The Place They Are Safe

by Alan Spencer

  On the way to dinner, they drove passed the local library, where Mark noticed the glass windows were still blacked out. He caught one woman leaving in her mid-eighties. She was evening out her skirt and fixing her hair. All Peyton said to Mark was, "They're not reading books in there, buddy." They had also passed a bookstore, the church, several clothing retailers, and a big water fountain where a guy with a bowl hair cut in a brown leather coat stared down everybody around him. As his eyes set upon one person after the other, his smile kept getting bigger. Snide smirks. It was like he was making fun of people in his head.

  "What's that shit-eating grin about," he said to Peyton. "He keeps giving everybody the funny eye."

  Peyton sighed. "That's just Bruce Parnell. He does that. Looks at people. Thinks things about them. He's got a comedy club in his head. Let him be. He's not hurting anyone. Be the bigger man. He's happy doing what he does, so we let him be."

  When they drove past Bruce Parnell, they went beyond town center and entered a deserted section.

  Mark wasn't sure this rundown section should be here. "I thought this place was supposed to be special. We're surrounded by empty buildings."

  Cassie corrected him. "Those empty places aren't empty. You go in, and it's whatever you want it to be."

  She pointed at the group of middle aged women entering an empty store, each giddy and sharing gossip and excited.

  "Seriously? We use our imaginations. Are we in a kid's book?"

  Peyton diverted his attention to the final empty building at the edge of the strip mall, a brick building that was three stories tall. There was no store sign or advertisements. "Here's our stop."

  "Are you sure?"

  Cassie kissed his cheek. "I promise it's okay. Dinner's on me, guys."

  Mark was the only one not to get the joke.

  Bruce Parnell sat with his forty-two ounce Coke at the water fountain and people watched. People watching was his favorite activity, next to making fun of those same people in his head. He delved into a bag of Fritos, chomping on the corn chips and sucking back mouthfuls of soda.

  Man, she's got saddle bags for her saddle bags. Just look at that fat bitch.

  Dude can't wear any tighter pants. It's like a hotdog's being squeezed between two bricks. Okay, maybe that's not the best way to describe it.

  Sweet Jesus, she's old. Her jaw's a rock formation.

  Bitch needs to quit douching with mouthwash. Clean-up on aisle vagina! It smells b-ad up in here.

  Look at those stuck-up teenage bitches with their shopping bags, lip gloss, and their bellies hanging out of their shirts. Cunts of a feather, man.

  Oh, and it's Patricia Lake. Hypochondriac. Too bad it wasn't nymphomaniac. What's wrong now? Do your toenails hurt? Maybe it's a flare up of gout? Or is it your scalp that's tingling. Maybe's it's skin-eating disease. Better call the doctor, you hypochondriac bitch.

  Writing another book, Derrick? Oh, and how crafty, you're typing out in public where no one will ask you "What are you writing?" "Oh, I can't say. It's top secret. It's a pretentious thing. I don't want attention or anything over it."

  Your eyes are bulging out of your head, Peyton-pal. You can't have sex, you're too socially awkward in that department, so you've got to watch people screw. You whacked off last night to Tina and Louis doin' it with their windows open again, didn't you? They're into that Tantric shit. Seven hours of jerking off will lock up that wrist of yours. Better get your calcium. Keep those wrists strong.

  Oh, and it's Chester, my chest-nuts are roasting over an open fire...

  The building was an empty shell on the inside. The floor was blank tile, and there was no front desk. The only evidence this place was a restaurant were the tables and booths that were set up like a basic restaurant. No expensive art on the walls. All blank. Nobody was inside except for them.

  "Very funny, guys," Mark said. "God, I'm so gullible. Where's this place, really?"

  Cassie and Peyton stood with their arms crossed, as if they had a challenge to overcome with Mark.

  "What?"

  The longer the two looked at each other, the more Mark couldn't stand it. "Just throw me into the fire. What's the catch here?"

  Peyton lowered his voice. "I want you to close your eyes." Mark closed his eyes, handing himself over to the method that would get food into his stomach that much quicker. "Now imagine what you're hungry for. Go crazy. As much as you want and whatever you want."

  The image that popped into his mind was of seafood. Crab legs. Lobster tail. Tiger shrimp. Tilapia with Orzo pasta. Salmon with a loaded baked potato. The final touch: enough melted butter to soak every last centimeter of his entree.

  "You finished?" Cassie said in an enticing voice. He imagined a fairy princess was addressing him. "Have you mentally filled your plate yet?"

  He licked his lips, and his stomach gave one last growl. He was so ready to eat. "Yes, I'd say so. I see it, and I want to eat it."

  "Then open your eyes."

  The moment he opened his eyes, Cassie locked arms with him before he could react to what had changed. The restaurant resembled a fine sea food restaurant. Pictures of fishermen on wharfs and boats loaded with seafood cargo lined the walls. Wooden placards of sword fish, trout, and mackerel. Then the wheel of a boat, lacquered cherry.

  Mark was so taken aback, his reaction was delayed realizing he was dressed in a black business suit with a wild red and white tie. Peyton adorned a silver Armani suit, the kind that cost easily several grand. He removed a strip of teriyaki beef jerky from the breast pocket and took a bite from the top, and smiled at Mark, "Now that you've decided what to eat, let's go get our table."

  Cassie chimed in, "And eat up!"

  The suit fit perfectly as Mark strode to the table near the back beside the lobster tank. The table was for four, but three plates were set out. Cassie had imagined the largest salad he'd ever seen with cranberries, granny smith apples, white chicken breast chunks, and all of it slathered in Caesar dressing. For Peyton, it was a plate of fried tacos topped with neon yellow nacho cheese. And everything Mark had imagined earlier was loaded on his plate.

  "Holy shit. I mean, wow."

  Mark snapped himself out of the event by sitting down and digging in. Dipping shrimp in garlic butter. Slicing corners of his pink salmon and letting the savory pieces melt on his tongue. Every item was mouth watering and so perfect. Enjoy the good, he thought, remembering what Cassie had told him about relishing these moments instead of viewing them as something overt and evil.

  The other two joined in on the eating, seeing him so thrilled with his food.

  Loaded to the brim, Mark was stuffed. Peyton hugged his belly, letting it jut up unimpeded by a belt. "You know, I like being fat. That's why I didn't change that when I came here. Fat's a state of mind."

  "I should go on a run, for old time's sake," Mark said aloud, though he meant to think it. Cassie would connect it to Elizabeth, and Peyton would connect it to the dead, and everybody here didn't like thinking about the dead. "For my waistline," he recovered.

  "You won't gain a pound," Cassie assured him, reaching over him and rubbing his belly. "That's the beauty of it. Eat whatever you want."

  "My God, it's like we're the kids in Peter Pan. Can I fly?"

  Peyton, "Will Tinkerbelle give me a rim job? Or will she just be a tease and fly away after saying some flowery shit about waiting for the right time to give me a rim job?"

  They shared the joke over a bottle of Pinot Noir, though Peyton insisted on a Lark's beer. After talking for an hour, they decided to leave, and the moment they stepped out of the door, Mark was back in his shirt and khakis, and Peyton's attire changed too. That wasn't the only change. The restaurant was to capacity with patrons, looking in from the outside. He puzzled over the folks who could be clearly viewed from the outside, but inside, they were invisible.

  Cassie locked arms with him and steered him from the building. "It's a trick. Private restaurant. You don't see each other. It makes y
ou feel like you have the whole place to yourself."

  Peyton was smoking a stogie. It literally appeared out-of-thin-air. "So I've got plans after this. You guys mind being left alone? I'm glad you finally came to your senses. Cassie girl really loves you."

  Mark changed the subject. He didn't want to talk about love. "So what's your plans?"

  Cassie waved him goodbye, cutting Peyton's response off. "Yeah, good night. Have fun out there, you dirty dog. We don't need to hear about it."

  Peyton offered her a lascivious grin and howled like a dog. "I'll tell you about it later, Mark."

  And off he went, walking on in the night, leaving a trail of cigar smoke.

  "What is Peyton doing tonight? You seem to know."

  "Honestly?" They kept on walking back towards town, and Mark wasn't sure where they were going. Peyton had driven the truck to his destination, leaving them to walk in the moonlight. "Everybody has their private pleasures here, and Peyton's no exception. I stopped him from answering your question because he's very outspoken about what he does at night. He likes to watch people screw. It's his thing. He has intimacy issues, but still likes to get off," she made a jack-off signal with her hand, "and release his frustrations."

  "Wow."

  "Yeah, wow."

  The first thing he noticed was the great number of people out and about now that it was about eight o'clock. Then Bruce Parnell, the guy's whose grin was crooked, was standing by the water fountain gawking at people. "That bastard's facial expression is bugging me. What the hell is his problem?"

  "He makes fun of people in his head. He's harmless."

  Mark peered at the library again and noted the motion sensor lights on the outside paint the windows. The windows weren't blackened anymore. Disheveled old women walked in collective groups, boisterous and sharing great news, as they found their vehicles and drove home.

  "Can you elaborate what the women do at the library? It's a library. Books. Innocent books, right?"

  "Women live out their fantasies in books, whether it be romance or whatever else they've read. They're put into the storylines. Can you imagine if you were in the book The English Patient or The Notebook. These women like to feel the way the women do in those books."

  "Count me out. I'd rather live it with real people."

  "Me too."

  The smell of cooking meats sauntered towards them. Smoked turkey legs. Barbeque beef. Hotdogs and burgers. The picnic tables outside covered in checkered tablecloths were packed with people stuffing their barbeque pasted faces with more and more food, using countless napkins and wet naps to clean their hands and faces only to soil them again. Chuck Flynn enjoyed a beer as people talked him up, mostly complimenting him on his meats.

  "He's so happy at his grill," Mark said. "God, I remember him before I moved. He was always depressed. He hated working at that slaughterhouse after his father died. He walked around like some kind of sad statue. So miserable. Like his dreams had been dashed."

  "They were dashed." Cassie corrected. "But he's happy now. Why dwell on the past?"

  Cassie pointed at a three story building beyond the library and near an open field. It used to be a battery factory, but now it was an empty shell of a warehouse. "You want me to show you something interesting?"

  Mark accepted her invitation.

  Before reaching the factory, Mark spotted Derrick Collins at his typewriter in an alleyway sitting on a milk crate. He was tempted to bother him, especially after getting the "fuck off" treatment in the woods the other day, but then he thought against it. Mark's attention veered to Dr. Albert dressed down in a polo shirt and slacks enjoying a longneck beer and walking the street, enjoying the fresh air with no particular destination in mind. A woman was stalking him from distance, hiding behind trees, behind benches, and from the corners of buildings. Cassie told him that was Patricia Lake, though she was different from how Mark remembered her from years ago. Gaunt. Thinner. Hair greasy and frayed. He remembered the girl in high school who was always feeling sick, faking the need to vomit, and was a regular at the nurse's office. She kept following the doctor, trying to drum up an excuse to engage him in conversation. By the time they were out of eye shot of anyone, he caught Dr. Albert soothing her, and then handing her a sucker, and the beaming smile on Patricia's face was so potent accepting the sucker, it was surreal. Painted on by Salvador Dali himself.

  They crossed several empty lots, and Cassie said, "These buildings can be anything you want them to be. Just like that restaurant."

  "No wonder you people love it here. You can do just about anything." Mark held her hand. "How did you end up back here?"

  "I never moved away."

  "Oh."

  "No regrets. Life has a way of panning itself out in the end. It took awhile to get back on the right path. Then once my cancer was cured, and I didn't have to deal with Duke anymore, and his bullshit, I'm so happy to be alive."

  Mark said, "It seems so easy. I know I'm missing something."

  "Oh, you are. But it's nothing bad. When you commit, like I did, after it's over, it's totally worth the sacrifice. Let that be a comfort."

  "Anything else you can tell me about committing?"

  "It'll happen very soon. But I don't want to talk about that right now. I want to have fun. I finally broke some new ground with you. I got you to relax."

  She guided him by the hand across the street to the lone standing abandoned battery factory. He recalled the place shelling out car batteries for Ford, and Chevrolet, and GM. The place created over five hundred jobs. Men came out of that place with grit stained hands and they smelled like iron and cordite. Eyes glazed over, having spent their days hunched over assembly lines and work spaces that were over one hundred degrees. His father was a foreman for a few years, granted the job by his grandfather who'd worked the job since its opening day in 1971. They each watched batteries go down an assembly line performing quality assurance.

  Cassie opened up the front wood door that was rotting on its hinges. Black mold covered half the entrance, as it did the walls inside.

  "You sure you want to be in this musty place? I could name a thousand more romantic places to be, including wherever the hell Peyton's hiding to whack off."

  "Just follow me."

  Cassie let go of his hand, and she was weaving between rusted out devices that looked like industrial washing machines and conveyor lines. The place was cleared out. Up a set of stairs, she advised him to take his steps carefully. The hinges were suffering what she called "rust rot." The stairs wobbled, so skeletal and hollow, and then he remembered how Dr. Albert fixed him so easily back at the hospital. He had nothing to be afraid of here.

  Cassie moved out ahead of him on the second floor. He was racing to catch up in this darkened nook. He kicked what sounded like a bucket in the process of chasing her down.

  "Where are you going?"

  She was playful. "I'm over here. Keep following me."

  Following the echo of her footsteps, he advanced with his arms outstretched like a blind man. Why this place, he kept asking himself, why did she want him to come in here? Dust choked his airways when he walked up another set of uncertain stairs. Cobwebs stuck to his face, the sticky silk glued to his face. He stalked after her faster, determined to finish this game of chase he didn't agree to playing.

  Darker still, he was edging down a long hallway. What did the workers do up here? Were these offices for management? If his father or grandfather were still alive, he could ask them.

  The beauty of tonight's dinner, the magic of it, was turning against him. What were these people expecting from him in return? Cassie had soothed his concerns, but now, they were coming back stronger than before.

  What did it mean to commit?

  Staying near the wall, Mark kept on moving until he came upon a door that was a quarter open. The door led to a short staircase, and he felt a fresh breeze from the top of the stairs. She had snuck up to the roof. Reaching the roof, the wind was cold against his
wet skin.

  Mark stood there and faced something so magnificent his previous stress was erased. City lights and skyscrapers surrounded them. They were up fifty stories. So impossible! He believed he was in New York, thought the skyscrapers and steel arches and bridges over bodies of water matched no city he'd heard of. The roof he was on wasn't from the building he'd entered. There was a swimming pool and a hot tub nearby, as well as a full out booze bar, as if the whole place was owned by Hugh Heffner. Then Cassie was standing on the diving board, naked, her blonde hair waving in the breeze. Her body was a healthy one-hundred and thirty pounds, curvy, vivacious, and unabashed in its nakedness as she waved him into the pool.

  "Join me, Mark."

  She dove right in, and he was right behind her. He stripped out of his clothes. Naked himself, he didn't care who could be watching in those buildings so close to theirs, though he hadn't seen a single face in the windows, only lights. Jumping in, the water was room temperature. No chill. He paddled to reach Cassie. After closing in on the darkened bleary shape through the water, he realized she was sitting at the bottom waiting for him. Grasping him by the waist, she pulled him down to her. They were leaning against the concrete slope where the shallow end turned into the deep end. Her kisses probed his mouth with the needy craving of passion and sex. The moment was intense as it was alarming. He'd need air soon. His lungs were already mimicking the action of inhaling and exhaling.

  He pushed off of her, but she wouldn't let go. She angled just right, easing him between her legs, somehow entering her sex. Inside, she was throbbing and aching for him to fuck her.

  Jesus, he thought, I can't breathe, yet he was pumping into her, thrusting his cock deeper, gaining the burn of pleasure, and after each push, he was closer to spending himself. She enjoyed every moment of it. He could hear the soft laughter.

  Fuck me, she mouthed, bubbles escaping her mouth. Keep fucking me.

  Mark's lungs ceased to fight the suffocation because he wasn't suffocating. He wasn't breathing either. It was that moment he shoved her against that wall and had his way with her. Ululations exited her lips. She was literally growing warmer and warmer inside. He kept climaxing, unable to prevent the rising. The release of his urges inspired her to spin in the water, like a practiced mermaid harlot. Then Cassie pressed him back against the wall and controlled the movements, how he slide in and out of her. She threw her head back in wild ecstasies. Cassie mouthed a scream. Her orgasm was a flood or air bubbles all the way back up to the surface of the water.