Despite knowing Preston tolerably well, and having had several years of whoring there under my belt, mostly with independents; somehow this place and its sister venue, Abbas, had eluded me.
At some point in June, an opportunity arose to address this gap, and guided by references on this site, I found the location on
External Link/Members Only - running parallel to and a mere back-alley and a street away from the town's main thoroughfare. This establishment comes with decidedly mixed reviews, so before having dinner with friends and a cleric, I scouted the location, which is a two-floor terraced townhouse building, easily identified by its open door, and (is my memory playing tricks on me?) a red light in one of the upper rooms. Being the North-West of this sceptred-isle, the heavens inevitably opened and I moved on to enjoy my evening's steak at the nearby Theatre Street restaurant.
I'd enjoyed a magnificent bottle of wine over dinner, and waving my companions farewell, chased this down at one of the town's many little publettes, with a few small beers, the better to contemplate whether I truly wished to soil my soul at an old-fashioned parlour. The answer struck me as if from a Damascene revelation - yes, indeed I did!
I detain you with this detail only to illustrate the condition I and surely many others, must find ourselves in before we cross this threshold, and thereby how Barons (surely Baron's?) and the gals who work there, must eke their living. I was warmed up, certainly, convivial too, but not excessively so - no slurred words would leave my mouth, nor would my eyes swivel, and I could still exactly recall my NI number. I therefore took myself, my jacket and newly shined toecaps and retraced my steps smartly back to the brothel, and its awaiting open door.
Therein, I walked into the reception area - a parlour of the type my grandsires would surely recognise - a double room given over to look familiarly homely, and was met by a 'hostess', madame or matriarch that my same ancestors may well have been on first-name terms with, given that she was just on the cusp of being, or rather looking, elderly, though not yet frail. She had a no-nonsense, seen-it-all look about her, and accordingly, I was thoroughly expecting a curt interview, but as she eyed me up-and-down, evaluating me, evidently she decided I wasn't going to be trouble, her face softened and she courteously guided me to the sofa at the far end of the room. There was a loitering, thin young man, dressed in nondescript bags, who she told me was [ John ], one of their daily regulars, and that I shouldn't mind him, as he moped aimlessly around in front of us as we both sat.
She asked me what I was looking for. It occurred to me that I might well look and sound to her like a off-duty Plod, and I probably did little to improve that impression when I said
'A good hour's entertainment with one of your gals' or something equally over-ripe and plummy. Deciding that I was sincere, she was in the middle of explaining to me how it worked, when some sort of mild commotion broke out and a gaggle of raucous female voices, in full of throat, were heard off-stage. A few moments later, one of the voice-owners appeared with a bellowing '
A'rite [John]' in her finest Scouse, to the moping young man, and she playfully prodded him. Madam asked the bellowing strumpet to call for the others, which she did, turning on her heel and hollering up towards the stairs.
I've only ever twice before encountered a line-up; once in Edinburgh and London apiece, and whilst on the one hand, it's nice to have advance choice, on the other, I feel that however accustomed to it they may become, it must be a little soul-destroying to be paraded and selected against for the women. Be that as it may, and perhaps helped by whatever they'd all clearly fortified themselves with over the course of the day, the four our so girls who then presented themselves somehow made the best of it, contriving the sort of inter-departmental josh-around you see in offices, when the travelling salesman from the stationery provider drops by for his twice-annual meet-n-greet.
There was bawling & shrillness, there were jests and there were capers: Stacy from Accounts had gotten humongously drunk at the February Christmas party, and had been discovered fumbling with a waiter in the bogs, by Claudene, the recently divorced floor manager of the telesales team; who was never going to let her forget it; it was that kind of carry-on. And there was me, transfixed, wide-eyed and gawping at all this unfold from the sofa, with Madam beside me, giving a running who's-who commentary of the cavorting party-gals - assuring me that such-and-such, whilst clearly worse for wear from some substance, was in fact a lovely and popular girl with 'our clientele'.
What had no more than 15 minutes prior seemed like a very jolly, or at least deliciously seedy evening's prospect, now looked like altogether more grubby, greasy experience. To say that none of them were lookers would be an understatement, they were rough as fishwives two days after payday. As oiled as I was, which is to say, probably not entirely safe to operate heavy industrial machinery; I realised I was far too sober for such an adventure.
My face must've betrayed this - but rather than impatiently taking umbrage, Madam looked at me stoically as I quietly confided that, on reflection, I'd come to think that, for tonight at least, it wasn't a good idea, after all. With impeccable stagecraft, the girls had dispersed, continuing their banter elsewhere, unseen. Moping John had simply evaporated. I half-expected an admonition for time-wasting, but in the event, she acknowledged that the girls were 'lively' and said that on other, quieter nights, I might find something more to my taste. I thanked her for being gracious (she was), and took my leave into the now dimly lit street.
Largely on the strength of Madam's attitude, I won't rule out a revisit, though after this less than edifying experience, I suspect that I'll have to be utterly desperate for a blow&go, or caution-to-the-wind tipsy, or both, which, as I suggest above, and a number of reviews here seem to corroborate, is how many of the Barons' punters find themselves there. And who's to say that there isn't room for such a place?
If I understand the pricing correctly, we'd hand over £60 or so for 30mins, and perhaps £20 on top of that for OWO. The venue advertises itself as being open 24/7, which I find hard to believe, even if it's only on the weekends. Perhaps others who know it well can chip-in and clarify.
