If you were a hardcore sadomasochist, with the funds and resources adequate to customize your dungeon with the best equipment available, a large staff of skilled artisans eager to realize your original designs,and a space as intimidating as it is inspiring, then perhaps you might create a dungeon as deliciously surreal as Richard Hunter's.
But I doubt it.
Richard Hunter is the singularly brilliant mind behind the re- invented Mr. S Leathers, which he took over in 1991 and has since transformed from a mail-order supplier of high-quality goods into the Cartier of SM paraphernalia. On a recent visit to San Francisco, Mr. Hunter honored me with an invitation to visit the private play space in his home.
Richard's home dungeon is the stuff of late-night fantasies, when one's darkest sexual hungers scorch the soul with fires that seem to grow greater the more one tries to quell them. It is a place whose every inch proclaims and celebrates its architect's godlike appetites. As the hours passed, I knew I was talking to a man of real genius, and one whose sexual passions have guided that genius to a level few people could even imagine, much less attain.
But before describing my fantastical expedition into his private world, here is some background, and a peek into the phantasmagoria of SM toys knowns as Mr. S.
Although I've been to SF before, I've long heard was a Mecca for serious players. So when some academic business brought me there this summer, I decided to reserve at least a part of one day for an all-out shopping trip to the store.
I was also very eager to meet Richard Hunter. Some years ago, I met Richard's long-time business partner, Jim Stewart, at an SM event. Richard and Jim own Fetters, a world-reknowned maker of upscale bondage restraints, including superb iron-work and leather mummification suits. (Fetters is now London-based, under Jim's watchful eye; Richard is Fetters' American distributor and carries a full line of their equipment at Mr. S.)
Jim passed my name along to Richard who later sent me a free catalogue (you are looking at scans from that 1995 edition here) along with a friendly note. I was very touched by his kindness. I was also lust-struck by the catalogue. The photos which grace its pages are all from Mr. Hunter's personal collection, a fact which only adds to their sexiness. It is rare to see bondage models who are not only sincere leatherpeople, but who one may glimpse in moments of genuine rapture. Here is the photographic evidence of "sub space" and the spiritual metapmorphoses which slaves undergo in rigid bondage.
One look at the beatific expression on the faces of the men in the catalogue as they float in suspension bondage or are forced into utter immobility by baroque metal restraints is enough to send an uninhibited sexual imagination into overdrive. Needless to say, the catalogue has found a permanent home on my nightstand.
Another reason I wanted to meet Richard Hunter simply is that I knew he was older and wiser than me, if not in actual years (since I don't know his age), certainly in experience. In brief: my expectations were high and he exceeded them wildly. He was everything one could hope to find in a Scene elder: utterly knowledgeable yet extremely modest; respectful and reserved but very sincere when he spoke, serious yet playful, and spontaneously generous to a fellow pervert. And WHAT A BABE! This slender, quietly sexy man with deep, shining eyes, made me feel (not for the first time) that I miss out on so many pleasures in life by not being a gay man.
It was the happiest surprise when Richard appeared at the store only moments after my arrival. The store personnel had told me, when I first walked in and inquired, that it was unlikely he would be around that day. So a little bit of SM kismet played into this encounter. He received me warmly and we chatted for a while. I was thrilled when he suddenly volunteered to give me and my slave, Ellis (aka the inimitable tinkerbell) a personal tour of the store. By then, I had been visually gobbling up the premises and knew that those "one or two" toys I'd initially planned to buy would simply not do. I've been to many SM and adult toy stores in the US and abroad. Nothing I've seen can compare with Mr. S for sheer diversity and originality.
If you've seen the toys in my dungeon, you know that I have collected a lot of interesting pieces over the years in most categories of SM play. For a piece to really get my attention these days, it has to offer something new or different. Mr. S was choc-a-bloc with the new and the different. Sure, there are multitudes of the standard clothes and toys you'd expect to see at any well-stocked SM boutique-- racks upon racks of whips and crops, walls of handcuffs and manacles, row after row after row of leather and latex garments-- but what mesmerized me were the twists Richard had wrung upon so many standard designs.
Somewhat intoxicated by the variety--or perhaps it was the overpowering fragrance of those fields of leather and rubber--I informed Mr. Hunter that I would have to spend a small fortune in his store. Mr. S demanded a shopping spree and even this incorrigible dominatrix could not resist obeying its retail command.
And since nothing turns Ellis on more than a non-consensual shopping spree, I informed him that it would be HIS small fortune that would finance my obsession. Naturally, Ellis blushed with joy at the prospect of capitalistic torture by his cruelly anarchic Mistress. Even more exciting was the concept of paying full retail: being owned by a sales-conscious Jewish dominatrix can really be torture to a yuppy WASP slave who pales at the word "discount."
One requirement I'd stated at the outset was that I didn't so much want to add to my collection as to expand upon it. There were a few gaps I wanted to fill (for example, buying a couple of knives for various perverse purposes). But for the most part, I was looking for uncommon designs which offered interesting new possibilities for play.
We began with cock restraints, since I greatly enjoy making an ownership statement right at the root of male subbie evils. I'd perused the catalogue often enough to know all of Mr. S's extraordinary and unique CBT devices. Or so I thought. Lo and behold, Richard had some brand new designs to show me, most notably one he calls the "seed pod." This fearsome apparatus comprises a thick, heavy, solid metal shell designed to slip over and completely encase the male genitalia; and inner rings to secure the penis in a helpless downward position. The entire basket is pulled through a hole on the back side near the top; at the bottom is a tiny drainage hole for urine.
When we got to the the dressing room, I asked Richard if he would do us the honor (or accept the challenge, depending on your point of view) of getting Ellis into this contraption. Richard kindly asked Ellis himself whether he would be able to deal with this, sensitive to the possibility that some het men would flip out at the idea at being genitally re-arranged by a gay man.
Little did Richard understand the extent of my slave's delicious depravity. After 3 years of serving me, Ellis has no difficulty surrendering completely to my unrelentingly strange whims. And, after 3 years of dominating him, I love finding new ways to play out our power dynamic. Having a hunky gay man fit him for a cock and ball device was just totally creamy.
As it turned out, I couldn't have planned a more entertaining humiliation for him. As Richard valiantly stuffed and tugged, it became clear that the seed pod was too small for my genitally- blessed slave who sports a ripe, mature plant. Ellis squirmed helplessly, the pinching and squeezing causing him no small misery, while the customers gawked and his Mistress giggled at his predicament.
My giddiness added a certain je ne said quoi to the proceedings for my poor slut. Things became even more embarrassing when Richard finally had to admit defeat and abandon the seed pod. By now, however, Ellis was actually trapped in it. The only solution was to have him wander about in it for a while until a little of the blood returned to the head on his shoulders.
Perhaps I shouldn't have giggled quite so much but, really, can you blame me?
TO BE CONTINUED
To see some of the toys that I bought at Mr. S, visit Recent Acquisitions
Store Contact Information:
Mr S Leathers, Inc.
310 Seventh Street (off Folsom)
San Francisco, CA 94103
TEL: (415) 863-7764
FAX: (415) 863-7798
This article was written with the permission of Richard
Hunter.
Mr. Hunter's
dungeon is his private space and is situated in his home.
The dungeon is not open for viewing nor available for
rental.
the beautiful images on this page are from
the Richard Hunter Collection, copyright © Richard
Hunter
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