Made it to Pleasure Salon for the first time in quite a few months. One good bourbon in me and I was excitedly chatting with Erica the Engineer, who was making me feel like a major letch. Both of us have been out of each other’s orbits, but both agreed that we’d like to do some more stuff. We also floated the idea of a Kinky Study Group or something like that for NYC, since we’re both a bit too old for a lot of the other stuff that happens here. I need to watch that impulse though because, damn – it’s so much easier for me to spin out in thinking about sex than actually, you know, fucking, and a big part of what I’ve been trying to do in recent years is using my body as the vehicle for self understanding.
The Cineaste was there as well, looking cool and hot all at once. I realized that it’s been almost a year since I was in a hotel room with a bunch of other men all dressed in suits, as per her request, sliding my cock in and out of her talented mouth, loving the need in her eyes, until I shot all over her tits. I’ll never forget her smile as she wrapped her hand around the dick of next guy in line, intent on making the most of the collection of guys she had gathered. The scene took me back to when I used to suck off businessmen myself in a porn theater that used to be on 55th Street in Manhattan. I got to replay those memories later in the weekend when I coerced Sam, The Cineaste’s husband into fucking my mouth as a way of possibly getting into The Princess’s pants. Both she and I knew that it would never happen, but Sam was a little boozed up and not hard to convince, and she likes to watch guys go at it, and I was hungry for dick, especially supposedly straight dick, so the scenario worked out for all of us.
Pleasure Salon was also having Secret Dirty Santa or something, so I brought a gift and got one as well: an unfinished wooden paddle that’s more like an oar. Hurts like fuck, as I found out when The Princess used it on me a couple of times, and got me a lot of weird looks as I made my way home with it.
This weekend I was reminded of one simple fact: You never want to be the talky guy at the orgy. On Friday I heard from The Princess: “This guy I know is throwing an orgy in his hotel suite; want to go?” I was already heading to a cocktail party earlier in the evening, but I said sure, and so through the cold New York night I went, through a hotel lobby where no one questioned my presence. (I’m struck by the way that in so many hotels you can just walk in and hop on an elevator up to the rooms. Don’t they have huge theft problems? Is it possible to get into rooms that way?) Once at the suite I found my host, The Princess and her sibling, Erica the Engineer, a couple of young women I didn’t really know and the Guy.
The Princess had pointed me towards the host’s web site so I knew he was a switch, bi and into a wide range of stuff including some piercing and blood play. She’d also told me that the rule for attendance was that people had to be bi. All fine by me, even though I’ve found that the word “bi” represents a range of behavior that can go anywhere from “I’m an utter pig, any of y’all can use me any way you like” to “This one time I got real drunk and before I knew it a guy sucked my dick and I guess it was OK”. You can guess which end of the spectrum I’m on and which I prefer. I’ll opt for the open-minded , willing and able every time. But in my experience, it’s often hard to find.
So I’m going into this situation thinking here’s folks that have been vetted to some extent and are basically game and are here for sex. It is an orgy, right? And there’s some playing going on and generally a very relaxed vibe. The Princess’s sibling starts in on a little whipping of one of the girls. The host has another one kneeling between his spread legs, her head bobbing on his admirable cock. I’m sipping seltzer with Erica. And then there’s the Guy. Who is talking in abrupt sentences to whomever is willing to listen.
Clearly he’s nervous, and it’s understandable; I’m a little nervous and I know quite a few more people at the event than he does. Turns out he was recommended by a friend, one who was supposed to be at the orgy, but isn’t. It also turns out that he has never been around any BDSM events. So he has a lot to take in when the host pulls out his rig, slips on some gloves and starts gently running a scalpel over the skin of one of the other guests. The whipping is still going on, toes are being sucked, and Erica is getting her ass spanked with a couple of the paddles I’d brought along and lent out.
I dealing with my nervousness by doing some quiet cuddling. But the Talky Guy is now caught in a negative feedback loop where he blurts something out which is usually about how unused he is to all this, a conversational gambit that doesn’t allow for much response beyond sympathetic agreement, and which only underscores and increases his difference from the other guests, making it that much harder for him to be at ease.
Generally these things are better managed in the gay world, where the code of behavior at sex parties is simple: cruise, approach and if rejected move on. If someone tries to insinuate themselves in your scene you can usually turn them away with little trouble. (I’ve been at New York’s bear play parties off and on for years, and only once have I encountered a Talky Guy, who kept following me around and wouldn’t take a hint. I think a big part of his issue was crystal.) But for some assortment of reasons the ‘straighter” kink community can’t quite get to this level of simplicity.
I felt for the Talky Guy, really. But I also had some resentment at having to feel for him. His twitchiness was catching, making it hard for me to relax and enjoy myself. For a while I watched The Princess cane Erica, the host do some fucking, and some pictures being taken. I climbed on the bed and slid a couple of fingers deep into Erica while The Princess hit her, working her til she came. And then it seemed like time to go. A few of us bundled up to head out. As I left, I could hear the Talky Guy, still trying to connect, still nervous, still haunting.