CHAPTER THREE: Cassandra
I was beat. And not just “end of a long week” beat. More like “road hard, put up wet, and hung out to dry” beat. Every muscle in my body ached. I had the mother of all headaches and if I could have had my feet amputated at that moment I probably would have. Standing in court for eight hours a day for the last two weeks in heels not only had my feet screaming for relief, my toes were molded into a permanent vee. I could not wait to get home, strip off naked, grab a bottle of wine, and soak in a tub until I turned into a prune. With any luck, I’d be drunk by the time I started to shrivel and not wake up until the morning.
Lulu, my law partner of five years at Casey & Roman, came bouncing into my office like helium balloon that had broken loose from its string. I was sitting at my desk with my shoes off and my feet up, nursing a tumbler of scotch and wishing I had a cigarette. I had quit smoking a year ago, but the craving was always there, especially on Friday afternoon at six o’clock after a long week of court proceedings. If I’d have had a pack of Marlboro Reds I would have fired one up at that moment without a second thought.
Lulu and I specialized in high profile divorce cases, usually presented from the wife’s side of things after her husband had kicked her to the curb for a younger woman with bigger tits and a tighter pussy. It didn’t surprise me that most divorces were initiated by men, especially wealthy men who propped up their flaccid cocks with a combination of Viagra and cold, hard cash. Yeah, I was bitter. I’d seen too many men pull that shit. I’d had it pulled on my years ago. That was the reason I specialized in divorce now. And why I was a motherfucking shark when it came to getting my clients every penny they deserved.
I didn’t always agree with my clients, but I did agree with their right to a fair settlement from their rich as fuck husbands. I had gotten Nancy Mandalay a huge settlement from her venture capitalist husband, Ron, and we’d banked nearly two-hundred-thousand dollars in legal fees. We should have been celebrating, but I was simply too tired.
The week had kicked my ass.
Hell, who was I kidding.
Life kicked my ass every freakin’ week.
Why should this week be any different?
It seemed like all I did these days was work and sleep, grabbing food when I could and ignoring everything else. It had been weeks since I’d spoken to my mom and dad. Months since I’d seen them. And forget about having a private life. Other than a brief fuckup of a marriage a year after college, followed by a quick divorce where I got away with my clothes and little else, I’ve never had the time or inclination for a serious relationship. I was always more of the “one night stand” kind of girl. That said, I couldn’t tell you the last time I’d gotten laid. If this kept up I’d probably have to have my twat fumigated before I could use it again.
Lulu went to the wet bar and poured herself a glass of wine, then plopped down in the chair across from my desk and held up her glass in toast. “Here’s to you, partner. Another job well done.”
“Back at you,” I said, holding up my glass. “You’re the one who picked the jury. I just sold them the bill of goods.”
“We are a great team,” she said, sipping the wine. “I find ‘em, you fuck ‘em.”
“And then we cash their checks,” I snorted into the glass. I leaned my head back and let go a long sigh. Lulu was chattering on about the case and the things we could do with the fees. I smiled and pretended to listen. She was animated, giddy, like a little kid talking about the things she was going to buy with her two-hundred-grand in tooth fairy money.
At forty-three, Lulu was five years older than me, not as tall, and not as thin, but ten times more outgoing. She had a round, pretty face and bright blue eyes that seemed to attract the light. Her hair was dyed auburn and usually pulled back in a neat ponytail. She was 5’7, a little round in the hips and ass, but had great tits and a smile to die for. She got more dick than I did, that was for sure, though it might have been because her standards were even lower than mine if you could imagine that. If she had been at UCLA with me she would have regularly won the “Fuck ‘Em and Forget ‘Em” contests. She was about as picky as a breeder rabbit in spring time. I worried about her sometimes, but it would take more than an STD or two to ruin Lulu’s day.
As she liked to say, “The problem with most cocks is they have a man attached to them.”
“You look tired,” she said, giving me the eye when she realized I wasn’t listening. She gave me the same look of concern she always did when I looked like I was ready to take a leap out of the window of our tenth-floor office. “Cass? Everything okay?”
I sighed into the scotch glass. “Yeah, I’m fine, just a long week. Nothing a good bottle of wine and a large vibrator can’t fix.”
Lulu chuckled for a moment because she gave me the large vibrator for Christmas three years ago as a gag gift (no pun intended), then she let her face go serious and narrowed her dark eyes at me. “You want me to call someone for you?”
I frowned back at her. “Call someone for me? For what?”
She made a circle with the fingers of her left hand, then slowly slid her index finger back and forth though it. She bit her bottom lip and made little grunting noises. “You know, to clean your pipes a little.”
My eyebrows arched on their own. “You’re offering to call a man to come service my pipes?”
“Why not?” she asked with a shrug. “When the pipes in your house get clogged, you call a plumber to clean them out. Why not call someone to clean out your—”
“My pipes are just fine,” I said, holding up my hand to shut her up. “And even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t call Mr. Rooter to unclog them for me.”
“Come on, Cass,” she said, scolding me with her eyes. “When’s the last time you had anything in your twat besides your own fingers and the aforementioned vibrator?”
“That’s kind of a personal question,” I said, sipping the scotch and sighing as it burned its way down my throat. “I’m going to take the fifth.”
Lulu gave me her best courtroom face and looked down her nose at me. “You, Miss Casey, would say refusing to answer the question is the same as answering the question,” she said, using my own words against me. “Seriously, when’s the last time you had a chubby in your cubby?”
“A chubby in my cubby,” I said, pouting my lips in thought. “Good question.”
“An one you probably can’t answer,” she said. She sat back with a satisfied look on her face and held up her glass, her point proven by my own hesitation. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, obviously the plaintiff is full of shit. I rest my case.
I took a deep breath and pondered her question seriously. When was the last time I actually had a man’s cock or fingers or tongue inside me… hmmm… I couldn’t even remember, but I wasn’t going to give Lulu the satisfaction of hearing that.
“I appreciate your concern, Ms. Roman, but my pipes and my twat are just fine.”
“You can’t even remember, can you.” She took a long sip of wine and smacked her lips. “You know, your vagina is the center of your chi. If you don’t take proper care of it, it can cause you all kinds of problems.”
“My chi?” I gave her a sideways glance. “What is that?”
“Your chi,” she said seriously. She put the fingertips of her left hand between her breasts and took a deep breath. Her bulbous boobs rose and fell on her chest as she blew the breath out slowly. “The source of inner power.”
“My pussy is the source of my chi?”
“I’m serious, Cass,” she said with a serious look on her cherub face. “If you don’t take care of yourself in that way—“
“In what way?”
She huffed at me. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“I presume you’re talking about my pipes again.”
“Yes. And I’m serious. If you don’t take care of yourself in that way you can literally get clogged up with negative energy. It can affect everything from your body temperature to your cholesterol to your blood pressure to your heart rate.”
“You’re telling me that a lack of dick can make my blood pressure go up?” I smiled at her. “Honestly, Lu, the shit you come up with to justify your sluttiness never ceases to amaze me.”
“I do not have to justify my sluttiness, thank you very much,” she said defensively. She puffed out her chest and lifted her chin proudly. “I wear my sluttiness like a badge… Hey, I know what you need.” She leaned forward with her elbows on my desk and gestured her wine glass toward my laptop. “Give me your computer.”
“Lulu, please don’t tell me you’re going to show me more gay porn,” I said, scrunching up my nose as I turned the laptop around and slid it toward her. “Honestly, two guys sword fighting with twelve-inch dicks really doesn’t turn me on at all.”
“I have something even better than that in mind,” she said excitedly, pulling the laptop around and setting her long nails on the keyboard. “Something that will clean your pipes and clear your head and center your chi like a motherfucker.”
“I can’t wait to hear this one,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What’s it called? No wait, don’t tell me… Vibrators-R-Us?”
Her fingers flew across the keys. “Have you ever heard of Paradiso?”
“Paradiso? It’s Italian. Means paradise.” I let my bare feet drop to the floor and swiveled the chair so I could lean into the desk and give her a wary look. “Are you going to take me to paradise, my dear Ms. Roman?”
She looked at the screen and smiled, then turned the laptop around so I could see the screen. My heart stopped when I saw the website image of a man about my age, with longish blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a captivating smile. He looked vaguely familiar but I had no idea why. I didn’t know him, but I wished that I did. Trust me, if this guy was in my life, my pipes would have been continually flowing like mountain stream.
“I’m not going to take you to paradise,” she said, tapping a long nail to the top of the screen. “He is.”