The Education

Chapter 12

Duel was a private venture of Master's. Few knew of his involvement with the club, and that's how he liked it. His father was one of those few. While Cal wasn't involved in the club in terms of money or management, he was certainly involved in the club personally. Cal enjoyed the benefits of his son's success and the privacy of it. He was too loud in the public eye to be attached to a place such as Duel, but he wasn't too old to appreciate it.

Partying had been a prominent part in Cal's life since a young age. It went hand in hand with the business. To date, Cal owned forty-five bars and clubs, and was set to open his fiftieth in Vegas by the end of the year. He was a familiar face in each of them, or as familiar as the mechanics of travelling and the management of time would allow. He'd started with one bar in the late seventies, and it was his personal attitude and charm that had seen its success. In those days it had meant little for the owner of the bar to sink beers with the regulars, to flirt with the staff and go home with the customers. With Irish eyes and dimples it was an effortless lifestyle. Cal didn't see why that had to change. He was traditional—but his old values were the values of a playboy.

Master had seen it all and was following in his father's dancing footsteps. It was expected of him, and until recently, he'd never questioned it.

Father and son sat in the private bar—the VIP bar, although Master was hesitant to call it that. In a place such as this, wealth, class and importance were irrelevant currencies. What mattered here was taste, confidence, and kink. They were positioned a few feet above the room on a floating platform, overlooking the Saturday crowd, heaving and electric. They'd spent the week together, touting Cal's current clubs in LA, and opening two more, but Master hadn't been his usual partying self and Cal had organized a drink to establish why.

"The club's doing great, Son," he said, raising his glass of scotch as they leaned against the banister watching the room. "You planning on opening another?"

"Doubt it. It's difficult." Master shrugged, stirring the ice in his drink with a soft circling of his wrist. "The legalities are difficult."

"You managed this, though?"

"And it was a challenge." Master turned, leaning his back against the barrier, his back to the room. "But, it was worth it for the fun. The fun isn't there enough now, though, to warrant the stress of another development."

"Don't tell me you don't enjoy this?" Cal laughed, pointing toward the large glass cage where two women performers were currently scissoring.

Master smiled. "Of course I do, just maybe not in the same capacity as I once did...I don't know."

"It's the girl." Cal finished his drink in one and walked back to their personal bar. The bartender was already unscrewing the cap of the bottle when Master followed.

"There's no girl."

"A guy?" Cal teased accepting his drink. Master rolled his eyes, stretching out his arm for a refill. "What about this...Cherry, was her name? Was she the reason you never slept with a single bimbo in Cali. You're in a relationship?"

"Not in the traditional sense. Not how you're thinking. We're not sleeping with other people, though."

Cal sat at a stool, talking nonchalantly with a shrug. "She won't know if you do."

"Dad..."

"I'm serious," Cal insisted. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her. Men can't be expected to remain monogamous, in this industry especially. Your mom understood that."

"Mom divorced you."

"Ah, that was different." He flicked his wrist, flippantly. "She only cared when she began to feel inferior to the other girls, when her age started to show and you'd ruined her body. Before that, she knew it was her bed I came home to, her who owned my heart."