[niamhoneill]

Tale about a young woman with a wealthy father who gives her too much. One day he removes her allowance and she goes on a journey of manipulation to get it back.

I sprayed some Armani perfume onto my Coco Chanel clad cleavage whilst getting ready for dinner, wondering with a grin whether he would scratch his crotch during the meal. My prince charming for the night was a regular at the inner city pub where I had been working, and more importantly, someone my wealthy father would detest.

This man's name was Smacko; he was of no fixed abode, or a 'wandering wanker' as he liked to call himself. My father wanted me to date his friend’s son, Charles. Charles was 25, a well-dressed trainee lawyer and I supposed not bad looking. Smacko estimated his age to be around 30, had lost most of his teeth from his days as a street fighter or “steeth fi-er” as he pronounced it and had deep-set, dirt-peppered wrinkles spread across almost every inch of his face, each one telling a story of arson or grievous bodily harm.

A month ago my Daddy dearest decided that he would no longer contribute financially towards the lifestyle I had become so accustomed to. My acrylic nail appointments, my blonde hair extensions, my poodle’s hair extensions and my botox sessions were to become a thing of the past. My shimmering, spray-tanned body shook from head to toe with anger as I heard him utter the cruellest words a father can say to his daughter: “it’s time you got a job and learned some independence.” After throwing a tantrum and smashing one of his prized Faberge eggs, I reported him to the RSPCC, who berated me and hung up when I told them I was 24.

To spite my father I got a job in the sleaziest bar in town, “Tassels,” where I was the rich girl on the wrong side of the tracks. The bar was dark and dingy with large patterns on the carpet to cover the vomit stains and vomit in the toilets to cover even more disturbing stains. The clientele included the likes of Georgie, a 70-year-old former safe cracker with one leg and a serious hygiene problem. To my amazement, dogs went wild in this man's presence. Packs of howling hounds often had to be shooed away from the pub when he was inside downing his twelfth vodka. Bernard, another customer, was a midget, probably no more than 4 foot tall. He said that God made him this height so that he could be closer to women’s' asses, which he liked to pinch He confided in me that he had a penchant for overly tall prostitutes with large derrieres who would wrap him in cellophane from time to time; I passed all of this information onto my father of course.

The owner of the bar, Bette, was a brash and buxom woman with an angular Romanesque jaw line and garden shovels for hands. She towered above most of the male customers, who seemed to lose an inch with every sip of alcohol they took. She could reduce troublemaking men to tears by squeezing their testicles; her pull and twist method was well tried and tested. She took great pride in the fact that there hadn’t been an armed robbery in the pub for a full two months. Bette placed a heavy arm around my shoulder, which dipped under her weight, and told me that she was glad to have me on board. My stomach churned as I wondered how long I was going to have to keep up this masquerade.

Each night I returned home from work and attempted to fill my father with terror about my horrific encounters with the working class customers. “They don’t even know what Armani is Daddy,” I told him with forced tears in my eyes, my face strained. “One of them called me boobs and offered me a pork scratching.” I even took up darts and started smoking but it seemed that nothing I could say or do concerned him enough to put an end to this ridiculousness and take back out his cheque book.

Drastic measures were called for. The minimum wage they were paying me at the bar was barely enough to buy a jar of the latest age defying moisturiser. My nails had become brittle, expressions were returning to my usually heavily-botox-injected face, and for the first time in years, I was beginning to see my natural hair colour. I hated it—it was totally last season. I needed to get my allowance back soon, so decided to begin dating one of the customers to shock my father into returning me to the life of seaweed wraps and manicures to which I so rightly belonged.

I thought carefully about which customer to date and opted for Smacko, not only due to his shocking appearance and erratic behaviour, but also because I could tell that he liked me by the way he stared at my bosom and told me that I had a “fine pair on me.” His unusually wide and flat face broke into a large smile and his bloodshot eyes twinkled with glee when I asked him out on a date.

“He swears and plays the harmonica on the street for money,” I told my father that evening with fake enthusiasm in my voice.

“Good, good”, he replied, to my annoyance without even looking up from reading the financial times.

I had limited my dates with Smacko to once a week. He thought I was playing hard to get. “That’s what posh girls do,” I told him. In reality, meeting him once a week was all my smell receptors could cope with since the man reeked. My father got to hear about the night that Smacko took me to the movies, how we had snuck in without paying and sat in the back row smoking cigarettes and drinking cider. I saw a slight reaction when I told him about how Smacko had yelled out “bitch and whore” every time Nemo made an appearance on the silver screen and how he had howled wildly when the film ended, making the audience jump in their seats.

I suspected that Smacko was beginning to fall in love with me, which made me feel a little guilty. But really, I thought, how could he not? I was so civilised and nice smelling and he was so animalistic and rancid.

He wanted to introduce me to his family, who lived in a caravan on a grass verge beside the motorway, an invitation I happily accepted in the hope that my father would disapprove hugely. Smacko’s 14 younger brothers and sisters gathered excitedly around their outdoor snooker table to meet me. I felt like a celebrity when I witnessed their fascination and inquisitiveness about my life, one so different and richer than their own. I smiled at their conniving questions such as “what’s yer pin number lady?” and “where did ya park yer car?”

Smacko’s mother seemed like a nice lady. She poured me a cup of tea and insisted on singing a song to let me know how happy she was to meet me. I watched mesmerized as she began to croak her way through a tune I didn’t recognize. Her voice was unusually versatile, one moment hitting screeching notes so high that it resembled the sound of cats fighting, and the next so deep it was like it came from deep inside the belly of a man. My eyes grew large in astonishment as I watched her flail her arms wildly around her head and stamp her feet in a manner that was totally out of rhythm with her body, making her look as if she was going into convulsions. Just when I thought the situation couldn’t get any more unusual, she used her index fingers to pull her eyelids fully open so that I could see some of the part behind her eyeball. To be polite, I began slapping my hand off my thigh to suggest that I was enjoying this entirely bizarre exhibit. I could tell that the song was finally coming to an end as she moved closer to me and sang in a whisper as though unveiling some great secret conclusion. When the singing stopped, she left her mouth stretched wide open, exposing every cavity within it and remained like this for about 30 seconds until she snapped it shut and glared at me. I assumed she was waiting for applause or some sort of reaction. Bewildered and uncomfortable, I thanked her for the song and looked for the door in fear of an encore.

So, this was it, my final effort to get my old man to come to his senses. I was going to introduce him to Smacko and worse still; he was going to come to our home. I had chosen my father’s favourite restaurant, somewhere he would not want to be embarrassed. Smacko called to the house a half an hour late, which I knew enraged my father, although he hid it well. I did however see his face drop as he examined Smacko and shook his hand, which was yellowed from smoking and had a tattoo spread across each finger, which read “L. O. V. E.”

“Mista, nice to meet ya Mista,” Smacko said in that husky voice of his, only achievable to those who began smoking at the age of three and never stopped.

“So, this whole place yours ye Mista?” He looked around shiftily and placed a wide dirty hand on my father’s cappuccino wall, which left an outline of grime when he moved it away.

I was pleased to notice that Smacko hadn’t bothered to wash in preparation for the occasion. The smell of cider, his unwashed body, and the slightest hint of urine emanated from him and circulated his body at a radius of about 5 feet. My father winced and stepped away from him when the smell hit. My plan was working; soon he would be asking me how much money I needed to get back to my previous life where I only encountered cultured and clean people. I grinned and congratulated myself on my own genius.

On the way to the restaurant, Smacko sat in the front of the car as my father drove. "I can get ya a new CD player for de car," he told my father, "any kind ye like, no questions asked, know what I mean?" He winked." The car was silent.

At the restaurant, Smacko picked his nose with one hand and took food directly off my father’s plate with the other. He referred to the prawns I was eating as “dem wormy things” and called the gravy “diarrhoea.” The conversation did not exactly flow, with my father hardly speaking at all. Smacko gave him a run down of all the cheap electrical goods he could sort him out with and after dinner he tried to sell the waiter a watch. I was surprised that my father managed to remain reserved and calm even when Smacko began scratching furiously down below and then reached for the communal bread.

When dinner ended, Smacko bid farewell to us, saying he had to see a man about a dog. In the car journey home, my father finally cracked. “You win,” he said, defeated, finally real emotions evident in his voice. “I know what you’ve been playing at, but I didn’t think you would keep it up for so long. You'll get your allowance back, just promise me you'll never see that man again?” I made my promise and told my father to stop at the nearest boutique on the way home. It had been too long.

I browsed through Burberry, Armani, and Chanel as I had done so many times before, but something was wrong. My heart didn’t flutter like it used to at the sight of the perfect little black dress. My stomach didn’t flip when I laid eyes on a pair of this seasons perfectly pink Monolos. The passion for acquiring, the overwhelming sense of needing unnecessary extravagance was diminished. I looked at my chipped fingernails and wondered what it all meant.

The next day I went to Tassels to hand in my notice as per my father’s request. The bar was empty except for Bette and Bernard, who was a permanent fixture, the shape of his petite body indented into his overly tall stool. He jumped off his perch and stood on his tiptoes, bending his head towards his back to make eye contact with me, a stale cigarette lolled from his chapped lips. “I’ll miss you kid,” he said with a wink or a twitch. Bette hugged me and told me that I would always be welcome at Tassels, and I walked away with a heavy feeling. Although I found these people mostly repugnant, they had some qualities that I admired. It had been good at times to be part of something, a community, and it was great not to worry about how my highlights looked or whether I could squeeze into a size two. That’s when it dawned on me, a moment of enlightenment, maybe I should get a job.

Another unknown feeling, guilt, had set in about how callously I had treated my father, using him to get what I wanted. So to please him and in an attempt to make amends, I finally agreed to go for dinner with his friend’s son Charles, who he believed would be such a perfect match for me. Unenthused, I got ready for the date.
Charles arrived ten minutes early. From upstairs I could hear the purr of his brand new Mercedes as it pulled into the drive. Minutes later he was in the hall conversing with my father. I overheard them discuss tennis; both were avid fans and had caught the Wimbledon semi finals on TV that evening. Charles made some joke about a player’s previous record and they both laughed in unison, which ended with a snort.

When I came down the stairs, Charles told me that I looked beautiful, which I knew already, though it was nice to hear. He was tall and athletic and smelt of strawberries, his blonde hair coiffed with grooves from the comb still evident in the gel. His suit was immaculate and reflections bounced off his polished leather shoes. He brought me a bouquet of crimson roses, tightly packed. Their perfume filled the room and their colour brightened it.

Although he was nice to look at, I found Charles to be insufferably boring and dinner was proving a chore. He spoke relentlessly about money, finance and business. He gave me a breakdown of his estimated future earning potential. He even took out a pie chart to demonstrate this. I played with my potato gratin, pushing it from one side of my plate to the other. This was boredom personified, I thought. His talk of economics paused for a moment, and as he put food into his mouth, I saw my opportunity to speak. I told him that I was thinking about getting a job. He looked shocked and said he couldn’t see the benefit, that looking good was a full time job for a woman. No wife of his would ever have to work and she would want for nothing. My eyes brightened, my attention was captured. I could see the benefit of not working of course. I smiled for the first time that evening as I looked into his glistening eyes. “Perhaps you’re right,” I said. I knew it in that moment that those eyes belonged to my future husband, my rich future husband.

[dearest]

Love the ending (very unexpected...though knowing our main character, I suppose not. ^_^) Humor is great throughout, and I love your descriptions. Excellent work!

[niamhoneill]

Hi, thank you. I really tried with this one to develop some sort of a plot, a motive throughout. I wasn't too sure if it ended too abruptly or not.

Thanks again,

Niamh

[Vorcla]

Nice. Your humor is consistent throughout; nice and dry and droll. You do a good job with your descriptions, as Fire noted. I don't think the ending was too abrupt, and I like the little twist.

Overall, nice job.

Rick

[Venomous Vixen]

I found this one witty and clever. It is funny to step into another world, not by reading about fairies and goblins but by reading about how an "heiress" may feel. I think you captured it well, and even the tantrum and charade she put up, I could believe all of it.

I am still absorbing the end. I know realistically this is probably what would have happened, and she would have forgotten the lesson she was on the brink of and gone back into her routine as the pretty little daughter of someone important but, ah somehow it felt wrong. It would have been nice to see her challenge the man sitting across from her on jobs and working... he could still fall in love with her for her spirit... perhaps I think too much of people lol.

Regardless, well done and some great stuff in there!

[creativeminds]

it was a good story, but i think the character needed to be more prissy. it was good in detial but lacking at the same time. what i mean is you could kinda get the differenct personalitys of the charcters but at the same time they where the same.

[niamhoneill]

Hi Creativeminds,

I totally understand what you are saying, good point. I should probably have developed the MC's character more to emphasise the contrast between her and the others.

Thanks,

NON

[creativeminds]

ah no probs.. glad i could help

[alloallo3]

Really good stuff, throughout. I liked the ending, and didn't think it either abrupt or out of character.
The line about the vomit in the toilet made me laugh out loud. that's unusual.
One small point: I think you meant coiffed instead of quaffed. They're pronounced the same way.

[niamhoneill]

Alloallo3!

Thank you very much. I am glad it made you laugh. You are right about coiffed, I will change it.

NON

[Razor]

Nicely done.

I wasn't sure if the father was going to crack or not. I loved the part where she is on the verge of doing something wholesome and righteous... then decides it isn't worth it. LOL

And unfortunately its probably more true then ya think.

I think you have the prissy about right now. Also the 'added' character development paid off well.

Overall a solid story. Well done.