Aunt Phoebe's Masturbatorium Ch. 05

It was almost 8:00 PM when Jake informed us that we had just turned west onto the rue du Colisée. From what I could see, the police had cordoned off the entire area around the restaurant, and the doormen were busy assisting the elegantly clad Sisterhood patrons as they walked gingerly through the cordon and up the few steps leading into the restaurant. The restaurant itself stood several meters away from us on the left side of the busy thoroughfare, it's marquee announcing the evening's event in bold black letters against a white background. I noticed that there were men in black suits checking IDs at the door.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"This is strictly a private affair," my aunt said adjusting the straps on her evening gown. "The entire restaurant is ours for the night." She smiled and patted my hand. "Come on. Let's enjoy ourselves."

She ordered Jake to stop the car before we actually approached the cordon and he came out and opened the door for us.

"I don't know how long we'll be," she told him. "But be back here at least by midnight."

"Yes, Ms. Anjou," he replied, courteously.

As my aunt and I approached the restaurant, a doorman spotted us and escorted us toward the front entrance where we had to show our IDs to the men in black suits. One of the men handed back my aunt's card and apologized.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Anjou," he said, sheepishly. "I should have recognized you."

"That's quite all right," she replied good-naturedly. "It's good to see that you people are doing your job."

He looked at me. "Is this lady with you?"

"She's my niece."

"That's fine," he said, returning my card to me. "Please go in."

The doorman held the door for us and as we entered several Sisters approached us all at once and told us to follow them. One of them was Zula, a tall African woman whom I had seen last at the Sisterhood meeting at my aunt's home in San Diego a year ago. The other was Selena Montaldo, a striking Spanish beauty.

"Lenore is waiting for you at the head table," Zula said to my aunt in a staid tone of voice. "She wants to get this thing underway as soon as possible."

"Fine," my aunt replied. "Lead on."

Zula was a rather abrupt woman who seemed to lack the common niceties one would expect a person to exhibit in polite society. She had, after all, not respectfully greeted either my aunt or me, and I found this unacceptable in a person. I later found out that Zula had killed a man in her native Africa for making fun of the dress she was wearing at the time. She had hit him over the head with a hammer, crushing his skull. Selena, on the other hand, was all smiles and graciousness as she took both my aunt's hand and mine and led us across the densely packed room.

"Look at this," she said to us in a hushed but excited voice. "Almost every Sisterhood leader is here tonight—over 250 of them!"

My aunt and I surveyed the crowded room, the boisterous women replete in every conceivable style of designer evening gown; their dresses' variegate colors reminding me of the plumage on a flock of exotic birds. Besides Zula and Selena, and some of the more familiar Sisters I had recently met, I recognized several other faces from that meeting a year ago, among them Anya Rostokovitch, Yin Ping Hun, and Kyoto Sarumoto. Most of these women had formed small cluster groups, or cliques, and were already drinking quite heavily with their comrades. As we passed by, some took notice of my aunt and said hello, while others looked and totally ignored us. Some of these latter types were the same ones who had sat in attendance at my earlier "test" and had not approved of my unorthodox methods of "punishing" Mr. Villon.

"A few unfriendly faces amongst the crowd I see," my aunt said turning to me. "Don't let it bother you, Holly. If I'm able to deal with it, so should they. Forget them."

The truth was, I really didn't really care much about whether those women had approved of me or not. All I cared about was that I had done the right thing as I saw it and that my conscience was clean. Lenore herself had approved and that was enough for me.

As we traversed the entire length of the room, I had a chance to admire the beautiful furnishings and charming Art Deco décor. In addition to the many fine impressionistic paintings that adorned the walls, there was a space behind the bar that was reserved for the photographs of famous musicians who had played at the celebrated restaurant. Some of the ones I recognized were Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stan Getz. The only reason I recognized these men was because my aunt had shown me a scrapbook of all the jazz musicians she had come to know and love. She saw me concentrating on their pictures and smiled.

"The greats!" she said, looking over the portraits. "The crème de la crème!"

We passed beyond the main area of the restaurant and through a set of glass doors that opened out into a larger function room. It was twice the size of the main area and had very high ceilings with enormous glass chandeliers that seemed almost too heavy to hang safely from their mounts. To our left was the bandstand, a large semicircular riser upon which the 30 or so musicians were tuning their instruments or engaging in idle talk. One of the men, a handsome, dark-haired man in his early 30s dressed in a black tuxedo and carrying a saxophone, spotted my aunt and quickly came toward us.

"Phoebe!" he shouted excitedly. "Hey, it's me! Porky!"

My aunt immediately recognized the genial man and threw open her arms to greet him.

"Paul!" she exclaimed, giving him a big hug. "It's so good to see you again! You look wonderful!"

Paul Sturgess, or "Porky," as he preferred to be called, held my aunt around her waist with one arm while holding his saxophone in the other. He seemed elated to see her.

"Me?" he said. "Look at you! Why you're more beautiful than the last time I saw you. What was that? Five years ago?"

"At least," she replied, taking a step back to admire him.

"I'm so glad you asked my band to play. It's an honor, really."

"I'm so glad you agreed," she laughed. "You guys are tough to book."

He looked down at his saxophone and ran one of his hands over the valves. "Busy as hell these days, Phoebe. My agent gave me a bit of a hard time at first, but when he saw his commission on this gig..."

My aunt laughed. "You're still as suave as ever. May I present to you my niece, Holly McKenzie?"

"Hi Holly," he said extending his hand to me. "I'm glad to know you."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Sturgess," I said, as I looked up into his friendly brown eyes and shook his hand.

"Porky, please."

"And these are my associates Selena Montaldo and Zula," my aunt said.

The two women exchanged greetings with the dashing musician—Selena shook his hand warmly, Zula just grunted.

"Well," Porky said to my aunt. "I've got to get onstage. Show's about to begin. Anything special you want to hear?"

My aunt thought a moment. "How about 'When Sunny Gets Blue'?"

Porky smiled. "That used to be your favorite tune. Sure, no problem. Catch you later. Nice meeting you ladies."

Porky kissed my aunt on the cheek and then resumed his place on the bandstand, leading the orchestra in a rendition of an old jazz classic from the Big Band era called "Stardust".

"Isn't he wonderful?" my aunt beamed. "And wait until you hear him play that sax!"

Selena and Zula led us away from the bandstand and toward the opposite side of the room. It was a bit difficult navigating our way through horde of Sisters, most of who had already ingested far too much alcohol and were mulling about like a herd of disoriented cattle.

"Oh, get out of the way for Christ's sake!" my aunt yelled at one drunken, middle-aged woman who refused to budge. "Let us through!"

When the woman simply stared back at my aunt and did not move, Zula threw her arms around the woman's waist and lifted her up, placing her in the nearest chair. The woman uttered something derogatory to the Amazonian and then slumped over across the table.

"You are a disgrace!" my aunt said to the drunken woman.

The woman raised her head a few inches off the table as if to reply and promptly closed her eyes and slumped back to her former position. She had passed out.

Suddenly, we heard Lenore's voice cry out from her seat across the room. She was sitting at a long, rectangular table against the far wall surrounded by a small group of women.

"Over here! Over here!"

"We're coming!" my aunt shouted in reply, as we forced our way through the crowd.

I followed closely behind my aunt, utilizing her body as a human shield to protect me from the mass of people pressing into us. When the two women finally met they hugged and kissed. Lenore surprised me by kissing me too—something she had never done.

"I don't have to tell you that you both look lovely do I?" the Sisterhood leader said.

"Oh, go ahead and say it," my aunt replied. "Tell us how beautiful we look because you know we'll have to tell you the same thing."

Both women laughed.

At Lenore's table sat Justine and Estelle and several other women whom I didn't know. The seats to Lenore's immediate right and left were empty.

"Phoebe, come 'round and sit here next to me. And you, Holly, I want you to sit right here."

She pointed to the chair on her right—a place of honor amongst those of the Sisterhood.

"Thank you," I said, following her instruction.

After my aunt and I were seated, Lenore introduced us to the half dozen women seated with us whom my aunt, it seemed, didn't know herself.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you ladies," my aunt said. "Of course after a few drinks I won't remember any of your names."

Lenore laughed. "Three drinks and you won't even remember your own!"

Justine, Estelle, and the other women all seemed to be in high spirits. They laughed when they heard this and Estelle said she was looking forward to Phoebe's third drink, after which she, herself, downed a half glass of scotch.

The conversation at our table centered around chiefly personal, rather than professional, matters. The women were a motley group of various ages and nationalities. Two women, who were introduced to me as Muriel and Lorraine, spoke entirely in French, not knowing a word of English. Another spoke broken English but with an accent I couldn't recognize. My aunt soon became engrossed in a conversation with the two French women, but I could only understand very little of what was being said.

"Muriel and Lorraine were at the session earlier today," Lenore said to me. "That's what they're talking about right now."

"Really?" I asked surprised. "I don't remember them being there."

"They weren't. They watched the whole thing from their hotel room on closed circuit TV."

"Oh," I said, suddenly feeling uneasy. "You mean that whole thing is on tape?"

"I keep a record of every Sisterhood event. There are hidden cameras in the walls."

I wasn't very happy to hear this news.

"I don't think it's fair that I wasn't told about this," I said.

"No one knew about it but me," Lenore replied. "I have my own reasons for videotaping it, and I promise you that it will not go out of my hands."

From the bandstand the first few strains of "When Sunny Gets Blue" reached our ears, the melody of which was being beautifully played by Porky on his saxophone.

"Isn't that just wonderful?" my aunt said in a singsong voice. "Her eyes get gray and cloudy..."

The two French women looked at my aunt, who had now broken into a full vocal rendition of the song, like they had been offended. My aunt ignored them.

"And the rain begins to fall," she continued to sing, oblivious to everyone and everything.

"Oh fuck," Justine laughed. "She's on a roll now."

"If she could only sing on key!" Estelle commented, lifting her glass to toast my aunt's less than stellar efforts.

She continued to sing the song until the moment when Porky took the microphone and crooned part of the song himself. He had a very nice baritone voice and sang almost as well as he played the saxophone.

As the song neared its end, the waiters began taking orders. Our entire table seemed grateful for this interruption, as everyone, including me, appeared to be starved. I was happy just to know I wouldn't have to endure another verse of my aunt's off-key singing.

Lenore did not say much about my "test," earlier in the day, probably fearing that any praise she might lavish upon me would only hurt my aunt's feelings. She did whisper to me that she was "immensely proud" of my "achievement," and that she and I would have time to discuss matters later.

After the waiters had taken our orders, my aunt ordered a round of drinks for everyone at our table. I was talked into ordering a glass of wine, even though I would have preferred a ginger ale.

"Stop being so American!" Lenore joked. "You're in the most romantic city in the world. Live a little!"

With that she raised her glass of Chardonnay to her lips and savored a mouthful.

"That's right," my aunt agreed. "You have to let yourself go once in a while. Have fun!"

Lenore raised her glass to the others. "To fun!"

All the women toasted one another and once again began chatting amongst themselves.

When the appetizers arrived a short while later I began to wonder what had become of Craig. He never told me what time he would arrive, but I thought he would certainly make it for dinner. I knew his friend Barney was coming with him so maybe there was some kind of holdup on that end. By the time our soup arrived I was beginning to think he had forgotten all about our appointment, and that maybe he had decided to return to Stockholm with Dr. Swensen after all. The thought of him not showing up made me very disappointed, so much so that I hardly touched my soup.

"The soup is delicious," Lenore said to me. "Why aren't you eating it?"

"Craig promised me he was going to be here tonight."

Lenore stole a quick glance at my aunt and then looked down into her bowl.

"Oh, I wouldn't let that bother you," she said, taking a sip of broth. "I'm sure he'll come. He's probably just running a little late."

"Maybe," I said glumly, refusing to accept her explanation.

"Oh, come on, Holly," she said, resting her hand on my arm. "I saw the way he looked at you. He'll be here. I promise you."

"I hope so," I said, stirring my soup in a careless fashion. "I wore this dress especially for him."

Again Lenore glanced at my aunt, but neither woman said anything further. Finally, my patience broke.

"Is there something I'm missing here?" I asked, looking back and forth at both of them.

"Not at all," my aunt quickly replied. "Why don't you try to eat your soup?"

"I don't care about the soup!" I said, raising my voice.

Both Lenore and my aunt were taken aback by my sudden outburst, and the other women at the table stopped talking and stared at me.

"Holly, please!" my aunt said looking dismayed. "Don't make a scene."

I didn't want to draw attention to myself, but I couldn't help but feel that the two of them were keeping something from me.

"He's not coming is he?"

My aunt just shook her head and kept eating.

"You'd tell me if he wasn't coming wouldn't you?"

Again she said nothing.

"Aunt Phoebe!"

This second outburst caused her to drop her spoon on the floor.

"I can't tell you what I don't know," she replied testily. "Now relax and eat your soup and try to have a little faith in people."

That's great! I muttered under my breath. When my aunt talked about having faith in people I knew it was time to worry. She may have once, long ago, believed in those very ideals I had long cherished and had now recently been forced to reevaluate, but she was essentially a pragmatist who was not inclined to favor the spiritual nature of life. Telling me to have faith in someone was tantamount to telling an ascetic that hedonism was the true path to virtue. It simply didn't add up.

The instinctive feeling that she was hiding something from me would not go away, but I chose not to belabor the issue. If Craig were a man of his word I would soon know. If not, then I would have to bid him adieu. As much as I liked him, I could not respect a man who could not keep his promise.

"Après la pluie le beau temps," Muriel said to me in a sympathetic voice.

"What?" I replied.

"She says 'every cloud has a silver lining,' my aunt said. "She sees that you're unhappy."

"Oh," I replied, turning to Muriel. "Is it that obvious?"

She just smiled at me while aunt interpreted my question.

"Amour," my aunt continued.

"Oui...amour!" Muriel laughed. "Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard!"

I looked at my aunt. "What does she say about love?"

"She says it's nothing to get excited about."

All the women at the table seemed to think this comment amusing—everyone but me.

Our dinner was a most sumptuous repast with every conceivable Parisian delicacy made available courtesy of the "Philanthropic Society." I was hungry but I really couldn't eat much since my mind was constantly focused on the blonde Swedish boy who had now, it seemed, vanished as quickly as he had come. As the evening wore on, I grew less hurt and more peeved at Craig's apparent callousness. I didn't seem right to me that he would just leave without any explanation. In fact, such an action seemed completely out of character for such a charming and considerate boy, and it puzzled me greatly.

After dinner had been served, Lenore was called to the bandstand to pass out awards to those Sisters who had achieved distinction in their roles as chapter leaders, my aunt Phoebe being one of the recipients. When the last award had been handed out, Lenore gave a short speech congratulating the dozen or so women who had been honored and then informed the audience that the "Dance of the Waiters" was now going to commence.

I watched as Porky escorted Lenore off the stage, his saxophone steadfastly by his side. By the time he had climbed back onto the bandstand the house lights had been turned off and were replaced by bright, multi-colored, theatrical lights that illuminated the stage and the dance floor just in front of it. The audience was hushed with anticipation as the handsome bandleader turned to the orchestra and counted off the time by snapping his fingers. He then raised his saxophone to his lips and began playing a very sensual and enervating introduction to a song I later learned he had composed himself.

As the eerily beautiful strains of the saxophone filled the air, an ensemble of two-dozen waiters strode onto the dance floor in their waiter's uniforms and began dancing to the music. They held trays in their hands, which they used as props, tossing them over their heads and to each other as they moved around the floor in a catlike motion. At one point the dancers formed a closed circle and flung their trays high into the air and outward towards the audience. Seeing this, the women closest to these flying missiles gave out a series of horrified shrieks, only to discover that these so-called "trays" were nothing more than foam plates that landed harmlessly all around them.

Now the other members of the orchestra began to add their own unique voices to the instrumental mix, creating an ambiance of textures, invoking hauntingly seductive minor modalities that seemed almost ethereal in nature. In my opinion, Porky had created nothing short of a jazz masterpiece, and I could tell by the fascinated look on my aunt's face that she, too, had completely succumbed to the influence of this beautiful music.

But our attention was quickly diverted from the music to the dancers themselves, who were now, unexpectedly, beginning to undress themselves. Bit by bit, pieces of clothing were being tossed pell-mell into the audience. A shirt here, a pair of socks there—even their pants finally came off, revealing a pair of thongs on every man. The crowd went wild.