I was a lithe, coltish girl with great reflexes, and I got very good with that bike. It was exhilarating to race up hillsides and literally fly over the crests without ever being quite sure whether you'd be able to land properly. Until you did, of course.

I eschewed cars, and because dirt bikes weren't street legal, got a motorcycle for riding the roads. I preferred the smaller, more nimble bikes to the 'big dick' 1000cc Harley Davidsons and the like. They were a lot cheaper, too, and I wasn't exactly an heiress. And in California traffic, you could rarely get up to very high speeds anyway except at night.

Anyway, when I was about twenty I moved to New York City. I wanted a complete change, wanted new experiences, and wanted to see the world. New York seemed like the best place to start. I did it on impulse, which is something I'm prone to, sometimes to my regret.

Especially with men!

Once in New York I wanted to live in Manhattan, of course. I mean, if you live in one of the other boroughs you don't get the same authentic experience. Or so I thought. Reality hit me in the face when I got a look at the rents!

The thing was, it was expensive everywhere, even in the boroughs, unless you went far out. So I wound up settling in Jersey City. It was way cheaper, and the Holland Tunnel would take me directly across to Soho and Greenwich Village.

The place I got was ultra-modern, in a newly renovated, century old brownstone which had been subdivided into tiny studio apartments. It had very little room. They called it a 'micro apartment', and it was only about three hundred square feet!

Think of an apartment designed by Ikea. This was like that. Everything was modular and made of blonde wood, including the floor. The 'kitchen' was more of a cabinet with a built in mini fridge. It had no stove, though it did have two heating elements on the counter and an overhead microwave.

The bathroom was tiny, with a shower I barely fit in. There was room for a small sofa across from a small kitchen table, and then up a five foot high wooden ladder was a sleeping area. I won't dignify it by calling it a bedroom but it was cozy, with room for a queen size mattress and a row of built in drawers along the foot and wall.

It had no windows, but the wall between the sleeping area and the rest of the apartment was made of slatted wood, a sort of slat screen wall, so you could see through it. It even had a door, also of slatted wood. I'm not sure what the purpose was, though. I suppose if you turned out the lights in there nobody in the rest of the place would see you, but you'd sure hear them, so this was not a place for two people to live.

Of course, getting a job was the next challenge, since I didn't exactly have a big bank account saved up. I also didn't have more than high school, and not much office experience (like none). I didn't have the wardrobe to be some kind of secretary or receptionist, either. Nor, do be honest, the inclination.

That was how I came to get hired as a courier. It might be a high tech world, but legal documents still had to be moved by hand, and there were a ton of those in Manhattan. Moving around in the city was a nightmare if you were driving a UPS truck or something similar, so bicycle couriers were very big. But they had a limited range.

A small motorcycle driven by someone with a GPS who was willing to take a few chances, well now, that was ideal. The pay rate was actually pretty good, but only if you cheated. If you drove along with traffic, obeying all laws, well... yeah, forget it. Lane splitting is the rule to get past slower moving traffic, and going through alleys saves a ton of time if you don't get caught. Speeding, wherever possible, is of course, routine.

I have a Honda Rebel, which is small and peppy, but street legal. It won't win any races but it's great for crowded streets in Manhattan. Of course, I have near misses regularly, but since traffic generally isn't moving that fast and I'm young, I figure I'd likely survive most of them pretty easily.

Like I said, I didn't bring a huge wardrobe with me to New York. What I did bring were my leathers, which is what you wear if you're on a bike and want to protect yourself from the cold and road rash at the same time.

Being a courier rider is ideal, then, since that was pretty much all I wore every day to work. Mind you, they were in good shape, except for the jacket, which I had to replace. The company, Amico, does a lot of business in the Financial District, and those snooty people don't want scruffy looking 'bikers' strolling into their fancy offices. You have to look respectable - in a blue collar sort of way.

That means clean, nearly new or looking nearly new jackets, pants and boots. Same goes for the helmet, even though you have to take it off before going inside. In fact, they prefer you chain it to your bike, and unzip the jacket.

I think those rules are meant to keep the guys from seeming threatening and probably shouldn't apply to me, but I went along with them. It didn't take much in the way of complaints from a client before you were out the door and looking for work as a barista.

Having long hair with a helmet means you either get horrible helmet hair a lot, or you tie it into a long braid that hangs down your back - which invites being harassed by assholes on the road. So I cut my hair shorter than I generally would have liked, into a bob.

It's a short reddish brown bob, but with thick bangs that cut diagonally across my forehead and is made to seem part of a perfect flow which slides down and back just past my upper cheeks. It never touches my collar but is full and rich and soft and feminine looking.

That makes it equally good for going into fancy offices, and for dancing, which is my third favorite activity. My favorite activity being biking. Sex would be my second favorite, when it's done right. Most guys, in my experience, really need to be schooled in how to do it right, though, so usually eating is number two and sex falls to fourth place.

Where do guys fail when it comes to sex? Don't get me going! Just to start, most guys do not know how to do something as simple as handle a breast. As for oral sex, forget it! I've never met a guy who had much interest, let alone expertise. And you're usually better off if they don't even go near your clitoris! In fact, if I don't have to actually teach them how to kiss, I figure that's a big bonus in a guy.

Don't get me wrong here. I like guys. They're sometimes like slow children in their social behavior, but most can learn, if only because they're panting, slobbering sex addicts and I'm the girl with their 'fix'.

Not that I have a lot of sex, certainly not as much as I'd like to have. Casual sex with guys you don't know is dangerous on so many levels, both physical and emotional. So I have to invest a certain amount of time in getting to know a guy, and he has to be willing to do the same.

It's not a moral thing, by the way. I have no qualms about jumping some guy's bones a minute and a half after meeting him - if, and it's a giant if - I was sure he was safe, clean, would not force me into anything, and was really good. And, of course, if I were attracted to him.

That has never happened, by the way.

Casual sex is easy for guys. I get that. I even understand why. They don't have any fear, they don't need to have any emotional commitment, or even like the girl they're having sex with, and for a guy, sex is always good, even when it's not. As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a bad blow job. Guys come every single time. And how can an activity that always ends in orgasm be bad?

If girls always had an orgasm during sex, girls would be having a lot more sex!

Unfortunately....

Now I like feeling sexy, and I like looking sexy. There's limited ways to do that given what I have to wear every day to work. And it's usually not a good idea to look too sexy either, unless I'm in a dance club looking for guys. The hair, and slightly tight leather pants are about the best I can do.

Because of that I kind of like to feel sexy on the inside. I admit I have a thing for sexy lingerie, especially in black lace. That was usually what I wore to work, a nice little thong with high angled strings crossing my hips, and a lacy bra with half cups.

How much do I like lingerie? I have tons, and since my fourth or fifth favorite thing to do (depending on the day) is taking pictures, I have lots of pictures of myself in lingerie. Is this self-worship or narcissism? Is it obsessive compulsive, or a longing for the life of a sexy, party girl or pinup?

I have no idea. But being sexy, feeling sexy, looking sexy, is part of my self-image and part of who I am and want to be. And it's not like anyone else gets to see the pictures. I mean, if they're lucky they get to see me in lingerie! They don't need pictures.

It was a cool September morning when I met Ben Stone, and quite by accident. I was running late. I was supposed to be in his office by noon, and got there at five past twelve. I jammed my bike in between two parked cars, popped off my helmet, locked it in place, ran a quick brush through my hair, and hurried inside.

It was a seventy story building in the Financial District. I had no idea what kind of organization it was, and didn't care. I unzipped my jacket, revealing a maroon t-shirt underneath and hurried to the elevator, only to get stopped by Security.

Most buildings you can just go on in, but this was one more delay, which left me feeling stressed out. I had to sign in, show ID, and the guard had to call up. I had an oversized packet, which usually meant legal documents, and they insisted on putting it through some kind of explosives detector thing before letting me bring it up.

Now lots of buildings have security, especially the tonier ones, but this was the first time anyone had ever waved a wand over my body and put my stuff through an explosives detector! Still, this is New York, and after only a couple of months I'd already taken on that kind of New Yorker sang-froid about security stuff.

By the time I got through the line and upstairs ten more minutes had passed by, and I was impatient, irritable, and slightly stressed. I prided myself on punctuality, and the company really disapproved of anything else.

The elevator was smooth and ultra-modern. It wooshed me and the rest within the car up fairly quickly since it was a shaft devoted to those going above the 50^th floor. Even so I got there at about quarter past twelve.

The sixty fifth floor was the home of rich people. You could tell that just as soon as the doors opened. The walls, instead of being painted plaster, were artfully layered wood grain panels. The floor in the elevator bay was hardwood, and highly polished. Once out of there the carpeting was so deep you could have slept on it.

There was a paneled reception counter area to the left, with leather chairs facing each other before it. Instead of the gorgeously dressed kewpie doll I expected, though, there was a bald, middle aged man in a suit who clearly had major attitude.

He knew who I was as soon as I appeared, of course. I was betting they didn't get too many people in leather pants and jackets there, and checked his shiny gold watch very deliberately, scowling at me as he raised his eyes.

"Parcel for Mister Stone," I said, keeping my tone and expression bland.

"You were instructed to be here before noon," he snapped.

"I got held up by security downstairs."

"If you'd arrived on time that wouldn't have been an issue."

"I didn't know security would delay me. If my company was told they didn't pass that information on," I said, still determinedly keeping my voice bland.

The truth is I really didn't like people with 'tude. I have no patience for them and tend to have a smart mouth, which has gotten me in trouble before.

"Those are excuses!"

I shrugged and handed him the parcel. He all but snatched it, still glowering.

"You can be sure your company will hear about this inexcusable delay!" he exclaimed, raising his voice.

"Okay," I said.

That just made his face red for some reason.

"Sign here, please," I said, now determinedly acting as politely bored as possible.

If there's one thing pompous assholes don't like when they are yelling at someone, it's that someone showing no care or concern in their complaints. It's not exactly great public relations, I suppose, but it's less likely to get me fired than slugging the guy or giving him the finger.

"We pay a premium for fast service," he snapped. "We expect it to get here on time."

"We have a very high on-time record," I said. "But sometimes traffic and other delays make that impossible."

"Nothing is impossible!" he snapped. "Delays are the result of poor planning or decision making on someone's part!'

It was getting harder to just be blandly polite. Like this asshole in his expensive, but off the rack suit had any chance whatsoever of zipping through traffic on a bike like I did every day.

He scribbled something on the paper so hard it was impossible to read, and shoved it at me. I sighed mentally.

"Could you please print your name, sir?" I asked.

"You print my name," he snapped, walking away.

"I don't know your name," I replied.

"Then I guess you'll have a hard time," he said over his shoulder.

"Arnold," a deep voice said suddenly from the other side of me.

He stopped as if he hit a wall and turned around even as I did.

"Oh, Mister Stone!" he said, his tone completely different as he hurried back.

There was a guy there I could have sworn was Gerard Butler, only with a better shave. He was tall, broad shouldered, and thick chested, in a pricey suit that probably cost more than I made in six months. Unlike the other guy, his was tailored. You can always tell.

"Are those the documents?"

"They just got here, sir. The girl was late," he said, giving me an irritated look. "Deidre had to leave for an appointment and Allison booked off sick."

"I got held up by security," I interjected.

"You're clearly a very suspicious looking individual," he said, giving me a bland look. "Lord only knows what you're hiding in those tight leather pants."