Chapter 35
DRASKO
Originally a music hall, the Elysium Club was established by two partners from France and was immediately called by The Gazette , “ a place of vice and folly. It has it all—Arabic dancers, Italian singers, Greek musicians, Spanish cigars, French wine, a midnight orgy, a game of cards, betting—choose your vice!”
Decades later and now owned by the Bankees, it was still a vaudeville venue but private and catering to London’s almighty.
The owners did extensive research into every member, protected their privacy, and kept away the reporters.
More notably, some of the most important deals were made here.
Naturally, with an abundance of liquor, beautiful loose women, and superb entertainment.
“Quite an establishment,” Drasko said when they were already two-courses and three bottles of whisky deep into the evening.
Twenty-foot-high ceilings, glittering chandeliers, brass railings, leather booths, red curtains, and a wait staff with the precision of trained soldiers—the Bankees, it turned out, had taste and money and owned the most exclusive club in London.
“The best chateaubriand and escargots in the city,” Zeph boasted, motioning with a fork in front of him at the table loaded with gourmet dishes. “Also! The most expensive whisky and vintage brandy.”
The noise of the loud chatter of the guests clashed with the blare of an orchestra on stage with a giant booming tuba as a centerpiece.
There were over a dozen of Drasko and Zeph’s men at the table, shrouded in the scent of liquor and thick cigar smoke.
They ate and drank and shared stories as the performance on the stage changed from an opera singer accompanied by satyrs to a poet who entertained the audience with political jokes to a naked contortionist who was booed off the stage.
The air was thick with smoke. The smells of liquor and rich foods were even thicker. The place was loud with singers and can-can dancers.
Grotesque costumes, bare skin, outrageous wigs, and seductive batting of impossibly long lashes—Elysium was known for its exotic performances and most notorious clientele but a strict privacy policy, considering it offered private rooms in the back.
It employed thirty guards, inside and outside the establishment.
This place, after all, catered to influential men.
Beautiful women strolled between the tables, chatting with the guests.
“Bijoux!” Zeph motioned toward one of them with his cigar.
Bijoux wore a lush skirt or two or three—too many to count, much like those fashionable outfits from the thirties. Her upper body was wrapped in a shortened bodice, some type of brassiere. Her giant wig was red, and so were her lips, stretched in a seductive smile.
“The table trick, Bijoux. Please! We have a guest.” Zeph winked at her.
“The table trick?” Drasko mused.
Just then, Bijoux lifted the tablecloth, sank to her knees, and disappeared under the table.
Drasko laughed, realizing what was happening, and shook his head. “That’s a no.”
“Listen, brother.” Zeph leaned over, his whisky-sparkling eyes smiling at Drasko. “Bijoux is a good lay, good company, and a good woman all around.”
Under the table, Drasko felt her hands on his knees sliding toward his thighs.
“No.” He chuckled and gently pushed her hands away.
But they returned to the buttons of his trousers, undoing them so fast, he wondered if that was, indeed, a magic trick.
“Sweetie.” He fought them off, fumbling under the table, then pushed back, lifted the tablecloth, and scowled at the smiling woman.
“Young lady, get out of there. I will pay you anyway, but I am not interested.”
“Tsk.” Zeph studied him with pity. “You are a boring man, Drasko Mawr.”
“I have a wife,” Drasko grunted, buttoning up and motioning to one of his men to pay the girl.
“Ah, right! Newlyweds. Are you neck-deep in your wife’s pussy? Is that the reason for your hostility toward other women?”
Drasko sucked in his cheeks in irritation.
“No?” Zeph snorted. “What is not working? Your cock or your attitude?”
Drasko scowled, took a gulp of whisky, and lit a cigarette, right away thinking about Grace and the night they had spent together. He should be home, trying to seduce her.
“You see, everyone needs a wife,” Zeph explained. “A proper obedient homey wife. A wife is meant to give a man a break.”
“A break?”
“Like going on a vacation. Teas. Naps. Dance parties. Dinners with her boring friends and aunties. Silly chats about the latest crochet pattern or hat fashion. All that nonsense. This”—Zeph motioned to the dancers on stage who lifted their legs vigorously to the blasting can-can music—“this is life, mate. Why would you want one woman when you can have a different one every week?”
“A vacation, huh?” Drasko leaned back against the sofa, amused by his friend who was quite the devil’s advocate.
There was a time, only recently, in fact, when Drasko indeed indulged in this lifestyle quite freely. Now he looked at the half-naked women in translucent garments and wished that one day he could see Grace like this in his bed, provocative and trying to seduce him.
“A wife is for your peace of mind,” Zeph said, tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention. “A mistress is for your soul. And for your dick, of course.”
Drasko shook his head with a chuckle.
“It is true,” Zeph continued. “What is a man without his dick? A happy dick—a happy man. A happy man—a happy wife. Do you see what I am getting at? The correlation?”
“Why not have your wife take care of it?” Drasko argued, Grace on his mind again. She didn’t know even a fraction of bedroom pleasures, yet no woman had ever occupied his mind as much as she did.
“You are joking, aren’t you?” Zeph scoffed and turned to one of his men. “Warrington, mate, tell me something. Does your wife’s mouth make your dick happy?”
The short red-haired man snorted into his whisky glass. “She doesn’t bring her mouth lower than my chest.” He roared with laughter as did other men at the table.
“Train her,” Drasko suggested.
Warrington shook his head. “That’s unorthodox, sir. Sex and family are mutually exclusive.”
“Nonsense.”
“Fact.”
“You have little faith in her.”
“She doesn’t like that sort of stuff.”
“Because she doesn’t get anything out of it.”
The man frowned at Drasko. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Drasko shrugged. He had understood when he was with Yamuna that a woman could only make a man happy if he did so in return. In bed, too, among other things.
“You make her happy—she makes you happy,” Drasko explained. “It’s a barter. Get creative between the sheets, mate.”
Zeph motioned drunkenly to stop the discussion. “Listen, listen, listen. Forget all that nonsense.” He wrapped his arm around Drasko’s shoulders and pointed his two fingers with the cigar between them toward other tables. “Do you see any potential wives there?”
Drasko caught sight of a woman in a modest dress at a table with men and other women. “She is a wife.” He tipped his head in her direction. She certainly looked proper.
“Yes. But! She sleeps with her husband’s partner.”
Drasko pointed at another woman in an elegant evening dress at the nearby table. “Her?”
“She used to work at the Belle House, the luxury brothel on Piccadilly. That was how she captured the banker.”
Drasko chuckled. “I can’t win, can I?”
“Not with your silly idea about wives. By the way, I am yet to meet yours. Rumor has it, you stole her from an earl. True?”
“Something like that.”
“So, what is she doing right now, brother?” Zeph leaned over to bring his cunningly smiling eyes closer to Drasko’s.
Drasko rolled his eyes in annoyance. “She is at home.”
“My point exactly.” Zeph stabbed Drasko’s chest with his forefinger then cheered him with his whisky glass and downed it.
Drasko studied him for a moment then stretched his hand and tapped Zeph’s chest where his heart was. “That’s where the trouble starts. One day, you’ll find out.”
Zeph snorted and shook his head. “Big words, brother. Big words. Maybe yours.” He tapped his heart with his hand. “No woman can heal a heart broken too many times.”
The scene on stage was changing. The orchestra went quiet. A dozen or so men in extravagant costumes and giant veiled wigs stepped on stage, lowered themselves, bowing, and stilled.
The lights dimmed.
A woman stepped onto the stage—a pink, two-foot-high extraordinary wig with flowers, a lavish red dress with long sleeves and a low décolletage. A mask on her face. She looked like she owned the stage as she took a seat at the piano.
A man wearing a powdered wig, a vest over his naked torso, old-fashioned breeches and stockings walked out with a violin in his hand. A Venetian mask hid his eyes, only revealing a rouged mouth.
When they started playing, the crowd went dead quiet.
“Watch them.” Zeph nodded in the direction of the stage. “I saw them once here. They are phenomenal.”
“Who are they?”
“Don’t know. But I will find out.”
The pianist and the violinist were accompanied by the orchestra.
But there was no mistake in who was the highlight of this performance.
Not even the lead singer, a woman dressed all in black with a red veil over her face, though her voice, like a devil, seduced with its hoarse yet hypnotizing contralto.
There were exotic notes from the piano, accentuated by the sensual sounds of the violin.
The crowd was quiet, not a whisper in the packed hall.
And Drasko watched, mesmerized. He loved music, and the pianist was certainly not an average vaudeville musician. Her fingers moved in intricate staccato octaves, then in a wild swift scale passage.
Drasko felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
No, not an amateur at all.
Zeph leaned in to say in his ear, “I told you. They are phenomenal. And the pianist is simply outstanding.”
With his fingers holding the cigar, Zeph beckoned to the ma?tre d’. “Tell the pianist to come over to our table afterward.”
“Not possible, sir,” the ma?tre d’ apologized. “She has played here several times over the years. But that is the agreement—she doesn’t stay or converse with the public.”
Zeph grabbed the man’s tie and pulled him closer. “Listen, my friend. Some important people here”—he tipped his head toward Drasko—“want to be introduced. So do your best.”
He let go of the tie and tossed a golden coin at the man.
“You know what I found out, brother?” Zeph returned his attention to Drasko. “Women who have talents are often great in bed. You see, there’s a correlation between?—”
Only Drasko didn’t listen. He stared at the pianist. Not her lavish costume, or the Baroque pink wig, or the mask that, unlike that of the violinist, hid her entire face.
No. He was fixated on her fingers, the way they moved along the keys, the way she performed the Devil in music .
The fucking tritone! Eden—of all people—had explained it to Drasko once.
His jaw tightened. He had sworn once that he would not let a woman guide his emotions. Yet this woman wasn’t like any before.
The singer’s voice faded.
The pianist played the last chord and let go of the keys.
The entire restaurant leaped up to their feet with applause and whistles.
Zeph jumped to his feet, clapping his hands.
Drasko rose slowly, still in a stupor.
There was only one woman who could move her fingers so effortlessly on the keyboard, conjuring the most hypnotic tunes. Only one woman could get a room full of men to rise to their feet in admiration.
“Phenomenal!” Zeph exclaimed, whistling at the performers, then shouldered Drasko. “The singer is not bad, but the pianist! Oh, I am going to bed that woman. For her sheer talent.”
“No, you won’t,” Drasko said in a clipped tone, sucking his teeth, his hands applauding as he muttered, “Brava, darling, brava.”