Tales From Behind Your Closet: The Black Stays Dinner Club

Hey Friends,

I'm back again with another creepy lingerie story for you, hope you all enjoyed the last one for some light reading in the dark before bed. I've been finding it pretty fun to take you all into the worlds of your favorite fictional friends, and their many acquaintances. Today's story comes from Alex's rather large mental library of urban legends, so get into bed, turn out the lights, and make sure you're wearing your coziest pajamas, because you'll soon have chills running down your spine.

Oh! Don't forget to share your theories, thoughts, and ideas for new stories on the instagram post link right below and give us a follow to join our lil' community.  Thanks for all of your support and good vibes. Happy spooky season! 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx8TiUQgHo3/ 

Lots of Love, 

Raine

                         The Black Stays Dinner Club

Julie Weston should have told someone that she was meeting some new friends. Maybe then, she would still be here. 

Rows upon rows of grapevines, planted right to the edge of the world it seemed, only stopping at the foot of the mountains, which had been turned into a patchwork quilt of red and orange. October was my favorite month, and that evening in particular happened to be the perfect Autumn evening, with the sun, or lack of one, setting behind navy clouds, dramatically swirling above the fields. 

It had been hot and sunny in the few days which preceded this one, back when Liz had asked if she could join me to visit the new sandwich shop around the corner on our lunch hour, and invited me to see about joining a local women's club between bites of her Italian hero. 

          "It'll be a great chance to get out and meet some new people here. You must get a little lonely, since you moved all by yourself across the country, and you don't know anyone here. You're pretty brave, I would never have the guts to do that."

Liz was right though. I did get a little lonely sometimes, especially with Halloween around the corner and nowhere to go, no friends to go with. All I seemed to do ever since I took the job teaching literature at one of the city's high schools was go to work and come straight home. Nothing else, and weekends were the worst.

          "And you'll love the other girls. They're really a lot of fun. It's a dinner club that meets once a month just outside of the city at an old vineyard and tavern. We get dressed up and eat a nice dinner together, talk. You know, the usual stuff. And of course we also do a lot of charitable works for the community in between those meetings too, so you'll be able to meet a lot of new people. And who knows, maybe you'll find yourself someone special," Liz scrunched her button nose and chuckled. "Sometimes one thing leads to another..."

          "Well... all right. That actually sounds like fun. I'll just go and see what's going on for a bit, and maybe I'll like it. Thanks for inviting me," I was excited about finally having somewhere to go, and finally getting to interact with other people besides the lady at the grocery store check-out counter. "What's the name of the club again?"

          "It's called the Black Stays Dinner Club. It sounds kinda weird, but the club is super super old and I think the name comes from the corset looking thingies the members would wear over their dresses to meetings back in like 1707 or something."

          "Oh wow, that is super old. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting all of that, but I guess we love to see some old timey lingerie."

         Liz must have sensed my hesitation, "Oh, but the other girls aren't stuck up or anything! Don't get me wrong, of course there are some members who have had their grandmas and great-grandmas or whatever also be members back in the day, but it's definitely not like one of those clubs."

          "Good, good. I got kind of scared when you first said that, but if it's not really like that, then we're probably fine." She had almost made my heart sink at wasting my time on a prospect that wasn't going to happen. 

          "Yeah, no, no it's not like that at all. But listen, just make sure you come to Misery Bay Tavern and Inn at 6:00 Friday night to meet them and see for yourself. I think you'll like them," she smiled brightly. "Oh and wear a white dress, something with long sleeves preferably. They might even give you your stays that night, and that's what usually looks best underneath."

So, I did go to see for myself.

After I left work around 3:30, I rushed home to get ready for my first real adult dinner party. As Liz had suggested, earlier in the week I had gone out to buy a new white cotton dress with the biggest sleeves that fluttered and flowed every time I turned. Other than that, it was simple, and even though the temperature that day was quickly dipping, I thought I could still probably get away with wearing such a light dress. 

Around 5:00pm I set out, driving to the tavern Liz had described, out in the country. I had looked at the menu ahead of time, and apparently it was quite a popular place to stop for dinner, an old pub a mile off of the bay that had been running for more than two centuries.

As the gray clouds up above continued to swirl and fly past me, picking up the wind and moving it through the neatly-planted rows of grapevines, droplets of rain began to hit the windshield, and with each drop, I started to regret picking out that particular dress instead of wearing something warmer. I was shaking.

In all honesty, I thought to myself, something about the idea of this club, with its black corseted uniform, and its pedigree, seemed a little...unsettling. But only a little. And maybe that was because it felt a little too elite for my usual tastes, but Liz had said this wasn't the case. Other than that, something about being a part of this semi-secret club with peculiar traditions was exciting, intriguing.  I just couldn't stop thinking about it all week, wondering about it, no matter how hard I tried. Something about it was a little eerie, and even if they didn't end up accepting me into the club, what a perfect month for something strange like this to happen! What a good Halloween story this would make!

Pulling into the gravel parking lot and cutting off the engine, I sat for a minute before going in. "Make some new friends, Julie. Just make some new friends tonight, and soon they'll just be your usual friends that you always hang out with. Be yourself, be nice, and make some new friends." It was a chant I always did as a kid when I was forced to enter a new social scene. It usually worked. 

It was five minutes to 6:00 by the time I entered the warmth of the old tavern. It was cheery inside, with the steady hum of people laughing and talking, huddled around rickety wooden tables. A handsome young bartender was busy pouring pints while telling stories to a couple of animated college students sitting at a rough wooden counter, and a roaring fire was crackling in the far corner of the room over an indie rock soundtrack. The smell of roasting beef mingled with the clinking of cutlery and glasses that seemed to bounce off the suit of armor at the back of the room, next to the fire. 

          "Welcome to Misery Bay. How many?" the bartender shouted over the din from his post. 

          "I'm meeting with the Black Stays Din—"

          "Oh. Right." His smile fell a little, but then he regained half of it. "Walk right up the stairs at the back, they're in the upper private room." He gave me the once over, knitting his brows, his frown deepening the longer he looked at me, before turning back to his storytelling audience, seemingly plastering a full smile back onto his face.

I stood frozen for a minute and looked to the side before thanking him. That was odd. Maybe I shouldn't... 

I turned to walk back out the door. 

No. You need some new friends, you're calling your mom too many times a day already. Besides, you're probably just looking into things more because it's the middle of October and you want to spook yourself. 

Even though it felt like something was incorrect about that scene, I still forced my body to turn back around and do just as he said. I needed new friends. I couldn't go another weekend sitting in my room alone. 

 So, I made my way to the back, walking slowly up a set of the narrowest, steepest stairs I had ever been on, a tunnel of dark wood enveloping me until I reached the door at the top, slightly ajar, a dim glow filtering out and heating up my face as I gripped the doorknob. Holding my head up high and smiling brightly, I opened it further and walked in. 

A floorboard creaked under my foot, and all at once, the few overlapping melodies of feminine chatter halted abruptly as everyone's head whipped toward the entryway. They stared sharply, and I dared not move under their collective gaze.

I recognized Liz in the group of five women, and for some odd reason that I had never considered before, she seemed to fit right in, elegantly holding her glass of wine with delicate, well-manicured fingers. They were all wearing white dresses with long sleeves under what I would assume were the black stays, the strings tied so tightly in the front, it gave them all an almost ramrod straight posture. It would have been funny if it didn't make their already rather tall and slim statures, look even more imposing. They were very pretty young women though, almost uncommonly so. 

          "There she is. Finally, we can eat," the nymph-ish looking one spoke flatly, heading to the ornate wooden table in the center of the small room. 

          "Don't be rude to our guest, Charlotte. I'm glad you could make it, Julie. Come, sit. You can sit at the head of the table as our special guest, and I'll introduce you to everyone." Liz's usual bubbly nature was able to at least put a dent in the room's oppressive atmosphere. 

The room was small, and sparsely furnished in an old English manor style, with smooth, dark mahogany paneling, emerald damask chair cushions, a pewter pitcher full of dried flowers on the mantle of a blazing fireplace, and a worn Turkish rug. Candles on top of candles were the only objects illuminating the room besides the fire. Mood lighting was all the rage these days.

Everyone else seemed to know exactly where to sit, and once the woman at the other end of the thick rectangular table rang a bell, a man, only as old as my father but still hunched over with age, knocked on the door and entered, bearing a tray of soup bowls, and began to go around the table serving each guest and refilling wine glasses, silently. 

Once he left in the same silent manner, the woman who rang the bell gave an almost unnoticeable tilt of her chin, and the others immediately lifted their spoons to the bowls of pumpkin bisque, the clinking of dinnerware being the only sound to break up the lack of conversation. The raucous laughter and music from the floor below, a constant hum in the background.

Though the silence was loud, it was filled with glances, hidden messages shot back and forth across the dinner table. I could feel the eyes shifting around, staring at me, then looking back at the others, as my cheeks heated up. I kept my head down, bowed over my soup. Why was the fire in here so hot? It was blazing as if we were in the depths of hell, and the excess of candles didn't help. Couldn't they get someone to blow some out or open a window? I remembered the room when I first walked in, and there was no window, just the single, closed door behind me. Don't they feel the heat too? Some of them were even wearing sweater dresses. I know they must be hot, but no one but me seemed even slightly uncomfortable. The room was stifling, and I tugged at the collar of my dress a bit as a bead of sweat trickled down the back of my neck. 

          "Ah! How silly of me, Julie, I told you I would introduce everyone, didn't I?" Liz was sitting to my right, and still smiling brightly, but something was a little less shiny about it. 

         "Uh, sitting on the other side of you is Mary. She is a vintner, along with the rest of her family. Four generations, I think," Liz pointed to the young woman sitting on my left, a redhead with a milky face and a pleasant smile. So, I smiled gently back.

          "Then on the other side of Mary is Charlotte." Oh, the rude, nymph-ish one. She didn't even bother to look up from her soup, instead opting to raise her eyebrows a millimeter in acknowledgement with the soup spoon still in her mouth. How nice. I nodded.

          "On my right is Veronica. She's a seamstress who runs her own shop. Actually, she makes the black stays for the new club members. Quite talented," Liz pointed with her thumb. Something about this woman in particular was interesting to look at. Tanned with dark, thick eyebrows and curly hair to match, her eyes were oddly the most mesmerizing I had ever seen. There was nothing unusual about them, they were a dark brown, just like her hair,  but something about them was sharp and dangerous, putting me in a trance that I struggled to break away from.  

          "And at the foot of the table is our president, Helen." The woman who rang the bell was elegant, with sandy hair neatly tied back, and an air of authority about her, though she too gave me a pleasant smile. 

           "It's very nice to meet you, Julie. I'm glad you could come. Liz has been telling us all about you, and it seems as though you might be a good fit for our little club. I promise we have more members than just the five of us, but some of the girls couldn't make it out tonight, I hope you don't mind." She apologized smoothly as she finished her soup amidst the silence. By her tone, I could tell that it didn't really matter if I minded or not. 

I gave her a tight smile and a stiff shake of the head. Honestly, what time was it? It seemed as though our silent dinner had been going on for hours in this sweatbox. At least we could still hear the fun happening downstairs, with chairs scraping the floor, a crash of silverware, muffled by the door behind me, and more drunken laughter.

As if hearing my thoughts, a quiet knock sounded on the door and once again the stooped waiter with a weather worn face entered with a roast dinner of beef, potatoes, carrots, asparagus, and a loaf of crusty brown bread on large platters. It was a wonder he could carry it all. The door remained open as he served the dishes to each guest, letting in the fresh, cool air and sounds of conversation from below. Taking in discreet deep breaths before he could leave and close the door again, I wished for this terrible dinner to be over.

Once he left, closing the door behind him, the secret glances continued. I so badly wished they would stop. More beads of sweat ran down my back and I looked up from my plate. The glancing around the table had ceased as everyone ate, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Mary had been running her forefinger around the rim of her wine glass for the longest time. Around, and around it went, with her staring into the bottom of the crimson liquid, whispering something. Even though I sat next to her, the table was too long to make out any words. At least nothing in English. 

The more I studied her, the more my stomach began to twist into knots, my roast beef turning rancid in my mouth, unwilling to be swallowed. Nevertheless, I forced it down my throat, as my shaking fingers gripped my fork. 

Perhaps she was just giving thanks for her food. 

The muscles in my thighs were tensing though, as if begging me to spring up out of my seat and dash to the door. The silver knife felt so hot in my hand that it almost burned, and by now, I was sweating profusely. 

They haven't even said anything yet, and group dinners were always awkward affairs. 

          "So, Helen, you're the club's president? What sorts of things do you all do?" I asked. Anything, absolutely any sound was better than the nothingness of this claustrophobic room. 

Before Helen could answer, Veronica cut in, in a low voice directed down at her plate, "That's why we asked you to come tonight. When one leaves, we get someone new to make up the numbers. One in, one out. She won't be the president for much longer, she's ...moving on." 

How cryptic.

          "I see. Where are you going to, Helen? Did you get a new job opportunity? If I may ask," I questioned politely with a spoonful of potatoes heading toward my mouth. 

Apparently, it was taboo to ask, because five pairs of eyes slid down the table toward me in the silence. Something was slightly sinister about the way they looked at me, each pair of eyes matching the one beside them, even Liz's.

Then, Helen's eyes flew to Veronica, who returned her gaze and gave a minute shake of the head, almost regrettably. The other three followed, shaking their heads slightly, as if thinking they could remain discreet about it. Helen sighed, as if tired. "All right," she muttered. An uncomfortable minute passed, the tapping of Liz's long nail against the hardwood table, the only sound.

Wait. 

Where was the muffled laughter? The conversation and music from downstairs? 

What time could it be? If I walked in the door precisely at 6:00pm and the tavern closed at midnight, then what time was it? And why on earth was this room so hot?

The heat had become downright unbearable at this point. There was no water to be had anywhere, so I picked up my wine glass by the top and drained the last of it, hoping for some temporary relief. Then they all turned toward me again, and immediately all of the candles and the blazing fire in the hearth, were extinguished, leaving only the few candles running down the table.

The room plunged into semi-darkness, and with it, the temperature. I would have been relieved for the chilly air which replaced the sauna-like atmosphere, but I now felt the undeniable urge to get up and run. I wanted to run. So badly. I wanted to kick my chair over and get out of that dark and silent tavern, and just go home. I should have just stayed home. 

But I couldn't get up and leave. It was as if someone was sitting in my lap, holding me down to the chair, gluing me to my seat. I could feel my heartbeat in my fingers as they held onto the arms of the chair for dear life. And as I struggled to—

What was that?

What was that coming up off of the floor from Helen's side?

What was that?

Some thing, and I could only call it a thing because it was neither person nor animal, was slithering up onto the table next to Helen. Some sort of, what can only be described as a snakelike man, with limbs attached, terribly crooked and bent close to his sides, was slithering up onto the table and dragging itself toward me. Inch by awful inch, it slithered down the long, ornately carved table. 

Now it had passed Veronica, the candle in front of her plate sputtering and dying, the room on that end turning completely black. I struggled against the chair, against myself to get out of the chair, tipping it this way and that, but it would not budge. 

Or was it me who would not budge? Was it me who was too frozen to run? 

You have to run, Julie. The door's so close, it's right behind you.

GET OUT OF YOUR SEAT AND RUN, JULIE!

I could not run. I could not force myself to run, like I could force myself to do so many other things. And still that thing kept slithering, inch by terrible inch down the table as my hands shook, scratching at the sides of the chair to rip my body out of it. 

Now it had reached Liz and Mary, inch by terrible inch as it slithered, dragging its body down the table toward me. Liz pressed her lips together and blankly looked past Mary, at the wall. 

          "Liz, help me! Liz, do something! YOU BROUGHT ME HERE, DO SOMETHING!"

Tears were streaming down my face as I choked on the frigid air, my body shaking all over, as still the thing dragged itself toward me inch by terrible inch, down the long table.

It had passed Liz and Mary, the extinguished candles in front of them, letting the darkness snatch them, until there was but a single candle in between me and my fate. 

And then that too was extinguished.