Chapter II The Maid of Vitebsk

 

  It had set out to be rollicking good fun with Emil that evening, despite the cold.

  It always was with him. He was a born raconteur and bon viveur of the old school, never happier than telling tall stories of his exploits in the merchant marine, or as a Catholic schoolboy, as well as a Councillor. He wowed elderly ladies with his risqué cheeky comments, but he was happiest wowing the younger constituents, especially with female younger constituents, with whom he flirted outrageously. He also shone at the party organized fish and chip quiz nights. His knowledge of European Kings and Queens, the Russian Revolution and of seventeenth century warfare was matched only by his love of classical painting. And both were surpassed by his knowledge of football and modern pop music. This last he kept up to date by chilling with his teenage son and daughter.       

  He had apparently represented his college at University Challenge in the late 70s and he reminisced about how his team were the final runners up, and (this only in more discreet circles) how his resulting media image and (then) long hair helped him “pull in the birds”. I shared so many of his interests in history, in painting, and, I must confess, in women, that we had become inseparable when we had last been on the Council together. I used to have fierce debates with him about the role of Lenin and whether he was responsible for the Red Terror as much as Stalin. We argued over the relative merits of Holy Roman Emperors Otto I and Otto III. I did have to bow to his superior knowledge of Byzantine history and of how the Czechs allowed themselves to be defeated by Tilly’s troops in the Battle of the White Mountain, but I was more knowledgeable on Napoleon’s Marshals and Hitler’s Field-Marshals. Still, I did not challenge his claim that defenestration (as practised in the Czech parliament in 1619, when unpopular parliamentarians were thrown out of a second storey window), would certainly have livened up the debates in Framden Council.

  In fact, four years ago, Emil and I used to sit in the well of the council chamber during formal Council meetings, just below the opposition front bench. We would pass semi-audible disparaging personal comments about them whenever they tried to intervene in the debate or ask difficult questions (“He’s not got those ridiculous red braces again?” “I think that’s the third time she’s said the word “outrageous” without drawing breath; think she can she do a fourth?”) Our side used to enjoy this form of verbal torture that we employed on our luckless opponents and we were treated as the secret weapon to undermine the opposition’s morale in the Chamber. The problem was that our behaviour was no better at our party’s group meetings when we would mock ludicrous interventions from some of our own party colleagues or even some of our leadership’s proposals, so we had little chance of advancement to any committee chairmanships. Yet Emil was often able to dignify his presence at these debates with a fiery committed speech on the homeless, or the depravities of compensation culture in our schools, where he would draw on his gift for irony with his rich knowledge of English vocabulary and his genuine passion for the subject in question. Some of his speeches were so eloquent that they were even printed and quoted in the local press. As I mentioned before, his undoubted popularity with his voters ensured him a strong personal vote at election times and that undoubtedly strengthened his standing in the party now. He was now no longer just the party court jester.

  We met up with Chris Finneston, the chummy Chief Planning Officer, in the car park, and walked over to “Pinks”, abandoning our cars for the time being in the Civic Centre car park. It was only a 10 minute walk to the club. Despite the cold, we were buoyed up with drink and with our success. We could have been walking in the tropics.

  Outside “Pinks”, there was a short queue. We joined it and waited patiently to be allowed in. We continued to be in good spirits and quite giddy, so much so that it was only at the last minute that Chris reminded Emil and me to remove our campaign rosettes. “Remember the local press was in the Civic Centre for the count. Some enterprising redtop press photographer could have followed us here. After all, they resented your victory. Or else you’ll ready be making front page news: ‘Re-elected Councillor found in sex club’.”

 At this we dissolved into giggles like 3 naughty schoolboys.

 A few minutes later, following a quick frisk by the doormen and we were inside. The noise from the piped music was deafening. A girl was cavorting on the stage and several near totally naked girls with frilly mini aprons were treating their half-embarrassed punters to a lap dance as they thrust their graceful white nether regions into the groin of their respective well-dressed victims. Other men sat by the stage, some egging on the main dancer, others pretending to be totally disinterested in the whole proceedings. They could have been sitting in a church or a library for all the difference their surroundings seemed to be making to them.

  I loved this kind of scene and I have to say that I was a little embarrassed that I loved it so much. I was aware that there was potential exploitation of young foreign women in this kind of set up, and even more there was exploitation of those males masochistic enough to have come in. But it was the overall sense of decadence of these establishments that appealed to me. That and seeing the female anatomy so well exposed.

  Why was I such a sucker for the female anatomy? Must I go further down this path? Suffice it to say that I was entranced by almost anything female and within the sexual availability years, stretching from sixteen to sixty. Probably, as I get older, even beyond sixty. I love how women talk. I love how women think. I love how women dress. I love how women manage children so well. I love how women multi-task. I love how even strong women seem occasionally vulnerable, be the reason spiders, or mice, or yob street culture. I love women on the silver screen. I love women lusciously clothed. I love women in beautiful breath-taking hats. I love women’s scent. I love women in uniform (no, really, don’t scoff; I love seeing pretty women Israeli officers; women police officers, women barristers). I love women’s obsessions with their own figure and diet, and I love scoffing food in front of them, and assuring them that love handles are all the rage whatever their diet. (Yes, it’s true, ladies. No man I know loves a broomstick!) I love women’s ability to fantasize. I love women’s ability to be materialistic and practical at the same time. I love their emotional intelligence, their empathy with each other and with those who are ill or vulnerable. The richness of their conversation leaves men’s locker room talk mundane and soulless.

And that’s before we get to the more overtly sensuous images of women. From Botticelli, to Bronzino, to Titian, to Rubens, to Boucher, to Goya, to Ingres, to Renoir, to Magritte I am hooked to the passive reclining meekly insolent female form. Visiting the National Gallery or the Tate to see these paintings when I was still a teenager was like consuming so much chocolate cake. The flow of clothes over a beautiful pale display of undulating flesh could indeed make me salivate and lose my concentration. I could refresh myself by watching a dramatic battle scene or a Constable or Hobbema landscape to rest my eyes and pacify my soul, but it would be back again to the Rubens dessert before long.

  So, I’m a male chauvinist? Why? Because, I think women are superior to men, in almost every way?

  Now of course I no longer need to visit galleries. I had built up my own private picture gallery on my computer. I can now drool over every imaginable picture of my choice, including historical dramas and battle scenes as well as erotic masterpieces, but interspersed also with photographs of actresses and singers and scenes from some of my favourite films. 

  Looking about me now at “Pinks” with my two companions, I was not unlike being in a scene that any great painter or film-maker could have imagined, a parade of female forms ripped off the canvass, and imbued with the breath of life by commercial convention.

  As I mused, a scantily dressed big breasted blonde came up to us with a tray and a drinks list. “Prepare to be fleeced”, Chris warned us.

  “Personally, I’d much rather do the fleecing,” commented Emil as he eyed the waitress from top to toe. She returned the compliment eying him in a saucy pose as she switched the weight of her body back towards the left heel. “Yes?” she asked with a sexy East European accent. Polish, perhaps?

  “Can’t have this on account, then, Chris?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Come on, Chris, don’t we pay you enough?” said Emil, with a wink. “I improved your salary increase earlier this year, remember?”

  “I’ll pay for your drinks, Emil. The first round anyway. What you do with the young ladies is your business. I’m not staying more than half an hour. I still have work to do tomorrow, even if you gentlemen do not.”

  “Bleeding spoilsport! Bloody killjoy!” Emil’s tone of voice was mocking.

  We ordered something bubbly and stupefying and asked the blonde, who appeared to have no other customers, to join us at the table, and to bring a friend. We could have asked for two, but Chris excused himself. “I’ll watch, while they grind, and you suffer, you elected perverts. If the people of Framden Borough could only see you now. Kissing babies last night and kinky dancers tonight!”

  “Always preferred kissing the mothers, rather than the babies. Don’t you, Peter?” I nodded vehemently to Emil’s jibe, aroused more and more by the drink and the sight of the two girls, who had now joined us. The second girl, also a blonde, was a little slimmer than the first. She had a rounded pretty, no, correction, a beautiful, face with large expressive eyes and straight hair coming down each side of a parting at the top of her head and then continuing into two unexpected pig tails. She wore the customary “Pink” top consisting of a white fluffy blouse and a purple waistcoat with the word “Pinks” handwritten all over it (in trademark shocking pink, of course). Her breasts look enticingly peachy through the blouse and she clearly wore no support for them. Her plaited skirt was short, far above her knee which was covered in red fishnet stockings, the tops of which could be seen peeking out from across her white thighs clearly visible under the hem of the skirt. All in all, I thought her exquisitely attractive. I drank this view in slowly with my champagne.

  Sensing my interest in her presence, she smiled at me with a slightly quizzical smile. The lips were clearly parted.

  “Polish?” As good an opening line as any.

  She nodded absent-mindedly. Then she suddenly stopped and shook her head. “What?”

  “I said,” I shouted over the noise, “Are you from Poland?”

  “Oh, no, from Belarus. You know Belarus?” she asked almost in trepidation. Obviously, many of the punters who frequented the club would not have had a clue.

  “Ah, I know,” I said sagely. “Minsk.” At least I remembered the name of the capital.

  She smiled, but shook her head again. “No, Vitebsk actually. It’s near Russia. Really, I am Russian. My name is Valentina. You call me Val, yes?”

  “Valentina from Vitebsk? Very romantic.” She smiled a full smile at this unexpected compliment, amused as much by the alliteration as by the easy way I had picked up seemingly difficult words which were dear to her, but clearly beyond the pronouncing skills of most Brits, at least those frequenting this kind of establishment.

  “My name is Peter.”

  “Peter,” she repeated. She seemed relieved that my name was so easy. Some of the Irish, Japanese or Indian first names are very difficult for foreigners. London was now a multi-ethnic city and Framden was a key part of that cocktail of nationalities. This is reflected in these kinds of establishment as everywhere else. It all takes a bit of getting used to. But “Peter”, it seems, was OK.

  “In England for long?”

  “Yes. Not long. Student.” Of course.

  “And your friend? She is Belarusian too?” The other busty blonde was taking off her skirt ready to dance on top of Emil, who was reclining back like a Roman Emperor.

  “Yes. Ludmila. She is Russian too!” This was getting confusing but the music in the room was deafening.

  “Russian, not Belarusian? From Russia you mean?”

  “Yes. She is from Crimea.”

  “But Crimea is in Ukraine now.” I was genuinely puzzled, not just showing off.

  “Yes. She is Russian too.”

   This conversation, half drowned in the noise and seeking to leap unsuccessfully over language barriers, was beginning to get pointless.

   I saw that our communication had better get simpler. Let flesh speak to flesh, even if it is communicating through a pair of firmly zipped up trousers.

   “You dance for me, Valentina?”

   “Yes. Do I take off skirt for you?”

   “Everything, dear. But you can keep stockings on.” The combination of red stockings and white bottoms was too exquisite to ignore. And, as you have probably gathered, I just love bottoms.

   “And my top?”

   “Depends. What can I touch?”

   She smiled enigmatically. “You cannot touch me.”

   “Nowhere? Not even your hand? Your head?” I joked.

   “No. At least,” she bent over and whispered in my ear, “not here. I will lose my job”. She did not look intimidated when she said it. She was even grinning.

   She brazenly picked up my hand. “No ring?”

   “No wife,” I said. I persisted. “Some people do touch.”

   “Yes, touch. No, not here.”

   “Then where?”

   “There is another room, upstairs, but you pay a lot more money”

   I was prepared for this.

   “We go there. How much do I pay?”

   “I’m not sure but I will ask. I think about £70”.

   “That is OK. I will pay”  

   “OK, if you like I go now. Nobody in that room now. In 2 minutes, you go to toilet. To gents. Then when nobody sees you, continue through second door just after toilet. Says “private”. Go in and upstairs. You see me there.”

     “You sure??” It seemed a little dangerous, but I was in a good mood and felt a bit of a daredevil. Hell! The people out there had spoken and they had liked me and now I needed my reward for winning the people’s trust. Valentina seemed like the right kind of reward.

   Valentina nodded blinkingly as if guessing my thoughts. “Yes, OK. I go now. You go separate. And here is my call card” She got up, kissed her friend Ludmila, who was cavorting over Emil’s body, and went through a door behind the bar.

   I pocketed her business card without even looking at it. “No deal then?” chuckled Chris. He obviously could not have heard our exchange.

   I shrugged my shoulders.

   “Let’s finish the champers, Peter, and then we’ll scramble. Leave Emil to his own devices.”

    “And can I add,” Chris continued, “that’s it so good to have you back in the Council, Peter. I’m really looking forward to some sensible planners on the Council Planning Committee, who are not so politically driven. And not so populist. We lost a number of planning appeals because of these people in the last couple of years and the stupid decisions they took.”

   “I guess they were only trying to satisfy what their constituents wanted,” I observed. “But yep, it will be good to get back on planning. If the group let me to-morrow, that is.”

   We engaged in a few more minutes of small talk, watching Emil with the lady crawling over him building up a sweat, as much on him as herself. She had taken off her top now and we could see her ample breasts flopping to the rhythm of the piped music as she writhed intensively, with her arms straight at the moment, resting on Emil’s shoulders. He seemed to be sinking under her weight with each effort and twist that she made. The lower his body sank into the chair, the higher rose her frilly knickered posterior. With time her behind became the dominating feature of this rhythmically moving group sculpture.

“I see Councillor Kapacek is slowly succumbing to the people’s will,” I observed as Chris laughed, almost hysterically. The Councillor’s grunt-like response failed to get past the hanging appendages swaying dangerously over his nose.

   “Look,” I said, “I think I’ve had enough. I’m going to the gents. Then probably for some fresh air. I’m beat. Look, lads, if I don’t make it back, don’t wait for me.”

   Chris agreed to join me in the gents, but Emil offered no resistance to my suggestion. He was in no position to offer resistance to anyone, least of all to Ludmila.

   Chris’ offering in the WC was short and swift whereas I pretended to remain for a somewhat longer session in one of the cubicles.

    Chris nodded to me from his vantage point over the urinal but I shut and clicked the door of the cubicle behind me.

    I sat for another minute or so on the toilet seat and sensed rather than heard Chris’ shuffled departure. Come to think of it I do not think he even washed his hands. When I opened the door, he was certainly gone.

  I came out of the WC and, following Valentina’s instructions, I made my way through the private door and up the promised staircase.

   At the top I was accosted by a large looking brute dressed, or rather enwrapped, in a tight tuxedo.

   “Are you Peter?”

   I gulped and nodded.

   “Please pay me hundred pounds.” He had a foreign accent too. Was he Albanian? Or another Russian perhaps?   In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. Or was that kopeks and roubles? I was ready for anything. I was re-elected. My political career was back on track. My sense of self-worth was rising. So was my sap. Why not celebrate to the brim?

   I paid him and he pointed to the next door on the left. The door seemed a little tight at first, but I pushed it open with a strong shove.

  Valentina was inside, smiling, with a new bottle of unopened champagne.

  “We have half hour together, yes?”

  I nodded, increasingly pleased with the progress of the day. I realized I was being fleeced, what with the house champagne, but then I remembered I would be due some Councillor’s allowance at the month’s end, so what the hell? Earlier I had the dust and sweat of the streets of Corindale Ward, chatting, arguing, convincing, promising. I had won the election after those equally gruelling and mind-numbing recounts. Surely this half hour was a just reward for that effort?

  She pointed to another door. “First, Petya, please have wash in here”. I opened the door. There was a shower with a somewhat tattered curtain and a toilet. The floor was still wet from the previous users.   I looked at the mess with some distaste. “This place is a bit of a pig-sty.”

 “OK, I come with you, Petya”.  She had obviously Russified my name. We both went in and I began to remove my clothes. I love undressing in front of an appreciative audience even if it’s only my doctor or my acupuncturist (as long as they are female), so this stage of the game was enjoyable. She did not undress at first but bent past me as she turned on the shower.

  She brought the shower-head down lower. “Please clean yourself now”.   I gulped at this sudden somewhat terse demand.  She proffered me some liquid soap.   I plonked some soap playfully at the end of her nose and she laughed. I showered my requisite bits and joined her in the main room.

    Slowly she removed her skirt and her waistcoat. Her blouse too as it was a little wet because of the earlier cavorting in the shower room. She still had the red stockings on. She began writhing to the music from the loudspeaker on the wall, which at least was a little less deafening than the piped music in the club below. 

   She turned towards me and sat on my lap, still writhing, but not so dramatically as before. She steadied herself and placed a condom wrapper in her mouth. With true aplomb, she ripped it open. “Are you ready, very naughty English man?”