Who Wants To Be A Mistress?

I stepped off the plane, and paused my beloved iPod, despite however appropriate I thought The other girls had been on the plane, and tottered off in various states of sleepiness. That was the worst part of the flight: not the horrible movies, or the plastic-tasting food: the fact that you had to get up and function somewhat similar to a human being after tossing and turning for eight hours in a tiny airplane chair attempting to sleep.

I looked around, and the other girls—and women, I noticed—looked around too. Apparently, no one had received directions past this point. Luckily, two people—an man and a woman, both smiling way too broadly for 4 am—approached the clump of females.

“Hello, you ladies are our participants?” The woman chirped. She was perky, a bottle blonde, the model-stick-thin-too skinny and whipcord muscular from Pilates or something body type, wearing fashionable but unflattering clothes. I was not impressed. The man wasn’t much better. He was starting to go gray, but he did it gracefully. His tailor or whatever dressed him a hell of a lot better, but he oozed. I don’t know if it was just my preconceived notions of TV people, or if his personality was actually that bad, but he, too, immediately made me draw back. I held back as the other women stepped forward, ending up in the back of the group.

“Well!” The woman clapped her hands. I wondered briefly if the man was going to talk at all. “Let’s get your luggage, and pile onto the bus, shall we?”

I remember thinking at that point that she was definitely not British, and wondering if the guy was. Then I kinda blanked out, just following them around. I giggled madly when they stamped my passport, and asked that they stamp my hand. Thankfully, the old woman humored me (crazy Americans at 4 am, I’m sure she was thinking) and a couple of the others shot me looks.
Whatever.

I do remember blinking a couple of times before boarding the bus. It was like they had shrunk a double decker red bus, the trademark of London. I was the only one who rushed to the top level, but I was too enthralled to notice I was alone. The London cityscape was amazing. Unfortunately, I remembered very little of it by the end, but it was ok, ‘cause I had been there once before, for work while I was in Ireland.

Then I was asleep.

When I woke up, we were parked in front of a river, in what looked like the middle of nowhere. The chattering was getting softer, so I rushed down the stairs, hauling my wheelie behind me.

I almost smacked into the last girl in line, a short curvy blonde. She turned and smiled at me, and then we were moving towards the river bank.

The woman from before smiled that wide happy grin again, and said, “Ladies, you are here participating the show called, “Who Wants To Be A Mistress?” You will be competing against nine other ladies to win the favor of Lord Basil Douglas St. John the III, Twenty-First Earl of Longeview. He is looking for a compainion, someone he can take to social occasions, who he can spend time with, someone he can share a bed with.”

She paused, and shot a look at the man. “Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. I am Jessie, one of the producers. That is Jonathon, the executive producer. Anne will be here shortly with the first challenge.”

My immediate reaction was There is no way the crown sanctioned this sort of behavior for one of its lords. The second was, Who the fuck is Anne?

That was shortly answered. This pale, watery blonde soon roared up in this expensive looking old-fashioned car, and pulled out three boxes. Suddenly, cameramen all appeared, and were subtly zooming into all of our faces.

I made a face, and remembered the fact that I had yet to wash my face this morning, much less it breakfast. I popped in a piece of gum, and pulled out a face wipe from my purse. The others were doing similar things: straightening clothes, brushing back flyaways, putting on jewelry. I guess no one expected to start so quickly.

Then the woman cleared her throat, loudly, and announced, “I am Anne Therese Wyte, Lord Longeview’s personal assistant. Today I have the pleasure of assigning the first task. Each of you must put on one of the bikinis we have provided for you and cross the river to get to the estate.”

All of us shot looks at each other. Cross this river, easily a hundred feet wide, right now? I don’t know if I hadn’t mentioned this, but it was fuckin’ FREEZING—it was January, for Christsake! I mean, I had done stupider things, but still.

Sighing, I raised my hand. “What about our luggage?”

Anne nodded. “We will take care of it. You just need to get your body on the other side of the river.”

I nodded, and the other women nodded too. There was a rush to get to the box holding the bikinis, and another that held the goggles. I took my time—we were probably going to all start at the same time, right?

Well, wrong. We were handed towels to change with, but we had to change in the open. Thankfully, I had swam in high school, so I was really good at the manipulation required, but I personally thought that someone depended a little too much on female ingenuity. I know the cameramen got in a few good shots of naked tits and ass that peaked out.

Oh shit. I looked around, studied the faces. All the camera men were…men. Great. No sympathy, ever, in that corner. Unless they were gay. Too much to hope.

The first ones done, a lanky black-skinned woman and a tall brunette, were poking their toes in the water. I looked at Anne, who held no horn or gun, and she waved at us. “Go on, get in.”

I looked at the other two. They stared back at me.

Great. Real go-getters. Well, the worse thing to do was delay the inevitable. I took a deep breath, and did a shallow—real shallow, careful—dive.

OhbloodyhellJesusMaryandJoseph.

No matter how many times I had done that stupid first-day-of-the-year-jump-into-the-frigid-lake-for-luck that our swim team did, that first blast of just plain frozen-ness stole my breath. But I turned my head, kicked, ignored the needles in my limbs, and swam.

My goggles were leaking, so I stopped, tread, and fixed. The other girls were jumping in, shrieking. I starting my flailing freestyle again, and was almost to land when I felt someone pull hard on my leg. I kicked, came up sharply, elbowed that lanky black woman in the stomach, did a shallow porpoise-like move, and came up fast out of the water and hopped onto the shore.

One of the cameramen started throwing towels, and I draped mine around me like a cloak. I tried to swipe away the loose bits of my hair that had came loose from my French braid, but it was useless. So I turned to watch the rest of the women come in.

That black girl was right behind me. She shot me a dirty look, snatched her towel, and turned away from me. The model brunette was soon after. Then came in a taller Hispanic woman, an Oriental woman with really long hair, and an older blonde. Behind them, a darker native type—Native American or Indian—finally floundered onto the shore. A redhead was shortly behind her.

Hm.

I searched the water behind the redhead, just in time to see the blonde who I almost knocked over before throw up her arms and sink. The other women on shore who were watching gasped, and the older blonde called out to the cameramen, “Is there a lifeguard over here? Scuba divers?”

Then the blonde came up, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

Then we all watched as she screeched, coughed, and went back under.

Fuck!

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AN: yes, this is a blatant rip-off from the challenge of ‘kept’ sorry. if it makes anyone feel any better, i have no idea how that dude did get out of almost drowning, but here’s how i’ll play it here…

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I threw off my towel and started wading back into the water. I remember thinking that it felt warmer this time, and damn, was someone calling me?

Then I was swimming for the bright orange bikini. I jackknifed, and reached through the murky cold, and felt cold flesh. I pulled, and tugged, and wrenched at least half the muscled in my back, but I got that body up to the surface.

Thankfully, she wasn’t fighting me, which was the most dangerous reaction. She let me pull her through the water, and after forever and a day we were back on shore. The other women and the camera guys crowded us, and there was shouting from the other bank that finally registered in my hearing.

Damnit, I was cold, and bone-tired, and I had just risked my life to save someone I was supposed to be competing against. I looked up at the grizzled looking old man who was easily a head taller than me, and told him, “I think I’m going to faint.”

And then everything went black.

When I woke up, I was warm. That was the first thing that I noticed, and trust me, I greatly appreciated it.

I was bundled in several fuzzy blankets, on a couch that probably cost more than my Irish cottage, in front of a roaring fireplace. I could hear voices upstairs, so I got up. I still had on that damn bikini, so I wrapped some of the blankets around me, toga-style. Not that I have a bad body, mind—hey, I belly dance, and still do the fencing drills, so I have thighs that I am proud of—but there was no need to go wandering around mostly naked in a strange house when it was still cold.

The house—mansion, to be honest—was disgustingly wealthy. Ornate frames on oil paintings older than the US, large vases with fresh flowers, delilcate looking woodwork on the chairs, all equated to very rich and very old.

Then I walked into the room where everyone was.

The nine other women had changed into clothes—like, real clothes. Sexy tight sweaters and jeans that showed off their butts and classy wool slacks and clothes. They were in a semi-circle around the two producers and that assistant, who were still in their stuffy fashionable clothing.
Me and my impromtu toga and my mussed and straw-like French braid were definitely not appropriate for this setting.

I cleared my throat softly and, when there was a pause in which everyone eyed me, I asked, “Can I ask where my things are so I might change?”

Jessie shook her head. “No, you look perfect. We’re going to introduce you to Lord Longeview now, and then you are each given a half hour with him before dinner tonight. Oh, by the way, because you won that race across the river, you have been invited to join his lordship and his friends at dinner.”

I nodded. The blonde who I had rescued smiled at me, and shooed at the redhead. I smiled in thanks for the space she had cleared for me to sit on the couch the two were perched on. Once I sat down, I settled the blankets around me, and then pulled out my braid. My hair was a hopeless mess already, so I just wiggled my hands through it and let it be.

The blonde leaned over and put her head next to mine. “I’m Bunnie.” She whispered, as the producers led this old man into the room. “And I just wanted to thank you, so so much.” She squeezed my hand, and I smiled back at her. “No problem.”

Jessie the bouncing blonde disappeared, and then reappeared with this grinning old man,

Jaws dropped. Eyes shot back and forth.

Jessie announced with a smirk, “The Earl of Longeview, Lord Basil St. John the Third.”

I heard mutters, ranging from “day-mn, he’s old” to “wow, I don’t remember signing up for this.” One of the older woman whispered, “He’s cute!” Someone else added, “For a geezer.”

I couldn’t help it. I snorted, then ducked my head to try to hide it. Unfortunately I failed, and immediately drew attention to myself.

The old man honed in on me, and said, “You are the young woman who dove back in the river, correct?”

Bunnie jumped in and cheeped. “Yep! She saved my life!”

My lord broke in, “And then fainted, correct?” His tone was faintly rebuking. I flashed him a great big grin and said, “That is correct, milord.”

He nodded shortly. “Good. Then you can come into the next room to introduce yourself, and I will examine you at the same time.”

The redhead at the end of the couch cocked her head. “Examine, sir?”

Lord St. John, or whatever his name or six dozen names were, bobbed his head at her. “I am a surgeon, miss, and therefore I would like to check her health before she continues. I’ve been told a problem was not forseen, and therefore the producers were not prepared with doctors.”

I stood up, dragging my toga with me. “Ok.” I said.