| “Well aren’t
you a Dapper Dan!” I smiled. “Won’t
you come in?”
I had made fresh lemonade, with mint. We sat on a
chintz settee, sipping, and exchanged lively bons
mots about the coming holidays. Soon, it was
time to go. I pulled on my studded, black latex coat
and we left for the Spanking Social at Joystick, a
gay fetish bar.
My escort, Madly, is not a gay man, nor am I. The
Spanking Social was an omnisexual fundraiser/silent
auction for the Fleurs de Mal, a thriving BDSM club
that burned down; fire sparked, no doubt, by some
hot candle wax dripping ‘scene,’ quite
common on their bed-of-nails.
‘The Perfect Place To Find That Perfect Sadistic
And Kinky Holiday Gift At A Bargain!’ crowed
the invitation, and boy-oh-boy—who couldn’t
use that? ‘Auction Items Include, BRAND NEW,
Floggers, Paddles, Whips, Canes, Bondage Gear, Enema
Equipment, Needle Play Sets, Custom Cakes and Salon
Services.’
So that means, if Lady Luck is game, I could conceivably
torture my Sub and gnaw cake while getting a blow-dry?
Awesome!
Joystick is in a rough part of town; roads clotted
with trash, shot-out street lights. I clung to Madly
like a bat while we hopped potholes. At this point,
forsooth, I was wild with anticipation... for in mere
moments I would feel the yearned-for balm of a mind
fuck diorama, which I envisioned like the orgy scene
in (Kubrick’s) ‘Eyes Wide Shut’
– except, you know, faster, weirder,
in squalor, and with welts.
I need regular jolts of X-treme Strangeness to leaven
the doughy, white stupor of everyday life. Each egress
into the workaday world is its own Fresh Hell, thanks
to the politically lauded—yet dim, smug, fat,
obnoxious and nose-hair trimmer lacking—American
People.
The concept of a ‘people person’ is,
to me, fiercely perverse.
Even grocery shopping drains my soul. In traffic,
where stupidity is stark, I bless gun control—otherwise
I’d be crafting your license plates. Malls,
with their lugubrious sameness, stab me to near-death
every time I skulk in, and yet this, in no way, has
ever ‘made me stronger.’
Aah, but the kryptonite for these woes is at hand.
Temporary, but no hangover. All it takes to lay ennui
to waste/taser tedium/bombard bathos (couldn’t
choose)… is a sprightly field trip to the gutter.
You may look up at the stars once ensconced there,
as Oscar Wilde (says he) did, or you can Be Here Now
a la Ram Dass, psychically recline, and surrender
to Chaos.
And, yes, in fact—a tour of Europe would
be better, or a Namibia walkabout, or helicopter skiing,
or a month of Sundays, but oh pardon me,
I’m a lowly effing writer and forgot to marry
rich.
“Man transforms everything he encounters into
a tool; and in doing so he himself becomes a tool.
But if he asks, a tool for what, there is no answer.”
-- Paul Tillich, American theologian, 1958
“Progress!” you may chirp reflexively.
But what is progress, my fellow cagelings? The mess
we humans make, contorted with stress? The fact we
get to live longer and distract ourselves with downloads
to endure it?
Chaos is Alka Seltzer for the soul. Gas burps out,
its contents shuffle. New broadcasts get the brain’s
ear. Chaos is formally defined as ‘complex non-linear
dynamic systems’ but what those cold words mean
is that there is a natural order to the universe,
grander and more elegant than any grid we fleshly
peons are arrogant enough to press upon it.
The best way to have intercourse with Chaos is to
strip down to your primitive, essential self, and
spread ‘em (brain lobes). And may I say, that
for me, so very time and lucre challenged, a BDSM
party has it all. It’s something of a deluxe
psychic truck stop, accompanied with fuel, a restaurant,
gift shop and bar.
Two bald, inked and frightening Goons were guarding
Joystick’s entrance, as Madly and I stumbled
up.
When they saw us, they met each other’s eyes,
then rolled them like teenage girls. I was offended.
I’d worn my best shit-kicker mini and nasty,
nasty boots. My hair was painstakingly messed. Ripped
thong. I looked low, dammit.
And Madly, man, leathered up—he looks
fierce even smiling … though it is in more of
an evil Hogwarts Professor way than anything else,
I guess.
Goon One opened the door for us, sneering, as he
whispered to Two, hardly hushed, “These straights,
fuck, they’re swarming like locusts.”
Well, I never.
Imagine this next scene like a really long David
Lynch film take: The camera moves, no dolly (shaky),
from my point of view, from the dark, shoddy entrance
to the dark, septic bar. Raucous noise puffs from
the back room. The fetish guys are just standing around,
moping, crestfallen, as if Mom called them to dinner
during a wank.
The camera pans down as I watch my feet descending
splintery stairs, pad around a corner, and then AAARRRGGH!—camera
up—the screen is flooded with light.
The real point of this party was fundraising, so
the room was blazing to highlight the silent auction
items. This, of course, ruined everything.
While the items were indeed floggers, enema kits
etc. …good cheer, of all things, was abounding.
The mood was appallingly wholesome, like an Amish
barn-raising. One for all, all for one! We’ll
pull through this together! Hooray for good friends!
Some of the Fleurs regulars were even in street clothes
and looked offensively, ugh, normal.
“What a lovely whip!’ said one swarthy
man known as Master Slash, now sporting a dorky ‘sport
coat.’ I had never heard him speak and lo, his
voice was whiny high. “Look at that detail.
The colors—like a sunrise. What craftsmanship!”
A huge-breasted lesbian Sub approached me with a
big smile. She had a roll of bills in her puffy cleavage.
“Hi there! How ya doin’ tonight? Raffle
tickets? We’re auctioning off that fantastic
gold-plated paddle!”
Another 6’6 man with face tattoos and tribal
earlobe holes said to Madly, “My wife? She stayed
home to bake with the kids.”
I ended up buying a cool-looking book of ‘erotica’
with a pierced, rouged nipple on it, but it turned
out to be—purple prose aflame—a S&M
romance novel.
Yet another bait and switch, oy vey iz mir. The story
of my life.
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