After I’ve showered and swallowed WAY more Motrin than the bottle suggests, I walk into the kitchen to start the coffee maker before making a beeline to the living room and flop down onto the couch. I spot Bo and Eve on a pallet on the floor and I can’t help it, I laugh.
“What the hell’s so funny, Stell?” Bo asks from the floor.
“We’re too old for this shit. You know it?” I reply still giggling.
After the coffee maker stops brewing, I sigh before getting up and making my way back into the kitchen. “You and Eve want a cup o’ joe?”
“Nah, I want my damn bed. Any bed will do. This floor fucking sucks.”
“Go get in my bed, you dork. I didn’t even make it that far last night. Hey, where’s T at by the way?”
“Work.” He tries to wake Eve, but ends up having to carry her. “We’re going to lay down and try to sleep this hangover shit off. Oh, and before T left, she said you got a call.” He nods towards the sofa table. “Message is right over there.”
He and Eve disappear down the hallway.
I make my coffee – black, one Splenda. After taking a sip, an extremely grateful sigh crosses my grinning lips. “See? Shower and coffee; that’s all I needed to make this day go from shit to good.” I tell the room.
I grab my laptop and snatch the message from the sofa table before curling up on the couch.
Taking another sip of coffee my eyes scan the message:
“You have got to be kidding me! How? FUCK!” I crumble the message before tossing it in the trash and slamming my way into Trina’s bedroom headed straight for her closet. I dig out the oldest, ugly mu-mu dress and lay it on her bed. After grabbing my makeup and sitting in front of the mirror on the floor, I carefully apply my make-up. I pin my dark brown hair up into a sloppy, sexy bun and pluck the hair to create little wisps of hair around my face and at the nape of my neck.
Only after I’ve finished, I realize how much attention I spent to detail. SHIT. I will look utterly ridiculous if I try to rock this face and hair in a goddamn mu-mu.
“Fuck it. This is it, Stella. This is your last damn chance at an internship. Wear the damn fuck-me pumps and the skirt.”
Have I mentioned that I despise defeat?
When I walk into Jacobs Publishing building on Madison Ave., my head is high, my shoulders are back, and my heels click with purpose.
I smile at the man behind the security desk. Speaking quietly, I ask, “Hi. I’m Stella Reese. I have an appointment with Mr. Wesley Jacobs. Which floor is his office on?”
“Top floor, ma’am— the 70th.” He smiles.
My hand pats the desk before I nod and head towards the elevators.
I’m lost in the thoughts waging a war inside my mind when the elevator doors open, physically shoving me from my thoughts. I jerk, straightening my spine before walking from the elevator.
“Well… Here goes nothing. Please GOD. Wesley Jacobs, don’t remember me.”
I enter the main headquarters of Jacobs Publishing House.
Hell no, I’m not nervous.
I’m scared out of my fucking mind!
Chapter 5
Who The Hell is She?
I ended up taking over the fucking list of Rachel’s as soon as I realized she was blatantly ignoring the four females on the list.
Yeah, bitch. I clocked your bullshit five minutes into our second convo over this intern bullshit.
I spent over an hour on the list. Which was about fifty-seven minutes longer than I’d needed to. Because I’d known in the first three minutes that Stella Jolie Reese—the girl with a Master’s in English from Columbia University that had been earned from a full scholarship and who’d also spent most of her life being bounced from foster home to foster home in every shit town scattered throughout Louisiana—That girl…was mine.
There was no two goddamn ways around it. Stella Reese. Would. Be. Mine. My fucking intern. Mine. I plan on taking this little thing and turning her into everything.
IF she’s as badass in person as she is on paper.
And don’t worry… I’m fully prepared to be sorely let down.
“Mr. Wesley, your ten o’clock is here.”
I roll my eyes at Rachel’s snooty ass voice before telling her, “Send Ms. Stella Reese in, Rach.” I slam the phone down in its cradle before glancing at the clock to note her timeliness; then I shrug into my suit jacket and sit back down behind my desk.
I pick up my fountain pen and continue going over this quarter’s numbers. And yes, I’m only trying to appear busy, goddammit.
Her soft knock fucking pisses me off, causing me to shout, “Come in!”
Keeping my eyes down but training my mind on watching her in my peripheral, I witness as she opens not one but both double doors with both hands and walks in this mothafucking office like she owns the bitch.
Without invitation, she curtly waltzes to the chair in front of my desk before slowly sitting. Her legs cross and she leans over before placing a file on my desk and clearing her throat, “Mr. Jacobs, Hi. I’m Stella Reese. Thank you so much for this opportunity. It is… Well, it’s, ahh… I appreciate it.” She smiles brightly at me over my desk.
Now, at some point, I’ve set my pen down, steepled my fingers and began taking in little Ms. Reese from the top of her head to her waist—it’s all that’s visible from where I sit.
Narrowing my eyes on her hazel ones, I smirk above my linked fingers. Never unlocking her gaze, I explain, “Stella, you’re quite welcome for this appreciated opportunity. Now, I want you to realize that there were more than fifty people on Jacobs Publishing intern list. After my secretary had completed her research, you were not one of the final names—It’s in your good fortune that I don’t trust her, and even more that I’ve always followed my gut.”
I lean back into my chair and allow my eyes to run over her petite frame. She is a delicious 10+ at least! My fingertips slide her file towards me. When they’re close enough, I glance down before looking back up and locking eyes with her again.
“Quite frankly, you’re the only intern I plan on interviewing, Stella, with that being said, your being here for the interview tells me you want the internship that Jacobs is offering. Am I correct?”
Why are her eyes growing wider?
“No… I mean,” She shakes her head before clearing her throat, “Yes, sir. Jacobs has become my last resort. Without this internship I will be forced to forgo the intern division of the program.”
Soooo… After sir, all I heard was the ‘wa wa wa’ sound Charlie Brown’s parents make. Gibberish. Just a bunch of fucking gibberish coming from the softest, most fuckable lips I’ve ever laid my eyes on. I’m in the middle of making a solemn vow to myself, my thoughts and internal promises of fucking the goddamn hell out her mouth, when she interrupts. She fucking whistles.
Whistles! I snap my attention from her mouth to pierce the hazel eyes that are constantly flashing from topaz to peridot. “Eyes up here chief. Got it?” She motions to them with her hand.
I grab the file I had Rachel put together and slam it in front of her, causing her to flinch. I pluck the pen from my desk and set it beside the file. Not once do my eyes leave hers. “Initial on the short lines. Sign on the long one, last page.” I smirk before nodding and settling back into my chair.
I know I can’t fuck little miss Reese. Well, I mean I can, but I won’t. I’m turning over a new leaf. I realize women like Stella and Rachel, and even that girl you met earlier… What the fuck was her name? Oh, Casey, right, anyway I’ve accepted that these women are comparable to putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. And I’m not sure why I’ve continued to attempt forcing myself into this mold that society has of how a relationship should be. Especially when you look at every other aspect of my life… I don’t fucking conform to shit. They try to tell me to stop bending the rules, I snap the fuckers in half.
So, for that reason, I will not fuck Ms. Stella Reese.
But Jesus fucking Christ—Do I wa
nt to.
Thankfully, I got in touch with Paul and have plans to visit Chained this weekend.
I can wait until then to get my cock wet—Don’t worry, I got this shit.
An exasperated sigh leaves Stella’s beautiful fucking lips as her head comes up from signing the paperwork. She slides the folder across the expanse of my desk, “Okay. All initialed and signed. Do you have a curriculum or a schedule for me? I didn’t see any mention of hours per week in the forms.”
The devils grin snakes its way onto my face. Leaning forward in my chair, I lower my voice to the lowest, devious tone I possess. “You’re fucking mine, Stella Reese. All. Mine. You will be at my heel Monday through Friday from seven am until six pm, you will be available and easily accessible to me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You will work directly under me, and me alone, for the next three hundred and sixty-five days, and when I’m finished with you, you will be nothing less than a five fucking star publicist. Is that understood?”
Okay, so… As soon as the first sentence fell out off my mouth, any and all control over the remaining words that I originally maintained fucking vanished.
And from where I’m sitting, Stella seems to have gone as pale as a ghost, broke out into a sweat, and is chewing that goddamn bottom lip of hers to hell.
“I asked you a question. Answer it.” I say sternly.
She stops chewing on her lip however the ‘O’ her mouth is currently forming is making my cock swell so hard, it’s almost unbearable.
“Close that pretty fucking mouth of yours. You won’t like what happens to it if you don’t.”
She snaps it shut and begins squirming in her seat. I sit behind my massive mahogany desk and watch in fascination as she pulls her confidence up around her and I find it somewhat amusing.
“Monday through Friday, seven to six. Got it. Able to be reached twenty-four/seven. Got it. Yours? Never.” She leans over my desk with a detested looking smirk on her face, “Not in a million fucking years. Your employee? Yes, sir. Got it? And if you ever, EVER, talk about my mouth in the context you just did, I’ll have your ass in court for sexual harassment quicker than you can steeple those fucking fingers of yours again. Understood?”
She stands from her chair before snatching her file from my desk and flipping it open. After setting a piece of paper on the top my desk, she spins on her heel before making her way to exit the double doors of my office.
But before she can close the door I get the last fucking word in, because I always get the last word in. It’s what I fucking do. “Rachel has your new work cell phone. Make sure to get it from her before leaving. Goodbye, Ms. Reese.”
Long after Stella’s left my office, I remain sitting there, staring at the doors she walked through. Weird, and I mean weird as fuck shit begins shifting around in my chest. And my mind? Fuck don’t even ask where that damn thing went. Because even I don’t know.
I do, however, know three things. One, I like Stella Reese—a-fucking-lot. Two, I could not have chosen a better intern for Jacobs Publishing. And three, those goddamn subs Paul has lined up, every damn one of them better look exactly like Stella Jolie Reese.
I shove my fingers through my hair and fist them before settling my elbows on my desk and staring at her fucking initials on the forms.
“Shit! What in the hell was that? Who in the hell is she?” I ask the paperwork on my desk.
No, it doesn’t answer.
“Shit!”
What the fuck is today? Thursday. Okay. Yeah—I totally have this shit. All I have to do is wait one day. Totally got this shit.
Chapter 6
Who The Hell Does He Think He Is?
I was SO ready for that interview. I walked in that bitch, head high, shoulders squared. Ready! Until I saw him again for the first time since I was thirteen years old. I’m almost certain I was able to pull off my nonchalant attitude. Well, until he told me to close my… What did he call it? Pretty fucking mouth?
Yeah, after that, I knew I had to get the fuck out of there. All that ‘mine, you are mine’ bullshit didn’t surprise me at all. It’s classic Wesley Jacobs. C-l-a-s-s-i-c. Wesley. Jacobs. He hasn’t changed at all in the last fourteen years.
So no. I was fully prepared for that little dirty, sexual innuendo-riddled speech.
Well… I guess it’s time for me to explain why I was so adamantly set against doing my internship with Jacobs Publishing. I’m not sure if I’ll ever tell Trina, but you… You probably should know this tidbit to fully grasp what the hell is going on, as well as fully understand my reaction to all this.
I was probably nearing the fourth foster home when I landed in a new home. They lived in a small town in northwest Louisiana. I was excited when I first met the family. They had the whole Brady Bunch thing going on with a daughter of their own as well as two other foster boys. The house was clean. It was a little small and old, but it seemed nice.
I settled in quickly, but never could really seem to fit in. I tried to adapt my personality as best as I could, but it was impossible. My shy and quiet cards didn’t work. My abrasive stand-up-for-yourself cards also didn’t work. When I combined the two decks, shuffled and tried playing those, shit just got even worse.
The friendship I initially hoped would form between Jessica, their daughter, and I never even had a chance. She told me within the first twelve hours not to speak to her. That we were not sisters and she planned for my ass to be gone before the week ended.
The boys were older than me, but Sam, the oldest, seemed to take me under his wing. If he and his friends were going to a baseball game, he always let me tag along. If they went out to the lake to fish or to just hang out around the bonfire at night, he’d also let me come.
I zeroed in on Sam’s friend, Wesley Jacobs, the first time I laid eyes on him. He was beautiful. I didn’t care that I was only twelve. In my mind, I was close enough to thirteen; so him being seventeen was easily brushed aside in my preteen fixated mind. I truly believed I was in love with him and that if I could change myself enough, in time, he would notice me and love me as much as I loved him.
As a product of the foster care system, you immediately conform—you become a chameleon. Your survival depends on your ability to become whatever or whoever others expect you to be, and by foster home number four, I’d honestly thought I’d mastered this skill.
I was sorely mistaken.
I turned thirteen in May. By the time mid-summer came, I was at the pool almost every day. The sun had tanned my skin to the perfect golden tone and puberty was making itself known by causing my boy straight hips to fill out and my breasts grow into a decent B cup. Before going swimming every day, I would French braid my hair and spray a mixture of peroxide and water to help the sun create natural looking highlights.
By the time the Fourth of July weekend rolled around, I had completely transformed myself from the pale skinned, dull, dark and stringy haired girl with nothing but a gaunt, boy figure into the beginnings of an attractive young woman.
Armed with a mini skirt I’d cut off to mid-thigh (it was originally long enough to reach my ankles) and a white eyelet strapless bustier top, I slipped my old ugly black rubber flip flops on and ran out the back door to avoid being seen when Sam honked his horn for me to hurry my ass up.
His reaction to my choice of clothing was exactly what I was hoping to achieve from Wesley.
Sadly, that night was not only the night I lost every ounce of hope to ever find or believe in love. It was also the night I lost the only friend I’d ever had, as well as the last remaining vital part of my soul.
As soon as we pulled up to the beach at the lake I kicked my ugly flip-flops off and jumped from Sam’s truck. Excitement was zipping through me as soon as my toes sank into the sand.
Make a note of this moment, because this is the last time in my childhood that giddiness would ever consume my already grim life. Morosely, it would also be the turning page in my life, the domino that is tipped and leads to my
being homeless and truly knowing what life is like with absolutely nothing.
I skipped over to where the keg was when I saw that Wesley was the one handing out the red solo cups of beer. I’d never drank before, but what the hell? I wanted to act as old as I looked.
After waiting for the five people in front of me to collect their cup I walked up smiling at Wes, waiting, hanging on his every word and body movement.
He never even spared a glance in my direction. His fist pumped the keg filling the cup. Then he handed it to me before grabbing some chick’s ass as she walked by. Somehow, I managed to blink the tears away and swallow the lump in my throat, then I tucked my tail between my legs and quickly walked away.
Sad, huh? I know. There is honestly nothing that leaves a deeper wound than being so that when you do, in that fleeting moment, everything you’ve obsessed about and yearned for - for months - would all finally transpire. Only it doesn’t.
I wholly believed that entire squabble of bullshit for merely five more hours of my life. Having drunk more than three cups of beer, I knew my ass needed to keep itself planted right where it was: On the log near the bonfire Wes had made. Yep. He walked right past me, dragging logs then dry grass before sitting on his haunches less than two feet away and kindled a fucking fire. He never looked my way, not one damn time.
Most of the party guests had either left or wandered into the surrounding woods to take their groping a few hundred steps further while I sat and stared into the fire until nothing but embers remained.
I wasn’t naïve, being molested the first three or four years of my life, then raped repeatedly by my father as well as two different foster fathers… I knew what the hell was going on. I’d just never, well besides Wesley, actually wanted to participate in any petting or groping, much less taking it further.
I heard some yelling coming from the woods to my left, but shrugged it off and kept stabbing the embers with the stick I’d found and had been hanging out with for the last two hours.
Quod Me Nutrit Me Destruit: That Which Destroys Me with The Alternate Ending Page 3
