All Black Ch. 01

Here I venture to offer my own take on the opening of a well-known book and movie. I might go on with it for another chapter or two and I'd be happy to get suggestions about how it might go.

This one is not explicitly erotic but hopefully it's fun — especially for anyone familiar with the originals!

— — — — — — / — — — — — — — — —

Chapter One: The Interview

"Oh, God," Ana moans through her sore throat and congested nose, not bothering to open her eyes. "Thank you so much, Angie. You're literally saving my life."

Even sick and under harsh artificial light, Ana looks like a goddess. Her head rests on the arm of the sofa, but her long body and perfect legs stretch all the way to the other end, where her little feet are perched with cute pink toenails pointing to the ceiling. She could be posing for a fashion shoot.

"I'm happy to help," Angie lies politely.

"You're literally an angel. A beautiful angel. Literally."

"Cute, maybe," Angie says, checking herself one last time in the mirror, hoping Shiva Black might have a thing for light freckles and awkward smiles.

"Shut up," Ana groans. "You're a straight-up hottie and I'll beat you if you deny it."

Although Angie would never say anything like this to Ana, she believes Black agreed to let Ana interview him only because she'd been the runner-up for Miss Romania. Why else would a man that powerful and that busy meet a reporter from a student newspaper?

But Angie is beautiful too, and she knows it in part because people never stop reminding her of it. In fact, although Ana's dark hair and eyes can only be described as "ravishing," Angie's a blue-eyed blonde, and, looking at her roommate, she has sometimes thought that the only things that separate them are five inches of height and two or three cup sizes, depending on whether Angie feels like an A or a B that day.

Paired as roommates either by the luck of the draw or, as they see it, divine providence, Ana and Angie have become best friends, quickly bonding over the problems they both face as strikingly beautiful young women. Alone together, they can complain about people assuming that they're airheads or that they've been given everything without actually working for it, about jealous girls hating them and being vicious behind their backs, about guys giving them entirely the wrong kind of attention, which is sometimes even scary, or being too intimidated to talk to them.

And certainly no one wants to hear about their body image issues. As one of Angie's high school friends put it on social media: "Too skinny? I hate you so fucking much, you fucking slut, and I'll be so happy when you die of anorexia."

Anyway, although most men would be quite happy to see Angie, Black probably knows what he wants, and what he wants is Ana, so Angie cannot imagine that he's going to be very happy to see her instead.

In this situation five inches and two or three cup sizes are not "only."

But saying "no" is not one of Angie's strengths. She's always been the perfect little girl, eager to please everyone, good at everything, sweet and charming to everyone, naive when she's supposed to be naive, brilliant when she's supposed to be brilliant, and helpful when she's supposed to be helpful.

So, she sighs, here she goes, off on her errand to be a disappointment to the world's most eligible bachelor, the world's richest man under forty, somehow even more famous for his good looks than for his egregious wealth.

And if some deep secret part of Angie's heart hopes that he won't actually be disappointed, well, she dares not admit that to herself.

She's donned a blue blouse with a close-fitting charcoal blazer and matching skirt, and black ankle strap kitten heels. As a girl thinking about becoming a nun, she is surprised to find herself wishing that her skirt and blazer were rather tighter. And now that she looks at it, blue might actually be the least sexual color. It's her favorite color, and it matches her eyes, but for a moment she fantasizes about wearing something like Anna's bright red minidress, which definitely...

But a knock at the door means she has no time for wishing.

"That'll be Josh," she tells Ana, skipping over to kiss her on the forehead. "I have to go now. Rest and drink plenty of tea and don't worry. I'll ask all the questions you've written down and record everything."

"Thank you," Ana whines. "I'm so sorry."

"Shut up," Angie smacks her playfully as Josh knocks at the door again. "Goodbye, darling!"

"Good-bye!"

— — — — — — / — — — — — — — — —

Josh, the nicest guy Angie knows, has very kindly offered to go into the city with her even though they have to leave so early in the morning.

When she tells people that she grew up in New Jersey, they assume that she's been in the city lots of times, knows her way around and isn't scared of anything. But Angie actually grew up on a Christmas tree farm in the most rural part of the state. Her parents homeschooled her until they sent her to a Catholic girls' school in rural Pennsylvania. And now they've made her attend St. George the Fundamentalist — reputedly the most conservative Catholic college in North America — in the middle of the hills and fields of upstate New York, three hours by bus and train from the city.

She does appreciate everyone's mildly patronizing concern for her safety, and she knows that she may not be spiritually or intellectually ready for the challenges of the modern, secular world, but she's also excited to finally be going into the city almost all-by-herself.

Josh is the perfect guy-friend to take her. Perhaps he's gay or perhaps he's just too shy to be honest about his feelings, and sometimes she suspects he "likes" her, but he's never done or said anything to suggest that he thinks of her as anything more than just a friend. Not that she's disappointed: he's on the short side and average in most other ways and if Angie doesn't become a nun she's hoping for rather more in life than he seems likely to offer.

However, he's a lot more worldly than she is because he grew up in Brooklyn — he went to SGFCC to get out of the city — and he's even promised to show her around Manhattan after her interview with Black.

During the ride down, she buys him coffee and donuts to show how much she appreciates him and to deflect expectations of any other kind of reward. He gobbles them down with a masculine indifference to calories while she sips a coffee and listens to him try to impress her with how much he knows about the city.

And she really is impressed, but it's six o'clock in the morning, the sun isn't even up yet, and she wishes he would shut up and let her sleep.

But when he finally does shut up, he's the one who falls asleep, and she makes the big mistake of doing a little research on the subject of her interview.

— — — — — — / — — — — — — — — —

A few hours later they are staring up at Black Tower, nicknamed "the Eggplant," which (according to the Shikipedia article about it) has been called New York City's most unapologetic phallic symbol.

Like any girl of her generation, Angie has seen a wide variety of frighteningly long penises on the internet, but looking up at this tower she would not have thought of a penis. Perhaps, she reflects, she doesn't actually know enough about penises. She had, for example, to click on the link to "phallic symbol" to find out what that term even meant, resulting in one of the many moments in which she did not feel grateful for her strictly religious education.

But the cylindrical skyscraper is in fact rather phallic, with black windows from the street all the way to its rounded tip, and even an exterior glass elevator shaft that could fairly be compared to a dorsal vein.

Of course its girth is more impressive than its length.

"You want to come in with me?" she asks hopefully, offering her arm as an enticement.

"Sure," he agrees, obviously intimidated but determined to be gallant for his hot friend.

Entering the building, they find themselves in a huge, brightly lit atrium perhaps four stories high and nearly as wide as the entire building. Professionally dressed men and women look at their phones as they sit on modernist furniture or climb the wide steel staircases spiraling upwards in several places.

"I'm here to see Mr. Black," Angie tells a man standing behind a desk at a booth with a sign unconvincingly declaring that they are "welcome."

She slides the permit to him and he looks at it skeptically, then with surprise.

"You really are," he says with a laugh. "I've never actually seen someone here to see Mr. Black before, Miss Christescu. They usually don't come to me. May I see your ID?"

"Yes, but unfortunately I'm not Anastasia Christescu," Angie admits as she hands him her driver's license.

"You're not."

He says it with finality, as if that means she's not getting to see Mr. Black.

"I'm afraid she's sick so she asked me to come instead."

"I see. Has Mr. Black approved this?"

Angie doesn't have a lot of experience with homosexuals, but judging by what she's seen on television and movies, he might be one, which (to her) means he's either going to be very kind or ruthless — or perhaps both.

"I'm afraid probably not."

"I see," he repeats. "And who's this?"

"This is my friend Josh."

"I'm not going with her," Josh volunteers — rather too soon, in Angie's opinion. "I just walked her here."

"I see. So it'll just be you, Miss —" he looks at her ID " — Angela Catherine White."

"That's right."

"And how are you associated with Miss Christescu?"

"I'm her roommate at St. George the Fundamentalist Catholic College."

The man looks at Ana with transparent thoughts: she's a good-looking young woman. Maybe Mr. Black actually would like to see her.

More importantly, he doesn't want to be the one who makes the decision.

"I see. Okay. I see. Please wait here. I'll be a few moments, so help yourself to some coffee if you'd like."

"Thank you," Angie sings as sweetly as she can as he disappears into a room behind the desk.

If she can't see Black, at least she has to tell Ana how hard she tried.

"They might've let you come up too," she tells Josh.

"No," he says. "They're probably not even letting you up."

"Don't you want some coffee?" she suggests.

"No."

She can see how intimidated he is, and that doesn't reassure her at all. She might even be better off without him.

"Well, you can go," she tells him. "I'll call you when I'm out."

"Okay," he says, looking at her with relief, maybe even gratitude. "Break a leg!"

"That's for actresses," she says, "not journalists."

"Oh, well, then, break a pencil!" he smiles, turning to leave.

And then she realizes: she forgot to bring a pencil! If the recorder doesn't work, what is she going to do?

She considers asking Josh to get her one, but he's gone.

The man returns.

"It's taking a while. They're apparently clearing it with Mr. Black himself, or one of his immediate assistants. What happened to your friend?"

"He fled the scene."

The man chuckles. "It's an impressive place. Designed to intimidate people."

"Designed to?"

"Of course." He leans forward, confidentially. "That's what all the marble and chrome is for. Kind of a dick-measuring contest between CEOs."

"Oh," she nods knowingly, trying to appear worldly and not at all offended by the word "dick."

"Anyway, I wanted to keep you updated. Don't go anywhere," he says, and he disappears into the room again. The woman who has taken his place at the desk smiles at her as if to console for her inevitable disappointment.

Angie eventually does help herself to some of the coffee and finds it so strong that she has to add a lot of sugar.

Finally he comes out again.

"Believe it or not, and very much to my surprise, they're going to let you in — even though you are not the person who actually has the appointment. In a moment some of Mr. Black's personal assistants will be here to take you through security and up to his office. I can't really promise that he'll actually see you, and they can't interrupt the meeting he's in, but they've decided to come and get you just in case he wants to see you."

"Okay, thank you so much," she smiles, accepting a badge on a lanyard from him. "Should I put this around my neck?"

"Yes," he smiles, "you won't want to be found up there without it."

"Oh."

"Miss Christescu?" someone asks and both Angie and the man turn to see four people and a man who've apparently come to fetch her.

Angie looks them over quickly as if she could learn something about Mr. Black from their appearance, but to her eyes they're all taking the concept of business casual a bit too casually — in fact, one, so overweight that Angie has to be careful not to look surprised, is wearing a tight t-shirt with horizontal stripes, as if she actively wants to embarrass herself, and after another moment she realizes that the one in the tight pink jeans and frilly blouse might actually be a man.

"She's Miss White," the man from the welcome desk explains to them, "the wrong, er, the other one."

"Oh, yes, that's right. Miss White, please come with us," the one who spoke before instructs her, and the four of them turn to lead her away.

The man waves goodbye to her with a look of wonder, as if this is a day he's going to remember.

— — — — — — / — — — — — — — — —

Making friendly but empty conversation — "Oh, finals! I remember taking finals. I miss those days." — they take her to an elevator and down to the basement where she goes through airport-style security, leaving behind her bag and all her electronic devices including of course the recorder. She practically begs, but they don't even consider letting her take it with her. They seal everything in a clear plastic bag and put it in a locker as if to guarantee that no one will look through it while she's gone.

Then she has to sign a nondisclosure agreement, explaining that unless she has explicit permission, she's not to speak to anyone about anything she sees or hears.

Not wanting to cause trouble or seem unworldly, she signs all the papers they put in front of her.

And even after all that, they call Ana to have her confirm the switch.

Finally she gets approval, so her four chatty chaperones take her up to the sixty-ninth floor and deposit her in a brightly-lit waiting room of black leather and gleaming chrome and floor-to-ceiling windows, everything so clean and shiny that she's afraid to touch anything lest she leave a stain. The black marble floor — polished to such translucence that Angie stares at it for a moment to be sure it's not covered with glass — shines with the reflection of the sky.

A woman offers her coffee, tea, or water, but Angie declines it all, thinking she's too nervous to drink anything.

Two men in suits are sitting on other chairs, apparently also waiting.

"I'd take a top-off," one of them tells the woman, holding up a coffee cup for her.

"Black again?" the woman asks.

"You know I like my coffee the way I like my prize investors: hot, black, and very strong."

"You're such a funny man," the woman tells him with a smile so fake it verges on sarcasm, not even trying to seem sincere as she fills his cup. "You should tell that one to Mr. Black."

For a while Angie just takes in the amazing view of the water, the ships, an island with what she eventually realizes is the Statue of Liberty, small and seemingly short from this height and distance, and, across the water and through the haze, a shore that she assumes is New Jersey. For a while, the sense of being "above it all" calms her a little, but eventually she remembers why she's here.

To distract herself, she begins browsing through one of the magazines on the coffee table, but she's so nervous that she can barely read a single sentence. Here she is — she cannot really believe it — probably about to meet Shiva Black himself.

She should've eaten something to settle her stomach, and she should not have had so much coffee.

When Josh finally fell asleep on the bus, she she read the Shikipedia page about Black and some fawning profiles in magazines like Borfes, Business Daily, Wine Collector and even — or rather, especially — Celebrity PM.

She wanted to be properly prepared for the interview so that she woudln't ask stupid questions, but now she suspects it was a mistake.

The problem was Celebrity PM's "World's Sexiest Man" article from 2013. She'd actually had a physical copy of that issue, stolen from a dentist's office when she was about fourteen years old.

She'd grown up and forgotten about it, but as soon as she saw the photos this morning on the bus she very clearly remembered the fascination and guilt and fear and, well, lust that she'd felt looking at the photos of his iron jaw and confident smirk, the bare muscles of his chest and shoulders, of the thick hair on his chest, his beautiful butt, and worst of all of the suggestive bulge in his swim trunks.

And now she cannot seem to stop the images flickering through her mind.

She tries to push them aside by thinking about less superficial things: how he became a billionaire by aggressively shorting the markets in 2008, when he was only eighteen years old, and how since then his wealth has grown so quickly that people expect him to be the world's richest man within a decade.

Struggling to comprehend the idea that a person that rich could be only twelve years older than she is, and that she's about to meet the man who inspired some of her earliest masturbatory fantasies, she laments that she left her bag behind without thinking to touch up her makeup.

She would almost sell her soul to be in that red mini-dress now, or at least to have worn a bra that would push the girls up a little more impressively. Even though her feet hurt because she's not used to wearing heels, she wishes she had borrowed a higher and sexier pair from Ana.

"Miss White."

Flinching, Angie turns to see one of his assistants, but this one so pretty that Angie instantly feels jealous of her willowy figure, her exotic features — perhaps Middle Eastern, she guesses — her long black ponytail, the way her entire body seems to sway with effortless feminine allure.

Worse: she wears thigh-high lace-up boots with impossibly high heels, bright red toes gleaming at the bottom end of her absurdly long legs.

Worst: she wears a bright red dress so tight she must have been seal-wrapped in it, lacy and translucent in many places, including literally (and not "literally" as Anna uses the word but literally "literally") right up past her crotch, with a low sweetheart neckline and actual cups for her breasts.

Even Angie almost wants to bend this girl over and fuck her.

Does this place have no dress code?

"Yes?" Angie squeaks, wondering why the dress — or perhaps it is lingerie and this woman just goes out in it anyway — bothers to have long sleeves.

"He'll see you now."

"But they were here before me," she says, indicating the two men.

"Their appointments are later," the assistant beams, as a little diamond in the pendant of her necklace catches the light, flashing an irresistible sparkle right from the center of her pillowy bosom. "You get to go first."

"Okay."

Angie gets up, dizzy with nerves, wobbly on her heels, and follows the swinging hips — the dress is backless but for the bra strap — down a hallway to a double-door, one of which is open, and the other has a brass plaque with the words "And leave some of the happiness you bring."

Where has she heard that before?

— — — — — — / — — — — — — — — —

When she enters, Shiva Black is standing behind his desk, his back to the door, looking out the window, perhaps contemplating the Statue of Liberty.