EXTRACT FOR
Sarah & Samantha
(David Monroe)

Things had changed dramatically for Sarah in the last 24 months. Her old life back in St. Louis, while at one time feeling as it was her destiny, felt like it either had belonged to another woman completely, or as if all she had been working toward as long as she could remember had just been some sort of dream. Both her personal and professional lives were just faint memories of who she was now and how she lived as part of the vibrant arts community in Columbia. Part of that, of course she knew was due to Samantha Reid, her close friend from her university days. She had been but another fledgling young woman when she had left college looking for her place in the professional world, but as time went on, she soon found herself as a major figure in the performing arts world in town.

Originally, her sights had never really been set on that field and how to be a part of it all, but with her own persistence and some help from Sam, she ended up there and was some days not quite sure how it had all come together for her. Sarah had always wanted to be a mover and shaker in some part of the business world and in the end figured she figured the performing arts were as good as anything to focus on. Even now, when she was running the Columbia Performing Arts Center, she never forgot that that it was Samantha who had saved her when her personal life had been in shattered pieces and had actually opened some professional doors for her and given her a romantic life she had never dreamed possible having come from her humble and quite rural life in Missouri.

But even with Sam's helping hand to get her past some doors that might have otherwise been shut to her for good, it was that one incredibly erotic and memorable night they had shared at one of the theaters that still stuck in Sarah's brain and had drawn her even closer to /Samantha than ever. Sarah sat now and mulled all this over as she looked out through her large office window that gave her a wonderful view of the expansive park to her west and just smiled. She had a long day ahead of her with a number of client meetings, some of which she knew would be fraught with heated debate and necessary compromises to get deals made, but as long as she kept a vision of Samantha waiting for her at home in her head, she could get though anything that her professional life might throw at her...