AUTHOR NOTE: If you like this hilariously grim little tale, read some of my other equally uninspired fiction:
After the Party
Daphne's New Life
How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Carol Hitchcock
A Death, Baked Bob, and the Personal Ad
Screwing My Ex
They came out in that order, and according to one reader, I got better as I went along, so do yourself a favor and read them in that order to avoid getting disappointed by my early lack of skills. Please send feedback.
DISCLAIMER: Pay attention! This story is fiction and not meant to do anything more than entertain, don't read this stuff with any intention other than having a good time, don't take life too seriously and don't swim after you've just eaten. Isn't it stupid that I have to write these warnings in case someone goes out and does something bad because of what they read in my story? What's happened in our society to cause this? I know, I know, lawsuit-happy people and the lawyers who run commercials that inspire them. Now you have to put warning labels on everything. And I understand that some things need warning labels. Hydrochloric acid – big warning label on that one. With letters four feet tall. But I don't need a cup of coffee with a warning label that says it's hot. I know it's hot. I wanted it hot! Well, not that hot. I take it light, actually.
IV. When It All Comes Crashing Down
18.
Monday morning. Both Maggie and Kaye had left for work, one with a secret mission Amanda had given her, the other with no idea what was about to happen. Which left Amanda sitting alone in the apartment, basking in the glow of her own brilliance by masturbating. She sat naked on the couch and stroked her breasts, squeezing her globes and pinching her nipples. This is what people with power do, she thought. They orchestrate events. Play chess with living breathing people. Make others do things against their will because, unlike those with power, they have no choice. Most of all, people with power destroy their enemies, and Amanda considered Kaye an enemy because she took someone as bright and focused as Maggie and turned her into a house pet. On Tuesday she'd leave a videotape as promised, but it would be blank. The real one would find it's way onto the Internet.
Amanda took a cube of ice from the glass of vodka on the table and sucked off the alcohol, then brought it down to her right tit and let out a small gasp as it touched her skin. She ran it in circles around the areola, slowly shortening the circumference until the harsh cold touched her sensitive nipple. Her hand took the cube away and then brought it back a few times as she reveled in the sensation. Finally she took the cube into her left hand and played with the other nipple while her right hand moved down between her legs, finding the moisture she knew would be there. Amanda didn't need anyone else to give her what she needed. Daddy had always taught her to be self-reliant; it was one of his most important lessons.
In the early days Daddy taught Amanda how to play chess. It was essential, he said, because life is like the chessboard, with pieces ranging in importance and moves that changed every game. Then Daddy would take her to work and she'd follow him around the used car lot, watching him make deals and decisions as he spoke to customers, employees, and people of influence. Secretly manipulating some, directly aggressive with others, like he was playing chess with real people.
He was so was intelligent and resourceful, so unlike Mother. She spent her time hosting benefits for various causes, trying to help people who were too weak or stupid to do for themselves. Daddy secretly called her 'The Useless Twit', and once said the marriage was simply a consolidation of family money. It was a Smart Move, he said, because love only made people stupid. Many of these lessons had been passed down from his father and his father's father before him, and Daddy wanted a son to keep the family tradition. But The Useless Twit had bore only a daughter, and after that decided to adopt because 'there are already so many unwanted children in this world'. Intent on having his own blood be the receiver of the family tradition, Daddy started teaching Amanda.
She was able to watch the lessons in action as Daddy's single car lot expanded to several across the state, and soon he counted the governor, successful entrepreneurs, and other people of power and privilege as his close friends. Daddy's money and influence gave him contracts to supply vehicles to local towns, supported a senator into office, and even stopped a highway from being built near a competitor. His empire became so powerful that when Amanda was seventeen and hit another car while drunk driving, she was never arrested and the people she injured never sued. No record of the incident appears in any file anywhere.
By now Amanda had dropped the ice and had a finger in her pussy and her thumb rubbing her clit. Her other hand cupped her breast and brought it up towards her mouth, sticking out her tongue to where it just touched the nipple. The double sensation drove her insane with lust, for there was no one she enjoyed pleasuring more than herself. She looked at the strap-on sitting on the table and remembered yesterday, when she'd used it to help her drive a wedge between Maggie and Kaye. Or at least it would have if Maggie didn't have such a stubborn, idiotic devotion to her girlfriend. Amanda pulled her hand from her cunt and grabbed the toy, quickly removed the plastic phallus from the harness and gave it a cursory lube job with her mouth before she brought it between her legs and slowly pushed it inside. A moan emitted from her mouth as she felt it fill her up, and moments later she began to pump it in and out, slowly at first, while the other hand rubbed her clit in unison. Quick thinking and a compromise had saved her plan to take Maggie with her. Amanda may have perfected her timing while pulling cons in South America, but the groundwork always lay in Daddy's lessons.
Amanda had applied those lessons early in life. In the sixth grade she used false rumors to start a spat between two friends, thus helping her get into the most popular clique around. In high school she seduced teachers, both male and female, to boost her grades in subjects where she was getting anything less than an A-. And once, right before field hockey tryouts, Amanda slipped regular milk into the drink of her rival, who was lactose intolerant. It wasn't that Amanda didn't work hard for these things; she always gave one hundred and twenty percent to any goal she set. But, as Daddy pointed out, sometimes your best isn't good enough, and in this highly competitive world there are times when you need to create your own luck. That's where the lessons came in.
The final lesson Amanda learned happened when she went to visit her father just after college graduation. By then the Useless Twit had left him because of not one but two paternity suits from mistresses. Then there was the Federal investigation into corruption, causing all his influential friends to avoid him. He had nothing but a lawyer on his side when the divorce and paternity suits went to court, and that didn't go well at all. Daddy's empire had collapsed. He was financially strapped and in a week he had to report to jail.
They played chess in silence for a while, until he beat her using a knight he had put into a corner early in the game. Daddy explained this would serve as the final lesson for Amanda, and the lesson was to keep an eye on all the players still on the board. Once again he used a real life example to illustrate – he'd found out that a third mistress put the authorities on his tail when he dumped her a year earlier. She was a piece he had ignored, and she was the one that sent him into checkmate.
When Amanda went to bed her father was still in his office and it's where she found him the next morning, hanging from one of the rafters by a piece of cord. Pinned to his tie was a small note. Amanda walked up to her father and read it.
