in these shoes? part 2: in which our protagonist has many new & educational experiences

In case you couldn't tell from the title, this one's also Too Much Information. It's also Not Enough Information because way too many interesting things happened at that party for me even to begin to describe. But here we go.

*TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI*

"Are you sure you've got the right club?"

I looked from one bouncer to another, then to the people milling around in the background, one of whom wore a Dracula-style coat with vinyl platform boots.

"Yes, this is definitely the right party."

"Sorry, it's just that there's a salsa night next door and people sometimes get mixed up."

"Not at all." I laughed. "I'm definitely not here for the salsa night."

In the hidden cove that served as changing room, a slightly tubby businessman type was wrestling with a black latex bustier and a bottle of talc. White powder stuck to his thick chest hair.

"I can't seem to get this bloody thing on!"

"Hey, good luck." I lay my outfit on the side table, fishnets on top of the pile. "This is my first BDSM party. I knew whatever I wore, I was going to be under-dressed!"

The man looked up with an eager expression. "It's my first party too. I'm here to make friends and get to know people."

"Yeah, me too. Well, see you later."

I checked my bag in at the cloakroom and somehow teetered from the foyer to the bar upstairs. Coffee in hand, I positioned myself next to a handsome dark-haired boy in a red rubber dress sitting daintily on the edge of the bench. Stage left, a group of women in leather biking outfits and velvet dresses chatted together in friendly tones.

A moment later, a young Lothario knelt on the ground in front of me.

"Excuse me," he said in a low voice. "May I give you a foot massage?"

My hesitation lasted only a second. "Yes, why not."

I had some idea of what this might mean. But, I realized later, it is a faux pas revealing of either rudeness or inexperience to play in the lounge area. For that, one must go to the club rooms. Which, in due course, we did.

..................................................................

Sometime later, divested of my momentary slave, I saw a broad-shouldered man wearing pinstripe trousers and vest who stood with arms crossed as he surveyed the room.

"Excuse me, I noticed you demonstrating a suspension earlier in the cage. Do you do ropework?"

He turned towards me and for a moment, looked surprised.

"Yes. Are you interested?"

Is that when the butterflies started fluttering in my chest? The ropes had been put away but he offered to get out his kit as I waited. Meanwhile, one of the organizers walked back and forth looking for a flogger.

Xavier came to fetch me and we headed past the bar into the room with a wide wood-and-metal frame. He started speaking in a rapid steady flow, telling me about his name on the scene, his job in real life, his live-in partner of thirteen years who aside from him almost only dates women. They have a polyamorous lifestyle, he explained, and I told him how I'd come to the same decision.

"There are very few people who are truly polyamorous," he said.

He began to unravel the long ropes, hanging them over the side of the frame.

"Should I take my jewelry off? And what about clothes?"

"Anything that might compress. Clothes -- take off as many or as little as you feel comfortable with."

I removed my fedora and stripped down to fishnet tights, a G-string and platform shoes. Xavier maneuvered me into position and began to wind the rope around my body. Despite the instruments of torture, the atmosphere in the club was so laid-back that I felt fine facing the room semi-naked -- more naked than I've ever been on a beach outside of the South of France.

He wound the rope above and below my breasts, around my bottom, thighs and ankles. It felt oddly comfortable. In fact, the strangest thing about it was how it didn't feel the least bit strange. And as Xavier worked on the rope, excitement rose in my belly.

And then, he pulled me up.

I hung on to the rope dangling in front of me to ease the compression on my ribs, reorient myself against the spin. Xavier spoke.

"Try to relax your whole body."

I let my feet, thighs, shoulder blades relax into position, simultaneously noticing how tense they'd been as I'd held them in a Betty Paige (ass out, feet stretched daintily like a ballerina en pointe). The rope held me like a naked parachute. And all of a sudden I was flying.

"Close your eyes."

Xavier's fingers brushed against my eyelids, as I imagine someone would gently close the eyes of a loved one who has died. But I was alive and my heart was pounding, and I felt safe, so safe, in his cat's cradle.

Something cool and soft caressed my exposed skin. Thin links of chain drooped from his hands. It felt as though time had stopped.

Xavier sat on the ground in front of me, slowly pulling the rope this way and that so I spinned wherever he wanted me to go.

My heart pounded against the rope. His lips moved closer to mine, and I held onto his shaven head as he pulled my hair back. We kissed in midair.

..................................

Aftermath:

The organizer duly found a flogger, and taught me how to use it with himself as willing victim.

On the night bus home, I watched the sun rise over London. Later that day I realized I didn't have any clean shirts with a neckline high enough to hide the marks.

The rope left tiger stripes on my breastbone that still haven't completely faded.

And I've still got butterflies.

in these shoes? part 1: in which charmaine & johnny dangerous go shopping for *that* party

This one is Too Much Information. Aunt Sue, look away now! STOP READING!!

The rest of you, please proceed.

*TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI* *TMI*

"What about those ones?"

Johnny Dangerous and I look at each other with matching skeptical expressions. We've been looking at shoes all morning. For a straight guy, JD sure knows his fashion. That, and his mad bargaining skillz, account for why I asked him to come shoe shopping with me in the Xidan district of Beijing. And, of course, a girl could use some arm candy.

We scoured the sales racks of various shoe concessions. There were the black vinyl ones with thick straps; the black lacquered ones with toe cleavage; and the pair with lace at the front and a dainty black ribbon. But these are something else.

We find them on the fifth floor of a bargain store, hidden among the Converze and Reedok knock-offs. The diamante-lined heel is at least five inches tall, if not six or seven. The straps are decorated with tiny mirrored squares. The finishing touch is the 2-inch clear plastic platform sole that makes these shoes worthy of the World Famous Bob herself.

"Well, why not?" says JD. "Try them on for size."

What he means, of course, is "we both know you're not going to buy them, but we also share an aesthetic paradigm valuing the ho in her highest expression." So I do. Surprise surprise: they're a perfect fit.

A moment passes. In my mind, the image of a stripper pole and dollar bills floating delicately through the air and over my exposed body. I can't say what's going through Johnny's brain -- probably the same thing.

"Okay, I have to get these. They're unbelievable."

The two of us start laughing like rabbits on ketamine. The shop owner crosses her arms and frowns at the floor.

"Well, what kind of party is it?" asks JD. "I thought you were going for the classy look."

"Yeah, um... actually, about that... It's a fetish party."

Johnny stays zen. I'm impressed: the man is unfazable.

"Cool. You should get them."

And that's that. Or rather, not quite. Over lunch, I explain the plan. You see, it's all about that Saturday night in London, my first BDSM party. I've decided to become a polyamorous kinkster and the party is as close as this cheese-eating surrender yankee will ever get to a debutante ball: hence the importance of the shoes.

Johnny objects. "So it's all about the sex, hunh?"

"That's not the point. Sure, I want to have fun and meet play partners, but I'm also looking for a committed relationship or relationships. It could all go horribly wrong, but let's face it: ninety percent of relationships go wrong. I figure this has got to be worth a try."

"Let me tell you, I support you one hundred percent... as a friend. But you're not gonna find love. You're gonna get used. Yeah."

"You might be right. I'm sure there's assholes on the scene just like anywhere else. But I still think it's worth the effort."

Johnny knows what he knows, and nothing's going to change that. If I had two happily fed polyamorous husbands, a beautiful wife and Ye Compleate Haremme of foot-worshipping slaves, I'm sure JD would be charming to all players but still mutter under his breath about sin and damnation and the devil's going to get you. Nevertheless, for a good half hour he bargains with the grumpy shop owner on my behalf to get her down to our agreed maximum price of 155 kuai (or eleven of your British pounds). What a darling.

One ten-hour plane journey later and several agonizing more shopping trips to find the rest of my outfit, I find myself standing at the entrance of a nightclub in Vauxhall, London. I've got fishnet tights, a G-string and Les Shoes in an opaque shopping bag, ready to transform shy, retiring Charmaine into Mademoiselle X.

But that, my friends, is a whole different story.

these boots were made for walken

The editorial staff of Charmaine X apologize sincerely for a recent lack of fresh TMI. The culprit is TMFT (too much free time): nothing to procrastinate away from by blogging. (Blograstinating?) A certain perfunctoriness in recent posts is certainly not due to any lack of blogworthy material. On which subject, more soon.

In the meantime, I present you with this tasty morsel of old-fashioned entertainment: Christopher Walken does a tap-dancing striptease.* Turns out fiction might be stranger after all.

*And of course, there's always Tapdancing Matrix Walken.

quote of the day: infantile

"I didn't know she was only thirteen! That's like 91 in dog years." -- Giles

poem: a dedication

To M, on her recommendation of Mary Barnard's translation of Sappho (foreward by Dudley Fitts)

If I had read her then,
I would have searched the pages
for earnest revelations

I would have turned a diamond
star of the Pleiades, into
a TV satellite
sending news only.

What other words could frame
that beauty, shining
in her golden-sandaled brilliance?

Much more than a lover of women, Thank you
for the gift of Sappho:
this from my heart,
which reeks of dissatisfaction.

quote of the day: night

黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛
我却用它来寻找光明

"In the black of night, my eyes turn dark
Yet it is with this darkness that I seek the light."

-- Chinese poet 顾城 (Gu Cheng)

something borrowed

Is it 'Morissette', 'Morrisette', or even 'Morrissette'? Actually it's F-E-R-G-A-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. 'Ironic' gets a whole new meaning all over again in this video.

something old

This single by Riz MC is a year old, but it still tastes fresh. True, we've heard all this left-wing whining before, but not with such a catchy chorus. ("So the dossier was wrong, jack some oil, drop a bomb...") Shake your post-9/11 thong, everybody!

something new

Jiggy done himself proud. My favorite Jewfro'd kletzmer-playing goy*, and, I'm proud to say, former bandmate James Traer has just released a single with one of the seven-odd bands he played with simultaneously during his time at Cambridge. Jiggy, as he is known to his dozens of teenage fangirls, plays bass. In his spare time he maps ocean temperatures for his physics PhD. There's a 93 percent chance he's the coolest person you know.

The band is 'Hamfatter', the single is 'Sziget'. You can listen to a clip here or find it on various websites (napster, amazon, hmv, iTunes). The first person to send me a jacked copy wins a mohawk.

"Anything one does can be improved upon by adding jigginess, and the absence of jiggiosity is a sad thing indeed." -- Jesus Christ's blog

*True fact: Jiggy used to play in a kletzmer-metal fusion band called Black Shabbat. That's just one of the things that make him fly.

phat like a concubine

Jane and I were exiting the French Cultural Center in Beijing when we saw this ad for a women's magazine. Since Kate Moss is an obese granny by contemporary Chinese standards, this was a chocolatey ray of light in the phat-fobic darkness. Plus, she's totally hot.

点点赘肉
别紧张,
杨贵妃照样
迷死唐明皇

"If you have a little extra meat on your bones, don't worry:
In this way [curvy] imperial concubine Yang Gui enchanted Emperor Tang Ming."

oracle girl

My friend Jacquie recently started her own blog, sharing her unique wit and wisdom with the world at large. It was about time.

Here are some of my favorite entries so far:

Everybody Has A Path
Chamomile Cooling Tea
The Sarmatians
Versions of The Tao Te Ching
Siddhartha: Enlightened One

quote of the day: quipological

"There's this tribe that only has four numbers: 1, 2, 3 and 5." -- Picard

big bad robots: the transformers movie preview

Watching the Transformers movie preview, at first I thought we had another gratuituous Samuel L Jackson* sighting on our hands. It turns out to be nothing but a poor imitation.

"Let me tell you something, son. The customer don't pick the car, the car pick the customer."

After that platitude uttered in booming faux ebonics to impress the suburban white people, our Samuel-a-like car salesman is utterly forgotten to focus on the real heroes of the film: the special effects. Michael Bay's third eye swoops into the vehicle and Herbie the Transformer starts to make funny crackling sounds designed to impress the viewer with a sense of animate robotic consciousness.

The teenage driver looks on in puzzlement. Can he take the responsibility? No, not saving the world from evil robots, though that would be nice. I mean playing the starring role. He lacks... oomph. Perhaps it's deliberate, so he won't distract from all the cars. At least Lindsay Lohan had skin like vanilla-flecked Jersey cream, and breasts so exultant that Disney reportedly spent several millions of dollars digitally reducing them so the daddies wouldn't get boners in front of their eight-year-olds. Shia LaBoeuf won't have the same effect. Except maybe on this guy.

But back to the robots. Somehow, when they Transform, they acquire mass, defying the laws of physics -- at least it looks that way. They're too big, too chrome, too complex; the airbrushed flames make them look like customized motorbikes. The good ones are Amurrican red and blue; the evil ones are black. Could the symbolism be any more obvious?

In Beijing opera, black is the color attributed to characters of soundness and integrity. But the Transformers are western, not Chinese. We create monsters -- and extra-terrestrial invaders -- in our own image. In the Transformers' philosophical universe, it's always easy to tell good from bad. One gaping plot hole remains: why the hell are any of the robots protecting Earth in the first place?

Transformers: it's coming out on the 4th of July. It won't make you feel better about Iraq.


*Kill Bill, the wedding rehearsal scene. "I've been a Coaster, a Drifter... if they came through El Paso, I played with 'em." Samuel L Jackson cameos are like nudity: who cares if they're gratuitous? It's cinema. It's there to make you happy through your eyes.