"Announcement for all in the dungeon, your attention, please. The party announced earlier will begin in 30 minutes. We'd like everybody to attend, if you please. Come to the gathering room around the main pool. Party goodies, beverages, and knashes, bring your own or we've got it. Group dancing, square dancing, ethnic dancing and at least two Tangoes.

"This is a formal party; thus you may either wear fancy clothes, or come naked. No jeans, slacks, skirts, shirts, or sneakers.

"All slaves or subs are to be on time or they will be punished, no exceptions. Owned slaves should accompany their owners.

"Hope you all have fun. See you there!"

I had asked Mastermike to order a huge supply of party goodies, and all on cooks' detail had prepared them and put them out beautifully. We had hired a bartender for the night: a man by the name of Gary Wilcox. Hope he knows what he's doing. I had a huge supply of Guinness on ice. Rank hath its privilege, after all.

The first lady who arrived was Lady Dee, closely followed by A. The disk jockey, a fellow traveler in BDSM, started with some hard rock, to attract party goers. It worked.

The room filled up quickly; first with people just standing around with a drink in their hands, then distributing themselves around the room. I heard the opening chords of a tango, so I asked Lady Dee for a dance, and we fell deeply into each other's arms and were alone in the room. Soon enough the dance was over, and I bowed to Lady Dee in thanks.

Everyone was chatting. Some guy with white hair was riding a pogo stick. Some had costumes on. Some were doing performance art. There was a mime who got in somehow, and Ruby had him strapped to the mall and was thrashing him. A little guy with a wierd beard was singing filksongs: those are mock folksongs with a science fiction fan basis. His guitarwork was great. An odd machine was set up on a table in the corner. From the looks of it, it made coffee with Irish Whiskey. All by itself. The guy said something about God's Blessing. But that's Guinness; he was mistaken.

yellowrose heard a familiar song, and we joined into a slow dance to Elvis' "I can't help falling in love with you." Moebus was in the middle of the floor, dancing with sexslave. My shoulder was tapped, and Mastermike moved away with yellowrose.

Getting a bottle of almost-frozen Guinness from that guy Gary, I wandered around, meeting strangers and leaving friends. A bald-headed old coot called Bob was there talking to a mixed group of folks about the "Patrick Henry League." Sounded interesting. Fifteen minutes later, he was talking about "The L-5 Society".

It was starting out to be a good party.