Which is maybe why the lights are always low at the Hellfire Club.

"Coming here instead of going home proves these guys are trying to fill an emptiness. They're lonely, they are all missing something in their lives. And I'm not just talking about underwear." Tony pauses and laughs at his joke. Darkening, he adds, "I'm here, so I must be some kind of freak too."

Tony, a computer analyst at IBM, could not look less like a freak. He is 27, born in Puerto Rico, transplanted to Manhattan 20 years ago. Tony is 6-foot-1, slim, with mocha-colored skin, wavy black hair and a friendly smile. His Docksiders and cotton leisure wear have a yuppie feel.

"She was very mild," says John, discussing the dominatrix who has just finished whipping him. John is a preppie lad of 20 or so. His studded dog collar peeks out from beneath a Brooks Brothers shirt. John continues, "I would never bring a girlfriend here. I come here in between girlfriends, when I've got nothing else to do."

"Ready to play?" says Lenny to a young, fat, bored whore in black pleather rigging. Her flesh seeps out. Lenny is wearing only sneakers. He is tall and pudgy and carrying a yellow and black sports bag on his arm. His glasses fog up repeatedly and he smiles as he wipes the lenses on a napkin.

"What do you want to do?" she replies, already leading him by his sports bag to a private stall in the back room of Hellfire, known as "Heaven." With nothing more than a single chain to close them in she sits on a bench and plays with the gleeful naked man, smacking his behind as she goes. Men instantly surround the stall, dicks in hand, masturbating. "Oooh, aaaah," moans the hooker playfully, and all the men stare on, entranced, while they jerk off.

Blocking the view of another booth, and quietly masturbating, is a Hamptons type with checked short-sleeved shirt, khaki shorts and expensive soft leather shoes. He and a group of men are watching the activities of a couple making out in a booth. They are both men, though one is dressed like a hoochie-mama. The man is naked and masturbating his button-mushroom of a penis and with his eyes closed in rapture, he sucks the foot of his companion who idly surveys the cluster of men, all masturbating, watching "her." They are watching and yet also in a trance.

"I love it up the ass," says Fidel, a corporate masseuse by day, and grumpy S/M slave by night. He is naked except for a baggy black leather thong, and a chain around his neck held together with a chunky padlock. He has a strap-on contraption in his hands and he is demonstrating how the rubber dildo fits securely with a tug. "I can't exploit the Internet," Fidel laments, "because it would embarrass my family. They hate what I do, but mostly they're worried friends will find out. And I do run into my corporate massage clients all the time. But I love it too much to give it up. I love golden showers. In one dungeon where I work, I'm known as the community toilet."

Fidel stamps around his pen, fondling his collection of whips, dildos, vibrators, handcuffs and assorted medieval paraphernalia -- like a wheel with pointy spikes to roll against flesh. Fidel is bored; he hates working at Hellfire because the patrons tend to be squeamish tourists. "I prefer the real thing, real dungeons with real doms who know what they're doing." Pointing around the dark room, he complains, "I hate this dump, they're all scum, low-lifes. Besides, I hate men, they all suck. I like good submissive women."

With a disgusted grunt Fidel points at a Leslie Nielsen look-alike reclining in a "blow job chair," his pants open, penis exposed. In front of him stands a woman, a 50-ish wiry blond with orange lipstick, sucking on the proffered penis. A circle of men gathers, masturbating to the scene. There is no audible signal but presumably they all climax because the men release flaccid, spent dicks, and the woman is reapplying her lipstick, and the Leslie Nielsen character is zipping his fly. Very matter of factly, he hops down from the oddly shaped chair and hands the woman her pack of cigarettes.

Private Life Romance, relationships, and the personal side of Table Talk