The Owls Club Pt 05

The story is about a group of people, an actual place, and a dream. While having a none too subtle dig at society in general. This is a work of pure fiction. None of the characters are real people, nor do they represent real people. It is a slow burn, a lot of romance and some gratuitous sex for those who need to get off on it. It is based in Australia so I have used local language. There is some Italian and French conversations, so if you want to really become attached to the characters I strongly recommend you use a google translator. It will help with the flow of the conversations. As I use the Queen's English, I will apologise in advance to my American friends for the correct spelling of some words.

Some of the place names are correct.

There is no underage sex involved.

Part 5 -- A Business proposal and The Wall.

I pulled the car into the parking lot behind number 7 Divitt Street, the gates were opened for me by our security firm, Pulling in there at 9.30am brought back so many childhood memories, of coming here with my dad and Terence. My dad use to collect all of the rents in cash, monthly back then. I had no idea how much money he carried around with him, but he always took us both with him and he showed us all the buildings the family had collected over time. Who was in there and how much they were paying us to stay there. Then he gave us the golden rule. Never sell any of them and they will keep you well fed and a roof over your head as long as we own them. That has stayed with me ever since, Terry as well, on more than one occasion we two have stood firm against our family, when we were all in need of cash for one thing or another. But we never sold one piece of property, in fact we have bought more.

I found the key for the back door and let myself in. Turning lights on as I went, in the short time it had been empty, it had a stale musky smell to it, and again memories came flooding back. I took a deep breath and went to the front of the building.

Opening the front door I looked outside and saw Erica and Anita pulling up just down the street. Street parking was at a premium these days. I looked down the other way and sure enough there was the local council traffic warden earning his keep, writing out tickets for expired parking meters. I looked at my watch and it had just gone 9:40. I pulled my phone out of my bag and sent Emily a text message, to pull around into the rear car park. I didn't get a reply.

I waved to the girls out the front, they waved back and started walking towards me, I sensed they had been up to something, by the way Erica was smiling and nudging Anita as they walked side by side. No doubt it was over some petty attempt by Erica to sneak a little bit of PSA and Anita's strict nothing in public attitude.

There are two small steps up into the building, the steps are made of the original blue slate used as ballast from one of the earliest settlers vessels, the glass front door is solid timber framed and adorned with art deco brass fittings. From some update that was done in the 1920's. It still looked very stylish. I had to stand back to let them in, the front door opening isn't at all wide, and they had to let their eyes adjust to the dim light inside.

It was still a very elegant building, some temporary partition walls had been put up over time, but nothing that couldn't be quickly and neatly brought down. The timber floors needed some work. That was all I noticed in my 5 minutes that I had been there.

Erica looked around and started to take it all in, "WOW, I knew this place had a good feel about it but this is so big and with a little paint job, you could make this look, well even more luxurious." She exclaimed.

Just as we started to look around, we heard the girls come in the back door, "Hello, anybody home?" Emily said in a raised voice, "Need a hand here." I looked down the side towards the back door and notice she was struggling, with a white board, and beyond her I saw Mia unpacking a small van.

"What, you two planning on moving in?" I asked her.

She rolled her eyes, and said quietly, "Mia's idea, I said just run through the figures for you but no, she wanted to do the whole big presentation thing."

"I'm not deaf Emily, I heard." Mia chipped in, from just outside the back door where she was also putting a projector and a screen by the back door, to take in later on.

Emily grimaced and smiled as she kissed her lover on the cheek.

"Sorry babe, just explaining to Aunt Kathy, what our plans are."

"Fibber," she said in reply, "I heard what you said," as she slapped her back side. They were both smiling at each other in such a playful manner. I loved it.

Behind me Erica was watching on as was Anita. Erica turned to her Annie as she said, "See, a little public show of affection can be a good thing."

To which Anita turned her head and gently slapped her arm. "Don't start again."

"Don't start you two or I'll send you to your bedroom." I warned them jokingly.

"OH Promises, promises." Erica replied.

Mia brought two more of the blue prints in last of all.

"What are these?" Anita asked inquisitively.

"THESE." I said loudly, "These are a bit of Ambrose family history, the original blue prints of this place. Mia has kindly cleaned them up and made them a featured piece of wall art. To liven up the dreariest of office spaces." I told them both at once. "Retailing around the ten thousand dollar mark, but to close business associates of the Ambrose family, a mere five thousand dollars. These are not your normal knock off prints, each are personally autographed by the artist and are unique, a one off."

I saw Emily's eyes burst wide open, While Mia didn't bat an eyelid.

Erica looked at it, and without hesitating, said to put her down for two. "One for the front office and one for home." She told me.

Anita said that she'd take one as well, would look great in her board room.

I turned to my two girls and smiled at them. Mia smiled back and nodded, while Emily held her hand over her mouth.

"But these two are going to your Grandfather Emily, you two should ring him and arrange to drop them off." I told her in a matter of fact tone.

"Right let's get started shall we? But before I let you get into your spiel, let's do the grand tour. I think we'll start at the top and work our way down into the cellar."

As there wasn't a lift, I turned to Erica instinctively and asked. "How much for a lift in these old places?

Without hesitation she said that if it could be done, start at 10k and up to 25k. I asked if she thought it was worth it.

"For such a small building and only two floors, I would say no."

It was then that Mia cut in, and in a polite way but in a tone that said she knew what she was talking about, asked "Kathy, if I may, can we discuss that later during the presentation, I have made some enquiries about that, and it's 3 floors." As she looked at Erica. Who was a little taken aback!

"OK, I will keep my questions until then."

We slowly made our way up to the top floor, which was bare. The windows needed washing from a build-up of dust and grit. It looked as if the place hadn't been used for ages, when in fact it was less than a month.

Anita looked at me and asked, "Who did the final inspection Kathleen, and what did it say?"

I nodded in the general direction of a rental real estate brokerage firm across the road, Anita raised her eye brows and said "Really, what did they say about the state of the building after the tenants left?"

"I can't recall to be honest but nothing like this. That would have rang a bell." I thought of calling in to see them after we had finished here. I looked at Erica and she in turn looked down at Anita but out of her line of sight.

Emily and Mia were holding hands as we walked around the top floor, "Aunt Kathy, can I ask what's wrong with this?"

"What do you think sweetheart?"

"Well it's dirty and grubby, but no one's been here for a month, have they. Is it really that bad?"

Anita stepped forward and said, "It's a commercial rental agent's job to make sure every property is ready for an inspection at a moment's notice, I would be ashamed to show this to a potential client!"

"OK we are not here to pick holes in anything, just to let Mia and Emily see the building so they can visualise things for their presentation. Let's move on shall we?"

"What are your first thoughts Mia?" I asked as we descended the stairs.

"I think it has tremendous potential and I am even more convinced now that what we will show you will convince you this could work." She sounded excited and very convincing.

Emily came up next to me, holding my hand tried to whisper in my ear but had to tug on my arm to pull me down to her lips. "Why did you charge your friends so much for the blue prints." I smiled and whispered back "I didn't I gave it to them at half price. Besides they are worth every cent." I told her.

Mia was walking a little way in front of us, turned back and asked with the movement of her hands and arms 'what are you saying' to which Emily mouth the words, "I'll tell you later."

We went past the ground floor and down to the cellar, I hit a switch at the top of the stairs, purely by instinct and the old lights dimly lit up a large empty space. It had a smell of damp and mildew. The floor was rough cobble stones, as I remembered them, I smiled, as once again child hood memories came flooding back to me.

Mia went into the center of the area and looked around. Erica and Anita looked but didn't appear too interested as it was just an empty space to them.

Not quite the 12 foot ceilings as there were in the two floors above, more like 10 foot. But still a large space.

Mia turned to me and said, "Somethings not right. That wall over there shouldn't be there!"

It was a statement not a question.

I smiled to myself, the arrogance of the young I thought. "Mia, that wall has always been there as far as I can remember. We haven't built a wall down here since I have been around, and I am pretty sure my father never mentioned it to us."

"Oh I don't doubt it Kathy, but it isn't the wall on the original drawings, I'm certain of it." As she walked over to it. Pulling out a pen knife, she scraped at the mortar between the brick joints. It crumbled and she caught some debris in the palm of her hand. Put it to her nose, then held it out for Erica to sniff, Erica wetted a finger and collected a small sample on the tip of her index finger and tasted. Then spat it out. "Not the mortar that was used in the original building I'm certain." She told me.

Mia moved to the side of the building where there was a stone wall and not red bricks that were used. She again scraped some mortar and tasted it herself, she too spat it out. "Different." She said "And why the red bricks? And why is this the only red brick wall in the whole building?"

Erica stood back and looked at where the two walls intersected, then up to where the ceiling was, it was clear to see now, now that it had been pointed out to me, there was a clear and distinct difference. Erica then said "This wall was built around 1870 I'd be guessing." She said to me but was looking at Mia, who was nodding in agreement.

"Strange hey Aunt Kathy." Emily pipped up.

Mia paced out the length of the room and plainly stated that it was about 3 metres shorter than the drawing indicated.

I looked at her and she at me, then to Erica and I could see the look of excitement on their faces.

"What." I asked "What, what are you thinking, you two."

"I'm thinking, why?" said Erica and then both Mia and Emily answered in unison. "THE tunnels."

Anita looked at them and smiled, as did Erica.

"You two are so together." Anita told them.

"Can we continue with the business at hand and we can talk about the brick wall afterwards." I told everyone. As we climbed the stairs to the ground floor. Once there, Mia indicated that she would need 5 or 10 minutes to set up.

"Emily would you do a coffee run for us please?" I took orders for us all and the chai tea for the younger set. "There's a coffee house just across the road just around the corner." I told her. I was about to give her some cash when Mia handed her, her wallet.

We three leaned up against the wall watching Mia go about setting up her projector, and a lap top connected with her phone and some other device. We all kept looking at this fine specimen of a woman, her dark olive complexion and her black hair, the tight firm muscles on her legs, her broad shoulders and her cute firm backside. We glanced at each other as we all took deep breaths, when she bent over. Erica licking her lips and getting a glare from Anita. I kept thinking of the time I saw her nude in my hallway. A tell-tale itch gnawed away in my groin. Again I said to myself, I must do something about that.

We three were all starring at her when Emily walked in and caught us.

"Mia, your audience are staring at your butt, babe." She said in a loud enough voice that would of told everyone walking by. I was completely flabbergasted by her statement.

"I know, I was hoping they were just in case. I might need to use all of my girly charms to win them over" She told us.

"You tease, that butt is all mine remember. And you flash that girly charm at anyone but me and look out." She told her in a warm loving way.

"I do remember saying something like that, glad you remembered it too." She replied. Then came and got her cup of Chai tea, kissed Emily hungrily on the mouth and whispered to her, "Wish me luck."

"You don't need luck babe."

Erica and Anita leaned into each other's shoulder and went "Aaawwww, isn't that the cutest thing?"

I was still catching my breath from the way Emily proudly announced to the world that her girlfriend was being ogled by a small audience.

Mia then took the floor, "Shall we begin?" She asked. We all nodded. Emily turned the projector on and the first slide came up. "OK, these slides I have produced are the figures based on the Dept: of Statistics."

She took a deep breath. "As of 2016 when this data was collected, 3% of the South Australia populace identified as LBGTQI so in a population of 1.7 million that would tell us that there are approximately 51k people over the age of 18 who identify as being gay or at least bi-sexual. As the numbers don't differentiate by gender I have taken a low number of 45% as female and of those females I have estimated that a low percentage figure of 5% would be interested or have the financial capability of being a member of an exclusive female club."

Mia looked at us all, and then directly at me, I smiled and tried to give her encouragement. Emily was standing just off to one side, nervously clutching her fingers and hands together. Waiting on certain cues in the discussion so she could change the slide as required by Mia, she continued. "That number equates to 382.5 people. Not sure how we can measure the.5 of a person" She laughed. "So we will round that number down to 382 people.

I nodded doing simple sums in my head as we went along.

"Kathy as this is meant to be an exclusive establishment, we cannot and should not factor in that all 382 people would be interested, so I have halved those numbers. Purely for the sake of producing a business proposal."

Again she looked straight at me, showing no sign of nerves or fear. I love a confident person, even more so when they are a gay woman.

"So based on finding 191 women, willing to pay two thousand dollars per year for membership, then their monthly on going wine and food accounts, that would give the club a working budget of $382,000.00 per year. Plus what ever margins are built into the food and drinks and hospitality sections."

The next slide came up and looked at safe numbers of people allowed in a bar or club, and the Australian standard requires 3 squ metres per person. As each floor is 175 squ metres, Mia was still looking at us all, turned her head to Emily, who gave her the cutest smile, and she went on and explained the following. "At any given time, including staff we can allow 58 people per floor or a grand total of 174 people."

Without taking a breath she moved straight into the next slide. "Now staffing." She said without missing a beat. "Because it is exclusive you want to ensure all members feel both looked after and special." She still had my attention and I could see that this had the potential to be more than a two thousand dollars a year exclusive members club. But I dared not interrupt, she was going great guns and was on a roll. I could see the excitement in her eyes.

"Each floor would have a different feel to it. The top floor a more casual and relaxing atmosphere, bright, light and up beat music, Kathy, each floor would have its own bar staff and waitresses, no counter, an arrangement of food options from a central kitchen." She carried on, "While the ground floor would be more sedate, old world charm, about it. Picture something out of old Victorian London, floor to ceiling bookcases, high back leather chairs, love seats in the corners, warm lighting with reading lamps on each table."

"We would only hire the best presentable women, pay them well, get them to sign a confidentiality agreement. There would be a need for as many as 30 staff on at any one time. That includes, cooking, cleaning, security, administration as well as waitress and bar staff. Not cheap I'm afraid Kathy."

I raised an eye brow, and looked sideways at Erica, who was totally captivated by the whole presentation. She was deep in thought and was holding onto Anita's hand and Annie was laying back into her, a right old married couple I thought. So much for no PSA.

Mia continued and Emily kept up with her, changing the slides as she went along explaining, detail after detail. The numbers kept tumbling out. I could see that the girls had erred on the side of caution, dealing with a small base, I knew then that the numbers would be a lot better than they even imagined.

"The cellar, I thought could be a small intimate club within a club, each member could pay a little extra to their own small 'love nest' they can, at their own pre-set cost, choose to have a place of their own."

Several slides came up with ideas from dungeons, to large beds for 4 or more people complete with mirrored ceilings and even a dance floor.

Anita's eyes lit up and looked up at Erica and said together "Sex on Site" as they laughed.

I smiled at the thought and turned back to Mia. "You have a vivid imagination Mia." She smiled back at me and told me, "actually they were all Emily's ideas, all of them, I just crunched the numbers."

"Oh really," I exclaimed, "I'm proud of you Emily. Or should I say even more proud."

"Speaking of number crunching, how much would you need to convert this into a club of three floors?"

"I haven't done a complete detailed costing but I have done some round figures," Mia explained. "We would need 3 months, for the work to be done and completed to my satisfaction, AND it would cost about a quarter of a million dollars, no more but most likely a lot less. Oh that also includes an online presence. Which would be absolutely paramount."

I looked across at Erica who was concentrating on what we were just told, she moved her head from side to side.

"About right." she said.

Emily was watching me anxiously, trying her hardest to read my thoughts, I'm guessing. I looked at her and told her point blank, "I will need to talk to your Grandfather first, give me 5 days to think about it and do my own numbers. In the meantime take Mia up to meet your Grandfather, saying nothing about the details of this project, other than it is a private club. I will explain it to him in my own way and of a time of my own choosing. Understood?"