Bang (Club Deep #3)

“Okay.” I say, still a little spellbound by his face and voice. “I’m Christine. Christine Everett.”

Taking my outstretched hand, he shakes it gently, and I’m overwhelmed by the way my tiny hands are swallowed up by his. “Hudson Carlisle. Maybe I’ll see you again, Christine.”

I’ve never understood that stereotype of loving the way someone says your name until this moment. It makes it sound like a new and intimate word that you’ve never heard before.

He smiles, something playful and hopeful at the same time, and he lifts my hand to that wonderful mouth and presses his lips to the back of it. Definitely Prince Charming. My skin tingles where he touched it and I can’t stop staring as he leaves. As he leaves, the view of him from the back is almost as good as the view from the front, and that’s saying something. Realizing I still haven’t looked at the card he gave me, I look down. It’s all black, with a silky finish that’s not quite matte. His name isn’t on it, hardly anything is. Just some small silver lettering.

Club Deep

Be who you really are

And on the back, their website. My stomach sinks. There’s no phone number, no way to directly contact him. I head out to my car. With an adrenaline shot like the one he gave me, who the hell needs coffee? Besides, I’m not going to waste any time before finding out what the hell Club Deep is. He seemed like he might actually be interested if he didn’t have ‘responsibilities.’ So if this is the only way to see him, then maybe I’ll go. How bad could it be?

2

The Desert Rose Photography Studio is quiet today. The last couple of weeks have been crazy with all the high-school homecoming celebrations and portraits, but now we’re in that period where everyone has had quite enough pictures, thank you very much. I’m hoping that in the downtime I’ll be able to take some time and work on my own stuff, but we’ll see how it goes. Right now though, I’m engrossed in a website. Club Deep’s website, to be precise.

This is not at all what I expected.

The homepage is dark, the background a subtle picture of dancing women in silhouette. Their tagline the only text on the homepage: “Be who you really are.”

But it’s the ‘About’ page that really gets me. Club Deep is a sex club. A real-life actual sex club where people go to do…well it seems like pretty much anything. There are pictures of themed rooms for sex, packages for private rooms and pictures of a massive dance floor. I didn’t realize that these things existed outside of movies and books. This isn’t something I would have ever considered doing, but the way he—Hudson—said it so casually, If you come to Club Deep.

What would it be like to go to a sex club? Maybe not even to have sex, but to just see what it’s like? To see what kind of people actually go. And if I happen to run into Hudson while I’m there, then that’s all the better, right? The thought makes me blush almost as much as I did when he called me beautiful. Even when I wasn’t in the middle of a dry spell as wide as the Sahara Desert, this is not usually something I would think to do. I’m not that daring.

I click on the tab labelled ‘hours and rates’ and I look over the schedule. I’ve never been a lucky person, but something about running into him earlier and then seeing this page feels like my luck just might be changing. They’re having a special event tonight, a masquerade party since Halloween is a few days away. You have to buy a special ticket for the party, but it’s not expensive. No wonder he said he had responsibilities. If I had bought a ticket to a secret sex costume party I’d make sure that I went, too.

Oh wait…I just bought a ticket, too. Oops.

It’s almost four o’clock. I’m out of here in a half an hour which is plenty of time for me to hit up a store for a costume and not be there too early. I have a feeling it’s more awkward than polite to show up for a sex party early. Then you’re by yourself just waiting for other people to show up? No. That sounds like a terrible idea. What should I wear?

The door to the back office opens, and out comes Sandra, my boss, who’s the most laid-back woman I’ve ever met. She’s a hippie through and through in the best way. She looks around the studio, “Do we even have any appointments today?”