Free NightWhere by John Everson Page B

out. He couldn’t hide the bruises, though, when Mike had come home, and they’d almost broken up over that. Perry had ignored the following invitations.
    He toyed with the knife and thought of the day his father had come after him, screaming at him like some maniac. “Faggot?” his dad had screamed. “No son of mine is going to be some kind of faggot…”
    Perry relived the moment again and again. The words were in his head like a recording, but worse was the memory of his father stepping into the kitchen and holding a bottle out, threatening his son. Perry had grabbed a knife from the steak knife holder and warned his father back.
    “No son of mine will…” his dad had said just before impaling himself on the knife in Perry’s hand.
    He’d run after that. And run with the knife. He’d kept it close ever since, as a reminder. A reminder of what he’d done. What he could do. Tony beat him, but he was never afraid…he knew what he could do.
    Perry emptied the glass and poured another thirty dollars of bourbon into a glass. Maybe it was a waste, he thought, since he’d be gone before the burn really went deep.
    “Fuck it.”
    He pulled the knife across his wrist and let the red bleed out into his lap. He watched, with a strange disconnection, as the blood streamed across his forearm and then down his thigh to wet the floor.
    And then someone was there, in the room with him. A man he remembered from the sex club. Dark eyes and pale skin, a chest to die for.
    “Back in black…” AC/DC sang as the CD started over, but Perry thought about it and laughed…this man was more white than black.
    “Wrap it up,” the man suggested, pointing at Perry’s wrist. “Someone will come for you tonight. She will take you to The Crossing,” the man whispered.
    Perry didn’t know why or how, but somehow he found himself staunching the intentional flow of blood from his wrist with a strip of material from a T-shirt.
    “Sure,” he said, answering the man. He felt hypnotized…the man was beautiful. His words were seductive in a way that he couldn’t explain. “I will. Why not?”
    “Come to The Crossing,” the man said. “Don’t let yourself go alone.”
    And Perry nodded, taking a sip of the bourbon and staring at the red stain growing through his T-shirt. “Why not?”
    The man wasn’t there anymore to hear.

Chapter Ten
    Dreaming
    Sometimes the night seemed to last forever. Sometimes Rae wished it would never end.
    Right now…she was feeling the former. She’d been awake for hours, as next to her, Mark slept, sometimes snoring faintly. She wished she could let go and dream, as he did. Instead, she lived inside her memories, reliving every moment of her last night at NightWhere.
    Every time she thought of Kharon, her skin grew flushed. She wanted to be with him now so badly her breasts ached. The memory of his touch was like a smoker’s lust for a cigarette. Once she began to see his face, his chest…she couldn’t let go of the memories. Her crotch warmed and grew wet, and her hand moved there to ease the itch that built…and then her fingers had to move faster, massaging that hungry spot faster and faster until she had to stop and quietly slip her panties down her thighs and around her ankles so that her fingers could more easily be buried inside her sex. Carefully, she moved her hips faster in a tight motion, sucking her fingers inside her as, next to her, her clueless husband slept.
    In the midst of it all, she saw Kharon’s face as if he were right there, and heard his voice as if he were licking and whispering in her ear.
    “Come back to me,” he said.
    “Stay with me,” he said.
    “Forever,” he whispered.
     
     
    Gordon rolled over and looked at his shrew of a wife. She may be tiny but she snored like a truck driver, and drool wet her pillow.
    If he could have, Gordon would have taken a hammer to her head and ended her miserable existence. He often drew great autoerotic pleasure from imagining