CAPTURED LIGHTNING: MEMOIR OF A BULLWHIP ARTIST

Chapter One Houston, We Have a Problem

Chapter Two Running with the Pack: A Life in Leather

Chapter Three Dreaming in Los Angeles

Chapter Four Circus, Circus

Chapter Five G'day, Mate!

Chapter Six On the Firing Line

Chapter Seven The Eternal City

Chapter Eight Is It Camp, Yet?

Chapter Nine Whips And Roses

Chapter Ten Dances Sacred and Profane

Chapter Eleven Drinking Games

153 pages, 48,000 words

CHAPTER ONE

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

The sun was directly overhead in Maryland. Frogs croaked in a nearby creek, and I was about to make a stab at my fourth Guinness World Record. I ran my tongue over my raw lips and breathed into the countdown.:

“Four – Three – Two – One – Go!”

The two stopwatches started, and I began throwing my whip at the line of plastic cups.

Pa-Da-Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop!

“Ten!” I shouted, as the stopwatches clicked off. I was trembling, as much from nerves as from exertion. The numbers were tallied. My Australian friend Sync played back the slo-mo of the record attempt.

“Perfect!” he beamed. “How about the time?”

I waited for the word from the two time keepers. And the word was good: I had broken the Guinness World Record for Fastest Whip, taking out ten targets in less than two seconds. I whooped with joy, threw my whip in the air. Camp Director Frazier Botsford laughed as he shook his head. The rest applauded. I had not only broken the record, my fourth GWR, I had broken it at an openly BDSM event. Another first.

A flash of lightning, a rumble of thunder a few seconds later. The rumble is a series of sonic booms. Sound travels at 761 mph, 1100 fps, or 1224 k/hr, or 340 m/sec. People who are trying to catch

the lightning on their cameras have to anticipate the miracle. If they wait until the lightning starts, it’s already too late. The crashing thunder itself does not show up in a photograph.

To capture lightning, one needs to be there at the same moment, not after the fact. A snapshot of electric veins against dark clouds is an opera in an instant. It’s life and death in a single, plasma rich blast. It’s the song of the Valkyries, inside every whip crack.

The road, a long and twisted one, had started in Houston, Texas...

Already, in the unbridled days of my solo/outrider motorcycle adventure, I had discovered the mystery of leather as an erotic material. I did not realize at the time that I would also discover its power as a lifestyle.

It didn’t happen at once. I’d found myself sleeping more snugly and dreaming more vividly while I was wearing my leather riding pants and boots. I did not know what I was doing; I had to follow these tendrils by instinct and desire, not seeing the web being woven until I was well past the moment, looking backward.

At an afternoon presentation hosted by a local leather organization in a book shop, I listened to a very political speech about S&M, knowing something was not quite genuine with the words I was hearing. A soft voice beside me said with conviction, “No, that’s not it — It starts here.” He tapped the side of his head.

“Really?” I muttered.

“Yeah, it’s the intensity,” he said. “My name is Ken. They call me ‘Barbarian.’”

”Are there more like us?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’ll introduce you, if you like.”

Through Ken, I met the Fun Bunch, old school gay S&Mers who got together weekly to play with each other. I was welcomed as a kindred spirit, and this was where I discovered the bullwhip. The Colonel, a tall lanky man in impeccable dress, was playing with one in the wide open warehouse space. I watched mesmerized as if we were at a concert recital. It was every whip scene I’d ever been fascinated by in the movies since I was a kid. Bare-chested, straining against their bonds, the bottoms yelped and groaned, as much with pleasure as with pain, as the leather line whirled out and struck them on the shoulder blades. I saw that there could be power and grace curled together, reflecting an intensity I’d always hungered after, deeper than anything I’d felt before. He was raising welts, but not blood. I was impressed by his control, and I knew that I wanted that ability to handle so much power.

I resolved to learn from anyone and everyone everything that I could about the bullwhip. As a journalist, part of my job was to go out into the Hill Country every few weeks to interview some old coot to get a flavorful human interest article. One rancher was waiting for me on his rickety porch when I pulled in with my bullwhip lying on the back seat.

He saw this and said, "You play with bullwhips?"

"Yep," I answered.

"Well, so do I. Let's have a little contest," he said.

In Texas, the horseflies are as big as quarters, and there were quite a few buzzing around us that day.

"Pick your target," the rancher said.

I spotted one fly lazily meandering through the air. I took aim, and popped the whip. To my surprise, it exploded as if it had hit a windshield. It was pure luck.

"There you go," I said arrogantly. "Now it's your turn."

He picked out his fly and sent his whip out. It cracked slightly below the fly, which kept on buzzing onward.

"Hah!" I said. "You missed!"

"Oh, no," he replied. "That fly will never have children!"

That was my first lesson in whip cracking — you have to have humility and a sense of humor enough to laugh at yourself.

Handling a bullwhip expertly is always a dance. The sweep, the flow, the precise amount of power at the perfect millisecond.

You don't have to force the power in with your fist or your wrist. The power is already in there.

For example: a 90-pound girl who is barrel racing on a horse doesn’t muscle the half ton animal to the left or the right. She gets the power moving, and then she guides it. Same with a bullwhip. You get the energy moving, and then you guide it.

Everything else dances, in its own way. Rain on a tin roof is dancing. Sunlight on a lake is dancing. Even trees in their giant years dance to the sky. Life itself is a dance along the precipice of time.

My weekly play dates with the Fun Bunch became a real-world stage where I could be myself as I truly was. I learned the protocols of politeness and pain. I would throw the whip with them until my arm was sore.

The Fun Bunch was an anti-club club. Most of the men had bad memories of leather worn as only a fashion statement and not because it resonated deeper in the wearer's soul. It was hard to tell the poseurs from the real deal, at first.

Politics also played a big part in creating this distaste for other groups and clubs. All the other social clubs and poetry groups I had been associated with always had a jockeying for power, in whatever form it might take: The In-Crowd, a private joke, a perceived position of authority, the jealousies that arose when one person gaining this illusory power was seen by the others as having somehow taken power away from them.

At a burger and hot dog social at The Eagle one afternoon, I asked the Colonel point-blank: “What are the rules?”

His answer was as crisp at his clothing.

“With the Fun Bunch, you have to be invited to join, and petty politics are not allowed. This is accomplished by the simple act of making everyone a President. And there is only one hard rule: You have to have Fun. If you don’t have Fun, any member of the Fun Bunch can demote you to Vice-President — which means you have to bring the cheese to the next party.”

Ken added, “You can only be vindicated by proving to the others that you can have Fun, again.”

We played late at night or on weekends in a large storage barn for the sets of Houston Grand Opera. We had lots of room to throw whips, and we had ambiance out the wazoo. One October we had to wade through a forest of Christmas trees to reach the play space. Another time we tried to be serious while we were being looked down upon by a 20-foot Peter Rabbit from Beatrix Potters’ books. Somehow, I understood the bond between the men who first sailed to Iceland and the New World, laboring together at the oars and sharing everything they had, with all their dreams and hopes.

What made a good scene was the intensity, not the severity. Always. Like Ken had said, tapping the side of his head, “It’s starts here.”

One evening, we featured a reception for Troy, co-founder of the Metropolitan Church. He didn’t play, but he seemed okay with the activity going on around him. I sidled up to him and asked, “Are you having fun?”

“Oh, sure,” he replied, raising his glass of red wine. “Did you know that John the Baptist was a leatherman? ‘ He went into the wilderness and wore the skins of animals.’”

“Wow, that seems pretty clear,” I admitted.

While I recuperated between whip sessions, I sometimes slept with a whip coiled under my pillow, luxuriating in the smell of conditioner which ruined the pillowcases. Breakfast always smelled like leather and coffee, at home and at Charley’s 24-Hour Restaurant where, on drag nights, we could even expect a floor show after the regular bars closed, if we could just keep the glitter and confetti out of our pancake syrup.

When we were socializing, we’d often talk about tips to make dungeon technique more effective. On some afternoons at the house, we’d crack some beers (or near-beer, in my case) and watch videos of bullwhip scenes from films and analyze them to see if there was anything to learn. We’d stop and restart the video until we knew the moves back to front. The whip became a new kind of drug as I attempted to learn tricks and stunts with whips by watching these videos and films. Often there was a difference between depiction and reality, but it wasn’t always Hollywood hype. There was some real skill and artistry displayed.

The point is that all of the involved people enjoyed the experience. On a scale of 1 to 10, I could have a good scene at a 2.0 or a 9.0 — and they’d likely want to play with me again.

At the time, I’d started living with a locally famous artist who became jealous of my BDSM playmates. Our argument became physical and she had me charged me with assault. She cited my open interest in S&M as evidence of a predisposition to violence, arguing that "Where there's smoke, there's fire."

“So she came at you and then what?” my public defender asked.

“I wanted to get her back,” I said.

“Then you did assault her!” my lawyer declared.

“No,” I said, “I tried to get her back, to keep her back, away from me!”

“That’s different,” he nodded.

My lawyer equated their argument to saying that if I liked oral sex I would savagely bite people at random on the street.

The jury found me not guilty, but it was a mixed triumph, because I was now very publicly outed. The damage had been done. I resolved to battle these prejudices on behalf of others who might find themselves in my shoes.

Since I was already out, I put a small personal ad in the free weekly Public News inviting like-minded people to meet at Charley's. When the night came, I expected to meet four or five folks.

On that humid Houston night, more than 30 people showed up, all ages, all sexual orientations, all fetishes and levels of involvement. All seemed to be curious to see who else would show up. What they saw were people like themselves.

That was how I founded Houston PEP — Houston People Exchanging Power. I knew a group like this would grow. I also knew if anyone imagined, no matter how incorrectly, that my being the public face of this group would give me some illusory "power," they would think it was because I had somehow taken "power" away from them personally. So I chose to use the umbrella of the People Exchanging Power concept created by Nancy Ava Miller. I liked that each group was autonomous and took on the flavor of its own membership.

I saw that while Kinky was okay, Crazy was not — and there was a difference. It was my preference, not my pathology.

In the house on Binz Street, there were two rules: Rule No. 1: “Don’t frighten the townsfolk!” (This meant no nudity when they walked from their car to the front door); and Rule No. 2: “Never Top a Top!” Especially a cop, even if you are technically in the right. This also meant the host of the party had the final word in any question.

I saw how S&M was the Surrealism of sex, encompassing the infinite variety of the universe itself in its eroticism. And at the heart of it was the bullwhip. Since that seminal period, I was blessed by my bullwhips with a career and a lifestyle that allowed me to pass between the Scene and the Vanilla World without the need for lies, masks, excuses or apologies.

With the advent of HPEP, I saw romantic ideals made real, as with the submissive man who knelt naked and watched his Mistress blow up balloons, kiss them with her bright red lipstick and toss them toward him as he masturbated, luxuriating in the recognition that this was the breath of his Mistress encased in latex, a concept that filled him with ecstasy.

I opened my home to this nascent community, and people found a safe space and that they were not alone. Houston PEP became the door through which they could pass. And I was the doorman.

The preparations for each party were handled by my wife/slave Mary, who had an army of volunteers to help, submissive men who labored unclothed to bring the house together for the party. Over here we might have a sissy maid in a crinoline skirt feather dusting the book shelves, over there a half naked slave girl washing the dishes from last night’s dinner, talking about the latest Gor novel with its dragons and dungeons.

In the house of BDSM parties, you'd find esoteric disciplines being plied in different rooms: here a boot fetish, there a flogging scene, over there a fisting. The living room is where I liked to work with a 4-foot bullwhip.

One night when I was making sure everyone was having fun, I saw Michael lurking in the upstairs hall with a dour look on his face.

Michael was a small leather Top who was a mean SOB with a whip – he liked to play with the Big Boys. He’d jump high in the air to get enough leverage to bring the whip down squarely on someone’s muscular back. His chaps were always spotless, his leather vest adorned with run pins.

But tonight, he appeared aggravated.

“Michael, what’s wrong? Are you not having fun?”

He scowled and said, “I’ve got a real problem, Robert.”

“What is it?” I asked, preparing myself to make it right.

He walked up to a bedroom door that was slightly ajar and scowled, “Look at that!”

I peeped. A grandmother-type was spanking an elaborately festooned sissy maid with a hair brush, bringing forth the high squeals of a true drama queen, and they were having a fine old time in there: Whackety-whack!

“So what’s wrong, Michael?” I asked.

He bit his lower lip and slowly said, “Robert, I’ve been watching them, and I don’t know why, but it’s really turning me on!”

The air was electric with possibilities. From the thrumming cicadas in the trees to the aroma of rice and beans at Munchies Cafe, Houston was a world unto itself. The Wheel of Fortune was turning on its axis, as I prepared to go north with my Mary, nursing my aching shoulders all the way..

CHAPTER TWO

RUNNING WITH THE PACK: A LIFE IN LEATHER

The Grand Wazoo in the sky had given the kaleidoscope a quarter of a turn, and suddenly we were in a new reality.

We drove to Toronto in a U-Haul towing Mary’s car. We set ourselves up on the seventeenth floor in a highrise apartment building with a swimming pool, a workout room, and a gorgeous view of the Skydome downtown.

Everything vibrated with power, from Spadina’s markets to the bustling Eaton Center. It was a multicultural feast. If you wanted cheese, you went to the cheese shop. If you wanted sausage, you took a number and waited in line at the butcher’s.

“Mary, did you know that half of this city is underground?” I asked.

“Sure, the tunnels and skyways will protect you from the brutally cold winter,” she purred. It seemed like there was a Tim Horton's coffee shop on every block, which was handy if you were actually braving the snow on the sidewalks.

Toronto was a major film producing center. The standing joke was that they’d dressed one of the streets to look like New York City with garbage and boxes, and when the crew showed up the next day it had already been cleared away by Toronto’s industrious garbage collectors. Toronto was once described by Peter Ustinov as “New York City — if it was run by the Swiss.”

The first night I went to a fetish party at the Sherbourne Hotel, the ticket taker was not impressed by my street clothing. I asked him what I should be wearing.

“You can take off your clothes and walk around in your underwear,” he coyly suggested. I declined. The manager for the event saw my cloudy expression as I waited with Mary.

“He’s okay,” he said. “Let him in.” The ticket taker waved us through.

“You’re new here?” the head honcho asked.

“Yep, we’re still getting a feel for the place,” I said brightly.

He smiled. “I’m George, owner of Northbound Leather. We’re the leather and fetish shop in Toronto. Let me introduce you to some people.”

Being the new guy in town, I attracted the attention of Toronto’s burgeoning BDSM scene, which I turned into invitations to perform and to present whip workshops.

I attended a private party in Patricia Marsh’s townhouse in downtown Toronto. The steps rose steeply to the front door, and inside was a sumptuously supplied professional dungeon. In one corner someone was being wrapped in cellophane. One of the grinning Tops approached, and I could sense a challenge coming by the way he strode up to me.

“I hear you’re good with a bullwhip,” he said. “Really?”

“Some people say so,” I replied.

He pointed at a six-candle floor-standing candelabrum.

“Can you put out a candle with your whip?”

I’d never done it before in front of witnesses, but I rolled the whip out and sent the coil flying through the air toward the candles, where it cracked and snuffed a flame without splashing wax. As an encore I put out a second candle. The feeling was euphoric. When word got out, a red-headed leatherman invited me to do some tricks at a bar raising funds for a local club.

This was, technically, the start of my performing career.

Because I could crack the whip consistently in the direction I wanted, I could get away with murder. I snuffed candles and cut newspapers held out at arm’s length by Mary. I wanted to try cutting playing cards, but Mary was nervous about her hands and insisted on wearing gauntlet gloves to protect her fingers. I was later told this detracted from the apparent danger of the stunt, and I agreed, so she went without the gloves after that. With the stakes raised so much, I carefully honed my accuracy with constant practice in the apartment at night. (Yes, I knew how to crack quietly.)

Around this time, I had a new addition to my house in Mercedes Alexander, a leggy pole dancer who joined us as a second slave when we met in Ohio on one of our performing trips down to the U.S. Her story was that she was so-named because she was born in a Mercedes on a stormy night. She agreed to the terms of our contract and moved in with us in Toronto. As a permanent resident of Canada, I had to vouch for her with the powers that be to get her a work permit at an area strip club, a small joint with a single stage and an always tightly packed bar.

Mercedes was fresh as cellophane with her flaming red hair. At her request, we did not shave her pubic hair in the usual slave fashion (“The customers like to see proof that red is my natural color,” she said. “It helps with the tips.”).

One day when I got back from the bank, I asked the magazine’s editor Diane Wilputte where Mercedes was. “She’s gone,” she answered nervously.

“Gone where?” I asked.

Diane shrugged her shoulders and said again, “She’s just gone.”

She had met a young man at her strip club and fallen in love, so she moved out of our apartment while I was running errands. This hurt my Mary profoundly, because it shattered the structure which supported us in our follies a trois. It left a big hole, and I was furious at myself as much as I was saddened. Where had I failed Mercedes? Where had I failed myself? Where had I failed Mary with my choice when it was obviously a wrong one?

I bagged Mercedes' remaining clutter and angrily thrust them at the bearded fellow who came calling for them the next day. I informed the authorities I could no longer be responsible as her permanent resident patron in Canada. I do not know if this interfered with her ability to work in Canadian strip clubs, but I heard later she’d moved back to the U.S. We never spoke again.

Sometimes the eye was quicker than the hand. In Montreal, I had the honor of performing on the same Metropole stage that Sarah Bernhart had cavorted on at the turn of the 20^th Century. I resonated with the vibe of living history as Mary and I performed. For our final stunt, I figured I’d end with a joke, so I had Mary stand off to one side of the stage, holding a candle. I stood on the other side, about forty feet away. My whip was a four-foot bullwhip.

I twisted into a kung-fu windup and cracked the whip with as much fury as I could muster. Mary had been told that when she heard the whip crack, she should surreptitiously blow the candle flame out with a breath, a puff.

It was met by a stony silence. I glanced sideways at the audience and saw jaws dropped onto many leather vests: They thought I had actually done it! I did not disabuse anyone of the notion that I could call forth such powers as to make Harry Potter tremble, but I felt dishonest, and I never did that trick again.

These appearances soon caught the attention of East Coast organizations and clubs like The Eulenspiegel Society in New York City, and I found myself presenting and performing about once a month. It was a golden time in which no one asked me to walk around in my underwear in order to be accepted.

For me, the bullwhip was the epitome of S&M. The whip experience was always profound, powerful, graceful and light-spirited. It was a Door to the Absolute, taking its place legitimately alongside other religions, philosophies and belief systems. As I said, S&M was the Surrealism of Sex.

Phillip Miller and Molly Devon, authors of the seminal "Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns," attended one of my presentations and asked if I would contribute a chapter about bullwhips. It was well received, but I saw so much I could have included, if I had the space. A few years later I published my own book, "Let's Get Cracking! The How-To Book of Bullwhip Skills." I am still collecting royalties on it today.

When I met someone new who was first coming into whip cracking, I‘d suggest that they start off with a shorter whip. They'd get good quicker with the lighter whip, and they'd be more accurate —to begin with, they would be standing closer to the target. Four feet was a good length for dungeon play, maybe up to five feet. Six feet and above they'd be in the salty water where they would really need to know their business or they’d be at the helm of a public disaster.

When we took our whip workshops on the road, we never had any problems crossing in either direction at the border. It was all friendly smiles and waves from border patrol officers of both nations.

Each time we would cross back into Canada from the U.S., I’d put the tape on the car’s stereo, Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I am a Pirate King!” It was always a victory.

On one of our trips to New York City, I’d been booked to do a demo in a hotel, in a beautiful ballroom as big as an airplane hangar, with a single great chandelier suspended in the center of the room, bejeweled with dozens of tiers of twinkling crystals glittering near the stage. Chairs had been set up for an audience beneath it. (Shades of Phantom of the Opera!)

It was still early afternoon, but all our equipment was set, so I had this delicious space to myself and a few aficionados who wanted to get the good seats up front. I could tell that these folks had never seen my act before, or they’d have chosen seats on the back row. I knew the limits of my whip mastery, but they did not, and I could knowingly spook anyone who had not seen me before by letting the whip cut close to them on the follow through.

The stage was a good four feet off the ground, so I had room to work safely as I warmed up and got a sense of the cavernous space. After I’d gotten my range, I wanted to see how the stage looked from the back of the house, so I hopped down with my 12-foot David Morgan bullwhip, and as I walked up the aisle, this majestic chandelier caught my eye, again, and I thought – Well, what the hell was I thinking?

It would have been a fine effect (I thought) to send the Morgan out to just lightly tap a single crystal in the chandelier. And I did, superbly, impeccably, in fact. The crystal shivered.

And it then dislodged from the chandelier and began its long drop to the casino-style crazy carpet below. It picked up two buddies during its terrifying plunge, which did not equal the frozen horror of the falling sensation I had in the pit of my stomach as I watched this semi-celestial event unfold in slow motion. “Oh, my God,” I thought, “I’ve just bought a chandelier!”

I had thought the crystals were attached to the chandelier, but the truth was that each crystal had a small curved wire that hooked onto the tier, hanging it freely as if from a paperclip.

Early audience members sprang into action and snatched up the Swarovski-caliber debris and dropped them into coat pockets and handbags. I saw one a few years later – it had been made into a necklace.

I was electrified with fear as Mary’s voice from the stage behind me proudly proclaimed, “That’s why we can’t have nice things!”

The audience present erupted into laughter. This was the day that I founded the Chandelier Club.

It is not an exclusive club. Every whip cracker I know is an honorary member of the Chandelier Club. All you have to do to join is just screw up with your whip. Once is enough. If it’s not a chandelier, it’ll be a ceiling fan, or a lamp, or a potted plant. Crack – tip – and over she goes!

I know of one whip cracker who had an unfortunate encounter with a fire suppression ceiling sprinkler during a performance in a hotel. Even a 5-foot whip will reach an 8-foot ceiling. Warning: If you tangle with a sprinkler, do not yank it! The little mercury-filled vial inside the sprinkler will break, setting off a biblical deluge and clanging alarm bells all through the hotel. Let the thing swing there gently. Then get a chair or a ladder and separate the popper from the sprinkler as if you were defusing a bomb.

As someone said, “Show me the whip cracker who never hit himself, and I will show you the juggler who never dropped a ball.”

Brian Chic once asked me where he could find a good assistant for his stage show. I told him if someone was looking for their own assistant (aka Target Girl), I'd suggest they should look for a dancer. The Beast is nothing without the Beauty. You need to have someone who knows her body, and knows how to use it for the most effective drama for the audience.

When an audience is watching a whip cracker and a Target Girl, they can’t relate to the handler’s expertise, but they will identify with the Target Girl, the perceived danger of her position. They want to see her escape injury, again and again.

Like a knife thrower, my goal is to miss, and to make that as spellbinding as possible, like The Perils of Pauline. It helps if it’s a beautiful escape, as well.

We attended several of Constance Slaters’ Dressing for Pleasure conventions, gatherings of latex fetishists and lovers of leather fashion. In the Radisson hotel in the Pocono Mountains, attendees were warned to stay off the ground floor where they were likely to encounter civilians who didn’t know the theme of the convention. I was on the mezzanine looking down onto the entryway as two airline pilots came in, pulling their bags behind them, smart in their uniforms, accompanied by some flight attendants. About half way through the vestibule, they encountered a pink sissy maid sporting a huge feather duster. They were on a collision course, stopping about 10 feet away from each other and sizing each other up. Without a break, the sissy maid performed a flamboyant curtsy and sang loudly, “Welcome to the Hotel Radisson!” And away she flounced, waving the feather duster in the air. The pilots and attendants looked at each other and laughed before continuing on to their rooms, shaking their heads.

While I was still new to Toronto and feeling my way through the local scene, George Giouris at Northbound Leather heard I had a journalistic background, and he had a moribund two-page newsletter which he handed out at his Betty Page Fetish Nights to advertise his fashions and adult toys. He offered the title, “Boudoir Noir” to me, and I accepted it eagerly because I saw the possibilities.

Since I did not have my permanent residency yet, I could only work “under the table” to make money. Some of the jobs were prestigious enough, like freelancing for the Globe and Mail’s entertainment pages, but these didn’t come around often enough to make a difference to the bank account. This meant I had time and motivation to focus on my new project.

Looking at a map of Canada, I saw that there were only a few major population centers. It was like playing Risk in real life. Hypothetically, one could conquer the whole country by making one’s presence felt in a mere half dozen metropolitan centers.

The content was already out there — essays, calendars, articles, reprints with permissions. All I needed to complete the creative side was kinky photography that would show people the objects of their desires. I also needed a printer who wasn’t squeamish about the subject matter and wouldn’t gouge me on the printing price. He also supplied invaluable info on how I should navigate the Victorian morals of the magazine censors at Canada Customs, who could shut us down flat in an instant.

Magazine editors of sex-oriented magazines from the U.S. would provide preview copies to an individual we’ll call Mr. Smith, a retired Canada Customs officer who used to vet the magazines coming in from the United States. He was the one who decided if an issue was permissible or not, according to current laws. Even though he’d retired, he had a lucrative side career as an “advisor” to publishers who would give him copies of the magazines they wanted to distribute in Canada, along with a check for a couple of hundred dollars for the man’s time. His word was so strong that even Canada Customs respected his opinion.

I had to be creative to get around the Byzantine periodical rules without actually breaking them. I’d send him the galleys, and he’d write back within a week a critique that said things like, “The woman on page 10 does not appear to be doing this with consent, and this photo would not be allowed.” So I’d recreate the photo shoot, but this time directing that the models should smile more often. “Show me some teeth,” I would instruct. And now, that same photo, with just that that slight difference, was completely acceptable to Canada Customs. We got good enough to take both types of pictures so we didn’t have to reset the stage every time.

Everyone wanted to get in on the act. Fetishists in latex, leathermen in jock straps, exhibitionists, lifestylers and weekend warriors alike. The Fetish Nights became our hunting grounds, our cattle call, so to speak. If we saw someone or a couple that were photogenic, we offered them the opportunity to do a photo shoot with us. Most generously accepted the compliment, and several of them took me up on the invitation.

In one photo shoot, we blew up silver latex balloons and placed them on a tarp on a pool table. The three naked women rising from the sea of bubbles was stirring to see, the stuff of dreams. The camera could only record the images, but not the feeling. In any case, Canada Customs had no problems with this particular fetish.

I saw the sex shops jacking up the price of the publication exorbitantly, gouging their own customers even after I had already given them a healthy discount. This was the first time I’d heard of the thing some called the “fetish tax.” If something like a carabiner was sold at a neighborhood hardware store for $1.00, the price was $5.00 when the same item was sold in a fetish shop.

During this time, I helped the magazine's finances by taking on a job with an investment firm. Putting on a tie every day, I became a courier for stocks and certificates which I ferried in a briefcase through the tunnels and skyways of the invisible city inside Toronto. I enjoyed the walk, the milling people, the routine of it all where I could go into automatic pilot as I walked, dwelling in my thoughts. And I enjoyed the curious pair I was working for — one was a Dickensian Scot who took a liking to me, and the other was an anal-retentive fellow who clipped everything together with six staples at a time. I remember one time the Scot looked out the office window and solemnly said, "Dante, it's a forest out there."

After a while, the magazine was doing well enough that I thought of expanding into the U.S., so I contacted a distributor to get it on the shelves in New York City. We made the deal, printed the extra copies and shipped them. We did this several times to set up a payment chain, but we were never paid for a single issue. I was later told by Constance Slater that sex magazine distribution at that time was the private province of The Mob on the East Coast. Naturally, we never saw our money.

I sent Mary down to Los Angeles to talk with Larry Flint of Hustler Magazine to see about making a co-publishing arrangement. She was armed with facts and figures, data and demographics. The meeting went well, and I expected a mutually satisfying experience to follow, but the days passed and nothing happened. It’s a truism that Delay is the Greatest Denial (“No, not right now, let me get back to you on that.”). Five months later, Mr. Flint produced the first issue of Hustler's Taboo Magazine.

It helped our credibility to join industry organizations like the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association. Through this, we got the attention of the radio shows and weekend TV news programs. We were such darlings that I had to buy a new suit to make the appearances. It was Show Biz. I learned quickly that I could not convince the other panel members or show hosts of anything, but what really counted was what registered with the unseen viewers at home, giving ‘em the old razzle dazzle.

When we were contacted by a crew from HBO’s Real Sex, we rented time in a pro domme’s dungeon in the warehouse district. Mary and I played an especially intimate and intense scene with a camera person weaving in and around us, and another wafting a soft mist into the air. Later, we were filmed walking through the park holding hands, happy as children, and watching a hockey game on TV. They did not see me rubbing the Biofreeze into my shoulders afterward.

The last issue of Boudoir Noir was a copublication agreement with Bill Majors’ Bon Vue Enterprises out of Compton, California. The print quality was better, the photos crisper and clearer, but Canada Customs banned it from entering the country from the U.S. because of a Bon-Vue video ad in the back of the magazine. Le sigh.

One wall of our apartment was a window onto the downtown, from floor to ceiling. We could see the skating rink and the financial district from our aerie on Gerrard Street. This view was even more spectacular during thunderstorms when lightning bolts generated balls of plasma as they hit the tops of the looming skyscrapers.

On bright days I took to the roof to work out with the whips. I noticed highrise construction workers in the neighborhood would take their coffee breaks when I came out so they could watch the bizarre sight of a whip cracker high above the city. The cracking itself was never more than the noise of the street, but it was there. I’d make spins and curls with the whips, doing self wraps and playing targeting games close to the clouds. Then I'd settle back with a cup of tea, massaging my forearms and cursing myself for overdoing it, again.

I also sponsored a Fet Night at a local punk bar in a building's basement, with beers, booze, and bondage. It was a welcome infusion of money into the account, and it was a nice place to audition folks who wanted to be in the magazine's next issue.

I made a bullwhip how-to-play-with-someone video, “Bullwhip: Art of the Single Tail Whip,” with Alan Fox, an award-winning advertising exec. The video was excellent, featuring Mary and Mercedes and Caroline, and it gave me an idea. I took one copy and crossed the border to Buffalo, where I mailed it back to myself in Toronto. When it was seized by Canada Customs, I appealed. The day of the interview came, and I was directed to a large room around the corner from our apartment, eerie with empty bookshelves on every wall. Lots of empty shelves. It was Twilight Zone-ish. I was taken into a room with a large table and a screen along one wall. There, in the presence of an increasingly bewildered Canada Customs officer, I watched our film from start to finish. Afterward, I contacted the Globe and Mail and wrote a story about how Canada Customs had seized a video that had legally been made in Canada. It was wonderful publicity for the magazine, bad publicity for Canada Customs. I got the video back, and we all had fun while it lasted.

With all this publicity, it was inevitable that I would become an activist, starting with the Houghton case.

The Houghtons had traveled from Buffalo, New York to visit us in Toronto on a sunny afternoon. Eric seemed nervous, tapping his foot as we sipped coffee, and his wife Becky seemed equally edgy, but she was holding it in.

We were the first real people into BDSM that the Houghtons had met. Up to then, it had been a bedroom game for them, with its roots in popular pornography.

Eric said he had taught Becky an introductory speech. She took a deep breath and proceeded to recite a litany of self abusive statements, humiliating herself in front of us. I did not know how to respond, because this type of play is not my style. I could tolerate it, though, the same way I tolerated any number of fetishes that were role-played in my house in Houston.

He glowed with power and pride at this submission, and I accepted it as the sacrifice it was for her.

The next time I heard from him was a panicked phone call.

“They took my kids!” he yelled. “They took my kids!”

“What do you mean? Who took your kids? The boy and the girl? Both of them?”

“The cops! A detective was here and they arrested me, and they took my kids to foster care!”

When I got him calmed down enough to talk rationally, the story unfolded:

Becky’s family had never approved of her marriage to him. The relatives had been constantly trying to break the family up. Eric and his wife had been playing humiliation games for a while, and he had videotaped some of their play times, keeping them in a locked sideboard. When the police came, they had search warrants for those specific videos. How did they know? Somehow, the relatives had found out. All it took was a search warrant, and Eric’s and Becky’s lives were turned upside down.

I did not know what to do for him. Of course, I suggested he get a lawyer. He said he could not afford one. Shortly afterward, news of his arrest reached his employer, and Eric was out of a job, as well.

The light bulb went on: we could sponsor fund raisers to pay for his legal fees. He’d get his lawyer.

This one hit close to home, because I went through that anguish in Houston. That cold hollow feeling of the world whooshing by you is unforgettable. The only difference was that I had no hostages that the state could take to wring a guilty plea out of me.

The Houghton case could set a precedent, I thought, since he wanted to fight for his family. At this time in England, gay S&Mers had been charged with crimes under the name of the Spanner Case. The defendants there were found guilty of practicing consensual S&M, since the State figured it owned their bodies and could arrest them for abusing each other — Tops and bottoms alike. (By these rules, I wondered why commercial piercing parlors and tattoo shops were still legal in the UK.) The Spanner men appealed their convictions to the Court of Human Rights in the Hague – where they lost again. I had been involved in some fund raisers for the Spanner boys, so I thought Eric’s case might be a good one for the heterosexuals in the Scene.

Eric obtained his legal counsel, and I got on the phone to the BDSM clubs in upstate New York. Eric agreed to travel with us to these events (I think we did about 20 of them).

There were a few people who said they wanted to give their money directly to Eric himself instead of going through me. I did not take the insinuation of fraud personally; I just did not count that money in the total of funds raised.

The day came when Eric was to appear in court in Buffalo. The courthouse prohibited cameras and tape recorders. The narrow halls were crowded with pending cases, and I waited in the milling crowd for Eric to come back out. The moment he appeared, I heard a loud voice say, “Eric Houghton!” Eric turned and yelled, “Hey, I know you!”

The detective who first arrested him was arresting him again. This time, Eric’s lawyer was a witness to this exercise in judicial power, with Eric led away in handcuffs.

Eric posted bail again, and this time the kids were restored to the family’s home.

Leonard Dworkin, one of the officers of The Eulenspiegel Society, said what we were doing was like the “rent parties” that union people held to raise funds for members facing eviction during the Depression.

The next phone call I got from Eric was to tell me that someone in Seattle’s scene had wanted to verify that this was a legitimate case and not a scam. He’d called the detective himself to verify the facts, and the detective told this to the judge. The judge decided that Eric was already guilty by the association with so many kink clubs and issued an order to grab the kids to put them back into foster care. We found out later that they were sexually abused while in the state’s custody.

Eric was distraught, weeping. I was angry that our community had betrayed him. The project had backfired. The experiment was over.

The Houghtons went through the legal system on their own from there on. I think Eric pled out. I’m not sure, because he stopped talking to me at this point. The Houghtons moved to Asheville NC as soon as they could legally travel. I don’t know if they are still together or not. I have never heard from them or of them again.

Because of the publicity surrounding my assistance in the Houghtons’ case, I was turned to by Terri-Jean Bedford, Toronto’s Bawdy House Madame. In Canada, especially in Toronto, citizens tried to keep society “moral” by enforcing Victorian laws called the “bawdy house” laws. If two or more people were in a house dealing in sex, the law could close down the “bawdy house.” Major fines for the offenders, and possibly jail time.

This peculiar law targeted sex workers, prostitutes, and professional dominatrixes, never the clients. One side effect was that prostitutes could not work in small groups for self protection or they’d be charged under the Bawdy House laws. There would be no Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in any form in Canada, Oh Canada.

Bedford was arrested and charged under these laws when one of her girls helped a client have a “happy ending.” She did not have coital sex with the client, but she helped him reach climax at the end of their session, against the house’s rules.

Once more, we went the course of having fund raisers to defray legal costs. Bedford was an eager spokesperson.

“It was awful to see them carrying away my furniture and personal possessions,” she said. “They were even laughing and sitting on the spanking benches for photos with their mates.”

I was asked by the defense to testify as an expert witness that straight sex for money was not the usual protocol in a professionally operated dungeon. I felt like I was in a gray area, but I agreed to help as much as I could. I fended off the prosecutor’s barbed questions. To this day, I do not know if I helped or hurt her case. Probably the latter. I was not the best debater in high school, and here I was in the hands of a professional lawyer.

Bedford was found guilty.

In 2013, after years of litigation, in a landmark ruling, Canada’s highest court struck down the country’s anti-prostitution laws in a unanimous 9-0 ruling. Bedford joked that she should be hired by the government as its new “whip.”

I’d admired the scene in “Batman Returns” where Catwoman whips the heads off manikins, then puts the whip away with a graceful twirl around her leather and latex body. It took me days of practice before I understood how she’d done it. I knew that sword and whip expert Anthony DeLongis had been the whip coach on that particular film.

So I was excited to hear that DeLongis was in Toronto for some reason, and I resolved, shamelessly, to have coffee with him.

I found him to be a handsome man with a chiseled profile who moved like an athlete, an effect enhanced by his bulging biceps and heroic chest when he wore a T-shirt. We talked about whips and whip makers, and about his career. At that time, he was wrangling for the whip coach job on the upcoming “Zorro” film with Anthony Hopkins. He’d printed headshots with himself swinging a whip at the camera, forming a “Z” above and behind him. Clever thinking, I thought, adding that subliminal to the picture. I’ve long been a fan of the art of the subliminal message. And I was glad to see he got along well with my wife Mary.

From him I learned the concept of imagining railroad tracks; if you stood in the center of the tracks and stayed inside while the whip remained outside the tracks, you would never hit yourself.

Mary and I performed together and presented together. Her sense of the dramatic and her timing were impeccable. As a double Scorpio, she was intense, and she read the audiences well for me.

After a few weeks, Anthony hinted he was running low on funds, so I put together a class for him at a grassy outdoor space in Toronto. He made a few dollars, we delighted the surprised tourists, and then headed off to have coffee together, chatting and sharing insights.

Over dessert, Anthony mentioned he was looking for a new temporary place to stay while he was in Toronto. Since my Mary moonlighted from her hospital job as a professional dominatrix with her own dungeon/apartment, I suggested he stay there at no charge. Mary took him over to look at the space, and he moved his toothbrush in. I gave Mary my permission to have vanilla sex with him, if the mood struck them both, as long as she remembered that “her ass was mine.” Her pleasure would please me, and that’s the definition of ‘compersion,’ which I had in abundance.

I knew something was wrong when she came home with a massive red hand print across her right ass cheek, exactly over the tattooed logo of the spiral whip we had put on her in Dallas at a leather event the year before. A line had been crossed, but I attributed it to an accident in the throes of passion. I should have remembered my Mallory’s King Arthur:

I was stunned when Mary announced that she wanted to end our relationship as Master-slave. She was in love with Anthony, and she said he felt the same way about her, even though he was already married to someone else. I withdrew from the room to a steaming shower for several hours.

When I came out, she was gone. She would keep the dungeon/apartment for her own use, and she moved out of our apartment. Later, Anthony did get his divorce, and he and Mary moved to Los Angeles where they eventually married, living at his ranch hilltop home in the mountains close to Hollywood.

I had trusted them both. King Arthur had trusted Lancelot. And Guinevere was the goal and the abyss. I believed in nothing anymore.

I tried to wash the taste of it out of my mouth with Bushmills whisky after being sober for nearly twenty years. That first drink seared through my veins like a string of fire crackers, and I knew I was in a new reality. I tore up documents and mementos, trashing the life we’d had together, but I could not tear her from my mind. I resolved to commit suicide, but my cat Nutmeg jumped into my lap, flowing with unconditional love for me; I put the razor away. The drinking continued. The magazine went down for the third time, with my blessing. My editors were now looking for new jobs. The phone stopped ringing. It was as if I had died. I was a ghost of myself.

Around this time, I was wooed by Bill Majors, the BDSM pornographer from Los Angeles. His invitation was good — especially since I had no other expectations. I do not know if being geographically closer to Mary was a factor in my decision to accept his offer, but I was soon boarding a plane to California and abandoning my Canadian permanent residency.

It was supposed to be a new beginning; but the hungry ghosts were still waiting in the wings. The play was far from over.

The Palm Springs Film Festival, a neon oasis in the desert, was a chance for vindication – and I was drunk and about to watch a documentary film about the last three years of my life in BDSM in Canada.

I’d already lost my magazine, my apartment, my wife, my career, and my reputation – It all had to mean something, and I thought this was it. When I was asked years earlier if someone could follow me around with a camera, I allowed the documentation with one condition: they should tell the truth, “warts and all,” as Cromwell said. After our positive experience with HBO’s Real Sex, I was comfortable being myself in front of a camera. With this new film, everything else was to be secondary to that one Magnetic North: The Truth. The title was “Tops and Bottoms.”

Christine Richey was a young documentary filmmaker with an impressive audition tape, so I had given her free access to my home, my wife/slave, and my second live-in slave, Mercedes. Christine had been given a hefty grant by the CBC for the project.

In Palm Springs, with kleig lights spiralling in the sky outside, about 300 people sat in the auditorium to see the movie. I spoke a few words of introduction, saying they were going to see the Real Deal. The lights dimmed, and the film started.

I saw myself compared to Hitler, gesticulating wildly as he practiced poses to swell his propaganda.

While the film stumbled and staggered to its conclusion, I felt the icy hair on the back of my neck rising. There was no applause. I stood up at the lectern to take questions or comments. There was only one question: “What happened?” It was all I could do to stutter, “I don’t know!”

It was a cold slap across the face as the audience murmered its way outside. The showing was followed by a champagne reception, packed with glitterati from all the other openings, where I tried to ask the director the same question: “What happened to our movie?” People were milling around her in her moment of triumph, singing her praises and patting her on the shoulders. She played the schmoozing card like a pro; it was the last time I saw her or spoke to her.

Mary was still comfortable enough with me to invite me to see a little dinner-theater play Anthony was acting in. I showered and shaved, donned my best togs for the evening. The hip flask was full.

The after-party was typically festive, with champagne and hors d’oevres, and lots of back slapping and hand shaking amid the smiling congratulations.

I stood to the side, next to a woman wearing an expensively scary hat. She babbled, I half listened.

She said, “Aren’t they wonderful together? They look so good, don’t they?” Instead of answering her innocuous observation, the inner dam broke, and I launched into a volcanic tirade. She closed her mouth and withdrew.

My shameful act was a performance on par with Joseph Mankiewicz’s impetuous crashing of William Randolph Hearst’s elegant dinner party while ‘Mank’ was finishing writing “Citizen Kane.” I did everything but vomit on the carpet.

The character assassination/suicide was a fait accompli. It was Berlin 1945. My run as a positive public face for enlightened S&M was over.

CHAPTER THREE

DREAMING IN LOS ANGELES

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Do what you were doing before, except now you’re doing it for me. And making some bondage videos for our websites.”

I'd accepted the job offer from Bon Vue Enterprises, although I was still drinking heavily, a bottle of whisky a night. My boss, Bill Majors, aka Robert Best was a tall, bullying man, a former New York City high school math teacher with a swirling white beard and Coke bottle glasses. He held forth from his base in Compton, California in an industrial park with no sign over the door. The offices were narrow and utilitarian. His personal office was plushly carpeted and outfitted for entertaining, with couches and sexy art work. In the back warehouse were stacks of books and videos. Across the parking lot was a film studio/dungeon packed with cameras, props and extra furniture. One wall had a traditional stonework painted on it for a creepy background atmosphere. It was midnight-horror-movie cheesy.

Bon Vue was a successful enterprise that published BDSM pornography in its magazines and videos. It made about one video a week with guest directors like Bip who also had ties to the vanilla porn industry. It was a neverending Halloween. The setups and stories were one sentence synopses. The adventuresome girls were paid about $100 for each video. Most were also strippers. None that I met were into any sort of BDSM as a lifestyle. There was some difficulty trying to get an authentic response instead of “acting.” I operated a video camera and did most of the rope bondage. I’d clean the apparatuses and toys after each shoot, and every week I went to the hardware store to get fresh rope. I made only one bullwhip video myself, and I felt like a phony doing it. There was no meat to it, no truth. With all the starts and stops in the shooting, it was hard to get any rhythm going to make a splendid scene. It was not my HBO’s Real Sex experience. Lesson learned; I did not make another video featuring me or my whips.

In California, the BDSM scene overlapped with the swingers. Blow jobs and group sex, partner swapping and mutual masturbation. Single men far outnumbered single women, which was usually reflected in the sliding scale for entry prices. One woman was worth three or four men. Some of the women I met were actually worth that.

Meanwhile, I was increasingly uncomfortable with what I was doing at Bon Vue. Avuncular Bill used to say he was just ‘a sleazy pornographer who knows his place in the world.' I thought he was joking, but he really meant it. The day came when I had to decide if that was what I wanted to be — and I couldn’t do it. I thought I’d been brought in to bring some class and credibility to his operation, but it was obvious I was being groomed to become another sleazy pornographer. I’d never seen the difference before, but the gulf between pornography and lifestyle was as immense as the Pacific Ocean off Santa Monica pier.

I was working in my office when the phone rang. It was Geneva, a porn actress and single mother who was in a contractual slave relationship with me for about three weeks.

“My car has died, and I need to get home, Sir,” she said tearfully. “I need to be there for my daughter.”

“Can you take a cab?”

“I don’t have the money for that, Sir. Can you pick me up?”

“Sure. Where are you?”

She was nearby at a gas station, so I took my lunch hour early and drove out to get her. The day was hot and humid, so I drove with the windows down. I pulled into the gas station to see her waiting near the gas pumps.

We drove back to Bon Vue where I gave her a cup of coffee in my air conditioned office.

“I’ve just got a few things to finish, then we can go,” I said. She sipped her coffee.

“Who is she?” Bill Majors’ secretary Janice asked from the door. “And why is she here?”

“She’s my slave and she needed me to pick her up. Her car died,” I said. “We’ll be going in about an hour.”

“Then she can wait outside,” Janice said. “She can’t wait in here.”

“What?” I said. “I’m just finishing some work, and then we’ll be gone.”

“She needs to get out now!”

“She’s in my office and not seeing anything that’s confidential," I said. "We’ll be gone in an hour. I can’t just throw her out.”

“She needs to get out now,” Janice repeated. I was becoming more irritated by this demand that I not take care of my property. She remained in my office, sipping her coffee and waiting patiently for me to put my files away. Then I took her home and made a date to get her car the next morning.

When I got back to the office, an angry Bill Majors was waiting.

“Did Janice tell you to get that woman out of our private offices yesterday?” He blurted. “When I’m not here, she’s in charge, but you didn’t listen to her. Right?”

“Yes, and — “

“You’re fired,” Bill Majors told me. “Clear out your desk. I’ll make out your last check now.”

My last check included the price of airfare back to Toronto, as my contract had stipulated, but I chose to remain in Southern California, for better or for worse. I do not know if it was to stay close to Mary and Anthony or not. It did not matter to me; I could be a drunk anywhere.

I was still trying to process what had happened to earn me this unexpected axe. Did Bill Majors, of all people, not understand the responsibility a Master has for a slave?

I threw the box with my files onto the back seat and started driving home, stopping at a neighborhood package store to pick up another bottle of whisky, Old Bushmills. I took a surreptitious swig in the car and drove on to my apartment. I threw the door open and walked in with the bottle in the box. Nutmeg was stretching on the couch and mewing softly.

I closed the apartment door and walked back to the kitchen table. I drank some more whisky straight from the bottle and shook my head. The liquid was burning my throat as it went down, but the tingly buzz was starting, as well. I needed to think this out. I noticed Nutmeg’s bowl was empty. I pulled out the cat food and put the bowl down. Nutmeg nipped in to it and began eating heartily. I sat down on the couch with the bottle between my legs.

“Shit!” I said to Nutmeg. “I lost our job.”

After he’d eaten his fill, he hopped up on the couch and came over to my lap. I picked the bottle up and set it on the floor. I felt like it was the end of the world. I had no job and no prospects. I didn’t know which way to turn. I was probably unhireable, in my present condition. I took another swig and felt the hot anger rising in me.

I picked the bottle up again and gave it a swirl.

“This is running my life,” I said to myself as I swished the whisky around. “This is killing me. I need to stop. Now!”

I had taken my First Step again, after twenty years. I’d admitted I was powerless over alcohol. I stood up and stumbled to the kitchen sink, where I poured the rest of the whisky out. I turned on the tap and washed the residue down the drain. That was my last drink. Ahead of me were a few days of cold sweats, of shivering and shaking. Instead of One Day At a Time, sometimes it was One Minute at a Time.

I stayed the course and gradually the urge to drink eased. I was able to think again, but my emotions were still running away with me.

I got through my first couple of days, groggy with a headache. Nutmeg got a lot of cuddling and scratching during that 48 hours. I communed with him as I tried to adapt to my new reality.

He helped me to get through it. He was just there, loving me unconditionally. I felt ashamed. And grateful. Tomorrow was going to be a new day for us. I’d quit drinking whisky for the second time in my life. It was not easy, but I was clear that while I had at least one more really good drunk left in me, I did not know if I had any more soberings up. Choices are much simpler when there is a gun to your head, literally or figuratively.

The hour glass is tilted and the sand runs fresh. I now began a homeless period of sleeping in warehouses and couch surfing, again, with Nutmeg as my companion. I got him a collar with a bell so I’d know where he was in a warehouse. One host was a fellow who printed tickets for penny arcade machines. I’d practice with the whip in the parking lot behind the building until my shoulder told me to stop. When I would go to a park to practice, I didn’t try to see how many leaves I could take off a tree. The park police would have been there in a flash. Same for thunderclap cracking. I know a bullwhip can be loud, but it would just be obnoxious if it was a few feet away from people enjoying a picnic on the grass.

I’d pick a leaf and use the point-and-squeeze technique to just touch the leaf without making it fall off. The crack was as soft as a dandelion’s fuzz, the pop of a bubble of champagne. My game was to see how many times I could make the leaf tremble without doing any damage. At the end of my session, I’d nick the leaf with one crack and take it off the tree with another crack. And only a single leaf had been sacrificed. I never had a problem with the police.

When I researched going into homeless shelters, I was told I could not bring Nutmeg with me, so staying on the street was the only alternative for me, rough as it was. My car became our bed, much of the time.

I met Kim in Santa Monica, and it wasn’t long before I moved in with her. The sex was furious, at first, but I soon became bored by it, so she introduced me to a wide-ranging group of swingers. The conversation was scintillating, rubbing shoulders with these highly educated people, even if I had no desire for their sex scenes, since I found them tedious, uninteresting.

During this period, I took a whip workshop at Mark Allen’s Wild West Arts Club convention in Las Vegas, with Kim as my willing assistant. When I looked out at the sea of cowboys cracking whips in that auditorium, I saw many people who had attended my BDSM classes. The only difference was that instead of shiny leather vests and chaps, they were proudly wearing elaborate cowboy hats. I did not speak to any of them, because I had learned not to acknowledge someone I knew unless they first approached me. You never know when they might be out with a vanilla spouse who will wonder where they know me from.

I took part in the showcase for performers, using an 8-foot bullwhip to cut a newspaper off Kim's back. A cluster of other performers examined Kim's back and found a tiny ding in her skin. "Put some salt in it," said Austalian whip cracker John Brady.

Professional stuntman Alex Green and Convention head Mark Allen talked to me afterward, saying it was an impressive display, and I should try Hollywood. I politely declined, thinking I still had a lot to learn. It was at that convention that I met the John Brady. He was old, and he'd been working solo since his wife died. He did not crack any whips, anymore, instead throwing mini boomerangs and paper airplanes around the breezy auditorium. It was a let down for me.

I also performed with Kim as my assistant at the Technomania Circus in San Diego, and that was a fun and regular gig for a four-hour round trip. Two sets a night. Nutmeg seemed to like Kim and her dachshund, but my relationship with her was a stormy one, with Kim constantly reminding me that I did not live up to her standards. The lack of sex was also taking its toll.

“What did you do today?” Kim asked as she came in the back door.

“I wrote a poem,” I said. “Want to hear it?”

“You didn’t look for a job?” she said, hanging her purse off the back of a kitchen chair.

“I looked, but I didn’t see anything I liked. Sorry.”

She frowned and tightened her shoulders.

“That doesn’t do it,” she said. “You need to do something. Otherwise, you need to go.”

The situation was almost driving me once again to suicidal thoughts as I sat on the back yard stairs and chain smoked cigarettes, watching the wild parakeets rush from tree to tree. I knew I had to be able to take care of Nutmeg, so I dismissed all self destructive plans from my mind. The little fellow still slept with me every night, even when I had retreated to the couch. I knew I was not fitting into some vision Kim had for a life partner. It was just incredible to me that Santa Monica, such a heaven with its small shops, fresh beach, quiet streets lined with jasmine bushes could become such a Hell on Earth. The straw was broken during a Volkswagen van tour up the Pacific Coast to Oregon and back. On paper, we were making a profit — until the gear box fell out of the Westie. We spent all the earned money on repairs and struggled back to Santa Monica. Shortly after, I started couch surfing again.

Rick was one of the people I stayed with at a small ranch in Riverside, some distance from Los Angeles. It was surrounded by groves of orange orchards as far as the eye could see. Nutmeg would go out with me when I had a cigarette and an orange juice on the porch. One time, a panting coyote came running after another cat that jumped six feet up and over the fence. The coyote skidded in the dust to a jerky halt about three feet from Nutmeg, who froze and stared at it. The coyote instantly became aware of the change of prey, and started to move. Since I’d just finished replacing the fall on a 4-foot bullwhip, I had time to crack it once, sending the predator racing away back into the fields. I scooped Nutmeg up and thanked the gods nothing bad had happened to him. One night, though, I could not find him for the life of me. I heard loud squeals and cries coming from the fields, and I just knew Nutmeg was tangling with that coyote again. I searched for hours, tracking the always moving cries with a flashlight, but I could not find him. I finally went to bed, emotionally exhausted — and Nutmeg jumped on the bed. He had been hiding somewhere in the house where I could not find him. Perhaps in the attic. His fur was wet with my tears that night.

The only thing good that came out of this episode was that I developed an appreciation for fresh orange juice, since the commercial orchard next door had trees that dropped fruit on our side of the fence. Every day, I would pick up the oranges and take out the hay bales and shovel the horseshit from the enclosure for Rick’s pony. The animal was a mean one and tried to bite me several times. Behind the house, Rick had three hungry German shepherds that scratched in the dust of the enclosure. All he did was feed them once a day, and once again I shoveled the shit. Eventually, I lost patience with my host, while he was tired of waiting for me to get a real job, whatever that meant.

“Robert, are you going to look for work?”

“I’m giving you money,” I replied, even if it was from my unemployment check. “I shouldn’t have to look for some job just to please you. I’m a whip master.”

“You can’t stay here if you don’t work,” he said, rolling a cigarette.

“I really don’t want to stay here any longer,” I retorted. “I’ll be back on the road again this week, Rick.”

Once again, Nutmeg and I were in the wind.

My old friend Joanie had a friend, Susan Bitterman who owned a kinky toy company, and I made a deal to sleep in her storage space upstairs, coming out in the morning to use the bathroom in her apartment. Nutmeg was very patient with me during this time, but did not seem to get along with her cats. He began peeing a lot and losing weight. I later found out it was stress-induced diabetes.

After a few weeks, I took over an actual bedroom when Susan’s former roommate moved out. I brought a beautiful girl, Karina, back with me one afternoon, and we had a hot scene on the carpet in the bedroom.

That night Susan told me she wanted me to move out.

“You’re having too much fun, and I’m depressed enough as it is,” she said. “I’m not having fun in my own home.”

“You’re jealous of my pleasure?” I asked, incredulously. “Really?”

I was saved when Joanie gave me a tip on a job as a Solari apartment complex manager in West Hollywood, beginning a new period in my experience of Los Angeles. A more nocturnal existence.

But I could not get Nutmeg back from Susan. I called the police to report the catnapping, but the response was predictably indifferent. One afternoon, Joanie brought Nutmeg home to me in a cardboard box and told me not to ask any questions about it. I felt like I was alive again, and I knew Joanie would never do anything to me that would ever break my heart or betray my thanks to her for reuniting the two of us. As I later found out, I was wrong.

Meanwhile, a local university in Los Angeles hosted an annual Farm Day to celebrate the state’s rich agricultural heritage, and they agreed to let me give whip lessons to children. The sultry afternoons were festive and the lessons were quick, because I could get a kid cracking in about five minutes with a short whip. I offered safety glasses and a small cowboy hat to protect their noses and ears, kneeling behind them to guide their hands through the moves. If they screwed up, my back would receive the errant blow instead of the child’s. My leather vest got a workout on those days, and I was okay with it. Suffering for one’s art, and all that.

In retrospect, the only thing I would have done differently would have been to have disinfectant spray to decontaminate the inside of the cowboy hat between the kids. I was lucky that none of them had a scalp condition, fleas or nits.

I saw that kids were easier to teach than adults. Kids just seemed to Get It quicker. The adults, they'd try, not get it, they'd try again, angrier, harder. meaner, faster, more powerfully, tenser tenser tenser, and the whip would not dance for them.
Adults tended to have an idea, a vision, an image, of how the whip was supposed to crack, how they expected it to crack. They'd try to impose that image onto the whip. And the degree of their discomfort was in direct proportion to how far their expectations differed from reality.

I had to turn adults back into children. That is, to make them teachable. So I put the whip into their other hand, their wrong hand, and let them crack.

I told them they had my permission to be awkward and clumsy. To screw up. To learn from their screw ups. There was usually a lot of laughter.

And when they put the whip back into their dominant hand, they were surprised at how much their left hand had just taught their right hand. This is a juggler's trick. You practice everything with both hands, even if it’s going to be performed with one hand. This teaches both sides of your brain. The adult brain with its critical thinking, and the child's brain of being in the here and now. I saw a lot more "Aha!" moments-and the learning curve go from this (Flat Hand) to this (Hand taking off like a rocket.)

Teaching the children was a pleasure on many levels. I could introduce kids to a skill they’d only seen on TV or in movies. The first time they’d crack a whip, some of them were shocked that there was no gimmick to the loud report, and they all stood taller and exuded more confidence after they’d cracked a whip for the first time — especially the smaller kids. I even printed out certificates attesting to the fact that the child had “gone supersonic” on that day. It was so popular I wound up running out of them, so I took names and addresses to mail the certificates out.

So why is whip cracking not in any school’s curriculum?

I’ve also often wondered why whip cracking is not an Olympic sport. This answer is pretty straightforward. First, any new sport needs to have a single body that speaks for it, with rules for competition that are the same across the far flung nations. Right now, the closest we have to that are the guidelines for the Australian Plaiters and Whipcrackers Assocation (APWA). They have categories for competitors, specific routines, and scoring standards. They also have a dress code for the competitors.

Second, you need to have unanimous agreement about standards and routines. So far as I can see, there is no way anyone can command any kind of consensus about whip cracking or competitions, outside of following Guinness World Records criteria, and even there, someone was always looking for the loopholes in the rules. Each distinct group of whip crackers has its own games, contests, and fields of competition.

The 2000 Olympic Games in Australia were opened with a horseback riding whip crack, and several exciting 5-minute whip demos were presented at numerous venues near the stadium, but there was no followup about getting the sport recognized officially. Another wonderful opportunity missed. Le sigh.

In short, I think it is a hopeless dream, though I do leave myself room to be surprised, should the whip gods deem this to be a doable endeavor.

Back at home, The Lair on Lankershim Blvd. was the brain child of Kane and Carina, a mixed-race couple of great intensity and charm. The space was set up as per usual for public dungeons: a main room with St. Andrews crosses and spanking benches, an outside courtyard area with patio tables and chairs for socializing and cigarette smoking, a kitchen and several smaller rooms set up as classrooms and torture chambers. The place was usually crowded, better for floggers than for longer whips. Across the street was an all hours coffee shop that became an unofficial annex for The Lair’s denizens on play nights. (It reminded me of Charley’s Cafe in Houston during my Fun Bunch and Houston PEP days.)

Just another weekend at The Lair on Lankershim starts with shorter whips — there are more opportunities than with longer whips, a good length once you compensate for hang time.

A twist of the wrist with a whip will harness energy experienced only by gunfighters and motorcyclists.

One sees the variety of whips people own. Some whips are soft and porous, absorbing the energy wave on every level, others as hard as rocks wonky under the ceiling. There was one whip maker's whip that squeaked awfully, then skewed wildly in the air.

So I helped them get better with their personal repertoires. Two or three times a year, I was asked to play in the high numbers — Oh, You are looking for permanent scars? Bottom line is that the state owns your body, remember.

Is it the fantasy or the reality you are after? The pain, or the permanent marks? Ask someone with a little knowledge, but who is free, because in LA the working motto is, "I will support you in your delusion about yourself if you will support me in mine..."

The plastic toe tag has already been stamped behind the cracked wall of the county morgue, which has a gift shop.

Kane and Carina had made some videos of their dominant-submissive play, ending with hot sex. I ran one by Bill Majors at Bon Vue, and he rejected it because it was ‘too real.’ BSDM and sex could not happen in the same video. I had to agree, it looked authentic because it was authentic — and it was a hell of a turn-on to watch. It was just another example to me of the discrepancy between lifestyle and pornography. It showed me again that the laws are so vague and so arbitrarily enforced that the powers that be scare the producers of content into censoring themselves far worse that the law requires. It is the chilling effect in action.

I gave whip classes at The Lair. When the classes were packed, the energy was high. They were different every time, depending on the energy of the people in attendance. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was darker, sometimes it was sparkling. It was never boring or repetitive, thank the gods.

I remember one fellow who would show up with a rolling suitcase of toys. He would nervously smile and softly look for play partners, downplaying the probability that he was a high-functioning autistic person, and make a production of opening the case to proudly show off all the whips, ropes, gizmos and attachments. All this, even if he was going to use only one gentle flogger for the entire night. He would make a statement in a conversation, then wait patiently for a reply. This became awkward if there was no reply to be made. He dressed impeccably in all black: highly polished shoes, crisp shirt with a black tie. He looked like a concierge at a posh hotel. I liked him. He took us sailing one day, and he handled the boat expertly and reintroduced me to a pleasure I had not enjoyed in a long time, not since I’d sailed in Galveston Bay years before.

The Lair always had good food, and plenty of it. On the nights when a more Dolcett-style of dining was the theme, a naked female model would have sushi on plastic wrap placed all over her body. She looked like she was meditating silently. The navel held a puddle of soy sauce. It was delicious, including the cannibalistic fantasy.

For someone in my position, any publicity is good. I saw that "America's Got Talent" was on the prowl again, judging by the email they’d sent me, asking me to participate in their new year's quest.
It seemed to be their standard operating procedure to invite professional performers, often without the need to endure the usual cattle call "audition" process. A few seasons before, I saw that the professionals were kept on until the second round, and then eliminated after the superior quality of their acts attracted an audience. Dangerous circus acts, in particular, were given short shrift.
Two years before this, the whip performer Gery Deer was lumped in with two other performers and given 15 seconds to do one candle-snuffing stunt. The year after, the cowboy whip cracker used nylon black light whips — on a stage which was brightly lit with regular lighting, not black lights, so the effect was completely lost. The great Adam Winrich hijacked one of the judges to hold a leaf-blower with a roll of toilet paper attached so that he could slice the paper with two whips going furiously in tandem. The stage looked like it had been hit by a hurricane.
The top-notch knife thrower Throwdini was shown in the second round throwing three knives, although he threw dozens of knives around his attractive assistant in his allotted time. One knife hit a knot in the board and did not stick, and the editors of the show saw fit to splice in a resounding "clang" of metal on metal, and to make this the third and last knife he threw. He also was the butt of a "bloody bandage” sight gag sprung by the show's host.
All this reminded me of the experience of whip artist Chris Camp, who was excited to be invited to appear on Leno's Tonight Show. His appearance in the opening audience game portion consisted of him being dressed in a 1950's kid's cowboy suit and standing next to a rugged actor, who was picked by the audience members as the "real" whip cracker.
I was not surprised by any of this. In Los Angeles, I was introduced by Gayle King and immediately dismissed as "a white guy with a whip" by Steve Harvey, a TV program's black celebrity host. On the show "Blind Date," I was edited down to 10 seconds in which I supposedly cut two people in half with a whip (complete with CGI blood gushes) -- happily, my name did not appear anywhere in the credits. After these and a few other experiences in La La Land, I started saying "No" when some show like "Ellen" would ask me to come in to their studio. I did agree to go on “To Tell the Truth,” where two other people pretended to be me. It was a fast factory job, marred only by the show’s emcee trying to crack the whip crazily before I could stop him. And I lost my much-needed wrist braces in the crowded Green Room under the sofa.
Never mind the low or outright lack of pay for such appearances. Never mind that such priceless "publicity" does nothing to reflect the true quality of fine performers, since it reduces them to fodder for miniscule imaginations bound tightly by stereotypes and preconceptions. Never mind that "Reality is elsewhere," as Rimbaud said. Ironically, just yesterday, I got a statement from AFTRA noting that my contribution last year totaled $6.00.

A friend of mine who had a children’s show in the Sixties told me that he wound up papering his bathroom with his residual checks, some for as little as ten cents. It was cheaper than trying to cash them.
Still, AGT asked me take part, again. I was sooo honored just to be asked, of course, but I think they would have to look elsewhere to find me — And my heart goes out to all the folks who will invest their time and energy in this farce.
Sometimes opportunity knocks, and sometimes it scratches at the back door like a dog. It’s still "Cave canem," my friends.

Now we were visiting Gemini Manor in Hollywood. Our car pulled up to the curb on a narrow side street in West Hollywood. The air was warm and humid, tinged with the scent of jasmine. We walked through the small gate, squealing on its rusty hinges, under an arbor toward a little house. Small Christmas lights twinkled in the vines above us as the house loomed larger, like the gingerbread house in “Hansel and Gretel.”

We knocked at the door. It opened to show us the smiling face and twinkling eyes of the owner, Alex Lehr, the doyen whose long gray hair curled gently over his shoulders, his pale blue eyes blinking.

Gemini Manor was so named because it was two houses cobbled together with a walkway and a hot tub delineating the dividing point. The many rooms of the domicile were decorated madly with toys and art objects crawling the walls and peeking down from the ceilings. The furniture was sumptuously crammed into whatever tight spaces could be found. One room consisted solely of a dozen mattresses stacked on top of each other, “The Princess and the Pea” style. In the L-shape of the two houses a manicured garden held forth with wicker chairs and picnic tables. A small stage at one end sported a microphone stand.

Around the small garage beside it all were heaps of playa dust from the last excursion to Burning Man, a traditional pilgrimage for Gemini Manor.

One night was a party; the next morning it was a film company shooting a brief scene on the massive couch in the Sleigh Room with two famous actors; that night I might have it for a Fetish Night party. There was always something happening at Gemini Manor.

If you were there on a Fet Night, you’d see my staff hauling in the gibbet and St. Andrew's cross we’d need for the evening’s festivities, as the 30-40 guests began to arrive, wearing leather and latex, Levis and chiffon.

The crammed space made every activity an inevitable audience participation game, with spanking and blow jobs in abundance. Fet Night parties in West Hollywood attracted as many swingers as kinksters. Six different group conversations were taking place at the same time in the garden as someone tickled the nipples of a model fastened to the wooden scaffold. Everyone had a drink; smoking was permitted in the garden only.

I usually made a profit at each Fet Night, splitting the take with Alex, who was grateful for every penny. It costs a lot to keep a dream alive in West Hollywood, even with good attendance.

It was also an oasis for me when I had quiet moments alone. Alex was okay with me dropping by, so long as he knew about it and was there. I could head into the garden and sit down at a table with my notes and write while camera crews scuttled around the inner rooms. Or perhaps I’d meet someone for a photo shoot. And there was always the hot tub when four or more people got together in Alex’s name.

People like Linda, an energetic young blonde who always knew how to dress or undress for an occasion. This time it was to be a bondage photo shoot. We talked first about general things, then got down to business. I liked that she brought her own boots. They would add a lot to the session. The ropes could coil and tighten against the leather before twining their way up her delicious legs. The house was warm so cold was not a factor. We both knew sex was not on the books, just the erotic image of the ropes and her nude body. If I timed it right and if we were both in the best head space, that would come across in the photos. I took a classical approach. I was not so interested in open beaver shots or breasts tied so tightly they seemed like purple bubbles about to burst. I liked the flow and restriction of the ropes and the knots working together alchemically, architecturally. I looked for the shadow and the light of it.

I did like to do some of the rope tying so that it was a turn on for her. If the ropes were stretched right, a vibration at one point would radiate down the ropes to wherever they were touching. A vibrator helped in this regard, and it was a duet, a dance for both of us, not me inflicting anything unwelcome onto her. This was another difference I had with Bon Vue, and my sessions at Gemini Manor gave me a chance to get Bon Vue out of my system. The Black Widow spider was a logo of Boudoir Noir, the magazine I published in Toronto, so these rope web times were a return to a happier period of my life. The beautiful spider could play.

I knew it was a good session if there was laughter during and afterward.

I’d arranged one session with two models and a photographer who had a Smithsonian Magazine credit. The whips were awkward, the ropes were flaccid, the nudity self conscious, and I could not get the flow going for us. When I submitted the photos to Taboo Magazine at their request, the editor rejected them for being too dark and not explicit enough. My photo shoot money was lost. Oh, well — the wheel keeps turning.

One could always find a good conversation at Alex’s events, from the ground floor to the roof. He attracted the worst, along with the best. His door was open to all, like his heart.

Gemini Manor was Hollywood, for me. And I was grateful to have that time, even if there was not room enough to throw a long whip. The flight of ideas and dreams more than made up for this.

Once, I heard that Freud said Fame was the state of being loved by many anonymous people.

I was presenting in Chicago one summer at a huge corporate hotel. Opening ceremonies had the presenters sitting in the audience, waiting to be introduced from the podium. My own moment came, and I stood up and smiled at the other attendees – particularly those on my right side.

Because I’d noticed a beautiful young thing in the crowd as we’d entered, and I was happy to see her sit in the row ahead of me, a few chairs to my right. Something in my soul purred, and I hoped we’d have the chance to talk after the presentations were over.

She was slender, wearing a leather dress adorned with little silver chains highlighting her neck and shoulders. The hair was short, like a boy’s, with pierced ears holding attractive amethyst studs.

The final remarks had been made from the stage, and everyone joined in the standing ovation. As the applause fizzled out, I prepared to say something to this remarkable creature that had caught my attention.

Before I could speak, she turned and looked at me, saying excitedly, “You’re Robert Dante!”

I felt like the seduction was halfway complete at this recognition. I secretly swelled with pride and magnified interest in this glowing person.

I smiled and admitted that I was present: “Yes, I am Robert Dante.”

Before I could say one more word, she squealed, “You played with my mother twenty years ago!”

My inner wings sagged, dragged on the wall to wall carpet, as I acknowledged the possibility of this being true. She slipped away like a fish back into a flowing river of people as she danced away.

I never learned her name. Or her mother’s.

CHAPTER FOUR

CIRCUS, CIRCUS

Setting world records helped to shape my career. The first record I could find relating to bullwhips was "longest whip," held by Krist King in the 1990s, with a whip only 78 feet long (the current record is 300-plus feet long). This had been the only category of bullwhip world records for the longest time, even though pioneers like Salt Bush Bill from Australia performed for years in front of the crowned heads of Europe in the early 20th century.

In 2002, I recognized the dearth of bullwhip records in Guinness World Records, so I devised the "Most Cracks in 60 Seconds" category and pitched it to Guinness, who went for it. I figured whatever I did would be a record someone else would break, so I arbitrarily set for myself the goal of 200 cracks in sixty seconds, and I did it on my second attempt at KTLA-TV Los Angeles with Gayle King emceeing and encouraging, massaging my aching shoulder back into action. My professional whip cracking friend Brian Chic measured the whip on camera to make sure we were following the rules which I had written. (I received some absolutely eloquent letters to me from Brian Chic — I wish he was still here — he’d be a keeper. Died of complications from his own diabetes.)

I rehearsed at the famous Hollywood Dream Circus: colorful soft mats, high ceilings, trapeze bars, plenty of space horizontally, and no complaints about the noise from the rehearsing aerialists. As Danny, owner of the Dream Circus and a ‘Let’s Get It Done Now!’ high energy chuckled to me, “They’ll need to learn how to ignore distractions in the real circus, anyway!”

I could be described as a pioneer in documenting world whip records. I even set up the Bullwhip Index of Whip Makers, Performers and Teachers webpage at www.bullwhip.info to keep track of the burgeoning numbers of whip-related world records. While I may have lit the torch, others have run farther with it than I ever could have. At this writing, for example, Adam Winrich has 34 Guinness World Records, April Jennifer Choi has 22. I had nothing to prove to anyone, except to myself, so I called my own GWR career quits at four records. The original goal was to get Guinness' credibility on our side, which we now have, in spades.

Australians host competitions, but that's among themselves and whoever goes down there. They are not "world records." Some U.S. clubs have contests, but the winner is the one who does best among the entries, which is not always the measurably best in the world at that moment.

One day Windy (my brief third wife) and I performed at a charity event for veterans. The rain was coming down torrentially. Some of the vets were camped in tents outside the auditorium. I performed some spontaneous stunts for the guys who would miss the big show inside with Jim Belushi’s band providing the music. This was the grim day Windy got stage fright and refused to go on with me. She would not even help me with the drenched stunts outside for the very grateful veterans encamped there. One young, disheveled soldier told us, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, man.” Windy and I annulled our marriage shortly afterward. If she could not support us in our Work (with a capital W), I had no time for her. In hindsight, it was a cruel cutoff, which I now regret. Not what I did, but the way that I did it.

Then it was my turn, when I was fired by Solari for breaking HUD guidelines to satisfy the apartments’ owners’ wish to let a specific person have an apartment which they did not qualify for. It turned out that Joanie was the one who had turned me in. She never spoke to me again and committed suicide with pills a year later when she was diagnosed with cancer. Yes, I forgave her many times over — she did have Nutmeg returned to me. I almost slipped back into the bottle, but LA has some great AA meetings, which were helpful.

I drove with Nutmeg on the dashboard of a U-Haul truck up to Monterrey Bay where I stayed with my friend Mark Shuler, until his own roommate decided I had been couch surfing with them for long enough.

I attended the local munches and gave an occasional workshop and presentation for area clubs. When teaching, I used a hands-on teaching technique, standing behind them and going slowly, gradually handing control over to them as their confidence increased. Once they felt it, they'd get it. I'd usually have the pleasure of seeing when the light bulb went on, the great “Aha!” moment. Adults or children, it was the same.

After Mark, I moved in with Carol. Life with Carol was fun, and she helped me to heal. She ran a professional dungeon called The Scenery that filled a warehouse space with racks and spanking benches and large carpeted areas where I could roll out the longer whips. I’d had some good bullwhip scenes there, and I helped to tear down the place after the landlord kicked her out when her lease ended.

She used to work for NASA before she retired, and she was the one who told me that some friends of hers had taken a marijuana cigarette, wrapped it in plastic, coated it with wax, decontaminated it and included it in a Lunar Lander module, so there is literally a joint on the moon (she did not specify which landing this was).

While I was staying with her, I had the bad fortune to fall in with the Garden Brothers for a short season of circus performing with what was called the Circus Matrix.

Niles and Lance Garden reached me by phone in California and invited me to travel with them on a Pay or Play contract. The legal definition of this type of contract means you get paid whether you perform or not for the duration of the contract. It sounded like a no-lose situation. Unfortunately, they had taken the expression “Pay or Play” literally as an either/or situation, meaning it was actually work for hire and you could be fired at any time without additional compensation. The die was cast for a collision of interpretations.

Thinking we were on the same page, I accepted the offer and flew out to Sarasota, Florida to run away with the circus. I was excited.

If I had done due diligence, I would have learned that the Garden Brothers’ reputation in the industry stank, right down from their old man, who’d been sanctioned several times for abusing animals in his shows.

I landed and took a cab to the hotel, where I found out that they thought I would pay for my own room. They seemed disgruntled when I urged them to pay the bill or have me waiting for them on the sidewalk the next morning. It did not bode well.

The following day, we carpooled out to the trucks and trailers, and I saw my new home on wheels. Each trailer had four doors. My own door led to a cell with a narrow window. The platform bed was four plywood tiers high. I had to wriggle in sideways like a submariner and try to avoid being reminded of concentration camp bunks. I realized I needed to have a piss bucket with me. For the moment, I was the only inhabitant of the ramshackle setup.

We traveled between cities by night, swaying and bumping down back roads to avoid police because the drivers did not have legal licenses to drive the big trucks. Sleeping became a miserable experience, rocking back and forth like a ship in a squall.

Our first performances were in colleges and city auditoriums. My 8-foot whips got a hell of a workout, enough to wear holes into my gloves. I soon went bare-handed, and my blisters became calluses.

My routine was different every time as I figured out what would work in an arena, keeping the bits that got a good response and tossing the pieces that didn’t work. It was definitely a work in progress that evolved as the days passed. I was both fearless and shameless.

I’d bounce up and down on my toes to get the blood rushing, take a deep breath, and dive into it. The blacklight bullwhips glowed beautifully, but they did not strobe at 100 flashes per second as they would have with an individual light unit. The effect was still good enough to make kids afterward ask me how I changed the batteries in the whips. At one show, at the end of a six-minute routine, one of the whips slipped from my hand and went sailing back into the ring’s entrance. I threw the second whip after it and took a final bow. I heard later that reps from Ringling Brothers were there, and I’m sure they were not impressed by my show. Neither was I. I was angry and frustrated by the lost opportunity.

Sometimes the weather played a big part. One show was so cold they set up a huge football sideline space heater that looked like a rocket engine backstage, and we all huddled close to it. I especially felt sorry for the Nigerian acrobats who shared their food with me, because they seemed to have more trouble tolerating the cold than I did.

My part of the show was pedestrian at best, with whip flashes followed by self cutting routines, then the double whip cracking. It was a trade off with longer whips. They looked good but they took longer to move through the air than shorter whips. It skewed the momentum. An assistant would have helped, but when I auditioned an acrobat girl I got no further than a close crack to her fingers which scared her off. I was doomed to be a solo act, and not a very good one.

During intermissions I hawked tickets for folks to get photos with two boa constrictors. I felt cheap, but I gave it my best shot. This seemed to satisfy them, but my own bullwhip show proper was still trying to find its legs.

The day finally came when I was taken aside and told I would be paid off for the week and that my job was done. So there I was in Georgia, with an employer not honoring the Pay or Play contract because he misunderstood what the term meant. I was furious and panicked. I was stranded without the fare to get back home. I could do self-cuts and fancy twirling out the wazoo, but there was no danger in it. I needed to have an assistant, a Target Girl, a beautiful girl to put in danger so that she could escape beautifully. My tinnitus was screaming like a banshee and my shoulder ached from the inside out.

The day after I was fired, I called the Highway Patrol to report the unlicensed drivers and the dangerous traveling practices. I found out later that their whole season was canceled because they could not work without trucks. I felt sorry for the other performers, but I also considered it to be fair karma. When I sued the Garden brothers for the rest of my fee, I won my case in court — but collecting my award was another story. Years later, I was able to get my money after a private investigating service found out the circus co-owner had a stake in an apartment building in Sarasota, and I threatened to attach it. The money came through smooth as silk, with its sizable interest.

I came out of it with a greater respect for circus folks like Gary Brophy who could put together an exhilarating and compelling bullwhip routine as part of a longer show with family members. Way to go, Gary!

Stranded in Georgia, I remembered the professional belly dancer Tina, the only friendly voice I could think of on that side of the country to call at that moment.

She flew me up to Minneapolis and became my new host at her apartment. The sex was cozy, the sleeping together deeply satisfying. I loved how she lavished attention on her costumes. She was a talented seamstress as well as performer. She was so intelligent, I never got bored with her. A few weeks later I was able to get Nutmeg back from California. He was woozy from the tranquilizers he’d been given, but he nuzzled into me like I was the goal of life itself. He was still peeing a lot and wasn’t holding his weight. Tina connected me with a vet who diagnosed Nutmeg with stress-induced diabetes. I was given insulin and syringes. Nutmeg never complained about my giving him the shots, and he began to thrive again.

I loved to travel with Tina. Once, we flew down to a burlesque festival in North Carolina. The performance went well, but one of the other female performers objected to my being in the dressing room before the show. I wound up preparing myself in a corner backstage while Tina put the last touches to her costume on alone. She knew how to use the flowing cloth to enhance the drama of the sinuous bullwhip without tangling with the costume. The exposed parts of her body highlighted the body wraps I performed on her. Her timing was perfect and she knew how to hit and hold a pose without making it seem forced.

Rehearsals ideally should be done in a dance studio with floor to ceiling mirrors so you can see the act in real time as the audience will see it. An angle here obscures the whip, a quick move there is lost by the positions of the actors. “Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.”

It’s the drama of the dance that rivets an audience to the moment. The very real skill of doing a neck wrap safely, the energy wave passing from one person through to the other person, to the completion of the cycle, the electrical circuit.

A good whip act with two people has rehearsed moments and sharp timing, but it also must have empathy between the two dancers. A call and a response. The two sides in a single spirit, a sole thought, a focused blend of bravery and boldness.

Costumes should be whip compatible (remember how Sarah Bernhart’s long flowing scarf resulted in her broken neck). Spangles and fringes are made to capture whips in tangles. Masks and head gear automatically cut down the zones of safety.

Music is not an accompaniment. It is the breathing heart of the piece. The action sells the music to the audience. It should be organically intertwined, like the serpents on the winged staff of a caduceus.

I still think a belly dancer is the best choice for a Target Girl, if only for the physicality of it. She vibrates even when she is standing still. Her flowing arms and hands ripple sinuously like feathers in wind, reeds in a liquid lake of air. Her natural beauty rises dangerously through the costume, where she is clothed and where she is bare. Her vulnerability is enticing, breathtaking in a dance with an equally dangerous bullwhip.

It is a dialogue with two voices, a poem with two speakers.

I always liked working with Tina. She was a trouper. On our way to one show we were rear ended on the freeway. My neck snapped back, and I had seat belt bruises on my shoulder, on top of the chronic pain. The show went on, though I was stiff. Seeing a chiropractor became part of our routine.

The money became thin, so I finally had to take on work to make ends meet. I worked as a typist for the county election board, and as a file clerk for the St. Paul School District. I held that job until I was bumped from my position by someone with seniority who wanted my job. I tried St. Paul Schools again a few years later and became a file clerk, again. A year later, I was fired two days after receiving a stellar rating at an annual job review. I think the reason was because I pointed out a student was sporting gang symbols on her notebooks. I suppose I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t try them a third time.

The jobs were an interesting break and did not interfere with my doing shows at night and on weekends. Tina wanted to see what it was like to be a Target Girl for an actual knife thrower, so I connected her with Throwdini. She flew out to the East Coast and did several shows with him. He rewarded her with pay and a coffee table made from part of the Wheel of Death he’d used in past shows. In return, he visited Minneapolis, where he tried to give me suggestions on how to increase my bookings. I did not listen to his well-meaning advice because it felt like he was telling me how to run my business; For better or for worse, I was the master of my fate.

Tina and I hooked up with a vaudeville troupe that performed weekends at a local bar. It required two four-minute acts, and we had fun mixing the music and trying new stunts and tricks. I kept the ones that worked, and let go of the ones that did not. The pay was minimal, but the practice was priceless.

Tina opened my eyes to a whole new dimension in whip performing, bringing her sizable talent as a professional belly dancer/magician’s assistant to the task. She would make “snake arms” on one side of the stage while I was doing double-handed volleys inches away from her on the other side.

When Tina and I broke up, I wound up keeping the apartment alone while she bought a little house for herself. I used the spare time to finish my book, “Let’s Get Cracking! The How-To Book of Bullwhip Skills.” The critical acclaim was gratifying, as was the initial royalty return. It paid my rent when I was between jobs and gave me an excuse to push the PR on the whip cracking career. I set a new Guinness World Record during this time, and that helped to focus fresh attention on me, as well.

It was in a public park in front of the requisite witnesses. I had learned from the other record holders how to fudge the rules so I had an advantage. Instead of doing volleys along one side of my body, I did a windshield wiper action, holding the whip halfway down its handle. Instead of my shoulder getting the workout, the labor fell solely into my forearm.

I mounted my platform, waiting for the video camera to start. Then we counted down: ‘Four – Three – Two – One – Go!”

I blasted into the windshield wiper action with everything I had. The first ten seconds were long, the next ten seconds seemed longer. It was as if I’d been running on a flat plane, and now it turned into a steep hill. The whip got heavier, the air became thicker, the hill became steeper and my muscles started to burn. I gritted my teeth.

And I kept going, as if each stroke was my last one. Finally, I heard the words: “Three-Two-One — Stop!” I dropped the whip. I was sure I could have gotten two or three more cracks out of it, but the clock had run its course. Now we replayed the video.

The cracks were coming too fast to count. We could play it back in slow motion to be accurate, but for now we just needed an approximation. I had a pencil and a piece of paper. As I listened to the tape, I made a tick mark every time I heard a crack. That was the key. The crack had to be audible to be counted toward the record. By my reckoning, and the best estimates of a few of the witnesses, I’d done it with 274 cracks in sixty seconds.

Now we began the process of making it official, packing up the documentation and witness statements, getting it into the mail to London. Then the real waiting began.

Waiting for verification is agonizing, but if you don’t pay for an adjudicator to be there, you just have to wait for the final decision in Guinness’ own good time.

The next week, back at home, Nutmeg died in my arms. All I felt from him was acceptance of me and everything that had happened to us, even in those last moments, without any judgment attached to it. He’d given me a gift I could never repay, and that was my life itself.

Time for a change, so I moved into a cheap garage apartment close to downtown. This was when I met Mary Anderson.

At a kinky social gathering in a bar in Minneapolis, someone kept trying to catch my eye, always trying to stand where she thought I was looking. This was the Mary Anderson, not to be confused with the Mary DeLongis, my former wife. This Mary had heard I was no longer with Tina, and every time I turned around she was there, trying to get my attention. Her quasi-dom kept trying to interfere with our speaking privately, until I finally growled and got her phone number so we could talk candidly with each other later. She said she’d never “flirted” before. I was just taken with her freshness and eagerness.

Finally, I gave her the time of day and we arranged to get together. She told me she didn’t know if a relationship would work, but she was sure she could fulfill the duties of a Target Girl. I agreed to give her a try. Since she was an army veteran with 35 parachute jumps under her belt, I figured she could stand in front of me with a bullwhip bravely enough. It wasn’t long before I had her move in with me.

I thought we needed a persona for Mary, since I already had one (the 'Arrogant Asshole'), so we went with the Amelia Earhart look, leather jacket, white scarf, flying cap. It worked, in a Tank Girl sort of way. There was no fringe or large buttons for the whips to snag on, and the cap protected her ears.

“I christen thee The Daring Mary,” I announced regally.

“With you in your frock coat and cravat, we look like we’ve just come out of a Time Bandits movie!” she declared.

Looks may not be everything, but they do count for a lot.

And finally the word came back from Guinness. The record was official, and my certificate was in the mail.

At our first show together, a Wild West event in Wyoming, she was scared, clumsy and awkward, but she thought quickly on her feet and seemed to have rapport with the audience. She also seemed to understand the dynamics of our Punch and Judy show. The performing area was marked out with hay bales, and the cowboys sat on them. They were so close that I did not need to use a sound system for my stories to be heard.

Afterward, everyone went to the local bar to get drinks. It was a low, wide building with a garage door on one wall, wide open for the cooling effect and the sounds of the cicadas. The juke box was stacked with classics from Ernest Tubbs and Hank Williams.

We stood at the bar, when a small woman in jeans and a fringed shirt and wearing a huge cowboy hat rode a horse into the center of the bar and sat there. The bartender said to us, “Don’t worry, they come in here a lot.” The horse ambled over to the bar and started nuzzling Mary, who returned the affection with pats and caresses while the bar tender gave the rider a can of beer. The cowgirl seemed already a little woozy to me.

“Are you okay for riding?” I asked.

“No problem! The horse knows the way home!” she replied brightly. (I had not heard that one before.) The bartender nodded his head and winked. She was telling us the truth.

Mary was an excellent traveling companion. She could take over the driving and hold her own in a sizzling conversation to break the tedium of crossing the plains. We once drove under a cloud of migrating sand cranes, which was otherworldly.

We saw parts of this nation that took our breaths away, like Devil’s Tower. The sheer cliff was surrounded by trees with prayer bags tied in the branches by indigenous people. I took a photo of Mary leaning back against the mountain with her eyes closed and her face turned toward the sun, and I would have sworn she began to melt into the rock formation. She came out of the experience like she had just sailed around the Horn, blinking her eyes.

A few days later, I awoke in the wee hours with astonishing agony in my hand and shoulder. Mary helped by talking me through it, but I still had to tank up on pain meds.

Then out to Twin Cities Pain Clinic to see Karen Trutnau, my Pain Doctor. She continued to be amazed at where I was now compared to where I was when I first came in to see her, when I was worried that my career, and my life, were over because I could not do what I loved because of the pain.

“I recommend steroid injections before we look at surgical intervention,” she told me. The brief sting of the needle was a fair trade for months of pain-free whip cracking. I came to look forward to the cringe of the needle going in because it was followed by deeply satisfying relief from my torment. The capsule-release surgeries were not so much a blessing.

Desperately, I exercised to regain my strength and flexibility. I rolled a ball in my palm around the wall to regain my range of motion. I lifted small weights. And I was still able to perform, gritting my teeth.

The career was going well, but we always had to face the reality of our bank balance. To supplement our income, I again threw myself into the work force, becoming an actual doorman at a downtown medical center. I wore my own top hat, and I used the time at the front of the building to learn Morse code to alleviate the grinding boredom of the job. I lasted eight months at that position, until I snapped back at an abusive car driver blocking the ambulance’s entrance. The obnoxious driver threatened me with violence (“I’ll cut your ponytail off!”), and I was stupid enough to call him a fucking idiot. On the bright side, with all the cars in the street heading in one constant direction, I had been getting sea sick anyway, so I did not protest my termination.

This began our homeless phase, sleeping in Walmart parking lots and rest stops, stopping in national parks and truckers’ havens. In the fall, we found a couple who offered to let us stay in their basement, so we were able to reestablish ourselves after about a year of homelessness.

My shoulders continued to give me problems. Adhesive capsulitis is commonly called “frozen shoulder,” and it had hit both of my shoulders. I am told it is a side effect of the endocrine problems that accompany diabetes. With my history, I was absolutely primed for it.

The routine was the same each time. My shoulder would ache like a volcano, and I would power through it. Teaching and performing generated enough energy to see me through, but when I crashed it was a crater that required Hydrocodone for me to climb out of it. Eventually, the range of motion would deteriorate to the point I would ask for the knife again. This happened about eight times.

We came home after one East Coast Tour to find that, without warning, our landlord had pulled all our furniture out so he could install ceiling tiles. Papers were disorganized, much-needed insulin was missing from the fridge. It was a catastrophe. With my blood sugar dangerously elevated, I spent a night in ICU bringing my blood sugar down from 900. I didn’t know it could get so high and still be compatible with life itself.

“What are we going to do?” Mary asked.

We had some money tucked away, so I went to Plan B.

“We can rent a room by the week at a Red Roof Motor Inn, then apply to Minneapolis Public Housing Authority for aid. We certainly qualify for the help,” I said. “But those two people back there are not getting another dime of our money.”

We were okayed to have a home in an affordable housing apartment in Minneapolis. Rent was now a percentage of our income, much less than it had been.

One night, Mary said I was combative in a dream, and my gesticulations woke her; she held my wrist and told me that I was only dreaming, and I roughly told her to shut up so I could finish the dream. I felt it was important; I sincerely apologized the next morning. The dream was not worth it.

On another night, Mary had the meltdown, being colossally negative, sucking the air out of the room and the electricity out of my veins. And I made the mistake of pointing this out to her – the result was tears and fierce banging, followed by a thousand-word screed screamed at her mother who was on her own last legs, for every bad thing she ever did and every bad choice Mary had made self destructively that she’d experienced in her entire life.

Was I one of those bad choices?

I was wordless, not feeding into this, and I gave her a genuine heartfelt hug. She calmed down, but we knew it was past time to cut the strings with that toxic mother, better before she popped off, triggering another screamfest of blame and guilt for Mary. This was a shame, because I genuinely liked her father, a former fire chief from Minneapolis, a benign inebriate who loved to take us to seafood restaurants.

In the spring, we were hired to do a show in the middle of the Daytona Speedway. The car exhaust was stifling and the constant engine blasts were so loud that no matter how loudly I power-cracked, the cracks were drowned out by the combined roar of all the machines. We had to talk in shouts. I don’t know why they even gave me the gig. It felt like I was doing a routine for a silent movie. There was no way I would win.

One drunk redneck decided he’d out-macho me by daring me to take a cigarette out of his mouth. Against my better judgment, I obliged him, leaving a fair amount of the cigarette dangling from his lip. He dared me to do it again, and I jumped at the opportunity to play with him. The cigarette was now much shorter. He dared me to do it again, but Mary grabbed my arm and reminded me that we did not need to have a claim made against our performers’ insurance. The drunk’s friends surrounded him, hustling him away before any damage was done, to his face or our reputation.

The sound of the crack is integral to the bullwhip experience, of course. However, I did know one performer who focused so much on safety and precision that his cracks sounded like pancakes being dropped onto a platter. It did not matter that he had great costumes and hilarious patter. There just was no payoff in their otherwise seasoned act.

This is why I use the Point and Squeeze technique, a variation on the Kendo tenouchi. If you give the handle a firm squeeze and leave the whip aimed at the target, you’ll get a resounding report, and you can tell the whip where precisely you want it to crack. If I do several of these in a row, I can get multiple cracks out of a single swing in the air.

It’s the sizzle that sells the steak, my friends!

CHAPTER FIVE

G'DAY, MATE!

One bright morning, Australia beckoned with an extravagant offer. I could not say no. It was a single ticket, though, so I could not take Mary with me.

Day 1 — Up early, showered and shaved, taken to Minneapolis Airport by Mary.

“Wish I was going with you,” she said out the window as she dropped me off at the already bustling Departure gate. “I’ve never been to Australia.”

“Neither have I,” I said, hoisting the bags onto the curb. “I do wish you were going, too.”

“Safe trip,” she waved.

“Love you,” I called out. “Talk to you tonight.”

This day, my buttons were really punched by the usual assholes, those TSA "bullies with badges." One loud-mouthed fart thought he was being a comedian, while another one could not believe how quickly I’d emptied my pockets; he ridiculed me. I guess they aspired to become Japanese subway crammers. I bordered on passive-aggressive feelings, getting the short breath and the tunnel vision — I was on thin ice, but I walked across before things fell apart.

I flew to Los Angeles with three unruly, screaming children behind me. One kid yelled for three hours straight. I was feeling stressed and angry as much at the parents as at the obnoxious children. I thought this was why they invented travel cages that could go into the cargo hold.

Flying to gigs is roulette — you don’t know what you’re going to get. In Los Angeles I saw a cart carrying a travel bag for golf clubs being wheeled past me, and I could not resist the impulse to remove my hat and lower my eyes as if it was a funeral procession. I looked forward to reading my Jacques Prevert poetry at 40,000 feet. Then I was off to Oz KinkFest, resting in the gloomy 18-hour semi-sleep of long distance travel.

Day 2 (on the other side of the International Date Line) — Got some sushi from my host Di, an incredible impresario of the kink experience. The show went well that night, the usual stunts with the usual dramatics and posturings with the lovely whips, followed by people stopping to chat with me in the mayhem between acts. I watched beautiful girls as models for the fashion show in a marvelous turnout which was particularly fun. Ahh, the beautiful women of Melbourne, their flashing eyes and nipply tits, a bigger part of the audience than I usually had. In the elevators, I felt as packed in as a New York City subway car, sardine style.

Australia has only intolerance for those who have the tobacco addiction. Still a smoker at the time, I wound up buying loose tobacco to stretch my meager Camels. I was able to keep myself in Coca Colas, finding the Australian version has more sugar and less fizz than the U.S. Cokes. Walking on Bruinswick Street, I felt like I was back in Toronto. I was wistful, especially when the street cars rang their deep bells as they crackled through the rumbling intersections.

Before I left for the show, I was pimping my United Kingdom appearances by phone and emails; Andy in Birmingham still needed to sell 14 tickets to break even. Then back to the business at hand.

The second show went just as well as the first. The balloon within a balloon gaff worked beautifully, better than expected. Great effect. This was the year Melbourne beat out Sydney as the most livable city in Australia (it was also the seventh most livable city in the world, according to — who? I can’t recall.) Melbourne is one of the great cities of the world. This event was also where K.L. Joy gave my high boots a good polishing. Soft but firm, lathering and loving the leather, a sensual boot massage that had my scalp buzzing.

Day 3 — I walked around the corner to a store, got a pastie, a Coke and a Turkish Delight for breakfast, made another call to Di and left a message. Finally called an Uber to the Wharf Hotel. Beautiful day, blue skies, cool breeze, and I was sitting at the Wharf watching the river police try to revive a drowned man without success. Finally, about 5:30pm, people started showing up for the Munch. The camaraderie was warm, the conversation scintillating. The men were young and well groomed, the women fresh and eager. I love munches like this where I am not bored, and the Cokes keep coming.

Day 4 — Back at Di’s, I watched a documentary about Samurai bowmen — Fascinating, many parallels to the whip experience. I walked on the brick sidewalks to a nearby mall, got some sausage rolls to nibble on and some touristy things for the folks back home. Windy day, so I had to walk with one hand holding my hat. Fred made dinner of lamb, brussels sprouts, carrots, potatoes, yams, gravy — A full-on meal like I’d had at my grandmother’s in Lancashire, back when I had an actual extended family. I did some house cleaning, checking lights, repacking gear, doing laundry. Had a video chat with Mary. Online, I got pissed off by Slydexia’s cool tone at my offer to present at Kinkfest in Oregon next year. I decided to make another California event the anchor for the next year’s West Coast Tour.

Going for an afternoon walk on Bruinswick Street, I saw a shop window poster that had Frankenstein surrounded by the words, ‘Even with your hands around my neck, I will adore you.’ From what I’ve seen, in Australia, they do relish their fashion sense. One couple asked me where I got my hat band. It was an 18-inch whip. They seemed surprised that it was not something sold locally.

Day 5 — Fresh morning, getting over the jet lag, I gave two private lessons — high energy, great interaction, positive progress worth their whiles. Lots of balloons, and my arm hurt. Lots of Biofreeze rubbed into my shoulder afterward.

Speaking of pain, providing pain is not a matter of stupidly picking up the meanest looking toy and hauling off and hitting someone. Further, all leather is not created the same. I had a heavy oiled latigo flogger with very sharp edges (oiled latigo will hold an edge), and it could cut skin while it left deep bruises.

Even with a feather duster, I can find a pure sadistic, evil intent highly erotic. Yes, one should think of bullwhip play as a dance, not a contest. Like sex, if you both had a good time, it worked.

Day 6 — I finally saw the legendary Leffler’s Leather Store, with its amazing warehouse of hides of all sorts of animals. I bought a red kangaroo hide, smelling like heaven, rich and deep. Then out to The Fetish House with its nine dommes, all high quality and highly energized. After the workshop, Misty took us out to eat some souvlaki at a Greek restaurant, then on to a panel discussion of The Business Side of BDSM. Now back to Di’s with my arm and shoulder very sore from the exertions of the day, I popped a Hydrocodone to kill the pain. Christine ran me out to Q Space where I had two private lessons with Angel and Tiger, who drove in from Sydney. They had a bunch of the famous Sharron Taylor’s whips, saying she was doing poorly, taking chemo. They showed me four-foot bullwhips which Sharron called the Dante whips, because I created the specifications and the demand, years before. A great two hours with them.

Day 7 — I hit the casino, made a few dollars with a mini-jackpot on a slot machine. I bought some actual cigarettes, surprised that all the packs looked alike in Australia. I’d accidentally purchased some menthol cigarettes which were awful. I wound up giving them away and trying Dunhills, which were not quite Camels but better, at least, than the menthols. I Ubered out to Bruinswick Street, sat in the back of the auditorium and listened to the ingenious Ignexia Roberts talk about Consent. It was well covered, but there was nothing new there for me from all the similar workshops I’d sat in before.

Day 8 — I packed my bags again because I was supposed to be staying at Chaser’s Nightclub for Hellfire Resurrection. I Ubered over, and my Target Girl Crystal was already there. She had volunteered for the ‘Enjoy Yourself’ routine with balloons and a banana. She wore a red corset and red stockings to great effect. The slightly limp banana hanging flaccidly from her fist didn’t want to cut cleanly, so I wound up decapitating it with my knife, brandishing the blade like a melodrama assassin. Good laughs from the audience, though I gave the show a B-plus score overall. This was because I was working on a stage 10-feet wide, under four low disco balls and four chandeliers, so I was glad I went conservative with my routine and didn’t get too wild. Glad I did not clip Crystal. Afterward, hours of boredom, watching the pretty young things in their store-bought fetish gear. At 3am Di called me a cab, and I slung my bags in. By 4am I was able to check my emails and chat with Mary. Got three hours of sleep, then up again, zoomed out to the venue for three 2-hour workshops. Good stuff. I finally bedded down at 7pm and slept for another three hours. I woke with a blood sugar of 44, so I gobbled my glucose tablets, sucked my honey out of the bottle. The party was in full swing with Heidi, who was self conscious about the marks on her back which I’d given her the day before. I played with Angel while Cass was fisting her. I only played with her front using a short snake whip, because she had large tattoos on her back that she was going to have filled in with color later that week.

I played with Jane, a newbie, nervous while she negotiated the scene with me. Difficult to play under traffic light colors flashing, so I played lightly on her ass through a little window of rearranged mesh stockings. Then I played with Sandra, amazingly youthful and sexy, with her sissy-boy in tow, licking his tight lips and staring at me with jealousy. Earlier, she’d complimented me on my teaching style and said that at moments it was Poetry. Ahh, that is the highest compliment I could ask for… I was really turned on by her, so I hoped to see her again. But I didn’t.

At 3am, I finished making the crackers for the next day’s workshops, alone in a big double bed with a single thin blanket, recalling my Houston days when the blankets were thinner.

I had to take a Hydrocodone because my left hand hurt. Right arm ached inside along the bone. I spent some time playing with card holders which I used for balloons, as well, trying to consistently cut. Okay on the vertical axis, but still ragged on the horizontal plane.

Day 9 — After a few hours of sleep, zipped out to the venue to do three workshops, back to back. Afterward, I found a soft place in the green room and fell asleep for three hours. I am told I was snoring. My arm, my shoulder and my hands all hurt. Popped the inevitable Hydrocodone, again, and I slipped into a state of self-hynosis to try to calm the pain further.

Day 10 — Last three workshops with fresh faces, including Bella Donna, Tiger, and Steve, to whom I sold my switchblade plus a few crackers. I was exhausted. Greg and Crystal took me to their house for dinner, where I met their amazing children. Around children, I made sure the conversation was always G-rated. Back at Di’s, I opened the thank you note to see a check for $675.00 for the private lessons, not counting the money she fronted me. And that night, I finally got to eat some kangaroo, which was gamier than I expected. Actually, I don't know what I expected — kangaroo meat is not something you'd expect to be eating.

Day 11 — I took the day off, jumping on the train downtown to Wardlow House where they’d filmed the exteriors of the Phryne Fisher detective series, then walked down to town, marveling at the architecture. Melbourne shimmers in the sunlight, with deep Victorian shadows black between the buildings. The masses on the sidewalks were like Manhattanites on librium, polite and helpful.

Day 12 — I Ubered out to the airport, where the wifi was not working. My hand and arm ached so I popped another Hydrocodone. My departure was delayed for four hours with a change of gates, so the pill did not last. By that time, I was a little spacey, especially having no cigarettes. By 11pm we were airborne, with no wifi on the flight. (Goodbye Melbourne, and thank you for the fish!)

Day 13 — Still trying to get used to the time difference, I was sitting in the corner of a construction site at the Auckland airport in New Zealand. It was almost 5am when I broke down and bought some cigarettes — Marlborough Reds for $28.00 a pack. But I still had a 14-hour layover to contend with.

At 6:30pm, I found out I did not have a boarding pass and my bags should have been picked up (I wasn’t told any of this). They dithered about whether I should go to Landing to pick them up myself or if they had time to retag the bags.

Day 14 — Boarded at Auckland, still not sure if my bags were transferred. Struggling to hold my anxiety in. Watched Bogart and Bacall in “The Big Sleep” again and again in the tiny screen on the back of the seat in front of me, until we landed.

Like a zombie, I walked around the San Francisco airport, trying to find my bags. Airport’s info desks were worse than useless. I finally reached someone from New Zealand Air on the phone, but I could only hope the bags arrived when I did. I was unshaven, sweating, coughing, and not pretty to look at. But I was going home, and all my bags miraculously arrived with me. With the relief from anxiety and the help of Hydrocodone, I knew I would sleep for three days, if I could get my collarbone to stop stabbing me, and if I could reduce the tinnitus screaming in my head down to a muffled background shriek.

I took the kangaroo hide home and split it into laces, braiding some simple key fobs. What I saw was that I needed to practice leather plaiting a lot more before I undertook making a whip.

Because of the expense of buying kangaroo hides, I obtained a 1,000-foot spool of paracord instead, rolled up my sleeves and dove in. I made the core with BBs in it for weight, and I braided a simple round four-plait over it. I stretched the strands across the livingroom and into the kitchen, knotting as I went. After doing the overlay finally, my first four-foot whip had the basic shape of a whip, but it was not a working instrument. I did slightly better with my next attempt, learning as I went, referring to my whip books; Ron Edwards' book is still the best.

I plaited and unplaited, wove and unwove, the distance between the image in my mind and the reality in my hands sometimes seeming insurmountably far apart. I was like a spider on LSD, meticulously, meditatively weaving my web.

Some of the best whip makers have made several thousand whips each. The good ones never stop experimenting, like Peter Jack with his Karaka series of bullwhips. Some, like Joe Strain and Joe Wheeler, learned their craft from David Morgan himself. Some, like Victor Tella, achieved a high level of art, but then fell off into uneven quality, perhaps because they were farming out their work to others. All the good ones had waiting lists for their whips, sometimes up to a year. A few, like the late Bernie Em, numbered their whips as they went, like serial numbers to identify each unique creation. Some, like Evan Fava, surprised the world by taking top honors at Australian whip making competitions (the first time an American got the top score). Some were situated as far away as Johnny Ohgren, who plied his trade in Sweden but reached a clientele around the world because of the quality of his work (he also generously shared what he knew in an excellent book), and Naomi Damien in Japan, who brought power and grace to her whip routines and her Wave Shapers classes. The leather workers of Sialkot in Pakistan made fairly good whips out of goat hide, but never broke into the top tiers. There were ripoff artists who used other whipmakers' photographs on their websites. Some whipmakers like Paul Nolan consistently fed the never satiated market in whips in the film industry. Some like Giovanni Celeste in Italy made their whips with the care of a modern-day Stradivarius. There was a herd of whip makers from Florida who made cow whips, a wobbly cross between a stockwhip and a bullwhip. There were some, like Adam Winrich, who combined their whip cracking skills with their artistry in making whips.

I plodded my way diligently, making a total of 40 whips before I unraveled them all and saluted my betters, quitting that aspect of the bullwhip game which I could never win.

I knew I could never hope to join their respectable ranks, but my foray into whip making fostered in me a greater appreciation for their own artistry. And my hands felt it. I could say this whip cost me a steroid shot, that whip cost me three Hydrocodones. I was braiding in my dreams at night, floating over fields of singletail pussy willows.

I have hefted whips made of kangaroo, cowhide, chain links, goatskin, paracord, rubber, deerskin and more. If one person could imagine it, another person will have tried it. Some day, a whip will be made that incorporates the ashes of a bullwhip artist in a phial in its handle.

The crackers of whips also displayed a wide variety of materials: cotton, silk, polyester, horsehair, human hair, embroidery thread, and more. It seemed that if a single mind could imagine it, a pair of hands somewhere could make it reality. That's probably where the idea for fire whips came from.

I was featured in a film by Jake Yuzna titled "After America" in which I cracked a fire whip at the frozen Minnehaha Falls in the middle of winter. The white wall of ice towered above me as I swooshed and snapped the flaming whip.

Oh, brave new world, that has such creatures in it.

CHAPTER SIX

ON THE FIRING LINE

It was early evening as Mary and I crossed the border from Winnipeg, Alberta back into North Dakota where we were held for eight hours by U.S. border agents because my laptop computer contained ‘illegal images.‘ Sight unseen. We were told this was the reason for our being detained even before they’d had a chance to look at my laptop. Not fearing anything because we had done nothing wrong, we rolled with the blow. (Remember Rule No. 2: Never Top a Top.) We cooperated.

They also confiscated the three bananas I’d brought with me, which was quite correct. My bad, flouting the agriculture laws so flagrantly.

First, we were placed in a holding cell while they searched our car. We were joined after a while by a young man who said he was AWOL from the U.S. Army and had stolen a gun. My gut did not feel right about him, and I’m pretty sure he was hoping to engage us in conversation to see if there was anything more to learn about any possibly illegal activities that Mary and I might have been up to.

I was placed in a glass walled room, the glass so heavy it made no sound when I tapped it with my fingernails or even when I rapped on it harder with my knuckles. It was a bomb-proof window. Mary was allowed to sit in the waiting room.

My blood sugar began to drop, so I requested something to restore me – and they gave me one of the bananas. (For some reason, they seemed to have no interest in Mary’s Morphine or my Hydrocodone.)

The interview was conducted in a tiny room over a tiny desk, with me, the Homeland Security officer and a uniformed witness who never said a word during the two-hour grilling. My officer wore a Hawaiian shirt and a small gold cross. He had the hairiest knuckles of any ape I’ve ever seen. The officer chased me with some questions before allowing us after a few hours to go on our way without our laptop computers.

I filed an official appeal and contacted my Senator and Representative. Eventually, more than a year later, I received a positive outcome, and I felt vindicated, but —

The note I received from Dept of Homeland Security said that out of the tens of thousands of pictures on our computers, they found three (3) they labeled ‘contraband images.’ They would not tell me which ones they were or why they were so classed. We were told we could get our computers, flash drives, external storage devices, etc. returned after I signed their goddamned Hold Harmless Agreement.

In effect, they committed legal extortion by holding my property hostage until I signed this Hold Harmless Agreement.

And yes, what they did with their detention and seizure was damaging to our income and reputation, etc. because of the year-long loss of contacts, contracts, passwords, records, etc. I wanted to see them in court to get a fair settlement. But I thought the better of this and let the matter go.

When I got my stuff back 13 months later, it was sent to me in a thick plastic body bag.

Message understood.

Getting gigs is a haphazard process. It usually starts with a phone call. First, they want to see if I’m available, then if they can afford me. This time, the voice surprised me.

“Would you like to try to break your own record for us? We’re coming out with a new video game with Indiana Jones, and we thought it would be cool to tie in a new world record with the bullwhip.”

“Sure,” I said, “I’m game.”

“How much would you charge? It’ll be in England,” he said.

“About three thousand dollars,” I said.

“That’s about what we figured,” he said. “When can you do this? Next week?”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s do it. I can’t guarantee I’ll set a new record, but I’ll promise to do my level best.”

“That’s all we ask,” he said.

The flights were booked, and I packed my bags. I arrived at Heathrow Airport and was driven to my hotel in Westminster, next to the Thames River. I spent the afternoon sight seeing.

That night, I could not sleep, so I ironed my shirt and trousers. Meditatively, carefully. Over and over.

My hotel room was at the top of the building. Not the penthouse — More like the attic. The ceiling sloped. The room was so small, you could not open the front door if the bathroom door was open. The view over the rooftops of London was spectacular. Very Dr. Who-ish.

I was set to give it a go the next morning. At first, it was to be at Covent Garden. We started walking. Then it was switched to the Museum of Natural Science. We started walking to the museum, but when we reached the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, the museum staff raised royal hell about the reverberations of bullwhip cracks in the hall. The shock waves might damage the exhibits. I had to agree.

We wound up walking outside, where the wind was gusting. I knew it would make the whip sail like a kite, making my job harder, but I was in for a penny, in for a pound.

I was wearing my new WestEd brown leather jacket, one of the perks I’d negotiated with my host. I took the bullwhip out and started to warm up, jet lagged and tired from all the walking, already.

“We have an electronic timer,” my host said, pointing to a digital display. But the adjudicator noted that the timers needed to register down to 1/100 of a second. The display only showed up to one tenth of a second.

I looked at the fresh-faced adjudicator in his Guinness blazer. He carried a shopping bag with the certificate already framed peeking out of the top. I had a bad feeling about this.

I waited for the new stopwatches to arrive and continued to warm up before I got cold, again. Then it was time. Zoom zoom.

I went balls to the wall, but I knew I was nowhere near my mark. After the video was checked at the studio, I was told the bad news: I’d only cracked the whip 178 times. The right man, with the right whip, in the right conditions, might get close to 300 cracks a minute. Mine was not even an honorable showing. That part of the event was over.

We zipped over to a jungle-themed nightclub, where the ceiling was draped with fishing nets barely above my head. A minefield for someone wielding a bullwhip. I cracked a few times, gave a few school children some of my extra crackers, put out a single candle on a table top, and my adventure in London was abruptly at an end.

On the plane, I used the duty-free shop on board to buy a nice wristwatch. An Aviator. I’ve changed the batteries four times and it’s kept perfect time ever since. When I check the time, I’m back in London for a moment, feeling my way through another missed opportunity.

Any good whip cracker knows there is a special relationship that can happen with a whip. For me, a bullwhip like my David Morgan whip was fated to be instantly historic, appearing as it did out of the dust clouds following the first earth-shaking showings of “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

My own special love was a heavy, snake-smooth, 12-foot model made by the legendary David Morgan who furnished the whips wielded so dramatically by Harrison Ford in his character’s quest for the ultimate treasure. For people like us, the bullwhip itself was the very real treasure. (A 450 model bullwhip used by Indiana Jones and made by Morgan recently auctioned for a price of $525,000.)

At a cigar-happy leather convention, the vendors were out in armies, hawking vibrators, cuffs, whips, delicate garments, videos and books. One vendor was selling a David Morgan bullwhip, lightly used. It was hefty in the hand, smooth to the touch, smelling of leather and Pecards conditioner. It was sold by Pat McCarty from Louisiana who had developed rotator cuff problems and would likely not use the whip again, he said. He noted that someone else had already expressed to him an interest in buying it, even though I offered him cash on the spot.

The other bidder was Dave, a title holder I had a lot of respect for, and I despaired of scoring this rare and valuable whip, but Pat suggested we might go in halves on it. I talked with Dave, and he was agreeable to this plan. We’d share the whip by mailing it back and forth to each other every few months. I was ecstatic.

This arrangement worked well. Periodically, like a homing pigeon with two roosts, the whip sailed the skies between the pair of us. But the day came when he admitted he was developing shoulder problems, as well. He offered me the whip for the cost of his half; I sprang at the invitation and welcomed the whip to its permanent home with me. I slept with it under my pillow to sweeten my dreams.

Cracking a Morgan whip is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I was flying without a plane. It tickled the same part of me that relished riding my motorcycle years before, with me getting into the Zone where the bike was motionless as the world whipped by beneath my tires with stunning speed and freedom.

Mary was driving me to the MSP airport, again. This time, I had to leave some socks and an alarm clock to make the weight allowance, but at least I had no hassles with the TSA. The dog sniffer ignored me. I was back in the sky, on a flight to France. Time zones flipping past.

I do not wear much leather when I travel, not after the time when all the bomb-sniffing electronics went off due to some chemical in the leather. On the plane, I had a whole row to myself so I could stretch out. Delicious hours of relaxing. I watched the first half of a Dr. Strange movie, and found lots of little errors in the beginning, but then it became a different (better) movie after that. Note: I liked his beard style – So much so that I planned to do a little shaving to see if I could look as good.

I was halfway across the ocean when we got the dreadful news about the Coronovirus and the cancellation of flights. Act of God? Not according to my flight insurance, but I couldn’t turn around and go back now. The panic set in with cold flashes and hollow echoes in my chest. My friend Andy later joked that at least I did better than the Titanic — I’d made it all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.

I rode into Paris on the rim of a storm, the DeGaulle Airport smelling like one huge perfume shop. There were no people. The place was an echoey mausoleum.

By this time, California was completely locked down with COVID. The situation expanded as the number of deaths multiplied, and I was sitting in an empty Paris airport. It was like they were filming a new version of “On the Beach.”

I had kroner, pounds, and U.S. dollars. I pulled 20 euros from an ATM, but there was no mechanism to turn this bill into coins which would be accepted by the vending machines I’d encounter at this hour in the DeGaulle Airport.

I’d gone through my glucose tablets, and I’d eaten my last protein bar. Blood sugar was in the 50s. I found an unoccupied shop with an unlocked selection of drinks. I debated the ethics versus the need with myself, then chose to take an orange juice, leaving a five dollar bill on top of the machine.

It was now 5am, and I was hanging on, waiting for something to open, waiting for some solution to present itself. I was sitting in the palm of the universe, feeling myself getting fuzzier, more confused, with the dropping blood sugar and exhaustion. Weird airport — a lot of damn mirrors with nothing to reflect.

I finally found a kind soul wearing a face mask who pointed me in the right direction to get to my gate. I hopped on a train to the correct terminal, and everything was opening up, a few sporadic tourists waiting to leave with tons of bags. I had an iced tea, a chicken and tomato sandwich and a crème brulee out of an actual glass jar (special of the day for 8 euros).

I was at the right gate with 30 minutes to spare, feeling the proteins and sugars percolate through my system; I was thinking straighter, but still road-weary, not ready for the day ahead.

Once I landed in Copenhagen, I saw where I was supposed to buy the last leg’s ticket with the funds that Dan Lei had sent me. I walked miles to find the right bus out of Central CPH, finally receiving clear enough instructions to board a train after booking a seat. We reached Vilj, but I couldn’t get off when the stop seemed to last for mere seconds. I was carried along to the next stop, where I exited into a cold rain. I waited shivering for the train back to Vilj, where Dan and Rikke were patiently waiting for me.

Denmark has always been a favorite haunt of mine. The citizens speak English better than most Americans, and they live together in the spirit of Hygge, the shared feeling of coziness, fun, and comfort. It is a beautiful country, even if it is a bit flat, with its manicured fields next to cultivated wildernesses of trees and bushes. They coexist beautifully; It is not either/or. Very compact. Denmark is not a country for the claustrophobic. No wide open spaces, just contained areas abutting other parcels of tree-lined fields with their horses, houses, cows, goats, tractors, little shops, smaller houses.

Copenhagen itself is a warren of winding streets and still occupied medieval buildings, lining a river of bicycles. The small shops elbow to elbow reminded me of Toronto's Spadina markets.

The BDSM club, KCSkive, was superbly run by Dan. He had always treated me with respect for a veteran of the world-wide community of whip handlers and leatherfolk. When he told me the long whip room at the back of the club was being named for me, I knew my David Morgan had found its final resting place. When I shipped it to him, I included a letter detailing the history of this masterpiece of the Single Tail Experience.

Up at 7:30 o’dark the next morning, I thought it was night and I was late for my show. I oriented myself in a panic and lay back down, plotting out the routine for later, finally getting up to prep whips and props for the workshops at the Danish Kink Convention.

This first workshop was a combination of two presentations: Let's Get Cracking /Whips 101 and The Bullwhip in the Dungeon, which covered the S&M applications of the skills learned in Whips 101.

“When you hear a whip crack, it is breaking the Sound Barrier,” I’d say. “That’s 761 miles per hour, or 1100 feet per second. That’s 1224 Kilometers per hour, 340 meters per second. That makes it dangerous — and for people like us, that makes it fun.”

Workshops went very smoothly, things flowed — and I signed a lot of books, the definition of a successful tour. I was mighty sore, surreptitiously resorting to the Hydrocodone. I’d used the last of my BioFreeze on my right shoulder, collar bone, forearms, wrists, thumbs — just this side of ecstatic agony.

One fellow (Fleming) came by the table to tell Dan that the few hours he spent with me in the workshops gave him the equivalent of five years’ experience. It looked like Dan had sold three extra books ($60.00), which he said he’d send to me via Paypal. This would let me send some dollars to Mary for the weekend. When I chatted with her on Facebook, she’d just woken up, looking a little frazzled.

I was amused by one brilliant Dutch girl presenter AET, who called herself the ‘Dutch Army,’ using a three-color crayon to draw the Netherlands flag colors on people’s arms (with permission). We realized she could make it French if she went vertical instead of horizontal with the same colors. Dan asked me to use a fantastically huge pair of scissors to cut a plastic ribbon to open the new back room for whipping. I was honored to open the Dante Room.

Hannah, a local whip maker, showed me her bottle of Bick No. 4 – a leather conditioner that will not darken leather ($10.95 a bottle). They have a bunch of other interesting products, including a static multi-brush boot scrubber – I thought to explore these more. Been around since 1896, out of Ann Arbor, Michigan and this was the first I’ve heard of them? Wow! Always something new to learn.

That evening, two husbands asked me to play with their wives. One held his partner’s hands while I laid the whip down on her. They were looking at each other in the eyes as I went to work. It was gratifying to ramp it up and then to lay in with a real stinger, to hear the gasp and see the hands squeeze, followed by the tender kiss.

At the club itself, the acoustic panels in the ceilings presented two problems: if I touched them with the whip, it left splinters on the carpet, and second, it deadened the sound so cracks sounded like thuds. Further, the interwoven patterns actually caught a cracker of mine for a moment mid-throw. This place was originally built to be a bomb shelter during the Cold War of the 1950s, a marvel of Brutalism in architecture.

Dan invited me to join him as he ran errands. We drove to his store and briefly stopped to eat sausage on bread and suicidally sweet pastry, relaxing and waiting until 7pm when the next Meet and Greet kicked in.

Dan’s shop was compact, clean, delightful. I watched him make a flogger for me with mathematical meticulousness, all the right tools for precisely the right purpose, careful measurements, loud pounding with a mallet to skive falls — brilliant work.

I filmed him making the flogger and did a mini-interview. There were good visuals, but awful sound; I resolved to use the recorders and mikes from then on.

Chatting with Dan, our conversation went from “when do you get your operation” to the difference between seeing something with the Normal Mind and then seeing it again with the Bullwhip Mind. There is a book in this perspective, I think.

My volunteer Tanya drove us around Copenhagen, understandably proud of this fabled city. I even saw the Little Mermaid. It was smaller than I expected, and closer to the shore than pictures showed. We had some Indian food, then headed on to the club where I delivered two 90-minute workshops, well attended. Dan fed us all well, Danish sushi with marvelous meats. Exhausted and hurting afterward, but feeling complete, something in me humming, vibrating.

Wonderland at Kink Baku Lounge was a dojo, with many mats and places to perform shibari bondage suspensions. It was a large shoeless room with a low ceiling. I’d have to use the 6-footer on a more horizontal plane. I was grateful to have Tanya, who looked fetching in her skin tight red silk dress. I screwed up when I could not find the playing cards (they were in my inside vest pocket), but everything else went well. And right on time. Fifty-plus people in a tight space, but it absolutely worked. A packed house creates its own electricity.

It turned out to be a great evening, even if the music had a little glitch (going through my phone, and someone turned it off halfway through). The double balloon pop gag went really well. The surprise of the first balloon leading into the second balloon’s “Fuck you!” worked superbly. Rocked the audience.

Since I’d set up a workshop for 19 people, this turnout was better than expected. Fabulous energy on all sides — No sales, but I was gifted with a hatband whip.

Card cutting and balloons went well, then I had a hell of a good conversation with Anders. I secretly took a pain pill afterward, not because of the conversation, which was enjoyable.

The next night, I presented with Tanya again, played with her twice, and got very high. It was a crowded room, again. She pointedly told me she was in an open relationship with Kym, but I did not follow up on this implied invitation because I was exhausted. Club owners paid me off in dollars and Kroner.

I was in bed at 1am, but awake, awake, mind racing. I’d had a late night of posting videos and pictures back at Dan’s — I thought I looked good in a kilt. Very comfortable!

Out to Kink Baku Lounge, again, where I blew up a bunch of balloons, then made a three-hour presentation for the working staff and their model partners.

I worked my ass off, but I saw a lot of “Ahas!” going on around me. I helped one fellow cut a card when he did not know he could do it, then showed him that he could wrap his partner safely — and she was so eager to do it. Their delighted hugs told me that I had just opened up a whole new world for them. This was corroborated by the actions of the others, so it was a job well done, with a standing ovation and an invitation to come back.

The next Kink Convention workshop was excellent, thanks to young Laura, who was right on the spot. I was sweating a ton and ripping through their supply of Coca Colas, but I was burning the energy off just as furiously. I was feeling the past few days in my shoulders and enduring the stabbing spikes in my collar bone with a stiff upper lip. No one else knew.

Then back to Dan’s house, where his son was shmoozing with a friend. They asked me to do a quick whip demo for them in the back yard, and I jumped at it, they were both so avid to see what it was that I did, aside from the BDSM. I took three UV flashlights and two yellow whips and executed a bit of two-handed cracking, vamping shamelessly, then begged off due to exhaustion. Tanya tossed my dirty clothes into the laundry; I put them into the dryer later, absolutely basking in this oasis of a domestic ritual.

Before I slept, I chatted with Mary on Facebook – she needed a real face-to-face. She’d taken a new storage locker closer to downtown. I’d be back there in a few days, but it felt like I’d already been away for a month. It was definitely a night for pain pills, but I was still eager to get back into harness, which seemed to be always necessary to keep us in the black.

When I was in Denmark, I was also heartened by the unflagging support and encouragement of Thomas who purchased one of my 8-foot bullwhips to mount in a display case at the Kink Club, next to my David Morgan bullwhip. He put together several groups of private lessons that helped make the trip profitable, much better than break-even.

So I got the money from Tom via Paypal, and immediately transferred half to the bank, paid some bills, made a chunk available for Mary. That night when I spoke with Mary, I could not get a visual, but it was good to hear her voice, anyway. She was having a problem with the garage parking spot, which we’d take care of when I got home. She sounded in a better mood. The money would help us greatly. I finally read myself to sleep, with arms and hands throbbing and sore.

The next day began with a breakfast for the gods! Pastries, breads, meats, cheeses, fruit, enough for a trainload of people. Then Rikke drove me to CPH airport.

On the plane, I struggled to find a comfortable position. If I leaned one way, the front of my shoulder hurt halfway down my arm; if I leaned back the other way, the pain slid under my shoulder blade and collarbone.

Landing at Birmingham, I was picked up at the airport by Andy and Sam. Checked into hotel, took a nap for two hours. There was gentle Daz Shelton from Northampton, with his wild beard, his liquid eyes aglitter, tonguing his lip piercings, a big fellow, genuine in his opinions, a new father, a whip maker in nylon and a presenter in knife and needle play. Definitely a good vibe, he knew his stuff. Both of our fathers were navigators in the Lancasters of World War II. Coincidence? Is he living the life I might have lived in a parallel universe?

Daz met Paul and we checked out Xstasia for the next day’s workshops. Later, dinner and more shmoozing. Afterward, time for a video visit with Mary.

Mary was not happy I’d ordered more reporters’ notebooks, saying she hoped they were free (and not $54.00, as the bill showed). I did not know how to explain it. I’d go through so many of these books, and I liked the spacing of the lines, and the narrower width of the books made it easier to carry inside my coat pockets. It was a habit I’d gotten into in my journalism days in Houston.

Next morning I presented the workshop. It went well, but too quickly for the time allotted. I was telling more stories than usual, perhaps because I now had the liberty of an audience with a deeper English vocabulary.

So many workshops, so quickly. I’d told the same stories over and over, to the point that I did not know which stories I had told to which people.

Second session, the face-masked audience was scattered through the room and my voice did not reach everyone equally at the same time. During a break, I resorted to my lavaliere mike and hooked it into their sound system. It worked well enough. Then I ambled over to Xstasia and asked where the S&M club was. They pointed, and I was stopped at the door by a bouncer — I said who I was, asked them to let Paul, Andy and Daz know that I’d been there and that I could be reached back at my hotel room. At least they didn’t ask me to walk around in my underwear in order to get in. Once back to the hotel, I realized I still had to sign some books for folks, so I reluctantly walked back to the club, where I was met by Daz and Andy, trying to save the situation. Paul was mortified. I signed and sold the last of my books, ready to do my final workshop for them. A lot of one-on-ones.

Late night, Daz was enjoying a whisky with Andy and talking to me about how I did not want to know what a god I am to so many people.

“Robert, you’d be intimidated if you had people tell you,” Daz said.

“But it is not me, Daz,” I replied. “It’s the whips!”

“Robert, this might be seen as false modesty — even though you might mean it,” he said. “You’re the epitome of the bullwhip. Who else comes close to you, Robert?” I didn't know what to say.

Next morning, up at 4 am, Andy ran me to airport to head back to the U.S. I woke up during a layover in Dublin airport, seeing a squadron of security guards with wicked looking guns plodding through the meandering conga lines of travelers — it was ridiculous but understandable. Flight delayed for an hour for some reason.

Finally on the plane, my sugar was now running high, and the needle to my insulin pen was bent. The extra needles were in my overhead compartment under someone else’s bag. Ack – another lesson learned. Plane touched down in Minneapolis an hour late. Mary was at the gate, so on to Baggage Claim and out to the truck, heading to Perkins for something to eat. Thunder and lightning outside, the wings that flew me home.

I mentioned the upcoming show on the 20^th and that I wanted to hire some young eye candy for the closing wrap sequence. Mary became defensive, jealous, and I was tired of censoring my words because of her paranoia. I could not pretend any longer, goddamn it, so I bit my tongue. I was just too tired from traveling and trying to make the best shows possible with my limited resources.

My left hand had developed a bony lump which ached and seared when I used both hands to crack my whips. I had them give me a black cast after the first surgery so I could downplay it while performing, but now I was flying on one wing, with my middle finger wired into place. I could not crack the whip with my left hand.

The second surgery went back in through the same incision site and gave me a red cast and an Xray road map of my new wires. My left hand on the inside must have looked like a cousin of the Addams Family’s ‘Thing.’ I was having nightmares of being held captive in Frankenstein’s castle. My third cast was purple. One semi-sleepy night I imagined that a spider made of wires was clambering out of the back of my hand and crawling up my arm. I lifted weights and did range of motion exercises while I watched TV.

I wound up having so many surgeries on my hand that I considered getting a Frankenstein scar tattooed around my left wrist to explain the scars.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE ETERNAL CITY

For a while, it seemed like the Minneapolis Airport was my second home.

Getting a gig in Italy was a great opportunity for me to make a side trip to see my aged mother living in Cleveleys, Lancashire in England. She did not sound happy to hear from me on the phone, and pretty quickly afterward, my brother Ron called (for the first time in years) to tell me she didn’t want me to come, she had problems with her hips, etc.

This, less than 24 hours before I was supposed to fly to Rome via Paris on tickets I’d booked in December. I’d also already made the deposit on the B&B in Blackpool. On this side trip, I was not making any presentation or doing a show to offset the expense. I’d simply assumed she would like to see me. I was wrong.

My mother was a woman who was dropped into life headfirst, the way I was dropped into hers. My earliest memory was of a dog’s wet fur as it nuzzled me, mothering me when my own mother didn’t. Her name was Judy, a Yorkshire terrier, who was my first taste of love. The human mother discovered I liked crème de menthe and this became my medicine for teething pains. When we moved to Italy, she substituted absinthe for the crème de menthe, and I hallucinated butterflies looming over my head. The whole world became a hotel hallway with impossible rooms to find. When I was not being drowned in a fast moving brook, I was being kicked in the head by a mule, sailing through the sky and watching the trees float past me. A variety of head injuries traveled with me through my childhood, and I survived them all, so I was not shocked when I landed at Manchester, England with a major slippery sliding lunging clunk and the passengers applauding the pilot when we came in almost sideways but safely.

The big news was still Storm Doris, as I lugged my gear to the train. The big bag was incredibly heavy for lifting – I could have used a sherpa. The cane I brought with me was helpful.

Standing by the line of train tracks, I was pelted with the slanting icy rain. News came that my train canceled halfway to Blackpool North due to trees being blown down across the tracks. A second train arrived. Upon alighting at my destination hours late, I tried walking from Blackpool North station, but the wind was too strong, too cold, so I took a cab.

I arrived at the Lanayr Hotel, but the cabbie did not take Euros, which is all I had in my pockets. The UK had not yet completed its Brexit, so I thought Euros would be as good as money in Britain. I was wrong. I met my hoteliers Allen and Bashir, who fronted me the coin of the realm.

Right out of a Stephen King nightmare, the hotel was eerie with shifting architecture inside, disorienting – lots of half flights, split stairs, turns and twists. I could see Blackpool Tower from my room, a cell with a shower, but it was still a 10-minute wait for the hot water.

Starving by now, I found an oily fish and chip shop a few streets away. The claustrophobic shop smelled rancid as I watched the gleaming little man with the red hair halo, bald on top, rushing around, spraying salt onto the chips, pulling fish from the fryer. I ate half of them and dropped the rest into the trash can.

The next morning began with a poached egg and tomato on toast, tea. It tasted like cardboard. Went on a walkabout down to the beach, put my hands into the North Sea, ate a sausage roll on the promenade, happened upon a book store, so purchased some old books for souvenirs. Back in my room, I shaped my beard, Dr. Strange style. I liked it.

I took the tram past the sand dunes to Cleveleys to see May, my mother. She was much older than I imagined she’d be, with her TV going in the background. I tried to draw her out, with middling success, and we shared a lunch of baked potato and beans. I stayed for about two hours. I noticed framed pictures of grandchildren and my brother on the mantle shelf, but none of me. Just her dead husband, her dead parents on the walls, staring out. Downstairs, a little paper nameplate was affixed by doubled over duck tape on the door. The seagulls knew when she fed them in the morning. It was a strange, nothing visit.

Just as I left, she asked me if I’d ever become a writer. I paused at the door and told her I had had a career, not what I’d envisioned, but yes I was a writer who was published. She said nothing further, so I left. She never asked me a thing about the whip cracking, although she’d seen me on TV, my brother later said.

I strolled by the Blackpool Tower afterward. I couldn’t ride the lift up to the top; it was closed due to high winds. A churning gray ocean out there, very few people watching on this grim February day. I walked back to the hotel looking carefully at chipped bricks, windows, sagging roofs and seagulls, wobbly pavements, six-foot lawns, tiny patios and above it all, the Blackpool Tower. Played the casino a little on my way back, doubled my money, walked out. Stayed up all night, walking the midnight streets, where I was approached by shivery young woman who asked me, “Fancy some business?” It took a moment for me to understand what she was asking. I declined, and she said, “I was just hoping to get enough to eat.” Now, I wish I’d remembered the spare folding money in my pocket. Maybe she would have taken the Euros. I forgot to ask.

A few days later, I caught a cab to the train at 3am, my left arm in agony from hauling the heavy and unfriendly bag. I’d lightened the bag by wearing my boots instead of my sneakers. I flew to Rome, passing over the Alps, an amazing experience with the snow topped ranges blending into the purest white clouds.

I landed at Fumicino Airport to be picked up by Giorgio, who did not recognize me because of my beard. I did not look like my own picture. At the hotel, folks seemed genuinely excited to see me. Many had come to the weekend event specifically for my classes. I shaved my beard off to make myself look more like my head shots.

First day of the Rome BDSM Conference, I met my host Stefano, a tall, bearded, crystal clear, marvelous fellow who was never too busy to try to make things easier for others. I also met Elio and his girl Eager. He was an Aikido practitioner with superb English, his vocabulary big on short whips and florentines. He was a keeper and now a friend.

I caught up with Anton, who smiled like the trained actor he is, and who turned out to be a big fan of mine. He wore a fedora and sported a white goatee. I sat in on his own whip class – he was on target, but a little tentative. I think I made him nervous because he spent the first five minutes telling the class that I was there and how wonderful I was, etc. His wife was a psychic who correctly guessed my astrological sign (Double Aquarius).

I saw Donatien, a slight fellow, twinkly eyes, a few teeth missing, absolutely over the moon about me – I was why he came, he said. I hoped I would meet his expectations.

Then there was Avi, who showed me his first attempt to make a whip, a paracord number that was surprisingly pretty good. He became interested in making whips after taking my workshop in Victoria, B.C., and he was now on his way to see his family in Iran. When he saw I would be in Rome, he changed his schedule so he could attend the event. I thought he was one of the good ones there, and I liked his gentle soul.

I finally met Mike from Ouch Products, he with the damned good eye for some good leather work, but when he cornered you he kept on talking like a car salesman with his thick British accent. He had brought lots of great stuff with him, but it was pretty pricey for my pockets. We got along well and I felt a kinship with him. I think it would have been suicide to play poker with him.

The workshops went well, but I thought they were slow at 45 minutes (the second-language thing), so I then let it become a free cracking session, with me guiding hands-on, with a lot of one-on-ones. Great energy then!

There were many people walking up to me to shake my hand, get a photo with me, and I sold all my books that first day.

The dinner in the hotel was superb. I really like Italian, obviously, especially the seafood (mussels, clams, fish, calamari) that had just been caught from the sea, surrounded with clean saltiness to it. Coffee is an art there with a sweet ice cream-like creamer, and the deserts – stunningly delicate, pure, rich. Ahh…!

While I was not hurting, moving easily in the momentary public appearances, I became wiped out in agony when I retreated to my room. Like depth charges in the delay of the pain, followed by the hit. Trying to sleep, I woke up hours before I had to.

The first night of the convention, about 200 people, most wearing fetish gear, milled about the balloon-festooned ballroom, socializing after a long day of bondage workshops and dominance classes. Between the snacks and drinks, Mistresses strutted before each other with grateful and abashed slaves crawling behind then, tethered by leashes attached to their ornate collars.

Everyone was bewilderingly friendly, chatting above the squeaking of leather, the rubbing of polished latex, the soft tinkle of chains. Dialogues were in Italian, English, German and Danish (and perhaps Klingon). The bar business was booming with silly frou-frou drinks and manly whiskys, three deep at the rail.

I was a fish out of water, self conscious and exposed. I didn’t know why, because I was in the bosom of my tribe, but there it was. I sipped my Coke, tonguing the ice every few minutes so I could refresh myself without running the gauntlet of trying to get the cute bartender’s attention, again.

I abruptly noticed a sweet powerball near the bar. I smiled at her, she smiled at me, and that was understood to be our introduction.

I adored her dark hair, athletic build, sharp eyes, lipstick too red, her skin Santa Monica midnight Goth pale, almost a pallor. But the eyes, those sharp eyes, were wide awake, taking everything in, and now they were scanning me.

“You’re the bullwhip guy,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“This has been a fabulous event, so far,” I answered. An easy serve.

“Interesting stuff,” she countered, moistening her lips with her tongue. “Personally, I’ve never had a bullwhip scene.”

“Would you like a little one now?” I asked. “I can accommodate any level of play you desire.”

“What — Right here?” “Sure,” I said.

We took a simple wooden folding chair, set it up in a corner of the room where I could have some calm control over the space, fearing I might clop some idiot walking blithely behind me.

We negotiated: the biggie was no penetration with any fingers or objects, along with no humiliation – she seemed to be primarily a Top, so I adjusted my approach to accommodate her status, in her own eyes and in the eyes of her peers – it’s a razor-thin balancing act but highly doable, highly desirable.

My whip came out of its slumber slowly, coiling languorously before laying out straight behind me, then curling into a new cycle. A quick flick and it sensed the air, like a snake’s tongue. I audibly hissed to reinforce the image as I watched the goose pimples run along her arms, and I had yet to touch her.

I gently tossed the whip forward as if I were feeding ducks in a park. First to the left, then to the right. She could hear the whip moving through the air, even without cracking. She focused on the sound of the swish. I knew the external world was disappearing from her awareness. We were dancing together, wordlessly.

Thump onto the carpet, the smooth slide to the back position, the hoist, the heave, the so-satisfying pop, followed by the next thump, slide, and pop. Thump, slide, and pop. I increased the speed, concentrating on the target, building to the final release. She caught her breath; I was breathing along with her, a duet of inhalation/exhalation. We were in sync, outside of time itself. As intimate as a direct transfusion, a vampire’s feast.

I stepped closer, draping the whip over one of her shoulders, sliding it slowly along its length until it dropped to the carpet. As I did this, I gently hissed again, completing the snake image. I watched her nipples getting hard as I began to focus intensely, as well.

I stepped back so I could lay the whip out full length. I stroked her hair gently with the cracker without popping. It swished through the air. She’d seen my skill, so she was not afraid of an accident at this point, but I was still taking no risks, no gambles, because there was nothing to prove here to anyone else. The world had disappeared for me, too. It was just her and me in the eye of the hurricane.

A loud noise next to her head would have jolted her out of the trance I was lulling her into so I limited the volume of my cracking whip. I stepped in closer again and touched her shoulder with my hand. I liked the feel of her skin. I used my fingernails to lightly scratch a line. I watched it redden up. I did this to see how her flesh would respond to the touch of the whip. It’s never the same for two people. Old sailors are difficult, because their salt-tanned hides don’t show subtle caresses. It had to go to welt country with them. But not with this one. The blush was delicious. I had marked her, I had claimed her, temporarily, I had taken possession of her, and she gave up her control, her ego, freely, riding the waves, balanced on the creaking folding chair.

My whip embraced, caressed her and the folding chair together, coming at her from both sides, from behind her, there was nowhere to hide from it, a dragon’s claw with feathers between the talons, soft and sensual, sharp as spice. I could have been painting a cobweb strand by strand into a cocoon, breathing life into the geometry of my whip’s monologue with itself. I flowed to her breathing, inhaling with her like a Lamaze technique, as if she was giving birth to herself. Her pussy glistened with a milky moisture, and I could tell her pupils were dilating more with each breath. I trod deliberately, my boot thumping the carpet with my full weight, giving her an anchor to focus her attention on during this sailing experience — she was a kite on the breathing wind, and I was both the kite string and gravity itself. Stars shivered just above the ceiling where neither of us could see them, their harmonics as tangible as light and shadow. No cat ever kissed a mouse so tenderly. I breathed on her softly, letting her hear the full exhalation of my wordless song, defining us both in this place and time.

I skated on the moment, a blade on the ice as she extended her leg to touch mine. I shuddered, an ecstatic frisson I could not contain. Colors were brighter, the silence roared.

She gasped, touched her tongue to her lips. I ramped up the intensity, lowering my head, a low growl rumbling through my chest. I was sucking in the oxygen more deeply now. I tapped her with the cracker like a blind man wielding his all-seeing white cane. The tap, the drop, the slide, then another tap – an ecstatic cycle.

She came; I shivered, sending the whip out over her collar bone, the tail caressing the back of her chair. I slowly pulled the whip free, sent it out again, ramping down, now. Her muscles relaxed.

I caressed her shoulder with a slight squeeze as she leaned her cheek against my hand. She opened her eyes and closed her knees with a deep inhalation.

Suddenly we were awash in a sea of applause. I became aware that everyone had been watching us, enraptured by the moving tableaux, standing outside an imaginary magnetic line encircling us in our private world now suddenly public, naked. She put her hands on her thighs. I extended my hand to help her to her feet. I was firm, her anchor in the after-moment. We embraced, full body. Her hair smelled of sweet sweat.

Our eyes glanced off each other; she was embarrassed, ashamed, grateful, and defiant, now in possession of herself again.

We backed off from each other, as I resisted the temptation to turn and take her hand and bow to the majority of the audience. A cluster of people (mostly bottoms) surrounded her, some inspecting her for damage (there was none).

I was grateful to her, for her authenticity, her fearlessness, her trust. The sheer pleasure of sharing the moment. The next day we had breakfast, and I learned a few more of her personal details, ones I had not asked about the night before. Where she was from, her domestic situation, her aspirations, her history, her desires' She almost answered a few of them with broad vagueness. I made a decision to see her again, if I could, the next time I was on the Pacific Northwest of the United States of America.

But we never met again.

The next day, another workshop on SM applications was successfully delivered. They’d reacted like they’d never heard any of this before. Wow. Afterward, more idol-worship (but sincere) – one young lady saying thank you for clarifying for her her own submissive experience. A domme took me aside and said she cracked like she’d never cracked before, and her arm was buzzing. I reassured her it was real, and not just in her head.

I'd wanted to crack a whip in the Colosseum, but that bucket list item got away from me. The schedule was very tight, but I still thought I could do it until some people advised me that the Colosseum was on High Security Alert since the Louvre attacks. They had a genuine concern that I would be killed if I went through with it. The Italian police were on edge and carrying brutal-looking weaponry, ready to respond violently to something that sounded like gunshots. My friends’ concerns were honest enough that I called off the experience.

I wondered what the feedback sheets from the attendees would say about my workshops. Stefano brightly said they were wonderful. He’d already decided to invite me back for next year, carefully adding, “If we do it.”

At the Gala Dinner, I was sitting by myself when a young lady came over to chat and asked if we could play at the party after the dinner.

I found her at 11:30pm, and we walked into the big room. No one was playing anywhere, it was a sparse crowd, so I picked a good space with a padded horse.

I took the 5-foot Celeste whip from my bag and started in. I was now cat-and-mousing her, lovely body tattoos and authentically responsive reactions.

Some of the folks, as I found out later, had never seen anyone playing with a bullwhip like that.

I also amazed folks by being fluid, playing with her 360-degrees, doing wraps to get the whip to her far side, creating the totally-devoured experience.

I ramped her up a few times, humming to myself like a happy hangman, then had her sit in a chair facing me. For a moment I wondered if the headsman who executed Anne Boleyn felt the same way. I did some neck wraps, heard some distant gasps from behind me.

When we finished, I gave her water and grounded her, then noticed the room was packed, everyone staring at us. Amazed. Again.

But it was just the same kind of scene I’d played in my Houston Days with my regular bottoms.

Later, I dropped off to sleep and dreamed. I was a passenger in a car. We were heading up a ramp too fast and went straight into a guard rail in front of us. Instead of stopping, we glided over it smoothly, and suddenly we were in the air and going down. I realized we were going into the water and I braced myself. But we just kept falling, falling. I awoke with a jolt.

Next morning, it was a gray, drizzly day, but at least I was on my way home, wishing that I could, on this return trip, compose a traveling poem as authentic as Ginsberg’s. I didn’t think I could, but I didn’t hold that against myself.

I picked up a mini-champagne on the flight for Mary to celebrate my return. Maybe she’d missed me.

Back at home, I had to admit the adhesive capsulitis was getting worse again, but before resorting to surgery I made the appointment for another steroid shot. They used a portable X-ray machine this time to carefully position the long needle, and it went in smoothly. It felt like I was swimming underwater, from air pocket to air pocket. But Pain was waiting on the shore with a big spikey club in its hand.

I'd been talking to someone about the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and was punished by being chained to a rock and having an eagle eat his living liver every day.

Every day, the same eagle, the same liver. I could relate.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IS IT CAMP YET?

The next Orange Pumpkin, our 1966 Volkswagen Westfalia camper, was a problem child from the git-go. Driving home after buying it, we had a flat tire on the freeway. An inauspicious beginning. Luckily, I still had the AAA card, so we were rolling again before long.

We did a lot of traveling in that camper. East Coast, West Coast, North and South.

It was perfect for handling grocery bags through the sliding side door. I’d had a Volkswagen when I was in college, an old one. Its engine was simple enough that I could do minor repairs using my bicycle tools. The Pumpkin was a bit more complicated, but it was still straightforward.

I snapped the brake cable one afternoon and had to slow down using the gears and handbrake. The replacement cable was cheap enough, and I figured I could do the job myself in the back yard. There was still snow on the ground, and I laid back on sheets of cardboard to do the fix.

Mary sang from the balcony, “Where are you?”

“I’m hiding under the Pumpkin,” I sang back.

It took hours, and by the time I was through, I looked like I was a seasoned worker in the boiler room of the Titanic. Mary took my photo as I rested afterward with cigarette smoke pluming around my head.

There was plenty of room to stow the whips and the props until we needed them. It was also a changing room on wheels before a show and a bedroom afterward. We saved a lot on motel expenses this way.

It was in the Pumpkin that we traversed the mountains of Kentucky on our way to an outdoor Indiana Jones gig in Atlanta. It was in the Pumpkin that we skirted the desert around Salt Lake City to present a demo for a high-protocol club of Mormon S&Mers. I liked the way they showed deference and respect toward their Elders in the group.

It was in the Pumpkin that we waded through the flood waters which inundated Denver, running out of power at the foot of a cascading torrent in the middle of the night.

The Pumpkin carried us to Ohio’s weekend fair where we caught up with Chris Camp and Gery Deer. It was here that we sat around a fire with Kirk Bass’ brother Elk and smoked a pipe of tobacco, passing it between us. I was nervous about doing it wrong and insulting the ritual, so I asked, “How do I smoke this?”

Elk’s answer was unhesitating: “Do it like a prayer.”

The Pumpkin conveyed us comfortably to a diner where a man sincerely wanted us to sell her to him in exchange for an extravagant amount of cash money and two plane tickets home. We did not avail ourselves of this opportunity, mostly because I was not sure how the whips would get home with us.

Every so often, the Pumpkin would show it had a personality all its own.

In Georgia, we had some trouble with the gears, so we pulled into a repair shop for an estimate. The owner, Dave, was a young man with a beard and a side job, which we determined when we saw him carry a large black trash bag stuffed with weed into his office. He agreed to check out the Pumpkin, even though we were clear that we did not have much money with us. It took him three days to complete the repairs. At night, we slept in the camper. On the third day, he presented us with a bill for $800.00. We reminded him we were skint, and he rolled his eyes and sighed, certain he was going to be stiffed on the repair job. I assured him that as soon as we got home, we’d Paypal the money to him, which we did with an additional bump of 20 percent for his trouble. He completed the task beautifully and once again the Pumpkin was purring up the road toward Minneapolis.

A few months later, we had a problem again that required more surgical intervention. We wound up staying three days in a Kentucky motel while the parts were being delivered.

One last stop at the Iowa-Minnesota border near a casino dropped us into the clutches of a Christian family that fixed the spark plug timing and charged us only $25 for two hours of work. We know it cost them more than that in labor alone, so perhaps they simply took pity on the two gypsies who found themselves stranded along the highway — again. I still see the crew smiling at each other in their white lab coats like they were sharing a secret between themselves.

The Happy Hippie VW repair shop in Minneapolis quoted us an exorbitant price for a complicated little repair job. We wound up trading the Pumpkin for a VW Golf, a definite step down. We were fleeced, but good. With our backs to the wall, no funds and no other options, we bit the bullet and made the trade.

The Golf served us well until we hit that damned deer on our way home from Chicago, its hooves flying up the windshield and over the roof. I skidded off the road. Mary took her knife and walked back to put the creature out of its misery. She returned a few moments later.

“We don’t need to do anything about it,” she said. “It was gone already.”

“I know,” I said. “Are you okay?”

That’s when her hand started shaking, and I took the dry knife off her and put it back into the glove compartment.

“I’m sure sorry about that,” I said, shaking my head. “I should have seen it before we got there.”

“These things happen,” she said. “We can still drive the car, right?”

We limped home and bought a new headlight the next day.

Coming so close to death, mere inches away from those flashing hooves, was a cold blast of reality. There wasn’t even time to go into the NDE slow motion that I had experienced in a particularly serious car accident in my teen years. At that time, I had PTSD from the experience and did not drive for seven years, until my day job demanded that I help with deliveries using the shop’s van. Before that, I’d been going everywhere on my Peugeot bicycle. Pump-pump-pump-squeak!

It was raining on the afternoon that I took the phone call from “Uncle Frazier” Botsford, a jaunty ex-navy man who was owner of The Crucible Club in Washington D.C. He’d put together a 9-day summer camp for with a pirate theme for BDSMers. It attracted attendees from all over the world, especially for its elaborate pony programs. Uncle Frazier made me an offer I could not refuse.

“You do whip workshops and classes, and I’ll comp you to the event and meals and give you $800 on top of it. What do you say?”

What could I say but yes? And I said yes for nine more years, until they found someone locally who would do it for much less. I stifled the urge to tell them, “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”

The drive from Minnesota to Maryland was always part of the adventure, the experience of watching the world whirl by outside the windows. One summer we clipped another deer on the freeway in our pickup truck, smashing the headlight. In the spirit of Camp Crucible’s pirate theme, I thought of using black duck tape to make a huge piratical eye patch to put over the damaged headlight, imagining the looks on the other campers’ faces when we’d pull up to the parking area. A cop pulled me over that night, but he understood the situation and let me go with a mild scolding for driving without a headlight.

During the rest of the year, Camp Crucible was known as Camp Ramblewood, with its 200 acres hosting music festivals, religious retreats, and summer camps. It featured cabins, a large dining hall with a massive kitchen. Paved foot paths connected all the buildings, from the gymnasium at the top of the hill to the gazebo at the bottom. Golf carts allowed attendees to get around more quickly. Camp Crucible worked on a taxi system: volunteers drove their carts in a large circle, picking up and dropping off guests as they went. Drivers got a discount on their camp ticket prices. Some of the drivers festooned their carts with stuffed animals, ribbons and pennants. One year a driver rigged his cart so it farted a continuous stream of soap bubbles as it was driven up and down the hills.

Attendance was capped at 300, and every year it sold out. Clothing was optional, alcohol flowed like rivers, the Olympic-sized swimming pool was crowded with inflatable toys, rubber unicorns and styrofoam barbells. In the so-called Bat Barn was a miniature theater with sets from The Mikado. It was called the Bat Barn because it was a haven to a colony of hyperactive bats.

I particularly remember Hargy, an old soul in an old body. Six feet tall, gangly with hanging wrinkled skin tanned by the sun, wispy hair and a gray mustache, and an appetite for suffering second to none, reminding me of Cappy in my Houston days.

He sighed and relaxed onto the wooden cross, waiting for the whip’s caress, planting his feet solidly on the basket ball court floor, arching his ancient back into the space soon to be occupied by the lash. I started slow, I started light. I coaxed the ember into a hungry flame rippling down his shoulders, his buttocks bearing the beating beautifully, rolling on the prodding of the carefully placed popper. His grunts hyphenated the exclamation points of the whip’s cracking, overshadowed by the swoosh of the lash flying around his proffered body, edging ever toward the garbled gasp of ecstasy.

We ramped it up toward the gleaming hour ever rising, his fingernails digging into his palms. His neck tightening and relaxing between the precisely aimed blows, his ancient buttocks quivering, a shivering surrender to his enlarged senses, the sweat flying from his face, twisted into a grimace of joy, a grin of pain — He was mine, in my hand at that moment and forever.

I stroked it down to a gentle landing and pushed my thigh against him, encircled him with my arms and whispered my authority and my pleasure with him as he sank back into the dismal night of his long-lived loneliness.

He sat on the bench with a skinny blanket around his sagging shoulders, staring goggle-eyed at the room and at me as I packed my whips away carefully, breathing myself back into my own body as he groaned, “What about me? What about me?”

An observer came over to cushion him as I continued to pack. I was feeling empty, more than usual.

“I wanted to be held, I wanted to be cuddled,” Hargy moaned. “I wanted some aftercare, some aftercare!” He stamped a foot.

I trudged outside. I understood what he meant, but I was drained and dry, unprepared to give to someone else that which I also needed. I was unleashed, irrelevant and unnoticed under the fire flies and the swirling stars overhead as I walked away with my whips. Someone else came up and gave him a hug.

Back at my bed, I plugged in my TENS unit and numbed up my shoulder that night as much as I could before I turned to the Hydrocodone.

The full nine-day camp period had two weekend sessions. Part of the international attraction was the Pony Camp, with workshops and classes aimed at people who were into the Pony experience of pulling chariots, dressage sessions, role-playing scenarios.

At the sign-in, one was assigned to a cabin which might have eight or ten people in it. Privacy was non existent, but politeness seemed to be the rule. The bathrooms were cleaned and stocked each day by the camp workers, who enjoyed a decent wage plus the massive tips at the end of camp. Every year, at the final dinner gathering, it would be announced proudly that Camp Crucible gave the largest tip of the year to the workers of all the hosted events.

The vendors area was attached to the main dining hall and featured handcuffs, bondage paraphernalia, knives and needles, books and clothing, including many leather kilt styles. A buffet lunch was where folks gathered to touch base with each other and listen to announcements. Sometimes Uncle Frazier serenaded us on his guitar as we ate.

At one lunch, I sat next to Canny, who said to me, “I have seen many good people ruined by success, that’s why I have always strived to not be successful.”

Frazier at another lunch extended his hand sincerely to thank me for being there. It was genuine. He was then 75 years old. I hoped to be flying so high when I reached that age! Then again, I kept thinking each year would be my last visit to Camp. Pete and Sally came in from Hawaii one year, and part of that experience was to hang out convivially – They called it “Talking Story.” I saw many similarities to Danish Hygge, but Pete did not know if there was a Hawaiian word for it.

A fellow told me at lunch that he was with Honey Badger four years before, and I did a little scene with her that blew him away. Made a huge impact in his life, somehow. He was so sincere, I actually started to tear up, even though I could not recall that specific scene. Living in the present tense creates problems when you have to rely on long-distance memory on top of it all.

Not only did I give classes, but also I gave private lessons to anyone who asked — That was part of the deal. The key was to get them cracking as quickly as possible so they’d be encouraged to explore the nuances of the whip-cracking experience for themselves. A simple Circus Crack was easy to teach, and from there, everything else branched out.

To give someone a repertoire, I needed to teach them the Circus Crack, the Overhand Flick, and the Fast Figure 8. Everything else was a variation on one of these three cracks. The only thing I could not do was to give them the muscle memory which would come from hours of diligent practice.

With a parade of newbies coming into the Scene, there were always new mentors constantly popping up. And someone with a little knowledge, but who is free, will always gets the nod ahead of me, so I knew that my time at Camp Crucible was running out. If I was going to break a world record, I had to do it now.

Up on a sunny day to have my groggy breakfast and coffee, I got together with my friend Sync afterward for a few minutes under the shade trees, talking about the flash called the Arrowhead, where the problem was usually angling the handle instead of keeping it parallel to the body on both sides.

“Remember this,” I advised. “The whip always wants to follow the handle.”

I was exhausted by a two-hour class in the hot sun after hauling the gear across the meadow to see Douglas, Kathy, and John. One fellow (the aptly named “Dangler”) left after a few minutes, so it was just these folks as my witnesses.

Horsey got 45 minutes with me to solve his cracker tangling problem in his two-handed show routine. We shortened the crackers, and it worked. Pretty good routine, too. He was an athlete and an artist from South Africa. His performance was both beautiful and inspiring.

One selfless RN oversaw the piercing and suspension classes. People had massive hooks driven through the flesh of their backs and were hoisted into the trees for a few heart-pounding minutes. One year, a fire engine was rented and the extended ladder was used for the suspensions.

Lew Rubens, a very experienced bondage top, oversaw the non-piercing suspension classes with rope. Human chandeliers were built, many campers were frozen in midflight with legs extended and arms trussed. The trees were often draped with human pinatas, wriggling and moaning softly. I had Mary tied and hoisted feet first into the air as I posed next to her for a photo with a stockwhip as if I was the angler who’d just caught this deep sea denizen.

Once I went to the upper dungeon to see the action, but only one table was being used. It was a wax scene, but it was blacklight wax, which was startling and beautiful. They were making pictures with different colored waxes, a sunset over the ocean with an island. With each dribble of color, a gasp issued from the happy recipient.

I loved the upper dungeon. It held so many good memories for me. I remembered when I played with lovely Swedish Alliya, more afraid than anything else – it was a soft, sensual scene. She got pretty floaty, and I played most of the scene with a delicious hard-on.

One evening, I played with Cari in a scene which started with her having a spider on her skin. I played with it a bit before I sent it skidding safely off to the side. Afterwards, exhausted and hurting, I took a Hydrocodone, listening to Sinfonia Antarctica by Vaughn Williams as I watched the slide show of the day’s activities upstairs and sipped a Coke.

I saw Isabella, one girl I’d played with a few nights before, who was absolutely okay with how it went, even with her delicate skin. She said when she looked in the mirror at some of the tiny crosses I’d made on her back, she thought, “Pizzicato!”

Like Burning Man, at the end of the second session the areas were returned to pristine condition and the gear was packed out of the camp in trucks. The fireflies returned to festoon the evening trees, and the eagles continued to soar high above the campground.

After the nine days usually came a phenomenon called Camp Drop, where depression set in because the reality most people were returning to was grayer and less relevant than the Camp experience had been. Friends bid tearful farewells, treasured souvenirs were packed away with the leathers and the toys, and people drove their cars and vans from the field one after another for the last time that year.

While I was in Toronto, I was invited several times to visit La Domaine Esemar, a BDSM club in upstate New York. Sorry to say, it was years later before I would find my way there. If I’d only known what I’d been missing, I’d have made a beeline to it every time we crossed over into the U.S.

On the road to La Domaine Esemar, Mary had to stop for cigarettes from time to time – she was trying not to smoke in the vehicle. She took a phone call from her mother that reduced her to anger and tears, saying “They owe me!”

The freeway turned into a two-lane highway wending its way through the mountains before becoming an unpaved path of gravel and rocks, snaking its way through the arbors of trees.

The single mailbox with a stenciled street address showed that we had reached Ground Zero. The path dropped down the hill into an open area next to a huge satellite dish. The simple one-story ranch house featured bird feeders and mountain flowers leading to the screened front door.

Master R, a spry, almost elfin man exuding tightly focused power, greeted us and showed us into our home for the next three days. His whip collection was impressive, outnumbering my whips by many times over. I tended to sell my used whips so I could get new ones, so the apparently bottomless suitcase was never close to overflowing.

R’s living room was bordered by a breakfast nook lined with book cases packed with literature and manuscript pages. The brick wall behind the wood burning stove was bedecked by packing case lids of exotic wines like Chateau D’Yquem.

La Domaine hosted BDSM parties, major upscale events. This was when the door to the stairs going down to the basement opened wide. Two people could pass each other on the stairs, but it was a tight squeeze — not automatically a negative experience on a slippery hot summer night.

“It’s show time!” as Bob Fosse said, in “All That Jazz.”

Watching an intense fisting scene, I was turned on. Mary, too – and we watched a really nice whip scene – Afterward, the Domme thanked me and noted that she had attended one of my workshops, years before. It’s always the student that reflects well or badly on the teacher.

I was impressed by how R could get away with wearing an animal print leotard with an almost medieval mesh top adorned with metal ring closures and be obviously very comfortable in them.

In the basement were the play stations: a St Andrews cross, spanking benches, tables for surgical instruments, a barred cage below the stairs. The walls were replete with paddles and whips, chains and ropes. In one discrete corner was a dressing table for sissy maids and cross dressers.

I looked more closely at the whips. They were made by the great whip makers, and were conditioned and cleaned. I knew that R was an experienced whip Top, but I did not see where he could use a whip longer than a three-foot snake whip in that tight space. The answer to that was outside.

Between the parking area and the house, the path diverted to a cluster of bushes that marked the top of a hill. At the bottom of this hill was a glen with a fire pit and tables and chairs. On party nights, a tent was erected, and it was here that we could play with the 10-foot bullwhips and the fire whips. A human-sized rotisserie spit loomed on the edge of the grassy space.

I woke up early, letting Mary sleep in for a few more hours. The tapping on the door was our cue for breakfast of pancakes and coffee with maple syrup instead of sugar with the survivors of last night’s revelry, engaged in convivial conversation, the American version of Hygge. Afterward, I stumbled back into the bedroom and fell asleep again. When I woke the second time, everyone from last night’s party had packed up and left.

Our guest room was compact, with book shelves lining the walls. I enjoyed revisiting past issues of Boudoir Noir magazine. More bird feeders could be seen through the windows. The bathroom was dominated by a jacuzzi tub ringed with candles. The sense of peace was profound.

Wandering back into the main room, I paused a moment to take it all in. A complete turkey wing was lying on the bookshelf in the entryway. An upright piano abutted the oriel window onto the bird-feeder garden out front.

“That piano bench was used by Igor Stravinski,” R told me.

The kitchen was ridiculously tiny, with a single stove and labels on the drawers indicating contents. I found later this was for the benefit of new slaves who were responsible for ferrying the food from the cookery to the living area’s big breakfast table.

Around this table one night I watched eight students of music finish their desserts as Master R guided a spirited discussion about the state of the arts. The rapt listeners turned out to be graduate students from The Julliard School. (There was no BDSM discussed at this gathering.)

Next morning, I gave whip lessons in three acts for the BDSM habitues. First act was the whip dynamics, second act was the discussion of using it in play with another person, and third act was the actual hands-on demo. I remembered one sultry afternoon where I was was playing with someone and discovered I could target the mosquitoes on her bare back, leaving little splashes of red like tiny paintball splatters.

Back upstairs, a long room off the breakfast nook was R’s main bedroom. The bed was large enough to sleep six people without crowding. The back of the house featured more bathrooms, bedrooms, and computer cubicles.

R sometimes played guitar after the parties wound down in the wee hours. He was quite accomplished, and one night he regaled us with a song about illegal aliens — The type that come from Mars. Another night we might have been watching Groucho Marx in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, lounging on the pillows on R’s bed before retiring to our own room.

Slaves were renamed as they entered the service of the house, their names reflecting personality traits or physical descriptors: one was named Ears, another was named Do (for her ability to do just about anything Master required), another was named Hydra because she had so many conflicting minds, one was named Six, but six of what I never found out. I also never found out their real names, because to ask would have been a breach of protocol.

One Sunday afternoon R handed me a book with his recommendation to read it. It was titled “Stove in by a Whale,” a first-person tale of oceanic disaster that sparked Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick.” It was a riveting diary, which was profoundly better than the major motion picture that purported to faithfully put the story on the big screen.

I sat on the porch with R, who talked about starting a “Belle de Jour Scholarship” for a 6-month residence at La Domain. We talked about flowers. The trees washed the air above our words as we ate yesterday’s noodles with chopsticks. This time it did not taste as heavy with peanuts.

“Mary is exhibiting symptoms of jealousy,” I said quietly.

“Does she have a reason?” R asked, raising his eyebrows.

“No,” I answered, shaking my head.

“Have you given her a cause?” R asked.

“No,” I said, “and I do not have enough energy to start a new relationship.”

R sighed. “I can relate to that,” he said.

I half-jokingly told R that when I died, I hoped I’d go to La Domaine.

The next morning, we left for Maine to see Moxie and to do another weekend of workshops. We had a good nap in the car, but it was a bit chilly in Maine. So up, waking slowly, to meet Moxie. We took an outdoor shower and shave, put on fresh clothes, finished preparing the tent area for the three days ahead.

Moxie is a forthright, pixyish woman with only two speeds: fast and faster. Her voice could soothe across the crackling of a campfire far away from city lights under a black sky webbed by the Milky Way.

Moxie complimented me on being so even-tempered. I replied, “I’m getting tired of it.”

Sometimes, so tired, I wanted to add.

I yawned when I woke, then fully beheld the rolling green lawns and gentle hills surrounded by luscious forest, weathered gate posts, rusty wire fencing slowly returning to earth like the Titanic, the hordes of black flies, plagues of ticks. I sharpened knives as people began to arrive and sprang their tents into shape. That night’s dinner was salad and meatballs, and we sat around the fire and gave an intro/overview on what we’d cover the next day.

I took the fire whip out and had a hell of a good time throwing it, blowing cinders and flames amid the cracking and the crackling. I thought I’d do it again the next night for a video. The asbestos blanket worked well to extinguish the final flames.

First class of the day was a good two hours of demos and description, followed by a lot of one-on-ones, personal tuition and several whip repair jobs, fresh fall replacements, several conditionings and a multitude of poppers replaced. By the gods, they were all cracking and grinning by the end of it.

By lunch I was exhausted, collapsing on the bed in the canteen and napping for two hours while Domino engaged in “Whip Picasso,” dipping the whips’ crackers into pots of paint and cracking at sheets and canvases to create works of percussive art. Some of the designs were stunning.

I knew of only one other whip handler who used the whip to paint on canvas, and that was Mick Denigan in Australia. He did one of an eagle where the feathers were formed by individual strokes of a stockwhip. Perfection.

Then we did the BDSM component – with great questions – including a good demo with sunburnt Mary (so I consciously went lighter) amidst the terrific talks.

“The way folks process pain is very individual,” I said. “Even a familiar partner’s performance can change from day to day due to a myriad of factors, from relationship problems to trouble at work. Each time is new and has a life of its own. Like Mary’s sunburn, here. I don’t want to make a problem worse.”

I grounded the whip on the grass, letting it roll out to its full length.

“There’s the science of the bullwhip, and the art of the bullwhip,” I said as I sent the whip out. “And there’s a difference.”

Both aspects of the bullwhip experience were always on display at Shooters Roundup in Morristown MN, hosted by Larry Ahlman’s Guns. The weekend event featured sharpshooting displays, vendors, guns galore, Wild West shows and “meller dramas” for the whole family. The narrow stage elevated us about two feet higher than the assembled audience in the bleachers. We did multiple shows a day for two days. This gave me the chance to meet some outstanding Wild West performers like Pistol Packin’ Paula Saletnik.

We’d do a 20-minute show with fancy cracking, stunts and tricks, a lot of audience interaction, with anecdotes and jokes. We did traditional routines like newspaper cutting and unique displays of dexterity such as slicing the individual pips off a playing card. My personal favorite was the Dump-a-Duck, in which a rubber duck balanced on a playing card atop a cup would get dunked by both vertical and horizontal cracks from eight feet away. An audience showstopper was always the Cut Throat (so named by Chris Camp) where Mary would hold a styrofoam strip in front of her neck, and I would slice it from behind her head without touching her flesh.

The music for the act was spaghetti Western all the way, with the volume turned down when I was supposed to tell a story. It all had to be family friendly, so some of my better stories went unsaid, which I am sure the parents appreciated. My wireless mike served me well, since my voice is soft.

I was always amused that the background noise was capped by gunfire of pistols, rifles, machine guns and reenactors' cannons. (Bang! Boom! “Wow! How long was THAT whip?”)

I took advantage one year to tell the tale of One-Eyed Charley Parker, a woman who lived her life as a male stage coach driver in the California gold fields. First woman to vote in a presidential election, don’t you know. I liked that my “bully pulpit” allowed me to tell a positive, empowering story of a woman who lived as a transexual in the Old West. Slightly subversive, eh? Maybe the boys and girls would look with different eyes at Hopalong Cassidy and his sidekick California Carlson from that day forward.

We’d sell a lot of my books, gleefully signed with a personal message inside the cover. While we cooled down, we’d have some fascinating conversations with kids and folks alike about guns and schoolwork, sometimes explaining the physics of the whip’s crack in easy terms they’d understand.

There were about 20 food vendors selling delectable dishes on the festival’s grounds, dutch ovens and blacksmiths’ anvils clanking away as the Clydesdales pulled their carts up and down the hills.

Boom! A thundering blast in the background as the Civil War reenactors fired another shot from their cannon over the fields.

At the buffet dinner, Larry would make a small speech, then hold up a scrolled copy of the Second Amendment which he wanted me to split with the bullwhip for the highly partisan attendees to cheer. Propaganda at its most grassroots level, a startling image supporting gun owners’ rights.

The whips responded to me well on those days. They were at home, both in my hand and in the eyes of the observers.

It was refreshing to get back to the Wild West roots of the bullwhip mystique. Most of the folks knew whips only from what they’d seen on TV or at the movies. No, you cannot swing from a tree branch on a whip; it would stretch the leather out too much and ruin the whip. Our act introduced many to the reality of what is possible with a bullwhip — which was sometimes more than the fight directors could possibly imagine on a film set.

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. did a series of stunts with a stockwhip in the silent “Son of Zorro.” The tricks hold up well today, because he actually did them — no CGI or clever editing. Just the thing itself. It was a lesson in whip showmanship.

Lash LaRue was at a cattle-call audition when the director asked if anyone there knew how to crack a whip. When LaRue saw that no one raised their hand, he put his up in the air and got the job. That afternoon, he bought a bullwhip, and in his own words, he beat himself half to death trying to make it crack. Finally a friendly cameraman told him to just get the whip out there, and he’d take care of the rest. Sound would be added later. LaRue was serious about the whip, though, and got good enough to teach others how to handle one. He was generous with his time and attention.

My friend Brian Chic was practicing in a park in Hollywood when a limosine pulled up and a guy walked over to him.

“Is that whip a Bucheimer?” the guy asked. “Can I see it?”

“It sure is,” Brian answered as he handed the whip over. “How would you know that?”

“Well, I better know that, because I’m Lash LaRue!” They spent some time that day throwing whips together.

Brian asked, “Mr. LaRue, do you have any advice for a young whip cracker?”

LaRue tapped the side of his head and said, “Protect your hearing! I’m deaf in this ear!”

CHAPTER NINE

WHIPS AND ROSES AND DIALOGUES

The pain was becoming more difficult to conceal, by now — but I had to do it.

The next day began with an invitation to do a bullwhip training in NYC for Virgin Cruise Lines. (I had a really good feeling about this, so I said Yes without requiring the usual deposit.)

The month before, I had been out to TRIA Orthopedics for surgery on my arthritic left hand. Dr. Clare McCarthy did a hell of a good job fusing a finger, as did Carey (anesthetist) who bade me, “Have a nice nap!” I began my tour to the East with my left hand imprisoned in a cast. I was exclusively right handed for the duration. It was all I needed. The good thing about teaching jobs is that the students do most of the work; I’m just there to guide them through it.

Dropped off at the airport again by Mary, I found my flight delayed. I'd lost my Dexcom glucose reader in the bustling terminal, but I heard an announcement looking for its owner, so I was able to reclaim it. The flight itself was bumpy, though I was more worried about my blood sugar. Always a concern when I travel long distances.

Landing in Newark NJ, I began a 6-hour odyssey which involved taking the train to Penn Station. I caught the wrong thundering subway car, had to backtrack, finally made it out to Long Island City (which was in Brooklyn, not Long Island).

It was now snowing, so I hailed a cab to get to the Fairview Inn Hotel, where I tipped the cabbie generously. I’d never have found the hotel otherwise.

The hotel took $20 a day deposit on my credit card, which I could not cover. Couldn’t get internet; TV not working. It was now 4am, and I was cranky.

First day on the job, I ate some good sea food, then walked to the bustling studio, met everyone, and went over the needs of the production in regards to bullwhips with the stage manager Gosh, Dee the circus coordinator, and the performers Andrea, Bella, and Max.

I gave my all for three full hours, a thousand dollars worth in itself. Curiously, my blood sugar leveled for the duration and well beyond it. Perhaps there are some immediate pluses on the exercise plan, not merely toiling until I started to see some slight benefit far down the road. Worth exploring further.

Talked with Mary back in Minnesota. She was doing well with her attempt at smoking cessation and had been using this time to get the storage lockers straight. But I could tell that something was grinding her down. I’d find out more later.

Back in Long Island City, I spent three long hours walking from the studio to the apartments, normally a 10-minute trip. All the buildings kept reshuffling themselves at every intersection. I could have been within 20 feet of my room and not known it. I wound up sitting at a single table in a corner of the Astoria Restaurant, doing newspaper puzzles. I could see no menu posted, because what was available was on display in steel tubs under sneeze guards, including the octopus and shrimp. Language was no problem, because it wasn’t needed. You just pointed at it and it was yours, deliciously. I looked up at a taxidermied hammerhead shark, the whole place soaked with the scent of the salty sea. I went with the smoked trout.

With many sights in Brooklyn, I was rapt by the subways seething with sleepers and hungry ones, crazy one-dimensional, barely human women with Halloween hair and vacant stares, hopelessly adrift in their worlds alone. Any negative opinion I might have had of NYC was washed away, person by person, face by face, Italian and Arab, Mexican and Black, old and young – Exhilarating in its ordinariness, its wrought iron gates splaying sunrises across the small squares on the concrete below the silent doors – Heaven.

If I could only stop getting so lost. One could spend a lifetime discovering the fire hydrants and Olympic crosswalks of Long Island City in Brooklyn alone, one small corner of the world, gigantic in its slippery suspenders and cathedrals of overhead trains rumbling by like soft earthquakes.

Slept in, the next day. Hand hurt. When I awoke, I realized my computer and phone were still on Central Time; I had one less hour than I thought to make my start time.

I hurried to the studio, praying to get the route right and almost took a wrong turn, but I’d passed the seafood restaurant I’d eaten at the day before. I knew I’d approached it from the other side, so I was able to correct my course. I walked in at exactly the appointed start time.

One of the studios was being used to audition child actors for a commercial — There must have been about a hundred kids and their hovering mothers not talking to each other.

Our own studio space was a huge cavern with mirrors on the walls, tape marks on the floor outlining where the stage would be for the show on the ship in just a few weeks.

I gave them three hours, wall to wall, this time one hour each. All were progressing quickly, even little Andrea — European, having difficulty with the English, asking for whip lengths in meters instead of feet. I realized she was hearing English as a second language, so I slowed down my speech and simplified my vocabulary for her. One of the keys was to remind them all to let the weight of the whip do the work, to ride the wave like a surfer; The surfer does not push the wave, they ride it. I think they got the vision. We tried cutting carnations, but these NY carnations were tough. I needed the more expensive New York roses which would explode in a crimson spray of petals to make the theatrical moment unforgettable.

I suggested to the stage manager that the company should invest in three four-foot bullwhips so the performers could practice in the tight spaces of a cruise ship. I wished I could do more to launch them correctly. Secretary Angeline told me I was referred by producer Andrew Katz; I felt that I should send him a thank you note for this gig.

Day 4 was a long one in Long island City, a full day of three hours with the performers, Andrea, Bella and Max, now with understudy Andrew. I gave Andrea a full hour of solo attention. She was getting it. I hoped I contributed to her self confidence for this show, “Another Rose.”

And yes, the red roses spray effect was spectacular.

We parted on a positive note, but I'd left my white silk scarf in the studio, so I would have to get another from the aeronautical accessory company. It was good talking to Mary, and I was looking forward to being home again.

Dreams: Damned, deep vibrations like an undersea landslide. The heart felt both larger and heavier than normal. On nights like this, I wished I could destroy my more tenacious memories.

Next morning, I rose extra early, showered to wake myself. Still too late for breakfast. Drank half-assed coffee at the bar, watched mumbly TV news, waited. Heard my name called. It was Bella, Andrea and Andrew, bright, young, eager and very talented – chatted for a few minutes. I’d miss them and the buzz of the backstage, the rehearsing, the feeling of being in something great, a part of something that would fly beautifully.

I took a taxi to LaGuardia – the airport was very close to Long Island City, only 4 miles – the cab still cost $30.00. At the airport, I had to kill more time before I could check my bag with United. Finally boarded the plane.

I was now back home after United lost my bag, so I had to wait an extra hour and received a welcome compensation for $50.00. Hmm. Mary drove us home; I'd left my green scarf on the plane. Damn again.

Traveling and presenting always is both a curse and a blessing. It comes with the turf. While I may glory in the recognition and reflected honor our status sends before us, I am shiveringly desperate to make each journey at least break even financially — especially if I know we will not turn a profit on any particular trip. My dance card is frequently filled all through the year. Between lessons and selling books, we usually come out in the black — or at least in the gray.

It was no gray area when we were performing for a fetish convention in Minneapolis at the Lumber Exchange. The stage stretched out into the audience, with a wall at its back. We crawled under the stage to tape down the cables and wires for our props. I obtained a guarantee from the harried stage manager that the stage would be exactly the same when showtime came. But when we came out from behind the curtains to mount the stage, I was horrified to see that the promise had been worthless. A huge St. Andrews cross had been positioned against the back brick wall, making the stage a full eight feet shorter than the space I’d rehearsed in.

Of course, the whip kept clipping the St. Andrews cross, throwing my aim off. I soldiered onward, popping balloons and snuffing candles. Some of the balloons were helium filled, so they floated above the stage, where I popped them with a gaffed bullwhip cracker before they could drift up toward the ceiling. The applause was tremendously uplifting, but I knew it was not the show I’d planned.

Every story has its ending, and this story stumbled to its conclusion as the offers to perform and present workshops began to thin out in the wake of the pandemic. Too many new teachers were offering their own workshops, demonstrations and lessons for free, for nothing. I could never compete with that. Ironically, some were the same people I’d once taught.

Negotiating a fee for a presentation was often a fun exercise of poker-playing skills, with new opportunities to get whips as part of the payment in lieu of cash; this was how I reclaimed my own David Morgan bullwhip as part of my compensation package for a demo in San Diego.

Fourteen surgeries and medical procedures later, now living in a small affordable housing apartment, I knew I would not have many possibilities for cracking a 12-foot bullwhip anymore. Around this time I was considering retiring because of the mounting financial and physical costs to me, and I was resolving to retire my bullwhips, as well. Mary erupted – the apartment was supposed to be a temporary respite from the road, and it had turned into our permanent home. I did not know what to say when she said, “I’d hoped we’d have our own house by now!” Is this what incompatibility looks like?

After a while, Mary calmed down and became helpful again, encouraging me by saying she saw how hard I was working to try to make these adventures paying propositions for us.

I could not sleep. Maybe two hours. Mary woke me up with a cup of tea and some buttered toast. Wow — it helped me to heal on many levels.

Mary and I talked about where we were going as a team, specifically with the whips. She argued for her position in shows and presentations, noting she covered for my mistakes, deviating from the script and showing my lack of skill “often.” Ouch. I was finally (I thought) able to get across the concept of my considering adding “eye candy” to the mix as a business strategy – then I watched her jealousy rear its ugly head just at the mere thought of it.

Later, she asked for the okay to post on Facebook about the younger/prettier assistant problem. When I made some specifications to avoid the public appearance of jealousy or disrespect or lack of appreciation, her tone changed to a more subdued note, calling me “Sir” in a way that made me wonder if she was saying “Fuck you!” (She was.)

She was more at peace after seeing feedback on Facebook to the proposition of our taking on a younger team member. I’m glad she did not see this as an outright desire to replace her (which it was not).

We both flew to New York City to do a workshop at the fetish club Paddles, for an anti-AIDS fund raiser. Our host had dropped us off at our hotel – a nondescript storefront with an entrance wedged between two small shops in Chinatown. The walk was up to the second floor to a bedroom just big enough to contain the plastic wrapped mattress. I looked at the lack of a ceiling — it was just chicken wire, which extended over all the rooms on this floor. The high-hung TV played only Chinese programs — except for one Spanish channel. We slept in the semi-gloom, waiting to be picked up the next day to be driven to Paddles.

The entrance to the club is a winding multi-floor hallway down to a single door which opens into a warren of rooms and play stations for every kinky taste.

I made the presentation, including explaining how to attach a popper to a fall. A young bald-headed fellow said, “Or you could do it this way.” And he proceeded to tie the popper on another way, which was almost as good for all of its being just a more complicated knot. The young fellow called himself Von Sternberg or some other German director from the 1930s. I cannot recall what he called his submissive companion, a lovely black-haired delicious dish in leather. The workshop ended, and I was sitting on a throne in a fantasy room, decompressing. Von Sternberg walked in, towing a young man who held a newly acquired whip. He gave the guy a whip lesson right there in front of me while I was talking to another Top seated in the other throne. Von Sternberg was all over the board, doing deliberately what I suggested be discarded to my own students just minutes before. He ended his mini-workshop and looked at me, perhaps waiting for praise. I gave him acknowledgment only — “Yes, you did that.”

On Fetlife later, I invited his submissive to befriend me; I did not send him an invitation. The insult was deliberate. He angrily asked me what was up with this blatant break in protocol. I ignored him and he went away, leaving some barbed comments about my not being able to tolerate my “betters.” Perhaps I could have handled it more civilly. This way, I’d bruised his ego, which would likely result in angry putdowns when my name was mentioned at any events he might attend later in the city. Yes, what I did was rude and inexcusable — but it Felt so right, so satisfying to pop this little prick’s ego-driven balloon. I should be ashamed for not showing noblesse oblige, but it was so blatantly in my face. Oh well… Even at my age, I am learning to be patient with idiots. I forgive myself a lot.

I read somewhere that Rachmaninov was skewered by critics when his first symphony came out. He plunged into a deep depression, and worried he would never compose again. The drought lasted three years.

His friends took him to one of the early psychiatrists, and he used hypnosis. He asked Rachmaninov what he wanted to write next, and Rachmaninov said a concerto.

The doctor made these post-hypnotic suggestions: “You are` writing your concerto. You are working with great facility. It is of excellent quality.” And it worked for Rachmaninov.

I decided to try self-hypnosis when I ran into a performing block. But it didn’t do a thing to help me. Not until I added the suggestion, “And I am having great fun!”

“I am performing with my whips’ I am cracking with great facility; it is of excellent quality. And I am having great fun!” If it isn’t fun, you won’t want to do it.

A percussionist from a symphony orchestra contacted me for a whip-cracking lesson. The idea was that he wanted to crack a bullwhip onstage to add a novel touch of authenticity to a seasonal musical number that called for cracks to accompany a sleigh ride. The piece is literally called “Sleigh Ride.”

We met several afternoons at the orchestra hall. He took me onstage to see the space he’d be working in, and I calculated the safe zones between the drums and the horns, crafting the moves he’d have to use to avoid clobbering his fellow musicians with his whip while still getting a resounding crack.

I was impressed by his intensity. He had a heart full of desire to create the right effect for his audience. He was surprised that the power was there for such little effort on his part, and that the act required purity of form and timing rather than a feat of strength.

It took just a few cracks for me to realize that the orchestra itself had the best seats acoustically in the house. The sharp reports echoed off the walls and ceiling with a pristine quality I’d seldom heard in the open air of a park. The wooden surfaces of the hall purified the sound with a startling clarity that made my heart sing.

First, we worked on the Circus Crack. It was a move that could be channeled into a vertical plane, avoiding the seats crowded around him. To give him some flexibility, I then showed him how to do a Forward Flick, with an emphasis on my ‘Point and Squeeze’ technique to supercharge the cracks while maintaining control of the whip’s thong from the handle to the popper. Even with a short four-footer, he’d generate enough of a boom to reach the highest balcony seats at the furthest reaches of the hall.

It worked well. After the rousing conclusion of the piece, the conductor called him forward to perform a solo encore. The audience adored it, rewarding him with its laughter and applause.

My left elbow was giving me pain into the red zone, now, so I booked surgery between gigs, doing the rehabilitation exercises diligently.

Suddenly I was prepping for another trip to Denmark — not my first rodeo, obviously. Once again, a bumpy landing, this time in Hamburg, where they lost my bag for three days.

Lufthansa gave me an overnight ditty bag with a T-shirt, comb, toothbrush, etc. Fair enough – I knew my bag would turn up. It absolutely had to: it held my whips and my meds, as well as my change of clothes.

I didn’t sleep for a day and a half, with one medical crisis after another: no thyroid tablets, no sleepers, no antidepressants, and my bag somewhere in the airport (I was hoping). Cold sweats, shaking, feeling anxious.

“Come on,” said Dan. “Let’s get you some clothes. Keep the receipt.”

We went to a discounted clothing store, where I picked up some shirts, pants, shoes, so I was able to be somewhat fresh for my first class, a 50-minute intro that I barely got through, while outside the rain came down in curtains.

The wind-driven rain was a summer storm which knocked over trees, but a field trip was always part of the agenda. This time it was a Viking fort used by Harold Bluetooth. In a glen, white stones outlined where the piles were driven for the long houses. The sample house they had was wattled with mud and cow and sheep fur. The dirt floor was dry and even, long benches surrounding the hall with the fire pit in the middle. I listened, but I heard no Norse poetry; I saw no shadows moving in the corners. The place was lovely, but dead.

During the next workshop I almost got off the rails a few times, but the crowd of 40 people seemed to like the presentation, anyway. I think I lucked out; having done so many of these, I could rely on my automatic pilot.

The bag was delivered that afternoon, and I caught up on my meds, feeling calmer immediately.

One more class/demo, which was made successful by the lovely Simona. A true bacchanalia was served that night with roast pig, right down to the apple in the mouth.

I enjoyed an arm massage by Monica, who I could easily fall in love with, a professional witch “who is also an imaginary friend.” I would later get a sexy Tarot card reading from her that was surprisingly accurate.

“According to this, you’re at the end of a 16-year cycle!” she said.

“Bring it on!” I answered. “I’m ready for it!”

My workshop the next day went well for its 53 minutes. The one-on-one lessons took place the following day. I was delighted to see how much Lasse already knew, when we had our one-on-one time together. He took my class last year and obviously knew what he was doing. I asked him why he came to get a lesson from me, since he’d already had one.

“Why, to meet you, again, of course!” he said.

Dan and Rikke dropped me off at the ever-familiar airport in Hamburg, where I wandered the corridors until departing for Frankfurt. More delayed flights and changed gates before I zipped to Fiumicino Airport outside Rome for the last leg of my European tour.

I took a cab to the apartment, absolutely crashing from the blood sugar drop (into the 40s), the heat and exhaustion. My hands were shaking so much I couldn’t text Stefano, my host. I was swirling down the drain with no hope of rescue, when Andrei and Sara arrived on motorcycle with sugar packets in their pockets. They got me upstairs and settled in, so by now my sugar was up in the 50s. We ordered pizza and Cokes. I was still wobbly and woozy, but getting set for my weekend ahead.

The apartment had three bedrooms behind a massive iron door that unlocked electronically. The kitchen was so tight there was no room to pull out the chairs at the tiny breakfast table. I was chided the second night for leaving lights on — electricity is expensive in Rome.

On Friday I met Stefano and his girl Gemma at AKA, the club. I listened to karaoke for hours, hanging out with Mike Cannell and Dena.

The workshops next day were washouts, with only 8 people attending and only one private lesson (given at a discount because it was for a fellow performer).

Anton Pellicano visited us for a few minutes — always good to see him, even if it was a brief meeting. He gave me a gift of a silver coin from the Vatican.

Workshop that night was a demo. Stefano volunteered the diminutive Gemma to be my model. I played and talked, keeping it light, to a level 2. But when I asked her how she was experiencing it, she said, “Five or Six.” It was obvious to me that she was nervous, not able to relax into the experience, perhaps also feeling some performance anxiety with her Master sitting there, watching intently.

Sadism has many magnitudes, from selfishness to psychic vampirism to ultimate selflessness, reflecting Nature itself. In my own vocabulary, I was an "Enlightened Sadist," a contradiction which I reconciled the same way a person could be a sober drunk.

Consequently, I got requests to play with a lot of people, partly because they knew I had nothing to prove to them or others (or to myself). As I said, the whip was the only toy I knew of that could go from 0 to 9.9. The only thing that came close to that range was electricity.

I got to play in those upper numbers rarely, maybe two or three times a year. If that was the only range I could play at, I’d barely have been playing any of the time. That’s because most folks want to play at a 2.0 level. They want the taste, the thrill of the experience without the suffering. If you start slowly and ramp them up gradually, though, even 2.0 players can go a little beyond themselves as they come to trust you and as they get used to their body sensations.

The farewell lunch took place at Luigi’s in the old section of the city. Aka’s first storefront had been on the corner. When Stefano walked in, they hailed him as a long-lost brother. The bees and the birds were buzzing and chirping in the hedges around the outside dining area. The calamari was the best I ever ate, and the crème brulèe afterward was perfect, in a word.

Stefano smiled. “We have to be the good host,” he said. “It’s what we do.”

This elicited applause from me and Mike and Dena. Spirits were high.

The trip home was uneventful — except for one scary slip on the escalator in Hamburg – and it only took me three days to get back onto my schedule at home.

Seven months later, I got my refund from Lufthansa ($208). By that time, I’d forgotten that they owed me anything.

In the meantime, I’d broken in a new chiropractor, an amazing physician named Dr. Darin. He gave me specialized exercises and manipulated my bones so I was able to keep doing shows between the surgeries. But the visits to the operating room were making a bigger difference now than they had before. I could no longer play to the folks at the back of the balcony from the stage of my life.

Back in Minneapolis, I knew I had to chat with Mary. The end was coming; we both saw it looming on the horizon.

“Are you being Passive-Aggressive with me?” I asked one night.

“There’s nothing passive about my aggression,” she said.

The year before, she had persuaded me to declare bankruptcy. It was not a deep hole and only two credit cards were affected — but it was now on my permanent record. It was my last ditch attempt to save a sinking situation. A few months after that, Mary moved out. We divorced six months later. We remain friends, but our lives are in different directions.

She regretted that the magic had “gone out of what we do.” She missed having an audience to play off. With her roommate putting limits on how much she could borrow her car, she was also going stir crazy in her new apartment. I wished I could do more for her, but at this point I had my own alligators to contend with.

It did put the expression “Suffering for one’s Art” into a new perspective for me. It seems that anyone close to such an artist would suffer, too. This fact changed my perception of things going on around me, and inside me. How many times have I asked another person to make a sacrifice to me, because I served a higher purpose: The Work. So they were not serving me, they were serving The Work through me. I was only the intermediary. This attitude might have kept my psychic hands clean, but it did not lessen the pain of the sacrifice with its attendant suffering.

CHAPTER TEN

DANCES SACRED AND PROFANE

I am rehearsing a routine with my bullwhip in the back yard, deliberately letting the whip luff so it does not crack loudly, disturbing the neighbors. I want to get the sequence down pat, then I will speed it up into a more percussive performance. The whip seems tight, so I think I have something on my mind. I am probably thinking about pain.

When I am tense and tight, the whip is tense and tight, too. I have to relax. The answer? It’s a dancer’s trick: “Relax your ass.”

When you relax your ass, your whole body relaxes, and the whip becomes graceful as well as powerful. Less work, more power. Better accuracy. Getting in the zone. It's a great technique. I have found it helps when I'm in a line at the airport ("Relax your ass!"), or when I'm in the dentist's chair. "Open wide!" (aka "Relax your ass!"). I incorporate it into my relaxation technique when I engage in self hypnosis and auto suggestion: “Deep breath. Picture a theater screen. Relax your ass!” And then the images follow. I breathe into them, feeling it in the present tense as an already accomplished reality.

In the back yard, I am untying a knot in my cracker. If I continue to crack with it knotted, it will get tighter and tighter until it’s almost impossible to untie. I dig the fid in. There we go — and now, I resume my practice session, mulling over the nature of suffering.

Using pain to consciously seek altered states of consciousness likely predates human use of psychoactive substances.

Yes, you can generate genuine pain and leave bruises with any old bullwhip. All my hitting tools could give "genuine pain" — nothing fake about the pain here, nothing but farm-raised organic 100% suffering. On both ends of the whip, as it turns out.

Topical analgesics might relieve some of the ouch, but a bruise is going to last as long as it wants, and healing is influenced as much by biology as wound care. For all the talk of Pain on a scale of One to Ten, we really don’t have an objective measurement for pain. People are poor judges of their own pain tolerance. I’ve seen people who have been beaten severely saunter away with smiles on their faces, repeating that they really don’t like pain. And I’ve seen self-described pain sluts safe word out at the first stroke of a well placed hand spanking.

It’s S&M when both partners enjoy the experience — and want to do it again at some point. Otherwise, it’s just abuse. Night and day.

Mary is still my designated adult for medical reasons. She has stayed with me for the 24 hours after a surgery until I got my feet back on the ground and floated back into the present. She sat beside me patiently in the recovery room, Jonesing for a cigarette but sticking to the bedside. She helped me pull off EKG leads and get into my trousers. She’s driven me home and made a point of driving supercarefully, but I still put my foot down onto the floor board as if I had a brake on my side of the car. Hard-wired paranoia about colliding with another vehicle even on the short drive to the apartment. At least I was feeling okay — the pain killers were doing their job.

I was always constitutionally incapable of bottoming, in the classical sense. The closest I came to that was not reacting violently if I experienced discomfort at my dentist or doctor. I got no pleasure from it. I certainly didn’t get high, the way I saw others could. Someone suggested that all my surgeries might indicate that I was addicted to anesthesia itself. They may be right. It was always an adventure to climb back into my body under a ceiling full of stars.

I just knew that when I played with someone, they honored me by trusting me enough to do my work without distraction. I trusted them to be authentic. I created the sensation, they created a real response and rode the waves. And I got the contact high, just as I did with an audience.

When I played with other Tops, they did not submit to me in any context of a Dominant/submissive power exchange. It was more of a spiritual experience, which early on I did not expect it would be.

There was also an entire conversation related to the concept of submission being a ‘gift’ or not. Submission being a gift in such a scene was not inappropriate — it was another facet of this experience, where such subtleties are not seen by everyone, like masochism itself — some folks experience it as an intensification of sensation which would be only pain for other people, where others want to experience it as a frightful agony which they can then overcome, allowing the willingness to suffer profoundly to be the spiritual sacrifice.

In my mind, this is romantic, almost Christian (in a good way), in much the same way that the Icelandic "Edda" has one-eyed Odin saying, "Nine days I hung upon the tree, sacrificing myself to myself — for wisdom."

I coil my whip gently and put it back into the whip carrier (a drum bag). It’s time for some coffee while the thoughts continue to fly through my mind. I'll rub some Biofreeze into my shoulders and arms.

From moment to moment, motion to motion, a whip act is a continuum. Even the connecting phases between the payoffs should be choreographed, and the spell should not be broken, or en pointe becomes flat foot.

The whip’s sinuous action will register in some deep area of an audience member’s memories and soul. Every crack will be an effervescent glitter illuminating the stage and evoking something primal in the viewer. (Genetic memory at play?)

It’s Harmonic Resonance: If you have two perfectly tuned pianos in an empty warehouse, when you hit Middle C on one piano, that note will vibrate and make a sound in the other piano’s strings. Like calls unto Like.

I put the props together for the show that night. A bullwhip trick is a misnomer. It can’t be a trick, it has to actually be done. I have tried gaffs and tricks, and I have gotten away with a few, but I did not have that exhilarating sense of accomplishment that comes with a true stunt honestly executed. I have tried trick blindfolds where you can see through them, having an assistant blow out a candle at an impossible distance from the cracking bullwhip. I have tried false hands which I cut off as a joke, but once you lose an audience, you can’t get them back.

I’ve had people think I put batteries into the handles of my blacklight bullwhips to make them glow in UV light. I have used horsehair poppers which will destroy any balloon with the slightest touch. I admit that I have tried adding a whip crack to an ordinary magic trick. All it does is cheapen the bullwhip experience and mess up what might otherwise have been a decent magical effect.

The coffee tastes good, rich and dark. I walk into the kitchen to make a second cup.

The ego of an assistant, like the ego of a whip handler, is an always-ticking time bomb. It’s understandable. The whole act is greater than just the sum of two people. The energy released can devour the individual, especially if one puts a cap on the pressure by over-identifying with the result, or feeling one’s own power is not recognized immediately. The same holds true for either person, whose shadow may seem bigger because they stand closer to the light at the front of the action at any given moment in the eyes of the audience. That is, we are not the whip itself, we are the way the whip is expressed; The pointing finger is not the moon.

Not even after 14 years of marriage to the same person, day in and day out, in sickness and in health, in feast and famine. It will be a deeply felt loss, right up until show time.

The curtain comes down, the lights go out. The final bow is now for both, not for one propping up the other. The balance of the universe is maintained. It is the Dance of Life.

But first, tonight, I wait in the wings, hidden by the curtains, running through my solo routine on my mind’s stage. I am listening to the music of the previous muscular act, bouncing on my toes to get my fathoms of blood circulating, warming up as I watch the attractive young dancer finishing her seductive number in the cabaret. These are the moments I am most nervous, because I know that anything is possible.

The plane is boarding, the train is pulling out of the station, the guillotine blade is poised for the drop, shiny and razor edged. This instant rushes past us with cold little ripples, sweeping swishes of impending storms gathering force. The whip in my right hand is weightless, ready to coil out on my own iridescent music. The portable table in my left hand has several candles on it, ready to be snuffed.

A cascade of steel sharp memories stuns me for a moment.

I think of Kathy Sanders from my early 30s, for some reason. The step of her hip across the small floor from the wrapping table to the counter with the adding machines. The voice is a warm knife, glinting like her dark eyes, a flash in the atmosphere, brittle as a slamming door at the back of a house.

The applause and cheers signify the transition back to my own existence in the flash of a spotlight. I am prepared to plunge. The portable table is in my left hand, the bullwhip is in my right. I must light the candles quickly once I get on stage. My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. The air I gulp has no oxygen. I am swimming under the surface.

I think of Marty Haney, from my early 20s, whom I abandoned without realizing it, her hair flowing like a small waterfall over the shoulder-smooth stones below. I cannot bear its beauty as I watch. Everything reminds me of something else. The pressure rises with my intro music. I time my exhalations, building to the instant footstep onto the stage before me.

It is my minute, my hour alone. The whip calls me to perform. There is nothing more I need to know tonight. The frightening clarity, the clean fall of dreams and shrouds, a sirocco through sheer silk curtains up a long hallway.

I have prepared for this single instant, completely envisioned; now I flip on my automatic pilot to come through for me. I must relax and lean into the experience, unique and original, like all the others before it, never the same twice, rich with the confidence of a WW1 flying ace: The engine coughs into a tornado pushing me back into my seat, blasting past us even before we are moving.

Once we are airborne, the world stands still, slipping away below us, distance making the dream a dance. The whip rolls out behind me, finding its footing on the polished floor, sliding into its hieroglyph of power. It purrs in my hand; my nerves are on the outside of my skin. The music washes over me. The dragon rears its head, whispering me onto my saddle. The flight begins with a crack in the sky, two seconds before the start of the duet, the romance of the flowers before the scythe swinging sentry at the gates of eternity. It is all or nothing but the moment. The power is here, and I am here aboard it. We move together into the Bullwhip Experience.

I crack some fancy flashes to get their attention. I slice the styrofoam strips I pull from my pockets. I snuff the candles — pop pop pop!

At one cosplay sci-fi convention we attended, the Klingon contingent was hanging out by the punch bowl. One Klingon approached me with a banana clutched in his fist, daring me to cut it out of his hand. I made a little room and whacked the tip off it. He grunted and shook the banana again, calling for a second cut. This time, I sliced the banana cleanly through its middle. He grunted again and called for me to try a third time. I could see he was nervous, with beads of sweat showing along his hairline where he wore his prosthetic forehead piece. I smiled and decided to back down.

“You have demonstrated your courage, Klingon!” I said, coiling my writhing whip into stillness. “You have done well!” And a slight bow to seal the deal.

His companions let out a guttural cheer as one voice and clustered around him, patting him on the back and grunting their respect and approval. I think it was the right choice since no one was injured. And he had a new memory that would last a lifetime.

I am thinking about the show I finished tonight. I can pick out the moments where I did not hit the mark. Tomorrow morning, my own moment of truth is approaching. The next surgery is set for a few days from now. I’ll be hungry and thirsty because I won’t have had anything by mouth since midnight. I am nervous, again. I am not looking forward to the three days of post-op healing.

I let my eyes roam around the apartment, looking at the photo albums, the stacked books, the little anvil on the cigar box, my tools, the leather conditioner and its rag. I am satisfied by these reminders of the life I have lived. A gladiator's existence, a bullfighter's career.

My mind is rich with the faces of the many different people I have known, in the Scene and in the world. Most I no longer have in my life, but their moments with me were purposeful and moving.

The lightning travels through the whip up into its final instantly explosive expression. The power is tangible, the rhythm in counterpoint to my beating heart...

The best of my whips are now on the wall with my four world records. I bask in the memory of the glorious victories that the records represent, mostly victories over myself and my limitations.

As I once more begin the healing cycle, my aching hands and shoulders may still hurt tomorrow — but tonight my heart is full.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DRINKING GAMES

The Afterlife is probably an airport where bustling souls bent on transformation cluster toward their next ride. Some carry more baggage than others, some travel singly, some in pairs, others in family groups. The Clock on the wall reigns supreme. Watching the number of times that passengers check their wrist watches would be a dangerous drinking game.

My 23 kilo bag has already been checked, and now I am in an interminable line to be scanned like some grocery item with legs. There is another checkpoint after this one, where I show my Minnesota driver's license and am told it is insufficient identification; I need to have a passport. I am given a red piece of paper and directed to stand in a roped off area about the size of a single bed. I stand there for 10 minutes, then I am waved through as if nothing has happened. The new Nazi world is with us here and now; My own pink triangle must have been showing.

I am met by my ride at the destination in New Jersey and transported to the hotel for the event. More lines to register, then a line to get my room. It is at the end of two long halls, a walk and a half every time I visit it.

I come back to the bar and stand in a line to make an order for dinner. This part of the process takes almost an hour. Since someone else will be picking up the tab, I order a steak. Forty minutes later it is served to me, and to my surprise it is hot and delicious.

Black is the color of the hour, leather is the chosen fabric. I see beautiful Bo with his two girls and we reconnect after three years apart. He is gleaming and grinning, such happiness is infectious.

We know each other from Camp Crucible and he, like me, has not been invited back after the death of Uncle Frasier. Out with the old, in with the new? So the world goes.

And here is Dex, who graciously acknowledges to another person my contribution to his own book about whips in the dungeon. And now we meet Narcissa, a beautiful domme with long black hair who reminds me that I started her on her journey into the bullwhip experience twenty years before. I think she must have been a child, because she looks so young now. She is the coordinator of this event, so she is understandably too busy to socialize for more than a few minutes.

I indulge myself with a polish from Xander, a short boot black who has set up his gear next to a throne-like podium. He is industrious, swirling his bristly brush around the hidden parts of my boots. I ask him if he has laces the same length, since one of my laces is shorter than the other one. He fulfills my wish. We talk as he brushes, about leather, about polish, about the event. It is all a variation on the Japanese tea ceremony where all you can discuss is the weather and the tea itself. It puts you in the moment.

The polish itself is gratis, so I tip him generously. In the course of our gentle conversation, we discuss conditioning other leather garments like coats. My own Indiana Jones West Ed coat has never received such formal attention, so I trek back to my room to get it. I return and sit in the throne again, as he begins cleaning and conditioning, polishing and touching up my battered, beloved jacket in his lap. It has been around the world, and it shows it, down to every seam and pocket snap. He suggests doing this every five years. I silently vow to keep the appointment. My coat has never looked so good, except when it was brand new. I am in heaven. I rub the leather, I smell the polish, I see the gleam in his eye, the soft smile from a job well executed. The treatment was a masterpiece in itself, and I will carry a part of him with me from here on when I wear my coat. We trade business cards, I tip him generously again, and I usher him off into the wings of happier memories as the curtain descends.

My own workshop is outside in the courtyard under the trees the next morning. Chairs have been set up, and they have been kind enough to furnish me with a speaker since my voice is so soft. I will use my own lavaliere mike. We have about 40 people today, and I switch into automatic pilot with the trigger phrase, "When you hear the whip crack, it is breaking the Sound Barrier — that's 761 miles per hour, or 1100 feet per second..." And the rest rolls out naturally from there, from the initial crack out into the world around us.

It is now evening, and I have some play dates set. The first is with a young lady (whose name eludes me). She wants to have her front played with. I agree and we begin a nice scene. But it is dark, and the whip wants to kiss her neck. She calls the scene at that point. I make my apologies, reassuring her that there will be no marks in the morning to detract from her identity as a domme.

My next subject is a little woman with close cropped hair, non-binary, who also wants me to play with her front. I do not understand this fixation on frontal playing, but I'm up for it. She removes her top to reveal huge nipples and no breasts. I play with her lovingly, gently, then a little rougher just to push the envelope. She is happy standing there in her little boy's underwear under the colored lights strung between the trees.

I am now exhausted, but my third subject is the same young man who gave me the ride from the airport. He would like me to place a few well spaced stripes across his front. Does no one have a back any more? I mention I am tired, but I also immediately tell him that the whip is not tired, yet. I place two stripes across his hairy belly and chest with no warmup. His eyes go wide and he sucks his breath in as if I had pierced him with a 10-gauge needle. He focuses his eyes on me again and we have a good hug. That is the extent of the aftercare I have in me tonight. He will carry those welts for a few days, rubbing his hand over them, feeling them jump to life in the shower.

For a taste of eternity, it is a fleeting moment — Nailed into our flesh to show us we are alive.

Back in my room, propped up in bed, I flit from channel to channel, unable to maintain concentration on a single story line. The images run together into a kaleidoscope of second-hand experiences. I finally alight on an adventure film in Chinese, with Spanish subtitles. I am happy to not understand, and I don't even understand that. It is so like the day I've been having so far.

Reconstituted, I wander back out into the hallway and down into the lobby where I meet more people I should know. My business cards are busy making connections with other business cards.

And it is daylight again. I have packed my bags and called for the Uber. I ride the 18 miles to the airport, so tired I fall asleep in the back seat. The driver nudges me awake.

"We're here," he says. He helps he get my bags onto the curb.

When I land at the airport in Minneapolis, I call Mary, who comes to get me. We head out to a Perkins for coffee and a bite to eat.

"How was it?" she asks.

"It was good," I reply. "I saw Bo, and he seems to be doing fine. Sold all the books, so the coffee's on me this time."

The booth's table top is flat and cold under my fingers. It feels huge, and Mary seems to be far away from me. I hear her voice in the distance.

"The days have been really hot," she is saying. "We could use some rain." It is another tea ceremony, so I talk about the moment, the waitress, the food.

She drives the last few miles carefully, as if she has taken a driver's ed course. She is simply being thoughtful toward me, but for whatever reason, I am grateful for the stresslessness of it all.

Back home, the apartment seems grimmer, grayer than I remembered it. Looking out through my window, I see Minneapolis as a wide street full of cars, with every intersection crossing an act of faith, a step into the great What If merry-go-round of it all.

We make our plans and plot our calendars, but each moment could be our last. A passenger plane could crash into the side of the building just as we're stirring sugar into the coffee cup. The commitments we made, the promises we broke, all churn into the wash of the boat's propellers. The ocean behind us roils and froths a smeary line toward the horizon. The surprising smell of salt is sharp in the crisp air. The curtain of night is descending gradually behind us. The deck sways gently under our boots. Now is the time of dreams, and it all smells like leather.

Somewhere, perhaps Ken knows what he sowed, all those years ago. I am constantly being told what I have given birth to in the lives of others, even if I cannot see it. Thank you, Barbarian.

I've measured my earthly existence by the whips I've owned, by the long days I've spent cracking them. They defined my relationships, my finances, and my health — physically, psychologically, and emotionally. They have been my way of life; I have tried to give back as much as they have given me. Some days I think I have achieved my aim; other days I come up short, and I know it. On those days, I forgive myself, knowing I will try to make the next one better. It's all I can do. Sometimes, it is enough. Sometimes it is a dazzling triumph; other times, it is a spectacular disaster. To get the one, you have to risk the other. And there are never any real guarantees. Even a safe bet is still a gamble, because something could happen that is unscripted, unexpected. The lights could go out, the music could fail, the weather might not hold, and on and on. The only sure thing is the connection between the whip and the handler, dancing on the edge of experience. When it is good, it twinkles, it showers stars of sound. We dance in the maelstrom, keeping time to our heart beat, the ultimate captured lightning in each other.