"I Was a Teenage Dominatrix"

"They think it'll make a great movie," says Kenney. "I had heard about ICM, but I wasn't trying to get an agent really. They brought me a contract at lunch, and I signed on."

Currently the book's sold about half of its initial run of 5,000 -- not exactly John Grisham, but pretty good for an unknown author being published by a company almost no one's heard of before. Prior to putting out Kenney's book, Retro-Systems was primarily known as the home of the now defunct Whap! magazine, a National Lampoon-style fetish rag that billed itself as "The Modern Gal's Guide to Marital Bliss."

Kenney was a contributing editor there for several months until her bosses, intrigued with her salacious war stories, proposed that she pen an account of her dom days. Kenney did just that, and now she's got hotshot wheeler-dealers talking about feature films and maybe even a TV series.

Who'd play Kenney? It's too soon for that. My suggestions: Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle Gellar or Christina Ricci.

"I'm waiting to hear something," Kenney remarks hopefully. "California's been really good to me so far."

The whip girl's long since left the stage as Jumbo's Clown Room nears closing time. Now there's this completely naked Rubenesque blonde before us, writhing to the tune of Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug." Jumbo's is so whack. Supposedly Courtney Love stripped here back in the day. And there are rumors that it's a great place to score smack, but, not being a dope fiend, I can't confirm that.

In any case, it's seedy. Kenney had never been there before, so it seemed like the perfect spot to do an interview. But now the smoke from a drag queen's cancer stick is giving Kenney a headache, and she wants to go. She's finished her cranberry juice in any case. You see, the former dom is a health nut and vegetarian. Moreover, she avoids both alcohol and tobacco.

"I've never even tried," she says of cigarettes as we walk out the door. "My whole family smokes and I hate it."

That Adam Ant song comes to mind. So I sing her a lyric: "You don't drink, don't smoke. What do you do?"

She glances over her shoulder and bats her eyes, "You mean, you have to ask?"

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