Vienna Club Champagne

The character of Orion is completely based on Orson Welles, circa his appearance on Dick Cavett, July 1970.

Up six floors I went and, emerging onto the penultimate level, was met by another concierge or a lesser host, perhaps, since his suit was black like the general staff and not a pinstripe blue like the human island of efficiency in the marble entrance hall. He too, however, managed to keep his face professionally expressionless, when I enquired after my invitation's author.

'Mr Lafonte's table is beside the window, meine frau, follow me. He's been here a long while.'

He turned and opened the double doors to the club restaurant and the vastness of the place was revealed, golden and red.

A piano on a dais to the centre right, not yet being played; acacias planted close to thick white pillars, the smallest tree still taller than I was; tables with white tablecloths seating one or two members coming to the end of their meals; a porphyry and brass bar behind me now to the left, where most of the noise was coming from; smoke in the air from several men's cigars; swinging kitchen doors in the corner beyond the piano. In the centre of the hardwood floor, red Turkish rugs were artfully angled to lead one's eyes to the wall of night-black windows against which were leather couches in opposing pairs. Tiffany lamps stood over them, adding to the mellow golden glow of spotlights running up the windows' frames to the height of the ceiling; a ceiling vaulted in several places and enamelled midnight blue.

It was late. The crowd was now mainly a drinking one; the pianist was on break between dinner and night. The quiet corners were unoccupied at present, except where, in a separate wingback chair, alongside a standing lamp and couch, he sat.

One of the cigars was indeed his. It lay, glowing a gentle red at the tip, between the fingers of his right hand which rested on the arm of the chair. His other hand held a cognac glass and I knew he must have eaten already and eaten well, according to habit. He stared into the middle distance, obviously deep in thought.

The chair itself was almost dwarfed by him. He wore a dark grey, open-neck shirt and appeared mountain-like, bearded, broad. His legs were crossed at the ankles, and a paper lay across his generous lap. His black shoes were as lacquered as the hair swept back from his head.

When we had almost reached him, he lifted his head and looked me up and down.

'Mr Lafonte,' the host nodded and then left us.

The hand which held the cigar gestured to the couch facing him. I obeyed.

'So? What do you think of the place?' he said, quickly.

I looked out at the city, the view over the rooftops, the lights in all the windows.

'Beautiful,' I said.

'And the club?' There was a smile in his voice. He didn't let me answer. 'I prefer it on Wednesdays. There's a jazz band on tonight and they're too noisy to think against. But, if I dine earlier, I get away to my room.'

'I like jazz,' I said.

'Pity.'

'Orion,' I moved to the edge of my seat, 'I'm glad you sent for me. It's nice to see you alone.'

Again, the looking me up and down.

'What are you wearing?' he said. I faltered. He clarified. 'Under that dress?'

'Black,' I was honest, not titillating, honest.

A beat of time passed between us.

'Come here,' he commanded.

I didn't move. The blood rushed into my cheeks.

'Sit here,' he insisted, 'on my lap.'

I stood up. I was sure the place was quieter. I was sure a couple at a dining table had looked up. I coudn't move. He nudged the paper onto the floor, put down his drink and straightened up a little in his chair.

'Sit.'

His eyes were darker, just a little wider. I took a breath and went to him. I sat, somewhat awkwardly, on his lap.

He tapped out the cigar ash and shifted me closer to him, opening his legs so that mine fell between them. He rested the hand holding the cigar on my thigh. The smallest worry he might burn my dress arose, but it was so deeply buried beneath terror and desire, I said nothing.

'I like silk more than satin,' he stated, stroking the dress, or rather, my leg beneath it.

'I'm sorry,' I said, without thinking.

'Good, 'he said, the power slipping far too easily, further into his hands. They were such big hands, after all.

His beard brushed my bare shoulder. He smelled sweet and warm. The cigar smoke was all that was between us now.

'I can do what I like in this place,' he whispered into my ear. He moved my hair aside at the nape of my neck. 'I pay them a fucking fortune.'

As his lips touched the skin there, I shivered and his hand slipped, in one swift motion, down my leg and up again, this time under the skirt. The end of the cigar burned my soft inner thigh. I gasped and opened my legs.

He exhaled a laugh, and his other hand gripped the back of my dress, pulling the front of it tight against me. He pulled me so that my back arched and he dipped his head to my breast, pouncing on the nipple and sucking it hard through the fabric. I cried out as he bit, and I wriggled and burnt myself again. People were looking.

He sucked on me and beneath me, I felt his cock grow.

'We should go to your room,' I said.

'Soon,' he replied.

A finger touched me through my panties, found the wetness and withdrew.

Keeping hold of me with his left hand, he turned to place the cigar in the ashtray.

The host stood beside us.

'Is everything okay, Mr Lafonte?' he asked, glancing at me, at the wet patch on my right breast.

'It would be even better if you brought me a bottle of champagne,' Orion replied. 'The Ruinart.'

'Right away,' the host turned on his heel.

'You see,' Orion said to me, close to my ear, 'the Ruinart has a thick neck.'

Suspicion formed. I shifted, afraid and excited. He moaned as I ground against his lap. I searched for something clever to say and found I had no words. He had plenty.

'I couldn't possibly go so far as to fuck you in the club dining room. At least, I believe that the rules state something of that nature. But' he smirked, 'I've always been rather good at bending rules.'

My hands up to now had been occupied in keeping my balance on his lap, holding the chair-arm, his thigh. Now, I lifted one to his face, stroked his beard with the back of my hand, touched his hair lightly, stroked his ear. Kiss me, I thought to him, kiss me. I didn't dare ask.

Instead, he took my hand in his, bent his head to rest on my collarbone, ear against my chest, listening to my racing heart. He guided my hand to his waistband. I willingly slipped it inside, found his hot, hard cock and squeezed.

The champagne arrived. In a bucket of ice.

Orion thanked the host and the host stayed, looking, a moment longer than he should have. Orion's head snapped up. Had he been a dog, he would have growled. The man backed away.

The table opposite us was definitely watching now. An elderly couple in evening dress. Their dessert forks in hand, motionless.

'When the pianist returns, dear,' Orion said to me but in his full, deep voice and so partly to them, 'then you may scream.'

His left hand unzipped my dress just a little, then wound around my back and slipped inside beneath the strap. I wore no bra, and he fondled my bare, left breast, gently, idly, looking at the couple. His other hand went back between my legs.

This time he went straight for me. pushed aside the panties, rubbed at me with a confidence and expertise I had correctly imagined. He dipped a finger inside, then impatiently withdrew and pulled hard at my underwear, yanking it down painfully. He pushed me forward with his arm so that I stood long enough to let them fall to my feet, my hand losing its grip on his hardness, but moving it up, the head of his cock coming free of his clothes. I stepped hurriedly out of the panties, as impatient as he was to continue. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the pianist mount the dais, a man carrying a double-bass behind him.

He sat me back down, with some care this time, tucking himself back into his pants. He ground against me a little as he slipped one, then two broad fingers into me, tilting me so that I arched my pussy up to him, my legs slipping wider, carelessly now. He lifted one onto his lap so that I was exposed almost - were it not for the arm of the chair, the pole of the lamp - to the entire club. A man at the bar pointed, seemed about to say something, laughed, but his companion recognised Orion and silenced him. Nevertheless, more people turned their backs to the bar and leaned against it comfortably to watch.

'You're so wet now, nearly enough is it? Nearly.' He said, darkly, impatiently. I could hear the desire in his voice now, deep as it always was, it sounded thick, breathless. He pushed into me, was it three now? I couldn't tell. I tilted up, squirmed, begged. He liked that.

His hand left me. I could have cried. I heard the ice in the bucket protest as the bottle was withdrawn, I heard him say well done to the host, for the cork was already out, and suddenly the freezing neck of the bottle was at my pussy lips. My clit leapt, the bottle pushed forward, its body numbing the sore parts of my thighs where the cigar had touched them, the neck like a lightning bolt of ice inside me suddenly, deeper and deeper. He pushed and withdrew, pushed and withdrew again and again. I felt the cold liquid rush out inside me and run down between my cheeks. He cursed and moved me forward so that I would not get him wet and so that more of me was exposed. I lay further back and looked at the ceiling, at the dark blue and the reflection of the golden lights in it, in the tops of the windows, stars. I couldn't see them watching now. I rocked. He rocked. His cock ground against my side.

'Ah fuck,' he said, and I knew he was barely controlling himself and knew what he wanted from me, before he would take me upstairs. The band was playing now, they were watching, I knew, but they were playing. Their rhythm seemed to match the fucking of the bottle.

Orion took his left arm away and I fell further back, my head below the level of his lap, the level of my pussy raised high for all to see, blood rushing to my head. His left arm rested on my stomach, his left fingers went to my clit and it was not long. He fucked with the bottle and rubbed with his thumb and rocked me forwards and back with the force. My hair came loose against the couch behind me; I was a perfect mess; flushed, wet, open, tangled. The heel of my shoe locked up against the lamp and it rocked with me. I heard a gasp, felt someone else steady the lamp, knew it was the host, returned to stand close by. But it was not long.

I bucked as I came and only the deepest notes of my cries cut through the strumming bass, the quick, darting piano and I dug my fingers into his thighs and I looked up at him as he looked down on me seemingly from the stars, wolf-like, hungry, pleased. He pulled the bottle out! God. He drank from its open top roughly, messily and pulled me up and tight to his chest. I shuddered against him, closing my legs shyly now, ridiculously shyly, as shyly the club patrons turned reluctantly away. He kissed my forehead. Licked sweat from his lips, champagne.

I pulled my dress down awkwardly, still sitting on his lap, feeling his hardness diminish.

But only a little.

'Can you stand?' Orion asked.

I nodded. We stood together.

'Put it on my room,' he said to the host, gesturing with the bottle as he steered me past him, a strange protective attitude coming over him now that he had humiliated me, his arm over my shoulders, his height and size shielding me from other eyes.

The band played on as we left the restaurant and went to the elevator, conspiratorially waiting for us, closing on us, taking us away.

In the sudden quiet, we were in danger of seeming abashed. Images in our heads. Anticipation. Impatience.

The top floor. The empty corridor. More double doors. His hand on the curve of my hip.

Inside.