by Daniel Six
“What’s going on?” Emma questioned, trying to disguise a sudden ebb in confidence. Many of the women she saw were breathtakingly beautiful.
“So you’re Emma,” Sara mused, pacing around her. “Love the clamps,” she snickered, fingering one.
“Uh, thanks.”
“You work in one of the big clubs before? I don’t recognize you from Dean’s current gig.”
“No. Nothing like that. This is all new.”
Sara quietly snorted. “Hah. Asshole told me you were going to be a socialite.”
Emma had no idea what she was referring to. “Huh-uh. Just helping out. I’ve never served drinks or anything.” She watched a cute brunette with a brief hairdo skip over to a nearby table of employees, effortlessly balancing a tray crowded with glasses. “Doesn’t look too hard, though.”
Sara gaped. “You think the Dowser hires women like you to serve drinks? Dean brought you here to see if you can handle what I do!”
Emma regarded her quizzically. “Which is…?”
“I’m a socialite. We create relationships with the clientele. Build loyalty. It’s a given that you’re gorgeous if you represent the Dowser, but can you dance? Unkink a schlong with a long look? Drink one down while a everyone watches?”
“You have to have sex with the customers?” Emma wilted.
“Have to?” Sara shook her head. “You have any idea how much status a socialite with a big following has? At the Dowser’s Club you have sex where you want, how you want, and only when it makes you happy. That’s what makes the clients want to be in your clique; you’re above them, socially.”
Emma considered this. “So if I work here I would have the status to get my own place?”
Sara smirked. “I have two already, slipperlips, and I’m looking at a party pad just down the hill. C’mon. I’ll show you the bar. The Dowser will wanna see you.”
Emma followed, wondering what Dean had said about her, where she figured in his plans. He was at the bandstand dais to her right, surrounded by guys busy assembling his drums and positioning gnomes. A half-dox of glamorous women were loitering about with a clearly conditional friendliness—he wouldn’t see them again if he lost tonight, she knew.
Emma abruptly wished Ione were along, regretted their separation. What was she doing here? She barely knew Dean, and the Club itself was overwhelming in its scale and energy. It would make better sense to find some humbler thing to do first, gradually learn about the City and go from there. Emma knew Ione had grudgingly allowed her to date Dean because they needed his resources, the safety of his apartment and car. She would sneer at their relationship when some alternative to this generosity developed, and was probably seeing to it right now.
Emma halted in front of the bar, about to beg off from the whole affair, searching for some way to explain her sudden need to depart. Her gaze was drawn to the gleaming bucket hovering beyond the circular battlement of bottles. Then the largest man she had ever seen stepped into view.
He was almost a head taller than Dean, and burlier than Mark; so physically intimidating he would not have made sense in any place less imposing than his Club. Flowing blond hair draping down bulging shoulders that framed a handsome, rigidly masculine countenance. Permeating blue eyes appraised Emma’s presentation, lingering on her feisty nipple clamps.
“You are here with Dean?” His voice was formal in tone, resonant with deep, barely perceived timbers of authority and entitlement, a sound to measure anyone that heard it.
“Yeah. Yes. I am.”
The Dowser stared down at her nakedness for the space of a long pulse, then gestured for her to join him on the other side of the counter. She stepped through a staff opening, turned to abruptly confront the lower half of his anatomy. She could only stare at the scale of his penis, which more than fulfilled the standard of his hulking body. It swung like a cudgel, lazily menacing the way before him, a manly arm that loosened her lips in helpless awe, imposing enough to check the vanity of even the most sophisticated woman. Peach-sized testicles lurked behind it, promising an extravagant conclusion to any libidinal interaction.
Emma heard a snicker from one of the servers, clamped her gaping jaw and slid her gaze up to a more dignified inclination.
“Two flutes of cloudburst, a shot of stillwater, and sixtwo glasses of stillwater mint.” The server waited expectantly, casually balancing a large round tray with a high lip, a sort of stylized bucket.
The Dowser filled various items of glassware with the drink mixtures ranged behind him, moving with a precise, unhurried competence as he placed them on the tray.
“You will be serving Emma tonight,” he solemnly informed the server. “She is with Dean.” The woman smiled and nodded deferentially, lingering on her nipple clamps.
“This is for him and his crew,” she mentioned, hefting her freshly laden tray. Emma nodded and she stepped away to deliver the drinks. Emma wondered which was for Dean, realized she had no idea what he preferred.
Apparently she had been granted a trial opportunity. Emma regarded the immensity of the Club, wondering what the others would think. The front doors would not open till sundown, so she would have to wait until then at least to find out. If she decided to stay.
She gestured to the bucket. “What exactly is this stuff?” she asked, absently surprised by her own audacity.
“Stillwater?” An inscrutably faint grin twitched at the Dowser’s lips. “That is a complicated question.” He turned to the abyss yawning open to her right, guarded by no railing or wall, gestured within. “I take it you have an interest in such things?” She could smell rich moisture wafting up.
“Well.. kind of. How can it change your mood?”
The Dowser regarded her intently. “That can only be understood from within the experience itself.” He gestured to the bottles. “What’s your pleasure?”
Emma had no idea what choice might look sophisticated in front of this man.
“Uh… you decide. Something I won’t regret, maybe?”
The Dowser searched her expression for a moment, then nodded in somber approval of her willingness to depart the channel of the obvious. He reached for a beautifully bejeweled flask and measured a dense green substance into a shot glass, handed it to her with a ritual stolidity.
Emma took it, scenting a pungent syrup, closed her eyes and swallowed it with a toss, prepared for the worst. It washed sweetly down her throat, bearing a delightful aftertaste.
“What was that?” She was astonished Dean had supplied nothing so delectable.
“It is called the water of faraway places,” the Dowser quietly replied. “Pure stillwater, and the juice of a berry that only grows in that ancient liquid. I take it you like sweet drinks?”
“I do now,” Emma decided, touched by the first intimations of pleasure from the one inside. The giant man considered her, unable to disguise an interest beneath his forceful impassivity. Her awareness of the Club abruptly widened to encompass the employees lingering near, many of whom were covertly auditing their conversation she realized.
The Dowser leaned in. “Would you be interested in helping me with a special drink recipe, Emma?”
“Uh… what exactly?”
“I am attempting to perfect a concoction that renders the male ejaculation pleasant to taste.”
She blinked, astonished by the request at first. But she couldn’t help contemplating the rapt oral pleasure any man who spewed sugar juice might expect. Dean would love the idea of experimenting with it, and Emma was certain he would do anything that personally concerned the Dowser anyway. It was an inevitably alluring concept, she had to admit, one that might awaken oral passions in all kinds of women. Especially dignity-conscious ones like Ione, who could appreciate the kinkiness of fellatio, but hated its demeaning fulfillment…
“You really have something like that?” she skeptically demanded.
The Dowser stared. “I have a formulation that shows promise. You may try it later on.”
“Huh.”
He took this for a commitment. “Come see me when business is finished tonight,” he suggested and turned to another server waiting deferentially nearby.
The sun went down in a glory of warm hues, and the Club ushered its fading eminence within. Powerful gnomes glowed to life overhead, gradually calibrated down the spectrum to a spectacular orange tone that bloomed off the dance floor, glossed chrome furniture and limned the cymbals with scintillating arcs.
The drummers had already warmed up. They sounded comparably competent, which boded well for Dean, but they had permanent places at the Club and alliances with beautiful socialites who had developed big followings. It was obvious Dean was not well-positioned in comparison; he had only three such women waiting by his dais, and Emma could admit she was the best looking of them. Sara was initially decent to her, but after a few cooler exchanges she decided the other woman resented her presence, and was starting to suspect that most of the socialites disdained each other.
“Bucket’s dry,” one of the servers reported in a quizzically ceremonial tone, and Emma turned to the bar with the other employees. A thick rubber siphon hose was being withdrawn from the pail.
The Dowser raised a massive wooden oar, back and arm muscles flexed to a sharp delineation under the coppery radiance of the gnomes. With a cry he swung it against the side of the bucket. There was no result for a strangely protracted instant, then a shapeless noise issued that stunned her, stuttered at the limit of coherence, finally coalesced to a distinct resonance of the well, surging forth to prowl the City.
The Dowser vaulted into the giant pail with an effortless dignity. A moment later it departed from sight down into the well, trailing an immense chain. Emma had been told no one else was allowed to undertake this journey of acquisition. A hair-shivering hum from deep inside the hill lingered on.
The doormen took up formal positions, and she saw the plaza was already teeming with potential revelers hoping to get in. The bar staff were tidying things up, readying the glassware. Emma chatted with the servers, shared an occasional exchange with Dean when he wasn’t fussing with his kit.
A hush fell over the establishment. “Bucket’s up,” Sara whispered. “Here we go…”
The Dowser nimbly dropped from his perch on the lip of the pail and the siphon tube was thrown over the side, feeding a sex of gleaming cock taps ranged around the bar. The giant man returned his oar to a bracket and took his place at the counter. He nodded to the Doorman, chief among all the wardens of the Club, and his subordinates opened the main doors. A celebratory cry arose outside.
Emma watched the first guests stroll in. By custom these were the Dowser’s elite clients, whose priority with him secured the best tables and vantage points in the Club. They were people of stratospheric status, some of the most powerful personages in the City, she had been warned. Sara waved to several that approached, left to consort with them. Emma hesitated.
“You gotta mingle,” Dean hissed. “Jill, get her a shot of still,” he ordered one of the servers, then leaned over to whisper. “You see Mark? Or anyone?”
Emma shook her head, distracted by a big client with women on either arm. They waved casually to Dean and seated themselves as Emma looked on.
“Hello there, gorgeous!” said the man, motioning her over, eyes widening at her approach. “When did Dean recruit you?” he chuckled.
“Uh… just happened,” she replied, words compressed by the already considerable noise of the crowd.
“Sit with us,” he invited with a broad smile. Emma grinned uncertainly but did as requested, was welcomed into their group with comforting informality. The shot Dean had ordered arrived and she tossed it back without thinking.
“Love your clamps,” one of the women flirted. Emma smiled, warmed by her obvious sincerity. The man offered a cynical observation about Sara and they all laughed. His erection gestured this way and that as they socialized, pointed to Emma with increasing frequency as her mood loosened.
The Club was soon crowded with noisily carousing guests. From behind her Emma heard Dean tap the bass drum once. After a moment she heard another drummer do the same.
“Show’s starting,” said her client, leaning back with an anticipatory grin.
A steady thump emerged under the complicated noise of the crowd, the result of each drummer’s single, sequential contribution to the beat.
Emma drank a second shot with her new friends, was lifted almost immediately by its potency. A group of good-looking men called her over to their table, and she was soon in active circulation about Dean’s territory of the dance floor.
Her suspicion that socialites were competitive with each other was soon confirmed as they openly fought for influence among the patrons, who for their part seemed to regard this dissonance as essential to their appeal. People were crowding through the front doors, emotionlessly filtered by the Doorman and his crew according to their physical appeal and loyalty to the Dowser. The tables were already occupied, and the dance floor was filling up.
“Come here, beautiful,” a dashing drinker invited, gesturing to his boner-supplied lap, and Emma minced over, took a swallow from his drink, something fruity but competently intoxicating.
“How’s your game?” she teased, surveying the Clubgoers around them.
“Lotta cuties here. I like her. And her,” he pointed out other guests. “But I like you best of all,” he grinned, reaching for Emma. She let him fondle her for a bit, smiling to a dox of men nearby to illustrate the pleasure of her friendship. A socialite circling her territory glared as a personal client made an obvious pass at Emma.
The glow gnomes had shifted color to shower a greenish light down, starkly angled to complicate the dance floor with restless, elongated shadows. A thin fog drifted in, spewed by blow gnomes slowly twirling overhead. Emma waved to Dean and he grinned, saluting her with a stick. The drink and the noise and the novelty of the Club finally conspired to put Emma in an adventurous mindset. She wished her friends were there to see it all, wondered when they might arrive.
Everyone was looking to the bar now, and unable to see, Emma clambered over a busty reveler with grabby hands to stand on top of her table.
“Oh yeah!” muttered the woman, running fingers up Emma’s thigh. Her man chuckled in glee.
“Bucket’s dry!” someone roared, and the Clubgoers cheered grandly, echoing this institutional catchphrase.
The Dowser raised the oar again. His gargantuan body tensed. Unlike other drinking venues, which got their stillwater secondhand, his Club had an unlimited supply. This had significant influence on the bibitory ambition of those who drank with him, and Emma sensed a kind of reckless loyalty in operation.
He swung and struck, much harder than before. The colossal pail emitted a deep tone modulated by growling harmonics that reverberated around the hall to establish a pulsing alternation. Dean had told her the Dowser’s hill was actually hollow, generating a sustained resonance from any sound at its wellhead. The crowd screamed and the drummers resumed their beat on the kick drums, one after another, matching the meter of this steadily shifting hum. And after three measures they began to solo.
As Dean and one of his rivals held down the prevailing tempo, the third drummer filled the air with a clever alternation on snare and kick, chopped around the toms with an arm-waving flourish for another measure, then rounded out with an elegant sweep down the whole set.
Dean was next to solo. Emma cheered frantically as he wove an adroit expansion of the existing pattern, layered a strident backbeat groove on a keenly projecting ride cymbal, then lifted them all on a series of crash hits. Yielding to the imagination of the third drummer on the other side of the Club, he maintained the beat for a six of measures, grinning to a crowd of admirers staring at him in sudden interest. Emma looked down to find men and women around the table reaching in to celebrate with a grope or tickle. Someone handed her another drink.
“We love you, Dean!” Sara adoringly crooned
from nearby.
Distributed on the bandstands were countless gnomes amplifying whatever they heard, lips open wide to render hoarse elaborations on the music layered with chaotic excursions of harmonized feedback. The drummers battled each other with increasingly passionate solos, mutually maintaining the rhythm behind the gnomes output. The Dowser returned with more Stillwater and it was siphoned from the bucket to cock taps, from there into a ceaseless flow of glassware by deftly hustling hands.
Emma commanded the epicenter of a widening field of influence, her beauty and exuberance yielding a steady supply of patrons from other cliques. She was tipsy but not drunk, just enough in control. The front doors were still open wide, but the Doorman was only letting choice citizens into the packed Club.
“She’s gonna spin for us!” someone raucously declared from deep within the camp of a neighboring socialite. Emma saw the woman ascend to one of the large party toys, already occupied by five customers celebrating their good fortune.
She had been told that sexual activity was only allowed on the machines provided. The socialites were expected to be above the matter of their own pleasure—they maintained a superior distance from the clientele by never compromising this image of discipline. Emma thought this strange at first, but quickly realized her standing among these people would be vastly reduced if she were accessible to them in that way. After a few climaxes she would be depleted of any real desire to mingle and entertain, anyway.
“Gimme a lift!” she demanded.
A huge guy she knew from Dean’s building obligingly hove her onto his shoulders, clearly relishing the contact. Hands were grabbing her all over the place as Emma tossed off a shot offered by an admirer. From her raised vantage the Club was laid out in grand aspect, a throbbing sea of bodies in the grip of a fantastic anticipation. The drummers were coordinating to produce an ever more compelling groove, competing for any possible distinction within that agenda.
The drink journeyed further within her, unlocking old memories and new prospects. She was quite aroused by the densely packed nudity of the patrons, appreciating for the first time what the Dowser had really achieved. Her gaze tracked other socialites in the crowd, flirting with customers, hustling for status.