Chapter 1A: The new worker

"fckng ahsum!!! hw do u mk the chks so fckng reel?!! hot hot hot!!!! thr lk aliv, its lk im rite thr balln em!!! frst stry the slut felt so fckng tite i creemd my pants!!! BUT!!! u need mor variety!!! its like thr all the same slut!!! mor!! mor!!!! mor!!!!!!"

It is five AM when his daughter comes home. From the dimness of his firelit living room he hears her on the porch, the living room windows are open as it's a warm spring night. He sees the dim forms of her and her boyfriend, standing close together. He knows his daughter is being kissed. After a moment he hears her voice murmur, "It's really over?" her boyfriend says something indistinct and she says, "Mmm, goodnight." There's another pause, then she says with a slight chuckle, "Idiot, they're like waiting, goodnight already."

There's the sound of the front door opening and closing. Through the open window he hears the engine and tire murmur as the car glides off down the street followed by silence.

She stands in the living room door looking in. What a sight she is! She wears a frilly red strapless dress. Her slim legs look like the clappers of a bell that's yet to be rung.

When she sees him she steps into the living room. She's now confident on her high heeled strappy sandals. She'd had to practice up and down the hall late that afternoon. Her hair is red and a bit of a mess now, not the careful perfection it'd been after the hairdresser'd finished with it.

"Dad," she says, "You didn't have to stay...".

She's noticed the stranger in the living room. The woman sits on an easy chair, stockinged legs crossed, one black pump in the air, watching her silently. The woman looks to her Dad and nods almost imperceptibly.

"Dad," the girl says, "I didn't know. I'm sorry." She starts to back from the room.

"Nancy, this is Mrs. Preston, a business associate who's just flown in from the Philippines," her father says, putting a hand on his daughter's bare shoulder, "We are a little busy but I can always make time for my girl! Sit a moment and tell me about the prom! And how was the party at the Sinclair's afterwards? Here, I think a young woman who's been out all night is old enough for a drink!"

He guides the girl to the couch by the fire. She sits on its edge, her knees clamped together. She pushes at the frills of her skirt.

The stranger rises. Nancy looks at her nervously, shy. The woman is slim, not tall, with a long thin face, gray expressionless eyes and neat gray hair pulled severely behind her head.

Her father hands his daughter a drink. She sips it cautiously, merely dipping her lip into the dark liquid. A timid doe taking cautious refreshment at a dangerous stream crossing.

Mrs. Preston and her father stand watching, admiring her.

"Tell me about the prom, darling," her Dad prompts.

"It was like way awesome," she goes, "Awesome." She tries to concentrate. It seems hard for some reason. She says, "Too tired to talk. Sorry." She starts to sway. Her father alertly takes the glass as she topples onto the rug, nothing spills but her.

The silent woman steps to the prostrate form. She kneels. From her handbag, she takes a case and extracts a gleaming pair of stainless steel fabric shears. She starts cutting at the hem then up the skirt, the material parts like paper.

"Hey, that dress cost $300!"

"Planning on wearing it yourself are you?" Mrs Preston asks. The sharp point of the scissors pricks the girl's soft chin. Her eyes open and she stares up with woolly unfocused eyes.

Her father looks away and steps to a window. He can still see his daughter in the reflection. He steps to the fireplace and looks at the fire.

Mrs Preston pulls the dress apart and cuts away the bra and panties. Nancy makes a vague effort with her arm to resist then lets it fall, making a groaning complaining sound.

Mrs Preston cups and squeezes one breast, it remains firm beneath her fingers. If Mrs Preston likes the feel of its nipple pressing against her palm she gives no sign. Next she spreads Nancy's thighs and slips a sharp inquiring fingernail up her vagina.

She stands. "You're in luck."

The father's shoulders sag.

"One of my employees will be here shortly. She looks enough like your girl to match a passport photo," Mrs Preston says in a businesslike voice, "The two of you must be on the plane this morning. She will fill you in on the rest when she gets here. Now for your daughter. You need to get her to my car."

2006-12-19 20:15:32 (EST) | reality | evening at 12 Oak Terrace, Wooster Oh, 44691

The young woman sits on the carpet before the fireplace. She sits crosslegged, her jeans crisp and blue, her knit top beige, her feet in dark red sock slippers. A small white laptop rests on her thighs. She reads from a page open in its browser. Her lips are parted, astonished.

The house around her is dark and silent. Her uncle, before leaving, had asked, "You'll be alright with the fire?"

Her aunt'd said, standing next to him, "Of course she will be. It'll keep her from feeling so lonely. Hannah darling, I'm so sorry to leave you here and for such a boring party too! I do so wish your cousins were back! I know you're such pals! They'll be here Saturday."

"I'll be fine," she'd said. "I can chat with my friends and maybe watch one of your DVDs." The family room is of course set up for movie watching and there is a computer on a desk.

"Feel free to put on more wood," said her aunt.

"Don't burn the house down," said her uncle.

"Goodnight darling," said her aunt and they were gone.

Now she scrolls down, then fiddles with the touch pad to get the right line at the top. Her hand trembles a little. "The poor girl," she whispers.

A moment later, "On the table?" she murmurs in some wonder. Her right hand floats of its own accord to her left breast, rubbing the cotton knit. She reads intently.

On the family room computer she'd chatted with a couple friends, one down in Disney World, the other back at home.

A message'd popped up unbidden, "You touch any of my shit and you're dead." It was from Sorceress153, she'd figured that to be her cousin Julie. With a thin smile she'd added Sorceress153 to the instant message window's blocked list. It was a bit mean, being a computer in her cousin's own home. Her cousins are twins, Rick and Julie, and are three years older than she, 21 in fact, and despite what her aunt thinks, she's never gotten along with them. They've recently dropped out of college to spend all their time operating a website.

Her mother'd said, "Your poor aunt and uncle are just beside themselves! But after all, it's what they get for spoiling those two to such an extent!"

"The poor girl," she whispers again, "What is going to happen to her?" The fingers of her left hand gently twist her right nipple.

Is it her nipple or her fingers that are unsatisfied? It is her hand that must travel. Her midriff is bare. Her hand slips up between her skin and the cotton to the waiting tip. Her fingers don't care that the nipple is tiny and the breast so flat it's all but concave and the nipple doesn't care that the fingers are a bit bony with thick knuckles. Her mind, which usually does care, is for once happy with them and the sensations they produce.

Her tongue runs along her open lips, moistening them. The dry chapped bits sting.

After closing the chat window she'd climbed the stairs, opened the door to her cousin Julie's room and gone in. The room had a slightly musty air. The posters on the walls were all from the Lord of the Rings. She'd gone through the dresser drawers, pausing now and then to look at herself with disfavor in the mirror, she didn't much care for the plain flat-chested thing it showed, virginal in the sense of who'd want her anyhow? She'd looked under the bed, in the desk, in the closet. She'd been about to leave with a muttered "Shithead" when she'd put the desk chair in the closet, stood on it and reached as far as she could along the shelf. Way back in the corner, under a pillow, she'd found the old laptop. It was the same place her cousin'd hid her best stuff when Hannah'd been a little kid and'd come on a visit. What an idiot her cousin Julie was!

Getting off the chair, she'd sat down on the bed and'd opened the machine. After some whirring and the annoying Windows opening riff, ("Windows ME," she'd muttered in scorn), a browser window'd opened. Before her was the jpg of a stunning young woman, everything she herself wasn't, dressed in a short red frilly prom dress, sitting on the edge of a couch, her slim white legs, close together, a pleasing contrast to the couch's dark blue, sipping some dark red liquid from a goblet. Two spectators, older, a middle aged man and woman, one wearing a dark suit, the other a severe business dress stood beside the girl, drinking whiskey, considering her.

To the right of the picture was a large bold title, To The Highest Bidder followed by paragraphs of text. The url at the top was www:litlivewithu.ru/ToTheHighestBidder. Litlivewithu.ru was, she knew, her cousins' website. In her mother's email she'd found many references to it like: "No Dougy, I don't have access to it. I think it's shocking that relatives aren't given logins! Your loving Amanda" Or "Sammy, should I send Hannah to her Aunt & Uncle's for Christmas? When we're in Barbados? Her cousins are sure to be there and I worry about it. I've heard such awful things about their site! They had to host it in Russia you know. I do so wish I had a login! You don't know where I could get a password for it do you? Your loving Amanda"

Her mother, like all the members of her pitiful generation spelled out all the words in her messages. She often poked about in her mother's stuff, angry and jealous of all the men her Mom seemed to know.

The last thing her mother'd said to her when dropping her off had been, "When you see your cousins, honey, try to get a login to their site for me? Have them email it so I can have it immediately at the hotel."

Well, now she has something her mother doesn't, she thought, access to her cousin's site!

She'd started to read, sitting there on her cousin's bed, open mouthed with astonishment. "It's like so real!" she'd whispered. She could feel not only the kiss on the girl's lips, the excitement and exhaustion the girl feels, but the strange despairing feelings of the dad, watching from the darkened living room.

With an effort, she'd pulled herself out of the text and carried the laptop, open, down to the comfort of the family room and the fire.

Now, she sets the laptop down on the hearth. She gets onto her knees, takes a log from the little pile beside the fireplace and carefully puts it on the fire. As the flames lick up she holds her hands out to warm them. Her nails are irregular and bitten.