The Bondage Boy with the Wife Upstairs

Dayton, April 2008

Most gay men in Dayton were closeted, but none was more closeted than Roland.

He was a regular at Rode's M4M Parties: in his 40s, tall, slim, with a full head of brown hair, a short beard, a smooth, hard chest, and a curved cut Bratwurst beneath the belt.

Roland wasn't his real name.  He never talked about his life outside the parties, except to say that he was a high school math teacher.  He didn't chat much at all.

Sexually he was mostly passive, giving oral more often than receiving it.  He didn't do anal.

One day in the spring of 2008, I casually mentioned the bondage club I used to go to in New York, and his jaw dropped in surprise.  "Bondage, really?  I'm into that, too!  Are you a top or a bottom?"

"I like to do the tying up."

"Whoa, that's great!  I meet so many guys in Dayton who are total bottoms.  What's your favorite position, spread eagle or behind the back?"

The conversation continued like that.  Ropes or chains?  Dildos?  Whipping or paddling?  Dirty talk? Fantasy scenes?  I never saw Roland so enthusiastic.  Finally he said "I have a fully stocked dungeon at home.  Care to come over and try it out, say tomorrow night at 7:00?"

A bondage date!  How exciting!  Guys in Dayton didn't date much -- they were too closeted, afraid of being spotted by someone they knew.   "I'd be happy to.  Shall we have dinner first?"

"Um...no, come after dinner.  But there's a mini-fridge in the dungeon with snacks, if you get hungry."

Ok.  But certainly after the bondage scene we would go to bed together, cuddle and kiss, spend the night, go out for breakfast in the morning, a date just like back home in the gay world.


I got a little nervous when I drove up to the house in Beavercreek, a suburb of Dayton full of heterosexual nuclear families.  Not really a gay-friendly place!

Roland answered the door, took my coat, and ushered me into a family room off the huge steel-and-marble kitchen, where The Simpsons was playing on a big-screen tv.

He didn't live alone!  There was a middle-aged woman sitting on the couch.  Next to her, a 10-year old boy.  And a girl, probably about 12, sprawled out on an easy chair.

 His sister?  A straight female housemate?  What was going on?

"Boomer, this is Sandra and Rick -- he's in fifth grade and already a ladykiller!"

The woman and boy held out their hands to be shaken. Who were these people?

"And the Queen of Angst in the easy chair is Rhianna, in junior high, already beating off the guys with a club!"  She didn't react.  "We're going downstairs to watch the game.  Be up in a couple of hours."

He led back me through the kitchen and a laundry room to a stairway that led to the basement.

"So, was that your sister?"  I asked.

"You really are gay, aren't you?" he whispered.  "That's my wife and kids.  I'm a happily married family man."

This wasn't a date!  It was a down-low hookup!  "But how..."

Behind a side door was his Man Cave, a low wood-paneled room with a couch, a pool table, a card table and chairs, a tv, and some metal cabinets.

"When me and my buddies are in here, watching the game or doing dude things, you don't disturb us unless a kid is bleeding or the house is on fire."  He locked the door and banged on the wall.  "Soundproof.  You can scream, bellow, shout, and no one outside can hear a thing."

The cabinets contained a good stock of bondage equipment: including dildos of various sizes, a vibrating anal massage device, a violet wand, and several types of lubricant.  I imagined Roland coming into the house with a brown paper back in hand and saying "I bought some stuff for the Man Cave, honey."

"You mean you have guys in here to tie you up, with your wife upstairs, and she never suspects anything?"

"Not a thing.  She thinks we're watching tv, or maybe, at the most, wrestling.  I don't think she knows that gay or bi people exist.  She certainly doesn't know what BDSM is."



I was really nervous, but Roland had a nice physique and a Bratwurst beneath the belt, so I managed to orchestrate a simple scene: he was tied to a chair naked, blindfolded, teased, and"forced" to give and receive oral sex.

Afterwards he said "That was nice, back to the basics.  It's so much more erotic when I'm helpless, in your power, don't you think?"

He insisted that I stay for two hours, the length of a real game on ESPN, so we cuddled on the couch and watched Family Guy and American Dad, kissed, and had a vanilla (non-bondage) encounter.

I went back to Roland's house again several times that spring, either on Saturday afternoon or Sunday night.

We stayed mostly in the man cave, except once when I helped Sandra frost cupcakes, and she gave me a a few in a tupperware bowl to take home, and once when she said "It's too nice a day to be cooped up in the basement.  Why don't you guys take Rick down to the park?"

I heard about Sandra's squabble with her sister and Rick's problems at school, and eventually, through conversation, Roland's real name (Mike) and real job (systems analyst).

But when I ran into Roland at the Mall, he pretended that he didn't know me.

In June I had to cut a session short because I wasn't feeling well.  "I think I'm coming down with a summertime cold," I told Sandra.  "They're the worst."

A couple days later, there was a knock on my door.  I answered in my bathrobe, with a box of kleenix in my hand.  It was Sandra!

"Hi, Boomer, I got your address from Mike's phone.  I just made a big pot of chicken-rice soup, and since you're not feeling well, I thought I'd bring you over some."

I was too shocked to say anything except "Um...thanks."

"Oh, it's the least I can do.  I've been wanting to thank you for being so great with Mike."  She handed me a green tupperware container.  "He couldn't ask for a better boyfriend!  Much nicer than some of these guys he brings home."

Boyfriend!  "Um...er..."

"But really, you should get him out of that dreary Man Cave sometimes.  Take him to a gay bar!  Or to one of those gay sex parties I've heard about.  He's a big guy -- I'll bet he would be very popular!  Well, I have to run.  I hope you feel better soon!"

I stood there agape.

Apparently Roland was less closeted than he thought.

See also: The Boy Who Wanted to be Rode