It was my first time. A first that I fully expected to lead to a phrase of dismissal much as any other off-the-beaten-track venture I had taken - I would try anything once, sometimes twice just to be sure I was correct with the first impression.

I stumbled across this in much the same form and fashion as many others before me - and many others after me would as well. Hardly avant-garde. An internet to chat group. A chat group that lead to "in your face" meetings. From which the in your face meetings lead to either one of two outcomes: relationships in all the wrong places, or “I should have saved myself yet another opportunity to feel rejection.” Not much different than the bar scene really.

What was different, I assumed, about the way I approached this was that I did not do the years of investigation, the years of online exploration, the years of hiding from the real thing, nor the years of combing every bit of written material there may be. I unlike some, dove in head first - much as I always had with many other things. Life is for the living and I had no desire to live it behind a computer screen.

While I dressed for the occasion (and having no idea how to do so for one of these ‘parties’), I also worked diligently on talking myself out of making the drive. It is my mode of operation to attempt to do so using one excuse or another; no sitter to be found, one of the kids sick that day, too tired, other plans. Something suddenly came up. What would it matter in the end if I didn’t show up for this particular event? It wouldn’t.

Outside of the few jabs from those online about ‘someone’ loosing their nerve or perhaps too frightened to explore, there really wasn't much at stake.

With the last of the make-up applied and a look past the reflection in the mirror I was ready to go and still working on talking myself out of wasting the time, money on gas and bridge toll.

****************************

Nestled among the unforgiving hills of South San Francisco sat the old Victorian with its sides squeezed and held upright by two more pressed tight against one another. From the outside it looked no different than the others that lined the crowded hillsides. Quaint in one respect and bordering run down in another - much like the neighborhood itself. Streets barely wide enough to hold parked cars on one curb and allow another to pass twisted and turned up and down steep grades. Street signs for no parking between this time and that, signs for street sweeper schedules, signs for street names and businesses, public transportation, one-way, no turn, right turn, stop, go… all told of how these people spent their daily lives.

Between the architectural romance of this nook of the world, with the constant hum of MUNI trains above ground and the beep-beep of BART trains buried below, I realized how little of the Bay Area I had visited throughout my life. How little I knew of the other cities and towns crowded around a body of water to one side and the wide open Pacific on the other. I had to get out more.

Standing outside the black iron and mesh screen door with two deadbolts I wondered what I would find inside. Would it be what my imagination concocted? Would it be a place where men ran thick with dominance oozing from their every pore, and women so eager to please rejected the subtle advance for one more commanding raw power? Was it a place where men made kings sat on thrones with women kneeling vulnerable and naked before them? Was it a place where men were men in control of their universe and women willingly exposed their darkest desires?

Yes, I had at some point during the preceding few months read the Story of O. Yes, I rejected that such a place or person could exist. Yes, I categorically denied that there was such a place whether it be in structure or soul that one could find what they’d only dare to fantasize. I didn’t fantasize, did I? I wasn’t that woman, was I? No, I wasn’t. I was the type of woman who didn’t waste time on dreams much less fantasies. I was the type of woman who had learned that the common man in all his glory was not strong enough challenge my mind, much less bring me to my knees.

I'd had the nice one, and then a few not so nice. Each time I found myself attracted to what appeared to be a confidence and strength. Pricks. I had also learned by sad experience that it was not a bad boy that I truly wanted, but rather a man who knew himself with a desire to reach beyond his limitations and embrace his ability to inspire. A matched mind and natural dominance, was that too much to hope for? I knew and had come to accept somewhere along the way that I was not going to find what I had secretly lusted for and sought in all the wrong places. Not from the common man I was accustomed to knowing.

Standing there at the door of the old Victorian I wondered if it was going to be much different inside.

****************************

The rules of the establishment rolled around in my mind. Knock this way, secret handshake that way, release of liability, sign your life away, pay the fee, SSC, don’t this and don’t that - have fun. Have fun? I heard the whispers behind the brief introductions of online names. Idle chattering about who the newcomer was and to what label she should be assigned. “Subnoxious,” I heard my online name whispered. That appeared to clear it up for them.

It was hard to tell I suppose, whether I was dominant or submissive by the black, pin stripe, ankle length dress and conservative three-inch heels I wore for the occasion. Simple and understated, yet seductive and elegant at the same time - complete with long, thick curls in managed disarray rolling freely down my back. I looked as if I was ready for a date with prince charming rather than a night in a dungeon with the Marquis.

 

Fetish Mecca Contributing Writer: Victoria Kessler, (c)2007