Jessa closed her eyes against the ceaseless chatter of her coachmates. She hated this trip. She'd hated it for the last four years. She hated even worse that her parents had sent her with an ultimatum. Come home with a ring on your finger. She was the youngest of her siblings. The rest were all married and breeding like rabbits. Just like the Elite highborn were supposed to do. And they'd all met their betrotheds at Summer's End, just like she had one last chance to do. And that was the very last thing she wanted to do. She leaned her head against the cool glass of the coach window and wished she could just sleep through the unbearable week.
It wasn't that Jessa was undesirable. Not by any means. It was more that her natural qualities worked against her with most men searching for a mate at Summer's End. She was tall and athletic in a manner that had been derisively called Amazonian by other, less capable women and threatened any man shorter, weaker or otherwise easily intimidated. She was brilliant and insightful such that had led to the nickname "Egghead" by those who put more value on social nuance than intelligence, again a threat to so many of the men that would be at the resort. She was beautiful in a purely natural, unaugmented way and her refusal to use artificial enhancements earned her the description of "plain" by women who painted their faces on every morning. None of that mattered to Jessa. She wasn't in the market for a mate. She only wanted to survive this one last ordeal and then go about her life - alone, perhaps - but fulfilled. She was only here on this inane journey so her family could save face; so they could say they'd given her every chance to avoid spinsterhood. One week of unchaperoned chaos and then she would be free.
Jessa was vaguely aware that her coachmates, other eligible young women from the Parvil Region, were all atwitter about some titled highborn that was supposed to be attending. If so, he was probably first year, eighteen, maybe nineteen years old. Jessa knew that every man who showed up at the Summer's End, supposedly in search of a wife, quickly realized that the sex-without-consequences afforded by the spa - something in the water, supposedly - was worth coming back for as many times as possible. It was only the fifth year guys that were serious about hooking up. Anyway, the titled elites avoided the exact sort of gossip that was roaring through the coach even now by arranging marriages for their children.
Jessa's head ached and she wanted to scream by the time that the coach rolled to a stop at the main doors to the resort. She waited until the other young women had exited the coach, then she made her way to the door and stepped down into the bright, hot summer sun. In the distance, waves washed up on the white sand beach. It was already well populated with hopefuls. Never-the-less, she entertained a brief fantasy about striding straight into those waves and never turning back. But then a servant was there at her elbow, demanding in an obsequious way to know which bags were hers. She sighed, pointed them out, and turned to start the weeklong ordeal.
Summer's End was built up the side of a steep hill in such a way that every room had a view of the beach and ocean below. Many of the rooms had accommodations for multiple occupants. Even elites had to save money. Jessa's parents had sprung for a single room, hoping it would improve her chances. For some reason, the fifteen grandchildren they already counted wasn't enough. She, however, was secretly thrilled, thinking she would be able to spend the entire week in her room with only boredom as a roommate.
By the time she had completed the check-in procedure, which included a long list of rules that nobody followed, her bags had already been deposited in her room. The servant who insisted on showing her to the room, as if she couldn't read the numbers on the wall, made a major production of opening curtains and pointing out views and the room's amenities. Jessa sighed heavily as she tipped him, then asked for the room service menu. He coughed nervously and studied the floor. "There is no room service, my lady," he stammered.
"What? Of course there is. There's always been room service," Jessa stated firmly.
"Not to this room," the servant explained, then beat a hasty retreat.
Jessa stared after him in confusion, then strode to the phone, dialing the front desk. A moment later, she was slamming the phone down and cursing. Her parents had refused to allow room service to be billed to the room and since they were paying the bill... A horrible thought occurred to her and she moved to the media center. No matter how many buttons she pushed, the screen remained blank. She was surprised they even allowed for a bed in the room.
Jessa hadn't eaten all day. The one and only thing she liked about the resort was the food they served. Now, unless she wanted to starve, she was going to have to mingle with her hormone-maddened peers in the dining room. And, of course, one of the few rules they enforced was that women had to wear dresses at the evening meal. Swimsuits were fine any other meal, but for some reason, dinner was to be at least somewhat formal.
She picked up her bag and tossed it onto the bed. A few snaps and she threw the lid open then stared in horror. It wasn't her bag. The servant must have mixed it up with somebody else's, whom she was absolutely sure was even more horrified. A quick check of the tag and she could call the front desk and get it straightened out. Except the tag clearly had her name on it. Her parents, again. She began throwing items left and right out of the bag. To her horror, she realized that there were no night clothes, no underwear and everything else consisted of either ridiculously revealing swimsuits or equally ridiculous dresses that covered less than her normal everyday tops. The only shoes had four inch heels, so walking to town to buy other clothes was out of the question, even if the "emergency" visa card would work, and she already knew it wouldn't, because she was smart, but so were her parents.
Jessa sank to her knees on the floor. She couldn't go without food for a week, she couldn't walk to the town 10 miles away to buy reasonable clothes, she couldn't even call a friend for help because most of her friends were - to a lesser or greater extent - in league with her parents. She rolled her broad shoulders back and straightened her steely spine. They wanted to play this game? Fine! She'd play and she'd win. Then they'd have to leave her alone. She picked herself up off the floor and rounded up all the dresses she'd tossed every which way. She picked one at random, and put on the heels she'd been wearing that day, which were blessedly only three inch. Dinner time.
The dining room was on the main floor of the resort, with a long row of windows looking out over the beach and ocean. Jessa knew from past years that the program was to seat people at random, forcing intermingling. She was hoping that she be seated toward the back of the room. She began practicing her catalog of rude, demeaning put-downs. When it was her turn, the waiter raked his eyes from head-to-toe and then from toe-to-head. "Please come with me," he gestured and led her into the dining room.
"How about one of those tables up there?" she suggested, pointing at the back wall.
"I'm afraid our next opening is over here," he offered, pulling out a chair at a table right smack in the middle of the room. Jessa looked around. Well less than half of the dining room had been seated.
"Next opening?" she said suspiciously.
"Yes, milady. This is all we have available at the moment."
A few minutes later, a young man was seated at her table. She sized him up and decided he was probably a first timer, so at least eighteen or nineteen. He also had spent some time in the bar already, given his slurred speech and his inability to raise his eyes higher than her cleavage. She decided to ignore him rather than try to decipher what he no doubt thought was witty banter. As her table began to fill, Jessa slowly relaxed. The women were doing their very best to attract the interest of the young men and the young men were busy scoping out other women in their immediate surroundings. At the beginning of the evening, the men would be looking for the most attractive woman that they thought they might have a chance with. By the end of the evening, they would be desperately searching for any woman that would give them the time of day. Jessa didn't plan to fall at either end of that spectrum.
If someone persisted in trying to get Jessa's attention, she would generally flash a scathing look in the vicinity of their family jewels, then proclaim, in her most withering voice, "You're not my type." That actually got her most of the way through the meal, as well as through her third drink. When too much alcohol had been consumed for the eager men to understand the put-down, she switched to a more simple, "Not interested." It didn't have nearly the panache, but at least they got the message. Jessa debated heading back to her room but decided to wait for dessert. But she desperately needed a restroom break before it came.
Jessa wove among the tables. Summer's End was known for its powerful but sneaky drinks. She blamed the three drinks she'd had when someone reached up and grabbed her around the waist and she fell hard into a lap. Her assailant was probably three inches shorter than her, and when she was able to right herself somewhat, his nose was practically pressed between her breasts. She shoved against him, but she was wedged between him and the table and couldn't get the leverage she needed. Nor would he let go of her waist when she tried to stand up, and the more she tried to wriggle free, the higher her dress was hiking. Jessa was about to resort to a fist to the intrusive nose when a nearby chair scrapped across the floor and a hand was being offered to pull her free of her captor.
Jessa took the hand and between the two of them, she managed to pull free of the jerk with the nose. She quickly straightened her dress. "Thank you so much," she said. She started to turn back to her bathroom search but realized he still held her hand.
"Do you want me to punch him for you?" the man asked in a warm friendly voice, and Jessa found herself looking closer at him, wondering if he was part of the staff. He didn't seem drunk enough or immature enough to be an attendee.
"I prefer to throw my own punches," she replied. "But thank you for the offer." She tugged to free her hand, but it was a long moment before he let go. Jessa hurried off to the restroom and tarried there under the excuse of waiting for a chance at the mirror. Something about that encounter - not the one being pulled into someone's lap; that was par for the course, here - had set her on edge and she couldn't figure out why. The man who had pulled her free of the drunk had been a perfect gentleman. That, in itself, was pretty bizarre for this place. She closed her eyes and recalled his appearance. His was conservative by the standards of Summer's End, a dark suit and dark shirt, no tie. A step up from the jeans that most of the men were wearing (and why the hell could the men wear jeans but women had to wear dresses?) but not out of place. He was well-groomed, none of the scruffy beards that had become popular of late. He was handsome, but that wasn't a great reach for a young man, before age and bad habits took their toll. Someone pushed her from behind. Her eyes flew open and she lurched forward, realizing that a spot had opened up at the mirror. She made a show of finger-combing her hair then left the restroom. As she stood just outside the restroom waiting for her eyes to adjust to the much darker dining room, she decided it must just have been his politeness. Other than an artificial, chivalrous kiss-the-fingers sort of politeness that some of the men here assumed, true politeness was just not something one expected and certainly not when alcohol was flowing, which was pretty much all week long.
Jessa was plotting a route back to her table that avoided the lap guy when a hand brushed her shoulder. She turned expecting yet another come-on and had a handy rejection already at the tip of her tongue when she recognized the polite stranger. He smiled warmly.
