Chapter One

 

Do you know how they say you only value things that you have to work hard to get? I'm pretty sure there's a lot of truth in that. I see it all around me and feel it myself. And for the most part, there aren't a lot of things I have to work hard to get.

My parents aren't wealthy, but they're 'comfortable'. I've traveled around the world, through Europe, Asia, and to various high spots in America, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. I did all this travel in the best possible way; as a child. Well, a teenager. That meant all the cost, effort, planning, reservations, and everything else were out of my hands. All I had to do was enjoy.

My parents have a cottage on the lake. Same deal. We went every summer. My father is the one who has to do all the maintenance and repairs. My mom takes care of cleaning and meals. I just go to enjoy myself. Not a bad deal.

My father has made noises about my needing to work at something or other so I can appreciate the value of a dollar. I do appreciate dollars. Though not as much as I appreciate a hundred dollars. Or a thousand dollars. I like money. But work sounded kind of dreary. And why bother when I can wrap my dad around my little finger?

Good marks at school came easy to me, too. I have a really good memory, rarely had to study, and I guess I'm kind of smart. So no particular stress there.

Boys? Boys have always come easy to me too. Too easy. I just have to turn my head and there they are, eagerly looking at me. But I can't say I especially valued their company. At least, not when young. Even as I moved through my adolescent years in high school I found them to be alternatively bemusing and annoying.

They all wanted the same things, of course, all focusing on my body. They didn't really want my company for much more, aside from arm candy so they could brag about it. They were focused on cars, sports, and video games. I was just an accessory and a sex toy.

Which wouldn't be bad since I could treat them in the same way. But they just weren't much good at any part of sex. I didn't enjoy anything but the kissing. And they often weren't very good at that either. Even when 'boys' became 'guys' as we grew older I found them to be distressingly and irritatingly ignorant about what to do with the female body.

Don't get me wrong. It's not like I got to test out a lot of them. My reputation wouldn't have stood for that. But nothing I heard from girlfriends led me to believe my own experiences were much different from theirs. Teenage boys were drooling, fumble-fingered idiots in bed.

I admit to a certain arrogance; a sense of superiority. Anything I do, I want to be good at. If I was planning on having sex I'd read up on it and try to prepare so I would be good at it. Guys just watched porn videos and thought that was the way to go because the terrible excuse for actresses moaned and groaned a lot.

Sorry, no.

They're paid to moan and groan. I'm not.

My plans for college focused on what fun I might have and where I might have it. That made me think about California, or maybe Florida or Texas. I look fabulous in a bikini and at the right college, I could enjoy year-round sunshine and warm weather. Instead, I wound up in New York City, going to Columbia. The weather wouldn't be as nice but the partying and shopping would be terrific!

Plus, I just liked the campus. I liked that it was practically on the river and had lots of parks around. Of course, it was also on the edge of Harlem, so there was no going out after dark unless you were heading south. But the Upper West Side was just south of us and it was very safe. And there's tons of cops around this area.

Being a frosh, I was required to live on campus. And I had to share a dorm. And the handy-dandy computer-driven system had selected Kendal Murphy for my roommate. Kendal is a lot like me, only more so. I have long blonde hair. She has longer, blonder hair. I am tall, she is taller. My family is 'comfortable', while hers are filthy rich.

I'm a little arrogant. She's a lot arrogant. I can take or leave guys. She toys with them. I like looking good. She adores looking good. In fact, it's the focus of her existence.

And there we depart. I have never put much effort into my appearance because, as I suggested above, I don't need to. I'm cute and have a really nice body. Guys are attracted to me like flies to honey. I don't need to spend hours in front of a makeup mirror doing my hair or getting it permed and dyed the way Kendal has done. I have almost no makeup. She has tons of it.

She looks fantastic when she gets it all in place, especially with her expensive wardrobe. But so what? There are still tons of guys hitting on me. In fact, I probably get hit on more than she does because guys look at her and are too intimidated. They figure she'd only go out with gorgeous rich guys.

Which, in fact, is true.

Every time we go somewhere, Kendal checks her looks in her mirror, adjusting her lipstick, eyeliner, or hair. Life is too fucking short for that. I have better things to do with my time. I, meanwhile, usually wear no makeup. And my hair is usually mussed. I also wear glasses. Like, Harry Potter style, though bigger, and with silver rims.

Why? Because they're more comfortable than contacts and I don't want to get surgery when I'm barely nineteen. You know they actually shave off pieces of your eye!? And then as you age they have to do it again. Er... no! Why? So I can do without my glasses? I don't mind my glasses. They give me a bit of a 'smart girl' look, which seems to be a turnoff for the kind of guys Kendal likes. Which is great, because the guys she likes tend to be shallow and entirely into looks.

One thing I have to give her credit for, though. Kendal is great in bed. She'd certainly opened my eyes to what fun sex could be if you have a partner who knows their way around a female body! She didn't have a cock, of course, but that was not an issue given she could buy whatever she wanted.

Kendal lived in New York, but her home was an apartment on the river in Brooklyn, just south of Manhattan. So her commute would have been a PITA. Plus, she wanted the dorm experience away from her parents.

It was a hot day in the spring when we headed south to midtown. We did not take the subway, even though that would certainly have been faster. Kendal didn't like to mix with the 'plebes'. By which she actually meant the crazy people who habitually made their home in subway stations and could be alternately disgusting, dangerous, and perverted.

We took a 'car'. Not a taxi. Not an Uber. Who knew what kind of driver you'd get? We took the private taxi service rich people used. The car wasn't a limo, but it was a very nice Cadillac, and the back seat was comfortable, clean, and spacious. And hey, she was paying, so why argue? It's not like I enjoy getting drooled at by crazy men on the subway.

I was dressed lightly since she wanted to shop along Fifth Avenue rather than in a nice, climate-controlled mall. Kendal called me a tomboy, which seemed to delight her. I'm not - really. I mean, yes, in a way, but not that much. It's kind of hard to explain. I tend to be fairly practical about things and not at all girly-girly.

Kendal is very much a girly-girly. So I guess I'm a tomboy by comparison.

I was wearing low-slung cargo pants with lots of pockets, and a short-sleeved shirt that was held together between my breasts by four buttons. That was all it needed because the shirt ended just below my breasts. I like showing off my midriff. It's my best feature. Also, it's not really sexual. It drives other girls batty because it's such a smooth, firm, tight, concave stomach and they can't match it.

At least, they rarely do.

There are girls with bigger boobs, though frankly, mine are pretty good. Kendal's boobs are bigger, for example. They're not as firm as mine, though. And while her stomach is flat it's also girly soft, without much muscle underneath.

When not attending classes, and often even when she is, Kendal likes to show off her boobs, so she almost always has some degree of cleavage. I wasn't even going to try to compete with her on that score, though I could have. I would have been way too self-conscious walking around showing off my boobs like she does.

Not because I'm embarrassed about my boobs. I'm not. But because to me, showing off your boobs is just so... desperate. Why would you? To get male attention? I get too much of that as it is. And cleavage just gets you the wrong kind of attention anyway. To Kendal, though, any male admiration is a good thing. She's a narcissist.

I don't mind showing off my midriff because it's not a traditional thing for desperate girls to show off for attention. And I realize I'm being a bit hypocritical here. I do show it off to look hot, after all. But there are shades of grey, after all. And showing off cleavage anywhere but a club or a beach is way up near the top.

She was dressed in a stylish, pale-green sleeveless summer dress which was very short and very tight across the chest. It had lace cutouts around her stomach, and pleats below that. As she sat in the car the dress slid up so high it almost showed what color her thong was.

Compared to her I looked like, well, maybe a servant? An employee? My cargo pants were loose (except on my butt) and wrinkled-looking and I had things in multiple pockets, including my emergency candy bar in a thigh pocket. The top was casual. And I had on dirty sneakers under the cargo pants while she was wearing, of course, white high heels.

She sat up primly, her legs crossed. I slouched against the door, yawning because I'd been up late reading a novel. Kendal, needless to say, didn't read anything that she wasn't required to read.

"You owe me for this," I grumbled.

She shrugged. "Most girls would be delighted to go shopping on Fifth Avenue, you know."

"I'm not most girls. And I can't afford any of that stuff anyway."

"You can too."

"Okay, maybe I could, but none of it is worth the money I'd have to pay for it. And I have less money to waste than you."

"You should get your hair done, too."

"Not a chance."

"I'll pay for it!"

"NO!"

Kendal was kind of obsessed with my hair. Also jealous of it. Mine was softer than hers because she'd been putting chemicals on hers since she was twelve. Hers tends to stay obediently in place, perfectly smooth and even, while mine kind of flies in the breeze. But so what? I just have to put my fingers up and sweep it out of my face now and then and it's fine.

Kendal wants to remake me into a Barbie-like her. And she has the money to do it, too. Her Christmas present to me had been a laser hair removal treatment at a stylish salon on Broadway. I had refused, at first, but she had convinced me to accept it simply because it was so practical. It would save me from having to shave regularly for the rest of my life.

Of course, that wasn't why she'd done it. She'd done it because she wanted me as soft as possible down there, much like she was.

The car let us out on Park Avenue. She wanted to stop by and see her father. By which I gathered she wanted to ask him for something costly. I wondered what it was. But I had my suspicions that she had invited me along not just to get an 'outside opinion' on prospective clothes purchases, but to impact what her father might do.

It was hard to yell at your daughter with a stranger in the room, after all. That was a trick I'd used myself.

She got out of the car, her giant purse slung over her shoulder, and I followed, sauntering after her into a very, very tall building. No purse for me. I don't like purses. That was one of the reasons I wear cargo pants.

"You should stand up straighter, you know, pull your shoulders back. That way your boobs look better."

"I should do a lot of things, I suppose," I said, not changing my posture.

"Honestly, Claire, you really are a brat sometimes," she said.

I shrugged. "Want to spank me?" I asked in amusement.

She snorted and stuck her tongue out at me. In fact, I was stronger, more athletic, and more agile than her. As we'd already found out when I'd pinned her down and spanked her. Well, not so much spank as just smacked her butt a half dozen times.

It's not like Kendal is a fighter, after all. That would risk breaking a nail!

We got into the building without a problem, then took a fast elevator all the way up to the sixty-seventh floor. The top floor. It didn't surprise me he was on the top floor.

There was a sleek-looking blonde that looked like Kendal probably would in ten or fifteen years behind a large desk when we stepped into an office. Except it was hard to imagine her behind a desk and like, doing actual work.

"Is he free, Nicole?" Kendal asked.

"Hi, Kendal. You're a bit early. He's just finishing up a meeting."

"Oh, poo," Kendal said.

"It won't be more than ten minutes," the woman said.

Kendal rolled her eyes, then dropped into a heavily upholstered leather seat against the wall and dug into her purse for her phone. I shrugged and sat down next to her. It was almost noon. We were supposed to have lunch before going shopping. But it was starting to look like that would be delayed.

So I took out my emergency chocolate bar, unwrapped it, and took a bite.

Kendal glowered at me and I smirked back.

I am blessed with a fast metabolism that lets me eat lots and still stay slim - as long as I exercise. Kendal, well, wasn't. She ate like a bird and watched what she ate religiously. I ate burgers and fries and drank soft drinks, which always annoyed the hell out of her.

I had just taken a bite when the inner door opened and a man came through.

"Contact Jeff and see if you can get his view on the LTC delays, would you, Nicole?"

"Yes, sir, right away."

"Well, so you're daring to show your face, are you?" the man said, scowling at Kendal.

Kendal ignored the scowl, and I envied how easily she played the part as she giggled and batted her eyelashes and played up the 'poor little me' routine. I'd done some of that with my own family before, of course.

"Oh, daddy! You know you can't stay mad at me!" she said.

Then she turned to me to distract him.

"This is my roomie, Claire!"

I was a bit distracted myself. He was a big guy, and broad-shouldered. He was wearing an expensive tailored suit that fit perfectly, of course. He had dark brown hair, and a thin moustache and beard. He had a square-jawed face and blue eyes but a very fierce gaze. And he looked younger than I had expected.

He didn't look like a 'dad'. Certainly not like mine! He had a kind of dangerous look to him, especially when he was scowling at Kendal, or when he turned those eyes on me.

"That's an interesting candy bar," he said. "Are you from Canada?"

I blinked in surprise. That was the last thing I'd have expected to come up.

"Uh, yes, sir," I said.

He looked like the kind of guy you'd say 'sir' to.

"I've visited Toronto a lot," he said. "And my branch manager there is addicted to them."

"Yeah, they're called Mr. Big," I said. "You can't get them in the US. My sister sends them down to me every now and then."

"Oddly enough, they call me Mr. Big too," he said with just a trace of a smile on his face.

He might be Kendal's dad but his eyes looked at me in a way I had come to recognize from guys, from the more aggressive ones, anyway. This guy wanted me!

Kendal was oblivious to it, though, as she strolled past him into his office.

I felt a strange sense of breathlessness as those eyes remained locked on me, then he smiled, kind of bowed and waved me past him into his office.

Yikes!

I walked past him and through the door - double doors, really - and into an office like nothing I'd ever seen before. I mean, I haven't been in a lot of offices. But nothing I'd seen on TV or in movies was remotely like this one. It was just freaking ginormous!

You know how you usually measure rooms by how many feet wide and long they were? You could probably measure this one by yards. It was a corner office. The walls were painted white, the ceiling off-white, and it had a carpet that was mostly white but with splashes of light brown and gray across it in no discernable pattern.

The walls were mostly glass, except for a couple of feet below the high ceiling. The room looked like they hadn't been able to find enough furniture to fill it. His desk was against the inner wall to the left, and wide enough it had four leather chairs facing it, none of them touching each other, and yet the desk was still wider.

There was a table to sit ten people waaaay over on the other side. There was a sofa, a very wide sofa, chairs and table before us, and a wet bar to the right. The office was probably fifty feet wide and maybe twice as long. There were yards of empty space between the furniture groups.

Kendal had obviously seen it all before and wasn't impressed. She flounced across the room to the sofa set, and I followed, wondering if her father was eyeing my butt. And also wondering what I thought about that if he was!

She sat heavily on one of the chairs and I dropped into a sofa across from her. Her father sat in another of the chairs, one next to her and across from me.

"I take it you've come to explain the large numbers charged to your credit card last week," he said.

"She waved her hand carelessly. "Just necessary things, daddy. You want me to keep fashionable, don't you?"

"No, I can't say that I really do, my dear. Whether you're clad in this week's fashion or last week's is not something that generally crosses my mind."

"Well, it matters to me. Not to mention mother," she said.

"I no longer have to concern myself with what your mother approves of," he replied. What does a college student need with a five-thousand-dollar dress?"

"There are all sorts of parties, father," she replied, rolling her eyes. "You want me to make the right kind of connections, don't you?"

"I'm sure you can make them in clothes that aren't as ridiculously overpriced. And what kind of college party needs a hat that costs two thousand dollars?"

I looked at her in disbelief. I'd never seen her in a hat. They would muss her hair.

"A stylish one," she said.

She suddenly jumped up and strode across the floor.

"Little girls' room," she called over her shoulder.

She didn't leave the office, for there was a door behind us that apparently led to a bathroom. I wondered if it was as huge as the office.

With her gone I felt a tad nervous with those eyes on me.

"Nice office," I said.

"Size sometimes does matter," he said with a light smile.