"Love Nest" RIP

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Mistress and Slave had one of those rare days Sunday when we had nothing of consequence to do but entertain one another: I had covered the trip to my cranky Mother’s house in Saturday; My daughter and her grandsons cancelled on their visit for Sunday dinner; Mistress’s mother was off on another exotic excursion; and even the NFL schedule co-operated. The Pussycats had lost in “that only happens to the Pussycats” style on Thursday night (A safety in OT! WTF!) , giving fans their on bye Sunday.

Rest assured we put our free day to good use: Wake-up sex; a bike ride; Mistress whipped up breakfast; some yard work for me; then an entertaining Indie movie downloaded on I-Tunes, snuggled together on the couch. 

At some point, after the ride, Mistress appeared in some foxy nighties – just panties and a matching top – and asked if I minded her wearing such skimpy attire for the rest of the day.

“What Slave would object to that, Mistress?”

By the end of out first movie,  it was only 3:30 pm or so.

“How about sex and a nap, Mistress?”

“I thought you’d never ask, Slave.”

After adjourning to the UCTMW executive suite for a suitable respite,  Slave gathered his strength and grilled some Salmon. Mistress whipped up some of her patented acorn squash, loaded with a confection of brown sugar and walnuts that is to die for. And we watched yet another cute indie movie about a young London married couple destined to be with other lovers by the end of the reel, called “I Give It A Year.”

Cute.

Our day huddled together, the rest of the world shut away,  reminded me a bit of our “Love Nest” days, memories also dredged up by yesterday’s Maureen Dowd column in the Times: From Love Nest to Desire Surveilance

She focuses on the revived 1980's Pinter play “Betrayal” - about a love triangle in which a married woman and her husband’s friend have a secret apartment for their trysting - and ties it to revelations from the trial of Rupert Murdoch’s minions in London, who were carrying on their own secret affair while tapping the cell phones of celebrity philanderers.

The point she makes is that with our advanced communications technology, it’s almost impossible to carry on a proper (or should I say improper) clandestine affair these days.

Instead of a second address, modern philanderers are more likely to have a second phone. Love nests seem archaic, given how physical erotics have been somewhat displaced by digital erotics.

We virtually have another N.S.A., the National Sex Agency, given all the desire surveillance technology and the manic collection of preliminary information about conceivable partners.

The extension of information obsession to the field of intimacy — which is the slow revelation of one person to another — ruins the mystery, poetry and suspense. Instead of caressing, there’s posting; instead of kissing, there’s forwarding, sharing and sending.

A love nest also figures prominently in the new memoir “Johnny Carson,” by the comedian’s old lawyer and carousing buddy, Henry Bushkin. The Bombastic Bushkin, as he became known in Johnny’s monologues, first meets Carson in 1970, when he joins a stealthy team breaking into the East Side “snuggery” of the star’s second wife, Joanne.

After Carson, wearing a .38 revolver on his hip, got into the apartment, thanks to a bribe, he discovered scattered lingerie and other “evidence of his cuckoldry,” as Bushkin wrote.

“The whole living room, in fact, almost the entire pad — was furnished with discards from the couple’s UN Plaza apartment,” Bushkin recalled. “There were even some pieces Johnny hadn’t realized were gone.”

Carson confirmed the identity of the man he sneeringly called Joanne’s “Prince Charming” in the most low-tech way possible: there were six or seven framed photographs of sportscaster and former New York Giants star Frank Gifford.

I guess there’s one more reason for me to admire my boyhood Giants hero.

One dictionary defines "Love Nest" as "a place (such as an apartment) used for amorous and often illicit rendezvous". The first recorded use of the term in the United States was in 1919. I guess those dough boys picked up a few tricks "over there".

When Mistress and Slave first “hooked up” back in the age of Dukakis and “A thousand points of light”, we quickly found our own “love nest”, a cozy efficiency apartment a few blocks from my downtown office. We’d meet maybe twice a week – a long lunch hour, or a Sunday morning when we both told our spouses we were catching up on office work – for some hot and illicit sex on the futon we had found at Pier One. A bit like the "Joanne and Frank” nest that Johnny discovered, we had purloined some furnishings that would not be missed from home. A few plates and glassware, Mistress’s candles, some linens, a chair. Nothing fancy. And of course some “toys” to play a few bondage games.

(Those Pier One futon platforms have lots of handy lashing points!)

We had our own “love nest” for about three years before we pulled the plugs on our first marriages, and moved in together into a house we rented, while awaiting the arrival of  our now cute Co-Ed, who turned 21 last spring.

Looking back, there’s no way we could get away with that sort of thing with today’s devices making it so easy to track a straying spouse down. Our wife/husband would be all over us via cell phone or text message wanting to know where we were, what we were doing, and when we’d be home. And who needs to go to work on a Sunday anyway, when your "desktop" is so portable? Even worse,  the errant text or email from a “side dish” can quickly become incriminating evidence these days.

No we were from the last generation that could leave the house or office and be - as a practical matter - on our own remote island for a few hours.

Mistress mentioned that one of her Cougar Week lovers – confused about the whole “permission” thing – had asked her whether it wouldn’t be more fun to “just cheat”…. i.e. “Don’t let Mick in on it.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble when you already have a contractual right to stray, Mistress.”

“That’s what I said, Slave….”

It may be that for a while the “secret” can make an affair a tad hotter. But over the long term it’s corrosive. And, as Ed Snowden has reminded us from freedom loving Moscow, secrets just aren’t what they used to be.