Chapter 22

Jan came racing down the stairs reacting to the smell of smoke and the banshee scream of a smoke detector. Running into the kitchen, she found Cindy crumpled on the floor while eggs were turning to carbon in the skillet. She turned off the range and put the smoking pan in the sink. Ignoring the scream of the detector, she knelt beside the unconscious girl, now very pale in spite of her tan. By this time Pete had come down, too. He opened windows and turned the exhaust fan to its highest setting to draw off the smoke. While Jan called the doctor, he carried the girl up to her room and put her to bed.

The doctor arrived only minutes later. By this time Cindy was reviving and trying to get up. Pete wouldn't hear of it. He said, "Young lady, you were sprawled on the floor, trying to burn the damned house down. Are you still trying to get us into the new house next door?" She just smiled weakly.

After examining her the doctor looked at her and demanded, "How much sleep have you been getting, young lady?"

Cindy looked guilty, but tried to hide it. She replied weakly, "Lots and lots, Doctor. Honest."

"What's a lot? Two hours? Three? I'll bet you ten dollars you haven't averaged as much as three hours for the last three weeks, have you?" Cindy just looked guilty and her eyes closed. Exhaustion had taken her again.

The doctor left the room with Pete and Jan and went down to the kitchen. He said, "The good news is there's absolutely nothing clinically wrong with that young lady. She's in perfect physical condition, considering! No one can operate on no sleep, and that's what that girl has been doing. What's going on?" Janice just shook her head but said she would find out.

Pete left for the office. At eight o'clock, a car drove up followed a few minutes later by another. Jan welcomed first April and then Kathy. Alerted by what had happened to Cindy, she looked at the girls closely. Both looked worn out; both were going on nerves and determination, and each carried in arm-loads of files. Janice ordered them both to bed in spare bedrooms. She found it very significant that neither girl had the strength left even to argue, and both were asleep almost instantly.

Jan called Dan Burke at the bank. When he came on the line she said, "Burke, what's going on? I've heard of men killing their wives with overwork, but usually they marry them first. Furthermore, Cindy is my slave. You're only borrowing her. It's pretty damned clear she's working two jobs for you and about one and a half for me. Since that takes twenty-eight hours, it's a little hard to do it all in just twenty-four!"

Then she told him what had happened, as well as the condition of Kathy and April. He promised to check and call her back. Jan stayed home that day to keep an eye on the three girls.

He was as good as his word. At noon, Dan called and said, "Jan, you were right. Good heavens, how could we be so dumb! Those three girls have processed two-thirds of the total loans the bank has made in the last three months. They're doing the work of about thirty people! How are they now?"

"They're all sleeping like babies, why?" she asked.

"Because Don is coming out there this afternoon. He'll be there with Mary about five. Bill Cartwright will be driving out with them to drive Kathy home and Mary Jefferson will send her chauffeur to drive April back along with someone to bring back her car. There will be a staff meeting at your house at five. Finally, I've told our personnel people to get them more help immediately. I think they got the message this time."

At four-thirty the girls started to drift down the stairs. Since it was Jan's house, they came down wearing their usual attire at the Stewart's: nothing. Jan looked at the three fondly. In spite of the sleep still in their eyes and their woebegone expressions, they were beautiful girls. Jan gave them coffee and shooed them upstairs to get dressed because they were meeting with the president of the bank in twenty minutes. The girls just nodded and disappeared. She heard the showers running and a few minutes later they reappeared with their hair still wet, all wearing their Levi's and work shirts.

Don and Mary Martin arrived with Bill Cartwright. They gathered in the kitchen with Don sitting at the head of the table. The three sat like schoolgirls who had just been sent to the principal's office. All of them sat quietly, just looking down at the table top. Bill looked at his young wife and his heart turned over. She was so cute but looked so apprehensive.

Don looked around the table and said, "I guess it's time to review the results of the first three months' operation of our Special Lending Division. It's a pretty simple review, really. There is a question the bank examiners raised, though, that I'll take up at the end."

When she heard her father mention "bank examiners," Cindy's heart leaped to her throat. He continued by listing the number of loans made and their total dollar value. Then he said, "Now, loan performance: loans classified as non-performing, none; loans delinquent, none; loan payments late, none; loans paid in advance of contract, 45 percent. This brings me to the examiners: they questioned why we're reserving anything at all against this portfolio in view of the payment record. We gave them some double-talk.

"Then the senior examiner said it's obviously the result of our bank's focus on rich individuals exclusively. He asked why we don't participate in the community lending pool with the other banks. Our participation is supposed to be $1 million. I told him we would pass. Our exposure — the term doesn't really fit in this case — is now north of $50 million and rising fast."

Then Don smiled and turned to Mary and said, "Mary, you have been around the bank for twenty years. What do you think?"

"It's unheard of, darling!" Then Mary grimaced and punched him lightly on the arm. She said, "Donald Martin, my time in the bank is our secret." She grinned and said, "Yesterday there was a new receptionist filling in for Jean. She asked me when I started at the bank. She said she had been at the bank for six months herself and thought she knew all the new people. Then she told me about a new singles bar for people in their twenties that's supposed to have some really neat-looking men!" She looked at Don and said thoughtfully, "I wonder how much I could get for you on a trade-in?"

Don was now looking very young. He grinned ruefully and shook his head saying, "That's what I get for marrying a girl who is forty going on eighteen!" Mary stuck out her tongue and then kissed him softly. Cindy clapped her hands in glee.

Then he looked at her and said, "That's the problem, Cin. Your mother is now looking younger than you do. You three girls are killing yourselves. If it hadn't been for Jan's call this morning, no one would have realized how much work you people are doing." He winked at Jan and said, "This morning the Board of Directors approved the payment of bonuses to your group. Each of you will receive a cash bonus of 100 percent of salary, payable immediately."

Cindy looked puzzled and asked, "Dad, how can I get a bonus when I don't get a salary?"

He looked at her quizzically and replied, "Cindy, aren't you the girl who was first in her class at Chicago's business school? What's 100 percent of nothing?"

"Nothing," she answered.

"Then what's your bonus?"

Cindy just grinned and shook her head sadly. Then she looked at Jan and said, "I want to apologize for this morning. I guess the doctor's bill will just add to my indenture like the rest of the stuff, won't it?" Jan just smiled. Then Cindy started to rise from the table to start dinner.

Jan said, "Slave Cindy, what are you doing?"

The girl was startled. She said, "I'm preparing dinner, Jan. It's my job. I really can't afford any more time added. I want so desperately to be married and be a mother!"

Jan's heart turned over as she heard the girl's words. Clearly, this slave thing had already gone much too far. But since it was early November already, it would soon be over. She told her to remain seated.

Then Jan glared at the girls and said, "Slaves, your assignment this evening is to try to act like guests. I want to see if you know how. As for dinner, I think I can cope with a little help from Mary." Then she turned to Don and asked, "What are we going to do now, Don? How does the story come out?"

He replied, "Good question. Our personnel people have an incentive to hire some new officers for Cindy's unit ... three to start. The incentive is they get to keep their jobs. Cindy, there will be candidates for you to interview in the office at nine o'clock tomorrow. Be there! This meeting is adjourned." Then he looked at the girl and asked, "Could you get a jacket and take a walk with your dad?"

Cindy Martin slipped on a jacket while he put on his coat, and then they went out the back door. Without even thinking, she went to the left towards the new house under construction next door. Work had begun in late September and it was now framed out. She and Dan went through it every weekend and Cindy adored it. It was a rambling house with six bedrooms, what was shaping up to be a formal living room along with a huge family room with a fieldstone fireplace. Her father held her hand as they walked. Finally he said, "Cindy, are you happy?"

She turned to him, startled. "Dad, I almost couldn't be happier. Things are really working out. I've changed. I think I'm a much nicer person now ... at least I like myself a lot more. I'm loved by a man I adore. Our sex life together couldn't be better. The only thing I want is for Dan to get some recognition. He's the best banker alive with the possible exception of you. The only other thing is it's getting harder and harder on me for us to be apart. I so want to marry him, live with him, and bear his children."

She stopped and looked up at her father. "Dad, can you believe it? Hearing from your liberated daughter that all she really wants is to be pregnant? God, now I finally know what a cunt is for. I know what a uterus is for. I know what breasts are for. They combine with a man you love to create and nurture children. I want it so badly!" She looked down at the ground and said softly, "I guess it sounds pretty dumb, doesn't it?"

Don took his daughter in his arms and held her tight. He whispered, "No, honey, it doesn't." He kissed her softly and said, "I am regretting the whole slavery idea, though."

She smiled warmly and shook her head. "I'm not," she said firmly. "Just think, Dad, where I would be if this hadn't happened. First, I would still be an insufferable bitch dating a fairy, for Christ's sake. Dan wouldn't be speaking to me. I would be hanging out with those Lakefront airheads. I would be looking down my nose at my dumb father who doesn't understand what's new in banking."

She smiled and continued, "On the other hand I wouldn't have an ass that's covered with scars and I wouldn't have a circumcised clitoris. Circumcision with a whip is not the way to go."

She hugged him tight and said, "What I do have is a father who loves me, at least in part for who I am and what I am, rather than in spite of it. I have a man who is my idea of perfection: smart, big, strong, funny. A man who makes my cunt gush with fluids just talking about him. I have a wonderful new mother and a group of new friends any one of whom is worth more than that whole pack of idiots I used to hang out with. Dad, a couple of scars is a very cheap price to pay."

She grinned and added, "I'm also an excellent housekeeper, cook, and mother. I find I love babies." Then she looked at her father and said, "Dad, am I strange? I don't want Dan to be in the labor room when I deliver. Giving birth is really a woman's work. I would like Mary or April with me to hold my hand, but I want Dan pacing the floor outside, not in the labor room feeling guilty. Is that dumb?"

Her father kissed her softly and they started back towards the house. He said softly, "No, pumpkin, it doesn't sound at all dumb to me. Can I tell you a secret? Mary came into my office a few days ago in tears. She had just been told she couldn't have a baby. Can you imagine? She's over forty, but she wanted desperately to have my child. She says it's what our lovemaking is all about. Do you really like her, Cindy?"

"No Dad, I don't," she replied and saw his face fall. She squeezed his hand hard and said, "I adore her. Dad, I can't tell you what it's like to have a mother with a sex life as active as my own. Would you believe it? Do you know what she asked me? She and I compared notes on anal intercourse. She's always thinking of new ways to take you. She talked about making her breasts bigger so you could put your cock between them. I talked her out of that one. She has enrolled in a school for strippers, though. She's planning on putting on a show for you alone. She was so funny! The instructor rates her as the top student in her class; she can get her work professionally. What do you think about that?"

Don just smiled and shook his head.

That night the three girls were guests for the first time at the Stewart's. When Don and Cindy returned to the house they found Janice and Mary nude and serving the others in the living room. Mary was as unselfconscious in her nudity as Jan and looked exquisite. When Janice presented Cindy her martini, she was on her knees with the tray resting on her beautiful breasts. Cindy casually placed the frosted glass between Jan's tits and saw the girl involuntarily shudder.

Jan winked and said, "I think milady will find it sufficiently chilled."

At eight-thirty the next morning, Cindy parked her car in the bank's basement garage. She noticed she had an assigned parking space with the senior officers and was amused to think of a slave as a senior officer. She went up to her office floor and saw her corner office for the first time. April and Kathy were with her as she looked at it.

All she said was, "Wow! Just like a real banker. Maybe someday..." The secretary brought coffee and the girls chatted. They all looked better after having spent most of the previous day sleeping.

At nine o'clock they went to the conference room. Cindy chuckled to herself thinking of the three of them — all senior officers — in blue jeans. As they walked down the hall she asked Kathy where Bill was. The girl grinned and shook her head. She said, "Do you know what that bum said? He said he survived fourteen years with the Vietnamese, but he's wearing out after just a couple of months of me! He said he prefers me worn out. When I'm exhausted I'm not as tough on him!

"Then this morning, the bum takes me and then rolls over and goes back to sleep!" The girl licked her lips as she said it.

"What was that lip-licking bit, Mrs. Cartwright?" Cindy asked with her eyes dancing.

"That was thinking about the meaning of the phrase, 'taking me, ' Miss Martin. Of course, being single, you couldn't possibly understand!" She daintily stuck out her tongue and rubbed her groin.

When they arrived at the conference room they met a tall young woman who had her hand out in greeting. She said, "Miss Martin? How do you do? My name is Kelly McBride. I'm the personnel officer temporarily assigned to your division."

Cindy thought the girl looked very harried as they entered the conference room. The three girls from the division sat on one side of the table while, one after the other, candidates appeared for interviews. Kelly was sitting in the corner behind the applicant's sight line.

Cindy found a monotonous sameness to all the candidates. All were well educated. All had MBAs and most had majored in banking. Yet all were airheads with no apparent knowledge of people coupled with near-religious belief in numbers produced by analysis. The girls took turns questioning candidates.

When specific loan applications were discussed, without a single exception they focused on the wrong points and came to the wrong conclusions. Cindy had been watching Kelly. It was apparent the girl had the correct answers in mind. She saw the girl cringe as she heard the candidates give answers to the questions and shake her head in dismay. Cindy was amused to see the girl draw a line across her pad, usually after the second or third answer.