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<span>Spoiler: <span class="bbCodeSpoiler-button-title">Suzanne Vega</span></span>
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</div><br/>Life was a funny thing.  Suzanne Vega had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and she knew it.  Her family, for all its wealth, was traditional and conservative and rubbed along pretty well together in an approximation of modern day harmony.  Oh, sure, her parents' conservatism didn't amount to the two of them following the 'what God has brought together, let no man (or woman) put asunder' part of their vows, and they chose to ignore the whole 'eye of a needle' admonishment altogether, but they were discreet about their transgressions and cared very much what the neighbors might say.<br/><br/>From the first, Suzanne was a trial.  She did not always play well with others, and she said what she thought from the moment she could talk.  The art of dissembling was slower in sprouting than her breasts were to swell -- she bloomed early and resisted her family's efforts to prune her to fit into their well ordered garden.  The more they tried, the more she rebelled, and as the years went on, the designation of 'black sheep' was one she found herself courting, and enjoying.<br/><br/>Other families might well have disowned her by the time she was a teenager, but hers mostly just put on a brave face and endured, which did nothing to curb her excesses, and, worse, she did less to conceal them from the public eye.<br/><br/>A trust left to her by her grandmother, a woman who was by nature more like Suzanne than the family had wanted to admit, allowed her to live without the threat of tightened purse strings.  Still, she wanted to earn her own money, and she had figured out early that what many women of her 'social set' did for fun discreetly, she could do for profit.  Of course, a bit of discretion was still demanded, along with a payout and the occasional favor, to those who kept the law of the land, but it was a secret that a limited 'everybody' knew -- she was a high-priced escort, a temporary mistress, or vulgarly, a call girl or even a prostitute.<br/><br/>Her clients were probably more socially acceptable, and certainly more wealthy, than the gym instructors and pool boys her mother favored.  She could afford to be choosy, so choosy she was ... though the only criteria she officially set was that her clients could not be boring.  If they wanted to drone on about their woes in the stock market, having no one who understood them, or natter on about the mundanities of their life, they could stay home and bore their wives, or the members of their investment club or bridge circle.<br/><br/>Her body was carefully maintained, much as that of any trophy wife.  Her heart was, so far as anybody knew, untouched.  That was the one area where Suzanne maintained absolute discretion.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center"><b><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#006600"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#b30000"><b>@</b></span>~~<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#b30000"><b><b>@</b></b></span><b><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#006600">~~</span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#b30000">@</span><b><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#006600">~~</span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#b30000">@</span><b><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#006600">~~</span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#b30000">@</span><b><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#006600">~~</span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#b30000">@</span><b><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#006600">~~</span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#b30000">@</span></b></b></b></b></b></span></b>​</div><br/>"Suzanne, it's not that we don't want you to have fun, dear.   There will be a lot of nice men here.  Eligible men, men with a solid future and a good standing in the community.  Would it kill you to get to know one of them?"  Luisa, Suzanne's mother, spoke to her earnestly as she gathered her things in preparation for getting off the chartered plane.  Her father had already headed for the door, his face blank but a muscle in his tanned jaw jerking in a manner that indicated he was boiling inside.  Poor Daddy.  He could control his assets, his investments, his company, his wife, and his son, but he'd never found the right way to control her, and if Suzanne had anything to say about it, he never would.<br/><br/><i>"I'm sure there are.  I probably know at least a couple of them ... in the Biblical sense," </i>she retorted, a deadpan expression in place as she slid her sunglasses on, her nails a bright red that stood out sharply against the immaculate short, white skirt that highlighted the tanned elegance of long, lean legs and the matching tank top that hugged her figure like a glove.  Her mother had laid on the guilt to get her to come, though truthfully Suzanne hadn't resisted all that hard.  It was cold and wet back in the city, so who was she to say no to a week in a tropical paradise.  Besides, as her mother had said, there would be a lot of men here -- some of them interesting and wealthy and others interesting but financially strapped.    In other words, a smorgasbord without calories.<br/><br/>"Suzanne ..."<br/><br/><i>"Mother, we've had this conversation a few thousand times.  I live how I want to live, and if you can't accept that, you shouldn't have asked me to come.  I'll say my hellos, put in an appearance at Daddy's dinner and smile and clap adoringly ... but the rest of the time ... I'll pursue any interesting business opportunities that come my way and enjoy myself.  After all, isn't that what all the guests are here for?  Business mixed with pleasure?"</i><br/><br/>Fortunately, after they were in the car on the way to the resort, her parents conversed with each other about the other guests, both those they knew and those whose names were on the social circuit -- there were rich doctors, a couple of politicians, the editor of a well-known magazine, a few scions of old money from the old world and the new, a television anchor, CEOs, celebrities of every flavor invited to the major events, and unless Suzanne was mistaken, there was a major merger of some kind that someone was trying to squeeze through regulations -- but she'd leave that kind of shit to her parents.<br/><br/>She'd find some way to entertain herself ... that was something that was as certain as death and taxes.