Asphodel's Ch. 02

Marta agreed. "I zee. Vhat you are vant is for him to sveep you off your feet and carry you avay no? But the young man is not of that personality. In my professional opinion, this can be a good thing. He is shy, too, I suspect."

Mavis chuckled. "Oh, definitely. Much as he is taken with my backside, whenever I speak to him he blushes clear up to the ears. I'm afraid that if I cornered him in the stock room he would faint dead away."

"Mr. Cornwall tells me he is a hard worker and very good at his job." Azalea nodded in agreement. "That is high praise from that man. So what we have, dear Prudence, is two young people too shy to engage each other but who, should they make each other's acquaintance, will probably be together for the next sixty or seventy years. To my mind that is the penultimate of Romance. I must say I approve. Ladies, let's make this happen! Now I think our first stop will involve a trip downstairs to the spa on the ground floor. We need to begin from the inside out."

In the ground floor spa, Azalea handed Prudence a plush white robe and guided her towards a changing booth. "Just undress and put the robe on, dear. We'll go into a private room before you have to get naked."

Have to get naked? Pru was not upset. She was fully accustomed to locker rooms full of naked women showering and changing together but being the only nude in a room with fully clad ladies would be, she thought, a little odd. But she complied and, as an after thought, undid her hair, letting it cascade in dark billows down her back. She put on the robe, which had been thoughtfully pre-heated, straightened her back, and strode out of the booth with her head high and only the tiniest quiver in her stomach.

In the private room, Marta helped her out of the robe and up onto a low dais. There the other women looked her over critically.

"Goodness, Prudence," Marta began, "Vhat a lovely little body. Do you haf a regular exercise program to keep in zuch fine shape?"

"Mm-hm. I go for an hour of hot yoga every evening after work and on Saturday morning."

Azalea's hands flashed across the screen of a pad. "Do you? Where?"

"The Mid-Town Serenity Center. It's on the way home."

"Ah, that's perfect. You use the heated rooms on the first floor, don't you? And I'll bet you've never even asked about those upstairs."

"Uh, there are more hot rooms on the second floor? I never knew."

"The advanced classes take place upstairs, Prudence, where they practice in the nude. I'll let Jasmine know that you should be up there from now on. Our first goal is to get you more—let us say blasé about going naked. One of a young woman's most powerful assets, dear, is what I call her erotic capital. At Asphodel's we utilize it for profit. You, on the other hand, need to invest yours more personally. We'll help."

"Prudence, honey," Mavis began, "your cute little thatch, does it just grow that way naturally?"

So personal a question broke Pru's composure. She blushed all over. "Um, yes. I've never had the nerve to shave or anything."

"Don't!" Azalea was imperious. "Women across the nation pay millions to have cosmetologists pluck, shave, wax and electrically shape their pubic hair to get what God gave you naturally. Appreciate it."

"Um, Azalea, are these nude yoga classes, um, co-ed?"

"Indeed they are. And that is exactly the point. You can't expect to be able to flaunt your sexuality to Mr. Lancaster if you aren't comfortable with your body, young lady, and flaunting your sexuality is precisely what you need to do. In fact, I must insist that Mavis see to it that you stop eating lunch in the office and come join us here—naked! Of course you will be off limits to the clientele but it will do you good to become accustomed to an atmosphere of sensuality and desire. Mavis?"

"As you wish, Azalea. I'll let Mr. Cornwall know. There won't be any question of his agreeing. You know your wish is his command."

Azalea smiled benignly. "I do know, very well indeed. And don't bother yourself about it. He has an appointment with me this afternoon. I'll let him know then."

Prudence goggled. "Mr. Cornwall comeshere?"

The older women laughed.

"He most certainly does," Azalea continued. "Cornwall men have either lost their virginity or had their erotic education seriously advanced at Asphodel's for seven generations now. I used to say they were almost family but now that his son Steven has married my granddaughter, theyare family. It's so delicious, you know, that spice of almost incest from getting done by one's son-in-law once removed. Now where were we?"

"Naked lunch und naked yoga," Marta responded.

"Ah, yes." Azalea circled around Prudence regarding her as one would a fine piece of sculpture, "a superb body, especially that little bubble butt, lovely hair, attitude improvement coming over the next two weeks—what we really need is a touch of the exotic."

Marta nodded in agreement. "I find that plumeria perfume zeems to have a very zatisfactory effect on gentlemen."

"Oh, yes," Mavis added, "or carnation. But let me find out what Brian's favorite exotic daydream is. I suspect that it will turn out that patchouli is our friend in his case. I distinctly remember him complaining that there wasn't a good Indian restaurant to be found, at least none that compare with what he is used to in Berkeley."

The figure on the dais brightened up. "Oh, I know where to go. Patel House over on Sherman Drive has the best tandoori and butter chicken I've ever tasted."

"Well for heaven's sake, don't tell him, yet!" Mischief spread across Azalea's face; "Once he's bedded you down properly you can take him there the next evening. Then head back to his apartment and curl up on the couch together to digest the meal. He'll be warm, well-fed and well-fucked. That's all it takes to keep a man happy, after all. He may propose on the spot!"

"Hmpf!" Marta snorted, "He vill probably vant to make love to you on the couch andthen he vill be varm, vell-fed, and vell-fucked. Tventy-four hours is a long time vhen one is only tventy-two, after all."

Azalea retrieved the robe. "You can get dressed again, Prudence. I think we have enough information about you and Brian to get started. Mavis, your job is to make sure whether Brian really wishes he could live in the world of the Kama Sutra. If that's the case, then we'll plan a birthday party for him in the Purple Sage Room and have Patel House cater it. Let me see which of the upstairs rooms best lends itself to an Indian theme. I'll make sure Prudence has a key to the sixth floor and—I think I need to make a phone call or two. Oh, this is going to be such fun!"

*****

That afternoon at the Serenity Center, Jasmine handed Prudence a robe as she walked in the front door and nodded toward the stairs. Obviously she had already heard from Azalea. So instead of changing into her leotard, Pru just put her clothes in the locker, donned the robe and walked self-consciously to the heated yoga room. Swallowing, she hung her robe on a wall hook and sat down right on the mat near it. Others in the class were filing in and taking up positions in the center of the room except for one who came over to her.

"First time here, honey? I hate to point this out but you will be a lot more conspicuous up against the wall than you would be in the group. All the skin sort of blends together. Come on, join the crowd."

Reluctantly, Prudence got up and sitting next to her new acquaintance, pulled her legs into an easy full lotus. She straightened her back, closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply.

"Ommmmm . . .," the chant filled the room as the radiant heaters on the ceiling beat down on them. Prudence felt the sweat begin its familiar trickle down her body and heard the pad of feet at the front of the class. She opened her eyes. A white-haired, white bearded man with a wiry physique and perfectly defined muscles sat before them. He smiled at her.

"We have a new classmate. Everyone say 'Namaste' to Prudence when you get the chance but for now, let us begin. Full lotus to the headstand and then to a planch. Begin."

Across town, Azalea snuggled next to Andrew Cornwell and laid her head on his bare chest. He had done her well, she thought, more like a lover than a client but then, that had been the way of the Cornwall men with her ancestors ever since Asphodel's opened. "Mr. Cornwall, you are a wonder. Is that what you did to my granddaughter for her first trick?"

"What a naughty question, Azalea! But in the interest of keeping peace in the family, yes it was. She seemed happy with it."

"So she should have, Mr. Cornwall. A thorough licking followed by a half hour of getting pounded into the mattress is how any virgin should enter womanhood."

"I hope she wasn't too sore the next day."

"Hah! After six months of pompoir training? No, dear, she wasn't the least bit sore the next morning. In fact, she reported for work and dealt handily with two gentlemen at lunch and another three in the evening. Of course, being both the newest girl and the Asphodel-in-waiting did make her highly attractive. It was nearly a month before the novelty wore off. And now that you've gotten what you paid for, how about a second one, on the house." She squirmed her way down to his hips and tucked the soft head of his cock into her mouth. Flicking her tongue across the frenum under the helmet, Azalea sucked strongly as she gently fondled his balls. It would not be long before he was ready again.

*****

At noon the next day Prudence would have preferred the company of the rest of the staff at lunch but a stern look from Mavis sent her downstairs, across two blocks and into the elevator in the Hotel Gentian. She rode it to the fifth floor and when the last passenger got out she screwed up her courage and inserted her key into the lock that took the car to Asphodel's. Azalea was sitting at a table in the bar area and motioned her over.

"Go into the office and strip down, sweetie, then come back and have lunch with me. We've got chicken scaloppini and a spinach salad coming. Go on, quickly, and leave your shoes on. Heels do such wonders for the line of a woman's leg."

When the blushing Prudence emerged from the office she was alarmed to see a nattily attired gentleman with a shaved head and bushy white mustache sitting at the same table. He winked at her.

"Prudence, honey, this is my husband Henry. He's a columnist for theHerald. Henry, this is Prudence, the one I was telling you about."

"Hello, Prudence," the man fairly twinkled, "sit your pretty self down and get a napkin over your lap. The sauce is quite hot and you don't want to splash it down your front. We'd hate to send you back to Andrew with blisters in your passionate places."

"Oh, stop, you 'orrible man! The poor thing is having a hard enough time getting used to being naked without you teasing her. And make sure that your friends among the clientele know she's completely off limits, understand? Just because a pretty girl is naked in Asphodel's does not mean that she's available to them or to you."

Henry sighed and pouted dramatically. "Oh, very well. I'll have to restrict my amorous intents to my daydreams. But Prudence, you really are gorgeous and would have quite a following if you were one of the staff here. And I mean that in the most complimentary possible way."

Pru dimpled and blushed again. "Thank-you, Mr. O'Malley. You write about sports, don't you? That column that says snarky things about our minor league team? It's really funny."

"And thank-you, Prudence. I do my best to amuse and it's nice to know that sometimes I succeed."

*****

On the Monday before Brian's birthday Mavis was once again sitting on Cornwall's desk.

"You have a report?" the senior partner said with a grin.

"Yup. Brian's father was in the Foreign Service and he spent his formative early adolescence in New Delhi with vacations to the Western Ghats and the Himalayan foothills. Yes, he is very strongly attracted to Indian cuisine and culture. I got this by sending our junior attorneys out to take him drinking."

"Oh, well done! Did Fotheringill and Tanaka have anything else to report?"

"Yeessss—it seems our boy has a bit of a fetish for Henna tattoos. I told Azalea and she told Pru. Prudence was not immediately enthusiastic until Azalea began spinning her a vision of a modern Apsara, bejeweled and adorned with trailing designs all over. But the more Azalea talked, the more Prudence liked the idea. So the party will be done in a Bollywood theme and our little hottie will be discretely covered in a high neck churidar until she gets him into the room down the hall."

"After which point we let nature take her course and the fireworks begin. I like it! Have you told Jane?"

"Would I let you know if I had?"

"Minx! All right, then. Get off my desk and on with the planning. I wonder what the chances of my getting a look at Pru are after she's all done up and before she puts on the churidar."

"Absolutely zero. Perhaps you may get a look at her afterwards but I wouldn't bet more than loose change on it."

"Damn! Oh well, there's always the possibility of setting Jane up like that." He turned to his computer screen and the case at hand.

Mavis smiled to herself as she left the office. Yes, there was a very, very good chance that the boss's wife could be decorated and dressed like that—and waiting for him in the room she used at Asphodel's two days a week.

At lunch, Brian walked to the staff break room to retrieve his poor boy sandwich for lunch but when he entered, he froze. The smell of lamb korma and cauliflower curry filled the air.

"Who . . .?"

Prudence, for the first time in a week, sat at the table with a collection of high temperature food storage boxes in front of her and a blissful expression on her face. She looked up."

"Hi, Brian."

"Prudence, I didn't know you liked Indian food."

"I love it. Mom took it at cooking school years ago. We have it a lot. My dad even built a tandoori in the backyard instead of a normal barbecue. When he fires it up, people start drooling over the fence."

"Can—canyou make it, too?"

"Oh, sure. Want to try some? I made it for dinner last night."

Pulled like a fish on a line, Brian sat across the table from the girl and opened his mouth in begging anticipation. When she popped the forkful of korma onto his waiting tongue, the intern nearly melted. The effect was so endearing Prudence fed him the rest as a mother bird fills a nestling.Gosh, if I'd known that was all it took to get his undivided attention, I would have done it months ago. Maybe the way to this man's heart really is through his stomach. Oh well, nothing lost. Friday I'll just reinforce my appeal.

Pru followed Mavis' instructions to take the afternoon off and report to Asphodel's where once again she stripped down in the manager's office and glided out gracefully to meet Azalea's approval.

"Beautiful, dear, just beautiful. Maybe I should contract with Jasmine to do some P.E. for all my girls if that kind of fluid movement comes from yoga. Now come down the hall with me. Twyla is taking a couple of weeks vacation to go skiing so her room is vacant. For the rest of the week you can just report there."

Prudence was not the first to be impressed by the quality of the artwork displayed on the halls of Asphodel's. And when she walked into Twyla's room her jaw dropped in surprise. If she had ever wondered what a high-class boudoir looked like, this was it. Gleaming antique furniture displayed the finest linens and upholstery. More artwork hung from the walls and graced the dresser and armoire top. And waiting for them was an attractive middle-aged woman in a white uniform.

"Prudence," Azalea began, "this is Stephanie, our resident cosmetologist. She's going to tastefully cover you in botanical tendrils of henna. Brian won't have any idea because your coat at the party'll cover them all. But when you take him down the hall, turn your back to unbutton it and let it fall to the floor. Then he'll see the display down your back and when you turn around, pause and pose."

"Will he grab me and throw me onto the bed?"

"Perhaps. I suspect he'll just freeze in shock and will need you to lead him to the bed. Either way will be fine. Now lay down on your tummy. Steph will do your back, bottom and thighs today. Then you just lie there and take a nap. It will take about four or five hours for the henna to have its best effect. Tomorrow you'll come back and she will do your front. By Friday everything should be perfect."

Prudence saw Stephanie's uniform out of the corner of her eye and then closed it. Taking a nap sounded like a wonderful idea until the cool henna paste began its dance into a floral starburst on her right shoulder blade. She turned her head farther and saw that Stephanie was wielding a squeeze bottle with a slender tube top.

"I really ought to get Azalea to let me do this more often," Stephanie told her, "Of course that would require some way for the staff to show it off as part of that appeal and Asphodel's simply doesn't' work that way."

"I've noticed that no one goes naked around here except me."

"Yes, when a gentleman is referred to Asphodel's, he fills out a questionnaire and from that, Azalea makes recommendations. It seems to work. The ladies build up a surprisingly loyal clientele. Why, Azalea herself still has regular clients that have been seeing her for forty years!"

The nozzle left her shoulder blade and began its tracery down Pru's back.

"Really?" she exclaimed, "That sounds more like love than a professional service."

"I suspect it is, dear. After all, the other name for having sex is making love and if you have sex often enough with the same person, the chances of your falling in love with them are very high. In fact, they can be increased, if you do it right."

"How?"

Now the design was crossing her lower back and swirling around her left buttock.

"Friday night you take Brian down to the room and display yourself. If he's stunned, help him get undressed. If he grabs you, giggle and guide him. The goal is not the bed; it's the side chair. Once he's naked and ready for you, push him into the chair and sit on his knees. You can do a lot of foreplay in that position but when you're ready for him, skootch forward and let yourself down onto his manhood. Then put your arms around his neck and focus your attention on his right eye. Tell him to do the same. When he inhales, you exhale and vice versa. Rock your hips forward and back. Breathe deeply. You will be able to keep this up for a long time and that's good."

"Oh, I know about that position. It's called yabyum."

"Very good! It's the one you want if you really want him falling in love with you. It knits souls together."

With starbursts on her shoulder blade and butt cheek and trailing vines between them and down her high, the henna stopped.

"Now go to sleep, Pru. I'll wake you when it time to brush the stuff off and head for your yoga class."

*****

Wednesday, Prudence brought enough tandoori chicken and lentils with vegetables for two and Brian showed up, to the firm's utter amazement, with a sitar. He demonstrated modest skill with it while Prudence heated up their lunch and then semi-serenaded her after they finished.

When word reached Andrew Cornwall, he immediately called is wife.

"Babe, I'm not sure we need to work so hard on Brian and Pru. Once he found out she was a fan of Indian cuisine and pretty good at cooking it, he seems to be starting a concentrated courtship."

Jane giggled, "Oh, good. Then he'll be even more eager to get intimately acquainted with her Friday night. Azalea and I were afraid he might be shy but now that he's the one in pursuit I think we can let that rest. I imagine it's time to go pick up a bunch of brochures from campus. Find a way for him to 'discover' them and start thinking about transfer."