My Own Private Seraglio

The lake was hushed in the early morning while I drifted between mists with a fishing line dangling in the cool, dark water. It was quiet except for occasional bird songs. I'd lost a few nibbles from lack of concentration. I thought I was falling asleep when I saw a flash of magenta moving swiftly between the trees on shore. Then I saw the too small black shorts. It was a woman running on long, muscled legs, taking dangerous strides on the narrow path that circled the entire lake. She ran like she was being pursued. Then, a swift shadow passed overhead.

A drone, hugging the shore, zeroed in on the woman as she ran. It tracked with her, but kept over the water. She took quick, risky looks over her shoulder, to see if she had lost it. But as she ran, it dogged her movements.

"Ragusa," I muttered.

Marco Ragusa was the richest man on the lake. In fact, he owned the Lodge on the Lake, and an entire half interest in the lake itself. My father and I owned the other half, and he would like nothing better than to own it all. He had a passion for video-taping his nubile employees. This drone could be one of his latest toys to harass them. Condition of employment or not, I didn't care for the agreements the girls signed, and the latitude it gave Ragusa.

I estimated the next time the woman would be near the shore, and I steered closer. She saw me, and shook her blond head. I thought I recognized her. She worked at the Lodge, but was about five miles from it. She was a little too thin for my tastes, and looked older than all the nineteen-year-olds earning college tuition whom Ragusa loved to hire, and Ozark mountains tough. Still, I saw desperation as she fled the persistent drone.

I took a line with a heavier lead and whipped the rod like a fly fisherman. The line soared into the path of the drone, and tangled in its rotors. I gave a quick pull to confirm the tangle. The drone dropped like a stone, splashed into the lake and sank, rotors, motor, video camera and all. I cut the line.

The runner stopped, her hands on her knees, catching her breath. Then she stood, and waved a quick thumbs up.

"You work at the Lodge, right?" I said. "I can take you back, if you like."

She shook her head again. "Not done running." She stretched first her legs side to side, then stretched her arms over her head. Her top showed how rock-hard her abs were. She shook tension out of her feet and her wrists. She was runner thin, with blond hair just below her chin. Her black running shorts made her legs look twice as long as most women.

"Why was that video drone following you?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and started running again.

"Don't I get a thank you?" I shouted at her.

In a quick movement, she grabbed the bottom of her magenta top, and whipped it over her head, exposing her naked torso. She really was skinny, and didn't need a sports bra. She had a big grin on her face before the path took her away from the shoreline.

One more that got away that morning.

I got to the Lodge at 2:00 pm. I was the chief porter and the head maintenance guy, same job for nine seasons, but this year would likely be my last. My schooling was finished — the university kicked me out with a doctorate in Economics and Mathematics. I've been offered a professorship at the university where my father has a chair in Economics and Finance. He says it's time I grew up. The trouble was that I loved the Lake, the fishing, the seclusion and the change of seasons. Although no one understood it, I also loved being a menial porter at the Lodge, where I didn't have to think much at all.

The real attraction there was the bevy of beautiful women that Ragusa hired each year to staff the place. They were all at least nineteen, and chosen because they could fill out the Lodge uniforms and spark wild desire in the Lodge guests, nearly all of whom were male, rich and sexually adventurous.

The Lodge looked like a cruise ship that had docked. It sprawled along the shoreline, with lights, decks, music and beautiful women. Over decades and generations, it grew with new rooms, new levels, new playgrounds, and new secrets. I have not seen all of the areas that Ragusa has, which is okay with me. The specially invited guests had not yet started to arrive, except for a Russian calling himself Leon, short for Leonid, the lion.

Leon stood astride the front entrance. He had bristling, blonde hair, a barrel chest, and a bulge on his hip where a pistol might be hidden. His blue eyes were cold enough to form ice in vodka. He was a dispossessed Cossack, and his natural pose was with his elbows bent and knuckles at his waist.

Marco Ragusa was slender, with dark eyes and furious eyebrows. Although it was only a little after 2:00, his face was shadowed with beard. He wore gold around his neck, his wrists and on his fingers. He always looked out of place in the woods around the lake, but right at home in the palace the Lodge had become.

"You're late," Ragusa said when he saw me, showing off for Leon.

"It's my day off. I just came by to apologize," I said.

Ragusa looked me up and down. "This is the big week. Our Summer Lovin' party. I need you at your best. For the guests, you know?"

Then Leo's attention was captured when one of the women wearing a waitress uniform toddled through on four-inch heels. The uniform always showed a lot of girl, with very short shorts, a deeply cut top that seemed ready to burst its buttons, and high heels to lengthen the leg, all designed by Ragusa for the Resort. He had other outfits for the maids (very saucy,) the cooks (covered but transparent in opportune places,) life guards (very high cut sides, very low-cut fronts, very narrow back sides,) and maintenance (very tight jeans, very loose vests). I wore my own clothes to work.

"Hey, sweetheart!" said Ragusa, showing off for Leon. The waitress came over carrying drinks. "Where's your tan? You know the rule — No tan lines! There will be no tan lines showing for my guests, and you're as white as a ghost. What gives?"

The waitress was Clara, whose perfectly rounded figure eight always reminded me of a buxom snowman. Her nipples were so hard and tense that they might have been little lumps of coal there instead of pink flesh. She often slathered an orange zinc oxide on her nose, making it look like a baby carrot. It didn't help that she was so pale all summer.

"Hello, Mr. Ragusa," she said. Her dark eyes looked at me sideways, and she added, "Teddy." She had long dark lashes, sparkling white teeth behind raspberry red lips, and long blue veins slinking to her breasts, a reminder that a warm heart beat furiously beneath that frozen exterior.

Ragusa circled her, looking at every available inch of skin. "You're not tan. Why not? All you girls have access to my private pool and the sun garden, just so you can get rid of tan lines." "I don't tan. I burn. Remember? My father is a dermatologist. He gave me some super-strong sun screen. I promise there will be no tan lines, Mr. Ragusa."

Ragusa smiled as he looked her over more intently. Leon bobbed his head approvingly. Clara tucked one knee behind the other, squeezed her arms together and lowered her head. I thought the drinks might spill.

"You do stand out, don't you?" Ragusa said. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Clara," she said sweetly, turning a little side to side.

"Clara. Well, I'll remember that. Do you like to party?"

She giggled. "Who doesn't?"

I rolled my eyes. "Go deliver your drink order, Clara. Tell your father his sun screen works great."

"I will, Teddy. Bye!"

Ragusa and Leon watched her walk away, her ass like two snow globes fighting for the upper berth. Then Ragusa turned back to me. "You've thought about my offer?"

I nodded. "It's tempting."

"You father wants to sell his interest. But, hey. If you don't want to sell all of your share, just sell me part. You don't use most of the lake, and I want to develop the whole thing."

"That's the problem. I like my cabin, the fishing, the quiet." I didn't need to explain again to Ragusa. We had radically differing ideas about what would be best for the Lake. He wanted to commercialize it; I wanted to preserve its natural beauty. His deal would make us both wealthier than our great-grandfathers had been, but it was different wealth. They built something of lasting value. We just wanted to sell off what nature had freely given us. The Lake and its surroundings would never be the same for future generations.

"Think about it, Teddy. We're sitting on a goldmine here."

Leon added his opinion, uninvited. "I think it advisable you sell, yes?"

I nodded, noncommittally, then tried to change the subject. "I'm sorry about your drone, Marco."

A look of curiosity, then concern came of Leon's face.

"Did you capture the drone, my friend?" asked Leon.

"What drone are you talking about?" Marco looked genuinely puzzled.

"The one over the lake this morning. It was following one of the women who was out for a run. I pulled it down. It's at the bottom of the lake."

Leon pulled out his cell phone, and stepped away from us to have secure conversation. His arms swung wildly while he yelled at whoever was on the other side of that call.

Ragusa laughed. "Serves that pervert right. That wasn't my drone, buddy. But you are giving me some good ideas. A drone..." His mind started exploring the possibilities.

"I'm surprised you hadn't thought of it. You've got cameras everywhere else around the Lodge. Even the private pool and sun garden."

Ragusa hushed me, and looked around before putting his arm around my shoulders. "Those cameras are for the protection of the women. You know, they have to feel comfortable, lying there naked like the day they were born, rubbing oil on their sensitive parts. One girl helping another. Ummm..." His eyes rolled remembering what the cameras had shown him.

Leon finished his call, and Ragusa put his arm around his broad shoulders.

"Come on, Leon. I have some closed circuit images that you will really like."

Leon glanced over at me, like he was sizing me up. If I didn't know that Ragusa was the boss and Leon was the guest, I would have guessed otherwise.

I was as tired of Ragusa being my boss as he was, but we were bound by our common history. Our great-grandfathers built one of the great railroad fortunes — his using financial ability, mine using engineering prowess. Once they had more money than they ever dreamt possible, they invested across America in libraries, museums, art institutes, and other projects for the common good. Their one personal extravagance — they bought an entire lake, set up a trust to pay taxes that might occur and divided the property equally. It was a private, quiet, protected place, and each generation has loved it. Until now.

The last Ragusa heir is Marco, and he has plans to commercialize the lake. My father and I own the other half the lake, and my father wants nothing to do with it anymore because of the accident. On a snowy, icy New Years Eve eight years ago, he and my mother coming home from a party at the Lodge, were struck by a group of drugged partiers also from Ragusa's Lodge. My mother was killed instantly; my father was luckier — he became a paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair. Since then, he avoids the Lake, and the large vacation cabin built by my great-grandfather, and modernized periodically since then. It's where I live now. Ragusa wants to buy us out.

I'd worked at the Lodge for nine years already. Ragusa and I had grown up on the Lake as best friends until my parents' accident. We learned to swim together, to camp outdoors, to sail, to use slingshots, and finally, to practice with rifles and shotguns. Then, he changed to a more avaricious adventurer. Now, he coveted the half of the lake he didn't own. He'd made us a very generous offer, just like he had every year for the past nine. I had planned to hold out for the tenth year, but maybe it was time to leave all the Ragusa problems behind me.

Although I dreaded it, I needed some advice from my father, the wheelchair-bound Economics and Finance Chair, who spent most of his time far away from the lake, in an artist's loft on the university campus.

I know what my great-grandfather loved about this Lake. The remoteness, the peace, the feeling that the world was in God's hands. Ragusa's great-grandfather built a luxury hotel at one end of the lake, and each generation had added on to the structure, with boat houses, carriage houses and garages, a small landing strip, and even a bunker in the event of an atomic bomb or a terrorist attack. The reputation of the place grew among the rich and famous, as a very private place to indulge one's wildest fantasies. The women who worked for Ragusa looked like young starlets. They felt the isolation here, too. It allowed many of them to indulge in the fantasies that Ragusa was only too happy to encourage.

I tried to preserve the natural privacy I found at my end of the lake. It was the perfect place to study, which helped me complete my university work. It was the perfect place to bring ladies, if the lady didn't mind foregoing cable and WiFi connections. But the beds were soft, the decks overlooked the lake and the hills to the west, and the bathrooms were upgraded to rival the poshest spa, although I kept an outhouse for history's sake. I was most proud of the library, where I had books collected by each generation. I added my own modern classics.

So, why would I want to leave? It was my parents' accident. My parents were coming home from a New Year's Eve party at the Lodge on the Lake. They rarely visited the Lodge, except on very special occasions when it seemed obligatory. Coming back, a carload of revelers who had decided to set a speed record for circumnavigating the Lake, plowed into my parent's car, killing my mother, and leaving my father a paraplegic. My father's recovery was slow and painful. When he finally finished rehab, he left the Lake and has never come back. Now I have the entire family cabin to myself, and except for the times when I convince one of the women from the Lodge to join me, it gets lonely.

But lonely in a good way. Peaceful. Restful. It allows me to connect with nature like nowhere else I've found.

"Let yourself in," my father shouted in response to my knock. His studio was designed to accommodate his wheelchair. Tables were a little taller to allow the chair underneath, and easels a little shorter. He was working on an odalisque, a nude blond woman laying on a couch, her arm above her head, her legs languidly relaxed. My father must have been getting better as a painter, because the figure looked like a real person. In fact, she looked a bit like a woman who had worked at the Lodge the first year named Diane. She had lemon yellow hair, and I had never discovered if her pussy fur was the same bright color, though not for lack of trying to ask her out. She always thought of herself as better than the others at the Lodge, and especially better than the menial porter. After her first year, she had disappeared, right after the Summer Lovin' party.

"Hello, son. Sit, sit and we can talk. You don't mind if I keep painting, do you? There is not much light left."

I shook my head, but looked at the lounging couch, which was empty.

"Break's over!" he called. "Let's not waste the day."

A blond model wrapped in a white silk robe floated into the room next to the couch without looking up, stubbing out a cigarette as she slipped the robe off her shoulders. It fell easily to the floor.

I recognized her.

"Hey, Diane," I said.

She froze for a second, then glared at me and frowned. She squatted to grab the robe again, trying to position it quickly about her lovely frame. She had nothing to be ashamed of — her body was shapely, freckled, and lightly tanned, with no tan lines anywhere.

"Get him out of here. I'm your model, not something to be put on display for him to gawk at."

My father scowled. "I pay you good money to pose. I don't want to lose the light. Now, pose!"

"Forget it," she said, wrapping the robe tightly around her. It showed that she had a wonderful shape, with wide hips, narrow waist and abundant breasts. She hid her face behind bright yellow hair, and stood with one foot on top of the other. She spun around, with her shoulders hunched.

"Maybe I should go," I said.

"Don't you be silly, too," growled my father. "I can listen to you and paint at the same time." He pointed with long paintbrushes at the couch. "Now, pose, girl!"

"No!" she said. "Not with Teddy here."

"Oh, for God's sake," said my father. He pointed to a straight back chair flecked with dried paint. "Teddy, pull that chair over here."

I moved it to a position where I was hidden by a wall, unable to see the model or the couch, but with a full view of my father and his easel.

"Now, pose, girl!"

I heard the susurrus of the silk across her shoulders and legs. The couch creaked a little. I imagined her lying exposed before my father's appraising eyes.

"Left arm higher," he said. "Turn your left knee outward a little. Relax that right foot."

He daubed one of the brushes in a light rose color, and began bringing the figure on the canvas to life. I watched him add shadow to the woman's sides, height to the pink nipples, and some order to the lemon bramble bush of her pubic hair. I felt as if I could run my fingers through that tangle to find a moist vagina easily.

"So, talk," he said. "You here to accept the university job?"

"I'm here to talk about the lake. Ragusa says you want to sell your interest to him, and he wants me to sell mine."

Diane gasped at Ragusa's name. My father grunted. The lake was not a topic he easily discussed. But this time, he was angry at the model. "Relax, girl. You'd think you'd seen a snake or something."

I heard rustling while she tried to arrange herself.

"Sorry," she said. More rustling, the couch creaked, followed by her deep sigh, as though she had been holding her breath.

"I think we should keep the property, Dad. I don't want to sell. I don't want you to sell, either."

He didn't answer, but continued making the painting's stomach seem warm and pillowy. Another touch to the thighs made them seem waiting to support a lover's weight upon them. The canary feather hair was tousled around her face, ripe for long fingers to grasp. The only parts that were not complete were the eyes and the mouth. The eyes were cold, and the incomplete mouth frowned as if the thought of sex was utterly distasteful.

"Relax, girl! Open your mouth a little, softly, like you're waiting for a kiss."

He waited, but was dissatisfied with her effort.

"Close your eyes, please. Pretend you need to sleep. Bah!"

He tossed the brushes onto the palette, and turned to me.

"So, you don't want me to sell to him. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't, son. I don't want anything to do with the place. If I had a nuclear bomb, I'd clear the whole place away." He wheeled closer to me, and took my hands in his.

"Dad, if we sell the property, it would be like nuking the place."

He considered as he patted my hands. "Teddy, I love you, son. But I hate that lake. What do I care what happens to it?"

"How can I change your mind? What would you like me to do? I'll take the professorship position. We can be together more often. But please don't sell to Ragusa."

Diane gasped again, an involuntary noise. My father yelled at her again.

"Close your eyes. Relax your mouth.Pretend you're getting ready to suck on your lover's giant cock."

I heard sobs now. He'd gone too far. Diane's reputation at the Lodge had been a notch more conservative than the Amish, despite the way she looked in her maid's outfit. I had been surprised she agreed attend Ragusa's Summer Lovin' party that first year. No one ever saw her after that night.