I hung up on my wife, feeling exhausted. We'd needed a live-in babysitter for a while, but Lorelei had fought me on it tooth and nail for months. We had the space, we had the money—more than enough of both; she just didn't want to hire anyone. I had tried everything I could think of to get her to agree, but her spike heels were dug in and she would not budge. Finally, I told her I was done asking her permission, I was going to hire someone whether she liked it or not. She gave in—gracelessly, but she gave in. I started to thank her, but she cut me off to snarl at me, saying she wouldn't sit there and listen to me gloat. I cut her off mid-syllable.
I shook my head, trying somehow to clear it. From the outside, most people would say I've had a charmed life. It was, once. My dad always said, "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life," and I got lucky. I've always loved to write, but the opportunity to make a living as a writer can be very hard to come by; I had it fall into my lap. As a freshman, I was assigned Mike Freeman as my roommate, and he quickly became my closest friend. Aside from Lori, he has been ever since.
A few days after we moved in, I walked into our room to find him sitting at my laptop intently reading one of my early attempts at a novel. Before I could say anything, he looked up. "You left it open," he said, looking completely serious for the first time in our relationship. "This is really good."
"It's a beginner's effort," I snorted, not sure how to react to the situation.
"Of
course
it's a beginner's effort," Mike snorted back. "Everyone
begins
. Most people just can't go anywhere worth going. You can, if you get the support you need."
"How would you know that?" I asked, my emotions running in all directions at once.
"My dad's a senior editor for Doubleday."
*****
Mike and I hadn't gotten to the "what are you going to do with your life?" stage of conversation before that day, so while I had known he was an English major, I hadn't known it was because he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. He had known I was a business major, but he hadn't known that was a "scandalous misuse" of my gifts, as he put it that afternoon. I had wanted to major in English or history, but my family had pushed me hard to get an "employable" degree. By the time Mike got done with me that day, I had agreed to go to the registrar and change my major to a double in English
and
history.
For the rest of our college careers, I had Mike in my corner, pushing me and cheering me on. He talked me into going home with him for Thanksgiving our freshman year and
pitched
me to his dad. His dad was intrigued; he read what I brought with me, then pursed his lips and said judiciously, "You have promise, kid." By the time I graduated, I had a book contract with Doubleday and John Lewis Freeman as my editor, and I had learned that if he pushed for one of his authors to get the big push, nobody at the imprint wanted to push back. He'd proven too many times that he knew what he was talking about. To my surprise, he did with me, too. By the time my second book came out, Doubleday was
eager
to promote it.
John Lewis Freeman was my editor through nine novels in four different genres, which was probably the only reason Doubleday let me
try
four different genres. These days, only Isaac Asimov can pull off that sort of variety and keep growing his audience, and Asimov's dead. The marketing people don't think they can market a young author who keeps putting his books in different sections of the library. John L. backed me up, though, and by the time he died in a plane crash, my sales had proven him right. No one at Doubleday felt any need to change me—they just assigned me a new editor (one Michael John Freeman, as it happened) and let me keep doing what I was doing.
*****
It was a good thing I graduated with a book contract and a meaningful advance, because I also graduated with a fiancée who became my wife three weeks later. Lorelei Ryan was pre-law, so we might never have met under normal circumstances, but Fate took a hand. On my first day back on campus for my junior year, I was sitting cross-legged on the grass daydreaming in the sun, and she was walking past looking the other way—until some idiot on a bike nearly ran her over. She jumped aside and lost her balance, and the first I knew of any of it was when a red-headed bombshell landed on me.
Obviously, with her momentum, I ended up on my back with her on top of me; I've always enjoyed working out, but I can't imagine the kind of core strength it would have taken to hold my position. We reassured each other neither of us was seriously hurt, but then Lorelei started to shake. I sat back up, pulled her into my lap, and held her until she was calm.
When I asked her how she was feeling; she was silent for a moment, then (to my shock) began telling me about the professor who was sexually harrassing her. We talked until dinner time, went out to eat, and ended up snuggling on the couch in my apartment. With my support, she had the confidence to file a complaint against her professor—a complaint which gave a number of other women the courage to come forward against him, leading to his departure. For years after that, she called me her white knight.
My dating history up to that point hadn't been great—I'd been burned badly a couple times—so I was unsure of myself, but Lorelei had no qualms about going after what she wanted, and she'd made up her mind she wanted me. Before that first day was out, she'd given me her number and told me to call her Lori "like my other close friends do." Though I'd only met her, my cock was already aching to know her as intimately as possible, so I didn't argue. She was tall, slender, and athletic; her tits were perfect handfuls high on her chest (she wore a 34B bra that was probably just a trifle small), she had an insanely tight little round ass, and she could have been Candice Swanepoel's prettier sister. As far as I was concerned, she was perfect.
Fortunately for me, she also liked Mike and his girlfriend, Eden Layne. The first time we went out together as couples, she and Eden disappeared for a few minutes while we were waiting for our food. Mike and I wondered what they were talking about. We found out later they were scheduling our place for fucking since neither of them would have much opportunity in their own apartments. Lori got priority because we hadn't actually fucked yet. When she showed up the next day, sank to her knees and pulled my pants down, I was surprised, but she had it planned. By the time she was done, she'd had me cum in her mouth, on her face, on her tits, and in her pussy, and I was hooked.
*****
Our first decade or so of marriage was wonderful. My advance was big enough to get us started; I had to work a regular job to support us until the book came out, but it sold well from the start. I put her through law school, and she went to work for a consulting firm. Lori worked long hours, but not unreasonably so, and of course I could arrange my own schedule to fit hers, unless I had publicity commitments. I would have loved more time with her, but we weren't hurting, and her sex drive was as high as ever. When Hope came along, and then Joy, Lori took maternity leave and then went back to work knowing that I would be fine taking care of them. We had to juggle things a bit more, and there were times when one or the other of our sets of parents would come stay with us—when I had a book tour, for instance—but in general, everything was fine.
A year or so after Joy was born, things started to change. Lori started losing interest in me, growing distant and gradually cold toward me. Her schedule kept her out of the house more and more. Not long after Joy's third birthday, Lori told me she'd gotten a promotion and she would only be home on weekends because she would be traveling every week. I asked her to reconsider—begged her, really—but she mocked my pain and walked out the door.
At that point, finding time to write and still be a parent became brutally difficult. I got help from my parents, who were worried about me, and her parents, who were worried about both of us—all four of them were worried about the girls. Joy began having night terrors, and Hope occasionally became defiant, which was a huge change for a little girl who had always loved to be helpful any way she could. I knew we needed help—well,
I
needed help; I didn't know what to say about Lori one way or the other. I hired a private investigator to confirm my suspicion that she was having an affair, and confirm it he promptly did; at least he also confirmed that she actually was traveling, but that came at the price of discovering that her trips were as much fuckfests as business trips.
I started pushing to hire a live-in babysitter so I could stop wearing out the grandparents; they loved our daughters, but their visits ought to have been time for them to enjoy the girls, not to be put to work as caregivers. I didn't want to strain all our relationships beyond repair, and I was deeply afraid that was on the horizon. Lori mocked me for talking about a "live-in babysitter" instead of a nanny; I don't like the word "nanny," and I made no apology for that. I don't know why she fought me so hard . . . but then, I don't know why I let her for so long, either.
*****
I used several different avenues to identify potential babysitters, and ended up with an initial list of eight candidates. I decided I could take a couple weeks off writing so I wouldn't have to rush the process, and I scheduled all the interviews on separate days. If everything went well, I should be able to hire someone just before finals started at the university to start once their finals were completed. That seemed ideal to me, and I hoped it would to the candidates.
The first interview was with a sophomore psych major named Kylie Morgan who had just turned 20. When I opened the door to her and introduced myself, her eyes went wide. "You're
R. J.
Andrews!" she exclaimed in delight. "I love your books!"
Startled, I stepped back and invited her in on pure reflex. "All of them?" I asked in surprise. They all sell well, but I tend to think of myself as having multiple fanbases—I don't expect most of my readers to like
every
genre I try.
"Yes!" Kylie said happily. "You even got me interested in military sci-fi!" I blinked at that, and she grinned. "Yeah, you've gotten me into Weber, Ringo—though I like Ringo best for the sex—Bujold, Flint . . ." She shook herself and refocused her eyes on me. "If I brought you one of my copies, do you think you'd be willing to autograph it?"
I didn't answer right away; I was distracted. I had taken my first good look at Kylie, and I couldn't look away. She was tall and blonde with a face like an angel and a body built to stop traffic. Her tits were big enough they seemed to be straining the buttons on her blouse, and the way they moved as she moved, I was sure they were just as God had made them. Even buttoned up, her top offered an enticing glimpse of cleavage, just enough to promise a man could get lost in there. Her skirt, long enough to look professional but not by much, showed off a slender waist, wide hips with the promise of an apple-shaped ass, and perfect legs.
