Screw COVID!
That was the theme Saturday night at a sexy soiree in lower Manhattan thrown by Killing Kittens, the London-based organizer of upscale erotic events where guests include the rich and beautiful and women take charge of the action.
“People have been locked in their houses for a year-plus, so I really think they were ready to express themselves physically,” said Earl*, a 33-year-old nutritionist who lives uptown and is a regular of the city’s polyamorous playground.
The turnout of ritzy revelers at a 14th Street townhouse near the Meatpacking District delighted Killing Kittens founder Emma Sayle, a stylish blonde Brit who insists that every man attend her gatherings with a woman and only women can approach strangers for sex.
Asked if she thought the orgy was back, Sayle didn’t hesitate.
“Massively!” she said.
“Tonight we’ve got 250 guests when normally New York would only have about 100. I think people are ready to experience life again, to live it up.”
Sayle recognized that her “adult parties” often devolve into a happy pile of writhing nudes, but she’s proud of the feminist emphasis, which she said sends a clear message that women come first.
“Killing Kittens is a place of no judgment, no shame, where women can be in control, can explore and do what they want. We flipped the rules.”
Originally scheduled for October, Saturday’s freaky fête — dubbed “the Mansion” — got postponed until December over flight restrictions that kept Sayle and her team from traveling to the US until three weeks ago.
By Saturday night, her adventurous crowd was so eager to play they jetted in from across the globe.
Vic and Val, a married couple of forty-somethings, hopped on a plane from Doha, Qatar, to join the festivities.
“The best thing about Killing Kittens is the aesthetic,” the husband raved. “Everything is high-end, high-class, luxurious.”
The crowd came well-dressed, attired in sharp suits and designer dresses. Vaccine cards were checked at the door and guests got a brief tutorial on “consent” (ie, hooking up only with people who are willing). Five floors of debauchery awaited.
In the hallways and stairwells, electric candles illuminated women in red and black, scantily clad in little more than tiny tutus and sparkling pasties on their breasts.
In a darkened parlor, red velvet banquettes surrounded a flogging station, where one leather-clad dominatrix lashed another in front of onlookers wearing “Eyes Wide Shut”-style masks.
At an upstairs bar, attendees stood three deep, clamoring for liquid courage while casting looks to comely comminglers.
As the night progressed, masks were cast off, then clothes.
One woman, who at first seemed uncertain at the prospect of being thrashed, kneeled down in front of a dominatrix, pulling her skirt up to reveal herself as watchers gazed. She giggled at the first blow but shuddered by the end of them, eventually standing to kiss her lover passionately — and reaching for his belt buckle.
Soon the upstairs playroom was filled with naked celebrants enmeshed in every sort of congress, the darkened corners packed with couples amorously entwined.
On the third floor, one gentleman bent his lady over a settee as the two waited in the line for the bathroom.
Not everyone got lucky.
Paco and Ingrid, a married couple of fifty-somethings from the Adirondacks, were in the city for holiday shopping and their first sex party. But Ingrid said she was disappointed by the experience, having approached a number of other couples and getting no satisfaction.
“Everyone seems so prudish,” she grumbled.
“She’s bi-curious,” Paco said, as his wife blushed. “And now with COVID she wants to explore.”
Helena, a 30-year-old health-care professional from Bushwick, overheard the couple talking — and raised an eyebrow in their direction.
“Explore?” she said, holding her hand out to the wife.
The married woman looked shyly at her husband, then tentatively took Helena’s hand. The two headed upstairs to the playroom and settled onto the black satin sheets of a king-sized bed.
“Good for her,” Paco said, nodding to himself.
The playroom was a smallish space and not particularly well ventilated, but the frolickers didn’t seem to have COVID on their minds.
Sayles said when it comes to pandemic protocols, “just like in London, Killing Kittens does what we’re told to do.”
At the “Mansion” party that simply meant all guests were checked for their vaccination status.
“No shade to Killing Kittens, because I know they’re following New York state vaccination requirements, but it might’ve been nice to do more than what restaurants are doing,” said Earl, who attended with his partner, a first-timer to the scene.
“I mean, I’m not making out with my waiter, right?”
“Any place where you go and interact with people outside your home, without masks, you assume some level of risk,” said Helena, who got vaccinated and had a booster.
And with risk comes reward.
Delphine, a 25-year-old musician from Prospect Heights who moved to New York from Quebec two years ago, stood solo against a wall of the playroom, a Greta Garbo-like figure of androgyny — blonde hair cut short, buxom body clad in a men’s black suit and black bra.
She watched the events of the busy playroom through a gold mesh mask, a twinkle in her eye, happy to finally be able to join New York’s sexy nightlife scene, even if she wasn’t totally overwhelmed by what she saw.
“I’ve seen a lot, but I went to art school so…..” she offered.
Delphine then joined a line of five women holding hands and walked toward the beds.
Perhaps no one was more satisfied with the “Mansion” experience than Ingrid, the Adirondack out-of-towner who came to the party bi-curious.
Asked to describe her reaction, she was at a loss for words, and tears formed in her eyes.
“Someone,” she said, “did me a real favor tonight.”
