Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook

The year was 1980, and I was a young soldier, stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington as a Forward Observer in the 2/75th Infantry (Ranger) Battalion.  I met and became involved with a young lady in town who enjoyed going to storage unit auctions each week and, eventually, I was cajoled into attending a few.  To be honest, I was usually far more interested in people-watching and sampling the snack bar's nachos and beer than I was in the auction itself.  Sometimes, however, the auctioneer would auction off the contents of a sealed cardboard box just to make things a little more interesting, and it never failed to stoke my insatiable curiosity.

On this particular night, the auctioneer pointed to a large, unopened cardboard box and told us that it had come from the estate of an elderly doctor.  He claimed to have no idea what was inside, and started the bidding at $1.  To this day, I have no idea what possessed me to raise my paddle and start bidding on it, but I did.  I was the highest bidder at $7, and I left the auction later that night the proud owner of a medical mystery box.

When I inventoried the box, I found it full of odds and ends, worthless office supplies, some deteriorating medical texts, a few simple medical instruments, and a curious wooden box with a small metal latch.  I opened it and found it full of strange looking electrical equipment, oddly-shaped glass tubes and thick black wires. A small metal data-plate attached to a box-within-the-box identified it as a "Parco Super High Frequency Generator - Violet Ray." 

As you might imagine, I was very much intrigued by this intimidating looking contraption, which seriously resembled a prop from an old Frankenstein movie.  Since I'd never seen anything quite like it before and, considering the fact that this was pre-internet, pre-Google, and pre-Violet Wand, I decided to delay plugging it in until I'd visited the local library and had a chance to figure out just what the hell it was.

What I learned was fascinating, to say the least.  Violet rays were produced by a dozen or more companies in the 1920s as quack-medical devices marketed to the public as the cure-all for everything from Aarskog Syndrome to Zygomycosis. Its high-frequency electrical stimulation and ultra-violet emissions were claimed to be an effective treatment for psychosis, deafness, corns and callouses, "brain fag" (seriously, look it up!) and would even increase a woman's bust size...  all for just $7 plus the cost of a draft beer, two chili dogs, and an order of nachos. 

I thought to myself, "Mike, you are the luckiest son-of-a-bitch on the planet!  And hopefully, when you plug that baby in, it won't explode, electrocute you, or burn your eyebrows off!"

Fortunately, it did none of those things, and I didn't grow bigger breasts, either.  For an antique piece of equipment that was sixty years old, it was in remarkably good shape and it worked perfectly!  There were two glass electrode attachments in the box - one roughly the size and shape of a bratwurst, and the other shaped like a hollow glass garden rake.  When the device was plugged in and turned on, the attachment would light up like a purple neon light, buzzing and crackling with electricity, following your touch with an aggressive ticklish sensation, and intimidating the hell out of anyone with a healthy fear of electrocution - which, frankly, ought to be everyone. 
 
My Parco Super High Frequency Generator & Violet Ray was truly a beautiful thing to behold, particularly as it crackled and glowed menacingly in in low-light conditions.  And what was the very first thing I thought of when I turned it on? 

I can't wait to try this thing out on my girlfriend's nipples.