Chapter 2 - Selfish Seduction

Sleep wasn't exactly the easiest thing to grab a hold of that night. With her blood boiling and her skin crawling with sensitivity, the very sheets on her bed scratched her into awareness every time she turned onto her side. But eventually sheer exhaustion did her in, and she dropped into a dreamscape.

What APPEARED in her dreamscape, however, didn't surprise her in the least.

Dang. The man sure knew how to wear some swim trunks.

If daytime Rhiannon couldn't get any satisfaction, then perhaps her dream self could. But no. Truman reasoned to her that he was too exhausted for anything.

Typical man. He was probably gay anyway.

The next several days passed in an odd haze. She spent the majority of her days at the film studio and the majority of her nights visiting every bar that Bridgeport had to offer.

Waylon's Haunt continued to be a favorite of hers, however. The sheer crustiness of most of the individuals there was refreshing, in a way.

And the men were always incredibly attractive, that too.

After her first disasterous night with Mr. Truman Love, Rhiannon resisted the temptation to pick up strange men in bars and to take them straight home. A single woman living in as crummy an apartment as she was couldn't afford the risk just yet, not even if the man DID have such a tempting name as Barry Tenderlove. There were times that Rhi thought she'd dropped into a soap opera, given the names of the men that she met around here.

There WAS an interesting night several days in, however, when Rhiannon ran into her boss just outside of a new lounge that evening, one she'd decided to dress to the nines for.

"Rhiannon?" Alan Stanley called, approaching her. "Well, fancy seeing you here! What brings you by?"

It didn't seem like the wisest decision to tell Mr. Stanley that she was really here to drink away a lot of her frustration at the fact that she'd been passed over for a promotion today. "Oh, you know...thought I'd relax a little after work."

"Well, you look beautiful." His eyes flicked over her, though in a more nervous way than lecharous, and Rhiannon studied him in curiosity. "You could fit in with Bridgeport's elite, looking like that."

A comment like that could only serve to give Rhiannon a little idea. Mr. Stanley, he was on his way to becoming a world-famous director. His name MEANT something around this city, to the point where people gawked at him where he passed and slid discounts his way. If she could use him to develop a celebrity reputation of her own...wouldn't that only help her chances at getting a promotion and eventually winning fame and fortune?

A sly smile slid across Rhi's painted lips. "Thank you, sir. That's too kind of you. Are you going up?"

"I am, actually."

"Would you honor me with a drink?"

The man had no idea what he was getting into, really.

Rhiannon slid onto a barstool and leaned in close to the bartender, dropping her voice significantly. "I want you to give me whatever drink you have that has the potential to turn a man's blood into wine."

Bless her heart, the bartender understood the cryptic phrase perfectly and soon presented her with two goblets of a fizzing beverage. Rhiannon took a testing sip and immediately knew she'd chosen well.

Not even an hour passed before Mr. Stanley's stares became less nervous. Instead, they lingered, taking in her toned arms, or the shape of her hips beneath her dress, or the curve of her breasts. His speech became slightly slurred. It was when he reached forward and gently began to caress her forearm, mystified by it, that Rhiannon knew her job was done. "Do you want to come home with me, Mr. Stanley?"

"I shouldn't," he slurred, eyes a little bleary behind his glasses as he looked up and into her own gaze. "But I do."

By the time that they arrived at her apartment, Mr. Stanley was far gone, and Rhiannon realized she'd greatly miscalculated her plans. He was an older man, not one with the vitality that she still had. Though she could handle repeated drinks like that, he looked like he was about to keel over. As Mr. Stanley stumbled into her bathroom, Rhiannon rubbed at her forehead and sighed. "Shit."

The night ended far less intimately than she had originally planned, that was for sure.

The next morning, as Mr. Stanley continued to sleep, Rhiannon rose and cleaned up a bit of her apartment. The sink burst out of nowhere, as to be expected when this place was such a pile of shit anyway.

Rhiannon reasoned that her subsequent seduction of her boss might be a little more effective if she was soaked through anyway.

Just as she was finishing up making her best waffles, she heard a shuffling from her bedroom and looked over.

Mr. Stanley looked absolutely terrified as he entered the living room. He peered around every which way, taking in the less-than-quality furniture and the view from the windows, before he finally noticed Rhiannon. His eyes grew huge. "Oh, I-"

"Don't be afraid to look, Mr. Stanley," she murmured, angling her body to display it at its best. "You weren't afraid to have a look last night."

"Shit." Mr. Stanley dragged his hand down his face with a groan. "Do I even want to know what happened last night?"

"Probably not." She set a plate of waffles down in front of him before she took one for herself.

They ate in a tension-filled silence for several moments before Mr. Stanley looked up at her again. "Rhiannon, if you want some...some kind of compensation or-"

She chuckled and nudged her hair out of her face, meeting his eyes. "You really don't have a clue why you're here, do you?"

He stared at her before he shook his head and stood up, walking to the sink to wash his plate.

"You're here..." she began, slithering out of her own seat and approaching him. "...because I like you." Rhi leaned against the counter, so close to him that her breasts brushed against his arm, and quirked a brow. "I like you a lot."

Mr. Stanley looked at her out of the corner of his eye, his breath catching in his throat.

"And I wanted to see if maybe you felt the same way."

"Now, Rhiannon, you're...you're beautiful. Plumbob, you're GORGEOUS, but I...I-I don't know if-"

She shut him up with a kiss, and the second that Mr. Stanley's breath caught again she knew that she had him.

Even if he hadn't been as old as he was, the whole experience was far more difficult than it should have been. He was afraid to touch her. He looked at her with a kind of reverence, like this was a dream that could never be happening, but he eventually became so paralyzed by the entire moment that Rhi had to take it in her own hands once again.

As she expected it might be, it was over far too quickly for her own satisfaction, and Mr. Stanley dropped into a shallow sleep immediately. It left her to stare up at the canopy of her bed, catching her breath and thinking.

Would this be enough of a potential scandal to get her a promotion, she wondered, or at least a raise?

Mr. Stanley left in a haze of awkwardness a short time later, and Rhiannon busied herself around the house for the day before she took herself back to bed, thoughts still churning in her mind.

What was the best way that she could manipulate this for her own good, she wondered. Did she lie and say she had some kind of photographic evidence? How did she approach it?

She woke up that night with a churning stomach.

Plumbob, no. Something was wrong. Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.