Don’t Tell Anyone, But I Rather Enjoy This!

Hello my lovelies!  You will NEVER guess what it is I did this week.  No, really, try guessing I promise you won’t get it right!

 

 

 

Wait, who said “PHOTO SHOOT”, way there in the back?  ….  Well, fine yes that happened, but guess again!  There was more to it than just that!

 

 

OK OK I’ll just say it:  Everyone’s favorite red-headed siren has gone and turned herself into a smouldering brunette vixen!  Before everyone revolts and heads for the door, let’s just take a breath and remember that this is me we are talking about.  So of course I still have lovely cherry red high lights!  I decided that with the coming of Winter I could do well to tone things down and then just ramp up the contrast a bit.  I’ve even trimmed my hair down in the style of my idol, the irrepressible Bettie Page (granted my hair isn’t near as long, but the resemblance is there!).

 

But as we all (should) know, in this business one must keep one’s pictures up to date and fresh.  So, with the help of a very good girl friend, and over a few glasses of wine (guilty as charged!) we shot what I think might be the best shoot I’ve had to date.  We decided to go more boudoir than I’ve done previously, but with a bit of camp and warmth that I do try to convey in all my shoots.  This was the first time I’ve used my space to such a degree for photos, as well, so if anyone is curious as to what my little love nest really looks like, it’ll give you a few glimpses.

 

By now I can hear to yelling, “Enough talk!  Where are the pictures?!”  And to that I just have to say, patience!  I was far too excited NOT to tell you guys all about it, but I won’t be getting them back until Saturday.  I can say that this blog will be the first place I post my favorites, and over the next month or two I’ll be rolling out new ones.  I have to keep you guys wanting more, don’t I?

 

So, new hair, new photos, and soon, new(ish) body?  It’s true!  I’ve taken on a personal trainer that I think will really work me into a (more) pleasing shape, without taking away from my luscious curves that so many find delicious.  My goals are to better emulate some of my favorite pin up and burlesque idols, and one does that with defined curves, long, lean legs, a killer bosom and a very pert bottom!  Before I’m deluged with “But Magdalene, you have that already!  Don’t change!”  I’m not looking to lose 50 lbs and hope for fame as a conventional model!  I’m quite the opposite of conventional, wouldn’t you say?  What I want to do is sculpt what is already there.  Hell, I very well may GAIN weight because (and repeat this over and over) muscle weighs more than fat.  And I like a bit of muscle on my women, don’t you?

 

This entire transformation does have a secondary goal, though.  And here I am being completely open and honest with my favorite readers:  As of January 1st, 2014, I will be raising my rates to 300/hr.  I’m beginning school in earnest and I need to be able to focus more on my studies than on my inbox.  I want desperately to keep my favorites happy and close to me, so I’m offering a grandfather plan (can we call it something other than that?  I don’t want to think of my grandfather when discussing the finer points of the bedroom!) If, as of January 1st, 2014, you have seen me within the last 6 months you will be welcome to enjoy my current regular rates for the following 6 months.  Does that sound fair?  Keeping some spread sheet somewhere that says who gets my old rate vs who gets my new rate sounds like a headache I don’t want, so I’m letting it stand now: Previous friends are invited to use my 2013 rates for the first 6 months of 2014.  At that point everything goes back to “zero” as it were, and the rates are the same across the board.

 

I know that this bump will be a deal breaker for some of you, and I will be terribly sad to see you go.  I of course am always good for a reference, and can even steer some in the direction of a lady I think you might click with.  I’m happy to field questions privately through email, and I appreciate keeping derisive comments to yourselves (not that any of you, dear readers, would try and argue me out of a personal financial decision)  I have to put most of my energy towards my education, and smart women are so very sexy!  (Speaking of sex, can you take a guess at what I’ll be studying?  If you were in the vicinity of “the psychology of sex” then you’re right!)

 

BUT!  That is far away and we are still here together!  My spiced cider was a big hit last week, so I think I’m going to continue to trend.  I think it would serve me to get a special pot just for keeping cider warm for visitors.  I’m trying to come up with other ideas for little nibbles that we can feed each other in between romps, and I can’t seem to come up with anything past chocolate bites, nuts, and berries.  Surely there is something else I’m missing!

Until next time my darlings!

1950s House Wife Experience, Anyone?

 

Let me tell you about a fantastic offering I have had hidden away on my website:

1950s Housewife Experience (HWE) . For the man who, after a hard day’s labor, wants nothing more than to come home to a home-cooked meal, a beautiful lady in her best back seam stockings and pearls, and perhaps a well-shaken martini.

I am happy to host this little getaway, for the man who prefers to play away from home. Give me at least four hours of your time, and I will take you on a most luxurious and dare I say deeply domestic journey.

We begin, obviously, with a welcome kiss at the door. I will take your hat and jacket, while you settle yourself on my couch with a drink in hand. Relax as I remove your shoes and administer a foot rub as I ask about your day. Dinner is smelling delightful, and we soon find ourselves at the table, witty banter, flirtatious looks, and a glass of wine as we enjoy a meal perfectly prepared.

After dinner, of course, comes dessert! We can undress each other, peeling layer after layer down, until I am down to my stockings and garter. Would you enjoy a sudsy couple’s shower so I can scrub and rub away the day’s labor? Or perhaps you would prefer to stretch out on my queen sized bed for a relaxing and arousing massage with hot oils? I can feed you strawberries and cream while you lay back in my arms, or perhaps I can become your dessert plate as you lick chocolate and honey from my supple breast and soft skin.

From there, satin sheets and fast-beating hearts do their duty and call us to more carnal desires… a lady never reveals all of her secrets…

What more could a busy man ask for than engaging conversation, a truly lovely dinner companion, and the luxury of being pampered like the king you are?

This offering isn’t for everyone, surely, but I do adore building a specific and intimate encounter that only you and I will share together. I am happy to converse at length about this particular offering, to tailor it just so to your exacting standards.

 

Those of you who follow me on the boards have probably come across my most recent ad, in which I showcase my newly coined offering The HouseWife Experience (HWE).  Without becoming overly loquacious, which is my wont when I get truly excited, I have tried to evoke a very specific fantasy I’ve had the pleasure to meter out a few times before.  It is the very discerning man that would request such a time-intensive play-acting scene, but it is a particular favorite of mine for a number of reasons.

 

First an foremost, it is ALWAYS a treat to be able to dress up in my flowing dresses, back seam stockings, garter, girdle, heels, and the rest to be admired for more than the span of the walk from the door to the bedroom.  I can spend upwards of two hours on my “look”, given adequate motivation, and darn it if it isn’t a little discouraging when in the first ten minutes my lipstick is smeared and my hair pins have been tousled out of my hair.  (Please don’t twist my meaning, sometimes that last image is exactly what I am wanting and going for.  There IS a proper time and place for everything, even smeared lipstick!)

 

I think more generally, however, I just enjoy cooking for someone.  I grew up in a household where home-cooked meals, while more common than most, was more of a statement of intent and love than just a vehicle to feed the lot of us.  My father did all the cooking, and ever the showman he took great pride in not only concocting delicious dishes, but he painstakingly developed the ability to make everything look amazing as well.  Asparagus spears laid out ramrod straight with artful drizzles of hollandaise sauce.  Rack of lamb with hand-made crowns tufted in gold foil around the bones.  Perfectly steamed carrots, bright orange, punctured with dots of clove and lemon zest.  Presentation is part of the meal, I was raised to believe, and a truly appetizing plate not only smells and tastes delicious, it looks the part, too. It’s no fun to stir up a pot of soup for one, or to spend 30 minutes whipping red potatoes with cream, butter, chives and chicken broth just for little ol’ me.  So I spend most nights with perfectly nourishing but boring food.  Given the slightest provocation, however, and I can create pineapple upsidedown tarts with raspberries, swirled white chocolate mocha brownies, or lemon chicken linguine with pesto and broccoli.  I cook with butter and salt, garlic and cream.  I love mixing colors and textures in a pleasing fashion, but it only counts if it’s for someone else.

 

This idea started, like so many do, out of curious necessity   I had a client who had just moved to this city, and was quite literally living (and eating) out of boxes.  He confessed to me that though he knew how to use a stove and oven, he never learned how to cook for himself. His idea of a “home cooked meal” was popping something frozen in the broiler for two hours, not caring about the burnt edges or watery middle of those mass produced frozen monstrosities they sell in grocery stores.  I offered to come over and make him something “simple”.  He said his favorite meal his mother used to make him was meat loaf, so I came over with some ground pork, lamb and beef, some home made bread crumbs and about a pound of yukon gold potatoes and got to work.  

 

I don’t need to tell you that his house lacked something fierce for spices, and I didn’t even think to bring my own.  I made do with flaked black pepper, table salt, ketchup and brown sugar.  With no chicken broth in sight, I suctioned off some of the resulting “loaf” drippings and used them to blend the potatoes into stiff peaks.  Ketchup mixed with a slightly obscene amount of brown sugar created a sticky sweet glaze for the meat loaf.  In two hours his house smelled like meat and sugar, not an unhappy aroma.  He remarked on how famished he was, and how his house had never smelled so good.

 

That first dinner was a wake up call for me.  Though the meal itself was quite plain by my standards, the client was satisfied down to his bones!  In a way I’ve never fully appreciated until then, he became more comfortable in his skin, and more genuine in his desires.  During the washing up he quipped that perhaps I should take off my pretty dress, in case I got soap on it.  I stripped down and he stared in awe at my girdle attached to garter straps and stockings.  He had no idea that I was vintage to my skin!  I gave a show of sudsing up the plates and utensils, buffing and rubbing and honestly making an absolutely obscene spectacle of myself.  After that it was just a matter of time before he whisked me away to the bedroom.

 

In the resulting shower, as I scrubbed his back clean of sweat and lust, he remarked on how I should come over again and do “that wife stuff” for him.  I obliged, and for almost a year we had a weekly night where I would arrive close after he returned from work around 6pm, dinner at 7:15pm sharp, and after a snuggle and a movie (with wine and chocolate, naturally) I would “perform my marital duties” with a vigor that would make a real June Cleaver blush!  A kiss goodnight at midnight and I would be off, and he would think on the next meal he would have with me.

 

Over that year I perfected my domestic skills.  Laundry, ironing, the dreaded vaccuming and dusting.  I learned how to hem slacks, sew buttons onto popped shirts, starch collars and tie ties.  I learned how to polish shoes to a high shine, and found out just why copper bottomed pots are so superior to their counterparts.  I learned how to be a perfect wife.  

 

But just for a night.  That’s where the fantasy lies, in that perfection.  I would make a horrible “real” wife, you see.  But I do so love playing the part, that I always look forward to those nights when the work load is tiring and the laundry is piling up, and my client needs his “little wifey” to materialize.  June Cleaver, eat your heart out.  

 

A Brief Lesson in Lingerie

Oh, my darlings, let me wax poetic about a topic near and dear to my heart: lingerie.  Not just that silky, lacy nothing that one wears for about as long as it takes to get to the bed, but the underthings a proper lady or even a wild woman would wear under her dresses in times gone past.

Oh, sure, we have close approximations today, if you think “wonder materials” like Spandex and lycra can ever recreate the good old “feel” of such undergarments.  We’ve gotten lax in recent years, we’ve associated anything form fitting with binding, anything that molds the frame as constrictive and uncomfortable.  Modern women look back in time at corsets and wonder just /what/ those ladies were thinking, harming their bodies in such a way!  Then they look into the nearer past, and scoff at the rubber and elastic and metal contraptions their grandmothers and great grandmothers stuffed themselves into.  The tediousness of hand washing silk stockings, the frustration of runs and tears, the “battle armor” of girdles and waist cinchers, the modern woman would be crazy not to look down on these barbaric items clearly designed to appeal to the male gaze.

But, here’s the thing: a woman’s natural curves were considered beautiful and healthy, not to mention the fashion at the time was distinctly set up to showcase a full bust, a narrow waist, and softly curving hips.  The long line of a stocking-clad leg completed what many have stated was the most romantic and sensual look since the corset.  As I will show, modern convenience has nothing on vintage determination and drive for the perfect silhouette.

What in blazes is a girdle?

The key to any successful feminine hourglass frame is a sturdy and well made girdle.  A girdle is a garment similar in look to a slip, but with built in elastic and rubber panels to smooth out lumps and bumps of the tummy, hips and thighs, while compressing the whole thing into a pleasing shape.  They come in many colors, patterns, from utilitarian white stretch (pictured) to lace and satin, even embroidered and beaded!  Many come with attached garter clips to hook up one’s stockings to, though some have loops where one could remove the garter tabs if they weren’t needed.  A properly fitted girdle doesn’t bind or pinch anywhere, nor does the flesh bulge outside the edges of the garment like at the thigh or bust.  A woman was considered loose and extremely inappropriate if she left her home without shimmying into this lovely piece of lace, elastic, and zippers.  The modern equivalent, I suppose, is a woman going to her white-collar job or her conservative church sans bra.  (Fun historical fact?  Girdles have been around in one form or another for centuries.  They began as waist cinchers or large belts, and were long associated with virginity and innocence.  Many fables and tales have included a girdle that would subdue a wild beast, or that a maiden was tricked after the villain stole her girdle.  The “girdle=innocence” trope became so widespread that it became the custom for grooms to remove the girdle of his wife post-wedding.  In historical France circa 1800’s prostitutes were forbidden from wearing girdles, since they obviously had no virtue to guard and were not innocent in any respect one soever)

There are a few kinds of girdles.  The height of a girdle varies, but either hits a woman just below the navel, at the natural waist, or up to 4 inches above the natural waist, what’s called a “long line” girdle.  There is an “open bottom” girdle, which, just as the name suggests, ends in an open circle of hemmed fabric, leaving the crotch area free.  This is one of the more popular kinds of girdles, for a few reasons.  It allows one easier access for restroom breaks, doesn’t compress the often sensitive region, and of course, if one were to plan a secret tryst or rendezvous…  Companies sold what were called “tap pants” to women who chose open bottom girdles.  These were high-waisted, silky shorts that came up very high on the hip.  They gave ample room for the garters and edge of the girdle, while being inconspicuous under clothing.  These offered women a bit of coverage, and lent to some warmth during cold seasons.  There is nothing quite so upsetting as putting your barely clothed bum on a freezing cold seat!
There is also what is called a panty girdle, which as you might imagine is the same as the above, but ends in a more recognizable “panty”, with leg holes and a closed crotch.  Women might choose this model for the sake of modesty, or, since the cut was wider in the back end, women with an abundance of derriere found that panty girdles better covered and corralled their back assets.  Almost always, the crotch was equipped with snaps or hooks, so that bathroom breaks were easier.  I personally find these models binding and irritating to my tender flesh, but to each their own!  There are even long-line “panty” girdles that end in fully fashioned shorts, for the added benefit of total thigh control.  Men who cross dress are fond of these styles, as it easily gives them a more feminine figure without having to add padding.  Some of these “panty” girdles even have cut outs or round pads at the rear, to lift and project one’s rear end to form a very distinct “bubble butt”.  This long-legged style is what I have seen in most contemporary shapewear collections.  In reinforced lycra and spandex, usually black or toupe in color.  What is so odd to me is most of THESE don’t have the handy quick-release between the legs.  I’ve seen many with attached suspender-like additions, meant to corral one’s breasts with or without a modern bra.  If one were to wear that contraption under a dress or other outfits, how exactly did one gracefully get out of it?  Score one for vintage ingenuity!

The “all-in-one” girdle (or “body briefer” as they are sometimes called) is my favorite.  It’s one piece that incorporates the bust, waist, hips and bum of the wearer, and looks more like a traditional slip, if a slip could compress the hips and whittle the waist to perfection!  The cups of the built in bra molded the breasts into a natural, conical shape while lifting them high on the chest.  The contemporary cleavage enhancements and rounded, half globe shapes today’s bras offer would never have worked in the ’50’s.  The famous “bullet bra” is an extreme example of the breast shape popular at the time.  Again, the emphasis here is a more natural, womanly shape, and natural breasts are perky, sit evenly and high on the chest, and form a vaguely conical shape.  Lest you think that every woman looked like an extra in a Madonna video, the softer cups were much more prevalent than they spiral-stitched, padding-enhanced bullet bras one sees now adays.  With this garment under one of my wiggle dresses I am smooth and trim from bust to thigh, and what’s even better is that the attached garters are engineered to lie flat to my flesh, leaving no unsightly bumps under even the tightest of dresses.  With my trusty all-in-one, my sexy behind is tight and lifted, my breasts are prominent, and best of all, my waist is easily 10 inches smaller than the widest point of my hips!

But WHY wear them?

You may be scratching your head at this moment.  No matter how much I claim the garments are comfortable, you may be thinking that anything that constricts is going to be binding.  No matter how much I insist that a natural bust line is the epitome of womanhood, you still drool over the tightly pressed together cleavage a Wonder Bra gives.  You may understand the erotic appeal of back-seamed stockings with garters, but aren’t pantyhose more efficient and less expensive?
Most of these queries have merit.  Sure, they make pantyhose that double as a tummy-tamer, and stockings and garter belts ARE expensive.  But, I always go back to this: if one is to wear proper vintage attire, one MUST have proper vintage undergarments on as a foundation.  The strength, the symmetry, and the look of these foundation garments are unparalleled.  Just as inferior cooking tools can scald and burn and smoke, so, too, can contemporary and cheaper “base” shapewear give out and not hold up to what the clothing demands.  It’s also a sense of nostalgia, for at least a part.  The glamour of the Hollywood starlets, the impish seduction of pin-up girls, the obsession with a felled stocking or exposed crinoline, all of these things factor into my love of vintage lingerie.  There simply isn’t any romance or allure to modern day’s answer to underwear.  And so, to my dying day, I will be seen in nothing but the best vintage garments:

1.  an open-bottom high-waisted girdle
2.  silk back-seam stockings
3.  a lacy and supportive bullet bra
4.  a full-body slip
5. the biggest smile on the block. 

Pardon Me, My Lace is Showing!

I have this delicious fantasy, allow me to share with you!

I have a lust of vintage-style lingerie and foundation garments.  Girdles, waist-cinchers, bullet bras, garter belts, stockings, slips and half-slips.  These things just send my heart a flutter!  There is something undeniably sexy about the feel of a full-coverage, open-bottom girdle hugging my figure, slimming down my waist and curving down my buttocks, tightening and lifting and minimizing so I look amazing in that tiny pencil skirt or that delicious wiggle dress.

My fantasy is to be out shopping, maybe for shoes, and I am wearing a full circle skirt that comes down to my knees.  Because I am a proper lady, I am wearing a modest girdle under my skirt with attached garters for my delicate back-seam stockings.  Did you know that back in the day, a lady wouldn’t be caught dead outside without proper stockings?  Anyway, I am off shopping for THE PERFECT heel, which of course requires going to multiple stores.

I find a lovely young shoe salesman, and he takes a liking to my vintage look right away.  He’s solicitous, witty, and obviously knowledgeable about the latest styles coming out of Italy and Spain.  He kneels down on his little salesman stool to measure my feet.  He deftly lifts my foot into his lap and removes my patent leather Mary Jane with the finesse of a long-time employee.  He casually runs his hand up the back of my calf to the hollow of my knee, and almost absent-mindedly caresses up and down, up and down, as we discuss color, heel height, and the benefits of stiletto versus wedge.