We aren’t swingers.
Yes, we’ve done a few things for which some of the more conservative members of our family and our social circle would undoubtedly judge us. We’ve performed, sexually, in front of a live audience. We’ve fisted. We’ve had anal sex. We’ve had threesomes. We’ve had sex in public. We’ve made our own porn. We make no apologies to anyone for our sex life, though obviously none is needed. It’s our sex life.
We don’t identify as swingers not because there’s anything wrong with the label, or because we have something against extramarital sex with the consent of all partners. We certainly don’t. We don’t identify as swingers because we have a decided lack of experience in this area. For example, we’ve never swapped partners with another couple. However, we are always looking to expand our sexual horizons, and it was largely for this reason that we decided to visit Power Exchange.
Power Exchange is an adult establishment – the website describes it as a “pansexual nightclub” – in San Francisco, California. We’ve been talking about going almost as long as we’ve known each other, though for various reasons including our own nervous jitters, lack of geographic proximity for a couple years, and the fact that the club closed down temporarily in 2008, it was not until Halloween weekend that we finally visited. We’d talked about it intermittently since resuming our blog in August and, looking for something out of the ordinary to do that weekend we decided to check it out.
Power Exchange is open Thursdays through Sundays. Admission on Thursdays and Sundays is $10 per couple, while on Fridays and Saturdays admission is $20 per couple. We were stunned by these bargain-basement prices, which were possibly half as much as they were the last time we checked Power Exchange’s website. We weren’t sure whether the $20-per-couple price on a Saturday night was the best bargain in the Bay Area, or a subtle warning to stay the hell away. We decided in the end that $20 was a small price to pay to have a night out, flirt with an element to which we were unused, and hopefully witness some debauchery. Given the cost, we were under no delusion that Power Exchange was a venue for an elite society of open-minded sex-positives; for $20 per couple, $40 per single male, and free admission for single females, the crowd at the club was certain to be a mixed bag.
When we checked the website that weekend, we found out that Saturday, October 29, was Power Exchange’s Swalloween Ball. Admission for couples was $40. As we were already in the “We’re going to a sex club” frame of mind, the higher price didn’t deter us. Power Exchange was our second stop of the night, and after filling up on sangría at a tapas bar in San Francisco’s Mission District we headed to the Tenderloin. If you are not familiar with the Tenderloin, I can sum it up thusly: I’m no fan of widespread gentrification as I believe it not only robs a neighborhood of its local flavor, but also prices out poorer residents. That said, the Tenderloin is about as far from gentrified as one can get.
Rather than looking for street parking, we parked the car in a garage. Finding street parking in San Francisco, like any major city, can be difficult but we were in a high-crime neighborhood and weren’t about to risk the car being broken into or even stolen. As nervous as we were excited, we walked two blocks down Eddy to Jones Street and as soon as we turned the corner we were greeted by a nondescript, colorless marquee, the sort that might hang over a dingy music club.
There was a very small crowd milling about in front of the main entrance. As we approached, a tall and burly bear of a bouncer was conveying the club’s rules to a nondescript guy standing anxiously by the door: No drugs or alcohol allowed. Cell phones must be powered off at all times (i.e. no photography). Play at your own risk. Respect all boundaries. Clean up after yourself. Power Exchange welcomes guests of all sexual persuasions and discrimination of any kind is prohibited. After hurrying the nondescript gentleman through the door, he turned to us.
“You hear what I just told that guy?” he asked, chewing cleanervously on his cheek, gum, or who knows what else. When we indicated that we had, he asked for our IDs, shone a flashlight over them and handed them back. Then he smiled and made a grand, sweeping gesture as though welcoming royalty. We entered a dark lobby, decorated appropriately for Halloween. The guy behind the counter was bald, with tiny black eyes embedded in a narrow, emaciated face. The guy ahead of us paid $80 to get in – eighty dollars! – as he was a single male and not dressed in costume. Had he worn a costume, his admission would have been half of that.
The counterman made polite but not overly forward or creepy conversation with us as he took our $40 and put paper bands on our wrists. As he bid us welcome we helped ourselves to a handful of complimentary condoms from a bowl on the counter. Power Exchange requires condoms for all penetrative sex other than oral, and although we weren’t necessarily expecting to fuck while we were there, we thought we may as well take a few. There was also complimentary lube; rather than tubes or packets, it was in small disposable plastic tubs, exactly the sort in which a Chinese restaurant might package sweet and sour sauce for takeout orders. Assuming that Power Exchange buys its lube by the fifty-gallon drum, it was obviously an economic decision. We didn’t take any free lube cups. Jill dug through a bowl of Halloween candy – mainly lollipops and the like – but apparently didn’t care for the assortment and left them there.
It’s worth noting that Jill bought a small purse that morning for the sole purpose of holding our wallets, keys and cell phones in the unlikely event that we found ourselves separated from our clothing for any reason. At present, the purse was stuffed with a container of lube, a small package of baby wipes, and a couple of Jill’s favorite toys. It pays to be prepared, after all. Given the condition of Jill’s purse, I paid for everything at our earlier tapas-and-sangría party, lest friends and family members present catch a glimpse of something they shouldn’t.
We walked through the beaded curtain into a dark hallway, and though the anticipation was pretty high by this point, the sangría had gotten the better of us and we stopped to use the restrooms. The men’s room was as dark as the lobby and the hallway. That is to say, unusually dark. The room itself was small, with a toilet at the end farthest from the entrance. I groped against the door, trying to find a lock of some kind as, even when I’m peeing, I prefer to lock the door. After a moment’s fumbling, I heard a voice say, “There’s no lock.” That’s how dark the men’s room was: I had no idea that there was a urinal in there, let alone a guy using it. I can’t be the only person who finds it highly unusual that not only is there no lock on the restroom door, but there is no cubicle around the toilet, no walls, no divider of any sort. According to Jill, the ladies’ room was fairly dark as well, featuring two toilets with a divider between them, but no door. In other words, while two people using the toilets cannot see each other, anyone walking into the restroom could see both. Jill suggests that the logic behind this might be that if you’re visiting Power Exchange, you’re probably there to show off the goods, so what’s the big deal? Personally, we both find this logic faulty; while we may have an exhibitionist streak, this doesn’t apply to the bathroom.
The hallway led us to the coat check counter, itself part of a large, more brightly-lit lounge area with several love seats and sofas surrounding a stage with a couple stripper poles.
My hopes of watching a couple lithe twenty-two year olds in heels and stockings were dashed by the presence of a shiny, nearly hairless dancer in his forties gyrating in a tiny black leather thong. I can admit he had great moves, but watching him was never going to turn me on. A few of the love seats were occupied by couples, most of them talking or lazily watching the dancer shake it. We headed to the rear of the lounge where a staircase led up to a narrow walkway overlooking the stage. At the end of the walkway was an observation room, the sort of location where, presumably, people could fuck while appreciative spectators watched from outside. Normally, the idea would have been appealing, but the room was dark and creepy – though not because it was Halloween – and there appeared to be someone sitting quietly inside the room, not moving. We hurried past the door and to a staircase that brought us to the dungeon two floors down.
The dungeon is Power Exchange’s main play area, consisting of a large, windowed area for BSDM play and numerous smaller rooms. We watched a mousy, bespectacled but attractive woman in lingerie flogging another woman, this one bound to a St. Andrew’s Cross. Another woman in lace-up leather boots sat in a nearby armchair, legs resting on the shoulders of a guy in blue jeans and nothing else as he fed himself on her pussy. After awhile we took a walk, hoping to find some action to scope out in the rooms, but the only two that were occupied contained a woman in her thirties or forties, fully-dressed and sitting alone; and a naked middle-aged man, masturbating with the intensity with which one might peruse the TV Guide. Disappointed, we returned to the BDSM area and continued watching the scenes in progress.
We spent a few minutes watching a curvy brunette in a corset writhe atop a sawhorse while her Top, a friendly-looking guy dressed up as Jack Sparrow, administered spankings with a paddle. We have very little experience with BDSM; I’ve spanked Jill, and she’s worn handcuffs and a blindfold during sex, but that sort of thing is so commonplace that I hardly think it makes us neophytes, much less aficionados. However, I know that she finds certain scenarios – including the one we were watching – sexually exciting, and before long she suggested that we go play in one of the rooms.
Although we hadn’t planned on doing anything but observing, I did consider that we might; our exhibitionist tendencies have manifested themselves in many ways, though never in as public a fashion as this, with the possibility of numerous observers. Without any further word, we found ourselves making out in an unoccupied room, my hand between Jill’s legs and hers between mine. Her other hand was placed firmly on the back of my head, holding my mouth to hers.
After a few minutes I eased her down onto an armchair and hiked up the front of her skirt. She was wet and very fragrant, and I wasted no time before pulling her panties aside and burying my face between her thighs. As I devoured her, I reached up and freed one of her breasts, massaging her nipple to a rock-hard peak. With the other hand I caressed her pussy as my tongue tantalized her clit. Her moans betrayed her arousal, though had I not been so familiar with my wife’s sexual response cycle, I might have wondered if any of her sounds were solely for show.
By this point it was apparent that we had an audience, as much of what little light illuminated our small room had been blocked out by a crowd that was forming in the doorway. Excited by the knowledge that we were showing off for a group of anonymous strangers, I slipped a couple fingers into Jill, and increased the rhythm of my tongue on her clit. She began to breathe hard, a vocal demonstration of her rapidly-building orgasm and I, very familiar with her body’s responses to sexual climax, anticipated a wonderful display.
That’s when I realized that we were not alone in the room. I suppose I should have realized that we were in a sex club and had done nothing to establish any sort of boundary. Jill later likened what she saw to something out of a zombie movie, appropriate, really, as it was two days before Halloween. She described it as a crush of slow-moving bodies, hands everywhere, some of them making guttural moaning sounds. At one point she lost track of how many hands she had on her. One guy kept asking if he could suck her pussy and while it didn’t affect my concentration I did want to make sure she wasn’t overwhelmed. Not having expected to show off, we didn’t exactly have a plan for what to do if a mob of sex-crazed zombies burst in on us and wanted to join in.
Erring on the side of caution, I explained to our horny zombies that we weren’t looking for any help tonight and would they mind vacating the room. They complied without any drama or cajoling, and we got back to it. When we were through – only Jill came at this point, and she came hard, undoubtedly doubly turned on by the wall of guys standing in the doorway – we got up to leave the room and the crowd dispersed. We walked around the dungeon and eventually came upon a larger room where people sat on couches and jerked off to porn. No women, though, so we decided to move on. As we exited, one of the guys who’d watched us came up and thanked us for the show.
“The room has a chain,” he said. “You pull the chain across the door and nobody comes in.” We thanked him for letting us know. “So what do you do now? You going to show again?”
“Not right now,” I said. “We’re going to look around. Maybe later.” He smiled and nodded and we headed upstairs. We returned to the lounge and sat on one of the love seats. The greased-up dancer was still dancing on the stage and I wondered if he was going to make room for a female dancer or two anytime soon. Nearby, the mousy, bespectacled flogger made out with the girl who had earlier been bound to the cross.
“I want to suck your cock,” Jill said. The idea appealed to me, as it always does, but no one else in the room was doing anything beyond making out, and I wasn’t sure if the lounge was off-limits for such activity. I recalled reading on the website that patrons were prohibited from showing off in certain areas, and I considered that this might be one of them. I mentioned this to her and we decided to hold off and people-watch for awhile. There wasn’t much to see; most of the patrons were focused on the dancer on the stage. Jill and I wondered if he was an employee of Power Exchange, or just a talented individual who patronizes the club to practice or show off. And if he was a patron, how did he go about getting the stage? Did he have to reserve it for the night, or is it available on a first-come, first-served basis? We wondered the same thing about the BDSM scene area in the dungeon.
“I wish I’d known about the chain,” I said to Jill. We talked for a moment, each ensuring that the other was having a good time. Then Jill pointed out a couple across the room. The guy’s pants were open, and his club-going companion was alternating between handjob and blowjob.
“I guess it’s allowed,” Jill said, and in seconds had my slacks open and my cock in her hand, stroking with vigor. I was already hard, and after a minute of this she leaned over to me, her mouth engulfing my length. Soon she moved from the love seat to the floor, and what followed was a typical mind-blowing Jill blowjob with the perfect amount of hand. While it was going on, I did consider that there was no chain with which to secure the couch lest a group of zombies surround us, cocks proffered hopefully in my wife’s direction. It didn’t matter; no such crowd materialized, though I did spot the guy who’d told us about the chain observing from the walkway above.
After I came, we got up from the love seat and noticed a crowd of people standing in front of a large window that looked in on an observation room. Fortunately, the crowd was mainly short guys, and inside we could see a couple, probably in their forties or fifties, having very energetic sex on a bed while porn played on a television. They were in good shape, and put on a nice show, from cowgirl and reverse cowgirl to sixty-nine. Eventually they stopped and lay down on the bed, ostensibly to catch their breath. We took this opportunity to head back to the dungeon, and on the way we encountered a couple in their late twenties or early thirties, laughing about the stickiness of the floor (something we didn’t notice and to be honest we thought they were exaggerating if not flat-out lying).
The boyfriend or husband was tall, with handsome dark features while the girlfriend or wife was very cute, with thick, sexy thighs on display beneath a short schoolgirl skirt. I wouldn’t say that they looked out of place, but they stuck out the way a Rocky Horror Picture Show virgin sticks out at a midnight showing, and I wondered if the seasoned pros thought the same thing of us. As we walked downstairs I asked them if it was their first time at Power Exchange and they confirmed that it was. The four of us watched the scenes playing out behind the glass, including another flogging scene involving the St. Andrew’s Cross and a mercurial three-person strip poker game. When they started catcalling a trans individual involved in the flogging scene, however, we decided to take our leave. Kind of a turn-off, bigotry.
When we entered the second room, we remembered to pull the chain behind us. I pushed Jill down onto a small sofa on her hands and knees and pulled her panties over her hips and down her legs, leaving them hanging from the heel of one of her boots. I pulled up her skirt and rimmed her, then fisted her while a crowd of masturbating zombies stood behind the chain. She came noisily, almost theatrically, her wetness soaking me to my forearm but she didn’t squirt. This was fortunate, as we remembered the bouncer conveying the club’s “clean up after yourself” policy and while we had baby wipes with us, the relative darkness made it unlikely to mop up every last drop if we had to. I took my hand out, licked my fingers clean, and offered a taste to Jill, who savored it erotically. There was some applause and rowdy cheers from our audience, nothing too deafening given that I suspect there were at most five or six people crowded around the doorway, but it was enough to let us know that our show was appreciated.
Jill put her panties into her purse. We relaxed on the sofa for a few minutes while she caught her breath. Our audience dispersed, and when they were gone she told me to take off my slacks. When I did she climbed onto my lap, straddling my waist as she threw her arms around my neck. She kissed me long and deep, then took my still-erect cock inside of her. I held her ass in my hands and pulled her down onto me while thrusting into her, and she bucked up and down wildly. There was no audience, and she didn’t need one. For Jill, this wasn’t about showing off; it was all about getting off. She rode me hard, aggressively, and though it’s rare for me to cum in this position, her passion ensured that I did. My orgasm triggered her own, and as I filled her up I remembered the condoms we took, still in the pocket of my slacks.
We moved upstairs and sat in the lounge. The same nearly hairless dancer was still gyrating away. By now, though, he’d lost the thong, and was stroking his cock more or less for show, just to keep it hard. Of course, all our point of view afforded us was the sight of the string of anal beads swinging rhythmically as he danced. It was at this time that I saw the box of cleaning supplies sitting elsewhere on the stage: Paper towels, bleach, stainless steel polish. I don’t know if they’d always been there and I just noticed them, or whether they’d been brought out while we were downstairs, but it struck me as funny. Hey, stripper poles should always be gleaming.
A couple sitting on a nearby love seat was getting into it pretty hot and heavy. The guy was dressed like a 1930s gangster, from the pin-stripe suit and wing-tips to the cheap fedora that sat atop his head. He had his hand beneath the miniskirt of a young lady dressed as a 1960s-era airline flight attendant, complete with a dark blue pillbox hat that matched her outfit. She had one leg across the gangster’s lap, granting him access to anything he liked. As he moved his hand rapidly beneath her skirt, they exchanged sloppy kisses, neither making the slightest effort to actually get their tongue in the other person’s mouth.
We watched them for a couple minutes before Jill rose from the love seat and led me to the staircase behind the stage. We went up to the walkway, where Jill leaned against the railing and arched her back. I lifted her skirt, lowered my slacks, and was inside her in a second. As I fucked her we watched the gangster and the flight attendant carry on, though they never progressed beyond making out and groping, and for that matter they never looked up and saw what we were doing. Still, it was exciting to fuck while watching them, and when my climax hit Jill hopped off of me, dropped to the ground and took me in her mouth, swallowing gratefully as I came. That’s when I realized I should have checked the durability of the railing before we began fucking against it. Something to remember for next time, I suppose.
We left Power Exchange around three or three-thirty. As expected, the streets were far from deserted even at that early hour, and a few street people complimented our Halloween costumes as we walked back to the garage where we parked. The Tenderloin may not be the safest neighborhood in San Francisco, but the locals seemed courteous, at least.
Overall, we enjoyed the experience. Jill and I were both glad that we visited on the night of a party as opposed to a random weekend; had we gone on a random weekend and found the crowd lacking, we would likely have blamed the lackluster attendance on the fact that it wasn’t a party weekend. As it was, Swalloween is supposed to be one of the biggest events at the San Francisco location, and the place didn’t exactly seem packed. Sure, it got busier as the night wore on, but the male-to-female ratio was still skewed so that males far outnumbered females.
Jill had a good time despite the fact that she was expecting something more akin to a private party, with a more equitable balance between men and women, and perhaps a large playspace full of beds, couches and other surfaces with people coupling on all of them. I told her that for $40 for the two of us, we’re lucky it was as fun as it was. We will almost certainly go back, though we haven’t made any concrete plans just yet. If we do attend, it will likely be on a couples’ night, when the club sets aside one entire floor for couples. We think that would be an exciting experience, provided couples actually show up.
We recommend Power Exchange if you’re looking to explore a fantasy, especially one that involves BDSM or exhibitionism/voyeurism. And if you’re not a fan of privacy while using the bathroom, Power Exchange is definitely for you.
Power Exchange San Francisco is located at 220 Jones Street between Turk and Eddy after being run out of their previous, more upmarket location on Otis Street in SOMA. Power Exchange can be reached at (415) 487-9944. They are open Thursday through Sunday from 9 PM until 5 AM.
*With apologies to Obi-Wan Kenobi
