Chapter 20: Season 7 - Liechtenstein

I had heard of Liechtenstein but thought it a mythical place like Ruritania or Monopolyland, so when at the start of season seven the Chevalier informed me we would be visiting the place I thought he was having a joke at my expense.

“Why are you so surprised that we are to visit Liechtenstein, Rafael?” He asked after seeing my look of disbelief when informed where we were bound.

“I thought it was some fictional place, like Ruritania or Legoland.”

“You know that Andorra is a small country between Spain and France, and Monaco is a tiny Principality surrounded by France. You have no doubt heard of Luxembourg, an independent Duchy bordered by Belgium, Germany, and France, but you might not have heard of San Marino, an independent city state in Italy. Liechtenstein is another of the small, independent, microstates in Europe “ He paused, “Well, I suppose Andorra, Monaco, and San Marino are not entirely independent but I assure you Liechtenstein is. It has borders with Austria and Switzerland, and, unlike Andorra, Liechtenstein is an extremely rich country with one of the highest standards of living in the world.”

I saw for myself the truth of that last statement when we arrived in Vaduz, capital of the Principality, early in May. It was like going back in time. Not because of the medieval buildings since there were just as many state of the art, modern architecture in the city, but because of the slower pace of life. People, and traffic, seemed to move much slower than in Paris, Hamburg, even in Perpignan. The populace were well dressed, and I saw no homeless people on the streets nor even in the parks. The streets themselves were spotless; not a scrap of paper or packaging to be seen, and neither were McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King, or Starbucks, which may have been a coincidence but then again perhaps not. People stopped to talk to each other in the street; men wore hats which they raised when introduced to females. The dress styles and dress code were conservative. No designer ripped jeans, no shorts, no flip flops, no spandex bicycle or ski pants, although I did see some hearty looking females wearing jodhpurs. No FCUK tee shirts, tattoos, or piercings were seen – well not on public view – I couldn’t say with absolute certainly no one in Liechtenstein bore tattoos or intimate piercings. One other thing I noticed as we drove to our hotel through the streets of Vaduz was the number of middle-aged men accompanied by young, teenaged, girls. I pointed this out to the Chevalier who nodded. “The men are probably Swiss. The age of consent in Liechtenstein in fourteen whereas in Switzerland it is sixteen. There are houses here that specialise in young girls, and escort agencies whose staff include females at the lower but legal end of the age spectrum.”

Our April–December pair in Vaduz were to be escorted for a month. This was just as well as they were the only pair Grafin von Eylau had matched us with for the entire season. Either I was no longer flavour of the month to December females or there were fewer April-December pairs available, or both. When we arrived at the Prince Rudolf Hotel, where we expected to meet our ‘dates,’ a surprise awaited us. The Chevalier announced himself at reception and the receptionist handed him an envelope. He removed the sheet of paper from within and quickly scanned it. “We are to meet our partners at the summer residence of Countess Frederika von Furstenberg, a hunting lodge near the village of Sevelen, some five kilometres to the west of Vaduz.”

A taxi was ordered and we embarked, along with our luggage. During the journey to the lodge I wondered why the Chevalier had not informed me earlier I was to ‘escort’ a titled lady. Maybe she was in her dotage and he did not want me to back out of coming with him to Vaduz. It was a great relief when I met the Countess to discover although she was at the top of the age range of my previous December dates she was not in her dotage, and was particularly well preserved.

Unlike Grafin von Eylau, Countess Frederika von Furstenberg was from an ancient line of nobility and related, however distantly, to most of the crowned heads of Europe. Also, unlike the Grafin, the Countess didn’t owe her lithe and lissom form to expensive corsetry or surgery. Swimming, skiing, horse riding, and a fitness regime that would make a bionic man breathless, was proof that the Countess’s svelte shape was not man made. She probably had had a nip and a tuck in certain regions of her anatomy going by the way her quim grasped, gripped, clamped, and clasped my zob – but that experience was not at our first meeting where we only exchanged handshakes and Gruess Gotts. The Chevalier’s companion for the month was Sabrina, the Countess’s niece, actually great niece, and as scrumptious as apple strudel.