i.
The first time she ever realized she was a woman of vixenish appeal was also the first time she ever dabbled with marriage. It wasn't her marriage, to be clear, and she didn't get married at the end of it. It was, however, what sent her down her so called career path.
She was barely a legal adult, working as a secretary to this bigshot D.C. lawyer. She didn't quite understand why she had gotten the job, but she didn't question it. At least she had money to support herself. But after one day of working overtime and acting sweeter than a cup of coffee with 6 packets of sugar, she got the answer to the question of her employment.
Her boss, apparently, had taken a liking to her delicate, pale features when he saw her walking into the law firm. He made sure she was hired and working for him, so he could see her daily. He told her this after he pulled her into his lap, his rough hands gripping her thin waist, his equally rough lips grazing the skin of her neck. She tried not to act as repulsed as she was – the man was nearly three times her age! – and played along with him. If it meant she could keep her job and get an extra bonus, she didn't mind it as much.
The affair went on for almost 6 months. He was thoroughly smitten – in love, even – and had promised to leave his wife for her. She didn't know why he promised that, she never said anything about taking their so called relationship to the next step. Maybe he thought it cruel to play with this angelic, pale girl without making her a wife. She didn't.
And he kept good on that promise. He had the most unfortunate timing, she thought. He served his wife their divorce papers on April 1st, Fool's Day. She laughed at him with that shakiness that she had seen so often in sheltered and drunken housewives. She had always been so calm and put together – thought it cliché and so girlish to act anything less – so she had never experienced that shakiness ever in her life. (Well, forgetting about that dinner party that turned out not to be a dinner party, she's never experienced it.)
He told her this as she lounged on the hotel room sofa. She idly traced the faint pattern in the silken fabric. He said that they could get married within half a year, she could stop working, and have him take care of her the rest of her life. She pondered his proposal. Never work for the rest of her life, live in a huge house befitting a noble, a lifestyle befitting one, too. She considered it for all of five seconds before she turned to him with her doe-like eyes. A smile played on her lips. "Go back to your wife while you still can."