5. SM-Exploration-Phase

Marvella and my SM-exploration phase started with a week-long return visit to Amsterdam. There was now a dual goal of experiencing further the fetish-scene and also familiarizing ourselves with the property-rental-market. It was early autumn/fall, the weather was hot, the sun was shining, and there was no better time to mix “adventurous” sex with the “joys” of looking for some area we might live. We registered with one makelaar (estate-agent) and started searching. Little did we know that not only would we remain loyal to that makelaar, but over the succeeding years they would propel us up the property ladder, gracht-by-gracht (canal-by-canal), until we eventually found ourselves in our own flat on the Gouden-Bocht (golden-bend) on the Herengracht, holed-up with a bunch-of-bankers! Have you ever had to interact socially with bankers? The “snob-factor” thing is all-well-and-good, but we did overdo it – typical us. 

The weekend was spent planning and executing our visit to one of the biggest fetish-pay-parties, which must have been either Europerv or the Wasteland. Both are wonderful names, the first pretty-much self-explanatory, and the second with undertones of post-industrialism, getting wasted, or even perhaps as a tilt towards T.S. Eliot’s great poem. I had to “do” this for compulsory O-Level English, otherwise I would been blissfully-ignorant of any connection (see, sometimes you do learn something useful at school). 

We began on the Saturday morning by visiting DeMask, the fetish-clothing shop on Zeedijk in the red-area. Lots of accessories for doms-and-subs, tops-and-bottoms; whips, slave collars with spikes, etc. – all very fashionable. Also, the essentials, as my maternal grandmother used to say, “every move with a condom-and-lube”, because we don’t want to find-out guys can also get urinary-infections, do we children? No, we don’t. 

The party was spectacular, and being top-of-the-range attracted the best exhibitions, I was particularly taken by the sex-machines on show. There were three-or-four of these, bed-sized contraptions with straps to securely-hold someone of the female-sex while an electrically driven dildo-or-vibrator would pound-away up her front and/or her back. Being a bit of a nerd (actually quite a big one) I came-over all engineering-wise. It really is a glorious undertaking to take a human body which is basically an assembly of wobbly-bits and expect it to adapt well to mechanical control and stimulation. It did seem that someone had to be on-hand to make sure the dildo-or-vibrator continued to be centred correctly rather than popping-out and pounding thin-air. I’m sure they have advanced a lot since the 90’s, or at least, I’m hoping so.

The thing they certainly did achieve was endurance. Its one of life’s great ironies that for most males a few seconds, or a couple of minutes at most, of intense shagging induces an orgasm which then brings the whole activity to a close. Whereas for most females, things only begin to warm up after five minutes or so, and sometimes need at least half-an-hour before an explosive-orgasm is reached. The sex-machine is of course a good solution, and just shows you that humans can’t really compete with machinery. If you are into more traditional sex, the gang-bang is always there as a solution to this issue. Performance-groups such as Bernie-and-the-Bangers were always available for hire to ladies who needed this personal-attention to augment their husband’s efforts.

Actually, a little more about Bernie-and-the-Bangers, a truly top performance act. Her two lady platers would orally prepare each banger before their sixty-seconds of action, all to the background sound of Queen’s “Another-one-Bites-the-Dust”. All three ladies were meticulously outfitted in green nun’s habits, betraying Bernie’s Irish origins. She of course was the compere. Each banger had an armband with their number on it. A typical call, in her glorious Belfast accent would be “prepare number five” at which point the platers would do their job and ready the banger. This would then be followed by “number five, action”, at which point the current banger would be relieved by the new one to take-over the servicing of the lady strapped to the breeding-bench. This would continue for the length of her stint, typically a fifteen-minute slot. Brilliant, and so energetic. 

Bernie herself had one of those amazing stories. She had long-curly-red-hair, a strong view on everything, and had left Belfast after telling the Provos what she thought of them and their organization. They gave her twenty-four-hours to leave the city, but Belfast’s loss was Amsterdam’s gain. Her troupe were regulars on “The-Scene”, and could be hired for events. Imagine them at a wedding, coopting the groom as a guest banger as the bride is fully-serviced in front of both sets of relatives. What a memorable send-off for the newly-weds before they set-off on their two-week honeymoon in Benidorm. 

Moving around the venue we came-across an area which we later found-out was referred to as “slut-row”. This is all to do with a particular fetish, namely humiliation. This is similar but distinct from submissiveness in that the proponent needs to be humiliated to achieve sexual gratification. Its particularly common with ladies, but does occur in guys too, particularly in the gay community. By the way, the male-gay community has its own very active scene that also encompasses elements of SM, but the female-gay community tended to share “The-Scene” with us “vanilla” heterosexuals. I’m sure there’s an equivalent to slut-row in the male-gay-scene; anyway, let’s continue. 

On slut-row there were three-or-four naked ladies, sitting down on a bench with their heads looking downwards so as not to catch anyone’s eyes. Around each of their necks was an instruction card on how best to use them. If you’ve ever been shopping for a washing-machine it’s a little like that. You have the different models next to each other, each with an instruction card of basics – how to load the washer, how to fill the dryer, short and long cycles, that sort of thing. It was the same here except the details were about their preferred position, e.g. kneeling or legs in the air, whether they were a front, back or top loader (do I need to translate?), etc. 

At the beginning of the evening guys and couples would just read the cards before moving-on. Once the party really got started it was absolutely like a busy-laundrette. Some time later we got to know a lesbian domme/sub couple. The sub was a trans-slave-girl to her elder “owner”. The domme used to put her slave on slut-row every now-and-then so she could experience the “glories” of heterosexual sex, and realize how lucky she was to be in a strict lesbian relationship. She also said she had to reassure the guys to be rough with her slave, as this was what was required, and not be all loving-and-caring, or any of that crap. This approach seemed to work well for them – not everyone’s “cup-of-tea”, but whoever claimed the SM-fetish lifestyle was/is? 

We were beginning to find our way around these events, and even to strike-up conversations with people we recognized, and some who we didn’t. The “Gods” and “Goddesses” of “The-Scene” turned-out to be mortal like us, but what really surprised us was how polite and nice people were. We bumped into a young Dutch couple we had talked to previously in DSM4 who said they were opening their own SM-studio that week and would we like to come to the opening on Friday night? As we were in town all week we said “yes” and got the address. I was intrigued as I’ve always wanted to run my own IT business, and how could anyone turn-down such a rare invitation as an SM-brothel opening? So many potential questions to ask them and learn. Did they have a business plan? Where did they get the finance? Where’s the best place to open such an establishment? What about marketing-and-advertising? Etc.

On the Friday-evening we dropped-by DSM4 before setting-off to their SM-studio. Christine/Chris was there but was not “dressed” and initially we didn’t recognize him, but the Tyneside accent gave him away. He said he couldn’t make the opening, but asked us to give them his love and best wishes, which we duly-did. The location of the SM-studio was on the outskirts of the city, and the map said it was right next to the train-station Sloterdijk. As we weren’t confident of how to get a taxi back, remember this was just at the beginning of mobile-phones and light-years before Uber et-al, we took the train. 

Sloterdijk isn’t that far from the centre really, but because the train goes in a circle around the city it seemed quite a long way. This was also the reason I initially thought Amsterdam must be a large city like Birmingham as the train from the airport took ages even though it was going in a loop (idiot). Another strange thing/coincidence is that years later we got to know Sloterdijk better as our accountants Deloitte’s had one of their offices there. If you’re in-on some current blue-sky physics/philosophy thinking, it makes you wonder if we are all living in a simulation and the simulants, whatever their motivation, possibly entertainment, slipped-up again and started reusing locations in “the-game”. Anyway, enough of physics/philosophy and back to filth, on which I’m on far safer ground. 

What does one wear for an SM-brothel opening – sorry, SM-studio opening?  (Repeat after me ten-times, it’s not an SM-brothel or SM-dungeon, it’s an SM-studio). So, we decided to base our SM-brothel opening outfits on the appropriate clothes for an art-exhibition first-night, not that we’ve ever been to one. We were once intercepted trying to sneak into one at the Holburne museum in Bath, England, but never invited to one. We relied instead on television arts programs for what might be de-rigour. Travelling in full fetish gear amongst the commuters returning late was also a disincentive, but these days I would have said WTF (what-the-fuck). So, it was black tops, black trousers, and red bits-and-pieces. On this occasion we were underdressed, but no matter. 

Yes, we mixed, mingled and talked with the thirty-or-so people there. There were wines and soft drinks which we took, and Dutch-style nibbles, including the ubiquitous bitterballen. Being veggies we stuck to the cheeses and biscuits. There was kit strategically bolted to the walls of the space, which was a bit like a scout-hut I suppose. There’s only so much you can say so we decided to inspect the kit and space, so circulated around the edges. A St. Andrew’s cross here, stocks there, a catherine wheel, etc. 

Eventually we migrated to the far end where there was a wall with a large grill in it. Was it a view to another, darker sub-space? Perhaps more dungeon than studio. Intrigued we stared as hard as we could to try to make-out what might be there behind the grill. It didn’t seem very deep, and there were bars, perhaps good for securing your sub to the wall? Our brains were trying various possibilities to match the confusing things coming into out visual fields, when simultaneously Marvella and I “got-it”. It was a central-heating system, nothing to do with SM at all. 

We burst out into uncontrolled laughter, but hadn’t noticed the professional domme, Miss-Maxine who had popped-up just behind us. She was not happy, thinking that we might be laughing at the event, or worse, her. It took our very best efforts to reassure her this was not the case, but underscored the truth that some people have zero sense-of-humour. I remember her finishing in her wonderful Dutch accent with “but what is funny about a central-heating system?”, which made it even worse. Oh God, you do try, but there is always that unpredictable fuck-up-factor, isn’t there? We did patch things up, and over the months we established a good relationship.

At this time, I was still weekly commuting between London and Amsterdam/Zaandam where I was working. Mid-week I used to drop-into DSM4 for their mid-week shows. It was before the show began that I had my first homosexual “awakening”, not an actual consummation or anything, but just an inkling of what it must feel like for gay people. I was in the bar, sipping my coke, when a middle-aged man with a pot-belly came-in with his young boyfriend. They got down to action immediately. It was nice that anyone could pop-in, have sex, and pop-out again. The middle age-man undressed down to a leather cross-belted harness, and his lad went totally naked, except for a leash around his neck. 

The lad knelt down on the floor of the little stage; all fours style with his bum high in the air. His master then started to fuck him, doggy-style. The bar was pretty empty, but everyone cast the occasional look as proceeding unfolded. Its always a difficult balance between staring too much and pretending nothing was happening. The two lady baristas were more forward, cuddling each-other and watching intently. I surprised myself by being aroused by it all, not only with the gay sex, but also particularly by the customers appreciation. Damn, it was sophisticated, no denying it. It was just sex; nothing to be ashamed of. After a good ten minutes it was over, the lad had received a really good deep fuck, his master ordered token drinks which they only half consumed, and they were gone. Just a little cameo in the great play-of-life. 

In quite a short period we moved across to Amsterdam from London. Our initial rental flat was on the Prinsengracht, the outermost and slightly cheaper canal encircling the city. It had forty-nine steps to get to it from the street; two down, and forty-seven up, all along a stairway trajectory of sixty-or seventy degrees; damn near vertical if you had shopping with you. This also had the effect of you minimizing unnecessary popping-out for things, including putting out the rubbish/garbage. You were supposed to do this between midnight and seven in the morning on collection days. Being Brits our response was “sod that for a bunch of bananas”, and I used to sneak-out the rubbish-bags late evening the day before. This was not a good idea as I eventually got a telephone call from the police to tell me to stop this and pay an immediate and significant fine. “What happens if I go to court?”, to which Mr. Plod replied “you will be found guilty, and the fine doubled”. He did have a certain way with words, so we paid-up.

 There were two good things about the flat from an SM/fetish perspective. Firstly, it was within walking distance from almost all the relevant venues and spaces. Secondly, as it was built in the old Amsterdam style, with lots of wood and beams, it was ideal for chaining or suspending your sub while a certain amount of discipline is applied. I think far too few new-builds take this into account in their designs. It was also about this time, a year-or-so after moving to the city, I, and then Marvella, started “researching” ecstasy. 

It had never been part of our plan, and the local cannabis is brilliant, but just seeing all those kids on-it made me curious. So, I asked around a bit at DSM4, and surprisingly someone we now knew quite well was able to supply me/us. As a middle-aged man I thought I’d take a cautious approach. Consume the smallest amount possible, see if it had any effect, then scale-up until it did. There are of course two problems with this good approach to innovative-drug taking. The first is that you don’t really know the strength of substance/pill you are taking. Each batch is different, and quality control is haphazard. So initially it had bugger-all effect whatsoever. However eventually I could detect something happening when I took four pills simultaneously, but it wasn’t that spectacular or nice.

Things changed when I met my supplier again. He apologized, sold me some of his latest batch straight from the labs on the Dutch polders, and said this should be different. I then ran into the second problem, which I’ll refer to as the Albert-Hoffman overdose. He of course was the Swiss chemist who discovered the effects of LSD. Like me he took the smallest dose imaginable, got on his bike home from work, felt a bit strange, knocked on a farm door to get some milk, and was met by the farmers-wife who had morphed into an unfriendly bear. A similar thing happened to me, but without the bear. Because my first attempts had been rubbish, I decided to start with a single pill, not a quarter-of-one, but still very cautious. This time I was off-my-trolley within thirty minutes, but unlike LSD it was very manageable, and the sexy thoughts were unlike anything I’d ever experience from other recreational-drugs. Shit, the kids were right, and it was only a week-or-two later that Marvella tried it too. 

So, it was from our flat we set-out to “De-Prinsen”, a general entertainments location also on the Prinsengracht that held fetish events once a month, rather than just the usual Saturday night house-parties. For some reason we hadn’t immediately investigated its charms, though we had been told it was a wilder version of the Crypt. We took a pill each with us, just in case we felt in-the-mood. After a twenty-five-minute walk around the canal we were there. There were no bitch-queens to vetted by, so after exchanging cash for tokens, we were in. 

Unlike other venues it was assembled from the existing canal-side buildings. In practical terms this meant there were lots of little individual spaces connected by stairs and corridors. There was a bar, a dance area, a very small dungeon, dark-rooms and scene-rooms. It was extremely popular, and we started to investigate. We “dropped” our pills immediately. FYI “dropping” is an old hippy word meaning swallowing, not physically dropping. We encountered quite a few people we knew, but there was a wider, younger, and wilder element. We fitted-in well. After grabbing our sparkling-waters from the bar we gravitated to one of the scene-rooms. 

There was a young lady secured to a St.-Andrew’s cross, and Bruno, a big strong lad, was “lending-a-hand”. I’m not joking, we all helped-out each-other on “The-Scene”, and she did seem a little isolated. He began to work his magic, first with his left hand, vigorously rubbing against and around her vagina and wanking her. Then after a few seconds he would switch to his right hand. Slowly, ever so slowly, she began to respond. First with little gasps, then longer moans. This got louder and louder until it became more of a continuous scream. Quite annoying really. So, we migrated to another room, and left them to it. 

In there was the house-stud, just finishing off with his latest lady, who wobbled-away in red-shoes before being excellently caught and steadied by him. It was only when he saw Marvella and he stood to attention, enormously, did we realize what his duties were. A plaque on the wall did help somewhat. Marvella hesitated, then we both moved-on again, to the dance area. I’m no dancer, but now with the ecstasy kicking-in, I made a passable impression. It was either that, or the lack of self-consciousness ecstasy induces. Then it was to the bar to get more sparkling waters, before we circulated once more. 

During this time, I was thinking how does one become a club-stud? Obviously, there would have to be size requirements, like joining the military or police. Length-and-width when erect can easily be measured, but what about endurance? I estimated a stud might be expected to “cover” ten or more times during the evening-and-night, a pretty impressive number. Would there be an exam to test this? Or perhaps there was an apprenticeship scheme where youngsters are tutored to an acceptable level of performance? How do you apply for selection in the first place; word of mouth, or by a carefully crafted letter, or was there one of those new internet pages you could register with? Or perhaps the ecstasy was working extremely subtlety? (it obviously was).

We continued circulating and stumbled into a small posse coming towards us. There was a thirties-something lady, totally naked, with three young ladies in attendance, and a man of her same age, which I took to be her husband/partner. As they approached us what was most noticeable was that she was masturbating herself with a vibrator as she walked, but it was a vibrator, the like of which, I and Marvella had never seen before. There was the main part/handle she was holding in her left hand, out of which a slender, long and flexible and ribbed extension emerged. As she moved the handle up-and-down the slender rubber extension would likewise-follow this motion inside her vagina. 

As we got to the passing point she stopped her posse, passed the handle of her vibrator to one of the girls who then continued the up-and-down movement on her behalf as she began to talk to us. By this time this behaviour didn’t phase us anymore as we understood any surprise or discomfort was our problem. On “The-Scene” this behaviour is entirely natural; you just have to get used to it, and we had. So, what did we talk about? The usual stuff. She was Dutch, and like us, had just moved to Amsterdam from the provinces and was settling-down. She too was living in a flat on the Prinsengracht, but right at the beginning near Centraal-Station. We swopped moving-in stories and the like; all very civilized. After a few minutes it was time to move-on. She took-back control of the vibrator, and her little group disappeared into the darkness. We continued in the opposite direction. 

By this time, we had arrived back at the dungeon, and as it was very tricky getting down the twisted stairway to get there, we decided to start over again and see if we knew some more people. We headed-back to where Bruno had been attempting to satisfy the young lady. As we walked down the corridor, we could hear an increasingly loud orgasmic-screaming-sound. It couldn’t be the same lady, could it? It must have been twenty minutes or more, and with the time-dilation effects of ecstasy, it may well have been longer. 

As we rounded the corner and re-entered the room the truth emerged; it was Bruno and the same lady, just as she was finally getting relief. At last, the noise abated, Bruno turned round and saw us and also gave a look of utter relief. He took both arms into the air and theatrically dropped them, his mouth wide open with astonishment. Marvella immediately shared her sparkling-water with him, which he gulped-down appreciatively. After-all, we’re all here to help each-other. “You need another drink” she said as we all began to leave for the bar. Then he remembered SM etiquette; its always good to release your masturbant after such an event, which we helped him with. Everyone happy; two people exhausted.

 Over the months we began to refine our choice in destinations. I suppose our hippy routes had a significant impact on the type of place we enjoyed the most. We preferred the new-school of pay-parties and recreational-drugs as compared to the old-school of SM-studios and severe-discipline. Not that I was against the old-school in principle, it’s just its particular mechanics didn’t suit. Research of semi-mythical organizations such-as the “Wittevrouwen” (women-in-white) and drugs such-as “Dark-Flame”, were put-on-hold. Sex as well as being sexy should be fun. As an example, let me tell you about my involvement with SMIL (pronounced “shmeal”), the very-real Danish equivalent of the Dutch VSSM, both organisations I can confidently describe as being old-school.

I was working during the week in Copenhagen (weekly commuting) and was walking back from the office to my hotel in the centre when I passed the street SMIL was on. I knew the street because Fetish-Lights some times did articles on SMIL. I hadn’t planned on contacting them, but hell, sometimes the cog-wheels of the universe turn you in a certain direction. I popped-in, and again these cog-wheels delivered me to the front door on a Thursday, the only evening they wee open except for Saturday night. Knock-on-the-door - just do it, and I did. If you are genuine, and I most certainly was, things went well, and I was immediately signed-up as a member. Crazy, eh? But true. I still have my membership card as proof. 

Over the weeks I got to know them quite well, and it soon became part of my weekly evening entertainment. On Mondays I’d explore the city, its bars and streets etc. I even stumbled across the Little-Mermaid once; deeply unimpressive – the Tivoli amusement-gardens are far more fun. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I’d hang-out in Christiana, taking dope amongst the locals. I don’t smoke; I eat hash instead, but I don’t mind too much being around smokers – I used to be one myself and never want to be on my high-horse or anything. I had things pretty well sussed-out. 

As for SMIL, not a lot ever really happened. These were serious people, serious players, so I just hung around in their bar, occasionally talking about how things were in Amsterdam (apart from the recreational-drugs, of course). It was just nice to be around people with a similar sexuality. I’m sure if the work had lasted longer, then I would have become part of their scene if I had wanted to. I once stayed-over the weekend with Marvella and we dropped-by on the Saturday night. All very civilized, but not quite our thing. However, the serious, disciplined side of SM did, and still does, “intrigue” me (this is a code word for finding the idea extremely sexy, in principle at least). 

That was the pattern really during this time; anything new, we were there, seeing what we liked, what suited, and what didn’t. It was so new, so different; was it all a dream? Was it a drug-fuelled middle-aged fling? We decided to address this head-on, and gave-up all sorts of stimulation for weeks. So, no cannabis, no ecstasy, no recreational-drugs whatsoever, no pay-parties, no visits to DSM4, the Crypt of De-Prinsen – nothing, just work and day-to-day living.

 We explored the city and its surroundings more, got to know the Amsterdam woods, and even visited the Homo-Monument which commemorates all gays and lesbians who have been persecuted. By the way, right next to this quite-moving monument is a pissoir, and I considered just how thoughtful the Dutch were, providing a “cottaging” experience so close-by (this is UK slang; I do have this over-the-top sense of humour). 

After five weeks of this we happened to be crossing the Skinny-Bridge again, and looked out over our beautiful city, the boats, the buildings, the people and we asked each-other whether this was enough. I mentioned that Europerv had tickets out for the weekend, this time to be held at the zoo. Marvella replied “OK, can you get the tickets, and I think we’ve still got enough “E” left”. We were back on-track, the consultancy equivalent of switching-off then switching-on their pc to correct a fault.