Owning Amber

As Amber walked out of Beaver Brook High School, she blinked her crystal blue eyes, squinting to adjust to the bright light of a beautiful spring afternoon. Fucking A that school is dank, she thought to herself as she walked cautiously into the blinding light. It was like leaving a matinee and forgetting that it's still daytime. Thankfully, she would be free from that dungeon forever in just three weeks. Amber was a graduating senior with less than a month to go and summer vacation couldn't come fast enough. She planned to spend as much time as possible at the beach with her boyfriend, Chad, before they went off to college. She was tired of telling him about the cute bathing suits she was going to wear for him — she was ready to be in one.

Out of habit, Amber began walking in the direction of the student parking lot, before catching herself and pivoting, shoulders slumped, towards the garish yellow bus belching fumes as it idled fitfully in front of the school. For a minute, she had forgotten that her parents took the keys to her new Audi convertible. It was an early graduation gift and Amber loved cruising around town with the top down, her long, shiny black hair whipping in the wind. But while Amber's parents were well-off and generous, they were also strict. When Chad dropped her off after curfew two nights in a row, they decided she needed to go a week without the car — and without seeing Chad — as a reminder that she still needs to respect their rules.

The dejected way that she slouched onto the green plastic bench seat showed that she got the message. It was humiliating to ride the bus like a lowly freshman — especially for Amber, whose exotic beauty and cheerful demeanor made her one of the most popular girls in the senior class. But there she was, sitting on a hot, smelly bus with the rest of the losers, watching through safety windows that only open halfway while the cool kids piled into the sparkling new cars their parents bought them. Adding to her embarrassment, she could see Chad leaning against his Land Rover, looking hot in his Aviator shades, sexy stubble darkening his chiseled jawline. He had his letter jacket slung over one shoulder as he joked around with some of the other guys from the football team.

A frown crossed Amber's pretty face as she watched the boys swivel their heads in unison to watch a group of freshman cheerleaders prance off towards the line of buses. It was an unwelcome preview of all the tempting freshman girls who would surround Chad next year in college. Amber didn't have time to dwell on the thought, though, because just then the bus lurched forward and began rumbling noisily out of the driveway. Above the din, Amber could hear a familiar voice yelling for the bus to stop. Even before turning to look out the dusty rear window, she knew it was her next door neighbor, Page.

Page was a boy, as he constantly needed to inform people who were confused by the name. In the small Greek village where his parents grew up, "Page" was considered an honorable and masculine name. In Beaver Brook, he had been mocked for it since childhood. It didn't help that he worked at his father's cosmetics boutique as an apprentice perfumer — the insults virtually wrote themselves.

As she watched her neighbor frantically shuffling towards the bus, hands waving, Amber yelled to the driver that a friend of hers had been left behind. It may have been the first time in Page's painfully awkward four years at Beaver Brook High that someone had publicly referred to him that way. He was by no means part of the popular crowd. Most days, he rode the bus alone and unnoticed, silently staring at the graffiti and wads of gum that adorned the exposed metal interior. But right now, as he chased after it with an ungainly gallop, his backpack bucking wildly against his shoulders, Page was hardly unnoticed. Even the jocks stopped checking out the cheerleaders to watch the stocky young man flailing his hairy arms and legs as he ran. When the bus creaked to a stop, Chad led the gawking students in sarcastic applause.

The paunchy senior was out of breath and pouring sweat, his shirt soaked through and clinging to his protruding gut as he chugged his way through a cloud of exhaust to the bus. Chad and his buddies started a chant and it caught on all across the parking lot. "Per-fume Page-y! Per-fume Page-y!" they mocked him in a singsongy chorus. Even the bus kids joined in, cementing Perfume Pagey's status on the bottom rung of the social ladder.

The chant started to die out as he mounted the steps of the bus, but in his haste to bring down the curtain on this unwelcome moment in the spotlight, he slipped on the top platform, grasping at the bus driver's sleeve in a desperate bid to avoid disaster. Page managed to stay upright, but the graceless entry convulsed the entire bus in fits of laughter and renewed chants of "Per-fume Page-y" followed him to his seat in the back.

To his surprise, he saw the girl next door, Amber Absinthe, waiting for him, an empathetic look on her pretty young face. With her pale complexion, big luminous blue eyes and luscious black hair, Amber was a rare beauty — all the more so in the midst of the unwashed ghouls who rode the bus.

"My parents took the car away," she said before he even asked, her ruby lips twisted into a pouty frown.

Page managed a wan smile as he flopped down in a pool of sweat on the seat across from her. "I don't have that problem," he said with a self-effacing shrug. "My graduation gift was a new condenser machine for the perfumery."

Amber nodded and smiled. "Well, if it's any consolation," she said, "I bought a new fragrance at your father's store and it's my favorite. I'm wearing it now! Do you like it?"

She flipped her hair away from her neck and a burst of the fresh scent wafted through the air. Lilac Spring. Page knew that particular fragrance well — he had extracted all the oils himself. Looking at Amber swipe her hair back coquettishly, all he could think about was taking her petite body in his arms and burying his nose in her neck, inhaling her sweet aroma while kissing his way down to her small, firm tits. Years of staring at the gorgeous girl next door had made him familiar with every inch of her tight little body, but he knew she would never let him touch her. Amber had made that clear in eighth grade.

Page could remember the moment he learned how repulsive he was to Amber in excruciating detail like it happened yesterday. They had attended a co-ed birthday party where the teenage revelers, drunk on Pepsi and hormones, began to play Spin the Bottle. Eventually things escalated to a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven and boys and girls were coupling off for some exploratory groping. Page wasn't invited to play — that always stuck with him — but he lingered on the fringes of the game, hoping to worm his way into a turn, and when it happened, he gave the bottle an exuberant spin, knowing exactly where he wanted it to point. The bottle came to a rest midway between Amber and another boy, who quickly moved before there could be any suggestion that he was the chosen victim. That left Amber, sitting on her feet, her inky black hair covering the shoulder straps of her tight red party dress. He took her hand as she looked at him wide-eyed, then escorted her to the closet, closing the door on the knowing "oohs" and "ahhs" from the crowd of horny teens. What came next was seven minutes of Page's personal hell. Finally alone with a stunning girl in a dark closet, he lost all nerve, so instead of making out with the beautiful babe he had his eye on for years, when the game was designed to give him permission to do just that, he made awkward small talk. He could still remember the actual question he had asked her as they stood almost nose to nose in the closet, but the words were so painfully stilted that he blotted them from his mind. Just thinking about it now made him cringe. When he realized that he had nearly wasted his seven minutes, Page made a belated and clumsy attempt at a kiss, but ended up planting a tentative peck on Amber's cheek, tangling his hand in her hair in the process. By the time he had removed his hand, she sprung for the door, walking out to a room of full of giddy eighth graders and their prurient questions.

Everything had been fine at first as Amber deftly deflected all inquiries by insisting that a lady doesn't kiss and tell. If anything, her scrupulous sense of discretion made Page seem like an intriguing lover, a secret worth keeping. For a moment, it looked like his mortifying misadventure in the friend zone might stay hidden in the closet. But then the truth came out, with a vengeance. Someone asked Amber if Page had grabbed her tits and instead of giving her stock answer, she brushed the front of her dress and proclaimed loudly, "No! It probably looks like he did, but that's cat hair all over me, I swear!" The joke fell flat at first, until someone glanced at the course unruly hair covering Page's forearms and hands, right to the knuckle, and collapsed in a fit of delayed laughter. Soon Page felt his ears burn hot as his dark, thick body hair, something he had hardly even thought about and no one had ever mentioned, suddenly became the object of universal amusement. He felt like a hideous troll. He knew Amber was just joking, but to his fragile pubescent male ego, the wound was devastating just the same as if she was serious. More than four years later, he remembered it all. And he assumed that Amber remembered it as well, even though, in actuality, it was an offhand quip that she had never given a second thought.

Page was suddenly snapped out of his self-loathing reminisces when he realized that Amber was leaning towards him, as if expecting an answer. Oh, right, the perfume, he thought. "Yes, Spring Lilac! I think it agrees with you."

"Thanks," Amber replied, noticing that Page seemed a little distant. He was probably still upset about the chant that serenaded him on the way to the bus. Hoping to show him that she didn't approve of all that "Perfume Pagey" nonsense, she decided to ask him about work. "You and your father do such an amazing job with your seasonal scents! What are you guys cooking up for summer?"

Page gave Amber a little inside scoop on their upcoming scent of summer, but he was savvy to what was really going on here. Being the son of immigrants gave Page the keenly observant eye of an outsider, and he could read these spoiled suburban kids all too easily — even the ones, like Amber, whose beauty made it difficult to notice anything else. She didn't give a shit about their new summer scent. She just felt guilty that her asshole boyfriend had humiliated him in front of half the school, so she was trying to make it up to him by feigning an interest in the craft of perfuming. He could see that Amber was just another vapid self-centered rich cunt. She didn't really give a fuck about a fat, hairy brute like him — she just wanted to assuage his hurt feelings so that, later on, she could hook up with that douchebag Chad without feeling guilty and conflicted.

Wiping a furry backhand across his sweaty brow, Page decided that, if Amber wanted to make him feel better, the bitch was going to have to work harder than that. So he played along.

"I'll tell you what," he said with a conspiratorial whisper. "Since you're such a fan of our fragrances, I'm going to give you a special sneak preview of our new summer scent, which is still unreleased and top secret."

Page could tell from her immediate reaction — a subtle wince, which she overcorrected with fake enthusiasm — that he read Amber right. She had just been making polite chit chat to pass the time on the bus. She wasn't genuinely curious about the new perfume — at least, not if it meant prolonging her time with him. She probably didn't want to visit the cosmetics shop because she had a date with that fuckface boyfriend of hers, he thought, bitter jealousy beginning to seep in. She hadn't mentioned that her parents cut her off from seeing Chad for a week. It was none of his business and Amber couldn't imagine why Page would care anyhow. She had been the object of his sexual fantasies since he started having them, but Amber had never thought of Page that way. Usually, she didn't think of him at all.

"Sure," Amber said after just a flicker of hesitation. "I'd love that!"

"We don't need to go all the way to the shop," Page assured her, correctly anticipating the look of relief that flashed in her eyes. "I've got a sample in my basement. You can just come next door for a minute," he added, subtly encouraging her perception that this little excursion wouldn't interfere with any plans she might have.

"All right," she said. "I feel like a super model, getting free samples of products before they even hit the shelves!"

Despite her apparent excitement, Page could sense that Amber felt some anxiety at the prospect of going with him. She was fishing for a compliment to put her back at ease. He didn't want her backing out, so he made sure to stroke her ego. "You already look like a super model," he said, knowing it was true. "Now let's make sure you smell like one too!"

Amber smiled widely as they got off the bus together and walked down the long driveway to Page's house. She hadn't been inside the place in several years, but she could see that not much had changed. It was sparsely furnished and everything looked outdated and shabby. It wasn't that Page's family was poor. They were actually quite wealthy. The cosmetics boutique was a booming business and their new fragrance lines — like the one Amber was wearing now — were a big hit. But Page's parents still scrimped and saved like villagers from the old country. They wouldn't dream of buying him a car like Amber's parents had done. His old man hardly spent money on anything, unless it was reinvested in the cosmetics business.

"Let's go to the basement," Page said, opening a door and flipping on the lights. "I'll show you where the magic is made."

As they descended the stairs into the basement, Amber felt transported to a different world. The basement was completely different from the rest of the house. It was like nothing she had ever seen. Everything was so high-tech, shiny and modern, with artfully arranged clusters of computers and digital lab equipment, it felt like walking into a spaceship. There was even a glass-encased, hermetically-sealed clean room, equipped with a set of robot arms for mixing chemicals.

"This is amazing! I had no idea you had something like this in your house!" Amber gasped, marveling at the cutting-edge perfume lab that lurked unseen beneath the unassuming exterior of Page's modest home.

"Thanks," Page said, a hint of pride in his voice. Of course she had no idea, he thought. Beautiful girls like her spend all their time thinking about appearances, never suspecting what lies just below the surface.

"Wait right here," Page told her. "I have to open the vault. Before we officially release a new fragrance, we guard it like the crown jewels." With that, Page tapped on a touch screen, causing a panel in the wall to swing open, and he disappeared inside, the door sealing shut dramatically behind him. Amber was so bowled over by this display of wizardry that her jaw almost hit the floor. She knew that a new perfume line could be a valuable product, but this was something out of a movie.

Inside the vault, Page could see Amber on a video feed. She looked incredible in her white sundress, with her raven black hair pulled back in a braided ponytail. He watched her for a moment as she looked around the lab in awe-struck wonder, then he turned to the task at hand. Page carefully opened a temperature-controlled, metallic case and dragged his finger along a row of beakers, looking for a particular fragrance he had been working on all year. It wasn't the "new summer scent" that Amber expected. As usual, she didn't have a clue how the world really works. Page's father wasn't going to develop some new fragrance every season. The production costs would be prohibitive. Instead, he could just pump out an old perfume in a new bottle. The scent of summer 2020 would be the scent of fall 2003. No, Page was looking for something truly special — the only perfume of its kind.

He found the beaker labeled "Eau de Bimbo" and swished the pink liquid around the glass as he held it up to the light to get a better look. This was the entire supply of his precious formula, crafted laboriously from some of the most potent — and illegal — substances on earth. Eau de Bimbo was a bespoke perfume distilled from synthesized elements of MDMA, heroin, hyoscine, pheromones and a few more compounds that were so new and little known that they didn't have official names. And, of course, some natural oil and fruit extracts — it was a perfume, after all.

The final ingredient, the one that made Eau de Bimbo a true one-of-a-kind original, was an extract from Page's own sweat — a substance that was available to him in great abundance, he mused to himself as he plucked at his soaked shirt, still clinging to his gut. The sweat didn't mar the perfume's citrusy bouquet — the distillation process saw to that — but it was essential for the effect to work properly.

This was no ordinary fragrance. It was a mind-altering, body-enhancing, hormone-raging aphrodisiacal transformation in a bottle. Just a few dabs of Eau de Bimbo and the curated chemical mix would go to work. In time, a woman's breasts and lips would swell, becoming sensitive to the slightest touch, her waist would tighten and her hips expand, her clitoris would throb, and her sexual urges would grow thirstier and thirstier the longer she went without cumming, until her entire body quivered from desire. With repeated applications, the perfume was capable of transforming a woman into the perfect bimbo, propelling her mind and body through a stargate of spectacular sexual bliss.

There was just one small catch, he thought to himself as he began using an eyedropper to fill a small vial with the frothing pink fluid. No matter how aroused a woman might get, no matter how sensitive, swollen and needy her nipples and clit became, she could not achieve orgasm unless he gave permission. By mixing his sweat into the formula, Page ensured that his bimbos were not just indiscriminate sluts fucking every swinging dick at school. They belonged to him. If a little girl wanted any chance at relief from the volcanic pressure cooker of sexual need boiling between her legs, blotting out all rational thought, leaving nothing in its wake but a simpering sex fiend in the shape of a woman, she had no choice but to submit.

When the bottle was full, Page tucked the beaker safely back in its case and opened the panel door. It had been four years since that fateful birthday party and, once again, he had the young beauty exactly where he wanted her. This time, he was determined to do things right.

As Page reemerged from the vault, he found Amber waiting where he left her. Training this bitch is going to be easy, he sniggered under his breath. "Ok," he proclaimed, raising his voice. "I found it. Are you ready to debut our new perfume? This is the world premier!"

Amber clasped her hands together in anticipation. She suspected that Page was exaggerating the pomp and circumstance of this "world premier" just a bit as a subtle way of poking fun at her vanity, but she was too eager to care. She would be the first girl in the world — but, more importantly, the first girl at Beaver Brook High — to wear what was sure to be the hottest fragrance of the summer! She felt butterflies in her stomach and she squirmed with anticipation like a giddy little schoolgirl. She hadn't felt this much excitement for a perfume since Beyonce launched "Heat Rush."