ONE
When former champion ballroom dancer Isobel Ballantyne was on the eve of closing the Ballantyne School of Ballroom Dancing in December last year, her youngest daughter Sierra returned home, wounded, emerging from her unexpected divorce.
Sierra had fallen on hard times because marriage to an older and wealthy husband had landed her into a sumptuous life-style and there was no way that could continue with the paltry $2 million her incompetent lawyer had managed to extract in the divorce settlement.
"Heavens above, mom, the mansion I lived in cost us almost $4 million to buy but in some shady deal before the divorce, Rafael it sold at auction for just under $2 million and that was with more than a million in furniture and fittings."
"Oh my poor baby," consoled Isobel, staggered at hearing Sierra dismiss the $2 million she received as if it were shopping money.
"What will you do, darling?"
"I'll have to find another provider, of course."
"Of course, but what will you do in the meantime?"
"I don't know, mom," wailed Sierra, clutching her mother and sobbing, "You know I've never worked."
Isobel went to bed that night, and after husband Alex had bumbled around with her body in his usual way and fell asleep, Isobel was left staring into the darkness wondering how she could get some of her daughter's money into her pocket.
Three weeks later Sierra handed her mother a check for $275,000. She had purchased from her mother a single level concrete building on the edge of the commercial district of the city housing the ailing Ballantyne School of Ballroom Dancing. Isobel had convinced her daughter that if she thought she was sinking towards the bottom of life she may as well entertaining herself running the ailing dancing school and then ultimately selling off the building for a profit.
A profit?
Mention of the word profit was like music in Sierra's ears so the deal was settled, the price fixed at book value plus 20% which made Sierra feel she was getting a bargain. The deal confirmed to Isobel that Sierra had no idea of the value of money; the best offer Isobel had received with the business and building being on the market for eight months was $237,000.
Sierra had been a brilliant dancer, winning titles galore including an international title for the Cha Cha at world competitions in Argentina, where she met Rafael, then president of the world organizing body for the competitions.
TWO
Almost six months after purchasing the dance school, Sierra was in a bar, drinking with old girlfriends. Sierra confided with Jennie that she found out why the dance tuition was ailing – it was because very few people wanted to learn to dance; she'd erroneously assumed it was because her mother had run out of energy.
"Why don't you turn it into a brothel," cackled Jennie. The other four women wanted to know what the joke was. When it had been explained they all urged Sierra to open a brothel and they all got gloriously drunk while relating brothel stories.
The next day, nursing an awfully sore head, Sierra had a long talk to her two dance instructors and receptionist; all agreed to consider staying on and began printing out letters to the present 285 students attending day and evening classes advising that the studio would be closing at the end of the current quarter in six weeks' time.
Six week later the building was painted and the new sign writing, 'Ballantyne's School of Seduction' created an immediate stir, with complaints pouring into the offices of the Mayor and the Chief of Police.
City officials, vice-squad police and TV film crews and radio and newspaper teams were waiting at the doors of the remodeled building when Sierra arrived at 9 o'clock; it was she who'd arranged for the media to be alerted.
Camera crews hurled themselves at her black Mercedes as she pulled into her parking space, just as she knew they would. The start of the daily post-breakfast program
Good Morning Folk
was interrupted to take the filming live which TVAIM08 was sending live feeds round the country.
"Miss Ballantyne, is this a hoax!"
"Are you in business suicide mode?"
"How do you teach seduction, Miss Ballantyne?"
The media was in feeding frenzy.
"Miss Ballantyne, are you in the process of illegally opening a brothel," thundered a uniform policeman, surrounded by grim-faced plainclothes men and women who could only be vice-squad police.
There was silence, the only sound being humming video motors, clicking camera shutters and the nervous shuffling of feet.
"A brothel, what would I know about brothels?" simpered Sierra, dressed in a black diamante gown from Paris that fitted like a glove, with a slit almost up to her left hip. She wore only a diamond choker and brilliant red high heel shoes as adornments and carried a small black handbag of the same material as her gown. Clearly she epitomized the highest-class madam seen on Earth in recent decades.
"Who asked the question how do you teach seduction?"
A pouting female journalist, about Sierra's age of thirty, raised her hand saying, "I'm sorry to ask something that is impossible to answer."
"You teach it like teaching ABD and one and one are two – creating an elementary base, then increasing knowledge and understanding in incremental steps."
"But you can't teach emotions?" fired back the know-all pouter.
"What would you know, you ignorant over-dressed and sell-opinioned woman?"
"I beg your pardon!" squawked the offended journalist, turning fiery red and spluttering.
"I think I have demonstrated how easy it is to trigger emotions," smiled Sierra sweetly, drawing laughter and some handclaps.
"So this is not going to be a brothel?"
"No, sorry officer. I guess you and your fellow officers will have to find what you're looking for elsewhere."
