THE LIQUOR CABINET | verse

[castafiore]

LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU It's the women who hold the power. They are, after all, the heads of all of the major cabals/families, not to mention the best at performing magic. There aren't too many avenues to allow any man to even come close to attaining that same kind of status and power, but there's one route that counts as an exception. (It doesn't get you all the way up the ladder, no, but there's no point in getting too close to the sun.) In the highest reaches of the biggest city, there's a little joint called the Liquor Cabinet, and it's stocked with the best of the best, in more ways than once. Operating as a host club and escort service under the cover of a bar, the Liquor Cabinet serves only to those whose purses run deep (in money or in other more potent things) and whose influence stretches just as far. The men who make up the club are essentially geisha, working their ways up from apprenticeship and then taking on their own identities, so to speak. In effect, the Liquor Cabinet is a way of worming into the upper echelons of society without being directly involved with the nitty gritty. Admittedly, there are elements of the club meant to further their own position (some people are easier to manipulate than others) but in the end it isn't so much about climbing the social ladder as it is keeping a foot in the door. As for further details, each member of the liquor cabinet is named after a drink. The highest-ranking/most popular workers are given the broadest names (e.g. Vodka, Wine, Gin), while others are given the subcategories (e.g. Merlot, Black Russian, etc.). Changing names is either a demotion or promotion, depending on what the change is, but it is through this particular structure that the catalogue (so to speak) is built.