Angels of Venice on CD behind me--- "Music for Harp, Flute and Cello". Beautiful eerie darkwave-tinged classical. I did first them via the catalog at Projekt.com. Not anything for classical purists, mind you. But lovely on summer evenings. I do want Lissy at emigree and Tiff at vanity_overkill to listen to them...and perhaps PondLife and Bombasine and Atwowaydream at D-Land as well.

The lovely Kamila at electric_bath sent me a photo of the contents of her purse. I always love Purse or Backpack Lists. She smokes--- which I rather like in girls. A pack of Marlboro Lights--- the co-ed's cigarette of choice ---and a pack of Djarum Blacks. A Samsung keitai, an iPod with charger, a Moleskine and pens, a collection of zippered pouches and containers, a set of keys, a biography of a classical pianist... I always love Lists--- love knowing what things lovely readers and correspondents and friends carry with them by day.

Alessandra at bel_ebat, Umi at ivich, of course Stella at stelladellasera, Ms. Flox at besideserato, Caitlin at kissmecaitlin, and Trish at kissingverlaine. steeping and Krystina at yes_please, too. Gia-Carangi and Flamingbird and Southeast and PondLife at D-Land... Purses and briefcases and backpacks--- it's all like trying to infer lives from bookshelves...

And, yes: Ginny at ginny_mccoo and Lissy at emigree and Ms. cataplexis and Melissa at kraftig_bewegt... I'd vur' much like to see their Lists... What is that they carry with them everyday to campus and coffeeshops?

So... who in Sunnyside NY with an rr.com account is reading me? Very much something I'd like to discover...

The very beautiful Stella at stelladellasera sent me a long e-mail today about breathplay. She had a very bad, very scary experience with breathplay back in the dark days of the Year Five. Someone wantonly and perhaps maliciously disregarded her safewords. It's one thing to push a girl's boundaries--- that's what Older Lovers and s/m play are for. Pushing limits is an integral part of violation fantasies. But there's a clear difference between pushing limits and deliberately ignoring safewords and hard lines, in trying to leave a girl broken and terrorised. Stella's Lucia--- not yet her Lover/Owner, but always her friend and lover ---broke the guy's nose for him. I only wish she'd broken his jaw, too. Girls have told me since ever I was at university that a little bit of fear makes a girl wet. I've heard that again from girls in Baltimore and NYC and Rochester and from Manila hotel rooms... From San Antonio and towns in southeast Texas, too. (Even the Evil Dana Lynn at nineteen told me that getting off a bus in a strange city and state to meet me--- her Older Lover ---for the First Time, she'd been sure that she was a teen victim in a horror film...which did make her wet enough to leave her squirming in her seat.) Girls have told me that, and I've made it part of the scenes we play out, part of the rituals of sex. But Stella's dom there in the Year Five was intent on terrorising her, on breaking her to prove that he was more dominant than other men who'd had her. The attitude is probably a step or two down from trying to prove his cock bigger than her last few lovers'. He deserved what Lucia did to him. Let's take that as a given.

I told Stella that I'd seen film scenes--- usually involving silk scarves ---about breathplay that were elegant and hot. But I had clear doubts about putting my hands around a girl's throat. There are sites and books that offer up safety guidelines, true. But I keep thinking of the opening of Mailer's "An American Dream". I keep thinking of fractured hyoid bones or damaged windpipes. And I agree with Stella absolutely that the plastic bag or Saran wrap breathplay thing is just...unattractive. Stupid and unattractive.

I do need to hear from Ms. Flox at besideserato about breathplay in her younger and more debauched days. And I want to find the nerve to ask Kelsey at clush whether being choked unconscious during combatives training offered her any sexual rush. I remember scuba training--- sitting in a circle on the bottom of a pool while the instructor came up behind us and suddenly turned off the air supply. That was about learning safety procedures, of course--- learning how to go into buddy mode. Nothing erotic there--- and all supervised by people who knew what panic and cerebral hypoxia were.

Lexie used to say that she liked breathplay. She's not speaking to me now, or I might ask her about the attraction and the experience. But I do remember--- as I wrote last time ---how someone I knew did die. Billy had a withered arm, true, and he was very drunk when he tried to do the autoerotic asphyxia thing--- but a death is always a clear warning. And I've seen "The Ruling Class"--- no one wants to be found dead, hanging, wearing a ballerina skirt and with porn mags on the floor. The fate of the so-called dom who choked Stella needs to be regarded as a warning, too. Post-breathplay anger is not a thing I want ever to have to deal with. And I really, really don't want to become part of a "Law and Order: SVU" episode.

Now there is an odd thing here. I have major reservations about choking a girl. But the pistol barrel thing has never bothered me. Probably because I always know--- and the girl knows ---that it's not loaded. I have clear safety control there.

Whenever girls and I discuss violation fantasies, I always think of Muriel Spark's "The Driver's Seat"--- a very, very dark and disturbing story. There may have been a film version--- has anyone seen it?

The girl in her hotel room in Manila... I really do need to talk with her about knifeplay. What is the full backstory of her "complicated" relationship with knives and sex? And how many people has she trusted to be part of that? If a girl says during sex slap me or rape me or hurt me there are well-established rituals to draw on. Cut me does make things more complicated, even with someone like Melissa at kraftig_bewegt. After all...knifeplay does mean that the girl is not just offering up her own safety, she's taking over your life.

Rachel at sirena73 and Liz V. at nightmareteeth both agree that Massive Attack's "Mezzanine" CD is a key Sex Music album. I do have to listen to it. And probably to their "100th Window" as well... I'll ask Lissy at emigree and Ms. cataplexis, too: is Massive Attack good Sex Music?

A question--- I'm thinking back to a song from maybe the mid-1990s. I think--- think ---that it might have been Massive Attack. Memory says that Sinead O'Connor did the vocals. The lyrics were vaguely political; there was a heavy bass beat. Does anyone out there have any idea what I'm talking about? Caitlin at kissmecaitlin has a good command of obscure music--- would she know? Would maybe Ms. ninjastyle or Jill at dehumidifier know?

I wonder if Lissy at emigree knows Philip Glass' "Orion" or "Les Enfants Terribles"... And I wonder if she's ever heard anything by Claire Voyant...or Unto Ashes...

Make the effort, my darlings: make the effort and find a lost song called "Hammers of Islam" by Beautiful Pea-Green Boat. Find the track. Download it. It's eerie-powerful-brilliant. The track is on an album called "Still Life" (1989). Heather Wright did brilliant vocals.

I do remember the video for Sisters of Mercy's "Dominion"--- somewhere in the Rif. I need to hear PondLife's stories of Morocco. And I need to see the video again.

So, then--- I'll be listening to darkwave music tonight. Black Tape For A Blue Girl, I think. And I'll be hoping that lovely wicked clever readers and correspondents will be sending me Lists--- both Purse/Backpack Lists and Sex Music Lists... Lists are always welcome...

And I'll ask, too: what fantasy areas do you find attractive-yet-shameful? What leaves you breathless with attraction but still afraid--- of the fantasy itself, or of what the world will say about you? Are there any vodka glasses thrown against walls in your Past?