The Clavius Club

       The rocket thrusters shut down slowly in a languid hush as the tripod gears extend and hit the ground with a gentle thud. The crowd of passengers in the main cabin all give secret sighs of relief to have finally made it and arrived with no issues. Even the regular visitors carried a look of apprehensiveness to again be traveling the new way. I look out my window, attempting to take in all that my eyes can on the darkened white surface.

       The Clavius Club. A four out of five-star resort located directly on the edge of the moon’s largest crater- since been filled in to become a lake that tourists could swim and play around in, it also acts as a mirror to reflect the grandeur of the palace because one view just isn’t enough. I see the structure in the distance. More of a tiny village modeled after old Las Vegas than a normal hotel with bright gold and silver lights dot and sparkle the otherwise black sky with boutiques and cafes lining the small street that leads up to the massive structure that is Clavius Club.

       We file off the craft and onto an elegant, midnight blue bus that takes us to where we are all headed. The veterans of the Club carry a look of excitement- even after all these visits- and the newcomers (like myself) fidget anxiously to finally experience what all the hype is. I still cannot believe that I am actually here.

       It was like a dream. Opening five years ago, the Clavius Club had become the most sought-after vacation destination reserved only for the wealthiest of tourists to visit- even compared to the other resorts dotting the moon’s surface. I, who had never been a hundred miles from my hometown earned myself a long weekend stay by winning the hottest game show on earth, Can You?.

       Participants of the show have to go a whole week, living in a cabin on a mountain without any electricity or gadgets- otherwise unknown to the world in the year 2206. People had lost their minds on the show, unable to grasp the reality of hunting and gathering for food and not being able to plug into the ether to join the parties of everyone else escaping reality. One person even committed suicide once, missing his friends and bars too much after only three days. It just made great television for the masses. I, however, blew through the week, gaining a new appreciation for what the primitive cultures of our ancestors lived like. And I won three million dollars cash and this trip the Clavius.

       After what seems like an eternity and a half, the bus finally rolls to a stop right on the edge of Wonder Street, the walking road for the Clavius Club and its shops, bars, and restaurants.

       “Enjoy the Clavius Club,” a woman with a seductive voice speaks over the bus’s intercom, “Humanity’s finest achievement in luxury and relaxation. At Clavius Club, you’re never turned off,” she recites the resort’s motto.

       “First time?” a not unattractive middle-aged woman asks me, eying the new pin-striped suit and matching hat, cocked to the right side of my head, I bought with some of the money I won on Can You? to fit in. She has bright green makeup around her eyes and a tight dress she squeezed into to look as sexy as possible. Her hair is dyed a bubblegum pink.

       “Yeah,” I reply truthfully, grabbing my bag and lighting a cigarette. The woman conversing me smokes hers on the end of a long, black stick, “Who’d you know?”

       “Oh, my Allen and I saw you win on Can You?” She tells me, “I don’t know how anyone could live like that. Having to pick berries and fruits all by yourself to eat. Oh! And not being able to connect to the aether! How did you ever survive? I get sick at just the sight of a book!” she says like she’s talking to a war hero who performed some amazing feat on the battlefield.

       “It was a good show you put on there, kid,” the man accompanying the woman (Allen, I presume) says. He wore a cream-colored suit with a black hat. Big, expensive rings dotted his fingers. He was short and stocky, but the essence of power emanated from him.

       “Thank you, sir,” I say.

       “Oh, Allen!” the woman looks to her husband like a dog who wants a treat, “He is so polite! Maybe he should join us tonight for dinner and a little extra fun,” she bites her lip and looks at me when she says this last part. It was not uncommon for married couples to bring extra people into their sexual activities- especially on vacation. In a society that viewed sex as just another activity, rules and opinions had become a lot looser in the past fifty years.

       Maybe it was the old books I enjoyed who treated sex like a union of lovers, or maybe something about the couple disgusted me, either way, I politely declined when asked to join them tonight. They scoffed and walked to the hotel, a service robot taking their luggage for them. The two would find another person or three to join them easily anyway.

       “Take your bags, sir?” a service bot with a computerized British accent asked me.

       “No thanks, I can take it,” I tell the bot, who takes the bags of a group of women before I can even finish my reply.

       I tugged my luggage down the road marked with gas lamps to give an old-fashioned look of elegance and wealthy couples drinking martinis and daiquiris until I came to the vast glass doors of the Clavius Club, which a polite older man in a black uniform opened for me. The interior was unlike anything I had ever seen before. More akin to the palace of a monarch from ages ago than a hotel. Gold and marble pillars holding up the mahogany ceiling above the silver floor. A massive ivory welcome desk with pretty male and female attendants waiting to accept tourists into their rooms.

       “Hello and welcome,” A young man tells me as I approach the desk, “may I have your name please?”

       “Mark Pisano,” I tell him, a tad embarrassed for anyone here to know why I was staying at the Club.

       “Ah yes!” he says cheerfully, “Three nights comped in the Cinema Suite. Here are your keys and call the desk if you should need any… assistance with anything,” He means call girls or boys if I find it hard to get laid. “Remember, at Clavius Club, you’re never turned off!”

       I thank him and enter the elevator to the thirteenth floor. I unlock the suite’s door and open it to reveal an elegant room, four times the size of my apartment. The walls are covered in movie posters from long ago. Gangsters, cowboys, southern maidens, and soldiers in looks of action and romance, looking across the black marble room. A large window takes up most of the back wall to give a great view of the deco-styled oasis of the village surrounded by grey and white desert dust around.

       I throw my bag onto a white leather sofa and explore the liquor cabinet to find a bourbon to drink a couple of fingers of. I was staying somewhere people like me only dreamed of ever experiencing and it was all-inclusive, so I may as well have taken full advantage of it.

       After a shower and a nap, I dressed in my pin-striped suit and headed outside to the pier overlooking the lake. I had shown up just in time for the firework show and drank an old fashioned as colorful lights popped and boomed overhead, illuminating the lake and sky in greens, reds, whites, and blues.

       After a while, I noticed a woman drinking something tropical-looking at me with a sly grin on her face. She had catty eyes and a face like a fox under wavy hair cut over her shoulders. A black cocktail skirt held her curves complimentary and a headband with a feather stuck out. She caught me looking back and stalked over to the empty seat across from me at the table.

       “I’m Lola,” she said in an enticingly hushed voice, “You’re the one that won the game show- aren’t you? I thought you were cute on screen, but now that I am looking at in person, I have to say the cameras did you wrong entirely.”

       Awkwardly, I tried to come back with something witty to say, but only smiled and pulled a cigarette out. She placed her own in a thin holder and waited for me to give her alight.

       “So, tell me, winner,” she said before releasing her smoke slowly, “what was it like having to live like a savage for a week?”

       “Oh. Um,” I said, “It wasn’t too hard really, I had read about how to identify edible plants and how to make fires and survival.”

       “Read?” she asked with an amused look on her face, “You mean like books and stuff?” the amused look turned to laughter, I felt like a novelty to this woman.

       “Yeah,” I told her.

       “I don’t think I have ever read a page in my life,” she said through giggles, “Why would you want to read when you can just watch it or go to a club or plug into the aether?”

       “Well, I am not a big fan of the aether,” I told her, “And like clubs and shows, but reading just feels like it helps me.”

       “Whatever you say, Mr. Anomaly,” she laughed again, “I’ll take your word for it.” The woman sipped her beverage then took out a tiny platinum box containing a powder. She shoveled out a small bump on her pinky nail and snorted it deeply with an excited, “Oh!” then offered the box to me.

       “No, thank you,” I told her raising a hand.

       Lola gave me a puzzled look before shrugging and taking another hit from her box. “So, do you have any plans while you are here?” she asked.

       “Not really, I’m only here for three nights,” I explained, “So I’d like to take in as much as I can. Maybe try to find a group to explore the lunar surface around here a bit.”

       “Why would you want to do that?” she asked, “The Clavius Club has everything you need. The lunar surface is desolate and about as boring as the wilderness back on earth.”

       “I’ve never been here and probably won’t get the chance to come again,” I said, “I’d like to see it and take pictures to show my family and friends when I go home.”

       “Doll, I have been here countless times,” she said smiling- but it looked more like a pity smile, “and I have never once wanted to venture outside the Clavius village or even see the other resorts on the moon. Let me show you the real fun.”

       “Okay,” I said and stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray before finishing the rest of my drink, “show me the fun.”

       “Oh great!” Lola exclaimed, throwing her glass on the ground, shattering it into thousands of pieces. A custodial robot arrived immediately to clean it. “Come on,” she said, grabbing my collar and pulling me with her.

       She led e through the doors of a loud club with flashing lights and heavy techno music. I couldn’t hear a word anyone said over the computerized tunes blasting through the speakers. Overhead, men and women danced naked in cages, swinging their bodies to the beats and rhythms thumping loudly.

       “Isn’t this place great?” Lola shouted in my ear. There were places like this in the big cities on earth- and no, they were not great.

       “A little loud for talking!” I screamed back.

       “Let’s go somewhere more private then!” Lola hollered before leading me back out and into a jazz lounge called Soul Daddy’s.

       “This more your speed?” she asked as we took a booth by the stage of Soul Daddy’s. The interior was covered in red with low-beam amber lights overhead. On stage, a big black man dressed in a vest and white button-down with a black hat played piano slowly but with magic expertness.

       “I do like this place,” I answered truthfully. The piano-playing stopped and Soul Daddy walked to the microphone.

       “I hope everyone is doin’ alright tonight,” he said with a level of coolness that instantly made him seem likable, “I’m gonna take a little break from playin’ but please welcome Ms. Sarah Sparkle as she sings a few tunes for us.”

       Sarah came out to soft applause as Soul Daddy retreated to his quarters backstage. She had black hair, done up like a movie star, and a sparkling red dress to match her full lips against glowing-pale skin. Her eyes were dark and mysterious, and she sang in a low croon that made my heart melt. Once or twice, she looked over at me and I instantly forgot that there was a whole band playing music behind her as she swung and sung softly.

       “She likes you,” Lola whispered across the table over her daiquiri and my bourbon, “Maybe we can find a way to get her to join us in bed tonight,” she winked. It had the opposite effect on me than what Lola intended.

       “Thank you, everybody,” Sarah Sparkle said in her crooning voice after her final song, “I hope you’ve enjoyed the set.” She swayed off the stage like a cat on her high heels.

       “I like this place a lot,” I said absently, smitten by Sarah Sparkle.

       “Ms. Sparkle has asked that you meet her backstage,” a man in a tuxedo said out of nowhere.

       “What?” I asked, coming out of my trance.

       “Sarah has asked for you backstage,” the man said impatiently this time. Lola and I started to get up before he put his hands up, “No, only you,” he said pointing at me.

       I gave Lola a look of I don’t know to which she called after me, “Ask her to play with us later!”

       I walked nervously backstage. Soul daddy walked out of his room with a drink in hand and smiled when he saw me, “Hey, man. You’re the guy that won Can You? how do you like the club so far?”

       “It’s great,” I said cheerfully. Soul Daddy put on a face of true happiness and gratitude.

       “Hey, thanks, my man!” he called, “I’m happy to have a brave dude like yourself at my humble establishment. Say, man, how’d you make it without losing your marbles?”

       “Just read some books on survival,” I told him.

       Soul Daddy’s smile broadened, “An educated man! I like that, hey, I gotta go talk to some people, but thanks for stoppin’ in my place. Sarah’s room is that one there,” he pointed with a wink. “She don't ask many people backstage, so there must be something special about ya.”

       “Hey, thanks, man,” I told him and started for Sarah’s room again. Soul Daddy walked off whistling to himself.

       I knocked softly on Sarah’s door to hear, “Come in,” in that crooning voice from the other side. I walked into a pink and red decorated area lit by the same low amber lights as the dining room of the place. Sarah had changed into a plain white dress and cleaned the lipstick off. She was still an absolute stunner. “Hello,” she said kindly, “I hope I’m not interrupting a date.”

       “No! Not at all,” I said maybe a bit too excitedly- happy to be away from Lola.

       “You don’t like Clavius, do you, Mark?” She knew my name from the show I guessed and shook my head reluctantly. “Neither do I, but it’s a paying job. Soul Daddy is the same way, that’s why this place isn’t like the other clubs around here. I can see it in your eyes that we are kin.”

       We discussed long and deep about how feelings toward a society with no problems, where any gratifying object or action could be given or taken at any time and place where people wanted it. I found out that the was a fan of old literature and longed to live in a house away from the crowds of people. A house I could now afford with my gameshow earnings.

       “Let’s run away, Mark,” Sarah said abruptly. “There’s a colony over on the dark side where they live more primitively and enjoy the finer things that life has to offer. I’ve visited and they have libraries, cinemas, holiday festivals, and they don’t look down their noses at people like us.”

       Maybe it was the alcohol in my system that night, maybe it was the fact that after a few hours of discussion I was smitten with Sarah, or maybe it was the hidden desire to live in a utopia like Sarah mentioned but I followed her to this place called Intellectica and found a city full of society like I had never known before. I got a job as a storyteller for the local editorial office and Sarah sung on weekend nights at The Municipal, one of the bars in town.

       We had found our people and we had found each other. All because of some silly little gameshow I had won. It was a place unlike any I had ever known, and we were happy with it.