[This is a memoir chapter from The Divine Absurdity of Love: A Memoir and a Novella ]
The party was called Éphémère, a Belle Epoque-themed party, in October 2013. It was hosted by my friend Philippe Lewis, one of the most experienced organizers of play parties in the Bay Area.
Ladies in feather hats and bodices filled the mansion in Sausalito, and men in three-piece suits wore ascot ties. I was there on, believe it or not, a quadruple date—three kinky witches, and me, all on a date with each other in some type of amorphous polyamorous configuration.
At the beginning of the party, we—the four mutual daters—sat in a circle, clasped our hands together in a big ball in the center, blessing the marijuana chocolates we were about to eat. (This was California, where we bless our marijuana.)
Visions of an orgiastic pile of Sapphic love had filled my mind when I organized this quadruple date. Before this vision was consummated, however, the marijuana chocolate hit me hard. I sauntered into a side room to take a sit down and collect myself.
At that moment, a woman sat down to an electric piano, facing the room. She said into the mic that her name was Adey Bell. A black garter peeked through slits of her tight black skirt, while a black corset with touches of red lace flourished upwards. Neck-length bangs with blonde highlights sloped up towards cropped dirty-blonde hair in the back. In the front, the light green of her eyes reflected the candle flickers of the room like flaming absinthe. All accented by… a top hat.
The first moments of her first song knocked me backward. I laid back on the carpet, as if I had been shocked by a river of electrified honey and champagne hitting my ears. By the middle of the first song I started twitching and trembling, in my place on the floor. I had witnessed many explicit sex acts that night already, and now I was the one being penetrated—by her music.
Adey sang: