Two: Silk

A lovely friend who's at USC right now asked me to write about silk scarves--- a taste she and I both share.

I've always been fond of scarves--- keffiyehs, too. I like six or seven-foot university scarves worn in winter. I've always liked the Oxbridge-undergraduate look, the blazer worn with the long scarf in college or club colours.

White silk scarves, though... White silk scarves are a high-utility item. They go well with black bomber jackets or car coats. Yes, it's the fighter ace look. Or the chevaux-leger look--- the beau sabreur. Something dashing, anyway. Works for girls, too.

White silk scarves, my friend at USC says, are an accessory every wicked girl should have. I do agree with her, even if she is quoting Sharon Stone's character in "Basic Instinct". Every lovely girl with a taste for games needs a few white silk scarves on hand. And I always keep one or two in my rooms for when young companions come to visit.

Blindfolds and bindings--- the white silk scarf works perfectly for both. Purpose-designed blindfolds have something too much of the sleep mask about them. And handcuffs lack grace. A friend in London tells me that her own Gentlemen Admirers bind her with climbing ropes, but I'm not athletic enough to own rock-climbing gear and I've never mastered knot-tying. Silk scarves eliminate any problems with knot-tying. It really doesn't matter if they're knotted at all. Just looped and lightly tied works best. Tying a lovely young companion is about ritual and symbol, not about the actual restraint. Silk makes that point, and silk leaves no marks on wrists or ankles. A mark should be something negotiated and something that requires its own rituals. It shouldn't just be an accident of friction. I might also add that with silk scarves, there's no danger of losing the key.

Silk always carries connotations of elegance and grace. Think, now: a long-legged young companion in tailored, narrow-leg black trousers and a white silk shirt worn open to the waist, French cuffs undone. Worn next to the skin, of course, just as the trousers should be. The semiotics of the outfit are about elegance and the way something fluid as silk is nevertheless austere. Add a man-tailored black jacket and a white silk scarf.

Silk is a caress, and yet in Ottoman days princes and viziers were executed with silk scarves. Silk implies  open cars at speed, or aeroplanes from the 1920s. (The fate of Isadora Duncan has to be borne in mind, of course) Silk is grace, and yet silk is fantastically strong. And white silk against dark-tanned skin is a clear signal of allure.

I've never liked my young companions in lingerie; that's one kind of silk that's not part of scenes in my rooms. A man's shirt worn alone--- white or blue Oxford cloth; a young companion wears that n my rooms and then sleeps naked. But scarves, now. Always scarves. Those are accessories that every lovely girl should collect on her own, and accessories that every older admirer such as myself should keep on hand. Anyone can keep riding whips; I certainly do. But handcuffs and ropes will never have the aesthetics of silk scarves, and they'll never match the multiple uses of white silk.  My friend in Los Angeles and I certainly share that view.