Author's Note: Welcome back, dear audience. As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome and encouraged. Now for the disclaimers. This story features content with dubious consent at most (and probably some offensive language). Rape is wrong. Don't do it. Everyone knows this. If you don't enjoy stories with this kind of content, don't read them and don't whine about it in the comments. All characters who engage in sexual content are of age.
Returning readers will likely recognize this opening chapter as a modest revision of one I previously posted a few months ago. With the second chapter now all but completed and set for release in one week, I decided to go ahead and post this updated version beforehand. The changes are mostly about adjusting/expanding some character backgrounds to make them better fit with the future plans for the series I developed after completing the original. Embarrassing, but lesson learned. In the future I won't start releasing the beginning of any series until I have a clear idea of what I want to do with it down the road. As such if anyone who read the original doesn't care to stick around I understand, but do keep an eye out for the follow up chapter. For anyone not familiar with the original, this opening chapter is a bit of a slow burn but I think there's a lot to like. For those who only have time for the main 'action' it is in the last 1/3, but you'd be missing a lot of context and one preliminary round, so I hope everyone gives the chapter a full read. Now, thank you to everyone who has dropped by, and on with the show.
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Raquel was having a bad week. A really, REALLY bad week. On Monday, she had learned that her application for the summer internship of her dreams was rejected. On Tuesday, her mother had called with news that her sister (the young, sweet one, not the queen bitch) had been in her scumbag boyfriend's car when the moron drunkenly crashed it into not one, but three trees and would be needing at least two months of physical therapy that the insurance company was trying to weasel their way out of paying for. On Wednesday, she had been so distracted that she completely bombed her solo piece in one of the most important concerts of the year. On Thursday, her computer had decided to test out its brand new impression of the world's most expensive brick with finals just around the corner. Then, to cap it all off, on Friday Raquel had discovered that Ellie, her beloved girlfriend of nearly two years, had betrayed her trust for a second time by again going behind her back to party with Raquel's abusive ex, sparking the biggest fight of their entire time together.
Having emerged from her unplanned vacation to hell on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Raquel spent the entirety of Saturday curled up in front of her little tv with a remote and a one pound chocolate bar in a desperate attempt to deny the existence of the entire world beyond her bedroom. But then... then came Sunday and she decided she was ready to start putting things right. She didn't yet have the heart to start looking for new summer options, or the money to fix her computer, or the time machine to go back and redo the concert, or the power to magically heal her sister. What she did have was just the right mix of fury and pettiness to get back at Ellie in the most damning way she could think of.
So it was that Raquel found herself standing in front of her bedroom mirror putting the finishing touches on the heaviest makeup she had worn in ages. She allowed herself a wicked grin as she surveyed the breathtaking young woman staring back at her, turning this way and that to appraise her efforts from every possible direction. Her angular face was all sharp lines and pale skin with cheekbones one could cut themselves on. The makeup she had spent the last half hour applying was the perfect smoky look to compliment the sleek, jet black hair that fell well past her bare shoulders. Raquel knew just how beautiful she was, and while she normally didn't care to draw attention to her body, tonight she was going to flaunt every square inch of it for all the world to see.
To that end, she had decided to adorn her svelte young form with a brand new strapless dress held up by nothing more than the supple C cup breasts whose curves it highlighted so well. The gown was an eye catching shade somewhere between crimson and scarlet with delicate gold accents, but it was most notable for the scandalous slit stretching its entire height. Those three inches bridged by nothing more than a dozen delicate metal chains traced a path from her cleavage down to the outside of her right hip before flaring outwards as they ran down her leg. Beneath the thin chains binding the dress together lay nothing but acres of bare skin, the absence of any frilly lace around her hips or bosom offering an unspoken promise about the evening to come.
Satisfied that she could rival Venus herself for the night, the young lesbian stepped back from the mirror and crossed the room to reach her bed. As she moved, she luxuriated in the feel of tight, silky satin across her skin. The touch of the subtly rippling fabric felt almost as sensuous as the fingers of a skilled lover, especially on the sensitive flesh of her breasts around which it clung like a second skin. She sighed as she took a seat on the side of the bed and reached for the sleek black stilettos waiting nearby. The dress had been entirely too expensive for a girl on her meager budget, but as soon as she saw it she knew it would be perfection. Eventually she would have to find some way to replace the money she had siphoned out of her tuition fund to pay for it, but that was a problem for the future.
It took Raquel a little while to force her feet into the stilettos, borrowed as they were from her petite roommate whose feet were a size or two smaller than her own. The look on Clara's face when she had asked to borrow them was beyond astonishment. While herself a modern young woman, the little blonde was used to rolling her eyes while her roommate passionately decried the many real or imagined offenses of 'The Patriarchy', among them the 'damn fool notion that women should have to make ourselves look more fuckable by wearing ridiculous, painful crap like that'. So naturally she had been blown away when Raquel specifically asked for the tall, strappy pair she had often derided as 'fuck me heels' when she thought Clara was out of earshot.
Once she had fought her way into the monstrosities, Raquel rose to her feet and tested them out. They were every bit as uncomfortable as she had expected, but it was even harder to walk in them than she remembered from the last time she had worn a pair. That had been at her graduation ceremony from the Catholic ladies' prep school her mother was an irrationally proud alumni of. Spending three years there as one of eight scholarship students in a class of two hundred had been the worst period of her life, the hardship of being constantly outnumbered by a litany of mean girls with egos the size of their bank accounts only slightly undercut by the near-constant stream of opportunities to tease or seduce confused young schoolgirls buried so far in the closet they might as well have been Christmas decorations in July.
While fairly low on her list of complaints about the place, the academy's dress code had always pissed Raquel off. However, for what had to be the first time ever, she was suddenly grateful that the sisters had required their pupils to wear heels at all formal occasions. Without that experience it would have taken far more than the five minutes or so she had before her phone buzzed to announce her date's arrival on the street below in order to progress from teetering every third step to being able to manage a tentative gait without completely embarrassing herself. Grabbing her phone, she slipped it into a small but elegant handbag that was waiting atop her dresser.
Preparations complete, Raquel exited her apartment with a heavy weight in her stomach. Her pace was almost painfully slow as she made her way down two flights of stairs to the front entrance of her building, dragged down by both her discomfort with heels and a dawning sense of dread as the reality of her situation began to sink in. Despite her caution she nearly tumbled twice, only catching herself thanks to the railing she clung to like a precious lover.
When the raven-haired beauty at last reached the ground floor she made sure to stop behind the building's front entrance and quickly peek out the tall window to one side. A toxic blend of rage and envy threatened to overcome her as she saw that her date had pulled up in a luxury car that doubtless cost more than an entire year of every expense she had put together. Pulling back from the window she ground her teeth for a long moment before taking one, two, three deep breaths to calm herself and steel her resolve. Opening her eyes, she fixed a shy smile across her face before reaching out to open the door and embrace her decision.
