Swing of things
"We've been invited to a swingers club," Bf announces. "I've bought you this to wear." Bf tosses a large sealed envelope at me as he lights a smoke and turns up the volume on the new Tricky album. Ever since he got a new job as the editor of this two-bit porn magazine he has been mentioning this place called SWING in Midrand, which is - yeah, what else? - a swingers' club...
I stare at the white plastic envelope. I open it slowly. There's a scantily clad blonde woman - silicone-boobed, orange-tan-in-a-canned - on the outside of the black cardboard package that lies inside. Her enormous, surgically enhanced tits bulge out of the tight little black number which is apparently the outfit that Bf has chosen for me. It says: One Size Fits All.
Fascinating. I always wondered how that worked. Do you mean to tell me that some obese tart and some skeletal Kate Moss cokehead lookalike are going to fit into this same skimpy dress?
I stare at the woman. She stares back; smiling at me tauntingly. I think of my access home loan. I wonder what my repayments would be if I was to take R30000 out of it for a boob job. I wonder how much Dr Rey would charge.
Almost mechanically I remove the dress from the packaging.
"Ummm, it might be bit short ..." I hesitate, not wanting to sound ungrateful.
"Go on. Try it on, Tubs." Bf grins, waiting; he's excited. I am smouldering from the nickname. I hate it when he calls me that. In fact, I have always hated nicknames. My family tormented me with them as a child. And the more upset I got the more they'd throw them at me. And the feeling at that moment sends me tumbling back through time, back there. I am six again; taunted, eyes brimming with tears.
Of course, when push comes to shove, Bf says he's joking, but what kind of a name is that? Tubs? Fatty Fat - that's all I hear. And it's not the kind of thing you want to hear when you're about to try on a thigh-riding little black slut dress.
"C'mon, I bought it for you, so you'd have something to wear tonight. C'mon, put it on."
My eyes threaten to spill over. I feel like a Stepford wife being forced to follow cruel Mr Porno's demands.
Actually, to be fair, I'm not being forced to go to this club; it just sounds more dramatic when I play the victim. I have always been interested in these kind of underground places. In fact, in all honesty, I went to my first swingers' club the year before I met Bf, as an undercover journo, writing a story for a women's magazine.
So, if I wasn't a swingers' club virgin, why was going to this one with Bf feeling so weird? Because I wasn't going as a writer this time. This time it was for real. I was going with Bf to a swingers' club that by all accounts was far more serious than the one I'd been to years before.
Although I had acted all tough on the outside - even, in fact, encouraging Bf with the whole swingers' club idea (showing myself to be "adventurous and experimental") - in reality the whole idea of it made me feel jumpy, scared. And now it was actually happening I felt sick, like I was about to fall into something deep and dark and totally unfamiliar.
"I am going to try it on in the upstairs bathroom," I say, dragging myself up the stairs. At least there I'll have some privacy and if it looks totally awful I will simply not wear it. Maybe I'll flush it down the loo. I am feeling in a rebellious mood.
I hold the dress up against me and stare at myself in the mirror. It is short, very, very short. Oh, no. The dread thought drowns me: It's going to make me look fat, huge. BDD has got me by the throat. I bet all the other women at the club will be tiny, young and thin.
Jeez, why am I doing this? I bet my Aussie would never make me dress like this and trundle off to SWING. Hmm ... actually, I wonder. Almost every single man that I have ever mentioned a sex or swingers' club to has asked: "What time are you going? Can I come too?"
As I slowly undress, my mind is speeding. What will I be expected to do at this "erotic" club? Will we have to start f***ing people as soon as we're through the door? Will women be throwing themselves at Bf? Will I be expected to go on my hands and knees and give blow jobs to anyone who approaches me? These thoughts whirr in me like a strimmer.
Then, as I pull my stockings on, I notice myself in the mirror for the first time. Oh! Who is that? I look like a total slut. The dress fits, but it's short. I slowly put on the Clarins Deep Plum lipstick from work, staring at myself in the mirror without recognition.
We drive across town, north, in silence. Tricky has moved from Bf's stereo and now plays in the car: "There's no exit, I can't stand still. Keep on running." It sounds like it's looped, choking on and on. As we get further into the deep heart of Midrand, it gets darker. The street lighting has all but faded away. Only the car lights cast illumination on the surrounds - smallholdings, stables. It's empty. It feels like we are driving to the end of the world.
I tug my black velvet coat tighter around me as we enter SWING. We're non-paying guests as Bf is now the big Porn Editor, and he's here to "review" it. The forty-something blonde at the door gushes over him while I look down, hoping no one I know will be here - I can't face someone who knows me seeing me.
Then it suddenly dawns on me that someone might recognise me as the author of Smacked (I have done loads of television talk shows and corporate gigs about my life and the book, plus my face is on its cover).
I need not have worried. The people inside don't look the book-reading types, and they're already in the swing of things. All the women are scantily clad. There are girls in lingerie, corsets, G-strings, tiny skirts, push-up bras. Topless, bottomless, thin, fat, skinny, short, tall. It feels like a downmarket recreation of a scene from The Girls of the Playboy Mansion.
I need not have worried about my ass. There are some real whales walking around this place. The men look more "normal". Jeans, shirts, T-shirts, trousers. No tranny outfits here.
With my coat on I look decidedly overdressed, even corporate, but when I take it off my dress is far from smutty in comparison to some of the other slut garb. In fact, I look somewhat classy.
Of course, as soon as people arrive they head straight for the bar, to get wasted. Of course. No one can make it in a joint like this without a drink or ten. Except me: Little Miss F***ing Teetotaller. Jeez, what I would do for a bourbon right now.
In recovery circles, they say: don't go to dangerous places. They mean: don't go to places that are going to make you want to drink or drug. Almost immediately I can smell that this is a Class A dangerous place. This place is making me want to run to the bar, grab the amber bottle of Jack Daniel's, put a rubber teat on it and suckle it till I die.
"I'll have a mineral water, sparkling. On the rocks. Ha ha." The joke goes nowhere. The barman stares at me. Did he hear right? Obviously no one's ever passed on the free drink vouchers that come with the entrance fee. "Lemon, no ice," I add.
Bf is ordering brandy and ginger ale. A triple. Two girls in see-through netty tops stare coquettishly at him. The petite blonde on the right has a flower tucked behind her ear. I feel like grabbing it and stamping on it, stuffing the bruised petals down her throat. Now she's giggling at something Bf has said. It looks like she wants to blow him all the way to Hawaii.
I grab my water in its warm, sticky glass and head for the pool area. The heated pool is the centrepiece. Everything is arranged around it. It lets off a weird misty steam that smells of stale chlorine and old semen. It makes me feel like hurling.
Above the pool hangs a double bed. I blink. Two people are on it. I stare, not sure if I have imagined it. No. It's real. I realise that in this place it's okay to stare. They are oblivious.
Bf joins me. He looks happy; drink in his hand, relaxed. He looks like he is fitting in. I gulp. Get with it, I think to myself. What's wrong with you? Chill a bit. Mellow.
I plaster a grin on my face as the couple on the bed move in slow motion above us. It feels like I am watching a weird three-dimensional porn movie. Like one of those bad late-night movies on e.tv. Finally, I can't stand it anymore. I make an excuse, clutch my mobile and move towards the bathroom. I need to get online desperately, see if the Aussie is around. It's all I can think of.
The thought of Genix, the Aussie, is weirdly comforting. I calculate time. It's 9.30pm here in South Africa ... I quickly count nine hours ahead to Melbourne: 6.30am. I am praying he will be online.
I close the loo door, go online, on to Opera Mini, punch in my password on Facebook. I send Genix a message: "Help! SOS! Rescue me! I am in a sex club and I wanna drink!"
...........................................................................................
We meet different people every day of our lives.. Some people you will meet and it is just for the moment.....So be it.
You had to meet them.
Some you can have tea with and chat the whole day long. They could even be family. They are not for ever. They are good to know. They where the reason for you to know the difference between honesty and the not so honest.
Some people are for ever....those are normally people that will stick with you through thick and thin. They are the people that will love you no matter what and they will be there for you. They are the ones that will back you up against the noises people make. They are the ones you will walk the extra mile with you. They are also the people that you will never forget.
Everyone we meet makes a difference in our lives. Good or bad!
Take the good out of everything you do or experience.
Surround yourself with positive things in life and you will only receive just the GOOD.
Just an opinion
x H x
"We've been invited to a swingers club," Bf announces. "I've bought you this to wear." Bf tosses a large sealed envelope at me as he lights a smoke and turns up the volume on the new Tricky album. Ever since he got a new job as the editor of this two-bit porn magazine he has been mentioning this place called SWING in Midrand, which is - yeah, what else? - a swingers' club...
I stare at the white plastic envelope. I open it slowly. There's a scantily clad blonde woman - silicone-boobed, orange-tan-in-a-canned - on the outside of the black cardboard package that lies inside. Her enormous, surgically enhanced tits bulge out of the tight little black number which is apparently the outfit that Bf has chosen for me. It says: One Size Fits All.
Fascinating. I always wondered how that worked. Do you mean to tell me that some obese tart and some skeletal Kate Moss cokehead lookalike are going to fit into this same skimpy dress?
I stare at the woman. She stares back; smiling at me tauntingly. I think of my access home loan. I wonder what my repayments would be if I was to take R30000 out of it for a boob job. I wonder how much Dr Rey would charge.
Almost mechanically I remove the dress from the packaging.
"Ummm, it might be bit short ..." I hesitate, not wanting to sound ungrateful.
"Go on. Try it on, Tubs." Bf grins, waiting; he's excited. I am smouldering from the nickname. I hate it when he calls me that. In fact, I have always hated nicknames. My family tormented me with them as a child. And the more upset I got the more they'd throw them at me. And the feeling at that moment sends me tumbling back through time, back there. I am six again; taunted, eyes brimming with tears.
Of course, when push comes to shove, Bf says he's joking, but what kind of a name is that? Tubs? Fatty Fat - that's all I hear. And it's not the kind of thing you want to hear when you're about to try on a thigh-riding little black slut dress.
"C'mon, I bought it for you, so you'd have something to wear tonight. C'mon, put it on."
My eyes threaten to spill over. I feel like a Stepford wife being forced to follow cruel Mr Porno's demands.
Actually, to be fair, I'm not being forced to go to this club; it just sounds more dramatic when I play the victim. I have always been interested in these kind of underground places. In fact, in all honesty, I went to my first swingers' club the year before I met Bf, as an undercover journo, writing a story for a women's magazine.
So, if I wasn't a swingers' club virgin, why was going to this one with Bf feeling so weird? Because I wasn't going as a writer this time. This time it was for real. I was going with Bf to a swingers' club that by all accounts was far more serious than the one I'd been to years before.
Although I had acted all tough on the outside - even, in fact, encouraging Bf with the whole swingers' club idea (showing myself to be "adventurous and experimental") - in reality the whole idea of it made me feel jumpy, scared. And now it was actually happening I felt sick, like I was about to fall into something deep and dark and totally unfamiliar.
"I am going to try it on in the upstairs bathroom," I say, dragging myself up the stairs. At least there I'll have some privacy and if it looks totally awful I will simply not wear it. Maybe I'll flush it down the loo. I am feeling in a rebellious mood.
I hold the dress up against me and stare at myself in the mirror. It is short, very, very short. Oh, no. The dread thought drowns me: It's going to make me look fat, huge. BDD has got me by the throat. I bet all the other women at the club will be tiny, young and thin.
Jeez, why am I doing this? I bet my Aussie would never make me dress like this and trundle off to SWING. Hmm ... actually, I wonder. Almost every single man that I have ever mentioned a sex or swingers' club to has asked: "What time are you going? Can I come too?"
As I slowly undress, my mind is speeding. What will I be expected to do at this "erotic" club? Will we have to start f***ing people as soon as we're through the door? Will women be throwing themselves at Bf? Will I be expected to go on my hands and knees and give blow jobs to anyone who approaches me? These thoughts whirr in me like a strimmer.
Then, as I pull my stockings on, I notice myself in the mirror for the first time. Oh! Who is that? I look like a total slut. The dress fits, but it's short. I slowly put on the Clarins Deep Plum lipstick from work, staring at myself in the mirror without recognition.
We drive across town, north, in silence. Tricky has moved from Bf's stereo and now plays in the car: "There's no exit, I can't stand still. Keep on running." It sounds like it's looped, choking on and on. As we get further into the deep heart of Midrand, it gets darker. The street lighting has all but faded away. Only the car lights cast illumination on the surrounds - smallholdings, stables. It's empty. It feels like we are driving to the end of the world.
I tug my black velvet coat tighter around me as we enter SWING. We're non-paying guests as Bf is now the big Porn Editor, and he's here to "review" it. The forty-something blonde at the door gushes over him while I look down, hoping no one I know will be here - I can't face someone who knows me seeing me.
Then it suddenly dawns on me that someone might recognise me as the author of Smacked (I have done loads of television talk shows and corporate gigs about my life and the book, plus my face is on its cover).
I need not have worried. The people inside don't look the book-reading types, and they're already in the swing of things. All the women are scantily clad. There are girls in lingerie, corsets, G-strings, tiny skirts, push-up bras. Topless, bottomless, thin, fat, skinny, short, tall. It feels like a downmarket recreation of a scene from The Girls of the Playboy Mansion.
I need not have worried about my ass. There are some real whales walking around this place. The men look more "normal". Jeans, shirts, T-shirts, trousers. No tranny outfits here.
With my coat on I look decidedly overdressed, even corporate, but when I take it off my dress is far from smutty in comparison to some of the other slut garb. In fact, I look somewhat classy.
Of course, as soon as people arrive they head straight for the bar, to get wasted. Of course. No one can make it in a joint like this without a drink or ten. Except me: Little Miss F***ing Teetotaller. Jeez, what I would do for a bourbon right now.
In recovery circles, they say: don't go to dangerous places. They mean: don't go to places that are going to make you want to drink or drug. Almost immediately I can smell that this is a Class A dangerous place. This place is making me want to run to the bar, grab the amber bottle of Jack Daniel's, put a rubber teat on it and suckle it till I die.
"I'll have a mineral water, sparkling. On the rocks. Ha ha." The joke goes nowhere. The barman stares at me. Did he hear right? Obviously no one's ever passed on the free drink vouchers that come with the entrance fee. "Lemon, no ice," I add.
Bf is ordering brandy and ginger ale. A triple. Two girls in see-through netty tops stare coquettishly at him. The petite blonde on the right has a flower tucked behind her ear. I feel like grabbing it and stamping on it, stuffing the bruised petals down her throat. Now she's giggling at something Bf has said. It looks like she wants to blow him all the way to Hawaii.
I grab my water in its warm, sticky glass and head for the pool area. The heated pool is the centrepiece. Everything is arranged around it. It lets off a weird misty steam that smells of stale chlorine and old semen. It makes me feel like hurling.
Above the pool hangs a double bed. I blink. Two people are on it. I stare, not sure if I have imagined it. No. It's real. I realise that in this place it's okay to stare. They are oblivious.
Bf joins me. He looks happy; drink in his hand, relaxed. He looks like he is fitting in. I gulp. Get with it, I think to myself. What's wrong with you? Chill a bit. Mellow.
I plaster a grin on my face as the couple on the bed move in slow motion above us. It feels like I am watching a weird three-dimensional porn movie. Like one of those bad late-night movies on e.tv. Finally, I can't stand it anymore. I make an excuse, clutch my mobile and move towards the bathroom. I need to get online desperately, see if the Aussie is around. It's all I can think of.
The thought of Genix, the Aussie, is weirdly comforting. I calculate time. It's 9.30pm here in South Africa ... I quickly count nine hours ahead to Melbourne: 6.30am. I am praying he will be online.
I close the loo door, go online, on to Opera Mini, punch in my password on Facebook. I send Genix a message: "Help! SOS! Rescue me! I am in a sex club and I wanna drink!"
...........................................................................................
We meet different people every day of our lives.. Some people you will meet and it is just for the moment.....So be it.
You had to meet them.
Some you can have tea with and chat the whole day long. They could even be family. They are not for ever. They are good to know. They where the reason for you to know the difference between honesty and the not so honest.
Some people are for ever....those are normally people that will stick with you through thick and thin. They are the people that will love you no matter what and they will be there for you. They are the ones that will back you up against the noises people make. They are the ones you will walk the extra mile with you. They are also the people that you will never forget.
Everyone we meet makes a difference in our lives. Good or bad!
Take the good out of everything you do or experience.
Surround yourself with positive things in life and you will only receive just the GOOD.
Just an opinion
x H x
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
talamia:
Nice excerpt, I've always wanted to read Melinda Ferguson's first book but this excerpt from her second book reads interesting as well.
rashfolk:
I read your blog as I read a good book!! You have a beautiful way to express yourself through writing and I even felt the emotions that overwhelmed you (I must say that I even smelled the mix of chlorine and old semen as you described it). I love reading you girl!!