by Andrea Helm
It was a different kind of coming-out party than the Southern woman was used to. She arrives by cab, bathed, smooth-shaven, perfumed, oiled. In front of the baths, 10 p.m. Saturday night, she drops her whip onto the sidewalk as she exits the cab. She bends over to pick it up; her ample behind is revealed beneath her short silk shirtdress. Underneath she is wearing black tights and a little piece of filmy, black lingerie. Nothing else.
She tells the door person she is one of the entertainers. She is told to check in with Deanna downstairs, who takes her to Crystal, one of the party's organizers. Crystal says "Hello, my lovely," and takes her to her room - through the pool room, past the showers, down a hallway where women are engaged in sexual acts of almost unbelievable variety.
Her room is #2, marked by a sign reading "Show and Tell." Here she is to perform for the party-goers; a previously-agreed-upon dance, strip and masturbation, but anything goes. Crystal tapes a "Danger: Do Not Enter" banner across the doorway and she is on her own.
She takes out a few personal items from the bag she brought with her: body oil, a 2-liter bottle of tangerine Talking Rain (the same flavor as her lip balm). The oil she places on the bed inside her little room; the mineral water, she places on the nightstand amongst the safe-sex products thoughtfully provided by the Northwest AIDS Foundation. Her sheet has a tear in it.
Since she hadn't done anything like this before, she had purposefully kept herself busy all day so she didn't have time to chicken out or get too nervous. She arrived almost late and the party - titled, appropriately enough, Pussy Galore - has definitely already begun. She is fluttery, trembling, not so much nervous now as curious with anticipation of what the next three hours will bring.
She removes her leggings and the silk overshirt. She stands, clad only in tights and black lace bodysuit, in the doorway of her room, dancing and smiling at naked women walking by. The first person she sees is someone she
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She thinks she is unattractive and unworthy. She is angry and hurt. She puts her frustration into her dance. She is told by onlookers that she is beautiful. She is told she is fantastic. |
Women watch her, move on. She does this for 10, maybe 15, minutes, then, already bored, decides to stand on the bed. She hangs her whip from a hook in the mesh above her head. She is tall; her head fits through a two-foot-square hole in the mesh.
From her new vantage point, a surprise stimulation: audio voyeurism. Above the sounds of the dance floor, she hears moans, cries, yells, screams and the ever-present sound of vigorous spanking. Not being able to see, she has only her imagination to help her categorize the cause of the sounds.
She moves to the rhythm, tentatively at first. She is thinking about the two-hour "friendship speech" she received the night before from some guy she slept with, thinking it was more than that. He had a girlfriend and his guilty conscience stopped him from further sexual liaisons, but not the first. She is, again, used and discarded, the lesser of the two choices, the last picked for team sports since grade school. She thinks she is unattractive and unworthy. She is angry and hurt.
She puts her frustration into her dance; she dances on, harder still. She is told by onlookers that she is beautiful; she is told she is fantastic. She receives an invitation to dance on the platform at a dyke rave the next weekend. Two women play-fight for her affections, then begin really punching each other when one hits the other too hard while playing.
This is fun, she thinks. She dances on, oblivious to the pain in her back; she arches her behind as close to the doorway as she can. She takes one hand from the caged ceiling and runs it over her breasts, her stomach, down to her pussy. She is hot and wet, already wet through the thin lingerie material. One more hour to go.
She dances harder now, sweating in the heat of the bathhouse and the heat and smell of her own body. One arm hangs from the whip, the other hand clutches the wire overhead. More women stop, watch, enjoy.
She drinks mineral water, intentionally spilling some down her cleavage, and dances on. One woman stops and asks, "Are you one of the entertainers?" She responds, "I think so." The woman seems confused because the dancer is clothed compared to the other performers. "Everyone has their own definition of entertainment," she says. "What do you think?" The woman says, "Well, it's kind of nice with clothes on for a change. Very interesting." She watches, leaves.
Another group of women stop by. "Show us your breast," she is commanded. She drops the string strap, shaking her breasts and pinching her own nipples. "Tell us what your fantasy is," she is ordered. (She had already forgotten this was Show and Tell.) To get into the pool afterward, she says. "Is that all?!" one asks, incredulously. She shakes her head yes. The onlookers all laugh, and one says, "Oh, I think we can accommodate that desire with no problem."
She dances more. She has removed her glasses because the heat of the room causes them to fog. She can see only shapes of onlookers, no actual faces or expressions. This makes her dance easier. She has danced for an hour and a half, stopping only to consume the entire contents of the bottle of mineral water in the process.
The moment of truth, all too soon, arrives. She sits on the edge of the bed and, unsnapping the crotch of the lingerie, removes the tights. She reaches up and snatches the whip from its hook. She positions her pillow behind her, puts one foot on the doorway and the other foot on the opposite wall, and begins to masturbate with the grip of the whip.
A crowd gathers. She watches them as they watch her. Even with lube, the whip handle is too large to fit inside, so she rubs her clit with it. It feels good. Her pleasure is intensified by other women watching her.
She continues her masturbation. Her first orgasm is a surprise, as it comes at precisely the same time as her next-door neighbor Zo-eeeeeeeeeee, who had been commanded to shout her own name on climax. Slave to the rhythm. Her second follows in rapid succession; her third, some minutes later, is hard, quiet, alone. She is done.
She sits, more than a little shaky, pulls a towel out of her travel bag. She wipes the sweat from her eyes, her face, her neck, her cleavage and wipes the moisture from her vagina. Crystal comes by just then and thanks her for coming out and for doing the entire two hours. They shake hands and she is free to enjoy the rest of the party.
She removes what is left of the lingerie and puts her silk shirt back on. She gathers up her things and hits the hallway in search of the pervasive spanking sound. Hundreds of women in various stages of nudity press against her as she looks around, peeping in doorways. Nudity is a great equalizer, she thinks. The party-goers are relaxed, smiling, happy, unself-conscious, enjoying themselves. It is, after all, a women's-only affair.
"It's just like theatre," one party-goer says. In some ways, she is right; it is experimental theatre. In one room, a woman blindfolded and tied is receiving whispered instructions and promises of pleasure to come. Next door, a lovely young woman is rubbing a piece of dried pear into her vagina, putting the fruit to her mouth and sucking it, by candlelight. Next door to her are two women rubbing against each other, one on top. Next door to her is a most extreme display of eroticism: two beautiful, Beautiful, BEAUTIFUL women, dressed in shiny black PVC thigh boots, are lying together on the bed. One inserts surgical needles into the swell at the top of the other's breasts. Both are smiling sweetly, obviously enjoying the sensation. This is still safer sex; there is no blood. Everywhere there are rubber gloves, dental dams, spermicidal jelly, toys and ties and tongues. She thinks it strange, however, that she sees no kissing.
She wanders on, but never finds the origins of the spanking. Pity. She makes her way to the pool and, removing her shirt, sinks down into the warm, caressing water. She is exhausted but elated, tired and sated and amazed that she actually went through with it. She marvels that she can feel so clean after engaging in something most of society considers dirty. Waves created by cavorting women massage and baptize her body. She is blissed. No wonder sexless zealots are trying to equate sex with death, she thinks. It makes you feel too good about yourself.
She puts her glasses back on and looks at the roomful of naked women. Poolside, she is offered a piece of chewing gum from a woman standing above her. Looking up into the curly V at the top of the woman's thighs, she opens her mouth and refreshing Dentyne is placed, communion-like, onto her tongue. Yum.
She stays in the pool until she is ready to fall asleep, then crosses what Tom Robbins lovingly referred to as "nymph-infested waters" to get her towel. She emerges from the pool and walks nude to get her towel. She never walks nude at home. The only time she sees herself nude is when bathing or dressing. She thinks it grand that she is not self-conscious here.
She dries, dresses and walks to the entrance to call a cab. She gets home at 2 a.m. Smiling at the evening's revelation, thinking the event over, she falls asleep in anticipation of what the next day brings.
She awakens to a cloudless Lord's Day. She has errands to run. Standing in line to order her second iced-double-tall-breve of the day, she catches the eye of the espresso operator. Both women's eyes sparkle in shy, sexy greeting: Miss Espresso was an attendee at last night's soiree. No words are spoken; none are needed. What a difference this expression of recognition is from the one received last night, she thinks.
Finishing her errands, she sees a Seattle Police Department flier asking for information about Mia Zapata, the lead singer of the Seattle band The Gits, found strangled to death not too long ago. On the bench where she sits to cry is, appropriately enough, a Pussy Galore sticker. She smiles through her tears and goes home.
She is in her front yard, later, planting a row of zinnias. She wonders which is more galoreous - a three-hour fantasy come true or the long-awaited return of the warm Seattle sunshine. From this day on, they are one in the same.
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Contents on this page were published in the July/August, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1993 WFP Collective, Inc.