Corrupting Power
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Brewster's Brood - Part 15
🕑 Added 2022-05-15 09:50:48 +0000 UTCPart Fifteen
Anya Petrov – 3/8/2017 – Wednesday – 7:22 pm
Anya felt a certain level of satisfaction as she left the bedroom with Max in it, heading over towards the main social area of the Ironwood Estate, a number of new women having shown up while she was inside getting her first shot at getting pregnant with Max's child.
It had taken nearly every tool in her arsenal to get his resolve to break, and even then, he'd been the most passive lover she'd had in her short lifetime. But in the end, she'd gotten a release from him, and where she needed it to go, so that was a start. It wasn't a guarantee. She wasn't definitely pregnant, but at least there was a chance now, where only hours ago there hadn't been.
She wondered a little what it was going to be like after the competition was done. Sure, all the women were going to take their money and run, but would some of them keep in touch with each other? Would they have a reunion? Would they start a little Facebook group or something? It would be one of the world's most exclusive clubs, having gone through this little game, although perhaps they would need three groups – one for everyone, another for those who bore children as a result and one final one for those who did not, although perhaps those who failed would not want to be reminded of how they could not succeed when so many others had done.
The game, Anya decided, was a potential mental minefield to some of the less resilient of their brethren. Those who failed might doubt their own abilities as a woman, although Anya considered there no shame in losing, simply because there would eventually be a hundred women all competing for the affection of one man, and the rules around how they could compete for it were so deliberately open that it made it complicated to stay out of each others' way.
If anything, they were being put on direct collision courses with one another, the raw meat on the hook in the center of the room, and while the girls were encouraged to work together, there was also a certain level of “I'm going to make sure I get mine first” that seemed to be flowing from some of them.
As she walked out into the area, she looked over the new arrivals that had decided to put their best foot forward. She'd fully expected not to recognize any of them, but instead, there were two that stood out to her immediately.
The Travers sisters were sitting at a table, sharing a drink, but positioned so that they had every entrance and exit to the room in one of their two eyelines. Either no one had dared go over and offered to sit with them, or they'd been shooed away by the two.
Brooklynn and Guinevere Travers may have been sisters, but the two would've been hard pressed to give off more different vibes. Both women were short, but Brooklynn was tanned, with bright red hair and a girl next door vibe to her, while her sister Guinevere, Gwen for short, was pale, her hair dark black, thinner and dressed in much higher fashion. Both girls were from Atlanta, but Brooklynn looked like she could be Irish or Scottish while Gwen gave off a distinctly Eastern European vibe, maybe even prim enough to pass off as one of Anya's countrywomen.
A few years ago, both of the Travers sisters had been living the high life. Both of them were successful working actresses, although neither had gotten the sort of breakout role that truly made them a star. That was okay, though, because the two were the heirs to the Travers family fortune, built on the back of their father, Aaron Travers, real estate investments, as well as his ownership of the Atlanta Falcons football franchise.
Then, last year Aaron Travers had died of a heart attack in a Miami massage parlor, and the entire web had come unraveled in a big, bad way.
The Travers family fortune, it seemed, had been one incredibly massive paper illusion, and no matter how deep any attorney or banker dug, there wasn't any real money at the bottom of it. Aaron Travers had died not only broke, but in unreal amounts of debt, engaging in the rich person's version of using one credit card to pay off another one, simply drifting his debt ocean liner from port to port while continually adding on to it.
Ownership of the Falcons had been sold at fire sale prices, a flagrant attempt to raise capital in order for the girls, the only two “heirs” to the family, to try and claw their way out of the endless seas of creditors and loans, and even that hadn't been enough.
While the girls had once been incredibly selective about what roles they would and wouldn't take, over the last year, they'd both taken basically anything that had been offered to them, going against their own initial rules of doing no nudity, no sex scenes, anything that would detract from them being taken seriously as actresses. There had even been rumors that the girls had been offered large scale checks to do porn, but so far, either the money hadn't been good enough or the girls' pride had been too much to stomach having fallen that far.
Nothing quite ruined romance like debt, either, and while both of the girls had been in long-term relationships when their father had died, within the first few months as word started to leak of how skint the girls were, their boyfriends had found excuses to break off the relationships, escalating minor fights into deal breakers, and getting gone as quick as they could, before the girls started asking them for help in getting their heads above water.
Being suddenly broke seemed like the upper class thought it was contagious, and that just being around the Travers sisters, they might suddenly lose their own empires, so while the girls had been regulars on the socialite scene since they were old enough to wear bras, now they found themselves basically persona non grata nearly everywhere they went.
Anya found herself wondering if the woman in charge of the game, Mrs. Churchill, had approached them or if they had approached her. Max's impending fortune certainly would be more than enough to bail both sisters out of the grave of debt their late father had left for them, without even batting an eyelash. The reported $280 million in unpaid debts that the Travers family had wasn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what Max Brewster had waiting for him once this game was over. The sisters probably saw him as their get out of jail free card, if only they could land him, and keep him. They'd probably been livid that they hadn't been in the first group, although Anya thought it was to the girls' own benefit that they hadn't been. They needed to remember that there was a minimum number of people Max had to get pregnant, and if he didn't hit that number, the game was just going to go a second time.
The two women had a predatory look to them, like they were going to find Max and carve him up, make sure that he bent to their wills, but they were going to find out that Max wasn't so easily manipulated. In fact, he'd been surprisingly hesitant to take advantage of the parade of flesh that had been on display for him. She'd seen nothing but endless beautiful women lining the halls of Ironwood Estates since she'd first shown up a few days ago, and in her spare time, she'd actually been doing a bit of flirting with some of them. Having a partner or three to form coordinated attacks on Max's will would certainly give them an edge, and if she found herself someone to flee Russia to while she was here, that would be all the better.
While the Travers sisters were the most prominent newcomers, they were by no means the only ones. Mai, one of the women who'd been around since the start, was sitting at the bar, talking to two other Asian women, one seemingly boisterous and outgoing, the other appearing almost painfully shy, but Mai was doing her best to engage with both of them. They were far enough away that Anya couldn't hear their conversation, but one of the two new girls was laughing and waving her hand in the air, almost like she was trying to make herself as visible as possible when Max finally made his entrance.
Dana, the woman who presented herself as the 'owner' of the Ironwood Estates chapter they were all using to sell Max on the constant stream of attention, was seated at a table with a new and very distinguished looking African-American woman in her late thirties, perhaps, as well as the brunette from Los Angeles Anya had found herself talking to earlier, Olivia Castle, the television executive who had complained so vehemently about how frustrated she was that she would be unable to make a show about this whole game they were involved in. While it would be quite the interesting story, Anya had agreed, she found it unlikely that it would be something suitable for broadcast. Olivia had joked that of course she would have only been pitching it to cable networks.
There were several other women both new and unfamiliar to Anya, as she walked over to join both Kelly and Zelda, who were still hanging around, sharing a table over in the corner. Kelly looked up at Anya with a smile. “Get it done?”
“Da,” Anya replied, “but it take much more vork than I vanted. Is unpleasant ha-wing to vork so hard for boy's attention. I do not like ha-wing to go on hunt, and for prey to be so skittish. Am I not a wision of beauty and splendor?”
Kelly grinned, rolling her eyes a little. “Look around, Anya. Beauty got you in the front door, but past that, we make our own luck here, and Max isn't just spoiled for choice, he's absolutely being drowned by it. I don't know that any man in the past several hundred years has had quite so many women throwing themselves at him. You'd probably have to go back to the time of the emperors and pharaohs to get this kind of pussy parade.”
“Oh,” Zelda interjected, “I bet some of the rock stars in the eighties would disagree with you, but you're right, they probably spread it out over a lot longer of a period of time, and not all at once, like our poor boy Max is getting.” She looked around the room, arching an eyebrow. “Speaking of which, where is our boy?”
“Recowering, I think,” Anya sniffed. “He vas tired and I did not vant to be disturbed, so,” she shrugged, “may have gone too hard on him. He vill recower.”
Danny Garney – 3/8/2017 – Wednesday – 7:50 pm
Danny knew that he could've been hanging out inside of the Ironwood Estates, now that Max knew him as a member, but today he'd decided to spend most of his time outside of the building, since the appearance of the reporter earlier had put him on edge. The last thing he wanted was to not be doing his job to the best of his abilities, and so he'd spent the last few hours on his bike, just beyond the edge of the street, down at the end of the cul-de-sac. He'd generally been looking to see if anyone was coming, or if any of the neighbors were getting overly curious, but he was still perceptive enough to see the gate over at Ironwood start to open, watching Max roll his motorcycle out the front, not having started it up yet, so as to keep his exit quiet.
“Sneaky, Max,” Danny thought to himself, “very sneaky.” He wondered how long it would before the girls noticed he was gone, considering he was able to sneak away in the first place. It must have been in between trysts, and he must have ducked out as quickly and quietly as possible. Danny watched as Max waiting for the gate to close behind him, still rolling his motorcycle forward before spotting Danny sitting atop of his. As soon as Danny had seen Max moving out of the gate, he'd raised his cellphone to his ear, giving him an excuse as to why he'd stopped shy of the club.
Max looked a little sheepish, still bringing his motorcycle towards him before giving him a little shrug, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Hey Danny,” Max said to him, as Danny lowered the phone down from his ear. “Were you talking to Liane?”
Danny had to give the guy credit – he'd been assaulted with a giant number of new names and faces over the last few days and yet, he still seemed to have a handle on most of them. It wasn't something most people were born with, and that kind of skill had to be cultivated over years, not days, so there was no way Max was just picking it up.
“Yeah, she likes to know any time I'm stopping by Ironwood Estates, just so if she sees me popping up in some other girl's Insta feed, she doesn't get jealous or anything,” Danny told him. “I'm basically exclusive with her 95% of the time, but she encourages me to dip my toe into the pool at least once a month, so I'm reminded there ain't nobody better out there, and so that she and I don't get stale. We just can't keep them around afterwards. She does the same, and it works for us, so we're both good. She wasn't sure what to make of you yesterday, so she decided to give off the vibe that neither her nor I hit anyone on the side, mostly, I think, so you wouldn't try and pawn any of the attention off on me. Not that the women here are any slouches, but she and I have such high standards that most of the time we come by Ironwood, we're just enjoying people watching her and I together. Besides, I told you I was going to stop by and we were going to swap numbers, like you asked me to, remember? You trying to skip out on me and that beer you owed me?”
Max laughed a little, raising a hand in surrender. “You know, with the fucking chaotic week I've had, I won't lie, it had completely slipped my mind,” Max told him. “But you're right, I promised you a beer and that we could exchange numbers. Any place in particular you've got in mind?”
“Can't beat Spats, I think. It's close and it's just the kind of place we can blend in and not get noticed.”
“A-fucking-men to that, brother,” Max sighed. “Anything where I can just sit and drink without women swarming around me like a warden with a fistful of pardons. It like this when you first joined up at the club? Whose idea was it, anyway? Yours or Liane's?”
Danny attached his phone to a mount on his bike then lifted his helmet back up towards his head. “Let's get over to Spats, and we can talk all about it there, otherwise the girls are gonna find you when they come out looking for you any minute now.”
Max nodded, grabbing his helmet as he quickly climbed onto his bike. “Excellent point, let's ride.” He tugged the helmet on, strapped it in place, started up his motorcycle and then started zipping off, as Danny did the same.
Once they were on the move, Danny tapped the button on his phone to link it up to the headset inside of his helmet, then tapped the button to call Mrs. Churchill, who picked up immediately. “You probably saw him sneaking out on the cameras, boss, but I've got Max in pocket, and we're ducking out to a bar for a couple of hours to get a drink and shoot the shit,” he said to her as soon as she picked up.
“Danny,” Mrs. Churchill sighed, “every minute he's hanging out with you is a minute he isn't knocking up one of the hundred or so wanton and willing women I've got on tap for him.”
“I get that, boss, believe you me, but he's exhausted and you're only going to keep turning up the pressure on him, and if we don't give him a reason to buy into this story, the whole charade's gonna fall apart,” he told her. “Lemme have a few hours with him, off the grid, away from the women and the cameras, and I'll make his disbelief stretch a bit longer. Shit, I bet I can even get him a bit more into it, and I think I've got a plan for getting him towards picking a wife outta this whole thing, 'cause I know you have that personal goal riding on it.”
There was a dead silence at the other end of the line for a good few seconds, although Danny was pretty certain he could hear Mrs. Churchill moving out of the command center and onto the balcony, because he was certain he heard her shutting a door behind her before she spoke again. “How the fuck do you know that, Danny? Nobody and I do mean nobody fucking knows about that.”
“You do,” Danny grinned, “and you just told me. I was guessing, but I figured that when the old geezer set this up, he also put an extra sweetener for you personally on it, and I suspected it was either guarantee he did or didn't have a wife lined up at the end of it, so I shot my shot and you let your hole cards dip just enough for me to get a peek. Don't hold it against me, boss; I ain't gonna tell anyone.”
He was a little nervous at the dead air that lingered for almost a minute, and he was starting to wonder if maybe the call had dropped, but just as he was about to do a signal check, he heard Mrs. Churchill laughing quietly. “The absolute fucking steel sack on you, Danny.”
“Fuck steel, boss,” Danny said smugly. “After I lost my legs, I encased those fuckers in a pouch of titanium and kevlar. Nothing's too good for my boys. So what's in it for you if he picks a missus from this game of yours?”
“If and I repeat, if he picks a wife from the game within a year of its conclusion, I get a fifty million dollar sweetener, although I guess I need to give you a large chunk of that to keep you from blabbing about it.”
“Nah,” he said. “I mean, if you want to toss a sliver of it my way, I ain't gonna say no, but I just want to be completely in the know with what's going on, 'cause if shit goes sideways, I'm the one who's got to clean it up for you. I guess having to watch out for a potential wife doesn't really influence anything, but it's still a ripple I'd like to have known about in advance, especially if you had that in mind when you were selection girls to throw into the pool.”
“Tell you what, Danny,” Mrs. Churchill said to him. “He picks a wife and I get my fifty mil, I'll give you ten of it, simply because you didn't ask for any of it, and because you and Liane have been fucking indispensable since I brought you on board my team. As long as you can follow my one condition associated with it.”
“I'm not gonna tell anybody, boss,” he laughed. “I keep more secrets than the old school Freemasons and the Mafia combined.”
“Two conditions then,” Mrs. Churchill said. “The other being you have to ask that girlfriend of yours to marry you before the game's over. That girl is too amazing for you to let go, and I know that since your accident overseas, you've had trouble thinking long term about anything and anyone. I get that, and I know you still have the occasional flashback that wakes you up in the middle of the night, but since Liane came into your life, you've been... brighter, more optimistic and more relaxed in who you are, post-service. You know she's going to say yes if you ask... so ask already.”
The grizzled veteran grinned silently, nodding for a moment before he answered her. “Heard, understood and acknowledged, boss,” he said. “I'll have Max back on the radar in the next couple of hours, but let me have a bit of time with him and I'll put him back better than I found him. That dude, Frankie? He's not at all what your boy needs right now. I got you, boss.”
“Don't fuck it up, Danny. That's all I ask.”
“I won't, Mrs. Churchill. As if my life depended on it.”
“It very well might, Danny boy. It very well might.” She hung up on him, and it was just in time, as he and Max were pulling their bikes into the parking lot down at the end of the block from Spats. The place was a dive bar, and Danny knew he and Max would be able to have a couple of drinks here without anyone suspecting to look for them. It wasn't on the radar of Max's normal places, and it certainly wasn't the sort of place they were likely to have put cameras in.
One of the weaknesses that Danny had identified in Mrs. Churchill's plan was keeping Max within their parameters, and any time Max was out of pocket, they were flying semi blind, not exactly the way that Danny felt safe, but then again, he was paid to adapt to whatever situation they threw at him. That was the main reason Mrs. Churchill kept him around – Danny was one of the most damn adaptable human beings to ever live.
The two of them walked into the bar, and headed for one of the booths in the corner, Danny spotting one that was empty, sliding into the side with his back to the wall, letting him look out over the bar at all times. It felt trivial, but it also put him more at ease than he would've felt otherwise, and shit, what was Max to know about it.
Max slid in opposite of Danny with a soft sigh. “How the hell do you do it, Danny?” Max said to him, as a bartender poked his head over. “IPA, I don't really care which one, so surprise me. Danny?”
“Guinness, and a glass of water,” Danny said, before turning his attention back to Max. “How do I do what, Max?”
“Allllll the attention,” Max said to him. “I just joined this crazy club and now it seems like I can't walk ten feet without some beautiful woman I've never met trying to sleep with me. How the hell do you do it, Danny?”
The bartender came back and pushed their drinks onto the table in front of them. “You want to pay now, or open a tab?”
Danny fished out a credit card and handed it to the bartender. “Tab'll do.” He looked back to Max, offering a soft smile, an easy going look designed to put the man at ease, even under fire. It was an expression he'd gotten his share of practice with. “Can I give you some unsolicited advice, Max?”
“Jesus, Danny, I just asked for your help. That makes it solicited.”
“Heh. Fair enough. Look, you're the new guy at Ironwood, and people are always drawn to the new, especially around here. See, in most other places, their local chapter of Ironwood has too many men and not enough women, but around here? It's the exact opposite. Women around here are used to good looking men being gay, and the gay men, well, they've got loads of their own clubs to go to. If you were in Los Angeles or New York, and you joined the local chapter of Ironwood out there, your arrival wouldn't even cause anyone to bat an eyelash, but out here, things are different.”
“Sure, but these are gorgeous women, Danny,” Max said, in between sips on his beer. “They can get any man they want any time, and now they're all competing for me, like, like, like I'm worm on a hook, or a brass ring they're all trying to grab hold of and never let go.”
“This is why I think you're thinking about it all wrong, Max,” Danny said. “See, this isn't going to last forever.”
“It's not?”
Danny laughed, rolling his eyes. “Nothing lasts forever, Max, especially being the center of attention. You've been out of the game a while, and so you're not used to being thrown into the thick of it, and if you're at all like me, you're not used to the women doing the chase instead of having to do the chase yourself, but that's the way it is around here. For now.” Danny lifted his beer and took a long swig from it before setting it back on the crappy little beer mat. “In five or six months, the newness of you will have worn off, and while you're still going to be a welcome member of Ironwood, they won't be chasing you like they are now. They won't be swarming you, desperate to hold your attention for even a few moments. You're overwhelmed by the volume of them, but that's only going to last for so long, and after it's gone, as weird as this sounds, you're going to miss it. You're going to miss what it's like to be the center of attention any time you walk into the room, what it's like to have a crowd of people around, each vying for your notice, even if it's just for a few minutes.”
“Do you miss it?” Max asked him.
“Sometimes, but I'll tell you something. I used my time being the center of attention to find someone I wanted to give more than a few minutes of time with,” Danny said. “I was trying to get back on my feet, quite literally, and I was incredibly self-conscious about the parts of me that were more machine than man. But I strolled into Ironwood and suddenly that injury was left behind, and there were dozens and dozens of women trying to get to know me for me. And I used Ironwood as sort of a very intensive dating app, getting the chance to test my compatibility on every level, mental, emotional and physical. That's how I met Liane,” he lied.
Danny knew that if he could spin it that he'd met the love of his life by having sex with endless hordes of women, that maybe Max would think he could do the same. It was a daring little plan, but those who dare, win, and all that.
“You met Liane at the club?”
“I did,” Danny lied. “About two months into my time at Ironwood, after I'd fucked more women than I'd ever thought possible. Shit, I put Wilt Chamberlin's numbers into the fucking ground. And I got to try it all, every little weird sexual idea I'd ever had, all played out in a nice little experience. But when I met Liane, me and her just clicked right away, and within a week, I was swearing off anyone else at Ironwood, and so was she, although I think she liked fucking me in front of everyone, like I was her prize and she wanted to show me off. You can do that, you know. Not fuck Liane in front of everyone, but use Ironwood to find someone long term for you, someone who'll get into what you're into, someone who likes you for you and wants to be a part of your life. But you're not going to find her day one, week one or even month one. I mean, you might, but you won't know it until you're a few months in. But you can be looking. You can be surrounded by beautiful women and have an endless amount of sex, because you're getting it all in now. It's like playing Madison Square Garden, or appearing on the Late Show. It's a thing you're getting to do now but that you're probably not going to get to do forever. So enjoy it while it lasts, stop worrying about it, stop resisting it and embrace it.”
Max had been listening intently, and while Danny wasn't entirely sure the man was buying it, Danny was giving it his best sales pitch, trying to make sure the man understood it was best to appreciate something while it was here than to lament its loss later.
“I see where you're coming from,” Max said with a soft laugh, “but I'm fucking exhausted, man. I feel like my legs don't work and my dick's going to fall off. I've never gotten this much action in a year, much less a few days.”
Danny pointed at Max with a smile. “See, that right there is defeatist talk. Never surrender. Never let them see your resolve weaken. The first few months of joining a sex club are the best, because everything's new and everything's available. The women want you, Max. What do you want from them?”
It was a question Max had clearly never considered, because it took a long time before he finally answered.
