I
Morning dawned on the Haigh Building, a handsome brownstone in an up and coming neighborhood. The ninth-floor loft apartment, normally quiet at this hour, suddenly echoed with cacophonous, rapidly-thumping shrill noise for several agonizing seconds before it was just as abruptly silenced.
"Sorry!" Jayda's voice floated from her bedroom off the kitchen. "My headphones came out."
Sam padded out from the other side in a face mask and short kimono and saw Cath leaned against the counter, already nursing a cup of coffee. A fresh brown stain on her pink pajama top bore witness to the momentary jumpscare of the past thirty seconds.
"What even is she listening to?" Cath grumbled. "Hyperpop? Is that what they call it?"
"I think it's vocaloid," yawned Sam, opening the fridge and hesitating before selecting a tupperwared risotto. There was a silence broken only by the hum of the microwaving risotto, and then Jayda emerged from her room, skipping cheerfully and energetically into the kitchen. Her thin T-shirt stretched tight across her bouncing breasts, and flannel booty shorts hugged her firm ass.
"Morning!" she sang out, giving Cath a quick kiss on the cheek as she reached for a box of sugary cereal.
"Mrng," mumbled Cath from within her coffee cup. Sam gave Jayda a quick air kiss as she handed her the milk from the fridge.
"Going to work today?" Jayda asked brightly, settling on a stool at the kitchen island, and stirring her cereal so that it was all softened by the milk.
Cath bit back a sarcastic reply and only nodded. Sam stretched from the other end of the island while her risotto cooled in front of her.
"I have a ten o'clock," she said with a yawn. "Takes time to get all dolled up."
"Have you found a job yet?" Cath asked. Jayda's face fell and she shook her blonde head mournfully.
"I'm trying," she said with a sigh. "I do want to pay my share."
Sam shrugged. "We'll cover it as long as we need to. It's a little tight, but...."
Cath caught her eye and she didn't finish her sentence.
"I sent you the address of the temp agency, right?" said Cath. Jayda nodded, and the room fell quiet again as breakfast continued. From deep in the back of the loft, Naomi could be heard stirring.
Jayda toyed with her spoon, having finished the cereal. Her eyes glanced from Cath, now on her third cup of coffee, to Sam, eating her risotto with quick delicate bites.
"I'll go to the temp agency today," she said with sudden resolution. Then a gleam came into her eyes. "If I can have some juice."
Cath's eyebrows raised. Sam looked up in confusion.
"There should be o.j. in the fridge," she said. Jayda laughed, and shook her head.
"Not that kind of juice. You know...."
Cath set down her coffee with deliberation and pushed down her pajama bottoms so that her red-furred pussy peeped out. Jayda giggled happily and dove to the ground to kneel between her legs. Sam rolled her eyes affectionately.
"Better brush your teeth before you go to the temp agency," was all she said. Cath had a tendency to be particularly aromatic in the morning.
Jayda only made greedy sucking noises in reply, and Cath raised a solemn middle finger at Sam, who stuck out her tongue.
Naomi emerged, in an oversized t-shirt and sweats, her hair securely wrapped. "Morning, babes," she said with a little wave, and headed straight for the nest of electronics and paper in front of the window that constituted her "desk."
"No," said Sam peremptorily. "You have to have breakfast."
Naomi looked over and sighed. Sam glared at her. Cath looked up and nodded firmly. Jayda even turned her head around, licking her lips.
"It's the most important meal of the day," she said, and went back to licking Cath's folds.
"I have a big job to do," said Naomi in a less decisive tone than she meant.
"And you'll do it better with nutrition," said Sam. "Get over here."
Naomi obeyed.
"You don't have to use your domme voice," she said, half-sulkily, half-kidding.
"Oh, Mimi, you haven't even heard my domme voice," Sam assured her.
Naomi grabbed an apple and some energy bars and would have headed straight back to her workstation, but a knock on the door arrested all their attention.
Cath and Jayda quickly made themselves decent, Sam hurriedly peeled off her face mask, and Naomi went to the door and opened it a crack.
"Mrs. Pérez!" she said blankly. The scowling face of their landlady glared up at her.
"You have men over?" she snapped suspiciously.
"No, no, it's just us." Naomi hastily stepped aside and let Mrs. Pérez see. The trio around the kitchen island waved with artificial happiness.
"Good. No men!" Mrs. Pérez stepped in. At four-foot ten, she still had a commanding presence, with dark flashing eyes, graying hair pulled into a tight bun, and an eternal uniform of gaudy cardigans over an ancient housekeeping uniform, a talismanic reminder of what she had worked her way up from.
"No men." All four shook their heads in devout promise. Mrs. Pérez put her hands on her hips, entirely unmollified.
"Where the rent?" she barked pugnaciously.
Naomi looked at Sam and Cath, who looked at each other. Jayda looked between all three of them.
"We paid the rent," said Cath. "On the first of the month."
Mrs. Pérez gave a dramatic sniff. They braced for an announcement that the check had bounced, or that it was never received.
"One month rent," she said contemptuously. "I need one year rent, or you go now!"
"A year!"
"You can't do that!" said Cath.
"That's illegal!" said Sam.
"That's so long," said Jayda.
But Naomi's eyes went wide, and she was silent. Mrs. Pérez glared at her.
"Is in the Lisagrimen," she spat. Naomi ran to her pile of papers and electronics and pawed through them until she found a dirty packet titled Lease Agreement.
She nodded, mournfully. "After the six-month trial has been completed, Lessee agrees to pay one year's rent in advance, with all repairs and utilities to be borne by the Lessor."
"Six month was last month," said Mrs. Pérez triumphantly. "I need one year rent."
"Eleven months," said Cath quickly. "We paid one month."
Mrs. Pérez produced the check for a month's rent, showed the unsigned back, and tore it into pieces dramatically.
"One year rent," she said.
Cath slumped her shoulders, defeated.
"I'll have to stop at the bank to transfer stuff," she told the others. "And I'm already going to be late for work now. But I'll be able to cover my share." She glanced at Jayda. "And half of Jayda's."
Sam was looking intently at her phone.
"I should be able to do mine," she said. "The client today can afford some extras."
Naomi shook her head.
"I can't do it," she said. "I can take on more work, but it would take a month to get paid."
Cath pressed her lips together.
"You have to give us time to get the money together," she said to Mrs. Pérez.
"Please," said Jayda, her eyes big and mouth scared. Tears trembled on her eyelashes.
Mrs. Pérez glared at them with the hostile triumph of a conqueror.
"You have to end of day," she pronounced, and turned around.
Her exit was slightly spoiled by the fact that her twin daughters were standing in the doorway, looking in tentatively.
"¿Qué hacen aqu�" she snapped. "No les involucra esto."
"Mamá, Mamá," they babbled breathlessly. "Pero es que Rosario nos dijo que nuestros vestidos están irremediablemente pasados de moda, y que los tienes que comprar en almacenes más de lujo que JC Penney...." They fell out of earshot, but Naomi stood looking at their retreating backs thoughtfully before closing the door.
"I've got to run," said Cath, heading towards her room to change. "It'll be tight, but I can come up with half, maybe more, if you can all pitch in the rest."
"I'll make some calls," said Sam. "See if I can book a few more appointments."
"And I'll go to the temp agency," said Jayda with utter sincerity. "Do they pay in advance?"
II
During her lunch break, Cath stopped at the bank. A quick consultation with a teller directed her to a cubicle where an extremely professional black woman in a bright yellow blazer with her hair pulled back into a poof of curls gave her a firm handshake, introduced herself as Lynette, and asked how she could help her.
Cath related her financial details, underscoring the need to transfer funds from the high-return savings account to one that could be easily liquidated. When she added that it needed to be done today, Lynette sucked her teeth dubiously, and began to type.
Cath took quick stock of her. Hard to get a bead on someone with such a professionally friendly demeanor. But the yellow blazer swelled invitingly at the bosom, and Cath noticed that although she wore acrylics, the nails on the index and middle fingers of her right hand were kept short.
Lynette gave a consolatory sigh. "I'm afraid that bank regulations..." she began. Cath gave a quick glance to see how well the cubicle shielded her from other eyes.
"Could you... speed up the process?" she asked, undoing a single button on her blouse. Lynette gazed with some surprise at her exposed cleavage.
"Well," she said, and moistened her lips with her tongue.
Sam paused, raising her eyebrows expectantly.
"Ah, yes," said the client. "This is my new secretary, Miss Johnson."
"Is she... aware of the services I am providing today?" Sam asked, tapping one hand with the butt of her flogger, taking in Miss Johnson from the corner of her eye as she led the way in.
"Oh, yes. I insist that she be intimately familiar with my entire itinerary, so that she will know precisely when to schedule the important, er, meetings."
"I see."
Miss Johnson was a slender young woman with large glasses and brown hair parted severely down the middle. She carried a clipboard and seemed to devote most of her attention to it. The stark decor and slight chill of Sam's dungeon did not seem to have affected her at all.
Sam snapped the flogger sharply.
"Well, then, you sniveling worm," she said, speaking now in what Naomi did not know to call her domme voice. "Let's see how well your training has held up, shall we?"
The client simpered as he knelt quickly into position. Miss Johnson's expression did not change.