I am recovering today from a very busy and intense weekend at Folsom (the Street Fair here in San Francisco – not the city in the Central Valley) where I went to a couple of pre-events, the main event itself on Sunday afternoon, and an after-party.

I started off relatively slowly on Thursday evening with the Mature Metal meet’n’greet at Alchemy. Mature Metal are a highly recommended manufacturer of custom male stainless steel chastity devices. Several of my submissives wear Mature Metal cages, so I was interested to learn more about the devices. And it was an opportunity to socialize and catch up with old and new friends in the community.

Saturday night I went to the Folsom Eve Dungeon Party at the Citadel with my friend Louie and my submissive Nomicon. We actually met up in the bar of Nomicon’s hotel and after a very pleasant chat got a ride round to the Citadel around 9pm. I’ve been to the Citadel quite a few times for workshops and various events, but I doubt that I have never seen it quite this busy. And encouragingly enough it was a very mixed crowd – straight and queer, cis and trans, female and male dominants, female and male submissives – all flavours. Being so busy meant there were a lot of things to watch – and I do like to watch sometimes. But it also meant that all the equipment was taken and finding a place to play was very difficult. I did take advantage of a flogging photo opportunity set up by Lord_Anubis and Sundin_Photo. And then a cross became free and I could get Nomicon strung up for a flogging. He had been commenting that much of the play we’d seen “seemed … to be rather pro forma vanilla-style flogging”, so of course I felt obliged to make some real marks – and he was soon grasping the top of the cross for dear life.

Then we headed back to the refreshment area and found Louie who was talking to Bondy. After chatting a little I offered them the use of Nomicon for a little flogging. I am discovering that pimping my submissive to other dominant-minded people is a great ice-breaker.

On Sunday I started the day by cooking brunch for nine – including Louie and Nomicon. I did my traditional English breakfast (albeit with a vegetarian twist), but I was helped by one of my friends who did biscuits and gravy. As it turns out, this was my first time having biscuits and gravy despite being in the US for fifteen years – so that was a whole new experience.  Then after cleaning up and changing (I wasn’t ready to try cooking in a corset) we headed down to the MUNI and off to Folsom.

I hadn’t actually been to Folsom for a few years and had forgotten quite how busy it gets – and how hard it is, once the crowd really builds up, to move around, find friends, get a drink etc. Note to self – go to Up Your Alley next year (tag line: Folsom Street’s dirty little brother). But it still had its moments. I had Nomicon in latex on a leash carrying my bag (so convenient). I ran into a few friends – which is rather amazing considering there are perhaps 500,000 people there. And every now and again we would come across some seriously kinky stuff happening in a booth or off to the side – like the latex guys in a paddling pool with a hawker trying to get people to pee on them to “save water”. Of course I wasn’t doing that – but after consulting with Nomicon, and ignoring his doubts, I got him to oblige. After all, it was in a good cause?

But after a while it all got to be rather much and I headed home… And at that point I was thinking that was the end of my weekend. But after being home for a while I got a “second wind” and decided to go out again…

 When I got to the Folsom after-party I was somewhat taken aback to find that I somehow wasn’t on the guest list and didn’t know the correct answers to the “what groups are you in” questions. But I somehow charmed my way in – only to be a little disappointed. Given that Folsom is all about gay men and leather, one would expect that a Folsom after-party might reflect that – but instead it was almost exclusively cis straight people with mostly male dominants and submissive females – so hetero-kink-normative. I did chat to people and exchanged a few cards, but it did seem strange that so many people were from out of town and/or newly arrived in town – and not queer? Perhaps that’s just what’s happening now in San Francisco?

Anyway… After an hour or two, my “second wind” energy started to evaporate and I got a Homobile home.

Today has been quite… Cleaning up… Gathering my energy for the rest of the week where I have a whole bunch of sessions. What a wonderful life!

Ms Emilie