The Heiress
inuxxian@gmail.com
What Hayley reads when she's bored

We were all scared of her, even when she was a little girl. Even
then--hanging onto her daddy's hand while they stepped out of one of
his limousines or helicopters or restaurants--she would make us ask
for our tips. Her father gave her money to tip the chauffeurs and
valets and waiters and servants, but she wouldn't give it to us unless
we asked for it. It was such a small way to be cruel, but she was only
little.

Even then she had that face, the one she still has now--like a
perfectly composed evil doll. She would laugh with her friends--the
other mogul's daughters, the brittle little gang of bitches--but when
she looked at us she was always glassy, distant, like she was looking
at bugs. That didn't change until she was a teenager, when she started
thinking it was fun to flirt with us. She was an excellent flirt,
too--always subtle but always clear. She liked to have a little more
wine than her father thought and bat her eyelashes at the waiters at
parties. Supposedly some people actually went further than that with
her--she'd have favorites, we all knew that, though they usually
weren't her favorite for much more than a week--but I doubt they got
all that far. Her flirting always felt like target practice.

By then, of course, she was better than rich; she was famous. I don't
know when the first tabloid called her the embodiment of the American
dream but it was before her eighteenth birthday. She really WAS
California, though: blonde, leggy, tan, party-crazy, promiscuous. And
rich. Incredibly rich, what the National Enquirer eventually called
"kill-you-for-fun rich". (She liked that one.) There was a basically
unending stream of photographers in the house, setting up screens and
adjusting costumes and gleefully taking pictures of her while she
pouted and played for them--for Vanity Fair, Glamour, Vogue,
everything. She did sleep with some of the photographers, I know
that. I think she couldn't resist someone whose entire job was adoring
her. I walked in on her, once, with one of them, in one of the living
rooms after a shoot. Everyone else had left and she was on the couch
with the photographer, giving him greedy, preening kisses. When the
photographer pointed past her at me I remember she lolled her head
back to look, and smirked when she saw me.

"He won't tell," she said, and went back to kissing.

She was right; I didn't. I wanted to, if only out of resentment that
she assumed she owned me. But it would have meant losing my job, the
one I've had for years--it would have meant losing her father. And
besides, she did own me. She'd owned me from birth.

I was close to her father. People always assumed he was some kind of
completely disconnected aristocrat, but he was always kind to
me. After the accident he raised my salary--said I shouldn't have to
worry about money without a wife. And he made his daughter do that
public service announcement. She sat there misty-eyed on camera
talking about the death of someone so close she was like family (I
don't think she actually knew her fucking name) and why you should
never drink and drive, and I stood in the corner and watched--and then
the director said CUT and the tears seemed actually to suck back into
her eyes and she looked, again, utterly bored, and she looked me in
the eyes and silently lolled out her tongue.

Her father's funeral was hard for me. I was in the back, watching them
carry up the coffin; she was somewhere up front, of course. She was
incredibly tan. She'd been in Dubai for a week with some dumb kid in a
rock band who probably couldn't believe his luck. He wasn't with her
now; I figured she'd gotten bored. When she walked past me on her way
into the church she was puffy-eyed for the cameras but she smelled of
chlorine--she'd swum that morning. She was now one of the richest
people in the world. And you have to know her, to have watched her
grow up, to know how true this is: to her that church aisle was a
runway.

He hadn't deserved a daughter like her. I cried, standing in the back
of the church. And in the motorcade on the way back--not in the same
car, of course; she'd slid into something with tinted windows and two
of her blank sycophant friends--I was seething about it. That
everything he'd built should be handed over to the spoiled sociopath
his dead wife had hatched. That someone who'd worked so hard to drag
himself up from nothing should be remembered in a girl who when she
was six years old--six!--said to me, because she'd seen something on
TV, that I was her bitch. And who in thirteen years since then had
kept the same face and the same mind--and now other girls see HER on
TV.

There was another reason, too. I had worked for him for so long--this
was not why I'd stayed, but I thought it had been understood that
something would be left me. But there was nothing. Not even a mention
of me. I'd expected the spotlight in the booth to turn to me for a
second, when they read whatever he'd said about me. But it stayed on
her. She tanned in spotlights.

I couldn't say anything that day because the house was still swarming
with people, but the next morning, around eleven, it was gaping and
empty and quiet, and I felt his absence for the first time. The house
was a kingless castle. I found her in her father's study, tipped back
in a chair, with her bare feet on his desk, reading something in a
manila folder. She was wearing a thin robe, hanging open, and
underneath only a swimsuit--something she'd modeled, I don't know. She
used to hang around the house in what she'd modeled.

"I want to talk to you," I said.

She looked over the edge of the folder and smirked. "Hi Brad." (My
name's Bradley; she's called me Brad since she was ten.) "Whassup?"

"Did you go swimming this morning?"

"Morning exercise is important, Brad."

"Your father's funeral was today."

"Really? I thought that was the Chanel afterparty."

"You can't--"

"It had that same kind of bummer vibe." She turned a page in the
folder and looked at whatever was in it with more interest than I'd
ever seen her look at anything. She was insulting her father on
purpose, of course, because she knew what it would do to me. But I
couldn't help becoming angry, hearing her talk like that; when she
looked at me again it was with the happy-cat expression she always
gets when she knows she's upset someone. A slight false pout, a
glinting eye.

"Are those your father's files?"

"Actually they're mine. Along with this room, by the way, so take off
your shoes."

"All the files have to be--"

"I said TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES, or you're going out with the fucking
turnover."

I had never heard her be so direct. We'd always been a game to her but
she'd never been a manager. She wasn't smiling; she'd put the folder
down and was staring at me, past the toes she was wriggling on the oak
desk. For a moment no one said or did anything, and then I went to one
knee--she made me go to my KNEE--in front of the desk and began to
untie my shoes. What else could I do?

"Good boy," she said when I started to untie. I slid out of them, felt
the cool, slippery wood floor under my socks, put the shoes by the
corner of the desk. She looked up. "No shoes in the house," she
said. "New rule."

I didn't say anything. I thought maybe if I didn't open my mouth about
it I could hold on to my dignity.

"Anyway since you're so intested in the files, they're about me."

"You."

"They're the results--and they have a LOT of detail, it's really
cool--of a psychological evaluation someone ordered on me."

Something somewhere inside me suddenly started to panic.

"Which says a whole lot of bad stuff about me. Like REALLY mean
stuff." She looked at a page. "At least I think so. Is sociopath the
same as psychopath?"

I was standing very still. I'd ordered the thing, of course--she knew
I'd ordered it. Her father had been sick and I hadn't known what to
do. She was flipping through the folder. "Anyway it looks pretty
serious," she said. "Which is why it's kind of funny that Daddy never
opened it." She tapped the torn blue tape on one edge and joke-frowned
at me. "I guess you can't get to everything."

I'd wanted him to know, before he died--to have it clear, on paper,
before it was too late. She was sliding her feet off the desk and
leaning forward, her blonde hair falling across the robe. "So what can
I do for you, Brad?"

She was changing the subject. I couldn't believe it. "I--it's about
the will."

"Oh." She smiled.

"There's--"

"Yeah. There's no money for you in it."

She was being flippant, of course, but I had to keep going. "I had
thought that he would--"

"He probably would. Then I told him about you molesting me."

It was like being hit. "You what?"

"I told him," she said, leaning forward with her elbows propped on the
desk and the little gold necklace with her first initial dangling in
front of the top half of the swimsuit, "about the time you put your
hands down your pants when I was 14 and told me I was your little
princess." She bit her lip. "It was pretty intense--his EKG was going
crazy and everything. He wanted to call the cops on you but I thought
changing the will was enough. So you're welcome."

"You--that never happened!"

"It didn't?" She made a confused face for a moment. "Oh, you're
totally right." She drummed her fingers on the folder, looked at it,
and looked, slowly, at me, with the same eyes she'd always had. "I
guess I'm a pathological liar."

I could barely speak. She laughed, pushed the chair from the desk,
stood up, and walked around to me, robe swirling. "God," she said,
"what did you even think was gonna happen? Were you trying to get him
to put me in a hospital or something?"

"I just thought--"

She was grinning. "Were you waking up in the morning imagining me in a
straitjacket?"

"I was worried about you."

"That's so sweet." She stepped forward, put one long tan arm around my
neck, purred at me in a parody of lustfulness. "You're SO thoughtful."
Everything in my body was alive. I had to fight to keep my breathing
steady. She'd never come so close to me before. Her lips were in a
glossy smirk. The hand behind my back was stroking the skin between my
shoulderblades, making my hair stand up.

"I--"

"Am I making you uncomfortable?" Half a giggle. "You know," she
whispered, her nose practically touching mine now, "it also says in
there I have a problem respecting people's personal space."

Her other hand was crawling down my stomach, towards my waist, tracing
the edge of my belt. "What are you doing?" was the first thing I
managed to get out.

She grinned, leaned forward to rest her forehead against mine, and
didn't move her eyes from mine. She was whispering only just loud
enough for me to hear.

"Enjoying my inheritance," she said, and kneed me in the crotch.

I went down in half a second and she let me drop, collapse into a
groaning pile on the floor. She leaned against the desk and
giggled. "God, I've been wanting to do that since I was like five."
Head back, mouth open, corrupt little laugh. I couldn't move; my
stomach felt like it had been overfilled with cement. She was going
back around the desk and opening another file. "Hey, you wanna hear
how much money I got?"

I groaned.

She cleared her throat. "'To my beautiful daughter'--aw, thanks,
Daddy--'I leave a portion of my estate in the total of 1.2 billion
dollars." She hung her mouth open wide in cartoon surprise. "So I'm a
billionaire. Let's let that one sink in."

"You don't deserve that," I muttered. "You fucking bitch. You never
deserved it."

She tossed the paper to the table and giggled. "I think some of that
money used to be yours, by the way. One of the companies too, I
think. Something small, I don't remember. Anyway."

"He was ashamed of you. He was always ashamed."

"Oh my God stop wanting to suck my dad's dick already. Don't you owe
it to what's-her-name?"

Everything stiffened, even the pain. "Betsy."

"Betsy, that's right." She was taking something out of the drawer; I
couldn't see what. It went below the desk as she walked around. "God,
you WOULD marry a Betsy. Remember that commercial I had to do?"

"Don't talk about her."

"That was no fucking fun at all. Plus I was fucking blazed out of my
mind."

"What?"

She was in front of me now; I was looking up at her. One of her hands
was behind her back. "I don't know why nobody complained. I was 16 or
whatever. I was stoned out of my SKULL. I'm amazed I got it on tape
without laughing."

I hated her. We'd all feared her but I'd always hated her. "You shut
your fucking mouth."

"Would you stop your desperate self-righteous thing for once in my
fucking life? You think you were my dad's best fucking friend. And
you're so sad he's dead."

"You have no idea how close I was--"

"You just want fucking MONEY, Brad. Like me. Like everyone. Except
you're the one who doesn't fucking get any. Which is why you're
fucking SAD."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I bet you're sadder than when Betsy died."

It was like something broke open in me and the rage spilled over my
insides. "Shut the FUCK UP." I stood up--wobbling, but I did. She
wouldn't hit me again; she was done intimidating me. "You think you
have my respect because of your father? You're fucking scum and you
always were." I was standing over her now, or trying to, but she
wasn't more than a hair shorter than me. "And I don't have to work for
a brat like you for one more fucking second."

She looked surprised. I'd shaken her. I was always stronger than her.

"Wow, OK," she said, "THIS is gonna surprise you."

One fist leapt forward and crunched into my nose; I spun around; she
put two hands on my shoulders and slammed me down on the desk; my chin
hit the oak and nearly broke my skull.

"What the FUCK--"

Her elbow came down on my spine and the pain wriggled through me like
worms. "First of all, you're getting a pay cut. My lawyer advised ten
percent, but I'm going with a hundred." Another elbow, this time to my
skull; it smashed my broken nose into the desk again. I howled. "And
if you ever try to quit, and if you ever talk to anyone about
anything, out comes the story of why you didn't get anything from
Daddy."

"They won't fucking believe you. No one will fucking believe
you. You're good for a fucking photoshoot but--"

Behind me there was the sound of something cinching, something leather
being pulled tight. I tried to look around but she grabbed me by the
hair and slammed me down again.

"It's not really a 'believe' thing, genius boy. The LAPD? Kinda
corrupt." The sound of a buckle. "Me? Kinda rich. Hey I have a
question." My nose was dribbling blood onto the table. I didn't have
the strength to lift my head. "Have you ever been fucked in the ass
with a strap-on?"

"WHAT?" I had the strength after all; I twisted around and caught one
glimpse of it--huge, rubber, PURPLE--slung around her hips; she
smashed me in the ribs and pressed me back down to the table.

"Really, no?" she said from behind me. "Huh. Well this is gonna be
really special then."

"What are you doing what are you doing WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I had no
idea when she'd gotten so strong. I couldn't move. I wriggled while
she unbuckled my belt and let my pants fall to my ankles.

"Oh, sorry," she said, "did you not read my file?" She bent her head
down to whisper in my ear while she tugged down my underwear. "Turns
out I'm really into this stuff. I think it called them dominance
fantasies. Cute boxers, by the way." I felt the head of the
thing--cold, rubbery, hard--press against my skin, start to slip
inside. "I was gonna use lube," she said, "but I'm trying to save
money." Then she shoved herself inside me.

I don't even know how much I screamed. She told me later that I'd made
noises she'd never heard before--"like someone put some sobbing in a
blender". Every time she thrust in to the hilt--till I could feel the
fucking rubber harness against my skin--it was the worst thing I'd
ever felt. I don't know how many places I was tearing in. A hand came
down on my right cheek, harder than anyone had ever hit me before, but
it got lost in the pain.

"GOD this is fun." She pulled back--slower this time--and plunged in
again. While she was pulling out she giggled. "You should see all the
blood back here." God, I'd been praying I'd been imagining it. "We're
probably gonna have to take you to a doctor. We can tell him you got
raped in prison." Her laughs were these delighted bubbles of girly
glee. She was still sliding in and out, all the way, slowly, still
breaking something every time. I screamed, she talked.

"Because it's not like I want you to die.

I totally want you to stick around. I mean I've known you my whole
life.

And--you're totally gonna think this is sick, but--

--I think the first time I really had this dream I was only like 10.

This like, AMBITION. Or aspiration or whatever.

I wanted to live in a castle and fuck you up the ass." Huge burst of
laughter here. She was throwing back her head, I could tell. The laugh
became a parody of a laugh, then a real laugh again. The indignity of
the pain becoming less was somehow worse than the pain.

"God, dude, you are like starting to OOZE," she said when she'd put
her head down. "Like, dark blood. Dangerous territory. Let's take a
break. You wanna take a break?"

I couldn't speak. I don't think I was making any sounds. I know I was
awake.

"Let's take a break." She slid out and didn't slide in again. I could
see her walk around the desk, the thing strapped to her obscenely
stiff. God, it WAS bloody. "It's not gonna be like this every time, I
promise." She was riffling through a Rolodex on the desk, the rubber
still standing at attention. "This was just to pop your cherry." She
picked up the phone--I could hear the click, and the hum, and the
sounds of the buttons as she pressed them. "You're gonna like this
guy. Bev Hills doctor. Twenty-five, just out of med school. Totally
wants me." Her voice changed. "Hi! Stephen! I know I said I'd never
call you at home. I knowwwwww. I'm bad." She'd dipped into a cartoon
sulk. "It's REALLY important though. I think someone just got
prison-raped in my study."

A pause for whatever Stephen said. Then a huge laugh. "Yes I DO have a
study now. I fucking know." I think she was running a hand through my
hair, like petting me. Her other hand was on her hip. Something was
dripping off the curved purple head of her cock. "But come over, it's
an emergency." Another pause. "Oh my God Stephen no it is not a SEX
EMERGENCY. Well I mean it is. Just not for me." She was laughing
again. "Just come over." Then the click, still giggling, and she
started to walk around the desk again. "They do not teach these guys
manners in med school. Although Stephen's one of those guys I kinda
suspect just went for the surgery. Oh for fuck's sake, I know you
can't fight me or anything but could you get out of the fucking
position? You look like someone's painting you."

I could stand up. It was like I had forgotten to. She was standing
there, arms folded over her chest, smiling, when I turned around. Her
eyes flicked down and she almost giggled. "Wow. Think you're stiffer
than me there." I looked down. Oh God. Oh God where did that come
from. She was was making a face when I looked up--an impression of a
nurse's sympathy. "Did you pretend it was my dad?"

I was leaning on the desk--I still couldn't speak; I could barely
stand. I didn't want to touch anything behind me. I'd sat with him in
this study; I'd helped him. Now all there was was her. He'd been
replaced by a promiscuous psychopath sneering for Vogue cover shoots
in mesh shirts. Who'd never known a second when she wasn't a princess,
and who was now a queen. That was what it was: my king was dead. Long
live my queen.

She stepped forward, the thing still poking angrily in front of
her. She put one hand on the top of my head, and pressed down, and my
knees buckled, and I was sitting against the desk and the thing was in
front of my face.

"You can pretend this is too," she said. And two fingers came down to
close my nose, and my mouth opened, and the sour-metal taste of what
she was covered in flooded onto my tongue.

She only made a few thrusts here before she let me fall, and pulled
out, with spiderwebs of saliva stretching out and breaking as she
did. While she unbuckled the thing and put it on his desk the sound of
crunching gravel was coming from the carport outside--faint, in this
wing, but audible. She looked out the window, over my shoulder. God,
she hadn't even closed the curtains.

"Oh, those are the Cosmo guys," she said. She patted me on the
shoulder. "Doing a shoot today. I know that's totally weird
scheduling. They decide these things like a year in advance." She was
walking towards the door now, leaving me at the desk. "I'll send
Stephen up to pick you up. Enjoy the car ride because I don't think
you're gonna leave the house again." The robe was shrugging off,
pooling in a little pile of silk on the floor; she was in only the
bathing suit now, and I could see her long tan back and long
National-Enquirer-obsession legs, and between, the thing it was always
rumored her father had insured for a million dollars, which he never
had, covered by tight white fabric with her initials in wispy cursive,
which he probably had. And at the top of her back, just below her
neck, the small full-color tattoo that had been on the front page of
at least three different papers in the supermarket for a week: the
little red crown.

"Also come on, admit it." She was at the door and she looked over her
shoulder to me and grinned. "It hurts way worse than it did when your
wife died."

It did. She saw she was right, laughed one more time, turned back,
opened the door, and went out to meet the press. And all I could think
about was that little girl, looking into my eyes, and telling me I was
her bitch.