She lived in a surprisingly suburban ranch style house, like one you'd see a dozen of in different colors along any housing development east of the Mississippi. Swanton was a mixture of run-down looking fisherman shacks and cliff-dwelling mansions with a few odd normal houses like hers. She had converted the "family room" into a full blown dungeon with leather-padded sawhorses, a St. Andrew's cross, and a wall covered with nasty-looking implements and bondage gear...

She went into the house and I followed her, trying to make my mind a blank, to make myself a vessel for whatever this Priestess would pour into me. But through my mind were playing a hundred other scenes, a dozen other first times with other Tops, other women I had given myself to in the name of the Goddess. There were always patterns, there were always things to be expected. So of course I was guessing. With all that equipment I wondered if she would be the type who would immobilize me, make me feel her iron grip, and then lay into me with everything she had. Give it to me both barrels, baby, I thought, my skin tingling. I can do this, I can do this, came my little voice again, the agitated music preparing me for pain. I can do this. In a basement off Divisadero I'd had my skin cut and set on fire. In an open field north of Muir Woods I'd been hung from a tree and whipped with freshly cut sticks. But usually I was tied to a bed, or secured with soft cuffs in a rack, while carefully-crafted leather and wood was applied.