Free The Last Place She'd Look by Arlene Schindler Page A

leering, more than looking, at the women.
    Yes, the women. Where do you shop for freak-show clothes like these? There were two platinum blondes with identical short, spiky haircuts wearing matching black leather mini-skirts and shiny red patent-leather bustiers, pushing basketball-sized breasts skyward. They took turns sitting on each other's laps while they alternately kissed and warmly greeted everyone who sat at their table. Body piercings were everywhere. The most beautiful women in the room were transvestites.
    I learned that latex brings out the best curves in everyone. I scoped out the patrons as my eyes ricocheted around the room. The cornucopia of couples was mesmerizing. It was like a car accident – I couldn't look away, repulsed and attracted all at once. The air was heavy with smarmy sexuality.
    Feeling like a sexual tourist, I was reminded of the bar I'd visited with Beth. If the gay bar was Paris, this was Amsterdam. Then I found the roadmap for our vacation from “sex as we've known it.” I picked up a brochure from a stack on the corner of the card table and read:
    “Club DV8 has the nation's largest, most elegant, and best-equipped dungeon . (I'd hate to think we were going to an inferior dungeon; you know how dungeons can be.) Fully air-conditioned and heated, cleaned daily (let's hope so), and filled with state-of-the-art equipment. (It's so bothersome to use 20th century flogging equipment.) We have a total of seven complete theme rooms and dungeons in 7,000 square feet plus a 2,500-square-foot social area complete with stage and lighting. Bondage, Spanking, Slave Training , (what's graduation like?) , Tickling, Role Playing, Wax, Fire & Ice, Foot Worship, Electrical Play, Role Play, Wrestling, Feminization, English Caning (I don't think that's chair-making.), Domestic Discipline, Nipple Torture, Suspensions, Flogging, and so much more.” (What's left, fondue frolic?)
    I tried not to stare as we ventured to theme rooms where people engaged in their role-playing pleasures. Voyeurism was highly encouraged and seemed to be the preference of the gaggle of geek boys who arrived without female companionship. In one room, I counted 35 people watching as a man was shackled to a wooden stake and then flogged by the woman who'd accompanied him.
    I was intrigued, repulsed, and mesmerized by the circus of scenarios that seemed more theatrical than sexual. I got a weird thrill out of being this close to couples touching and sharing licentious energy, making me feel that I was having a second-hand sexual moment, anonymous and in a small crowd. It felt like watching the making of a porno film.
    Excited and uneasy, I held on to Julia's arm as we walked from one “theme room” to another, an X-rated Disneyland. Others walked past us, smiling and eyeing Julia as if she were alone. Meanwhile, she and I found all seven rooms: a classroom with old school wooden desks where students were bent over their desks while teachers spanked them with rulers. Next, a boudoir filled with large-size evening gowns, where three large men were whooping it up, laughing, and admiring themselves in Mae West style, the belles of the 1890s-style gowns, each exclaiming over the other's necklaces and feather boas. Another room with a rack and various shackles was very crowded. We perched on the side of a leather massage table and watched couples spank one another. Some brought their own toys and a bag of tricks. Others borrowed from the selection we'd seen in the “goody room” on our way in.
    Watching the pain and pleasure at first was titillating. But with each repetitive slap and every tightening turn of the rack and subsequent flogging, the thrilling sensation dulled; Julia and I both started squirming, itching to move on. Before we left, we stopped in one more room where everyone was wearing nothing but Saran Wrap; it was the spanking room.
    That room got Julia and me thinking. A 30-year-old man was lying face-down on a table, wearing