Selling it All (3 page)

Chapter 2

The ride home was filled with anxiety and
turmoil. Instead of celebrating the fact that she had a successful
open house in a hard to sell upscale development, she was fraught
with tension about how to beat the insurmountable Joseph Blake at
his own rigged game. As she glided her fully charged car into her
parking spot at her condo, she heard an email pling into her inbox.
As she tiredly shuffled up the steps to her place, she looked to
see that Joe had emailed her an invite to a gathering of some of
the most influential figures in the local real estate scene. She
didn't recognize the name of the club, but she would figure it out
tomorrow. Right now, she could only think of slipping out of her
business attire and taking a hot shower.

The night passed by with a tumult of thoughts
streaming through her mind. As she slept fitfully, she wove between
one nightmare after another relating to her being the indentured
servant to Mr. Blake. Although, there was one dream where she was
wearing a cute French maid outfit and she was perched on her knees
in front of-

The blaring alarm startled her out of sleep.
After sitting straight up, she gathered her thoughts and swung out
of bed with renewed vigor. The warm sun filtered through her
vertical blinds, as she got up to begin planning her assault on
Joe. Her first call was to her coworker and best friend, Jessica
Sharp.

“Jess, how was your date?” She opened
cheerily as she brushed long brown hair.

“Don't give me that shit girl. I already
heard what happened to you last night. Are you stupid or something?
Joseph Blake is the top dog. He's at the top of the food chain, and
you just strapped on your skimpiest meat skirt.” She warned.

Sarah puzzled over the odd analogy as she
brushed her teeth. “Besides telling me 'I told you so', do you have
any other advice?”

“Yeah, don't go through with it. You still
have to sign something right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, don't sign it stupid!” Jessica said
above the noise of the hair dryer on her end of the line.

Sarah sighed and said, “Jess, it doesn’t work
like that, at least not for me. Seriously, what kind of dirt do you
have on him? Does he even have 'dirt'?”

“Psshh, not likely. Even if he did, he knows
every cop, politician, ahem, and politician's wife within a twenty
mile radius. If you want to even have a chance at beating him,
you're gonna have to play dirty.” Jessica said with a final
harrumph.

“I know a guy in South Central who'll pull
his fingers off for two grand.” Sarah mentioned idly as she put her
running shoes on.

“…Perhaps a little less dirty.” Jessica said
slowly. “How do you even..., you know what? It's none of my
business. Just get your cards straight and play everything close,
because he's good at this little game of his.”

Sarah stood up stick straight as she came to
a realization she should have seen coming. “Wait, you mean he's
done this before!?”

“Uh..., yeah! Why do you think he and Mr.
Nelson know each other so well? He did it to Mr. Neslon's last
upstart about two years ago.”

“That reminds me, I have a meeting with Joe
and the other masters of the real estate universe tonight.” Sarah
said, as she ran down the hall of her building to the elevator. She
was looking forward to a jog to help clear her head. Her little
Blue tooth headset kept loosening, and she held it in to hear the
last bit of useless advice from Jess.

“You watch yourself girl. Those guys are true
old school dudes. I don't even know how they act around women when
its after hours. You know what? I don't wanna know either. Good
luck.”

The last words blended with the sound of
traffic, and she broke into a sprint to clear her head. As her
pulse quickened, she felt the familiar rush of endorphins into her
blood. She no longer felt like a victim, but a player in a very
high stakes game. One that she would win at all costs.

That afternoon she cleaned her place. She
waited anxiously for the night to come. This power meeting at some
nightclub was going to be her chance to find out the inside scoop
on her adversary. She received an email from Joe, and opened it on
her phone while she finished her makeup:

I will be sending Ernesto to pick you up at 9
tonight. I hope your daddy doesn't mind you being out too late on a
school night!

-Joe.

She though about turning down the ride, but
if he wanted to foot the cost of parking, that was on him.

After Ernesto picked her up, they made their
way to the club where the big meeting was. As the tall, quiet
personal assistant came around to open the door, she checked her
makeup one last time, and straightened her top. She felt like she
was showing a little too much cleavage, but she would be meeting
with a bunch of lecherous businessmen, and she felt it was fair
play in light of things. When she stepped out, she finally glimpsed
the club where they would be meeting.

“Kitty Kat Ranch?” She said out loud in a
quizzical voice.

“This is se place. I'll pick ju and Jose up
later tonight. Buenos noche cochina!” Ernesto yelled from the
window, as he sped off in the Cadillac STS.

Her eyes narrowed as she made her way to the
entrance. A large bouncer with arms as big as her torso nodded to
her.

“You the Bella girl?” He asked in a gruff
voice.

“Uh, yeah. Do I pay a cover or something?”
She asked timidly.

He smiled warmly in spite of his brick wall
personality. “Naw, just go in sweetie, The guys are at the
back.”

Sarah was hit with a solid blockade of
throbbing dance music, mixed with the smell of vanilla body spray.
This place was built to overload the senses, and it was doing its
job well as she peered around to look for a familiar face. As she
made her way to the back, she was stopped by a tall girl wearing
thigh high boots and a hot pink thong. Given that her height put
her chest right at Sarah's eye level, she found herself staring
transfixed at the tasseled pasties that were bounding to and
fro.

“Ten dollars for a lap dance honey.” The red
headed Amazon woman said to her.

“You mean me?” Sarah asked with wide eyes,
looking behind herself to makes sure there wasn't some sort of
comic miscommunication.

“Yeah ten dollars. Is your husband here too?”
I bet he'd love to watch...,” She chimed with an enticing ring in
her voice.

As Sarah stood there with her mouth open, she
was shaken from her state of shock by a familiar voice coming from
the back of the darkened room.

“Sarah! Over here!” A look across the
platform full of pole dancing girls revealed a table at the back
where Joe was standing up to beckon her with his hand. She felt her
blood begin to boil when she witnessed his smile of utter shit
eating confidence radiating though the whole place.

As she made her way over to their VIP table,
she had to weave in and around three more dancers that were
strolling amongst the patrons. She made a mental note to ask one of
the girls how they even walk on those seven inch heels.

“So, its a good thing sexual harassment isn't
an issue with us.” She said to him with a cool smile.

Her eyes scanned over the table. There was
Joe, two other guys that looked to be in their late forties..., and
her heart sank a little when she saw her boss, Mr. Nelson propped
up in the corner with a dancer in his lap! She now knew why she had
been invited. Joe was intent on showing her the dark and twisty
side of her kindly, silver-haired boss. She saw a cocktail waitress
stroll by with a tray.

“Excuse me, I'm gonna need a Jack and Coke.
Heavy on the Jack.” The girl nodded in affirmation as Sarah gave a
polite smile to her boss. He seemed to already be two sheets to the
wind, as his dopey smile went from her, and then back to the
big-chested blonde parked on his lap.

Joe stood up and came over to sit by her.
“Wow, hitting the hard stuff so soon? You must have had a bad day.”
He teased with a patronizing show of pity.

“You really wanted me to be here for some
'meeting of he minds'?” She said in a loud voice over the din of
the music.

“Eh, these guys will just end up talking
about sports and fishing. It's all inner circle stuff, but I felt
you might get a kick out of it. Sorry for the venue, this tends to
be a guy thing.” He finished with a wink.

Her drink arrived. This time, it was carried
by a girl wearing a rather skimpy variant of a nurse's uniform. She
took the drink; pushed aside some of the ice cubes, and tossed it
back in one pull. She was going to need to self medicate a little
to get through this thing. She looked up at the “nurse”, who was
giving her a wide-eyed look of surprised admiration. “Keep these
coming please.” Sarah said, as she sat the empty glass back in on
the tray.

“Wow, you better pace yourself. There might
be some important stuff said here tonight.”

Sarah thought back to her weekends at UCSB.
She could outlast most of the guys that tried to keep up with her
party girl ways. She knew that there was no way these guys could
match her, and as the next glass came in front of her, she smiled
graciously to Joe and tossed it back while keeping eye contact with
him the whole time.

“Suit yourself...”

“Who's the skirt?” Said one of the other men
at the table. The balding man turned out to be one of the biggest
developers in the LA basin, and he was a lecherous tool also. He
signaled a passing girl over, and whispered something in her ear.
The same redhead from when she first came in nodded to him with a
smile, and them came over to her side of the table.

“Scoot your chair out a little babe.” She
said to Sarah. She obliged, only realizing a little too late what
was about to happen.

The drinks were starting to hit her
bloodstream, and she felt her token business girl demeanor fading
away.
If these guys wanted a show, they were going to get one
they'd never forget!

Sarah observed the tall woman, who was
probably no older than she was. As she gingerly placed herself on
Sarah's lap, she arched her back straight and began gyrating her
hips in time to the house music thumping around them. Her large
breasts moved and bounced only inches from Sarah's nose, and when
one of them brushed her cheek she got an idea.

She signaled the girl to lean in close so she
could whisper to her. “What's your name?”

The girl smiled and said, “It's Roxy.
Why?”

“What do guys get out of this?” Sarah
asked.

“I'm not sure, but the old bald guy who sent
me over looks like he's about to explode from this little show.”
Roxy said with a smile.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Sarah asked
her. She was now genuinely curious about this dancer who was
pushing her crotch into her lap with such nonchalance.

“I'm finishing out my last few classes at
school. In six months, I'm graduating as a physician's assistant
and never looking back!” She said over the music.

“For another fifty bucks, how about we give
these guys a show they'll never forget?” Sarah said with a
smile.

As if sensing where Sarah was going with
this, Roxy turned around in her lap to face the gentlemen. She
turned back and winked at Sarah over her shoulder, as she took
Sarah's hands gently and placed them on her breasts.

Sarah felt her heart speed up a bit, as she
tried to keep up with this turn of events. She had never touched
another girl's
girls
, but she kept up with the show as she
spun the delicate little tassels in full view of all the men at the
table. Even her boss stared at her with wide-eyed amazement as Roxy
stood up and strolled off. They whole group sat in awed silence as
Sarah finished off another drink.

“Now that that's out of the way, lets talk
business.”

The next morning hit Sarah like a runaway
train. While the glaring sun poured into her bedroom, she sat up
and held her head as if it would split apart from the pressure. The
dull throb of her hangover was lessened to an extent by the events
of the prior night. She recalled the comradery that she had built
with the upper crust of the LA housing scene. Even if she ended up
indentured to Joseph Blake, she still had some pretty interesting
names to drop regardless.

In a split second recollection, she
remembered that Joe had mentioned a showing he had today at Verde
Grande. She made a quick call to the guy she used for home
inspections. She knew just how to start off this little war of
theirs!

Joseph Blake welcomed in the attractive
couple, as he opened the French doors of the palatial ranch home.
The two prospective buyers looked around the well-staged house,
making all the right noises that indicated a quick offer. Joe
smiled his confident smile, and he straightened his tie while he
checked his email. There was a message from Sarah! He smirked as he
opened it, thinking she was ready to back out of the bet:

Street rules, Joey boy!

-Sarah Bella

He gave the message a puzzled look, and he
wondered what it was she had planned. Right as the couple came back
out from the backyard with smiles on their faces, Joe got his
answer. There was a knock at the door that startled the whole trio.
Joe opened it, only to be greeted with a tall man wearing a white
Tyvek coverall and a gas mask. He said something unintelligible
through the mask, and then handed Joe a clipboard filled with forms
and legal documents.

“What's the meaning of all this?” Joe asked
in exasperation.

The man pulled off his gas mask and gave the
group a forlorn look. “You all have to leave now! This house is
testing off the charts for toxic black mold. If you don't leave
right now, I'll have to have you quarantined and professionally
bathed to remove the spores!”

The couple gave Joe a wide-eyed stare, and
made a beeline for the front door. As they scurried past the man in
the hazmat suit, Joe looked at him with narrowed eyes.