Amber cooked the popcorn until the time between pops increased to over twenty seconds. Then she stopped the microwave and took it out of the oven before it began burning the kernels. She let the bag sit while she cut three tablespoons of butter from a stick of she found on the refrigerator door and put it in a coffee cup. She reset the microwave while she opened the bag and shook it out the bag into a large glass bowl she found in one of the kitchen cabinets. Amber salted the popcorn with a shaker of superfine ground popcorn salt she discovered in the pantry while the butter was melting in the microwave. When the microwave beeped, she dumped the popcorn in a large glass bowl and drenched the soft puffed grains with butter before tossing them with a fork from the tableware drawer. When she finished preparing the popcorn, she got out two glasses from the cabinet beside the sink and filled them with ice before putting them in the freezer to chill.
Just as she closed the freezer door on top of the refrigerator, the doorbell rang. She wiped her slightly buttery hands quickly on a dishtowel and went to answer the door, pushing her hair back over her shoulders as she walked. Usually she wore her long hair in a pony tail when babysitting, but the expectation of Brad’s company had caused her to leave her hair long and flowing over her shoulders. Brad had said to several of his friends how beautiful he considered her long hair and she had no intention of disappointing him by pulling it up and away from his touch. Her girlfriends had dutifully reported his desires and the stage was set. While she had no intention of sleeping with the captain of the football team, neither did she intend to give him an excuse to complain to his friends. It was all a matter of timing; she had to get him comfortable and answer his immediate needs, much as she did the infants in her care, then get him out of the house before things got out-of-hand.
She greeted Brad at the door and ushered him to the family room while asking him what kind of soft drink he’d like. Brad said that he’d rather have a beer, but that if soft drinks were all she had, then a Coke would do. Brad remained in the family room while Amber went to the kitchen to fetch his drink.
As he waited impatiently for Amber’s return Brad mused upon his plans for her. Once she was exposed to his personal charm and his money, Brad thought, she’d fall over herself for the opportunity to get in bed with him. He’d, of course, would be happy to accept her attentions at least until the end of the school year. After that she’d just become another picture in his scrapbook of conquests. Until that moment though, he planned to enjoy her company and body. “Amber is quite a number,” he thought to himself, “She’s stacked like a brick shithouse! She’ll make a nice addition to my trophy book. I wonder if she’ll forget her panties for a few minutes once I’ve laid her and gotten her so blind horny that I can snatch them? I’d sure as hell would love to have them as a souvenir to show the guys on the team. Hell, they would sure shut Fred’s mouth up and win the bet for me besides. That stupid fucker bet me twenty-five bucks I couldn’t lay Amber on the first date!
Once I go to work at Dad’s business, I’ll be making money of my own and won’t have to depend on him for an allowance. With the kind of money I’ll make as a VP in Dad’s company, I’ll be able to build my own bachelor pad and throw weekend parties like this one-horse town has never seen before.”
Brad’s and Amber’s class were just about to graduate High School and he was planning to go into his father’s business as his family expected. Brad had no interest in further study and wanted the opportunity to make money as soon as possible. His father’s septic tank cleaning and utilities business wasn’t terribly romantic but it had been lucrative enough to make his father one of the wealthier men in the county. His position as captain of the football team assured his graduation no matter how many times he failed tests in class; his graduation was all his father required for his induction into the higher ranks of his company. His father had told the college graduates who managed the accounting for the company that he had built the business himself without a college education, so why should he require more from his son?
The company’s Chief CPA and VP of Operations were hesitant to tell the owner of the firm that since the company’s humble inception as a simple septic tank cleaning business, it had had grown gradually over the years to a rather large company that handled all of the community gas and water utility needs. The Vice President of Finance and the Chief CPA of the company were trying to get the old man to consider public sales of stock so they could finance the takeover of the local electrical company. As it was, the company owned the municipal water and gas supply outright, dug private wells and provided propane gas for individuals in outlying areas that weren’t covered by the municipal supply, and even had a subsidiary that handled retail sales of major appliances as well as providing air conditioning, heating, plumbing and electrical services for a three county area.
The VP in charge of Finance had pointed out that the electrical company was undervalued in the market and was ripe for the plucking. If they had a mere thirty million dollars to invest in the purchase of the majority of the company’s stock, they could stage a hostile takeover and pick up the utility company for a song. The professionals tried their level best to convince his father to demand that his son get an education in the world of finance. His son didn’t have the education to manage a firm single-handedly that had become the single largest player in the local utility market and he didn’t have the maturity to let professionals do it for him. In the opinion of the company experts in management and finance, the company’s plans for the future were doomed unless Brad could be made to understand that he wasn’t ready to play with the big boys in the corporate utility world. Brad’s allowance and privileges had increased both with his age and as his father’s wealth had grown.
As a consequence, Brad had decided that it was his place in life to be given what he demanded without working for it. He had no memories of his infancy when his father was struggling to build his business. His appetite for toys had grown in pace with his father’s financial ability to provide the wherewithal to fund his playthings. As far as Brad was concerned, his female classmates fell into the category of toys. Brad was nouveau riche and lacked the social responsibility of old wealth. Brad was a pig. In particular, he was a rich, male-chauvinist pig who suffered from a poverty of empathy for the people around him. Unfortunately, as a consequence of his social deficiency, everyone else in his immediate vicinity tended to suffer as well.
Brad threw himself onto the couch with a splendid disregard of the furniture’s strain limits and sprawled out with his legs akimbo. As he rocked his shoes back and forth, blacking the carpet in front of him with the freshly dyed corners of his heels. Brad looked at the diapered baby crouched in the playpen before him and said with a lopsided grin, “Looks like you’ll be able to see a real man in action tonight, kid! You should feel honored! I don’t usually perform in front of audiences, but in your case, I think I’ll make an exception. After all, it’s not like you’ll be able to tell anyone. When you see what I do to her tonight, I’ll bet you shit in your pants!” Brad loosed a deep resonate chuckle and said mockingly, “It’s a good thing you’re wearing diapers, kid!”
Amber came into the room with Brad’s drink and said, “From what I could hear from the kitchen, you’ve been making the acquaintance of the baby. That’s so sweet of you to entertain him while I’m out of the room. He’s an adorable little baby isn’t he? I call him ‘Jim-Jim’. If you could watch him a few minutes more, I’ll bring out the popcorn I just made. I put a movie in the VCR to watch. The woman who I’m babysitting for doesn’t have much of a selection of video tapes I’m afraid, but it will give us something to watch while we eat. I’m famished! How about you?”
“Yeah,” he replied lazily, “I could go for some popcorn right now.” He smirked evilly and went on, “If the movie is too stupid, we could sit here and talk instead. Maybe we could find something to play on the stereo system. Whoever the woman is who you babysit for, she’s got a hell of an entertainment center!” Brad continued loudly, trying to impress Amber with his expensive possessions as she walked out of the room, “Hell, it’s almost as good as what I have in my room at home!”
Brad looked at the framed photo of Krystyn on the wall and thought, “God Damn! She’s a looker! Fuck! She’s even better looking than Amber! I’ll bet she’s a fabulous fuck! I wonder if she’s the woman who owns the house? I’ll ask Amber if that’s the woman she babysits for or if the house is rented. Christ, I’d like to get into that babe’s pants! I’ll have to remember to ask Amber whose picture that is before I leave.”
Amber returned a minute later with a huge bowl of buttered popcorn and her soda. She set them down on the coffee table to the left of Brad’s feet and primly sat down beside him. Brad grabbed the TV/VCR remote control from the coffee table and switched on the TV and tape in succession. As the opening scene developed, he saw that Amber had chosen the “The Witches of Eastwick” from Krystyn’s video collection. Brad stifled a groan of anticipatory ennui as his hand dipped into the bowl of popcorn on Amber’s lap and he snatched a huge handful of the buttery snack to force into his gapping maw. He had seen the movie before and didn’t like the ending. In the movie a demon or the Devil (Brad wasn’t sure exactly which character Jack Nickolson played.) inveigled three women into sleeping with him and then moving into his mansion. He taught them how to do magick and the movie ended with them ganging up on him and casting spells on Nickolson’s character to force him to leave. Brad thought the ending was unfair to men. The idea that three mere women could force a man (even a demon) out of his own house and take over his estate wounded his male pride. As far as Brad was concerned, the movie was a veiled assault on men’s position in the scheme of life. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the initial scenes as the demon seduced each woman in turn and convinced them that she should move into his house. It reminded Brad of his fantasies of what he would do once he had been made Vice-President of his father’s firm. As he watched the movie, he unconsciously reached over and grabbed more handfuls of the delicious popcorn from the bowl that sat on Amber’s crotch. Soon the most pressing of his physical urges were resolved and he lay back replete from his feeding of popcorn.
In an aside during what Brad considered one of the more boring parts of the video, he asked Amber whose picture was on the wall. Amber told him that it was the owner of the house and that from the looks of it, that she thought that the picture must have been a recent portrait. Then and there, Brad decided to meet the woman who’s eyes seemed to follow him about the room as if she was watching every minute. He knew that it wouldn’t take much skill to arrange to meet her; perhaps he could pretend he had lost his class ring while he was over at her house and ask to search for it. Brad was confidant that she’d be easily conquered by his manly charms and he’d have her in bed with him within an hour at most.