Way back in the day, when I first discovered BDSM and the kink lifestyle, one of the first people I had the good fortune to meet was Mistress Lady Lori. Lori ran a club in Farmingdale on Long Island called appropriately – “Lady Lori’s Dark Castle”. But most of us just called it “The Castle”.

I remember the first night I poked my head into the place asking if I could just take a peek around and I immediately fell in love with the place. So much so that when I got to work at my travel agent job in the mall the next day I saw a pair of tall wrought iron candle sticks and knew that they would be PERFECT for the Castle! So I bought them for something like $75, went back to the Castle that night and presented them to Lori as a gift and basically told her I was moving in. LOL! Yes, she laughed – probably wondered if I was going to be some weird stalker person but fortunately for me, she took a risk and took me under her wing.

I was still such a newbie in those days and still had only minimal experience as a bottom / submissive and no experience at all as a domina. Lori became my mistress and started teaching me a lot of what she knew. In fact, before too long I was being called upon to learn topping skills and under her supervision. I began co topping some of the single guys that were coming to the club.

Once I had a good grasp of the basics I would help the club by entertaining some of the male club clientele. Back then we called it “pick a sub at random mode” and I would simply select someone from the seating area and tell them to get naked and get on the cross. After they picked their jaw up from the floor and scurried to the cross, I would proceed to do just a basic flogging and light tease play. I should be ashamed to say there was very little or no negotiation back then, but I always kept the mini scenes light and playful enough that I never crossed limits or did any damage. As my skills grew and word got out, there were more and more eager, hopeful gents to choose from which were the club’s “bread and butter”.

The Castle was in fact where I met Lewis who was featured in last week’s blog post. The night in question I had noticed Lewis sitting shyly off by himself in a corner but for whatever reason it had been a pretty busy night and I didn’t call on him for a random sampler. By the time it had gotten pretty late and I was ready to call it a night, Lewis came shuffling up to me looking very nervous with a piece of paper in his hand,. which I took and began to read. It said Coupon good for one free session with Mistress Suzanne” or something like that. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that Lewis still had the paper – he has an AMAZING memory.

Anyway, I glanced around wondering where on earth this paper had come from and saw my darling, now ex husband Myke snickering like a bratty kid that likes to cause trouble. I think I looked at Lewis and said something like hold onto this for next week and for sure we will play but he had finally worked up his nerve and wanted to play NOW! So I decided to rise to the occasion and do my best to give him a nice sampler type play session, and he has been visiting me on occasion as finances allow ever since. Of everyone I still play with – Lewis and I go back the furthest. He is a gem.

I truly loved the Castle and made so many friends there! Someone that I knew from high school was the “bartender” but it was all soft drinks. Lori’s son Dominick was the DJ and I think he delighted in getting me in trouble by playing music that he KNEW I could not stay still too when I was supposed to be holding a slave position or doing some other task that required me to “behave myself”. Arrghh! I so loved dancing there. 🙂

We had a bouncer that went by the name “Chubs” and OMG he was such a sweetheart and while he thought we were all a little crazy, he was always keenly interested. Miss Emily introduced me to wax play and we used to do a LOT of that. Lady Sandra, Mistress Crimson and Mistress Nona would do demos there on occasion. Master Conan and slave Tasha were regulars and I was terrified of that man lol! But he had a heart of gold too. So many wonderful people – it was my first experience with a kink community that felt more like family.

Lori even allowed me and my ex, Myke, to get married there in Sept of 1997. We decorated the bondage arch with paper streamers and had a Justice of the Peace marry us right under it. We had a mostly vanilla reception with my parents, and a few aunts and uncles and Myke’s mum. It was really fun and they all kind of knew there was something odd about the venue but most didn’t mention it. (The photo of my mum in the green dress was one of the last photos I have of her. She passed away barely a year later of lung cancer.)

After the vanilla reception we sent the family home and threw a play party and collaring ceremony. Yes, back in those days I was the one wearing the collar but I considered myself to be a “switch”.

My buddies Tommy Dee and Stevie Cochran who were / are great musicians that played mostly on Long Island came and even did a set for us. we danced and played and had a fantastic time with our favorite kink friends and honored guests.

(Pictured below with Myke are Mitch and Gerry – AKA Adam and Gillian of ASWGT.com My favorite toy makers!)

All these years later Myke is still one of my best friends and I do still love him very freaking much. But we discovered quite awhile ago we are better off as friends that do not live together – lol.

The Castle was my absolute favorite place to be for quite sometime. I was there pretty much every weekend as well as doing some sessions there during the week. Lori had been hanging in there with the rent – I mean not thriving but she was doing OK and the landlord didn’t seem to mind as long as he got paid.

But all good things come to an end eventually the town got wind of what we were doing there and they decided they didn’t really want her operating a dungeon in the business district where she was in Farmingdale. So they started sending the cops to do pop inspections but we were mostly following the rules so it was just kink of awkward when the cops would walk through but there wasn’t much they could do.

So next they got the fire dept involved – first it was a minor ticket over a light bulb out over a ridiculously obvious fire door, Then they decided that based on the size of the space and the occupancy allowed (not that it was ever that packed) that she needed to install a very freakin’ expensive sprinkler system. We were talking over 10 grand as I recall! Well, not only didn’t she have that kind of money, she also didn’t own the building and there was no way the landlord was going to pay that, so that was basically just the last straw. She really was left with no choice but to close up shop and say goodbye to our beloved Castle.

I have another gallery coming up on Lori’s next dungeon space very soon.