Last week we started driving to Chicago, a 500 mile 10 hour trip. We livened up the hours by having Dee ride in various forms of undress. When the kids are not with us and she is wearing a skirt, she is required to sit on her bare ass (ala Story of O).

Once we hit Indiana, I made her remove her skirt and throw it in the back seat. Whenever we passed trucks, I flipped her top up to expose her breasts. As we approached the tool booth, she started squirming and wondering when I was going to hand the skirt back (you see, Indiana doesn't have machines to pass out tickets...they still have people hand you the ticket. I told her she was allowed to cross her legs just to get through the booth.

Of course, once through the toll booth, I made her remove her top and put it in the back seat, too. In such situations, she is not allowed to put her knees together, cross her legs, or cover up...she must keep her hands on the sides of her thighs.

It made the long ride a little more fun.

It turned out, of course, that it wasn't for the conference, but rather the hotel was undergoing rennovations and these were to hold platforms for the workers. Dee pointed out that one of the knots seemed loose...so I had to photograph it.

Thursday night they had hors d'oeuvres in the nightclub. We were way too tired to meet people, and it seemed that was common. We went to bed and got ready for classes the next morning.

We started with Lochai's class on Artistic Aspects of Shibari. I learned how to tie a Chinese Temple Knot (numbers 2439 and 2441 in The Ashley Book of Knots) Lochai is an amazing nawashi, and a great person to know. It was a very fun class.

Our second class was Midori's History of Shibari. This class alone was worth the price of admission. Midori is simply an amazing person with one foot firmly in both the Eastern and Western world. That gives her a unique perspective allowing her to both understand the Japanese culture and how rope is a key part of the Japanese psyche and to explain that to Americans.

I find it difficult to summarize what we learned about Shibari in a few paragraphs...but we learned the work sukebe which means "pervert", but in a light-hearted way.

The most frustrating part of the weekend was that there were five parallel tracks of classes, and class changes weren't always synchronized...it's like Disneyworld...too much going on to be able to enjoy it all.

After Midori's history class, we caught the tale-end of Taipan's Hojo Jutsu class. He didn't have enough time to cover much, but it was great to see him and Lady Gold explaining the ancient Japanese art of securing a prisoner with rope.

Our last class of the day was Lochai's advanced suspension class. He demonstrated both a two ankle and a one ankle inverted suspension on Valerie Place, and a strappado suspension with Claire Adams. These were all "don't try this at home" kind of stuff. Very cool.

Friday night Midori gave the key note speech, and pointed out how exciting it was to be at the first ShibariCon...the play party later was a unique experience. There were lots of rope suspensions being done, and crowds of people watching. It was almost completely quiet except for one tickling scene where a girl was screaming and laughing.

The neat part was that the room was full of rope experts. At a typical fetish party, one or tie people are doing rope, and that's it. Here was a huge ballroom full of people who were enjoying rope at the same time.

We chose the first night to debut Dee's glow in the dark rope dress. It was a hit. It was a great feeling for me to have several well-known rope experts rushing over to see what the "glowing rope dress" was all about.

Saturday morning we started with Dov's Riffing with rope class. We'd actually met Dov the night before...he's a Burning Man veteran, and knew all about EL wire and had stopped to check out Dee's glowing dress. It turns out he was the one who first taught Lochai the Chinese Temple Knot.

His class was about how to stop thinking about the knots and let the bondage flow. He demonstrated an assymetrical tie and explained that he wasn't thinking about tying rope, but approaching the position in terms of flower arranging. Thinking about art, not knots.

Of course, to get to that point, this guy learned a whole heck of a lot about knots. But the tie was more about body position and not about fancy knots.

The second class was taught by Master Rope Knot (MRK), on rope bras. He had seen our rope dress the night before, and asked me "I've seen your work, what are you doing in this class?"

"I'm here to see tits" was my answer. But Dee and I had fun following along; we enjoyed any chance to get the ropes out of our bag and wrap them around her body.

MRK and his woman Mythy were another great couple. MRK is an affable, smiling Brit who seems seems to friendly to be an expert dominant, but he knows his stuff.

Our next class was Midori's suspension class. She explained that she rarely teaches suspension, because it's edge play and could expose the teacher to litigation. She then proceeded to teach a basic Swiss Seat harnessed based on the rig she learned in basic training in the Army.

Midori is a switch, so she insisted that everybody both tie and be tied...after I tied Dee and tested the rig by suspending her, she tied me and hung me from the rig. I had to hurry down, though, because Dee was getting ready to ask around for more rope to keep me airborn.

Our last class was really fun. Walt Meister from Bondage-Arts did a photography class by having a photo shoot with Julie Simone and Wildponi. Although I've been studying photography as an amateur since elementary school, it was educational to watch a professional setting up a real light rig.

I took lots of photos (along with several other photographers in the audience), but I have no releases, so they'll never show up here. The most important technique I learned was edge lighting...

Saturday we met Master Tim from our Yahoo group and his slave, who had never been suspended before. So at playtime I did a basic face-up suspension with her and Dee for just a few minutes...she enjoyed it and so now Tim will have to learn to tie a suspension rig.

That was too short a flight for Dee, so I did a chest-harness and frog-tie suspension with Dee using our new rope from Helios Project.

On Sunday morning, we skipped the first class and slept in a little. But before heading out, I couldn't resist the urge to use our handicapped bathroom. We're used to staying at hotels with fetish events, and having to sit through the lecture about how "shower bars and sprinkler heads are not weight-bearing". But of course, grab bars for ADA compliance have to be weight bearing. What fun.

After securing her to the bars, I experimented with the lighting, trying to make Walt proud. Then I turned on the water and took pictures. She was lucky I used warm water. While I experimented with camera and light angles, she tried to get the water streaming down her torso to run over her pussy in a pleasureable way. I guess bottoms have to amuse themselves somehow.

Our first class was Midori's predicament bondage. It was neat to see her devious mind at work. She started with having a service-oriented sub hold two glasses of water at arms length.

Next she tied a male sub with a rope from his genitals to a spreader bar, nipple clamps tied over head, and his arms tied behind his back with a rope to his hair. The poor guy couldn't move.

The next scene involved a female sub with a spreader bar, nipple clamps tied to her toes, and a blindfold. She had to crawl around on the floor to locate a vibrator by sound so she could enjoy an orgasm. Why weren't my classes in college like this?

She ended with an amazing scene where a female volunteer had her arms tied behind with her ankles spread. In her mouth she had a wooden spoon holding a raw egg over another sub. The bound sub on the floor was given a vibrator to stimulate the sub with the spoon standing over her. It was an interesting predicament...if the sub on the floor succeeded in bringing the other girl to orgasm, it was likely that she would drop the egg...on her. Happily (or sadly) the standing sub had amazing balance and held the egg successfully for over 15 minutes.

Our second class was with Bridgett Harrington on Kama Sutra Bondage, how to tie people together for sex. This was fun for us because I like to tie Dee to other people to watch them escape.

Bridgett is another amazing person. We heard a little of her self-bondage class the day before, and liked her energy and attitude. She tied a male and female volunteer together, and Dee and I kept rooting for the male sub to get more action...alas, he didn't.

Our last class was Lochai's situational bondage. He started by putting a male sub in a CBT predicament...he had to stand on one leg and to switch legs he had to pull painfully on his CBT rope.

The scene was extended by adding a female sub with a crotch rope. Now we've all seen the scene in the movies...each sub has to hold a leg up or cause painful tugging on the other's crotch. But I'd never seen it in person. It was fun to watch.

Sunday night was fun...we had the "Iron Dom" competition. Six dom/sub pairs competed for prizes. There were two rounds, each with three couples. Each dom was given several lengths of rope, a roll of duct tape, a roll of plastic wrap, a chair, and a rubber chicken donated by Widow Centauri from SexWithRubberChickens.Com.

Dee and I competed in the second round. I turned the chair upside-down over the edge of the stage so that the legs were in the air; then I bent Dee in an arch face-down over the chair and tied her legs to the chair with duct tape, her arms to the other legs with plastic wrap, and I suspended the chicken from her nipple rings and triangle piercing. Next I tied a rope gag in her mouth, another rope around her chest, and stood behind her. I tied the gag ropes around my butt, grabbed the reins, and with 10 seconds to go I let out a tremendous yell. The audience cheered.

The audience was supposed to vote for the winners, but the MC started to declare that I had won. The other contestants insisted on a full vote, and I had the loudest appluase.

So for the next year, I can claim the title of ShibariCon Iron Dom.

And yes, I got to keep the rubber chicken.

Monday there was only one period of classes in the morning...we choose to attend Midori's "Stump the Presenter"...two hours of her answering questions. Now we'd all spent 3 days with no sleep, too much rope, too many classes, and not enough caffeine.

We were all fried.

But once we got started, we couldn't help but pick her brain.

This weekend at B-Wtiches, I plan to try a rope corset idea based on something Midori showed us.

It should be great.

A few people deserve mention...

MorTis organized and ran the show. I never got to take one of his classes (because he was scheduled opposite Midori and Walt), but I saw one of his suspensions in the play area, and it was amazing.

Mistress Suzanne did an amazing chandelier suspension, but I most enjoyed reading her Hojo Jutsu book. Well, since it was all in Japanese, we just looked at the pictures.