how he's doing.

The endorphins have started to kick in, and he just nods, a little glassy-eyed. His pupils are huge. I'm feeling rather light-headed myself, but I'm enjoying this fake medical play. I run my gloved fingers over his chest, gently poking at where his skin is stretched over the parallel needles. He groans a little.

But it's the Wartenberg wheel that I find really satisfying. It's cool and a bit heavy, and it makes a squeaking noise as I run the pinwheel over his skin. I run it all over his chest, his nipples, then over the needles. His groans get louder. By now there are angry little red spots where the needles go in and out of his skin.

"I need to check your sensation," I say in my fake doctor voice, as I run the pinwheel down to the level of his injury, just below his rib cage. "Tell me where you feel it."

By running the wheel over and over his lower chest and upper belly, learn that there's a band about an inch wide where the sensation is all confused and strangely hypersensitive. I call it the Interzone.

I tease him some more there, using the wheel, then turn my attention back to his nipples and ears, still trying to induce a nipple orgasm, but although he's clearly enjoying it, he doesn't go over the edge.

After about an hour, I slide the needles out, one after another. One of them was a bit too deep, and a tiny drop of blood wells up. I wipe it away with an alcohol wipe.

"So how was it?" I ask, as I snap the covers back on the used needles and put them in a plastic bag for proper disposal later.

"Oh my god." He's still just lying there limply. "That was fucking intense."

It's so good that he's back for more less than a week later. When he takes his shirt off, I see two little round bruises where I put one needle in too deeply.

"Oh no, I'm sorry!" I say. "I promised no marks. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"It's ok, she's out of town until the end of the month," he mutters, looking away. Glancing back up at me with his big Mantis eyes wide, he says more boldly, "Mistress, please punish me."

How can I resist?

I don't want to damage his skin more than I already have, so I start with the clothespins instead, arranging them artistically in even rows along the side of his chest and in an oval along the underside of his upper arm. He winces sweetly as I yank each one off.

Once I have removed all of them, I lick his nipples and ears, and we roll around and kiss, but this is not enough.

"Please," he begs, "the needles..."

"It' not medically advisable," I tease him. "You haven't recovered from last time."

"Please, Mistress!"

"Ok, but I'm going to use the bigger ones this time."

His eyes grow wide with that delicious mix of fear and anticipation.

I start with one small one, pointing directly toward his nipple. Then I insert three more of the medium gauge, so that all four needles are arranged in a circle around his nipple, the sharp tips pointing inwards in a wicked wheel. I do the same thing on the other side. The bigger size is clearly more painful, and he groans and hisses as I slide them in. The target-like arrangement is pleasing, plus I avoid the places where I pierced him last time.

Again, I use the pinwheel to run all over his chest, going over his nipples and the inserted needles over and over again. The squeaking of the metal, the little pins making slight impressions in his soft skin, the little sighs he makes, it's all so delightful. I sit on his face for a good long time before carefully sliding the needles out.

This time I did a better job; even with the bigger needles, there's hardly any blood. He thanks me profusely before leaving.

I'm sitting at home alone on a Saturday afternoon, just finishing up a late lunch, when Lulu calls.

"I have bad news," she says, her voice strangely distorted and formal.

"What? What is it?" She instantly has my full attention.

"My brother died."

I never met Lulu's brother, although he lived with their parents, whom I have met a few times. In an oddly composed, or maybe shell-shocked voice, she gives me the details, with some further elaboration added over the next few days.

He wrecked his car, but apparently it's not too clear exactly what happened. He was on his way home after studying late and just went off the road, no one else in the car with him and no indication that he was drunk or on drugs. He might have fallen asleep. He was just twenty-one, not even graduated from college yet.

It's almost too horrible to contemplate what Lulu and her parents are going through--the late night phone call, never knowing the exact cause, the suddenness of it all. My heart aches for all of them. I ask Lulu what she needs from me but she's not really sure. She's at her parents' house just south of the city, and all their relatives and friends are starting to descend from out of town.

With Lulu's permission, I drive down to her parents' house and meet her there. Her mother and father, grandmother, and a few assorted aunts and uncles are drifting about the well-appointed open plan living/dining/kitchen area, looking stunned, haunted. We make small talk drink wine and nibble on the trays of cholent and kugel that friends from the synagogue have brought. Lulu's whole family and all their closest friends are New York transplants. I feel like I could be in my own parents' house, right down to the reproduction Marc Chagall prints on the walls, and populated with parallel universe versions of all their friends.

As midnight approaches, Lulu's mother takes an Ambien and is ushered off to bed. Her mother can be difficult sometimes, but I'm impressed by how well she's holding up. Lulu and I go up to her childhood bedroom and curl up in the bed together. As I hold her in the darkness, she says,

"What happens after we die?"

"I don't know," I say honestly. We were both raised in the type of intellectual Judaism where maintaining culture and tradition is the only important part; faith or believing in god is optional. Judaism doesn't have much to say about the afterlife--you're supposed to concentrate on this life. But anyway I gave it all up a long time ago, now I really don't believe in anything.

Lying there, holding her in the dark, hearing the anguish in her voice, I hate that I don't have a reassuring answer for her. I feel like we're both lying together in the bottom of a well. What the hell are we doing with our lives? Does it mean anything at all?

"I'm sorry," I tell her. I wish there was something more I could do or say. I hug her tightly and eventually we both fall asleep.

The next day, more family arrives, as well as family friends from out of town, people she's known a lot longer than she's known me, and that seems to help.

The rabbi shows up in the afternoon and leads a short service in the backyard, all of us standing up holding prayer books printed in Hebrew and English. A lot of our friends from the Raser City Lyric Opera are there too, including all the Jewish members. Of course Jews are overrepresented in the opera company, and we all sort of cluster near the front of the group, holding prayer books--me, Ariel, the gardener poet, and a few others. Non-Jewish friends are there too, Gretchen and William and about a dozen other chorus members. Notably absent are Marty (half a Jew) and Lulu's current boyfriend from J-Date (full Jew) currently traveling for work.

The entire service lasts about twenty minutes, and mostly consists of songs sung in Hebrew. Everyone is amazed that I sing every word of every song.

"I thought you said you weren't religious!" Lulu exclaims afterwards, over bagels and cold cuts.

"I said I'm not religious now," I clarify. "I had to go to Hebrew school three times a week from kindergarten through high school, and go to services every Saturday morning. It's all, like, deeply programmed in here." I tap the side of my head.

"You should be a cantor!" Ariel says.

"Absolutely not. I'm culturally Jewish because I can't change how I was raised, but I have no interest in ever practicing in any way." Lulu makes an unhappy face when I say this, a face that I recognize from my parents and every member of their synagogue, a face that says, you'll come around someday.

I ignore her, but a thought suddenly occurs to me. "You should be a cantor, Lulu! It's a career in music but without the cutthroat competition of show business."

Lulu rolls her eyes. "Yeah, everyone keeps telling me that but I really don't want to, you know? It's the kind of thing that's a calling. I just don't feel called."

"So what then, are you going to try for an opera career like Suzanna?" Ariel asks.

"I don't know," Lulu says with a sigh. "I don't know what I want to do, but now I feel even more pressure to do something big. I mean, I'm the only one left to make my parents proud." She starts to tear up, and I put my arms around her.

"It's ok, don't worry about that now," I tell her.

The funeral is the next day, but I don't go. Her brother had a lot of friends, but I never even met him--there will be over a hundred people there. I'm not really needed. By this point some of Lulu's other friends take over supporting her, so I head home.

In the following weeks, I continue to field two and three hour phone calls nearly every day from Lulu, freaking out over her boyfriend. He vacillates between pledging her his full support but then not actually showing up to provide that support. They've only been together for a month or so, and her intense grief is too much to put on what had been a pretty casual relationship. He's too nice a guy to dump her because her brother died and he can't deal, but he actually can't deal. I think this guy is a lukewarm piece of shit who is making things worse for her by making promises he has no intention of delivering on, but of course she's not ready to hear that from me. So instead I just listen and make sympathetic noises as she examines in excruciating detail the contents of each email and the possible meaning of every missed call. She won't be the one to end it with him, so things just drag on.

My own life continues on without much change for the moment. The Mantis comes over for more torture by the Cruel Mistress: the usual round of clothespins, needles, and the pinwheel. Maybe I will make him wear the blindfold or the ball gag or both, or tie his hands and tease him unbearably.

As he sprawls naked in my bed, I sit at the foot, holding his skinny, atrophied, hairless legs. I pick up first one leg then the other and put him through some range of motion exercises, while he watches with a bemused expression.

I take one of his feet and press it against my face, kissing it. I love that I can just do this kind of thing, indulge my dev feelings, and I don't have to hide it. He grins widely as I run my hands along his leg.

"You said, 'It doesn't smell like a normal person's leg,'" he says in that funny tone of voice that he uses when he's super turned on by the Mistress humiliating him.

I laugh. "I'm sorry! I just blurted that out. I didn't mean to be rude."

"No, I like it," he says. "I'm not a normal person." He laughs too.

I had no idea when I said it that he would take it as another form of erotic humiliation, but I'm glad it worked out that way.

"You're right! You're not a normal person," I say, crawling up the bed sinuously, like a cat. "You're a dirty pervert!" We wrestle around in the bed and I pull him on top of me, his legs flopping over as he leans over me supporting himself with his arms.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" I demand, giving him a little shove on the shoulder. He takes the cue and pushes himself down in the bed until his face is between my thighs, his legs bent up beside him.

It's kind of a cliché that SCI guys are good at oral sex, but The Mantis is spectacular. Just like really fucking amazing. I lay back and enjoy it. As he goes down on me, I spool through my sexiest thoughts --the look and feel of his pale, thin legs as I kissed them a moment ago, the look of delight on his face as I humiliated him. I come over and over again, and it feels fantastic.

But even as I'm in the throes of orgasmic rush, I can't help thinking, is this all there is to life? I mean, sex is important, and I'm having some really fucking great sex right now. In fact I think I've probably just had the most perfect orgasm of my entire life. But shouldn't there be something more? How is it that I broke up with Skip and ended up just like him anyway? It's not like I'm actively searching for guys who don't want to commit. I was ready to be all in with William, who seemed like the perfect catch, but somehow his situation is just as complicated as these other dudes and not looking for a relationship. And I'm leaving town anyway. Ugh, this sucks!

So I'm trying to fuck like a guy, just enjoy it and not feel attached but I'm secretly afraid I'm not very good at it. I have to keep reminding myself not to get too close to The Mantis. I want to tell him what's been going on in my life lately, about Lulu and William and Atom and Warren and all of it, but I think it's better not to confide in him.

After he finishes me off, we both just lie there on my bed for a while, not saying anything.

Devo Diary Chapter 41

Goodbye to Warren, William and The Mantis

Sept 2003

As the performance of Rusalka approaches, Ariel invites us all over to her house again for another fairy sleepover party. The wigs are finished now, but we all had so much fun the last time we want to do it again.

On the last Friday night we have free before dress rehearsals begin, the ladies of the chorus plus one lead, Suzanna, gather in Ariel's living room. Even Lulu is there. She's still weighed down with grief about the loss of her brother, but she says she still wants to keep doing normal things to distract herself. Except for the ongoing drama with her on again off again loser boyfriend, she's holding up amazingly well.

The movie this time is Barbarella, a longtime dev favorite of mine. How amazing is it that the hot love interest, the prize at the end for the kick-ass female lead, is a blind guy? And not just any guy, but a literal angel who hangs around mostly naked. It's like they looked into my dev heart and put it on screen. I just wish he had a bigger role.

Ariel and I are the only ones who have seen the movie before--for all the others it's brand new. They laugh along at the gonzo insane story and groovy outfits. When the blind angel appears, I nudge Lulu in the ribs and give her a meaningful look.

"What?" she says obliviously.

"You know!" I whisper.

"Oh right, whatever." She rolls her eyes. I'm always half disappointed and half relieved when my friends react to my dev interests as no big deal. Lulu is the only one in the opera company I have told. I'm not as close to the others, and they haven't seen me dating any disabled guys. None of them, not even Lulu, knows that I'm sticking needles in a hot para dude on the weekends.

"Hey, you guys, you know what we should do?" Lulu exclaims as the credits roll. "We should get together and do a group costume for Halloween, and each wear one of Barbarella's outfits!"

That sounds amazing, and I join in the enthusiastic if hypothetical plans for who gets which costume and how to make them. But the truth is I know I won't be here for Halloween. I'm leaving for Taipei on the first of October. Anyway Lulu is the only one of us who has the long blonde hair and the figure to pull off a young Jane Fonda look.

Once again we all sleep like puppies in a big pile on the floor of Ariel's living room. This time the gossipy lights-off talk is a lot more explicit. Even without divulging all the details, it's clear that I'm a lot more adventurous than most of them, except for Lulu and maybe Ariel. The talk gets more and more specific about positions and moves and sex toys, and several of the girls decide that they have been missing out.

The next morning after a late breakfast, I take five of them down the street to the local lesbian owned sex positive sex toy store, where we check out vibrators. I show them my favorites, a battery operated in hard plastic shaped like a dolphin, and the always reliable pocket rocket. We each go home with something new.

As happy as I am to finally be bonding with a big group of friends, it's frustrating that this is happening now, just as I'm about to leave town. But anyway I'm going to enjoy myself as much as possible for the next few weeks.

All the sets and costumes and wigs are loaded into the theater, and dress rehearsals begin. In addition to our fairy wings and massive curly wigs festooned with fake flowers, all the women of the chorus have to wear fairy makeup. This means using beard wax slathered over with many layers of foundation to hide half our eyebrows, then painting on steep diagonal brows that go halfway up the forehead, also extra long fake eyelashes and a ton of glittery gold eye shadow. The first time this is explained to us, I think there is no way any amount of makeup can hide my thick Groucho-Marx-like brows, but amazingly it works well enough. Anyway stage makeup is meant to be seen from a distance; up close it always looks a little weird.

The frantic rush leading up to opening night is exciting as ever. For the first time I get to see the entire show and hear all the leads do their solos with full orchestra. William is fetching in his Hunter costume, in a white shirt and leather vest, looking even more like he stepped off the cover of a romance novel.

We fairies have been drilled into military-like precision in our dancing, but we still find ways to goof around on stage. According to the staging, I'm often standing next to Gretchen, always amusing as she likes to whisper fake gossip about the characters into my ear. During one of the dances, my hand slips and I goose her by accident. She shivers and giggles, and encourages me to do it again. Pretty soon we are all trying to pinch each others' butts on stage without being noticed by the audience.

When we're not on stage, we're lounging in the green room, eating chips and chatting. There are no costume changes to rush through, and the fairy outfits are lightweight and comfortable. I was so nervous when rehearsals started about singing and dancing at the same time, but now I've never been so relaxed in a show. I'm at the theater every night until midnight then working all day and rushing back to the theater the minute work ends, but I couldn't be happier.

Rehearsals in the theater go on every day for a week, then it's opening night. As usual, I give one of my comp tickets to Sarah, and she brings along her ex-boyfriend because she still can't stop hanging around him all the time. After the show they come along with all of us in the cast for drinks.

"You dropped your wand, didn't you?" It's the first thing Sarah says to me when I come out of the stage door.

"At the top of Act II? Yeah, that was me." At the end of a frenetic number, we all are supposed to wave our wands up in the air in a big flourish, and somehow mine slipped out of my fingers.

"I knew it!" Sarah crows, turning to her ex, who just shrugs. She turns back to me. "I heard a clatter at the end of that number and when I looked, you were the only one with your hand up in the air but no wand." She giggles triumphantly.

"Yeah, yeah, I blew it," I mutter.

It feels like Sarah is always criticizing me for something, but she's my best friend, so I let it go and don't say anything. Anyway it's not like I ruined the show. I laugh it off and forget about it.

At the bar the whole cast is exuberant over how well the opening night went. I meet Gretchen's partner Jen for the first time, a shy butch with short blonde hair, totally the opposite of us loud theater types. It's sweet to see them together. They're so obviously in love.

I sit down next to them, and Gretchen shares some gossip with me about the woman who sings the title role of Rusalka, a tall soprano named Emmeline with a face like a Greek statue.

"Have you met Emmeline's partner, Justine?" Gretchen asks, nodding at the next table over, where Emmeline sits with her arm around a woman with short curly hair, wearing a man's button-down shirt and trousers. I haven't, but I know that like Emmeline, Justine is aiming for a professional opera career.

"Justine has been considering transitioning to male, only she's worried that if she takes testosterone it will wreck her voice. But Emmeline is pushing her to do it anyway because she's quote, 'not a lesbian.' Can you believe that?"

"What, so Emmeline is straight?"

"Yeah, she only wants to be with her if Justine acts more masculine, even if it destroys her career."

" 'S a bunch of bullshit," Jen mutters, and I have to agree with her. I guess this means that Gretchen considers herself a lesbian now, regardless of her path to loving ladies.

Being around all these lesbians is making me feel like it's been too long since I was with a girl myself. I stare across the bar at William, who is talking to the conductor. God he's gorgeous but it feels like things with him are going nowhere. Maybe I should start looking for a female partner instead.

This is not just idle wondering. I've been with girls before, but somehow always keep defaulting back to men. Now that I'm moving overseas, I have the perfect opportunity to reset my love life, without the baggage of the expectations of everyone around me. Still, it feels a bit shady to suddenly remake my identity. I decide that I need to consult a gold-star lesbian, and I know just who to ask: Stephanie, from my graduate program.

When I first met Stephanie, she was dating a girl who looked exactly like her. They both had buzzcuts, but hers was bright pink. Now her spiky short hair is jet black, she has a bunch more tattoos and she's gone through four or five different girlfriends, always starting the next one before ending the previous one.

"They all know I'm cheating on my girlfriend with them, but they never suspect I'll eventually cheat on them," she laughs. Yeah, she's a stone cold bitch, but I love her shriveled, cynical little heart. I feel like I can tell her anything and she won't judge me. Stephanie is the only person I have told about my contract with The Mantis. She thinks it's awesome.

"So when I go to Taipei, can I say I'm a lesbian?" I ask.

"Sure, why not?" she shrugs.

"It's not, like, appropriating queer identity?" I still feel like I'm being a little dishonest.

"Please. If you're cruising for pussy in a lesbian bar, you're not appropriating anything. Anyway I've heard the girl love in Taiwan is hot. Have fun and send me pictures."

I start to think of this trip as more than just something I have to do for work. My love life here is such a mess. Maybe this is my opportunity to start over. But anyway I still have another few weeks to go, and nothing is going to change before I leave.

The show goes on for three weeks, with shows Wednesdays through Sundays, and two shows on Saturdays. My amateur opera performance schedule is severely cutting into my time in the BDSM scene, but I'm not going to wait until after the show is over to see The Mantis again because by then I'll be gone.

I arrange to meet The Mantis at my place after the show on a Wednesday night. I rush out of the theater as fast as I can, not even taking time to wash off my makeup or take my hair down from the pin curls. I just take off my costume and wig, throw on jeans and a t-shirt and run for my car. Even so, I don't make it home until past eleven. He's waiting for me in his pickup truck when I drive up. As enjoyable as it was to make him lie on my doormat that one time, it's not a stunt I can replicate. I don't want to cause problems with my neighbors or have someone call the police because they think the "poor cripple" needs help.

He transfers out of the truck when he sees me pull up, and wheels behind me up the driveway to the door. As soon as I let us both in, I collapse on the sofa with a sigh. He pulls up next to me.

"So how was the show?"

"It was really good! I didn't drop my wand this time. So what do you think of the fairy makeup?" I tilt my head to the side, showing off my drawn-on eyebrows. "Creepy, huh?"

He smiles. "No, it's kinda cute. You look like a sexy Vulcan."

"Ha!"

"You must be tired."

"No, I always feel wired for a few hours after a show. I'm starving though. I had dinner at five thirty."

"Let me make you dinner."

"Aw, that's sweet, but I don't really have any food in the house. All I have is ramen noodles."

"Good, because that's about all I can cook. Come on, let me make you some." He gives me a kind of self-deprecating little grin. "It's very generous of the Mistress to allow the humble Mantis to visit when she is so busy."

"Very well," I reply with an exaggerated sigh. "I will allow you to serve me. Get going!" I give his chair a playful nudge with my foot.

The Mantis pushes into my narrow little kitchen as I stretch out on the sofa and put my feet up. I watch as he opens a cupboard, takes out a pot and fills it with water, then sets it on the stove. Luckily the pot and the pack of ramen noodles are both in a cabinet under the counter, so he can reach them. Everything in a kitchen is oriented to someone standing up; watching how he moves sitting down is fascinating to me. The way he has to reach up to turn on the faucet, the way he sets the pot of water between his legs so he can push from the sink to the stove, I stare at all of it. He knows too, and stares back at me like he's doing a striptease.

It feels so luxurious to lie there on the sofa after a long day while he makes dinner for me. I think back to when the roles were reversed, and I was making dinner in that same kitchen while Rollerboy sat on my sofa watching TV, and how he had the gall to stick his fingers in his ears while I washed up. It's hard to believe that was only like a year and a half ago. It feels like a different lifetime. What the hell was I thinking? No matter how weird and unsettled things are right now, my life is still a thousand times better now than it was with him.

After dinner, The Mantis and I retire to the bedroom for more needle play. He's totally addicted. The minute we get to the bed, he's unbuttoning his shirt and begging for it. I'm happy to oblige. We've moved up to the medium gauge needles, which I insert in symmetrical rows along his chest, down to the Interzone, the band of messed up sensation at the line of his injury. He  moans and groans about how much it hurts, but he has a look of pure bliss on his Mantis face.

By the time we're done, it's nearly two in the morning, and I have to kick him out so I can get at least a few hours' sleep before work and the show tomorrow.

"Thank you Mistress for allowing the unworthy Mantis to serve you even when you're so busy," he says with mock seriousness as he's putting his clothes back on.

"Well I suppose if you can make yourself useful by cooking me dinner I can allow it," I reply.

"Even though I'm just a lowly para," he continues. "Not even your preferred type."

Aha, another offhand comment I made that he found erotically humiliating. "It's true," I laugh. "You know I prefer blind guys."

"Yes, the humble para is barely even attractive at all." Now he's just goading me to insult him more.

Of course I'm happy to oblige him. "Yes! In fact paras are number three, behind blind guys and amputees." I narrow my eyes at him. "FAR behind." He grins. "You should be thanking the Mistress for her generosity in deigning to entertain the unworthy Mantis, when she would rather be with a blind guy or amputee instead."

"Thank you, thank you, Mistress," he says in character as his submissive self. But then as we're saying goodbye at the door, he repeats it in a more serious way, not just role-playing.

"I really do appreciate everything you've done for me," he says, looking up at me a bit shyly from behind his wire framed glasses. "I know you said, uh, that it's been hard on you as well. I'm sorry I wasn't thinking about, you know, things, from your perspective. I really am grateful."

"Aw, that's very sweet. You're welcome," I say, and give him a kiss on the cheek. Earlier on I had avoided showing him that kind of affection but it feels ok now. I like him a lot but I don't feel that kind of crazy, gravitational pull that I did with K. I'm not pining for a serious relationship with The Mantis. What we have now is fine with me. I'll miss him but it will be ok to say goodbye.

The one I'm seriously falling for is William, even though he's AB and not my type at all. I'm not sure what it is. Whenever I'm around him I just feel swept up in his charisma and confidence, and even when we're not together I find myself thinking about him. I see him every day at the theater, and it's a struggle not to throw myself at him. I keep looking at photos taken of us together at the bar after opening night. I'm sitting next to him, with my arm around his shoulder, grinning like an idiot. He's smiling too but in a more guarded way.

It's not like he's avoiding me though, just the opposite, he keeps asking me out whenever we have free time, which is not often. One afternoon he offers to show me around his work, Very Famous IT Company. He gives me a ride in his ancient Honda Civic and we rattle down the coast in those rock hard seats, every crack in the freeway jarring up my spine, but I don't care. I'm just so happy to be with him. The scenery is gorgeous, all rolling hills and deep green pines. I rarely get this far south of the city.

William shows me around his office, and I'm suitably impressed. There's on-site yoga and massage, and a cafeteria serving amazing gourmet food, all free. The pantry by his cubicle is stocked with bins of granola, chips and a huge assortment of candy. I had no idea jobs with these kind of perks even existed.

Of course, there are downsides, as William points out. All that stuff is there to keep the employees working around the clock and to discourage them from leaving for any reason. Also having all that food right next to your desk is a form of torture. He asked management to remove the peanut butter cups because he couldn't stop eating them. They were gone for a while but I notice they are back now. Now I want some too.

William seems less excited about his job that I expected. I thought he was a big deal, having been lured away from a top university to work here. But he doesn't even have his own office, just a cubicle crammed in a windowless room with a dozen other people. I guess I pictured him as a boss in a corner office, dropping by now and then to take an important meeting in between opera and triathlon. But really he's grinding away long hours at his desk, eating junk food and feeling guilty about it. It's kind of endearing to realize we're more similar than I realized.

As the run of the show goes on, there is an endless round of cast parties. After the shows we go out for drinks, and nights or weekends when there is no show, people with the biggest houses host huge parties for all the cast, crew, and orchestra. One Saturday afternoon, I'm at one such cast party at the sprawling suburban home of one of the board members, someone I barely know. William and I have wandered off to a small den that's less crowded than the living room and are sitting on the sofa together chatting. A guy I have never met before comes in holding a baby, and adorable little roly-poly girl probably about six months old.

William and I both coo and fuss over the baby, he even more than I. Seeing babies always reminds me how much I want one of my own. I've always felt this way, since I was a kid, although I never was around babies that often and didn't even do much babysitting. Now that I'm in my early thirties, I feel like it's a bit unseemly to make too big a deal over other people's babies. I've seen childless women fighting to hold other people's babies and I really don't want to be that stereotype, so I try to restrain myself.

But William clearly feels no such constraint. He babbles to the baby and tickles her and holds her hand, while I hang back a bit. Finally I get the courage to ask what I'm longing to do.

"Can I hold her?"

The father looks doubtful. "She's pretty fussy."

But I'm sure it will be fine. He hands her over to me as I'm sitting on the sofa. I have this image in my mind of sitting here peacefully holding a baby, asleep like a little angel, while William stares adoringly at us. That is not what happens. The minute the baby lands in my arms, she starts screaming. Nervously, I rock and bounce her a bit, but she just keeps howling.

The father looks at me scornfully. "I told you she's fussy. You can't just sit there."

William swoops in and takes her, swinging her around as he strides about the room. Instantly the baby stops crying and even smiles.

"You see?" the father says. I'm mortified that my mothering instincts were so totally lacking. But watching William holding the baby makes my heart just melt. He really, really wants kids, as much as I do. I'm in love.

Even after the show ends, there are still more cast parties. Marty hosts a big one at his  big tech bro pad, and of course Warren is there. I haven't seen much of Warren lately. We haven't played together since I locked him in the cage.

"I had to give the cage back, but we should still get togethah agin to play," he says, sitting Marty's kitchen and drinking beer out of a red Solo cup. There are a ton of people around, but I guess he's not closeted about being in the SM scene.

"Uh, I can't, I'm leaving for Taiwan in two weeks," I explain.

"Really? I'll come visit you there," he offers. I'm floored. None of my other friends have offered to visit, even though I have asked repeatedly. They could even stay with me for free. But no, they just scoff and say, "Taiwan? Why would I want to go there?" Seriously, Raser City is on the West Coast--Asia is just on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, but people here treat it like going to the freaking moon.

"Are you sure? You seriously want to come visit me?"

"Yes! I've always wanted to go. I'll come visit in Novembah."

"Ok, great! Just email me when you get your tickets." I can hardly believe it, but Warren seems very certain about wanting to go. Well, that's another thing to look forward to. It'll be fun to show him around.

I see Warren one last time before I leave town. The last weekend before I go is the Raser City Freak Fair, a huge adults-only street fair with a big BDSM contingent. I go with Lulu and Ariel. It's a surreal experience to walk down the middle of a packed street and see so many people naked or in leather gear. A huge hairy dude wearing nothing but tube socks and a gimp mask stands on a corner masturbating. A statuesque woman with a sleek bond ponytail prances by dressed as a pony. As she walks by, Ariel points out that she's a guy.

"You can tell by the ass," she says. Sure enough, her butt has chiseled glutes.

We wander about happily under the blazing sun, eating corn dogs and cotton candy. This feels like the perfect send-off from Raser City, a last debauched, crazy outing.

Warren is there dressed as a dog, in a full body furry outfit with leathery pads on his hands and knees so he can crawl around on the ground.  Holding his leash is a forty-ish Japanese woman in a leather corset and choker. This must be Keiko. We say hello and she stares at me frostily. We don't get a chance to say more because apparently she and Warren have volunteered to help out at the Sub Rosa Society booth and they have to go right away.

"Ok, well, see you in Taipei," I say.

"Yes! See you there," he says, hugging me. I can't take him seriously with those floppy dog ears.

The final week before my departure is a whirl of frantic packing and last minute errands, as I prepare to move out of my shitty basement apartment at last. I can't believe I stayed here so long. William and the gardener poet come over to help me move my boxes into storage.

As usual I'm dithering about, making small tasks into Olympic sized efforts, but William descends like a force of nature. Within one hour, he has all the remaining odds and ends packed up and loaded in the U-Haul. As he strides about, he belts out some lines from The Marriage of Figaro, the aria by Count Almaviva as he's packing off the boy Cherubino to the army: "Cherubino la vittoria! A la gloria militar!" His big bass voice echoes around my tiny apartment. I'm so happy to have an opera-singing strongman to help me move. Damn but I'm going to miss him.

The Mantis is the last to come say goodbye, two days before I go. We have one final session with the needles. I go all out, and stick him with as many as I can fit, lined up in rows along his chest, and down to the Interzone at the base of his ribs. I use the biggest gauge too, then take a bunch of photos as I run the pinwheel all over him. Even so I haven't come close to using up the box of needles, so I give him the rest as a farewell present. I feel sad that I never managed to give him a nipple orgasm as I promised, but he doesn't seem to mind.

He has a present for me too. After we've finished and gotten dressed again, he pulls it out from the backpack slung on the back of his chair. It's a little handmade book, held together with metal grommets. The cover is silvery paperboard, with a hand-lettered title that says, "The Mantis and The Mistress."

Inside is the story of our relationship, told in pictures taken from Space Ghost Coast to Coast, of the character Zorak, who is a cartoon mantis.

Ever since he was little, The Mantis knew he was different, the book begins, with a picture of a baby mantis wearing a diaper.

Even after he grew into an adult Mantis, he couldn't tell anyone his secret. Then one day, he met The Mistress. The picture shows a male mantis with a thought balloon of hearts, staring at a female mantis. Her thought balloon shows her biting his head off.

The Mistress showed The Mantis things he never thought were possible. His life has been changed forever. He is very grateful. The pictures show the male and female mantis together.

THANK YOU MISTRESS.

I tear up as I'm reading it. This little book is the sweetest thing any guy has ever given me. Also the funniest. I love the cartoon mantis pictures. It's kind of amazing how well they fit. I'm so touched that he took the time to make this for me.

I give him a big hug, leaning over his chair as he reaches his long arms up around me. I'm going to miss him too, but at least I can know that our relationship, such as it was, has been good for both of us. It's kind of amazing that of all the relationships I've been in lately, the best was the one with the guy who is cheating on his wife. If this were a novel, there would have to be some sort of moral where things turn out badly, but that's not what happens. Our contract ends and we part ways as friends.