MSTie-eyed and fancy-free

by Giselle Renarde

My girlfriend has changed my life for the better in oh-so-many ways. For instance, she introduced me to a show I like to call Mystery Science Theater 3000. I call it that because that's its name. We were at HMV before it closed its doors forever when she held up a DVD box set and asked "Have you ever seen this?"

She had, but not on TV. I have no idea whether Mystery Science Theater 3000 aired in Canada. I never got any 'a them fancy networks. Sweet said she used to rent it on VHS from the video store.

In case you've gone your whole life without ever hearing about MST3K (like me until a couple years ago), here's what all the hubbub's about:



A human test subject—first Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgson), then Mike Nelson (Michael J. Nelson), and most recently Jonah Heston (Jonah Ray)—has been imprisoned aboard the spacecraft Satellite of Love by mad scientists and their henchmen (collectively called "the Mads") and is forced to watch a series of bad movies in order to find one that will drive the test subject insane.

To keep his sanity, Joel built himself a series of sentient robots (the "'bots") from parts aboard the Satellite, and who subsequently remain aboard with the other test subjects. The 'bots include Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, Gypsy and Cambot. Crow and Servo join the human as they watch the film in the Satellite's theater. The trio frequently comment and wisecrack atop it, a process known as "riffing". At regular intervals throughout the movie, the hosts leave the theater and return to the bridge of the Satellite to perform sketches ("host segments") that satirize the film being watched.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 couldn't have come into my life at a more perfect time. I was hit by a bad bout of depression (which tends to happen when you're chronically depressed), and one thing I've learned about myself is that comedy helps.

Big-time helps.

Helps more than anything else I can think of.

At least, it helps for me personally. My girlfriend tells me that, when she's down, comedy is the last thing she wants. She feels like it's mocking her, or making light of everything that's bad in the world.

But comedy is my go-to, so I'm immensely grateful that my girlfriend introduced it to me at just the right time.

MST3K is silly and smart. I thought that's why I loved it. (I don't think any one human could get all the jokes. One minute they're making references to Michel Foucault, the next they're referring to some regional Minnesota cable commercial. It helps if you watch with pop-up video style annotations on their YouTube channel.) But, upon reflection, I realize the reason I watched 3-4 hours of MST3k every day when I was really depressed is the sense of community it fosters. I guess anything with a cult following makes you feel sort of special (yay! I'm part of a cult), but more than that...

Oh god I'm going to sound like such a loser...

Am I really going to say this out loud?

Yes, I am.

When I watched all those hours of MST3K, I felt like I had friends.

Robot friends.

And Joel.

Do I sound like a lonely, miserable person or what? But that's what depression does to me. Makes me not want to reach out. Not to real people. But to robots? Yes, that's acceptable. If I could pal around with Servo and Crow (and also Data because every comedy team needs a straight man or an android), I would be in heaven.

The riffing also reminds me of watching "Mom Shows" with my siblings (and my mom, of course, otherwise we'd be watching something else).

Mom Shows are terrible dramas, usually CanCon about FBI agents or any show where a couple of the characters are angels. Not Charlie's Angels--the heavenly variety. Whenever my mom watched her Mom Shows, my siblings and I would rip those fuckers to shreds.

Those were the days! Sitting around the TV riffing on Mom Shows with my sibs. You know, my mom didn't even tell us to stop making fun. She'd join in! Her jokes were... not the greatest... but it's the effort that counts. I think she just loved that all her kids were in one room, all focused on the same activity: riffing on Touched by an Angel.

Reading over everything I've just written, I can sort of imagine people wondering why I don't just go out and buy some real friends, or at least spend more time with my family. All possibilities. And maybe one day I will. But at two in the morning, when I'm alone with my cats, there will always be Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Resistance

by Giselle Renarde

No, you can't be my Facebook friend.  Sorry.

Was it here or on Twitter that Annabeth Leong and I were talking about not having a Facebook account?  I don't remember.  I don't remember much, these days.  But yes, it's true, I am a (relatively) young person (or, at least, I keep telling myself I am...) and I don't have a Facebook account.

How did I become a Facebook resistor?  I remember having reasons, but I can't recall what those reasons were.  I think I always felt like I didn't want my whole life on the internet but, honestly, if you read my posts here or at Donuts and Desires, or if you follow me on Twitter, you know I tell the internet everything.

Oh, and my life is in my work, too. Duh. There's a reason my writing has been called "scary honest."

There are lots of little reasons I still resist setting up a Facebook account, despite pressure from those who care about my marketing efforts. Thing is... I'd feel sleazy establishing a social media account for the sole purpose of selling stuff.  People with low self-esteem shouldn't be allowed to run businesses.  My self-deprecating brain is always thinking, "It's going to bother people if I keep telling them about my new book."  (Although, to be honest, it does irk me when someone's Twitter feed is a steady stream of book ads. I usually unfollow them.  So I don't want to be that guy.)

There's an obvious solution: set up a Facebook account and don't be a dick. Ta-da!

But, you know, it's just one more thing to babysit. It's one more password to remember.  One more goddamn online presence.  One more thing I need to remember not to forget to sign into and keep up with and provide content for on a daily basis.

It's exhausting, all this, isn't it?

I went to a St. Vincent concert last week (See? I told you I was young! I go to concerts... just like young people!) and a lot of the songs on her new album speak to the digital experience.  In Every Tear Disappears, she sings, "Yeah, I live on wires. Yeah, I've been born twice."  Every time I hear that, I'm like tell me about it!  I spend most of my life as this internet incarnation. I miss the days when, if you wanted to know something, you had to read about it in a book... or experience it, first-hand.

Anyway, I'm swerving a little off course.  I came here to talk about why I'm a Facebook resistor.  And now that I've talked about it, I realize that none of my reasons sound all that convincing.

When it comes right down to it, I just don't want an account. I want to hold on to what's left of my privacy.

And as I write this I realize these concerns about the online sphere extend seamlessly to my personal life. Why would I invite Facebook friends in when I can't even invite flesh-and-blood friends?

I've always kept people at bay because I'm still afraid (after all these years!) someone might get a little too close and see a little too much of my ugliness, my messiness, my unsavoury-ness. It's funny how there are some things you never quite get over.  This pushing people away is a blatant leftover from growing up in an alcoholic household. You know (or can imagine) how it is: we were all too ashamed to bring friends home. My family was so insular because we had a secret to keep.  As open as I seem to be, I'm still haunted by a wide variety of demons.

Sorry, potential friends, but I'm just too psychologically damaged to join your social network.

Friends and Lovers

By Lisabet Sarai

I was primed to want him long before I met him. Was this a deliberate ploy on my husband's part? Or just the consequence of my hyperactive sexual imagination?

“James is a really good friend,” K told me. He'd known James for years before I appeared on the scene, during his tumultuous period living in San Francisco. “He's a physicist. Does research at UCSF hospital.” My ears perked up. I've always found intelligence to be an aphrodisiac. “Oh, and you should see his paintings and sculpture. He's really talented.” Oh my! An artist too! Was I wet already?

We were on our way cross country and planned to stop in the City by the Bay before heading south to Los Angeles. Having spent the last few years in grad school on the East Coast, K hadn't seen James in a while, but he assured me that we'd get a warm welcome.

“And did I tell you about his time in Japan?” K executed a neat maneuver to pass a battered, dusty pickup, then pointed the Subaru straight across the sere plains of eastern Colorado. The Rockies were blue-gray shadows hugging the horizon.

I squeezed my husband's thigh. “No, I don't think so. What was he doing in Japan?”

“Working in a sex show.” He gave me a quick glance, as if to gauge my reaction, before returning his gaze to the empty, monotonous highway.

A tingle swept through me. “You're kidding, right?” At that point I hadn't yet visited Japan, but everyone had heard bizarre stories about the Japanese sexual underground.

“No, not at all. For three months James and his partner performed live in some club in Tokyo. Fucking on stage six nights a week.”

I sat silent, staring into the distance and pondering this thrilling and disturbing concept. I considered myself a free spirit, a bit of a sexual outlaw, but public sex, for money? What sort of person would engage in such behavior?

“Why?” I asked finally, expecting some wild tale of extortion or human slavery.

“He was curious to see what it would be like,” K responded with a chuckle.

I was quiet for a long time after that, contemplating with excitement and trepidation the prospect of meeting this “friend”. I had no idea what he looked like, but I was already half in lust.

James turned out to be lean and loose-limbed, a good half a head taller than K, with unruly hair, a soft voice and an easy laugh. As K had promised, he offered us the spare room in his Mission District flat. We shared take-out Chinese, red wine from a gallon jug and lots of pot. We talked about art, science, philosophy, politics. Well, K and James talked, mostly, catching up after years apart, reestablishing the bonds of their friendship. I listened, uncharacteristically mute, watching James' long, expressive fingers trace patterns in the air as he explained some nuance of electromagnetic theory, wondering how those fingers would feel feathering across my nipples.

K asked about James' partner – ex-partner as it turned out – but the one subject we didn't discuss was sex. Still, the entire evening buzzed with erotic tension. When James looked at me, I felt the heat simmering in his lanky body. What had K told him about me?

I honestly don't recall how we ended up in bed together. All I remember is how easy it was, how light and relaxed - how friendly. I didn't worry about jealousy; that seemed a non-issue as I mounted K and James slid his cock (long and thin like his fingers) into my rear hole. My first double penetration - only the second or third time I'd ever experienced anal sex, actually. I can hardly believe, looking back, how little resistance James found. At the time, I was too turned on to even think about the question. I was neither surprised nor shocked. It was obviously the natural thing to be doing. We all agreed about that.

Sandwiched between a man I loved and my new lover, I felt not only acute pleasure but a delicious sense of connection. I was cherished and desired, giving and receiving. The brazenness of our actions thrilled me. The three-way intimacy kindled a new kind of joy.

I remember the details of the next day more clearly now than I do that incandescent night. The three of us went to see a matinee of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. We strolled down the San Francisco sidewalk, arm in arm in arm, with me in the middle once again. I wore a flouncy white cotton dress I'd bought in Tijuana, with nothing underneath. I felt like a dirty angel, high on residual arousal, perversely proud we'd been brave enough to push friendship to its next obvious level.

Even after K and I moved back East, we remained close with James. We attended his wedding. Later, after their son was born, we visited him and Priscilla in their redwood-encircled cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains. We never had sex together again, but our mutual erotic history gave the relationship a special poignancy. I knew James remembered, as I did.

We're still in touch, more than three decades later, though James' struggles with addiction and psychiatric problems have weakened the connection. I regret that deeply. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate more fully how remarkable that episode really was – despite the fact that it felt inevitable at the time.

Enumerating a list of my long-time friends, I'm a bit embarrassed to realize how many of them were once my lovers. One might point to this as evidence of my unbridled promiscuity during my twenties and thirties. I interpret this fact differently, though. I've always been sexually attracted to people I like and admire, both women and men. Although I've had close friendships that were completely platonic, that's not the norm for me. All too often, the intellectual and emotional buzz from meeting someone special transmutes into sexual desire.

In most cases, I've refrained from acting on my lusts, especially in recent years. Instead, they spill over into my dreams. Even people I haven't met in person – people I've come to know and love remotely, in the guise of Lisabet Sarai – have found their way into my night visions. That's one reason why I am reluctant to get closer to some of you in the real world. Friends are always welcome. At this stage in my life, though, I probably don't need more lovers.

Fans, friends and fiends

Yes, I'm the one who dreamed up this topic and when I did, it seemed like such a good idea. From what Jamie said, perhaps it was, but only for me.

I've been amazingly lucky with readers or fans over the years. Yes, I've had my share of them who think, to quote a bit of Wayne's dialogue from Lisabet's story, 'You couldn't write the way you do if you weren't a real slut. That orgy in 'The Antidote'. The public flogging in 'Incognito'. And the billiards scene... you couldn't have made that up! There's nothing you wouldn't try – probably very little that you haven't tried.”' It's amazes me when I get email from people assuming I am all the things I write about. My response has always been, 'Do you think Stephan King did all those horrible things?'

But then there are the people at the other end of the fandom scale. Those people who send an email thanking me for looking inside them. For years I wrote for a fetish ezine that centered around breast torture. I was skeptical about doing it, at first. The money was very good, but the subject matter wasn't something that I got off on. I decided to give it a whirl, after talking to the owner about pulling out if I found I couldn't do it. He was very understanding and I took the leap.

Now, you'd expect I'd get comments from men about the stories, right? You'd be dead wrong. I wrote for this site for just over 3 years, contributed over 35 stories or novellas and heard from wives and girlfriends exclusively. I never had an email from a man while I wrote for them. Okay, I admit, all of the email could have come from men masquarading as women, but it didn't seem so. They were mostly wives saying it was wonderful to have someone who could delve into the fetish they enjoyed without making it feel dirty or nasty. Wow! What a shocker. What a real eye opener.

I've written for a few sites, two spanking sites, an audio site, a couple of others, and I've met some amazing people. There are the few men who find my femdom material to their liking. But, for whatever reason, they can't share this with their wive's or lover's. A few I've remained friends with, others I hear from occasionally with a quick note saying they've just read my latest or when am I going to write more. I've had suggested scenarios, been told off for not writing something the way the fan wanted, and still others that wanted to meet me, to submit to me. Now there's a shocker for sure.

We author are in our own little worlds, a lot. We tend to forget there are real people out there and that sometimes we should come out of our caves and maybe meet them. When a fan contacts us, in some ways it's like one of our characters have talked them into saying hi. The fan is touched by a character, or a scenario we've created. Isn't that amazing?

Yes, that's a tad weird, but no one ever said I wasn't weird.

I've actually only met a couple of fans, and it's heart stopping, thought provoking, terrifying, such a rush it's like drugs and more. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive. I was completely touched when I met them. Something I'd created brought us together. To me, that's huge.

Fans are why we submit our work. They're why we struggle to improve our writing. They're why we agonize over a plot or a color or the shape of a man's .... never mind. *G* Thought I was gonna didn't you?

Thank you. To any and all of you who have read me, who will read me and who have returned to read more. I can't say it often enough, you're why I'm here. Thank you.

Hugs