Chapter 3

It was about 9:45 by the time we arrived and parked. The place was called an Adult Theater, but it didn’t look like a theater, at all. I don’t know why, but I had a mental image of an old-school movie house. It was just an isolated building in a run-down, semi-industrial area. The building was old and had probably once been a warehouse.

It had a large, brightly lit sign that proclaimed ADULT THEATER out front. The parking lot looked like it had been paved in the 60’s and not repaired since., with large potholes and gaps. In fact, it ended completely at the side of the building, with a sign that read “additional parking in rear”. Beyond that point, it was just gravel.

We found an open spot near the entrance, which was at the side of the building near the font. A glass foyer had been added on many years ago. The glass was darkly tinted and plastered with product posters and advertisements, along with a warning that firearms were prohibited. Well, that was reassuring.

We walked in and found the foyer was dimly lit. It contained a couple of vending machines. One sold sodas and the other snacks. An open, exposed staircase was just inside the entrance, to the right. It climbed up, and turned to the left, ending at a landing we couldn’t quite see from there. Passed the stairs and more to the right of the foyer, there was a metal door with a hand-written paper sign taped on it at eye-level. We couldn’t read it from here.

Over to the left, the foyer opened into a brightly lit room that was an adult novelty and porn DVD store. There was a lot of clutter, signs, posters, and warnings, but it was all a bit overwhelming. I also noticed a couple of men milling about in the foyer, drinking sodas.

We were not sure what to do, so we walked into the store, through an anti-theft detector that beeped as we passed. Just inside the gate, to the left, was a raised platform with a counter that came up to about chest height. Behind it was a 30-ish guy with a long ponytail, full beard, lots of muscles and a bored look on his face.

As we entered, he gave my suit a funny look, then stared with large eyes at Jenny. “Here for couples night?” he asked, stepping closer and leaning on the counter to look over it at us. Jenny stood close to me, looking around. I could tell she was very uncomfortable. She didn’t even realize her dress was unbuttoned again, laying open and giving the pony-tail guy a great view of her tits, down to almost her nipples.

“Yeah,” I answered, looking around, “how did you guess?” I asked without thinking.

“Uhh, you’re a couple, and it’s couples night,” he spoke, stating the obvious, then added, “Twenty bucks for the couple, it’s good all night.”

I nodded and pulled my wallet out, then handed him the twenty dollars. He took it and printed out a small paper receipt with a time and date stamp.

“This is your ticket. You have to have and present it to get in the theater upstairs. It is good all night until 5 AM tomorrow. You can leave and re-enter as many times as you want. If you lose the ticket, you have to buy a new one. If you go into a private room, you have to feed the machine. If you stop, you’ll get a warning. If you still don’t feed it, we’ll kick you out. If you want privacy close and lock the door, otherwise, people will walk in, but then that’s what some people want. Upstairs is couples only. Show the ticket to the camera upstairs and push the doorbell, you’ll get buzzed in. Theaters inside and at the end of the hallway. There are two lounges upstairs for you to relax. No nudity in the lounges and the restrooms. You do what you do, but don’t do it in the public areas. Downstairs is singles, you can go in there if you want, but from the looks of you, I would not recommend it. Any questions?”

It was a lot to take in. He spoke rapidly in a rehearsed manner that told us he made this speech a lot. I didn’t get half of it, but I was not about to ask him again. I took the receipt and Jenny, and I started to leave. The ponytail guy leaned over and said, “Hey, hang on.” He was speaking much more softly, almost friendly. “This is your first time here, right?”

I shook my head, “That obvious?” I asked a bit chagrin.

“Like Kim Kardashian’s ass,” he said, chuckling, “word of advice, don’t leave her alone for a minute. And here, you’ll need these.” He tossed me a small packet, and I caught it, then stared at the label. “Condoms.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I saw Jenny look at them and blush deeply. “Oh, we don’t need these,” I stammered, “we’re just here to look.”

Ponytail Guy nodded with a smirk on his face. “That’s what they all say.” He pointed back to the foyer, “Stairs right there, go up and show the ticket, we’ll buzz you in. Don’t let anybody else in with you.”

“Ok,” I said, ending the conversation and putting the package of condoms in my pocket. I thought about giving them to Jenny but remembered we had locked her purse in the glove box. I lead her up the stairs. There were now three men in the foyer, all looking at Jenny as we walked to the stairs and started ascending. I noticed that two of them seemed to follow us up. One guy was a young black guy, in his twenties, with a navy blue hooded sweatshirt and the Nike swoosh on it. The other guy was a heavyset, middle-aged white guy in gray slacks and a blue dress shirt.

When we reached the top of the stairs, I held the ticket up the video camera and pushed the doorbell. I heard a chime from far away, followed by a buzz that lasted about a second, then a click. I Opened the door and held it for Jenny, then stepped through. The two guys behind me tried to wedge in, but they were immediately met by a very large black man, who had been sitting on a barstool just inside the door.

“Where the fuck, you mother fuckers think you’re going?” he demanded. Jenny and I froze. I held up the ticket and started to speak.

“Not Y’all,” he said in as nice a tone as he could, which came out almost comical, “Y’all are good. Go on and have a nice time.”

The two men that had followed us in stood there looking unhappy. The guard turned on them, “Get your sorry mother fucking asses back downstairs. You know the drill. Don’t let me catch Y’all mother fuckers sneaking back up here again.”

He opened the door and chased them out.

The area upstairs was dramatically different than downstairs. The walls were wood paneled and the floor carpeted in reds and blacks. There was a lot of red trim everywhere and neon signs, but mostly it was dimly lit, like a bar or club. Mirrors made the area feel a lot larger. Just past the guard, there was a small room off to the right. The door was open an inside we saw a large screen TV on the far wall and what looked like a black leather couch facing it in the center of the room, with its back to the door.

We walked over and peered in. It was a lot nicer looking than I had expected. I could see the tv had what looked like a vending machine attached to it to feed it money or credit cards. There was also a small stool and a bunch of rolls of toilet paper and a wastebasket. Everything smelled very antiseptic like it had been scrubbed in Lysol.

To the left of this little room, at what must have been the front corner of the building was one of the lounges Ponytail Guy had mentioned. It had a sectional sofa in the corner, with windows covering both walls. It was unoccupied.

To the left of the entrance and the guard was a hallway the lead to the back of the building. We walked down it slowly. There were three more rooms like the one by the door along the left side of the hallway and four on the right. As we passed them, a couple had the door closed, and I noticed a little panel in the door. The panels on the two closed doors were red. They were red on all the others. I assumed it was like the occupancy sign on a portable toilet or airplane lavatory.

The sound of porn was soft, but coming from numerous locations. As we passed one doorway that was half-closed, we could see porn playing on the TV. We glanced in and saw a woman, naked, bent over on the sofa, with her ass towards us. She was sucking the cock of a black man while being fucked from behind by a white guy.

Jenny gripped my hand tightly, and I heard her gasp when she saw what was happening. We both stood and stared inside, frozen like deer in the headlights. The black guy looked up and saw us watching. He waved to us to come in. I pushed on Jenny’s side, moving her out of the doorway and down the hallway. Losing sight of the sex, broke her out of her reverie and she gazed up at me with her mouth hanging open, then it turned into a smile.

We moved to the end of the hallway. The rest of the rooms we either closed or empty. We were both breathing a little hard, and it was not from the exertion of the walk. When we reached the end of the hall, there was another lounge area with four matching couches, two along the right wall, one facing us on the far wall, just to the left of a door with a sign on it that said Theater. The lounge was a square room, and the fourth sofa was along the wall to our left. The far left wall was home to the restrooms, male on the right, female on the left, both with open doors, but the interior blocked by a wall.

Three people sat in this lounge. A thirty-something white couple sat side-by-side on one of the couches along the right-hand wall. A middle-aged, slender woman in a black dress and high-heels sat off to the left, alone, legs crossed. She smiled and nodded at us, but we just grinned back, unsure of the protocols and signals that people gave each other in a place like this.

Just then the theater door, an old metal door with a round knob, opened with a loud creak. Everyone turned to look while a couple came out, laughing. The girl was first and was wearing a cute red dress that came to her mid-thighs. She had shoulder length brown hair and a beautiful figure. The guy was tall, with short brown hair wearing jeans and an untucked long-sleeved shirt. Both were attractive and around our age. They smiled as they walked past us and went down the hallway.

The sound of loud porn came from the open theater door, but we couldn’t see anything inside as it was very dark. The door swung shut slowly, creaking loudly then clanged shut. I held Jenny’s hand and squeezed it. She squeezed mine back. It was like we had a silent communication system worked out. I walked toward the door, and I reached out to open it as it suddenly flew open, and a tall, fat black woman came out and walked past us. I grabbed the nob, and as nobody else was coming out, we stepped inside. As I looked back, I saw the black woman enter the room where we had seen the people fucking.