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
“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
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
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
