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CHASE YOUR PLEASURES IN PARIS
Ida J
Artcover: EEKROTICA
Copyright: BERLINABLE UG
Berlinable invites you to leave all your fears behind and dive into a world where sex is a tool for self-empowerment.
Our mission is to change the world - one soul at a time.
When people accept their own sexuality, they build a more tolerant society.
Words to inspire, to encourage, to transform.
Open your mind and free your deepest desires.
All rights reserved. It is not permitted to copy, distribute or otherwise publish the content of this eBook without the express permission of the publisher. Subject to changes, typographical errors and spelling errors. The plot and the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to dead or living people or public figures is not intended and are purely coincidental.
Paris - not a place I’ve previously warmed to. I had a miserable trip there ten years ago with an ex who insisted on working for the whole trip, leaving me to walk around Paris alone. I paid for the trip and he shouted at me for not bringing jam home when I went out to get croissants.
But now, it’s been years since I’ve been there and I’m eager to see the place again, so I suggest it to Jared. And, being the maximalist that he is, he insists that it must be for Valentine’s Day.
Before I can remonstrate, he’s rented a charming apartment in the 11th arrondissement and bought the Thalys tickets.
It’s been a week or two since out last sex adventure, out of curiosity I google the sex clubs of Paris. Turns, out, true to stereotype, there are many. This is actually rather unexpected for me, I associate the sex club much more with the Netherlands and Germany. I am very curious to see what the French equivalent is like. Whether the buffets offer foie gras rather than bitterballen. There’s always a fucking buffet. Usually this kind of thing is not my scene, but out of a theist for adventure I keep going back, hoping (usually in vain) for one of those magical times when it’s actually good, when you meet a person or two you actually fancy and who fancies you too.
Some of them actually look good, bar the idiotic gender normative requirement for women to wear skirts or dresses… I send Jared a couple of possibilities, suggesting we should check one out while we’re there. His eyes light up at the thought. Always down for trouble, this one.
We arrive late on a Thursday night. The apartment is charmingly old-fashioned, worn wood floors, a battered brown sofa, a kitchen suit made of wood with glass-fronted cupboards, brass taps. The drapes at the tall windows are musty orange velvet, there is an old wood bed and a tiny bathroom. It feels extremely Paris. My imagination runs wild, I’m a writer in Paris in the 30s, perhaps I’m Jean Rhys, or ideally Anais Nin. We head out to a nearby bar, I’m keen to show him the kind of bar I spent time in as a teenager. It’s weird, but nice speaking French again, I so rarely get to practice it. The next day I insist on a trip to the Centre Pompidou, which I remember as the highlight of my last trip there. I’ve been talking it up and I hope Jared likes it as much as I do. Turns out it’s still one of the more impressive art museums I’ve ever been to, and he’s duly impressed with it.
Later on, we decide to go to the Valentine’s Day special of the most upmarket-seeming club libertine. Its website is trying extremely hard to persuade visitors that the venue is the very height of class. It lists egregious prices and its website is decked out in lavender, with language as flowery as the design, all talk of seduction and temptation. The dress code irks me automatically, suits for men, heels and skirts for women. It even specifies that women in trousers or flats will not be admitted, likewise for men in jeans or trainers. Shows how far I’m willing to go for a genuinely good sex club, that I put up with this heteronormative bullshit, and very uncomfortable shoes, in the name of a potential good time.
We arrive at the unmarked door, it’s chichi enough that it has designated taxi parking. We ring the bell at the interior door. Wait a second with baited breath. The doorman is discreet, well-dressed. He speaks fluent English, so I don’t need to translate. Have you been here before? No drinks in the darkrooms, a few other ground rules. He gives us our card for drinks and waves us off down the red staircase into the caverns below.
The interior is incredible, lush padded velvet walls, scintillating low lights giving the impression of candles. You walk down a staircase to get to the labyrinth of bars and darkrooms. There is a table filled with lavish delicacies - towers of macarons, huge bowls of cherries, dainty chocolates on elaborate dishes. Beats a greasy sausage any day of the week. The red velvet padding covers every wall, it’s like being inside an orifice, no accident, I assume.
The bar/dancefloor area has the atmosphere of a wedding. Couples in fancy attire, women in dresses and heels, men in suits, music mid-calibre DJ at Burning man circa three years ago (and later on, French pop hits that would be exactly the kind of thing played at this lot’s dull-ass weddings). The crowd is attractive enough, but in a rather conventional way. It’s a weird velvet wedding arsehole full of the kind of people who want to ‘spice up their sex life’.
It’s around midnight and people are still filtering in, though the place is fairly well-populated already. Couples sit at the tables arranged around the side of the room, scanning the scene, eyeing up the others there. It’s civilised, rather than sleazy. We take our card to the bar - no bags in here, you pay for your drinks when you leave. A gigantic bowl of fat black cherries sits on the bar. Jared does the honours, ordering prosecco. The bartender stops him. “Champagne”. Two glasses of champagne procured (because god forbid we drink prosecco in Paris!) and we’re off, touring the bar and dance floor area. Everything lit in shades of red and pink. We spot a reasonably attractive young couple, I hear her English accent from a mile away. He is French, clearly showing his English girlfriend the sights of Paris. She is tall, slightly awkward and somewhat bemused. We pass them several times. When I finally do say hello, asking (in what I think is a friendly tone) whether they’re having a good night, he reacts as though facing me down. Yes, very nice thanks. With a politely disdainful look, the conversation is closed and they move on with their night.
***It’s decidedly not my vibe, incredibly straight, all straight couples looking to swap. We’re the only people there with tattoos. That almost never happens to me these days. I fucking hate it, but it’s ludicrously expensive to get in, perhaps I just need more booze. I curse my ailing judgement for thinking this was a place I might ever want to set foot in. But I feel like now I have to try and make something of it, if only for Jared’s sake. At least these days I feel able to tell him this kind of thing, rather than soldiering on joylessly, attempting to have a good time. Amazing, the bullshit we put ourselves through in the name of a good time, the die-hard hedonists reading this will laugh in recognition of their own tendencies. So I tell him I hate it, hate its boring conventionalism. I feel dreadfully out of place, with my short hair and tattoos. There isn’t even another woman here with short hair, that’s how old-school it is.
Finishing our drinks, we decide to do a tour through the dark rooms. Perhaps they’ll feel more promising, or I’ll somehow feel less out of place.
We enter via a cavern, containing toilets and a shower, all dark-tiled, very beautifully done. This corridor is darker than the bar area, with greenish lighting. Seated couples line the wall, which has a velvet-upholstered bench along it.
Passing through velvet curtains, we enter a sex area, with a nook containing a pole and a cushioned seat off to the left, a larger room bordered by built-in sofas to the right, with various sex nooks.
On this first tour, it’s not that busy. A pair of buttocks heaves in the corner, it’s too dark to see the recipient of their attention, but whoever it is sounds like they’re enjoying themselves. Another few couples sprawl on a bed area, an open shirt, an exposed cock, writhing and breathing hard. In another corner,