Naughty but nice girls

A little bird told us about a new underground grrrrl movement on London's sexual circuit. The whisper was of exclusive, women-only nights - where good girls get dressed up, tanked up and abandon themselves to bad bacchanalian activities only to return (excitably) home to the boyfriend for some real loving when the clock strikes midnight.

My editor's intrigued - no doubt imagining some saucy, feminism-asforeplay feature. Big mistake. Huge.

It's pushing midnight as I broach the ropes at King's Cross' Sahara Nights for the Rudegirls evening, called Smack. There's a queue of clubbers looking stale and crumpled.

To their left is a door, and on it Rudegirls founder Hannah - in a diaphanous, backless dress - is discreetly ushering a phalynx of beautiful women upstairs while staving off a scrum of men and taxi drivers.

'What's up there?' I ask. The scrum doesn't know. They reckon it's a lesbian thing. Or a fashion thing.

All they know is there's a superior calibre of gene up there. And they're not invited.

No wonder it's male cat nip. Traverse the ropes and you'll find pillow fights, jelly wrestling cabarets and two floors of wall-to-wall women.

We're talking attractive, unapologetically curious, liberal ladies who've come dressed to impress ('no effort, no entry'), braced for fun and looking forward to dancing to an MC with spit-curls and nipple tassles. The clothes alone (basques, vertiginous heels and little Bo Peep outfits included) are worth the cover charge.

I spend my first part of the night being snubbed by a Norwegian dominatrix who sneers down her veil at me, then consoled by the 'sailor' (pictured above) - a gardener by day - in her seaman's suit. Like her, most of the people are overwhelmingly friendly. And nobody looks like Pat Butcher.

'The night draws a mixed crowd,' says Hannah. 'I'd say we're 40 per cent lipstick lesbians, 40 per cent bi-curious and 20 per cent straight.'

I must admit, I'm having trouble identifying my 20 per cent. They're neither playing strip blackjack in the bordello nor in the girl-on-girl throng on the dance floor.

And the women fighting over dildos at sex stall f***theshop(.com) don't particularly look like they're missing their boyfriends, especially those using the new remote 'in house' devices: one person 'wears' one, the other presses the buttons.

But eventually I fulfil my brief and hook myself a straight one. Asha has a boyfriend and has come out of curiosity.

'What's not to love?' she says. 'It's flamboyant and theatrical, you don't get hassled and you don't have to dress down or apologise for your strength.' Then 'Vogue' comes on and I lose her to the throng.

I'll not tell you how the evening ends. Suffice to say, it's past 3am and no one's having their sexual liberation 'to go'. Asha's in a clinch with a gothic chick on the dance floor.

The sailor's got a new recruit. And judging by the trade bags from f***theshop it looks like women will be able to do it for themselves while the boyfriend slumbers.

Sorry, ed. It was such a neat little fantasy. Girlfriend busy on the 19th?

Smack at Egg, 200 York Way, 9-13 Vale Royal N7, Sept 19 10pm to 5am, £10, £8 concs. Tube: King's Cross.

Tel: 020 76134733. www.rudegirls.net