Breakfast in Stilettos (4 page)

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.

I arrived home at 4:30. Thirty-five minutes to drive exactly 5.56 miles.
Google maps
said the trip should take ten minutes. It’s taken me two hours during full-on-rush-hour-with-drawbridge, so I counted myself lucky.

My neighbor, affectionately known to one and all as “Asshole Bob,” was out sticking flyers on all the parked cars he didn’t recognize. The members of the big church across the street invariably filled up our available street parking during events, even though they had their own parking lot. He was undertaking his own David vs. Goliath attack on the behemoth. I had off-street parking and didn’t much mind. A church was a far better neighbor than, say, a high school. Or a crack house. I wasn’t too worried about the worshippers stealing my home entertainment system. Besides, the church had a well-kempt lawn and was otherwise a good neighbor. No late night parties.

I waved to Bob before grabbing the mail. He grumbled something about calling down the seven plagues, but I was inside before he could continue.

Sal was huddled over her laptop at the dining table. The temperature was tropical.

“Did you win the lottery?” I stood doing my Vanna White impersonation at the thermostat.

Sal looked up. “I was cold.”

It was no wonder. She sat, as always, in a skintight tank top and barely-there yoga pants. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on her petite five-foot frame. “That’s what sweaters are for.” I turned it down to 68 degrees.

Sally “Sal” Olsen and I had met at the University of Washington when she answered my ad for a roommate. I had just inherited the house from my grandmother. The extra rent money made it so I could make ends meet while in school. By the time I graduated, I’d gotten used to her. Besides, the house was big and the extra money relieve
d
a little pressure while I did my time working my way up the editorial ladder.

“Doing research?”

She looked up at me, pushing her trendy black-rimmed spectacles up her nose. “A presentation. I have to present a paper at the Foresight Institute conference Saturday night.”

So much for asking her to come with me. “What’s the topic?”

“Carbon Nanotube Biosensors and the ….”

My mind tuned out whatever she said next. Sal was a professional student, working on her doctorate in Molecular Engineering. After three years of living with her, I knew only enough to understand the prefix “nano.” Something very, very small. Nanotubes, nanoclusters, nanomachines, nanorobots. Everything after that was unintelligible.

When she was sober, she could talk on and on for hours in geek-speak about her research, which I’m sure meant something to someone. I’d just nod and smile and try to keep my eyes from glazing over. However, when plied with a few gin and tonics, she could be a good source of periodic Strange and Unusual topics, like the bit about transferring data across the skin. She’d give me the latest news and I would do my own research to translate it for the rest of us.

I laid my backpack on the counter and sat down at the table with her, flipping through the day’s mail. “You going out tonight?”

She nodded. “With Jess. The guy from Stanford. He’s doing the presentation with me. We’ll probably be working on it most of the night. What about you? Not seeing Frank are you?” She looked up at me, peering over the top of her spectacles.

“Nope. I’m staying home to do research for an article Kenner wants.”

She seemed as relieved as I was disappointed. “What about?”

I turned to toss a stack of junk mail and catalogs into the recycling bin. “Ever hear of
the Slutterati Salon
?”

Sal thought for a moment and then shook her head. “Sounds like a new club. Maybe I should take Jess there when we’re done.”

I had a sudden mental image of Sal and Jess tied up together with Mistress Maven cracking her whip. “I don’t get the sense that
it
is a first date sort of place.”

Sal frowned. “No? What kind of place is it? Do they have a website?”

She was typing before I could think of anything to distract her. A moment later her jaw dropped. “It looks like a sex club!” She leaned forward. “Kenner can’t be serious.” She looked scandalized but I could tell she wanted to go check it out for herself.

Maybe it was better that she wasn’t going. I didn’t need the competition.

I stood and opened the fridge, searching for my leftover lasagna amidst Sal’s veggie-meat substitutes—including several chalky looking blocks of tofu, tan chunks of faux chicken-flavored wheat gluten and several packages of reddish slabs called Fakin’ Bacon. No wonder she was so thin. I found my lasagna and some frozen peas to nuke.

“He says it’s a place literary people go to get a little thrill. Supposedly harmless, artistic stuff.”

“Well, you’d better be careful.” She began reading the home page of the website.

“As to the research, what do you know about BDSM?” I didn’t have any idea what Sal knew about the subject. I didn’t talk about that sort of thing with anyone, so her surprised look wasn’t, well, a big surprise.

“BDSM? As in the whole sex/fetish thing? It’s that kind of place?” She stared back at the computer with a little trepidation.

“Oh, I don’t think so, but someone at work said that I should do background research on it before I went. I got some links to check out, but I was wondering what you knew.” I scooped lasagna and frozen peas into a bowl, put it in the microwave, and punched the Beverage button twice. That was typically enough. Then I pulled out a chair and sat down across from Sal.

She shrugged. “Not much, I guess. I always think that stuff is creepy. People dressed up in leather, doing all sorts of weird things to each other, right?”

“Well, that is the stereotype. I just don’t know if it is true. Do you know anyone who has a fetish? Or self proclaims to be part of the BDSM community?”

Sal thought a minute and then shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone. Though I guess if they were, they wouldn’t tell me. It isn’t something my friends at school talk about.”

No
, I thought,
not unless nanobyte took on a new meaning and spelling
. “You never dated anyone with a fetish?”

“Well, what classifies as a fetish? Most guys seem to fixate on certain things more than others—big breasts, long legs—of which I have neither.” She gestured to each feature while making a face. “You at least have some cleavage.”

I looked down at my well-camouflaged chest. Yes, there were breasts of adequate size under my sweater. Not extreme, but enough.

I tugged at the hem of my sweater, Jean
-
Luc Picard-style. “I guess that would count as a fetish, but I think it’s just part and parcel of being male. As in all straight males like vaginas, which doesn’t mean they have vagina fetishes.”

She waved me away as though I had farted. “Quit using that word. I hate that word.”

“Is there a better word?” When she waved me off again, I wondered, was there a better word? Mostly there were “dirty” words for that particular area on a woman’s body. And strangely enough,
thesaurus.com
didn’t even recognize the word
vagina
, much less offer up any synonyms. Granted there were no words for
penis
there either. Our sexual organs were academically synonym-free.

My lasagna dinged. I grabbed a dishtowel and pulled out the hot bowl and blew on the steaming mix.

Sal was still reading. “What are you going to wear?”

If clothing was like restaurants, Sal could be a five-star gourmet with an ocean view. I, on the other hand, was usually fast food. Today it was jeans, a white dress tee and a black jacket. I looked down and gestured. “What about this?”

She shook her head. “No way. It says here to ‘wear something you might not wear anyplace else.’ And you wear that
every
place.”

I wasn’t going to argue. She was right. This was as good a time as any to try something different. Even daring. “
OK
. I’ll wear something appropriate. I’m open to suggestions.”

She jumped out of her chair faster than a cat off a hot stove. “I know just the thing.”

After making me set down my dinner, she dragged me into her room.

By the time Sal left for her evening, I had five pieces of clothing on my bed, all of which could have had “nano” as a prefix. Lucky for me, Sal would never know what I had actually worn, and I fully intended to go shopping to pick out something a little more
me
.

After I had reheated and eaten my leftovers, I called
the
Salon
and made reservations for two. I was determined to convince
someone
to go with me; I wasn’t ready to face fetish all alone. With Sal out, I wondered who else to ask. I promised myself that Frank would be my last ditch option.

I sat down at my desk to sign up for my anonymous email account before I began my evening’s research. For a screen name, I selected Mistress Em. It was strong, evocative and
about as subtle as a Las Vegas marquee
.
If attention was to be had, I’d have it.

I tapped on the browser icon, launching a new window. While my home page loaded, I scanned the Yahoo headlines. I subscribed to a variety of general, technical and entertainment news feeds, which meant there was always something interesting to catch my attention. I was a news-junkie and the stuff didn’t have to be quality. The latest celebrity trial-
du
jour
was as interesting as the most recent Mars surface tour. Both equally
strange and unusual
.

I sipped a cup of wine and began serious research. The lasagna was reminding me from my gastric depths that I wasn’t Italian and had no right to eat that much starch in one sitting.

Come to find out, Seattle was a haven for the sexually adventurous. We had the weekly newspaper
; The
Seattle Alien
with its notorious sex columnist Dirk Wild; the yearly Seattle Erotic Art Festival; the woman-centric sex shop,
Babeland
; and even a non-profit organization called the
Seattle
Sex-Positive Community Center (aka ‘The Wet Spot’) that operated a “real-life, membership-based community center for the benefit of the Pacific Northwest’s sex-positive culture.” And these were the light and fluffy side of it all.

There were local venues for Swingers, BDSM/Leather/Fetish, Bathhouses, Spiritual Sexuality Workshops, Polyamory, Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Resources, and last, and certainly least, Clothing-Optional and Speed Dating Events.

Why weren’t the
“
Regular Woman Seeks Regular Guy
”
types this organized? Maybe you had to
specialize
in order to successfully
fraternize
.

I decided to try one of the chat rooms Frank had suggested.
As the
page loaded
, i
mages of many half-naked men and women
began popping up
. And there was nothing particularly artistic about any of them.

The site allowed me to indicate that I was a “woman” seeking a “man” and to select between such interests as “1-on-1 sex,” “Group sex (3 or more),” “Erotic Chat/Phone Fantasies,” “Bondage and Discipline,” “Cross-Dressing,” “Exhibition/Voyeurism,” “Miscellaneous Fetish,” as well as the mysterious catch-all of “Other Alternative Activities.” The site boasted 171,616 members in
Louisiana
alone. Yummy. I started simple, with a search for “Anything” with “Anybody 18 to 99” in “Washington State.” That seemed broad enough.

The search returned a page of penises.

Reflexively, I closed the lid of my laptop. I took a long sip of wine before lifting the lid to stare at the array of shapes and sizes. Some were full torso shots, while others were just of Mr. Erection himself. Each photo also contained a few short notes such as “46 year old man looking for women or couples (two women).” Only one photo in the list showed a man with his clothes on. He was sitting next to his dog, with a pleasant smile on his face. But then I looked at his text, which read, “44 year old Man.
Looking for Women, Couples (man and woma
n), Groups or Couples (2 women).” He was, literally, looking for anything with anybody. Was the dog some sort of advertisement?

What man expects a woman to reply to such a personal ad? But it had to work or there wouldn’t be so many ads. I suddenly felt as though I had stumbled upon proof-positive that aliens live among us. The trouble was, I wasn’t sure exactly who the aliens were—them or me.

I checked off my
own
mental list of requirements: he couldn’t be ugly, fat, broke, or drunk. Was that too much to ask? Granted, I’d overlook small doses of a couple of these traits for the right guy. But what was The Right Guy? He didn’t fit any of the AdultPalFinder categories.

I needed better criteria and decided to make a few notes.

First, he had to be smart. A big brain, but not Vulcan or Stephen Hawking-sized. He needed to possess that grounded, earthy intelligence coupled with a healthy dose of common sense. No long lectures on ion channels or Mandelbrot sets.

Funny. Or better stated, witty. Galaxy Quest, not
the Three Stooges
.

Good looking in that creative way. Hugh Jackman, not Tom Cruise.

I typed in a search for “smart, funny, good-looking” and clicked the lucky button to inspect my result. There was a list of single men and, lo and behold, at the bottom of the page was an exact match with a link to “Danny Wilson ... smart, witty, good-looking ... and oh yes ... gay.”

Oops. I guess I needed to add “heterosexual” to my search string.