Step Inside

by Molly Hoffer

  I’ve been avoiding saying the name of the company my family owned to avoid a libel lawsuit, but now I really have to call it something, so let’s go with the Kashion Corporation.

  Since I was studying business, I opted to enter via the finance department. It wasn’t the most exciting job, as I mostly created budgets for small departments. I also did some data entry, moving information on incoming orders, sales, etc. out of the raw data into spreadsheets. Sometimes, I had to do some detective work to figure out if money had gone missing in some department, which happened more often than you’d think, as many managers thought that the company was too big for minor corporate theft to be noticed. Even I could spot most of the fake or doctored accounting books, so they weren’t exactly brainiacs, like the stupid bird that keeps sitting on the water after a crocodile bites its feet, they had to be weeded out. My detective work was paying off, and I started to be recognized at Kashion and in the family as not only the leading heir but also as a likely future CEO. Progress only made me more ambitious, and I worked harder with each passing month to excel on every test and on every progress report.

  As I spent more time at Kashion, I started developing a more layered relationship with my father, let’s call him James Szabo. He also worked his way up in the company and proved that under his leadership it wouldn’t all fall apart. To make sure the stock holders had faith in James, my grandpa Karl Szabo, took on his training and grooming himself, and now James mimicked some of the exercises he remembered Karl putting him through.

  Once, he assigned for me to organize a fundraiser for his Alzheimer’s charity all by myself. I knew that if a watermelon was misplaced, or funding fell short of the previous year’s goal, he would lecture me about fundraising techniques for months to come. So, I read dozens of books on how fundraisers worked, and otherwise did my best to figure it all out myself without asking for guidance. I scheduled a boat for a brief cruise around Manhattan, bought and supervised the refreshments tables, hired a mellow but hip musical band, and had the bought decorated in some stylish flowers and ribbons, so that it looked like it was made especially for the occasion. It was perhaps the first party I attended where I only spoke with caterers, servers, and the cleaning staff. I only took a bit of air after the last guest departed to ask James how it went, and he shrugged and nodded, which I came to regard as a passing mark.

  If I remained engulfed in this curious business I was helping to run, I might have stayed oblivious to all other parts of life. It’s not that I became a workaholic… I would have cringed at the word, perhaps like an alcoholic that’s in denial doesn’t realize he has an addiction to alcohol. Doesn’t everybody else work all the time from the moment they wake up until they go to sleep? I thought when some acquaintance asked if I had any free time at all in my schedule. So, as I was saying, I was in a work-addicted trance until my parents organized a very belated coming out party… I know, I know, you think I finally came out as a pussy-loving dyke, but no. The coming out party was for debutantes making a debut into polite society, and I had attended a few of my friends, many of whom had theirs in high school, and perhaps not surprisingly half of these got married soon after graduation. I was now twenty-one and at the end of my junior year at Columbia.

  “If you don’t have one this year,” James told me, “I’m not putting one together for a college graduate. You’ll just be too old to ‘come out’.”

  This was fair enough, so I agreed, thinking about it at first as just another test of my organizational skills. But, to my surprise, James hired a party planner, and I was taken out of all parts of planning other than buying a dress, going out for once to do hair and makeup at the best salon in Manhattan, and focusing on the men that would be in attendance. James even semi-fired me from my job at Kashion, giving me two mandatory weeks off. I also had a week off from school for Spring Break, so there was a sudden black hole in my schedule.

  I doubt people who focus on their looks, health, fitness, and relationships ever realize that these activities seriously engulf all of their lives. Three hours for basic preparations in the morning, two hours for hair and makeup, four hours at the gym, three hours between the masseuse and the plastic surgery checkup, and then a few hours to prep for bed, and the scheduled chat and fucking session, and the day is gone. The variations in therapies, physicians, and spa treatments make the days seem variant. This is basically how I spent that week in preparation for the party on Saturday. I suddenly reconnected with Meg and discovered that a few of my acquaintances in Columbia had similar plans for the week, so I merged into this world. I really needed most of these appointments because everything from my upper lip hair to split ends had crept up on me while I was busy with work. The first waxing, and the first tanning session were intense and kept my mind occupied, but staying in the gym for a couple of hours was too much. As we exercised, Meg was constantly chatting about the new boys she was dating at NYU.

  “So, who are you dating?” she asked me after going on and on for over an hour of describing every detail of the dates some millionaire was taking her on.

  “I’m… I kind of stopped dating…” I said. The thought shocked me even more than Meg. I forgot to put dating in the schedule! I thought.

  “Wha!!! You mean, you’re just sleeping around,” Meg nudged me.

  “No… But, you know I’m busy with Kashion…”

  “That’s crazy!!! Do you think you’ve been re-virganized?!”

  “What? Like once-again-a-virgin kind of deal?”

  “Yea. How long has it been since you’ve done it!?”

  “I just forgot about it… But, that’s what this whole coming out party is for…”

  “For you to come out as asexual?!”

  “No! It’s to meet eligible bachelors, right?”

  “Bachelors! Wha? You’re thinking about getting married, already?!”

  “Why, when do you think is a normal age to get married?”

  “Errr… Maybe thirty…”

  “Then, why go through all this trouble to look pretty? What are we selling?”

  “Selling or buying? I’m just trying to get better men that can keep me satisfied, and they are easier to catch when I look fine!”

  “OK, OK. I don’t really want to get married right now, but I’m definitely going to be on the prowl at this party, you’ll see…”

  Meg was reassured by these comments. I guess I had some sort of a sexual link with Meg, just like women’s periods sometimes get linked in time when they’re around each other. When I was around Meg, I started thinking about sex, and these thoughts meant that I started actively seeking it out.

  Meg and I went to a couple of new social clubs, as the old ones we frequented went out of vogue or catered to a younger crowd. I started dancing with the bartender, and hooked up with him afterwards, renting a hotel room for us next door to the club to keep it private. There were several handsome rich guys that were asking me to dance, or starting conversations about literature and business with me, but I couldn’t connect with them, and for some reason only managed to feel a kinship with that silly blond bartender. Nicholas Cage had recently been in the news for marrying his twenty-years-old Chinese-by-heritage waitress in Hollywood, so I felt that it wasn’t much of a stretch for me to give it a try too. He was very skilled at bottle tossing, and advanced drink mixing. He also danced like a gigolo, and basically gave me a lap dance in that very un-lappy establishment. This happened to turn me on because I really wasn’t in the mood to respect the gravity of the club’s decorum, so I grabbed him by the hand and jumped his bones at the hotel.

  I pulled off his uniform, which consisted of a suit, bowtie, black pants, and a white shirt. I did it in under a minute, as if we were in a military drill. At the same time, he pulled my green knee-length, silky, designer dress over my head and placed it carefully on a closet. I was already kissing him, and pushing my tongue down his throat, going against the tradition in those tongue-wrestling matches. Then, I used my newly rejuvenated muscle
s to push him down onto the king-sized bed. I jumped on top of him, clumsily pushing his boxers off. He started to sensually pull off my thong, but he was doing it too slowly, so I pulled it of myself and tossed it at the wall behind me. It fell past the TV screen, and I couldn’t retrieve it afterwards, not wanting to move the whole closet that the TV was on. I guess some lucky maid got my designer panties. So, anyway, with the obstructions gone, I jumped on his cock, and was wet enough not to need much rubbing, pussy and cock were soon gliding gingerly against each other, and I was feeling as if the tension of the day was receding with each of my pelvis thrusts into the waiter’s cock… whatever his name might have been.

  But, something was off, and he wasn’t hitting my g-spot, so I turned around and told him, “Hey, can you suck me off?” I stated it as a question, but it wasn’t really, as I pulled his head down to my clitoris.

  Happy to help out, the waiter began some skillful cunnilingus. His tongue was like a hummingbird as he flicked it against my clitoris. Then, he sucked it like he was drinking noodle-soup. Then he went up and down kissing my lips. Then, he got back to the clit and really focused on that one tiny spot for around half-an-hour, performing various tricks that were worthy of a cunnilingus instructions manual. At last, I erupted in a fantastic orgasm, and felt that my pussy was moist, even if I didn’t spray him or anything like that. He made a motion to move his penis towards my face, but I stopped it by pointing it away from me. I was exhausted, and since I’d never see this sweet waiter again, I really didn’t see the point of returning the favor.

  I slipped my dress back on, got in my long-heeled shoes, abandoned my panties, kissed the waiter’s cheek goodbye and went downstairs and across the street to the limo that I called from the room to ask to meet me there. I was home and asleep an hour later.

  In the morning, I felt something like a sex hangover. Why did I do that? Who da hell was that guy anyway? Why didn’t I just fuck myself instead? All those questions rushed into my head, as I lay in bed and couldn’t get up. I looked down at my comforter and suddenly recalled the hours of passion I shared with Nick next door.

  With all those years that had slipped away, I remembered his lips, his nose, his elegant hands, and his fitting cock vividly. I started daydreaming, visualizing the stages of our intercourse. I remembered how his thighs felt beneath mine. I recalled out playful wrestling, and feeling his muscles flexing over my body, and his hands massaging my ass. I stayed in bed for around an hour, just imagining what we could’ve done together, if we had more than one sexual encounter. I ran through everything I had ever done with all the other guys I had been with, and somehow it seemed more sensual and more satisfying when I imagined doing it with Dominic.

  Fedor knocked on my door. I pulled the comforter up, over my breasts, which I was massaging gently as I fantasized. I couldn’t get a word out from embarrassment, so Fedor came in. I was decent enough, and he had seen a lot more of me before, so he said, “It’s time to get ready for the ball. It’s 3pm.”

  I looked at the clock on the wall, and had to rub my eyes to check it a second time. It really was 3:05pm, and it was Saturday, the day of my “debut.” A whole week of preparing could’ve been scrapped if I missed my hair, makeup, dress adjustments, and other key appointments. In fact, a couple of them were scheduled before 3pm, but I knew that for me all of them would stay late and kick out their other clients.

  I did my morning prep in only half-an-hour, pulled some pants and a shirt on, and presented myself to my chauffeur who had been given a revised schedule, and chaperoned me around town briskly. The stylist pulled and ripped at my hair until a teared up. Then, the makeup “artist” poked me in the eye, leading to the same result. My dress of course didn’t fit me perfectly and had to be adjusted, and naturally, I was poked with a needle a couple of times. Still, at 8pm, I was back home and in our ballroom, waiting at the front to greet guests as they arrived.

  The ball was a huge success. Donald Trump and his extended family were there. The crown prince of Persia was in attendance, and demonstrated his ancestral dance in front of a curious crowd. We had fire throwers and acrobats for entertainment. For most of the night, there were dances, accompanied by a melodic operatic singer that really made the night feel like a magical fairytale. Of course, it would’ve all been a lot more mystifying if I was still in high school, but at twenty-one, I just had difficulty staying in awe of it all. I mean, I had been to the circus before, and the acrobatics were exactly any better, but cost a whole lot more, and the fire-throwers put our own curtains in jeopardy.

  Between the invitations James, Meg and I sent out, possibly every one of the top bachelors in New York, and a few from out-of-state and from out-of-country were there. They were all flirting with me unabashedly, and half asked me out to the dance floor. I obliged as many as I could fit in the night, and most got a turn because after a dance I got sick of each of them and excused myself to grab a snack. Just as I was nibbling on a shrimp or an oyster, a new suitor came up and scooped me up into a new dance.

  They all had years of ballroom and alternative dance lessons. One even started breakdancing, doing the windmill and the flare, but mechanically, as if he was doing ballet jumps. Some of their spins and dips were pretty romantic, and I giggled and got lost in the dances for a few moments, but something about their woody responses, and nervous manners made it difficult for me to see them as more than barbies performing in a mock-show.

  In part, it was difficult for me to focus and connect with any one of them because I kept staring at features in them that reminded me of Nick. One had similar hair, another similar nose, or similar shoulders, or a similar step… Did I stop fucking around after my fling with Nick because I fell for him? I asked myself in the middle of one of these awkward dances.

  It was odd how I never asked that question before. Did other men lose their spice for me because I had been in love with Nick all this time, without it coming up to the surface of my consciousness?

  I danced two dances with the thirty-year-old Manhattan real estate agent that I was with at the moment when these thoughts crept up on me to attempt to divert my mind from that string of thoughts by keeping it busy. And, yet I was back at imagining fucking Nick in different inappropriate positions all over that ballroom in the middle of that party.

  Needless to say, I had not found the bachelor I was to marry at that party. I was also so dull with these guys that I managed to repel in one broad strike pretty much all of the men that were matching husbands for my financial and familiar standards. I don’t think I ever saw any of them again at any social gathering, as they probably would’ve rather fallen through the floor than chat with me about my rejection of them after a stunted chat and a dance or two.

  That night, as I was working to get my make up off, and to comb out my gelled hair, I kept thinking about Nick. I imagined him coming back that very night, and just screwing me on top of my bathroom sink. This made me pretty hot, so to keep the heat flowing I took a bubble bath. I brought my pink vibrator in there, and tickled my clitoris, as I let my head fall back. I imagined that Nick was in the bathtub on the other side of the wall and that he was fucking himself too. Then, I imagined Nick coming to my debutante ball, and dancing with me in front of everybody, amidst a shocked silence, as they all stood there outraged how I could be dancing that close to my foster brother. I burst in a trembling, whole-body orgasm on that last thought, and needed a few minutes of total stillness for my pulse to return to normal, and for me to stop seeing stars. By the time I was back in bed a bit later, I was horny again, and thinking about Nick’s naked body again, and started stroking my clitoris with my hand, but it was around 3am, and I had a few drinks at the ball, so I kind of passed out into slumber before my fingers reached a resolution.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I graduated from Columbia without all the trepidations I felt when I was finishing Trinity. I was just as busy between school, work and extracurriculars as usual up until the last final. Then, suddenly s
chool was done, and with only a part-time job, the week before graduation felt empty and boring. I almost wished I didn’t have to go to that ceremony, which was going to be held in a huge theater, and would take at least three hours, of people monotonously being called to the stage, and walking off with an award or a diploma. I won a couple of awards myself, having maintained a 4.0 GPA across all years, and otherwise doing everything to milk that education for all it was worth.

  When the ceremonies and the after-parties were over, work at Kashion started to seem dull. I had to choose if I was going to go on a full salary and on a full-time work schedule, or if I would take some other path. I was tempted to apply for jobs outside of Kashion or to apply to go to grad school just because my Dean at Columbia and all my college friends only talked about their panic over these options. It would’ve been absurd of me to do either of these with a multi-billion dollar company to run in my future.

  I had a chat with James at the end of the workday on the Monday after the graduation, which the whole extended family attended, attracting media attention to my “big day” because half of them were almost never seen in public.

  “So, what are your plans now that you’ve graduated?” James asked me.

  I was sitting across the desk from him in his enormous office.

  “Hm… What do you propose?”

  “I would offer you a raise and a better job, but are you really ready for it?”

  “I don’t know… maybe I’m not… What would be the alternative?” I didn’t want to say that I was all for it, and then fail miserably taking millions of dollars out of profits on my way down.