Piling into the car for the short trip to Fifth Avenue to see the Athertons’ new apartment made me grateful we’d traded in the X5 for the larger X7. Sure, the old car did have a third row, but it wasn’t really for full-sized adults. The X7 was much more useful for this size of a crowd.

  When I’d texted Imogen to ask if we could bring a couple of guests with us, she’d said that it was perfectly fine with her and James, so it was no surprise to her or her husband when five of us showed up at their doorstep. Of course the doorman had called to tell them that they had guests, but whatever.

  Imogen ushered us into the stark white foyer, explaining that they just got the keys and haven’t had time to furnish the place.

  “Ashley!” she said, when she spotted our now-clothed friend.

  “You know each other?” Emmy asked, surprised.

  “We met at Leah’s club in San Jose,” Imogen explained as we did our cheek-kissing rituals.

  “I’d met her before that when she came along on a drive with Leah,” James said.

  “I had not known that,” Emmy said.

  “Hey, James,” Teddy Bear said. “How’s that green monster treating you these days?” he asked as they shook hands.

  “Leah talked me into trading it in on a newer model,” James admitted. “She got herself a newer BMW, too, but from what I hear hasn’t taken it out to play yet.”

  “Sad but true,” I admitted as our group naturally broke up into James, Teddy Bear and me talking about cars while Imogen led Emmy, Ashley and Jeremy on a tour.

  James took Teddy Bear and me for a tour as well, but the three of us wound up on the upstairs terrace looking across Fifth Avenue at the Central Park lake as the sun set behind the buildings on the other side of the park.

  “I can see why you wanted this apartment,” I said, admiring the view.

  “This place is going to be special once you two get it furnished and decorated,” Teddy Bear agreed.

  “I want to do a race car theme, but Imogen vetoed that idea,” James said with a laugh. “Actually, I think Imogen wants to talk to the designer you two used- she had a really good eye for classic New York style.”

  “I was really pleased with Charlie’s work on our house, but I have to warn you- like all interior designers, she wants to overdecorate. You’ll have to keep those impulses under control,” I said. “We stipulated that she was responsible for colors, finishes, furniture and those sorts of things. No decorative objects, no art, nothing like that. We’d take care of that ourselves. We absolutely- both Emmy and me- hate baskets of glass balls, or vases of dead sticks or any of that kind of visual clutter that designers love to use to fill up any empty spaces.”

  “Vases of dead sticks!” James laughed. “God, does that capture it perfectly!”

  Resuming our tour, we bumped into the other group in the library, where Emmy was explaining that our house’s library had held nothing but fake books when we bought the place.

  “Leah’s mother and sister came for an extended visit, and Leah’s mother made it her mission to fill up our shelves with books she found at used and rare bookstores around the city,” she added.

  “We may need her expertise!” Imogen said with a smile. “When is she scheduled to visit next?”

  After seeing the nice but completely bare penthouse, we all mutually decided it was time for dinner. Emmy suggested a place she’d heard of but that we hadn’t tried yet- a restaurant that claimed influences from both Paris and San Sebastian, Spain. Imogen protested that reservations at that restaurant are always two to three weeks out, but a simple call from Emmy De Lascaux opened up a spot for our party of seven.

  “It amazes me every time you do that,” Imogen admitted when Emmy got off the phone.

  “It’s the benefit of fame,” I told her.

  “Hey, I’m reasonably famous, and I can’t get in places the way Emmy and Leah do,” Teddy Bear grumbled. “They just walk right up and the velvet rope gets moved aside.”

  “Must be nice,” James smiled, well aware that he and his wife lived in rarified air themselves.

  Since we wouldn’t all be able to fit in the BMW, James, Teddy Bear and I rode separately.

  “You keep a driver on staff full-time?” James asked as we rode in a Mercedes sedan from a livery company. “Even though you two are only in New York a few months a year?”

  “I did the math,” I told him. “It just about breaks even versus contracting with a limo service like this one, and when we’re not here sometimes we have guests stay at the house and Wally drives them. He also drives our other staff when they need it, too, and does random errands and things like that. It winds up being that he has a lot of free time when we’re not here, but when we’re in town he’s on call any time of the day or night.”

  “Interesting,” James said, thinking about it.

  “Plus, Wally is a licensed New York City tour guide, so he knows the city exceptionally well and is always happy to show off his city to us.”

  “Imogen grew up here in Manhattan, so she knows her way around,” James said.

  “I guarantee Wally can take you on a tour to see amazing parts of the city neither of you ever knew existed,” I assured him. “Just tell us when you want him, and he’s yours.”

  “Is this offer open?” Teddy Bear asked from the front seat.

  “Of course,” I told him. “Like I said, Wally’s really proud of New York and loves to show it to people.”

  “How long are you in town for, Theodore?” James asked.

  “A few months- probably until the beginning of December if all goes well with the shooting,” he replied.

  “Shooting?”

  “I’m working on a film that’ll shoot here in New York,” Teddy Bear explained. “An action drama.”

  “It’s real shame none of us have driving cars locally,” James lamented. “We could get out of town and hit some roads in the area. Bear Mountain, Seven Lakes…”

  “We could hit the dealership in the morning and pick ourselves up some Boxsters or something,” I suggested. “I’d have to buy another parking spot, though…”

  “I love the way you think,” James laughed.

  “It seems ridiculous to buy a car you’d only ever use once in a great while,” Teddy Bear said, turning around to look at James and me.

  “Did I tell you I bought a Lotus and a Focus RS in London?” I asked. “Yeah, ridiculous, but a girl’s gotta have her toys.”

  “What’s the Ford like to drive?” James asked, intrigued.

  “A little rough, a lot rowdy,” I told him. “The advantage is that it doesn’t really look like anything special.”

  “Ah, to fool the local gendarmerie,” James nodded. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed, but any further conversation was put on hold, since we’d arrived at the restaurant.

  The other four were already there and waiting for us when we exited the Mercedes. We were led immediately inside and to a large corner booth with two tables, to accommodate our large group. I was certain that if there had been fewer of us we would have gotten put on display, but this place just didn’t have a way to seat seven of us right in the middle of the restaurant. Quite a few of the other patrons did take notice of our group as we were led to our quiet corner, so at least the ma?tre d’ did his job in that respect.

  Once we’d sat down and ordered our drinks, Imogen told her husband that Ashley had been experimenting with an alternative lifestyle here in New York.

  At James’ quizzical look, she said, “Our dear Ashley here has been giving nudism a try.”

  “Honestly, I was a bit surprised she kept her clothes on over at your new place,” I said.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “I wasn’t gonna just get naked at their house without, um, asking first,” Ashley said, blushing furiously.

  Imogen laughed and said, “I doubt that James would have objected terribly!”

  “Ash does look good naked,” I agreed.

  “So, um, would you two be O.K. if I take my clothes off when we go back to your apartment?” Ashley asked, her gaze lowered.

  Imogen laughed again. “I guess we should have seen this coming, after that metal dress at the nightclub!”

  “Is that a yes?” Ashley asked.

  “Oh, my dear, dear Ashley. As far as I'm concerned, you may pursue your new hobby at our apartment, too, but I don’t really see much point in all of us going back there after dinner- you saw how it is furnished,” Imogen said while James wisely kept his mouth shut.

  Later, as we ate (I had the excellent roast chicken) James leaned over and asked quietly about Ashley’s penchant for nudity.

  “Yeah, she really has been running around the house as naked as the proverbial jaybird,” I confirmed. “She doesn’t seem to care if we have people over, either.”

  “That is remarkably…” he said, at a loss for words.

  Imogen had clearly overheard. She leaned over while James sat back to let her speak quietly to me. “At the club you said she was stress-testing her self-confidence. Is this part of that?”

  “There’s more to it, but I’ll tell you later,” I assured her. “When we go back to our place for drinks after dinner.”

  “Where we’ll be treated to…”

  “To Ashley frolicking, yes,” I agreed.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Imogen said, smirking.

  “What are you two plotting over there?” Teddy Bear asked from his side of the table.

  “I was just inviting Imogen and James back to our place after dinner for drinks,” I said. “You in?”

  “Well, of course,” he confirmed. “You have all that wine that needs to be drunk.”

  “We do have quite a lot of wine,” Emmy agreed, sealing the deal.

  We split up again the same way for the drive back home, and as expected, Wally was there first to take Jeremy and the three ladies home while Teddy Bear, James and I waited out in front of the restaurant for the car from the limo service.

  “Your driver- he’s really on the ball, isn't he?” James asked.

  “We love him,” I confirmed. “That was another big factor in hiring him on full-time. We had a service just like yours and we got him as a driver for the day and liked him enough we requested that he be assigned to us for the rest of our stay. It cost us a few extra bucks, but he was just so much better than any other driver we’d ever had, so after I did the math and it seemed to pencil out, I made him an offer to come work for us.”

  “Does he know? About you, I mean?” James asked, glancing at Teddy Bear to make sure he wasn’t listening.

  “Teddy Bear knows more than you do, James,” I assured him. “In fact, he knows just about everything about my… activities.”

  “What?” Teddy Bear perked up, hearing his name.

  “I told James that you’re pretty well informed about my, um, hobbies.”

  “Does James know about Japan?” Teddy Bear asked.

  “Japan?” James asked in turn, intrigued.

  “Well, Leah had a business trip to Japan last winter and I was on hiatus, so I tagged along,” he explained. Honestly, I didn’t really mind if Teddy Bear spilled the beans on the shinobi to James, so I just let him continue. “So, the people she had to meet are really, well, let’s call them old-fashioned. Very, very traditional, deep in old-school Japanese culture, right ? So they put us up in this private onsen hotel out in the woods. Like I said, really, really traditional- sliding wooden doors, tatami mats on the floor, futon mattresses, little kneeling tables, all that. Well, the baths are co-ed, right? So almost every night, it’s just the two of us, plus her translator guy and four bodyguards, and sometimes this local girl who was her, um, liaison, I guess? Out there in the hot springs, bare-assed naked.”

  “Four bodyguards?” James asked.

  “Four very scary dudes,” Teddy Bear confirmed.

  “They aren’t actually bodyguards, per se,” I said as the Mercedes we were waiting for pulled up. “They’re really part of my enforcer crew.”

  “Your enforcer crew?” James asked as we climbed into the sedan. “What, exactly, do they enforce?”

  “My law,” I said.

  “You see that?” Teddy Bear demanded. “That’s what I’m talking about! That right there. ‘My law’, she said, without any hint of irony, doubt, anything. She just answered your question with a simple fact. That right there, Leah. That’s what I need.”

  “I’m missing some context here,” James protested, prompting Teddy Bear to explain about the two of us working on his role for the movie, getting a laugh from James.

  “Did you ever hear about what happened when we went out to dinner in Arizona after a track day?” James asked Teddy Bear.

  “Probably, but I’d love to hear it again,” Teddy Bear replied. I just leaned back in my seat and let James tell the story, which he did with only minor embellishments.

  “This guy pulls a knife and threatens Leah with it, and she just keeps getting closer to him. She tells him that if he waves it in her direction one more time she’ll take it from him and shove it down his throat. She didn’t sound angry or even all that bothered- like you said, it was a simple statement of fact. I think that was what was so chilling about it.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “He tried to stab her, but she was too quick for him and with a few punches and kicks she knocked him out. Then his friend tried to pull a gun, but she kicked him senseless, too. The third guy ran off,” James said.

  “He who runs away lives to run away another day,” Teddy Bear laughed.

  “I’d imagine those three have seen the Atlanta videos and have recognized that she let them off easy,” James said, thinking about it.

  “That’s no lie,” Teddy Bear said. “I saw her take down this, um, champion, I guess, ninja in about four and a half seconds. They bowed to each other to start the fight, then before anybody even realized what happened she had this guy out cold.”

  “Ninja?” James asked.

  “Does he know?” Teddy Bear asked me.

  “James can keep a secret,” I said, hoping it was true.

  “So, like, the reason she had a business trip to Japan was to talk to the elders of the real, honest to God actual ninja clans. I mean, these are the descendants of the feudal spies and assassins of myth, right? But they were real,” Teddy Bear said. “The part about them being real traditional? That hotel we stayed in was a secret. We were the first people to ever stay there from outside their clans.”

  “Ninjas,” James said.

  “The real deal,” Teddy Bear confirmed. “Our girl here came in and basically told them that she was in charge now and they were going to do whatever she said, and they did. They just rolled over.”

  “Ninjas? Guys in black, throwing stars, that kind of thing?” James asked, still coming to grips with the idea.

  “Well, yes and no. Yes, those guys, but no, most of that imagery was invented by outside writers two hundred years later. We went on a private tour of a museum that had a lot of that sort of stuff on display, but the museum director- who really was a real ninja descendent- admitted it was mostly bullshit. The actual real-deal ninjas did assassinate, did spy, did infiltrate enemy castles and all that, but they never wore all black outfits, never threw, um, shuriken, right? Their secret to invisibility lay in blending in, in not being noticed. They looked like ordinary peasants, ordinary servants, ordinary, unobtrusive workers. So, yeah, Leah shows up and meets with their ruling council and lays down the law, and they roll with it.”

  “This can’t be real,” James protested.

  “You heard it here first,” I told him. “The rest of the world is going to learn the truth soon enough.”

  “Imogen was right- you really are on your way to becoming a Bond villain,” James said with a laugh.

  When we got to the townhouse Jeremy told us that Imogen, Ashley and Emmy had gone up to Luisa’s apartment to look at her art, so the three of us made our way to the parlor. Jeremy excused himself, heading down to the kitchen to do whatever it was he felt needed to be done down there.

  I made my way behind the bar while the two guys took seats on the bar stools. Figuring this was a top-shelf sort of night, I grabbed the Macallan 25 and poured the three of us a couple of fingers in Glencairns while Teddy Bear turned on the stereo and set it to a vocal jazz station.

  We talked about cars, and the conversation turned to the racing team and how Madison had been doing. James admitted that he’d been considering fielding a second car with him behind the wheel, but just knew that Madison would demolish him.

  “You know I’d have no problem with you as a gentleman driver on the team,” I told him. “If you want to do it, let’s get you in the pipeline for a car next year.”

  “It’d be a lot of fun,” James said wistfully, “but I’m not sure I’d be able to manage to stay on the lead lap.”

  “We need to do a testing day to see how you’d run with Maddie,” I said, just as Imogen, Emmy and a naked Ashley joined us.

  Of course I’d expected it, and Teddy Bear rolled with Ashley’s state of undress just as he had earlier, but James was taken by surprise.

  “Can I get you three anything?” I asked, but Ashley just handed me two bottles of wine.

  “We grabbed these before coming up,” she said.

  Nodding, I took them from her. I stashed one in the wine fridge under the bar and uncorked the second, pouring three glasses.

  Emmy took the armchair and Imogen and Ashley the loveseat. After handing the three their wine, I returned to my spot behind the bar. This gave me a clear view of everybody in the room, but the two guys had their backs to the three women. This didn’t faze Teddy Bear at all, but James kept looking back over his shoulder to check that yes, Ashley was in fact wearing nothing at all.

  “Told you,” I said after about his third peek back.

  “She simply takes her clothes off and strolls around your house like that?” James asked, amazed.

  “The proverbial jaybird,” I confirmed.

  “You’re O.K. with that?”

  I shrugged. “Sure. I mean, she’s a friend, and like I said that night at the club, she wants to build up her self-confidence, right? Emmy and I are perfectly fine with it in that sense. Plus, she looks good naked, right?”

  Unsure if it was safe to agree with me or not, James sipped his Scotch.

  “It’s O.K. to look,” Teddy Bear told him. “To be fair, she wants you- and me, and everybody else here- to look. Ashley wants the attention. That’s what it’s all about.”

  “Teddy Bear’s right,” I added. “She wants the attention. She wants to feel desirable.”

  “Why would she need that? She’s a pretty girl, in great shape,” James said, glancing back over his shoulder.

  “We’re all human beings,” Teddy Bear said. “We all need external validation. Look at me- my career choice is all about external validation.”

  “I suppose so,” James agreed.

  Fulfilling my bartender role, I refilled the ladies’ glasses after a little while and couldn’t help but notice that Imogen and Ashley seemed very comfortable with each other.

  Later, after Teddy Bear and the Athertons had left, I asked Emmy about it while we soaked in the big tub.

  “I think that Imogen is intrigued,” Emmy said. “She invited Ashley and me to go shopping in the morning. She said that she wants to do something fun for Ashley so that she goes into her interview in the afternoon in a good, relaxed mood.”

  “And what do you make of that?” I asked.

  “I am not certain, but…”

  “But?” I asked.

  “I think that Imogen may be interested in Ashley,” Emmy finally said, thinking about it. “It may be Platonic, but I doubt it.”

  “Hmm…” I said. “Ash has expressed her willingness to be our little sex toy. Maybe she feels that way about Imogen and James, too.”

  “They are a very good-looking couple,” Emmy said.

  “And they’re classy, rich, and open-minded to some degree. They were always very accepting of us, and Angela, too.”

  “Would it bother you if Ashley were to…” Emmy said, but couldn’t think of the right way to phrase it.

  “Em, Ash is my friend. That’s all. I have no claim on her sexuality, as much as she’s tried and tried to climb into our bed. James and Imogen are friends, too, and if the three of them want to give a three-way a try, well, party on, Garth.”

  “Garth?” Emmy asked, turning around to face me, a puzzled look on her face.

  “It’s from an old movie,” I told her. “What I mean to say is that they’re adults, and if they consent, I’m not going to throw shade. How can I?”

  “No, we are perhaps the last to condemn others for that sort of thing,” Emmy agreed, settling back into her position between my legs.