"Callahan 05 - Lady Sally's House 02 - Lady Slings the Booze v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

"Exactly," he said, nodding as if I'd said something intelligent "Some of the artists who are already pros when they get here take a while to unlearn that habit. The Lady says good art shouldn't be rushed."
Like I said, there's nothing I hate as much as trying not to look surprised. But I was beginning to like this place. "What's the starting salary?"
"Oh, we all get the same. Only way to avoid squabbles." He named a sum. "Plus room and board, of course,"
Let's just say it. was significantly more than a PI makes, okay?
"And tips?" I managed to say.
He looked a little sheepish. "Well...tipping is discouraged. But it's gently discouraged; if somebody just insists..." He grinned. "But bragging about it is strongly discouraged. Ballpark, I'd say you could take in anything from zilch to twenty-five percent of your base salary. I can tell you I never have any trouble keeping up my Christmas Club deposits during vacation."
"Vacation?"
"Mandatory. You pick when, but it has to add up to three months a year. Paid."
I gave up: this was one of those conversations where even the hero can be forgiven for looking surprised. "Paid?"
"Full salary. To discourage you from free-lancing somewhere else. The Lady says she doesn't like to see a good artist burn out."
I was beginning to wonder if I really was in the wrong line of work. If he was telling the truth about never having to take a gig you didn't want...Maybe, if I did a real good job on this caper, Lady Sally would consider letting me stay on staff.
Of course, that raised the disturbing question, was I talented enough? Ten minutes earlier the question would never have occurred to me. Now, I wasn't so sure. This was a class operation.
I unbuttoned my coat and loosened my tie. "This place is something else," I said, and meant it.
"You said a mou-" Tim began, and checked himself. "Excuse me. You have to watch it around here or the double-entendres get a little thick on the ground. Uh...'You said a great deal.'"
I was starting to like him. So what if he was a little kinky? It was none of my business, was it? "Around here, that's a double-entendre too, seems like."
He grinned. "You won't get an argument out of me."
Idly, I opened a locker. Hanging from a hook was a middy blouse and some girls' underwear. Not Frederick's of Hollywood stuff; I mean plain white cotton like real girls wear. Gym shorts and tee shirts were folded on the top shelf. I continued giving thought to being a Gym Teacher, and closed the locker. "The Lady must whack the johns pretty good to pay that well."
Tim's grin flickered. "We don't call them johns, Ken. We don't think of them as johns-or janes. Or tricks. They're clients."
"Sony," I said.
"I heard the Lady say once that she'd call them 'patrons and patronesses,' if the word 'patronizing' didn't have such unfortunate connotations these days. But that's the relationship. We're performance artists, and they're patrons of the art. It just happens that about eighty percent of the time, the art involves orgasm for the ciient. And about the same for the artist."
My understanding was that prostitutes rarely really climax themselves. Female ones, anyway; I guess it'd have to be different for guys, wouldn't it? And-"Not a hundred percent? For the clients, I mean."
"Well, a few don't want orgasm. A small percentage of unfortunates aren't capable. And some folks get to having such a good time downstairs, they forget."
I tried to imagine having such a good time at a whorehouse that I forgot to get laid. I was beginning to understand what Lady Sally meant about rupture. Just about everything I thought I knew about whorehouses was wrong. Well, here, anyway. "Downstairs?"
"In the Parlor and the Lounges."
"Tell me about them."
"Ah, you must have come in the VIP entrance. Well, there are three others, two little Lounges and a big Parlor. It's the Parlor that's the most fun."
"Why three?"
"Some people that come to a House, especially newcomers, feel a little easier if they know that all the people they're going to meet of the opposite sex are artists. And some prefer to associate with their own sex. So we have a Male-Only and a Female-Only Lounge, with entrances on the east and west sides, respectively. Clients are asked to use discretion in cruising other clients there...but it isn't prohibited. But generally, the best party is the Parlor. We'll come to it, don't worry."
I grinned. "'Get' to it, you mean. Those double-entendres again."
He smiled back. Then suddenly one eyebrow raised. 'That's up to you, Mr. Taggart. Uh...the Gym Teacher's office is right over there...and the other boys have all gone to class. And if I don't pass Gym, my Dad is gonna kill me..."
Now here's a funny thing. I was not interested, okay? But I didn't get mad either, and I'm not sure I can tell you why. Maybe it was that he didn't make the offer as if he already knew the answer, if that makes any sense. I didn't feel insulted by it, any more than you'd be insulted if somebody offered you a Coke when you prefer Pepsi.
So there wasn't any anger to try and keep off my face. I studied his...and saw that he was not going to judge me, one way or the other, whatever I decided. So I used the rest of the second or two I had before I had to make some kind of response to let myself actually imagine what such a thing might be like-
-and I guess I must have blushed-for the first time in twenty years!-because he went right on smoothly, "...but the night is young, and you've got a lot to see. Maybe you'd rather continue the tour right now."
"If that's okay," I said.
"Sure," he said, and held the door for me. I took one last look around the place, thought briefly about what would have happened if a pretty girl had made me the same offer. Lady Sally was no fool. I went back out into the hall.
As we went by a door its red light went out, and it opened. A client came out, smiling beatifically, and gave us a friendly nod. I carefully avoided staring, just nodded back and kept on my way. As I got about three steps past, he registered. Long brown hair like a hippie. Big full beard too. Broad shoulders and sensitive features. Work shirt, jeans and beat-up boots. A carpenter's tool belt around his hips. And he was on a crutch...
I turned around to take a second look at him. He was gone. I hadn't heard the door open again...
Naaaaaaah.
I told myself not to get punchy, and turned around again and hurried after Tim.

"NEITHER Dungeon is in use at the moment," he said, "but I wouldn't go into Mistress Cynthia's without asking first. I'll show you Master Henry's. They're pretty much identical."
The door we went through was just like the others. But the room inside was made of immense grey stone blocks, genuine ones-which meant expensive floor reinforcement. But that was the least of its unusual aspects. It wasn't the kind of room you could take in at a glance.
Oh, a glance told you it was a dungeon. It looked like any movie dungeon you ever saw, with chains dangling from the walls and ceiling here and there, and a scattering of the usual props, cages and racks and bondage crosses and suspension rigs and so on. But there were a lot of gadgets I just plain couldn't figure out at first.
One, for instance, was simply a vertical pole, with what looked like a model of a steamboat's paddle wheel at its base. I recognized the object on the top of the pole, of course, but: "What would you want one that high off the ground for?"
Tim kind of twinkled. "That's the Stairway to Hell. Once Master Henry has someone perched up there, they kind of have to rest their weight on the wheel down below. Only the wheel turns..." He turned it with a foot to demonstrate. "So you sort of have to keep climbing, until Henry's good and ready to let you down. Which, of course, is the minute you say whatever code word you and he have worked out. It's an interesting sensation, for as long as you're enjoying it...and it does wonders for the calves and thighs."
I was a little distracted. When he'd turned the wheel, something had glowed briefly on the floor nearby. I had never seen a light bulb quite that shape before. It drew power from the treadmill through a long slender cord-presenting the treader with an interesting dilemma. "For the female clients only, I assume?" I asked, pointing.
"No, it can be used for men too, with a couple of rubber bands. But don't worry: an Olympic sprinter couldn't get it hot enough to really burn. Quite. Nothing in this room can really hurt you, no matter how much it looks like it, not if an expert like Henry's using it."
To each his own, I kept thinking to myself. I could think of a couple of people I'd like to see on the Stairway to Hell. But Tim made it sound like a roller coaster ride-"fun, while you're enjoying it." I glanced around the room to hide my confusion. "That looks kind of weird here. What's that gizmo. there under...Oh!"
At first glance it was a kid's swing set, with a single swing. I noticed the two holes in the seat-the big keyhole-shaped one in the middle and the small bolt-sized hole just behind it-at the same time that I identified the "gizmo" on the floor just beneath it as another light bulb (this one a conventional heat-lamp) on a pole, wired to a wall socket A second after that I noticed thespring-clips high up on either chain of the swing...
That's another of Henry's endurance trips," Tim explained. "Once you're seated and slotted and the lamp's heated up underneath, you pretty much have to keep swinging. Henry likes setups that do a lot of the work for him. And he does enjoy the challenge of a moving target"