Wallflower at the orgy

Arrived in Barons Court. Not Maida Vale, as he'd told me.

 "It's the first white house." Ben said.

 Outside security cameras tracked us. The pale thudding of generic techno music, the modern soundtrack to all recreational events, pounded through the fence.
We'd forgotten drink. Rules were you had to bring three bottles of wine or 12 bottles of beer.
The offies were closed.

 "I've got a tiny bottle of airline wine in my van." I suggested to Ben. 

"That'll have to do" he said "Look, you do it, you ask if we can come in. You are confident, good at talking your way into situations"

"No, Ben" I said firmly "You man up. Yes I can do it better than you but I'm not going to".

At the door we were inspected by a portly middle aged man with plucked eyebrows and a thinning pate. Alex. He opened the door just a little bit, we squeezed through.
The inside was suffused with blue, from ultraviolet bulbs. We faced a spiral staircase. On the left was the kitchen, on the right, where you would normally expect a living room, was a large room containing 7 or 8 beds. Dimly I could make out brown bottoms, dark against the glowing sheets, bouncing up and down.
We entered the kitchen. Alex gave us a clipboard and asked us to write down our names, emails and phone numbers.

 "What shall I call myself?" I asked Ben.

 "Well I'm known as Simon Jones. You could be Mrs Jones."

 I wrote that down on the dotted line. I let Ben put his mobile number on there. Behind me, men were walking around bare chested with their bottom halves covered with towels.
Ben handed his tan leather jacket into the cloak room. He was wearing a thin white T-shirt. On the journey here, he asked me if I'd noticed that he'd been working out.

 "How much is it?" he asked the barman.

 "Are you alone or in a couple?"the barman replied "if you are alone it's £125 but free if you are in a couple. However you know the rules don't you? You can't play until the lady plays. She has to initiate."

The penny dropped, this was why I'd been invited. Ben, the bastard, just wanted to get in free.
While this conversation was going on, I looked around the kitchen. A few white cardboard plates were on the counter: a couple of mince pies, a desultory trail of Hula Hoops, a stack of mini spring rolls. Quite plebeian snacks for an orgy, I'm sure I could cater it better: figs, grapes, chocolate dipped strawberries, maybe some eclairs...
But I guess some people weren't there for the food.
I sat on a stool next to the fridge where, attached by magnets, were notices for forthcoming events 'MILF' night and 'BLO' night (Black ladies only).

 Ben crackled into my ear "you might be interested in the MILF night?" 

An older lady came up to me and shook my hand. This made me feel slightly more relaxed. The truth was, I was terrified. I was tensed up. Going into a house with maybe 60 strange men in varying states of undress brings up all your fight or flight instincts. This is what women are afraid of, this is what women are taught to be afraid of, since birth. It goes against every instinct of self-preservation. You are amongst the big beasts, creatures who are directed by their sexual impulses, large hairy mammals with big pudgy fists. Why would any woman voluntarily put herself in that position?
Alex came up to us and suggested, through clenched and bleached teeth, that we wander around, see upstairs.
I'd only been there ten minutes. I felt pressurised. I could feel Ben's impatience next to me.
I gulped. Lets do this. We walked up the spiral staircase. There was a TV on the wall, I wondered who had been evicted from Big Brother.
Below, crowded around a sofa, were maybe 10 to 15 male hairy backs of various hues and their paler bottoms, thronged. On an adjacent sofa, a man sprawled, looking. His proprietorial gaze seemed to be that of a husband. Underneath the men, all I could see of his wife was a calf, ankle and foot clad in black stocking, her leg bent up in the air.
I stood stiffly at the other end of the room.
I wanted to move about, to look, to investigate but I was too aware of my part in this as desirable meat. I was bait. You can't be a reporter when you are bait.
I moved down the hall, I was looking for a toilet. I found a corner and pressed my back into it, against the wall. I had a view into two bedrooms. In one, there was a man, no, a woman, I could see the pendulous tear-drop of her breasts as her head rose up in the oscillation of her work on a prone body. Later, when she stopped, coming towards me, I could see she had few teeth. Darkly I wondered why.
In the other room, the bulk of the men were collected. Sometimes I caught a flickering glimpse of white female legs. A large black man came out, he introduced himself to me.

 "It's that lady's 30th birthday. this is a party for her. She wanted 30 men!" 

"I bet she's sore" I tried to quip. Thirty candles I thought. 

The black man had pale blue eyes. I clutched Ben's hand. Where I was standing it was very narrow, but no man touched me as they went past. Nole me tangere. They all had ultraviolet dandruff speckled on their bare shoulders, twinkling like stardust. A blonde woman in her twenties announced to me laughingly

 "You are going to get eaten alive!"

The black man talked to me, he was well spoken. "Your first time?"

"Yes" I squeaked. 

"I come about six times a year. This has alot of people, this party. It probably would have been better if you'd come to a smaller one."

"So many men...." I say "I know there are women but they all seem to be invisible, buried under a mound of men"

"You are always going to get lots of men where there's a possibility of women..." he says "of sex".

"N.S.A" I say, thinking of the singles night I held at The Underground Restaurant around Valentines Day. How only three men came compared to 18 women. Strings attached.

"Yeah" he agreed "No strings attached. There are different sorts of parties...I went to one called 'fat munters', it was held in a car park. Loads of men there. I've been to one called 'fat and ugly' ...still loads of men".

A small man, not much bigger than me, with closely cropped hair, joined in:

"I thought it was bi night tonight? The girls having fun with each other?"

Me: "Bi night is only women?"

The small guy snorted:"Oh yeah, we don't want bi men!" 

The black guy agreed "Oh no, none of that!"

Lesbianism and bisexuality was not, in this world, a sexual choice but a spectacle for the titillation of men.

The black guy seemed kind. "Don't worry, no one will force you into anything you don't want to do here. People will protect you"

I trusted him more than I did my companion.

Ben: "Lets go into the bedroom" 

I stood stock still, a mess of nerves. I'd worn pearls, a black dress, black heels. I was wearing the most clothes in the whole party.

"Lets go downstairs then" 

We went to the bedroom with all the beds.

"These are pros" explained Ben. "As you can see, they are rather better looking than the other women."

A young mixed race girl, very pretty, with slim hips trimmed by lacy knickers, strolled gracefully past.

"Can we go?" I asked Ben.

His face fell. He put on his best Oxbridge accent, trying to gain control "We've only been here ten minutes. Lets go upstairs"

"You said we can go anytime" I insisted

I could see he was worried about Alex. About his reputation in the sex party world.
I walked to the bar, one guy muttered something to me.

Ben smiled "That guy likes your bum".

The black guy was standing at the bar.

"You going?" He asked me.

"Yes. I'm sorry. It's not for me"

He looked at Ben dismissively.

"When you get home you should give this guy a slap. I'm proud of you." he said to me.

"I'm not judging anyone" I said. "It's not for me"

"I brought a friend along, she had the same reaction. She is profoundly deaf and finds it hard to meet anyone. But she couldn't handle it. " He shrugged.

"I hope you gentleman have a good evening" I say with exaggerated politesse, departing.

Ben and I row all the way home. He seems anxious. But then it emerges that he is angry, that I should have known what it was like, that he explained it all clearly. I counter that I couldn't account for my own reactions, it was physical, visceral.

He admits: "Well that was probably the sleaziest place I could have taken you to even in that genre of party: pure conveyor belt sex."

I remain interested by the male gaze, how men think, how they compartmentalise women, whether they feel, if they are just like us. I don't think most women know.


A link: The truth about the porn industry in the Guardian