At thongs.com, the bulk of former employees had been expunged. Only Janice, Fiona, Taylor, and Stacy had been there since the inception. Stacy’s mother, in her gentle way of asking about her daughter’s dating life, routinely asked, “Don’t you meet a lot of people at work?” Yes, Stacy met tons of people. But as soon as someone walked in the door, the newbie began plotting his or her next job hop. No one made a real effort to get to know Stacy. She was viewed as a Fiona loyalist, which rendered her useless for networking. Stacy feared the hash-mark people were right. She didn’t have the guts to job hop. Stacy would go down with the ship (or should she say slip).
Before Stacy could properly express contrition and cheer over Taylor’s imminent departure (her usual speech, “I have the utmost respect and admiration for you. I wish we’d gotten a chance to get to know each other better. Best of luck to you at_________(fill in the blank) dot com. I’ll be sorry to see you go,” didn’t apply to this situation), Taylor said, “I can get you in.”
“In where?”
“At pets.com. I can get you a job.”
Stacy’s heart fluttered. She’d fantasized about leaving thongs.com nearly every hour for over a year. But if she left, she’d lose out on the 10,000 additional stock options that were promised to her after the New Year. Most of her fantasies centered on that date. She’d get her paperwork squared, and then march into Fiona’s office, announce that she was cashing out and resigning. She’d retire for a year, and then, after getting the 3,000 hours of sleep she so desperately needed, she’d go back to public radio. Could she throw away her fantasy for a sock puppet? Besides which, if she were to go with Taylor to pets.com on Monday, she couldn’t very well screw her today.
“Can I think about it?” she asked. Stacy didn’t want to shatter every window of opportunity. There was always the chance that sex with Taylor could turn her into a full-time lesbian. She might want to be Taylor’s bitch.
The buxom blonde said, “Take a risk.”
The hand again. Upper thigh now. Stacy popped a crust of pizza into her mouth and placed her own hand on top of Taylor’s.
“If we kiss, will they throw us out?” Stacy asked, not studied in lesbian PDA etiquette.
Taylor smiled. Her cheeks were spotty and red with what Stacy assumed was the flush of excitement (or prickly heat). “My apartment is on Fiftieth and Lex.” Only six blocks away.
The check settled, Pellegrino drained, the pair walked quickly and silently to Taylor’s apartment. The blonde, one ropy leg out the door of thongs.com, was beyond caring if her work for the day went undone. Stacy couldn’t ignore the itch of responsibility. Taylor said, “This is it.” Too late to turn around. Stacy would attend to other itches first.
The building was one of those charmless vertical egg cartons built in the 1970s. Stacy had always hated this style of architecture, considering it the brick-and-mortar equivalent of a peanut butter sandwich (sustenance you’d force down when you couldn’t get your hands on something tastier). But the utilitarian facade seemed to fit Taylor’s personality. She had no compunction about living in an apartment with white walls and box-shaped rooms. Nor did she mind the lecherous, paunchy, middle-aged doorman who tipped his silly hat and put his hand on Taylor’s lower back as he showed them to the elevator. Stacy wondered if the doorman touched her every time she came and went. Taylor didn’t appear to mind, but Stacy was disgusted on her behalf.
The apartment itself was sterile and minimalistic. She surveyed the space, standing next to Taylor in the middle of her boringly immaculate white living room. Taylor was Stacy’s reverse: disheveled self, meticulous living space. Stacy had no idea if that spoke to her character or psychosis. She’d have to ask her mother, the decorator who’d minored in psychology at Smith College in the 1960s. It occurred to Stacy for the first time that her own mother might have had a post-adolescent lesbian experience at Smith way back when. She pushed that thought out of her head easily enough when Taylor’s arm encircled Stacy’s waist and she began licking the side of her neck.
“I can feel your pulse against my tongue,” Taylor said.
Oh, yes, Stacy’s jugular was throbbing with such violence, she feared her ears might pop. The touch of a woman’s mouth on her skin was both foreign and familiar (another disquieting mommy moment, remembering scents and softness). And sexy. Surprisingly so. Stacy found herself nervous and twitchy with the electric shock of the illicit, the heretofore unexplored, the unfurled turf, this strange land of girls.
Stacy found Taylor’s lips and the women kissed. Unlike the mauling of Tom Strumph or the homey smack of Brian Gourde, smooching Taylor was sweetly hypnotic. It reminded Stacy of sharing a dessert. Taylor’s lips were puffy, coated in gloss that made the kiss as slippery and bouncy as flan on a teaspoon. The hint of flavor — could be vanilla — tickled Stacy’s nose and taste buds.
Peeling away, the smeared waxy residue of gloss on her lips, Taylor cupped Stacy’s left breast with both hands. She massaged it with care, as if it might leak when pressed too hard. Most men will grab the breast as if it weren’t actually attached to the body, batting it around, squeeze until flesh bulged between open fingers, pinch the nipples like pencil erasers. Stacy much preferred Taylor’s tenderness, and would instruct her next boyfriend (whomever that might be) thusly. A bit fearfully, Stacy reached out with both of her hands to reciprocate. Taylor’s breast was heavy and fluid in Stacy’s palms, like a water balloon. She tried a gentle massage, but it was too unwieldy (despite the Lycra encasement). Stacy attempted kneading the gland, and that seemed to please Taylor. She moaned. The sound distracted Stacy. When she was with a man, Stacy made all kinds of noises, and loved to hear the same from the guy. Taylor’s vocalizations seemed out of place, inappropriate and disturbingly intimate. Sex with a woman, Stacy reasoned, was inherently more personal than sex with a man because, ultimately, it was like making love to yourself.
Although Stacy registered erotic pleasure to receive the free breast exam, she was unmoved by the giving. Again with the comparisons (couldn’t be helped): When Stacy was with a man, her biggest turn-on was what she did to him (and his response). Not so here. Stacy’s future as a lesbian was in jeopardy. She had to stop comparing and stay focused.
Taylor seemed to sense Stacy’s mental wanderings and attempted to stop them by descending to her knees. Taylor kissed Stacy’s blouse on the way down. Stacy couldn’t suppress silent panic over makeup stains on her fine fabrics (yet another universe of worldly distractions — did men actively worry about smudges and smears? She’d have to ask Charlie). She snapped back to the present quickly enough when Taylor nuzzled Stacy’s crotch, lifted her skirt, and pulled down her panties.
She nearly stepped away. Instead, she began playing with Taylor’s hair and thinking about Tony McGuinty. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d think about when it was her turn to get on her knees, but she’d deal with that then.
Tony, his lovely muscular body, his arms around her legs, his hands on her ass, his mouth and tongue against her…the rush of arousal seized her, the familiar building, the sensation she’d felt several thousand times and would feel a million more before it ever got dull. It was close. Any moment now, Stacy would receive a standing O. A great, big, huge one. Any second. Any nanosecond. The pressure grew, expanded.
And then it stopped. The pressure ceased, leaving Stacy’s heart flying wildly in her chest, her legs shaking from being so close. What the fuck happened? Stacy looked down to see Taylor sitting Indian style on the floor, her head in her hands. Dear God — Stacy felt a cold-water chill — was Taylor crying? Anything but that.
Dizzy, her blood flow diverted from her brain, Stacy sat on the hardwood floor next to Taylor. Her colleague was crying. Stacy put her arm around Taylor’s shoulder and said, “What’s wrong?”
“Who is Tony?” she asked.
Oh. Shit.
“I go down on you, and you’re thinking of someone named Tony. I’m not even gay!” Taylor said weepily.
&nbs
p; “You’re not gay?” Stacy asked, aghast.
“I’ve never been with a woman before. But I like you. And you’re beautiful. I’ve always known you’re a lesbian, so I thought I could seduce you into my life. Start sexually, and then become friends. Or maybe I’d be gay just for you.”
“You think I’m gay?”
“And then you called out the name Tony. I’m eating pussy for the first time in my life — and it’s not the most pleasurable thing I’ve done, although I do like your bikini wax — and you call out someone else’s name. Who is she?” Taylor’s tear-trailed cheeks glistened, her eyes swimming with shame. This wasn’t just a sexy romp for her. Taylor actually cared, and now her feelings were hurt. Stacy had inflicted the pain unwittingly, assuming that her little adventure would be emotionally inert.
Stacy smiled beneficently (she hoped), and said, “Tony — Antonia — is my ex-girlfriend. We broke up not long ago, and I admit, I’m still a little in love with her. I guess it’s too soon to get into another relationship. I’m terribly sorry that I misled you. I…I have the utmost respect and admiration for you. I wish we’d gotten a chance to get to know each other better. Best of luck to you at pets.com. I’ll be sorry to see you go.”
Taylor nodded and hiccuped. Stacy kissed her on each cheek and stood. “I’ll tell Fiona you have food poisoning,” she volunteered. After righting her panties and skirt, Stacy dashed for the door. The leering doorman barely looked at her as she rushed out onto the street (clearly, he was a tit man). She scurried back to the office, wishing she could get a tail between her legs.
Chapter Nine
Wednesday, late afternoon
By the time Stacy returned to work, she was already late for a VIM (very important meeting) she knew nothing about. Apparently, there’d been an urgent e-mail memo. She found out when she discovered Janice in her small (now suffocating) office, writing a furious note in all caps with red ink (“WHERE THE FUCK…”). A more appropriate message for Stacy would have been, “Where’s the fuck?”
“I don’t know how I missed the e-mail,” said Stacy.
Janice said, “If I’d taken a two-hour lunch in the middle of the most crucial work week in the company’s history, I might have missed it, too.”
“I had to take Taylor home. She was stricken by cramps during lunch. I’ve never seen anyone in such paralytic pain. I had to carry her, her arms over my shoulders while I dragged her body weight on my back. I’m exhausted. But I do feel some pride in being a friend in need.”
“You’ll be a friend in need of a job if you don’t get yourself to the Turtle in thirty seconds,” Janice threatened as she huffed toward the conference room. This must be serious, thought Stacy. Janice was not the whip cracker. That was Fiona’s favorite occupation (along with Botox and collagen injections).
Stacy dropped her bag, grabbed her notepad, and walked double time to the conference room. When she entered the large (also suffocating) room, Fiona’s gaze hit her like a baseball bat. Avoiding those eyes, she muttered an apology and sat down.
“Hope it wasn’t too inconvenient for you to show up, Stacy,” said Fiona acidly. She was dragon-lady perfection today in a black leather dress. In July. Fiona always bragged that she never felt the heat (having spent her five previous afterlives in hell, Stacy reasoned). “You know Stanley, right?” Fiona gestured toward the man at the head of the Turtle.
Stacy did indeed know Stanley Bombicci. They’d met several months ago at a Silicon Alley party for his company, smut.com, an interactive porn site (formerly, Stanley had been a corporate executive for the New York Giants). He was 35, tall, with a chest the size of a Toyota. He smelled of Old Spice and new millions. At the smut.com party, Stanley had made a short speech about dot comedy and tragedy. He predicted that the only websites to survive the first on-line ice age would be idinosaurs (AOL, Amazon, Yahoo!), or URLs with boobs. He was probably right. When he’d been introduced to Stacy by Fiona (who’d made a shameless play for him, declaring within earshot of dozens that she’d “appeared in an adult film ten years ago, when I was in my twenties” — a statement that raised many eyebrows, mainly because few believed that ten years ago she was in her 30s), Stanley looked closely at Stacy and said, “Only one way to tell if you’re a real redhead.”
“Ask my colorist?” said Stacy, attempting to deflect some crass comment about her collar and her cuff. Fortunately, he was distracted by a venture capitalist from Credit Suisse and ignored her for the rest of the night.
He hadn’t forgotten about her, though. Over the next few days, Stanley had deluged her with calls, e-mails. She convinced herself that it was about time she did some networking. Stanley was connected (in the Italian sense, she’d heard whispered), but certainly with hordes of Internet CEOs. She agreed to meet him for coffee. For the first 15 of their 16 minutes together, he’d delivered self-congratulatory monologues to her breasts along the lines of, “Yeah, I started my first business from my college dorm room at Harvard when I was twenty years old, selling naked pictures of grad students. One or two nights with me, these hot grad students — very hot, the sexiest women at Harvard, and believe me, sexy bombshell-type women at Harvard were tough to find — where was I? Oh, yeah, these women would do anything I wanted. Pose nude, sign a model release. Agree to blow me at the statue of John Harvard in the middle of Harvard Square.”
“Sounds like a rich and rewarding experience, Stanley,” said Stacy.
“I made buckets of cash,” he said, nodding. “The beauty of it was that these girls were real. My customers could see them walking around campus. At Harvard. That’s much better spank material than Penthouse for a bunch of horny dorks who couldn’t get tail on a bunny farm. They were nerds, but smart, my classmates. I was challenged intellectually at Harvard, and I need that kind of stimulation. And sexual stimulation. All the time. Like right now. Looking at you. I’d love to reach under your shirt and…”
“Where did you say you went to school?” she asked.
Four months later, Stacy had reluctantly included Stanley on her To Do list of candidates for Sex Emergency Week. And here he appeared, as if by magic, at the head of the Turtle. Was it fate? she wondered.
“It’s good to see you, Stanley,” she said, smiling warmly.
“Great to see you, too,” he said to her breasts.
Fiona called the meeting to order and the group of twelve producers, product managers and marketers turned their horn-rimmed glasses and asymmetrical bangs toward Fiona. “Agenda: finalize terms,” she said. “Thongs.com and smut.com are forming a merchandizing partnership. We will supply unlimited lingerie for Stanley’s models and links to his site. In exchange, he will give us free banner advertising, a click-through on each menu, a plug on the home page, and a featured item of the day on the products page.”
“We’re getting in bed with a porn site?” asked Stacy, dumbfounded (had this information been in the memo?). An “intellectual erotica” site, sure. A matchmaking site, even better. But a URL that unapologetically called itself the “best wank material on the web”? Surely, their partnership was counterproductive. Thongs.com had been pushing the mass-market cart from the beginning. The idea was to differentiate itself from the upscale lingerie retailers on the Internet. Hitching thongs.com with a porn site would send their cart careening down-market, downhill, down the toilet.
“I say this with the deepest respect for Stanley’s business acumen,” said Stacy, “but isn’t smut.com kind of smutty?”
“I’ve addressed and dismissed your concern,” said Fiona. “We can be classy and sleazy at the same time. This isn’t hard to pull off. Just look at me.” The room full of people looked at their fingernails. “Our burn rate is two hundred thousand dollars a month. We need more traffic. Smut.com gets five million unique hits a day. We should thank Stanley for choosing us to be one of his partners. And he’s generously offered to give us a signing balloon loan in exchange for one million shares of company stock at four dollars per share.” The current sto
ck price was $7 per share (the 52-week high was $67).
The loan sounded like a fool’s bargain, even to Stacy’s non-fiscally sensitive ears. Was thongs.com that desperate for cash? It had to be an offer Fiona couldn’t refuse. Stacy could see her rationalizations at play. Thongs.com would be in good company. Stanley already had partnership/cross-promotional deals with at least 20 websites, including a $1,000,000 arrangement with AOL (keyword: “smut”), an automatic promotional window when anyone bought “adult literature” at Amazon, and another instant prompt when any male (aged 18 to 70) registered with Yahoo shopping. A partnership with the “personal touch” king of Internet porn might bring in more traffic. But how much would teenage wankers spend on panties? Besides which, the idea of a thongs.com logo emblazoned across the barely covered asses of models who lounge on daybeds and masturbate on demand to a disco beat for $1 per minute was embarrassing. It was just one more reason to get out of this job.
Come January, I’ll take the money and run for the hills, Stacy vowed.
Stanley, sensing acquiescence from every woman at the table, put his hands behind his head, fanning his pecs like a condor, and said, “Thanks for the declaration of love, Fiona. But we’re not settled just yet. A couple things before we sign. The models might use the merchandise in an obscene fashion. This a problem?”
Fiona shook her head.
The Accidental Virgin Page 9
