The Club - an Excerpt from The Playground

I have agreed, enthusiastically in fact, to accompany my three muses to a club tonight, and by club, I mean a swing club. They are taking me to a secluded, out-of-the-way retreat in rural Pennsylvania which is not far from my sons' college. I feel both bad and weird about being this close to them without saying hello, but A) they would probably be mortified if my girlfriends and I descended on their campus on a Saturday night and B) they are going to be home for the holidays next weekend anyway. I nearly forgot Point C, which is that they better be studying their asses off for finals.

I feel like we are driving forever, give or take a few miles. Twists, turns, hills (which we don't have in our neck of the woods) carry us closer and closer to our destination. Finally, there's an obscured gravel lane leading to a big warehouse sort of building. At first I'm like, whoa, that place looks scary and deserted, but then we drive behind the building into a large parking lot. It wraps around a smaller building with a porch decorated with strands of blue and green Christmas lights. The neon sign hanging off the porch says "Paradise" in green and blue lights and is accompanied by a tropical flower and a pink flamingo. I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, or southeastern Pennsylvania for that matter.

"How the hell did you find out about this place?" Brandi asks Shanna the question dominating the rest of our minds.

"My friends Joan and Patrick own it," she answers. "They just bought it last year and remodeled, so the doors have only been open a few months now. I kept promising to come up and check it out. So here we are!"

The club has a holiday theme tonight, so we're all sporting bags with our "costumes" to change into. I am not sure how, but they talked me into buying a skimpy red velvet babydoll with white marabou trim around the neckline and flouncy bottom, which barely, and I do mean barely covers my ass. I will have to survey the situation and probably down a drink or two before I will even consider putting it on. Up until that point, I'm wearing a fairly unassuming black wrap dress with little red roses on it. It's not entirely un-christmasy, but it certainly covers plenty of skin.

The hostess is wearing a sexy elf costume. Sexy elf seems like an oxymoron to me, but to each her own, I suppose. She jingles as she gives us a tour of the club, taking special care to point out all the bathrooms and the hot tub room. There's also an area with couches and pool tables, a night-club area with the bar and a stage, a dining room with a food service counter and buffet, and a hallway with a dozen or so bedrooms for playing. She demonstrates how they are equipped with condoms, towels, extra sheets, and so on. One has a sex swing. Another has a Sybian, which Shanna says she will explain later. I feel like I'm being inducted into the strangest summer camp experience of my life.

The decor of the club stays true to the tropical theme established via the neon sign out front. Staff members are festooned with leis and offer leis to guests as they arrive, which is putting off a real Christmas in Hawaii vibe. The night club area furniture is upholstered in a vibrant flower print and bamboo curtains separate some of the play areas in the bigger rooms. The hot tub room is a veritable oasis with two rock-lined tubs, faux palm trees decorated with white lights and strings of colorful paper lanterns hanging overhead.

Our elven hostess, Dawn, asks if we have any questions before turning us loose in the club. "Are Joan and Patrick here?" Shanna asks. "I was hoping to say hi to them. I'm an old friend."

"Of course!" Dawn smiles. "Wait here."

We have returned to the small lobby where another sexy elf, this one male, is processing our membership paperwork. I can't believe everything that has to be filled out, including a non-disclosure agreement. I wonder if anyone balks at providing the proper identification? I might care more if I were in Maryland but I've been told that what happens in PA, stays in PA. We'll see about that!

After a few minutes, the beaded curtain parts and in walks a couple whom I presume to be Joan and Patrick. Joan looks like she could be Shanna's older sister with impossibly long legs propped up on 70's style platform shoes. They're sparkly gold and match her sparkly gold dress. She just needs some Farrah Faucett hair, and she would look exactly like a dancer on the classic television program Solid Gold. Her partner, Patrick, is a short, wiry man in a three-piece black suit, complete with sparkly gold tie and vest, with a thin, dark mustache and thick glasses. I expect to see a gold chain to complete the look, but fail to find it and I'm slightly disappointed by that. Shanna throws her arms around him, almost knocking him to the ground. Then he stands in between Shanna and Joan as if he's at the height of ecstasy (pardon the pun). With them in their crazy high heels, he comes right up to their boobs.

"So, introduce us to all your friends!" Joan schmoozes, giving us all the once over with her heavily made-up eyes.

"This is Amanda, she's the pretty one," Shanna begins to introduce us from left to right. "This is Brandi, she's the crazy one!" Then she gestures toward me. "And this is Journey. She's our newbie and the funny one of the group!" I feel like we should each be doing a little curtsy as we're presented to the Queen of Disco.

"Please, call me Josie," I say, wondering how many women there are named Journey in the Great State of Pennsylvania. I'm going to guess zero, and I'm also going to try to get my real name out of their heads before the weirdness-of-it factor starts to set in. Also, I'm the funny one? I'd rather be the smokin' hot one but I guess funny will have to do. To have a shot at the smokin' hot title, I'm probably going to have to put on the aforementioned velvet and marabou get-up. Awesome.