Chapter 1

Candy Kane was fretting as she awakened that morning in early October. She was scheduled to meet downtown with a couple of attorneys representing her employer, Aerospace Technologies, Inc., along with a mediator. This was the result of the sexual harassment suit she had filed against them. The fact was there was nothing to the suit; the reality was that the “sexual harassment” had been in the form of the lack of same. Candy thought she had just been ignored.

And the reality was that she had been. On the other hand, she was honest enough with herself to admit — privately — that ignoring her was the best possible behavior on the part of her coworkers: She was as prickly as a porcupine. This, in turn, largely resulted from the fact that she hated herself and for as long as she could remember had felt she was ugly as sin. The reality was that — probably as a result of an accident when she was very young — her mouth and jaw were horribly misshapen with her teeth having grown in at odd angles. She even had two pairs of teeth with one behind the other. At a time when schools were featuring self-esteem, Candy’s was in very large negative numbers.

Furthermore, she considered herself to be flat as a board. The reality was that she had a gorgeous figure, albeit with a pair of small breasts. Although they were small — sort of a B-minus cup — they were perfectly shaped with lovely little nipples that sat on areolae scarcely larger than the nipples themselves. Because she never wore a bra — never feeling the need for one — she had always totally misinterpreted the looks in her direction. She thought the men were laughing at her when in fact they were admiring her lovely body with its gorgeous little ass. At five feet nine, she was a tall girl with much of her height in a pair of perfect long legs. But Candy never realized that.

Then there was her name itself. She always thought it was the perfect name for a stripper — Candy Kane — and had even thought about stripping. Two things stopped her cold: her face, distorted by her misshapen jaw, and a figure with all the curves — she thought — of a straight stick. Nonetheless, she had investigated the possibility of silicone implants, and had actually gone to see a plastic surgeon who did such work. She was immediately turned off, though, when his receptionist — one of his earlier patients — proudly stripped off her blouse to reveal a pair of size double-D melons that, in Candy’s opinion, looked utterly ridiculous on her slender frame. While reaching that conclusion, it never occurred to Candy that her figure was far better than the girl’s. Her shoulders were broader, her buns were far nicer, and her legs were utterly magnificent. The receptionist’s legs were okay, but most of her height — five feet three — was in her torso; proportionately, her legs were quite short.

The other thing that affected Candy was the fact that she was a mechanical engineer and a very good one. In her more objective moments she realized that it was only her engineering talent that kept her employed. I would have fired my ass within the first thirty days, she admitted to herself.

Finally, there was her relationship with her parents who were now both dead. It started, she realized, with her name: She hated it and always had. Candace Kane wasn’t so bad, she admitted, but from the very beginning she had been Candy, and she hated it. Perhaps because of her strained relations with her parents things were worse than they needed to be; she was an only child born to her parents late in their lives: her mother had been 48 and her father had been 56 when she was born.

It was over parental objections that she had decided to become an engineer. Moreover, she realized that the reason for her becoming an engineer was probably because they objected. At any rate, she had gone to Cal Tech where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, as well as completing all the course work for her doctorate. In fact, she had recently submitted her just-completed dissertation based on her own machine design work.

Now at age 27 she was at a bit of a loss. In spite of its name, Aerospace Technologies wasn’t an aerospace company at all. Located in Huntington Beach on the Pacific coast south of Los Angeles, it was a machine tool company. The company had been founded by a couple of engineers from McDonnell-Douglas who had developed some computer-controlled machine tools with aerospace applications. When McDonnell-Douglas wasn’t interested in pursuing their ideas, they left and founded their own company. In the intervening years, it had grown and prospered, but Candy felt it could have and should have been doing far better than it was.

Although she had never taken any business or economics courses, Candy was a brilliant young woman. She had always been bothered by the fact that accountants would report profits to the penny, but totally ignored what might have been. The reality was that Aerospace Technologies (AT) had maintained a very nice rate of growth, but in her opinion it was only a minor fraction of what the company could have done. Moreover, she intuitively understood that the competitive advantage from superior products was at its greatest when their machines were new designs. Failure to quickly exploit their product superiority only provided more time for competitors to catch up. But that’s the way it was.

Then there was AT’s reaction when she initiated her sexual harassment suit. Privately she admitted that the lawsuit was really initiated at the behest of Katherine McCarthy, her attorney. The woman had contacted her, met with her several times, and finally convinced her that she was being victimized. Moreover, Katherine had clippings reporting eight prior harassment court victories, each of which carried settlements of at least six figures, while one had crossed into seven digits.

But when the lawsuit was filed, even McCarthy was amazed at what happened next: The company had put her on a paid leave of absence. Candy was drawing full pay even though she hadn’t been near the office in more than a month. Furthermore, it had been made clear to her that the situation would continue until the issues had been resolved or until she asked to return to work. Already she had been out for six weeks, but the paychecks continued to arrive in her bank account with pleasing regularity.

Finally, she got out of bed and went into the bathroom. There was a full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, and Candy examined the reflection of her body in it. For no reason she could explain to herself, let alone to anyone else, she had been plucking her pubic hair until now she had a hairless groin except for a dense and very neat patch of curly hair above her slit. Looking upward, she grimaced as she studied her breasts for the umpteenth time. She glared at her reflection when she noticed that — as usual — her nipples were as hard as pencil erasers and fully extended. Candy didn’t know why this happened, but having erect nipples seemed to be her normal condition.

After showering and washing her hair, she towel-dried it and then followed with the electric dryer. Her hair was brown, but it had the usual collection of sun streaks through it. The streaks were in every color from brown through gold, and almost to platinum. Since she wore her hair in an urchin cut, the overall effect was breathtaking. Unfortunately, the whole effect was lost because of her misshapen mouth. Beyond that, though, had her teeth and jaw been normal, Candy would still have dismissed her physical appearance out of hand.

Finally, Candy ran a towel slowly between her legs. Although she never masturbated, she loved the feeling of the terrycloth chafing her clit, which came out from its hood to welcome its daily visitor. Although it had not been a part of her thinking at the time, the wonderful sensation had been heightened since she had plucked her pubic hair. Again she felt that wonderful sensation in her cunt as it responded to the momentary stimulation.

I wonder what a man’s cock would feel like? she wondered. Or a penis? But I guess it’s called a cock when it’s erect. As if the sight of my body could ever give a man an erection! she concluded sardonically. As she returned to her bedroom, she totally ignored the magnificent appearance of her deeply-tanned body. Another result of her leave of absence had been the fact that she could — and did — spend a lot of time at her health club. There she worked out, swam, and spent time in the tanning machine. Now she was golden all over.

Candy’s initial thought had been to dress for her meeting, but she changed her mind. She decided that, for shock effect, she would wear only well-worn Levi’s and a ragged old work shirt. The meeting was scheduled for eleven o’clock at the offices of Clifford & Jamison, the attorneys for AT. Although she had expected Katherine McCarthy to be with her, she was surprised to learn that she would be alone. Katherine had explained that she didn’t want to be there and possibly tip off her trial tactics by saying the wrong thing. Therefore, her meeting was with Sandra Harris and the mediator, Iris Kaplan.

Leaving her garden apartment, Candy went to her car. As a mechanical engineer, she kept her car in good mechanical condition, although she admitted to herself that it was on its last legs. It was so old, it was a Datsun; when it was built, that was the name Nissan was still using for its cars sold in the United States. Moreover, because of its age and diminutive size, it was not air-conditioned. In the Los Angeles heat this was something Candy missed, although she had been driving the car for so long she had become used to it.

When she arrived at the Clifford & Jamison office building, she let out a soft whistle. Clearly this was not Los Angeles’s low-rent district. Furthermore, she was grateful for the detailed instructions she had received complete with an invitation to park in space number 15 in the building’s basement garage. Locating the space, she realized that there were a number of other numbered spaces that were vacant. The puzzling factor, though, was that there were also five spaces designated for Clifford & Jamison visitors. Why am I not in one of those? she wondered.

Arriving at the 38^th floor, Candy just stopped and gaped. The entry to the Clifford & Jamison offices was utterly spectacular. The doorway was highly polished cherry with the firm name in brass letters above it, along with the very dignified qualifier, Attorneys at Law, in smaller letters below the name. Candy straightened her shoulders and marched in, feeling her nipples moving against the worn fabric of her shirt as she did.

Seeing the receptionist, Candy’s first reaction was to flee. The girl sitting behind the desk was the most beautiful blue-eyed blonde she had ever seen. I wonder what I would look like with blue eyes like hers? Candy wondered. All I have are yucky gray. Again, though, Candy’s self-appraisal was wrong. Her eyes were large with small eyebrows and very long lashes. The effect was singularly striking, but like everything else regarding her appearance, if it was good, it was downplayed or totally ignored.

“Good morning,” she said to the receptionist. “Candace Kane to see Ms. Harris. I have an appointment.”

“Welcome, Miss Kane!” the girl responded enthusiastically. “The others are already here and are waiting for you in the conference room. If you will come with me... ?”

Judy Jeffries led the way to a small conference room. Opening the door, she ushered the girl in, then returned to her desk.

There were three women in the room. There was an older woman — probably in her late forties, Candy guessed — sitting on one side of the table. The mediator, Iris Kaplan, Candy thought. Sitting at the end of the table on the side closest to the door were two of the most beautiful young women Candy had ever seen.

Kathy Carlson and Sandy Harris had arisen when Judy showed Candy into the room. Sandy extended her hand and said, “Welcome, Miss Kane. I’m Sandy Harris and this is one of my partners, Kathy Carlson.” With a warm grin she added, “As you might guess from her tropic tan, Kathy has just returned from her honeymoon in Hawaii.”

Looking at Kathy Carlson, Candy realized she was just gaping. Never in her life had she encountered such beauty.

Kathy looked down her body and then at Sandy. “Partner, am I all together? Did I forget something important this morning?”

Ignoring Kathy’s comment, Sandy just took Candy’s hand in a firm grip and said, “Kathy refuses to believe how incredibly beautiful she is.” Then, while looking directly into Candy’s gray eyes she added, “She’s exactly like you in that respect.”

Candy was just stunned by the comment. When she awakened to the fact that her hand was being gripped firmly, she returned it the same way and smiled. Only then did she realize that Katherine McCarthy had essentially no grip at all; she merely touched hands saying that a firm grip was strictly a white European male construct with which she refused to go along. Nonetheless, Sandy’s firm grip felt good.

When she shook hands with Kathy Carlson, she found her grip even firmer than Sandy’s. “You are the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth,” Candy breathed. Looking deeply into Kathy’s brown eyes she realized that much of her beauty was within. It was a new and deeply disturbing thought.

The meeting began with Iris Kaplan explaining that her rôle was to prevent Candy from being browbeaten by the attorneys and to try to work out some common ground if possible.

As they began to chat — and Candy realized that was exactly what was happening — she noted for the first time that neither of the lawyers had so much as a piece of paper with her. The only paper was a pad in front of Ms. Kaplan.