I am an asshole. I know it. It seems I am another person altogether to everyone else. Most people hang out with me because they say I am a nice guy. I like to help out, I can carry a conversation, and I am funny, so on and so on. I could care less what anyone says about me. I can handle a good joke at my expense. And so, I have this everyman's persona. If only the people around me knew.
You see, I like to be in control of everything. I want my coffee delivered to me every morning on my desk at 8am sharp. I do not allow anyone to send me emails longer than 3 lines. If you cannot speak and spell properly, I have no time for you. But this is on the inside. When I don't have my coffee sent to me at the right time, I still say thank you. When I receive emails that are longer than three lines, I still read them. When I encounter a nitwit, I still treat them politely. But on the inside, all of it is killing me.
When I met Amanda, she was just a kid about 14. I used to work at an after school and she used to come because she wasn't allowed home all by herself. She was a sweet girl. She liked to play card games and board games and interacted with all the other kids. She quickly morphed into another person.
She would walk in with her friends, start cursing and mentioning boys. She would talk about how she ditched school and generally wasn't the same person she used to be when we first met. She stopped coming about two years after she began. Some time later, she dropped out of school. I was floored when I saw her on the street. She was eighteen and looking good.
We chatted a bit; she told me how she was roommates with her boyfriend and how she had been jobless since she left school. She didn't have any money, so she relied on him for basically everything. That's when I got the idea that I was going to fuck her.
I didn't want to push, so I asked her if her number had changed since she was coming to the afterschool group. I told her I wanted to make sure she was doing okay. I said I might know a few people who could help her get her GED and maybe even find a job. She gave me her number and we parted ways. I called her a few times afterwards. She was still in her dead end relationship and still had no job. After about the third phone call, I tested the waters.
"Amanda, I might have a few odd jobs I could pay you for. Are you interested?" She quickly agreed. "You might not like some of the work, but it keeps you from having to beg for money."
I gave her a job organizing my house, cleaning it up on occasion and the occasional odd job, like grocery shopping. After a month, she had broken up with her boyfriend and was working on her GED. That's when I went for it. I asked her over and told her I was very proud of her. I told her that I was really happy to keep her employed as long as she could do me a favor.
"What's that?"
