Affairs in the Dark

A short story inspired by the Midnight Projectionist challenge . Author’s Note This story is inspired by an old cinema in Singapore that was well known for screening R-rated and softcore films. I have never been there myself, but according to a friend who lived nearby, as well as accounts from netizens, most of its patrons were older men and couples. Some lone men were also known to seek out the privacy of the darkness for private pleasures. The cinema closed in 2015. The other intimate encounters described in this story are based on things I have heard from friends and read online. For over thirty years, Lim Kok Seng had climbed the same narrow staircase to the projection booth, threaded film through the projectors, watched countless reels spin, and looked down through the small projection window at audiences who never knew they were being watched. He made the final preparations for the screening, checking the projector and film before glancing at the clock. Another night shift in a cinema that was already half-dead. The place still had its 1990s seats - faded crimson fabric, worn carpets, armrests polished smooth by a generation of elbows. In another month, the lights would go out for good. Fewer and fewer people came anymore. This cinema had specialised for decades in softcore and R-rated films. Tonight’s screening was a newly released Hong Kong Category III title, the kind of glossy adult movie that used to pack the hall on weekends. Now the auditorium held exactly two people: a man in his fifties and a woman who looked to be in her forties. They sat near the middle surrounded by an empty expanse of seats. The house lights dimmed. The projector came alive. The beam cut through the darkness toward the screen. For a while, Kok Seng watched the opening credits through the small window, then he couldn’t help stealing another glance at the couple. Years in this booth had taught him one thing. When couples found themselves alone in a dark cinema, they rarely spent much time watching the entire movie. Sure enough, the couple had already shifted closer. The woman’s head rested against the man’s shoulder. Soon they were pressed close together, locked in a long, hungry kiss. Kok Seng smiled to himself. Judging by their age, and the fact that they were alone in a nearly empty cinema on a weekday night, it was not hard to guess. Affairs had their own quiet logic. They preferred the dark. Over the decades, he had seen many versions of this scene. Patrons would sit as far apart as possible, scattered around the auditorium, hunched into their private spaces and covering themselves with bags, overcoats, scarves - whatever was at hand. Most of those who still came were past forty. Younger couples appeared from time to time, but not often. The pattern was familiar. During a quiet afternoon show with only two or three people in the hall, or at a late screening when the rest of the city had already gone home, the boundaries between watching and doing something else would gradually disappear. A woman might slip onto a man’s lap, and before long the two would become little more than a shifting silhouette in the flickering light. From the projection booth, you could never see everything clearly, and perhaps that was what made the scenes more unsettling. Once, during a midnight show, he had watched a younger pair grow increasingly intimate beneath the flickering light, their faces disappearing from view as they drew closer together. Another night, it had been two men sitting unusually close, one repeatedly leaning toward the other. And more often than anything else, alone in the corner, a man in his fifties would disappear beneath the shadow of his coat whenever a particularly heated love scene played out on screen. Most of the time, he couldn’t actually see what was happening. From that distance, all he saw were outlines - shifting shoulders, a head resting against another, someone sitting on another’s lap, movements that spoke for themselves. After so many years, experience filled in the blanks. The cleaners complained from time to time. Discarded tissues and other evidence of what had happened were left behind. Some seats needed extra cleaning. The air sometimes carried an unmistakable stale smell. People were strange, Kok Seng thought. A room would have been more private, more comfortable. But after all these years, Kok Seng understood the attraction. The darkness, the risk of being seen, the cheap thrill of doing it right there in public, that was exactly the point. On screen, a romantic scene unfolded - bodies close, breathing heavy, the camera lingering. He glanced once more at the couple below. They had disappeared almost entirely into the darkness, their silhouettes close together as the woman leaned back against him. Then he looked back at the glowing rectangle of the screen. Kok Seng felt the familiar heat stirring in him. He exhaled slowly and enjoyed his private moment in the projection booth, watching the flickering light play across the room. Outside the booth, the old cinema held its silence, waiting for the final month to pass. -End-