Page 159 of Roberto

But Hong Kong is amuchmore conservative place, with extremely strict laws limiting sex-for-hire (even if there was technically no sex involved).

I couldn’t find any brick-and-mortar business listings, so I began to comb internet fetish sites.

I gradually learned that there were underground BDSM parties in private homes throughout Hong Kong.

After making three female acquaintances online, I asked if we could meet in a public place for coffee so I could ask them questions.

I was extremely wary. Part of me was afraid my new ‘friends’ might actually be male serial killers posing as women to find new victims.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

To my surprise, they were very much like me: professionals… upper-middle-class… and two of them were college-educated.

One was single; two others were married with children. The married women’s husbands were also their partners in BDSM.

On the surface, they lived mundane lives filled with jobs, meetings, errands, child-rearing, grocery shopping, and domestic chores.

Their only escape was secretive parties in private homes, where they lived out the fantasies that made them feel truly alive.

I immediately hit it off with all three women, and they offered to help me break into the ‘scene’ by taking me to private parties.

And so began my education in the world of underground Hong Kong fetish clubs.

The first party took place in a stately mansion in the Peak, only a few miles away from my parents’ home. (Which made me irrationally nervous at first. I had to keep reminding myself that my parents weren’t going to burst in looking for me.)

The owner of the mansion had built a dungeon underground – a concrete room filled with all sorts of elaborate equipment.

I stayed on the sidelines, nervously sipping champagne as I watched others get paddled, flogged, and tied up.

I felt out of place in my little black nightclubbing dress. Everyone else was dressed in leather and latex and more traditional BDSM garb.

I got plenty of offers to partake – usually from middle-aged men – but I politely declined.

For my first time, all I did was watch.

The next gathering I attended, I came in a strappy leather outfit more suitable for the environment –

And I came ready to play.

I nervously volunteered to be tied up.

It wasn’t as hot as my experience with the gorgeous man back in Bangkok – once I was tied up, no one brought me to orgasm – but there was a different sort of pleasure in being watched by so many admiring eyes.

I was hooked.

I began going to every party I could gain access to.

By day, I was a boring graduate student in economics who worked 20 hours a week at an investment banking firm –

But at night, I was a kinky angel seeking to fulfill my darkest desires.

At the same time, my father kept trying to set me up on dates with prospective suitors.

I kept refusing – but on more than one occasion, I came home to have Sunday dinner with my parents, only to find a strange man about my age sitting at the table.

The first man was pleasant but boring.

The next guy was a smug, narcissistic asshole who got along famously with my father.

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