NOT QUITE CINDERELLA S BALL

Nicholas Farrell & Natasha Garnett find

a sado-masochistic evening to be an excruciatingly painful, social experience

THE ANNUAL 'Rubber Ball', organised by Skin Two, the magazine for sado- masochists, took place in London last week. In the past, being seen at such a ball would have been far too dangerous. These days, however, the Rubber Ball is, if not exactly de rigueur for the winter season, quite acceptable; something to boast about, even. Whereas once it was the domain of obscure judges, civil servants and the odd dentist (the singularly odd dentist), well-known and respectable people now attend — Jean Paul Gaultier, the designer responsible for Madonna's cone-shaped brassiere, for example, and a plane-load of middle-aged Germans from Diisseldorf who touched down at Biggin Hill.

More than 3,000 people were at this year's thrash, if you will forgive the expression. Held at the Hammersmith Palais, which calls itself 'the world's most famous ballroom', it even had sponsors: Carlsberg Lager, Boddingtons Bitter and Smirnoff Vodka. The television advertise- ment for Boddingtons, it is true, is a little off-beam, depicting the dark and delightful actress, Anna Chancellor, in a gondola on a Manchester canal. But the beer itself is not. And Carlsberg is as normal as they come.

The ball also raises money for charity about £15,000 last year. To judge by the social cachet enjoyed by this year's benefi- ciaries, the Aids charity, Cruseaid, and the Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre, one half expected to see the Princess of Wales swan in, suitably attired (Versace would have had little trouble running up something with safety-pins). The Hammersmith Palais is, after all, where, only the previous week, Prince William was kissed by young girls.

But it is one thing deciding it is socially safe to attend the Rubber Ball, it is quite another dressing the part with any safety. This is because the organisers operate a `strict dress code' — 'rubber, leather, fetish, glamour, kinky drag or full evening dress' the latter of which I chose.

To dominate, one must, ideally, we were told, wear black rubber; though why this is so has never been satisfactorily explained. So off my female companion went to the Skin Two factory, in Vauxhall, south Lon- don, which churns out rubber dresses by the hundred (S&M, it would seem, is peculiarly popular in Vauxhall). 'Use lots of talcum powder,' said the girl there. 'It makes it easi- er to slip into it.'

Off the body, the garment was closer in resemblance to a piece of rubber piping than a dress. Slip into it? It was like getting into a garden hose. The exercise took over an hour. Much of that time she spent lying on the bathroom floor, unable to move, arms trapped above her head, with the dress, which had now rolled itself into a giant rubber band, strangling her neck. She lay there in a cloud of talcum powder, terri- fied that her flatmate should come home and find her in this compromising position.

It was no good trying to put the monster on over the head. So she stepped into it; then somehow snapped it over her body. This took 25 minutes — even having emp- tied the entire bottle of talcum powder over herself. She had just managed to do this, squeezing the top half over head and arms, when the telephone began to ring. 'How's it going?' I asked, adding, 'You sound out of breath.'

`And what are you wearing?' she asked. `Oh, black tie,' I replied. She told me later that she was tempted to slam down the tele- phone.

I decided that we should go out for sup- per first as it could be a long night. Any other day of the week, my lady friend might have thought this a good idea, but dressed, as she was, in a black rubber mini-dress, with knee-high leather boots, she was under- standably churlish.

In the restaurant, people stared. The wait- er came to take the order and began to gig- gle. I ordered copious amounts of roast bird. She opted for salad, scared that the dress might triumph.

Dinner over, off we went to the ball not feeling like Cinderella. On the contrary I felt beads of sweat prick my brow. At the Hammersmith Palais we found life-size ice torsos of both sexes on the bar. There were droves of people standing or dancing, dressed as if for gladiatorial contest.

Time for our mission to begin: we split up. My companion took a deep breath and off she went into the throng, snapping her dress back into place as she went. Meanwhile, I sat on a sofa with a gin and tonic, well clear of the heaving dance floor, wondering if among the shoal of women any of them would give me a thrashing.

My companion spotted her first target. He was dressed in shiny pvc trousers laced up the side from ankle to hip. His bare chest was tattooed, his nipples and tongue pierced, and his name was Billy. She noticed that he had a large leather thing with tassels attached in his hand. She asked him, 'Can I whip you?' He handed her the implement. She enquired politely, `Shouldn't you bend over?' He smiled and said, 'I can if you want me to.'

But not being an old hand at this sort of thing her hand could barely grip the leather implement — she could not bring herself to do it when the moment arrived. have never done this before,' she confessed. Billy was having none of it. 'Don't think about it,' he said. 'Just do it! Smack it really hard.'

So she did — a single, feeble flick on the backside of Billy. 'You must do it harder,' he insisted. She tried again. But still it was not hard enough for him. 'Look, if you want to hurt me, then aim for my lower back or thighs, that's where it hurts most,' he Instructed. But she felt so incompetent at it that she was compelled to apologise for wasting his time. She moved on.

Her next victim was Daniel, who looked to be in his thirties. He wore a leather cap, pvc shorts and was topless. He had spent most of the night being led around the party on a dog lead by a male companion. He was, when they met, on all fours.

`May I whip you?' she ventured. 'Oh, yes!' he said. So she borrowed his master's whip — a black riding crop. She lifted it high above her head and clenched her teeth. Down came the crop with a loud crack. Did it hurt?' she asked. 'No, it tick- les,' he said.

Tickles? This might be seen as a setback. `I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm not very good at this. I am a Catholic.' Daniel crawled off with his master in search of the real McCoy. My companion obviously had a lot to learn.

Meanwhile, I was encountering a differ- ent set of difficulties. Men had queued up to be dominated by my female companion, but when I asked women to dominate, most simply ignored me, looking down at their blood-red, painted fingernails, or flicking their eyes towards heaven. `Dominate me now,' I asked one, topless apart from twirly whirls of brass. She looked at me, frightened, as if I was a mur- derer. Her large crop-haired girlfriend loomed up and went to punch me in the face — her fist stopping just short of my nose. 'Piss off, drip.' This was domination all right, but of the wrong kind. Asking a woman for a whipping at the Rubber Ball, it was clear, was like asking a woman to dance in a discotheque. It required subtlety. I was being much too dominant with my requests to be dominated. A more wheedling approach was needed.

One woman definitely looked as if she might be wheedled into meting out punish- ment. She was wearing a Nazi hat, leather jacket, stilettos, and little else. was won- dering if possibly you might whip me?' I wheedled. 'Ask the schoolmaster,' she drawled, nodding in the direction of an immensely large, brooding black man wear- ing a mortar board and carrying an old-fash- ioned schoolmaster's cane. 'Can she whip me?' I pleaded, adding, 'Please?'

`You're not worth it,' said the man. I asked the female gauleiter why not. She tweaked my cheek and said, 'Not my kind of baby boy.'

Why wouldn't women whip me? 'Let's face it, you couldn't take it,' said one woman.

`I choose who I whack and it's not going to be you, mate. On yer bike.'

Finally, I thought I had made it with an extremely tall redhead from Birmingham called Angela. That was until she said, 'Only if I can drink your blood. And believe me, if I drink your blood you won't be getting up off the floor.' Whereupon, the wife of the male of us popped up to announce: VW give him a bloody good hiding.' Flouting convention has its limits. I made my excuses and left.

The authors write Mandrake on the Sunday Telegraph