The Numbers Game

by Frances Vidakovic

  Knock, knock. The door opened before Markie could respond and it was Lola popping her head in. She was wearing an incredibly low cut white top, which should have been made illegal - the boys could only see all the way into her mountainous cleavage.

  "Do you have a second Markie?" she said, looking over at Rick.

  It was only because she was beautiful that Lola could get away with this - interrupting a morning meeting between two partners. For a moment Markie pondered on whether he should comment on this - her audacity, how no one else would dare to try the same trick, but his punishments all involved whips and chains so he decided against it. Besides Rick was already standing up and licking his lips.

  "He's all yours."

  "Thanks." Lola waited until Rick was safely out of sight before moving forward.

  "How can I help you?" Markie said, rummaging through the papers on his desk. It was a good move to look occupied given that Lola was already making him feel nervous. Did someone turn the heat on in here, he wondered quietly, loosening the neck of his tie.

  "Tonight," Lola replied, bending forward, hands firmly centered on his table. "What are you doing?"

  One would think that as a personal assistant she would know the answer to this question but evidently Lola didn't. Or maybe she was just pretending not to…

  "I was going to go home after my five o'clock meeting," Markie stated, pushing the latest printout of his schedule Lola's way. The same one she left on the table twenty minutes ago. "As discussed on Friday during our wrap up chat."

  "Yes but something has come up since then," she smiled, showing off her pearly whites, "are you flexible?"

  "Do I absolutely positively need to be?"

  Lola paused, giving the question some deeper thought.

  "I think it would be worth your while," she said in the end.

  Innuendo. The innuendo was there. Markie looked at Lola, the living-walking temptress and decided he needed more information. He had no intention of walking into any trap with his eyes closed, even if it was one set by a Barbie doll.

  "Can I ask what it is exactly, that requires my urgent attention?"

  Lola said nothing to this; instead she looked at him intently, begging him to find the answer in her eyes. Unfortunately though Markie was not a mind reader, he never had been - so he sat there until she coughed up.

  "Isn't it obvious?" Lola grinned, being seductive without even trying. By now she was sitting on the corner of his table, legs crossed, with her skirt riding up her slim yet toned thighs. Almost as if from a higher power, Markie could foresee what was coming next. The legs, the legs, she was going to uncross them a la Basic Instinct. And wham, one second later that was exactly what happened; Lola revealed a smooth area that was dying to be entered into.

  "You and I are going to do it like animals," she whispered into Markie's ear. "Six o'clock, here in this office, be around or miss out on the most risqué ride of your life."

  With that said Lola got up and left. Soon after Markie was forced to admit there might just indeed be a God.

  Back when Markie was a teenager, Playboy published an article stating that beautiful girls were often the worst in bed. The more stunning the girl, the more likely she was to be a lousy lay, they said.

  Markie hadn’t seen the logic in that. Yes, someone who was beautiful probably didn’t have to work as hard to please a man. But so what? At least she was visually pleasing to the eye and chances were you’d want to do a majority of the groping and seducing yourself. A girl is a girl and a hole is a hole. This was why he was so laidback about meeting with Lola tonight.

  Her scheduling of the rendezvous couldn’t have been more perfect. Friday afternoons in the advertising industry were usually known as either beer or wine o’ clock and it was no surprise his staff were already down at the local pub celebrating another birthday with cheap drinks. Early on in the business Markie and Rick had decided that happy campers made happy workers thus the obligatory early Friday afternoon clock off time. As long it increased productivity, it was fine with him.

  “So I guess that leaves just you and me?” Lola said, locking the office door behind her.

  Markie froze at this observation. Yes, at this point no one else was in the agency, but that was not to say it would really be safe from hereon. Pub-crawls usually meant staff would be coming back in droves for cab charge dockets and unlimited filtered water, and let’s not forget the Dynamic Italian Cleaning Duo. He wondered what he’d been thinking before; if anything were to happen between them it would have to be off local territory. Somewhere neutral, distant and preferably where he was unrecognizable.

  “Maybe its best we have this meeting elsewhere,” Markie said, motioning to the mess at his table. It was not exactly the sort of surface he imagined pinning Lola up against.

  “Where were you thinking?” she said, licking her lips with satisfaction. Just so Markie knew she hadn’t confused business with pleasure. This was definitely going to be a moment of pleasure.

  “Um…” Christ, Markie hadn’t given this much thought. He couldn’t take her back to his place, too unprofessional. Lola’s place also teetered on the other extreme: too personal, plus God forbid he leave any evidence.

  “How about the Bay Divine?” Lola suggested and Markie clapped his hands.

  “Perfect.” The discreet hotel regularly hosted business meetings; if anyone familiar should cross their path, it wouldn’t be that hard to play dumb.

  An hour later Markie and Lola were standing in the doorway of Suite 69 (by pure coincidence), a room paid for in cash. On the outside, Markie may have looked calm and collected but the truth was he felt like crapping his pants. The moment reminded him of the summer he turned twelve, when his parents sent him to a professional diving school. Markie had always being a strong swimmer, with a cabinet jammed full of blue ribbons and gold trophies so they sent him there with hopes of bringing home Olympic potential.

  But he hated diving. When he stood on that wobbly board which hovered at least ten meters above the surface, Markie felt in dire need of a swim ring. Theoretically he could do it – swim, dive, whatever - but when it came to practice, more often than not his puke hit the water before his head did.

  This instance now was really no different. Markie knew technically what to do with a woman but that knowledge seemed futile in this situation. You see, it was really up to Lola to make the first move. She was kind of doing that; right now he caught her in the act of undressing herself and folding her clothes neatly onto the table…

  “So…” she smiled.

  Miss Lola was now lying on the bed, arms by her side, completely naked. Okay so perhaps that was the first move, Markie decided, looking rather sadly at his crotch. So much for having a little entree: a friendly coaxing of the mouth-to-mouth kind, it looked like Lola preferred to jump straight into main meal. But he could go with that. Markie took off his clothes and slunk onto the bed beside Lola.

  One second later he was hearing the question all men loathed hearing: “So are you going to go down on me?”

  Just like that. No kiss, no grab or pull first. No magic rubbing between two bodies. Markie hadn’t even had a chance to properly check out the goods.

  “Go on,” she moaned, reaching for and pushing his head down southward, “go on and satisfy me.”

  Of course Markie did as he was told, because he was a gentleman, even though Mister Snake (who was still buried deep within his shell) was calling him a sucker. Twenty minutes later, his manhood hadn’t moved one bit, it was still limp as a ragdoll despite Markie silently screaming at it to come to attention. It didn’t help that every time he tried to come up for breath Lola pushed his head back down again.

  “More, more.”

  Yeah, yeah, Markie mumbled, despite feeling his jaw might drop off any second. When he eventually did get his thing up (after kneading himself to an acceptable firmness), it turned out Lola wasn’t so eager to climb up on top (“way too tiring”) or get onto her knees (“do I l
ook like a dog to you?”).

  “Let’s stick with missionary,” she smiled.

  Needless to say, this was when the old Playboy article came to mind. It finished almost as soon as it started and there were neither fireworks nor any above-average satisfaction granted from sleeping with something so similar to an oxygen-impaired fish. Especially when after fifteen minutes it was over for good.

  Chapter 14

  By the time the weekend swung around again, Tabitha decided an emergency fix-it plan needed to be made. Like pronto.

  Really action should have been taken ages ago, she scolded herself as she grabbed a notebook. But other things were always playing on Tabitha’s mind– work projects, a pressing tax return, a new attempt to seduce Rick – admittedly minor things in comparison to the monster problem she had on her hands now. Hmpf, well she would put an end to it immediately - this Mister Jasper Romancing the Stone business. She had to; this was a desperately dire situation.

  Scanning over the list scribbled in her notebook, Tabitha noticed she didn’t have much to work with. The twelve boys on Serena’s ex-conquest file were none-impressive. They were as follows:

  1. Sean (at age 14)

  2. Jesse (at age 16)

  3. Tyson (at age 18)

  4. Zachary (at age 18)

  5. Duane (at age 18)

  6. Dominique (at age 19)

  7. Fernando (at age 19)

  8. Enrique (at age 19)

  9. Ramiro (at age 20)

  10. Brent (at age 21)

  11. Jasper (at age 22)

  12. Zane (at age 22)

  13. Markie (at age 23)

  Damn, this was like trying to make a wedding dress out of papier-mâché materials. Next Tabitha studied Serena’s three ‘all-important’ questions written in bold red under the names:

  1. Who was still single and/or available?

  2. If they’d moved, could they be tracked down? and

  3. If so, as a minimum were they still at least decent delectable human beings?

  Tabitha grabbed her Liquid Paper and quickly erased these silly prerequisites. What bullocks! It didn’t matter whether the boys were single, lived locally and attractive or not, what mattered was whether she could get them into bed with Serena. And soon too, seeing as Jasper was potentially very dangerous terrain, what with all his nice, doting relationship antics. Unless someone wedged a spade between the two immediately, Serena would be fatally swept under.

  “If it hasn’t already happened,” Tabitha muttered under her breath. Jesus, the girl didn’t even look like herself anymore. Twice already that stupid hair stylist Champagne from the movie set had penetrated her hair with gold rinses and the effect of it next to her disgustingly glowing skin was nauseating. Serena had taken to putting on fake tan – fake tan, can you believe it! Could anything be more narcissistic and self-depreciating than changing one’s skin color? Tabitha thought not. Much as she denied it, Serena had all the symptoms of a girl falling in love.

  Not good, Tabitha determined, so not good at all. Taking a felt tip pen into her hands, she went to work on the list. Okay so what had they already deciphered? Deflowerer Sean got a cross because he was gay as did the wankers Duane and Tyson, because their dicks had probably shriveled down to peanuts thanks to an over consumption of drugs. Now Brent, he was an option. Fair enough his companion during the spy mission was that willowy blond princess but good looks and manners still kept him in the running.

  So that left:

  Jesse

  Zachary

  Dominique

  Fernando

  Enrique

  Ramiro

  Brent

  Zane

  Now this was tough. None of the boys above had been sighted for years, in most instances a decade or so. Anything could have happened to them in that time.

  From memory, the South American quartet – Dominique, Fernando, Enrique and Ramiro were a good-looking bunch. If Tabitha didn’t know better she’d have said they were brothers – given that they all had the same olive skin, model face and puppy dog eyes, except in reality they were all just neighborhood friends, a group whose grandparents had migrated to the US together. Ah, Serena sure knew how to milk a gang for what it was worth. It wouldn’t be too hard to track them down.

  As for the others, Tabitha wasn’t too sure. Back in the old days, Jesse was the archetypal good looking nerd (sans the glasses) but boys like that ended up in IT. Her prediction: if not already settled down with three kids and a dog, Jesse would just need some Viagra and a little push. Zachary on the other hand was Jesse’s opposite – the athlete, obsessed about things like training and calories. Tabitha couldn’t recall exactly which sport the boy excelled at: soccer, swimming, wrestling and tennis; she was pretty sure it was all four. Her take on Zac’s chances were: if he left the scales and measuring tape behind, they were fairly good.

  Having already checked out Brent, who was the perfect candidate if unattached, that left only Zane behind. He was the boy before Markie and someone who could make any girl run into the arms of another and stay there forever. If Tabitha’s memory served her correctly, Serena slept with Zane the night before her twenty-third birthday and a few weeks later she dropped everything to run off to Europe. The two events were intricately entwined; sex with the big bad heartbreaker who would never settle down led to an almost aching need to escape his memory and San Francisco. It was either viva la Europa or the mental hospital.

  Of course this embarrassing portion of Serena’s life had long since been committed to the “Do Not Ever Mention Again” box. But one time Tabitha hadn’t being able to help it. She had to bring it up, given her own obsession with Rick was also becoming borderline psychotic.

  “How did you get over it?” Tabitha had asked, knowing full well not even she could fill Serena’s shoes in the obsession stakes. “I mean, in the end.”

  Serena had just sighed, knowing whatever her reply it would sound stupid. The whole concept of her and Zane and thinking he was The One had been stupid from the word go.

  “I don’t know, I think eventually the truth became so glaringly obvious I couldn’t ignore it.”

  This advice didn’t dishearten Tabitha now because Zane and Rick were different. Zane was a sleaze, however well-meaning. Rick’s parents, on the contrary, were still married and affectionate, thirty years on (according to Markie). Zane cracked onto every girl in sight while Rick struggled to crack a smile (because he was too shy of course). Thus it was okay for Tabitha to nourish her crush as long as she didn’t cut the heads off male models in bridal magazines and stick Rick’s on top. She’d be truly stuffed then and forced to also take a long holiday.

  Getting back to the list, there was absolutely no reason why Zane shouldn’t stay on it. Sure, he broke her heart and it took thousands of travel miles for her to get over it. But seeing as one of these boys HAD to bed Serena (to get her to break from Jasper) it was better to keep her options wide open. Who knows, Zane might be best of the lot. All Tabitha had to do now was work out a way to get them all together, and that called for a party of some sort.

  “Oh and sorry Jasper, but you are definitely NOT invited.”

  Surprise, surprise, it was easier than suspected to track down the South American awesome foursome.

  Maybe she had pure luck to thank, but Tabitha put it down to her excellent investigative skills. It was all in the approach. The way she looked at it San Francisco wasn't exactly a huge scary place. To the contrary, it was a small and compact city of 47 square miles, housing no more than 7.5 million people (gulp!). Given its superb location (at the top of the Peninsula, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay), once you were in the city it was unlikely one would escape.

  Thus her first assumption: like-folk would have a natural inclination to congregate with like. What better way to preserve your culture, to forget that one wasn’t right now sun bathing in g-strings on the Brazilian coast than to hang about with other Brazilians? That's what Tabitha woul
d do if she had a shred of interesting blood circulating through her body. She put herself in their shoes.

  Hence her next step. She sat down at her computer and tapped away on the keyboard. Two minutes later, she was surfing through heaven-sent websites and after creating a fairly authentic alias (as Selma Bundchen, poor girl who has traveled thousands of miles and needs to contact long lost relatives) Tabitha discovered a secret underground community of Brazilian imports in San Francisco who seemed very much obsessed to stay in touch.

  "Oh Lord, this must really be my lucky day," she smiled, stumbling her way into a new forum site.

  Right here, right now, Brazilians all over the city were chatting about soccer results and upcoming events in the region hosted by the Consulate. She read the last comment with delight:

  Brazilian waxes...at what age do you think girls back home start going for the total strip? I'm fourteen and the thought of it -the pain more specifically- terrifies me.

  It was signed Cute n Curious and within seconds Miss CC was Miss Popularity.

  At fourteen, do you even have hair down there? - One person asked (male of course)

  Avoid waxing and pick up Nair - another wise girl suggested.

  And so on and so on and so on. Tabitha hoped this wasn't the quality of conversation that commonly took place on the forum so she scanned down and dipped into the archives. Good, they talked about everything here: politics, worthwhile nightspots, where to find discount Brazilian music and DVDs. She was sure they wouldn't mind her putting in her two cents and asking for a little help tracking down some cousins. Ramiro, Ramiro, where thou art thou Ramiro? Surely there couldn't exist too many best friend gangs with the members named Dominique, Fernando, Enrique and Ramiro, all aged about twenty-eight.