“Don’t you have a few things to show me around here?” she asked as she looked up at me from under those dark lashes again.
I was mesmerized by her eyes and the feel of her silky skin against my fingertips. I stroked her arm and nodded, steering her toward the door and heading out into the hallway.
“I guess you’ve seen most of the office by now. Jake’s office is over there. Neil’s is right there. Both of them are out of town at the moment.”
She looked almost naked without that damned notebook of hers and I could sense her reaching for it. She had a small clutch with her, not enough to hold more than her lipstick and some cash, but I saw her pull out the recorder she had brought with her to my office during the first interview.
“Is it okay that I record again? Since we’ll be walking and talking it might be the best way.”
I nodded but was a little hesitant to give her permission since we were going to be on the floor—where all the action was.
“Don’t worry, I won’t stick it in the face of any of your members,” she said with a laugh as she clicked the device on and held it up around shoulder height. “Tell me more about how you met your business partners.”
“We had a couple of the same classes in college. They weren’t really on the same track as me, but one of our introductory courses was the same and we began hanging out after that. It was sort of a natural partnership that formed out of it. Not one of us is much like the other, but it’s our differences that make us such complementary aspects of the business. I think you’ll find that although we’re quite different we work well together. There’s a sort of chemistry between us all and an understanding of how we mesh together. It’s been very successful.”
“Clearly,” she said almost under her breath as we made our way down the hall together. Even the hallway belied the money we had made in our venture. No expense was spared on any part of the New York club, which had undergone more than one complete redecoration in the history of the club.
“Neil is the flashy, bold one of the group. Jake is more of an action man and is quick on his feet. Me…well, I guess you could say that I’m the numbers guy. The thinker between us all.”
She seemed to crack a smile at this and I wondered if there was something in this little fuck toy goddess that was into nerds. Maybe I could play up that angle of my personality that I often hid from view.
The hallway curved and we came out to the side entrance of the main floor that passed the bar.
“Let’s get a drink before we go any further,” I suggested and was soon glad that I did. It was early yet, but there were already a few people on the floor, enjoying each other’s company. A couple of girls in collars strode in from the dressing area and out onto the floor. They were in nothing but the jewels around their respective necks. Penny had already seen this spectacle of Club V on her first visit but I could tell that she was just as taken aback by it this time around as she had been her first.
“Celeste, what’ll you make for our little guest here? She’s doing a feature on us in…well, you’ll see soon enough. Let’s just say we’ll be bringing in the older, more established element of our average horny guy over 50.”
Celeste, our bar manager, gave me a grin and looked at Penny, regarding her appearance with a wary eye. “Hmm…what kind of liquor do you like?”
Penny thought for a moment, “Well, I’m usually a wine girl, but if I’m drinking cocktails, I like tequila based ones.”
I shot her a curious glance. “I didn’t expect the evening to go that well from the start.”
Penny rolled her eyes at me and for a moment it felt almost as if we knew each other. There was something there in her eyes, something familiar that was beyond the ‘fuck me’ seductiveness of them. She was looking at me like we had run into each other before and I had the sudden sinking feeling that I might have dated this woman, or at the very least I might have hit on her at a bar in one of my drunken stupors in my mid-twenties. I pushed it aside and made room for more pleasant thoughts about this woman. If I had dated Penny Saxs or even just run into her once in my life I would have remembered it. She was the sort of woman with an indelible quality that seared itself onto a man’s skin like a hot branding iron on cattle. A touch of this woman would burn a lesser man, but I had a feeling I was up for the challenge and looked forward to whatever pain she was planning on bringing into my life.
“I’ve got just the thing,” Celeste said with a nod as she started concocting a drink for Penny behind the bar. “Same thing as usual for you, Pete?”
I nodded, smiling at the familiarity between Celeste and me. She had been, without a doubt, the best hire I had made in all my time here. Forget the virgins, the girls walking the floor, or any of the other staff. Celeste was the honest-to-god real deal. Faithful to the company, above reproach, and the best damned bartender I had ever known.
“How’s your baby?” I asked, thinking that showing some genuine interest in the lives of my employees might serve to endear me a little to Penny. She took note of what I said and turned toward Celeste as the bar manager began to speak.
“Delicious,” she said with a smile. Her hands were busy squeezing limes and putting together Penny’s drink, but she was thrilled to be talking about her kid. “You know, you always hear people talking about how yummy babies are. How they want to chow down on their thighs. I always thought that was some crap that people said to try and convince you that having babies was better than it actually was, but I am here to tell you that—babies are fucking delicious. All those little fat rolls and chubby cheeks and the cooing and even the pooping in the middle of the night. I don’t mind getting up and feeding at 2:00 in the morning. If anyone had ever told me that I was going to be thrilled to wake up and give a bottle to someone in the middle of the night I would have kicked them in the shins and told them they were crazy. But here I am, lack of sleep not withstanding, and I am loving every minute of it. Baby is great and so is my wife.”
Celeste was a part of the family at Club V now and in spite of our rules about dating staff, she had managed to find her wife here. She kept it all on the level, coming into my office the day after she had first taken her wife home with her, requesting a meeting with me to divulge the relationship with me and anyone in human resources who needed to know.
“How did it happen?” I had asked her.
She cleared her throat. “Frankly, I was watching her eat pussy and, I don’t know boss, something magical happened.”
It was truly a story that could only happen to someone who worked at our club.
I smiled and so did Penny as Celeste handed her the drink. Penny took a sip and nodded, pleased with the final result.
“Oh my god, this is amazing! There’s something different about it…what is this…”
“Blood orange,” Celeste said with a smile and she began pouring me a 25 year Dalwhinnie with a splash of water.
“Celeste has been with us…what since the beginning right?”