Sex was a means to an end. She soon learned that she didn't even have to have sex to use it as a weapon. When she was fifteen, her parents divorced, and her mother remarried a year later. Her stepfather was a good man who would never have touched her, but when he tried to lay down the law on her curfew, she called the police and said he'd raped her. She was smart enough to know that the police wouldn't just take her word for it, so she'd had sex with one of the neighborhood boys before calling the police.
Based on her report and the initial examination at the hospital, her stepfather was arrested, a fact that was reported in the hometown newspaper. However, she'd been naive and hadn't thought to make the boy wear a condom, so when the DNA tests came back negative for her stepfather six weeks later, she'd been confronted and she confessed. The Department of Social Services had sent her to a counselor, who'd lectured her about the harmful aspects of lying, pointing out that her stepfather's reputation in the town had been badly damaged.
Ryder had been so contrite, promising with many tears that she'd learned her lesson, that the counselor considered her a triumph of modern talk-therapy and recommended that she be allowed to go back to her family. However, her stepfather, who'd received dozens of pieces of hate mail and had even been accosted on the street, moved out and shortly thereafter left town.
"Good riddance," she told her mom when the divorce papers arrived a month later. "Even if he didn't, he wanted to and would have sooner or later." Her mother had just looked at her funny, then fled into her bedroom, where she sobbed all day. Sarah had rolled her eyes then, too. Ryder had moved to New York hoping to become a Broadway star. When leading roles, or any roles for that matter, weren't immediately forthcoming, she enrolled at NYU as a theater major, while hostessing at a Steak Sizzler on Times Square.
Life got better when she started dating a member of the New York Rangers hockey club. Dmitri Federov was stunningly good-looking, rich, and had a great accent. He was also generous-putting her up in a small flat in the Village and even buying her a five-carat diamond ring for Christmas. He didn't exactly call it an engagement ring or ask her to marry him, but she took it as a fait accompli. She thought they made the perfect couple and even took Russian lessons throughout that year so that she'd be able to converse with his family someday.
After a year of seeing him when he felt like it, she suggested that they get married. But he just laughed and said, "But what would I tell my wife in Moscow?"
Ryder reacted first by threatening to tell his wife and/or the police. However, he'd pointed to a small camera hidden in a corner of the ceiling of his bedroom where they were talking-a camera he admitted he'd used to film their lovemaking. "It's still on." He smiled. "Now, shall I take that to the police and tell them you are trying to blackmail me?"
"Ha ha, just teasing," she'd said. "I don't want to get married."
"Get out," he replied. "I don't want to ever see you again. And by the way, your breasts are too small."
With her face burning, Ryder stormed off to the bathroom-"to get my things"-where she promptly swallowed a bottle of Ambien sleeping pills. She figured she'd either almost die and make him see how much she loved him and then he'd take her back, or cause him enough embarrassment in the press to flee the country. Maybe he'll even lose his work visa, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
However, Federov soon discovered her and called an ambulance. His agent then paid off the right people to keep it out of the newspapers and have Ryder committed to Bellevue for observation "as a danger to herself and others." By the time she got out, Dmitri's lawyers had obtained a restraining order preventing her from calling, writing, or coming within one hundred yards of their client. She also discovered that he must have removed the diamond ring from her finger while waiting for the ambulance and cleaned out and closed the bank account he'd set up for her "expenses."
Ryder had returned to her classes at NYU much poorer but also wiser. She was determined that the next time some guy fucked with her, he'd pay one way or the other. She was still trying to figure out her best option-turn her charms on one of the rich old men who hung out in TriBeCa looking for trophy wives ("But with my luck, they'd live to be a hundred and be as horny as a goat," she complained to one of her few friends), or try for a rich young man "except they're all married, gay, or allergic to commitment."
In the meantime, there were bills to pay and things she wanted. A brief affair with a married plastic surgeon got her the new boobs; another with the married owner of a BMW car dealership in New Jersey the new 320i; and yet another with a married real estate developer entitled her to a small but tasteful flat in the East Village in exchange for the occasional dalliance when his wife was out of town. She knew the score with those men and wanted nothing more from them than she got; they were simply her means to an end.
She was in her last semester at NYU and had decided to go on and get her master's-mostly because she didn't know what else to do, and a horny married banker was willing to pay tuition-when she took a class in Russian poetry from newly arrived Alexis Michalik. He was maybe just a shade or two less handsome but his maturity made him more distinguished than Dmitri, with that same killer accent, and he was certainly more intelligent.
Ryder began hanging around after class and volunteering to help him with such things as making copies of poetry for the rest of the class and fetching him coffee, then lunch. Then she asked if she could work as a sort of unofficial intern, assisting him with his efforts to translate his work into English. She'd continued her Russian language studies-she figured that somewhere, somehow they would come in handy.
After graduation, with Michalik's help, she entered the master's program in Russian literature with an emphasis on poetry. She'd also convinced herself that she was in love with him and that they were meant to be together. She figured he probably made six figures, maybe more, because he was a popular speaker at poetry events around the country, and she could imagine herself the good wife, playing hostess for all the intellectuals who would visit their home, and helping promote his career.
There were only two problems: he was married, and he wasn't in love with her. While it was obvious that Alexis enjoyed her company and even a little harmless flirting, he made no attempt to take it any further. She'd all but spread-eagled herself on his desk, but he treated her like a schoolgirl with a crush, telling her, "You need to find a young man and not waste all that energy and beauty on what cannot be."
At home, Ryder fumed over the rejection. But her history had taught her to have a Plan B ready. So if she couldn't have him as her husband willingly, she would blackmail him into becoming her husband unwillingly, though he would of course learn to love her. Plan C was simply to blackmail him into letting her get away without having to write her "stupid" master's thesis and then getting her into the doctoral program. She was pretty sure that once she had her doctorate and, with his help, got onto the faculty at NYU, he'd realize that she really was the best life partner for him.
When her plans had been laid, she'd called him and asked to see him in his office that evening. "I'd like to talk to you about my thesis when there're not so many interruptions like there are during the day," she said. She then pretended there was a problem with her telephone and couldn't hear his response. "Would you call me back, please?"
A few seconds later, her telephone rang. "Thanks," she said. "I don't know what the problem was. Anyway, could you spare your poor, dedicated, infatuated student a few minutes this evening?" She detected a sigh-he was way behind on the translation-but he was also too dedicated a teacher to turn her down. "Sure, come on over, Sarah."