But Colt didn’t ask my name. He stood at once and headed for the spiral staircase in the center of the Parlor. He did look over his shoulder halfway there to make sure I was coming, but it seemed less like politeness than impatience.
I let it pass, and followed him. It’s not that the poor dears don’t know any better, I thought indulgently: sometimes they just can’t help themselves. I made myself a promise that his descent back down those same stairs would be considerably more leisurely.
He went up that staircase like a snake disappearing up a trouser leg, hanging onto the centerpost and swinging himself around the curves. I decided that a better House name for him might be Lickety Split. Doubly appropriate if his tastes coincided with my own—oh damn, the place was getting to me. I was punning.
He was waiting when I reached the top of the stairs, uncertain which way to go, shifting his weight from one leg to the other like a kid who has to pee. I pointed the way, and he scampered down the corridor ahead of me. He waited at each door to see if I would stop at it, then scurried ahead to the next one. By the time I opened the door to my studio, I could no longer hide my grin.
He didn’t seem offended; he didn’t appear to notice. He didn’t look around the room. He didn’t make small talk. He didn’t even stop to undress. Either of us. Fortunately, I was dressed for work.
I might almost have thought that somehow a horny teenage virgin had been made up to look like a man in his forties—but apart from that odd, barely controlled urgency to be about it, the event itself was totally unremarkable for a client of his age and condition. He made love like a man in middle years. He caught cues. He was careful with his weight. He rationed his energy. He had an adult’s “three o’clock” erection rather than a boy’s “half past noon,” and he lasted as long as I would have expected. He was aware of my existence throughout, and knew that my own climax was not faked.
And then, just when I’d decided he wasn’t at all like a teenager, I noticed that…how shall I put this?…the swelling had not subsided.
It is possible for a man to fake a climax, but I knew he had not done so. Still, it isn’t totally unheard of for a man of any age to find himself ready for a second helping right away. I decided again to be flattered, and offered him a rematch, no tip necessary. (One of the best things about Lady Sally’s House is that there is never a clock ticking; Her Ladyship believes that art takes as long as it takes.) And he accepted on terms so favorable that before long I had given him that new private nickname, having been most delicately sipped.
This time I not only fired the weapon, I succeeded in lowering the barrel. But not for long: in the few minutes it took him to get his breath back and collect his clothes, it started to rise again.
But my offer of a third round seemed to almost panic him. He concealed his weapon, dressing quickly, and thanked me kindly and tipped me generously but not extravagantly and left. By the time I had washed and repaired my makeup, buzzed Robin to come clean up the studio, and gone back down to the Parlor, he was gone—and the word-game was just being won by Father Newman, with something horrid about a priest who had broken his vow of chastity on a subway getting disPennStation. He and Lady Sally went upstairs together, to pray, to thunderous applause (I couldn’t repress a flicker of curiosity as to whether Father Newman used the same method of prayer that I did), and I was approached by a couple I knew for a session in the Bower, and the evening went on.
The business with Colt was just odd enough to stick in my mind, not odd enough to be worth gossiping about.
He returned the next night, gave me a warm greeting and a kiss on the cheek, but did not invite me upstairs; I got the message and drifted politely away. He chose Bingo Katy within five minutes, and was back downstairs and out the door within half an hour, nodding pleasantly to me as he left. The next night I happened to see him go upstairs with Cynthia; he took an hour that time, but then Mistress Cynthia’s art involves more elaborate theater. The next night, Juicy Lucy; twenty minutes. At that time, Lady Sally’s roster included (biologically speaking, at least) twenty-three females and twenty-one males; it became apparent that I would be entertaining Colt again in about twenty days; I put him out of my mind.
And he kept popping back in.
Why? It was atypical for a client to show up every night, but not unheard of: Lady Sally’s flat-rate membership policy encouraged frequent visits. His name never came up in aftershift gossip sessions, by whorehouse standards his rather…straightforward approach just wasn’t that odd. He was like a guy who orders his drinks from a different bottle every night, methodically working his way through the shelves, and God knows we get a few of them. It seemed like a rather dull hobby to me, but that was his business. What was it that kept me vaguely aware of him in the crowd? Why did I feel vaguely sad whenever I noticed him?
“It’s like it was a sentence,” I found myself saying to Phillip finally, as we were winding down over Irish coffees in the dining room one night. “There just doesn’t seem to be any joy in it for him.”
Phillip smiled. “Why does that bother you?”
“It’s as though he typified what’s wrong with men.”
He arched an eyebrow, and licked sugar from the rim of his coffee glass.
“All right, some men. Maybe even most of them, though.”
“Now there’s a rewarding topic for a symposium,” Lady Sally said, joining us with a coffee of her own. “‘What’s wrong with men.’ Might be worth discussing at some length.”
“Yeah, but who’s got a spare week?” Mary asked, sitting beside her and lighting a cigarette.
“Let’s take a month,” Phillip suggested mildly. “Then we could cover what’s wrong with women too.”
“Whoa!” Mary and I chorused ominously, and Lady Sally raised a hand.
“Darlings!” she said with her usual slightly tiddly good humor (I have never seen Lady Sally take a drink), “the ancient ritual combat is over for the night, both sides retired victorious: why reopen old grudges? Let’s keep this on a friendly plane and perhaps we can learn something. Sherry, dear, can you state your objection to men? To some men, I hasten to amend.”
I was hesitant now. I’d been living in Lady Sally’s House long enough to know that if you didn’t like your clients, she believed you belonged in some other line of work—and I did like men, as a species, a lot. But this thought had been in the back of my mind for a good part of my life; I pressed on stubbornly.
“Well, Your Ladyship, the client I was talking about is only a slightly exaggerated version of something I’ve seen a million times. He…how shall I put this?…he doesn’t do it for pleasure, so much, as for relief. You know what I mean, don’t you?”
“Mmm,” she said, sipping coffee thoughtfully. “I believe I do.”
“I sure do,” Mary said. “We spend hours here learning how to be the erotic equivalent of a gourmet treat—and then half the time the darlings fall on us like we were fast-food burgers, never mind the garnishes, just keep it coming, chomp chomp.”
“Take your complaints to God,” Phillip said. “God knows we have. I know it’s unflattering when someone figuratively wolfs down the meal you slaved over, but it’s a simple matter of hydraulic pressure. We’ve been cursed with a more desperate hunger than you ladies: give us not scorn but sympathy. For our part, we find it maddening the way you can take it or leave it alone: it gives you an advantage we can barely tolerate. We envy your lesser itch.”
“Whereas we,” Mary said, “find it maddening the way your itch can get so decisively and conclusively scratched. Once you get us going, it’s hard to stop us again; no gal is ever quite as eager to as when she just has—and just about then, you poop out on us, every damn one of you. Well, except the teenagers, sometimes.”
“Not us,” Phillip said, “just our erections. That doesn’t necessarily end the party.”
“Eight times out of ten it damned well does! Oh, you’re a professional, Phillip, and you’d be a nice guy even if you wer
en’t—but with most men, once they can’t cut the mustard, they lose interest in even licking the jar. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I recline to answer, on the ground,” he said. “Shall we discuss the way women—other than those in this company, of course—make a habit of waving food under the noses of starving men, just to see how high they can drive the price? Or shall we just agree that human behavior varies: that cruel fate gave the lesser need to those with the greater capacity to enjoy, and we all simply have to live with it? Some men are cursed or blessed with such a huge hunger that they will always be gourmands rather than gourmets, and some women are blessed and cursed with such a mild one that they can nibble haute cuisine all day. It makes it a bit difficult for us to get along, but it is possible—and if it can’t be done in this House, I for one am going to enter a monastery.”
“Can I be the proverbial Nun of Your Lip?” Mary asked.
“I’ll have a stable of ’em,” he said. “It’s habit-farming.”
She tried to put her cigarette out in his Irish coffee, but he had laced it so liberally with 12-year-old Jameson’s that she almost burned her knuckles. Me, I figure she had it coming.
“I’m not sure I know the difference between a gourmet and that other you mentioned,” I said while they glared affectionately at one another.
“A gourmand,” Phillip said, pointedly not taking his eyes from Mary’s, “doesn’t care so much what’s on the plate as long as there’s plenty of it.”
Mary is probably the only 195-pound woman I’ve ever met who is not even remotely self-conscious about it. Perhaps with good reason—she currently works the Security Room, monitoring the countless studio bugs for sounds of trouble, but before my time she was one of Lady Sally’s most popular and sought-after artists. “Yeah,” she said, meeting Phillip’s gaze tranquilly, “you know: a healthy, vital person. Someone who takes life in big bites. Whereas your gourmet is frequently something of an effete wimp.” He grinned at her, they’re good friends, licensed to insult each other.
“Maybe so,” I said. “But I still think that guy I was talking about is sad. Maybe he was taking big bites—but he didn’t seem to enjoy them that much. He went twice in no time, like it was a chore to be finished—and then insisted on leaving as soon as the edge was off, even though he clearly still had rounds in the chamber! And he hasn’t spent more than half an hour total with anyone he’s picked so far. I can’t shake the feeling that if somebody could just get him to stick around for a third or fourth time some night, and do it for fun instead of for relief from need, they’d both have a wonderful time. Why do men want to leave right afterward so often? When they could be cuddling, and being held?”
“Sometimes because the intensity of the relief, the depth of their gratitude, makes them feel small or out of control,” Phillip said. “Sometimes because in their secret miseducated hearts they believe they’ve done something disgusting to you, and are glad of it, and so are ashamed. And sometimes just because they were doing something when the dread compulsion came over them, and now they want to get back to whatever it was.”
I stared at him, surprised and oddly touched. One of the best things about my profession is that occasionally I get to hear men speak with total honesty; it is always fascinating and disturbing.
“And sometimes,” Lady Sally said, “because the darlings can find us and our appetites just a little intimidating. There they are, out of gas, and we’re just starting to reach operating temperature. They fear cuddling might restart something they can’t finish. In all such cases,” she added pointedly, “it implies that one hasn’t done one’s job as well as one should have.”
I felt myself flush.
She went on, carefully not to me. “If a male client does not want to cuddle after, that does not mean that there is a ‘problem with men.’ It does suggest that there is some deficiency in his artist’s technique, that he or she has a problem with men. Any time a client achieves release but not joy, he’s been shortchanged. Even if he leaves my House content. The proper spirit is not to resent his nature but to come to terms with it, learn how to make him want to stick around for a more leisurely loving—and if you fail, resolve to do better next time.” Now she did speak to me: “Please don’t interpret this as criticism, Sherry dear; I’ve had them tuck it away and bolt for the exit on me once or twice myself. But don’t waste time blaming the bull if you can’t make it moo: try and puzzle out what it wants. Much more productive approach.”
I sighed. “You’re right, Your Ladyship. But I can’t help feeling it’d be much less trouble to fix men than fix me. And I really did try and persuade Colt to stay. Oh well, I’ve got over two weeks before he gets back to me to figure something out. An artistic challenge.”
“Why wait?” Mary asked.
“He seems to like variety.”
“One of those, is he?” Lady Sally asked. “Sampling all the bottles?” I nodded.
“So offer him variety,” Mary said practically. “Grab him firmly by the handle and lead him off to the Bower.”
“Huh. Do you think he’d go for it?”
“How many of the men who’ve been taken to the Bower ever left unhappy?”
She had a point.
“That is, in large part,” Lady Sally pointed out, “because we do not bring them in there unless we’re fairly sure they’ll like it, Mary.”
She had a point too.
Lady Sally’s House is designed to accommodate a broad range of tastes, some of them mutually incompatible. The majority of clients are happy in the Parlor, which is essentially an ongoing, formal-but-relaxed party for men and women, artists and clients. Within certain broad limits, decorum is required there: dress is formal for artists, optional for clients; no skin is bared or fondled, and although the conversation sometimes passes beyond “risqué” to “raunchy,” only Lady Sally can use four-letter words.
But some clients, as I said earlier, prefer that all the members of the opposite sex they will see tonight will be artists. And others do not care to see members of the opposite sex at all. For them there are men-only and women-only Lounges, like smaller versions of the Parlor, each with its own private entrance and spiral staircase. (Gay or Lesbian clients are expected to use discretion in cruising other clients, and virtually always do.)
And I’ve spoken of clients who for one reason or another require utter discretion: public figures, preachers, and so on. For them there is a whole section of the building, the Discreet Wing, so laid out that they can enter, be entertained, and leave without ever seeing more than a single, professional human being.
But at the opposite end of the spectrum, for those who can handle it, is the Bower.
It is located in the heart of the first floor, can be entered from any of the Lounges. All three entrances lead to lockers and a warm clean unisex shower with plenty of fluffy towels (one year Lady Sally’s clean-towel bill reached five figures), from which you enter the Bower proper.
It appears to be a fairly large rock grotto, a natural cavern with a hot spring chuckling in one corner—but the “rock” beneath your feet and that of the walls is actually some marvelous stuff that is soft and yielding and resilient and warm to the bare skin. I don’t know what it’s made of, but if you pour a cup of water on it, the spot will be dry within a minute, and a cigarette won’t burn it. The floor is contoured, providing an abundance of nooks and supports and cuddling-places. The cavern is softly and indirectly lit, with small pools of shadow here and there, but none big enough for two people. There is a dance-studio-sized mirror near the pool. Elsewhere a versatile sling dangles from stalactites, and assorted small appliances lie about the room. The air is pleasantly warm and fresh, and there is a very slight echo.
In the Bower, anything consensual and sanitary goes.
A married couple may go in there together, make love all night in the presence of dozens of strangers, and go home without ever having physically touched or been touched by any of them. Or a husband may watch while
his wife takes on a hockey team. (As frequently, a wife will watch while her husband valiantly and foolishly tries to take on several women. But it’s over sooner.) Or a mother and daughter may share the same artist as a graduation present. (That happened once, but it was Mom’s graduation. Darling daughter!) Or a dozen or so enterprising souls may collaborate to try and invent a new geometrical shape. One is equally welcome to simply watch all night, masturbating or not as suits one—but one will have to be prepared to politely decline a lot of offers.
The rules are:
1) Take “No” for an answer; take “Stop” for an order.
2) Don’t pee in the pool.
3) If what you’re doing is making someone else unhappy, you must both leave, and come back when you’ve worked it out. And:
4) Never discuss or describe anything that takes place in the Bower outside the Bower. (Except with other participants, when you’re sure you won’t be overheard.)
I find the Bower exhausting as a steady diet, myself—too distracting—but it has its charm, and many clients and artists swear by it.
It sounded like it might just be the ticket for Colt, now that Mary suggested it. If you’ve got a guy who treats sex like fast-food, take him back into McDonald’s kitchen, and maybe by the third helping or so he’ll be ready to appreciate a delicate curry.
But did he, like so many men, suffer from modesty? Would he be comfortable naked with strangers, of both sexes, in a sexual context? He hadn’t been naked with me, in private, that first time. Too busy. But he had undressed us both for the rematch, and he had not seemed body-shy, and thinking back on it, I was sure he had no reason to be. If anything, he’d been built a little thicker than average. (Okay, there are other parts of their bodies that men can be self-conscious about—but that’s the one that counts.) He certainly didn’t seem the kind of man who would have any problem with stage fright—that night in my studio, I didn’t think he’d have much cared if there’d been a herd of cops present, or troop of Girl Scouts, or a Martian.
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