Blood Red

Of course, not everyone in the town was disgustingly wealthy; it just looked that way to the uninitiated. Someone had to serve those who ruled and it would hardly be convenient if the hired help had to drive for several hours to get to work. The flow of tourists that poured into Black Stone Bay to see the sights, eat at the numerous restaurants, and blow their money was as large as would be anticipated in any town that had ample seaside views and spacious hotels. That was to be expected, during the summer at least, and sometimes even in the fall, when the leaves changed.

And they needed servants, too; local help that could be hired at a reasonable rate. The town had a lot of blue-collar laborers; it just knew how to hide them from plain sight.

All in all, Black Stone Bay was relaxed and tended to stay that way. The people—whether inordinately wealthy or merely well-off—lived their lives from day to day with the usual numbers of problems and solutions. Certainly the people attending the two universities had their own concerns.

Neither the Winslow Harper University of Arts and Sciences nor the Sacred Dominion University were known for allowing anyone to stay in their programs without being exceptional. The student bodies paid dearly for the privilege of attending and they worked hard or they lost their money. Both of the schools were Ivy League caliber—or “Potted Ivy” as the locals called them with tongues firmly planted in cheeks—and both were acknowledged for their excellence on a yearly basis. All in all, however, the people were comfortable with their positions in life; maybe not always happy, but comfortable.

Mary Margaret Preston, or Maggie if she knew a person well enough, could have told anyone who asked all about the people of Black Stone Bay; she’d lived there all her life. The young lady in question actually attended Winslow Harper and was in the top five percent of her class. Like most of the students, she worked her ass off to keep those grades. Unlike the vast majority, she also worked a job to pay her way. Maggie had more sense than to work at a restaurant, a bank, or in any number of jobs that would have left her financially strapped and worried about paying the outrageous tuition fees. She had managed to find employment that let her choose her hours and paid well enough that she seldom felt financially desperate.

Maggie was a prostitute. Not a hooker. Hookers don’t make the sort of money Maggie did. She had no illusions about the work. It was a job, and it paid well. There were risks, to be sure, but most forms of employment have risks. And in the long run it was a means to an end.

Maggie had always been careful. She came from a large family—was the baby, in fact—and was the first member of the clan to ever actually make it to college. She might want children in the future, but they weren’t on her current agenda and she didn’t intend to add them to her roster of things she had to do. Also, the list of diseases she wanted nothing to do with was large, and a good number of them were sexually transmitted.

Protection was worn or nothing happened. She had Tom to make sure of that. A ridiculous portion of her money went to Thomas Alexander Pardue—Monkey Boy to Maggie, but never to his face—to ensure that he picked the right sort of clients for her. Failure to pay his exorbitant rates could also result in a few tragic encounters with Tom’s fists or even a knife blade. Maggie tried not to dwell on that part of their arrangement. He’d done things to a few of the girls over the years and she knew he’d do it again if he didn’t get his way.

In exchange for his fees, he got her a clientele that could afford to pay handsomely for her services and worried about getting caught with her as surely as she worried about her career choice being exposed. The thing about getting a good education from a superior school was that the university had an ethics committee. If she was busted and they found out, she could lose her place at the school and her standing in the society she wanted to join.

Of course she’d been of professional use to most of the committee, so that wasn’t really too much of a problem, but she liked to keep up appearances.

Maggie knew the score. She was a good student and she was a call girl. The two worked well for her. Both were temporary. She liked sex, but she wasn’t a raving nymphomaniac. She also looked at actual relationships as something entirely different from the work she did. For the present time she did not date, had no desire to date, and would not let herself fall for anyone. Not even the dozen or so very powerful men who’d offered to make her life incredibly comfortable. She was doing just fine without their help, and saw no reason to give up her chosen lifestyle.

Monkey Boy knew the score too, though he kept trying to break the rules. Sometimes she had to let him succeed. She was still recovering from his latest need to show her who was the boss.