Black Bag

About the Author: He is a dad and a Wall St. dude with a taste for the lascivious. His blog is Free Liquidity.

This afternoon I found myself standing in the West Village under a blameless sky with nothing but time to kill.

My daughter was in acting class for a few hours. The Boy was being calamitously spoiled by his grandmother. I had three hours to call my own and nothing in my hands to make me slower.

I ate a leisurely lunch at The Cowgirl Hall of Fame. I read a magazine. I visited my favorite seedy record shop and picked up a bootleg.

Then I remembered something – I’ve been thinking that I need to have a bag of tricks for my dirty dirty nights of sex.

All I had were a single pair of leather handcuffs. A blindfold. Some nylon rope that I never learned to use properly. For a dude who professes to enjoying the occasional evening of light BDSM, it’s a pretty pathetic kit bag.

In fact, I have NO kit bag – the shit is all stashed in a can up on a high closet shelf (away from prying eyes – one of these days soon I’ll have to be more creative in my hiding spots – for now height will suffice.)

I decided to shop.

I went to Christopher Street. Where better to find accoutrements for the Lifestyles of the Sick and Shameless?

The most intimidating shop was called The Leather Man. So that’s where I went.

I walk in and I’m stupidly surprised at the overwhelming smell of leather. There are black and shiny things hanging everywhere. Bunched up together and set out on display. Big bundles of leather whips gathered together like a bouquet. Full leather masks as modeled by The Gimp in Pulp Fiction. Assless chaps and leather vests and plenty of black studded collars as far as the eye can see.

Two dudes are manning the shop. The older fellow looks like he’s HIV positive and he sits on a stool maintaining precarious balance as his pink flaky hands shake with the effort of being folded on his lap.

The other man is more sprightly. He’s bald – fortyish. Looks like he weighs about a buck-oh-five soaking wet. I shove off my residual homophobia and plunge in – I need help and this guy is clearly going to be my shepherd.

“What can I help you with?”

I tell him I might like one of the leather collars.

“For a man or a woman?”

I’m not sure if this matters or if he’s just trying to figure out whether or not to toss me in the Breeder Silo before we get down to business. I tell him it’s for a woman.

He shows me a collar – one with big metal loops that can be attached to something else. A leash, for instance. Or a set of cuffs. As I stand there, I’m envisioning the scenario. I see my lover sprawled out buck naked. Her motor ticking and her mouth making gestures of supplication.

I try to put the padded collar around my own neck and he shakes his head.
“It won’t fit. That’s made for a lady’s neck.”

Ah. So he was simply being professional with his line of questioning.

I try to visualize the fantasy gig. I see my cuffs on her wrists. I imagine those wrists pulled up snug and snapped to the collar. I see her flipped over on her side – largely immobile and exposed like a turtle after a bad drop.

But then I can’t see the rest. I’m not sure why I want a collar so I let it go.

I ask him about cuffs and whether or not I should go with the real deal – there are numerous pairs of heavy metal police-type handcuffs hanging on a wall behind me.
Snap, clang, click. That kind.

My clerk tells me that these are kind of painful – and not in a good way. He says that despite the perception in the general public that metal handcuffs are the standard choice of deviants, most people only use them for specific fantasies involving literal incarceration.

So I stick with the leather variety. Snug and comfortable. Binding.

I see my fair lady with her hands comfortably attached to one another. I feel my hands running wildfire over her body as her hands move like a fingered club on the top of my head.

I buy two more pairs of the leather handcuffs. And one pair of leather ankle restraints. All of them are fitted with silver rings and I buy a half a dozen double-ended clips which can be used to connect the various cuffs in a daisy chain.

My mind’s eye keeps purring and I see her hands cuffed – not to one another – but to the ankles of another woman. I see eight limbs held snug and a J-Roc-imposed all-girl sixty-nine bending and sighing on my bed.

We go downstairs to see what else there is to see. The winding staircase is ludicrously narrow down to the basement and we emerge in what amounts to Dildoland.

I tell the guy that I tried to use rope once but it didn't work out so well. He's leads me to the book section and shows me a book on erotic bondage and tells me that it's very basic and will tell me all I need to know.

Shamefacedly, I tell him that I already HAVE that book.

Without missing a beat, he selects another book off the shelf - this one features gorgeous origami-type rope bondage. My man tells me that THIS book would also be a real help to a beginner. Feeling my cheeks actually beginning to burn red, I confess that I already have THAT book as well.

He gives me a bit of a funny look. I'm sure he sees all kinds, but the idea that I'm a guy who's never tied up a woman but still collects all the books like some kind of weird Bondage Book of The Month Club Fetishist is probably a first for him. Hey - I like to read. Sue me. Moving on to the faux cocks...

There are dildos of pretty much every imaginable distinction. There’s a Hollywood series in which the rubber cocks are modeled after this or that porn star. I’m not familiar with the gay names, but I DO see a John Holmes model on the wall and it looks pretty accurate as best I can recall.

OH and there are butt plugs.

Most butt plugs are tapered – they end in a snub point and then widen dramatically below the point of impact like a pregnant rubber bullet. I’ve seen these things before but never shopped for one. Today’s the day I go from window shopping to making a purchase – a dildo AND a butt plug. Quite a day. "Dear Diary..."

I’m drawn to a display in which all of the items are midnight black and somewhat abstract. The clerk nods wisely and tells me that these are high-end models. They look and feel like rubber, but they’re actually silicone. You can put them in the oven or boil them for purposes of sterilization. In case they're being used on more than one person.

Ahem.

And my favorite - my absolute fucking FAVORITE dildo of the day - was one that was shaped like the traditional Praying Hands image. I grinned and asked the man if this was an item for people seeking the express lane to Hell. He shrugged and called it a novelty item.

Then he shows me a couple of monster-sized ones which would make interesting conversation pieces but - after watching last week’s horse video - I can’t really imagine trying to impose one of these twenty-inch black bastards on a lady friend. ("Too much?")

I find one that’s shaped kind of like my own cock and this appeals to my narcissism sufficiently enough to get itself thrown in my shopping basket. Then we look at the buttplugs and I’m at a bit of a loss. I’ve USED dildos on women before, but my experience with buttplugs is zero (except for the remote controlled vibrating one that I bought for Jamie The Quaker on the occasion of his bachelor party.)

Like the dildos, these come in all shapes and sizes. ALL fucking sizes, people – one of them looked a fucking lava lamp. I stared at it curiously and wondered how the hell anybody could wiggle their way on top of something whose base diameter looked equivalent to that of a canned ham. Not that I’m judging. Remember your safewords and have a blast, everybody.

I went with something a bit more demure. A subtle but ultimately intrusive wedge of black silicone thumb whose squared off base would prevent it from disappearing inside her ass forever like some kind of anal Jimmy Hoffa {Editor’s Note: Afterwards I called the woman with whom I had accidental anal sex (twice) to tell her about my purchase and later in the day she sent me a quizzical text message – ‘what do you do with a buttplug?’. I told her that I’d lodge it in her ass before fucking her in the standard fashion. She responded thusly “OOOOHHHH!”)

Okay.

Now I’m a man with an embarrassing amount of hand and ankle cuffs; one dildo which reminds me of my own cock (if my own cock were black and could withstand boiling water) and an adorable nub of a buttplug.

Time to hightail it out of Leather Man, right?

Well, almost.

I took note of the spanking implements. Actually, “spanking” is clearly a misnomer for the intended usage of a lot of this shit. You don’t “spank” someone with a sturdy three foot Cat o’ Ninetails. That’s a whipping you’ve got happening there, pilgrims.

But I DO provide the occasional spanking and I saw something that I found intriguing. It’s a paddle. It has a sturdy wooden handle and then the surface area fans out to about twice the size of a standard ping pong paddle. It's made of smooth black leather and very pliable. One side of the paddle has been covered in soft fur. (Or maybe faux fur. Hard to say. At seventy bucks a pop, I’d like to believe that it’s at least GOOD fake fur.)

I liked the feel of it in my hand. The sturdiness of the object. The ease with which I could provide a sharp slap. The soothing antidote of the fur on the alternate side of the implement.

So now - back in my mind again - the two women are cuffed together. They’re going down on one another as I’ve instructed them to do. They’re lying on their respective sides…and I’m straddling their commingled torsos.

I’m sitting on top of them like Trump on a pile of discarded Apprentices (Apprentic-i?)
And I drag the fur over the exposed ass of my first young lady. Softly. She moans in approval. But before the sound of her moan expires, I’ve given the handle a quick spin and delivered to her ass a taste of the more expressive side of the paddle.

She yelps. Signaling to Young Lady Number Two that she can be expecting a visit from the Mr. Fun Fur Paddle momentarily. It giveth and it taketh away…

One of them is harboring a new black dildo inside of her. The other woman has an expensive silicone buttplug buried in her ass.

I envision all of this – and I marvel at the amount of fun that can be had before I so much as take off my own pants to join the party.

I’m ringing up my purchases when I realize that I’ve bought so much perverted stuff that I’ll need to buy a bag as well. I choose a small black leather number that looks a bit like a gym bag. The inside smells rich and sexy – as though the leather itself knows that it’s part of a wicked party waiting to happen.

I toss in some lubelubelube and a box of condoms. As the dude rings me up, I thank him for all his help. I’ve told myself that I won’t ask any jughead questions about the store items which confused me, but my curiosity gets the best of me at the end.

There’s a small display of Snake Venom Kits behind the register. What the FUCK? I mean, I recognize these kits from my backpacking days in Colorado, but what are they doing here? They’re basically high-suction valves for removing the poison with which you’d be injected by a rattlesnake bite.

“Umm…what’s with the Snake Venom Kits? Are there people who like to include poisonous snakes in their edgeplay?”

The guy’s poker face breaks and he laughs. He tells me that, no – those are used to “extend” the nipples via intense suction. It just so happens that snake bite kits can pull double duty as nipple extenders.

Oh.

I’ve not really heard about the old nipple extension routine and I’ve got to say – you ladies have a better shot of nailing my ass with a strap-on than ever getting me to consent to "nipple extending." Fucking Ow.

Anyhoo.

I’ve got my little black bag.
I’ve got my little black toys. (Well. "Little" is a fairly subjective term here.)
I’ve got my little black box of condoms.
I’ve got my little black ass paddle.
So? This stuff looks great in the bag, but I'm all about practical application.

Who wants next?

Peace,
J