Exposed (6 page)

Less than 30 seconds later a heavy-set, very pretty woman came through the curtain where the couple had disappeared.

“Welcome! My name is Elizabeth. You’ve never been to SASSA before?” she said in the warmest, “would you like some cookies?” voice I have ever heard. Somehow, my nervousness dropped to half, and I could tell Mark’s did, too.

We both shook our head. “Well, let’s take five minutes to get to know each other, I’ll give you a quick tour, and you can decide if you want to join!”

“They still need an orientation,” said the man behind the desk.

“Yes, Mike, I know the rules,” said Elizabeth, in a tone clearly indicating who made the decisions. “Come with me,” she said to Mark and me.

We walked through the first curtain into a “hallway,” defined by more heavy curtains. Elizabeth stopped after a few steps and turned to us. “Mike’s a volunteer. He’s very dedicated, but sometimes gets a little officious,” she said. I don’t know why, but I was surprised to hear her use the word “officious.”

“Are you members of any other club? Do you have any experience with the lifestyle?” she asked.

Mark and I shook our heads. I was confused by what she meant by “the lifestyle.”

“You ARE newbies!” Elizabeth said with a big smile. “Come on then.”

We walked to the end of the curtain corridor and out into a main room. There weren’t very many people there. The couple who had entered while we were in the outer room were getting a drink at the bar. There were warming trays along the wall with food, a half-barrel with bottled water on ice, tables with chairs.

There were a few couples sitting on couches talking, a small stage directly in front, with several doors out of the room.

“Where is everybody?” asked Mark.

“Oh, honey, it’s still pretty early,” said Elizabeth. She glanced at a huge watch with a white band on her large wrist. “It will fill up in about 45 minutes.”

“This is the couples area,” she said, walking through one of the openings next to the bar. Inside the large room were alcoves, not unlike the little cabanas you see around swimming pools at fancy hotels. Each was not much bigger than the double bed it contained, with some pillows and gauze curtains separating one from the next.

“Single men aren’t allowed in here,” said Elizabeth, “but you can bring another man in with you if you like. Or you can join another couple.”

Mark looked around the room. “Does it ever fill up?” he asked.

“Oh hon, on weekends it’s standing-room-only. You’d be amazed at how many bodies you can get on one of those beds.”

“And if we want to have sex on one of those beds, just the two of us?” Mark asked.

“No one can join without an invitation. That’s the second rule. No touching without asking.”

“What’s the first rule?” I asked.

“No means no,” she said with a smile.

“And if someone breaks that rule?” asked Mark.

“They don’t. Oh, it’s happened, and will surely happen again. But it’s very rare, and when it does, that person is invited to leave and never come back. Most don’t want to lose the privilege.”

Elizabeth took us back to the bar and then into the next large room.

“This is for those who have more… intense tastes.” She flashed another smile.

In the middle of the room hung a swing made of nylon straps. A
ten
-by- ten foot section of chain-link fencing was fastened on the opposite wall. A giant X-shaped frame with rings fastened to the arms sat in one corner.

A chrome wheel used for something I couldn’t even imagine rested on the floor. Work-out benches with chains hanging off them were scattered about.

“Oh my,” I said.

“It can get a little noisy,” Elizabeth said with her perpetual smile.

“What happens if someone wants to stop? I assume saying ‘no’ or ‘stop’ can be part of the game. But what if someone really goes too far and the other wants it to be over?”

“We have what we call ‘safe words,’ and everybody acknowledges the safe word before play begins. It has to be something that would never be said in the context of the game. A particular color, for instance, or just an obscure word.”

The last room was just a small movie theater for about thirty people. An erotic movie, two women playing with tongues showed on the screen.

“Some people come in here to watch, some like to share,” said Elizabeth. “Come on, we’ll have the official talk, I will comp you tonight’s visit, and you can decide if you want to join.” She took us into her office on the far side of the dance floor from the bar. Inside, a large one-way mirror looked out into the main area.

One wall had a row of monitors that featured every conceivable angle of the rooms we had just been in.

“Marketing materials?” asked Mark.

“To keep you safe,” Elizabeth shot back. “We take privacy very seriously.”

“The talk” included the basic rules of SASSA permission and other strong recommendations such as to use the clean sheets and towels that were stacked everywhere and the condoms that filled large fish bowls on every flat surface. She also filled us in on the very few sex practices that were banned “in the interest of essential cleanliness.”

Use of cameras and cell phones was banned. “That’s what gets most people in trouble,” she said, “and even then it’s usually because someone got a call or a text and didn’t use the head on their shoulders.”

While we were in her office, SASSA began to fill up. Many of the people seemed to know each other, and there were many hugs exchanged, and a lot of laughter. Some people stood at the bar, others had gotten a plate and were eating at one of the tables in the dining area.

“Would you like to stay? It’s fine if all you want to do is watch,” she said.

I looked at Mark; he looked at me. I think we both shrugged and nodded at the same time.

I hoped my act was convincing. I was afraid they could hear my heart pounding, my libido standing on a chair in my brain screaming “Hell YES we’d like to stay! Bring it ON!” I was glad I’d chosen to wear panties because my vagina had already decided it wanted to participate in
something
.

Elizabeth took us back out to the front alcove. When there was a break in the stream of people now coming in, she pushed back through the curtain to the first chamber by the front door.

“Go ahead and let Mike enter your information,” she said to us.

“Mike, log them in as out-of-town guests under my name,” she said to him.

“But they live here in Seattle,” he said.

“Mike, I know where they live,” she said. Without another word, Mike took Mark’s license and then mine, typed notes into the computer and gave them back.

“Enjoy,” Elizabeth said. “If you have any questions, ask anyone with a SASSA shirt on,” and pointed at the bartender who was wearing a black shirt with SASSA embroidered in red.

We wandered over to the bar.

“What can I get you?” asked the bartender. Mark ordered a brandy. I asked for Kahlua on the rocks just to have something to sip.

“What do you think?” Mark asked, again in that nonchalant voice that indicated he was being guarded.

“I think it’s going to be an interesting evening,” I replied, my voice every bit as noncommittal as his, but with a desire not hidden as much as I intended.

“What if we get seen by someone we know?” he asked.

“Well, my guess is that they are here for the same reason we are, and not likely to talk it up all over town,” I replied. I wasn’t totally convinced by my own answer, but it sufficed, given everything else I was feeling at that moment.

People began to dance after a while, just like any other bar in the city. Except sometimes women danced with women a little more suggestively, sometimes kissing deeply. Men danced behind women, hands cupping breasts, sliding necklines down to expose breasts, or sliding up thighs and dragging a skirt with them until panties were completely exposed. If panties were worn.

We had moved from a table to one of the couches where we could see over to a corner of the room where a woman had begun to dance with a brass stripper pole, surrounded by couches where men and a few couples sat. She earned applause after every dance, every time another piece of clothing came off.

Finally, her beautiful body was naked and after that song, she sat on the couch between two men, lifted a leg over the knee of each so that she was completely open, and kissed one full on the mouth while the other explored her with his hands.

Mark had been gently fondling my shoulder, and then I felt his hand at the zipper at my neck. I didn’t move while he unzipped my dress to my waist. I did nothing except feel my body throb with excitement. Mark played his hands over my shoulders, then slid his hands under the straps of my dress and again played with my shoulders.

He and I both knew what was going to happen as the fabric slowly moved down my arms.

When the straps fell to my elbows, I could feel his body stiffen. I didn’t move. I had my right hand on his leg, my left around my small drink, which I set on a nearby table. I pulled my left hand free of the fabric, then my right, and the dress completed its fall to my waist.

I sat there, looking around the room, the thrill of being half-naked with people all around us. Then I leaned back and put my mouth on Mark’s. I felt his right hand come around and cup my breast, then caress my throat, then down to my vagina, then back up.

“What’s our safe word?” Mark asked, pulling back from my mouth, his voice heavy, husky.

“Backgammon,” I said, the first word that came to mind not likely to be used in conversation, not there and then, at any rate.

“May I touch?” came a voice seemingly from the back of my neck. I turned and opened my eyes and a man stood in front of us. Before I could say anything, Mark said, “We’re not ready, but thank you.” I was relieved and disappointed in the same instant.

“C’mon,” said Mark, taking my drink in one hand, my hand in his other. With my free hand I held my dress around my waist as he took me into the couples area. He led me over to the last open alcove and sat me down on the edge of the bed.

“Lift your hips,” he said, and pulled the dress down over my knees and off my feet, leaving my shoes on my feet. “Scoot back,” he said, and I slid back to lean up against the pillows facing the room. A few more couples had followed us in and stood around the bed as Mark got undressed.

When he lay down beside me, he touched me just like he did in our own bed at home. He kissed me on the mouth, his right hand playing with my breasts, then found the wetness between my legs. He didn’t take his mouth from my breasts as his hand pulled my panties over my upraised hips.

His lips played with my breasts, around the soft roundness to gently taking my nipples with his tongue. When that tongue got to my clitoris, I was ready to explode.

At the end of the bed stood about fifteen people. One man leaned in to ask Mark if he and his wife could play.

“We’d like to just be with each other for now, but thank you,” Mark said, turning back to me.

A couple stood closest to the end of the bed. She had his cock out of his pants and was playing with him while she watched Mark work his tongue between my legs. I locked eyes with her date, his eyes were dark and soft and quite beautiful.

His face was so full of desire that it was nearly like making love to him as Mark made love to me. It wasn’t long before waves of pleasure made me arch my back and cry out “Oh GOD!” as I came — the longest orgasm I’d had in years. Years.

I pulled Mark up to my face, and he put his mouth on mine as his hard cock slipped into me like a piece of ivory. I could taste my wetness on his lips as I felt his cock at the very back of my vagina. I opened my eyes again as he kissed my throat. I saw the woman had gone to her knees in front of the soft-eyed man and was taking him as deep into her throat as she could as he stared at us.

I could tell Mark was about to come inside me, and I was nearly ready to come again. When I saw the man at the foot of the bed explode into the mouth of the woman in front of him, just as Mark exploded into me, my body gave itself up to another wrenching orgasm. Mark emptied into me; I was limp and receptive.  We lay like that for at least ten minutes as the crowd drifted away.

“My God,” I said at last.

“Yeah,” was all Mark said.

Eventually we got dressed, walked out of the club and into a remarkably soft Seattle night. We didn’t talk on the way home, I kept a hand between his legs, he kept a hand between mine. When he needed to shift, he let go of the wheel for a moment and shifted with his left hand. I’d never felt so close to him.

At home we made love again before we fell asleep. It was anything but routine.

• • • •

Mark and I added “clubbing” as we called it, to our life. It was another world, and we kept it separate from our “normal” lives. It wasn’t every weekend, or even every month. Some nights we would add it to our normal routine of going out to dinner. If there were special functions at SASSA, we’d talk about going.

If we were out of town, we’d look into the availability of clubs wherever we were; San Francisco, of course; Denver, Vancouver, Portland. It was really surprising how often we could find some place to play in public.