The Devil's Equinox

by John Everson

  “Not yet,” she said.

  He snorted. “What kind of club is this?”

  “Don’t worry,” she laughed. “You’re going to love it. But we have to do something to make sure the posers don’t get in. So…we have our ways. You need a blindfold and a mark to show you’re mine…and they’ll let you pass.”

  The blindfold had seemed a little freaky, and he had to admit for a few moments he’d wondered if Regina was actually going to kidnap him for some reason. Then he’d thought of the past couple of nights with her in his bed and he’d shrugged the worry away. But to be anointed before walking blind into some exclusive club? His stomach suddenly felt cold and nervous, instead of hot and full.

  “This all seems…really weird, I have to tell you,” he said.

  “I know,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek. Her lips were soft and lingered there a moment. “But it’ll be worth it, you’ll see. This place is amazing. That’s why it’s a secret. Now, stay there a second and let me come get you so you don’t trip and knock yourself out.”

  She pushed away from him and got out of the car. The door slammed, and for a second, his nerves began to knot and bind. He almost tore the blindfold off, but then his door was opening and Regina was there, putting her hand on his arm and guiding him out onto the sidewalk.

  “You’re not going to strip me naked and then take my blindfold off and I realize I’m standing on the stage of the Pickwick Theater in front of a big crowd or something, are you?”

  She laughed. “Not even close.”

  She guided him along a sidewalk. The neighborhood, wherever they were, seemed ultra-quiet. He didn’t hear kids or dogs barking. Just the hum of generators and distant traffic noise. It was silent enough that he could almost hear the breeze as it blew past his face, rippling the ends of the blindfold.

  “Here we are,” she said presently, and guided him down a sidewalk and up a step.

  Something buzzed, and he heard her say her name. And then a door clicked open and she pulled him inside a building.

  As soon as they stepped across the threshold, Austin could hear that they were near a club. Suddenly the pounding of a techno beat reverberated against his feet. The floor vibrated and as Regina walked him down a hallway, it grew deeper and more intense. He could hear the oscillating hooks of a synthesizer and the throbbing dark electronics of a dance bass as they opened another door and suddenly his ears were awash in the sound.

  “Dying in the moment I feel/a bullet from your eyes,” a seductively low-key male voice crooned from overhead.

  A closer male voice addressed Regina. “What have we here?” he said. “Will he be baptized tonight?”

  “Soon, I hope,” she said. “But not tonight.”

  “Then you know the rules,” he said. “Blind coming and going. He did not see how to come here, did he?”

  “I know the rules,” she said. “He’s been blindfolded since we got in the car. And I’ll cover his eyes for the ride home. But now, I think he should be allowed to see.”

  “That is your choice,” the voice said.

  Regina’s hands slipped up Austin’s cheeks, and beneath the silken blindfold. She drew it up and off of his head, and he heaved a sigh of relief as his eyes met hers again. They were sparkling in the low light of the black-walled club they stood within.

  “Cell phones, please,” the man said. Austin turned and saw a thin man in black eye makeup holding out two tickets.

  “Can’t have people taking and posting pictures inside the club,” Regina explained, and handed her phone to the man, who gave her a ticket in exchange. Austin reached into his pocket and grudgingly turned over his own. Then Regina grabbed his arm and spun him around to face a crowded main dancehall.

  “Now, look around,” she said. “This is one of my favorite places in the world. Welcome to Club Equinox.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The room was alive in red and blue lights and moving, gyrating people. The music built and peaked, growling voices on top of pounding beats and pulsing electronic noises.

  “I hope you like to dance,” Regina said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the entryway and onto the wooden floor. There were dozens of couples there already, most of them dressed in a mix of black and violet. Some of the guys wore black eye makeup and fishnet sleeves, which made Austin raise an eyebrow. He had never seen a goth in Parkville, but obviously, they were here. Apparently hiding out in Club Equinox.

  “Just relax and let the beat move you,” Regina instructed. Which he interpreted to mean that she thought he was dancing like he had a stick up his ass. And that appraisal didn’t surprise him at all. Austin would much rather watch the dance floor than be on it. Nevertheless, he tried to surrender to the throbbing bass lines and follow Regina’s fluid arm and hip movements as they moved and shifted deeper into the crowd. He didn’t recognize the music, but he appreciated the dark aura of the place. There were pinpoints of light across the ceiling and the walls, and purple, red and blue glows from all corners. But the light didn’t truly ‘light’ the room; it just created a wall of moving shadows. It hid more than it unveiled, and so Austin could feel more secure in letting his body move the way it wanted to with the music. Who could see him in the shifting shadows?

  He focused, not on the crowd, but on Regina herself. She danced in front of him like an exotic goddess, her hands and hips moving and gyrating in sensual rounds and rhythms that he could never hope to match. He could only echo her dance and serve as the foil to her beauty. The rich purple paisley dress she’d worn tonight seemed oddly at home here, though most of the women wore more overtly counter-culture extreme garments; black leather and latex were popular, as were outfits of chains and mesh and lace.

  The walls of the dance hall were dotted with T-shaped windows that glowed blue and purple; Austin wasn’t sure if they were stained glass, or if it was just the lights behind the glass that were tinted. But they gave the whole room an eerie, church-like aura. A stairway curved from the floor up to a darker upper level where more figures shifted.

  After a couple of songs, Regina led Austin to a bar on the far side of the lower level. It was almost as crowded as the dance floor, but it was better lit. Two well-tattooed women and a tall, swarthy guy moved up and down the bar. They all wore the same black tank top with a logo and the word Equinox in white on their chests – the word glowed purple-hot thanks to black lights above the bar.

  “What’s your poison?” she asked, as they found a rare empty space at the bar.

  “You?” he asked.

  “Nice, but you can’t drink me in public. Choose again.”

  “Hmmm, do they have IPAs here, or is this one of those gothy places that just has absinthe?”

  “Oh, we like our bitter beer here on the dark side too. I think you’ll be surprised.”

  At that moment, a waitress wearing jeans, belt chains and an old faded black crop top that read The 13th Floor across her chest leaned on the wood of the bar and asked, “What are you having?”

  Regina ordered a Bombay gin martini with extra olives, and Austin smiled inside. No froufrou flavored vodka stuff tonight – Regina could order a real martini when she wanted to.

  “Do you have Revolution or Lagunitas on tap?” he asked. She nodded.

  “I can do both on draught. You want Anti-Hero or Lil’ Sumpin’ Sumpin’? Or we have Citra Hero in cans.”

  Tough choice. Both of his two go-to beers on tap?

  “I’ll take an Anti-Hero,” he said after a pause. She nodded and disappeared to fill their order.

  “So, what do you think?” Regina asked. “Did I do okay?”

  Austin looked around the dark club filled with flashing lights and writhing bodies and nodded.

  “I didn’t know we had a club in Parkville,” he said. “I figured you’d have to go to Chicago to find a place like this.”

&
nbsp; “Oh, they exist everywhere,” she said. “You just need to know the right people to find them. There are some versions that don’t even stay in the same building from night to night. They crop up once a month in a new place every time and people only get in by invitation. So, you really have to be part of the in-crowd to go to those. This one isn’t that crazy; it’s here all the time. But there are a lot of people who wouldn’t allow this kind of club to exist if they knew it was here. So…we don’t let them know.”

  “I thought you were new to Parkville,” he said. “How do you know about it?”

  Regina took a sip of her martini and smiled. “New to Parkville,” she said, “but not to the network. I can always find a home, wherever I may roam!”

  “Well, I get that there are a lot of goths here,” he said. “But what is so special about this place that it needs to be secret? I mean, they’re just playing gloomy synth music. And people are wearing a lot of black. Speaking of which, I’m underdressed. You could have warned me.” He gestured around the room. “But seriously, what’s the big deal? It’s a dance club.”

  “You haven’t seen it all,” she said. “This is the main floor. It’s basically just the entrance. People come here from all over – in fact, most of the people you see probably aren’t from Parkville at all. There are rooms in the back where people do a lot more than dance. And the upstairs…you have to know someone to get in there.”

  “Do way more than dance, huh?” he said. “Sounds…um…interesting. What kind of club did you bring me to exactly?”

  Regina winked. “The kind of place your mother would have told you to stay away from.”

  “That’s not saying much,” he said. “My mother wasn’t happy unless you were on your knees praying for one cause or another.”

  “They like it if you get on your knees here,” she said. “But it rarely has anything to do with praying.”

  Austin raised an eyebrow. “Wow,” he laughed. “Okay then.”

  “Do you still want to see the upstairs?” she asked.

  He hesitated for a moment, but then nodded. “I’m not a prude.”

  “That’s a start,” she said. “But Equinox tests more than your crotch.”

  She rose then and motioned for him to do the same. He picked up his pint glass and followed her as she moved through the middle of the dance floor, avoiding the twirls and arm motions of the throng until they reached the other side. Then she started up a black wrought-iron stairway that curved around as it climbed into the air. Austin held the cold metal rail tighter the higher they got; the loft of the club was high in the air, especially when you looked down from a narrow curving staircase.

  Regina reached the top but didn’t immediately step out onto the floor. There was a man there, blocking the exit. He was clearly screening people before letting them pass. He was tall and thin, his face long and drawn and pale, especially so in the lights of the club. Austin couldn’t help but think that he looked like death warmed over.

  Regina extended her arm and pulled up her sleeve. The man looked at a tattoo there, and then motioned for her to pass. She grabbed Austin’s hand, and pulled him from the stairway onto the wooden floor of the loft. Before he even looked around, Austin grabbed at Regina’s other hand.

  “What did you show him?” he asked. “Why did he let us in?”

  She smiled and turned slightly to give him a better view of her shoulder. Then she pushed her shirtsleeve up until he could see the blue and gray outline of a tattoo. It resembled the shape of the number six, only the top section ended in the open fangs of a snake, and the bottom loop extended beyond the shape of the number, to display the thin flange of the serpent’s tail.

  “What does it mean?” he asked.

  “Call it the Mark of the Beast,” she said. “If you decide you want to come to Equinox on your own without me, you’ll need to get one yourself. If you pass the test.”

  “Test?” he said. “I thought this was a club, not a university.”

  She grinned. “It is a club…and a way of life. There’s no way to keep it under the radar if just anyone can wander in off the street. So…there’s a test of sorts. Call it an initiation. It proves you’re really one of us, not just a thrill-seeker.”

  “Interesting,” he said. “But what about me? I’m here, and I’m not a member.”

  “You’re here on my honor. And if you say anything about the club that exposes it, I’ll be renounced. So…behave.”

  “Damn,” he said. “Exactly what do I have to do to…um…behave?”

  “Just follow my lead,” she said. “And don’t talk about anything you see here when you go to work on Monday.”

  “Nobody would believe that I went to a goth club anyway,” he said.

  “Well, it’s not really a goth club,” she said, and motioned for him to look around the upstairs room.

  That’s when he noticed the difference between the downstairs and the up. Here, there was no dance floor. There was a metal railing that extended around the edge, with a bar rail and stools, so people could peer over to watch the floor of the club below. And there were a few people doing just that. But behind them, there was no dancing.

  There were people hanging from chains.

  Austin’s eyes bugged a little when he realized what was going on behind the rail.

  There were wooden torture racks along the shadowed wall at the far end, and men and women were cuffed or tied to the rails. Behind them, people stood with whips and floggers, and doled out punishment – or pleasure, depending on the perspective – one swing at a time.

  The people hanging in chains from the ceiling had a different fate. People walked past them, and reached out to fondle their privates, not seeming to care whether the hangers were male or female. Austin watched aghast as a couple holding martini glasses walked along the line of chained men and women, all naked or nearly so. The two reached up to each and every chained person and fingered thighs and bellies and sex organs alike. The men responded visibly, the women less so, but their moans betrayed them.

  “So, it’s not a goth club, but a sex and bondage club?” he said.

  Regina shrugged. “Yes,” she said. “And no. You’ll see. Equinox is not a place that is easily defined for most people. It’s not just about music…or goths…or BDSM…or pain…or pleasure. It is about all of those things…but it’s about so much more. It’s really a magical place that I can’t begin to explain, but I can try to show you.”

  “I don’t have to get chained up, do I?” he asked. He was starting to feel a little worried.

  Regina laughed. “Not unless you want to. Nobody here is doing anything they don’t want to do, just remember that.”

  “Okay,” he said, but he knew his voice sounded unsure.

  Regina caught the inflection. “Follow me,” she said, and began to walk along the rail. They passed a dozen people hung from the ceiling. Some clung to the bars of metal cages, others were wrapped in heavy chains. All looked out at the people milling about below them, and many received their attentions in the form of both slaps and caresses.

  “Where are we going?” Austin asked as they wound around the upstairs room.

  “One of my favorite places,” she said. And just as she said it, she walked away from the railing, and toward a small door that led inward, away from the open expanse of the upstairs club.

  When she reached the door, Regina gestured for him to step inside. He hesitated but stepped around her and entered the room.

  He was confused at first by the tableau within. There was a mix of tables and beds. And a wide array of people in varying states of undress.

  But one thing was in common. All were covered in grease and alcohol and…food.

  “This is the tasting room,” Regina explained. “Here, people can eat and drink whatever and however much they want. There are no restrictions. If they join Club
Equinox for the tasting room, they will eat and drink their fill always.”

  “Holy shit,” Austin whispered. What he saw was like a scene from some bizarre surreal painting.

  As he looked around, he saw women with barbecue sauce and chunks of meat sticking to their naked breasts and men with enormous guts sitting with gallon-size glass mugs that looked to be filled with beer in front of them. The one closest to Austin had chest hair as wooly as a sheep, and slivers of meat and chunks of fat stuck to his naked chest. But the man didn’t seem to care if he was sloppy…he had also eschewed utensils. He reached out with a fat fist to grab a handful of something that looked like potatoes covered in dark gravy and slopped the mess into his wide, hungry mouth. Bits dripped onto his hairy body, but he didn’t react. Instead, with a greasy paw, he reached out to the gallon of beer and upended it into his mouth until suds escaped his lips and leaked into the tufts of hair below on his chest. The beer only served to wash fragments of meat and potatoes lower, and that’s where Austin’s gaze ended. He did not want to focus on the crusted debris of lost meals that had ended up caked in the dark mess of the man’s lap.

  A woman stood near him, helping him to reach the smorgasbord of food nearby. She handed him chicken legs and slopped potatoes and pudding and more onto his plate.

  But he was just one of dozens of gluttons in the room. Near him, an equally large woman lay naked on a rubber platform table, surrounded by food. Her heavy breasts were slathered in meats and gravies; her middle was nearly obscured by grilled squash and beans and peas and asparagus, and between her thighs there were mounds of potatoes and pasta salads and coleslaw and corn and more. She reached out one by one for all of it, sucking one handful after another into her mouth. Her hips seemed to shake with every bite…it was clearly a sexual experience for her, to wallow in food. To eat. To gorge.

  “This is disgusting,” Austin said after a minute looking around the room at similar indulgences of excess. At people swimming in food, and clearly – some of them loudly – getting off on it.