Lee generally "tops" in S/M and B&D scenes, which is the most enigmatic of his paradoxes. I've known him for several years and can't imagine this gentle soul screaming orders or beating someone. He's worked in various nonprofits helping rape and incest victims, substance abusers and AIDS patients; now he's a massage therapist. Yet in his off hours, he dominates grown-up "boys" who call him "master" or "daddy" or "sire." (Peacenik Lee prefers the last to the more military "sir.")

While studying yoga and meditation, Lee says, "I discovered that my spiritual energy was erotic." He found fellow travelers among the Body Electric, an Oakland, Calif., organization that hosts erotic massage workshops called Celebrating the Body Erotic (CBE) around the country. Most of the workshops are for gay men, who come to learn what Lee describes as "basic tantric approaches, breath work, erotic massage and sacred and intimate bodywork." At the start of his first CBE field trip, Lee was disappointed by the hunk shortage, "but by the end of the weekend, I loved these men and was comfortable being erotic with them." The man running the workshop told Lee he was a natural healer and invited him to skip the usual prerequisites and start running CBE workshops.

Lee ran a few CBE sessions and then found the world of S/M, which fit him like a rubber tank top -- despite the fact that he lacked a discernible mean streak or a fascination with physical pain. What Lee likes talking about are S/M's rituals of limit: how a safe word always stops the play, how red, yellow, green mean, respectively, stop, slow down and baby don't stop. Lee also loves negotiations, and gets plenty of them whenever he co-creates "safe, sane and consensual" guidelines. Many "players" fill out two-page contracts before they ever pick up a riding crop. As he talks, I start to suspect that S/M and B&D serve society best not by channeling dark urges, but by absorbing would-be lawyers.

"In terms of controlling a situation, I'm more of a top," Lee explains -- unnecessarily. He not only requests that he and a psychotherapist friend see my story before I file it; he says, "And I want something on you too, like how Roman soldiers would cradle each other's balls to prove trust." I offer, truthfully, "Lee, you know I would love to have sex with you -- doesn't that give you power over me?" Without missing a beat, he says, "OK, well, how would we work that in?" We're drinking coffee in the sun; I start to sweat and change the subject. I hadn't meant to bluff or challenge him, just to show underbelly in place of Roman testicles. (I suppose I was also leaving him an opening to say, "You want me? In that case I renounce all slave boys and turn my healing love on you." A girl can dream.)

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