Look for Roderick

Alex knows he is supposed to serve Roderick, and he can’t do that from out here. Ignoring the people around him, he climbs the steps and walks through the front door.

Alex has never been in a tavern before, and he wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. He sees a bar with stools on the far side of the room. Standing behind the bar, surrounded by many bottles, is a rough-looking man with rolled-up sleeves. There are a number of small, circular tables throughout the room, and most of them are occupied — in almost every case by a man and a woman. On the sides of the room, the walls are lined with couches, where men and women seem to be having very intimate conversations. In one case, woman is dancing for the man who is seated directly in front of her. In the far corner, a staircase leads upstairs. Alex can see a woman leading a man upward, holding his hand while he cranes his neck to look up her very short skirt.

Now that he is inside, Alex notices that all of the women are dressed in the very imodest manner he had noticed from outside. His own mother’s pettycoats offered more modesty than what these women wore.

Alex saw that the women’s ages seemed to cover the range from his own to a couple who looked to be older than his mother. They all seemed to be very cheery and very attentive to the men who were conversing with them.

As Alex looked around, he saw a man step over to a piano and begin to play. The music was immediately met by approving whoops and cheers from the patrons, and in a moment, Alex could see why. A woman stepped into view on the upstairs landing and began to descend the stairs, swaying with the music. As she danced, her hands ran seductively all over her body and occasionally came to rest beneath her breasts, where they grabbed and lifted them, much to the delight of the audience. She finished descending the stairs and proceeded to the piano, where she climbed onto a nearby table and began to dance in a style Alex had never seen before, but definitely found appealing.

“Can I help you, handsome?”

Alex jumped at the voice directed toward him. It was a woman, about his mother’s age, who looked at him with a decidedly unmotherly interest.

“I beg your pardon, Miss ....?” replied Alex, trying to remember his manners and look at her eyes, instead of gaping down at her ample cleavage.

“Just call me Kelly,” she said, with an amused smile. “I haven’t seen you in here before. Do you see anything you like?”

Alex realized that his eyes had again fallen to her breasts, and he pulled his gaze away, just in time to see the dancer lift her skirt and reveal her leg almost half way up her thigh!

Alex **** his eyes away from that sight and redirected his attention to Kelly.