“What they love even more than sex in NightWhere is pain,” Rae said to Peter. “And back here, in The Red, they really get into it. Things are a lot tamer out in the main club area.”
Peter shrugged. “I’m here because I love the pain,” he said softly. “I suppose that’s why I got the invitation. I was at a local swingers club not too long ago, begging for people to use a whip on me. And when they could never get up the courage to really use the thing, I took it and showed them how you are supposed to use a whip. Made the guy bleed, and after they pulled me away from him and untied him from the pipe I’d tied his wrists up to, they threatened to call the police on me. I said, ‘C’mon, he asked for it. I mean, really…he did! How else could I have tied his wrists to a water pipe in the basement?’ He was a way bigger guy than me!”
“And that is exactly the difference between the real world and NightWhere,” Rae said. “Here, you can ask for it and it might happen. But you have to be a part of it-you can’t just wander in and out. Because…you’re either in or out.”
It occurred to her as she said it, that she was a parrot of what Kharon had said to her.
“And you’re in,” Peter said. “Do you have a boyfriend, or…”
“Husband,” she answered, stepping away from the caning as the woman’s cries grew louder. “And he’s out.”
Peter slipped an arm around her mostly bare ass and said, “Well, I’m here because I want to be in.”
She didn’t shrug him off. He wasn’t a muscular stud or anything like that. He wouldn’t have stood out in a crowd, even a crowd of ten. But Rae liked Peter. He seemed honest and easy to talk to.
“C’mon,” she said, pushing him out of the crucifixion room and into the red-lit hall. “Let me show you the regular part of the club. Start at the beginning.”
“Sure,” he said. But in a moment, he stopped her.
“Wait,” he said. “What’s this?”
He pulled her closer to the hallway wall, which held a long series of black-framed pictures. They were lined up three and four tall as you walked along the hall. There were so many that Rae had never really stopped to look at them in the couple of times she’d been here. They became overwhelming-wallpaper-by their sheer number.
But now she did look; she stepped closer with him.
The pictures were probably in color, but in the heavy red light of the hall, they appeared almost black and white. In one photo, a man was stretched out naked on a rack, legs pulled taut in one direction, while his arms were clearly, painfully stretched in the opposite. Two nude women bent over his torso. The photo couldn’t show what they were doing given its perspective, but it did show what they held at the end of their fingers.
Knives.
And those knives looked to be touching various portions of the man’s anatomy, some more private than others.
The photo below that showed the same two women holding knives up in the air, with something hanging from each blade. Something paper thin and dripping…
In the photo next to that, a woman stood smiling as wide and provocatively as she possibly could. She held her hand on her hip and cocked it out, as if she were ready for an ass slap.
What made the photo disturbing, however, is what she wore as a pink boa. It hung around her neck and draped across her pendulous breasts. And if you looked a little closer at the photo, you could see the body in the background that she’d carved her boa from. He lay on the floor, semivisible between her legs. A glistening pool ringed the body, which betrayed enough head and chest hair to identify it as definitely male. The pool clearly emanated from the empty hole where his intestines once had been.
“Wow,” Peter said, staring at that photo. “That’s really crossing the line.”
“Yeah,” Rae agreed. “I haven’t seen anyone wearing guts as an outfit around here. Though I guess, I wouldn’t rule anything out.”
“Really?” he asked. “You think they could kill someone here?”
“If it was sexy, yeah,” she said, “I do.”
He squeezed one hand on her ass. “I can’t believe I finally found this place,” he said.
“You want to kill someone?” she said. Something inside her clenched at the idea.
“No,” he said. “My fantasy has always been to be the guy on the table.”
“I can put you on the table,” Rae promised. “There’s a nice row of racks out here in the main part of the club,” she said.
She led him away from the photos to the door back into the Blue Room section of the club.
“Here you go,” she said, pointing at the half-dozen racks against the back wall of NightWhere. Three of them were currently occupied by people, two men and a woman. Half-clad people wearing black leather hoods stood at the front of the racks. At least one was a woman, but all of them slapped a mean whip, as the sound of leather hitting flesh echoed through the space, regardless of who was wielding the weapon.
“Is that the kind of thing you’re looking for?” Rae asked.
Peter shrugged. “Kinda, I guess.”
“But you’d like more,” she pushed.
He nodded. “I have some pretty bizarre fantasies.”
Rae slipped her arm around his waist. “I think you can probably find just about anything you want here.”
“Anything?” he asked.
She nodded. “I don’t think NightWhere is the place where normal people go. Nobody is going to judge you here. All you have to do is say what you want and…”
“What if I wanted you?” he asked.
Rae smiled. “We can talk about that.”
“Right now?” he asked, cupping her ass.
She pressed a hand against his and moved it to her waist. “Later, maybe,” she said.
Rae took Peter’s hand and led him away from the racks and over to the dance floor. The band was playing a metal track that she didn’t recognize, but the beat still made her sway. Peter saw that she was moving to the music and began to emulate her.
They danced amid a floor filled with others, all trying to get off with the music. The bass line throbbed right down in the crotch, so it wasn’t hard. Or really…it was hard. At least on Peter. Rae felt his cock pressing against her like a rod as they danced-he was definitely enjoying his time with her. But she was also working the leather outfit pretty good, rubbing herself against him and grinding her boobs into his chest.
She liked this guy. He was nothing much to look at, with his wide face and thinning hair. The flesh around his eyes looked a bit puffy, pouty. The lines of age began at their corners, and there was grey in the black hair of his temples. Beneath his black cotton shirt, she could tell there was some extra flesh as well. Peter looked a little heavy and worn, but he wasn’t pushy. He clearly was attracted to her, but was willing to let her do all the moving. He definitely needed a guide to NightWhere before he got in too far. He seemed almost…too fragile for this place. In a way, he reminded her of Mark.
Rae leaned in tight to his chest and rested her head on his shoulder as the music slowed to a gothic crawl. “Why are you here?” she whispered at the stubble of his jaw.
He slipped a hand across the bare skin of her ass and squeezed before daring a tiny slap. “Why are any of us here?” he said. “To live. And die.”
Rae rolled her eyes. “Ooooh, deep!”
She pulled him off the dance floor. “Come on,” she said, “I’ll show you deep.” She led him towards the bar.
Sin-D was wearing white latex tonight. It made her bare skin look even more brown than usual. You could see her outfit across the club, and Rae grinned as she watched the bartendress tease one of the men at the bar. Sin-D leaned forward so that his nose was smothered in her cleavage.