Bastards & Whiskey (Top Shelf Book 1) Read online

  “Anita Kyle, sir.”

  Good, I liked that she called me “sir” and showed respect. Very few women called me sir. It was archaic, maybe, but still something I demanded from my staff. It was hard to get the women who interviewed to realize that working at Spiked Roses would mean a lot of biting tongues and saying “yes, sir” to the members, so to see that this Anita Kyle was doing it from the very beginning, pleased me.

  “Marlowe told me you just moved to New Orleans and are looking for work.”

  “Yes, sir. I just moved here today.”

  “From where?”

  “Muckaluk, Nevada.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Nowhere. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

  The girl intrigued me. She wasn’t rambling like most women did who were nervous or trying to impress. She wasn’t going off on weird tangents nor trying to impress me with her wit and charm—or lack of.

  “So why do you want to work at Spiked Roses?”

  She sat there in silence for an awkward amount of time. So much so, that I almost asked the question again in case she somehow didn’t hear me.

  “I’m not sure how you want me to answer that,” she said, looking me straight in the eye.

  “With the truth. I prefer honesty over all else.”

  She licked her lips nervously but never broke eye contact. “I’m not sure that I do want the job. But it sort of landed in my lap, and I don’t really have any other options at the moment.” She took a deep breath, and I struggled not to smile. The girl had balls. “I don’t even really understand what this place is or what I will be doing to be honest.”

  “Fair enough,” I began, still looking into her big brown eyes. “I’m sure Marlowe told you that we are a members-only men’s club. A place for men to gather, drink, conduct business, have a good meal, a good cigar, and good scenery.”

  One eyebrow rose on her delicate face. “Marlowe said it wasn’t a strip club.”

  “It’s not. Far from it. Our women are in uniform. We have two kinds. One uniform is a red lace dress accentuated with diamonds. The other uniform is a black leather leotard with a collar and a chain that can be hooked to the tables or the chairs.”

  Her mouth opened, and her eyes grew even bigger than they had been. She was naïve. The thought of a collar and chain threw her for a loop. I could see this, but she didn’t want me to know. She was trying to hide that fact.

  “But our staff are fully clothed and remain that way unless The Tasting Room is having a certain theme that dictates something different.”

  “The Tasting Room?”

  “Marlowe didn’t tell you about The Tasting Room?” I found this fact surprising. The Tasting Room parties had quite the reputation in New Orleans, and many women tried to get a job at Spiked Roses just for a chance to work one of the parties. The money was huge, and at times, life-altering huge. So the fact that Anita didn’t know what I was talking about threw me for my own loop.

  She shook her head. “She said the details of this place were your story to tell.”

  “So you came here to be a waitress? Just a waitress? Without knowing anything about the club?” Again, I found this unbelievable.

  The girls who walked through my door knew damn well what The Tasting Room was all about and what it had in store. Every single one of them was willing to start off being a waitress, but only for a chance to work one of the parties eventually. Those women came in wanting the job badly. So badly, that if I really wanted to, I could have had a blowjob in exchange for hiring papers any time I wanted. But Anita seemed different. She wanted the job, maybe even needed the job, but it was just because it was a job, period. I had the feeling she would have taken any waitress job at this point—Spiked Roses or not.

  “Or a cigar girl.”

  “Cigar sommelier,” I corrected. “In The Humidor Room.”

  Her blank stare told me she had no idea what I was talking about.

  “What’s your favorite drink, Miss Kyle?” I had no idea why I was asking the question, but I liked how closed she was and asking her these questions would throw her off. And the sick bastard that I was wanted to break that cold exterior.

  “Jack and Coke.”

  “A whiskey girl? Have you ever had good whiskey? Something besides Jack?”

  Again, she was silent.

  “Anita?”

  “Well, the truth is”—she gave a soft smile—“that until you just told me Jack was whiskey, I had no idea. I thought it was just Jack. That it was its own alcohol. I didn’t realize it was whiskey. So no, I have never had good whiskey, because I didn’t even know I had whiskey at all before just now.” Her cheeks pinkened, but she still held her eyes to mine.

  I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. Not one single interview I had done—and I had done a shitload—entertained me as much as this woman did. I couldn’t read her at all. She was a closed book, and I wanted to crack the spine and read the pages. I thought for sure she would have said champagne or white wine. Even the Jack and Coke didn’t surprise me, but the fact that she actually admitted to having no idea that Jack was whiskey amused me.

  “So let me tell you a little about Spiked Roses. A few friends of mine and I opened it about a year ago. We were tired of what the other membership clubs had to offer, and all their blueblood and ancient rules. We wanted something different. Customer service is our number one focus. We don’t believe in the word no. You will be dealing with extremely powerful men who will have very high expectations, and it will be your job to meet them. It’s not an easy job, and the men can be real assholes if you’re lucky, and monsters if you aren’t. Will you be able to check your ego, judgment, morals, and even pride at the door?”

  “Deceptive coated smiles,” she said, which gave me pause.

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “Yes. You are asking for deceptive coated smiles. I can deliver that.”

  Damn. I don’t know why I liked that answer so much, but I fucking did.

  “Good. Spiked Roses is different than other bars in the French Quarter. You have to be a member and a male, and membership isn’t something you can obtain easily. Yes, the outside façade has the typical New Orleans banners of green, purple, and yellow, but once you come in, the colors are red and black. When my partners and I found this place, we knew it was perfect. It was known for ages by the locals as an abattoir which is another way of saying a slaughter house because of its gory history. Gruesome murders that occurred in 1892 by one of the worst serial killers in New Orleans history occurred right where you are sitting.”

  Her eyes opened wider, and I could tell this little tidbit of information intrigued her, so I continued. I had always found the dark history of Spiked Roses fascinating as well. I always made the telling of the history as part of the interview, because I wanted each staff person to know it in case members asked or at the very least to give our ladies something to engage in interesting conversation with if the need arose.

  “The serial killer murdered twenty-two women—or at least that is how many bodies were eventually found. He would stab spikes in their hearts and cover their bodies in roses before burying them in black bags beneath the floorboards of this building. It was said that the killer would use the roses to help conceal the smell when the bodies began to rot.” I paused so the information could soak in before continuing. “We considered calling the club The Abattoir, but finally believed that not enough clients would truly understand what that even means. So Spiked Roses was born from the tales of the gruesome deaths and their burials.”

  “I love it,” she said quietly. “What an amazing piece of history.”

  This was the most she had shown me of her personality since she’d walked through the door. There was more life in her eyes, as we spoke about death.

  Interesting.

  She enjoyed the story. Whether it was the dark nature of it or the historical element, I wasn’t sure. Regardless of why, I finally saw a spark in what had been pretty hollow eyes.


  “So let’s talk about the tattoos,” I said.

  She glanced down at her exposed arm and then back at me.

  “How many more do you have?”

  “They go down most of my right side. Down my ribcage and all the way to the top of my thigh.”

  I looked at her arms. “I see flowers. Is that what the rest of the tattoos are?”

  She nodded.

  “Generally at Spiked Roses, we like our women to be a little more… delicate. Delicate flowers I suppose you could say.”

  Without even the slightest hesitation, she countered, “I’m a delicate flower who happens to like the fucking thorns.” She gave a seductive smile that actually had my cock twitch in response.

  Who the hell was this woman? She was very cool and collected, and yet so very naïve. Parts of her were hard, and I could easily see parts of her were soft. She was a jagged edge that I wanted to touch, even if it meant making me bleed.

  I knew our members would find her as intriguing as I did.

  “All right. Consider yourself hired. I’m going to place you in The Humidor Room.” I looked at her and gave her a wink. “The cigar room. It’s a room where we store the finest cigars in the world for our clients. You will oversee the keeps which are climate-controlled cedar lockers. Each keep has the member’s name on it in gold lettering. The temperature is always maintained at sixty-eight degrees and the humidity at sixty-eight percent.” I paused and studied her expression. She was thinking. I could see it. Memorizing what I was saying. “Don’t worry, you will be trained on all this. But it is extremely important that you do not wear any type of perfume at all. It can pollute the air and contaminate the cigars. I’m a huge stickler on this one as are other Spiked Roses members.”

  “I understand. I don’t wear perfume anyway, so that won’t be an issue.”

  “The cigar sommeliers do not make as much as the waitresses do because of the tips. But if you prove your worth, you will be moved to waitressing. And then, of course, there is The Tasting Room.”

  “What is The Tasting Room?”

  “Behind the double red doors of the room is where Spiked Roses holds sex parties of sorts—though no sex actually happens in the room. It’s just the room where the meet and greet and negotiations occur. Each party is a different theme with different events happening. Signing of contracts are done in The Tasting Room that can be very beneficial for the members, and very lucrative for the staff. It is not a requirement for working at Spiked Roses to enter The Tasting Room, nor is it a given that you will be chosen to attend a tasting. Tennessee makes the decision on who gets to attend.”

  “Tennessee?”

  “Tennessee Charles will be your direct supervisor. He’s the house mum,” I said with a smile, trying not to chuckle at my dig at his role. Tennessee hated when I called him that, but I couldn’t help myself sometimes. “It’s his job to oversee all the women, the schedules, the costume fittings and alterations, and the invite list for The Tasting Room. I’ll be introducing you to him after we are through here. He’ll be giving you your schedule and training you. I’m assuming you can start right away?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I won’t let you down.”

  I nodded. “You’ll do fine here if you follow the rules and keep your nose clean. Tennessee will go over all the small details, but the rules are simple. No drugs of any kind. If you are high, you are unemployed. If I see track marks on your arms, you will be looking for a new job.”

  “I don’t do drugs,” she interjected.

  “You are also not to sleep with any of the members unless a contract is in place. I don’t believe in love, so don’t give me some sob story that it’s meant to be and you couldn’t help it and all that nonsense.”

  “So the contracts you mentioned in The Tasting Room are to have sex?”

  Anita didn’t seem appalled or offended, but generally curious.

  “They can be. Not always. Again, it depends on the theme of the night. Sometimes no sex at all is involved. Often times it is simply a contract to engage in one fetish or another.” I paused and tried to read her face, her eyes, anything. I couldn’t tell what the woman was thinking. “But like I said, working The Tasting Room is optional, and not always a guarantee. But when or if it happens, Tennessee goes over all the details of the contract and what is expected clearly. So, you don’t need to concern yourself with all that until then. For now, worry about cigars.”

  “Will I need to learn about cigars? Like what are good or bad?”

  I stood up, walked around the desk, and extended my hand to assist Anita out of her chair. “Just look pretty, Miss Kyle. Smile, flirt, charm, work your magic, and never say no.”

  Taking my hand, she stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Saxon. I really appreciate it.”

  “Let’s get you settled in with Tennessee in the back room so he can get you in uniform and start training you.”

  Anita’s scent wafted past me, and my mouth watered. For someone who didn’t wear perfume… damn the girl was intoxicating.

  6

  Anita

  “Girl, look at you,” a man with a very thick southern accent said. “Aren’t you a pretty walking canvas. All those pretty tattoos make you pop. Pop, I tell ya.”

  Mr. Saxon guided me into a large room with makeup stations and mirrors lining every inch of the walls. It reminded me of something that would be backstage of a large Broadway musical in New York. “This is Tennessee Charles. Tennessee, this is Anita Kyle. I just hired Anita to work as a sommelier.”

  I extended my hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Charles.”

  “Oh, child, call me Tennessee. My pappy was Mr. Charles and was a real son-of-a-bitch. Lucky for everyone who knew him, he’s rotting in the ground in Mississippi with a cheap ass headstone marker that his even cheaper good-for-nothing faggot of a son bought him. He’s just lucky I didn’t make it pink to spite the fucker.”

  I nodded calmly, trying not to show that the man’s flamboyance and loud voice unnerved me. “Nice to meet you, Tennessee.”

  Tennessee Charles was no doubt a walking character. The type of person you always saw in movies and wished to someday encounter but wondered if truly existed – like unicorns.

  Well this unicorn existed.

  He wore a cobalt blue smoking jacket with a cravat tied perfectly at his neck. The ivory-colored silk material had tiny blue diamonds spattered along the material that matched the jacket perfectly. He had gray pinstriped slacks that fit his body a bit tighter than most men wore their pants, but they accentuated the muscles in his legs. His shoes were blue velvet loafers the exact same hue as his jacket. His style was by far the most eccentric I had seen, and yet, still very sophisticated. His blond hair was combed to the side and slicked down which seemed to add age to his boyish face. I couldn’t exactly pin point how old he was. His style aged him, and yet his face and his hair, which lacked any gray strands, betrayed the older energy he gave off.

  “I would like her uniformed in black,” Mr. Saxon directed.

  Tennessee examined my body with squinted eyes. “I’m not sure, Kenneth. All those colorful tattoos could really make the red lace and diamonds sparkle. She’s like a rainbow, and there is no black in a rainbow.” He crossed his arms and took a few steps back to examine me further. “And I tend to put the sommeliers in the red uniform. Something about a woman in diamonds and lace delivering a cigar is just plain delicious.”

  “No. I want her in black,” Mr. Saxon said again. “She herself said that she is a delicate flower who likes the fucking thorns. So in Anita Kyle’s rainbow… there is a shitload of black.” He turned to me and smirked. “Isn’t that right, Miss Kyle?”

  I smiled, but my face heated as Tennessee released a big belly laugh. I couldn’t believe I’d actually said that in an interview. Why I got hired anyway, I had no idea.

  “Oh lordy, lordy. We got a little spitfire here, I see.” Tennessee nodded when he finally stopped laughing.
“Black it is. With a collar for our little thorn here.”

  Without saying another word, Mr. Saxon turned and left the room, leaving me standing with my new direct supervisor and his blue suede shoes, not sure what the hell I’d gotten myself into. I was going to be handing cigars to billionaires while wearing a black leather leotard and collar. And The Tasting Room? What the fuck was The Tasting Room? I still wasn’t grasping the entire concept fully.

  “All right, girl, follow me. I think I have a black uniform that will fit you perfectly. I may have to do a couple of take ins, but I doubt it. You most certainly are a tiny little thing.” He led me to a long metal rack that had several black leotards as well as long and short red lace dresses. “I can’t believe you cussed in your interview,” Tennessee added as he was sorting through the clothing. “That took some serious balls. Kenneth Saxon is a no nonsense man and puts up with very little. You must have impressed the man for him to look past dropping the f bomb. That man is a perfectionist and expects everything to be proper at all times. In control.” He shook his head. “The man could do with a good removal of that stick up his ass, but you didn’t hear that from me.” Tennessee gave me a wink. “He can be a real bastard. Just fair warning.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just so fuc—I was just so nervous. I’ve only had one interview before in my life, and I had no idea what to say or do. He made me nervous. I felt like he was staring right through me.”

  “Oh, he was reading you. No doubt about that. He’s a huge corporate attorney and has made millions with that supernatural power of his. So whatever he was reading on your hidden little pages, he liked.”

  “I don’t know how. I barely spoke. I tried to sound smart, mature, worldly, and fucked that up big time.” I placed my hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry for cussing. I’m so nervous. I guess I cuss when I’m nervous. Just ignore me. I’m a disaster.”

  Tennessee laughed and held a leotard up to my body, shook his head and kept looking through the rack. “Well, whatever you did, girl, landed you the job. And a good one too. He usually places the new girls in the kitchen or in housekeeping to prove themselves first. So, the fact that you are working the floor right off the bat is a good thing for you. Be proud of yourself.”