His name was Frank, he was a trial lawyer and recently divorced. I was in the chorus in a semi-professional production of "The Pirates of Penzance." He was "a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan," and would come to watch our rehearsals. Sometimes I would go out for drinks with him afterwards. He would drive me home.

I told my overprotective parents that he was part of the cast.

One day, he and I went to go get lunch in the middle of a fabulously long and boring blocking rehearsal, while the soprano and tenor leads fought over the title of Queen Prima Donna Of Them All. On the way back to the rehearsal, he pulled his car off into a distant third-tier parking lot of the theater where we rehearsed and kissed me. In broad daylight, we fumblingly had sex in the backseat of his steel-gray BMW sedan, with the engine on to keep the air conditioning going.

He was thirty-eight -- almost exactly twenty years older than me, and four more than twice my age.

Much to my shame, I was deliriously happy. My previous dating experiences had been limited to music wankers and the geek crowd of my high school. The man who took me to his senior prom is finishing out his Ph.D. in computational biology as I type this, and once sent me a love poem in C. While they were nice guys, they did not rate real high on the suave ladder. I was under no illusions that I was in love; Frank was fun to talk to (when we talked, which was mostly in the car), and the sex was good, but I wasn't head over heels in anything. To be perfectly honest, I liked the fact that he had money, and would buy me things.

He had a nice car. He had a nice stereo. He would call me at home and tell me to meet me at his office. Once there, he would fuck me on his huge oak desk, my legs in the air and my head hanging back off the desk, while I looked upside-down through the double glass doors that led into his office, praying his trust in his secretary wasn't misplaced. He sent out for a picnic lunch, and we dined on top of his skyscraper building in downtown Houston; then he bent me over an air-conditioning duct and fucked me from behind, twenty-eight stories up, as the sun went down. I would sit on his lap while he conducted business, and occasionally blow him under his desk while he talked on the phone to clients he particularly loathed.

That summer, the Houston Ballet put on "La Sylphide." Frank was given tickets to the premiere by one of his clients, and announced that he was going to take me. "It'll be fun," he said. "We'll clean you up good, you'll look great." I didn't do ballet much, but I absolutely haunted the opera, looking down at the Rich People (tm) from the cheap seats I could afford. This time, I could *be* one of the rich people. I was enthralled with the idea.

The day of the premiere, Frank had me all booked up. I had a four hour slot at a day spa, where they started at my feet and gradually worked their way up, giving me a pedicure, a manicure, waxing my legs and my armpits; applying all sorts of goo to my face, doing my hair in a big upsweep style, and putting on more makeup than I had ever previously worn, even if you combined all the times I had previously worn makeup. As I climbed back into my cut-off jeans and tie-dye t-shirt and looked at my impeccably red nails, I felt like a strange human-alien hybrid. I walked out of the spa and squinted into the daylight.

The doorman (yes, it was THAT kind of spa) came to my elbow. "Miss Tewson? Your car is over here." My car? I didn't have a car.

Frank had sent me a car. And driver. I got into the back seat, shellshocked.

The car took me to Frank's downtown office. As I rode the elevator up, I kept feeling the odd weight of my hair on top of my head. His secretary greeted me at the elevator and walked me into his office, where he was swearing and trying to tie his bow tie.

"Candace, can you get this for me?" he said. "Kathie, honey, your dress is over there," pointing to a garment bag. "I got your size off your jeans, I hope it fits cuz there's no time for alterations. You're five-three right?"

"Um, five-two," I said.

"It'll be a little long. Hurry up, we don't have a lot of time."

The dress was long, red silk crepe, with a thousand tiny red beads. Rows of beads lined the neck and shimmered when the dress moved. I was stunned. Stripping to my undies, I struggled into the strapless bra that was also in the bag, then hunted madly for hose. "Where's the hose?" I asked.

"Do you need hose? It's hot out," said Frank.

"Well, um, no, I guess not," I said.

"Good," said Frank. "Can you go without underwear too? I don't want any panty lines."

What the hell, I thought, and slipped out of my underwear. The dress whisked over my shoulders, and zipped up snug. "Where are my shoes?" I asked. "Or do you want me to wear my Converse?"

"Look under the dress bag," he said. "They should be over there somewhere." I found the shoebox, and discovered why he had ordered a pedicure.

I think there's a word for strappy sandals with high heels, but I don't know it. These were three-inch, three-and-a-half-inch heels, in !!RED!! leather. Tiny skinny high heels. I had worn heels before, but never this high. (Actually, I think the word for these might be "fuck-me sandals.")

Frank slapped my ass. "Hurry up, sugar, we're going to be late," he said. I hopped into the heels, dug through my backpack for my drivers' licence and my keys, found the miniscule clutch purse that the dress came with, snapped it shut, and tore out of the office unsteadily.

I leaped into the elevator as the doors started to close. the instant they did, Frank was on me like sweat on a hog, backing me into a corner and threatening to smear my makeup. "Hmm, nice white shirt, betcha lipstick prints would look *real* nice on that," I said, and he backed off, holding my ass in his right hand all the way down to the parking garage.

In the garage, Frank popped the trunk of the car and took out a flat leather box. "Careful with 'em, they're rented," he said. I put the diamond drops into my ears and stood there, quivering, as Frank fastened twenty thousand dollars worth of diamonds around my neck.

Getting into the BMW was difficult in the heels. The bra pinched my armpit as I settled back into the seat, letting the air conditioning blow straight into my face. The theater wasn't far from his office, but I guess it was important that we make an Entrance; besides, I don't think I could have walked four blocks in those shoes and the July heat of Houston. We swept up to the entrance and Frank hopped out of the car, threw the keys to the valet, opened my door and helped me out, and then we were off.

My dress was so tight I had to take three steps for every one of his. At that clip, my balance was next to awful, so I clung to his arm for balance. It was then that I discovered why trophy girlfriends don't talk much -- every atom of your being is focussed on Looking Good. Heels, nails, purse, posture, hair, diamonds, oops! no wine! protect the lipstick. I was relieved when the ballet started and I could just sit down.

The ballet was pretty good, I think. Even in the darkness, I was conscious of the weight of the necklace around my neck, and of how much trouble I would be in if it was ever not there. I was conscious of the ribs of the longline bra holding my stomach in, and of the sweat pooling under my pantyless thighs. It was a long two hours.

Afterwards, the lights came up, and we were off again. We swept into the Green Room to greet the dancers. I held onto Frank's elbow, trying *hard* not to fall down. I endured about ten thousand "Hi, Nell Frances, how are you, this is Kathie" statements before collapsing onto the arm of the couch, working hard on sitting without slumping and hoping my feet would stop screaming.

"Hello, young lady," said the gentleman next to me on the couch, on whose shoulder I realized I had been steadying myself. "That's a very pretty necklace."

"Thank you," I said. "My boyfriend got it for me."

"Your boyfriend? My word, what a lucky fellow. That's right, you're here with Frank, aren't you? Did you enjoy the ballet?"

"Yes!" I said. Almost giddily happy to be able to talk to someone, I began explaining the transition from Classical music to Romantic music, and how unusual it was at the time to have such a heartfelt, noble story be based around a Scottish farmer and his wife. This was the result, I said, of burgeoning class resistance in France and other countries, leading eventually to the movement which toppled the monarchy.

"Hey Frank!" the man called across the Green Room to my boyfriend, who stood talking to two society women. "Where'd you find this one? She talks!"

"You like her?" Frank responded. "Graduated from St. John's two months ago. Cute, ain't she?"

The rest of the evening is kind of a blur. Somehow, I ended up back at my house, after some really raucous sex in the lobby of Frank's building (I took the dress off; he told me to leave the shoes on) and a quick shower in the locker room. I slept the sleep of the dead, and I do not think I have ever been more tired.

Our relationship kind of fizzled out after that -- I met Frank's children, the eldest of whom was eleven and who stared at me with a cold gaze as she declared, "You can NOT be more than ten years older than me." I was there in his office when he was served with divorce papers, and learned that until that moment, he had still been a married man.

After that, I mostly dated geeks again. I felt more in my element, and the clothes were more comfortable. The red dress no longer fits me, and I never had occasion to wear it again. I left for college six weeks later, and took the shoes with me; I donated them to the costume department at the college.

Frank had been sure to take the diamonds off my neck the minute we were back in the car.