Chapter 2

I arose at mid-morning with a lingering hangover. After a shower I followed the scent of frying bacon to the kitchen. I was greeted by a rotund and jovial cook, who hearing the shower had started preparing breakfast. She related my uncle had departed before dawn. She detailed the daily operation of the kitchen. She would be in twice a day to prepare breakfast and dinner. I would need to tell her in advance if I were expecting a lunch. She showed me the phone to call in special orders from the staff kitchen downstairs and the location of the dumbwaiter. She asked what I liked to eat. She promised meals “just like home.”

After breakfast, carrying a mug of coffee, I toured my new home in the daylight. I followed the sound of voices and came across a small gymnasium. Leah was poised, legs spread, across a set of elevated parallel bars. Her arms curled gracefully above her head. An angular blonde circled the apparatus watching her closely. The woman barked a guttural command. Leah swung forward in a flip, clearing the bars to land, legs spread, on the floor mat. She brought her hands above her head in completion. The woman standing above her looked over at me. She wore a white loosely-fitted tunic-like blouse and baggy knee-length shorts. There was a black sash tied around her waist. She strode to me. She introduced herself as Ingrid and held out her hand. We shook and took the other’s measure. She started squeezing my hand hard, testing me. I squeezed her back. I had spent long hours rowing on the Charles River and had an iron grip. She curled her lip and winced. She jerked her arm and I released her hand. She was icily beautiful, but in a hard-featured way I found unappealing.

I noticed a rider’s crop dangling on a thong from her left wrist.

She told me she was Leah’s trainer and that her job was to keep her charge in a superb physical condition. I couldn’t place her accent, possibly Slavic or Russian. Ingrid stated since Leah was both a Jewess and an Italian she was naturally lazy and sly. Her task was to instill in Leah “proper discipline” for a young girl. She absently swung the crop against her leg as we talked.

Leah continued her exercise regimen. She was doing a series of aerobatic lifting maneuvers on the parallel bars. She made a fumbling movement as she lifted her legs above her head. Ingrid’s head jerked toward her. She screamed in what I recognized as Russian. Leah finished the exercise, flowing into gracefully extended spread position on the mat. Ingrid bounded over to her and snapped the crop on the mat. Leah jerked in reaction to the sharp retort and glanced at me.

I leaned against the wall and continued to observe. Leah was in amazing physical condition. Her rounded curves were misleading. She was a tightly muscled lithe specimen of female dynamic prowess.

I watched Ingrid’s growing agitation with Leah. Leah had made several imperceptible to me, errors during a ballet stretching routine. Leah caught my eye, aware of my appreciative scrutiny. She was unable to fully relax her extended leg to complete a leg split on a mirrored wall rail. The leotard stretched on her breasts and ass in a way making it impossible for me not to grin. Ingrid squatted behind Leah and said that my attention was distracting her pupil. I laughed in agreement and left.

I went into the city, to my uncle’s tailor, that morning. He was expecting me. He suggested some evening wear and some casual linen shirts and pants. He said also a gentleman needed dinner jackets. I left with some items off the rack. A closet of tailored clothes would be delivered within the week.

I returned to the townhouse. Leah wasn’t in the dining room for the the lunch I had requested. There was an extra setting on the table.

I sat by myself and ate. Afterwards I explored the back hallway I had seen off the kitchen. The narrow nondescript corridor led to what had been back in the day, the live-in servants quarters. Two rooms were vacant. The third was evidently Jameson’s. I saw a pressed butler’s uniform hanging by the door. The fourth door was closed. I heard familiar jazz music coming from within the room. I listened, recognizing the artist. I knocked on the door and the music volume immediately rose responsively. I lifted my knuckles to knock again, but said the hell with it. I went back to the study, found a book and read. Later I watched TV and decided I wasn’t in the mood for the Micky Mouse Club.

I decided to venture to the club downstairs.

Just after five o’clock the main floor was already raucous. I sat down at the bar and had a beer. I turned in the swivel seat watching the goings on. At a table, a short distance from the bar, an older well dressed man had pulled a gigging waitress to his lap. He had his hand under her short skirt. She had her arms over his shoulders. He was pinching her ass with his fingers as she wiggled on his lap.

The girls working the room were dressed in what I could only describe as erotic cocktail waitress style, wearing tight low cut tops with frilly short skirts. They wore heels, fishnet stockings and garters.

In the center of the room there was a spotlighted, round circular stage. Three girls where doing a joined-arm Rockettes style kicking routine. They didn’t have underwear. As I watched a guy stood and grabbed a girl off the stage. She disappeared into a group of men. I heard female squealing and saw one of her white legs flutter above the huddled men.

“You probably haven’t been filled in on this place have you?” the bartender spoke behind me.

I turned to face him.

“All the girls you see are available. If you notice, there ain’t no wives in here. This is a man’s club like the sign says. The girls get well paid off the top. Tipping them for special favors is also expected”.

“We got all kinds that work here, we got chorus girls from Broadway, secretaries, school teachers, co-eds,” he pointed. “Couple housewives and society girls. You name the type we prolly seen ‘em. “What I am saying you ain’t going to find any whores from the street in this place,” he explained.

“There’s rooms right upstairs. Your case you could just take one that caught your fancy up to the penthouse. Your uncle left a open tab and it covers all expenses,”

He continued,”House protocol is if the girl is wearing one of those little ribbons and a bow on her wrist, she is claimed for the night.”

“Also there is a unwritten decorum about how far things can go on the floor here,” he was looking away from me. I followed his gaze.

The older gentleman I had observed earlier had pulled down the waitress’s bodice and was nuzzling her pert bare breasts. She was laughing as she held her torso to his face.

“It can get a little rowdy in here on Friday nights. The men like to let off steam. Some of the real rich ones are given a lot of extra space,” he commented as we watched.

I looked around the room. There was a completely naked girl in heels standing with a group of men at the far end of the bar. I knew her. She was a well known, famously blonde Hollywood actress. She played the parts of the sexy girl that was always comically dense. There was a gold chain circling her neck. The chain links fell down between her perfect breasts and looped up to the man’s hand she was leaning against. I knew him too. He was a renowned and very well regarded US Senator.

The bartender leaned forward and said quietly, “Always good to just keep your eyes moving around and not get stuck,’ he advised.

A platinum blonde plopped down on the seat next to me. She put her elbow on the bar resting her head to look at me.

“So you’re the new king of New York City. Pretty young aren’t you? She sipped on a glass of bubbly champagne.

She was cute with a pert nose. I thought the heavy red lipstick she wore was too garish for her refined features. She looked like the kind of girl I knew from the blue blood prestige sororities back at school.

“How is it working out with the captive princess up there?” she giggled.

She sat her glass down and leaned forward. “You see Leah, you tell her friend Mary misses her. OK?” She said earnestly.

An older, rubenesque proportioned woman in a floor length, sparkling, sequined gown approached us. She placed her hand on Mary’s arm.

“Mary just run along now. Mr. Jeremy just arrived and needs to catch his breath,” she said.

Mary turned and looked at her.

“I was just being friendly Marge,” she pouted.

Mary picked up her champagne glass, leaned forward and whispered hotly in my ear, “I can suck a whole banana out of the peel in one piece”

She leaned back to see my expression.

She swung around and provocatively swinging her ass walked away. A distinguished man who looked like he could be a judge slapped her ass. She swung around and dropped in his lap. She looked at me and winked.

The lady in the gown ran her eyes over me.

“You’re a big one aren’t you?” She placed her hand on my shoulder as she looked at my chest. “You played football back at college?

“I played rugby and was on the rowing team,” I answered.

“Maybe if you like we will have to let Bertie the door man train you in the big gym upstairs. I do like a muscular man. I guess I am just a old fashioned girl who dreams about being carried off by a big brute captor, “ she mused.

She ran her hand down my arm and squeezed my bicep.

“I am Marge and run this place” her eyes scanned the room.

“Your uncle told me you were coming” she looked at me. “Me and him go way back,” Marge looked forward at her reflection in the bar mirror. “You know I was seventeen and dancing at the Follies when I got a job here. I was a real looker back in the day”.

“I was here when he brought Leah home. She was just like a beautiful broken doll.”

She lit a cigarette.

“I used to be upstairs at the townhouse a lot back then. I was with her most everyday. I tried to be like a mother to her,” she blew out smoke.

“Later I was the mother who found special girls to join her in your uncle’s bed,” she shrugged her shoulders. “Your uncle wanted her to learn talents that don’t just come natural to a young girl,” she looked at me.

“I had went against him back then when he decided it was time for her to be bedded. She was just a kid. Her body was certainly ready, but the inside of her head wasn’t. Anyway,” she paused to exhale. “She did take to fucking like a duck takes to water”.

“Your uncle never really forgave me for crossing him over Leah. He doesn’t like a woman to speak her piece”.

“You’ve talked much to Leah?” she asked looking at my eyes.

I nodded.

“I can imagine how that went,” She tapped her cigarette in a ashtray.

“He left you in charge didn’t he?” She said inquiringly.

I nodded.

She made a slight smile. “Leah is not fully agreeable on that arrangement, I imagine. I do know that girl”.

“Look I am going to give you some advice. Leah has been kept in this building most of her life. It is all she knows. Become her friend. She yearns to know about what it is like for other girls her age out there. Being young and free. Start with that,” she snubbed out her cigarette.

She studied me.

“Now if you take after your uncle and expect much more. For her to be for you, like she for him. You need to work all that out on your own. Some things need to be learned and there isn’t any manual written for it. A man needs to understand himself to be that kind of hard man”.