The Party Planner Ch. 05

Patron Saint

Jon's father Gerhard was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. He made his living as an engineer for a company that manufactured turbines for power plants. By the time he was twenty-five, he already had a family, but the messiness and repression of domestic life bred a grievance in him that infected his wife and children. He tried to find comfort for that at the local pub and between the legs of secretaries at the plant, but the bitterness remained. Gerhard left his young wife before the kids were out of grade school. His boss offered him a transfer to their plant in Ann Arbor and the divorcee never looked back.

He met his second wife in a diner. She was a waitress and, like him, an immigrant to America. Sofia had been brought by her parents from Columbia when she was nine. She was much younger than Gerhard and had received her education from the streets, but she loved to read books and talk about them with her patrons, many of whom were far too distracted by her beauty to listen. Gerhard, the born-again playboy, thought he would bed this waitress the one time and move on, but she did something to him that night and he found himself coming back to the diner for more.

They married and had a son, and for a time they were happy. They taught Jonathan Spanish and German and French and argued about whether it was best to raise their child according to Swiss or Columbian values. Either way, Gerhard promised himself he would make up for where he had failed his first two kids.

When Jon was in the tenth grade, however, doctors found a mass in Sofia's right kidney. Inoperable, they said, and very aggressive. Sofia spent as much of her remaining time with her son as she could, sharing her favorite books with him, encouraging him to follow his bliss. She was gone within the year.

Jon's relationship with his father changed after that. Gerhard became morose and went back to his drink. Without Sofia's calming influence, he managed his son with a heavy hand, constantly berating him for his youthful missteps. Jonathan did all he could to avoid his father, but his flagging grades failed to earn him a place in any of the out-of-state colleges to which he had hoped to escape.

He wound up taking English lit courses at a community college and waiting tables as his mother had done before him. Though his engineer father belittled him for his choice of studies, Jon worked hard both as a student and as a waiter, saving up his money, so that when a teacher recommended him to a writing program at NYU, he could afford the move. The day he arrived under the arch at Washington Square Park was perhaps the happiest of his life. But the writing program ran its course and Jon had little to show for it. He knew how to write, his professors had said as much, but no one would pay him to do it. He tried living the life of an aspiring novelist and it was a life that suited him, until his money ran out. Returning to Ann Arbor was out of the question. He turned to online job sites instead and applied to the first job he thought he could do.

"I am assigning you to the Davies party," Richard said, still looking at his paperwork. "Normally, I would not give such a project to someone so new, but Barbara seems to think you are ready." He glanced up at Jon with a suspicious eye. "Now, the party is in two weeks. That may seem like a long time, but there is a lot to prepare for. The servers will have their role to play in this affair, some more than others."

Jon shifted on the couch. He could tell from the way Richard was talking that he would be one of the servers with a heavier lift. He wanted to ask what his role would be, but Jon had now been around the old chap long enough to know that he would only hear the particulars when he needed to know them. He tried a different tack.

"I take it this party has a little more 'choreography' than the last one?"

Richard dropped his pen on the papers and leaned back in his chair. "Very much so," he replied. "In fact, you could say this event is nothing but. The Davies love a good show and that is what we are going to give them." He picked up his pen again and took to scribbling in a ledger. "So I will need to see you in Wardrobe at ten."

Jon got up to leave.

"Oh. Mr. Strauss?" Richard grimaced, as if he were trying to solve a complex equation. "I am told some of the servers may have to shave their heads for this production. Would you have any objections?"

Jonathan shrugged.

The Davies family was old money. They had made their fortune in the days of robber barons from Pennsylvania coal and put all that profit into Manhattan real estate. During the Roaring Twenties, one of the more eccentric members of the family branched out onto Broadway, producing shows and even opening a theater that to this day hosts some of the city's most notable plays and musicals. The drama bug was passed to each succeeding generation, and that eccentricity along with it. Each generation produced at least one member of the family who punctured the aristocratic mores of their day. The Davies, it was said, had practically invented cross-dressing; their homoerotic escapades were legend when such behavior could land you in prison. They made high society reach for its smelling salts, but the art world loved them. Throughout the decades, the most notorious writers and painters, dancers and actors made pilgrimages to the Davies court to soak up their creative energy, sometimes offering their hosts private performances in return for a raucous sex party.

Two such pilgrims were Sean and Barbara Hamilton, a couple of Yale School of Management grads with a string of successful ventures already under their belts. In the course of running their catering company, they saw a demand for more discrete events from their high-end clientele. They drew up a business plan and took it to the one funder they knew would have no hesitation backing something so risqué. The Davies gave them the money they needed to start Urban Select, but not before subjecting the couple to more than a few sessions of carnal depravity.

At least, that's the story Jon was told. The Davies were well-known among the employees of Select, as members of the family occasionally stopped by the warehouse to check on their investment or plan their next gathering. The plans for this upcoming party had been drawn up months ago, and the creative types had long been at work pulling together the sets and costumes.

Jon stood in the open space of the warehouse's main floor, staring serenely at the busywork of others. A team of builders was erecting what looked to him like the octagonal cage of an extreme fighting match. Nearby, a group of men and women were huddled around a laptop, gesturing across the screen and shouting an occasional order to the crew. Jon was sure he had been introduced to most of these people on his first day, but for the life of him he could not remember their names or what they did.

Gary sidled up to him and nodded his good morning. They watched as the rigging got its last few bolts tightened.

"Is this for the Davies party?" Jon asked.

"I think so. I'm not sure," Gary replied. "I guess we'll find out at the principals meeting."

"You were assigned to the party, too?"

"Yyyep."

"Ok, we are ready," a man from the huddle called out. He was a wiry guy swimming in an expensive dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up.

"What's that guy's name again?" Jon asked Gary.

"The skinny guy? That's Paul. He's the engineer for set design. He used to do this stuff for that circus of acrobats that everyone likes. The stocky dude next to him is Joey. He's foreman for the construction crew; and the woman on the other side is Carla. I think she's an art director. She used to design store windows for Saks... Hey, do you know who Paul's brother is?"

"Who?"

"Our friend Renée," Gary laughed. "That's probably the reason Sean and Barb haven't kicked his ass to the curb yet. They need Paul too much to piss him off."

"Huh."

Jon and Gary watched as a bare-chested man in white leggings stepped into the cage. He had the build of an Olympic gymnast and comported himself as such. No doubt he hailed from the third floor. He slipped a nylon harness around his chest and waited for Paul to give the sign. Paul nodded, and an electric motor quietly started whirring at the top of the cage. The cable to which the harness was attached tightened and slowly lifted the man off the ground. It looked as if he were flying through the air, Peter Pan style, going around and around the cage until the motor slowed and he was gently deposited back on the ground. Everyone clapped, the two servers included.

"Wow," said a voice behind them. Shannon had just caught the tail end of the show. Jon hadn't run into her since Marta's party. It was strange to see her in her everyday clothes again, those business slacks and pearls. Looking at her, he couldn't get the image out of his head of the five young men on that bed, and what she did to them. He smiled at her and asked how things were going.

"Good," she said. "I just need some caffeine."

"Better hurry," Gary remarked. "We need to be in Wardrobe, like, right now."

A few minutes later, they were standing with about a dozen other servers in a cavernous studio filled with work tables and fabric. The sound of sewing machines occasionally disrupted the group's banter. Jon was surprised to see so many servers there. He'd been given the impression the party would be a small affair. He couldn't imagine why that amount of manpower would be necessary. And manpower it was: there were maybe four women; the rest were all men.

"Shannon!" A seamstress came at the redhead with open arms and they embraced like long-lost friends. "You're looking good, sweetie. How's my little Jack?"

"Good. Exhausting," Shannon replied. "Lately he's been hounding me for a baby brother. He won't stop talking about it."

"You better get on that, girl," her friend laughed.

The conversation was cut short when Richard entered the studio with Wendy Mak, Urban Select's chief costume designer. She looked the part, with all sorts of scissors and tape measures sticking out of her pockets and draped around her neck. She was a stout woman with tangled, graying hair piled up on her head like a bird's nest. The top ridge of her right ear bore countless piercings and she wore glasses that took up half her face. Wendy put some objects down on a work table, barely acknowledging the group's existence before she launched into her presentation.

"So, I don't know what any of you have heard about the gig," she said. "The theme for the Davies party is going to be 'Heaven and Hell,' so naturally the dress will reflect that." She picked up a mask off the table. It was a deformed, grotesque representation of a devil's face in papier-mâché. Knobbly horns protruded from its forehead; a wide, sloping tongue dangled out of its smiling mouth. It was more comical than it was scary. A number of servers giggled at the sight of it.

"The night will be divided into four parts," Wendy continued, "the reception, the show, the dinner, and the after-dinner festivities. Most of you will only be working the dinner, and for that you'll be wearing the basic servant's uniform: gloves and tails for the guys, and of course a maid's outfit for the ladies. But instead of the traditional black, we're doing all white to keep with the theme." She pointed to a dress-maker's mannequin displaying a freshly pressed, white tuxedo. Pinned to the top of the mannequin was another mask, this one a Phantom of the Opera-style half-face of smooth alabaster. A grumbling was heard from within the group. "Yes, the mask is a part of the ensemble," Wendy declared.

"Everything up to and including the dinner will be the 'Heaven' part of the evening. So maybe you already know, but the guests will be guided through a multi-room show as they have their drinks. The servers who work this portion of the program will be dressed in robes such as these." She pointed to another mannequin bearing what looked to Jon like the habit of an altar boy. It was off-white with a flaming red cross emblazoned on its chest. But what really stood out were the numerous turtle-neck openings scattered about the costume. The placement of some of these holes were not very subtle, notably the ones over the buttocks and groin area. This also elicited laughter from the servers.

"God, I hope I don't have to wear one of those,." Gary whispered to Jon.

Wendy pressed on: "The after-dinner period is when things get crazy. That's the 'Hell' part of the night. Anyone working that shift will be dressed in the demon masks and some bondage gear. There may be a few of you running provisions into the room and you'll get similar attire.

"So, yeah. That's pretty much it. Like I said, most of you will just be wearing the tux. We have your measurements, so you can go your merry way. But if I call your name, I need you to stick around to get fitted for the other stuff."

Richard produced a tablet and rattled off four names: "Aesha Anand, Howard Bird, Ria Romero and Jonathan Strauss."

Gary slapped a sympathetic hand down on Jon's shoulder. "Welp," he sighed, "I'm sure it will look great on you."

Though he had read countless plays growing up, Jon had never been much of a theater person. That changed in the two weeks he spent observing the crew finalize their tasks. Jon gained a real appreciation for the hard work that goes into producing even a modest show. He watched props get assembled and backdrops painted, light shows and fog machines designed and tested. He almost forgot this was all in service of an orgy. Before working at Select, Jon had always thought of the sex industry as an ad hoc business run by frat boys and pimps. The seriousness and professionalism on display at the warehouse put the lie to all that.

The principals meeting answered many of his remaining questions. It was revealed that Barbara would be running the event herself, which was no surprise, given how important the client was to Urban Select. They went over a floorplan of the Davies mansion and where each of the performances would take place. What interested Jon most, however, was the guest list. There were only twelve people invited to the dinner, but they were almost all luminaries of art and culture: the food critic for the Times, a famous ballet dancer, a prominent music producer... these were all names Jon recognized. But the real standout was a Pulitzer prize-winning novelist named Arthur Tisch, whom Jonathan had grown up reading in school. Tisch was known for his memoirs describing what it was like to come of age as a secular Jew in New York during the late Sixties. His stories were tactile and honest, forgoing romance for a sexual realism uncommon in literature at the time. Jon learned that Tisch was an old friend of the Davies' and a regular at their parties, despite being in his mid-seventies now.

As the date drew closer, Jon spent most of his time with the other servers picked to work the pre- and post-dinner parts of the night, the "lucky few," as Gary had taken to calling them. At fittings and during breaks in the canteen, they would chat about the job and how their private lives fed into it. Howard's story was particularly interesting, though Jon learned most of it from Ria when Howard wasn't around. A couple of years back, Howard and a bunch of his friends had created a little venture where they would rent themselves out to white women looking to get gangbanged by hard-bodied bulls with big black cocks. They advertised on adult dating sites, posting videos of their satisfied customers screaming in disbelief as their various orifices were stretched to their limits. That's where Barbara found him. One night, when Sean was traveling, she had Howard and his crew over to the penthouse to relieve her boredom. She took on eight gargantuan dicks, drained them all and made them pancakes in the morning.

She had the group back many times after that, often in the presence of Sean, who loved to film her getting passed around from one brother to the next. Over time, Sean and Barb developed a friendship with Howard in particular. He was good-natured and soft-spoken, the most grounded of the bunch. Recognizing that his charm and good-looks would go over well with their clientele, they offered him a job. Howard still had his group, but now he did it more for his friends than for the money or pussy.

Aesha and Ria had both become servers the same way Jonathan had: by working for Sean and Barb in some other capacity first. Jon got along with Aesha right away. She was shy, but quick to laugh, and Jon soon learned how much he enjoyed making her laugh. Before joining Select, she had worked at her family's Indian restaurant in Queens while simultaneously attending undergrad at Hunter. She was destined for med school, or so her parents hoped. To make a little money for tuition, she applied for a part-time office job, reporting to a certain Vera Mawson at Urban Select. She worked with Vera in the downtown office, never fully comprehending the nature of the business until some coworkers took her for drinks one night and spelled it out.

Aesha spent days debating whether to quit, but deep down she knew how much the idea of Urban Select excited her. Vera must have known it too, because she started taking Aesha to the warehouse, where the right people noticed her beauty. She was tiny, but limber, with a dark complexion and eyes that sparkled like stars against a night sky. Aesha was a hard worker, too - one that Vera did not want to lose. But then a change in her school schedule made it impossible for her to work during the hours Vera needed her. Given her restaurant experience, Barbara suggested Aesha stay on as a server. She never had to worry about tuition again.

"What would your parents do if they ever found out?" Jon asked. As far as he knew, she was the only employee who still lived at home.

"I don't want to think about it," the girl replied. She wore a very shiny lip gloss that made every word she spoke leave an afterimage in Jon's head. "They are trying to set me up with the son of a family friend. I'm going through the motions for now, but I have to figure out a way to sabotage this courtship real soon."

"Maybe one of the guys upstairs could help you," Jon offered.

"What?" Aesha laughed nervously.

"You know. Take one of the performers home and pretend he's your new boyfriend."

Aesha laughed even louder. "I'm not sure what would be worse: them finding out I work here, or them thinking I have a boyfriend."

There were many things Jon loved about New York, but first and foremost was the confluence of cultures, and how its citizens managed to find common ground despite their differences. Sean and Barbara had clearly assembled their team with that kind of diversity in mind, though Jon never would have thought their clientele would be into such high-minded ideals. Jon brought this up with Howard one day, but Howard just shook his head and smiled.

"Man," he said, "the one place these people will tolerate diversity is in their servants." Jon couldn't argue with that.

His first exposure to Ria was at that fitting in Wardrobe, when she threw a tantrum about the admittedly ridiculous altar boy outfit. Ria was a true Long Island princess who sucked the oxygen out of every room, complaining about matters big and small. She was an avid club-goer and a friend to club owners, with a body raised on pornography. Ria had met Sean when an impresario they both knew recommended her to promote Sean's line of imported vodkas. She was not shy about describing how the two men fucked her in a club's back office. Ria cursed a lot and loved to show off her redeeming features by sporting tight designer sweatpants and a bare midriff. Anyone could see she was auditioning for a spot on the third floor.