By JR
On the Sunday of our long weekend in New Orleans, our friend Alex held a barbecue for David and me, plus several other guys at his house. The house itself was in New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood, a great old section of the city largely free from tourists. It is a gritty area, with some rough blocks of row homes and the occasional restored Greek Revival mansion. Alex’s house was somewhere in the middle, a once ornate home in need of work, but full of charm and mystery in its worn state. Perhaps he preferred it that way, as the faded paint and rusted ironwork gave the home something of an erotic charge.
The stockpile of bondage gear and bondage-related artwork completed the scene, making the whole place feel like a porn film set. In the living room a distressed leather sofa sat near a gleaming standing metal cage. In the dining room there was a pool table where one might find a dining table, and the only chair was a contraption in the corner with a dozen or more leather straps, which happened to be occupied at the moment by a hooded and gagged figure. The courtyard held a serious grill and a picnic table, and also a St. Andrew’s Cross in the corner and numerous heavy duty eye hooks set into the paving and garden wall. There was a brick-bordered pool, which looked perfect for the heat of this summer weekend.
