In fact, my angry, middle-aged father would’ve probably fitted in with his penchant for ‘the slipper’ whenever me and my sister stepped out of line. In the medical room – where, to be honest, not much was going on, apart from the odd medical dummy getting a good feeling up – I meet US-based professional dominatrix Mistress Dee. And as you stood on the sidelines you could make out the little clusters of bodies in the corners, groping at one another, reaching under latex skirts, kneading fleshy shoulders, whispering their fantasies into the ears of their loved ones as others’ played out in front of their eyes. By now it’s 4am and the club is emptying. People are leaving the cloakroom, buttoned up in trench coats, their revealing costumes covered up like a superhero’s garb, a secret life hidden from reach. Gingerly getting in to the cab – latex chaffs – I’m not entirely sure what I’ve just witnessed. As Wood had told me, ‘Fetish is really a term for your fantasies and obsessions’ and Torture Garden, as he had said, is certainly the place to explore those fantasies in a fun way among consenting adults.

Her exact words are ‘vanilla gateway’ and I can’t help but feel the ‘vanilla’ is aimed at me. I turn my Primary School-style latex swimming shorts towards the bar. With all that flogging go on, it’s good to see TG are prepared for every eventuality. Then I spot his assless chaps. Men in suits shuffle out past the craziness, into the mundanities of Islington and the suburbs beyond. Others make their way to the ‘couples room’ (the room for sex) and I get the feeling that for some, the night is just getting started. Not wishing to overstay our welcome, we moved on. Not that I believe overstaying one’s welcome is possible in a fetish club.We stand watching. Taking it all in. It was hard not to feel like a voyeur. But people weren’t bothered. As with so many of the individuals here, she is impressive to behold; impressively free, like a rare bird tired of its cage. Grown, greying men are pulled around on leashes and large indomitable, statuesque women call the shots as they yank the chain and their dog-for-a-night comes cantering behind them. She’s flown over from New York, she says, especially to be part of London Fetish Weekend. She is one of many fascinating creatures who just seem born to be at a place like TG: sexually liberated and at one with the heady soup of nudity and sexuality on display.