247.
“We’re going to try this tonight,” my wife said, placing the digital advertisement on her phone in front of me. It was an image of a sauna. A steamy mist filled the frame. In the foreground, there was a man in a red bathing suit with a towel over his shoulders. It was hard to tell through the mist, but it looked like he had an erection in his bathing suit. A few feet behind him, either entering or leaving the sauna, was a woman in shadow, wearing a sexy dress and high heels. The advertisement read:
“Trans Night – First Monday - Third Thursday, each month”
I was trying to figure out what I was looking at … and couldn’t.
“I’m not sure what it is,” I said.
“I’m not entirely sure either,” she said. “We shall see.”
It wasn’t much to go on. Was she purposefully being tight lipped or did she not know either?
“Dress sexy, bring a bathing suit, a change of clothes and pack condoms. For you.”
I nodded.
What the heck?
No matter. If she said we were going, then we were going.
___
We had drinks down the street from wherever this address was and then we set off to find “Trans Night.” All I can say is, thank God we had drinks first …
I have come to discover there are two bathhouses in Providence. This one was up a flight of stairs in a non-descript building. So non-descript that we weren’t sure we were at the right place. But we double-checked, opened the door, and, without any other directional options, went up the stairs. Reaching the top, we walked twenty feet and found what appeared to be the entrance. It was just a locked door with a bell, so we rang it and a moment later we were buzzed into a tiny foyer and greeted by a woman behind a pane of glass. We verified we were at the right address and then she asked us if we wanted a locker or a room.
“A room,” my wife said.
OK, a room it is.
We paid the entry fee and she buzzed us through the next door. The entire process was a little unsettling. It seemed really shady. But we stepped through the door into the lobby and things improved slightly. The lobby was softly lit and open and it, at least, appeared clean, far cleaner than the stairwell or the entry area.
As she was getting our room key, I looked around. There was no one else in the lobby for a time and then I saw a man with a towel around his waist walk through and disappear down a hallway. She handed us our room key and two towels.
“Second hallway,” she said. “B-three.”
The hallways were darker and it took my eyes a moment to adjust. But we found Room B3, turned the key and stepped into … spartan, dingy, dirty sin.
The “room,” if I can call it that, had a single lightbulb, a small bed, almost like a military cot – just a single thin mattress and a sheet – a small table, a trash bin, a tiny mirror on the wall and three condoms on a small shelf.
“OK then. Homey,” my wife said sarcastically. “Open the wine.”
I couldn’t do it fast enough. What the hell was this place? How the hell did she find it? What the hell are we doing here?
We sat on the bed and sipped at our wine. Trust me when I say we both did our best to make sure our tiny dresses covered our entire bottom before sitting.
We could hear people around us, because the “room” didn’t have a ceiling. Four walls, yes. But the actual building ceiling was a good four feet above where the walls stopped. It took me back to being a kid. It was more like an indoor fort or treehouse than a room.
My wife slugged down the last half of her wine and put the glass on the little table. The humor of our cheapest wine glasses being the nicest thing about the room was not lost on me.
We stepped out into the hallway, locked our door and went exploring, following the soft sounds of voices. The place was a bit like a maze. It wasn’t very big, but it was confusing. Eventually we came to a common space and there were loads of people in there. Mainly guys in towels and a few other “girls like me.”
The common space had a couple of benches, a sex swing, a large bed and a small private room (basically a closet) in one corner. EDM was playing softly over the speakers. Trans porn was playing silently on a television.
The common room was a quiet place. I could feel the nervous energy, some of it sexual nervous energy, but in general it was just a lot of strangers standing around. When one guy approached one of the other girls, I saw her run her hand under his towel to find his dick. A moment later she began blowing him.
And that’s when it all made sense.
Hookups. All random and anonymous, I assumed. Find someone you like, take them back to your “room” – or go to theirs. Or, as I began to discover, go for it right there in the common spaces.
This was wild. I was glad we had some drinks because it felt like stepping into a whole new world. It was sleazy, completely no-strings-attached and decidedly, at least on this particular night, trans focused. It’s hard to say how many people were there. Everyone seemed to be in and out of the common spaces (the room I described, as well as a sauna and a small gym-like area that - I think - had an exercise bike and nothing else) and in and out of rooms. It was definitely an experience. The guys outnumbered the girls ten to one.
At one point we reloaded our wine and walked around, just taking it all in. As the night wore on, the sounds of sex could be heard at times – again, no ceilings – bodies slapping, girls crying out in heat as they were fucked, sloppy blowjobs.
I remained unsure of what to make of the place. It was definitely dark and a bit dingy. But people were having fun, as awkward as the start of the hookups were. I had no shortage of interested “suitors,” and felt stared at a lot. A couple of guys groped me (and my wife) as we passed them in the narrow hallways. Inappropriate for sure, but not unexpected given where we were. I was nervous my wife was going to ask me to service some random guy, but thankfully she didn’t.
We ended up watching a few people have sex, my first (and second) time seeing another trans girl get banged live. We added another first to our list as well: our one “Trans Night” sexcapade transpired when we mutually jerked off one lucky guy in the common room. One never truly understands marital bonding until both you and your spouse “run for cover” when they guy you’re jerking off starts firing rope after rope and you’re wearing couture.
__
I have come to learn more about this Providence scene – and this particular place – over time. But I had no freaking clue what it was all about when we went, so I wrote this entry from my notes as a first-time reflection. It really was like stepping into a whole different world. I loved the freedom of it, but cringed at the health ramifications. I believe the sex we watched was all condom-protected. But the blowies weren’t. At least not that I saw. Alas, I am not one to judge. My wife, however, is. As we were descending the stairs to head home she quipped, “there were a couple of beautiful cocks in there.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her those “beautiful cocks” were likely more interested in girls like me, rather than girls like her. After all, it was Trans Night.