The Accidental Virgin

by Valerie Frankel

  Stacy hobbled down the hallway to her private office, one shoe on, one in her hand. She had loved these sandals with the daisy on top. She deposited her purse and Post on her desk, and remembered that she had no breakfast to eat while reading the paper. Instead of crying about it (she could have, easily), Stacy distracted herself by flipping through a Pottery Barn catalogue and painting her fingernails pink. Her bathroom-size window of alone time rapidly closing, Stacy Hot Synced a file from her Palm III into her cranberry iMac. Blowing on her fingers — polish tacky — she surveyed the screen.

  LIST OF MEN WHO CAN’T SAY NO

  1. Brian. Ex-boyfriend. Will have to swallow a flock of crows to call him out of the blue, but know how to reduce to putty (e.g., tickle neck, stroke arm, say the “H” word).

  2. Stanley. Lecherous bad date from April. He’s not repulsive and smarmy; he’s flattering and attentive. When he stares at front of dress and licks his lips, think, “How sweet.”

  3. Charlie. Platonic pal. Could seduce with aid of wine and tears/begging. Might ruin friendship. Prepare “day after” speech along lines of “What happened last night? I must have been temporarily insane.”

  4. Match.com. Janice’s stomping ground. Truck-loads of courage needed. Not yet in supply.

  She briefly flirted with adding the unibrow deli man to her list, but concluded that she’d rather be a revirgin for the rest of her life than stoop that low. However, the adorable Albanian pizza delivery boy from Salvotore’s was not beneath her dignity. Stacy, fingers poised on her keyboard, was about to lengthen her To Do list when she heard a woman’s voice behind her. “I use male escorts. Saves time and energy that could be better spent at work,” she said.

  Stacy recognized the imperious tone of the CEO of thongs.com, Fiona Chardonnay, formerly an expert on urban development for the Heritage Foundation. In semi-cringe, Stacy swiveled to behold her leader. Today, Fiona wore a clingy red sheath, black sheer hose with a seam down the back, and stiletto pumps. Dressed for midnight at 9 A.M., as usual. Fiona’s wave of hair was boot black; her face oddly unlined. On the record, Fiona was a girlish 45, but she had to be years older (in interviews, she talked openly about cosmetic improvements and her devotion to Botox). Regarding her age, only her plastic surgeon knew for sure.

  “Walk with me,” Fiona commanded and headed down the hall.

  Stacy slavishly followed. She had to run after her employer — Fiona and her long stride — in bare feet. The carpet felt synthetic under her toes. Her loyalty to Fiona was also artificial. In the beginning, Fiona had seemed like the Goddess on High. After five months of post-IPO dips, Fiona’s divine façade was cracking. Janice “We’re still standing” Strumph took the stock price drops in stride; Fiona did not absorb the blows as well. Whenever the price slid, she’d call for brainstorming sessions and make impossible demands on the staff. Stacy always hated Fiona’s impromptu private meetings. They always resulted in hours of extra work (much of which was later scrapped) and the lasting aftertaste of prostration. With a base salary of $160,000 a year, Stacy had no choice but to treat Fiona as her lord and master.

  The “Dark Lady” (the staff’s nickname for her) took a sharp right into the samples closet, where each peekaboo bra, G-string, and half-slip was tested by the in-house design staff of five (none was in yet). Garments hung on racks, spilled out of drawers, and lay in lacy, pastel piles on counters. Shelves were packed with Lucite boxes of pearls, bows, buttons, snaps, hooks, and straps. Bolts of lush fabrics were stacked in a pyramid on the floor. Avoiding Fiona’s vaguely creepy gaze, Stacy stared at herself in the floor-to-ceiling wall mirror. She was also wearing a red sheath dress — no hose (or shoes), but her Candy Apple Red toenail polish was a perfect match for Fiona’s. The two women were almost the same height. Stacy wore a size 8. Fiona, a slender 4, still seemed larger. Larger than life.

  Hoping to steer the conversation her way, Stacy said, “Have you seen Agent Provocateur this week?” Their rival lingerie website, agentprovocateur.com, had added mini-soft-core pornographic film clips to showcase their new styles, all artfully done. Stacy hoped to move thongs.com in that direction and away from their mass-market underwear supermarket catalog presentation. “At the very least,” Stacy continued, “we should talk about our models.” At present, thongs.com used low-rent human mannequins, girls with perfect bodies and dog faces. The cropping of photos (no heads) disturbed Stacy politically and aesthetically.

  Fiona picked through a rack of bustiers and said, “Mesh.”

  “Mesh?” asked Stacy.

  “It’s going to be big.”

  Stacy’s stomach tightened. Of course, Fiona hadn’t heard a word she’d said, nor would she give her the courtesy of pretending to. Dutifully, Stacy asked, “A line of mesh lingerie?”

  “Bras, panties, camisoles, girdles,” Fiona confirmed. “I want a mesh petticoat. Mesh peignoir! You can have your precious corselette, in mesh, if you want. All tightly woven. All metallic colors, shiny fabrics. Very futuristic.”

  “I see,” she replied.

  “What do you see?” asked Fiona, her attention complete.

  “I see what you mean?” Stacy replied tentatively.

  “I see mesh on the bare ass of every American woman — and it looks good,” said her boss. “If we work ten percent harder, we’ll have product by September.”

  “This September?” That seemed wildly optimistic. It usually took five months to design, produce and market a new line. Fiona wanted to do this one in two and a half.

  “We can do it,” Fiona insisted. “It’ll be huge. Print and TV advertising, direct e-marketing to millions. I want you to handle it.”

  Stacy gulped. In the mirror, she could see the swallow travel down the white skin of her neck and disappear under the collar of her dress.

  “Meshwear 2001,” Fiona announced. “Do you love it?”

  Stacy said, “I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t like mesh?” she asked. “I do. End of discussion.”

  Stacy shook her head. “No, mesh really, uh, breathes. But we can’t pull it together for September. We’ll have to work around the clock…”

  Fiona interrupted. “Every employee at this or any dot-com company puts in the time, Stacy. It’s a requirement of the job — the job that could make you a millionaire.”

  The boss truly believed. Stacy doubted the stock price would ever climb back to its peak price. But, in this economy, anything was possible. With a cash infusion and a great idea (was mesh a great idea?), thongs.com could reclaim their once-strong position as the number-one intimates retailer on the web. The thought of putting in 18-hour days, the thousands of details to keep track of, the misery of it…she could not do it. She would not.

  “Mesh is more for spring, don’t you think?” Stacy ventured.

  Fiona stared at her for a beat of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. With each beat, Stacy’s pulse doubled.

  “If you need more personal time,” said the boss, “you can have it — full time.” The Dark Lady turned on her stiletto heel and teetered out of the samples room. Even as the breath exited her lungs, Stacy couldn’t help admire Fiona’s ass — like a squirrel’s nest, round and tight.

  Alone now among the ribbons and pearls, Stacy studied her reflection in the mirror — slim body, long hair and stricken expression. Had she just lost her job? And was that such a horrible prospect? Allegedly, 13 years separated Stacy and Fiona. What would Stacy’s next decade turn her into? Fiona had never married. She was a multi-millionaire (even after the stock drop), lived in a 3,000-square-foot loft in TriBeCa. She had famous friends, was a psuedo-celebrity herself. Taylor believed Fiona was miserable in her luxurious aloneness. Stacy wished Taylor would keep her beliefs, naïve, wrongheaded and self-inflating, to herself. The obvious truth to Stacy: Fiona was happy. She had everything she’d ever wanted. If she showed any distress, it was merely a touch of fear that her dream life would be dashed by the whims of Wall Street (witness this priv
ate meeting). Besides which, Fiona made every effort to spread her happiness, and her wealth, around, showering her staff with gifts (bribes), expensive lunches, trips to Paris, Milan, and London for the seasonal fashion shows. She was a difficult, impetuous woman, but generous. Inspired. Stacy was glad to know her. Thongs.com was a good job. Was.

  Sullenly, Stacy padded back to her office. The message light blinked on her phone. She punched in her password and listened. The first and only message was from Fiona, recorded seconds earlier. She said, “I might have been a little too hard on you. I apologize. I’ve put my life into this company. When I ask you to head a project, I’m trusting you with my life. As long as I’m here, you’ll be my number three. Take an hour. We’ll start the Meshwear 2001 meeting at ten — I sent a staff e-mail. And call this number: 555-6969.”

  Stacy couldn’t help feeling relieved. She still had her job, and she had an hour to collect herself before she’d have to say “whatever you want, Fiona” again. Meanwhile, curious, Stacy dialed the phone number Fiona gave her.

  A deep masculine voice on the other end answered. “Executive Escorts. Justin speaking,” he said.

  A sex service. Fiona’d meant it when she said she used male escorts. Stacy inhaled her office’s oxygen. Fiona actually believed that Stacy would hire a professional date. Was that an insult or a gesture of camaraderie? Either possibility horrified Stacy (and titillated her — emotions clearly in a tangle).

  “Hello?” asked the man on the line. Fumbling and shaky, Stacy hung up.

  “Stacy, got a second?” Janice Strumph (“The Doll” to Fiona’s Dark Lady) leaned into her underling’s office doorway.

  Stacy swiveled to face Janice, petite and smooth, except for the crow’s feet. She wore her trademark tan slacks and blazer. What she must go through to find the same ensemble in winter-, spring- and summer-weight fabrics marveled Stacy.

  “I’d like you to meet someone,” said Janice, pulling a young man into Stacy’s view. Where Janice occupied a tiny portion of the doorway, this boy dominated the space. His extra-large physique blocked the light from the hallway. He towered over Janice, an endlessly long arm around her narrow shoulders. Despite their extreme size discrepancy, the boy shared Janice’s blonde curls, her oval-shaped face and creamy complexion. They had identical cheek moles. Janice beamed up at him, madly in love with the boy. Stacy could see why. Jeans were made for 20-year-old male bodies.

  “This is my son,” announced Janice, as if presenting the president of the United States. “My younger son. Tommy.”

  “Tom,” he said, holding out his hand for Stacy to shake.

  “Hello.” Stacy smiled sweetly. She stood (he wasn’t that tall, actually, just looked that way standing next to his mom), and gave his hand a proper pump. Soft skin with scratchy fingertip calluses. “You must be a guitar player,” she said.

  The boy (Stacy knew he was a junior in college at — where was it — she tried to recall) said, “I play in a band at Northwestern.”

  Northwestern, of course, she thought. “Home for summer break. How nice for you, Janice.”

  The Doll pouted and said, “He’s leaving me tomorrow for England, and I can’t even have lunch with him. This meeting will last for hours.”

  Just as Stacy feared. It would be an endless round of mediocre notions, brainstomping and energy-sucking logistics. Back on the seesaw (“I hate my job, I love my job, I hate my job,” etc.), Stacy had to get off. She’d cried once today already, and that was her limit. Fiona would never let her go, especially after what had happened in the samples room. Maybe Janice would excuse her. A risky venture: Fiona and Janice’s delicate balance of power was precarious. Toes would be trampled. But here stood — loomed — a way out of the meeting and, quite possibly, her sexual conundrum.

  “No time for lunch?” said Stacy. “That’s horrible, Janice. You can’t have a young man wandering the streets of New York by himself for hours upon hours.”

  Tom laughed. “I grew up in Manhattan, Stacy.”

  She attempted mirthful flirtation. “Things have changed since you went off to college. Madmen throw bricks at people’s heads now. Stick them with syringes on street corners. The mayor is a Republican, you know. This town is frightening.”

  Tom set his blue eyes on Stacy in a way that filled her with confidence and daring. “I may need protection after all,” he said.

  “I will take you to lunch,” Stacy announced. She noticed a slight blush in Tom’s curved cheek, and a grin to go with it.

  Had Janice been a casual observer of this volley, she would have seen what had really been exchanged between the two young, attractive people. But since Janice was mother to Tom and boss (in loco parentis) to Stacy, her mind couldn’t fathom the potential incest of their stolen hour together. But something else gave her pause. Janice said, “I’m not sure we can do without you today, Stacy. Even for a quickie.”

  Stacy nearly fell. “A quick lunch.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “I won’t keep her long, Mom,” said Tom with the big eyes and unction of a favorite son. “I promise, we’ll talk about you the entire time.”

  Chapter Four

  Tuesday afternoon

  “My mother is a slut,” said Tom Strumph. “I respect her for it. If there were more sluts in the world, rape statistics would do down. Date rape wouldn’t exist. And, I’d even make the quantum leap that pornography sales would take a nosedive.”

  Stacy and the college boy sat at her favorite restaurant, Genki Sushi, in midtown on 43rd Street and 5th Avenue. It took only two minutes of convincing for Janice, Tom’s mother (the slut) to agree to excuse Stacy from one hour of a thongs.com daylong planning meeting. In exchange, all Stacy had to do was entertain her youngest son.

  “I’m a big advocate of women’s rights,” continued Tom. “And by heralding a call to sluts doesn’t mean women should put themselves at the disposal of men. That they should open their legs whenever a man shows the slightest interest in sex. Did you ever read Clan of the Cave Bear? The cave women were required by prehistoric law to drop to their knees — doggie style — whenever a caveman grunted and pointed at the ground. That’s barbaric! I would never want women to act like that. Any man who would is a pig. Clan is really an amazing book, though. You should check it out.”

  “I will. It sounds fascinating,” Stacy said. How had the conversation arrived at the subject of casual sex? Stacy wasn’t sure, but she was pleased to get there. Engaging in casual sex with this man/boy had been locked on her mind since she’d invited him to lunch. Perhaps Tom could read her thoughts.

  Thinking was not doing, however. Since taking their seats at the restaurant’s serpentine counter, Stacy had been debating whether she could actually go through with another seduction attempt. An afternooner with a guy she’d met only a couple hours earlier? Certainly, Stacy had had anonymous sex. Lots of it. But Tom wasn’t exactly zipless. Or faceless. There were consequences. He was her boss’s son. Then again, Tom was leaving the country tomorrow for six months (a lifetime in the eyes of a 20-year-old). She should be able to get in and out (as it were) risk free.

  Tom sermonized some more. “The fact of the matter is,” he said, “any woman can get laid from any guy at any second of any day. You could go up to any guy and say, ‘Fuck me,’ and he’d drop whatever he was doing and fuck you. I hear women complain about not having sex or not being able to find a guy to be with. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If a woman doesn’t get enough sex, it’s her own fault. Her standards are too high, or she doesn’t know that she’s a repressed lesbian.”

  A conveyor belt ran above the top of the counter, carrying tiny plates of sushi. The plates were color coded for price. The bill for a meal was tallied by counting how many plates of each color one collected. Tom had already had three yellow ($4), four white ($6), five green ($3) and one red ($7). He’d tasted nearly every kind of sushi available that day — fatty tuna, soft-shell crab, eel, salmon skin, yellow tail,
urchin, and roe, among others — as well as popping California rolls as if they were edamame. Stacy, demure and ladylike, had a stack of just four plates. She hadn’t secured it with Janice, but she planned on expensing this lunch. The total would be over $100 by now, Tom showing no sign of slowing.

  Stacy ventured, “Isn’t it possible that a woman could put sex on a shelf? That she’d just forget about it for the time being?”

  “If this woman had a libido at all, I don’t see how she could forget about it. That’s like forgetting about food, or sleep, or breathing. Sex is a biological imperative. Our bodies are programmed to want sex and think about sex all the time.” Tom, lover of pronouncements, made another one. “If a woman can forget about sex, she is frigid.”

  Stacy stirred the ice in her water with her finger. “Your theory, about how easy it is for a woman to get sex, assumes that she has the courage, lack of discretion and willingness to ask outright for it. For example, if a woman —”

  “You?” he asked. “I’m only insisting on specifics because it is relevant if the woman is a hottie. And you are the hottest woman over thirty I’ve seen in a long time. Ever. Even under thirty.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Stacy said. “So then, what you’re saying, is that I, Stacy Temple” — a frigid closet lesbian? — “could walk right up to Tony McGuinty —”

  “Who?”

  “Tony McGuinty. The actor from The Hail Storm? Gorgeousville? Wonder Dogs?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Well, he is very handsome.”

  “It would be helpful for me, in envisioning this scenario, if you could pick a man I’m familiar with. How about Derek Jeter?”

  Stacy had no passion for the Yankee shortstop. She was sure he was a nice kid, and he was very young, rich and talented. But he did nothing for her. “I could never ask Derek Jeter for sex.”

  “That’s the whole point. You can’t be intimidated. He’d say yes. Any guy would take one look at you and say yes to anything. He’d say yes to signing over his life savings. He’d say yes to murder. And all you’d be asking him for is a bit of nookie.”