Given the exorbitant cost of club entry, drinks and a cab across London, we thought why not try a bit of sex tourism... get out of London... it can't be any more hassle, or cost that much more...and the outside London clubs get rave reviews. So after dipping our toes into the provincial pond with a trip to Manchester's Lash, we booked tickets for the Christmas Party at Rapture, a Roissy-organised club 12 miles south of Birmingham.

As the do was billed as a Christmas Extravaganza, seasonal attire was obviously de rigeur so visits were made to Erotica and Homebase for various additions to the pervy wardrobe. The Domly one refused, for some unfathomable reason, to dress up as a pixie, but I got my chance to be an angel, almost 20 years after being turned down in infant school, for being too small. Over my more normal rubber gear, I wore a gothy black angel frock, black feather wings and a silver halo. The Domly one stuck to leather, though I took along a spare tea towel in case he had a last minute urge to join the pervy nativity.

As is the way of the world, an attempt to leave London at lunchtime and be in Balsall Common late afternoon turned into a mammoth 2-hour grind across London, a crawl up the M1 and our disappearance into an infinite-time-space regression somewhere South of Coventry. Let it be noted here that any person intending to source their life's love via the Informed Consent Website, as I did, should settle not for a handsome, sexy and seductive bit of stuff with a nice line in pervy play equipment, if he also turns out to be a navigationally challenged non-map reader who can only mumble obscure pleas to some lesser god as we swing gaily round the Berkswell roundabout for the seventh time, to the bewonderment of the West Midlands' traffic.

It was to my amazement that we did actually find our accommodation, the quaintly named Lavender Hall Farm. As all rooms in their guest lodge were booked up by perves, we presumed they knew what we were about... and if they didn't to start with, they did after a chat outside out room, with an open door revealing a huge pile of whips, leather, rubber, chains and assorted ironmongery.

At the assigned hour I knocked smartly on the door of the next room, inhabited by some friends who were providing our carriage for the evening. After no answer despite repeated knocks, a mobile-to-mobile phone call and hasty consultation, the door swung open to reveal the girly in question adorned in something more akin to a Persil advert than Hades dungeon. Yes, she was still in the shower!

One disconsolate be-winged angel paces up and down in her highest boots, brandishing a big stick and thinking unsubly thoughts. All dressed up and nowhere to go!

Eventually the assembled throng are decanted into a car and delivered to the venue, Caesars. A quick check at the door by Father Christmas, and we were in! Caesars must be one of the best venues you could imagine for a fetish club. There is no dance area, the whole place is basically play space with plenty of seats, clean loos and very reasonable bar prices. Most memorable of all is the Roissy play equipment. Forget about a couple of manky-looking whipping benches with empty beer glasses all round and a fragile-looking St Andrew's cross. Roissy's kit is more akin to a deviant adventure playground, and the only difficulty is choosing which bits to leap on first. The music is mellow, there is a noticeable absence of weird-looking single men and the whole place is just so friendly... the friends we were with had not been to a club before and they seemed quite relaxed sitting down and lapping it all up.

We had arranged to buy a black box, a new kind of electrical toy, and after taking delivery and having a quick demo we chose ourselves a comfortable looking bit of kit for a brief spot of exercise... well, he exercised, with a selection of whips... I was not up for much though I was nearly tempted into a quick Irish jig at one point... (an in-joke after I went into Riverdance mode at Torture Garden while we were playing and there was a sudden change in the musical accompaniment). I just lay there and absorbed the atmosphere...

It hardly seemed that we had finished with that and arrived back in this plane of reality, that it was 1.30 am and time to think about wending our way. One downer about out of London clubs is the 2 am end time, though they do start promptly enough, with no holding back by the denizens of the deep until the witching hour is reached. The frolicking seems to be well underway by 10 o'clock.

So it was back to our room, where we experimented happily for a few hours with our new toy, the black box. This gizmo lets the hard-working one (hereafter known as the Dom) send little electric shocks out of their tongue or finger into the lapping-it-all-up one (or sub) and means that any sudden bursts of agony seem to affect all participants equally! Jolly good. Equal Opportunities Sadism.

Saturday didn't get underway until late. We had a bright idea to go into Birmingham, and although this let us do a bit of last minute Christmas shopping and say hi to the local perves at the Bound2Gether Munch, we had another few roundabout moments as we careered back and forth across the city centre with the Domly one trying to work out which way up to hold the map.

Hopes were high for a night of high-jinks and wickedness, but instead after a shower and Casualty on TV we both dozed off... I was woken in the morning by a vision in apricot... the Domly one had found a fetching terry dressing gown from somewhere and was busying himself with making tea.

We popped back to Birmingham for a quick browse around the Birmingham Bizarre Bazaar, bought a couple of bits and bobs and headed back to London after catching part of the Pervy Panto.

Traffic was much lighter and by 9pm we were fed, watered and trying out our roll of Flexisex bondage tape. Trust me... rolling 40 metres of tape back onto the reel is no easy task!

So all in all, a fun weekend away. We'll be back!!

Useful links:
Rapture (Rapture tickets 0121 602 1316 10 in advance)

Rapture is held at Caesars, Kenliworth Rd, Balsall Common. 15 miles South of Birmingham, BR Berkswell, between Birmingham and Coventry.

Brum Bazaar

B2G munch

This article first appeared on the LondonFetishScene site.