Orientation

We arrive at the Club with moments to spare. All guests have to go through an orientation before being allowed to stay for a party, so we have to arrive an hour and a half before the official start. The entrance is not obviously marked, so we wander around a bit and finally see some people who it would appear are at this place for the same reason we are. We stand around the locked front door with two or three other couples. They are all older than us. One starts ribbing his woman and chortling about the lack of sleep he's had this week, between one girl or another. He laughs and says he hopes no one minds if he just falls asleep. The woman in another couple says not unless he's doing someone while he does it. The sleepy guy keeps making cracks about falling asleep while doing someone and I feel entirely out of place. And the thought of what the hell am I doing here starts.

The door finally opens and we are directed to the "orientation table" which is a table set up in front of a dance floor. I take a quick look around and the facility is quite lovely. hardwood floors, twinkle lights. Really lovely. I approach the check in desk, where a very heavy woman is sitting next to a dwarf. She asks our names and checks us off, handing us paperwork to fill out. We sit down at one of the round tables set up for dinner and I notice that the tables and chairs are all of the outdoor resin variety. Plastic chairs and tables. Interesting. Several woman are roaming around, in various "outfits." Most are very small and straight out of the "fredericks of hollywood" catalog, except without the model bodies. Again, I am filled with "what the hell am I doing here." Jane and John are no where to be found, even though they assured me they would go through orientation with us.

I fill out the paperwork while DH uses the restroom. When he comes back, I decide I need to visit the ladies room, and while it is very clean with lots of complimentary items, I note it is very old feeling, like a girl scout lodge. Though it is clean, and smells nice, so nothing to complain about.

As I am walking back to the ballroom area, Jane and John are coming downstairs and call out my name. Jane is wearing a full length fur coat and as she hugs me hello, I note her hair is wet. I get the feeling they've been here a while. I introduce them to DH and Jane takes off her coat, revealing a bikini top and a g string with a little skirt attached, in addition to her 4 inch stiletto acrylic heels. She looks great, but it's still a little disconcerting.

We turn in our paperwork and cell phones as requested (no cell phones allowed outside the lobby due to camera technology) and I go outside to sit with Jane and John as they have a cigarette and DH runs back out to the car for his alcohol of choice. When he returns, we have a nice conversation with Jane and John, and two of their close friends, who encourage us to ask any questions we might have. We finally decide to open a bottle of wine. The Club provides plastic wine glasses and bottle openers, as well as soda, tea and coffee. One sip from our glass and we are being called in to start the orientation.

A jolly looking round man is standing with the heavy woman from the orientation table. He's very soft-spoken and begins to tell us how the Club started 30 years ago as a ladies club, and that is how it remains today. Jane and John are standing with them but not contributing to the conversation. Everyone is invited to go upstairs and look around and the sleepy guy from outside just keeps making dumb comments while everyone else is pretty much silent.

At the top of the stairs is the sleeping room, which I did not see until we were headed back downstairs, but there are some cheap foam cushions stacked in rows. For $5, you can bring a sleeping bag and have a place to sleep in this room. We passed the hot tubs (indoors and outdoors), the communal locker and shower room, and came to a large room with various curtains and many beds, surrounding a pit of cushions (that was just last week a fire pit!) We all sat on a bed as the jolly man continued discussing rules, etiquette, expectations. I was struck at how he explained why the rules were in place rather than just reciting the list of rules. Sleepy man of course had to make more annoying comments.

We all trooped up a final set of stairs. The center of the large circular room was another cushioned pit and various private cubbies were built around the outside. It was really quite interesting the way it was set up. You could have complete privacy if you wanted, be the center of the action, or anywhere in between. We all ended up in the mirror room, which was a couple of beds pushed together under a metal ceiling. This was where the jolly man asked how many were new to the lifestyle. Most of us raised our hands, and the annoying man revealed that this was their first date, blind date in fact, but they had been conversing online for a couple of weeks. This explained a lot.

The jolly man congratulated us though, at the communication that took place to even get us in the front door, and I realized how right he was. Not many are lucky enough to be able to tell their partners their most private fantasies and have them help in broadening the horizons of the relationship. We are lucky indeed.

With that, we all trooped to the owner's quarters for an introduction and speech. Having started the club 30 years ago with his wife, I should not have been surprised to see how old the owner is. But old he is, though he seemed very nice and offered some very good advice. The most important was that this place was for exploration and if you have an agenda of what you wanted to happen, it usually doesn't work out. I, of course, had an agenda and I thought whatever. My agenda will definitely work out.

After that, we all trooped downstairs to dinner, paid our entrance fee, and were free to roam the place at will.