The Second Hand Rose Club

Note: This story is entirely fictional written for readers' enjoyment, and bears no resemblance to any people living or dead. It is in a sense of re-working of some of the concepts behind my "Burrinjack Social Club" story, which I was never fully satisfied with (& is my lowest scoring story). It also picks up characters from my previous story, "Fun In The Tropics".

Following that amazing holiday at Barbarella's, we settled into our routine (if you could call it that) with Ellie's career on line, in porno films, & at the strip club owned by Lee. As noted in "Fun In The Tropics", Ellie had at the time dropped back to only working casually at the Lee's club when they were short. For some years, she focused on the website (which paid well) & porno films.

My career in those years as a Finance Senior Executive also was going extremely well. However, as we all know, the GFC was about to hit, & the sex industry has also undergone significant changes with the rising impact (good & bad in commercial terms) of the internet.

As a result, Ellie had actually further cut back her activities, particularly with the films which with the changes in business model coming from the impact of the internet, were no longer very lucrative. As we didn't need the income, as much she (& I) enjoyed making the films, by 2009, she had pulled out of films altogether. She then was only working at Lee's club on a casual basis as needed, & the internet site which continued to do well. The latter remained her primary income source for some years, as well as a source of amazing activity & I should add, the development of a number of close friendships with customers from all over the world.

When I took long service leave in 2009, & we embarked on a 3 month sojourn through Europe in the northern spring into summer, we managed to catch up with a few of Ellie's customers who had become internet friends. It was a truly wonderful holiday. We visited the usual places tourists go such as Paris, London & Rome, all of which were fantastic, but some of our favourite places were cities which at the time from far away in Australia were less popular as tourist destinations, although that has changed now. I mean places like Praha, Budapest, Sofia, Krakow, Riga, Tallinn & St. Petersburg.

As I previously indicated, Ellie is a stunning size 10 (34-28-35), who stands about 5 foot 7 inches tall. She has beautiful tits, on the smaller side but with luscious brown nipples. I love her rump best of all – firm and round, not bony. By the time of most of this story (2010 through to now), Ellie had just passed her 40th birthday. No worries, she still looked fantastic, just added a little bit around the middle. With her young face, she easily still passed for early 30s to most folks.

The business I was with sailed through GFC Mark I in 2007-08. It hit us much harder with the second wave of economic downturn in 2010-11, when demand out of China & Asia for Australian commodities cooled, the impact of the floods & cyclones on iron ore & coal supply passed, prices fell, & the Australian economy finally felt (at least to some extent) the downturn effects that have so demoralised Europe, Japan & the USA.

An opportunity therefore arose with my firm downsizing in mid 2010 for me to move on. The redundancy packages on offer to long-term senior executives like myself were very attractive. After long discussions with Ellie, we decided to take the package & see what else might be out there for me to do. It seemed like a good idea, especially given the package was equivalent to nearly 3 years pay!

Lee's club also was not going as well as it had in the good years of the boom. It relied heavily on business types, being located in downtown Sydney. When GFC Mark II hit, he & Ellie, along with all the other girls, noticed the distinct drop not only in clientele numbers but also in the amount that clients appeared willing to spend. Fewer bottles of French champagne, cognac & single malt scotch were being drunk, but beer sales held up – people were drinking cheaper, too. The number of multi-girl & long (1 hour or more) private dance bookings in particular dropped off. Clients appeared still willing to do a standard 30 minute private dance with a girl, but not much more as expense accounts across the mining, finance & other previously high flying sectors tightened up considerably (I knew because it happened at my place, too).

I have come to know Lee quite well over the years, with Ellie being his "senior girl" now for some time. He is a businessman, don't get me wrong, but he does have a heart & he does care for his girls. He is not rough at all with his girls, unlike other clubs, & is quite protective. As a result, his stable of dancers was amongst the best in Sydney as word spreads through the industry quickly about who are good employers.

He tried for over 6 months to keep going as things were, & only after trade didn't recover as initially hoped, did he start reluctantly cutting back shifts & reducing overheads. It seemed to be though to no avail. That is where Ellie & I came up with an idea, which we had quietly discussed with a few of the other long-term girls at the club.

Ellie was not the only married dancer at the club – there were 2 others, Chloe & Katie. Both were somewhat younger than Ellie, in their mid-20s, in fantastic shape with great bodies & loving husbands happy for them to be working in the adult industry as strippers. Both had been with Lee for about 4-5 years, & also sometimes did the more hardcore stuff on his website like Ellie (with their husbands' approval like me).

Because Lee ran his club as a "public adult entertainment", there were certain rules & regulations that had to be followed. There was no sex available at the club, although it could, & was, arranged for outside "under the counter & off the books". Such trade was called "outcalls" at the club – some girls did it; others didn't. It was not required. Ellie didn't do it at the club, preferring to keep that for her website work. Chloe & Katie did do outcalls, & in both cases, their husbands got hugely excited whenever they did according to Ellie. Some outcalls were just to accompany gents to the casino or a show, but most were really traditional escort stuff – meet at the client's hotel for some good ol' fucking & sucking for an hour or 2.

All private dances at the club were strictly monitored according to the license rules, with closed circuit cameras everywhere. It was okay to touch & play with boobies & bottoms, but no pussy touching or the back crack. If you were a regular or good, well behaved customer that the girls took a liking to, a suck on a titty for some extra dollars was usually okay (unless there was a "crackdown" by licensing, which did occur on occasion). The girls were allowed to play a little bit with their pussies, but no actual finger insertion. Showing the pink was fine. This is standard for strip clubs throughout Australia.

As I now had spare time on my hands, with the opportunities for contract or consulting work somewhat limited with the continued GFC Mark II economic impacts, I closely studied the relevant legislative acts & licensing rules. It appeared while ever the club was "open to the public" as an adult entertainment venue, the standard licensing rules did apply. The rules, though, did not appear to apply if the club was to be private.

The bit that was less clear, even with our lawyers, was as to whether our concept would mean we would be classified by authorities as a "brothel". In Australia, there are different rules governing brothels in each State. New South Wales has amongst the more liberal. That ran in our favour. Nevertheless, we were most anxious not to run foul of the law or be unnecessarily raided by police or licensing authorities.

We decided to prepare a submission therefore on our concept for the licensing authorities & see what happened. Boy, weren't we surprised. They had never seen a concept like this before, & it certainly did not fit in their usual descriptors of what constituted "adult entertainment for the public" (as we expected) or a "brothel" (which we less sure). Our concept was for a private club for members & bonafide guests only: no street signs or spruiking, no admission fees, & certainly not therefore "open to the public". We didn't seem to fit any of their fundamental triggers to be classified either as "adult entertainment" or as a "brothel" under their rules. We were actually given a strange type of all clear: we were not approved as such, but were told as long as we remained strictly private, we fell outside their current rules.

This then was our business recovery idea. We would buy into the business (or perhaps even take it over), & turn it into a private club open only to members & bonafide guests. This would enable us to offer a much racier & raunchy range of adult sex services. This Ellie & I with our unusual, open relationship found very exciting.

There would be no street signage or spruikers out the front, or girls in skimpy clothes handing out invitation cards. There would be no admission fee.

We planned to build the initial membership by targeting the regular customers at the club as well as having a "corporate membership" for businesses wishing their executives & key staff to have membership. I knew of our few liberal-minded businessmen & firms in the banking, property & resource sectors who might be keen. Once a sound foundation membership base was established, the intent (to be set out in a club constitution) was for new members beyond the foundation members to be admitted by nomination of 2 existing members – not unlike a businessmen's club. We even planned to establish a "Members' Committee" to be a sounding board for ideas for us on how to improve the club's services.

Like a businessman's club, members would not pay on the night for services, drinks, meals, etc. (except obviously for cash tips & payments to the girls), but would be issued a monthly account against they would pay the following month. Rules were also established on unpaid accounts, with interest charged on overdue accounts & 3 months overdue leading to debt recovery & membership cancellation.

We also were very keen to ensure no one was put out of work, particularly given the economy was no longer going as strong as it had. Clearly, several of the girls who currently worked at Lee's club would not be comfortable with a more raunchy private club offering sexual services. It is more than a strip club, let's face it. It turned out that the other two married girls, Chloe & Katie, were equally as keen & excited about working at such a club as Ellie, while it was the single girls generally less keen.

That led us then to think more about our concept & refine it with the second part of what it would become. We decided to make it a club where only married girls worked. Ellie, Chloe & Katie made it a personal commitment to find suitable new clubs for all the other girls so that no one went without.

Lee thought the idea had a lot of merit. He had though taken a hammering, & was looking himself to take a break. He decided then to sell the full business to us. With part of my payout, plus some of what Ellie had earned over the years, as well as an understanding bank (I am from the finance sector), we were able to take over the lease late in 2010 & buy the club from Lee for $500,000 plus have another $500,000 budgeted to completely refurbish the club into a new layout & décor more befitting what it would become – "The Second Hand Rose Club".

We realised we would need time continuing with the current set-up while we built up the foundation membership, got our plans together for the refurbishment, got all the tradespeople contracted, built up our initial private club staff roster and placed the staff who wanted to continue elsewhere in new jobs at good clubs about town.

As anyone who has ever renovated their home knows, things never run smoothly with a building project. We still had to get architects & draftsmen on board, prepare our renovation plans, & get them approved by both the building owner & the local council. While the plans were under consideration, the architects also were given responsibility for the procurement process for the tradespeople who would be required for the job.

All of this took more than 6 months; in fact, if you took it from the day we took over the lease from Lee in late 2010, it was closer to 9 months before a single wall got smashed down or old furniture removed. It did, however, turn out to be a blessing in disguise. There was a bit of a pick-up in trade in early-mid 2011 for a bit, which meant we were able to generate some good turnover while keeping the strip club going while we prepared for the "big change-over". It certainly kept the bank happy as the refurb, including architect's fees, was looking likely to go well over my initial budget.

I left Ellie, with Chloe & Katie, in charge of sorting out the staffing issues & day-to-day club operations, while I focused on club finances, the refurbishment planning & project, & the preparation of the legal documentation, including the club constitution & membership rules, required to properly switch the club over to a "private members club". The licensing authorities had made it abundantly clear to me they would require a copy of this documentation filed with them as proof we were indeed private. This was to protect them as much as us!

They did a wonderful job. We decided that we would not open the club every evening, nor would we open during the day except for private functions. We decided the club would operate Wednesdays to Saturdays from 7 pm each evening till 3 am or whenever the last member left, and be available at other times for private functions.

With that in mind, the girls calculated the club could successfully operate with about 10 girls per evening, plus keeping capacity to "call others in" on a particularly busy night. With some girls being part-time, & allowances for sickness, holidays, etc., they reckoned we could work the club with 20 girls on the books. While I would manage the club, we needed obviously chefs & kitchen staff, bar staff, security staff, DJs, etc.

Most of the boys who worked for Lee were very excited about the new concept (funnily enough) & were keen to stay. A few though opted out – usually the ones who were boyfriends of the girls also moving on. So while we had some positions covered for the new club, we were certainly after new staff. I particularly wanted to raise the standard of the food offering to make of a standard more like a gentleman's club, where members could bring bonafide guests for a meal knowing it would be good tucker. Accordingly, we would definitely need new kitchen staff including some chefs.

The easier part for Ellie, Chloe, & Katie (who mind you, were still also working most nights as strippers in the club at this time) was finding new clubs for the girls who wanted to continue just stripping. By June, they had lined up jobs for all of them. In some cases, we made arrangements (for a fee) for the girls to stay with us until the "big change-over", at which time they would then transfer to their new clubs.

Finding 17 married girls to come & work for us was much the harder part, even in a large city like Sydney. We didn't want just any girls. They had to be beautiful – that was requirement no. 1. We set our age target wide – anywhere from 20 to early 40s. There was to be no secrets from husbands – they had to have husbands who were comfortable & supportive of their wives working in a club where they would be fucked every time they went to work (& more than once). They had to be intelligent & bright, & preferably with some club or pub experience. Our concept was for the girls to also wait on tables – drinks & meals. Not every shift would they just be a "dancer" (this multi-tasking was also to help keep the salary bills down).

After finding only one girl who fit the bill well in the first month or so, we all realised our concept needed some refinement if we were to reach our target dancing staff levels. It was in the effort to find a suitably qualified head chef that the 3rd key part of the club concept emerged.

Chloe's husband, Geoff, is a top chef who worked at one of the busier restaurants in Sydney. What we didn't realise was he wasn't getting along as well as he liked with his head chef, & was after a change. After discussing the issue themselves (it turned out for some weeks we later found out), Chloe & Geoff came to Ellie & I with the new idea: that Geoff would work at the club as Head Chef, & that they as a couple could also buy into the club as part-owners. They reasoned not only would Geoff get hugely turned on watching his gorgeous wife go about "her business" so to speak, but being there could give an extra edge of security to her & the others. Having a share in the club also meant the incentive drivers would be working the right way.

Ellie & I gave it a lot of thought & could see merit in their ideas. We didn't want to lose control of the club, given we were financing the concept & refurb. We decided we wanted to still control the club (retain at least 50% equity), but were prepared to allow new dancers & their partners to buy in as a small shareholder with 2.5% equity. This also would help with financing the refurb. Accordingly, we discussed the idea with Katie first. She was very keen, & raised the option of her husband, Winston, a big burly Tongan fella with a heart of gold, coming in as head of security (he already did some security work part-time & had his requisite license). It all seemed to fit.

The 3rd plank to our club concept had then emerged. We no longer looked just for a dancer – we looked for couples where the husband might also work or bring some skills to the club, & we offered the sweetener of the option to buy a small share in the club. We also extended our search nationwide (with moving assistance to Sydney).

Over the next 6 months, Ellie, Chloe & Katie gradually found the other 17 girls we were after. A number of them were thankfully experienced in the industry, including two former Australian Penthouse Pets, Pixie & Summer. There were also among the girls though several that were selected on appearance & eagerness, with no experience. Ellie, Chloe & Katie with the other experienced girls used this period while we were still trading as a legal strip club to train the new girls up on stage dancing, the pole, how to strip seductively, & how to attract the punters back for a private dance. The youngest girl, Jessie, to join us was 22 years old; the oldest, Stacey, in her early 40s like Ellie. Stacey had 20 years' experience in the industry both as a stripper & an escort.

Through this time, we also put the word through the club that we would be changing to a private club, & in particular started the wealthier of our more regular customers to sign up. As more of the new girls joined us, the number of new private club members started to climb closer towards our target for opening as the clients started to realise that these girls would be available for more than stripping in the near future.

We also started to employ more husbands – Colin, an accountant; couple of fellows experienced in pub & club work who became barmen & kitchen hands; Steve, a D.J.; & also a few bigger fellows who would work under Winston as bouncers. Another husband, Warren, was a very experienced builder – very handy for the refurb. It was all coming together although by the time we were approaching closure of the club for the refurbishment we still didn't really have enough members to kick off the private club. In particular, I had not paid enough attention to this side of it, & we were lacking corporate members (which could make all the difference as they would bring much bigger dollars).