The Never List

club of some kind, complete with other patrons. Fifteen or twenty cars filled out a gravel lot at the edge of the woods. How likely was it that they were all in league with Jack Derber? Not very, I decided. I pulled into the space farthest from the door, breaking my usual rule. I wanted to keep some distance from this particular destination for a few minutes longer. Three spaces over, in a sporty red Mazda, Adele was waiting for me as she’d said she would be.
    At first she didn’t notice me, and I thought again that there was time to turn back. I sat still in the driver’s seat, an icy chill tingling up my body. I looked out at the darkness, something I usually shut out tightly with the heavy white linen curtains of my apartment. Now it surrounded my car, seeming to penetrate the glass of the windshield, coming in to suffocate me slowly. I was in it, of it. It wouldn’t let me go. I was struggling to breathe as I tried to blockout the steady pounding reverberating in my head. I couldn’t tell if it was the beating of my heart or the music from the club thudding in the background.
    Just then Adele noticed me sitting there. She opened her door and made her way over to my window. She looked at me, puzzled, and gestured for me to get out of the car, but I couldn’t move. I rolled down the window about an inch instead. The air coming in helped clear my head, and slowly I started breathing again.
    “Come on out,” she said, looking at me with something approaching concern. I must have looked like hell. “I have something for you to change into.”
    Adele was wearing a full-body black vinyl catsuit, and her hair was pulled back tightly into a bun. Dominatrix , I thought. How fitting.
    Her voice brought me to my senses at least. She hovered over me, looking at me expectantly. I took a final deep breath and opened the car door, grabbing my cell phone as I got out.
    She handed me a rather heavy shopping bag. I could feel through the plastic that these were no ordinary clothes, and my suspicions were confirmed as I peered into the bag at a pile of high-gloss black leather. Even though I had anticipated it, when faced with the reality of entering some kind of fetish bar, my heart pounded violently and my knees went weak.
    Adele was studying my face.
    “Look, I know you’re scared, and I know that, after your experience, this is going to be hard for you. But it will be worth it. I’m going to show you something the cops never knew about.” She took a deep breath and continued.
    “For years I regretted not telling anyone about Jack’s connection to this place. At the time I had convinced myself it wasn’t relevant. The truth is, I hadn’t wanted to get myself into trouble. I hadn’t wanted my parents to know what I was studying in college, since they were footing the bill. And in my mind, I had told thecops all they really needed to know anyway. Everything they asked about at least. He was convicted, after all. No harm, no foul, right? But now, well, you’re not the cops, and there’s no tuition to pay, and … I know how you must have suffered. About your friend. And if it will help keep him in there …” she trailed off.
    Her words indicated compassion, though I still couldn’t read it in her eyes. But on the surface at least, she did seem to want to help me. I could only imagine too that, somewhere in there, she had to be afraid of Jack Derber getting out almost as much as I was. She had his office, after all, and his chaired position. He might not like coming home to that.
    “So tell me about this place.” I had barely dared to look over at it yet. When I finally got the nerve to glance that way, it didn’t exactly set me at ease. It was a low-slung, windowless building, with gritty, bare cinder-block walls and a flat, rusted metal roof. No way did this structure meet fire code. A fluorescent orange sign over the door blinked out the words T HE V AULT . Charming.
    “Well, for starters,” began Adele, “I should explain that it’s BDSM. Do you know what that means?”
    “BD …?”
    “Bondage-Discipline, Sado-Masochism. Not as bad as it sounds. Real BDSM has rules. Very, very strict rules. First and foremost it is based on consent . Jack never really got that part. He kept breaking the rules. So much so that they banned him from coming here eventually. It simply didn’t excite him when he had permission. That’s probably why he—he—took you and the others.”
    “This is not making me feel