The Never List

continued, “meeting Piker and Raven. Raven was Jack’s slave years ago.”
    Piker winced. “I hate to think what he did to her. It really breaks my heart.”
    I could see tears welling up in his eyes for real now. He turned to Raven, who was clearly agitated by the discussion, though she stayed perfectly still.
    Then some kind of inner force broke through, and a small cry escaped Raven’s lips. Piker yelled, sharply and abruptly, “Silence!”
    I jumped, the command was so sudden and loud, but Raven simply fell silent, her head bowed down in ultimate servitude. I felt sick to my stomach.
    I hated to pursue this topic, but I had to ask the next question.
    “What did he do to her?”
    I was afraid to hear the answer, because I knew only too wellwhat he was capable of doing to her. Here was this strange woman beside us with whom I shared this awful connection. I wanted to tell her I understood, explain that we shared something unique and terrible. But I sat perfectly still instead, immobilized by fear, overwhelmed, waiting for her to speak.
    Piker turned to Raven. “Raven, you may sit.”
    She moved to the seat of the banquette in an instant. She watched his face carefully, waiting for the next command.
    Piker reached over and unzipped the flap covering her mouth. “Speak.”
    I could tell from the circles around Raven’s eyes that she had to be in her forties at least. She had fine lines around her mouth, and one of her front teeth had a silver cap. The other was chipped. Battle injuries, I supposed.
    Raven’s eyes moved back and forth between Adele and me; she seemed unsettled, whether from being granted permission to speak or because of the subject matter I couldn’t tell. But as she began her story, the answer became obvious.
    “I met him here in this club. This was over fifteen years ago. We didn’t know each other’s real names then. No one did.” She stopped and turned back to Piker. He nodded for her to go on. He wanted this story out. Jack Derber was bad for the “movement.”
    “The club was only a few years old, and the members were still nervous about the cops. Even though nothing we did was strictly illegal, we knew they would find a way to shut us down. So we kept it very word of mouth.”
    She shifted to face Adele as she explained, “This was before the Internet made things easy. Back then there were a few chat rooms and alt.net sites we used to communicate, but all of it was spotty.”
    Raven paused, took a deep breath, and looked over at Piker again, who lifted his hand in a gesture of impatience, motioning for her to keep going.
    “We met here, as I said. He was very charming. He went by the name Dark—we used some of the private rooms in the back.”
    She pointed in the direction of an unmarked door I hadn’t noticed before.
    “Eventually, he wanted to take things a little further. He asked me to meet him at his house in the mountains. I said yes. I was young and stupid, but so far he had followed the protocol, so I believed it was all under control. And I was having fun, not realizing how seriously he took it. So I said okay to going off premises. I didn’t tell anyone what was going on. Hardly anyone even knew we were getting together.”
    Then she was quiet, looking up at the ceiling, tapping one finger slowly and rhythmically on the table. When she looked back down, she clenched her hands tightly and settled them in her lap. From then on, the timbre of her voice changed. She spoke quickly and softly, in a monotone, reciting the facts, just as I had done during difficult sessions with Dr. Simmons. I figured that meant this memory hurt.
    “I went to his house late one Saturday night. As I drove up that long, winding driveway, I thought it looked haunted. It excited me. I went up to the front door and knocked, timidly, of course. He opened the door, and the first thing I saw was a huge gloved fist coming at my face. He punched me, then dragged me into the room. I was kicking and screaming but still thought this was just a more extreme scene than I was used to. I was confused, though, because we hadn’t agreed to this in advance. Then he pummeled me, relentlessly, over and over again. I tried to get out my safe word—it was ‘yellow’ then—but I couldn’t before I passed out from the pain.”
    Raven stopped for a minute and closed her eyes. I was surprised because I thought this was what the “masochist” part of BDSM would want. This world made no sense to me. Piker