I am Baaack! Part 12

The cab pulled away, leaving Joan, Robbie, and Dainie standing on the Fargo Street curb looking up at the building that housed the Whip and Cuff Club on its 13th floor. The building had been built in the late twenties as a hotel. The owner had been a devotee of 19th Century romances, and the building looked like it belonged in the Carpathian Alps. Robbie, who had never seen the building, thought it looked like something out of a Bram Stoker novel; all it needed were bats flying in and out of the upper windows. Joan, who, of course, had been there before, found the exterior appropriate, giving hints to what lay inside.

The gothic theme was carried on inside, where a huge fireplace framed by gargoyles dominated the lobby. A stone arch framed the elevator doors. Inside the elevator, the button for the 13th floor was surrounded by a miniature black handcuff. There were no buttons for floors 14 and 15.

When they exited the elevator, they found themselves confronted by the entrance to the club, which took up the whole 13th floor and the two above it. The overly large door was framed in red, and covered with black leather. About three quarters of the way up and in the middle was a single relatively small oval window, it's frame in the likeness of a coiled whip. The door knocker was in the likeness of a single handcuff. The entire front of the establishment, with the exception of the door frame, was black. The only disclosure that this was indeed their destination was a stainless steel plaque by the door with "Whip and Cuff Club" etched in black gothic lettering into the shiny metal. As they approached, the door swung silently open without any action on their part. Robbie's, "What, no squeaking door?" did NOT get a laugh from either Joan or Dainie.

They stepped over the threshold into a dark corridor lighted by lamps made to look like flaming torches; Dainie scrunched herself up against Joan, and both Joan and Robbie were about to say something to the effect that she had to lessen the vise-like gip on their hands when panels in the ceiling lighted up, giving the corridor a much more normal appearance.