Chapter Five

 

Hope’s Glory

 

Hope Lawrence was in an extremely good mood when she sat down with Amanda in the lounge to watch the continuously looping promo video for the club that Amanda had shot her in the previous week. This five-minute clip had no dialog, but simply featured Hope walking through the club from room to room, her outfit changing as she went through each door, as she wordlessly indicated the features of special interest to the prospective member. The video was shot in the provocative style of a high end Vegas hotel ad, with Hope in five inch pumps and a black leather dress as she walked down the halls, then in various costumes appropriate to the specific playrooms. She walked slowly through the lounge in an evening gown and elbow gloves, pausing behind the bar to shake a cocktail. But when she came through the office door, her hair was pulled back in a clip, she had on glasses, was wearing a tight pencil skirt, heels and an even tighter white blouse and immediately sat down at a keyboard and started to type. She looked up over her glasses, as if startled at being seen at work. Next, Hope went into the dining room, carrying a tray of tea things, dressed in a formal gray maid’s uniform with a white apron and black heels, put the tray down and straightened her apron strings in a mirror, looking back over her shoulder at the camera.

The business with the apron struck Hope as ironic, as this was the summer she had hung up her red barista’s apron for good with great joy. The girls sat hugging each other with elation at how smart the promo video looked. Anthony Newton had taken the time to record particular piano music to go with each room and mood change and he watched the video over the girls’ shoulders from a perch on a stool at the bar with great satisfaction.

They continued to watch as Hope appeared in the school room in a plaid prep school skirt and dark blazer, fearfully revealing the inner cloakroom, with its trestle bench for caning and its cabinet full of rulers, pointers, birches, paddles and school straps. Then she went and sat at one of the school desks, put her chin on her hand and stared out the trompe l’oeil window at the illusion of the 19th century Mayfair street. The next room Hope was seen in was the library, where she wore an autumnal wool sweater, tweed skirt and riding boots and picked out a book from a shelf to read by the fire. In the dusky rose front sitting room, Hope appeared in a tightly laced dark green velvet Victorian riding habit, accurate in many details and exceedingly dainty. In the burgundy salon, she wore a sheer, gold latex sheath and six inch heels as she knelt on a spanking bench and bent over it to demonstrate its functionality. But in the terra cotta salon, she strode in dressed in the dark blue leather outfit she was wearing that evening, with a matching blue leather paddle tucked under her arm. This time when she pointed out the spanking bench, she indicated that the viewer might be invited to bend over the bench him or herself, while she, Hope, would administer the discipline. Staying in dominant mode for the Exam room segment, Hope transformed herself into a white uniformed nurse, circa 1959 and guided the viewer around the elegant pearl gray exam room, with the rich leather furniture that Diana and Plastridge Currie had chosen for it. Hope showed all the positions the exam chair could be put into and also the table, managing to combine naughtiness with determination in putting over her nurse persona.

The tour continued with Hope in Cape Cod, unbuttoning a dark wool dress to reveal a white bra and panty combination and then showing the viewer the whipping post and stocks before turning to unhook her bra. The final interior scene showed Hope entering the loft, in riding pants and shirt and riding boots, pushing aside the screen to reveal the St. Andrew’s Cross, then taking the viewer up the stairs to the bedroom under the skylights, with its own spanking bench and cupboard full of toys. Nor was the bath and spa neglected. Hope led the viewer through these wrapped in a white bath towel.

The video tour of the club and its amenities concluded with Hope, now dressed in jeans and a cropped vest, leading the viewer into the woods with her, in search of a switch.

The girls eagerly watched it through a second time, completely mesmerized. But even though she was mostly paying attention to the video, Amanda couldn’t help but hear a whispered remark that Anthony made to Phoebe Casper behind them. She was the wife of the photographer Pascal Robbins, who had given Amanda the book of her photographs earlier in the evening. She had also been Anthony’s leading lady in the Kiss Me Kate revival earlier that summer. And she was a member of the Venus Club, that interesting sorority of local scene girls and women who had agreed to be each other’s particular friends at a dinner back in June. Amanda knew that Phoebe struggled with her passion for Anthony Newton, mainly because it ran so contrary to being a faithful wife. She knew this because Pascal had told her about Phoebe’s affair with Newton, which had also taken place at the beginning of the summer. So now, it made perfect sense when she overheard the quickly whispered, “Do you think you can get away for a bit and play with me tonight?” from Anthony and Phoebe’s quick reply, “I would dearly love to. But what about Pascal?”

Slipping away from Hope, who would happily stare at her own entrancing image for the next hour, never stirring from the sofa, Amanda presented herself to Phoebe and Anthony and said, “Maybe I can help.”

Phoebe gave a start. But Anthony grinned. Back in June, the sight of Pascal merely talking to Amanda had given Phoebe a pain in her stomach, but tonight her desire for her maestro was at an all-time high and trumped even her jealousy of her husband’s teenaged muse.

“What are you thinking of, Amanda?” Anthony asked.

“I’ll tell him we need to hunt down every lady in the house who’s going to visit the club for a group photo,” said Amanda. “That will take no less than an hour, I guarantee.” For Amanda knew from experience how Pascal liked to shoot and how long he took to pose his models. Phoebe’s beautiful shoulders relaxed in relief as she realized that she wouldn’t be ceding her husband to Amanda alone as the price of an illicit interlude with Anthony in one of the playrooms.

“I love that idea,” said Anthony. “And make sure you invite Marguerite, Susan and Laura to be in the picture as well,” he added. “As our muses.”

“I’ll take Hope with me and we’ll round up Pascal,” Amanda promised. “When I’ve got him in hand with me, I’ll text you,” she said to Anthony, for he had long since given her his phone number.

“Where do you expect to wind up with all the girls?” Anthony asked.

“The terra cotta salon. The faux marble walls will look divine as a backdrop,” Amanda said.

“Good, we’ll go play in the loft at the opposite side of the house,” Anthony told Phoebe, who clapped her hands softly.

Amanda took Hope by the hand and pulled her friend from the room.

“Where are we going?” Hope asked, reluctant to walk away from the screen where her own alluring image was parading about the house in the many flattering outfits.

“To find Pascal and all the girls who are going to be visiting here for a group portrait,” explained Amanda.

They stopped when they encountered Alison Albrecht, dressed in a pleated camel skirt, blazer and white blouse, sitting on a bench in the hall outside the schoolroom.

“Hello,” said Amanda.

“Hi,” said Hope. “Are you waiting for someone who’s playing in there?”

“Yes,” said the pretty brunette, “your husband.”

The girls all listened for a moment to the rhythmic sound of slaps being administered within.

“Oh, he’s still playing with Marion?” Hope wondered aloud.

“Yes,” said Alison. “But he handed me this ‘See me!’ note yesterday when I told him I would be at the party.” Alison was the assistant comptroller at Braemar Prep, where David taught English.

At any other time or in any other place, Hope might have felt disturbed and uneasy by the notion of two pretty brunettes fighting for her husband’s attentions, but here and now the situation seemed the perfect sop to his previous antipathy toward the club. Tonight he would surely realize what a benefit the Venus Club could be to them both.

“We may need Marion,” said Amanda to Hope. “She may start coming to the club to session.”

“Go and get David a martini and then knock on the door,” Hope told Alison. “Tell them Marion is needed for a photo now.”

Alison was growing tired of waiting and agreed at once. Hope grinned at Amanda, “Yay, this is perfect timing. While there’s still smacking sounds coming through the door, there’s no way they’ve had a chance to have sex yet.”

“Do you really think she’d be doing that right after fucking Colby?” Amanda asked.

“Yes, of course. That’s how thirty-something-sluts operate.”

Hope and Amanda found Pascal Robbins already busily posing Polyxena Guzman and Marguerite Flagg in the terra cotta salon. Neither lady had officially decided to visit the club in a professional capacity, but each was considering the option. Meanwhile, the very fact that they had both appeared in evening gowns was excuse enough for cameras to come out. Amanda texted Anthony: “P. Robbins corralled for next hour.”