The Story of ‘O’ Birthday Party
"All you have to do is wake up in the morning and be ready for anything." Easier said than done.
“A happy prisoner upon whom everything was imposed and from whom nothing was asked. “
I had big plans for my thirtieth birthday party.
I planned to spoof the career expectations of the entire 30-something generation by having a Filthy Rich and Wretchedly Famous Blowout where, diamond tiara on my head, I would preside over my Coming Of Age.
But my plans were changed for me. I never got close to a diamond tiara. In fact, I wore very little at all.
Two days before my birthday, my lover, Honey Lee, asked me if we could have the day all to ourselves. She had a little surprise. Surprises aren't Honey's forte, but I thought that after six years together I'd allow her attempt at unpredictability.
"Okay, I'd love to spend the day with you. Just tell me what to wear," I said. That turned out to be the key that pried open her secret.
"Nothing, nothing at all," she answered. "All you have to do is wake up in the morning and be ready for anything."
I woke up at 6:20 AM, my natal hour, put on my furry purple bathrobe and set the kettle on to boil. I wasn't jumping to any conclusions. Honey Lee didn't seem to be in any particular hurry.
"You're having some guests over at ten o'clock.”
I sipped my tea and imagined the possibilities. Two weeks ago, I had put away Honey's bags and discovered a new paperback copy of The Story of O. Honey Lee credited Pauline Réage's classic S/M novel with every sexual fantasy ever to enter her head, but had never done anything like that remotely in our bed. She said the real thing made her sick to her stomach.
Was she about to turn it all around for my third decade?
I heard heavy steps approaching the front door. Whom among our women friends was so big that she bumped her head on the ceiling?
It was no lesbian. It was a six-foot-tall man, with a head as bald as Yul Brynner's and an enormous wooden table in his arms.
"This is your masseur, Patrick," Honey Lee announced. "He'll be with you for the next two hours. I'll be back when he's finished."
Patrick set up his massage table and covered it with a flannel sheet. I slipped out of my robe and thought, "Well, here we go." If Honey Lee was preparing me for something, I'd need every minute of a two-hour massage.
Patrick washed my feet and stroked my hair and pulled and kneaded me into a floating fog. When Honey returned, my face was as soft as a baby's and I could only mumble my thanks. She brought me a cup of tea and the doorbell rang again.
"Your dresser is here."
In walked a blond, curly-haired angel. It was my girlfriend Debi Sundahl, who worked at the O’Farrell as a stripper and was dressed in one of her most outrageous costumes: white satin underwear and pearls, all covered by a sheer crinoline veil.
But the clothes she had brought for me were even more spectacular.
She cinched my waist with a tight leather corset. Helped me slip on black silk stockings. Rouged my nipples. Honey Lee brought out a black satin and gauze gown.The lace tops of my stockings graced out abovethe thigh-high stiletto boots she handed me. Debi crimped my hair and applied the same lipstick to my lips that she'd touched on my breasts. By the time she was done with me, I could not make any coy remarks. When I looked in the mirror, I saw Venus in Furs.
Honey packed up some parcels for the car. "I can't go out like this!" I protested. But Debi had already thought of that. She folded me into me her black patent leather trench coat. Now I was Emma Peel.
Debi kissed me and gave me her last fairy-godmother words of advice. "You won't be able to talk from now on," she said. "Anything you want to say to Honey Lee or me, you should say now."
I don't know what it was, but I burst into tears. "I love you so much . . . and I'm a little worried about what you have planned for me ... I don't know if I can be quiet," I admitted.
Honey took my face in her hands. "Parts of today might be hard for you, Susie, but I don't think you'll regret it.”
Hahaha.
I nodded, but my heart did a flip-flop. I always fantasize about submission, but in real life, I am a control fanatic. I hated her for putting me to the test like this, and I couldn't believe the lengths she'd gone to prepare for it.
For all my fears of not being able to button my lip, I suddenly didn't feel like saying a word. Honey escorted me to the car. Debi, still in her bra and G-string, sped away in a Saab.
Honey Lee and I don't have many separate friends or secrets, and I know my way around the city better than she does. So when we drove for a half an hour only to end up in one of the worst neighborhoods in town, I was sure that she'd gotten us lost, the one torture I cannot abide. I was about to break my vow of silence and tell her to move aside, when she pulled into a parking space. "This is it!" she grinned.
She steered me towards the creaky stairs of the Victorian flat in front of us. We were buzzed in and she sent me ahead, up three flights of stairs.
The door at the end of the hall came ajar and my mouth opened as wide as the sky. Greeting us was a fully uniformed member of the San Francisco Police Department. Kelly was a woman cop I recognized from the Castro, where I worked 9-5, someone to whom I'd never said more than "Have a nice day, officer."
Honey and she shook hands like old friends.
"Kell, how are you?" Honey started.
"I'm just on my way to work. All I have to do is polish my boots."
"What a coincidence," Honey said. They were both speaking like marionettes. "I just happen to have a boot polishing kit with me, and I think Susie would love to give you a nice shine."
I broke my quiet spell. "I don't remember how to shine shoes."
Honey snorted. "Shame on you. We'll give a you a little review."
Honey Lee handed me a shoeshine box with all the equipment. In the corner was a Post-it note reading, "I will be back for you. Do your very best. Love, René."
In The Story of O, René is the lover who requires O to submit to other men in order to prove her love and obedience to him.
Kelly took me into her bedroom. She had a couple of guests visiting, a young man and woman who looked me over thoroughly and followed us to the doorway. "Can we watch?"
Kelly gave them the nod. I got out the black polish and tried to remember when the spitting part was supposed to be performed. She was patient. In fact, for a police officer, I'd gotten a real pussycat. She saw how I kept eyeing her gun belt, and when I had polished her thick work boots as well as I could, she pulled me to my feet and asked, "You wanna try on my belt?"
She emptied the bullets out of her revolver and showed me where she stored her ammunition, her nightstick, cuffs and flashlight. She slipped the whole contraption around my hips. It must have weighed 20 pounds.
"How can you chase bad guys like this?" I was breaking the no-talking rule again, but Honey Lee wasn't around to keep discipline.
"I'm not interested in dying," she said.
"Honey Lee is going to be back before you know it," I said, pulling my original costume together. "You'd better tell her I didn't say a word."
Kelly handed me over with a high recommendation and no squealing. Honey drove us over the hills into yuppie heaven.
"The hardest part is coming up," she said. "Maybe harder for me than for you." She was headed for our friend Coral's apartment.
Coral is what I would call a gourmet sadomasochist. Her home is decorated and constructed for sex play. Her collection of sex toys, particularly whips, is Smithsonian caliber. Honey and I loved to talk about sex, pain and pleasure with Coral, but we were intellectual companions, never participants. I wondered what kind of scene Coral could concoct with me. If I was to be like ‘O,’ then Coral would have to perform as a sadist, and I knew that would be a switch.
Apparently, a welcome one. C. let us into the bottom floor of her penthouse with more authority than I'd ever seen in her before.
"Of course, this is out of the ordinary for me," she said. "But I love to make exceptions for the young and the pretty."
She and Honey took me up to the master bedroom and told me to stand against the window while they talked about what to do with me. I felt a little rebellious.
"Look, Coral, why don't I just turn you over and give you a good spanking. I should trounce both of you for bossing me around like this."
They couldn't believe my cheek. "That's ten extra strokes right there," Honey said.
"Make that with the cane," Coral added.
"A cane! But I've never even been hit with so much as a feather duster!" I said.
Coral's eyes got terribly bright all of a sudden. A virgin bottom. The two of them instructed me to take my clothes off, one piece at a time, and pose for them. I ran the pearls between my legs. I insulted them gamely. "Enjoy yourselves now, you little brats, because I'm going to turn the tables twice as hard when this is over!"
Finally I had nothing left on but my stockings, the corset and my mother's rhinestone necklace. Coral invited me to approach her as she pulled a small red and black leather whip from her hip pocket. "I'm going to hand you the handle, and if you return it to me, it means you accept my authority."
I took my sweet time returning it to her. There is no one on earth I would let whip me except C. I trust her sensitivity and expertise, but I didn't know how I would react to the pain.
Honey Lee knew what was on my mind. "Do it for me," she said, and kissed the top of my head. Then she put on her jacket.
"You mean you aren't going to stay?"
"No, but I'll be close by," she promised.
I could tell it was harder for her to leave this time, and I didn't understand why.
Coral stretched me out belly down on her bed and fitted my wrists and ankles with thick fleece and leather restraints. They were chained and locked fast to eyebolts on the floor. I truly could not move. I felt myself flirting with panic. Although there were only the two of us now in the room, I felt more embarrassed than ever and buried my head in the sheets. I didn't want to see what was coming.
Something coarse and thick swept over my back. It was a horsetail crop! Coral whisked it softly across my ass and then flicked it sharply on the same spot. It barely stung, but before I could let it register, another tender sweeping sensation floated over the same stinging spot. The tail felt completely different depending on how she stroked me.
"Look at what your next choices are," Coral said. Sitting in front of my nose were five whips: one knotted, one thick with many strips, one riding crop, one strap, and one paddle board like Sister Teresa used on our fifth grade class.
I was a goody two shoes and never felt that paddle on my butt. Now I had a perverse desire to get it. "I want to try all of them, just a little," I said. "Just build up slowly to the meanest ones."
Coral built it up all right. She took each whip in turn, sliding it across my buttocks once just so I got the feel of its surface, then she hit me quickly, lightly—then she spiked it. She reached under me and pinched my mons between her fingers. "You're teasing me!"
Of course she had to laugh. The crop she used was a far cry from the horse feathers. It burned. Below the waist, I felt like another body was taking over. When she pressed her knuckles inside me, I let her give me the hardest strokes. Her touch was the only thing that made it bearable.
I asked for a break. My mind felt clear. "Coral, seriously, how am I supposed to eroticize this pain? It's intense. I don't know where to go with it. Orgasm? No way."
She pushed my hair out of my face and helped me blow my nose. "Well, there are lots of ways to think about it. When I do it, I like to think about deserving it, needing to be punished."
"I can't do that!" Man, that got to me. "I was just thinking the very opposite. . . all I can think of is that I don't deserve this. I didn't do anything wrong."
"Well, you can do it for your lover. Some people . . . "
"Yes, that's what ‘O’ would do in the book, but that is NOT me.”
"You can be selfish as well. A lot of people like to take the pain and connect the intensity to their clit or their nipples."
"Maybe. That’s what I was hoping. When you stroke my clit, I appreciate the whip a little bit, it’s a sweet/sour thing. But I don’t know. . .
My break was over. That cane, the five-foot bamboo cane, was still standing in the corner. I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to erotically connect any part of my body to that.
Coral traced her fingers over my bottom cheek. It did indeed throb. She picked up her cane and drew its length through the crack of my ass. It was so hard and spiny. Then she cut it through the air.
"Coral, I can't do it, please, Jesus, no."
Maybe that's what I said, I don't know. She complied instantly.
She unlatched my wrist cuffs in an instant and took me in her arms. There's nothing like being coddled and taken care of . . . I liked skipping right to this part.
"Your lover is waiting for you," she said, untangling herself from my sweaty body and reaching down to unchain my legs. I wobbled out of bed and picked up my boots. Everything was so heavy.
"Coral, you're going to suffer terribly for what you did to me today." I knew that would make her happy.
I stood by the front window and gathered my things. Glancing down below, I saw that our car was still there, with Honey Lee inside. She was staring right up at our floor, with her mirrored sunglasses on. What had she been dreaming about?
I don't think Honey had ever seen me as serene as when I got in the front seat. "You look like a saint," she said when I sat down.
"Yeah, well you know how religious experiences are.” I wasn't surprised when she pulled a long white scarf out of the glove compartment and told me to turn my head. She wrapped it around my eyes several times. I didn't even try to follow the car's direction. I felt nothing urgent, except the stripes on my behind.
When we came to a stopping place, she led me down a narrow sidewalk and into a low-ceilinged room. We were back home! I could hear friends’ voices exclaim their admiration as I entered the room. Many hands, too many to count, reached out for my clothes and undressed me. They lifted me onto a soft bed, but I still couldn't tell how many or who they were. I was being kissed all over. Oil was being dribbled on my chest. I was massaged by countless fingers. Someone lifted my head and slipped in a cold piece of peach. I smelled the champagne just as the glass was pressed to my lips. A little of that spilled down my neck. I tried to count how many pals were there, and identify their voices, but it was impossible. They kept changing positions, and I couldn't concentrate on more than three sensations at a time.
But someone else kissed me: Honey. The other hands faded, and it wasn't just my imagination. The rest of my body became still.
She took off my blindfold. No one was left except for us.
"Are they going to come back? You have to tell me who they were!" But I knew she wouldn't tell me. "How can I go out and work or call my friends when I have no idea who was here making love to me?"
The next week, I pulled a couple of handwritten envelopes out from among the bills piled in the mailbox. I opened the first one and found a polaroid of my friend Miranda kissing my toes, surrounded by seven other busy pairs of hands. "Your feet were divine," she had written on the border. Similar smart envelopes followed.
"I wonder how many Polaroids are in circulation?"
But literary ‘O’ wouldn't have asked such a thing. She would have written her story in all its detail. And so I did.
I'm supposed to just get up and go to work after reading that?
Inimitable, Susie. My stars, you know the most interesting people.
I had a friend whose first husband used to tie her up and leave her there. "And then?" I asked. And then he'd come back and untie her.
"I don't get it."
"He could have brought ANYONE back with him." Then I got it.