hip sways together, before he put his hands on her shoulders and excused himself.
He could almost hear Rae laughing as he escaped to the bar. He wasn’t worried about leaving Rae…she was eager to explore. An obligatory dance with her hubby was a nice gesture, but…he knew the score-he was only holding her back.
The band stepped up the energy and launched into something gothic behind him, maybe Bauhaus…or Joy Division…Mark wasn’t sure. He just knew it sounded like the growlingly ’80s club scene he vaguely remembered. Hell, the singer even looked like Ian Curtis from his brief Joy Division heyday-wan, thin face and close-cropped hair broken by two intensely wide eyes. He looked angry as he sang, but the sound was comforting somehow, regardless. Mark watched for a minute and then turned away to the bar with a smile, ready to order a Jack and Coke. His eye was caught by a blonde woman who sat alone, at the far end of the bar, so he didn’t notice who was mixing drinks until she spoke.
“Just couldn’t stay away, could you?” Sin-D said. She leaned forward across the wood, the intricate tattoos on her bare shoulders exposed. Finely detailed, her left arm showed a witch star in a clouded sky and the hands of the dead rising from the earth beneath it. A broken tower faded into the horizon of her biceps beneath the low-hanging strap of her black tank top.
“Once you’ve had black, there’s no going back?” Mark joked.
“You better be talking about my shirt, not my skin, baby. This is a hard-core tan! You want black, you’ll have to hit the floor some more,” Sin-D said. “You want hot, fast and naked white girl with a shot of tequila…get your ass back here.”
“I warned you last time, she’ll do anyone, and usually does!” A broad-shouldered man in a red-and-grey- checkered shirt held out his hand. “Kendrick, remember?”
Mark took the hand and nodded. “Sure, I remember. Only my wife gets to call you Ken.”
“Gotta separate the men from the toys,” Kendrick winked. Then he made a big show of peering over Mark’s shoulders and looking beneath his bar stool. “Huh. Looks like I’m too late here. Someone’s already cucked your goose?”
“I told you she wasn’t normally shy,” Mark said.
Sin-D pushed Kendrick’s shoulder away from the bar. “Git!” she said. “Can’t you see this boy needs a stiff drink from a soft bartendress?”
Mark smiled. “How about just a Jack and Coke for now?”
“You want Jack’s Cock? Has this place turned you that fast?” She exaggerated a roll of her eyes. “How disappointing.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Liquor?” he pleaded.
“Ah, so easily swayed. Now he wants to lick her.” Sin-D reached down and lifted her skirt, unveiling the smooth-shaven bronze skin he still remembered very clearly from the last time. Sin-D was hotter than hell. Mark wasn’t embarrassed easily, but Sin-D’s completely overt sexuality made his face warm.
Kendrick laughed and shook his head. He clapped Mark on the shoulder. “Take a flashlight if you hit that, so you don’t get lost.” He held a drink up in the air in Sin-D’s direction before walking off towards the dance floor. Sin-D flipped him off and then rested her head on her elbows on the bar, blinking doe-eyed at Mark. When he didn’t react to the innocent pose, she slid one finger down the front of her tank top until a nipple popped free.
“How ’bout a li’l nip of a nip?” she offered.
“How about you just pour me a drink from the bottle for now?” he suggested with a smile.
“I was good enough for you last time,” she pouted. “Fuck ’em and leave ’em, I get it.” She poured a long stream of Jack and then squirted a shot of cola on top. “I like the fuck ’em part though, you know?”
“I do know,” Mark grinned.
Sin-D pushed the long-discussed drink across the bar just as a couple came up, hands groping each other with almost embarrassing freedom. Sin-D moved down the bar to help them, and Mark took his Jack and Coke with a smile, pulling himself up on a stool. He turned to look at the band, who, beneath the fog and the blue-green lights, seemed to be channeling something from an early Cure album. The keyboards hummed beneath a dark but steadily moving bass.
“So, do you cum here often?” the woman on the stool next to him asked. Mark turned to take her in and was struck by the intensity of her ice-blonde hair and pale, high cheeks. She was stunning and delicate, in a Nordic kind of way. If she’d been lying on a white sheet, he thought she might have looked the lighter.
“And I meant cum with a
“That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?” Mark smiled.
“No, it’s kind of a bad cliche,” she answered. “But that’s what you’re supposed to do here, right?”
“Speak in cliches?” Mark asked.
“More like cum in cliches, I think,” she mused. “Look at them.” She waved a hand at the girls on the dance floor. The band had revved into “Blue Monday” and the black fishnet and teased hair of the women in the crowd moved faster, the sexy goth trappings just window dressing; they all knew they’d be nude in one corner or another of this place within the hour.
“They’re just having fun,” Mark answered.
“It’s always fun until somebody loses an eye.”
Mark cleared his throat. “Ahem…I think you’re the one with all the cliches.”
She didn’t answer him right away. Instead she took a long drink on a glass filled with something clear…and ice. Mark didn’t believe that it was water. He stared at her fingers circling the glass. They were long and creamy white, with unpainted nails. The soft look of her skin made him yearn to reach out. As soon as he looked at her, he ached to touch her. She looked as naturally beautiful as anyone could. Her eyes flickered wider then and met his own over the top of the glass. Still, she sipped. Finally, she set the glass down and stared at him straight in the eye.
“Why are you here?” she asked quietly. “Why did you come to NightWhere?”
“Why does anybody come here?” he asked. “To have fun.”
“That’s not why anybody comes here,” she said. “NightWhere is not about fun, it’s about obsession. If you follow that rabbit into its hole, you will become a very lonely man.”
“That or a man trapped in a hole.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “You don’t want to really be here, I can tell. And that means you’re not only going to get lost, you’re going to get lost without reason.”
“Hey, you hitting on my customers?” a chirpy voice piped up from behind the bar. Sin-D propped her head on her hands and nodded at the blonde. “She’s a downer, man. I’ve listened to her before. Maybe it’s all that Russian vodka she drinks. Want to come over here and give me a hand behind the bar? I could use a little help right now.” She made a visible play of looking down the cleavage showing in the V of her skintight tank top and then pressed her arms against her sides to accentuate it. “Please?” she asked, in a patented little-girl voice that made Mark grin.
“Rain check?” he asked and patted Sin-D’s arm. “I’m just getting to know…um…” he turned to the snow-white woman beside him.
“Selena,” the woman whispered.
“…Selena here.”
“You’re sure?” Sin-D asked, pouting, while dragging one long black fingernail under the swell of her tank top and again pulling the material down as far as it would go. Mark saw the pink hint of her nipple before she rolled her eyes beneath the raccoon coat of mascara, licked the tip of her tongue to her lip, and then faded back from the bar.
He turned to Selena and shifted the conversation back at her. “What are you doing here, if you’re so down on the place?”
“I’m waiting for someone,” she said. “Hoping he’ll leave with me. If not…well, I’ll at least get to hear some music and have a couple of drinks, right?”
“I guess,” Mark said. “Though this isn’t exactly the typical destination for a casual drink.”
“Look who’s talking?” Selena laughed. “What are you doing sitting in the back at the bar?”
He smiled and took a drink. “My wife is really into this. I don’t really mind it…hell, how could a guy mind, right? Coming here is like she gave me a Free Sex card, for chrissake. But yeah, I’m kind of in the same boat as you, I guess… At this point…I’m just waiting for her to come back.”
Selena’s ice-blue eyes narrowed. “Has she mentioned The Red yet?”
