I spent Sunday on my own, finishing up two papers I needed to hand in Monday afternoon. Despite the success of our website and the time I put in creating content for it, I still needed to study and submit work to my teachers. I was just lucky that Ali had been through the mill and was able to give me some help and advice, could tell me just how much work was required. She still made me do the work myself, but a lot of the time she was a lot more useful to me than my teachers.
Monday evening Sandy arrived, alone, and the three of us sat around the kitchen table while Sandy quizzed us. She was dressed in a new top and skirt, and pulled a pair of black glasses out of her bag and put them on to read her notes and the documents she asked us for. She was completely different, this was her subject now, and she was in charge.
She asked us about the art materials we used, the laptops, even the pencils, pens and crayons. She wanted every receipt we could find and how often we paid fees for the website, whether we logged onto other sites to see what competition was out there. After forty minutes she sat up and pushed her hands back through her hair, twisting in her chair.
"OK. Bottom line, if you don't sort yourselves out soon, the IRS are not going to cut your balls off. Ignorance of tax law is not a defense. You're lucky I came along. Now, do you want me to sort all this out for you?"
"Would you?" Ali said.
"I can," Sandy replied. "I'll need paying, but I'm cheap."
"Whatever it costs," Ali said.
Sandy laughed. "First lesson. Never say that to anyone ever again. I'll pretend I didn't hear it. I'll charge you $10 an hour for all the work I do, plus expenses. You'll pay your filing fees and any other fees that may be needed. So, what do you think?"
"Please," Ali said.
Sandy turned to me. "And you, Tom?"
I nodded. "You can see we have no idea what we're doing, Sandy. Can you sort us out?"
"Of course I can," she nodded. "I'll make a start tonight. And before I leave I want to talk to you about something else as well."
"Anything," I said, and Ali nodded, agreeing.
Ali and I left her to work. We both went down into the studio and started to sketch. I hung around for a while, leaning against a beam, watching Sandy as she laid her work out neatly on the kitchen table. Ali had offered her the desk, but she said she could do with more space, that she liked to lay everything out and work through it logically.
She sat at the table, a pad of ruled paper open, the receipts we had managed to find in one pile, one of the laptops pushed off to one side so she could look up any information she needed. Sandy glanced around, satisfied herself everything was ordered and arranged, and took a pair of glasses from her bag and slipped them on. She looked so beautiful, even more than usual, that I just stood there and stared. Luckily she was absorbed in her work, or I might have had trouble explaining why I just stood looking at her.
I jumped slightly as Ali came and slipped her arm through mine. I had been in a world of my own, enchanted by Sandy.
"You'd fuck her," Ali said softly, too quiet for her voice to carry.
I nodded. "Too right."
"Mm. Me too."
I glanced at her. "You would?"
"Fuck yeah. You know me and women. And Sandy is one hell of a woman. I wonder if she's into girls? Knowing my luck probably not."
"That would be fun, wouldn't it, Al?"
She looked at me. "What would, Tom?"
We were both talking softly, not wanting Sandy to hear us.
"If we both fucked her," I said.
Ali's mouth twitched up at the corner. "You've got a dirty mind, Tom Graham."
I raised my shoulders.
"I like it though," Ali said, and I grinned.
Sandy glanced up from her papers and saw us. "Tom, Ali, I've got some receipts here and I'm not sure how to classify them. Can you help me out?"
"Sure." Ali left my side and walked across to her, pulled a chair up and started looking through the pieces of paper.
I continued working and after a quarter hour Ali came back.
We both lost track of time and when Sandy spoke I had no idea how much time had passed.
I turned to find her sitting on the steps that led down from the main living area to the studio. She had tucked her short skirt down between her thighs, sat forward with her hands draped between her legs.
"I'm done for now. I'll need to come back, and if you want me to I'd like to make this a regular thing. You're going to need at least half a day a week to keep on top of all the paperwork."
"Not a problem," I said, already looking forward to Sandy becoming a regular visitor.
"And I said I wanted to talk to you about something else," she said.
"Anything," I replied.
She looked at me, at Ali. She appeared to be making up her mind about something. She had removed her glasses and her bright blue eyes regarded us seriously.
"This enterprise of yours," she said. "The website, the drawings, how serious are you about it?"
"I'm not sure I follow you," Ali said.
"What do you want out of it? Where do you want it to go?"
"We haven't thought about it," Ali said. "It's just something we do. I guess I just like drawing dirty pictures, and I've corrupted Tom now too."
"Me as well," Sandy said, laughing. "But I didn't quite mean that. Do you want this to grow, to earn more money?"
Ali shrugged. "I guess."
"How, uh, emotionally attached are you to it?"
"Don't understand," Ali said.
I watched them both, starting to get an idea where Sandy might be going with this.
Sandy leaned forward, her top opening as she moved, providing a delightful view down onto the top of her beasts.
"I think... what you have created has enormous potential," Sandy said. "I think you could both come out of this with enough money to last the rest of your lives."
Ali shook her head, not believing what she was hearing.
"But that's not going to happen if you continue running it the way you have been, hand to mouth, unplanned."
"We're not business people," I said. "This is all just an accident."
"I can see that. And I'm not criticizing. You can keep on as you are, and you'll tick over. You're doing OK at the moment, but pretty soon things will start slipping. Unless it changes, eighteen months, two years from now it'll be costing you money and you'll be a slave to turning out work."