Chapter 1

The spring air was slightly tinted with the smell of freshly opened spring flowers. She doodled absent-minded in her book watching the world as it stood still and silent for her. Crocuses grew from the bright green grass that covered the meadow by the stream. She closed her eyes taking a deep breath that filled her soul with the calmness that it exuded. She watched as a family of ducks swam past: the mother quacking at her ducklings that refused to be rushed on their journey. The world stayed still, stayed calm, and knew how things should be.She sighed realizing that the reality of the world would soon return. She carefully picked one crocus and placed it in the middle of the book she held. A small reminder of how things should be but could never be. One last deep breath and she knew that she should get back. She walked to her car the first step in her return to the city, her life, her job, the reality of the world. The calming sound of the babbling stream was replaced with the beep of the keyless entry system on her BMW. The almost silent hum of the engine relaxed her enough to be able to return to the real world. The drive was long, straight, and boring. She reached the office tower: tall, cubic, and mundane. Pulling into the underground garage she stopped tossing the keys, without even looking, at the man who would take her car to be detailed; removing any ounce of her country drive from the busy realities of city life.She entered the elevator and took a deep breath waiting for the door to open to her world. The people inside never made eye contact, nor said a word. No one ever looked at anyone, noticed anything about them, knew their names, or or acknowledged their existence. Slight nods towards someone you knew were only socialized politeness. People were taught that they should, so they did. No one wanted to; it lacked meaning other than being a simple social nicety. Putting on a stern face she stepped off the elevator and was immediately bombarded with her assistants, her assistants’ assistants, and anyone else who felt like the world would come to an end if they did not have an answer that very minute. She stood firm, after all no one could know of her day dreaming ways by the stream.Anything feminine was considered weak in this industry and therefore she strove to be as male as possible. She stared down her assistants waiting for them to break and be replaced like the many electronic devices that had the sole purpose of making her life easier. They were nothing more. They had no worth in themselves, only worth that was placed on them by the amount of time and effort that they saved their respective owners. “Survive a year with me and you will be ready to enter the real world” she would tell the young naive girls that came into her office hoping to find their way into a male dominated world. Most would only last a matter of months before breaking. Was it a character flaw? Not as much as an inability to hide the fact that they were exploding with tears and rage inside.That was the key. No one could know the hurt that they felt on any given day. The resentment of being blamed for things that were not their fault had to be hidden in an extra cup of coffee, controlled by refusing anything that would increase happiness in any way. Misery was to be accepted and dealt with as one would deal with a blemish: Hide it with a mask. The ones that realized this early went on to become some of the greats in this world. Those who left realized that they would never be more than a fancy titled secretary regretting not pushing themselves to be more, yet, finding comfort in the safety doing nothing more than menial tasks.By the time she reached the door to her office her receptionist had a stack of pink message slips that looked the size of the great American novel. Another deep breath, a demand for coffee, black, and the powering up of her laptop to download the over load on her phone and her day began. She placed the book that she has been holding in the bottom drawer of her desk and went on with her day. The phone rang so frequently that the ring of one call could not be distinguished from the ring of the next. “London on one” would soon be followed by, “New York on two”.She felt a pain shoot through her stomach and realized that it was her eleventh cup of coffee and that it was now past 8pm. She had neglected to eat anything. She stepped outside her office to see which poor soul would be her prey. She quickly went to the room where she knew to find the slaves. Reaching the door she quickly blurted out that food was needed quickly. Scared feet dashed off at a pace that would threaten even the fastest of sprinters. She knew what it was like to be there, yet still abused them as she had been abused. After all, it was that treatment that taught her how to get to where she needed to be. The never taking care of oneself, always doing what was expected plus more, sleep was not necessary most of the time, neither was eating for that matter, they were all things she was taught during the harsh early years of her career. She bared it knowing that by learning under the greats, that she would one day be great herself. It was the opportunities of working with these people, learning from them, taking away what she could to help herself grow that mattered, not the pain and suffering of the experience. “What doesn’t kill us makes us strong”, no? She was alive; therefore, she was stronger than those who did not make it. She was a strong female who knew what it was that she wanted and was willing to cross whomever to get it. By the time that her assistants has returned, her blood sugar was low enough that the bitchiness was peeking. She snapped at how it had taken them so long to return with her food – was 20 minutes for a salad really a reasonable time frame! It was just lettuce!