Her Real Alpha

by Sherie Keys

  The crawling clock finally hit the top of the hour and, as the professor stopped speaking and released the silent class, an audible sigh was heard from the mass of students.

  They shuffled, groaned, and gathered their things, all of them trekking down the stairs and out of the classroom. Brandy felt life breathe back into her as she stepped into the cold crisp February day. The wind bit at her skin and she pulled her knitted scarf up closer to her to keep warm.

  "Brandy!" a girl's voice called out to her. "Brandy!"

  She turned and saw a short, round, Puerto Rican girl racing toward her through the thick layer of snow on what ought to have been campus grass.

  "Alice!" she called back with a wave.

  Alice caught up to her and hugged her. "Do you have time for a coffee?" she asked with high hopes.

  Brandy knew she was in a hurry to get to the spa where she worked, but she did have a few minutes to spare for her friend. She hadn't had much time with other people her age or any of her friends in a week, so she was happy to accept the offer.

  "Yeah, I can go for a few minutes. Let's get a cup and talk!" she said, following Alice as they headed down the street to their favorite cafe.

  They ducked inside and found themselves in a wash of warm air and the sweet scents of baked goods from the kitchen. Alice saw a free table in the back of the room and she made a beeline for it while Brandy ordered coffee and pastries for them.

  Minutes later, they were peeling off layers of clothing and sitting down breathlessly on the benches at the table in the back of the room.

  "It's so good to see you!" Alice grinned at her. "It's been ages. What have you been up to?" she asked with keen interest.

  Alice was cute. There was no other word for her. She was five feet on a good day, she wore her dark hair short and curly so that it framed her almost chubby face, she had big brown eyes and light caramel colored skin. Her Puerto Rican heritage was evident in her looks and she wore it well.

  Brandy thought she was the most adorable friend she had, and she'd said more than once that she wished Alice was a doll so she could take her home and set her on the bench in her room with her other dolls.

  Brandy had a different look all together. She was taller, with long muscular legs that she kept in shape with early morning jogs and late nights at the gym when she had the chance. Her arms were as toned as her legs, and that had come from years of tennis. She was in excellent shape and health, and it showed in a glow on her dark mahogany skin.

  Her African heritage was evident in her high cheekbones and full lips, but her eyes had come from white forefathers and they were a steel-grayish blue. It was a beautiful and strange offset and she could see the surprise in people's eyes when they met her for the first time.

  She had long slender fingers that were strong and pretty, and her neck was also a little longer, but it gave her a graceful and beautiful look; one of classic elegance. Her curves were rounded and gave onlookers no doubt whatsoever about her gender. Her body moved when she walked, bouncing and swaying, and it was almost as if when she moved, her body was moving to music of some kind; a music that only she could hear.

  The counter girl came over and handed them their coffees and pastries. Alice took a big bite of her chocolate-filled croissant and closed her eyes with pleasure.

  "This is so good. I have no idea what people who graduate do when they leave. How do they stop coming here every day? How could they?" She took another bite and sheer happiness spread over her face.

  Brandy laughed at her and shook her head. "You're one of those rare people who are more worried about eating food that tastes good rather than worrying about what that food will do to your figure, and yet you eat it anyway and you never gain an ounce, except where you want to. I don't understand that."

  Alice shrugged. "It's Puerto Rican heritage. It's how it works." She swallowed some of her coffee and looked at Brandy.

  "So? What's been going on with you?"

  Brandy shrugged and looked down. "The same old things. My laptop is about to die; do you know when I took it out of my bag in class today that a piece of it actually fell off? I have got to get a new laptop soon, before this one bites it and I'm stuck for one.

  “So, school is busy and they're trying to kill me. Death by education; I'm paying the cost of a small house for it. Ridiculous. Did you know there are countries where college students get an education for free? Did you know that? Yeah. We are not lucky enough to live in a country where the government values smart citizens above a gigantic military." She rolled her eyes.

  Alice grumbled quietly, but took another bite and listened to Brandy.

  "I'm doing alright in all of my classes, but just barely. It feels as if I have to work extra hard just to keep up, and if I let go for even a moment, just to relax a little, that I'll lose my grip and everything will fall apart. There just doesn't seem to be much room for downtime, and I'm worried it will catch up with me when it's time for finals and I'll end the semester on a fail."

  Alice stared at her with wide eyes and swallowed her bite of croissant. "Brandy, calm down, we just started this semester!"

  "I can't keep calm!" she laughed a little and looked wide eyed at Alice. "I have scholarships and grants and I have to keep my grades up to keep them. I can't let people down, especially myself. I just can't!"

  Alice gave her a look of disbelief. "What are you talking about? You aren't going to let anyone down!"

  Brandy shrugged. "It doesn't take much. One bad thing can kick off a domino effect and then you're chasing your own tail for ages. It's hard to break cycles like that. I'm working a few more hours at the spa doing massages, and I have really rich clients who tip me well, for the most part, so that helps me out, but I'll be honest with you; I'm falling behind in a bunch of things, and money is a big one. I'm having such a hard time right now,” she said, disappointment saddening her face.

  Alice patted her arm. "Things will look up soon. Things change; they always do. Something will give way. In the meantime, just keep working on it. You have lofty goals, Brandy, and you can reach them. You just can't let go. You have to keep working away at it, working hard, and probably just about the time you think it's never going to work, something will work, and you won't have problems anymore. Or... at least not the same problems."

  Alice was trying to help her and be supportive, but Brandy could see that train of inspiration would be going downhill soon. She turned the tables.

  "What about you?" she asked Alice. "What's been going on for you?"

  Alice grinned and gushed. "Well, I was at a dance the other night... was it Friday? Saturday? I don't know. Anyway, I met this really great guy. Harry something-something... he's a third generation med student-soon to be doctor. So cute! Ah! We had a great time. We're going out for drinks again. Do you want to come with us? It's been ages since you had a date. I'm sure he's got a friend. What do you think?" Alice's face brightened at the idea and she waited excitedly for Brandy's answer.

  "I think I am much too busy to date. I'm sorry, I would love to, and it has been forever, but right now I just don't have time to give to anyone else. I wish I could." She sighed and smiled at her friend who seemed to be enjoying college life the right way.

  "I'll just have to live vicariously through you; you know, the dances and dates and cute college boys. Tell me how it all is, and I will enjoy it from behind my laptop and my work." She smiled genuinely at her friend and then Alice finished her coffee and said with a satisfied sigh, "Oh! That was good. I know you have to run. Thank you so much for stopping to visit with me!"

  Brandy finished her coffee and rose to her feet, hugging Alice tightly and heading out the door with her. They hurried off in opposite directions, waving at each other and smiling as they rushed back to their lives.

  Brandy took the train to the spa where she worked and was glad to get there where she could make herself a cup of hot tea and pull off all of her layers. One of the benefits of working in a massage room was that
the rooms were always a little extra warm because the clients weren't dressed. Working in a room like that in February in New York City was a very good thing.

  Her boss, Hannah, waved at her when she came in. "You've got a full day today. Here's your list."

  She handed her a list of the appointments and Brandy's eyes scanned down the names. Some of them were new, but most of them were regulars, and she preferred them. Her eyes neared the bottom of the list and stopped for a moment on one name. Kyle Jamison. He was coming in for a massage. She allowed herself a small smile and thanked her boss and headed off to her room to prepare for work.

  Kyle was one of her regular massages. He was newer; he had only been coming to her for a month, but he liked the way that she worked on him, and so he kept coming back. She loved working on him. The man took care of himself and he had a beautiful body; one that was easy to work on and beautiful to look at. She had been disappointed to discover that he was married, because she had a small crush on him, but they got along so well that she just kept right on massaging him and he kept making return appointments, and it worked out well.

  Her first client came in. Delphine. She'd been in a couple of car accidents and her body was still recovering from the damage that had been done to her physically. Brandy thought that she would probably be done working on Delphine in another month or so, and the woman would be back to herself again.

  Brandy was always very professional and polite. She took her job seriously; she looked at herself as a healer, and because it was the nature of the job, as a counselor of sorts as well. There's just something about spending time alone in a quiet room with someone who has all of their clothes off that makes them feel like they can tell you anything, and they almost always did.

  She knew deep dark secrets about almost every one of her clients and she kept those to herself and still encouraged and supported her clients and tried to give them helpful opinions, thoughts, or advice anytime that they asked her for it.

  Brandy worked on Delphine and when that woman left, she had an appointment with Luke. Luke was a furniture and appliance delivery man who took one day a week to splurge on himself and get the knots worked out of his muscles.

  Her clients were varied. Some of them were middle class and some of them were substantially wealthy, like Kyle Jamison. She was pretty sure that Kyle had more money than God, but she couldn't ask, and so she just worked on him and appreciated the nice tip that he gave her every time he left.

  He was a really personable client, and rather than talk about himself for an hour each time he came in, he liked instead to hear about her and what was going on her life. It gave him a break from his own world, and that was part of why he came in and paid for her to give him a massage.

  *

  Kyle sat in the breakfast nook of the kitchen and sipped his coffee, looking out the steamed window at the snow and the cold, bright winter day. He loved living in New York; he just wished the winters weren't quite so harsh. He opened his paper to read it and heard the kitchen door slam.

  He sighed and didn't bother to look up.

  "Good morning, Veronica,” he said, almost tiredly.

  "What the hell is so good about it?" She didn’t really want to know the answer. He kept reading his paper.

  "Did you see that Consuela left me this disgusting mess for breakfast? What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Does she think I'm going to heat it up and cook it myself? What the hell is that stuff anyway?" she complained bitterly from the opposite side of the refrigerator door.

  "I think it's eggs. It's good. You should try them," he said without turning his head or looking over his shoulder at her.

  "I want her fired. Seriously. I can't even make out what the hell she's cooked us for breakfast, and if she's that bad, she doesn't need to be employed in this house. Let her go today, Kyle. Have someone else hired in here for tomorrow." She slammed the refrigerator door shut and came to sit beside him with a cup of coffee.

  "I'm not going to fire her because you don't like eggs. Leave her a note and ask her not to make them for you anymore. That's easy enough, isn't it?" he said in a quiet tone, looking at her. She was tall and slender, blonde and stuffed with silicone. She was a work of art, from her bleached hair to her painted toenails, canvassed in expensive designer clothes.

  She huffed at her coffee and sipped it. "It's ridiculous. You always take the side of the help. Why do you do that? Why can't you ever side with me?" she pouted at him in annoyance.

  He looked up at her from his paper and sighed. "I take the side of whomever is right. It just so happens that you are not very often right."

  She glared at him and shook her head, giving her short blonde bob a swing. "What's today? Friday? Are you going in for your massage?" she asked coolly.

  Kyle nodded. "I am. Every Friday." "See?" She waved her hand in the air as if she was making a profound point. "That is just another example of how you treat the help. You are a billionaire, and you could have a massage therapist come to our home, but you don't. You go all the way downtown and go to that place where the students work. Why do you do that?" she asked in irritation.

  He looked at her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I go there so that I can support the students who are working their way through college. My business means more to them than to one of the massage people who comes to the house. Especially in this neighborhood."

  "It irritates me to no end that you want to go and rub elbows with poor people. It's disgusting. Why would you do that? We have our own people, our own set of friends, and if you'd listen to me once in a while when I try to explain these things to you, we even have our own class of servants and workers who far outweigh the quality of the people you like to associate with! It's absolutely disgusting."

  He looked over his paper at her and glared. "How can you say something like that? You didn't come from a wealthy family; you came from roots just like those. How could you say that there are different classes of people and we should only mingle with our own? That's supremely elitist!"

  She shuddered involuntarily and her cheeks grew pink. "How dare you throw my past up in my face. It's not as if I'd chosen it, and you know how hard I have worked to separate myself from that life, from those people, and you just keep right on going back to them!"

  He narrowed his eyes. "How hard you've worked? You married me. How hard was that? Wait... what am I saying? You can't stand me." He scowled and went back to reading his paper.

  It had been a long time since she had enjoyed his company, in the bedroom or out of it. Now they only bickered when they saw each other on rare occasions, except at night when they slept on opposite sides of the same bed. Veronica was only nice to Kyle when she wanted something bad enough to have to involve him in the process of getting it.

  Veronica pouted quietly in her coffee for a few minutes and then flashed her big blue eyes at Kyle.

  "I want to redecorate that second room from the left upstairs. The one that overlooks the garden." She said it as a means of telling him rather than asking him if it would be alright if she did it.

  He sighed. "What are you going to do with it?" he asked, not curious to know at all.

  "I'm going to turn it into my own bedroom,” she said with a glow and a wide grin of excitement.

  He looked up at her in consternation. "Why do you want your own bedroom? Why would you do that? We share a room."

  She nodded and shrugged. "Well, all we do in there is sleep, and I want to sleep somewhere pretty, so I need my own room." She looked at him sharply and he knew her mind was made up. He had a half a mind to argue with her, but he knew it wouldn't get him far.

  "Fine!" he grumbled. "Have it your way, then. We never have sex anymore anyway; there's no reason to keep you in our room."

  Kyle paused a moment and chuckled to himself and then went back to reading the newspaper.

  "What's so funny?" she asked in curious irritation.

  "Well," he answered her, "I won't have to list
en to you snore anymore."

  Veronica was aghast. "I do not snore!" she insisted.

  "Yeah, you do. If you like, I'll video tape it one night for you," he offered, straight faced.

  "Don't you dare!" she shrieked at him.

  "I think I might like you having your own room. Why don't you go ahead and do it then?" he said. "I'm going to head off to work. I'll see you later," he told her, standing up and leaning over to kiss her cheek. She turned her face from him and left him standing there.

  He cleared his throat and stood up, walking away as she ignored him, heading to the garage to get one of the cars to drive for his workday.

  Kyle worked in the city and did very well for himself. He wasn't often in his office, but he did meet with clients outside of his office from time to time, and he tried to keep himself busy with good old business partners and bright new prospects.