Somtimes, Life's Not Fair

"What's up?" Jeremy and I excitedly asked almost simultaneously.

"Let's go back to my office and talk," Charles said with a Cheshire Cat grin that indicated that he was having a hard time restraining himself.

As soon as we got into the conference room at Arnold, Watt & Compton, Charles almost screamed "We got everything we wanted. The D. A. is dropping all charges, expunging Amy's arrest record, the city is paying Amy $2,500, and Officer Wilson, is being formally disciplined."

Since I had testified that I estimated my tips at $1,000 that surely was a good result for me.

We broke out a bottle of champagne, and were joined by all of the people who had participated in the case, including Jeremy's minority business partner Gloria and several associates. I felt so good that I was even nice to Jeremy, although I told him that I wasn't coming back to work. I had more than enough money to pay for the rest of my college expenses, and buy a new car (a Mustang convertible that looked almost the same as Gwen's).

During the impromptu celebration Charles introduced me to the head of paralegals, and also called Mr. Watt in just for the purpose of introducing me. "I would introduce you to Arnold too," Charles chuckled, "only the cemetery is a long way from here."

Charles again asked me to stay after everyone else left. I did.

"Amy, you were marvelous on the stand; so poised, so quick-witted. Judge Jensen fell in love with you during the twenty minutes that you were testifying," Charles chortled.

"Are you sure that it wasn't lust after watching my video?" I snickered.

"Maybe both," he laughed. "Say, have you thought about my offer?"

"Well you certainly came through on your end, didn't you," I replied with a smile. "Email me a formal offer and I'll likely accept it – if the money is right."

Charles' grin was even bigger than in Court after his talk with the D. A. "You won't regret it," he said.

I worked as a paralegal for Arnold, Watt & Compton during the summer. I liked it. I graduated a semester early from college, after having taken two paralegal related courses, and started working full time for them in February.

______________

Life was good for me at that stage. I enjoyed working with clients – I was the only paralegal to sit in on meetings with the firm's best clients even if Charles wasn't involved – and the job was challenging but not overly taxing.

There was one bad thing though; Rob got married to Denise, a woman that I really did not care for. My brother seemed to be in love, however, so after a few pointed questions directed to him over a few months before the marriage, I pretended to get on board and be happy for him. To make matters worse, I had to put up with my squabbling parents during the lead up to the wedding and the reception; since Rob had no patience for them and since he had helped me so much in life I assumed that unpleasant task.

My tears during the wedding were not of joy, but of apprehension. I knew that nothing could disturb the bond between Rob and me, but I was concerned for his long term happiness with that bitch Denise.

As part of my job I attended depositions of clients, normally the only paralegal in the firm who did. In his typical straight-forward way Charles told me the reasons why. "First, because you handle the documents so well and take great notes. Second, if it is female deponent your presence is a calming influence on her. Third, if the attorney on the other side is a male you are a distraction and can really throw him off his game." In the third situation I learned exactly what clothes to wear, and where to sit during the deposition. Charles thought that I was effective, and I must have at least partially been since during a break in one deposition I overheard one opposing client chastise his attorney and ask him to get me expelled from the deposition venue.

It was during one of those depositions that I met my future husband, Tim Simon. He was the attorney on the other side of a contentious dispute between a church, his client, and an adult book store, our client. He was probably the only male attorney in all the depositions that I had attended up until that time that didn't consistently ogle me either during the deposition or during recesses; I remember laughing to myself "Either he's gay or I've lost my touch."

Tim also was the best looking opposing counsel I had seen. He was about six three, maybe 190 pounds, with curly short black hair, green eyes, and a movie-star face. He had a melodious voice, and based upon the questions that he asked and his demeanor during the deposition he obviously was bright.

Everyone else had left and I was alone in the conference room, packing up the documents from the deposition at our offices, when Tim walked back in.

"Did you forget something, Mr. Simon?" I genuinely inquired.

"It's 'Tim,' Amy. Yes, I did Amy," he said with a grin. "Well actually it wasn't so much that I forgot something is that I didn't want to do it in front of other people. I see no ring on your finger, and I'd like to take you out to dinner...Please."

The way he said that was commanding, respectful, and pleading all at the same time; actually really cute.

I wrote my cell phone number on a sheet of paper. "Give me a call after this case is over, and we can talk about it," I replied. When I handed him the slip of paper I stroked my hand across his. I swear that a bulge formed in his trousers, and he gulped. "I'll be in touch," was all he said as he put the slip in his shirt pocket, picked up his briefcase and left.

About a week later, Bill Jamison, the attorney at Arnold, Watt & Compton handling the case, came into my office. "Amy, I'm getting a call every day from this guy Tim Simon talking about settling our adult bookstore case, and he usually mentions you in some way or another. Do you know why he's so anxious to settle the case?"

It was all that I could do to suppress a smile. "No, I don't," I lied. "Maybe his client just wants to move on. Are the terms he is offering reasonable?"

"Yes – I think that our client will sign off on it shortly. What I don't understand is how he was such a bulldog before the last deposition, and suddenly has turned into a pussycat," Bill mused out loud.

Again it was all that I could do to stop myself from giggling.

Just three days later Bill Jamison called me into the main conference room. He told me to bring my Notary Seal. Tim, the lay officer of his church client, the president of our client, and Bill were there. "Amy, could you notarize all the signatures on the settlement agreement?" Bill asked.

"Sure can," I replied. I notarized the signatures of all four of them on two originals. I made copies for everyone involved and after handing them out everyone shook hands and left – except for Tim. "Amy, there are one or two documents in this case that we lost our copies of and I wonder if I could talk with you about getting them from you for our file?" he asked.

The others, realizing that they didn't need to be there, left.

"What are these alleged documents?" I asked in my most sultry voice, crossing my long legs as I sat and made sure that my skirt rode up my thighs a little.

As Tim was staring at my thighs it seemed that his shirt collar was tightening. "Uh, that was just a ruse; we have all our documents. Uh, well...I," he stammered. I wasn't going to make things easy for him as I glared at him while I bit my thumb. "Would you like to go to dinner tomorrow night?"

"Where?" I asked; pretending that I wouldn't agree to dinner if I didn't like the restaurant. I did this merely because I enjoyed flustering a hot shot attorney; I knew that I was eventually going to accept.

After bantering back and forth for a while, with me asking every inane question possible, and Tim's collar getting tighter and tighter, I finally stood up and said "I'd love to," getting a sigh of relief from him. "Here's my address," I said (Gwen's old apartment, believe it or not; I bought all her furniture too) handing him a slip of paper that I had scribbled on. I did my trick of sliding my hand over his while passing the address slip to him, smiled, turned, and sashayed out the door, provocatively wiggling my ass. "That'll give him something to think about," I laughed to myself."

To make a long story short, we really hit it off. We fucked the first night. I had never before come close to fucking someone after knowing him for such a short period of time. The next closest one was when I fucked Rob's friend Chris, but that was after he had first stayed at our house for almost a week.

Tim was charming, chivalrous, cute, and had a marvelous way of staring into my soul when he made eye contact – which happened often. In bed he was a fucking energizer bunny. The bastard literally ripped my panties off and after giving me marvelous oral with his long and muscular tongue, providing one of the best, if not the best, oral-induced orgasm that I had ever had, he penetrated me with his long cock.

The little devil kept switching positions on me. I would be just about to cum when he would move us into another position. At one point I thought that he might be trying to hit all of the Kama Sutra positions in one evening. Finally, he got me into doggy position, held onto my tits for pleasure and support, and banged the ever-loving shit out of me until we had truly galactic simultaneous orgasms.

Tim and I were married four months later. This time I didn't put up with any shit from my parents. I made it clear to them that I was making no special accommodation for their squabbling and that if they didn't like it they didn't have to attend. After some huffiness they got with the program.

__________________

Tim and I had been married a little more than a year when Arnold, Watt & Compton got a potential new client. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world that no one had ever heard of, James Offenbach, a multi-billionaire. Charles Compton was trying to bring the bulk of his business into the firm. I think that the partners could see dollar signs from his future billings in their eyes.

Offenbach had made his money early in life. He was only thirty years old when he became a potential client, a mere three years older than I was. He was not particularly good looking or charming – in fact he had the reputation of being difficult and demanding.

Before our initial meeting with Offenbach Charles Compton called two partners, two associates, and me together in a conference room. "If this first project for Offenbach works out we have a chance for millions of dollars of billings per year. Two other firms have already told him that what he wants to do is not possible; we need to find a way."

"You mean it's something that he just can't buy?" one of the partners asked.

"Yes, and it is something that means more than money to him. His boyhood home is about to become part of an urban renewal project, and the city has rejected all of his offers to buy it or revise the project," Charles continued.

"What's so special about his boyhood home?" one of the associates asked.

"His parents and sister were killed in a private plane crash, and his only tie to his youth is that house. It means more than money to him. So – let's find a hook," Charles said.

He handed a dossier to each of us, assigned the two associates to work together, and the two partners and me to work individually. He had some initial suggestions on what to try, but we were supposed to "get creative." He concluded the meeting with, "Oh, by the way, if we don't have a legitimate request for a TRO on file by tomorrow, the house will be destroyed.

"What?" the five of us groaned in unison.

"Sorry," was all that Charles said in response.

When I got to my desk I looked over the first three documents in the dossier; the third was a photo of the house from an unusual angle. I thought that there was something odd about it. I once again – for the zillionth time in my life – needed Rob's assistance. He worked for a trade association of architectural firms. I scanned the photo, sent it to him by email, and then called him.

"Hi big brother, this is your favorite sister calling for her one billionth favor from you," I started right out in a sing-song voice.

"Are you sure that it's that few?" he laughed.

I described the problem to him. "No big deal, sis. I know just the person. I can have him look at it next week when he gets back from China."

"Uh – bro – I need it today," I groaned.

"You want a miracle?" he chuckled.

"Listen, if there is any way that you can contact him I'll do anything that you ask," I begged.

"A two hour foot rub," he snapped back. He used to make me give him half hour foot rubs when I was a kid and he did something especially nice for me. I pretended to always be turned off by it, although even though I didn't like it I didn't hate it either."

"Four half hour ones," I countered.

"Wow, you really want this bad, don't you?"

"Please, pretty please..." I begged again.

"OK, I'll see what I can do but no promises," he replied then clicked off.

I don't know how he contacted the guy, but I had an emailed response about ninety minutes later from a professor of architecture from Harvard's graduate school. The most important part of his email was: "It is the only remaining example in your city of an unusual architectural style known as 'gilded neoclassical;' actually, I'm surprised that one still exists. It is historic."

I profusely thanked him by return email, insisted that he send my firm a bill, then started legal research. I came up blank for many hours. I called Tim and told him that I wouldn't be home for dinner, and just had a small pizza delivered to my desk. By eleven p. m. I was really tired, but tried one more computer search. When I did my fatigue caused me to misspell both "neoclassical" and "temporary" as in "Temporary Restraining Order." Out of the computer popped the perfect case.

I wrote up a short memo and made copies of the case and email. Though I was euphoric I got a cab home because I was too tired to drive. I woke Tim up, and joyfully fucked his brains out, my fatigue providing a wonderful aphrodisiac.

The next morning with my memo, and copies of the email from the Harvard professor and the prior court decision in which "neoclassical" and "temporary" were both misspelled in the same way that I had misspelled them, I went looking for Charles Compton. He wasn't in his office so I went to the main conference room. There was a guy that I recognized from press photos as James Offenbach, along with another guy who was obviously his bagman/secretary, and two body guards. Offenbach had a snarl on his face.

I went up to him. "Mr. Offenbach, I'm Amy Boston, a paralegal here. I was looking for Mr. Compton because I have some good news for you," I said.

His response was the most rude that I had ever encountered, even when I worked as a stripper.

"What are you, the window dressing around here?" he snarled. "Where's Compton."

"What!" I exclaimed, dumbfounded.

"Unless your 'good news' is that you're going to pull out my dick and suck it, just find Compton for me," he snickered.

I slapped him – hard – turned and stormed out of the conference room. Charles was just walking toward the conference room at that time and apparently saw the slap and me storming out. He must have asked Offenbach about it, and then came to my office.

"I'm sorry that Offenbach offended you, Amy, but you can't go around slapping clients," he said, not cruelly, but not nicely either.

"Well you won't have to worry about that any more Charles, because I quit. No one is ever going to talk to me like that, and since obviously you've sided with him I quit this fucking job." I snarled. Compton was shocked and actually took a step backward.

"His fucking loss, too, because I found a 90% sure hook to get his TRO granted; but I'd rather die that tell him about it now," I virtually screamed as I packed the shit from my desk into a banker's box.

Charles knew me well enough to know that I wasn't lying about either quitting or having the answer to Offenbach's problem. "Is there some way that I can make this right?" he pleaded.

I stopped packing my stuff for a second, looked Compton in the eye, and said "Yeah. The asshole comes up to me, gives me a sincere apology, and begs my forgiveness. You know that I'm an expert at detecting bullshit, and if the apology isn't sincere he can get fucked."

"Please hold on," Compton said as he scurried out of my office.

I continued packing, and when no one had arrived by the time that I had finished I walked to the elevator and pushed the button. Just as the elevator door opened to my shock there was Offenbach, running up to me, sans body guards.

"Amy, wait," he said with desperation in his voice. I got into the elevator. "I want to talk to you," he said, pleading.

"Then you better get into the elevator, we can't make these fine people wait," I said motioning with my head to the startled man and two women already in the elevator.

Offenbach got in with us.

"Listen; uh, I really want to apologize; uh..." he stuttered. He looked uncomfortably at the other three people in the elevator, who were staring intently at us. We had twenty five floors to go before we got to the parking level, and others could get on in the meantime. "Uh, can we go back to your office and talk privately?"

"It wasn't in private that you insulted me, so anything you have to say you can say in front of these fine people," I unsympathetically snapped.

He sighed, and said "I truly am sorry about what I said. That was completely uncalled for. While it isn't an excuse I've been so stressed about this house thing that it has clouded my judgment in a number of areas. I'm not normally like that, and I assure you that I will never insult you again. I don't want you to quit your job just because I was an ass."

I could feel the other three people staring at him even more intently now. The elevator stopped on the fifth floor and one of the women was about to get out when I said to her. "Please, ma'am, could you stay with us. I want to ask the three of you something."

She smiled and got back in. She had obviously been enjoying Offenbach humbling himself.

I turned to the three other passengers and said "The three of you hold the fate of a multi-billionaire in your hands. Do you think that his apology was sincere?"

"I do," said the woman who was supposed to get out on the fifth floor.

"I'm not sure," said the other woman.

"Yeah, I think it was sincere," said the guy.

"Two out of three believe you, Offenbach, but you have to convince number three," I said staring at him. "I have one more question before I decide. Are you apologizing just because I can save your precious boyhood home, or because you truly are sorry for acting like a pig?"

He immediately shot back, "Both; but I am especially sorry for acting like a pig, and I beg your forgiveness."

I looked at the woman who had been unsure just as the elevator reached the garage level. "Do you believe him now?" I asked her?

"Yeah," she nodded, "I think that you should accept his apology.

"OK, I accept," I said staring at Offenbach. "I think that you should reward these three fine citizens who saved your ass."

Offenbach didn't miss a beat. "If the three of you will ride back with us to the forty first floor my secretary will give each of you a $100 bill."

They all smiled and either got back in or stayed in the elevator. Offenbach pushed the "41" button, and I chit-chatted with the three of them on the way back up.

As soon as we got out at 41 Offenbach told them "Please wait here in the lobby," ran to the conference room, and returned with his secretary who gave them each $100. They left with big smiles on their faces.