Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy

Introduction

Introduction 1 Introduction The warehouses on the street had been closed for hours. Taxis thumped down the pothole-plagued city block. Rap music blasted from a nearby nightclub. I locked my Club onto the steering wheel of my car, double-checked the parking sign, and headed down the street. The pavement glittered under my boots, embedded glass reflecting the reassuring lamplight in this downtown district. Halfway down the block, I stopped at a brick wall. I parted the dirty clear plastic vertical blinds that obscured the threshold, and walked inside. A tall, thin, disheveled man was perched on a stool just inside the unlabeled doorway. He nodded at me as I entered. The walls were gray concrete. Black stage lights lined the floor of the dark hallway. High along one wall, swirly, high-school girl handwriting welcomed me to “The Playground” in enthusiastic romantic loops. The bass of techno music lent rhythm to the muffled sound of party chatter below. I walked down the winding stairway at the end of the hall. Lorraine sat at the window before the heavy steel entrance to the club. Recognizing me, she smiled warmly and said, “Free for the lady.” I opened the door. The smell of chocolate and freshly made waffles invited me inside. As soon as I entered the room, Jacob saw me from across the soda-fountain counter and waved. “Dakota!” he called to me. I waved and headed over to him, past the old-fashioned stools that lined the counter, dropping my bag in a booth along the way. He gave me a hefty hug hello. I climbed onto the sparkly red vinyl seat that threatened to spin out from under me as I tried to sit down. Across from us, handwritten signs offered us milkshakes, Belgian waffles, and nachos. Jacob looked at me with a solemn expression on his rather large and jowly face. He has kind, intelligent eyes that often sparkle with mischief, but tonight he said seriously, “Dakota, do you know why Jesus died on the cross?” 1 2 Playing on the Edge Surprised, I started to stammer out an answer. “Well . . . sure, I guess . . . I mean, the story goes . . .” Jacob grinned. “He forgot his safeword.” I laughed and playfully punched him in the arm. The club was noisy, filled with the sounds of chatter and hitting. Slaps, groans, grunts, and screams punctuated the music. Someone came up behind us, put his hand on the back of my neck, and said hello. I recognized Russ’s voice and turned to greet him. Russ is in his mid-forties, a tall, heavy man with a brown goatee. His dark straight hair hung freely down to his waist tonight. He wore black jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt and black sneakers. He looked good in the black light; he was always one of the few people at the club who was not shrouded in a blanket of glowing white lint. Russ told me that there had been a newbie meeting tonight and some of the newbies had come to the club for the outing afterward. I gestured toward two people I hadn’t seen before, and he confirmed: Joey, a muscular, young guy with a buzz cut, who looked very much out of place here, and a barely twenty-something woman who was calling herself Goddess Indigo. I laughed. “Straight out of the chatrooms, huh?” “Yeah, AOL probably. I tell ya . . .” Russ trailed off, shaking his head in vague irritation. I excused myself and headed past the soda counter and the row of diner-style booths that lined the opposite wall. In the main room, Schuyler was perched in a bondage chair along the right wall. She sat spread-eagled, one leg on each plank, bunching up the hem of her jeans so that she could shackle her own ankle to one of the cuffs. “I can reach, I told you!” she laughed at Liam, who was giggling beside her. I stopped and cocked my head at the two of them. Schuyler kept laughing, and Liam threw his arms around me in a hug and lifted me several inches off of the ground. We chatted for a few minutes, and then I walked up the stairs on the opposite side of the room. The chocolatey waffle smell faded into stale smoke and too much perfume as I stepped onto the balcony. Upstairs, I found myself directly facing the naked buttocks of a skinny...