The Boudoir Bible (3 page)

I sought out an empty study room and settled into a beanbag chair in a corner opposite the librarian’s glass observation window. I turned every page of the volume as fast as I could until I found the illustrations. From time to time, I would tear my gawking eyes away from the images and make sure that the librarian was not anywhere near her window. By the time I turned the last page, I was possessed by an uncontrollable desire to take the book home, so I pressed
The Joy of Sex
against my chest and zipped my red vinyl slicker over it.

I took a deep breath and marched straight past the librarian and through the double doors. As soon as my feet hit the sidewalk, I started to run. When I finally burst through the back door of my house, I dashed straight up to my bedroom, but I didn’t stuff the erotic booty under my mattress next to my
Playboy
magazine and a copy of Judy Blume’s
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
that one of my classmates had lent to me. Instead I plopped myself down on the bed with only one thing on my mind:
The Joy of Sex
!

Though my secret library fueled my imagination, at the age of thirteen I finally received some formal sex education—or, rather, abstinence education. Like other eighth graders of that era, my classmates and I learned the basic functions of the male and female sexual apparatuses. We also learned about sexually transmitted diseases in gory detail, along with the biology of the menstrual cycle, ovulation, and spermatozoa—all information related to making babies. The pleasures and benefits of a healthy sex life were never mentioned. But thanks to my secret collection of erotica and the uncensored reports of my older sisters’ experiences, I had no doubt there was a lot more to sex than dangerous diseases and making babies.

During my first year in high school, I secretly dated a senior. Every time this young man took my hand, even just to accompany me down the hall to a class, I got hot flashes and butterflies in my stomach. We engaged in a great deal of heavy petting and panting in his car or in my favorite spot, a field on the other side of the forest. One evening, I came home just late enough to make my father’s imagination run wild. In reality I had not been up to any girl-boy mischief. I had simply lost track of time while studying with a friend. While looking me straight in the eyes, he warned, “Beware, my child. If you play, you are likely to pay!” This cryptic warning, alongside the swelling bellies of two of my classmates, served to inspire a sense of self-preservation, but I would never forget my father’s use of the word “play.” For the next two years, I remained an adventurous and playful virgin.

On my sixteenth birthday, following the advice of my eldest sister, I gave myself a gift: my first Planned Parenthood appointment. The gynecologist asked me if I was sexually active. I told her that though I had not gone “all the way,” there was someone that I liked enough to do so with, and that was why I was there. She examined me, then gave me a prescription for the birth-control pill. Freed by modern science, I was liberated
from the chains of chastity exactly one month later by that chosen man. A few years older than I was, he had no idea that I gave him my virginity, or how happy I was to get “it” over and done with!

One day he introduced me to a friend of his who owned a vintage clothing shop. About three minutes later I had a part-time job, if you could call it that. Street Theatre was more than just a shop—it was a 1980s destination. Musicians, bikers, post-punk rockers, fetishists, and fashionistas came from up and down America’s East Coast to buy the coolest, sexiest, darkest, most daring looks we could possibly concoct. Street Theatre also carried a large selection of English leather: fuck-me pumps, metal-studded bras and belts, buckled boots, handcuffs, masks, chaps, erotic straitjackets and body harnesses, and other accoutrements of the closely aligned worlds of alternative fashion and BDSM (the matrix of bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism).

When the shop was empty, we watched Swedish pornographic videos in the back room while mending new entries from the secondhand stores that we plundered on a regular basis. Part of my job was to work a look that was representative of the shop’s aesthetics. I was happy to wear anything that confined and defined my
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
curves. I loved the constrictive powers of Victorian corsets and black lace girdles and 1940s and 1950s lingerie, and seamed stockings and torpedo bras became the essence of my wardrobe when I was not attending school. In retrospect, I realize that I had stumbled upon a different kind of loving thanks to my interest in fashion.

There was one browser who came into the shop nearly every day. There was something dangerously sexy about his tattoos, his devilish beard, and the scent of his leather riding gear. The passes he made at me over the jewelry counter flustered me, as did the rumble of his low-riding
bike pulling into the parking lot next to the shop. He was mature, pushing forty, and I was going on eighteen the day I accepted his offer to take a ride.

Sitting behind him on his motorcycle was empowering. I had never, in my short life, ever felt more grown-up, womanly, or free. But as he pulled into the driveway of his beachfront apartment, I felt my heart skip a beat, and by the time I was standing in his living room, it was racing so fast and hard that I thought I might faint. He offered me a beer, put on some music, and we perched on the railing of his balcony, which looked out over the thunderous waves of the Atlantic. We chatted just long enough for me to pull myself together, and then he kissed me, putting his hand on my thigh, and we abandoned the balcony for his bedroom.

We were writhing in a frenzy of kisses and caresses when he abruptly pulled away and looked into my eyes. Then he slowly pushed my wrists up over my head, held them down, and whispered in my ear, “You are a naughty girl, aren’t you? I think you need a spanking!” Laughing hysterically, I tried to escape, but he grabbed me, rolled me playfully over his knees, and proceeded to give me exactly what he thought I deserved.

At first I resisted and tried again to escape, but after a few perfectly targeted strokes, I realized that his goal was not to hurt me—but to please me. My decision to let go and comply with this new game was anything but conscious; my body changed my mind because I was thoroughly enjoying myself! I was happy to let him alternate between spanking my now-rosy cheeks and rubbing my crotch. When he finally allowed me to roll over, I attempted to express my appreciation, but he made it very clear that my pleasure was his.

Then, without taking his hands off my body, he asked me if I had ever been restrained. Without the slightest hesitation, I lied, “Yes, of course!” And before Little Miss Know-It-All could think about what she was allowing to happen, her wrists were buckled into a pair of leather cuffs, and she was bound, spread-eagled against the bedroom door, her cheek against its cool wood.

Thanks to those back-room porn breaks at the shop, I had a vague idea of what could happen, and I had good reason to be nervous, since the only bondage scenes I was familiar with involved moaning masochists and seriously relentless sadists.

But I was lucky. This man was well intentioned and skilled, not only with his hands but also with the soft leather flogger he took up for our pleasure. He never once overstepped my limits, and he checked in with me constantly to make sure I was okay. I felt safe and gradually handed over the reins of my pleasure. It wasn’t long before I understood that he was enjoying my initiation just as much as I was. That was the summer of 1986, a few weeks before I left Norfolk to study fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

I took the liberal arts program at the university as seriously as I took my sexual liberty, in spite of the glaring reality of HIV. My young generation was the last to feel free enough to engage in orgiastic debauchery and promiscuous sex without using barriers. Fortunately, I made it through, unscathed, what I now recognize to have been a dangerously carefree period of sexual exploration. When I think back on those years of polyamorous generosity, I count my blessings.

During my sophomore year, I met another man who would make a very important impression on my sexual perspective. The first time I succumbed to his call for courtship was also the first time I experienced a sexual high. A fabulously generous lover, he insisted on proving we could both be multiorgasmic. By the time I had climaxed for the third time, I believed him. It was a long night of lovemaking; our bodies fused, and we left all earthly things behind.

The next morning, we shared a hot bath and got dressed. After serving me a bacchanalian fruit plate, he gave me a private reading of some
of his favorite poems, and then—with a glint in his eye—he commanded, “Now take off everything but your shoes, and sit on that chair!” His tone was playfully stern, and so I happily obeyed. Taking off his clothes, he stretched out on the bed in the exact position where I had spent a good part of the evening and announced, “I am in the mood to switch. It’s your turn to take care of me.” I went over to the bed, nervously proceeded to buckle his hands and feet into the soft leather cuffs that were attached to the bedposts, and we resumed our journey. I did not exit the gates of Paradise until twenty-four hours later, and if I had not had a French class that Monday morning, I would have stayed exactly where I was.

As I walked across the campus, I felt elated, as if I had done drugs. It took me the entire day to get my head together, and when I finally did come down from my sexual high, I realized I was hooked on the effects of multiple orgasms, extended playtime, restraint, and full-body stimulation. It was through this special union that I came to understand the relevance of initiation, as well as the importance of being a proactive lover. The extent of my capacity for pleasure had been revealed. This relationship, which endured about a year, made a distinct and lasting impact on my sexual development.

In 1990, a few days after I received a bachelor’s degree in art history with a minor in metalsmithing from Virginia Commonwealth University, I said my last good-byes to the couple I was dating at the time, and I boarded a plane for Italy. I was twenty-one years old, I had a one-way ticket in hand, and my destination was Florence, where a position teaching gold-smithing awaited me. I had packed one very large suitcase and a carry-on toolbox full of files, pliers of various shapes and sizes, a saw, sharp shears, and a few other necessities of jewelry making. While I was already fairly aware of what my sexual needs and desires were, I hadn’t even the faintest idea where my love for the arts and jewelry was going to lead me.

I started teaching at Art Studio Fuji to college students studying abroad from around the world. I learned Italian and pursued the refinement of my craft by apprenticing to various Florentine masters
of age-old techniques like
repoussé
, inlay, enameling, stonecutting, and stone setting. In 1992, I launched my first handmade jewelry line at Luisa Via Roma, a renowned high-end fashion retailer in Florence. A limited number of boutiques from the United States and Japan followed. The collection included a family of objects that I playfully called “Sado-Chic.” Inspired by
The Story of O
, this collection would spark a series of life-changing events.

In 1995, I moved from Florence to Milan to obtain my master’s degree in industrial design at Domus Academy. I also reopened my atelier in a loft on the outskirts of the city, where I continued to develop my jewelry collections for fashion retailers as well as a series of “one-offs” for my own very personal pleasure. I called these useful objects my “jewel-tools.” They were a luxurious response to the implements of the sex-toy industry, which satisfied neither my lust for quality materials nor my sense of aesthetics. I never dared to show the gold and silver jewel-tools to the accessory buyers who came to my studio. I was fully aware that I was ahead of my time in terms of retail; any item with an obviously sexual function would be considered anything
but
chic by the fashion world. At the time, fashion could be sexy but not explicitly related to sex.

By the end of 2000, the Boudoir Box, the deluxe leather travel case that I designed to transport my erotic collections, was complete. I made my first trip with the Boudoir Box to New York City, then to London via Paris. While potential retail venues were still out of sight, the ability of the Boudoir Box to turn any hotel room into a seductive showroom was proven effective. The group of private collectors for my erotic designs grew, essentially like-minded friends and friends of friends who were as interested as I was in the art of loving.

After the Twin Towers in Manhattan were attacked on September 11, 2001, I finally found the courage to come out of creative hiding and follow my vision. If I were to continue to design anything at all, it would be openly and in the name of love and sexual pleasure. A few weeks after the disaster, I naively presented the Paradise Found Fine Erotic Jewelry collection to my regular retail clients during Fashion Week in Paris. I can still hear myself trying to explain the concept of the collection to the accessory buyers of institutions like Barneys of New York City, Liberty of London, and Kashiyama Tokyo, as well as other independent boutiques that had carried my jewelry lines.

On the first day of sales, I earnestly attempted to enlighten these commercial entities with a redefinition of the function of jewelry. Might we not discreetly enrich its ornamental purpose with the power to please all the senses—and not just the sense of sight? I expounded on the value of sexual satisfaction and the benefits of providing sensations that engage the entire body, genitals included. I told them that the collection was an invitation to my collectors to explore new ways to make love, emphasizing my desire to bring a novel sense of aesthetics to the sexual experience through the use of noble metals.