I guess it all began when I started my internship. All that calamity, all that misery that we're in right now. That was when it began, she thought.

The blond girl leaned her head onto the window, staring at the blurry reflection of herself. Her green eyes looked almost gray with the mist outside, and her full lips were slightly chapped, something that happened rather frequently when she performed without taking her vitamin water before.

The purring of the bus' motor and the pouring rain against the window were providing a steady background noise for her thoughts. Otherwise, everything was quiet. No-one was to be seen. It was as if she and the driver were the only people in the world. Not a single car had crossed their way on the interstate for the past hour.

Her mind went back to that very first day for the umpteenth time, the day that kicked a little snowball down the hill that by now had become an almost unbearable avalanche of problems that was slowly, but surely burying her underneath.


"Miss Kara Smith?" the overdressed woman from the reception with very little face on her make-up said with a false friendliness. "Yeah," she mushed, not having been called by her full name in years.

For the main reason of coolness, she'd insisted her friends and parents call her Karma, something she hoped would somehow punish her parents for making her intern at King & Associates, one of the best law firms in Southern California. Ugh, right? Karma had her mother's green, wake eyes and her dad's sharp facial contours, which were the only things linking them together as a family.

She still had no idea how they even got Howard King to take her under his wings, but she knew that she'd made her point clear to them so many times.

An exceptional singer with an enormous vocal range and the ability to play seven different instruments, she dreamed of becoming a rock or preferrably metal singer, not a lawyer or a doctor or anything that mundane.
Some weeks ago, she had been offered a decent contract at a label she'd dreamed of. But her parents wouldn't hear it. Right on that day, they'd made it clear to her that they were not going to support her decision and sorted out that internship with Mr. King.

Karma straightened her black Pantera shirt underneath the blazer she was wearing before approaching the woman at the reception. She chuckled noticeably when she saw that the woman whose name tag spelled "Stephanie Simons" had taken off her high heels underneath the desk.

"Mr. King is waiting for you inside." Karma nodded, then threw back her long hair, dyed in a pretty aquamarine at that time. She walked back to the noble light gray leather couches in the waiting area, where she gathered her things and gulped down the glass of Italian mineral water she had been offered earlier.

Letting out an un-ladylike burp, she placed the glass back onto the table and finally braced herself for the encounter with Mr. King.


Karma grinned as she looked back now. She certainly wasn't always the young female role model of the twenty-first century the media celebrated her as now. Back then, she'd gone through a rebellious emo-punk phase that lasted way longer that it was supposed to.


Mr. King was a gray-haired man with a thinning hairline who was probably in his mid-fifties. He threw her a mild smile as she entered, motioning her to sit down. "Miss Smith, it's a pleasure to meet you," he said warmly as they shook hands. Karma really wanted to hate him, just like she hated this whole situation, but he seemed too nice and fatherly for her to have such strong negative feelings.

"You too," she heard herself say. Yeah, we're adapting to society's norms already Kara, she heard her inner punk scoff, stressing the last word. She shook her head, almost as if to get rid of her thoughts.

"Miss Smith, I got your CV here. You're born in November 1986, and you graduated 2003, that correct?" Karma nodded. "I hope you don't mind me asking," Mr. King began, "But what were you doing this past year and a half?"

At first, Karma was delighted that he seemed so interested in her. She definitely didn't spend the time after her graduation doing nothing. In fact, she had been more productive than ever before.

With a smile, she replied, "I taught myself how to play the drums and the guitar. You know, my parents used to force me into playing the piano, the cello, and the violin, but I was never into classical music. I'm more into-"

Mr. King cut her off. "I know, Miss Smith. Your parents told me. But I wasn't asking about hobbies, I was asking about things that are actually going to get you somewhere."
And there it is, Karma thought to herself, finally.The reason why I can still hate him. Fucking lawyers and always playing nice. Fuck him.

"Sir, all due respect, that all is gonna get me somewhere." Mr. King stifled a laugh. "Yeah, it got you into this internship, which is what we should be talking about right now. My firm does only civil law, and since you know it has a lot of branches, you may pick whichever one you're interested in," he offered.

Karma knew the branches of civil law all too well, seeing as her parents were both famous lawyers in San Francisco. Her mom was specialized in medical errors, mostly lethal ones. She was feared by doctors and dentists, as well as judges, since she was so precise and never gave in.

Her dad was one of the best lawyers for economic and employment law, working for countless big Silicon Valley concerns. Everything they ever talked about seemed so boring. Karma was definitely not going to choose any of their branches.

"Whatever, give me divorces or something," she replied, making a popping sound with her gum. Mainly, she wanted to see people fighting. "Alright," Mr. King said with a false friendliness, "Prenups it is."

Before she could retort anything, there was a knock on his door. The door swung open and revealed two men, one gentleman in a suit who was in his fifties, and behind him, a younger man in an Iron Maiden muscle shirt. "Larry, what a delight," she distinctly heard Mr. King say, but Karma didn't care. She was mesmerized by the sight of the man who'd entered with whoever that Larry was.

She eyed him closely. He wore a cap backwards, and both of his ears were pierced and gauged. He looked grumpy, but his hazel eyes were nevertheless sparkling. The sight of his metal lip ring reflecting the light from Howard's feng shui lamp (and yes, he did possess such a thing) made her wonder what they would feel like against hers, or, even better, against down below.

He was tall, and his biceps were enormously large. His entire arms were covered in colorful tattoos, something Karma really wanted at that time. She just didn't get any because she knew her parents were going to kick her out if she did. Later, she wouldn't care, but now her finances were too tight to afford living alone.

He was absolutely drool-worthy. She did her best to avoid licking her lips when suddenly she noticed he was scanning her, too. And from a smug grin revealing both his dimples and his grillz, she could tell he liked what he saw just as much as she did.

Their eyes locked and that was it. The sexual tension hung in the air like a thick cloud, making it hard to breathe. It felt like the air between them was electric. None of them dared look away.


Karma shook her head at the thought that through everything they'd been through, this hadn't changed. It was wherever they were, at times making it hard for her to even look at him without wishing to rip his clothes off of his body. It was the worst when he picked up a groupie, though Karma knew that deep inside this was his way of coping with it.

Over the years, that attraction had grown stronger every day, almost to the point where it was unbearable.

She sighed, and then concentrated on the sound of the rain, trying hard not to think about anything. Eventually, her tired body let her fall asleep.

Notes

Hello lovies,

as promised yesterday on the Strawberry Fields Forever story, here's the story I started writing on vacation.

Sure hope you like the beginning, though it has not much to do with the rest of the plot. It's more like a prologue with lots of back information. Tell me if you like it, still not sure if I should continue.