I follow August out of the bathroom. The feeling of anxiety reaches the pits of my stomach, mixed with embarrassment that August, on the second night of knowing me, discovers that I am out and about searching to watch/hear humans go about their lustful nature in the bedroom. He says it's natural for any one and every one who stays here, but I still consider telling August to forget it as we descend the staircase - the smell of urine once again reaching my nostrils.
We pass our floor - the third floor - and proceed immediately down to the second floor - our bare feet slapping against the cool concrete stairs. As we reach the hallway I, once again, adjust the grip my briefs have around my buttocks - and even though I cannot see August's face, I sense that he is rolling his eyes at the sound of the fabric snapping against my skin.
"So my assumption is correct - they don't fit you properly?" he glances over his shoulder, smirking slightly.
I for some reason do not want to give August the full satisfaction of knowing that he is right, so I do not respond and I resist any more attempts to adjust my briefs. Similar to Lucinda I notice that August has a need to always be right - or if not always, damn close to it.
I continue to act the same way I have always been acting tonight while lurking about: stealthy, quiet, and rather paranoid. I feel the need not to attract attention. Something August apparently does not share in common with me.
He is strolling down the hallway - as if it is early in the afternoon - passing closed bedroom doors - whistling an unrecognizable tune, leading me to the very end of the hall where a door stands partially ajar.
August strolls up to this door and stretches out his arm to push it the rest of the way, smirking back at me once again, as if excited for what lies ahead. But before his fingertips even touch the warped wood of the door - I snag his other hand, whispering harshly, "You can't go in there! People are staying there!"
His smile vanishes. "Of course I can go in here," he corrects me - searching my face with a puzzled expression. "No one ever stays in this room." He pushes the door open - it squeaks on its hinges.
"August, why..." I start, reaching for the light switch.
"No, keep that light off!" August interrupts me. "Here - come over towards me."
I follow his voice deeper into the darkness of the bedroom. His eyes are gleaming. I can just make out the smooth contours of his bare chest rising and falling. I come a little bit closer - my bare feet landing on a worn carpet.
"Get off the carpet," August reprimands me.
As I step sideways off it, he scoops down, looking up at me, saying, "Not a word." He slowly pulls back the carpet until it reveals a hole in the wooden floor - big enough to fit my fist through. The light from the room below shines upwards. As though someone suddenly turns on the sound - I hear moaning and thumping and a bed squeaking, I slowly become a bit stiffer.
August is silently signaling me forward.
I lower myself to a crouch - hesitant yet extremely provoked. I'm on all fours by the time I reach the hole in the ground and like the voyeur I set out to be tonight - I look down at the steamy scene.
A girl is on her back - hands high above her head - gripping the bed rails. She is perfectly nude - head tilted upwards as she examines her male counterpart, who attracts me more. He is average shape - with decent muscles - about thirty years of age - and also completely nude. I notice his large, hard penis finding its way between her legs - as her slim legs hug his hips. From this point I could almost see him throbbing from being so hard. Clothes are strewn around the room - a tie, good slacks, a button shirt, and white briefs that are still around his ankles. He enters her smoothly - and rhythmically moves in and out - her moans increasing, breast jiggling.
Before I am able to get completely hard and short of crying out myself - August replaces the carpet. I stare at where the hole once was - still envisioning the scene, still noting both of them grunting. I finally look up - meeting August's eyes. Whether he does it on purpose or not - he avoids looking below my face - afraid that he might capture me hardening - I secretly thank his manners.
"Everyone here has the same mindset you do, Jacob," he says matter-of-factly. "Renting this room out to someone would mean covering this hole with wood, not just a carpet."
I can still see the both of them in my mind. "And do they know below?" I inquire.
"If they do, they don't care. Some one is always making love in that room."
As August gets to his feet - I am not as well-mannered as he is - and I steal a glance at his briefs, from what I can tell in the dark, they are tenting slightly.
"So what exactly is the Velvet Lounge?" I ask the million dollar question, as I follow August back out into the lighted second floor hall, softening some in my underwear.
"It came around during the 1920's," he explains, as we pass closed bedroom doors. I fantasize what is going on in those rooms. "With the flapper girls on the climb of social ladders - more men started to consider them to be the bee's knees of New York City - and so this place was built for the men to sleep with them. It was also more than that, too, flapper girls performed dances here, including Lucinda's mother. There used to be a bar - live jazz - then the sexual activities followed at night.
"The depression in the 30's served something along the lines of a wet blanket - smothering this place. It retained its sexual potency, but started to serve as just a shelter for the homeless - and hopefully now it will resume its normal flourishing activities, besides sex."
We reach the third floor - our floor. We walk to the arching entranceway to the hallway, August leans up against one side, I the other side - flanking both side of the archway.
"And here I thought you don't know from nothing!" I say, fixing my briefs.
"Lucinda taught me a lot," August says, folding his arms against his bare chest. I notice that he is almost completely soft in his briefs. The head of his penis is still faintly outlined.
I ask the second burning question after a moment of silent passes us, "How long have you lived here?"
August frowns in contemplation. "I'm going on my third year," he responds, looking me in the eye.
I let out a low whistle.
"Yeah, well, I reckon I don't have anywhere else to go. I mean - it's not exactly a bad place to live alone - if you catch my drift." He shrugs mildly. "Occasionally a dolled up plain Jane with large bubs comes along and her and I have our fun, but nothin' like that's been around for awhile. Lucky for the eight pagers..." his voice drifts off.
We stand in a comfortable silence. Finally he continues, "Speaking of which - I know what kind of state you're currently in." We begin walking down the hall - stopping outside the communal bathroom. "At the very last stall there's an eight pager there," he claps my bare back, saying, "enjoy."
August leaves me standing outside the bathroom and doesn't look back. I stand in the hall for a second, and then decide to enter the bathroom. My bare feet caress the grungy tiled floor. A faucet is dripping. The small window up towards the ceiling shows speckles of stars against the night sky. I walk pass the line of stalls until I get to the end.
The door is wide open.
Feeling suddenly aroused, I check to see if I was still alone. I am. So I move into the stall, quickly, locking the door, hurriedly shove my briefs down around my ankles and then sitting on the closed toilet seat. I am hard and throbbing. It sticks up in the air in a perfect vertical erection. My hand clasps around the thick shaft and I begin pumping like mad - recalling the scene I just saw. I bite my lower lip, moan slightly, staring down at my hard penis, moaning even more like the two lovers.
Then...
"Jay-cub?"
I stop abruptly - incased in an unexpected cold sweat. I am still throbbing hard, my hand is still grasping my penis, but I stop pumping, petrified. I hear and see a pair of bare feet approaching my stall.
"Jay-cub?"
Though I am still mortified, I find the will to move. I stand up, pull up my briefs, and for effect, I flush the toilet. I unlatch the stall door, still perfectly aware that I am impossibly hard and it is noticeable underneath the fabric.
Jean Jacques is standing not to far from my stall. His heard turns as I emerge, he is as always, nude. "I thought eet was 'oo," Jean says and unlike August who only looked at my face, Jean distinctly looks down to my still hard crotch area then back up to meet my eyes. "Am I interrupting?" he inquires.
I flush red. "No, no," I stammer, trying to adjust my penis and not be conspicuous about it, but Jean notices anyway. "Just had to use the john," I say casually.
"Oh - I went knocking on your door earlier - but 'oo were not there. Then I 'eard 'oo and August speaking, but only August went into zee room."
I'm still not sure if I recovered completely from embarrassment, but I am able to find my tongue. "Well - what is it you wanted?"
Jean opens his mouth to explain - but another surprise comes along. "Jean!" a woman calls out sweetly. Milliseconds later she enters the bathroom. I notice everything about her: she's a brunette, wearing a tabby robe that is wide open, revealing her nude frontal body.
Jean turns, "Ah this eez Jay-cub I told 'oo about earlier," he says to the lady.
She comes up from behind, running her hand down his chest. I notice her subtly pressing her nude body against his back - making his penis rise in stiffness for a second then fall. "So you're Jacob?" she asks, her chin resting on Jean's shoulder. Her eyes travel around my body, staying fixed on my crotch area for several seconds.
"I've heard a lot about you," she continues to address me. "I've seen you only in full clothes - I guess tonight makes up for that. I'm Paula."
I nod a polite nod.
"I hope you've been adjusting properly," she says, in between kisses on Jean's neck. However, her eyes are trained seductively on me.
I swallow heavily in a nervous, heated state. It's pointless to try and hide how hard I am. That's like hiding a fully grown elephant behind a tree. And seeing that he is not wearing anything - it is equally pointless to hide Jean's hard-on. But he does not seem to care as Paula works smoothly on his neck, her one hand in his hair on his head, the other hand through the hair above his penis.
Suddenly she stops and steps away. "Let's go, darling," she says to Jean. "We'll go and imagine what your friend here looks like naked." Paula winks at me and leads Jean by the hand out of the bathroom.
I almost call out to them that they can have the actual image of me naked - but they are gone. Before I'm even back in my stall, my briefs are down; I don't even bother to shut the door as it takes me all of one minute before I am ejaculating in excess.
Relieved of sexual tension - I retire back to the room. August is snoring. It's incredibly late. But as I recline back on my bed, the mattress wheezing, I realize that something is still bothering me.
What had Jean Jacques wanted from me?