It's been a while since I posted anything--I'm afraid real life continues to interfere with my writing to a truly shocking degree. Unfortunately, I have an eating habit which I haven't managed to kick, and it requires a fair bit of money to feed it. Such is life... I did get inspiration from a reader, however, who sent me a suggestion/request for Iain's story; it gave me enough impetus to write something, for which I'm grateful. The result isn't quite the romp she seemed to be envisioning, but--if you're reading this, madame, I hope you like the result anyway.
*******
I had no idea what I was starting when I knocked on that door.
--But let me back up a step or two. Context is important. Instead of doing anything with my office epiphany, I got dinner, went home, rewatched an enjoyable bit of lightweight time-travel sci-fi on Netflix called
The Adam Project
, and went to bed. I woke up the next morning not believing any of it, telling myself I needed to ashcan the self-pity and get back to work.
In truth, I probably
should
have had a hint of what was coming; it's not like the universe hadn't tried to give me a heads-up, after all. Maybe I was past the point of believing anything could change. Whatever the reason, I put the spurs to my soul and set out grimly to beard my delinquent tenants in their respective dens, darkly certain that whatever the future held, it would be much like the present, only longer. The fact that I was committed to
not
being grim toward my tenants, but rather to approaching them with patience and compassion, only made the rest of it harder... but I had adulting to do, and it was past time to get on with it.
I had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder containing, among other things, a sheaf of copies of a brief form letter explaining my errand; when no one answered the door, as was the case at the first four apartments I visited, I left a copy and went on. The fifth apartment on my list was #705, which was Brooklyn Mercer and Cody Graves. --At least, it
had
been. Brooklyn was a gorgeous young woman (think Blake Blossom, only strawberry-blonde), but when she opened the door, she looked like she hadn't slept for days. Her eyes were red and puffy, and the thick hair which normally fell in waves around her shoulders was tied back in a ponytail. She waved me in with a weary gesture, then headed listlessly toward a large L-shaped sectional that filled one corner of her living room. She took a seat at the top of the L, while I settled myself along the bottom, facing her. With a ghost of a smile, she asked softly, "So who talks first? You talk first? I talk first?"
I gave her a small smile in return and said, "Brooklyn, you look like something's gone really wrong. Talk to me. Tell me what's going on."
Her face crumpled, but she fought herself to regain her composure. When she said quietly, "Thank you, Iain," her voice quavered, but didn't break. She took a few deep breaths and continued, "A couple weeks ago, I came home from work on Monday to an empty apartment. Cody was gone, all his stuff was gone... some of
my
stuff was gone." I winced sympathetically. "There was nothing left of him but a note on the table. He said he'd had enough. He said some... things--about me--I burned the note... I couldn't bear..." Tears pooled in her blue eyes, and her lower lip quivered.
"Don't worry, Brooklyn, take your time," I told her gently. "I'm here, and I'm listening. I'll wait for you."
That won me a bit more of a smile, and after a few more deep, slow breaths, she continued her story. Cody's note told her he was taking what was his--but he defined that very broadly, and in more ways than she realized at first. "We had our own accounts, but we also had a joint account for our joint expenses, like rent," Brooklyn told me. "Before he left, he cleaned it out and closed it."
"Ouch," I responded softly. "That must have been a real gut-punch."
"Yeah," she sighed defeatedly, then fell silent... which was a good thing, because her sigh set her large breasts moving under her T-shirt, and I lost the plot. For as long as I'd owned the Blue Diamond, even as beautiful as Brooklyn was, it had taken stern self-control to keep my eyes on her face--especially during the summer months, and
most
especially when she was on her way to or from the Cerulean's rooftop pool (which was often, as she swam every chance she got). That day, I had been trying not to notice she wasn't wearing a bra. In that moment, I lost both fights.
I was spellbound by her big tits jiggling and swinging under the thin material, her nipples clearly visible. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds before I came to my senses and yanked my eyes back up where they belonged, but it felt much longer. I was intensely relieved to see Brooklyn still staring down at her lap, apparently unaware I had been ogling her.
"Yeah," she repeated a few moments later with another deep sigh, then looked back up at me. "It was a hell of a gut punch. Especially since I'd been putting more than my fair share into that account. And more fool me, he'd made a big deal about managing it, so I let him--it just seemed easier than fighting about it--I should have
checked
, but I committed to trusting him, and I didn't know he hadn't kept up with the rent. The money was
there
, for fuck's sake! I
should
have known, I should have paid attention and been a responsible adult, but I let him get away with it! That's what I haven't been able to forgive myself for--I let him get
away
with it..."
"I'm really sorry," I told her softly, but Brooklyn kept staring sadly into the distance, giving no sign she had heard me.
After a long moment, she continued, "And now... Iain, it's bad. Maybe
really
bad. The company I work for isn't doing well--I'm not sure it's going to make it... I suppose there would never have been a
good
time for him to take all his money and a big chunk of mine, but
this
--if he'd
timed
it to sink me, he couldn't have done much better." A pause, then, meditatively: "Hell, maybe he
did
." Brooklyn paused again, looking pensive and sad. "He knew about my side project, after all. Six months, a year from now, I might have enough to attract investors and start my own company, but now--? Unless Scytale rebounds in a big way--"
"Umm, Brooklyn?" I interrupted, a little confused. "What's 'skittly'?"
She grinned briefly. "S-c-y-t-a-l-e," she informed me. "Ancient Spartan tool for encrypting messages."
"Ah, OK," I said. "I think I remember reading about it as a kid. Thank you."
"You're welcome," she replied, her small smile at me somehow shy. "The founders of my company took it as their inspiration; the company is Scytale Technologies. I've been concerned about it for a while--that's why I started my side project, in hopes I could use it as a parachute when Scytale flames out. But with this shiv in the kidneys from Cody..." Brooklyn fell silent again for several seconds. "Even if the company was doing well, at my current salary, I can't make ends meet unless I--move--" Her voice broke a little, and there was something different about the tone. She cleared her throat quickly and went on. "And it isn't, and there's no way I'll be able to develop my side project fast enough to save my ass."
And what an ass
, I couldn't help thinking. I scolded myself mentally for the thought, but I couldn't shake it. "I really don't know what I'm going to do," she ended sadly.
Playing for time, I asked Brooklyn a few questions about her job situation. I knew vaguely that she was a programmer, but that was about it. I found out Scytale was a small defense subcontractor involved in information security. I also found out more than I could absorb about why the company was failing: in her judgment, the founders were brilliant programmers but believed too much in their own brilliance. They weren't willing to accept ideas or input from subordinates, and so--she believed--they were rejecting contributions which they needed in order to remain relevant and valuable to the DoD. "And if they lose the contract... that's it," she told me.
I tried asking about her side project, but Brooklyn clearly didn't want to tell me anything, and when she evaded my questions, I let her. My heart went out to her. I'm sure it was partly because she was gorgeous, but it was mostly her situation. She wasn't the first twenty-something tenant I'd had get screwed hard for trusting someone with a few scruples loose, and I grieved because I knew she wouldn't be the last. The bright side was that the tenants in that category had been the easiest of all to help. Not only had I not had to evict any of them, they'd all gotten back on their feet in remarkably short order.
I wasn't going to start talking about that until Brooklyn was ready, though. I knew she needed to talk through her situation and get everything off her chest before anything I did could be at all fruitful. I was a little embarrassed when she started a post-mortem on her dead relationship, but she wasn't the first tenant to do that, so I listened attentively and kept my mouth shut, just like I'd done with the others. My embarrassment grew considerably, however, when she started talking about her sexual relationship with her boyfriend--that was
not
part of the normal pattern. I was glad I'd had lots of practice over the years looking neutral and saying nothing, because I needed all of it.
It was a good thing, because the more Brooklyn talked about Cody, the lower my opinion of him got. It wasn't long before I was wondering what she'd seen in him to stay with him that long, or even to move in with him in the first place. Isaac Asimov wrote somewhere that the answer to "I don't know what she sees in him" is usually "You know very well what," but--though I can scarcely claim to be an expert on male sex appeal--Cody didn't strike me as anything above middling in either looks or sexual magnetism, and he can't have been much of a sexual athlete. While I still felt for Brooklyn being dumped (and, even more, for being ripped off), I started wondering why she hadn't dumped
him
long before.
All the same, I twitched in surprise when she voiced the same thought. "I don't know why
I
stayed with
him
, really," she mused sadly. "The sex was the best thing about our relationship, and it wasn't that good--especially the last few months." She paused; an introspective look came over her face. "I suppose, really, I didn't want to have no place to go. This is my home, and I wanted to have a home to come home to. Coming home to him was better than nothing. He wasn't much of a fuck, or anything else, but I guess I figured as long as I kept fucking him, I'd have a place to live." She giggled a little and looked up at me. "I guess I was fucking him for the rent, as long as it worked. Do you think that makes me a whore?"
"No," I said firmly. "You're a capable young woman; you were just doing what you felt you had to do to make life work."
"Good," Brooklyn replied softly. She gave me a long, considering look, then stood decisively. "Good," she repeated, her voice firm. "Because I've just realized I'd much rather cut out the middleman, and I wouldn't want you thinking I'm a whore." I blinked at her stupidly. "I've thought you were sexy for as long as I've known you, and everything I know about you as a man, I like," she told me, her voice a little husky. "You're always so good to us tenants... you care about us as people. It's not like we've had a
