John Everson - NightWhere

This was going to take longer than she thought, Mark had realized, as he’d drifted back to watch it all unfold.

Watching her with another man both excited and humiliated Mark. He loved to watch her as his porno queen but he also realized that, no matter what he did, he would never be enough for her on his own…he was just the thing she turned to when she needed something stable and unmoving. That wasn’t what she needed normally. He was peanut butter…but someone or something else always brought the jelly…

Mark had wound his way deep into the heart of the secret web of Chicagoland swingers clubs with Rae, and sometimes they even traveled to Wisconsin and Indiana gatherings. But ironically, he was always the man at the bar who gave the pity fuck to the woman who was still alone late in the night…he never did straight trades with Rae’s parade of lovers, taking their wives or girlfriends in exchange for his wife…he looked for women whose partners had left them to fend for themselves. It wasn’t a totally intentional act, but maybe he did it because he understood the feelings of the ones left behind.

After the night that he’d asked Rae if she wanted to have sex with another man…the night he had set Rae free to have whomever she wanted…the months melted into years with increasing speed. On most days, Mark was a happily married man, ecstatic to get home from work to kiss his wife. And every few weeks, he was a troubled, but still somewhat happy man who offered her on the seedy underground altars of sex, allowing her to take any comers she chose, to scratch the itch that he could never touch.

Somehow, it had worked.

Until the day that someone had said to them, still hot in the afterglow of a night of musical-chairs sex, “Have you ever heard of NightWhere?” Rae’s eyes had lit up. She certainly had, but had not found anyone who knew how to get to the club. It was like an urban legend in swinger circles. A utopian place where no holes were barred, and no backs were left unscarred.

“Yes,” she’d answered the pale, thin man who’d asked the question. “I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know how to find it.”

“You don’t find it, it finds you,” the stranger had said, slipping a long arm around Rae’s waist and massaging her nude tummy a moment before descending lower. “You need to be invited.”

“Do you know how to get on the list?” Rae had asked, arching her back slightly and moving her body like a gently dancing snake against the man’s bare chest.

“I can get you an invitation,” the man had said.

That was when the game had changed forever.

There was nothing about the building that would have suggested that behind the brown door was a den of sin. Mark had parked on the street a couple blocks down and they’d walked the cracked and weed-overrun city sidewalk to the address quickly. As much from nervousness of the neighborhood as from anticipation of the night to come. Rae’s heels cracked on the pavement like small gunshots with every step. That’s what Mark thought they sounded like, anyway, until somewhere nearby, maybe a block or two away, something cracked with a larger, fast report. Now that was a gunshot. A moment later, someone screamed. And then the snaps of Rae’s shoes were all that echoed in the night air.

Her steps quickened.

“Not crazy about the neighborhood,” she breathed.

Mark shook his head. “Gotta agree. Though the architecture is tres modern.”

Rae snorted. “Modern Ghetto?”

This was the industrial section of town; the broken sidewalks snugged to brick walls that held no trace of architectural motive, despite Mark’s jibe. These were walls that were simply that-walls. Steel-framed windows flanked in crumbling concrete occasionally interrupted their unwelcoming façade but mainly…these were barricades. Proud factory faces that had grown old and creased with time.

The factories were gone now, and this South Side Chicago neighborhood remained quiet most of the days. Except for the warning shots of gangs and drug deals gone wrong.

“Well, I didn’t figure they’d set up shop at the Four Seasons,” Rae admitted. “But I still don’t like it!”

“It’ll be different inside,” Mark promised.

At last they arrived at the door. There was no sign. No Playboy symbol silhouette or kitschy neon sign saying Open 24 Hours . It was just a door, with the numbers 2367 in rusting letters nailed to the front.

“They could have at least gotten an address like 6969,” Rae said.

“Always looking for the extra kisses, aren’t you?” Mark laughed.

He lifted his hand to knock, but before his fingers touched the wood, the door creaked open six inches.

“Invitation?” a masculine voice demanded.

Mark pulled the folded paper from his front pocket and handed it to the hand that extended through the narrow opening.

The hand disappeared inside.

Mark looked at Rae. Her eyes were narrowed, her anxiety visible.

Mark leaned in to kiss her and she smiled just a little before gently pushing him back and nodding. “I’m okay,” she whispered.

The door opened.

From inside, a sinuous drum-and-bass combo pounded strongly. Blue and red lights reflected off the dark eyes of the doorman, who now revealed himself to them. He was tall, maybe five feet eleven inches, and thin. He wore a black, button-down shirt and dark jeans. Over his shoulder, Rae could see wisps of fog and the movement of tousled hair. A dance floor.

“You’re first-timers,” the doorman said simply. His tone left no room for argument, and Mark nodded.

“I will tell you this now,” the man said, his eyes unblinking. “And I will tell you this only once. You have been given a gift to come here. Very few people receive this invite. But there is a reason. What we do here? It cannot be revealed. Where we hold the club? It cannot be revealed. NightWhere exists where we want it, when we want it. Any member who reveals anything about this club outside the walls of this club…will be killed.”

The man smiled. Thinly. His lips were pink and drawn.

“I’m not joking here,” he said. “If you breathe a word of NightWhere to anyone, you will not live to see tomorrow. We are serious about this; it is the only way that NightWhere can survive.”

The man smiled then, and his teeth were shark white in the shadow. “Go in and sin.”

He moved away from the door and Mark stepped past him uneasily. Rae followed fast, both of them walking past the doorman until they stood in the open foyer. After weeks of wondering whether the subject of the furtive whispers was real, Mark and Rae got their first look at NightWhere.

Rae slipped her arm around Mark’s waist. “It looks normal enough,” she said.

He nodded. “Looks,” he said.

In front of them, a couple dozen men and women moved on an impromptu dance floor, dry-ice smoke jetting out in plumes between their feet. Now and then, when the grey cement of the warehouse floor was fully obscured, Rae could only think of one thing. They were dancing on a cloud.

“This is just the doorway,” Mark said. “Let’s have a drink and get the lay of the land.”

“I thought we were just going to get a lay?” Rae laughed. Mark could see the glint of excitement in her eye. She was anxious for the evening games to begin.

They skirted the dance floor and stepped up to the bar on the other side. A bartendress almost wearing half a black T-shirt and a leather skirt raised one eyebrow as Mark leaned in to order.

“You gonna tell me what to do, or am I gonna tell you what to drink?” she asked. Her voice was low and throaty, but somehow Mark could still hear her above the grind of the dance music.