by John Everson
This time was not for him.
NightWhere was for her, and her alone.
As for the rabbit hunt…she had no idea…but she could feel her teeth ache at the words. Her stomach shifted at the possibilities. A rabbit was soft and defenseless…a hunt meant someone would be trapped…maybe hurt in the course of the chase. The more she pondered the words, the more she was dying to know.
She stripped and pulled open her underwear drawer. In the mirror, she noted that the bleached ends of her hair looked even lighter against the tan of her bare shoulders. Her breasts were creamy in the evening light, luminous. Rae made a face at herself and then laughed. She looked good. And she knew it. She loved that confidence…and would use that tonight with someone. Maybe Kharon? The lash marks from her last time at NightWhere had nearly faded completely, she noted, turning halfway around to see her back in the mirror. Some of the places where she’d been whipped still told the story in pale-pink lines across her skin. She suspected that, after tonight, she would have new scars on the brown of her back.
She selected a red silk bra that was nearly see-through and matching panties from the drawer and pulled them on. Then she found a red silk dress rimmed in black lace-more of a slip than a dress, really-and shrugged that over her head. It was tight at the waist and dipped low down her chest, exposing both cleavage and a hint of her bra. She checked it in the mirror, and nodded at the low swell of tantalizing flesh against and beyond the black lace.
Grabbing a pair of black-and-red heels, she hurried downstairs and snatched the car keys from the kitchen counter. A moment later she was pulling out onto their subdivision street and checking behind her to make sure the garage door had begun to close.
She didn’t notice the slate-grey Sonata that did a U-turn and began to follow her down the main street a few seconds later.
If he had turned the corner any later, he would have missed her. It was a Wednesday night, and Mark had been thinking that he was coming home after a shitty hump day to a quiet, relaxing dinner. Alternately, he’d thought, since he was getting home a little early for the first time in a week, maybe they might head out to dinner. But both of those plans hit the sewer just before he reached their subdivision, when he saw Rae’s little silver Mazda sitting at the light across from him. Heading in the opposite direction.
At first he wasn’t sure it was Rae. But then the car in front of him moved up a few feet and he could see the FU at the end of the Mazda’s license plate. Rae’s little in-joke at dirty personalization. The plate read LUV FU. To most it looked like a drunken Love You. Mark knew it stood for Love (to) Fuck You.
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 m
an 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
The Hunter
The ancient-looking door to The Red creaked open as she approached. Rae couldn’t help but smile as she saw Kharon’s preternatural, large eyes staring out of the dark at her. He reached out a hand and stroked her cheek.
“So beautiful,” he whispered.
Rae felt her face flush. Something about this man made her melt. And his touch…
“I am glad you understood the invitation,” Kharon said. “After last time, I do not think your husband is ready for NightWhere.”
Rae shook her head. “He doesn’t understand.”
Kharon ran a cool finger down the bare skin of her chest, hooking it inside when he reached the edge of the V in her dress. “Neither do you,” he smiled and pulled her close to him with that finger. “Yet.”
He bent until his eyes were just an inch from her own. His tongue traced her lips. His touch made her shiver, but as soon as Rae opened her lips to accept him fully, he pulled away.
“Tonight is the night of the rabbit,” he said. “We already have one here, and we need you to go and fetch us the other.”
“You want me to go to a pet store?” she asked, confused.
Kharon laughed. He turned and walked through the antechamber of candles and into the dark hall beyond.
Rae followed him into a small room that seemed to ooze red light from its corners. The light was just enough to see walls glistening in something dark and liquid. On the far wall, a man was chained. A pale, bald man stood nearby. A Watcher. His hands were stroking the chained man, gently…as you would a pet.
“Here’s our first rabbit,” Kharon said. “We’ll run him later. But first, you have to bring back another. It’s hardly a race if we don’t have two.”
“I don’t understand,” Rae said.
“You are going to go to this address,” Kharon said. He handed her a piece of paper. “His name is Perry Pierce, and he wants NightWhere. I’ve already talked to him about coming, though he doesn’t really understand yet. You should have no problem bringing him in.”
He grinned. “Just coax him with stories of whips and chains. I don’t think your own wiles will help this time around.”
“What happens when I do?”
“You will be rewarded,” Kharon smiled. Lightly he traced his finger down her right side before slipping it around to cup her ass.
“But what will happen to that guy?” she pointed at the man chained to the wall. “And this Perry?”
“You’ll just have to see,” he said. “But first you have to bring him back.”
Mark pulled up to the industrial park for the second time in an hour and was about to turn into the parking lot when he saw the red flash of Rae’s dress in a doorway. He flipped off his turn signal and passed by the entrance to flip into the parking lot at the next one. He hoped she hadn’t seen his car. He eased into the lot at the far end and watched as she walked to the Mazda and got in. Moments later, she pulled out of the industrial park and Mark followed, careful to let a couple cars get in between them.
He thought she was going home. If so, he’d hang back from the subdivision for a few minutes and then follow her in.
But then she turned west and headed away from their house. She pulled into a pet store and he followed slowly, careful to park around the building from her. That had him really scratching his head, since they didn’t own any pets. She was only inside for a few minutes and then they were back on the road again.
What the fuck, he said to himself. He was following his wife like some damned detective. Where the hell was she going now?
Rae drove through the business district and into the suburbs. About fifteen minutes later, she slowed, and then after a couple blocks, put on her turn signal and pulled into the parking lot of a cluster of two-flat buildings. Mark passed the complex by and pulled into the parking lot of Santa Fe Burritos, a small fast-food joint next door. From where he parked, he could see Rae as she walked towards the front door of a building all the way across the lot.
This was getting increasingly weird.
Mark settled back to wait. The clock seemed to crawl, but it was only twenty minutes later that Rae reappeared. She wasn’t alone. Behind her, a man in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt followed.
Mark leaned forward and squinted across the parking lots, trying to get a better view.
“What the hell?” he said.
He could swear that Rae had the guy on a leash. He could see the collar around the guy’s neck, and it looked like Rae pulled him by a chain. He could see flashes of light reflecting off it as they walked.
She opened the passenger’s side of her car for him and he slipped inside. Rae closed the door on the man and then walked around to the driver’s seat. A minute later, Mark pulled out of the lot and followed her back the way she’d come. All the way back to the industrial park.
All the way back to NightWhere.
Mark watched from the edge of the parking lot as she led the man to the doorway that he’d seen her come out of an hour before. The door opened a crack at her knock and then swung open fully. Mark caught a glimpse of a pale man in the opening, and saw Rae hand over the chain. The doorman took it and pulled the man inside as the door swung shut behind the three of them.
Huh.
So Rae was providing NightWhere shuttle service? Was this someone she’d met there before? He hadn’t looked familiar.
Mark toyed with the idea of going to the door, but he knew he’d never get inside. After the way he’d carted Rae out last time, perhaps he’d never be let back in. He turned the key and put the car in Drive.
&n
bsp; This time, it seemed, he was going to have to go home from NightWhere alone.
Chapter Seventeen
Running the Rabbits
Rae had always had a dark streak. A place inside her that craved pain. A place that desperately desired to see blood. She’d never really told Mark; he just thought he was lucky to have a girl who actually enjoyed watching horror and action movies with him on the weekends. But it was more than that. There was a black flower in her heart, and every time she set foot in NightWhere it blossomed broader. It was as if someone had finally taken the lock off the hidden dungeon in her soul and set all that darkness inside her free.
She had enjoyed telling Perry about NightWhere and how the Watchers had been secretly watching him, following his personal flirtations with leather and chains, dominance and submission. She guessed quickly that he was suicidal; there was a bloodstained rag around his wrist. At first he’d seemed dull, not quite there, as she tried to describe why she’d been sent. But he’d grown more alert as she talked about the rooms of pain. He’d been afraid at first when she’d appeared out of the blue on his doorstep, insisting that he needed to go with her to a sex club. But she’d used both her own story and her body to persuade him. While Kharon hadn’t believed it would be a benefit, Rae knew that even a gay guy could be won over by a sexy woman. Especially when she promised to get him flogged. It had really taken no time at all to get the collar on him.
The dog collar had been her idea. When Kharon had told her how much Perry thirsted for the lash, she was inspired. She’d seen a pet store on her way here and on a whim had pulled in. And her gut had been right. Perry had almost melted at the sight of a collar. He literally shivered with excitement when she fastened it around his neck.