S&M Receptionist

March 29, 2005

After a single drink at the bar last night, I was all set to go home when a girl walked in and sat next to me. I'd met her before, and she said hello, then ordered a beer. I had a sudden desire to stay for one more and ordered one too. The bartender slid the beers over and asked the girl how she was.

"Pretty good," she sighed, scratching her head where her long black hair was held up with a loose barrette, or a rubber band, or maybe bobby pins--whatever it was, it wasn’t doing its job very well. Stray pieces fell around her face, and she pushed them aside. "I just got off work and I'm kind of out of it."

"Are you a bartender?" I asked.

She laughed.

"What's so funny?" It was late, and she had just gotten off work. It felt like a good guess.

"No," she said, peeling off her leather jacket, "I'm a receptionist at a dungeon."

Even though I already knew the answers to most of them, I asked her a string of questions anyway. She replied with a mix of funny, disgusting, disturbing, and surreal anecdotes. After a particularly graphic description of something she'd witnessed, I stopped her. "Wait a minute. I thought you said you were a receptionist."

"Well, yeah," she shrugged. "But sometimes I get involved. Once in a while, I'm supposed to walk in on a session--let's say some guy is spread eagle, with his balls tied up or something--and I'm supposed to react like it's the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. 'Oh my god, you sick fuck! You're such a pervert. I've never seen anything so fucked up in my entire life—' Shit like that."

As we were talking, a group of people entered the bar. The girl I'd been talking to knew them, and they gave her hugs and hellos before flopping down on the circle of stools around us. When the S&M receptionist went out for a cigarette, a girl who had just walked in asked me my name. I said it a few times before she got it right.

"Okay, Jamie," she slurred. "So tell me, what the hell's your deal?"

I get that question a lot, but rarely so out of the blue by someone I just met. But regardless of who is asking, it's always a tough one to answer. "What do you mean, what's my deal?"

"Well, my roommate and I were in here the other night, and we saw you staring at us from across the bar, but you never came over to say hello."

"Staring?" I said. I realized this girl was a roommate of the girl who'd asked the bartender about me several nights ago. I remember noticing them, but I didn't remember staring.

"Okay, looking, whatever, you know what I mean. It's okay, we were looking back at you, but why didn't you come over and say hi?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. "What was I supposed to say?"

"Umm—how about a simple hello? We've seen you a couple of times since then, too: at the restaurant down the street, in front of the coffeeshop, and you never say anything."

"Because I'm socially awkward."

She didn't buy it and made a face. "How hard is it to say hello?"

"Okay, seriously, you know what it is? I'm a snob. There, I said it. I'm a total snob."

"Okay," she said. "Now that I understand. I'm a snob too."