Hello to all the new followers and readers! I'll be posting this chapter today and one tomorrow, then we'll probably get on a schedule of a few chapters a week ;)

The Beginning

Good morning, one and all, and welcome to this little slice of the internet. I'll be your host while you hang about here. The website is new, so no doubt there'll be bugs-a-plenty, but don't let that put you off. While we all settle in, I'll tell you about myself and try not to let it sound like a dating ad.

I'm coming up twenty-one soon, but I've made my family promise not to throw me a party. I know, it's a rite of passage and all that jazz, but that's just not me. Anyway, I'm a bit eclectic and a lot eccentric, but I think that just adds to my character. My parents think I have a bit of a potty mouth, but I call it an evolution of words (they're in the dictionary, right?).

My Mom and I have a serious addiction to UK TV shows. If we're not on the phone talking about them, we're tagging each other in pictures associated with the shows. As I said, major addiction.

I've been working with this magazine for nearly a year now, doing odds and ends around the place, but with a new boss and now the website, I've been given a new job.

Because books and reading seem to have taken off (who knew that would happen‽), I was originally tasked with reviewing books that had just been released. After I read through a few of them, I refused, though. Honestly, there was no way I could, in good conscience, unleash these books on you all.

I'm going to give you a rundown of the issues I have with these books instead. It may sound a tad boring and mundane, but eventually, one has to see the funny side once they've read about too many 'milking cocks and pert mounds.'

I'll be gentle with you all and try to ease you into this, I promise. At the same time, I'd love to see what you think of the posts each week. So please leave a comment, and I'll see you every Friday!

Bella

**Editorial Note from the boss**

After reviewing the next few posts to follow, it has become clear that this section of the website is for ADULTS ONLY, and for people who don't have a weak disposition to adult content.

**Note from Bella**

Quit leaving notes, Bossman, it detracts from the articles!

.

~Princess~

The beginning of every story should be riveting enough to hook the reader and keep them hooked. I'm so sorry to disappoint you. I'd love to give you some gut-wrenching back story or a steaming-hot love scene, but I would fail. Instead, I'm stuck in a staff meeting, looking at my nails and trying to work out why I wore stockings this morning with a silver spider web pattern on them. It wasn't even close to Halloween yet.

I did have a somewhat adventurous morning. That's always a bonus, I suppose. Since I was running late, I decided to wear my roller skates to the store. You see, I'd run out of milk. If there's one thing you must know about me, it's that I can barely function unless I have my coffee in the morning. So, yes, I needed the milk. The trip to the shop was okay. I was keeping a steady pace and all that jazz. On the way home, however, was a slightly different matter.

Some idiot whistled at me when he drove by. I've already said I don't function well without coffee, right? So, when I went to flip him the finger, I forgot I wasn't exactly well-balanced, milk in one hand but nothing in the other, so there I went, flying and flailing around like some drunk idiot walking home from a frat party. Actually, when I say I went flying, well, I did this strange 'on the spot' dance where my feet and legs wouldn't agree with my brain when it told them to stay still.

I ended up on the sidewalk, right next to a pile of doggy doo-doo—dirty fuckers, not cleaning up after their pooches—and head-butting a post box. Out of all the air I 'danced' around in, my head managed to hit something solid. Just my fucking luck.

Then I had to go to work, where I got bored. I shouldn't have been, though. As far as work meetings go, this one was shaping up to be the most interesting one to date, except I was stuck between a pair of bickering old women and Aro, my soon to be ex-boss.

A small point in my favor: I'd managed to keep my mouth shut for the last hour, but that was only going to last for so long. I'm a nice person, I promise, but on days like this? I feel as though the Devil in me might come out through my mouth.

Honestly, I'm not a nasty person, not at all. So, saying I have a bit of the Devil in me might be going a bit far, but I have my reasons. After being nasty to my Grandmother when I was a ridiculously small child—about four, I think—she insisted I had "...a touch of the Devil in me." Now I use that as an excuse when I want to be bitchy about something.

"If you're going, then I'm going, too. I'm not waiting around for some snotty-nosed college kid to come in here and start lording it about the place," Gertrude bitched, peering over the top of her half-rimmed glasses.

And here comes the blue rinse brigade on their high horses. I thought, fighting hard to keep me from snorting out loud.

I might sound a bit catty here, but you'll see it soon enough. Nancy and Gertrude are the worst when it comes to gossip and bitching about people. You can't cough, sneeze, or fart in this town without them telling everyone.

Gertrude, the ringleader, is the bitchiest. It seemed to me that just because she was old, like in her early seventies or so, she thought it gave her a license to be rude to everyone she met. She bitched about their clothes, hairstyles, everything down to not washing the curtains and how dirty they were. Nancy wasn't too bad, but she was getting there. She liked to parrot everything Gertrude said and had this knack of looking down her nose at you until you ended up feeling an inch big.

I bet they were both the typical popular bitches you saw in high school when they were younger. The ones that got the good-looking guys were the most popular, and who had Daddy pay for them to go on holiday to whatever destination they wanted. Except now they're nothing more than bitches with wrinkles.

"Or I, Aro. I'm sorry, but I can't stay if this newer model comes in. We have set ways of doing things, and we barely managed with this one," Nancy said, pointing her wrinkly finger at me. "It's taken me months to train her how to brew a proper pot of tea, let alone use the typewriter," she finished, her nose in the air a little when she looked over at me.

See my point? They're heinous towards me.

"Hey! First off, no one under the age of sixty uses a teapot anymore, and second, when was the last time anyone, and I do mean anyone, used a typewriter?" I argued back from my hard-backed, old-fashioned wooden chair. If I had one way to describe this office, it was classic Dick Tracy. No word of a lie, it was like a flashback from the thirties, and I damn well hated it. So, did my back.

"I don't need to hear the opinion of some little schoolgirl who changes her hair color more than her panties," Gertrude cut in, and I didn't know whether I wanted to throttle the old bag or laugh. I stuck to the non-violent route.

"For your information, I change my panties plenty, and they're only clip-in hair colors. I like to change the color depending on what mood I'm in but hate dying my hair all the time," I grouched, but before the old hag could say anything else, Aro cut in, bless his heart.

"I understand that this is a big upheaval, but it's going to happen, nonetheless. In a months' time, Mr. Cullen will be taking over this place, the magazine, and of course, if you're still here, he'll be your boss. From what I've seen, he's a very capable young man, and his father speaks highly of him. I made sure that I secured your jobs for at least the next two years, but that's dependent on whether you actually want to stay here or not. The boys in the printing room are happy to stay, so it just comes down to you three," Aro finished while making his way over to the little station with the kettle and tea bags on it.

God forbid that you want coffee in this place. No, I had to provide my own coffee machine. Anyhoo, the poor sod looked so old. I mean, he was old but was showing it more so recently. You could feel the tension coming from him, and he just looked drained.

"Well, I'm going when you are, Aro. I just can't work without you," Gertrude clucked, and I nearly choked on my gum when she stood up to run her finger down his arm. She was ancient and wrinkly and coming onto him like a twenty-something-year-old woman. Aro was no better. He was married!

"He's a married man, Gertrude, leave him alone." I sniggered as I stood up, hugged the old bugger, and grabbed my bag. I was sad I'd have a new boss, but at the same time, I hoped that with a little modernization, this magazine would continue. It would be a stretch, but we could do it. I'd need to plead with the boss for a new computer because Windows 95 just wasn't cutting it anymore if you know what I mean. I would've used my own laptop, but the software Aro used wouldn't work on it.

I daydreamed all the way home, all ten minutes' walk of it, thinking about what I'd like from my job if I stayed. All I'd done so far was half-assed attempts at making cups of tea and learning the slow way of filing all the stories they'd covered over the years on small cards. Racks upon racks of the little cards sat in rectangular drawers in one of the back offices, and it was my awesome job to put them into order by date, after Betty, Aro's wife, decide to play Fifty-Two Card Pickup with them. Bless her, she was a sweet old lady, but after that day, Aro barred her from the offices. It wasn't too long after that incident that Betty was admitted into the care home on the edge of town.

While I dug through my bag in search of my keys, I smiled at the thought of actually writing for the magazine. It would be a long shot since I didn't cook much, so I couldn't write about recipes, and I certainly couldn't knit or crochet, so that was out, too. I did know about animals, though. I could easily write a column about pets and stuff. Yeah, I could do that.

"I'm coming, no need to scratch the door down, Mac." I laughed when I heard the tell-tale sounds of his claws on the wood.

Once my baby boy was walked, fed, then walked some more, I fixed myself some dinner then slipped into a nice warm bath before my parents' nightly call.

They were a great pair, incredibly supportive of me being independent, but they still called at eight on the dot every night though they lived a mere seven miles away on the other side of town. There were two reasons why I had my own place. One, this house had been my Grandma's before she rudely kicked the bucket on my seventh birthday. I don't remember her much, but from what my mother said about her, I'd been lucky to escape the clutches of the high society old cow. She'd left me this place, hoping that I could break away from my tear away mother and turn out to be half decent, with a little less Devil in me.

I had to laugh every time my mother, Renee, reminded me of my Grandma's expectations because as much as Mom was a little wild, my father Charlie was ten times worse. My grandpa, who passed before I was even born, had been some kind of political somebody, and Dad was supposed to have taken after him. He didn't, though. No, Dad had gone down the medical route to be a doctor. That's how he and Mom met. No, it wasn't in the ER department, nor was it Dad saving Mom's life. Mom hit him with a shopping cart and somehow had managed to break a small bone in his foot.

Grandma had a hairy pink fit when she rushed to the hospital to see her baby boy and found him in the company of some tie-dyed hippie chick. Some connection was forged between Mom and Dad, because soon after, Dad was pleading with Mom to make it up to him and rescue him from his own mother. And, as they say, the rest was history. They married three months later; then, I popped out a year after that.

I seriously digress. The second reason why I live on my own was because I simply chose to. I don't want to be under anyone's feet. I also don't like following rules that much, and if I lived at home, then I'd have to follow the parentals' rules. So, I moved out as soon as I could.

Now here I was, wallowing in a deep roll-top bath in this posh house while Mac was on guard duty at the door. It wasn't a bad place to live in, now that I'd spent the summer redecorating some of the rooms, but damn it was big. Grandpa and Grandma had bought the house way back when thinking they'd fill all the rooms with screaming bundles of joys. In the end, they only had Dad, so they'd had three rooms going spare. Honestly, who needed five bedrooms these days?

Mom once thought that it would be a good idea to turn the house into a little hotel, like a bed and breakfast type of place, but there was no way Dad would let strangers around me, so that idea was scrapped the moment the words came out of Mom's mouth. So, as it was, it was just Mac and me—and my family when Dad drank too much at Christmas.

I smiled when, at the same time, as my Grandfather clock in the hallway chimed, the house phone rang next to my head.

"Always so predictable." I laughed while answering the call and heard Mom laugh down the other end.

"You know that our favorite show is on soon, and I don't want to miss it. I don't know how you can wait all week to see it. Those UK shows have turned me into an addict," she replied, making me smile a little wider.

"Mom, the first step to conquering any addiction is to admit you have a problem, so, well done. Now, how about you try to record the show like I do and watch it at the weekend. Just because it's on doesn't mean that you have to watch it right now."

"True, but I like to have a routine, and by the time I watch it and spend some quality horizontal time with your father, it's time for me to get in some beauty sleep."

"That's just gross, Mom, seriously. How does Liam cope with that shit?" I laughed and gagged at the same time. Liam was my fifteen-year-old brother, but knowing him, he was out of the house more than he was in it. He loved cars and sports, and he was pretty good-looking, you know, for my brother, and always had the girls around him. He was a good kid, level-headed, but big-headed, too.

"He copes just fine, especially since your Grandma bought him a nice new portable music thing," Mom said, and I laughed once again.

'Grandma' always bought us things, even though she'd been dead for years. It was our way of making her pay for the atrocious way she'd treated Mom over the years. Grandma and Grandpa had made sure that Liam and I were well taken care of, with a few stipulations. We weren't to touch our funds until we turned twenty-one unless we absolutely needed something and that we didn't give Mom any of the money. Mom and Dad had money aplenty and didn't need us sharing with them.

With Mom and Dad not able to touch our money, the job fell to Dad's lawyer and best friend, Timothy. He also happened to be our Godfather, so the 'essential' things we needed weren't technically essential, he just couldn't say no to us. It was Grandma's fault, though. She just didn't think things through at the time she'd hired Dad's best friend when we were babies.

"It's an iPod, Mom, and he already had one. What was Timothy doing letting him get another one?" I asked.

"Something about being too small. Personally, I think they look about the same size, but when I mentioned that, Liam just laughed."

I shook my head at her answer and bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself laughing. Mom once blew up an egg in the microwave and hasn't liked technology ever since. You could talk about anything with her, but if it came with a plug, she blanked you out.

Once we wrapped up our conversation for the night, we said goodnight, and I got out of the bath, all wrinkled but smelling lovely of Jasmine and Chamomile. I wasn't into cosmetics, high-end shoes, and clothes, but I did like my bath products.

Soon I was dressed in my thick flannel pajamas, and Mac had gone out into the back yard one last time. I headed up to bed to read the current book I had on the go. It was dismal, predictable, and downright cringe-worthy, but once I started a book, I always had to finish it, no matter how bad it was. I'm no expert on the matter of writing a book, far from it, in fact, but damn, some people should never write!

Grumbling to myself as I nearly tripped over my dog on the stairs, I thought, once again, back to my job and what my new boss would be like. It would prove interesting if we didn't get on, but it would piss Gertrude and Nancy off something chronic if they stayed, and I did actually get on with the man.

Time would tell, I suppose. Time would tell.

This story is completely written with 35 chapters, but, as always, I may tweak here and there. It's a mix of Edward and Bella POVs. I originally wrote this story after we saw a string of really bad published books and I got pissed off. If you've been reading Cool Rider, you know I love Charlie and he's no different in the story ;)

Fun (true) fact: Did you know that there is dinosaur erotica on Amazon?

Please let me know what you think!