Austin was exhausted when he returned to his spacious two-bedroom penthouse apartment on the top floor of the Gladstone Building. Living right upstairs from his office made it easy to get to work in the mornings and home at night. As it always was, the suite was immaculately clean, but then he had a cleaning woman who came in twice a week, did the shopping, cooked enough meals for a few days, and left them in the freezer for him to heat up.
His apartment took up half of the top floor, faced the front of the building, and had large, floor-to-ceiling windows. It held the usual living room furnishings with the exception of the large oak desk that faced his bedroom wall. The desk was a graduation present from Nick, as was the apartment, and Austin had added little in the way of decoration except for the life-size portrait of Nick that hung on the wall. It also came with piped-in classical music that went a long way toward relaxing him in the evenings.
The task of taking over the corporation without Nick's direction was overwhelming, especially at first, and Austin tried not to bring his work home. Yet, there was always something that needed his attention, even after he hired two more corporate lawyers to help him.
He didn't have much of a social life either, aside from riding his horse on Saturday mornings. He didn't go to bars, even the one downstairs, and had few single friends. He tried a dating service for a couple of months, which produced a disaster he would rather forget.
No social life, that is, until he happened to come across Sissy3211 on the internet.
He met her in a forum and he didn't remember why, but they struck up a conversation about horses. Sissy3211 had never seen a horse up close, but that wasn't unusual - there were lots of city people who hadn't. She asked questions and he enjoyed answering them. Eventually, their method of communication moved to emails, and then to a private chat room. Before long, he found himself talking to her every night.
Sissy3211 was intelligent, funny, and didn't type single letters instead of actual words, like most did in text messages. She didn't use profanity either, although some of the stories she told about the people she worked with deserved a few choice words. All in all, she had qualities he found refreshing in a woman. Hopefully, she was a woman…she seemed to talk like one anyway.
She had one very strict rule - no personal information, which made him believe she truly was a woman. Her rule worked in his favor too. Some women would do anything to sink their hooks into a lawyer, especially one in control of such a huge estate. On the other hand, taking Sissy3211 out to dinner sure sounded better than another microwave meal. He opened his laptop, clicked on his personal email icon and scanned the list. None of the emails were from Sissy, but that wasn't unusual.