could somehow feel the bouncer types’ eyes scan over her scantily clad body as she walked through three or four folds of heavy velvet and into a foyer. It was only once we were inside that the possibility that I had fucked up dawned on me. There seemed to be an air of anti climax all of a sudden, as though she had been actively expecting some sort of big reveal. For all appearances, we seemed to be in an ordinary (and almost empty!) nightclub. I told myself not to sweat it, that her disappointment would make it all the sweeter when it finally dawned on her where we really were. I decided to hold my tongue and let things evolve as they would.
“Want a drink?” I said casually, and we walked over to a purple back-lit bar. I glanced over at her staring around listlessly, playing with a loose mint leaf she had found on the counter. Oh god, what if this completely blows up in my big stupid face? What if this is like, the first step of my divorce? Here she had begged me for a baby like a nice respectable girl and I had bought her to a sex club?
I desperately tried to think of something to say, but before I could, she began chatting absentmindedly with the bartender.
“Bit quiet for a Saturday night, isn’t it?”
“Oh, you just wait, it’s a costume evening tonight. Give it an hour and you won’t say it’s quiet…”
“Costumes?” she said, her face lighting up a little.
“Oh yeah, everyone goes all out. First time here is it?”
She nodded.
“First time? Ah, you’re gonna love it,” he said, giving her a lascivious wink and pushing two beers towards me.
I quickly steered her away before he said any more.
“Well, that guy was a bit creepy, wasn’t he?” she said, and we settled down at some tables in a small enclave some way off from the main dance floor. The room seemed big on purple – softly glowing purple orbs hung above us, and there were faint flecks of purple and pink glitter in the concrete dance floor. Each enclave was partly sectioned off with some heavy drapes that could be shut to create little private purple bubbles… I watched her closely, to see if she noticed this, or the little cushions that had been scattered in some of the corners.
“That’s cute! You can sit on the floor over there!” she said, and I relished how clueless she was. There was another room in this club. A room for her. But I would wait before I showed her that .
People started to drift into the club pretty quickly after that. The music was beat-heavy, loud yet unobtrusive. We hadn’t been there an hour when a big group of people stumbled in, a group of mostly women in outrageous outfits – they formed a mass of mostly bare limbs, straps and strips of lace and PVC as far as the eye could see, and a woman with a pair of tits so unruly they seemed constantly in danger of shaking off the flimsy pair of tassels she had stuck on them. Tanya stared with wide eyes, then raised her eyebrows at me.
It was imperceptible at first, but the arrival of this group seemed to click the whole club into its next gear, and somehow more people appeared, the music deepened, the lights dimmed and Tanya turned to me, half finished drink in her hand, “Oh my god did you see that! That girl’s totally taken her knickers off!” I threw back the rest of my drink and tried hard to suppress a giggle. A slow, shocked expression crawled over her face, then erupted into a smile.
“Oh my god. Alan. Where are we? Is this like…? Like a …?” she said.
I took another theatrical sip of my drink and nodded. Her mouth hung open for a few moments.
“Are they going to… right here…?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know honestly. But I enjoyed how excited she suddenly seemed.
“Finish your drink and then I’ll show you, they have other rooms too. This is just the dance floor.”
We got up and she flashed new eyes over the crowds around us, suddenly very interested in what everyone was wearing, and whether anybody had claimed the cushioned
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