He wondered if she was heading up to the store to get something for dinner, and on a lark, he decided to follow her. He figured he would pull up in the parking lot right next to her at the grocery to freak her out. Make her laugh.
When the light changed, Mark crossed the intersection, but a block away did a U-turn. Then he worked his way back through traffic until he was just a couple cars behind the silver Mazda. He didn’t think she’d seen him. He couldn’t wait to see her face when he pulled up right next to her at the Meyers.
But Rae didn’t drive to the supermarket.
She drove right past the Meyers they always went to.
Where was she going then?
At the next light, Mark picked up the cell phone and dialed her number. She was just a car ahead of him now, and before the light changed, he saw her reach away from the steering wheel and then look at something in her hand. But she didn’t put it to her ear. After a couple more rings, Mark heard his wife’s recorded voice ask him to leave a message.
He clicked the END button on his phone and considered. She was going somewhere, and didn’t want to talk to him right now. That did not bode well for a romantic dinner. Something was up.
Rae had been acting weird lately. Taciturn. She insisted that nothing was wrong, but she never wanted to talk. And now she had just refused to take his call?
Mark sighed and squinted against the sun as he tried to keep her car in sight. She headed west, and then after a while turned north on Route 45, heading through Orland and towards Countryside and LaGrange.
He felt a little guilty for doing this, invading her privacy…but not enough to stop. He needed to know.
What the hell was she doing here? Mark asked himself, trying to hold his car far enough back that she wouldn’t see and identify him, but also anxious to pull up and see where she was going.
He followed her until she pulled off the main highway and into a cluster of buildings. Mark didn’t enter the parking lot, but instead pulled to the side of the road, hoping he could keep her in sight.
She wove around the parking lots of two buildings and then pulled into a space. Mark looked in his rearview mirror and then pulled forward a few meters, until he could see her car better. After a moment, he saw her get out of the car. The red silk of her dress shook in the breeze as she walked away from the car. She was definitely not dressed for a quick shopping trip, he noted. Mark picked up the phone and dialed her number again. And again, he watched her pick up her own phone, check the number, and ignore the call. She tossed the cell inside her car and slammed the door to shut it inside. Then she walked to the sidewalk, and stepped up to a doorway.
Mark stared at the sexy red dress and the high red heels and his anger burned. Was she really sneaking around to fuck someone else when they already had an open marriage arrangement? Why? She knew that he would let her…but their agreement had always been full disclosure.
He sank back in the car and turned the radio up. As AC/DC screamed about a highway to hell, the acid in his stomach began to boil.
The address was in an industrial park. Low-rise, brown-brick buildings stretched out along the road with nondescript signs and addresses: 2303-01 Enterprise Systems, 2303-05 Dynamic Graphics, 2303-07 Friedman & Associates. This wasn’t a strip of businesses where you came to browse; you only came here if you had very specific business and knew exactly where you were going. Rae knew where she was going. Her insides tingled because she didn’t know what she would find when she got there.
Her phone rang for the second time, and she saw that it was Mark. Again, she thumbed the button to ignore the call. She did not want to talk to him right now. Could not. She didn’t know how she would face him in the morning, but she couldn’t tell him right now what she was doing. He’d insist on trying to join her, and she didn’t want the argument. She turned her phone off and threw it back in the Mazda before shutting the door. She was going to another world now, and didn’t need the distractions of this one. She locked the car and walked down the smooth cement path towards the building. Her steps clicked with the distinctive sound that only a stiletto makes, and she smiled. She loved dressing like this. It did something to her, inside, to know that guys would drool when they saw her.
The outfit was inappropriate for public display (unless you were a streetwalker), but there didn’t seem to be anyone around to be offended (or turned on) by it. Which was odd, this early in a business park.
Rae knocked on a chocolate-colored door. The sign next to it said only 13. The first two letters of the address had been blocked out by a hand-drawn sign. It read NW. The door opened before she finished her third knock.
“You came,” Tailor said, pulling her inside. He looked at her invitation, but only for a split second. He seemed to have expected her. “And you came alone.” He nodded, and his dark eyes flashed with the light of the early evening sun. His face looked pleased.
He took her hand in his own and pulled her inside. When he shut the door, Rae found herself in the familiar layout of NightWhere. She didn’t know how they did it, but no matter where the club was housed, in whatever type of building, once you stepped through the doors, it always looked exactly the same. Uncanny. This time though, there were very few people present. Sin-D was at her post at the bar, and a woman in a latex outfit sat on the far side of the room by the racks. But nobody was currently being flogged. A nude man walked across the dance floor but the stage was silent. As he passed them and continued towards the bar, Rae noted that his back was a mess of freshly opened gashes. Blood dripped across his buttocks and down his thighs.
She thought it seemed early for anyone to have gotten that messed up already.
“Tonight is a special night,” the doorman said. “I’m sure you noticed that we called you here a couple hours earlier than usual. There’s a reason. We have lots to do before midnight strikes. Go to The Red, and Kharon will fill you in on everything.”
Mark waited in the car for few minutes, debating on whether or not he should go in. Finally, he pulled the gearshift out of Park and let the Sonata begin creeping down the shoulder. After a few cars passed him, he punched the gas and cut onto the road and headed towards home.
He wasn’t going to confront her in front of whoever she was with. He didn’t need that drama, and he didn’t necessarily want to admit that he’d followed her. He’d wait to see what her explanation was later, when she finally came home.
But his plan changed almost as soon as he made it home.
Mark walked into the kitchen and headed straight to the fridge for a beer. He popped the cap and took a long, deep swallow. His heart was a mix of emotion. Angry with her for sneaking. Angry with himself for not stomping in after her and demanding that she come home. But at the same time, he felt the edge of a black depression looming near. She was only doing this because he didn’t fulfill what she needed, a voice inside him said. He wasn’t man enough. He was a failure…
Mark closed his eyes and struggled to clear all the voices away. Rae would come home and have a good explanation. She had always been straight with him, and there had to be a good reason for this. He shouldn’t have spied on her.
That’s when he noticed the crumpled red envelope on the kitchen table.
“You bitch!” he whispered, as he slammed the beer down and uncrumpled the envelope.
He knew where it came from without touching it.
Rae hadn’t gone to cheat with another man. She’d gone to NightWhere.
Without him.
Mark chugged the rest of the beer and picked his car keys back up. He may not have had the invitation, but he knew where NightWhere was tonight.
They had agreed to do this together, or not at all.
Mark got back in the car.
Chapter Sixteen
