. . . . .. A sunny summer Saturday in the Sunshine State held to its reputation until evening when M. and T. met with A. and her childhood sweetheart now spouse. M. was asked to pull together an appropriate fetish outfit with very little notice and a lot of anxiety. A serendipitously packed shiny black wife beater and items generously offered by T. and A., which included stretchy black dance pants, a spiked submission collar and faux-bullet belt became a convincing costume created on the fly. A crush with eye-liner and mascara, and a quarter can of Aqua-net completed the look. T. clad herself in a borrowed leather bustier and pleather pleated dominatrix skirt. With riding crop in hand the quartet were off.

A. led the way to her familiar haunt that allowed her to play out her fetishistic fantasies in public. She started the evening as a sort of hyper-sexualized Raggedy Ann in red fish net stockings, yarn-like red wig, and a tight, tiny gingham mini-dress and extreme make-up, that somehow simultaneously broke the normal boundaries of sadomasochism and meshed beautifully within its notion of naughtiness. The clear weather promised earlier that day was now a distant memory as sheets of rain came crashing down from the night time air. All of the careful coifs and meticulously made-up faces shuddered at the unforgiving drops. The sexually deviant group was reduced to a bunch of quivering debutantes.

Once in the car, every conceivable plan was discussed and discarded how to make the trek from car to club entrance with the least amount of atmospheric distance. The raid on the beaches Omaha could not have had any less importance and planning as the rainy task that lay in front of these club warriors. Amazingly, all entered the club with no sign of water-induced damage.

Pupils adjusted, A. ran to find the management to discuss times and placement for her paid dance time. She was using her club time to express herself and entertain the other patrons. T. and M. were left to wander about their new playground and to try out their new personas. Visions of men and women demonstrating their inner selves decorated in eye liner and boustiers laced tightly like leather trellises leading to plunging cleavages inhabited the outer fringes of the dance floor and lines to the bathrooms. Which, surprisingly, summoned the traditional gender roles into the appropriately silhouetted symboled stalls, even though there were brief flashes of gender-bending activity.

A quieter back room offered a space to talk and relax and find some bearings. Nestled on a long, low red velvet sofa, T. and M. squinted through the smoky haze and commented on a lone male figure taking a phone call about ten feet away. The two probably looked like co-conspirators devising a naughty plot or a couple of bondage-bred judges extolling their judgment on an unsuspecting crowd; when, in fact, they were questioning how convincing they were coming across to the veterans. That and how attractive said caller looked in his snug black jeans and too-small tank exposing tight abs with a dark trail of hair. Much to the liking of both guy and girl. So, they were surprised when the caller approached them hesitantly and said in a broken, nervous voice, “I’m. . . .I’m sorry. I’m just calling to check in on my kids. To make sure they are okay.”

M. and T. in no way thought that they had claimed a piece of the club as their own in which to authorize who could inhabit their space. And a person they assumed was a regular was far meeker, and possibly as new to the scene the duo. The new recognition felt a little heady, mixed with a tinge of disappointment. Maybe everyone in the vicinity were poseurs. M. was never going to brush up against the promise of danger and decadence he so surely needed.

After many hours on grinding and swaying against the monotonous drub-drub-drub-bum-da-drub that mid-eighties goth excelled at, M. and T. joined up with A. and hubby. A. was now clad as a neo-Natzi-latex-encased goddess. The four wandered over to the bar, which was acting as a stalwart guardian near the entrance of the dimly lit dive.

Only a few others clung to its edges observing the more adventurous writhing on the floor awaiting rewards and punishments that only mongrels could properly entertain.

Understanding their limited financial situation, the virgin water was the quartet’s drink of choice. M. on the far end of the group would catch glimpses of gazes beaming in on him. The intent was not clear – lust or hate – but the intensity was remarkably clear. A pretense of added ease was used as a shield to bluff the stares into a non-existence. The owner of the glares was an anomaly to this night time setting. Instead of opting for dramatic smears of coal and binding, the bar anchor stood out in a sleeveless white t-shirt and faded jeans capped off with a red and black bandana masking parts of his snow white hair. His demeanor was that of either a fifty-year-old ex-maritime worker or factory rat. Completely out of place, yet, taking claim of the space.

As A. and her love left the bar, it became astoundingly clear that the focus of the stares was M. And the intent was far from love, or even lust. Hate burned at him.

Following the lead of A., T. and M. went to find themselves back toward the dance floor.

“You have him on a leash!?” bellowed from the dimly lit right. The ex-sailor inquired of T.

With a bit of shock the two turned to face the barrel chested man.

“He must be a real DICK, if you have to put him on a leash!” came an even harsher yell.

Unsure if it was a poor joke or an act of aggression, the pair shared a nervous chuckle. T. gave a playful tug of the leash giving M. an unpleasant choke. That action was all it took to incite a litany of verbal lashing from the bar.

T. considered for a brief moment to brush it off. But in that moment her decision was made. She lashed back.

“Why you got him on a LEASH?”

A torrent of increasingly heated and salty accusations filled the air.

T. took the lead with a slew of angry rebuttals.

“He’s not an asshole! He’s tough and will . . . “

Very few sentences found their mark, engulfed by the beginning of the other’s taunt.

The sailor puffed up and grew more and more red, spitting out almost unintelligible rants.

Was he a blue-collar-knight-shining-wife-beater, out to protect seemingly defenseless men in submissive collars and make-up (a terribly mistaken situation) or a momentarily angry drunken Man of La Mancha searching for a leather bound Dulcinea to tilt windmills in honor of?

There was no time to ask. The oracle that held those answers was challenging a fight. And T. and M. were . . . . . .. .