Good Vibrations Magazine

Halloween has never been the same.

I used to have this problem with Halloween. I had it every year. I’m the kind of guy who wears my black hair long, rings dangling from my ears, nose and nipples. My T-shirts range from FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCK to YOU’VE BEEN A BAD GIRL, GO TO MY ROOM to the Addams Family in bondage. The best I used to be able to do on Halloween was live up to what I wore the rest of the year.

But this one year — how long ago? Like I remember. It fades into memory. This one year I didn’t even try. It was a glimpse of the future, I guess.

I still out-costumed most of the audience at the dance club that year. Newly single and feeling strangely in control, I went out alone. For the first time in years I didn’t feel like hooking up with anyone; I was looking forward to taking in the sights, enjoying the zoo that is South of Market on Halloween, hopping from dance club to dance club, seeing what the squares came up with to wear on the spookiest night of the year. I was looking forward to going home alone.

Until I got to the Motherboard, a cyber-Goth club that happened on the 31st of every month with a 31st in it. Halloween was their Christmas, and I wouldn’t have missed it.

After years of DJing, I knew every bouncer in town, so I got waved past the velvet rope like I was some sort of royalty. I hadn’t even bothered to check the weekly papers to find out what was happening tonight; short of going to see the Cramps on their annual Halloween show, I figured I would just take in some dancing under the heavy blanket of some exceptionally pompous industrial music. The last thing I expected was performance art.

I wrestled my way onto the dance floor just as the house lights were going down. When the slow-grind old-school Goth started, I guess my ears perked up. But I still wasn’t paying much attention.

Until I saw you. Until I watched you slide out onto the stage in front of the black velvet curtain.

How do you describe the darkest goddess you’ve ever experienced? Do you even remember what you were wearing that night? It must have been one of a thousand performances for you. But I remember, vividly: You were naked except for knee-high boots, a tiny patent-leather bikini, with your exposed flesh painted head to toe with spiderwebs to the point that I thought, at first, you were wearing a body stocking. The patent leather flashed in the lights as you crawled across the floor to a few scattered howls of approval underneath the veil of silence. You moved like a spider, your limbs delicate and flawless, moving with the grace of the predator — a daddy longlegs in patent leather. I don’t know if you know this, but that’s the most poisonous spider, the female daddy longlegs — much more poisonous than the black widow could ever hope to be. If she were inclined to bite humans, we’d be in deep shit.

When the black velvet curtain went up, I caught my breath. Your prey was laid out for you, scattered across the stage: three beautiful, slender women: one blonde, one redhead, one brunette. All naked except for the tiny G-string required by the liquor license. All reclining against black vinyl-covered platforms tipped up to reveal the maximum to the audience.

They all had spiderweb tattoos in the centers of their bellies. Makeup, to be sure: Temporary tattoos bought in magic stores, head shops or by mail order. Must have been.

You kissed the first dancer, a redhead named Sage that I recognized from other clubs. Her nipples were pierced and a chain hung between them, almost touching the spiderweb tattoo on her belly.

The black ropes appeared in your hand as if by magic. Pulling Sage forward and forcing her to the ground, you bound her body in a complex web of Japanese rope bondage, turning the whole thing into a sensuous dance. I noticed with some interest that you were careful to run a rope between her legs before hog-tying her, leaving her writhing as you finished off her bonds to scattered applause, dark basslines weaving in and out of your ropework as the music rose and fell.

I’d been to enough performances that I should have noticed the pulleys in the ceilings, the ropes hidden behind the three dancers. But I didn’t, because I was completely focused on you.

Sage squirmed under your grasp as the rope descended on cue. You affixed it to the rope harness and somewhere, an unseen stage hand lifted. Sage went spiraling up into darkness and hung there, her pale flesh and flame-red hair flashing in the lights.

The other two performers watched her, enraptured, frightened. You, however, were already moving on to the brunette.

As Sage hung squirming in midair, her body bound in your web of black ropes, you quickly trussed the brunette in the same position, her arms and legs thrust above and behind her, her naked breasts toward the audience, displaying more spiderwebs tattooed across them. She rose into the air on cue and you moved to the blonde, who looked more than a little frightened.

The dance floor had cleared, the club patrons having decided this would be a great time to get another drink. But I stood there, eyes fixed on you, fascinated by the way your hands moved around the blonde’s limbs, her pale skin offset by the spiderwebs she had drawn over her shoulders, back and hips. You hog-tied her with black ropes, the same position as the others, her upper body supported by a harness as her arms and legs thrust high up behind her.

She rose into the air silently.

The three of them began to fly, some unseen trellis bringing them out over the dance floor and lowering them. Sage, the redhead, descended until she hovered just a few feet above me, her eyes locking in mine.

They looked lost, hungry, needy. Her legs, spread wide in the hogtie, wriggled and squirmed, pressing her crotch against the thick strand of ropes forced between them. Her hips moved rhythmically as she bobbed up and down, suspended in midair.

Her full, pink lips went slack, her mouth hanging slightly open. A tiny string of drool oozed out of one corner of her mouth and fell, drizzling onto my face. Panting, I found I couldn’t close my mouth, and the taste of her spittle was sharp, salty. I looked into her eyes as they went closed for an instant, then opened wide as she humped violently against the rope. She moaned, softly at first and then loudly as her mouth opened wide in a cry of mounting pleasure, droplets of her spittle scattering across me.

Then she came, just like that, hovering above me as the two other dancers did the same above the scattered club patrons.

Sage’s eyes gave her the look of one hypnotized, but I was hypnotized, too — hypnotized by the sight of you at the edge of the stage, watching your performers as they displayed their devotion to you to those brave enough to stay.

Sage blew me a kiss as the pulleys retracted and she rose back into the air, moving behind the velvet curtain as it closed.

I was hard in my skintight vinyl pants.

I caught a glimpse of you before the black velvet curtain closed. You were looking right at me, and your eyes said one thing.

Come in to my parlor…

#

I’m anything but foolish, most of the time. Years of working in clubs and playing music have taught me not to talk to strangers unless there’s some compelling reason. I guess this was the most compelling reason of all, and I don’t mean because I wanted to get laid. What I mean is that I had to have you. Or, rather, you had to have me.

I didn’t anticipate trouble getting backstage, but I didn’t expect to find you so easily. Perhaps you were waiting for me. I know the bowels of that club like I know the back of my hand. I know where the performers dress and hang out before and after shows. I was expecting three beautiful, slender Goth girls to be running interference, but when I reached the hallway leading up to the dressing room, it was empty: deserted like the entrance to a spider’s den. And the door to the dressing room was unlocked.

My curiosity got the better of me. I slipped inside before letting my eyes adjust to the dark.

The stage monitors were on in the dressing room, loud, so loud I couldn’t get any auditory clues. The dark was oppressive, but I couldn’t say no to it. I closed the door behind me and stood there in blackness, sensing you. But there were no lights, and if I hadn’t known that dressing room like the back of my hand, I never would have walked into it.

I felt them around me, encircling me quickly. Your spiders, the three girls you’d trussed on stage — I hoped. One held my wrists; the other two began to unfasten my clothes. With so much vinyl, leather and chain, that was no certain task, but when I tried to help, I was restrained. I’m not a weak man; I probably could have pulled free if I’d wanted to. At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

They laid me down, naked, on a smooth, sticky surface. It didn’t feel like a couch; it didn’t feel like a floor or a mattress. As I moved, I could feel strands peeling off, attached to my flesh.

The three girls let me go. I laid there, heart pounding, wondering what I’d gotten myself into.

Which is when I felt you, on top of me.

At least, I think it was you. Who am I kidding? I know it was you, your lithe limbs wrapping around me, holding me down as a spider does when she spins her web. There were ropes in your hands, but you took a moment to kiss me, the warm metal of your piercing scraping my tongue. My cock rose, hard, against your thigh.

You rolled me onto my belly like I didn’t weigh an ounce. I could feel the softness all around me, blessed with slight give, as I tried to process what I was laying on. It was a trampoline, I figured, from the way it sank and rose with the weight of your body on top of me. But how the hell did you get a trampoline down that long, narrow corridor? I felt a momentary wave of fear and wrestled you slightly, but your long arms held me, pulling my wrists and ankles behind me, binding them so quickly that I almost couldn’t believe I was already restrained.

My cock pressed against the trampoline surface, so hard it hurt. I could have come in moments. I could feel your body, naked, on top of me as you hog-tied me. But you didn’t stop there.

Rolling me onto my side, you wrapped rope around my cock and balls and pulled it tight, forcing my cock to stand out painfully at attention. I moaned softly as your hand closed around it. I felt you moving up my body, felt your slim breasts brushing my naked chest. Felt your hand on my face, then slipping back to grasp my hair.

Your kiss tasted like poison, sharp and bitter, making me hunger for more as your tongue slid deep into me. But then the ropes began to pull, and I was dragged away from you.

My stomach churned as I was lifted into midair. I let out a cry of shock and dismay as the harness securely wrapped around my shoulders supported me, as the rope affixed to my balls pulled, hard, with the weight of my body. Pain shot through my sensitive crotch, and I had to catch my breath. But still, my cock stood throbbing and hard, ready to come. I hovered in midair, swaying back and forth. There weren’t many cues for me to go by, but from the pull of the ropes I could tell that I was tipped at a strange angle, my shoulders higher than my ass. I had no idea how high I was in the air, but I knew the ceiling of the dressing room, one floor underground, was no more than seven feet, one foot less than code required.

But how the hell had you managed to fix it with pulleys?

When I felt your mouth on me, it destroyed any sense of perspective. Either you were kneeling underneath me, or the ceiling was higher than I remembered. Your mouth found my cock and you began to pump it, teasing me, dragging me heartlessly toward my orgasm. But at the moment before I came, your mouth slid off my cock, leaving it dripping and pulsating, inches from orgasm.

Then I felt your teeth.

Not on my cock, mind you; your teeth dug into the sensitive flesh of my stomach, just beneath my ribcage. You bit so hard I gasped — for a moment I was afraid you’d torn flesh. But then I sank into the moment and I didn’t care. I let you bite me, hard, hearing you growl lie a predator feeding underneath me as you nipped your way over my belly, making my cock surge with each time you ripped at my flesh. Your lips and tongue teased me between spider bites, and each time they did I moaned softly, giving myself over to the mingled sensations. I adjusted to the pain, letting you have your sadistic way with me, and at no point did my cock soften; rather, it stood hungry for you, begging for you to finish what you’d started, begging for the chance to come for you.

But you lingered over my belly, over my chest, over my nipples, biting them harder than I would have wanted on any other night, from any other person. I could smell my own sweat in the close quarters of the room. I could feel my perspiration running in rivulets down my belly — or was that blood? Surely you hadn’t bitten me hard enough to draw blood?

But when you kissed me, your lips pressing hard against mine, your tongue invading my mouth, I tasted it: tangy, metallic, like chewing on tinfoil laced with salt. I was bleeding.

You lowered yourself to my cock, and your mouth found it again. Hungrily, you began to suck, and this time you didn’t stop, pumping my shaft into your mouth as you ran your hand over my blood-slick chest and belly. Moaning, I writhed in midair until I gave up and came, pulsing thick and hot into your mouth.

The orgasm transported me; I found myself spinning in midair, your hands and mouth nowhere near me. Or perhaps I really was spinning; perhaps you’d affixed my harness with a circular pulley, and I was helpless, spiraling out of control.

I have only the dimmest memories of being lowered, of the hands of your servants untying me, leaving me, nude, on the familiar vinyl couch that felt so different than the trampoline — or whatever it was I’d been lying on before. I faded into sleep somewhere between the goodbye kisses of your servants and the slow draw of my fingertips up my belly and chest, feeling the new marks you’d left there.

#

And that’s it, the Halloween that changed me, the Halloween I’ll always remember. None of my friends who worked there could remember booking you for the club; other people who’d attended the Motherboard that evening claimed memory loss brought on by too much drink. When I ran into Sage at another club and asked her, she smiled and changed the subject. When I asked her where she got her tattoos, she named a shop in Oakland that I knew had been closed for 10 years.

Maybe it never happened. Maybe you were a phantom, a Halloween spider laying a web for careless boys like me.

Regardless, when people see me with my shirt off, ever since that night, they ask me. Who did your work?

It’s intricate, beautiful. Every bit as beautiful as the work on your other three servants, the ones you displayed in your web that night. It’s worthy of a black widow like you, a mommy longlegs with a poisonous bite. A bite of black ink, a bite that sucked the life from my cock, making me beg for more.

The spiderweb covers my stomach, my chest, my lower neck, conforming to the contours of my body. It continues down over my hips, my crotch — and up the whole length of my cock, intricate traceries mingling with the veins. Sometimes when I’m alone in my apartment, I strip and look at it in the mirror, my fingertips outlining it and wondering if you’ve marked me so you can find me, if you’ll be returning to spin your web about me some day, to take what’s yours.

Remembering every spider bite you placed on my body, spinning your web deep into my flesh.

Halloween has never been the same.

Thomas S. Roche is a worker-owner at Good Vibrations and the author, editor or coeditor of 11 books, including three volumes of the Noirotica series. His forthcoming projects include His and Hers, two books of erotic stories he coauthored with Alison Tyler which will be available for Valentine’s Day 2003, and Best Men’s Erotica, available in Fall 2003.