Our cortiotrophic correspondent celebrates her new leather suit and chastises the creators of latex and rubber.

As you can see I have now got my new leather suit. I am very thrilled. There is something about the richness of leather that gives you the feeling of utter luxury and, to use that old cliche, you feel like a million dollars. You may recognise the jacket – it is one from the trouser suit which appeared in brown on page 22 of A29 – but, as I am not a trouser person, I picked it out from Julia Gonzales’ collection and had her make me a plain straight skirt in the same soft Pittard’s cape leather.

I don’t want to boast, of course, but I think it looks a good deal better on me than it did on the model in the A29 picture on page 33.

Cuero really has some beautiful leather clothes – and it is leather – genuine proper soft leather and not the hard tanned material that you see these days in many of the chain stores. If you want to see some of her lovely clothes do call at Cuero, 23 New Bond Street, the Qext time you are in London or for more information telephone them on 01 409 0481.

SLIP INTO SOMETHING UNCOMFORTABLE

You use a quarter of tin of talcum powder and wriggle your legs into a shapeless heap of latex, hoping this time you have not picked the sleeves for your feet by mistake. Then you stand up and start wrestling with the trunk, thinking that years ago tight corsets were abandoned because they gave one so much trouble.

All around your waist is a mass of folds that have to be sorted to find the sleeves, the front and the back. More talcum and you’re wrestling your arms in. Somehow one sleeve always seems to get stuck and the only way to see your hand again is to unwrap and fold back the somewhat inflexible tube.

They make bust cups on these suits, but the makers seem to have an odd idea of the female anatomy because each time you go through this procedure they seem to be in the wrong place. Too high, too low, or under the armpits, never in the centre front until you persuade your mammery appendages to locate the latex caves.

Helen’s new suit from Cureo is made in black Pittards leather that feels like a soft smooth satin. If has a pencil slim skirt with small vent at the back, and the coat can be worn with or without belt.

Latex is supposed to stretch. By the same token it is elastic and it makes a noise that sounds like ‘ffup’ as it snaps back into its original position the moment you let go from having pulled it to where it is supposed to be covering you. You have to heave surplus folds from elsewhere to get the fit right and one thing you can really say about tight latex is that it really clings!

Now there is the matter of the zip and if He isn’t there to help you then you need to be a contortionist, or else have the foresight (a useful tip from a reader) to fit the point of a wire coathanger through the runner slot on the zip at the very outset. Mind you, care is needed then during the dressing or you will discover that the hook point of the coathanger has punched some holes in the suit.

Then the rubber gloves! Latex gloves always fold themselves with the fingers inside out; even sharp sudden shakes never seem to get them all out. Four fingers are O.K. but the fifth …?

I can remember the days when if I said ‘Just a moment, darling, and I’ll slip into something comfortable’, I was so expert that I could be out of a skirt, blouse, tights, pants and bra and into a loose negligee with the minute hand still trying to get back to where it started. I have been deep into my first kiss in the same time it has taken me to get a latex suit even unfolded. I have had an urgent ache satisfied in less than the duration of dressing.

So I can see why women get so irritated by being asked to wear a latex catsuit. Soft loose skirts and blouses, and caftans in latex – well, they’re fine, but a difficult, figure hugging catsuit can get you out of the mood quicker than He can get you into it.

Yet for Him the pleasure of wrestling with latex is part of the excitement.

Sliding into the boots is easy, and the other garments for the ‘games’ offer few problems with the exception of some hoods.

This is not entirely an individual viewpoint. Many of the women who have written to me, and whose photographs have appeared in Atomage, have made the same complaint. Almost everyone I have talked to has said that loose rubber is much preferred yet when the catalogues arrive, almost without exception, He points to the picture of the model in the clinging, form-fitting, black shiny latex suit, and says, with his eyes glazing and his voice husky: “You’d look great in that, darling”.

It is of little use pointing out that the model in the picture was being paid by the hour and the longer it took her to get into the suit the better it was for her bank balance. And it is little use pointing out that your bust isn’t perhaps your most flattering feature, or that your hips and thighs stick out, and that you have spent all your life picking out clothes to disguise these disadvantages, He still wants to see you doing a fair imitation of a garden slug.

The cursing, struggling battle doesn’t do much for my temper and the general concensus of opinion is that you should dress in the suit privately and at leisure, preferably when He isn’t there, and once you have got it on sit down quietly with a restorative drink.

The snag with this usual piece of advice is that you get no instructions on dressing from the makers of the suit, other than a little note to advise using talcum powder and keeping it away from hot radiators and sunlight. John Sutcliffe claims you can get into a latex suit in under 3 minutes, by first turning it inside out and rolling it up from the feet. He even wrote an article in an early issue of Atomage. Sorry, I have tried and I can’t do it. Perhaps I am the wrong shape? I have four latex suits, and they are all the same. Those with feet and hoods are the worst. No doubt someone is going to write to me and say my approach is all wrong, and that it is just a ‘knack’. Well, please let me know because not only I, but at least six other ladies need to know, and if you can provide illustrations numbered 1 to 10 even better!

He often wears two suits, and I have also tried this in the interest of warmth, but whereas he finds no difficulty in getting into the second one since the rubber seems to slide more easily over rubber than skin, I still find myself wrestling around and adopting undignified postures.

My best time is about twelve minutes, so I usually get into it early, and slip a housecoat on top, and get on with a few household chores, whilst the wrinkles are working themselves out. As the latex warms it does seem to ease itself better to the body but for someone with a really good figure I can well believe the effect must be very stimulating.

It is definitely more fun being ready and seeing his reactions; then spend the time helping Him to get dressed up in his suit, boots, and put on the mask. As Doctor Johnson said about executions: “It concentrates the mind wonderfully”.

Comments and advice from readers would be welcome, together with any ideas or designs for simpler suits – something you can slide into with the ease of the chorus girl doing the quick change for Act Two! The only consideration, though, for any new design is that it must have suitable ‘access’ and be capable of having the same stimulating effect to give the same very satisfying results!

ORGASMS

Speaking of the very satisfying results, the very loud exchanges between ACS227 and yours truly in recent issues, (with additional comments by J.S.) on what is best described as transcendental fornication, continues to intrigue readers and stimulate comment. The view of ACS227 (A30. p.12) that a woman is capable of having three hundred to four hundred orgasms per week has aroused something akin to fury amongst some of my sex, and something between total disbelief and acute despair amongst the male readers.

The lady who was one of my interviewees in A29 sent me a cutting from a review in the Sunday Times of a new book by Marghanita Laski called “Everyday Ecstacy” (Thames Hudson £7.50). The reviewer quotes Miss Laski: “Claims that all sexual intercourse should and can lead to ecstasy are typically by people much interested in sex, but with small or unsatisfactory experience of it, like D.H. Lawrence”.

I don’t know about D.H. Lawrence (who had probably not thought to try a latex suit) but there is in society today an almost insatiable urge for ‘experience’. The demand for drugs and for drink (and sex, too) is a quest for ‘experience’, a desire to ‘feel’ deeply everything and everyone, and, at the same time, there, just around the corner, is an even better, more fulfiling experience. ACS227 says “Too many women believe that they are what they are, but nothing can be changed and are sincerely satisfied with their sex life because they ignore that it can be improved”. He goes on to say that he has treated women to “remove hampering inhibitions” with the result that they found “what pleasure and happiness means”.

I go along with the idea that there are plenty of women around with damaging inhibitions, but that most of us are sufficiently adaptable to make the best of what we can find and, as a result, lead very satisfying lives. When it comes to orgasms and I think we are into a problem of definition, Alex Comfort pointed out in “More Joy” that some women have an habitual pattern “one big orgasm, or many, or a plateau in which they all run together”. Then he says with admirable insight, “Orgasms … are a little like varieties of wine, and as hard to classify”.

Mr. Comfort goes on, with my full agreement, to point out that some women get an “overwhelming sensation from quick intercourse without preliminaries but with very deep penetration, and distinguish this from the orgasm they get by clitoral stimulation, or even by regular but less vehement intercourse”. I go along with this because ‘dressing for pleasure’ is for most women primarily for His pleasure, and while there may be no denying the orgasm (or orgasms) there is something different, but totally sensational for those lovely naked ‘quickies’. I agree, too, that too much foreplay can be as bad as too little”, but the essential key point is the ‘relationship’ – the demonstrable expression of love between two people, each catering for the others pleasure and particularly their sexual satisfaction.

I may have misunderstood ACS227, but I don’t think we should ever be working with a score card. I have no desire to read EEG or breathing records and if I am not completely uninhibited I can’t say that I am too concerned. I have no great desire to find new sex experiences or cross new emotional frontiers. I am one of those self-satisfied people who must be the despair of ACS227.

I am very glad though that we have people like ACS227 around as there is plenty of raw material for them to work on, starting among some of the perversely misunderstanding ladies reported in Atomage.

WET HOLIDAY

A free copy of Atomage was posted, with our compliments, to hotelier Derek Oram and his wife after we had read the story in the popular papers about his ‘wet’ holiday week. Mr. Oram and his wife were so fed up with the complaints from holidaymakers about the bad weather in June and July, that they decided to advertise ‘Wet Holidays’ at their hotel in the South Devon resort of Tynmouth. Their advertisement read: “Rain lover holidays. Don’t try to beat the weather. Join it. Come to sunny South Devon in August, and we will do our best to see you get a splashing time. “If the sun does shine we will arrange occasional showers in your bedroom. Only guests wearing mackintoshes accepted. Come and be a drip for a week.”

It seems according to the press report that they even laid on a special menu, “Misty melon, golosh goulash, beef Wellington, and Strawberry Storm Gateau.”

We felt they deserved a copy of Atomage as suitable reading material for the guests.

An American couple gave us this attractive picture which shows a 14 year old Atomage two-piece leather suit still going strong. We first showed it in A1 p20 with the matching helmet.

DECORATIVE

I notice that the heading for my column in A30 described me as ‘our colophonic correspondent.’ “What,” I asked, “is colophonic, and why am I?” They looked at me with mild surprise. “A colophon is a decorative device to grace the opening of a book”.

“Somebody around here”, I said, “is going to get kicked with my thigh boots where it hurts most.”