TRIBUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO WEEK
On November 24th 1994, I went to BONDAGE-A-GO-GO for the first time. BAGG as I learned to call it, is always on Wednesday
nights. At that time, I was living with a house full of gay people and my
roommate told me that she went to this bar where they had bondage and sushi!
She just laughed about how funny it was to be sitting there eating sushi and
watching someone get whipped. I tried to play it cool, but my heart was in my
throat. She told me where it was and I went the following Wednesday. To my surprise the night before
Thanksgiving was a very popular night to go out clubbing because people don’t
have to work the next day. The line was half-a-block long and I was wearing
black Dockers and Raiders t-shirt. Not a cool look for a fetish club, but I was
in black so they let me in.
I went to this club for one reason: I knew there would be
girls there wearing knee high boots and I wanted to ask if I could kiss their boots.
I was Sure I was going to get beat up or maybe show up missing. The risk was
worth taking. There were lots of scary looking big dudes with shaved heads,
dressed in leather and even the Hells Angels were present. That night changed
my life. Not only did I Not get beat up, I made tons of lifelong friends.
People who are similar to me in many ways and others who I share little, but we
have a common connection. We don’t judge each other.
Upon arriving, I walked around the club. BAGG was located in
the historic Trocadero night club. This club was legendary. It had a decent
size stage and most nights there was a band that played. The music was gothic
industrial with band names I’d never heard and then some more mainstream music
like Filter and The Cure. Everyone seemed nice. I was searched for weapons at
the door. But this club was not like the usual night club. There was some
violence at times, but I never felt unsafe or threatened. Upstairs, just like
my roommate had said, there was a “play” area where people were getting
whipped, spanked and tied up. I knew I was home!
The fellow who ran the play space was named Hawk and he had
an adorable girlfriend who worked near where I worked in San Jose. Hawk introduced
me to the crowd and basically said, he’s okay, he’s one of us. Without Hawks okay,
I would have been beat up for sure. Hawk introduced to many people over the
years and took care of me. Without Hawk, I would not be BootBoy… I’d just be
some lonely guy with a boot fetish who only dreamed of boots. Hawk let me enter
the playspace. I got to kiss his girlfriend’s boots as well as several other
hot girls boots that night. What a thrill it was for me. I made going to BAGG
my top priority every single fucking Wednesday, even if that meant getting three
hours of sleep before work the next
morning, as often happened.
Over the next few weeks, I met a couple who worked at a
bank, Stain and his girlfriend Rachel. They were both very kind to me. Rachel
at one point called me Boot Boy and it stuck. She even made me a t-shirt with
my name on the back and I knew right away, I could use that shirt and that name
to branch out and market myself as Boot Boy. It worked. It was a brilliant
piece of marketing. I later changed the spelling to BootBoy and even made
business cards with various styles over the next several years. More people
know me as BootBoy than by the name given to me by parents. In this way, I feel
I belong to the fetish community and they are My People.
BAGG moved around to a few locations over the years and I
followed it wherever it was held. After a couple of years I met the owner of
the club, George. George had known who I was the whole time, but it was two
years before we met. He even gave me a BAGG VIP card for free admission and
priority entry. He said I brought something important to his club and he wanted
to reward me for it. The irony of that was amazing. I got to get in FREE to a
club where I could kiss girls knee high boots!
As I drove home from my first night at Bondage-A-Go-Go,
there was this crazy –ass construction project happening on Highway 101. CalTrans was
doing retrofit repair work from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and they had an
off-ramp set-up for two way traffic with huge barriers on both sides on top
this 50 structure. It was covered with flood lights and it was like a gauntlet. It was four in the morning, I was new to San Francisco and driving this maze was always the perfect ending
to what was already a crazy night. As I drove the gauntlet each Wednesday
night, I tried to recount all of the knee high boots and I kissed… without
crashing my car.
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