A Verdict for Love

by Monica Conti

  © 2010 by Monica Conti

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

  This material is presented as adult entertainment and is not intended for any person under the age of eighteen years. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, the author assumes no responsibilities for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of information contained herein. All characters and descriptions contained herein are purely fictitious.

  Chiara stood by the window watching the people moving along W. Peachtree as she sipped her coffee and thought about the day ahead. Her raven hair was swept off her face and fell in waves around high cheekbones. The tips of that luxuriant mane grazed the tops of her shoulders. That morning she had chosen a turquoise turtleneck sweater that fit her slim torso and gently hugged her breasts. Black trousers hung low on her hips and clung to her bottom as though the material had been painted on her. Chiara felt that too many career women imitated men in their choice of dress. She saw no reason to drape herself in curve killing pinstripes.

  Chiara Bianchi had arresting, dark brown eyes. When she gazed at anyone she had a way of making them feel as though she were looking deep into them, not just at them, but inside their being. That she stood out wherever she went was due to no special effort on her part. Her beauty and Italian heritage gave her an aura of intrigue. Most of the denizens of Atlanta found her worthy of attention. And, if her accent and beauty weren’t enough to make them notice, then her unconventional sense of style was.

  Even though the letterhead of the firm of Smith, Weinstein & Brooks did not yet bear her name, Chiara felt the firm’s offices were her domain. She pretty much lived and breathed her career and years of hard work had advanced her to junior partner status but there was one last rung to climb. Each morning, she would stand in the same spot. Her eyes were on the sun rising over the distant skyline but her mind was busy ordering the day ahead. Whether she had a court appearance or a brief to work on, she was diligent and thorough.

  Chiara was a worthy adversary in the courtroom and not one that prosecutors looked forward to seeing across from them at the defense table.

  As she turned away from the window that morning she had a lot on her mind. She was undertaking the biggest criminal trial she had ever been given. If she won it, she could expect to make full partner. A pursuit of success and power was the hypnotic underpinning that kept her centered as a woman and as a lawyer.

  The case involved Jack Shay, the proprietor of the largest and most popular gentleman’s club in Atlanta—Club Vanity Fair.

  The indictment charged Shay with racketeering and the illegal operation of a prostitution ring on the premises of the club. They were alleging serious connections to organized crime. It was a nice juicy, high profile scandal. The prosecutor saw a chance for some sweet political headlines and he had people lined up around the block to testify against Shay. Everyone in Atlanta figured he was guilty.

  Most anyone with deep pockets called Peter Smith’s firm when they found themselves in hot water. But the most senior of the partners had not been eager to defend Shay. It seemed like a lost cause and losing a case that was getting so much publicity wouldn’t help their reputation. But there were two good reasons for him to help Shay in spite of his reservations. One, the fee would be large and there was a second incentive. Some years back there had been an unfortunate mishap. He and a few cronies had at times availed themselves of the services of some of Shay’s classier girls. One night things had had not worked out for him with one of those girls. Everything had been taken care of. It was pretty much ancient history but with the prosecutor busy digging a hole to bury Shay in who knew what old skeletons might be unearthed. If the firm took the defense he would be in a better position to do some damage control if by some fluke it became necessary.

  None of the partners wanted it. They felt it was an unwinnable bet and who needed an addition to their loss column. Also it had the smell of outside underworld influence written all over it. So Smith passed it off to Chiara Bianchi. She was hungry for a chance to shine and he was sure she was able enough to at least put up a good show. The prosecution would be painting Shay as a victimizer of women so having a woman at the defense table made sense.

  As word circulated within the firm it became a sort of whispered joke. Her male colleagues were sure that the high and mighty Miss Bianchi would lose the trial and be one step closer to leaving. Oddly enough it was the very fact of her attractiveness that had brought about such secret animosity.

  Chiara had initially been admired by all the firm’s male lawyers, but their admiration was more for her beauty and exoticism than for her skill as a lawyer. But after getting nowhere near her bedroom resentment had replaced admiration. She’d become known as the Ice Queen behind her back. Her defeat would provide some satisfaction for their bruised egos.

  It was true that Chiara had steadfastly refused all of their seductive overtures. But she’d rejected them kindly. Chiara was not cruel or rude. In fact, she was femininely polite in the extreme way that Italian women tend to be. She was always respectful to her male counterparts.

  In many ways, despite her career accomplishments she was traditionally feminine outwardly. She even volunteered to serve the coffee or tea at meetings. And, she never indicated any displeasure when she saw the men sizing her up physically during intra-office gatherings or at firm outings.

  She had been raised by a second generation Italian-American mother and had been brought up to show respect for men. So, it came naturally for her to do so. The problem was that the men misinterpreted this behavior as meaning that she might want something more than office politesse.

  In thinking she was interested in men in any way other than professionally they had been way off base. Chiara was a lesbian. Her personal choice was to remain in the closet. To her mind she had no alternative if she wanted to succeed as a lawyer in such a very old school Atlanta firm.

  However, being closeted had merely solved one problem and created another. The men took her rejection of them to heart and their resentment toward her grew, as both a woman and an attorney.

  Chiara had naturally become aware of this but there was little she could do beyond maintaining her composure. The conflict was unavoidable. She was absolutely gorgeous to look at and though she tried and mostly succeeded at keeping suitors at bay with the kindest refusals, she had an allure that was bound to lead her into difficulty.

  At the moment, she didn’t have time to consider any of that or what she was missing in her life. Her thoughts were consumed with a search for some angle that could be brought to Jack Shay’s defense.

  She knew that Shay was guilty as sin. From the moment Peter Smith had tossed the case in her lap she had spent night, day and every waking millisecond on it. She didn’t care about his guilt. What she cared about as a seasoned defense attorney was getting him a fair trial. And winning it despite the odds against her!

  Chiara had been schooled by some of the best and brightest lawyers at Harvard and she knew what it took to win a tough case. The key would be microscopic focus. There had to be a flaw somewhere she just had to prove she could find it.

  On her initial meeting with Jack Shay, they were both sizing each other up. Chiara took one look at him and saw him for a sleazy purveyor of flesh. For his part, he seemed more than a little doubtful of her ability to defend him successfully. Chiara quickly pointed out to him that having a woman in his corner when he was accused of prostituting women was actually a huge advantage. In the end he had to concur. The bottom line for Chia
ra was that her personal opinion of Jack Shay was immaterial. Giving him anything less than the best defense she could muster would be unethical.

  Her head might have been filled with thoughts of nothing but Jack Shay and Club Vanity Fair. But, at night sometimes, when all was quiet in her large home on E. Paces Ferry, private musings intruded. She would stare out across the pine-tree strewn backyard and listen to the night-birds singing. Her success had earned her a lovely home but she felt deeply lonely at these moments and wished she had someone to share it with.

  She had been single for a year now. Her longtime lover Helen had gone back to Boston where they had met during Chiara’s stint as a law student.

  Helen had left because she had felt too often ignored. She’d been angry because Chiara spent all her time at the firm and she had also resented being forced into the closet with her there in the conservative and deeply-religious south.

  Though they had loved each other a great deal, Helen had been unable to reconcile herself to being relegated to the home and never sharing time outside of it with her lover.

  Chiara had not known how to change anything, though she had wanted to do so. It was too late now. Helen was already with another woman, a painter named Sharon Blackamoor, living in a quaint house with an ocean view and two dogs.

  So on the dark evenings when Chiara was alone in her big empty white house with its grand portico and Doric columns, she felt yearnings for love, yearnings for pleasure, for eroticism.

  There was no outlet for her. Torturing herself was pointless so she put even more of her energy into the career that had created those evening voids, always postponing her deeper desires and repressing any overwhelming longings. It was sad and a loss…both for her and for some special woman somewhere with whom she could have shared love had she felt free to live more honestly and more truly.

  She justified the situation by telling herself that the time was not right for deeper living yet. At least, that is what she tried to convince herself of.

  Out of the blue, Helen called one Sunday morning and asked Chiara if they might meet in New York for a showing of some recently unveiled Mapplethorpe photographs at the Modern. Chiara was surprised but also happy. The approaching trial made her hesitate but then she decided a break could actually help. If she could clear her head a fresh approach might present itself.

  She had missed Helen horribly and longed to see her again. They had a rich history together and it was one that they both still valued. Circumstances more than anything else had separated them, not a lack of love or desire for one another.

  Chiara agreed to meet her and they decided to share a room at the Omni Berkshire on E. 52nd Street. They had stayed there before and both liked its convenience as well as its simple elegance.

  Chiara arrived Friday night and found out at the desk that Helen had already checked into the room.

  She quietly opened the room with her key card. Helen was lying on the bed with her honey colored hair down. Her soft brown eyes filled with familiar desire when she saw Chiara.

  Helen arose from the bed and took Chiara’s hands, bringing them to her lips and kissing the inner palms softly and erotically. Chiara uttered a moan.

  No words were exchanged between the two women. There was no need for words. They fell into each other’s arms and began kissing as though it had been an eternity since either of them had shared kisses with another living being. Such was the case for Chiara, if not for Helen. Still, she had missed Chiara’s soft full lips and the way her warm, knowing tongue always moved inside her mouth, caressing her tongue and driving her toward ecstasy.

  Chiara pulled at Helen’s raw silk shirt and accidentally tore it. Helen didn’t care at all and helped her finish ripping it off. The shirt dropped to the floor and Chiara fell upon Helen’s ripe, full breasts. Her nipples, reddened and hardened with desire, were ripe for Chiara’s mouth.

  She caressed Helen’s breasts and sighed loudly as she moved her hands down to seek her lost lover’s sex.

  She yanked the skirt off her and found, as in the past, that she wore no panties. Chiara’s fingers probed the crease of her sex, smelling it in the room, feeling Helen’s body tense with desire as she parted Helen’s lips. She continued kissing her with deep penetrating tongue strokes.

  She entered her sex then, with two fingers inside that gorgeous mound. Helen’s nether lips were wetter than she ever remembered them in the past and she pushed in and out of her cunt harder and faster, the sound of her palm hitting the hot pussy loud in the room.

  She pushed her down on the bed and told her: “Spread your legs, Helen.”

  Helen obeyed her, and Chiara rose above her, moving her ex-lover’s thighs open roughly and wider. She pushed two fingers in her pussy and one inside her beautiful ass and slapped at her clit with her palm as she fingered her harder.

  Chiara mounted her then, riding her with her own mound behind her palm as she fingered Helen’s sweet, hot cunt. The back of her hand was pressing against her own clit, and she was on the verge of orgasm herself when Helen raised her hips up off the bed, rotated them in a semicircle and came so hard that she nearly collapsed. Chiara held tight to her hips and rode the orgasm to its completion. She too came with a deep feeling of bliss radiating out from her clit and filling her entirely with pleasure.

  They both felt such intense relief to finally touch again after so long apart. It didn’t matter that they had moved on with their lives. It didn’t matter to Chiara that Helen found another lover. Somehow they still had a bond.

  They ordered room service that night and stayed up late watching old movies until they fell asleep in one another’s arms.

  Chiara awoke in the morning to find herself alone. Helen’s things were gone. She found a note left on the desk written in a familiar and elegant scrawl,

  I’m sorry C, I just couldn’t stay. Last night was beautiful. I’ll never forget it but I have to go back to Sharon. She’ll be devastated otherwise.

  I’ll love you always ~ Helen.

  This would have been a perfect time to fall apart if Chiara were a lesser woman, but she took it in the same composed way she took most things. She was simply happy they’d been able to find pleasure once more together, even if this truly signified that it was finally over between them.

  She went back to Atlanta on a red-eye Delta flight. Her mind had already returned to the case ahead. Though she was forlorn and deeply sad, she was resigned. The scent of Helen’s perfume was still on the jacket she was wearing but once it faded...there would be only the memory of one last night in a hotel room.

  The trial was fast approaching, and Chiara was researching and investigating the club and Mr. Shay. As a part of her effort, she made a point of visiting Club Vanity Fair just to get a sense of the place and what was really happening there.

  Of course, Shay and his racketeering partners had done some necessary clean up and rule-changing since the indictment. The private VIP rooms had been shut down. But Chiara still felt she needed to have a feel for the club and for Shay’s role there.

  She went to Vanity Fair on a Friday night around 11 p.m. and found it was full to capacity. Despite all the bad publicity, or perhaps due to it, the club was still doing well.

  Chiara sat quietly in a corner of the nightclub, sipping a glass of chilled white wine watching the action unfold before her. She had never been to an exotic dance club before, so it was novel to see beautiful women dancing and moving around the floor with such naked abandon. She was aware that often women were coerced into working these establishments. Jack Shay might be a user but from what she could see these women were his willing accomplices. There were dollar signs in the eyes behind the smiles. She was the only female customer in the club.

  She sensed that there was more than met the eye to this operation. According to her sources, upstairs there were hidden alcoves where women had been taking clients for ‘champagne and strawberries’ at an obscene price of around $1,000 per hour. It was hard to believe but some
men paid it. Her problem was that no juror was going to be stupid enough to believe that men were paying that kind of money just for dances, champagne and strawberries.

  Chiara was enjoying the music despite her reservations about the place. The music was slow, rhythmic and bass inflected. The wine warmed her and she became more relaxed as she sat back in the chair wearing her casual clothes—faded jeans, a black turtleneck and black boots. Even with semi-nude women wandering about she garnered plenty of attention from the male clients and had to snub several come-ons. The appearance of a woman patron in the club also drew speculation from the dancers and waitresses.

  A lovely young dancer approached her and softly asked if she would like some company.

  Chiara gazed at her deliberately, her dark eyes honing in on the dancer’s breasts. Her look went back up to the dancer’s face. The girl licked her lips slowly and smiled at Chiara.

  “Well,” she asked seductively, “Would you like my company?”

  Chiara asked her, “How much does your company cost?”

  The dancer replied, “That all depends on what you want of me.”

  Chiara touched the woman’s arm and felt the softness of her skin. The young woman smiled at her.

  Chiara said quietly, “I think I have to pass this evening, though I am flattered that you asked me.”

  The dancer smiled and walked away.

  She passed up several more offers for lap dances, though she experienced some arousal as she watched the dancers moving so erotically and with such complete abandon. She felt a kind of strange dark desire rising up but she was there to observe…on professional business. Any such involvement was unthinkable... still, the temptation was real.

  Jack Shay appeared and approached her around midnight.

  “Kinda surprised to see you here.” he said, “I take it you aren’t looking for entertainment.”

  “No. Just research.”