The Freyja Club Ch. 01

CHAPTER ONE - A Mysterious Invitation

The goddess Freyja is one of the most important goddesses found in the Old Norse Pantheon. The powerful goddess is associated with beauty, fertility, love, sex, war, death, and a special kind of magic called Seidr. This type of magic allowed the goddess to see the future and gave her the ability to shape it.

In Norse mythology, Freyja is often described as being the most beautiful and desirable of all the goddesses. Being the goddess of sex and lust. During the Viking Age, a woman who owned property or was of higher stature within Viking society was referred to as Freyja.

The goddess is a member of the Vanir family of Norse gods. Within the Norse pantheon, gods and goddesses belong to either the Vanir family of gods or the Aesir. The Vanir are the second major group of gods next to the Aesir of which Odin is the chief. The Vanir are associated with fertility and magic, while the Aesir are great warriors.

Freyja is often depicted or described as being a beautiful woman with long golden hair. She is often described as wearing a cloak made of falcon feathers and holding a spear. Sometimes the beautiful fertility goddess is pictured wearing a headdress of a boar's head.

—-History Cooperative

I had been working as a senior executive in the field of Corporate Mergers & Acquisitions for over twenty years and as a result, I had developed a large network of contacts with investment bankers, corporate executives, some of the government regulatory bureaucracy, and quite a few prestigious law firms, in short, many of the "movers and shakers" in the world.

I was in Business Class on an Air France red-eye flight to Paris when, somewhere over the North Atlantic at four o'clock in the morning, I got up and worked my way to the toilet. As usual, virtually everyone else in the cabin was asleep. When I finished with the necessary business I returned to my seat and by surprise discovered an envelope sitting on the seat console. My name was embossed in gold letters, but outwardly there wasn't any other information.

I picked up the envelope and looked around the cabin. No one appeared awake, nor had I passed anyone. Again I looked at the envelope, clearly puzzled about how it had suddenly appeared. I sat down and turned on the small reading light and noted that the envelope was made of fine linen and my gold embossed name screamed super high quality and its appearance was a planned event.

The envelope only had a spot seal common to invitations and I noted that it was just about the right size. Deciding that there was nothing left to do other than find out what my mysterious mailman wanted, I opened the loop flap and removed the enclosed card. The cover had a thin gold border and another gold embossed name.

The Freyja Club

Opening the card, the same gold letters made an announcement;

You've been nominated for membership. Please present this card on Tuesday, April 7th at 18 Rue St. Denis, Paris, France between two and four p.m.

No other information. No phone number or the name of who I would meet. April 7th was the day after tomorrow. Whoever left the card knew that I was scheduled to be in Paris for the upcoming week. Had I not received this in such a mysterious manner, I might not have been tempted to pursue this strange invitation, but my curiosity was piqued. Suddenly I found myself thinking about what meetings and appointments could be changed.

After landing and arriving at the hotel, I made some discrete inquiries with some people I knew, but no one had any information to share about something called the Freyja Club. The address on Rue St. Denis was one of the higher-end business districts in Paris and I purposely took a cab ride past the building which, from the outside, looked like a small upscale office building that sat on a corner surrounded on two sides by small strips of nicely maintained grass and enclosed by a black wrought iron fence that looked more decorative than useful. A driveway could be seen that snaked to the back of the building where there was an entrance to an underground garage.

3 p.m. the next day found me at the front door of the building. As I approached the door, I heard the sound of a buzzer unlocking the door and I pulled on the frosted glass entrance, I soon found myself in a well-appointed reception area. The walls were Rosewood panels and there were several expensive-looking paintings on the walls. A young blonde behind the reception desk saw me enter and rose as I approached.

She stated my name and welcomed me by extending her hand for the card I was carrying. It was very obvious that she knew who I was and that I was expected. She motioned me to an overstuffed lounge chair and returned to her desk and entered something into her desktop. She got an immediate response and she looked up and said Mme. du Val will see you momentarily.

Mme. du Val was a name unfamiliar to me, so I was no closer to understanding the nature of this mystery than I was before. The young receptionist, having done her job, was not attempting to engage in conversation and I thought the whole situation was a bit awkward.

Thankfully, a couple of minutes later a strikingly beautiful middle-aged blonde woman came through a side entrance and walked directly to where I was sitting. "Bonjour Monsieur, We're so glad to see you've accepted our invitation," she said in only slightly accented English. I rose to meet her and, as I suspected, she introduced herself as Danielle du Val and she informed me that she was the Managing Director of the Freyja Club in Paris.

Mme. du Val was wearing a beautiful white dress that looked to be made of high-quality linen and I quickly noted that it ended an inch or so above her knees. It struck me that she was the epitome of a classy French businesswoman, one who can deal with the sometimes cutthroat aspects of commercial enterprise, but a woman who could maintain her femininity throughout.

After welcoming me, she turned and thanked the receptionist whose name I learned was Henrietta, and then she extended her hand and directed me to follow her. We went through the door from which she'd just emerged and we were soon in her opulent office that would have made most CEOs drool.

She directed me to one of the two chairs in front of a gorgeous ebony desk with a beautiful green lampshade light fixture. On the side wall was a huge replica of Ruben's "Rape of the Sabine Women," At least I assumed it was a replica since I'd recently seen the original in the National Gallery in Washington.

Mme. Du Val glided over to a sideboy and put a couple of ice cubes in a glass and poured three fingers of an amber liquid that I assumed to be whiskey and then added an equal amount of ginger ale. While she was engaged I was watching her shapely butt and flawless calves that were arousingly displayed by the skin-tight white dress she wore. Returning to me she offered me the glass and said, "Bourbon and Ginger on the rocks, I believe."

I'm not a big hard liquor drinker, but when I did, my "go-to" drink was the one she'd just placed in my hand. The simple "Yes, thank you," that I said belied the absolute confusion that was going on in my mind over this most strange meeting. As she was seating herself behind the gorgeous desk, I started to say, "Mme. du Val..." She quickly stopped me, "Oh please, Danielle." I cleared my throat and started again, "Um, yes...uh Danielle, what the fuck is going on here?"

Her hearty laugh was immediate. "Well, one thing is that your reputation for directness has been immediately confirmed." She reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a manila envelope and placed it on the green felt ink pad in front of her. "I assume you remember a woman by the name of Jennifer Logan?"

Indeed I did. Jen and I had a steamy four-year affair that had ended about six years previously when our respective travel schedules became impossible to coordinate. We still corresponded occasionally but I hadn't heard from her in a while.

"And Thomas Quinn?" I nodded again. Tom was a well-known M&A attorney whom I'd had the pleasure of meeting on both sides of negotiating tables over the years. He was one of my best friends in the profession, and quite a "ladies' man" to boot.

"And Casey Weber?" Casey was the name of the former Chief Pilot of my company's small executive air fleet, that is if three planes can be called a fleet. Again I nodded and Danielle leaned forward as if she was about to announce something important, but I was momentarily distracted when her dress fell partly away to reveal the soft pale upper slopes of her not immaterial breasts.

"The three people I just mentioned are all members of the Freyja Club and they have nominated you as someone who might be an attractive addition to our membership. Have you heard of us?" I shook my head, and Danielle seemed pleased that such was the case.

"Well this might require more than one drink, but let me try to explain to you who we are and why you're being considered for membership, but first I must ask you to sign something."

Danielle picked up a black-bound folio from a small side table and pushed it across her desk. When I opened it, I was confronted with a document with which I was quite familiar. Non-disclosure agreements are used when something that is considered "secret" needs to be divulged, and it binds the receiver to maintain that secrecy under some penalty if disclosed. My eyes immediately found this paragraph and noted the figure of One million dollars.

The low whistle that I emitted reflected the significance of such an amount. One million dollars is a lot of money but, of course, if I didn't "disclose," it wouldn't cost me anything. By this time I was so curious as to where this was going, I calmly reached for Danielle's proffered pen and signed and dated the NDA.

She closed the folio and returned it to the table. "Thank you, most people take a lot more time than you just did. May I ask why?" When I explained my thinking, Danielle tented her fingers and the tilt of her head communicated that some box had just been checked. She seemed to appraise me for a moment and I was wondering what she saw.

For a 48-year-old, I was in excellent shape. Since I was a teenager I had adopted a fitness regimen that included a five-mile run before breakfast and three fairly strenuous workouts three days a week and it showed. My hair had a few salts among the peppers, but otherwise, I could be mistaken for someone a decade younger. I believe the $750 Marks & Spencer suit I was wearing and the silk red and blue tie presented a not-so-bad picture.

Danielle finally broke the silence, and as I took my first sip of the drink she'd made me, she began to explain why I had been invited.

"The Freyja Club is almost ninety years old. It was originally founded in London by a group of people, mostly men but a few women, as a way of compensating for the sexual repression of the Victorian Age. It was a place where normal human desire could be satisfied without penalty or condemnation from Society."

"The name was derived from Freyja, the most renowned of the Norse goddesses, who was the sister and female counterpart of Freyr and was in charge of love, fertility, battle, and death."

I had to interject, "So you're telling me that it's a sex club?"

Danielle seemed genuinely hurt by my comment and she took a deep breath before she continued. "Yes, of course, in the basest of definitions, it certainly can be described in those terms, but we strive to be more than "just"' sex. This will be hard for you to understand until I show you, but let me continue for a few more minutes."

"Many of the founders were some of the movers and shakers of the age and as a result had developed vast networks of contacts and relationships around the world. When most people think about the repression of the Victorian Age, they think of England, but at the time, the British Empire spanned the globe and even the non-British were affected by the culture, so there emerged a desire for the Freyja Club to expand beyond London. We here in Paris were the second to be established. Now there are twenty clubs in major commercial cities all over the world. In your United States, there are six; New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Houston, and Miami."

"So if there are these clubs in the United States, why did I receive an invitation here in Paris," I wanted to know.

"Probably because your travel schedule made this the best option," Danielle opined. "I don't know, you'd have to find out through our security department in London, why."

"So, there's what? A central organization based in London?"

Danielle nodded her head. "A small one. It collects and invests the money we receive and funds the various clubs and it is the central clearing house that vets all prospective members, staff, and guests. There's also a Board of Directors and a general counsel, but that's all I know. It's very compartmentalized. Any more questions?"

I shook my head, so Danielle continued. "While it is fair to say that our members are more than well off, money alone cannot buy a membership. You must be personally known and vouched for by a minimum of three members, and undergo an extensive background check. If we detect even the slightest hint of anything that would damage the club's welfare you cannot join. The fact that we are having this conversation is a testament to the fact that you have surmounted those hurdles so far."

"So, more hurdles remain?" I asked.

"Indeed," Danielle confirmed. She waved her hand as if to draw my attention to her office. "We are a non-profit organization, but as you can see we are not non-cost. All of the club services need to be paid for, so the next hurdle is your willingness to pay. The initiation fee is $100,000 and there is a flat charge of $2,000 per month. Of course, anything else you might choose to pay for is entirely up to you, and the One-million dollar NDA is out there as well.

By training, I'm a numbers guy, so while Danielle was speaking, I was calculating. The annual income for the club had to be just short of $300 million, and just the existing 12,000 members paid over $1.2 billion in nonrefundable initiation fees. I could see how they might be covering their costs.

"How many times has someone had to pay for violating their NDA?" I wanted to know.

"Only once in the ninety-year history of the club," Danielle responded, "but it's interesting what happens when you violate a pledge made to 12,000 of the most connected people on the planet. The One-million dollar NDA penalty was the least of the man's problems. He and his business were utterly destroyed and he ended up committing suicide."

"Well, that's certainly interesting. OK, so let's say I'm in. What happens if I want to leave?"

"That's your prerogative, you lose the initiation fee of course, and the NDA is forever, but otherwise you're free to go. We only have 12,000 members and you're only here because someone left."

"So what can you tell me about these members?"

"As I said, there are about 12,000 worldwide. 60% or so are men, and the other 40% are women. We have both gay and straight members and they are from all races and almost every country in the world. Our membership is fixed, but there is some turnover, so we invite perhaps 200 a year. I've been the Managing Director of this club for the past eight years, and in that time we've initiated perhaps 80 or so here. As a member, you don't technically belong to any single club, you'll visit some more than others and there will be a few that you'll never visit. Here in the Paris Club, about 40% of our clicks are from members who live nearby, so the majority are visitors from elsewhere.

"But you say there are still more requirements?"

"We can move on to those now, but before we do, have you any more questions on anything I've covered?"

"Just one. Jennifer Logan. You say she's a member and I assume you are aware of our past relationship." Danielle nodded. "Her husband Steve was quite the stud. They had an open marriage. Any chance he's a member too?"

"Yes, normally we don't tell non-members who actual members are, and fifteen minutes ago, I wouldn't have answered your question, but Steve is someone else who vouched for you. Which reminds me. When you meet members of the club, most use their real names, but some choose to use aliases. We don't publish any kind of list and even I only know about 300. I assume you know that we will demand your discretion. I nodded in agreement.

I was certainly intrigued. While I don't consider myself "rich," I am certainly well off and am probably in the top one-half of one percent of the people on the planet. I knew I could find a way to pay the going rate, but should I? I have never lacked female companionship and I've been able to quench my sexual desires pretty much when necessary, but there was something here that transcended casual sex. I may not yet have been hooked, but I was smelling the bait.

I thought about Jen and Steve. Both of them could entice people to their beds without much effort. I knew Jen had had multiple lovers besides me and she said that Steve was in high demand. Yet they had chosen to become members. A call to Jen was added to my "to-do" list.

I thought that I was out of questions, but Danielle's answer prompted one more. "What about staff and guests?"

"Good question, I should have covered that. I'm now getting concerned about my forgetfulness. Staff is paid handsomely and we have very little turnover. There are also some "benefits" of working here which you will discover. You may bring guests, but we must vet them first, so members give us a list. It takes about two months to get a guest approved. We ask that you cover the cost of the background check, so each guest you add will be about $1,000. Both staff and guests must sign the NDA."

I was beginning to be impressed by the professionalism that I was hearing, so when she asked, "Any more?" I shook my head.

With that, Danielle rose and said, "Finish your drink, and we'll see about the last hurdle." I just set it on her desk and got up. She led me to a different door than the one we entered her office from and led me down a short hall. She opened the door and stepped aside to allow me to enter. The room resembled a suite in a five-star hotel. Except that the window was stained glass and the colored panels had representations of a multitude of carnal acts.

I was struck in awe and Danielle chuckled. "That's everyone's reaction. That window was installed not long after this club was founded, it's almost eighty years old." She told me to make myself comfortable, and that she'd be right back.

The window was not the only art in the room. There were two tasteful figure studies of women, one blonde and the other brunette that hung on either side of a king-sized bed. Both seemed to glow from interior light and I thought they were museum quality. I knew they were not photographs as was obvious from the lacquer paint, but the detail was fantastic. I was busy looking at the fine hair as was depicted on the brunette's pussy mound when I heard the door open behind me.

When I turned around I was greeted by Danielle. She had exchanged her gorgeous white dress for an off-white, very much see-through wrap. However, since it was not tied and hung open to reveal Daniell's lovely pear-shaped breasts, her silky mound, and nice legs, the see-through feature was somewhat superfluous. Nude save for the wrap, she watched as I feasted on her loveliness.

After a moment, her first words were, "You were reported to have 'hungry eyes,' I see that's not a misstatement." I hadn't particularly noticed that she was still wearing the white heels I'd observed earlier, but I did when I heard them click as she walked across the room and stood before me.