It all started last Friday night, after a cup of tea at a friend’s suite. My other friend, let’s call her Luce, and I had spent the last hour fussing with our lips, eyelashes, slips, armpits, hair, stockings, and fingernails. We were heading out into the night—to a BDSM club. It was college night, and although I had wanted to go for a while, this was the first night I felt I qualified as a guest.

The club was literally underground, in the basement of another facility. One girl in our group had been there before, and said she always had the sinking feeling of being in the wrong place. But before long we heard the disembodied snaps of whips, and I knew we had made it.

We paid the cover, checked our coats/clothes, and stepped inside. The walls were exposed brick, covered with a thick coat of black paint. Club music was thumping quietly. Nineties porn played silently on the ’90s televisions mounted on the walls. There was a bar near the entrance—with no alcohol, since S&M is always done SSC (sane, sober, and consensual)—and across from the bar, a series of booths.

Luce and I grasped each other’s hands and pressed on into the heart of the club.

First, we peered into a room with a few pieces of kinky wooden furniture, mirrors, and a yellow glow, as if it were lit by candles. A leather daddy was flogging a female partner with the utmost skill and dexterity. A few people stood next to us in the doorway, also looking on. Several feet away, a soulful looking man was tying a woman up. Both were fully clothed and moving slowly. The woman’s hands were bound. She scratched her nose on one of the ropes. We watched as he finished her stunning body harness and hoisted her off the ground.

Next, we climbed up a narrow flight of stairs to the balcony. A woman bound in an intricate chest harness was tied to a frame and getting flicked with whips. She whined as her top was teasing her. Luce and I sat down in some chairs to watch. Across from us were a couple of cute daddy/little girl pairs. Everyone’s attention was locked on the delightful torture and witty banter in the scene.

Over the balcony railing was a view that included an array of various kinksters—voluptuous femdoms in tight-laced corsets, a majestic transwoman in a pleather basque and knee-high boots, leather daddies, goth girls, transvestites, and several types of people that defied my encyclopedia of labels.

Heading downstairs, I was reminded of a central BDSM concept—aftercare. I suppose I had never seen it in person before, because of course they don’t show it in kinky porn. But I knew it’s de rigeur after a session of S&M, and now I know that it is absolutely beautiful. The man and his tied-up partner were gently resting against one another, in the deepest, stillest embrace.
The woman who’d been getting flogged by the leather daddy was now nestling at his feet. The whirling energy of the intense flogging had wound down into a still pool of affection and tenderness. Aftercare is almost as compelling to watch as the scenes themselves.

Eventually, Luce and I returned to the bar, from which our other friends had not budged. The leather daddy, now finished flogging his lithe, dark companion, watched as we walked past. “So, who’s next?” he asked as he provided tender aftercare to his sub. He spoke in a warm, teasing Brooklyn accent, and we were embarrassed rather than creeped out.

We smiled and kept walking, but the proposition hung in my mind as I listened to the chatter of my friends. They were talking about this and that, puppies, tea, and all sorts of things that seemed awfully boring after what we had just seen. A top in the group played mind-games with a feisty bottom, but past that, nothing kinky was afoot.

I whispered something in Luce’s ear, and we slipped away as soon as seemed polite, and headed back to that room with the leather daddy. He was still there, petting his blissed-out sub.

Luce hung back, but I stomped up to him and asked, “Will you please teach my friend to flog me?” I pointed back at her. She was wearing a pink slip, fishnets, and knee-high Doc Martens.

“Of course,” he replied, looking thrilled.

In the room was a big bed-like platform—an iron cube frame with a leather cushion on the bottom. The leather daddy, who I’ll call M, said, “Now, I’m not just trying to get your clothes off, but I need you to take off your slip, or we can’t flog you.”

I smiled and said I didn’t mind, and drew my slip over my head. I wasn’t wearing a bra, so I stood there, in the middle of the club, wearing only a pair of panties and knee-high boots.

Next, he had me grab a pair of leather cuffs that were hanging from the upper bar of the frame. I was facing the wall, my arms stretched up, my legs spread. On the wall was a mirror, so I could look at myself, and all the people watching behind me.

The room was quiet, save for M and Luce conversing about how to flog. She gushed about the beauty of his floggers. They had gorgeous shapely wooden handles and soft black suede tails.

Then they started flogging me.

At first, it felt like a nice massage, and a cool breeze as the tails flew toward me. Then, after some practice, Luce stepped it up and my skin became warm. As the flogger hit me, there was a burst of pain that, as it traveled beneath my skin, turned in to pure pleasure. I was soaring as the flogger flew through the air and made contact over and over.

People began to assemble and watch our scene. A lovely witchy woman with black and red hair and a velvet skirt started giving Luce more pointers. A man with a bare chest and golden cross necklace commented on the cuteness of my butt. But to tell the truth, I hardly noticed them. I was in outer space.

As Luce and I left, arm in arm, a sweet-looking, gender-ambiguous kid she’d been eyeing all night, came up and said, “I just wanted to tell you that I saw your scene, and you guys are awesome!” We said, “Thank you,” and glowing, left the club in a titter.

At three in the morning, I made it back to my dorm, plunged into bed, and slept a deep, dark sleep. When I awoke, I pulled off my underwear, stood in front of the mirror, and craned my neck to check out my ass. There were huge, vicious purple bruises running along my backside like Cheshire Cat grins. Running my fingers along them, I smiled.

I’ve never been the same again.