30 ATV TIRES

It's been a bit of a grim few days here at Schloss Slembo. My son was sectioned under the Mental Health Act last week and I've been visiting him in a secure ward at a local hospital ever since. When he was younger he was good friends with my then-girlfriend Maria (pictured above, with me at Walthamstow Village Festival) so it was a greater shock to hear this week that Maria had suddenly died in a north of England hospital. She was in her late 20s when we met so by my calculations she'd was only about 39 when she died. She'd apparently been in the intensive care unit suffering from complications arising from contracting the Swine Flu.

We'd first met on one of the famous BDSM 'Boat Parties' organised on the Thames in the 1997. I was then kitted out in my trademark 18th century Gothic style as the 'Handcuff Highwayman' or 'Buccaneer of Bondage' while Maria was even more Gothic in her tastes with a tight purple corset and huge cloak, etc, (also pictured). Our relationship was unusual (but not unheard of) in BDSM circles as I was a male dom and she was a female domme. Publicly we were pure dom but privately we subbed to each other. It was a dream relationship and worked well. We could even effortlessly shift roles during the course of one night; as one tired the other would take over and make the running. She also denied ever being a Goth. She famously said: "I'm the one who walks over to the Goths and says: 'Cheer up you sad f*cks' "

She and I attended the 1997 re-launch of SM Pride and Maria contributed to early SM Pride meetings. She was also house domme at the Domina Club, a role she famously described as being "Meeter, greeter and chief beater". Her London scene name was 'the Black Widow'. She learned to use a bullwhip, not without painful accidents, and frequently carried it over her shoulder. This came in handy one night in Walthamstow when two men tried to mug her. Maria elbowed the pair of them off, jumped forward, turned and cracked the whip at them in best Indiana Jones style. She said their faces were a picture, before they fled wailing into the night. I worked for the local newspaper at the time, strangely this was one story the newspaper never got!

Maria was on good terms with my son and introduced him to the music of Alice Cooper and heavy metal in general. Alice Cooper had once seen her on the stairs at one of his gigs and did a 'double take' as he went past. Another time she was drinking at the Royal Standard pub at Blackhorse Road (then a heavy metal venue) when she got into a good natured slap fight with a big biker. Still laughing she returned to her seat to find the rest of her mates sh*tting themselves. Turns out she'd picked a fight with the leader of the local Hell's Angels. Luckily he was a good loser, well at least where women were concerned!

A keen Star Trek fan she'd met several of the cast at conventions but Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat in Deep Space 9) and William Campbell (Squire of Gothos in Classic Star Trek and the Klingon Koloth in Deep Space 9) were firm favourites. She once amazed William Campbell by attending a picture signing (when he was doing DS9) and producing an old Squire of Gothos picture for him to sign. He was touched that she'd remembered his original Star Trek role - possibly the first 'Q' omnipotent character in Star Trek.

Maria and I dressed up in full club gear for the Walthamstow Village Festival in 1998 (pictured) and she got a lot of good natured comments from the market-stall holders as she walked through with her ample cleavage barely crammed into her trademark corset. One market trader even held up two melons and said: "Hey, I got some too darling!" Later that day we were at the studio of a local artist and Japanese rope bondage expert where my son learned about the artist Escher and the earlier artists who had influenced him. James had a fascination for Escher.

She was good friends with the Scots domme Mistress Delta. They had met in most unusual circumstances. Maria had been using her new bullwhip (badly) when it curled it back and whacked Mistress Delta painfully across the leg. A domme whacking a domme is NOT BDSM good practice. Maria had very expressive eyes and Delta had a great sense of humour. Describing the incident to me months later Delta (NOT one to suffer fools lightly) said: "I could hardly take offence, she looked so bloody upset about what she'd done..."

Having said we were both dominant, I should mention the one time Maria subbed in public. We were at a club in Hackney and Maria had volunteered as demo bunny for a heavy bondage demonstration. So there she was, tightly bound and blindfolded, when Mistress Delta caught us. "Oh" says a loud Scots voice: "Is that that Black Widow I see over there? Not so f*cking dominant now, are we?" Maria was meantime saying: "Oh f*ck, oh f*ck that's Delta". I added: "It's just as well you're blindfolded Maria because you would not

You ever heard that saying "If not for bad luck...."?

Cooper and I decided last night to do the West Fork hike today. We packed up, got everything ready and then he found a website from some people who had done it already. Complete with pictures. Pictures of people swimming several times. Fairly deep water, too. The high was supposed to be 80 today, meaning 10-15 degrees cooler in the canyon and higher elevation.

So after some photographic evidence, we decided that hypothermia was not just a possibility, but more likely a probability. We nixed the West Fork hike once again and decided to take the Arizona Trail from Walnut Canyon to Sandy's Canyon. About 11 miles or so.

As Coop was loading up his Jeep, he dropped his camera on the ground. We didn't know it at the time, but he cracked his 18-55mm lens.

We took both rigs up to Flag, parked mine at the Sandy's Canyon Trailhead and then headed to Walnut Canyon.

On Walnut Canyon Road, a Coconino County truck pulled right out in front of us. Cooper swerved to miss it but it caught us on the drivers side. Crunched both doors on that side pretty good and warped his bicycle tire that was on the back.

"Didn't you see my flashing yellow light?", said the dude, when we had all emerged from the vehicles. Uh, didn't you see the big green Jeep coming down the freakin' road, I thought. A little yellow light doesn't give you the ability or right to ignore basic traffic laws like looking both ways before crossing a highway.

This dude pulled right out in front of us and tried very hard to make the police officer believe it was Coop's fault. But luckily, the cop wasn't a complete idiot, like the county worker. And I don't mean to say the cop was an idiot at all. He was very nice, efficient and could tell just by looking what had happened.

So my thinking goes something like this. We were probably going to die on the West Fork hike, but at the last minute averted it, so God punished us with an accident since he was expecting to see us today and we didn't show. Or maybe we were gonna buy the farm on the Arizona Trail and he saved us with the wreck. Hmmm. Maybe not. Who knows. Whatever the case, we're both ok, it was basically like hitting a speed bump too fast. No huge collision or anything.

Anyway, Cooper is not having the best of days.

This was from Red Mountain. When his lens was still working.