Chapter 2

I received a summons from Mr. Thompson one day a couple of weeks after my less-than-glorious showing with his daughters at the party at his home. His PA escorted me into his office after the obligatory twenty-minute wait in the outer office.

"Chandler," he said to me in a 'no-nonsense, I-really-don't-have-time-for-this' manner. "My wife and I are attending a gathering over at Scott next Tuesday." Everyone in the Decatur and Stone Mountain areas knew that his reference was to the prestigious college for young ladies, Agnes Scott College. "We have donated quite a lot to that place since Frankie attended there, and we expect Alicia to go there as well."

I simply nodded without saying anything. Thompson continued.

"Alicia will be attending with us. I want you to be her escort." He looked at me with a predatory expression that just dared me to object.

"Uh ... Sir ... If I may ask; why am I being drafted for this? I mean, your daughter surely has young men more appropriate to her age range and station in life that..." Thompson raised his palm to stop my babbling.

"Look, Chandler," he said, showing mild impatience at my question, "regardless of her 'station, ' as you call it, and regardless of all the money I spent to get her into and through private schooling for elementary, junior high, and high school, she still has not grasped the need for preparing to face up to her responsibilities as part of this family's enterprises. And a big part of that is her attendance at an 'appropriate, '" I could see quotation marks in the air as he spoke, "college or university. And, in this area, Scott is the place for young ladies."

From what he was saying, and the way he was saying it, I just knew that he meant that Alicia was resisting 'his' plans for her.

"And, as for those clowns she has been dating," he almost snorted as he shook his head in obvious disgust, "they are all just scrambling to get in her pants and into my wallet. They have no clue as to the path they need to take in life in order to be successful or to be suitable for her. I want her escorted on Tuesday by someone I can count on so that none of us will have to worry about personal situations interfering with the business of getting her into Scott next fall.

"She can start to get serious about the opposite sex later," Thompson went on, "when she is in the proper season of life; and with the right kind of fellow." I could just see Thompson and his wife going through the social registers on a regular basis, in pursuit of the 'right kind of fellow' for their young daughter; regardless of her preferences.

So that was it! I was a 'safe' date; even if I did not necessarily rate as the 'right kind of fellow.' Thompson would use me as a male version of arm-candy for his supposedly rising socialite daughter so that she would not appear to be unescorted at this big event. AND he would not have to worry about Alicia's having to focus on a horny suitor; thus allowing her to focus on schmoozing with the 'heavy breathers' at Agnes Scott College.

I shook my head when Thompson was not looking, as I was under the impression that, since it was already the end of January, college acceptance letters typically were already out--if not on the way. My tiny brain did a quick calculation and came to the conclusion that Alicia had evidently not received an acceptance ... or else she had been placed on stand-by or conditional acceptance status; none of which would be pleasing to J. Carter Thompson.

So, Daddy was now evidently putting on the full-court press; trying to put some monetary pressure on the movers and shakers of the alma mater of his older daughter at a social setting in order to finagle final, full-fledged, no-bullshit acceptance for his younger daughter at the prestigious college.

I started to tell Mr. Thompson about the abysmal impression that I had made on his daughter--well, both of them, actually--but he had evidently made up his mind. Before I could object, he said, "My driver will pick you up from work here on Tuesday afternoon, take you to your place to change for the evening--please try to find a nice suit to wear before then--and deliver you to my residence. You will join my wife and me there--and Alicia, of course--and we will all travel together to the reception."

He looked down at his computer and began to work on something. This was obviously a dismissal. I started to say something, but my usual cowardice in the face of authority took over and I simply turned and left his office quietly. As I returned to my quiet office, my mind was in turmoil. But what could I do?

I had been drafted and I was stuck. But I could not help but smile to myself at the memory of the delightfully beautiful Alicia. Even though I was twenty-three and she was only eighteen, the age gulf did not seem to be too great, given her obvious maturity when I had spoken to her at the party at her house earlier in the month. This could prove interesting; or disastrous!

The evening had turned out to be rather tolerable, once I had overcome my terror at meeting Alicia again--offset by her beauty, as she swirled into the front foyer in a dark green cocktail dress that molded to her; along with her perfect hair, makeup, and natural beauty.

I was more enchanted than anxious after seeing her. I also had to overcome my trepidation at riding with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson and Francine and her date in the limo from their house to the college.

Francine Thompson's date that evening was a fellow named Steadman Carstairs, someone Francine had known for a years, dating him off and on. And a more obnoxiously stuck-up, self-centered, social-climbing, brown-nosing ... well, you get the picture ... individual I had never met in my life. He was babbling away with Mrs. Thompson about the beauty of her daughters, and how it was a reflection of her beauty; the enormity of Mr. Thompson's business success and how he was a titan of industry; blah-blah-blah-blah-blah ... Needless to say, I was simply a fly-speck on his radar and, thus, beneath his notice. Francine seemed to put up with him, though; so there must have been some reasonably good history with those two.

It did not matter to me, though. I thought that Steadman Carstairs was simply a dick, with a capital 'D.' Nevertheless, I 'played nice' and conversed and smiled on cue at the appropriate moments.

Fortified by a cocktail before dinner and wine during the meal, I began to relax and endure the situation with a modicum of grace. I even contributed to the conversation once in a while, and actually got in a couple of comments that turned out to be complimentary of Alicia's conversational points of the moment. This earned me at least a smile from her by the end of the meal.

There was no entertainment but there was dancing, and there was some after-dinner mingling and socializing that took place. During that time, Alicia and I actually got to sit alone together for a while and get comfortable with each other. We even danced a bit, so that she could see that I knew what I was doing on the dance floor, and did not trample all over her feet, like some of her other dates--as she informed me, along with giving me a compliment on my dance skills. Before I finally left the Thompson home that evening, after it was all over, Alicia and I had actually gotten to the point of being pretty friendly.

Unbelievably, Alicia asked me to the Spring Dance at her private high school in March--they did not have a 'prom' as such. I was surprised, but I accepted--more out of curiosity than anything else. I don't know if she informed her parents of this arrangement beforehand or not. As it was, she chose simply to have me pick her up at her residence and she said that she would deal with any consequences of her choice of dates with her parents later.

Needless to say, I was a bit nervous when I did pick up Alicia at her house. I did not want to anger her parents, after all. But, it turns out that Mr. and Mrs. Thompson were out for the weekend themselves; so I did not expect to have to confront their ire either when I picked up Alicia or when I dropped her off afterwards.

As it turns out, we had a great time at her Spring Dance. Alicia told me partway through the evening that she had asked me for two reasons: it would twist her daddy's tail that she was dating one of his employees; and having an 'older guy' would impress the other girls at her school. Girls outnumbered the guys at her private high school by four to one, and the guys who attended there were not considered by most of the girls to be 'date material.'

Before the evening was over, I had grown very comfortable in the presence of Alicia Thompson and she appeared to have more appreciation of me. When I say that, I mean that I had been told by some women my own age that I was reasonably good-looking; and, thanks to my mom's insistence that I participate in cotillion when I was a teen, I knew how to dance well and handle myself in social situations requiring the proper manners.

This evening, all of that youthful preparation and effort was paying off by the number and intensity of smiles I was receiving from Alicia. Even the school's chaperones for the dance, who had frowned at my presence early in the evening, were smiling in appreciation at the gentlemanly manner in which I was escorting Alicia.

I got called into Mr. Thompson's office when I got to work on Monday and was admonished that, while Alicia could have me as her escort for such things as her high school dance, I should definitely NOT consider myself an appropriate suitor for her affections or a long-term relationship. By this time, I was getting a bit angry at his presumption, but I held my tongue and simply nodded my understanding.

Regardless of her father's warnings to her, Alicia arranged to see me more often after that. She would be waiting at my apartment in her convertible, and we would go out for dinner or a movie. Or, we would arrange to meet somewhere and share the better part of an evening.

Alicia still complained about having missed out on the trip to Africa with her friend. But, now that she and I were seeing each other occasionally, these complaints diminished. Her attentions now tended to focus more on enjoying her last summer before college--with more of that time being spent with me.

By the end of June, Alicia told me that she did not care what her parents thought about my so-called 'unsuitability' as a suitor. She was enjoying my company and she said that she would like to step up our relationship over the rest of the summer and into the fall, even after she started at Scott--yes, that acceptance letter had arrived in February with a personally penned note apologizing for its lateness from the Registrar himself.

I was ecstatic! And Alicia and I became an 'item' from that point on, even if it was sort of on the QT. I did not say anything to anyone at work, and I don't know what Alicia had told her father, but we began to see each other seriously, including the enjoyment of sex together. Since we were both rather inexperienced, we began learning together over the rest of that summer and, when we got to a point in time that was within a few weeks of her starting college, we were both a lot more experienced at sex and a lot better at pleasing each other. We had been reading and experimenting a lot and discovered just how to expand our sexual horizons together, including oral and role-play; but we stayed away from anal at Alicia's insistence.

I will admit as well that I was becoming more deeply attached emotionally to Alicia. But I knew that it would be best not to push things in a more permanent direction until she was closer to graduating from college in a few years.

One of the stranger things that had been happening at work during the approach of the end of summer was the very sudden change in Francine's attitude toward me. At first, I noticed that she was actually speaking to me in personal situations, like meeting in the break room or passing in the hall, instead of only in business meetings. She was also now actually smiling at me more often, for some reason.

Idiot that I was, I just assumed that Francine was becoming accustomed to my presence in the office, or else she and Alicia were talking about all my 'good' qualities--ha-ha. At any rate, Francine and I seemed to be getting along much better than we had earlier in our acquaintance, and before the situation had developed between her sister, Alicia, and me.

Finally, Alicia had had enough of the ambiguity of the situation and she invited me to her family's home one Friday in August, ostensibly to let her father and mother know, right out in the open, that she had decided to be in a serious relationship with me. Before the meal, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson listened and questioned both Alicia and me--they also lectured us and tried to dissuade us from getting in too deeply, as it was still the season of education and preparation for Alicia.

I found my own feelings to be a mixture of terror and confusion. Naturally, I was scared of pissing off my boss and his wife; but I was confused as well. During the entire exchange, it appeared that Mr. Thompson was being stern but unusually relenting. Mrs. Thompson was taking the lead from Mr. Thompson, but she obviously held quite a lot of what she was thinking and feeling inside; I got the feeling that she was being restrained, for some unknown reason, from really unloading on me and sending me on my way.

Additionally, during the conversation with Alicia's parents, I noticed the other presence in the room. Francine was there as well, but she simply smiled at me with an intriguing expression. If I had been at a bar somewhere and had seen her giving me that look, I would have thought she was coming on to me. But, surely, she would not be doing that in her own house ... and to the apparent suitor of her younger sister; would she?

The mild tension among us was broken just a bit by the call to dinner.

After a nice meal prepared by the family's hired cook, everyone retired to the recreation room for drinks. Mr. Thompson might not have been totally pleased about Alicia's and my relationship, but he still did not voice any outright displeasure. Even though Mrs. Thompson appeared to tolerate me well enough by the end of the evening, I could still detect some bottled-up feelings that I could not recognize coming from her as well.

Mr. Thompson, after a while, said that he needed to get to bed so he could be fresh for golf in the morning--sensitive fellow that he was. He appeared to give a deliberate and hard look in Francine's direction as he left the room.

I noticed that Francine had simply sat through the evening after dinner in relative silence, with that same strange expression on her face I had seen earlier. She had mostly listened to her sister and other family members discuss Alicia's intentions for us as a couple while she sipped her drink or enjoyed her meal. Now Francine seemed to be enjoying an aperitif, which she had poured for all of us and handed out personally, since the staff had left for the evening.

Alicia had invited me to stay in one of the guest rooms that Friday evening, for propriety's sake. I am not a heavy drinker and I did not think that I had drunk that much that evening. But, not very long after enjoying my aperitif, I had begun to feel groggy and unstable. I had needed assistance in getting up the stairs to my guest room, as I was overtaken by major unsteadiness, as if I were high or something.

I do not know how I got into bed that night or who might have undressed me. I was definitely out of it.

I was awakened in the early part of the morning by a shout of indignation. When I opened my eyes, and sat up, I saw Alicia standing in the doorway to my guest room with a look of combined rage and anguish.

"You bastard! How could you?" Alicia shouted. I shook my head--mistake number one, as I had a roaring headache. But, still, I could make out that something just was not right.

That something turned out to be the warmth and proximity of a naked female body in my bed--and the female was NOT Alicia. I pulled the covers back to get a better look.