NightWhere (8 page)

The floor, too, ran red with blood.

Gordon ran a finger across his skin and looked puzzled. She couldn’t have bled that much. But as he looked, the nude woman before him was awash in crimson. It ran in drops across her breasts, and a red rain coated her pussy in the color of horror…and life.

A man walked into their space and held out a hand to Gordon. His skin was so pale that he looked blue. His nudity was not shocking, but somehow pure; his cock hung unaroused. And while his skin seemed completely hairless, his face looked old—wrinkled and tired. But also…pleased.

Gordon took his hand and stood.

“You’ve awakened the room,” the Watcher said. “You are ready.”

“Ready for what?” Gordon asked.

“The rabbit.”

Chapter Seven

The Rabbit

Only losers hung out at Firkin’s Pub on Monday nights. Losers who liked to drink. Alone. Because there weren’t any pickups left at Firkin’s after 10:00 p.m. on a Monday night. They rolled the carpets up in Roselle, and Travis wished they’d lock the doors to this pathetic excuse for an English pub when they did. Because without a locked door…he had to stay open.

And right now…he soooo wanted to close. Travis sat on a stool behind the register at the bar and waited for the last patron to leave (an old man who nursed a Fuller’s ESB as if it were 100-proof liquor—taking it down carefully, sip by sip). Meanwhile, beneath the bar, Travis flipped through a copy of
Bondage Monthly
. He loved to think about the leather and the chains, but Travis never would go beyond the page. He sat here at the bar night after night and watched the hopefuls connect and disappear…he knew some of them were probably doing the stuff he saw in his magazines. But he didn’t know how to meet them. Or really, how to suss them out. And honestly, if they came on to him…he’d probably run anyway.

Travis wanted it…but not enough. So he flirted with the pages and fantasized…and sat in his place at the bar, pouring drinks for people who were living. Unlike him.

He was enjoying a particularly hot spread—featuring a chick with long carrot-hot hair in black-leather straps that covered none of her private parts, merely bordered them, and a black man who held a cell phone and looked bored as the woman worked through a series of pictures of her in various unconventional (and physically demanding) poses to interest him—when the door to Firkin’s opened. A thickset man walked in and sized up the bar. Which didn’t take him long since the place was virtually all empty seats. And then he walked to the bar.

He studied a photo in his hand and then looked up and repeated the evaluation, this time on Travis. A grin spread across his face as he sat down on a bar stool.

“What time do you close?” the man asked.

“Depends on who is here,” Travis said, smiling. “Honestly, I was hoping that as soon as the last bit of that Fuller’s over there was done…” he nodded at the old man in the corner, “…that I might be able to close it up for the night.”

The man slapped a twenty dollar bill on the bar and asked, “Would you keep it open for me?”

Travis shrugged. “I guess. What are you having?”

The man smiled and said, “Give me a Bud. And keep the change.”

Travis’s eyes went wide, and he poured the four-dollar beer. The man nodded as he delivered it, but didn’t say another word until the old man in the corner stood up, slapped his empty glass down on the bar and mumbled, “Good night.”

And then the man at the bar drained his Bud and looked Travis right in the eye.

“You’ve always wanted to be stripped naked and given a good whipping, haven’t ya?”

Travis gulped at the forward question. “Um…huh?”

The man grinned. “I know what you want,” he said. “And I can help you. Nobody has to know. All you have to do is say yes.”

Travis blushed and opened his mouth to say something…but no words came out.

“What are you looking at there?” the man asked, pointing over the edge of the bar to the magazine.

Travis opened his mouth again, but still said nothing. The man reached over him and pulled
Bondage Monthly
out and waved the cover of a man in a black leather mask at the bartender.

“I…” was all he could say.

“Close the bar and come with me,” the man said again. “I know a place where you can go and live this magazine. Women in leather, men with whips…it’s what you have dreamed of. It’s what you sit here reading about every night.”

“How do you know so much about me?” Travis asked.

“They have been watching you. They want you to come and join them.”

“Who are they? Where is this place?” Travis asked, looking interested and scared at the same time.

“NightWhere.”

Chapter Eight

Home Alone

When Mark pulled the car into the garage at 4:00 a.m. after their evening at NightWhere, Rae was out the door almost before he put the thing in Park. She had said nothing the entire ride home; she’d simply stared out the window, as if she were watching a movie.

He followed her into the house and kicked his shoes off as she went to the fridge and tilted back a bottle of water. He saw something sticking out of the middle of her purse on the table, and he stepped over to see what it was. The paper was red, with black writing on it.

“What’s this?” he asked while pulling it out.

Rae shrugged and set the bottle down.

He looked at it and held it out to her. The front had a simple illustration on it—a black snake, twined in a circle until its mouth met and ate its own tail. Around the image, in black letters, it said simply, “The Red”.

Rae looked at it and then reached out to take it and shove it back in her purse. “Just a flyer,” she said. “Someone handed it to me at the club.”

But Mark knew better. He heard Selena’s voice in his head: “Has she mentioned The Red yet? If she goes in there, you will never have her back, I’m just warning you.”

An hour later, Mark watched her sleeping and knew that something was different. In all of the times they had played the switch-partners game, Rae had never come home to him so silent. So elsewhere. The first time at NightWhere, she had returned to their bedroom excited.

The second time, she returned, but did not really
return
. On their ride home she had stared out the window. He’d asked how she’d enjoyed her night, and she’d sighed a distant,
“Fine.”
She didn’t ask about his experience. And she wouldn’t elaborate on her own.

When she’d joined him in bed, she had given him a smile and a quick peck on the lips—the way old people might say good night. Then she had rolled on her back and groaned slightly, before closing her eyes. That was it. She was gone.

Mark was scared to death about what would happen the next time they went. Would she come home with him at all?

“I’m worried,” Mark said the following night. He’d met Randy after work up at the Quigley’s. “It’s never been like this between us.”

“Have you talked to her about it?” Randy asked, lifting a Guinness from the bar and taking a long swig. “You know that making this thing work is tricky. It’s not like a normal relationship, but the key is still communication.”

Randy was a friend that Mark had made at one of the swingers clubs he and Rae had spent many a weekend at over the past year. In fact, Randy had slept with Rae several times; they had even had him over to the house a few nights. Mark trusted him with more than just his friendship.

“I’ve tried to ask her about it, but she clams up every time. She just says this club gives her what she’s been looking for. What she needs.”

“Then that’s a good thing,” Randy said. “If you can handle it.”

Mark laughed. “You know I can handle her with others. This is different. Something else is going on here. I’m worried about this pain fixation she’s got now. All she ever wants seems to be whips and pain…”

Randy frowned. “She’s always been kind of aggressive but…I don’t know what to tell you there. I know S&M’s a big part of this NightWhere club. I’ve never been there, but the people who get invited…they’re pain freaks. That’s the rep. All I can say is that if you want to keep getting invited, you’re going to have to find a way to play along.”

“Do you know anyone else who goes?”

Randy tilted back his beer and belched. Then he winked at Mark and grinned. “Not really. They don’t let pigs in.” He stretched and looked at the ceiling a minute, visibly thinking.

“You know, people talk about NightWhere, but nobody really knows much about it. It’s almost like an urban legend. There was a woman who used to hang out with us—and I mean, literally hung out—the chick was fuckin’ stacked! She was one of those who was into the flogging and stuff, used to have nipple piercings and shit. Loved to get bent over the couch and have her hair pulled during, you know? She used to talk about wanting to find NightWhere, and then one weekend she came back to the club and said she’d been there. I remember it because she had really beautiful skin when she came to the club—perfect complexion, no tattoos or moles or zits or anything like that. Pretty, though she had a little extra on the side, you know? Anyway, after NightWhere, she showed up with whip marks all over her body. I was afraid to touch her—I remember that—I was afraid she’d start bleeding on me! But she talked about NightWhere the same way it sounds like Rae is—she was absolutely in love with it, even though it looked like they’d thrown her under a truck. She talked about one of the guys there too; I sort of wondered if she was more into him than anything else. But I never got the chance really to ask her.”

“Why not?”

“She never came back to the club again after that night.” Randy shook his head. “You know, people kind of come and go through the club over time. I’d guess there were probably some others who didn’t come back after they found NightWhere. I mean—look at you guys, for example. Haven’t seen you in weeks. Does Rae want to come back?”

Mark shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned it since the first night at NightWhere.”

“See what I mean? We’ve had others at the club who had a thing for whips and chains…they never stick around that long. Whether that’s ’cuz they were bored since most of us don’t go there, or because they got sucked into NightWhere…who knows? All I know for sure is, they didn’t come back.”

Chapter Nine

Dying for It

The bruises were deep. The black was yellow on the edges, but mostly…still black. Parts of her kept bleeding. She had to move every few hours so that she didn’t scab herself too painfully to the couch. That would only hurt worse.

She tried to stand, but fell back to the couch after a red-hot something snapped in her back. She saw her guitar sitting across the room and longed to strum it…the music would help take some of the pain away. But she didn’t think she could walk that far across the room. And her fingers were swollen and thick. She probably couldn’t play it.

Amelia didn’t know how she’d managed to get herself home. But she knew that she couldn’t go to work tomorrow. Maybe not the rest of the week. She tried to move her arm and nothing happened.

Maybe not ever.

The room felt like it was spinning, but Amelia hadn’t had anything to drink.

Drunk on pain.

She needed water. Her lips were dry, and something inside her felt wrong. Broken.

Amelia pushed off the couch again, and this time managed to stagger to the kitchen where she downed two glasses of water. The pain in her lower back grew, and she realized she had to make another stop on the way back to lie down. The bathroom.

She managed to get herself to the toilet without falling, but when her water came it burned…and when she staggered to her feet she saw the water was dark. She refused to think about that. She flushed and downed another glass of water before she fell back onto the couch.

“You’re broken,” she whispered out loud.

The last time she’d come home bleeding on the outside, but this time…she was bleeding inside. That was probably a worse thing, she considered.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she focused on the pain, tasting it, enjoying it, living in it…

“Wake up Amelia…”

The voice was soft, but firm. Amelia opened her eyes and saw Kharon before her. He was just as she remembered, bare-chested and pale, but with his crotch sheltered in black leather and silver chains. He smiled at her, and his teeth looked as hungry as happy.

“You can’t let go here,” he whispered. “You must come back, and enter The Black.”

Amelia tried to raise her head, but failed. “The Black?”

“There is more to the journey than The Red,” he said. “Come back one more time. For The Crossing. Wait for NightWhere.”

“Yes,” Amelia whispered, just before passing out.

AC/DC on the stereo. “Back in Black.” Because nothing that went before or after was quite as transcendent.

Vanilla incense burned in a candleholder on the kitchen counter. Maybe it was girlie, but he liked vanilla.

He liked bourbon too, and he filled a snifter with Pappy Van Winkle 15-Year. Hard to find. Hard to afford.