by John Everson
“You are either in or out,” Kharon said. “You can’t be a visitor forever.”
Rae nodded. “What about Mark? Can I tell him…”
Kharon shook his head. “We will tell him. It will be easiest that way. He’ll be angry, but I think he’ll understand. You were meant for this place, and he…wasn’t.”
As they walked into the main room, he pointed out Sin-D, who lounged on a chair near the bar. She underscored his point about the clothing-optional nature of NightWhere. Sin-D wore only a pair of black fishnets and a sheer black baby doll top. Open access, if any men cared to step up to the chair.
“She will take care of you,” Kharon promised. “She’s gotten pretty good with the needles. Then we’ll need to find out what you can do around here during the day to earn your keep, before the doors open.”
“But, don’t we need to move to another place?” she asked. NightWhere had always been in a different building each time she had come.
He put his hands on her shoulders and aimed her at Sin-D. But before he pushed her forward, he leaned to her ear to whisper. “We already have moved,” he said. “Everything’s set here for tonight.”
He licked her ear and said, “You were asleep a long time.”
The tattoo hurt, but in the end, it looked awesome. Sin-D worked quickly, pricking the ink into Rae’s skin and the snake took shape around Rae’s wrist in no time, twining and winding around her hand to eat its own tail.
When she was done, Sin-D leaned back and smiled. Rae thought her teeth made a delicious contrast against her tan skin. The other woman’s breasts pressed sumptuously against the thin silk; she may as well not have worn anything. She wore a belly button ring as well. And shaved her pussy. Also pierced.
“Do you like what you see?” Sin-D asked.
Rae blushed. She hadn’t meant to stare so obviously. But Sin-D was definitely one hot chick built for hot nights. And she knew that Mark had fucked her at least once. Something she guessed he wouldn’t get to do again. Part of her felt guilty for leaving him so suddenly, so easily, for this…after all, he’d indulged her in all of her sexual adventures, whether he really had wanted them or not.
But in the deepest core of her heart, she did not ever want to go home again. She had found a place-maybe for the first time-in which she really felt at home. It was dark and wicked and full of pain and perversion.
And she fucking loved it.
Sin-D stepped forward and put her arms around Rae. She took Rae’s hand and entwined their fingers. “Don’t think too much,” she advised. “Just do what you want to do.”
She leaned in and kissed Rae hard on the mouth. Sin-D’s tongue was thin and moved fast in her mouth, and Rae felt herself respond, sparring against Sin-D’s quick tongue with her own. She felt the other woman’s breasts move and meld against her own, and Rae moved one hand down Sin-D’s back to massage the other woman’s silky ass. Her fingers slipped across Sin-D’s skin as if it were slick with oil.
Normally Rae didn’t play much with women; it was the hardness of men that she craved. But every now and then, she had indulged. And Sin-D definitely excited her.
Sin-D’s hand disentangled itself from Rae’s and while still tongue-wrestling, she slid her fingers beneath Rae’s robe. She put one hand on Rae’s crotch, tracing the edge of the hair down between her legs and then back up the other side before cupping her whole mound and massaging it with a ripple of fingers. Then she moved a hand over Rae’s breasts, gently kneading them up and then letting them fall before taking the nipples between her fingers and pinching.
Rae gasped in her mouth and Sin-D smiled. Then she pushed Rae’s robe to the floor and led her behind the bar to the couch.
“Lie down on your back,” she said.
Rae did, and suddenly Sin-D’s ass was in her face, and the lips of her smooth pussy pressed against her mouth. A warm, wet tongue began to loosen the folds between her own legs and Rae gasped, opening her mouth without another thought to take the other woman’s sex in. In minutes, she was moaning into Sin-D’s pussy, as wet with her own saliva as with Sin-D’s lubrication. Her own hips bucked in a rhythm matching the staccato squeaks of her partner.
Rae’s orgasm came fast and hard, and neither woman held back on screaming out the joy of their release. Rae was still blinking from the rush when her partner’s body shifted and Sin-D’s wide smile appeared at Rae’s face. The other woman knelt next to the couch and gave Rae a fast kiss.
“You taste nice,” Sin-D said. Then without a beat, she added, “Have you ever fucked a horse?”
Rae made a disgusted face as her eyes widened.
Sin-D laughed. “Baby, don’t look so shocked. It’s a lot of fun. They feel soooo different than a guy, I don’t care how ‘hung like a horse’ he might be, no guy has anything like that.”
“Um, okay,” Rae said, unsure of what to say.
Sin-D held up Rae’s wrist, glossy with the antibiotic cream she’d applied after finishing the tattoo. She pressed her own snake to Rae’s.
“You’re one of us now,” she reminded. “You can do anything you want here. I mean anything. Don’t be shy about exploring. You already know you can whip people to your heart’s content, but there’s so much more here than that. You want to really do it doggy style? Just ask. Kharon will have a Great Dane for you in no time. You want to stab a guy to death while you fuck him? Just ask. Kharon can make anything happen. And the nastier you get…” Sin-D raised one eyebrow high, “…the more he likes it.”
Sin-D stood up. “So don’t hold back, huh?”
Rae sat up on the couch and looked at Sin-D. On the surface, she looked like a mischievous, playful beach baby. But she also had scars that suggested that she had indulged in NightWhere’s darkest corners. Rae had felt them on Sin-D’s back when they’d made love. And Sin-D had a snake around her wrist to prove that she was not just a perky sex kitten. What else had she done to join NightWhere full time? What dream did this place fulfill for her?
“What have you always wanted to do, but never could out there in real life?” Sin-D asked.
Rae thought about all of the times she’d been with Mark and the urges she’d held back. He’d let her play a little, but she had always had to be careful. There were times that she had held her hands around his neck just a little too long and really scared him.
“I like the fucking a guy to death idea,” she admitted softly.
Sin-D nodded. “Nice. Do you like sharp or blunt objects?”
“Just my hands,” Rae whispered, squeezing her thighs tight as she spoke.
“You are so going to enjoy NightWhere.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
A Clue
His first thought upon walking into the dark bar lit with a combination of neon beer signs and long strands of colored Christmas lights was, “Well, this certainly isn’t NightWhere.”
No, Mark reminded himself. This was Bondage-A-Go-Go, a monthly bar scene meet-up for those who flirted with the S &M set.
Flirted was the right word though, he realized as he walked the club. The waitresses were all wearing black skirts and tight black tops. If they poured drinks as deep as the cleavage, you’d get drunk here really fast, he thought.
On the lower level, a DJ spun some ’80s techno, and couples and groups clustered at the long wooden bar and around some black highboy tables. Upstairs, a crowd had gathered around a small stage to play voyeur to the beating.
If you could call it that.
A fifty-something businessman wearing only white briefs and a steel-wool mat of chest hair bent over a sawhorse as a woman in a black leather corset and thigh-high black boots twirled and slapped a flogger against his back.
She might as well have been dusting the furniture, Mark scoffed silently, as he watched her tease the man. She didn’t land a slap that would turn the skin red, let alone break it.
Then Mark laughed at himself. Six months ago, this would have been as far as he would have considered going. And now he wa
s making fun of it as too tame?
He made a mental note of the flogger’s face, so that he could find and follow up with the man later, and retreated to the bar at the side of the second floor room. Perhaps with a little side conversation, he might uncover someone with a lead on NightWhere.
Mark ordered a Sam Adams from a bartender with more piercings than birthdays. He leaned sideways against the bar, half watching the fetish play across the room, and half eyeing the rest of the patrons clustered around him.
He hated this part. Mark had never been terribly outgoing, and hitting people up cold was not his style. But still he tried. The guy next to him on the right looked as likely as any. He was balding and thin, wearing a healthy dose of black.
“Hey,” Mark said. “Do you go to these things a lot?”
The guy looked at him and shook his head. “Just checking it out,” he said.
“Gotcha,” Mark said, taking a sip of his beer. “I’m checking it out too, though I was hoping to find a place where they really let loose, you know? This seems…kinda tame.”
The other man raised his eyebrows and simply said, “Hmmm.”
“You wouldn’t know of anyplace, would you?”
The guy pursed his lips and shook his head. “Can’t say that I do. Good luck to you.”
The man went back to sipping his own beer and Mark looked to his other side. After a couple minutes, he started talking to a woman with long brown hair who had clearly started going to seed some time ago. But you could still see a hint of the wild “tease” in her brown eyes. And while her waist was no longer a girl’s, you could tell that at one time, the freckled cleavage and well-curved legs had drawn more than just a look or two.
“Have you ever gone out there and gotten flogged in public?” he asked, trying to break the ice.
She laughed. “Nah. I get whipped enough at home. Why would I go out for the humiliation when I can get it there?”
She winked. “I just like to watch. It’s a fun scene now and then, you know?”
“Been there,” Mark agreed and began to look around for another prospect.
A couple minutes later, he felt something warm around his neck. He turned back and found a face full of freckled cleavage at eye level. The woman was standing next to him now, arm around his shoulders. “I’d like to watch you,” she said, her voice slurring just a hint. “We could go into one of the bathroom stalls…”
He smiled and gently removed her arm. “Not tonight,” he said. “I’m looking for someone.”
She pouted. “And I thought that someone might be me.”
“Have you ever gone to NightWhere?” he asked.
She looked at him blankly, one brow crinkling. “Is that, like, code for something?”
“It’s just a place I’m looking to find.”
She drifted away after that, and Mark scoped the place again. A dark-complexioned girl who looked vaguely Slavic sat beside him next. She had on a leather bra and matching skirt and black hose. He suspected there was nothing under the skirt and had a hard time not looking at her belly, which was flat and perfect, with a thin pucker just above the skirt that he wanted so much to lick…
Mark mentally slapped himself and made eye, instead of belly button, contact. The woman looked about twenty-eight, old enough to really know how to screw but young enough to still have perfect skin. She wore a pale-pink dress that narrowed to two straps as soon as it cleared her chest. She had kinked, black hair that covered the straps and wanted to cover her face. She flipped it back every few seconds as she talked, because when she talked, she liked to hold her face low, so that she could look up with her eyes. A transparently provocative, yet still highly effective ploy. Mark found himself wanting to kiss her before he’d even told her his name.
“…and he really likes to see me in corsets,” she was saying. Mark realized, as he nodded stupidly at whatever she said, that he had no idea who she was talking about. Hopefully (presumably) it wasn’t her father…which meant that she had a boyfriend or husband and thus that she was probably not on the market for him. Not that he was interested, he reminded himself. Yeah, right.
“Does he like to tie you up and whip you?” Mark blurted out, and the woman smiled. “Well, duh. But mostly we just like to dress up as different people in movies, and try to say their lines as we’re making out, you know? Like we are really Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman or Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze.”
She looked at him and suggested, “Maybe you could come home with us and be the cameraman while we play?”
“Will we be filming Love Story or Debbie Does Dallas?” Mark asked.
“I was thinking more Debbie does Chucky,” she laughed. “My husband is a dwarf.” She pointed across the room at a very short man in the front row of the flogging circle.
“He can even do trapeze-we have a swing above the bed at home.”
“Let me guess,” Mark asked. “He does a midair swing dismount…to mount.”
She flipped a trail of black, kinked hair out of her eyes for the tenth time and smiled widely. “How did you know?” She rolled her eyes. “And he ‘hits it’ every time. Like a dart.”
Mark was beginning to think he’d stumbled on a freak show, not a bondage club.
“Can I get you something?” the bartender interrupted, nodding at his empty beer glass.
Mark looked away from the dark-haired girl with relief. She was hot…but freaky in ways far worse than whips and chains.
“Yeah,” he said. “I need to find someone who knows about a bondage club called NightWhere. Do you think you can help?”
The woman looked at him for a moment, thinking. “I think we’re pretty much it,” she said. “But if not…Bradley might know,” she said, pointing to a leather-clad guy in the flogging audience. “Most people just come here for it, you know? Aren’t you enjoying the show? Why don’t you get in line? You can get flogged too, you know?”
Mark smiled. “That’s not it,” he said. “I’m looking for NightWhere because I’m looking for someone there.”
A hand slipped over his biceps and squeezed. “And I told you, you’ll never find her on your own.”
Mark turned from the bartender who floated on to her next drink and looked at the pale, ice-cool face of Selena.
“You following me?”
“Only if you’re following me,” she said. “Thought you’d be here. It’s the only bondage night in town. At least, that they advertise.”
Mark looked into those ice-blue eyes with irritation. “Look,” he said. “I need to find my wife. Will you help me find NightWhere?”
Selena shook her head. “No can do, my friend. I can’t help you get back there. You don’t have an invitation.”
“Then leave me alone.“
Selena took her hand from his shoulder.
“Mark, I am just trying to help you.”
“Then help me find Rae,” he said.
Selena shook her head. “That absolutely won’t help you. I can guarantee that. Now, on the other hand, if you took me home…”
Mark smiled thinly. “You know that if things were normal, I’d be flattered, and would probably even be able to take you up on it, if Rae approved. And she probably would. But I wouldn’t do it without her, that’s the thing.”
“So why is it that you are here alone, looking for someone who can help you find her?” Selena asked. “Obviously, she isn’t seeing your relationship in quite the same way.”
“If you’re not going to help me find her, then you’re just in the way,” Mark said. Soooo…”
“I’ll be around when you come to your senses,” Selena promised. “Call me?” She pulled out a business card from her thin black purse and handed it to him. “I know you already have my number but…here you go again,” she said. “I hope that I’ll like you. It would be nice if all this was worth it.”
Mark couldn’t help but see the sway of her hips as she walked from the bar to the stairs, ice-blonde hair gleaming in the osci
llating strobes. She was a beautiful, perfect piece of ass.
But she wasn’t Rae. And she wouldn’t help him find her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A New Boy
Her wrist burned with the memory of the needles. But her chest burned with a stronger sensation.
The sensation of desire. And pride. Mixed together in a cocktail that left her almost giddy with excitement.
Rae was part of NightWhere. Not just someone who got an invitation. And tonight she was dressed for the club as she never had been before. In her new room she’d found her outfit for the night waiting for her on the bed.
She had smiled, knowing that Kharon had been there. He was preparing her, taking care of her. She almost felt like calling out for him to help as she put the outfit on. There were studs and leather lacings everywhere…but in the end, the majority of her skin remained exposed. The leather stretched across and cupped her breasts like a cool hand. Two straps led up to a neck collar, which, along with the straps and the bra piece, were studded with silver metal. Two thin strips of leather led from each breast to a waist belt, and the pieces were connected by an interlocking weave of leather laces. One thin strip of studded leather led from below the wide silver belt buckle to slip between her legs and cover her crotch. It widened in back, but not enough to cover the bulk of her ass. Two fat leather straps with buckles remained after she managed to clip all the belts on the form-fitting torso outfit. She wasn’t sure at first where they went, but ultimately, she realized they were belts to strap around her thighs. She supposed they might hold up stockings if she had any, but none were provided. She fastened them around where they seemed to fit, and they did seem to complement the thinner wrist straps.
While she had no stockings, what she did have were shoes. Black, fat, high-heeled shoes. The heels were at least four inches tall, but wide, so that she wouldn’t fall. Still, she felt like she was stalking across the room in Frankenstein’s boots when she walked to the mirror.
She applied the black lipstick and eyeliner that had been lying on the bed with the rest of the outfit and admired herself in the mirror. She was a dominatrix without a whip. All leather and steel and provocatively half-clad flesh.