Chapter 2

I went to my office and sat down in front of the computer. I'd been working on a major case. I was representing a diverse group composed of major retailers of CDs and other media, performing artists, songwriters and composers. At first, they might seem strange bedfellows. But in this case, they had a common interest. We were filing an application with the Copyright Board of Canada. We were trying to get the Board to roll back the surcharge they'd imposed on blank CDs and cassettes. The money collected by the surcharge was to be shared by songwriters and composers. It was supposed to be in compensation for possible piracy -- downloaded sound files and bootlegged CDs. That was the idea. In practice, all the money was being gobbled up by the big publishers and record companies. Nothing was going to the people who'd actually created and marketed the music. The retailers were getting screwed because people were buying fewer blank CDs and tapes, and the creators were getting screwed because they had to pay more for blank media and got nothing back from the surcharge. I was all fired up on this case, and I'd been going great guns on the brief before Larissa came in. But at that moment, I couldn't get my head around it. I kept thinking about Larissa's question. How and why had I become involved with Paddi-Ann?

Patricia Ann Monohan was a junior associate in Freedman, Burns and Stein, another law firm in the same office building. Her specialty was commercial real estate. We met at Joe Stein's Christmas party. Joe was Jewish, but he threw the best Christmas bash in our tower. Paddi-Ann and I started talking. She was certainly attractive and seemed friendly enough. To make a long story short, I asked her out to supper that Friday. She accepted.

I took Paddi-Ann to one of my favourite restaurants, Tasting Rooms. We had a great meal, more than a few drinks, and, hard as I now found it to believe, some good conversation. When I look back on it, I realize that I did most of the talking. Paddi-Ann asked me questions about intellectual property. I responded. In effect, she pushed my buttons.

After I drove her home, she pushed even more buttons. She invited me into her apartment. I parked in her building's visitor's parking, and we took the elevator upstairs. In the elevator, Paddi-Ann surprised me by putting her arms around my neck and kissing me. Our tongues dueled until the elevator door opened at her floor. Paddi-Ann's roommate was out of town for the weekend, so we had complete privacy. We soon wound up in her bed.

I'd thought that Paddi-Ann was nicely built, but I soon found out that her business suits concealed some astounding real estate. The girl had an amazing bod on her: big tits with rose-coloured nipples, a flat tummy, a small waist and widely flaring hips. Her twat was hairless. I assumed that it was shaved. I found out later that she'd had it lasered. Her pussy was permanently hairless.

And it was very tasty. I ate her for quite a while. She went from one orgasm to another. Finally, she screamed and pulled my head into her crotch. She ground her puss against my face. I thought I'd suffocate, but just as I was about to push her away, she released me.

I raised myself up and grabbed some tissues to wipe the pussy juice off my face. Paddi-Ann lay there panting. She was covered with a sheen of sweat. She opened her eyes and looked at me. "Jesus," she said, "where did you learn that?"

"Just natural talent, ma'am," I said, "just natural talent."

Then it was her turn. She proceeded to give me one of the best blow jobs of my life. She found nerve endings on my cock that I never knew existed. When I blew my load, I must have yelled. I'm not sure, but I must have. And that was just the beginning. I was to discover that Paddi-Ann knew more about dicks than I'd learned in nearly forty years of owning one. I used to say that she could write the owner's manual for the penis. And she genuinely loved to suck cock. I came to call her a "cockaholic." She hated the term, but it described her to a "T."

We spent that whole weekend fucking and sucking. First at her place, then at mine. A week later, Paddi-Ann moved in with me. That's when things began to change.

Oh, the sex was always good. But when we weren't fucking, she became harder and harder to live with. Nothing was ever good enough for her. No matter how much I did for her or how much I gave her, it wasn't enough. She could always think of something I could have done. And she constantly bitched about her job. That pissed me off as much as anything she did. Joe Stein and I had been friends for years. He'd been my classmate in law school. I knew that Joe was good people -- salt of the earth. But Paddi-Ann constantly badmouthed him. According to her, he was taking advantage of her, working her much too hard and giving her no credit.

I put up with her shit for almost a year and a half. On that fateful Saturday, I finally blew my fuse. I have the Charles family temper. I tend to fume for a long time and then explode. This time, I'd really blown my cork.

I wish that I'd recorded my tirade. As I recall, it was a masterpiece. I gave Paddi-Ann a detailed list of her shortcomings. She, in turn, turned on the waterworks and said that I was a heartless brute. I was nothing but a pig. My entire body wasn't worth her little finger. And I was a pencil-dick who'd never satisfied her.

This was patently untrue. I'm certainly no John Holmes, but I've never had any other woman complain about my equipment. Quite the reverse. I've actually had compliments.

The upshot was that Paddi-Ann said she'd move out, and I called her bluff. I even offered to help her. She called her old roommate and asked if she could move back in. I took five carloads of her shit to the apartment, and that was that.

Fuck it. Paddi-Ann was history. Larissa had called her a cunt. As a matter of fact, so had I on the preceding Saturday. More than once, as I recalled. I put the cunt out of my mind and went back to work.

That afternoon, things went well, I thought. I read over the brief the next day and had Larissa proof it. We emailed it to the clients. It was Friday. The work week was over. I made sure that five hundred bucks had been deposited in Stacie's account. On the drive home, Stacie insisted that I take a hundred dollars from her. She called it the first installment on her debt to me for the wardrobe. She gave me what had become her customary peck on the cheek as I dropped her off.

I puttered around the house for a while that evening. I made myself a martini, and I was just about to crank up the barbecue to burn my steak when the phone rang. I didn't recognize the number on the call display, but it read "MACPHERS ELIZ." I answered.

"Hello," I said, lacking any more inventive line.

"Jack," came the answer, "it's Stacie. I was wondering if I could come over and talk to you."

"Sure, Stacie. In fact, I'm just about to cook a steak, and I think that I just happen to have another. I'd welcome your company for supper. What do you say?"

There was a brief pause. Then she said, "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. When can you be here?"

Another pause. Then, "When would you like me to come?"

"Any time. The sooner the better."

"What can I bring?"

"An appetite. I'll see you in a few minutes, OK?"

I checked the fridge. Yes, thank God, I had another steak. I also had another potato and the other appropriate stuff. Good.

I was washing potatoes when the doorbell sounded. I hit the button for the intercom and said, "Hello."

"It's Stacie," came the reply.

"Come in," I said, while hitting the button that unlocked the door.

I heard the door open. I wiped off my hands and walked through the dining room into the hall. There was Stacie.

"I'm so sorry to bother you," she said.

"No problem," I said. "Come into the kitchen. I'm just getting things ready."

She followed me into the kitchen. I turned to greet her and froze. There was more light in the kitchen, and I got my first good look at her. The left side of her face was bright red and swollen. She'd obviously been slapped. Hard. She was looking down at the floor. I lifted her face until she was looking at me.

"Sweetheart," I said, gently stroking her cheek, "who did that to you?"

"No matter," she said, "no matter."

She collapsed against me. I held her while she sobbed. The more she cried, the more I wanted to kill the pig who'd hurt her. Just as suddenly as she'd begun, she stopped and pulled away from me.

"What's for supper," she said, snuffling.

It was obvious that she didn't want to talk about what had happened to her, so I didn't push it. Stacie helped me with the preparations for supper. While we were cooking, she chattered away about her first week at work. I told her about my conversation with Larissa. Not the Paddi-Ann part, just the part about how happy Larissa was with Stacie's work.

"Gosh," Stacie said, "that's great to hear. I really like her. She's a terrific boss. She doesn't mind it when I ask questions, even though I feel like an idiot sometimes."

"Hell, don't worry about that. Larissa told me that she likes it when people ask about stuff they don't know. You called her a 'terrific boss.' I don't doubt that, but Larissa can be a bit too bossy at times. Don't be afraid to assert yourself."

Stacie looked at me with a very serious expression. "I know what you mean," she said, "I've never been good at asserting myself. I know it's something I have to work on."

It was a lovely evening. I decided that we'd eat on the deck. Stacie set the table while I got the steaks on. Before long, we were eating. I'd opened a bottle of red wine, a nice Australian merlot. I offered some to Stacie, and she accepted a small glass.

After we'd enjoyed our meal and cleared up, Stacie said, "You know, I've only seen the first floor of your house. You said to assert myself. Well I am. How about a tour?"

I smiled at her idea of "asserting" herself. In fact, I enjoyed showing off my place, especially my art collection. Carolyn Lomax, the girlfriend preceding Paddi-Ann, had given me only one lasting legacy: a developed taste for contemporary art. I thought about Carolyn as I led the way upstairs. Stacie followed me closely.

Carolyn, or "Carrie," as she preferred to be known, was even better looking than Paddi-Ann. In fact, she was a knockout. She'd been a runner-up in the Miss Canada competition. And she fucked like a bunny rabbit. But in one way she was even a bigger cunt than Paddi-Ann. Carrie was a sicko.

I first met her as a client. She'd come to me with an intellectual property case. Carrie was an aspiring artist. In fact, she was a pretty good painter. There was a successful Canadian artist who was notorious for ripping off lesser-known painters' work and passing it off as his own. I'd heard about this guy and had wondered when somebody would nail his ass to the wall. It turned out that I was to be that somebody.

Carrie had gone to one of the pig's shows. She was surprised and shocked to see an almost exact copy of one of her recent canvases hanging there, attributed to said pig. She asked her artist friends what she could do about it. Someone gave her my name.

I don't date clients. In Carrie's case, it took a bit of will power to adhere to that policy. She was amazing looking. She was fairly tall, about 5' 8," with shoulder-length coal black hair, the biggest brown eyes I'd ever seen and a figure out of Playboy magazine. She seemed friendly and sweet, and I must admit that she quickly became a masturbatory fantasy of mine.

Fortunately, or at least it seemed so at the time, Carrie's case was settled quickly. On the advice of his own lawyer, the art thief settled out of court. It wasn't a huge settlement, but the point was made. The boy's reputation was irretrievably damaged. The price of his work went in the toilet, and it was doubtful that he'd ever get a major show again. I asked Carrie out to celebrate.

Unlike Paddi-Ann, Carrie was a bit coy for the first couple of dates. But when she finally invited me into her apartment, we soon wound up in a clinch. That rapidly escalated until we were fucking on the floor of her living room. That was on a Saturday. I left Carrie's apartment on Sunday afternoon. I had a silly-assed smile on my face, a chafed dick and a new girlfriend.

Carrie moved in with me at the end of the next week. She was an incredible fuck. She had one of the tightest pussies I'd ever experienced. And she could use it like a milking machine. She was also so goddam beautiful that I hardly ever closed my eyes during sex.

Carrie enjoyed vaginal sex in just about every conceivable position, but she wasn't too keen on oral. Oh she enjoyed receiving it well enough, but she'd rarely be on the giving end. When she did blow me, it wasn't all that great. So I didn't push the issue.

Carolyn enjoyed taking in art shows on the weekends. We became regular fixtures at the galleries. She tutored me on the fine points of contemporary painting, and my collecting career was born.

Our personal life seemed to go smoothly enough. Carrie liked nice things, and I enjoyed buying them for her. For her birthday, I bought her a red Mazda Miata convertible. Needless to say, she showed her gratitude in bed. She screwed my brains out, blew me and even swallowed -- the first and, as it turned out, only time.

One Friday, I'd had to appear in court. The case ended early, at about two thirty. Rather than going back to the office, I called Larissa and told her that I was going home. I'd won a sizable settlement for my client, and therefore an excellent fee for myself. I intended to take Carrie out for a celebration. When I got home, there was a surprise waiting for me.

I parked my car, at that time a BMW 540i, in the garage. Carrie's Miata was there as well. That probably meant that she was home. I entered the house through the kitchen. I saw that the door to the basement was open. Carrie's studio was down there. I thought she was probably painting. I loosened my tie and was about to go upstairs to change out of my suit. Then I heard an unusual sound, sort of halfway between a cry and a moan, coming from the basement. I went downstairs. I reached the door of Carrie's studio and looked inside. I didn't understand at first exactly what I was looking at.

There was a woman slouched on the chesterfield. Her jeans and panties were around her ankles. Carolyn was kneeling between the woman's legs. There was a buzzing sound. I soon saw that it was coming from a vibrating dildo. Carrie was using it on the other woman's pussy. Then she put down the dildo and buried her face in the woman's crotch. The frequency and intensity of the moans increased. Carrie might not have been much of a cocksucker, but she was obviously a champion pussy eater.

I was riveted to the spot. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I'd never suspected that Carrie was at all interested in other women. The woman grabbed Carrie's head and pulled her face into her pussy. She leaned forward, and for the first time I saw her face. I felt as though I'd been punched in the gut. It was my neighbor's fifteen-year-old daughter. I yelled. I don't know exactly what I said. Some sort of expletive, no doubt. "Shit" or "fuck" or something similar. Whatever it was, it brought the action in front of me to a stop.