Sapphire's Dungeon

     Mistress Sapphire was a lovely professional dominatrix with a passing resemblance to Lynda Carter who had worked at a large professional dungeon in Pennsylvania and was well established   in the fetish community She  had a column in a well known magazine. Sorry I don’t know specific names. I don’t want to be wrong and have the detail monkeys after me. Anyway, she was working in a large scale dungeon, which accepted walk-ins and she would see subs that paid tribute to her. Monthly fetish magazines would come out in NYC and across the country with her column, a naughty story plus photos of her, designed to broaden her “fan base” and bring business to the dungeon, as well as other admirers who might want to write a letter, or order a video tape (yes, video tape!), or just get on her mailing list – snail mail not email. She and her husband Mike also ran a “toy cart” at the Hellfire Club*** in NYC for a while, and had a funny story about Mike getting pulled over and ordered out on his car on Route 3, dressed in full leather regalia on his way to work. Sapphire had a falling out with the dungeon where she was working, and decided to open her own personal dungeon.

     She rented office space in a building in Kinnelon, NJ and converted it into a dungeon. It was in a large non-descript office complex. From the parking lot you walked up a flight of steps to enter the building, then up another flight of stairs and down a hall to the door, Dark Alley Productions was the name on the door. It was like you were going to a doctor’s appointment, or a job interview.  Once inside there was a large reception/waiting room. To the right was an actual office – desks, computers, file cabinets, all that crazy shit. Straight across was the dungeon room. To the right of the dungeon was a large conference room  with large windows, mostly empty save for some tables and chairs .To the left of the dungeon was a  room that was in a perpetual state of sound proofing. The acoustic tiles were turning out to be more expensive than planned, so the room was being used for storage. There was also a full bathroom with a stall shower.

Sapphire held sessions in her dungeon, and in addition had a contract to produce 2 fetish magazines

Every month  which would be produced by a professional publishing company and distributed across the country. It paid the rent.

*** The Hellfire club was an s &M club in NYC. “On the corner of 9th Avenue between 13th and 14th Street is a triangular building. Bounded by 9th Avenue, 13th and Hudson Streets, this red brick building housed a series of s/m and sex clubs of historical value. J's was at street level on the Hudson side with a big red door. A gay sex bar with a pool table! On the other side of the building, down a flight of concrete stairs was a space that has had changed names several times but always remained the most famous and best known s/m and sex club in the New York scene. It started in the early 80's as THE HELLFIRE CLUB, then changed around 1986, after the city shut it down because of the herpies scare, to THE VAULT, then back again to THE HELLFIRE CLUB. On certain nights and Sunday afternoon it was a gay bar, packed with naked horny gay men of every size and age. Other nights it was straight/mixed. But it was always S/M! The club was located UNDER the cobblestoned street over which cars and city buses drove over slick cobblestone streets. Its vaulted brick and concrete rooms housed backrooms, glory holes, cages, urine smelling bathtubs, slings, and webs of steel chains.”

Excerpted from a site with lots of info about the NYC clubs I mention:

The Black Archive – a photographic tour of the old sex, kink and bondage clubs of New York City.

     http://www.hellfirepress.com/blackArchive/blackArchive.html

I will elaborate on the Hellfire Club at another time.