From Riches to Rags Read online

  From Riches to Rags

  By Mairsile

  From Riches to Rags

  © 2014 by Mairsile. All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form, without written permission from the author.

  Cover Design: Mairsile

  www.Mairsile.com

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  Acknowledgements

  This is the first in the Riches to Rags series. There will be plenty more adventures for the two new lovers. Visit me on Facebook or Twitter for the latest, or you can find me on www.Mairsile.com.

  Again and again, a million thanks to Joyce, my best friend and supporter extraordinaire.

  As always, a million more thanks to L.Fox, my best friend who came to my rescue allowing me to keep doing what I love. God bless you!

  And last, but never least, may the glory go to God.

  Mairsile

  Prologue

  The place was chaos. Packed so tight that I could barely move between tables. Everyone was talking at once, forks clanked against plates, the juke box blared an Elvis song that had to compete with cellphones that had every ringtone imaginable, and me with a pounding headache.

  “Waitress, we are still waiting on our coffee.”

  I rushed over to the counter, grabbed the carafe of coffee and two cups, then I rushed back to the two people sitting at table number twelve.

  “I’m so sorry about that, ma’am,” I told her as I filled their cups with coffee, “a tourist bus pulled in here from Graceland, and we’ve been swamped.”

  “That’s no excuse for bad service.”

  I glanced at the impatient patron who was already pushing all my buttons. She was obviously rich, obviously impertinent, and obviously hung over. It felt like I was looking at myself, just ten months ago. “Your breakfast will be right up, ma’am.” Her companion, a distinguished looking man, smiled at me appreciatively.

  I hurried over to the cook, who had just completed number twelve’s order and I brought them their eggs, pancakes, bacon, and hash browns, with biscuits and preserves. They seemed satisfied until the rude rich bitch pointed at her eggs with her fork.

  “There’s snot on my eggs!”

  What the hell is she talking about? I was new at being a waitress, so not yet schooled in the etiquette of fast-food cuisine. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t understand?”

  She took her fork and scooped up the viscous, sticky, glutinous, egg whites from her sunny side up eggs and threw them at me, leaving no doubt whatsoever that my assumption of her being a bitch was a correct one.

  “Blackie Blackstone does not eat snot.” She declared as if saying her name was supposed to have impressed me. It certainly seemed to have impressed her.

  “And Chris Dolores Livingston does not appreciate having your snot thrown on her apron.”

  Her mouth hung open like she was surprised someone dared mock her. I loved it.

  She threw her napkin down on her eggs and stood up, towering over me.

  “Do you know who I am, bitch?”

  “Yes, you just told me who you are. You’re Blackie Blackstone, and you order your eggs sunny side up, so you can throw snot at hard working waitresses like me.”

  Now I was pushing her buttons and although I was pretty sure it would get me fired, I couldn’t help myself. I knew who she was, and I knew where once I had been worth millions, she was worth billions. I was jealous.

  “I’ll have your job for this.”

  She gritted her teeth so hard I almost couldn’t understand what she was saying… almost.

  I took off my apron with the egg snot on it and shoved it at her.

  “That’s sweet of you. I’ll have two eggs, over hard, and a cup of coffee, please.”

  Oh my dear Lord, the look on her face alone was worth being fired for.

  Chapter One

  Who is ‒ Melinda aka Blackie Blackstone

  My name is Melinda Blackstone, and I am heir to the Blackstone fortune. My friends call me Blackie, probably because of my short, jet black hair and onyx eyes. Some consider me a celebrity, a member of the rich and famous, and to others I am a deviant to the chaste and moralistic. Ask me if I care and I will tell you that I don’t. Life is too damn short not to live it up by getting drunk and screwing anything in a skirt. Or in this case, getting drunk and buying a ridiculously expensive car so I can screw in it, while driving over two hundred miles an hour.

  I was in Phoenix for one of my parent’s latest acquisitions. I met this girl… I forget her name, not that it matters, and I decided that I wanted to hang around the desert for a day or two. Of course, in order to do that, I would need a car.

  But this dickhead of a salesman standing in front of me thinks I’m drunk, most likely because I am, but that’s beside the point, and he won’t let me test drive that gorgeous, golden Lamborghini on his showroom floor. I am unaccustomed to being told no. In all my twenty-six, soon to be twenty-seven years, I have never been told no without my money instantly changing their minds. My parents raised me to believe that people who tell me no, are beneath me, and I shouldn’t waste my time with them. The last person who challenged me learned quick enough what weight my last name carries, even in Memphis. And yet you feel guilt for getting her fired. Why is that? You never have before. Shaking off the annoying little voice in my head, I straighten my shoulders and scowl at the salesman.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “No, ma’am, I mean, yes, ma’am, I know who you are, Ms. Blackstone. Your face is on every magazine cover on the newsstands these days.”

  I smiled, flattered by his compliment, and then I remembered that he wasn’t giving me what I wanted, “Then give me the keys to this fucking car.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that, ma’am.”

  “I thought this was supposed to be an exclusive car dealership. I flew in all the way from Vegas, just to buy a car from this backwoods watering hole, and you’re saying no? Get your fucking boss out here, NOW!”

  I have no patience for pipsqueaks like him, but at least he jumped when I told him to. And yeah, I totally lied to him, but it worked. I can see him in the next room talking with the manager now, and I’ll bet a thousand bucks that the manager is about to fire his ass for not letting me test drive that car. Ah, the smell of a fried salesman’s ass always gets my juices to flowing. Especially when they don’t know that I can hear every word they’re saying. If you want privacy, don’t build a glass house, or in this case, a glass dealership. I guess they think it will bring people in to look at the cars, as it did with me. Even the offices were made of glass, as if they want me to see that they’re busy selling cars, but in fact it only proves that they are not.

  “Don’t you know who she is?” I heard the manager yell.

  “Yes, Uncle Jim.” The pipsqueak said.

  Uncle Jim, is it? Well, Uncle Jim, get your ass out here, already.

  “Apparently you don’t, because that’s Melinda Blackstone, the richest woman in America, and she can make or break this dealership with a wave of her billion dollar hand. For God’s sake man, what were you thinking? If you weren’t my nephew I’d fire your ass right now.”

  At least Uncle Jim knows enough to be worried. And here comes the potbellied red faced manager now to try and make amends.

  “Ms. Blackstone, it’s an honor to meet you, my name is…”

  “I don’t care what your name is,” it’s not like I’m ever goi
ng to socialize with him, besides; I’m getting bored with this whole thing, “Look, I own more expensive cars than I know what to do with, and they sit in my warehouse gathering dust. I’d like to add this one to my collection. So are you going to treat me with the respect my money deserves or not?”

  “Of course, your money has my utmost respect.”

  I was about to say something snide like it damn sure better, when I noticed the grin on the pipsqueaks face. Was that an insult? Did he say that I don’t have his respect?

  Oh, my head is spinning again. I must be sobering up which is not what I want, and I always get what I want. I turned away from the manager and took the flask out of my leather jacket, tossing back a big swig of the finest, most expensive bourbon on earth. Aw, that’s so much better. As I was drinking I spotted out of the corner of my eye, a disheveled looking woman coming out of the bathroom, stumbling over her own two feet, toilet paper trailing behind her. God, that’s too funny, what a loser. Then I remembered I had picked her up from a bar, and she was with me for one thing only.

  “You know what, let’s cut to the chase. I’ll buy the damn thing if I can drive it out of here within the next ten minutes. Otherwise, I’ll go down the street and buy from them.

  “Of course, Ms. Blackstone. Just sign the release of responsibility form that I have right here and the car is yours. Um, with a certified check, that is.”

  “Fine.” I scribbled my name on a blank check and handed it to him, “Here’s your check, you can fill in the amount.” and then I signed his stupid release form, “I’ll have my people finish up with you.”

  In the short time it had taken me to sign my check and hand it to him, my inebriated friend had plopped down on the floor and passed out. She wasn’t going to be of much use to me if she was out cold, so I picked her up and lean her against the passenger’s side of the car. I was suddenly hungry for those full lips and the tongue that lay behind them, so I kissed her bawdily, right in front of the grinning manager holding my check in his sweaty hands.

  I opened the door and let the girl fall into the leather bucket seats. Then I walked around the Lamborghini to the driver’s side and got in, revving up the 700 CV at 8,250 RPM, fully intending to drive my new roadster off of the showroom floor. I plugged in my playlist and surfed over to Cher’s song, I Walk Alone, cranking up the volume until the seats vibrated, while I waited for the manager to scurry around getting the large glass doors opened. If it hadn’t been for my companion, whose name I still can’t remember, I would have driven right through the glass in another second or two.

  “Blackie, let’s fuck in this car.”

  “Sure, why not,” I said to her, and then smoked the tires and peeled out of the showroom and onto the street.

  Each time she squeezed on one of my breasts I hit the accelerator, dodging cars and pedestrians alike, but when she went down on me, I stood up on the brake, almost causing the car behind us to rear end me. I wasn’t so drunk as to not know that would keep me from my orgasm, so reluctantly, I pulled up to the first four-star hotel I could find, and tossed the car keys over to the pimply faced valet coming my way. I tipped him a hundred dollar bill and promised four hundred more when I check out, if he swore not to scratch my car or take it for a joy ride. He eagerly agreed. Personally, if it were me, I would have taken it for a joy ride.

  I like my women rough and my sex hard and fast. A woman once told me that the reason I liked it fast and rough was so that she couldn’t get to know me or what lay behind my heart. I thought that was pretty profound and exactly right. If you let someone know your heart, they will only rip it to shreds. I’m much too smart to give them that chance again.

  Of course, your money has my utmost respect. My little voice was awake again, I’m Chris Louise Livingston and I don’t appreciate you… Shut the fuck up!

  ***

  Paying it Backwards, Blackie Blackstone — George Kirk

  From my private files on Melinda Kay Blackstone, also known as Blackie

  George Kirk, Biographer

  Demographics: age twenty-six, long bone, slim, muscular, short black hair and black eyes, tan, lesbian

  Melinda, for all intense and purposes, is a lonely soul, looking for something to fill that void in her heart, but she doesn’t know what it is that she needs. I think perhaps she is about to use up her soul trying to find it. Born an introvert, or so her parents tell me, when she hit puberty, she came out in more ways than most would consider the norm. While writing the first of many biographies on the Blackstone’s, I began chronicling Melinda’s life, to include in her parent’s biography, and perhaps, someday, in her own autobiography.

  Melinda, or Blackie, as she prefers to be called, is an only child, raised in front of the public eye, as the princess of high society. Her parents come from a heritage of wealth, first realized in colonial days, when their ancestor made his fortune as a land speculator. Through the decades, each generation added to their wealth through different ventures. Although the family always withheld some of the land, of which they owned acres upon acres, some generations actually worked the land for profit as well.

  Before the Civil War, when the demand for cotton was at its peak worldwide, the Blackstone family added to their fortune by growing and exporting cotton from their plantation to the highest bidder. But with the emancipation of the slaves, the family got out of cotton production, and returned to land speculation. After the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, and four more such land runs after that, the territory of Oklahoma was homesteaded in a matter of a few years. This troubled the Blackstone’s because the land was practically given away. They began buying up land in California and Nevada, and when there was talk of gold in Alaska, they secured land there as well. Today the Blackstone’s have several mansions in several states and a château in Switzerland, but their home base is their mansion in the Napa Valley of California, where they own a vineyard.

  Throughout the years, the family’s investments have paid off well for them, and now they and their descendants are set for life. Provided someone like Melinda doesn’t come along and throw it all away. She is the sole remaining beneficiary, and her parents fear for their future, not only because she burns through thousands of dollars a day, but because she’s also a lesbian who has vowed never to have children, children that would carry on the name and legacy of the Blackstone’s. What I find peculiar is that although they fear these things, they do nothing about it.

  I have befriended Melinda, as much to write about her as to understand her. We were meeting in a crowded restaurant where I could barely carry on a conversation with her, when she lost her patience and took it out on an unsuspecting waitress. After she got that young woman fired, I thought I saw a twinge of regret in her black eyes. I tried to encourage that regret, to what purpose I’m not sure yet, but it worked. Melinda said she was sorry, she didn’t mean to get her fired, it was just that she had made her angry. I knew, without Melinda saying so, that it was because for the first time in her life, Melinda’s name and net worth didn’t seem to matter. The waitress had put her in her place in spite of it. Melinda asked me not to add that to my book, and of course I agreed. Whether it was because she truly was sorry, or because she didn’t want anyone knowing that someone had stood up to her, I cannot say. But when I asked her why she had allowed the girl to get to her like that, she couldn’t provide an answer.

  ***

  Who is ‒ Christine Livingston

  My name is Chris Livingston and next Tuesday I will be twenty-six-years-old with nothing to show for it. Once upon a time, I was rich, filthy rich as they say, and I wanted for nothing. Now I sit in a dingy, flea invested apartment, where the kitchen is a sink next to the toilet, and the window is a fire escape in case the kitchen catches fire. That last part is no joke. My stove is a hot plate sitting in the sink when I cook, that is when I have food enough to cook. I also have the world’s smallest microwave that I think was here before the building was, but still, I’m grateful that it works. Mon
ey is extremely tight so I have to be very careful with how I pinch my pennies, something I never dreamed of having to do. Why I let myself get into this predicament, I’ll never know.

  My parents are self-made millionaires, well known and well liked in the fortune five-hundred club even though they weren’t old money. My father was a genius at investments, although he would say it was all just luck. Maybe so, but he made us rich. In Memphis, where we live, well, where they lived, my parents were generous benefactors to several charities, and when they held a fundraiser, something my mother was a genius at, people from all over the country would attend, promising millions to the cause.

  In my defense, we came into the money when I was a pre-teen, just hitting puberty. One day I was sitting talking with my best friend, Bonnie, on the school bus, happily on my way to the public school, and the next day I was in a limousine being driven to an exclusive all girl school where the teachers never said no to the students. It didn’t take long for me to realize that if I wanted to fit in, I’d have to act like the other spoiled rotten rich kids. Surprisingly, that was very easy to do.

  After years of over-indulging myself, I guess my parents had become fed up with having to bail me out of jail for public drunkenness, or throwing thousands of dollars out the car window and causing a five car pileup. Maybe it was that photo published on the cover of a magazine of me naked, at a lesbian orgy. Oh yeah, that one was fun.

  It has been nine months since they disinherited me and kicked me to the curb. For the first few months I thought they were just trying to teach me a lesson. Always before, when they had imprisoned me in a rehab, they would bail me out after I promised to clean up my act. But this time, I almost killed someone while driving drunk and I guess that was the last straw for them. Even as I cried like a baby at their doorstep, they stood steadfast and closed the door in my face. Oh my God, that one hurts my soul so much, even now.