Coed Demon Sluts_Beth Read online

  This time he’d chosen a pair of black leather pants, a white Hollister tee, a black leather bomber jacket, and another set of expensive shades. He didn’t look too bad, for a complete putz. Unfortunately, his mouth still worked.

  “Heyyyyy,” he said as he took in our morning dishabille, the beers, and the porn posters on the kitchen walls left over from the previous bunch of sex demons. “I could get used to this.”

  Amanda looked a warning at me and stood up. She was wearing sweats, at least. Jee and I had skipped the tops, and wore only PJ bottoms. “Identification, please.”

  Reg checked her out from the feet up. When he got to her face finally, his expression changed. “Uh, I don’t think I have any. I mean, they didn’t give me any.”

  Since my last intervention had been heavily criticized, I kept my mouth shut. Let somebody else handle it.

  “Do you have any idea where you are?” Jee said waspishly.

  “Sure. I’m in the lair of the succubi, and I’m your new manager.” Reg snapped his gum and pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead with what I was sure he thought of as a James Dean leer.

  “Identification, please,” Amanda repeated, sounding bored. She loomed over Reg.

  He looked up at her again and stepped backwards.

  “Don’t kill him, Amanda,” Jee said quickly. “Let me look him up.” She flipped open the work laptop and beckoned Reg over, and between Amanda’s looming six-foot-two and Jee’s dangerous eyes, he was intimidated enough to shuffle to the table. “Give me your hand.”

  Reg put his hand out and grabbed her boob.

  Amanda came up behind him and Vulcan-neck-pinched him. Down he went. She caught him under the armpits and chucked him into the nearest La-Z-Boy.

  “Dammit, I had that under control,” Jee said.

  “I don’t want him to remember doing that,” Amanda said. “Bad for him.”

  “If he doesn’t remember getting too physical with us, and he doesn’t remember us getting physical with him, how’s he going to learn anything?” I said.

  “Look, I had a plan,” Jee complained.

  “All right!” Amanda threw out a hand. “Go do your plan.”

  I pulled a couple more beers out of the fridge and gave one to Amanda. We sat back and watched Jee do her plan.

  While Reg lay conked out in the lounger, she pulled his leather pants down around his knees. With a red Sharpie, she drew a five-pointed star on the inside of his left thigh. Then she put tiny plus signs around both his wrists. By the time Reg woke up, still de-panted, she was seated in a kitchen chair nearest his La-Z-Boy again, tapping away at the laptop.

  “Are you awake? Good. I’ve located your file. Ish should have given you your number. You could have been killed, you know.” She didn’t even look at him, just tapped away.

  Reg worked his neck and blinked. “Hey. My pants. Did I miss something good?”

  “Here.” Busily Jee scribbled a very, very long number on the margin of a page torn from this month’s Vogue. “Memorize this. Then go to the tattoo parlor at this address.” More scribbling. “Get it done immediately, by tonight if possible. If you walk in here without your number again, I won’t answer for the consequences.”

  By now Reg had noticed the big red star on his inner thigh. “What’s with this?”

  “That’s where Laslo is going to tattoo your ID. You’ll get regulation wrist-guards at the same time. Don’t wash the red off until it’s been done.”

  “How come I’m so sleepy? Did you put something in the beer?” Reg said.

  Jee looked at him stonily. “You didn’t have any beer, Reg.”

  “I put you to sleep,” Amanda said in a deepened voice, from behind his chair.

  Reg craned his neck back and looked up—and up—at Amanda. She leaned over him and showed him one fist.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Another thing,” Jee said. “These clothes. Fuck a donkey, Reg, that shit’s ugly. Did Ish give you your company credit card yet?”

  At that, Reg brightened. “No. Do I get one?”

  “Grrr,” Jee grumbled. “Stay here.” She hauled herself off her chair and stumped out.

  Reg turned to me. “When do I get my orgy? Aren’t you gonna show me the master bedroom?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “First things first, Reg,” Amanda growled behind him.

  “But I’m the boss here,” Reg whined.

  Amanda sent me that warning look again, and I said, “Did I say anything?”

  Jee came back, not a minute too soon. “Here.” She handed Reg a credit card. “This is mine, but you can use it until yours comes. Go buy some clothes. Make sure you get to the tattoo parlor before it closes, because Laslo leaves at nine, and your official tatts will take some time. Don’t show up here again without ’em.”

  Reg scrambled out of his La-Z-Boy and pulled up his pants. “Okay. Right.” I saw that he was wearing patent leather biker boots. Maybe we had the wrong slant on him. Those boots were totally gay. He flinched as Amanda reached out a long, muscular arm to him, but she only had his shades in her hand. He took them from her. “Okay.”

  He hustled out, and we heard him clanking down the metal staircase.

  The downstairs door hadn’t shut on him yet when Jee picked up her cell. “Hello? I’d like to report a stolen credit card.”

  I exchanged glances with Amanda.

  “She’s vicious,” Amanda said.

  “She did it without violence,” I admitted.

  “No,” Jee said, poking at her phone. “Amanda put him out. But she didn’t chuck him off a balcony.”

  “Hey, you both helped!” I protested. Sheesh. Get a little impulsive once and you never hear the end of it.

  “Laslo? It’s Jee. Guy’s coming in some time today to get some work done, a number inside a star on his left inner thigh, and wristbands. Can I place his order now so you can get your inks ready? Great. For the wrists—”

  I got up, finished my beer, and burped. “Think I’ll see if Beth’s out of the shower yet.”

  “Okay, done,” Jee said, tossing her phone on the table. “With luck, he’ll run up four or five figures shopping and then get his ink half-done before Laslo finds out the card’s no good.” She showed her teeth.

  I objected. “We don’t want to piss Laslo off. He’s gotta put Beth’s number on her foot sometime this month.”

  “I’ll tell Laslo we’ll make it good—after he’s called the cops on our manager. If Reg spends the night in jail, maybe he’ll be more receptive to guidance,” Jee said.

  “Yeah, that’s gonna happen,” I said. I hurried out. I wanted first dibs on the bathroom after Beth.

  Beth

  That morning, using her old phone, Beth called her daughter. She waited until her roommates were dressing, and especially until Jee was in the shower. Beth didn’t want Jee to know how weak she was.

  “Darleen? It’s Mom,” she whispered. What did they do to backsliders in the Regional Office? She stood in the corner of her bedroom which she guessed was farthest from Jee’s adjoining room. Her voice trembled. “I’m all right. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Mom! Omigod! Where are you!? I’ve been frantic!” Darleen sounded beside herself. Beth felt a moment of guilty yet potent satisfaction that someone had missed her. “Where are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Beth repeated. “I can’t talk long.” Down the hall, in the bathroom, women’s voices were raised, and something banged against the wall. It sounded like they were throwing shampoo bottles in the shower, but was that likely?

  “Mom, what’s happening? Did you talk to Dad?”

  “I saw him l-last night.” Oh no, should she have said that? Beth had spent so many years being honest that she found herself stammering.

  “Are you there? Are you at the house?”

  “No—I’m—”

  “Oh, did you go to his place downtown?” Darleen sounded relieved. “I always said he should spend more time with you in the city.�
�

  “What? You knew about his apartment at the Doral?” Beth felt a surge of fury. “You knew?”

  “Oh, shit, Mom,” Darleen whined. “Don’t blow your stack now. You’ve been so good.”

  “Wait, I’ve been—young lady, how long have you known about that place?” Rage thumped into Beth’s head like a shampoo bottle hitting the wall.

  “He bought it when he was, you know, with that blonde girl from the office. It was years ago, Mom,” Darleen said excusingly. “You can’t be mad about that anymore.”

  “Anymore? When did he tell you?”

  “Oh, shit, Mom,” Darleen said again, as if Beth were being unreasonable. “He said he told you. He said not to mention it. I was in college. Mom, you know what Dad is like.” Darleen didn’t sound particularly upset.

  “Do you know he left me nothing?”

  “There’s a pretty hefty settlement,” Darleen said drily.

  “His. Check. Bounced.” Beth felt her temper rising. She’d told Darleen this so often before. “He can’t pay me anything. He’s broke. I do the books, remember?”

  “How can he be broke? He just got that place in Mexico. They’re going there for the honeymoon.”

  The room began to darken around Beth. Her pulse roared in her ears. She choked.

  “Mom?”

  “I can’t talk right now. Someone will hear me.” She thumbed her phone off and flung herself face-down on the bed, willing her heart to slow down.

  I sold my mother’s engagement ring to help put Darleen through college. We had no vacations for three years. Although Blake, she remembered, had still traveled a lot for the office. I wonder how far he really went? All the way downtown to the Doral?

  Beth heard her bedroom door open.

  “Aren’t you ready?” came Amanda’s voice at the door.

  “Wearing what?” Jee’s voice said scornfully. Beth heard her approach the bed. “First stop, the Bloomie’s building. Girl needs clothes, stat. C’mon,” Jee added, smacking Beth on the butt. “I’ll lend you something so you don’t have to wear a towel into Bloomie’s.”

  “Phone’s on the floor. She’s been talking to her ex again,” Amanda said.

  Beth scrambled up suddenly. “My daughter. Blake,” she choked again, “bought a place in Mexico. He’s not broke at all.”

  “How did he hide the income?” Pog swaggered in wrapped in a robe.

  “I don’t know yet,” Beth said through her teeth.

  She looked from Pog’s robe to her own naked, flawless young body. The sight of that miracle stopped her boiling emotions cold, just as it had yesterday. “Wow. I look good.” Remorsefully she looked from Jee to Pog. “I can’t pay you back yet. But boy, if I find out where he’s hiding all this money, I will.”

  Jee sat down next to her on the bed, swinging her skirt to one side with one elegantly manicured hand. “Honey, you don’t get it. That’s all over. Yes, revenge, and we can certainly take him for as much money as you want. But number one, we’re rich. Number two, you will be too. Number three, Beth is gone, vanished. You’re screwing up your own getaway by calling him.”

  “I called my daughter,” Beth confessed.

  “And was that a rewarding experience?” Pog said.

  “She’s known about more of his philandering than I ever did. Even what he spent. She—she doesn’t seem to care,” Beth said, feeling desolate again. “At least she talks to me.” Jeff wouldn’t even stay on the phone with her.

  “Well, she’s from his gene pool,” Amanda said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Beth said.

  Amanda shrugged. “Sociopathy is a genetic defect.”

  “Enough,” Jee said. “Let’s get you covered so we can take you downtown and get you dressed.”

  “Not at Bloomie’s,” Beth said, eyeing Jee’s swirly-skirted poppy shift. “I’m still broke.”

  Amanda sighed. “You really have no faith in us.” She opened her teensy gold clutch and pulled out a credit card. “Got it last night, after you punched him out in the alley.”

  Beth took the card. Blake Shanley. There was his womanizing alias on a black American Express card—less than a year old, judging by the expiration date. “Blake doesn’t have an American Express card,” she said numbly.

  “Oh, honey.” To the others Jee said, “How is it that I’m dressed and ready first?”

  “Because you hogged the bathroom?” Pog said.

  “Don’t start. We’ll never get out of here,” Amanda said, drawing Pog toward the door.

  Pog

  “I feel like a horrible person,” the new girl said as she slid her ex’s credit card into her brand new Versace clutch and gathered up her latest batch of shopping bags.

  “We need that cabana boy,” I grunted. My arms were loaded with Beth’s purchases from Sak’s, Marshall Field, Bloomie’s, Lord & Taylor, Tiffany, and Harry Winston. “Let’s dump this in the van and get some lunch.” We headed for the elevator on the third floor of Neiman Marcus.

  “I’m starving,” Amanda said.

  “Lunch, great idea,” Jee said. “Then another three hours’ work, and we’ll have her nicely kitted out.”

  “Three more hours?” Amanda grumbled. “Not today. I’m shopped out.”

  “You’re just hungry,” Jee said. “Lunch, then we’ll drop you off home, you wuss.”

  “Why are you a horrible person?” I said to Beth. It was gonna take months to break her in. She wasn’t getting the hang of bad girl. “This is a timeless divorcee ritual. Get hold of hubby’s credit card and max it out.”

  “It’s American Express,” Beth said. “It doesn’t have a maximum. Not the black one.”

  Jee sighed in ecstasy. “I love unlimited revenge.”

  “What are you getting revenge for?” Beth said as we crowded into the elevator. She turned big Bambi eyes on Jee.

  I held my breath. Like the rest of us, Jee didn’t take prying well.

  “Oh, this and that,” Jee said.

  Amanda shot Beth a warning glance.

  “We took this job to leave the past behind us,” I said.

  Beth blew a limp lock of hair off her forehead. “Really? Seems to me you’re all taking revenge for the past on the male of the species. It’s your life’s work now.”

  “You call this work?” Jee said. “What’s not to love about our lives? We spend what we want, eat what we want, sleep when we want, and always look good doing it. And quite regularly we have great sex.”

  Beth made a face. “Standing up in the alley?”

  “Girl, you haven’t given this body the full test drive yet.” Amanda poked her with an elbow. “All sex is great sex now.”

  Beth squinted. “Right.”

  “Nobody’s pushing you,” I said with authority. “You start when you’re ready to start. It’s not like we can’t afford to carry you. With the help of good old Blake Shanley.” I grinned.

  “But don’t you have any other ambitions besides making your quota?” Beth persisted, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I finally have hopes of assembling a halfway-decent women’s softball team,” Amanda said.

  Beth ignored that, which was unfair. Amanda was being totally honest. “Jee?” Beth said.

  Jee snorted. “You mean, don’t I yearn to fulfill my childhood dream of becoming a fireman?” There was a dangerous glint in her eye. “Nope.”

  Beth spotted the glint. “Oh. Okay.”

  Somehow we got her and her seventy-thousand-dollar shopping spree to the van without a catfight.

  Lunch happened at the food court in Water Tower Place. It was a far cry from Barclay’s, but this way everybody got whatever they wanted, and if we spotted a likely guy we could sneak off for a quickie in the service corridor. I didn’t explain that part to Beth. The kid still seemed stunned.

  After lunch, while I was pulling the van out of the parking ramp, I nearly ran over a bunch of cops standing on the sidewalk. I slowed, and they moved off to the side, taking with them a
well-dressed figure with a familiar, whiny, stupid, entitled, sout’-wes’-side voice and an armload of fancy shopping bags.

  “I told you, she gave me her credit card! I know where she lives. I’ll take you there! What are you—?”

  The cops hustled him into the back of a squad car.

  I took my right hand off the wheel and put it behind me so Jee could slap my palm. “Nice work.”

  “Much better than chucking him off the balcony,” Amanda said. “He’ll spend the night in jail. Tomorrow he’ll still remember getting fucked over. See how that affects his manners in the morning.”

  “But how will he get out of jail?” Beth wailed.

  “I’ll bail him out,” Jee said smugly. “Eventually. I’ll even tell the credit card company he gets to keep everything he bought. Eventually.”

  “This training program better ramp up pretty quickly,” I said. “I’m not running that Margaritaville machine for you animals every evening for the rest of whatever.”

  “I thought you loved frozen ’ritas,” Amanda said.

  “I don’t love cleaning it,” I said. “Do you?”

  She shut up.

  Over my shoulder I said, “Speaking of our quotas, the contractors are coming to start the bathroom tomorrow. Do we divvy them up, or does everybody take a whack and change the names on our reports?”

  “I vote for everybody getting a whack. Why leave the building when we can have men delivered?” Jee said.

  “You can’t report the same names as I do,” I warned her.

  “I know. I have imagination,” Jee protested. “And the phone book.”

  “Works for me,” Amanda said.

  “Are you planning to have sex with the contractor’s men?” Beth said with incredulity.

  “Oh. My. God,” Jee said.

  “Somebody explain to her what ‘succubus’ means?” Amanda said.

  I said in an evil tone, “Finally you realize, Beth, that you work for the Regional Office. Abandon hope, all ye who drink to excess with this team.”

  “And shop,” Jee said.

  “And play softball. Speaking of team, how are you at team sports, Beth?” Amanda said.