by Cecilia Tan
She took a deep breath. “What would we have to do?”
He was blushing and it was cute, even if what they were talking about was serious. “We’d be acting like a couple, so I guess, like, holding hands and acting affectionate, and like it was really exciting for us to be there. There are rooms deeper in where only couples can go. Since we’d be new, we could act curious and ask questions, probably, that a single man couldn’t. They’re very... suspicious of single guys.”
Wren snorted. “Because single guys might be only interested in sex? It’s a sex club. That doesn’t make much sense.”
Derek put his hands up. “I have no idea. Maybe too many husbands get jealous.”
The timer beeped and she drained the pasta, then put it back in the pot and tossed it with the sauce, shaking grated cheese over the whole thing, only remembering to ask, "Um, grated cheese okay?” after it was too late.
“Sure,” he said with a laugh as they moved to the table. “Seriously, Wren, you can say no and I'll just wait until Diana gets back...”
“It sounds kind of intriguing,” she said as she picked up her fork. “I mean, when else would I get a chance to see inside a place like that? If we don’t like it... we can just leave, right? I mean, if we were a married couple checking it out or something. Surely they get people who go there to try it out and decide it’s not for them?”
“True.” He still looked a little worried, though. “We’d have to... dress up.”
Wren stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth. “In what?”
“Well, I can get away with a pair of leather pants and no shirt. And some of the women I saw didn’t, uh, didn’t wear anything, really, just a thong maybe. But so yeah you’d probably want some kind of lingerie to wear or something like that.”
He was almost stammering by the end of his sentence and Wren found herself grinning. Cute. “Some kind of lingerie,” she repeated. “I’ve got a couple of old slips but I doubt they'd work.” She thought for a minute. “How out there is the stuff the women wear? Like would something nice but opaque from Victoria's Secret be all right?”
“I’d think so,” he said. “I’d guess that any young couple just joining this club would ask these same questions... and probably come up with the same answers.”
She nodded. “I'll go shopping tomorrow after work. I’m sure I can come up with something that'll be okay.”
“You’re sure? You’re really sure?”
She resisted the urge to grab him by the hand. “I’m sure. It'll be an adventure, right? We'll probably find Abby and she'll chew me out for being there but at least I'll know she’s okay, and then it will all be over with.”
AFTER DEREK LEFT SHE sent Lawrence an email asking if he wanted to go shopping the next night. She would have just called him on the phone or knocked on his door, but she wasn’t ready to explain the errand they would be doing, just yet.
When she got home on Friday night, he was waiting, and as they got into her car he asked, "So what are we shopping for? Or did you just want company while getting a head-start on Christmas?”
She kept both hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road as she answered, completely, truthfully, "I want your help picking out some clothes.”
Lawrence laughed. “And you figured your gay friend would have an eye and taste? We’re not all fashion geniuses, you know.”
She clucked her tongue. “No, but you are. And I need the moral support.” Damn, shouldn’t have said that, she thought. The comment made him suspicious.
“Why, are you planning to buy something horribly expensive?”
“Well, I hope not...”
“Oh, God, Wren, you’re not starting wedding dress shopping or something like that?”
She snorted, thinking it was actually the opposite. “Hardly.”
“You mean you’re not serious about that good-looking guy you introduced me to? Daniel?”
“Derek,” she corrected. “And... okay, yeah, I really like him, but I hired him to find Abby. He’s a detective.” Was that the right word? Maybe for Lawrence it was. “And he thinks maybe he saw her recently, and now I’m going to go with him to see if I can identify her.”
Lawrence took all that in without interrupting. “It’s not all an excuse to get you out on a date? What sort of a place is he taking you?”
“A club,” she said, and left it at that, her eyes scanning the road ahead.
“And you need clothes.” Lawrence nodded with understanding, even if he was wrong about what kind of club. “You want to pick something that will flatter you though and look nice, so that when you find your sister, then you can ask him out?”
Wren pulled the car into the parking lot of the mall. “Yes. Yes, that sounds like a good idea, anyway. Now help me look for a parking space.”
Once they were inside the mall, Lawrence didn’t suspect a thing until they went to the second floor and Wren refused to go into the store he tried to drag her into, instead insisting she had a place in mind. She half-dragged him on a beeline for Victoria's Secret.
“Wren, I know what girls wear to clubs these days is skimpy, but...”
“Hush up,” she said, pulling him up to the window, but not going in just yet. “The part I didn’t tell you is that maybe the reason Abby hasn’t contacted me is because she’s working at this.... this... couples club.”
“You mean a swingers club?” Lawrence’s voice dropped to a scandalized whisper.
Wren grimaced. “I guess so? It’s some place where couples go to... like... be exhibitionists, I guess.”
Lawrence wrinkled his nose. “And he wants you to go there with him? Wren, that sounds like a set-up to me.”
“Lawrence!” She made an exasperated noise. “I hired him, remember?”
“Have you really thought about it? I mean, a sex club? What if some creepy guy asks to have sex with you? Or some creepy woman, for that matter?” He squeezed her hand urgently.
“I'll tell them I’m not interested, right? Derek will protect me, too. It’s not like I’m wandering in there alone and drunk or something.”
“You know about roofies, right? The date rape drug? You could both end up on skeevy videos on the Internet and like.... violated.” He shuddered with revulsion.
“Stop being so dramatic. We’re going to go in, look around, and maybe ask around for her, and then leave. But we have to look like we want to be there. Besides, if they were date raping people all the time, someone would have gone to the cops by now.” She squeezed his hand back. “I’m betting it won’t be half as exciting as we’re making it out to be, anyway. A place for married couples who have gotten so boring they need to go out and do it in front of people because that’s the only way it can be exciting anymore?”
Lawrence took a handkerchief out of his pocket and patted his forehead. “All right. Well, let’s go in.”
They went in together and Wren found herself putting a hand through the crook of his arm. She steered him toward what looked like a safe place to start, a rack of hats. She wasn’t going to wear one, probably, but at least it got them started. She pulled one onto her head and looked at herself in the mirror. Lawrence huffed, took it off her and replaced it with another one, then another one. “Your new haircut looks too good to hide it under a hat,” he declared, setting the final hat aside.
Wren giggled as his fingers tickled the back of her neck. “Quit that!”
He pulled his hand back. “Sorry! It’s just, did you know you have a heart-shaped birthmark under your hair? You would never be able to see it when you had more hair.”
“Really?” She turned and tried to see in the mirror, but it was on the back of her head where she had no chance to see it.
“Yeah. about the size of a dime, and not very dark. It’s cute,” Lawrence said. “Now, you didn’t come in here to look at hats.”
“You’re right.” She headed toward a rack of camisoles that were all yellow and burnt umber. She took one off the rack and held it up.
&n
bsp; He shook his head. “You’re a winter. Your skin is bluish so if you wear anything with yellow in it you will look seasick green.”
“So what should I look for?”
“Blue or black. Maybe forest green? Maybe. Although it doesn’t look like that color is in.” He raised a hand to his brow like a ranger shading his eyes on the Serengeti while he looked for wildlife. “Ugh, I hate fall. It’s all earth tones. They are all wrong for you.”
“You should see this place in the winter,” Wren said, a bit sullenly. “All red and pink because of Valentine’s Day. I avoid it like crazy... um, not that I really have ever shopped here...”
She looked back and forth conspiratorially. “They always look at me like I’m somehow beneath them. The sales girls, I mean.”
Lawrence continued his scanning and then pulled her slowly toward some long, satin robes. “They have been eyeing us with a kind of belligerent disinterest since we came in,” he added, as he ran his fingers down the cloth. “Something like this would be perfect if it weren’t brown or any variation thereof.” They drifted through the store a bit more. “There’s not a single thing in here that’s black except that one little pile of panties on the table. That’s so strange. I always thought it was one of lingerie’s standard colors.”
Wren shrugged. “Maybe they think it’s too trashy-looking? Maybe we should have gone to Frederick's of Hollywood instead? There’s one of those in the West Center Mall.”
Lawrence made a face like he’d tasted something that had gone bad. “Perhaps we’d be better off to try the lingerie department in the department store. There’s not a single thing in here that’s blue, either.” He looked at her seriously. “And why should you spend your money in a place where they aren’t nice to you? These bitches don’t know shit.”
That made Wren laugh, which only seemed to attract more suppressed ire from the sales girls, though she wasn’t sure if it was his suddenly colorful language or her laughing that did it. Probably her laughing, since she doubted—hoped—no one had heard Lawrence’s comment but her. She held his hand as they left the store, head high.
FOUR
TWO NIGHTS LATER SHE stood just inside the building, watching through the high window in the door for Derek’s car. She clutched the handle of her overnight bag in both hands. They'd be changing there. It was one of the rules of the club that everyone went in looking "normal" and came out again the same way. The sun had set but there was still golden light in the sky as his SUV pulled into the driveway and she hurried down the steps to meet him.
She climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door. “Um, hi.”
“Hi.” He smiled. “Ready to go? Wait, forget that, stupid question. How are you?”
She answered with some pat answer, and he didn’t press, as they drove along the river to the other side of town. They were both silent as they went, and when Wren guessed they were getting close to their destination, she cleared her throat.
“I’m a little nervous,” she admitted. “Do you want to know the truth?”
He glanced at her as he turned into a parking lot "Do I?”
She bit her lip. I hope you do. “I really wish... we were going somewhere together... for the sake of going somewhere together. Not for the case.”
“That’s... a very good wish,” he said softly as he brought the car to a stop. “I wish that, too.”
Wren swallowed, trying to keep her heart in her chest. “Oh, good.” His smile seemed to soothe her. Neither of them seemed to know what to say after that, so she opened her door and got out.
They were standing outside a low brick building, in the parking lot where another building had once stood. They went around to the front and it seemed to Wren that there were no windows. There was no sign, either, just fairly fresh-looking black paint on the bricks, and two potted evergreens, each five feet tall, one on each side of the doorway. Derek pulled open the door and they were in a dimly lit entrance room, with a girl at a cash register, an unmanned coat check stand across from her. Everything was draped in heavy cloth, like backstage curtains. Derek gave his name and Wren was surprised he used his real name. She asked to see their IDs but it looked like it was just to verify their ages, and she crossed Derek off of a list. Wren was also surprised that no money exchanged hands. The girl pointed to the double doors that led further in, and reminded Derek that the changing rooms were to the left after entering. “Have a good time!” The phrase had never sounded so fraught in Wren’s ears before.
There were separate rooms for the men and the women to change clothes in. She wasn’t sure why that should be surprising, but it struck her as funny that a place where everyone went to get a look at each other's yayas would feel the need to separate the changing rooms. Not that she wasn’t grateful for it. She didn’t want Derek watching her figure out how to get her outfit on.
In the end she and Lawrence had settled on a midnight blue so dark it would look black under most light. She had a halter-top chemise that came to mid thigh, with a matching short robe of the same length, and matching panties that she hoped no one was going to see anyway, but they came with the set. She would have loved if pajama bottoms also came in the set, but they did not, and she really didn’t think she’d be comfortable in stockings. So she planned to go bare-legged. A pair of satin ballet-style slip-ons completed the outfit.
She looked in the mirror. Her eyeshadow and liner were dark blue to match as well, and she was surprised at how glamorous she looked, like a black and white photograph from some French fashion magazine, just a tinge of color added. The chemise could almost be an evening dress, if she were wearing pearls. The satin moved like water over her skin, feeling so light it felt as if all she was wearing was a caress. She had to keep looking down to be sure she was still covered.
She was just turning to put her normal clothes away when another woman came in. She had frizzy red hair and sat down heavily on the chair in front of the lockers. “Oh good,” she said to Wren when she saw her. “Could you help me get into my corset?”
“Um....”
The woman laughed. She looked to be in her mid-forties, rather heavy-set. “It’s not as tough as it sounds. I just need someone to hold the laces for me. It’s impossible to do it alone. I’m Suzanne.” She held out a meaty hand, and Wren shook it. Her wedding ring and engagement ring shone on the other hand as she pulled herself up out of the chair. “Your first time here?”
“Um, yes,” Wren said and waited to be told what to do.
“My second,” Suzanne said, as she put her glasses into a locker and began pulling her sweater off. “Although my husband and I used to go to swingers conventions all the time. Malibu Beach, Las Vegas, the Caribbean, we used to go like two or three times a year. But we’re becoming more homebodies now that we’re getting older and right now money's tight. This place seems all right, though, so far.”
“Does it?” Wren asked, without meaning for it to come out as tentative as it did.
Suzanne laughed again. “Yeah. Seems clean, and they keep the pervs out. Well, the bad pervs, I mean. I heard on the news, some place in Texas, a swingers club where the guy drugged his ten-year-old niece and nephew every night and made them perform sex acts on stage. That kind of stuff is just sick, sick, sick.”
“Oh, God.” Wren sat on the bench next to the lockers. “Jesus.”
“Yeah, makes you think who the hell is sick enough to even go to a place like that? But that’s the thing, only people who are already so ashamed of what they are doing would keep their mouths shut. It didn’t take long for someone with some common sense to call the cops. There’s nothing wrong with some consenting couples getting together for a little fun, or even a lot of fun. The more accepting people are of that, the less crap like that will happen. Anyway, as I was saying, this place doesn’t seem like that. They’re real careful, there’s no drugs allowed at all, and even the drinks they serve are watered down.” She turned to Wren, now dressed in leather boots up to mid thigh, with a gold an
d red brocade corset wrapped around her waist. She was hooking the two front flaps together where they had little hook-and-eyes.
In the back was a crisscross of laces, coming together in a loose bow right at the center of her back. She turned around again and pointed to the bow. “All you have to do is untie that, pull tight, and then tie it like you tie a sneaker. Okay?”
“Okay,” Wren said, and put her hands against the ribs of the corset for a second just to feel what it was like. Very hard, almost like a shell or armor. She pulled on the laces.
“A little more,” Suzanne said with a laugh. “I can still breathe.”
Wren giggled. “All right.” She pulled hard this time, and then tied the knot like she would on a birthday gift that was trying to come undone.
“Perfect!” Suzanne declared, adjusting the lie of her ample bosom in the top of the garment. “Now let’s go, or the menfolk will think we started having fun by ourselves. I'll introduce you to my husband, Bob. What was your name again?”
“Wren.”
“Ren? Is that short for something?”
“Um, no, like the bird.”
“Oh, okay. You'll find some people don’t use their real names in the swinging scene, but Bob and I kept forgetting what names to use.” She pushed open a different door than the one Wren had entered through, and led her into a lounge area. A bartender was working in one corner, and music was playing, but not too loud. “People would be like 'Hi, Kim!' or whatever and I’d be like... is she talking to me? So we just stick with Bob and Suzanne.”
Wren was introduced to Bob, who seemed friendly without being too friendly. He was going bald, had a paunch, and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with bikini bathing beauties all over it and loose surfer-style shorts. Wren looked around for Derek but didn’t see him.
“Young guy, tall and skinny, black hair? Oh, he’s in there still,” Bob said. “He got a call on his cell phone and went into the head to take it.”
