Chapter 2
The ride home was filled with anxiety and turmoil. Instead of celebrating the fact that she had a successful open house in a hard to sell upscale development, she was fraught with tension about how to beat the insurmountable Joseph Blake at his own rigged game. As she glided her fully charged car into her parking spot at her condo, she heard an email pling into her inbox. As she tiredly shuffled up the steps to her place, she looked to see that Joe had emailed her an invite to a gathering of some of the most influential figures in the local real estate scene. She didn't recognize the name of the club, but she would figure it out tomorrow. Right now, she could only think of slipping out of her business attire and taking a hot shower.
The night passed by with a tumult of thoughts streaming through her mind. As she slept fitfully, she wove between one nightmare after another relating to her being the indentured servant to Mr. Blake. Although, there was one dream where she was wearing a cute French maid outfit and she was perched on her knees in front of-
The blaring alarm startled her out of sleep. After sitting straight up, she gathered her thoughts and swung out of bed with renewed vigor. The warm sun filtered through her vertical blinds, as she got up to begin planning her assault on Joe. Her first call was to her coworker and best friend, Jessica Sharp.
“Jess, how was your date?” She opened cheerily as she brushed long brown hair.
“Don't give me that shit girl. I already heard what happened to you last night. Are you stupid or something? Joseph Blake is the top dog. He's at the top of the food chain, and you just strapped on your skimpiest meat skirt.” She warned.
Sarah puzzled over the odd analogy as she brushed her teeth. “Besides telling me 'I told you so', do you have any other advice?”
“Yeah, don't go through with it. You still have to sign something right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, don't sign it stupid!” Jessica said above the noise of the hair dryer on her end of the line.
Sarah sighed and said, “Jess, it doesn’t work like that, at least not for me. Seriously, what kind of dirt do you have on him? Does he even have 'dirt'?”
“Psshh, not likely. Even if he did, he knows every cop, politician, ahem, and politician's wife within a twenty mile radius. If you want to even have a chance at beating him, you're gonna have to play dirty.” Jessica said with a final harrumph.
“I know a guy in South Central who'll pull his fingers off for two grand.” Sarah mentioned idly as she put her running shoes on.
“…Perhaps a little less dirty.” Jessica said slowly. “How do you even..., you know what? It's none of my business. Just get your cards straight and play everything close, because he's good at this little game of his.”
Sarah stood up stick straight as she came to a realization she should have seen coming. “Wait, you mean he's done this before!?”
“Uh..., yeah! Why do you think he and Mr. Nelson know each other so well? He did it to Mr. Neslon's last upstart about two years ago.”
“That reminds me, I have a meeting with Joe and the other masters of the real estate universe tonight.” Sarah said, as she ran down the hall of her building to the elevator. She was looking forward to a jog to help clear her head. Her little Blue tooth headset kept loosening, and she held it in to hear the last bit of useless advice from Jess.
“You watch yourself girl. Those guys are true old school dudes. I don't even know how they act around women when its after hours. You know what? I don't wanna know either. Good luck.”
The last words blended with the sound of traffic, and she broke into a sprint to clear her head. As her pulse quickened, she felt the familiar rush of endorphins into her blood. She no longer felt like a victim, but a player in a very high stakes game. One that she would win at all costs.
That afternoon she cleaned her place. She waited anxiously for the night to come. This power meeting at some nightclub was going to be her chance to find out the inside scoop on her adversary. She received an email from Joe, and opened it on her phone while she finished her makeup:
I will be sending Ernesto to pick you up at 9 tonight. I hope your daddy doesn't mind you being out too late on a school night!
-Joe.
She though about turning down the ride, but if he wanted to foot the cost of parking, that was on him.
After Ernesto picked her up, they made their way to the club where the big meeting was. As the tall, quiet personal assistant came around to open the door, she checked her makeup one last time, and straightened her top. She felt like she was showing a little too much cleavage, but she would be meeting with a bunch of lecherous businessmen, and she felt it was fair play in light of things. When she stepped out, she finally glimpsed the club where they would be meeting.
“Kitty Kat Ranch?” She said out loud in a quizzical voice.
“This is se place. I'll pick ju and Jose up later tonight. Buenos noche cochina!” Ernesto yelled from the window, as he sped off in the Cadillac STS.
Her eyes narrowed as she made her way to the entrance. A large bouncer with arms as big as her torso nodded to her.
“You the Bella girl?” He asked in a gruff voice.
“Uh, yeah. Do I pay a cover or something?” She asked timidly.
He smiled warmly in spite of his brick wall personality. “Naw, just go in sweetie, The guys are at the back.”
Sarah was hit with a solid blockade of throbbing dance music, mixed with the smell of vanilla body spray. This place was built to overload the senses, and it was doing its job well as she peered around to look for a familiar face. As she made her way to the back, she was stopped by a tall girl wearing thigh high boots and a hot pink thong. Given that her height put her chest right at Sarah's eye level, she found herself staring transfixed at the tasseled pasties that were bounding to and fro.
“Ten dollars for a lap dance honey.” The red headed Amazon woman said to her.
“You mean me?” Sarah asked with wide eyes, looking behind herself to makes sure there wasn't some sort of comic miscommunication.
“Yeah ten dollars. Is your husband here too?” I bet he'd love to watch...,” She chimed with an enticing ring in her voice.
As Sarah stood there with her mouth open, she was shaken from her state of shock by a familiar voice coming from the back of the darkened room.
“Sarah! Over here!” A look across the platform full of pole dancing girls revealed a table at the back where Joe was standing up to beckon her with his hand. She felt her blood begin to boil when she witnessed his smile of utter shit eating confidence radiating though the whole place.
As she made her way over to their VIP table, she had to weave in and around three more dancers that were strolling amongst the patrons. She made a mental note to ask one of the girls how they even walk on those seven inch heels.
“So, its a good thing sexual harassment isn't an issue with us.” She said to him with a cool smile.
Her eyes scanned over the table. There was Joe, two other guys that looked to be in their late forties..., and her heart sank a little when she saw her boss, Mr. Nelson propped up in the corner with a dancer in his lap! She now knew why she had been invited. Joe was intent on showing her the dark and twisty side of her kindly, silver-haired boss. She saw a cocktail waitress stroll by with a tray.
“Excuse me, I'm gonna need a Jack and Coke. Heavy on the Jack.” The girl nodded in affirmation as Sarah gave a polite smile to her boss. He seemed to already be two sheets to the wind, as his dopey smile went from her, and then back to the big-chested blonde parked on his lap.
Joe stood up and came over to sit by her. “Wow, hitting the hard stuff so soon? You must have had a bad day.” He teased with a patronizing show of pity.
“You really wanted me to be here for some 'meeting of he minds'?” She said in a loud voice over the din of the music.
“Eh, these guys will just end up talking about sports and fishing. It's all inner circle stuff, but I felt you might get a kick o
ut of it. Sorry for the venue, this tends to be a guy thing.” He finished with a wink.
Her drink arrived. This time, it was carried by a girl wearing a rather skimpy variant of a nurse's uniform. She took the drink; pushed aside some of the ice cubes, and tossed it back in one pull. She was going to need to self medicate a little to get through this thing. She looked up at the “nurse”, who was giving her a wide-eyed look of surprised admiration. “Keep these coming please.” Sarah said, as she sat the empty glass back in on the tray.
“Wow, you better pace yourself. There might be some important stuff said here tonight.”
Sarah thought back to her weekends at UCSB. She could outlast most of the guys that tried to keep up with her party girl ways. She knew that there was no way these guys could match her, and as the next glass came in front of her, she smiled graciously to Joe and tossed it back while keeping eye contact with him the whole time.
“Suit yourself...”
“Who's the skirt?” Said one of the other men at the table. The balding man turned out to be one of the biggest developers in the LA basin, and he was a lecherous tool also. He signaled a passing girl over, and whispered something in her ear. The same redhead from when she first came in nodded to him with a smile, and them came over to her side of the table.
“Scoot your chair out a little babe.” She said to Sarah. She obliged, only realizing a little too late what was about to happen.
The drinks were starting to hit her bloodstream, and she felt her token business girl demeanor fading away. If these guys wanted a show, they were going to get one they'd never forget!
Sarah observed the tall woman, who was probably no older than she was. As she gingerly placed herself on Sarah's lap, she arched her back straight and began gyrating her hips in time to the house music thumping around them. Her large breasts moved and bounced only inches from Sarah's nose, and when one of them brushed her cheek she got an idea.
She signaled the girl to lean in close so she could whisper to her. “What's your name?”
The girl smiled and said, “It's Roxy. Why?”
“What do guys get out of this?” Sarah asked.
“I'm not sure, but the old bald guy who sent me over looks like he's about to explode from this little show.” Roxy said with a smile.
“What are you doing here anyway?” Sarah asked her. She was now genuinely curious about this dancer who was pushing her crotch into her lap with such nonchalance.
“I'm finishing out my last few classes at school. In six months, I'm graduating as a physician's assistant and never looking back!” She said over the music.
“For another fifty bucks, how about we give these guys a show they'll never forget?” Sarah said with a smile.
As if sensing where Sarah was going with this, Roxy turned around in her lap to face the gentlemen. She turned back and winked at Sarah over her shoulder, as she took Sarah's hands gently and placed them on her breasts.
Sarah felt her heart speed up a bit, as she tried to keep up with this turn of events. She had never touched another girl's girls, but she kept up with the show as she spun the delicate little tassels in full view of all the men at the table. Even her boss stared at her with wide-eyed amazement as Roxy stood up and strolled off. They whole group sat in awed silence as Sarah finished off another drink.
“Now that that's out of the way, lets talk business.”
The next morning hit Sarah like a runaway train. While the glaring sun poured into her bedroom, she sat up and held her head as if it would split apart from the pressure. The dull throb of her hangover was lessened to an extent by the events of the prior night. She recalled the comradery that she had built with the upper crust of the LA housing scene. Even if she ended up indentured to Joseph Blake, she still had some pretty interesting names to drop regardless.
In a split second recollection, she remembered that Joe had mentioned a showing he had today at Verde Grande. She made a quick call to the guy she used for home inspections. She knew just how to start off this little war of theirs!
Joseph Blake welcomed in the attractive couple, as he opened the French doors of the palatial ranch home. The two prospective buyers looked around the well-staged house, making all the right noises that indicated a quick offer. Joe smiled his confident smile, and he straightened his tie while he checked his email. There was a message from Sarah! He smirked as he opened it, thinking she was ready to back out of the bet:
Street rules, Joey boy!
-Sarah Bella
He gave the message a puzzled look, and he wondered what it was she had planned. Right as the couple came back out from the backyard with smiles on their faces, Joe got his answer. There was a knock at the door that startled the whole trio. Joe opened it, only to be greeted with a tall man wearing a white Tyvek coverall and a gas mask. He said something unintelligible through the mask, and then handed Joe a clipboard filled with forms and legal documents.
“What's the meaning of all this?” Joe asked in exasperation.
The man pulled off his gas mask and gave the group a forlorn look. “You all have to leave now! This house is testing off the charts for toxic black mold. If you don't leave right now, I'll have to have you quarantined and professionally bathed to remove the spores!”
The couple gave Joe a wide-eyed stare, and made a beeline for the front door. As they scurried past the man in the hazmat suit, Joe looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“There is no mold, is there?”
“Nope, in fact, those forms are just my junk mail. The fancy one on top was a Publisher's Clearing House Entry.” The guy laughed to himself as he strolled back to his truck.
Joe stood there with a stupid grin on his face. The wager with this girl might be more fun than he thought...
As he jetted along the Pacific Coast Highway later that day, he rang Sarah.
“That was real cute Miss Bella. I'm usually the one to play dirty first.”
Sarah cradled her phone in the crook of her neck as she stuck her sign into the damp lawn of her next sale. Her heels dug into the soft ground while she listened to Joe's tale of excitement.
“I wanted to keep you on your toes. It's like they say, 'In prison, stab the first person you see, or become someone's bitch for the rest of your stay.' I'm not planning on being your bitch, so consider this your first shanking.” She said with a big evil smile. She wasn't sure why, but she felt a sort of tingling rush that bordered on scary. She loved being the evil ne'er do well, but being flushed with endorphins from acting like this was sort of disconcerting.
“Enjoy your end zone dance little girl. As I recall, we both have open houses from here until the end of the wager. If you think you have any idea what's coming, you're wrong. So, so wrong.” He hung up his phone and tossed it on the passenger seat. With his own evil smile, he up shifted the screaming Porsche and passed a slow moving pickup truck. He savored the jolt of adrenaline as he ducked back into his lane just in time to miss a minivan. This was gong to be fun...