Chapter 5

I came out of college with a 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. "You are going to need a way to earn a respectable living during the time before you're famous. It's unlikely that you'll get a patron to support you, so you'll need your own money. 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 that 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 in the day my furniture arrived for a little party. The family room was on the north side of the house and had terrific light for painting. It was on the edge of the development with a wooded greenbelt behind and the windows were high so it was 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 thing 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 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 20s. When she was 35, 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 took a bit of the sting out of it, but 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 that 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 that I could match her up with a new house.

I admit to my prejudices. When I first met her and heard the story, I thought Here's another of those beautiful women who think that's all that matters and everyone should worship her because she's beautiful. But 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 that 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 with enough room to entertain, but not so much that 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 and gave 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 a Costco and pick up a few things on the way. Can you come by about 6:00?"

"I'd love to celebrate with you," I said. "Why don't I bring you 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 over-priced 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 that 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 for this for a few weeks, whenever a new question about the art of loving struck her. She'd proven herself 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 offer her anything better myself.

That poor guy. I chuckled to myself. He didn't stand a chance against her power of seduction.

I arrived at the door of Allison's new little house 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! That was fun," she laughed as she was regaining her 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 sweatpants and a red crop-top T-Shirt. When she leaned over, the sweats 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 was at, I couldn't make out detail, but it was obvious that she definitely got comfortable before I came over.

I straightened up as she approached with a box of supplies apparently just purchased from Costco. I 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 apparently pushing boxes into them 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. I was sure that if she had a mind to go out and conquer another rich executive it would be easy for her to do. But during our conversations, she had made it clear to me that she had made her million and she didn't need to sell her body to the richest exec to get by. She was tall—easily five-eight—with shoulder length blonde hair that showed about an inch of reddish brown hair at the roots. She'd said that she was through with the Bimbo look and would be her natural color soon.

I could understand her feeling. She was well-endowed physically as well as financially. There was a gentle sway that confirmed my opinion that she had no bra beneath the T-shirt she wore. But while dressed in the epitome of casual, it was also obvious that even her sweats looked like they'd 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 and 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 was setting 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.

"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, and 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 are 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 that I didn't become a stand-in target for all the people who had controlled her life. But instead, 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, but I sold my youth for a lifetime of security. Now that I've got that with half of his remaining estate, 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 my first. She kept on with her impromptu lecture.

"Let's say I want to go to Hawaii for a week and go parasailing. I can just do it. If I want to sit in an expensive restaurant and eat a meal to enjoy the food instead of trying to impress my husband's friends, I can just do it." She set her glass down on the hearth and rolled up on all fours. She started stalking 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 moved toward 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 between us and pressed her mouth against mine. It wasn't just her lips. Her mouth was wide open and expected nothing less from me. I opened my mouth in defense, hoping not to be devoured. There was nothing romantic about this kiss. It was a raw probing of each other's mouths 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 came over anyway."

"You are pretty tempting."

"Your silver-tongued negotiating got me a great deal on this place. Now I want you to put that tongue to work elsewhere." With that, she stripped off her T-shirt and fell on top of me with her beautiful right breast pressed against my lips. It would have been ungentlemanly of me to refuse to pay attention to it. I raised my hand to cup her other magnificent tit and found her own already busy at the nipple, pinching and twisting. "Bite," she commanded. I nipped at the nipple in my mouth and was rewarded by her moan of pleasure. "Harder!"