The Velvet Rope Orgy

Like a thousand other cocktail parties that Saturday night, this one kicked off with polite introductions, chitchat and enough liquor to help guests loosen up. By three in the morning, however, the invitation-only gathering in a Manhattan loft had evolved into something else entirely.

Seven guests had commandeered a king-size bed, their candlelit naked bodies more entwined with one another than with the leather sheets. Blonde, brunette, thin, curvy, everyone touching, tasting, fucking. A model-attractive woman happily buried her mouth between another's long legs as a guy she had met two hours before pumped her from behind. A man slowly pulled out of his date and pressed against the lithe woman sucking her nipples. She lifted her leg slightly and he entered her. No foreplay. No stop signs. No big deal. Our hostess, far from being appalled, looked on proudly, one hand caressing a champagne flute, the other a firm female ass. "Look how beautiful," she purred. "Everything is just right. See why I work so hard? Everyone is fucking."

Indeed, this orgy didn't just happen--it was meticulously organized and carefully orchestrated. If you were there, it was because you had already passed several unspoken tests and been judged sufficiently hip--and hot--to have sex with equally stylish strangers. And if you were a guy, it was because a beautiful woman had allowed you to tag along. The new velvet-rope orgy scene blossoming in cities across America is not only highly exclusive, it's also driven by the sexual curiosity of young female trendsetters, successful in-crowd beauties who want to walk, and rut, on the wild side before life gets too damn boring. And me? Well, I was one of them.

Real Players don't Wear Panties

It began with Karyn, a friend I ran into at a coffee shop one morning. We'd shared details of our sex lives before, and her telltale glow meant she'd just gotten laid. At first she didn't want to give up details, so I figured it must be good. (For the record, Karyn is hot--toned, with long wavy hair.) Between puffs on her Gitane, she confessed that the night before, she and her fiancé had attended a sex party in a suite at a luxury hotel in Midtown. "It was good. Really good," she said. "The men were polite and the women all had fun." Wide-eyed, I asked if she had made out with a girl. Karyn's eyes got fuzzy, and I got the picture.

I was intrigued. I'd heard whispers about a new sex scene. I'd never seriously considered attending an orgy--I wasn't even aware they still existed--but this one sounded enticingly glamorous. Karyn was no more sexually adventurous than I was, right? I pestered her for weeks, and finally she introduced me to Gabriella, a beautiful 30-year-old half-Italian, half-Cuban interior designer. As a player on the burgeoning Manhattan sex party scene, Gabriella could grant me entrée--or not. When we met, she told me her own story, probably to judge my reaction.

Gabriella, I learned, has always liked playing with women, and her boyfriend, Ron, likes to watch. "We used to go to bars and try to pick up women," she said. "At first it was fun. But with threesomes you worry that the single woman is going to fall in love with you--or try to steal your man." So they looked for young couples more like themselves: people happy in their relationships but wanting to experiment. They checked out personal ads on alt.matchmaker.com and nerve.com. Most wanted to full-swap, which involves the women having sex with each other's partners. Gabby and Ron were only after girl-on-girl stuff, followed by V and E--voyeurism and exhibitionism (having sex in front of the other couple). Gabby calls this "same-room play." Plus, she told me bluntly, most of the couples "just weren't good-looking enough."

So Gabby took charge. Using a Yahoo e-mail group, she sent invitations to the first meeting of a social club she dubbed Rendezvous. In months the group grew to 80 screened couples who met at upscale bars. Eventually, a Rendezvous member took over the reins, changed the name to Flirt and started charging $60 per couple. At the end of our chat, Gabby invited me to the next Flirt event. I was in! Or so I thought.

Two weeks later Flirt members gathered at a plush lounge called Lava Gina (La Vagina, get it?). When I arrived, Gabby waved me over as Ron jumped up to fetch cocktails. She smiled and said, "At Flirt, the women are in control. It has to be that way. Otherwise the men are all just animals."

Thirty couples, some regulars, some newcomers, all young, fit and richly groomed, circulated in the red glow. They swapped numbers and made play dates. Many, especially the newbies, seemed unaware that this was merely the casting call for the main attraction. As all its party invitations emphasize, Flirt is a starting point, not a destination.

Preparties are key to maintaining the necessary snob factor for today's sexual crusaders. A couple (you must be part of a couple, no single guys allowed) who are adventurous enough to show up have no guarantee of an invitation to an afterparty. They must look and feel right before they are plucked out of the crowd. Still, the anticipation that something wilder was about to take place added a palpable erotic tension.

A tall, spectacular creature walked to the center of the room, balancing a pink cocktail in a slender hand. She had a taut body and long blonde hair. "Have you met Ashley?" Gabby asked, pulling me to her. We kissed lightly on the cheek. I complimented her shoes. Ashley flirted back, saying I had beautiful eyes. Her boyfriend, Seth, excused himself to the bar.

"I usually don't wear underwear," she announced abruptly. "But we just came from dinner with some conservative friends." She handed me her cocktail, reached under her vintage peasant skirt and deftly produced a turquoise thong, twirling it around her finger. Seth returned with the drinks and we found a booth near the back. Ashley, a 29-year-old architect, told me how a year ago, while in LA on business, she got drunk and fell into a threesome. She called Seth, a corporate lawyer, at five A.M. to confess. But instead of being angry, he was excited. They decided to seek out new sexual experiences. That's how they found Flirt.

As she spoke, she eyed a couple dirty-dancing nearby. "Some couples get around a little too much. People call me arrogant and a prude, but I wouldn't have sex with anyone who can't get into Bungalow 8." Glancing at the turquoise panties sitting on the table, it was hard to imagine anyone calling Ashley a prude, but her offhand remark cut straight to a prime characteristic of the new swinging scene. Where earlier sexual pioneers were strongly tied to the counterculture, these new swingers are part of the establishment. Even when engaging in wildly promiscuous acts, it's imperative to remain selective, especially if you're young, rich and beautiful. It's not so much what you do--it's who you do. It's Roman decadence combined with a high school popularity contest.

Ashley said I should join her and Seth for "a private party sometime." I scribbled down my phone number, then found Gabby with a pair of newcomers. They wore gold wedding bands and wanted to swap with another couple.

"Have you swapped before?" I asked.

"No," the man answered.

"But we're excited to give it a try," the wife said brightly.

Her husband didn't look excited. Bold with alcohol, I asked, "How would you feel if another man gave your wife a better orgasm than you?"

His head jerked back as if I'd punched him. "Whoa! That would not be good."

As we moved on, Gabby whispered that they obviously weren't going to be invited to any after-parties. A full swap right off the bat was too advanced for most of this crowd, and she considered blurting such a request inappropriate and tacky, like doing the funky chicken when everyone else is waltzing. With this crew, there's no greater faux pas than evoking the stereotypical images of Seventies swingers--the middle-aged, fat guy with a disco medallion buried in his chest hair, and his pantsuited partner in too much makeup, with baked ziti on her breath.

The last couple I met at the bar were Matt and Kelly. She had a sorority girl's blonde bob and wore a short red skirt and heels. Matt wore jeans and a sports coat. It was their first Flirt party.

"I've never been with a girl before," Kelly said. "But all my friends have at least kissed girls, and I want to know what it's like."

"I'd like to see that!" Matt said.

Girl Meets Girl

Around 11 that night, Ron slipped napkins on which he'd scribbled an address into the palms of a select few. He hailed a cab and held the door. I got in with Gabby, who also had Kelly in tow. Ron and Matt followed in another cab to a turn-of-the-century building. The elevator opened onto a spacious penthouse. I felt weak in the knees. I could no longer pass as an observer, a tourist; here I was expected to participate.

A busty blonde in a white lamé top served champagne. Above a fireplace, a flat-screen TV played an erotic video that nobody bothered to watch. Gabby, Kelly and I settled onto a leather couch, with me in the middle. Matt and Ron stood behind, trying to look casual. Three other couples from Lava Gina sat around the room. One was holding hands on a love seat. Two others were across from us on a sofa. The women, a busty Asian girl in a slinky red dress and a Nordic goddess in black, sat close, smiling and stroking each other's hair. A joint was passed. Then another. The conversation drifted into laughs and whispers, then lulled while the hostess lit candles. Aaliyah's Rock the Boat filled the room: "Work the middle . . . work the middle." The room hummed with desire. Or maybe the humming was in my head. After drinking a bunch of those pink things at Lava Gina and all the French champagne my hosts could pour, I was feeling floaty. And aroused. All night I had been flirted with and flattered. I knew I was heading for. . . something. Other than an occasional halfhearted dalliance, I have never (continued on page 150)Velvet Rope Orgy(continued from page 84) been into women. But this wasn't some postkegger fumbling in a dorm room. These people projected an air of glamorous sexual adventure. It also didn't hurt that they were drop-dead gorgeous.

All attention turned to the two women on the sofa as their brushing lips pressed into a full kiss. Then they were undressing each other. The Asian woman was soon naked except for her high heels. She pulled away the blonde's black dress to reveal natural breasts sitting high and firm. The Asian girl kissed down her friend's belly before burying her face between two long legs.

Gabby's fingers found my thigh. I took her hand and squeezed. The women across the room grew louder, their moans mingling with the music. They slid onto the rug. Next to me, Matt was giving his girlfriend, Kelly, a back rub. Her eyes were closed, making her the only person in the room not focused on the floor show. "I'm so tense," she murmured. The two women seemed to resurface, shared a knowing look and crawled, catlike, toward Kelly. The blonde began massaging her all over while her friend kissed Kelly's neck.

Gabby slid to her knees, still holding my hand, which she placed firmly between Kelly's legs. It was warm and wet. The Asian girl kissed down Kelly's front, licked my fingers, then nuzzled my hand aside. The Nordic blonde was now behind Kelly, kissing her neck and shoulders. Her partner began working more intently between Kelly's legs, smoothly slipping off her panties. She planted her mouth on Kelly's pussy in a full, wet kiss.

As Kelly tossed her head and started moaning, Gabby led me to Ron, now sprawled on the rug. He was wearing boxers, an erection poking through the flap. "Do you like my boyfriend?" Gabby whispered, calmly placing my hand on her bare breast.

"No," I said. "I mean, yes, but I'm shy. I mean, I only like women." I was babbling. Still holding my hand, she pulled me down to my knees as she knelt to take Ron's cock in her mouth. I felt my resistance ebbing. Then I was exploring her body with my fingers. Sometimes she would pull away to kiss me, his taste still on her lips. In the middle of all this hazy lust, I heard Kelly's moans grow into a climax. Nearby, another voice began crying out--and then another.

As I replayed the orgy in my head over the next few days, what most struck me was how easily I had been led by the gentle persuasion of the female ringleaders. The most significant difference between today's swingers and baby boomer sexual trailblazers is that today the women set the agenda from start to finish. Indeed, the only men who got off at the loft orgy were with their usual mates; only the women got some strange, as the saying goes. Most women these days think nothing of curling up with their boyfriends and watching cable soft-core, which invariably depicts stylized threesomes, lesbianism and the occasional orgy. It's not such a huge step from the vicarious thrills of The Bachelor to playing voyeur--and more--in real life.

"Straight women are finding they can be intimate with other women without being identified as bisexual or lesbian," says Melinda Gallagher, a sexologist with a master's degree from New York University and co-founder of Cake, a Manhattan party series that doesn't throw orgies but does encourage women to indulge their fantasies--lap dances, stripteases--in public. "Girl-girl play is happening a lot at our parties." In fact, for college women with pretensions to hipness, getting it on with the girl from Psych 101 has become de rigueur. Never having at least made out with a girl is uncool, a bit like never having smoked pot. I met a lot of these women in the new sex-party scene. They're the ones who did it in college and liked it--and those who never did but are making up for lost time. Now they have access to a controlled environment in which it's safe to explore, where group sex is no more taboo than wearing last year's shoes.

The Toga-Less Party

Now baptized, I began exploring the orgy underground with the zeal of a teen still tasting her first French kiss. Several weeks later I was asked to another event. The buzz of my first Flirt party had worn off. I didn't want to go alone, so a friend set me up with an "open-minded gentleman." The next night he paid the cab driver outside a three-story brick building. At 10:30 p.m. we stepped inside. A muscled doorman appeared from the shadows.

"Help you?" he said flatly.

Startled, my date cleared his throat but only stuttered, "Um. . . ." It was a classic velvet-rope moment. But I knew the magic words.

"I've never slept with a virgin before," I said, and not bashfully.

The doorman ushered us to an elevator, which rose to a small foyer. A second doorman checked our names off a list. My date paid the $150 membership charge in cash. An attendant asked for our clothes. "Everything but the underwear," he said firmly. When we paused, he reassured us that we could retrieve condoms, lube or vibrators as often as we pleased. It apparently didn't occur to him that we might be hesitant about disrobing immediately upon entering an apartment filled with strangers.

Murmuring voices filtered through an open doorway. A curvy redhead in five-inch stiletto heels and a Roman headdress approached, holding a goblet overflowing with condoms. One luscious breast bobbled through the sheer red chiffon of her toga. "Oooh, you are attractive!" she said in a bedroom voice. Then she introduced herself as Palagia, our hostess. "After you have gotten undressed, I want to introduce you to some other sexy guests."

We stumbled out of our clothes, avoiding eye contact. In exchange, the attendant handed us each a wisp of chiffon--our togas for the evening. About a dozen couples turned to ogle us as we entered the room. We ogled back. It was a good-looking crowd, beautiful even. They were sitting upright in twos, sipping wine or martinis. The women wore lacy pushup bras, garters and thongs. Most of the men were in boxers. Some still wore their expensive watches.

My date and I settled onto a fur-covered mattress on the floor. I already knew that it's not easy to get a roomful of first-timers to shift gears from polite conversation to full-on fucking, so I was interested in seeing Palagia's technique. Prior to the party she'd requested that all the guests submit their fantasies by e-mail, and she was determined to put them into action. "Strip!" she commanded one shy couple, and they did.

Within two hours I was sitting next to a well-known local radio weatherman, watching a couple fuck on the bed in front of us. "She has a nice pussy," he said softly. The woman to whom this tidy package belonged bore a thrilling resemblance to Jennifer Love Hewitt and was riding a blonde surfer dude for all he was worth. Aroused by the compliment, she gave the weatherman a smile, tossed her head and came. A moment after she collapsed on surfer boy's chest in exhaustion, a sculpted leg felt tentatively for the floor. She tried to stand but was wobbly; her legs buckled and she fell onto us. We made room. "Thanks," she said, her skin glowing with a ridiculously sexy sheen.

At three a.m. things were still going strong, the thick musk of sex filling the apartment. I wasn't sure where my date was, and I didn't really care. Palagia, in a tiny thong, presided over the multi-orgasmic creation, especially the seven bodies writhing on the king-size bed. Red manicured fingertips reached out from the pulsing tangle, grasped Palagia's wrist and pulled her in, making room for one more.

An attractive couple had spent the entire evening holding hands off to the side of the action. She had long, straight blonde hair and said she was an actress. He owned an indie film production company. They had been dating for about two years. She watched avidly as three women fed one another strawberries and undressed each other. She turned and kissed her boyfriend, reaching a hand briefly into his shorts. Soon they stopped and went back to watching. Other guests approached them, but they seemed content to watch. On the way out she said they were going back to their hotel, where they would most likely have sex. Alone. "We like to talk dirty and play out different sexual scenarios," she said. "I think we saw enough tonight to keep us busy, don't you, honey?" They exchanged a smile and left. I identified with them. I was mostly a voyeur. The thing was, I couldn't stop looking.

Party Nation

As adventurous and slightly bored beautiful people search for the next big thing, promoters have built a niche by holding events where guests may share fantasies but not act on them. Even so, there is a huge market for these gatherings. Palagia has become the hostess of OneLegUp, which stages exclusive soirees for its members with names like Eyes Wide Open and KamaSutra in New York and Miami. OneLegUp plans to expand to London, Athens and Rome this year, and to launch a private-party service--so you don't even have to leave your house. Skin, produced by Michael Veneziano, throws one-night parties in upscale lounges and clubs across the country. Skin is like Flirt--it's a starting point. Veneziano is also the creator of Fling, weekend-long events that take over entire hotels, charging thoroughly vetted couples $400 to mingle with like-minded enthusiasts.

"I could fill any hotel three times over if we weren't so selective," Veneziano says. "It's pretty amusing, really. I look at the photographs these people submit through my website and I'm like, 'Uh-oh! No, no, no, OK.' Some are friendly-looking people, but they're just not attractive enough for a Fling party. I don't let anyone come to a Fling party who we haven't personally met, hasn't been referred by another member or hasn't submitted their photos. Only one in five who send in photos gets approved."

I've always had an active fantasy life, and now I had a stockpile of erotic images to last me well into the future. But I kept going back. The preparties, the cocktails, the flirting--though I never felt entirely comfortable, I ended up going to a late-night group-sex gathering about once a month.

Sometimes I looked, sometimes I touched, but I always came away with another indelible image. One night, at a white-lingerie party in a spacious Tribeca penthouse, I met a petite, busty brunette who I'll call Julie. She was 22, had just graduated from art school and hoped to fulfill a major fantasy: Julie wanted to have sex with two men at once and was determined to do it before she fell in love "for real" and settled down. Going through an online dating service, where she used the nickname Sandwich Filling, she met Jim, who agreed to help her achieve her fantasy. Now Julie was naked on all fours on a mattress. A young man was kneeling behind her, bracing her hips. She arched her back and lowered her head. He entered her and started thrusting gently. Her date, Jim, had just finished giving another woman an orgasm on a nearby couch. When he spotted Julie kneeling, he got up and removed his condom. Still stiff, he approached Julie from the front and she took him into her mouth. This was their second date.

Ten minutes after she swallowed and her other partner pulled out, Julie was ebullient. "It was great!" she said. "Better than I had imagined. I'd like to keep doing it, but the guys all seem pretty tired." It was 4:30 a.m. Sleepy myself, I looked around. At every party you have a fair share of dabblers, dedicated voyeurs, women who want to explore other women, couples who play but don't fuck and couples who are ready for everything. It's like a bell curve of involvement, and I had to decide where I fit in. I had never quite relived the lovely sense of anticipation I'd felt at the first Flirt party and I hadn't had a real date in months (you know, dinner-date-and-a-movie--anything that didn't end with a real-life reenactment of Caligula). Something had to give.

Requiem for a Fantasy

These thoughts were in the back of my mind when I found myself in a hotel suite one evening about six months after my first orgy. Nothing fancy, no special costumes or atmosphere. I followed a couple as they fucked in all three rooms of the suite. They started early--before the rest of the guests even had a chance to get comfortable. First he went down on her on a rug in the middle of the living room. A crowd of two dozen, still clothed and sipping fresh cocktails, gathered to gawk. Then she returned the favor by the bar. Later, in the bedroom, as things were heating up and a few other couples frolicked, the pair got boisterous on a chaise lounge. She moaned and laughed loudly. He called her his "good little girl." Up slowly, down fast. Over and over.

When I pulled myself away, I ran into Ashley and Seth, one of the couples I'd met at my first Flirt party. They had just returned from an event at a hotel in Miami, a weekend-long fuckfest for 300 select guests. The party started with cocktails on Thursday evening and peaked on Saturday night with an orgy. The group sex spread like an oil slick--it started in a penthouse suite, then moved into the halls and even worked its way down to the lobby. The staff hung netting along the street in case sex on the balconies got out of control.

"I was stunned by all the beautiful women," Ashley reported. "They looked like they came straight out of a Hollywood premiere party. Everyone was having sex with everyone. I looked down from the balcony of the penthouse suite and saw five or six women having sex on a terrace."

"It was out of control," Seth said. "One guy got a blow job from three women by the mineral pool. When they finally finished him off, the whole place erupted in applause. There were a hundred people clapping for this guy."

Ashley and Seth had once disdained full swapping but had come back from the weekend hotel sex party impressed with "how advanced" the crowd was, meaning how much beyond just girl-girl and same-room play the action went. "Some of these people have been doing this for three, four years now," she said. "It was a real eye-opener. We came home thinking, Well, what's the big deal about a full swap?"

Several couples I'd met in the beginning of the year were now progressing to full swaps. The women, after eating so much pussy, were longing for cock--and not their boyfriends'. And their men were primed for sex. Real sex. These couples were often arrogant about their newfound sophistication, as if full swapping put them above the newbie girl-players and voyeurs.

In fact, Ashley and Seth were about to full-swap with another couple right then. I told myself I was watching to be polite, but I'm not too sure about that. Afterward, Ashley confessed that they had been on a sex binge for the past two weeks, and that she was looking forward to some scheduled dental surgery because it would give them a chance to rest. When a root canal is more appealing than sex, I thought, something has gone wrong. That was my last orgy.

It felt good to be part of the in crowd for a while. Everybody wants to be accepted as one of the cool kids. It was flattering to be desired by such good-looking people--with no agenda other than pleasure. I got to see some incredibly erotic, mesmerizing, alluring stuff--bodies entwined in unimaginable configurations, kissing, touching, wanting more. In the end, however, I realized I didn't want to become part of the weekend-sex-retreat scene, to have group sex become my defining lifestyle choice. Instead, I was like most people who participate in the new orgies--I had done it and enjoyed it, but now I was getting back to my real life. I went on dates and met a guy. If my new boyfriend ever asks me about my sexual exploits, I'll tell him. And if he wants to experience an orgy himself. . . I still have the right people's phone numbers in my book.

She handed me her drink, reached under her skirt and produced a turquoise thong, twirling it on her finger.

"Some of these people have been doing this for three or four years now."