NaNoWriMo ’06 – The Gold Ring Gentlmen’s Club (C1)

Just as with last year, I managed two novels this year during National Novel Writing Month. Upon the Deep is a sci-fi novel that I had rumbling around in my head for a while. But on the other hand, I thought I’d stretch a bit this year and write something different, based on a few conversations I’d had with the other husbands in my little social group. As with Upon the Deep, this is a very rough first draft, so go easy on it.

Without further delay, let me present The Gold Ring Gentlemen’s Club…

Chapter One

The music thrummed in the darkened room, a recent hit on one of the charts with a heavy bass line seemingly made simply for gyrating to the rhythm, not that anyone in particular was taking in that aesthetic of the music. Rather, most eyes were fixated on the figure atop the bar that was gyrating to said music, swaying and bobbing in seeming syncopation with the flashing lights overhead and the ebb and flow of the melody, trying to make it seem as if what she were up to was hardly any different than a performance in any theater in the city. The air was heavy with cigarette and cigar smoke, the clouds wafting this way and that, a faint haze save for where the beam of one of the colored overhead lights momentarily caught it while flashing in time with the music, sending shimmers of hues across the walls of the club. For a Friday night, the club was hopping, packed to the gills with the overworked, the social outcasts, professionals on a quick evening out with the boys and the few that were celebrating one of life’s milestones.

“I’m still not sure that this was the greatest idea,” quipped Peter quietly as he idly swished his beer around in lazy circles, the neck of the bottle gently clasped between his fingers as he glanced again towards the stage. “Not that I’m not appreciative, but I can only imagine what Mindy’s going to say if she finds out about this…”

“And that’s why it’s called a bachelor party, little bro,” chided Jeff, taking another swig of his amber brew before setting the bottle down, leaning back in his chair and glancing at the stage for himself, a faintly self-pleased smile fluttering over his lips. “Think of it like the army – don’t ask, don’t tell. What’s one last night of debauchery before your wedding day anyway?” There were nods from the others at the table, a smattering of low murmurs of approval about the idea, sounds that only were raised a note or two higher when the waitress reappeared with another round of drinks, setting them down in the middle of the table and collecting the empties before disappearing with a wink and a smile again into the crowd.

“So, how’s it feel to be a few weeks away from tying the knot and joining the rest of us in wedded bliss?” Randy’s voice cut through the DJ’s introduction of the next dancer to the stage, the blonde who had been shaking her hips for the patrons on the stage rising to ascend the stairs, replaced by a lithe brunette who was quickly descending in a costume reminiscent of a school girl’s uniform.

“Ask me in a few weeks.” Peter’s fingers guided the beer back to his lips, giving him a few moments to think of a better response while he was taking down another swallow of the brew.

“Not like you don’t have enough of us to get an idea of what it’s like from, ya know?” Mike’s empty bottle clinked as it settled on the tabletop, his hands moving to a fresh one, rolling it between his palms as if trying to cool them, an infectious grin pasted firmly on his lips and only growing with every bottle consumed. “And enough of us to have warned ya not to be doin’ this, but hey, it’s your life to ruin, right?”

“Now, now, you’re going to get my little brother thinking that marriage is some kind of horrible trap that we’re shackled in. It’s not all gloom and doom.” Jeff’s eyes twinkled a bit, the mischievous grin that blossomed anew on his features highlighted for a brief moment by the swing of an overhead spot light as his head turned to track the spins and wiggles of the brunette on the stage. “Our wives let us out for this bit of fun, didn’t they, while they’re doing God-knows-what together, right?”

“They’re out hitting the bars on a pub crawl by now. Won’t know what hit them until Sunday night.” All eyes turned to Mike as his mouth was emptied enough again to let him speak, his eyes critically watching the dancer as she turned around the pole, slowly beginning to shimmy out of her skirt. After no one said anything for several seconds, his attention shifted back to the group and he smiled, shrugging slightly. “What? My wife has a big mouth, okay? The plan was dinner, then a pub crawl with a couple of those stupid bachelorette party dare t-shirts till closing time. Then some shopping tomorrow, if they ever rise and shine from their hangovers.”

“God, I’m glad that we don’t do those kinds of stupid things at bachelor parties,” muttered Randy.

“You guys having a good time?” The group looked up at the feminine voice that floated into the conversation, belonging to one of the dancers who had wandered over to their table in the corner, smiling at them as her fingers brushed back her short dark hair. “Why are you all sitting back here in the corner?”

“Hopin’ to get you to come over, baby.” Mike was the fastest on his feet verbally, which drew out a laugh from the group and the girl as well, before she settled onto the arm of one of the chairs, looking them over appraisingly. “Wish it were something like that. Just a bachelor party, actually.”

“Ooh, who’s the lucky guy?” Peter actually blushed in his seat, half-raising his hand, as the rest of the grouping first raised their left hands to let the light glint off their wedding rings, before pointing to the sole abstainer. With a little giggle and a bright smile, she shifted over from her prior resting-spot to settle lightly on the arm of Peter’s chair, her fingers sliding along his arm. “Congratulations. Out for one last night with the guys before you get hitched?”

“Something like that,” murmured Peter quietly, the hue of his cheeks drawing out a little bit of teasing laughter from his cohorts, and a few nudges, before Jeff shifted in his place, setting down the pack of cigarettes that had been floating in his hand for a minute or two, the newly-freed hand sliding into his coat pocket.

“Actually, if you could go show Peter here a good time for a little bit,” Jeff murmured quietly as his fingers came free, the thin black leather of his wallet clutched between his fingers. The leather unfolded, and his fingers danced lightly along the slips of plastic before pulling one free, letting it flip between the slender digits for a moment before offering it towards the dancer. “We’ll letcha borrow him for a half hour or so in one of those private rooms, on me, if you promise to make sure he’ll regret this silly marriage thing.”

“I think I can manage that,” said the girl with a grin, easing off of the edge of the chair to find her feet again, her fingers slipping down to take hold of Peter’s hand before she took the credit card from Jeff. “We’ll be back, boys!”

“Jeff….” Said Peter quietly, glancing at his older brother as he was led away from the table, very quicklyswallowed up by the semi-darkness between the swirling lights and crowd, anything else he might have said likewise unable to be discerned.

The table lasped back into silence, as they turned their attention back to the latest dancer on stage, the boys at the table sipping at their beers as they drank in the sight, a few knowing smiles and glances in the direction that the guest of honor had been taken. Peter was the youngest of their group, the last one that was getting married, and most of them had had their own special nights years in the past. The feel of the evening, despite being the celebration of the last of the group’s transition into that next stage of life, was beginning to take on the feel of a wake as the gentlemen lapsed into introspective silence.

“Five years ago, man.” The pairs of eyes at the table were again pulled back to Mike where he was settled back in his seat, as he rolled his beer bottle, almost empty again, between his palms. “Times like this make me wonder what I missed getting married first. Should do these bachelor parties more often, or guys night out, or something like that.”

“Miss the freedom? Like sex on tap doesn’t make up for it.” Alex spoke up from his seat. Normally the quiet one, he had been the last one married – most of the guys could still remember the affair they had put together for his bachelor party.

“I miss getting it whenever I wanted to, from whoever I wanted to.” Mike’s eyes shifted to take in Alex as he chugged what was left of his beer, setting the bottle down heavily on the glass tabletop. “Not all of us were just lookin’ for Ms. Right, you know – some of us played the field for a bit, ‘fore we got married, sewed some wild oats, ya know what I mean?”

“Not all of us were male sluts, Mike.”

“Hey, guys, settle down. This is supposed to be Pete’s bash, right? No fighting tonight.” Jeff stepped in before things got too carried away, the peacemaker in the group of husbands as he carefully pulled out a cigarette from the pack, placing it between his lips as he fumbled with his matches. “All of us had our fun when we were single, and our bachelor parties, and now it’s Pete’s turn. No messing it up for him, okay?” The match at last came free, sliding along the striker and bursting into flame with a faint sizzle, before he lit the end of the cigarette and took a puff, blowing the smoke out his nose.

“I hafta agree with Mike, though. Not that I think Alex is all wrong about the benefits of marriage,” Scott, one of the others who had been staying out of the matter, chimed in, glancing warily over towards Mike and then Jeff to see if anyone seemed inclined to stop him from having his say. “What I miss, sometimes, is just the occasional random hook-up. Getting a girl because you want to, being able to do more than just look and that’s it. Nothing wrong with the whole thing, just a little fun for the sake of fun.”

“To hear you all talk about it, you’d think that you’d all been the studs on campus in your day. Shame none of us knew each other in school to know who’s making up stories about the glory days.” Alex ventured into the dangerous side of the conversation again, despite the increasingly serious look he was getting from Jeff over the glow of the burning embers and puffs of thin smoke. “And mores the shame that none of you are that good today, even if you tried.”

“I bet I could still get anything I wanted, if I tried.” Mike’s hands settled on the tabletop, starting to push himself out of his chair, the music still thumping along as an undertone to their conversation, though the dancer on the stage was all but forgotten as the group got into it.

“Guys, enough.”

“That’s a great idea. Let’s see if you can put some money where your mouth is.” Scott’s eyebrows knit together as he leaned in over the table, his hand moving to claim another of the beers and draw it in, leaving a trail of trickled condensation over the glass. When his lips parted again, his tone turned a hair darker, more sarcastic. “Question is, what’re the stakes and the rules? Getting phone numbers seems kind of too easy for a master stud like you.”

“What is this, high school?” Jeff let out another thick puff of smoke, his fingers crushing out the nearly-spent cigarette in the ashtray in the center of the table. “Grow up and give it a rest, guys. It’s the beer talking.”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” Alex’s voice drew the others’ attention around, to where he was sitting, staring at the beer in the green bottle for the moment as if trying to gather his thoughts. “Something exactly like high school, but with higher stakes. Anyone remember that stupid game they used to play, ‘points for pussy’ or something like that? Just need rules and whoever wants in, is in.”

The conversation lapsed abruptly into silence at the notion of such a thing, as if the whole group lingered on the edge of a precipice, seriously contemplating the idea that had been put on the table. The only sound to be heard was the constant, pounding rhythm of the music, echoing the pounding of the blood in their collective ears. A line had been crossed, and it was a question of who would be the first, if any, to blink.

“I’m in.” Scott fumbled for his wallet first, fingers all but dropping it several times before he managed to get it open, his hand coming away with a fist full of bills, which he carefully counted and contemplated for a moment, before dropping several in the center of the table. “Two hundred sound like a fair buy-in?”

“I’ll see it, and add a few in case the guest of honor wants to play as well. It’s his party, after all.” Alex’s cool poker face revealed nothing as he dipped into his own cash for the evening, his stack of twenties adding to the pile already waiting between the gentlemen on the tabletop. The second one in broke the dam, as Randy and Mike reached for their cash as well, the mound of money between them growing with each one’s addition, before the group glanced over at Jeff. “Are you in, or are you going to chicken out of this?”

“Why do I get the feeling we’re going to live to regret this?” Jeff pulled another cigarette from his pack, letting it linger between his lips to free up a hand to extract a couple of fifties from his wallet and drop them atop the pile. More than a thousand dollars sat in the middle of the table, staring up at them, daring them to really, truly take that final step. “So…. What are the ground rules?”

“Let’s go with ‘keep it simple’ as the base.” Alex pulled out a small notebook and pen from the inside of his jacket, setting them on the table and flipping open to the first clean page that he could find, as Mike gently shooed off another dancer on her way over to see what their group was up to. “Obviously, the first rule is the more difficult the score, the higher the points. Say, fifty points for each woman, and it goes up based on how hard it is to get with them. And common sense applies for what’s ‘out of bounds’.”

Randy’s forehead creased as he took a swig of his beer, swallowing it as he considered something. “So do you get multiple points for screwing the same woman a number of times, or is it one-off?” A few heads nodded at the question, with glances exchanged around as if looking for some form ofconsensus to be formed among the group. “I mean,” he continued after a moment, “it’s easier to get with a sure-thing once you’ve actually gone ahead and done it than having to find a new target, isn’t it?”

“Alright, so some bonus points for multiple times, but not the same as a new score? Does ten points per time past the first sound fair to everyone?” There were a few more nods around the table, before Alex’s pen started scratching against the paper again, putting that down. “Bonus points for anything that adds to the difficulty about the same as that?”

“How about we take this to email after the party?” Jeff’s voice filtered through again as he let another cloud of the blue-grey smoke float from his lips, his attention shifting back to the stage to watch the performance as he turned slightly in his chair. “The only question I have left is – when do we decide who the winner is?”

“That’s easy – Pete’s wedding.” Mike settled back in his chair with the last of his beer swishing around at the bottom of his bottle, eying it critically a moment before looking around as if peering after the waitress to order the next round. “We’ll add up the points a few times between now and then, and settle up at the wedding. A nice even three months to give everyone a fair shot, ‘kay?”

“Last chance for any of you to change your minds. Betting window’s closed when the Groom gets back here.”muttered Alex quietly as his attention shifted to follow Jeff’s abruptly turning head, noticing the return of the guest of honor himself, his steady crimson blush visible quite clearly despite the haze in the club as he was led back from the private rooms by the dancer they had sent him off with. As they watched, the dancer embraced their friend gently, kissing him on the cheek and patting his ass before spinning to disappear off into the crowd again, leaving him alone to return to his friends and their catcalls, not a single one of them moving to take back the money they had thrown into the pot, whether out of pure peer pressure or genuine desire to play the game. “And that’s the bell, gents. Window’s closed, all bets are final.”

“What bets?” If anything, Peter’s blush thickened as he glanced around the group, trying to gauge what he had missed during his entertainment. The change in hue only brought on another round of laughter from the assembled guests, before Jeff crushed out his cigarette again, white teeth flashing between his thin lips, before he leaned in closer.

“Oh, nothing you need to worry about, little bro – we’ve already bought in for you,” he mused softly, meeting his younger brother’s gaze. “Just a little bet for the time from now until your wedding…”