Owning and Belonging Ch. 01

I'm not sure what to make of this story.

This is the first chapter of a strange something I've become intensely interested in writing, and currently have around 25,000 words. I'm captivated by strong female characters and realistic portrayals of situations that get turned-up to '11'. However I'm not female, and the two protagonists pitted for and against each other in this tale are, well, unique.

Another caveat. Sexual tension drives the storyline, and there are somewhat sexual scenes scattered about, but they aren't the main focus. So this isn't a 'touchy' type of tale. Just know that going in. I have a couple of those up on Literotica that have received very good reviews. Yet this story didn't seem right to post this under Non-Erotic either.

But please give this just a few minutes of your time and see if it pulls you in. I suspect it will.

Anyway...Cheers! And thank you for supporting the Literotica Community!

*

All was wrong in the world. I'd lost control.

The company I worked with was bought out quickly, the Director I worked with succumbed quietly. My severance arrangement seemed little better than unemployment insurance. My husband kept a tight domestic household for years. An amazing man, I depended on him. But now we debated if he had any value in the workplace to meet our means. Less than two years into our new home we were already weighing the consequences of getting behind on payments. Two pre-teens comfortable in their school made moving very unappealing to me. We hadn't slid into a hole yet but I was edgy, scared.

An opportunity appeared. A friend lined-up an interview for a Personal Assistant position with some pop-singer I'd never heard of. My kids knew her well, though. That was heartening, because I didn't want to waste time learning the ropes for some one-hit wonder who'd be down-sizing her career in another year. Then I watched some videos online that seemed like they'd had a lot of money behind them, so all in all it appeared a nice change of pace: get paid babysitting someone's twenty-something pop star instead of someone's upper-middle-aged CEO.

I joked that it wouldn't be the slightest bit different. I could not have been more wrong had I tried.

Tried really hard.

And the whole thing -- the whole surreal, thrilling, downward spiraling course of my relationship with Taylor Lorden -- would be perfectly and completely prefigured during just the few fumbling moment of that first interview. Like one of the pieces from a shattered hologram I used to fidget with at a rock shop I loved to frequent so many years ago, I could have seen the whole of everything about us in even that tiny sliver of that single, initial day.

But of course, this is all just rear-view mirror fantasy thinking. Because nobody ever knew what was about to overwhelm them when Taylor Lorden shattered upon their world.

♥♥♥

We sat in folding chairs, scattered carelessly to one side of the studio.

Studio. That's probably what it's called. At least it seemed like a dance studio. I'd never encountered a group interview like this, and wondered whether it showed fast-track efficiency or just naive unprofessionalism. Awkward, self-consciously self-assured interviewees, we awaited our brief, shining grasp at the brass ring. But the brass ring was already a good half-hour late and showed no sign of arriving soon.

We'd long since sized each other up, small-talked about the unusual circumstances, checked ourselves in the vast mirrored wall to one side of the room. Done everything to pass the time and keep our game face going except the obvious, the elephant, in even this elephantine room. We hadn't talked about our hopeful employer. Hadn't swapped the gossip, the dish, the tantrums, the romances, the break-ups, drug-addictions, insanity and weight gain or loss that filled the media on a daily basis.

We all understood that the first rule in working for a mega-star is not to be star-struck.

I was the only female in the room. That would probably decide my fate before a word was spoken. But there was nothing I could do about it so I pushed that nagging worry aside. The men, however, ranged from grey and frumpy to young and metrosexual. I made note of that. It hinted at something helpful. Still, all seemed assured of their abilities. Because this was LA after all, you don't get far without self-assurance.

In fact if I had to bet against anyone in this race, in all honesty it would have to be me. Mother of two pre-teens. Family-van parked in the visitor's entrance lot - I mean who has a visitor's entrance lot for christ's sake -- and a power-skirt years outdated. Did last minute research just so I could learn the name of a single song my potential boss had sung? Well, that wasn't entirely true, but true enough. Again I pushed these concerns back down, tried to reign-in my focus. But my mind felt scattered and weak. It had been so long since I'd had to be tested and measured in this way. I was used to being quietly in control. I always felt more comfortable when I was helping things to come together from behind the scenes.

A metallic crunching echoed as the main door opened. A sleek, leopard-looking man flowed in, followed quickly by a sprightly, gazelle of a woman in mid-sentence. On noticing us they stopped and stared, and then looked us over, clearly striving to make sense of our existence here. Then after a grasping moment.

"I'm sorry," the gazelle finally reprimanded, "do you all have some business here?"

"We had an interview." A trim, toney gentleman fairly leaped forward to take charge of the situation. "At 7:30. With Ms. Lorden."

At that moment the door lurched again and a gorgeous tousle of hair with a smoothie took the stage. A dance jacket, tiny top and pseudo-cheerleader skirt with tights made it clear this was our host.

The leopard made the introductions. "They say they're here for an interview?" he looked hesitantly put-out at our intrusion. She glanced over contemptuously like we were a tour-bus filled with groupies, and it crossed my mind this might all have been a mistaken waste of time. The young blonde took us in with only a hint of perplexity, taking a slow sip from her smoothie. And what I remember next is that, instead of becoming flustered or put-out, she became still. Very still.

Palpably still.

Then, with a careless coldness.

"Oh. Shit."

"It's clear there's been some miscommunication," Mr. Take the Lead inserted himself again. "Perhaps I can leave my papers and references and you can of course call me whenever it's more convenient for you." He practically spanked the rest of us with his smile.

The 'rest of us' began to answer, but the unmoving princess simply raised her fingers slightly before her, calling us to silence. Her gaze seemed to take us in all together, all at once. Like she was weighing us, weighing our importance in her world. I could feel it, somehow, in my being. We all could. And that moment felt like a call. I felt a stirring to meet it head-on, searching for something to awake in me. But what?

Another quiet moment passed as she considered the situation intently.

And then she sprung.

"Yes. This is exactly why I need an assistant. And evidently, right away." Turning to the other two she said in a clipped and callous way, "Steven, Marta, just wait. I'm going to make this very short." Then steeling her eyes back to us. "Very."

She paused briefly, allowed herself another slow sip of smoothie, and then with discovered determination she strode with unassumed confidence into the center of our small grouping.

"Ok." She seemed to find her center. "A circle. Form a circle with your chairs around me."

I eyed the door, something in me wishing to rebel. This tiny girl wasn't going to command me to anything. She should be working for me, and happy to be doing so. The same thought resonated throughout the room. Yet we found ourselves scrambling like schoolchildren to create a ring.

Rising to her commanding position in the center, and with an even, controlled turn, she began to silently size each of us up, weighing us wordlessly, eyeing us coldly and individually for what seemed like several minutes. Until evidently she felt she'd apprehended our situations. And then she pounced again.

"You." Pointing at one. "Where do you live?"

"Riverside, ma'am.'

"Oh lord," she practically scoffed in exasperation. "It must have taken you two hours to get here!"

"Um. I assure you that's no problem, ma'am."

"I assure you it is. Thank you." She waited, her gaze never wavering. Then, her eyes indicated the door. "You may leave."

That first man didn't have time to grasp what was happening before she lined the next up in her sights. Grey and Frumpy.

"You." She paused, her eyes slowly narrowing in a predatory way. The sudden silence in the room seemed alive, every man -- and me -- scrambling to find some practical ground, like medical personnel doing disaster triage.

"I want you to take off your shirt."

He stared back with obvious perplexity.

"I... I'm afraid I don't underst-"

"Of course you do. Nothing could be simpler. Take your shirt off."

He seemed to cast about at the rest of us, looking for some kind of help. We had none to give. He was on his own.

"Ms. Lorden," he fought for words "I cannot see how that would have any possible bearing on--"

"Steven." She spoke in a calm tone that seemed to fill the space with her will. "Take off your shirt." Without hesitancy or surprise the man-dancer began doing so. Never breaking her gaze with Grey and Frumpy she then added, seemingly as afterthought, "Marta! Take off your shirt." The spring-board of a girl offered a roll of her eyes but began to do so as well, pulling the top of her unitard down around her waist, tiny bra-less breasts becoming bared for all.

But was that even fair? Those two probably spent half their day in the nude, enjoying the confidence of a well-honed body, while Grey and Frumpy likely spent half his day putting his kids though post-grad. This diva routine was becoming annoying, and quickly.

"I don't see...Miss" he seemed to fumble for the right term, "why taking off my clothing should have any bearing on my ability to perform in this capacity."

Taylor Lorden held him calmly yet intently in her sights for an unbearably long moment.

"No." She spoke at last, simply. "Neither do I really."

The tension in the room seemed to settle for a brief second. Only a second. "But then we all have to be ready to take it right up in the ass eventually, don't we? Your time is now. If you want to live in my world."

She waited for an answer that didn't come. And then, with only a shift in glance, he was dismissed as well.

"Youuu..." she dragged the word out calculatingly as she drilled her next victim. This was the self-assured Mr. Take the Lead who seemed like he should be signing this young woman's paychecks, but was also now clearly on the verge of calling bullshit on her histrionics. They eyed-off coolly, like condescending combatants before a fight. Taylor seemed to size him up admiringly. Her lips practically porned the straw of her smoothie.

"You're special. Different than these others." She fairly sashayed forward. "Yes. You're special. Aren't you?"

We could sense if not see his mind racing, knowing this was a test, knowing this was somehow going to break bad against him. But before he could form an answer, before any of us could size up the situation...Taylor began to kneel before him, locking him with her eyes.

"I'll tell you what," she began in a soft purr. "Whatever you want to do with me, whatever you want to do to me, I want you to do it to me. Right now." Only his eyes betrayed his composure. After a brief moment she slowly bent forward, never unlocking her gaze. She gently swayed her modest cleavage enticingly and then placed the smoothie cup onto the floor. As she rose again on her knees she leaned forward and took his hands in hers. Then pulled them slowly toward her, placing them firmly against her breasts. And held them there. "You have complete permission, but only right now. Anything you want with me."

He was a deer in headlights.

"Don't think," she hissed. "Don't consider." She began to remove her jacket, he didn't remove his hands. "Act now," she whispered. "Take me." His eyes flickered like turn signals. "No lawyers no media I'm yours right now, and for as long as you need." His hands fell away as she began to lower herself, then gracefully recline onto her back in the center of the circle, eyes only ever on him. His whole body seemed to tense, his eyes flashed about like police lights.

"Counting down until you fuck me. Five..." she raised her knees and spread her legs wide as "...four..." he became comically agitated yet "...three..." spent this time looking about anxiously as "...two..." she moved one hand down toward her vagina and toyed herself firmly "...one..." He resisted. "...one...I know my leggings are in the way, you can take them off..." Taylor held an expectant silence. "Anything you want, I give you permission." He began to tick nervously. "And...one...one...Beuller...Beuller..." She was refusing to let him go, forcing him to make the decision. "Please come forward and fuck me. One..."

In a sudden, shocking movement he leaped up, and shooting a look about the room grunted accusingly to the rest of us: "This chick is fucking insane. I don't know why any of you idiots are still sitting here taking this shit!" Then haltingly, confusedly, he fled the room. Taylor didn't even watch him go, only sat up and proceeded to pick-up right where she left off.

And now I found myself on her stage. In the spotlight of that palpable attention.

But I was beginning to sense what she was about. What she wanted. What she needed to see. Not as a thought but more like an inner response rising up inside me. This was a dance of wills, and I didn't intend to let this cocky little bitch take the lead with me. A strange phrase flitted through my mind, something crude my husband told me he and his buddies used to say when they wanted to caution each other against making a bad decision. "Never stick your dick in crazy."

I didn't heed that advice. Because I instinctively knew that wasn't what was happening here. This was something new. So instead, I honed my attention, and strove to ascertain the rules of this weird, warped game.

Feeling her confidence now, still seated on the floor, Taylor shot me through with such an intense, intrusive stare I felt sincerely how lacking I must be in this world...her world. A world where success far outshone the prosaic yearning and wanting of people like me. She held my eyes unwavering. Yet I knew, sensed without thought, perhaps just one woman to another, that she was unsure.

She wasn't stalking this time, she was waiting. For a signal. Some weakness, of any kind. Even a feint of strength, which might be the worst of all.

I simply held her stare. Merely accepted it. Watching back, waiting as well, with a sense of interest devoid of any want. An eternal moment passed.

This chick was something else. But looking on her, I noticed something unexpected. Not an insolent young woman, nor starlet on a power trip. There was a question couched behind her challenge. A needful yearning. I felt the barest hint of instinct nagging upward from me, perhaps motherly, yet nothing so pure.

What was about to happen was almost certainly beyond my control...yet whatever this game was, I determined not to give it to her. I knew I couldn't meet her head-on, not yet. So I allowed myself instead to soften inside. I began to offer myself up to her, and struggled to take her in. I wouldn't oppose her. She seemed to have steeled herself against any such intrusion already. I decided that she would need to ask what she wanted from me.

I willed her to ask me, ask me for permission. Or to walk away altogether.

And then, with hardly a thought, she did just that.

"I don't do women," she pronounced. And springing to her feet she dismissed me, already fixing her sights on the next target.

It was a slap. I felt a part of me begin to sink. Not because I'd lost, but quite the opposite. I'd wanted this fight, needed to take it on, to take her on.

Drawing on a surge of desperate anger I thrust back, as casually as I could muster.

"What do you have against women?"

She hesitated, but only waved me off again with a smirk. "No balls." She drew a bead on her next prey. The immaculate metro-sexual, who'd actually mentioned earlier that he used the same salon as Taylor to get his mani pedis. He stiffened confidently, a well-honed charm of a smile coming forward to greet his new mate.

And it just came out of me. No malice at all really, no sarcasm.

"You mean you don't have the balls to work with a woman?"

For the first time there was a reaction in her, a brief moment of uncertainty. Only slight, quickly covered, but she'd been parried, and we all saw it. Then almost instantly her whole being came alight. She turned on me, the rest of the room forgotten. With slow, measured steps that somehow had no feeling of being contrived she bore down on me. Eagerly, perhaps. And squared-off close before me, gazing down on me as I sat expectantly in my chair.

"No." She stated it very quietly, but not quite a whisper. "Unlike other women, I actually have balls."

Stepping uncomfortably, unbelievably close, her legs spreading slightly so that her knees now straddled my own, she looked down on me, taking every advantage of her position above. "If you don't believe me, you can check for yourself."

This didn't seem to be an interview anymore. I had no idea what this was, but this girl, this....girl for christ's sake, came at the whole world like a force of nature. And again I felt something rise in me. Not anger, not fear. Nothing so reactionary. More like an emergent eagerness, or anticipation. Perhaps merely the thrill of adrenalin.

Never releasing her gaze, I lifted my hand slowly. Up under her skirt. And pressed my palm firmly against her. I cleared my mind of all thought or expectation about what was happening or where this was going. I only knew I had to meet her, openly and without fear. Although I couldn't help noticing that she was shaved.

We held this moment for...a long time. This absurd, intimate connection we were now making with each other. I have no idea what was happening in the rest of the room during this. I simply knew that it was now her move, her moment to lose me or accept me. And at length, she broke the silence.

"There. You see."

Was she talking to the group? No she was speaking to me. What? Oh. Right.

"Yes. I do. And the right one is quite impressive...but honestly the left one...seems wanting somehow." I never wavered my eyes.

More time passed. I sensed a cloud of perplexity pass over her, but only in the soul of her eyes. I relaxed as best I could and submitted to her scrutiny. I felt like a light-bulb suddenly burning at a thousand watts. I recognized now what the excitement in me was about. Here was someone who burned at a thousand watts herself, but just naturally, with the flick of a switch. And as insane as that must be, it called forth something in me which longed to feel that too, to meet her head on and live at that intensity. I knew now I wanted into this girl's world -- not the world of stardom, or fame or money, which I had little interest in really. I wanted into the world of Taylor Lorden.

But then, right then and there, she took her balls and went home.