Curious about her sexuality post-divorce, editor Lucy Roeber attended her first sex party not really knowing what to expect. And what she found was intriguing, to say the least.
It was only as the taxi turned into the long drive that I realised how nervous I was. Having an old girlfriend from school by my side was comforting, but the night seemed to stretch out endlessly on either side of the road. In the distance, I saw the great, pale mansion illuminated as car headlights swung round and deposited passengers. Aged 48, I was about to arrive at my first orgy.
As the new editor of Erotic Review, which I’ve just relaunched as a print magazine after 14 years off the presses, I’m invited to all manner of book launches and gallery openings. I say yes to only a handful, but the invitation to a Killing Kittens (killingkittens.com) party was too intriguing to refuse.
This hedonistic, members-only organisation, which was founded in 2005, hosts up to three gatherings a month in the UK, with additional soirees overseas. On this particular night, I was going to the ‘Country Mansion’ – a masked black-tie sex party for over 800 people.
I’ve heard London is fast becoming the sex-party capital of the world, and throughout the city you can find anything from fetish techno nights to feral dreamscapes. I’ve always been curious about how people explore sexual desire and feel there isn’t a serious platform for looking into this, which is why I took the opportunity to start a new chapter in the Erotic Review’s 30-year history. I’ve spent my life writing and editing, including two historical novels, which I penned in the shed at the end of my garden. But this was a major new step.
As a divorced mother of three teenagers in her late 40s, I’m open and curious about myself beyond the parameters of a 16-year heterosexual, monogamous marriage. People have been going to orgies for millennia, so perhaps I might love it. Maybe anonymous nights like this might suit me and provide an answer to balancing single parenthood with pleasure.
Yet as the taxi pulled up outside the stately pile near Wokingham, Berkshire, I realized that I was nervous about what might happen, whether I’d hate it – or whether I’d never want to leave.
Once inside, we waited in a long queue for the bar, among male and female couples of all ages, dressed in sequins and bow ties, uncomfortable strappy heels and lipstick, smart pointed shoes and fitted jackets. I guessed most people were in their 30s, but all eyes were hidden behind masks. Our fellow revellers seemed comfortable, subtly scanning the room for acquaintances or perhaps potential interest. There was a definite frisson of excitement.
The MC grabbed the microphone and started ramping things up, but everyone was already talking excitedly amongst themselves. I saw a handsome couple whispering in each other’s ears, laughing, the woman’s black hair twisted into a bun. The MC was talking about consent, how you couldn’t touch another person without asking permission and men couldn’t proposition women.
Outside, people sat in groups on wicker chairs, breath puffing out with the cold or cigarette smoke. I was glad I’d worn a tuxedo, even though I seemed to be the only woman to do so.
“Are you a couple?” a young woman in a tight black dress asked.
“No, old friends from school.”
She laughed amiably with her female companions. “I wouldn’t come here with anyone from my school!”
“It’s our first time,” I said, and she offered to explain things. She agreed it was a very heterosexual party and the majority of people were couples, but said people come here in all combinations. She and her two friends liked attending single, as it could be a complicated business with a new boyfriend, not knowing how they might respond.
I asked when the party started and she explained the ‘playrooms’ opened around 10pm. Not wearing a watch and under strict instructions to keep my phone sealed in a cloth bag, on pain of being blacklisted, we weren’t sure when to proceed. Then there was a sound from inside, a rush like the release of air.
“They must be open,” our new friend chirped. “Sorry. Got to run. I want to be first in the queue for the dominatrix.” And she skipped in, waving as she went.
By the time we followed her inside, about 20 per cent of the people had disappeared upstairs. The stairs swept up from the ground floor and a polite guard in a suit was there making sure men weren’t going up alone. I watched wistfully as a handsome young man with a diamond earring swung his partner over his shoulder and strode up the stairs.
We calmed our anxiety dancing in the ballroom, where the crowd was singing along to “Billie Jean” and “Dancing Queen”. It felt almost like a wedding.
Eventually, my friend gave me a look and I knew we were going upstairs. It was the same look she used to give me when we were underage teenagers queuing to get into a club, a sort of emboldened glance that said: “We are going in, let’s see what happens.”
Arriving upstairs, I saw a couple deep in conversation on a red two-person sofa in the hallway. It was only as I got closer that I saw his hand moving under her dress. We started in the room on the far right; there was a bowl on a table outside spilling over with condoms.
The first room seemed enormous, with low lighting and three large double beds with fitted red sheets pushed together in the centre. On each double bed there were perhaps 10 naked people, mainly in couples. There were people undressing or simply standing around. We moved to the next room, where two men and a woman were engaged in a ménage. I realised later it was the only time all evening I saw men together.
There were another three rooms with nothing but beds in them. I saw the man who’d carried his partner upstairs on his knees in front of her, and looked away. At the end of the corridor was the dominatrix room, where a naked woman was strapped to a table facing away from me, the ‘dom’ in latex gently stroking her pale body with a whip. I couldn’t tell if it was the friendly woman from the smoking area. And finally, a dungeon with various hoists, but it seemed a little self-conscious – or perhaps I was.
We headed back downstairs, where the crowd seemed liberated and yet entirely mundane; they could have been talking about mortgages. There were clearly parameters here, an etiquette that could only be learnt by assimilation. I had a similar feeling when I went skiing for the first time aged 40 – there was a whole hidden culture, fashion and language.
Over the following two and a half hours, I went back upstairs another five times. I leant on door frames, trying to understand the patterns of behaviour, then moving on before I felt too voyeuristic. I realised many couples came here to be with one another in public, rather than share themselves around.
It seemed that once on the bed, you could turn to one side and join in – with the other people’s verbal or non-verbal consent. As the night progressed, the beds became so crowded with flesh you could no longer see the red sheets, just body parts moving, heaving, pumping, punctuated by the sound of female whimpering and wailing. The sound made me think of the cultural impact porn has had on our sex lives.
Sitting outside at 1am, a bit earlier than the party ended, we were waiting on a low wall outside the venue for a taxi. My friend was pleased because she’d at least snogged the DJ. I was pleased my fears had been unfounded; I’d kept my clothes on all night and, as men couldn’t proposition, I didn’t have to have any awkward conversations.
Indeed, it surprised me my body hadn’t loosened up, being among a sea of people having sex. I’d found it neither arousing nor grotesque but strangely touching; a group of enthusiasts happy to find others who share their inclinations.
I was left thinking contemporary Britain is far more open to variations outside conventional lines, and yet it still had the feeling of a secret society. The people I spoke to seemed genuinely thrilled they could freely engage with what actually turns them on. But I doubt they’d sit down for a drink with work colleagues on a Friday night and talk about the orgy they went to last weekend.
“Can I have a drag?” a pretty woman with a fur coat and extraordinarily high heels asked my friend. “It was my first time,” she confided, blowing out smoke. “And I just don’t know what to make of it. I think maybe I’m just vanilla.”
“Well, it was our first time and it didn’t do anything for us, either. I think it’s simply a matter of preference rather than a specific flavour,” I said.
“You see?” She turned triumphantly to the man sitting beside her. “Not everyone wants to do it in public.”
Their taxi pulled up and she handed the cigarette back, tottering into the cab with her husband’s arm around her.