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"It was kind of a challenge for myself, because I thought, 'This is silly, this whole modern primitive thing.' "
But the endorphin rush proved irresistible, and he discovered that preparing to be cut is, perhaps, a way to clear the mind.
"I always have to specifically tell myself why I'm cut again. To me, mentally, it's like, 'OK, I'm going up there, I'm doing the ritual, I have an intent. I'm being cut on, and I'm making an offering. I have to respect the ancestors, people who have come before me, and their intents when they did it.'
"There has to be a reason every time."
He says he's tried, but can't cut on himself. He needs someone else to assist him. Disposable scalpels are procured from dominatrix friends, who get them from their doctor clients.
The first Apache Whiskey Rite (back carving, urine, sodomy) was held at the 1996 Burning Man event in the Nevada desert, a ritual that the 31-year-old Leyba says was the best of the three he has performed. Unfortunately, he says, Burning Man officials wouldn't allow him onto the stage, so he hooked up with other like minds and did it at their campsite, illuminated by a pentagram burning in the dirt.
"A lot of people were tripping on acid," Leyba says. "A lot of them were like, 'He's been sodomized for six hours now!' "
Of course, it would be the Jack Davis party that forever changed his life. The media flurry -- local and national -- was so intense that he left for Los Angeles, where CNN reporters followed him around the city, calling for an exclusive interview.
"They wouldn't even give me gas money," he says. Invitations came in for the Jerry Springer and Geraldo Rivera talk shows.
And in a little-known repercussion, the Internet chat group alt.satanism grew noisy with complaints. Apparently the dominatrix who carved the pentagram on Leyba's back, Mistress Izabella Sol, had neglected to finish the bottom line of the design. And not only that, she peed on it! Debates raged. Did the Davis party make Satanism too mainstream? Is it still Satanism?
"Everyone was offended," chuckles Leyba, "even the Satanists!"
But every ritual has a silver lining. A young woman recently approached Leyba at a fetish party, saying she had read about him in SF Weekly. She said she was a sadist. Leyba immediately thought, "Uh oh, this woman wants to hook me up to a car battery." They kept talking, and a couple of months later the two were together onstage in New York City, naked, covered in each other's blood, simulating sex acts. She was rechristened Lady Hades, and now the two are inseparable.
We once winced at the idea of nipple and navel rings. Will blood ever become as trendy as tattoos and body piercings? Will blood boutiques line groovy shopping districts of major cities, offering cuttings and laser scar removal? Or will there be those who believe that blood-cutting rituals are just too tame? Will they attempt limb removal in the name of spiritual empowerment?
Those with a cultural curiosity for the next big primitive thing may want to keep following the roving lens of Charles Gatewood.
"It's hard to see how they'll commodify this one," Gatewood says. "Maybe they'll have little vampire kits at Macy's."
Or perhaps it is Danielle Willis who will lead the way.
"People have seen folks hung by their dicks, practically, but blood is still a medium that hasn't reached saturation level yet," she says. "When it does, I'm ready to come in with pus! Squeezing pus!
"That's right, Charles, we're going to make a book called True Pus!
