It was just a bit over two years since my divorce and I still hadn't come completely to terms with it. I was still looking for other answers. Maybe I had dedicated too much time to advancing my career and not enough time to her, although my major goal there was always to be the best breadwinner I could be, and not aimed at feeding my ego with my success. And I always tried to be very solicitous to her when we were together. Maybe even over solicitous. She had just never seemed to respond much to it, or to me. Still, I continued to try to come up with any reason other than the one she so openly gave me on the night we sat down and she informed me that after ten years of marriage, while she had always been fond of me, she had never really loved me, and had now found the true love of her life and was leaving me for him.
I was blind sided, shocked, but probably not very surprised. Despite average looks, an average physique, perhaps a little better than average intelligence bolstered by an inner drive to work hard, and If I do admit so to myself, what I think is a nice sense of humor, I never had been very successful with women. I always tended to put any and all of them up on a pedestal and never felt that I was good enough for them. Most of them must have sensed that and tended to agree, and I was never able to establish much of a romantic relationship with any of them. Thus my ecstacy when one such relationship did seem to progress with my now ex-wife, and somewhat surprisingly even on to a wedding. And there were some good if not overly exciting times during the ten years, and I was happy that she seemed to be content, and maybe I didn't work hard enough to have her be more than that. No... I had to finally face the hard fact that I had just been a way station in her life, the best that she could come up with at the time, and maybe would have stuck with longer if nothing better came along. But something had, and she had grabbed it, and I was left holding... what?
For the first year following I devoted all of my energies to my job and none to myself. This did have the advantage of accelerating my ascent up the corporate ladder even faster, such that I was now a senior vice president and Division Director with my firm. By the second year however, my libido, long dormant and crushed, began to percolate up and rise. But my confidence in the personal relationships realm, while never great, was now virtually non existent. I just couldn't summon up enough courage to make even a tentative attempt at a one on one approach. Here I was, in my mid forties, already developing a bit of a paunch, and I had also already been rejected and tossed away in the starkest possible manner.
But my urges grew more insistent, and I needed to deal with them in some way, so I turned to a place that hadn't been as available or as readily utilized by me when I was younger... the internet... and the area where the web apparently receives its most widespread use... cyber porn.
Once I decided to dip my toes in these waters I didn't just wade in, I dove in. I was almost instantly astonished by not only the content and variety, but even more so by the graphic explicitness of it all, and I tried to sample and experience as much of it as I could as fast as I could. Before long however I began to gravitate and spend my time almost exclusively in one specific area, which seemed to draw me like a magnet. In retrospect it was not particularly surprising. That area was female domination, or femdom as it's popularly called.
I quickly immersed myself in all of its forms, concepts and presentations, from stories to blogs to tubes, videos and movies. I won't deny the physical stimulation which I almost always derived, and how it helped to satisfy a hunger that had long been undiscovered, unacknowledged and buried within me. Over time however I also had to admit how often, when finished, the emptiness I felt. Communing exclusively with a computer screen just wasn't fulfilling.
I knew what I needed as well as what I wanted at that point, but I had no idea of how to attain it. Using the services of a professional dominatrix held no appeal to me. I just recoiled from the concept of someone playacting with me for money, with no real interest in me after except as a satisfied and possible return customer. Added to this was that I really didn't yet know where I fit in the entire sphere. So much of it all seemed to revolve around the giving and taking of pain, and it hadn't taken me long to realize, as I now understood my nature, that I would be the one on the receiving end, and while I might get off by watching it on a monitor, I had no desire to actually experience it. I was not a masochist, and pain for pain's sake did not entice me.
No, it was more the domination and submission, the willing exchange of power in femdom that entranced me. But even here, so many if not most of such interactions as presented on the net appeared to involve the purposeful humiliation of the one submitting. Again, I could at times become excited by this in the abstract, but I strongly doubted that I would much enjoy it for long in reality. Affection and esteem may never be in the equation, but I didn't believe that I could ever survive long in any such interaction without being offered at least some degree of respect. What was I looking for and how could I find it? So much of it engaged my mind and my groin, but nothing I had found had yet sung to my psyche or to my soul.
Still, it was becoming readily apparent to me that I couldn't go on much longer like this. My lack of any personal life was starting to affect my professional one. There I was liked, respected, and to some even possibly somewhat esteemed. I was always before a model of politeness and affability while still being an effective boss. Now I found myself at times being short and even testy. I just couldn't afford to jeopardize the genial and successful person whom I was felt to be at work. It was really all that I had left. At the same time it would be a disaster if anyone there ever came to know me as the person I now understood myself to truly be. And yet that person needed more, needed some form of direct contact and interaction. The dilemma remained unsolved as to how to achieve it with some continued security and anonymity.
I first saw the ad on a website that I went to often. As with most internet ads I immediately ignored and deleted it. Yet it kept popping up on that and other sites I frequented, and I was finally intrigued enough to give it a look. It was for, as it billed itself, 'An Alternative Lifestyle Club', Club O, that was in the city outside of which I lived, where, as the ad read,
"Doms and Dommes, subs and slaves, can meet and mingle, play and explore, or just watch and learn, in a safe, sane and comfortable environment. Come join us"
it concluded,
"in the adventure you've always been seeking."
This was enough of a come on for me to click onto the Club's own website, where along with many enticing pictures, further information was provided. The Club was open to the public every Friday and Saturday evenings. All interactions there were to be consensual. Corporeal activities were allowed and even encouraged, but drawn blood and physical injury were forbidden and this would be monitored and enforced by discreet club personnel. Overt sexual acts and water sports and their like were not allowed in public areas, but private rooms were readily available for more intimate interactions. While virtually anything goes in public or in private, it was proclaimed, safety and sanity was the code, and would be strictly observed by all.
My excitement was profound. Could this be the opportunity for me to delve beyond text, flickering electronic images, or the recesses of my mind, to discover what I was and what I actually wanted. In a setting where I could observe in the flesh without being actively involved. And I had no doubt that I would remain apart, venturing there only to, as was offered, watch and learn. Most especially about myself.
Despite this resolve it took me over a month to work up the courage to proceed, but one Saturday evening I finally went. Intensely desiring not to draw any attention to myself, I dressed in as nondescript a way as I could, a plain collared shirt, tan slacks and black shoes. I made my way down to the city.
I had been pleased to note that the club was not located in the red light district, bu rather situated in the artsy and still somewhat 'bohemian' part of town. The entrance was off on a side street, but there was a fair amount of traffic going in. The outside door opened up into a long hallway within which two lines of patrons were moving, a much shorter and faster line for Dominants on the right, and a much longer and slower line for submissives on the left. From the website I had known that there was a $30 cover/entrance charge for submissives, and $5 for Dominants, and they processed and collected from any Dominant who approached before turning to the sub line. All of this was to begin to create the ambience before even entering, and I seriously doubted that any submissive ever posed as a Dominant for the better rate and faster service. When my turn on line came I dutifully paid my $30 and entered.
I was instantly taken by the cavernous size of the place. It must have been an old warehouse. It was huge, with very high ceilings and multiple distinct sections. There were at least six long oval bars scattered around the floor space, each near a step up platform/stage, each of which had a whipping post, and all were surrounded by groupings of easy chairs and tables. Interspersed were larger open areas, one of which contained steel cages of various sizes, another with a variety of stocks, winches and other bondage paraphernalia, and at the far end of the club a mud filled pit within which certain patrons were being 'encouraged' to wrestle for the amusement and betting pleasures of others watching, after which the combatants were unceremoniously hosed off, to further laughter.
On each side of the near end of the club there were dressing rooms with lockers, one for Dominants and one for subs. From the one for the latter many, both male and female, emerged virtually naked. Most of these had on some type of collar, and a number were also fitted with chastity belts or cages. Many were further adorned with a variety of piercings and nipple clamps, many of which were weighted. A sizable segment of the Dominants wore leather in a wide variety of styles, but in actuality more than half of the patrons of either persuasion did not change at all and were dressed casually, and the only way to distinguish orientation among them was by attitude, usually quite easy to discern.
