ALEX SWEPT ME off to New York before I even knew what was happening.

God. New York. I hate New York.

Okay, I concede that New York has some good parts to it. Even if I can't think of any, I know there have to be some good parts. After all, people choose to live there. I mean, it's not like there's a huge wall around the city. Yet.

I think my biggest problem with New York is the people. There are so very, very many people in New York. So many people. All I can think of is that they should leave, already. Get out. Move west. Whatever. As for rudeness, pushiness, whatever, on that scale, I actually think they're a little better than Chicagoans - hey, Chicago people can be downright arrogant (you know I'm talking about you, Barney's Oak Street salesgirl bitch) - but for me, it's the way New Yorkers stare at people. New Yorkers like to people watch, and if they have a comment, they have to comment. It's damn off-putting

Nonetheless, I was so shell shocked over everything that happened that I allowed Alex to plant me in his swanky Upper West Side townhouse without a fuss. It was probably the first time in my life that I'd ever really done what I was told.

I went through the motions like I was hopped up morphine without the benefit of being hopped up on morphine. During the day, I would lay out on his double lot sized patio and worked on my tan. When he'd come home, he'd take me out to ridiculously exclusive and asininely trendy restaurants with his brothers and his sisters-in-law. At night, he'd make gentle, easy love to me. The next morning, the whole thing would begin again.

I was beginning to think I was stuck in a time loop.

Every now and then, something would grab my attention, and I'd remember that I had plans for myself didn't include being either a kept woman or a trophy wife. Family and firm be damned; I'll make my own future, thank you very much.

Then Alex would step in and throw some distraction out of left field. It's as if he could read my mind. First, it was all about the day spas. I got myself all massaged and manied and pedied and plucked and wax and whatnot that I hardly looked like myself. The next round was the stylists and personal shoppers. I soon had a wardrobe, complete with hair and make up. Finally, the sisters-in-law stepped up to bat.

Now, I've known Alex and his entire family all my life. This means that I've known Alex's sisters-in-law- Molly and Amelia - since they entered the lives of his brothers. Both Molly and Amelia live in the city; Molly and Alex's younger brother Julian live down in Chelsea, while Amelia and Alex's older brother Cesare live in the Upper East Side. They own a townhouse with an exterior made entirely of limestone. Freaks me out how rich they are.

Anyway, I'm closer to Molly. I have no idea why. She's nothing like me. But sometimes you meet people and you just click. That's Molly and I. She's one of those flaky rich girls who perpetually see the glass half full and only see the good in people, no matter what. I figure she's the way she is because she never had any adversity in her life.

As it was, she was going through this phase where she's this boho trendy, GOOP reading rich girl wife with her artsy bullshit. She only eats raw food movement and has steadfastly refused to vaccinate her children against childhood diseases. I damn near fell out of my seat when when she told me that diseases were caused by horse manure in the streets. I mean, she went to Princeton, for God's sake.

I will totes laugh when she gets trichinosis and her kids get whooping cough.

Amelia, on the other hand, is one scary bitch. She's this perfect looking icy blonde in her late thirties, and she hails from old, old, old New York money. She's the first person I've met who actually has Long Island lock jaw; it's possible to see her completely engaged in a conversation without never seeing her mouth move once.

She also killed her husband. Yep, that's right. She poisoned him. About ten or twelve years ago, she met Cesare whilst summering in the Hamptons, and they had this awesome hot affair that culminated in her killing her husband. She even went to prison for it, but that's because she refused to hire my family as counsel. She end up serving eight years of a twelve year sentence; once she got out, she immediately married Cesare, and they've been together since. Psycho love, man. It's a beautiful thing.

I'll tell you, It's disconcerting spending time with a woman you knew for a fact poisoned her first husband. It makes lunch time that much more exciting.

Despite her Orange is the New Black adventure, she's still a regular on the society page. It goes to show that when you're beautiful and you can trace your line of descent and cash flow back three hundred years, you can kill your husband and it's all good.

Now, I'm no fool; it was fairly obvious that they were only hanging with me because Alex asked them to. If I had any misconception about this, Amelia cleared it up ASAP. She would say things like, "How old are you again, Siobhan? You're only 19? Of course you are." She always made sure to vary her insults to include my Midwestern heritage, to my educational status, to whatever other kind of weird ass insult she could pull out of her WASPy, inbred mind.

It's not like I took her insults lying down. With every insult Amelia would serve at me, I'd return it by replying, "Tell me, Amelia, how did you handle all the lesbianism in prison? I mean, my generation isn't hung up on labels like gay or straight, but it must have been difficult for you. Were you someone's bitch? Did you ever have to make a shiv?" Then I would segue to why she had to plead out by questioning the competency of her counsel. I mean, my uncle shot my father in the face and he was never even charged.

Eventually it all came to a head when we were out having lunch at this trendy boho place in Tribeca. Amelia started in on me with the whole age and lack of pedigree thing. "So now, Siobhan, when did your family come here?" she asked, expressionless, as she stroked the stem of her white wine glass. "You know, we used to have family retainers that were called McIver. Wouldn't that be funny if your family worked for mine?"

I'm ashamed to say that I snapped. I picked up my salad fork, stabbed the table in front of her. "Shut the hell up, convict."

Molly let loose a groan. "Siobhan. Omigod."

Since she was pregnant, I turned away from Amelia and addressed Molly. "You're not giving birth are you?"

"They're going to kick us out," she muttered, her normally pale cheeks a brilliant shade of red. "It'll be all over the blogs. My mommy and me group won't let me live it down." She gave me a panicked look. "What if this means they take my baby off the Wednesday play date waiting list?"

The Wednesday play date waiting list was a waiting list that upper class New Yorkers put their toddlers on so that they could play with five other children one Wednesday a month. Molly told me it was a two year wait. You had to put your child on the list while your child was still in utero.

Useless. These people are useless. I rolled my eyes and turned back to Amelia. "Where were we, convict?"

I'll say this for her. She didn't really react. She stared at me with her unblinking blue eyes for a few seconds, then said, "Now I see why he's so taken with you. You are something more than tits and ass, aren't you, little girl?"

I reached for Molly's salad fork, but got swatted away. "No, no, no," swatted Molly. "No more stabbing, Siobhan."

"Molly, c'mon. I just want to stab her a little. She'll heal. Eventually."

Amelia smiled - I mean her lips turned up at the edges because smiling is what poor people do - and reached around the fork planted in the table for her wine glass. "I've decided that I'm going to like you," she told me, then took a delicate sip of her beverage.

"Really? Do I get a say in this?" I turned to Molly; however, she was on the phone.

"Hello, this Mrs. Cosetino. No, Mrs. Julian Cosetino. Right. I was checking to make sure that we're still on the Wednesday play date list for our baby. No, I'm in my first trimester, but I want to make sure that everything's still alright. It is? That's great. Thank you so much." She hung up and gave a big sigh. "Everything's still fine," she told us. "It's all fine."

I turned back to Amelia. "I don't understand any of you. None of this makes any sense whatsoever."

Amelia gave me a placid smile. "It wouldn't. You are going to need my help, little girl. You would be wise to take it."

It was my turn to give Amelia an assessing look. "Alright. Let's be friends. But if you say anything wicked about my culture, line of descent, age, or education, I will cut you."

"Agreed." Amelia lifted her glass and gestured to a waiter. "We need another fork."

"Oh, I'm so glad that's all over," Molly sighed. "Do you mind if we stop at Whole Foods? I need some lychee nuts. I just read this great recipe on GOOP for a lychee nut enema."

Anyway, after Amelia and I had our alpha wolf showdown, things got easier. Before long, I fell into a pattern of morning yoga with Molly and a coffee afterwards. Sometimes I would wander the streets to check out the various neighborhoods and find my own special spots; other times, I would meet Amelia in her office at the Met to help her plan some society B.S. event she was in charge of. The evenings were dinners with Alex and his colleagues or brothers, followed by copious amounts of sex.

I felt like I'd fallen in with the Lotus Eaters; everything was so easy, so calm, with nothing to do, nothing to worry about, nothing to achieve, nothing to strive for. One by one, the days passed, I began to forget about goals and instead began worrying about ski vacations and spring fashions.

Fortunately, two events hit me in the face and pulled me out of my stupor. The first was Amelia and Molly's discussion of Labor Day plans. Labor Day? That meant school had been in session for almost 2 weeks. I had missed the start of school. I immediately called Notre Dame, only to find out I had been administratively withdrawn. This got me thinking about my apartment, so I called my landlord.

"Siobhan! I'm so glad to hear from you!" she cried. " I've heard you're engaged!"

I dropped the phone. Engaged? I was? Huh. I picked it back up and said, "Yeah, it was a surprise to me, too. How's my apartment?"

"Well, you know they came for your things last week. I spoke to your fiance Alexander, and he told me you were moving permanently to New York. He paid the rest of the year and told me I could go ahead and lease the apartment."

Everything suddenly turned a hazy shade of red. I took a deep breath, and then another deep breath, and then replied, "I know he said that, but I'd like to keep the apartment for the duration of the lease. I mean, you have the rent, so it shouldn't be any problem, right?"

"Oh no! I'd rather you keep it, Siobhan. You're like a daughter to me, you know that." She paused and I could tell she was lighting a cigarette. "Listen, Siobhan," she exhaled, "it's not my place, maybe, but I gotta say, he seems a little old for you. Are you sure you're making the right decision?"

"No, I'm not sure," I replied. "That's why I want to keep the apartment."

"I'll tell you what my mother always told me. Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." She exhaled, then added, "You're a beautiful girl. Make sure that he loves you because you're you, and not because of your looks."

"That's good advice," I agreed and steered the conversation on to her daughter, a much safer and more pleasant conversation.

So Alex moved me. How about that.

I probably could have probably overlooked the whole faux engagement thing along with moving me out - Alex was notoriously heavy handed, so that was definitely in his wheelhouse - but it was the phone conversation Alex had with my brother Sean that pushed me over the edge.

A few days later, I woke up around 1 am or so, mainly because Alex wasn't in bed. Curious, I got up to find him when I heard my Sean's voice coming from Alex's study. I pushed the door a little and looked through the crack. There was Alex, sitting in his club chair, with Sean's face on the flat screen. So, they were Facetiming. Whatever. I was about to leave them be when I heard my name mentioned.

"Siobhan can be difficult, Alex. I gotta say, thanks for not coming down too hard on Aidan. He didn't mean to hit her."

"I know. I saw it. She clearly provoked him." Alex took a drink and shook the glass. "But still, you let him know that you don't hit my girl. Next time I won't be that forgiving."

"Don't have to. Aidan is a man full of contrition. He has daughters." Sean laughed a little. "It's kind of sad, really. All he was trying to do was help her. He never did understand Siobhan. He doesn't get that she's not like other girls."

"That's the damn truth." Alex got up and made himself another drink.

"So how's she doing?" asked Sean.

"She's settling," Alex replied as he sat back down. "Had some words with Amelia, but other than that, it's been surprisingly easy. I have to say, I was expecting a harder time from her. She must be growing up."

"It was a hard meeting. I don't think I would have handled it as well as she did. Leland was a real son of a bitch to her."

I thought he was, too. Thanks Sean.

"Pat's out of intensive care," Sean continued.

Alex took a drink. "That's nice."

"He lost a kidney. They're saying he might need to have a colostomy bag for the rest of his life."

Visions of Pat wearing a colostomy bag filled my head. What the hell did Alex do? And how awesome was it that Alex did that?

"He shot my girl. He should be grateful he's alive."

"The family understands your anger, Alex, but you should know there are some that think your reaction was a little extreme."

"I could give a shit what your family thinks." Alex yawned and stretched. "He's alive. Be grateful."

Sean cleared his throat. "Yeah, well, there's been talk of negotiating with Constantinov."

Alex perked up. "What? What do you mean, negotiate?"

Sean cleared his throat. That was a tic; something he did when he was nervous. "There's a faction that wants to nullify the contract with you and enter into a new one with Mikhail Constantinov." Sean paused. "He's offering a significant sum of money for her. Apparently Nick went home and told him all about the girl who plays with tigers. They both got a serious hard on for her, Alex. I'm just saying."

Contract? What the fuck? I leaned in closer.

Alex cleared his throat and laughed a little, but clearly he wasn't amused. "That would not be wise. Sean, you tell your family that they don't want to be doing that."

"Alex, this isn't me saying this. I'm just letting you know."

"Yeah, well, here's my answer," Alex leaned forward and put his arms on his knees, "I bought Siobhan from your family, and I own her free and clear. You nullify this contract, and I will rain down hell on you and yours. You got me?"

Bought? Owned? I squeaked, then covered my mouth.

Alex turned. "Siobhan?"

Before he could find me, I ran back to the bedroom, threw off my robe, and jumped into bed. Bought? Owned? My family sold me?

A few minutes later, Alex came into the room. "Siobhan? Baby?"

I didn't answer him.

I heard him undress and felt him crawl into bed next to me. Before he had a chance, I rolled over onto him.

"Where were you?" I asked. "It was dark and lonely."

He kissed me gently. "It was? I'm sorry to hear that."

"You can make up for it."

"I can? That's good. How can I make up for it?

"Let me show you."

There's one sure way to distract a man. It involves getting naked and being really slutty.

The bastard may have bought me, but it wasn't the time to bring it up. That would come tomorrow. We'd have words tomorrow. Followed by some action. 

There will most certainly be violence.

_____ * _____ * _____ * _____ * _____

Now it makes sense, in a twist sort of way. Alex, Alex, Alex. You bad, bad man.

Thank you so much for taking time to read Siobhan's story! I look forward to your comments, and if you liked it, please remember to vote!

©Copyright Liz Charnes May 2018

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