The South isn't sleeping. Not the one I know. This South is drinking shitty bourbon by the handle, doing lines, and showing off the purple and yellow bruises striping its ass and back. It's waiting for the women and pussies to go home, because everybody around here knows that the after-party is the real party and this one doesn't start till 2 a.m.

It's called Belt Club. Southern-fried S&M for men who understand a good hazing, Belt Club is the bastard child of Fight Club and Deliverance, spontaneously conceived at a South Carolina bachelor party during the summer of 2002. Its 20-some-odd members take turns hitting each other across the ass with leather belts, talking shit while the victim waits with balls cupped in hand for the earsplitting smack that tells everyone you done been tagged. The bruises last for weeks.

But hang on, there are rules to Belt Club. "You can't just hit somebody and walk away. You got to take one," explains C.J. (one of the founding fathers of this secretive sect). "And after you get hit, you gotta give them a hug." Which is meant to indicate that the mean lick wasn't personal. It's a code of honor, like Fight Club. Also, like Fight Club, this brand of male bonding carries its own huge homoerotic overtones. Most of the masochists are married professionals: attorneys, salesmen and property managers looking for a stronger high than what they can find in the winnowed backwoods of the Carolina suburbs. All of them are white and ostensibly well-educated. And the gay thing isn't news. "We've been called queer and told we've got problems. They've thrown us out of parties for trying it," laughs C.J, who obviously couldn't give a shit. "The ladies are horrified."

Belt Club never happens before midnight. It takes awhile to ingest enough Maker's Mark and Peruvian marching powder to fully enjoy the endorphin rush, and these acolytes of leather swear that the best beatings happen from 3 to 5 a.m. No one is supposed to publicize Belt Club, but anybody with a belt, an ass, and some nerve is free to join. You simply pair off, each getting a lick at the other's bare ass. If that gets old, you can trade "shinsies" across the shins, "chesties" across the nipples, or "slavesies" across the back. And if you're still fired up and hungry for more, there's always the recently founded Wood Club. Whacking friends across the ass with building supplies until the sun comes up—that's when you know it's finally time to get sober.

HUNTER KENNEDY