6.15.2009

Chapter 4: Saddle Up

The cobblestone streets of Amsterdam's Red Light District form a grid-like labyrinth between 300-year-old buildings. Soupy canals provide a thoroughfare for water taxis and tourist boats that chug around the city. Anonymously styled foot bridges connect one floating city block to the next. Save for the occasional painted door or garish neon beer sign in every third window, every stoop, stairwell and facia in the Red Light District looks essentially identical.

In proper light and mind, Amsterdam is difficult to navigate. Through the smoke-filled haze of a psychotic booze-and-botanical-fueled bender, it's virtually impossible. So it was no small miracle when I stumbled beneath the dimly lit S&M parlor that caught my eye before my descent into reefer madness.

Sadomasochism as a sexual preference dwells in the seediest gutter of the human psyche. Mainstream culture has been quicker to dissect, decry or delight in homosexuality than it has "the dark arts," as poetic practitioners of the scene like to call their game. The kinks in this perversion read like a steaming bowl of deviant alphabet soup: S&M, B&D, OTK, CBT, CFNM. I had spectated some heavy scenes in my day and engaged in some harmless role play with always soon-to-be ex-girlfriends, but this was my chance to take weird to "11"with a dominant mistress on foreign soil.

As I steadied myself on the bannister of the narrow brick staircase in front of the heavy black door, a terse, gently accented voice cracked through the intercom.

"Why are you here?"

"Who is this?

"That is not an answer to my question."

Um… I, I, I want to be your slave…"

"Not possible. Slaves do not choose their fate—I choose it for them."

"…I'm sorry. I mean, I'm here to serve you…"

"We shall see. When I push the button, open the door, walk up the staircase, enter the room and sit on the chair."

The remote-control deadbolt released with a muffled buzz and the heavy black door swung open slowly. The foyer was nearly pitch black, illuminated only by a red glow from the top of steep stairs. Pulsating techno music in the background enhanced the slightly cartoonish ambiance of the whole scene. I ascended the staircase as instructed, moved a small chair to the middle of the room and sat down.

"Are you here?" I asked sheepishly.

The hash in my head, the beats on the stereo and the red lights in the room drenched the small, tidy but overstuffed space in dark, dense shadows. Suddenly yet silently a slender hand in a black rubber glove reached toward me from behind. I jumped, but a second hand rested on my shoulder in a reassuring manner. Without saying a word the mistress then blindfolded me with a satin sleeping mask, the kind you find in amenity kits on business-class flights to Europe and the Orient.

"Can you see out of this mask?"

"No."

"No what?"

"No Ma'am."

"You are not my child, you are my slave. You will call me Mistress every time we speak. Do you understand?"

"Yes…"

Before I could finish the words, the sting of a vulcanized palm landed across my cheek.

"Fuck!"

"Yes what?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say drugs and alcohol have deadened your senses and made you stupid and lazy. Am I correct?"

Yes, Mistress."

"Yes, Mistress, what?"

Yes, Mistress, I drank some booze and smoked some hash."

"A simple admission that you are stupid and lazy would have sufficed. I see now the challenge of returning you to your senses is mine. How do you propose we proceed?"

"I'm willing to do whatever pleases you, Mistress."

"If you knew what it takes to please me, you wouldn't say that. Let's start with the basics—why did you move the chair before sitting down as I instructed you?"

"I don't know…"

Smack—another shot to the cheek, this time with additional gusto.

"For this to work, you must do exactly as I say. Understood?"

"Yes Mistress—understood."

For the next 90 minutes, my Dutch dominatrix dragged me through her garden of unearthly delights like a rusty hoe. The hashish obstructed deep root of any vivid recollections in my psyche, but sodomy, onanism, equestrianism, whips, gags and flagellation were involved. When Mistress was convinced no more resistance or bodily fluids could be extracted from my flaccid carcass, she instructed me to bathe, dress, and leave a monetary pledge of undying servitude beneath the porcelain skull on the table by the door.

"Did you enjoy yourself, my slave?"

"I'm not sure. The blindfold made it impossible to know what was going to happen next."

"You have no idea how right you are…"



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2 comments:

BCM said...

This went well with my morning coffee.

squarecase said...

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to look up the meaning of onanism.