Chapter 6: Christening

I GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE with an MFA in Visual Arts and a real estate license. It was my father’s fault.

He was always supportive of my art career but he was a realist as well. He didn’t tell me I’d need “a real job” in order to survive.

“Few art careers get launched straight into success. You’re good, Dimitri. But becoming known can be a long slow process. It’s unlikely that in this society you’ll find a patron to support you. You’re going to need a way to earn a respectable living during the time before you’re famous. You also need something that is independent and flexible so you aren’t too exhausted to paint.” His solution was real estate. He promised to pay for my schooling, all the way through the MBA, if I got my real estate license and had made at least one solid sale before I graduated.

It was brilliant. At age 25, I had banked enough commissions to buy a nice house in a good neighborhood. It even had room for my studio. When I moved in, I was the youngest homeowner in the community. The neighbors were friendly and I invited everyone to a party the day my furniture arrived.

The lower level family room was on the north side of the house and had terrific light for painting. The house was on the edge of the development with a wooded greenbelt behind it and the windows were high, so reasonably private. Of course, there were a few close calls when the neighborhood kids romped through my yard on their way to the woods and got curious but, to my knowledge, none ever got an eyeful of my models.

The surprise was, I actually liked selling real estate. Oh, I didn’t love it like I loved painting, but as far as earning a living went, it wasn’t bad. I had co-workers who loved to party, met a lot of interesting clients, and occasionally, I really helped someone on their life journey.

That was the case with Allison.

She’d become the trophy wife of a corporate executive when she was in her early twenties. When she was thirty-five, the bastard traded her in on a newer model. She’d convinced herself that she really loved the guy and not just his money, so the divorce was bitter. The financial settlement of half of everything he owned took a bit of the sting out of it. It turned out that he owned a lot more than she was aware of, but her attorney located assets the court awarded to her. And because he tried to conceal assets, the court also made him pay all the attorney fees and court costs. Still, it took a big bite out of her self-confidence.

“It’s funny,” she said as we were touring houses looking for a new place for her to live, “but I couldn’t imagine anyone younger or prettier than me being willing to sell herself to that old bastard. I thought as long as I was careful to keep my looks up and always be willing to satisfy him, I’d have lifelong security. I know, I’m a poor little rich girl, but it still hurts.” I sympathized and dug further into the kind of life she wanted now, so I could match her up with a new house.

I admit to my prejudices. When I first met her and heard the story, I compared her to Sheila Monroe. Here’s another of those beautiful women who think that’s all that matters and everyone should worship her because she’s beautiful. As we worked for a few weeks on matching her up with a new house, I got a very different impression. Allison was smart and funny. She had a credible self-understanding and knew what people as prejudiced as me thought of her. Her attitude convinced me she wasn’t as high maintenance as I expected. As she got more caught up in her search for the perfect home, she developed a sense of relief that she didn’t need to maintain the pretenses she had adopted as a CEO’s wife. She wanted a much simpler lifestyle.

I finally found the right house for her.

It was a beautiful house, but much smaller than I expected to sell her. It was on a large lot that was mostly wild with very little lawn to maintain. It was in a good neighborhood and had enough room to entertain but not so much she couldn’t clean it herself in a pinch. The day she closed on the house, I was sad that I would no longer be seeing her. We’d been together touring and negotiating at least twice a week for over a month. She was very nice company.

“I can’t believe it’s mine!” she said as we left the escrow office. I lifted my hand to give her the keys and she did a little happy dance on the sidewalk. “Come over and help me celebrate,” she said. “I just need to stop by Costco and pick up a few things on the way. Can you come by about six?”

“I’d love to celebrate with you,” I said. “Why don’t I bring a bottle of champagne?”

“I’ll see you then!”

I had plenty of time to stop by a wine store and pick out a decent but not overpriced bottle of bubbly and some flowers. I didn’t mind spending fifty bucks on a house-warming gift. I’d just made about $10,000 in commission on the house she bought. I was celebrating, too!

I stopped back home to check my messages. There was a very brief message from Rita saying tomorrow was the big night. She was going to try to seduce Alex back and try out her newly-learned skills. I sighed. We’d been ‘rehearsing’ this for a few weeks. Whenever a new question about the art of loving struck her, we’d end up in bed together. She was an enthusiastic pupil and I was going to miss her when she got back with Alex. I still thought it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t really start competing with him. It just wouldn’t be right.

That poor guy, I chuckled to myself. He didn’t stand a chance against her powers of seduction.

I arrived at Allison’s door with the champagne chilled and the flowers fresh.

The door was standing open and I raised my hand to knock when she flew out the door and almost knocked me over. I caught her as she stumbled into me and the flowers went flying. The champagne, I managed to keep a grip on.

“Oh my God! What a rush!” she laughed as she clung to me for balance. “Sorry! Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Is everything all right?”

“Yes. I just have a few more things in the car. I was trying to get everything in before you got here. Go on in and I’ll be right back.”

I stooped to gather up the scattered flowers and glanced up to see Allison leaning into the backseat of her Audi. She’d changed clothes since her closing and was completely relaxed in a pair of gray yoga pants and a red crop top T-shirt. When she leaned over, the pants hugged her shapely ass. The bottom hem of the T-shirt dropped away from her body and I could see up to the lower curve of her left breast. From the distance, I couldn’t make out detail, but it was obvious she definitely got comfortable before I dropped by.

I straightened up as she approached with a box of supplies apparently just purchased from Costco, and followed her into the house.

“Is there anything else I can get from the car?”

“No, this was the last of it. How about rolling this out in front of the fireplace and lighting the gas jets. Then you can open that champagne.” She busied herself in the kitchen opening cupboards and pushing boxes into them, apparently at random. A couple of boxes she opened and began emptying onto the counter. I watched with one eye as I took the rug she pointed to, cut the cords, and rolled it out in front of the living room fireplace on top of the already thick plush carpeting.

Allison was a beautiful woman. If she had a mind to go out and conquer another rich executive, I had no doubt it would be easy for her. But during our conversations, she made it clear that she’d made her millions and she didn’t need to sell her body to the richest exec she saw. She was tall—easily five-eight—with shoulder length blonde hair that showed about an inch of reddish brown at the roots. She’d said she was through with the bimbo look and would be her natural color soon.

She was well-endowed physically as well as financially. There was a gentle sway that confirmed my opinion she had no bra beneath the T-shirt she wore. But while dressed in the epitome of casual wear, it also looked like her sweats had been tailored to show off her superb ass. I leaned against the breakfast bar and worked on the champagne cork as I watched her move. My thoughts weren’t all that lascivious. I thought about how I’d paint her. She was Winged Victory, Aphrodite, and Rosie the Riveter all rolled into one. I thought I’d like to catch her before her hair finished growing out. If I could make it stand up, it would look like an angelic halo around her head. What a mass of contradictions.

Aside from the rug I’d just thrown on the floor and the champagne glasses she set on the counter, there was no furniture in the house. As we chatted, our voices echoed in the way that only an empty house can create.

“Isn’t this great? I have my own place. No one can tell me to pick up my socks; no one can tell me what to wear; no one can dirty it up and expect me to clean it. No one except me.”

“It sounds like a dream come true.”

“You’re a man. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m a man who has lived alone in my own space with no one to tell me when to come or go for the past fifteen years,” I said.

“Okay. Maybe you would understand. But you’re still a man.” I poured the champagne and handed her a glass.

“So, are you swearing off all men then?” We clinked our glasses together.

“Here’s to my new home,” she said, downing the first glass of champagne in one long swallow and refilling her glass herself. “No, I’m not swearing off all men. I’m swearing off all relationships and entanglements.” We took the bottle and our glasses and settled down on the new rug in front of the gas fireplace. I’m a coward. When I sense a woman ready to vent, I clam up. I sat there silently, waiting for her to continue and hoping I didn’t become a stand-in target for all the people who had controlled her life. But she seemed to settle down immediately.

“I chose the life I lived. Jacob was good to me, but let’s face it: he married me on the rebound after his first marriage went sour and I made the most of the opportunity. I convinced myself I loved him and sold my youth for a lifetime of security. I got it, even in divorce. With half his wealth, I’m not going to squander it or run to another sugar daddy. I don’t need to live that way anymore.”

We were sitting on opposite sides of the rug and she was now on her third glass of champagne as I drank from my first. She kept up with her impromptu lecture.

“Let’s say I want to go to Hawaii for a week to go parasailing. I can just do it. If I want to sit in an expensive restaurant and eat a meal just to enjoy the food, I can do it without feeling I need to impress my husband’s friends and associates.” She set her glass down on the hearth and rolled up on all fours. She started toward me like a cat. “Suppose I want to seduce my Realtor and get royally fucked. I can just do it.” Her face was inches from mine as she stopped in front of me.

“At what point does the Realtor get to say if he does or doesn’t want to fuck you?” I asked.

“At any time before his cock is actually buried in one of my holes. From then on, it’s too late. So, think about it quickly, because you don’t have much time to decide.” She closed the gap and pressed her mouth against mine. It wasn’t just her lips. Her mouth opened, expecting nothing less from me. I opened my mouth in defense, hoping not to be devoured. There was nothing romantic about the kiss. It was a raw probing of each other with our tongues. I barely got my glass set down on the hearth before she had pushed me completely back, covering my body with hers.

“You had to know I wanted this when I invited you over to help christen my new house,” she said.

“I suspected you might.”

“And you showed up anyway.”