Reader's advisory: This is a retelling, in a stand-alone, slightly amended and hopefully improved version, of a story I posted back in the days of yore. Its genesis was in some of my real-life experiences.
"I do not know what we did, but I think I would now choose to do that action which I would be willing that I should do again and again with each turning of the wheel." -- John Norman,
Priest-Kings of Gor
The Social Club of Gor was based at my university. I had been subsisting as a postgrad on a paltry income from tutoring and waitressing, until I was awarded a research fellowship with a teaching position. This raised me out of my genteel penury. I could even afford a small, two-bedroom apartment just off-campus.
I shared the place for a while with Emily, my best friend since we were little girls. However, when she won a scholarship that required her to move interstate, in a moment of reckless altruism I invited her brother Richard to occupy the vacated room. He was two and a half years my junior and I had never much enjoyed his company. I found him to be rather indolent, dissolute and generally undisciplined. He was good-looking in a disheveled fashion, short and stocky with unruly hair and eyes that never seemed to focus unless on a pretty girl.
Emily had been very protective of Richard and fretted about him when he moved into students' accommodation at the university. And he was so fish-out-of-water disoriented, so babe-in-the-woods lost on the big campus that my attitude towards him softened into sympathy. I had always thought of and treated him as my own little brother; so now I felt a responsibility for him. I took him in.
Unfortunately, Richard didn't change his self-absorbed, self-indulgent ways, not at first. While I didn't expect him to contribute much to the rent payments or our living expenses, I demanded that he at least help with the housekeeping chores. Since much of this involved cleaning up his own mess, he could hardly refuse, but he complied sullenly, with contemptuously dismissive remarks about "women's work" (which was a bit rich since a woman fed and housed him). I also worried about his lack of ambition. He was neglecting his studies and barely passing his subjects, doing just enough to ward off expulsion. And instead of confronting him I pandered to his bad habits. I had recently broken up with my boyfriend and may have assuaged my guilt -- I have a tendency to blame myself when things go wrong -- by overcompensating.
Then, just as I was rethinking my approach and preparing my "start pulling your own weight" speech, I noticed a change for the better. All of a sudden Richard seemed more focused, had begun to show some maturity. He found a secure part-time job and started to help out with the household expenses. At the same time, he became more discreet about his private business. His job kept him busy most evenings and he was vague about what it entailed. He went out every other night and gave no indication of a romantic interest. I tried not to pry, at first.
However, this enigmatic, inscrutable side of his nature was something new and intriguing. Finally, having always been an inquisitive gal, I decided I shouldn't let my curiosity fester. I considered following Richard to his rendezvous, like some skulking private eye. I resisted the urge. Instead, as he was about to leave for his mysterious rendezvous one night, I challenged him directly. He was walking out straight after dinner, leaving his dirty plates on the table for me to clean up.
"Don't worry about the mess," I said.
"Thanks, I won't," he replied.
"So, you're off to your club."
It was a shoot-from-the-hip gambit, but the bluff worked.
He swung around with a sternly quizzical gaze -- both "How do you know?" and "Why do you care?"
I made it clear, by my expression alone, that I would harass him until I got an answer, so he simply shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay. Wanna come?"
"Where is it?"
"It's a place on campus."
"What's it called?"
"You won't have heard of it."
"Then it's a secret club..."
He didn't answer.
"Really?" Now I just had to find out. "Let me get my bag."
"Fine." He held up his hand and then pointed at my legs. "No jeans," he said.
"You're wearing jeans."
He just stared at me.
"Right," I said. I went to my bedroom, took off my jeans and put on a skirt. Half-expecting him to have left without me, I returned to find him standing impatiently in the doorway. I decided not to ask why his club had a dress code.
It was a short walk to the campus shopping precinct. Here there are rooms which the students' union hires out at low cost to various clubs and other organizations. Where Richard took me was in the basement of a building in a side street. I had no idea it existed. Its drab exterior appeared designed for discretion.
Richard turned to me and gave me an "Are you sure about this?" look. It was intended as a cryptic warning, but was accompanied by a faint smirk. He knew I was too naïve, or conceited, to leave a puzzle unsolved. He knocked, a peephole shutter opened and closed, and we were ushered inside by a corpulent, luxuriously bearded doorman dressed in a red tunic, a fur cape and tall leather boots. Behind him was a small cloakroom with shelves storing neat piles of clothing; and above his head hung a large sign with antique-style lettering that conveyed the disconcerting injunction to "Leave your weapons at the entrance."
In terms of décor, the place was a cross between a quaint pub and a chintzy nightclub. There was a battered but sturdy bar and half a dozen tables made from old barrels, with stools of cast iron and chairs hewn from gnarled tree trunks. Two ornate brass umbrella stands flanking the entryway were stuffed with javelins, longbows and battle-axes. Coat racks were draped in pelts and furs. There was a dance floor which was simply a cleared section in the middle of the room. Oddly, this was covered in fleecy mats and hides that would have made dancing difficult, if not treacherous. There was an alcove at one end of the room which had been converted into a rudimentary kitchen; and next to it was another which was closed off with a thick, black, velvet curtain. The toilet doors were marked "his" and "hers" with silhouette stencils, of a shaggy-bearded barbarian warrior and a shaggy-haired naked woman. (That looked promising!)
Behind the bar were two attendants, male and female. He was cleaning an earthenware jug, clad in a buckskin vest over a rough-twill long-sleeved shirt, with (I saw later) leather trousers and sheepskin boots. In other words, he looked like he'd stepped out of a cheap Viking movie set. She was wearing, in addition to a broad leather collar and steel bracelets, a barely-there metal-mesh bikini. I had seen these before; in fact I once owned one (which I had made for a "mediæval faire" because that's what the fashionable woman wore back in ye olden days); but my chain-mail had been lined on the inside with fabric. This one was simply metal against skin, revealing just about everything that even the flimsiest bikini is supposed to conceal. It must have been rough on the nipples, as well as irritating, chafing around the edges and, down below, plucking a few pubic hairs. Indeed, I noted that the girl's movements were all very measured; but even then she occasionally winced. Why, I asked myself, would she choose to wear it like that? I was not really thinking straight.
A waitress was meandering between the tables, also in collar and cuffs and wearing a microscopic bikini, although this one was of soft, gentle-on-the-tender-parts suede.
There were half a dozen young men standing or sitting at the bar, and maybe a dozen others at the tables, some playing cards and others a dice game. Most were in costume, the same sort of
faux
barbarian garb worn by the bartender (and with no obvious intimation of whimsy or irony). They were quaffing from tankards or, in a couple of cases, horns. But they made much less of an impression than their female companions.
