A Quirky Erotica Series
"Notes from a Dirty Young Woman: pleasure saloon" a sex story by Aimee Herman
Read the entire series here
I am watching from against the red-lit bar as I sip from a glass of cabernet sauvignon slowly, throwing green grapes seductively into my mouth as though they are bite-sized pieces of you.
Woman with lashes longer than pen caps climbs left leg over right and yawns so large I wonder if every man is taking notice of the circumference of her depth. The label over her left breast reads Charlotte. She smells like a nine-to-five workday, cramped over computer screen with panty hose pulling at bruises from the previous night or nights when she was finally able to ask for what she wanted.
A couple sews their lips together with invisible needle and spit as I watch a man’s erection take center stage. Is he watching me watch them?
I feel like a modern day Baudelaire, as I walk through the doors of the Pleasure Saloon, a monthly gathering for sex positive, sexually devious and delicious characters, taking as much as I can in.
Hello, I say to pink-haired, smooth-faced man.
He asks me to join him. He is wearing a strapless shirt, with tough elastic held against his flat chest. A tutu hugs his waist and he begins to tell me it’s his birthday.
That’s my cake, he points. Butter cream and penguins, my two favorite things. Want to taste my butter cream?
Beside him is a woman wearing leather, with lips so red, I worry she is bleeding. I’ve already given him his birthday whippings. Are you interested? she asks.
I smile. She places black whip into my hands, a leather horsetail of fringe ready to flap against him.
She walks off with fishnet-fondled thighs, leaving Pinkie and me alone.
He leans himself over me, placing his belly over my thighs, and face flat against black couch.
I’m sore, he says, but don’t let that stop you from giving it to me even harder than she did.
I whack him enough times to change his rosy complexion to red velvet. Each time I hit him, he jumps a little like a flea.
Then, he asks me to rub oil on him. It is my birthday, he reminds me. So, I lather oily wax on pink-wigged man who moans as I push my fingers into the waxy oil and rub along the seam of his arm, veined like skirt steak and peppered with hair. I press into his bones and feel the resistance from his muscles. He turns into a snake and hisses, slithering beneath the slickness of lubrication.
You like men who dress as women? he asks.
Yes, I say. And I like women who dress as men.
I suddenly want him to tie me up like roast beef or a Christmas tree to car rooftop, but he grows distracted by pantless woman coming toward him who wants her turn.
I walk toward the other end of the bar, which looks like a large bathroom with tiled walls including smaller rooms like shower stalls with benches. A disco ball circles around itself, creating nervous confetti shadows on the walls.
Some guy with a label on his jacket reads: WTF (Wants To Fuck). He asks me what I am into and I respond: I’m into erections, hard things placed against me, and the word no.
I have erection envy, like penis envy, I say, without the dick attached. I want to be able to grow hard enough that someone feels it when I get close enough. He tells me that he has something hard he’d like to show me and then I revisit my list of turn-ons and unflinchingly say, no.
He grabs my breast, so I grab his and let him know that his are much bigger than mine.
I move along and suddenly a man drenched in leather says hello.
Hello, I say, squinting toward his chest to read his hand-written name on the label stuck to him.
Purple Pirate.
I ask him what he’s into, to divert his inquiries of me.
I like blood play. You got anything sharp on you? I also like suspension. The pull of my skin and feel of being ripped. I used to construct the knots myself and hang others, but now I prefer to be the one being hung.
I ask him if he was a Boy Scout.
He says, No, but I've been inside some.
Why do you think you like all that? I ask.
I get off on seeing my blood leave my body. Then, I use it as lube when I jerk myself off.
He asks me to follow him in the bathroom, so he can show me what else he is into, but I cordially say, No thank you, Purple Pirate.
I sit down next to two older men named Gary and Ron. Gary looks exactly like George Carlin and Ron is dressed in tight pants and a leopard print hat with accentuated rim. His fingers and chest appear weighed down by obscenely large jewels.
I'm a jeweler, he tells me. Then, he shares with me his tales of when he owned a dungeon with various "doms" and eclectic characters just looking to get their needs met.
Eighty percent of my customers were Hassidic men, you know. They are extremely submissive, he adds.
Then Gary runs through a list of porn stars and sex workers to Ron to see if he knew them.
Gary: [a name I don’t recognize]
Ron: Oh, [ ], of course. Blow problem. Nice guy. A Mormon.
That night, when I go home, I write him down:
Dungeon of Hassids
Hassidic boys play hide-n-go-seek as facial hair holds mouth and cheeks hostage. On a Thursday, after prayer bows and god memorization, father travels downtown on 3 train then B train toward basement. Man called Ron in sparkles and leopard print, recognizes his fetish and sends him toward the back. Hassidic man in Hassidic beard and peyes and tzitzit traveling past his waist, and black fedora hiding his eyes, shyly gathers the women. Dom named Krisella whips his clothes off his body, the scent of unwashed satin and perspired guilt. He says amen each time she beats him. Calls out amen as she rips the grey out of his beard and places the curls over his tongue. He sings out the prayer for absolution as she rubs her leather over his circumcised religion, ties him up and leaves him.
I am thinking about leaving, until I hear the sounds of slapping. An older woman is getting spanked quite loudly over by the couch where Pinkie once sat, so I walk over. This must be the birthday couch, because she is celebrating hers too with enough wallops to push the skin of her ass out from bruising. A short woman beside me is counting the twenty-five spanks, but at eleven or so, she loses count and Ron (yes, the X-dungeon owner) starts over.
Bare bones! someone yells.
Angels on Angel by Marty Provost
So, she hikes up her short skirt and reveals red thongs covering only the crack of her loose-skinned ass and he continues his flat-palmed spanks.
Then, she pulls her skirt back down and beams a giant smile. Thank you, sir, she coos.
You are stunning, I say to her.
She walks toward me, with a slight limp from the pain and grabs my hands. She calls me the most beautiful woman in the room.
Her name is Esmeralda.
You must be drunk, I say.
I don’t drink alcohol, she replies. I’ve got cranberry and seltzer in that glass.
She runs her soft fingers over my hips and I feel hers, slippery from the leather skirt built off her waist. Her skin is so smooth and I like how unapologetically forward she is being with me.
"Can I kiss you?" she asks.
Several years ago, I would have kissed her before she had even begun to request it. Or I'd have done something cheeky like put my hand on her thigh and slide my fingers up toward her red thongs. But (in this moment) I've got a Canadian loving me from the west coast of her country and although she is fine with me exploring, I wasn't sure how far I could go.
My long pause leads her to say:
"How about on your cheek?"
I smile, "Of course."
She brings her red lips to my cheek and lingers. Her body is smaller than mine and I like that.
Then, I say:
"Can I kiss you on your cheek?"
She leans forward as I press my thin lips against her textured skin. I remain long enough to memorize the pattern of her breaths.
Then, I kiss her on her lips. No tongue. No fireworks either. It is more like a stumble into another face, short and friendly.
We hold hands as she begins to share her stories with me.
After I leave, and make my way toward the subway, I think about why I need to go to a place like this. I begin to unsnarl memories of when I first became intrigued by sex, dismembering the actual word and learning the many variations and intricacies that exist within it. The first time I ever had sex, we rubbed our bodies together like tree branches desperate to forge a fire. Then, she finally put her fingers inside me and I put my fingers inside me and then put my fingers inside her and we practiced what it meant to be girls fucking. I was never the one to say: this is what I want or this is how I need it. Finally, going to places like this, I am learning how to ask.
Originally published May 2011