UPGRADE
Stephen Hise
UPGRADE
Published by Stephen Hise at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Stephen Hise
Cover design by Letitia Hise
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks to my daughter Anneliese, who encouraged and browbeat me until I finished the book, to reader and reviewer Catherine Speight for her wonderfully detailed notes, and to my wife, Letitia Hise, for her work in designing the cover and formatting the manuscript for Smashwords and Kindle.
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Chapter 1
It was the lunch hour. Brent Schoenfeld swiveled his chair around to look out the large window of his second floor office. In a moment, the sidewalk was flooded with pretty young women; blondes, brunettes, and redheads from the office building across the street. As he did every workday, he watched and he longed. This was his life in microcosm. He could see them, but they could not see him. The physical separation of the window was redundant; they would not have seen him if he had been right on the street among them. He was invisible to them. They would walk around him as if he were a lamp post. There would be no flirtatious glances, not even a friendly smile.
Along came his absolute favorite: the tall, cool blonde, sweeping with an unconscious elegance through the doors of her building. Her long, blonde hair was wafting slightly from her movement or perhaps a light breeze. She was wearing that beautiful red dress he liked so much. It was low-cut enough to tantalize, but not so low as to seem inappropriate. Her hem line was just a few inches above the knee, and allowed a glimpse of flawless legs. She glided like a model down the street, turning the heads of every man she passed. She walked briskly, fishing something from her purse as she went. In just a moment, she was out of sight.
Brent sighed heavily. He caught his own ghostly reflection in the window. There was nothing physically attractive about him. He was sallow, thin, and gangly. His nose was too large, his ears stuck out, and though he was not yet thirty, his hair was now thinning. He knew that pretty women just laughed at him. He knew that from long, painful experience.
He was wealthy now. He had built a rapidly growing business from information security software he had developed himself. He owned this building; two hundred people were now on his payroll. He was only months away from becoming a billionaire instead of a multi-millionaire. Still, he looked like this. Who would ever really want him, desire him? They might want his money; they might even want his name. That wasn’t enough, though. He wanted to be the object of their desire. He wanted them to want him, to ache for him the way he ached for them.
This afternoon, he was going to take an important step. He had the money now; the money to right all the wrongs he had suffered. He was going to have a procedure that would correct the one thing that nature had denied him. He was going to be made beautiful. Then he could go among them at last, not as a desperate outsider, but as one of them – as one of the beautiful people.
He gathered himself and walked out his office door. There was his secretary, clattering away on her keyboard. Marcy was certainly pretty enough, and rather buxom as well. She never looked at him though. She was always courteous, but cool and distant. It could not be clearer to him that she found him unattractive. He vaguely wondered what she’d think if she knew.
“Marcy, I’m leaving now. Simmons will be in charge while I’m gone. You can reach me on mobile if there’s an emergency.”
“Yes sir. Have a good trip,” Marcy said without looking up from her keyboard.
When Brent walked into the clinic, he was a little surprised to find no one else was in the waiting room. It was just him and the receptionist, an attractive slender girl with long auburn hair and a vacuous, disinterested air about her. She told him Dr. Clark would be with him in a moment, and then returned to leafing through her copy of Cosmo.
Brent was the only patient in the waiting room. He found that a little disconcerting, but he knew Dr. Clark saw only a select few very wealthy patients. Brent was happy to finally get a chance for an evaluation; a kind of interview Dr. Clark held with his clients.
Eventually, an elderly man in a lab coat poked his head through the door next to the receptionist’s cubicle and said, “Mr. Schoenfeld? Why don’t you come on back?”
Brent followed the man through the door and down a short hallway, not to an exam room, but to what was clearly the doctor’s private office. The elderly man sat down behind the desk and gestured to the large, leather wing-back chair opposite. Brent sat down.
“You’re Dr. Clark?” Brent asked.
Instead of answering, the man said, “I assume you are here to seek redress for an injustice.”
Brent blinked and looked at him blankly for a moment. “I – I don’t know what you mean.”
“You are healthy and young and intelligent and financially successful.” The elderly man looked at him over the rim of thick glasses. “But still, you feel nature has cheated you. You wish to be physically attractive in addition to all your other attributes. You are here because you feel you are unattractive, and you are. You want me to change that, and of course, I can.”
Brent opened and closed his mouth hesitantly a couple of times. It was all true, of course but the man was so irritatingly blunt and insensitive.
The doctor leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. “Let me give you a little background on the principles behind my procedure.” Clark leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head and donned a distant gaze. “We attribute the decisions we make to the cognitive processes of our minds. This is largely true for the processing of intellectual information; however, all the decisions made that relate to the body’s sensory array – our senses of touch, taste, hearing, sight and taste – are actually made preconsciously by our brains rather than our minds. What you might think of as the hard wiring of the brain determines such things as whether we like the taste of broccoli, what our favorite color is, the type of music we like and also who we find attractive. What we think of as the decisions we make in this regard are actually just elaborate rationales the conscious mind uses to support a decision already made without our knowledge by our brains. This difference engine in the brain is unique to each person and is an evolutionary device necessary to the survival of the species.”
“Necessary?” Brent asked.
“Yes, quite necessary. How do you think the species would have fared if only one member of the opposite sex was found attractive by all the others?”
Brent considered this for a moment and supposed it made sense. Still, he didn’t know why he had to be on the short end of the stick.
Clark continued, almost as if lecturing a student, “Picture for a moment the most beautiful woman you can imagine.”
Brent pictured the super blonde from across the street. She seemed quite perfect to him.
“Now ask yourself for the specific features you find so attractive in this person. You may say you like her eyes or her hair or her figure. These are the rationales of your conscious mind acting in support of a decision your physical brain has already made. You think you consciously decided this woman was attractive, but in fact that decision was made on your behalf and instantaneously by your brain and without your knowledge.”
“Well, how does the brain make these decisions?” Brent asked.
“That is an excellent question, Mr. Schoenfeld. Very simply put, the brain looks for thirty specific points of symmetry in the faces of others. The more of these points it finds, the more attractive the person will appear to be. Likewise, the fewer of these points that are found, the less attractive the person will be found. The most curious thing about it is that these points of symmetry are almost indiscernible to the naked eye. In other words, our conscious minds do not look for this specific information at all.”
“So, if I understand you correctly – your procedure would adjust my face to approximate these points of symmetry?” Brent asked, finally thinking he was beginning to understand.
“Not exactly, no. The procedure provides a series of microadjustments that act to counterbalance the asymmetries. This has the effect of confusing the processing of your visual image in the brain and triggers a default decision in your favor. People will simply find you attractive instead of unattractive even though your actual facial contours would be changed in a way consciously imperceptible to them. You wouldn’t notice any change in your own reflection at all.”
“So I wouldn’t really look any different? I guess I don’t know what you mean.” Brent was totally lost.
Dr. Clark looked at him again. “You’re in the computer software game, are you not?” Brent nodded. “Well, then I imagine you know what it is like to look at a page of code for a program. If one, just one of those numbers that was supposed to be a zero is instead a one, the program will not operate properly, will it?”
Brent found the analogy a little dated, but a gleam of understanding was slowly dawning. The doctor continued, “The core principles of attractiveness operate in the same way. What others perceive in you as unattractive, is simply the result of some bad code. I can correct this code. I can make you irresistible to women. These virtually imperceptible changes make a much greater difference than you can possibly imagine.”
This was starting to make sense to Brent in a way no other explanation could have. The procedure would work along the lines of a software patch – not changing the original code, just providing new code to override and address the errors. He was becoming excited by the possibility.
They talked on for the better part of an hour. Brent understood there would be no scalpel, no bandages, no recovery time. The whole thing would be accomplished with some sort of concentrated sonic pulses or something like that. He understood that he would have to be unconscious for the procedure, but only to assure his complete immobilization so there could be no mishaps with the microadjustments.
He was told that he would become immediately attractive to people he’d never met before, or those who had not seen him in a long time, but that the effect would be more gradual on those to whom his face was familiar.
“I want this. Let’s go forward,” Brent said, anxiously.
The doctor pursed his lips and squinted thoughtfully at Brent for a moment. “You must be sure, Mr. Schoenfeld. I must warn you that beautiful people have their own crosses to bear. This procedure will merely address the issue of your appearance to others. People often think this will bring them happiness, just as so many believe wealth will bring them happiness, but you know yourself that this is not true.”
Brent was beginning to think the guy was daft. If he was young and healthy and rich and beautiful, what else could he possibly want? If all that couldn’t make you happy, what could? No, this would complete him, that’s all.
“Of course,” Brent lied anyway. “I know just what you mean.”
“Well then, you will come in tomorrow at 1:00, and we will do the procedure.”
“Yes?” Brent was expecting to hear more, but the doctor did not speak. He was looking down at some paperwork on his desk. “Is that it, then?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, you may go now. No alcohol tonight, and do not eat anything after midnight.”
Brent stood and extended his hand, but the doctor’s attention was back on his paperwork. Brent felt momentarily awkward. He cleared his throat nervously, and then left. On the way out, he stopped at the receptionist’s desk, and asked if he needed to make the appointment for tomorrow.
“It’s already done,” she said without looking up from her magazine.
The next day, he returned to the clinic at the prescribed time. This time, the same pretty redhead was handing him papers and telling him where to sign. The whole time, she never looked at him. When he had signed and initialed the last form, she stood up and led him back to the procedure room, and sat him in a chair that looked rather like the chair in a dentist’s office.
Dr. Clark came in shortly, and began examining Brent. As he poked and prodded Brent’s face with what appeared to be a pair of calipers, he was mumbling figures to his pretty red haired assistant, who was scribbling furiously in a chart as he spoke, evidently writing down what he was saying.
Then the doctor leaned down behind the chair, and turned some sort of valve. Brent could hear a faint hiss. Clark came back up wielding a mask not unlike an oxygen mask, and the last thing Brent remembered before waking up was the mask coming down gradually over his mouth and nose. Then he was floating, not a care in the world.
Someone was stroking his forehead gently. “Hi handsome, are we waking up now?” said a female voice that seemed only vaguely familiar. His eyes fluttered open to a slightly blurry world. Someone was leaning over him, caressing his head.
He closed his eyes tight and started smacking his very dry mouth. When he opened them again, the young redhead was leaning over him, sporting a dazzling smile. She caressed him again, looking at him with something well beyond clinical tenderness.
His throat was so dry. He tried to talk, saying “Muth, mumf?”
“Shhhh…” she said, and took his hand, and held it to her small, firm breast. “Don’t try to talk yet; you’re still a little groggy. Would you like a sip of water?”
He nodded, and she reached over to a tray, still holding his hand to her breast. “Here, sweetie – just sips for now, okay?”
He lifted his head a bit unsteadily, and sipped at the water cup. He looked over the paper rim at her, and she was looking back at him with a look he’d never seen before. It – it was absolute adoration.
He reached up with his free hand to feel his face. He expected to find some evidence of the procedure; but there was no numbness, swelling, not even any tenderness. What the hell?
“How are you feeling now, handsome? Want another sip?” she cooed at him. He nodded, and craned his head forward again. In a way, he felt like a baby bird. When he finished the sip, a little water dribbled out of his mouth.
“Oops, I better get that.” The redhead said, and then she slowly and meaningfully licked the droplet from his face.
He blinked rapidly. “Thank you,” he said groggily.
She looked evenly into his eyes and said, “Listen, I wrote down my cell number and slipped it into your pocket. If you need anything - anything at all, you just call me, and I’ll come right over and take care of you.” And as if to make her meaning clear, she pressed his hand tighter into her breast.
He closed his eyes and smiled. He liked this. He wanted this to continue. He tried to give her breast a weak squeeze with his hand.
“Don’t do that.” said Dr. Clark brusquely. Brent opened his eyes to see the doctor looming over him. He scanned the room to see if the redhead was there. No redhead. He’d heard of people having hallucinations like this. It seemed so real.
Clark leaned over Brent and looked at him intently and clinically, moving his head from side to side, yanking down his lower eyelids, and then letting them snap back. Brent was feeling a little more oriented after a few minutes, and asked Dr. Clark for a mirror.
“It’s not necessary.” Clark said dismissively. “You won’t see anything different.”
“Well, did we do the actual procedure, or was this just, I don’t know, measuring or something?” Brent was a little confused, as he had been ever since he met Dr. Clark.
For the first time, Clark smiled benevolently at him, and said, “Nope, you’re all done, Mr. Schoenfeld. From this point on, your life is going to be very different. Let’s see you try to stand.”
Brent got up slowly, and stood. He weaved slightly, or the room did, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, he wasn’t quite one hundred percent. Clark frowned a bit, and told him to sit back down and rest for another few minutes.
He did, and Clark left the room. Brent rested a few more minutes, taking occasional deep breaths, as the doctor had instructed until his head felt fully clear. He kept thinking about the redhead. It was a nice dream, even if that’s all it was.
“All right, how are we doing?” Clark’s head poked around the corner of the doorway to the procedure room.
“I think it’s all good, Doc.” Brent said, and he stood up to show he was steady.
“Good. Good. You can go, then.” Clark said.
“Do I need to schedule a follow-up visit or anything?”
Clark had already disappeared, but from down the hall, he heard the crisp reply, “Nope, you’re done. Go enjoy life.”
He headed down the hall, and was anxious to see if the girl was there at her reception desk. He wanted to see her – see if there was any reaction. Damn! She wasn’t there, so he headed out the door, down the hallway and out into the parking garage, where he got into his car.
As he slid into the driver seat, he tilted the rear view mirror so he could see his face. There was nothing different at all. He sighed. What if this whole thing is just a big scam? I already wired the million dollars to his off-shore account. Suddenly, he felt very stupid, and a little angry. He wanted to go back inside and confront this fraud. No, better to get my legal team on this. I’ll sue the son of a bitch!
He reached for the seatbelt, and pulled it across his chest. As he did so, he felt something in his pocket. He reached in and fished it out. It read in a pretty, feminine hand:
Kim – 883-1945 (anything at all)
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Chapter 2
It was already after five; his office would be closed. He drove home instead. He kept running his hand over his face to see if he could feel anything, any difference from before, even a slight tenderness from one of these supposed microscopic adjustments. There was nothing, though, and it began to creep into his consciousness that Kim (if that was her name) might be part of the con. He was going to have to conduct an independent test somehow; maybe go out to dinner or to a bar or something. Where the hell would I go to find some women at this time of day?
He parked, and headed up to his apartment. Well, even if I decide to go out, I’m going to need to shower and change. In the bathroom, he looked at himself long and hard in the mirror, and again was skeptical that anything at all was different. He took a long, luxurious shower and thought about Kim. He allowed himself to wonder: what if it was real, though? He fished her note to him out of the pocket of the shirt he had tossed in the hamper and read it again. He started to throw it away, but decided to put it away in a drawer instead.
Ultimately, he decided he didn’t feel like going out tonight. Actually, he was just tired of acknowledging that he didn’t know of any night spots – he’d never had occasion to know before. He sat on the couch and slipped comfortably into his habit of reading the trade magazines. Wired magazine actually had an article praising one of his new product lines. By nine o’clock he had fallen asleep on the couch.
In his dreams, the procedure worked and he was surrounded by beautiful women. Kim was there, and so was that stunning blonde from the building across the street from his office. Then he was in his office, and Marcy followed him in, and closed the door behind her and began unbuttoning her blouse and walking toward him with a hunger in her eyes.
Then he woke up. He glanced at the clock - one in the morning. He sat up, trying to cling to the unresolved but quickly evaporating dream. He got up and went to the bathroom, then went to bed, hoping for an encore or a conclusion to the previous dream, but as far as he could remember, he didn’t dream any more that night.
He woke up at his regular time, but it was Saturday. No office, no lunchtime floodgate of beautiful women from across the street. He still hadn’t a clue where to find any women; least of all on a Saturday morning. He decided to get dressed and head over to the Hilton, and have breakfast there at the Top of the Round, the revolving restaurant atop the 30-story building. They offered weekend brunches there.
The experiment was a bust, though. The waitress did seem particularly solicitous, but she wasn’t really very pretty. The only other women in the restaurant were a couple of middle-aged women obviously involved in some kind of business dealings. All the hotel staffers he ran into were male.
If it was a con, they had the timing worked out very nicely. They’ve probably skipped the country by now. He decided he would have to wait for Monday, then it occurred to him he had Kim’s phone number, or at least her supposed phone number. He could at least call and see if the number was valid; that would tell him something. Still, the idea of the possibility of this thing working was so powerful, he tended to vacillate.
When he got back to his apartment building, he had decided to just wait until Monday, and go into the office as usual. Maybe at lunchtime, he would go down on the street and see if any of the women he ogled at every day would give him a look.
On his way into the building, the doorman stopped him and handed him a note. He said a pretty red haired girl had left it for him. It seemed a little dream-like. He thanked the doorman and slipped him a ten spot, and read the note on the way up in the elevator.
I was in the neighborhood, and thought I would just stop by and see how you were doing. Give me a call at 883-1945 if you want to get together and do anything tonight.
Kim
He kept reading and re-reading the note as he walked down the hall to his door. Maybe it wasn’t real, maybe it was all part of the con, but it was making him feel good. He sat down on the couch, still holding the note. He tried alternately to talk himself out of it and in to it.
Finally, he picked up the phone and tapped out 883-1945. She picked up after the first ring.
“This is Kim.”
“Hi Kim, it’s Brent Schoenfeld. Uh - I got your note.” Suddenly, he was aware he didn’t have any idea what to say next.
“Hi Brent! I was hoping it was you! So…what do you think? You want to get together tonight?” She certainly sounded interested; still he couldn’t quite let himself fully believe it. Even so, he invited her over, saying they could decide what to do when she got there. She eagerly accepted, and showed up at his door promptly at six.
She was wearing a dark blue dress that looked great with her red hair; and spike heels that actually made her a bit taller than him. Her legs looked incredibly long. His impression of her was greatly improved.
He invited her in and offered her some wine. She made some small talk. He was terrible at this; it felt very awkward to him. He knew what he wanted; he just didn’t have a clue how to get there from here. She seemed to sense this, and suggested they stay in and order a pizza. Then she moved closer to him on the couch, and slid her hands up his chest to his shoulders, leaned forward and whispered into his ear, “Maybe we should do something to work up an appetite first.” Then she kissed his neck.
Things moved quickly from there. They never did get around to ordering the pizza. Brent had a lot of pent-up passion, and she was just the remedy for him. The best part was that she was just so eager to please him; she didn’t hesitate for even a moment at anything he suggested. She even anticipated him.
They fell asleep cradled in each other’s arms. When he woke up, she was gone, but she had left a note in her lovely handwriting saying that she’d had a great time, and that he’d better call her soon. He wanted to call her already.
He slept later than was his custom, and when he did get up he felt indescribably happy. He wanted to send her some flowers and a note, but he realized he didn’t know her address. He didn’t even know her last name. He considered for a moment just sending the flowers to the clinic address, but ruled that out as he did not want to embarrass her. He dialed her number, but got voice mail. That wasn’t what he’d expected, and he hadn’t prepared anything to say; he got flustered and hung up without leaving a message. Guess I’ll try her again later.
He made himself a little breakfast, and plopped down in a chair to read the Sunday morning paper, but his mind kept wandering back to the night before, how really very pretty Kim was and those long, elegant legs and the incredible softness of her skin.
The apartment seemed very empty to him, and he began to feel restless. He dealt with this the way he always did: by powering up his notebook, and immersing himself in his work. Time passes quickly in “computer reality,” as he called it. He had always used this as a way to keep the sorry state of his real life at bay.
By bedtime, Kim was well in the back of his thoughts and instead he was eagerly looking forward to going in to the office tomorrow. Certainly the staff would be surprised to see him, since he had scheduled a two-week vacation. He was most curious to see if Marcy noticed anything different at all, but he was particularly looking forward to lunchtime and the floodgate of beautiful women. He had resolved that tomorrow, he would contrive to go among them. That would be the real test. He drifted off to sleep thinking of future conquests.
In the morning he had to fight the urge to go in early, and just barely managed to prevail on that front. As he walked in, a couple of people waved at him, but these were underlings who probably weren’t aware he had planned to be on vacation anyway. When he arrived at his second floor office, he found Marcy struggling with the sticking drawer on the small filing cabinet under her desk. Each time she yanked on the cabinet drawer, her considerable breasts jiggled tantalizingly under her otherwise modest blouse.
“Hi Marcy,” he said casually.
She looked up at him for the first time in he didn’t know how long, and her eyes locked right onto his.
“Mr. Schoenfeld! I thought you were going out of town for a couple of weeks,” she responded. She didn’t look away as she usually did, but if she was finding him at all attractive, she was revealing nothing.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Plans fell through. You got anything for me?”
She glanced at the folders on her desk, then back at him and shrugged. “I’m sorry, I already gave everything to Mr. Simmons. He’s in a meeting with the Microsoft people right now. Do you want me to get him?”
“No, no. That’s all right. I’ll be in my office, Marcy.” And he walked over to his desk and powered up his computer. He felt Marcy’s gaze follow him as he walked by her. This proves nothing, of course. She’s probably just shocked to see me back this morning.
He started, as he did every workday morning by checking his e-mail. In a moment, Marcy stuck her head in the office and asked if there was anything he needed. Had he been paying much attention at all, he would have found that unusual, but he was engrossed in e-mail, so he just indicated he didn’t need anything. He didn’t even look up from his monitor.
The morning was filled with answering e-mails and taking telephone calls. After a while, Simmons came in and welcomed him back, then filled him in on the meeting with the Microsoft people. A few minutes before lunch time, he scooted out of the office, and told Marcy that he had an errand to run.
Once he got to the street level, he decided that rather than waiting right at the door of the opposing building, he would linger near a corner. This would give him a fifty-fifty chance of being in the path of his super blonde when she exited the building. He pulled out his cell phone, and leaned up against the wall, pretending to be involved in a conversation.
After a moment’s wait, the flood of women began exiting the building, and he tried to spot his favorite, but he could not see her in the throng. Roughly half the women headed towards him and the other half in the opposite direction. As they approached, he began nodding his head, and saying to his fake caller “That’s right. Okay, what else. Uh huh, uh huh.”
As the women streamed by him, he realized that he recognized most of them, even though he had only previously seen them from his office window. Most of them smiled engagingly as they walked by; some eyed him in a more predatory way. He saw one girl he recognized actually nudge her girlfriend and incline her head towards him. The girlfriend looked in his direction then casually away, but as they passed, he heard one of them say, “Mega-cute!”
Eventually the stream thinned then stopped altogether. He was disappointed that he had not seen the blonde, but he counted the experiment a success. He put his phone back in his jacket pocket, and walked back to the office. This would not do. He couldn’t stand on the street corner at lunch every day. That would be just too conspicuous.
This conundrum alternately occupied the fore or the back of his thoughts the rest of the afternoon. By the day’s end, he still had not decided what to do about it. He drove home in a bit of a funk, stopping only to buy a newspaper.
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Chapter 3
When he got home, he skimmed the news section, and then read the business section with great interest as was his custom. When he was finished, he tossed the paper at an ottoman, and the Metro section slid out and hit the floor. On the front page was a picture of the night life at one of the local clubs. He sat where he was, turning his head sideways for a moment, staring at the picture from afar.
He had never been a drinker, but he decided he might just need to check out the night club scene. Still, Monday night didn’t seem the most promising. He picked up the Metro section, made mental notes of the locations of some of the more upscale clubs and once deciding he had nothing better to do, set out. He really didn’t intend to drink, but he decided to have the doorman hail him a cab anyway, because he was concerned about leaving his Lexus in the parking lot of a bar.
The first place he went was the one he’d seen written up in the paper: la Luna Azul. He arrived far too early for the evening crowd, but it just so happened that this particular club had a very popular happy hour.
There were actually a couple of dozen people in the place, and some techno-pop music was playing rather too loudly. Most of the people were in booths arranged on the other side of the dance floor. He grabbed a stool at the bar and in a moment, the pretty brunette barkeep, whose nametag said she was “Kelly”, came to take his order. He had to think about it for a moment. “Do you have any wine?”
She nodded, but then leaned in toward him to whisper in his ear that the wine was really crappy. As she leaned forward, she brushed her breast against his hand. “Well, I don’t drink very often. What’s a good drink?”
“Have you ever had Sex on the Beach?” she gave him a lascivious smile, then leaned forward, once more brushing his hand with her breast and whispered, “It’s a drink. You’ll love it.”
In a moment, she was back with his drink. The bar wasn’t very busy, so she stayed and chatted with him. He told her that he wasn’t very well acquainted with the night life. Without hesitation, she offered that she got off in a couple of hours and volunteered to be his guide to some of the better clubs.
He nursed his drink as best he could, but ended up ordering and finishing another before Kelly got off duty. He felt a little woozy by the time they actually headed out, so he suggested they get a bite to eat before they continued. She eagerly agreed, and they settled on a nice steak house that was within walking distance.
The lights in the restaurant were low, but seemed as broad daylight compared to the lighting in her club. Kelly was even prettier than he’d first thought, and turned out to be a great conversationalist.
After dinner, they went to a few clubs, but his instinct about Monday not being the best night for clubbing seemed more and more prophetic. Eventually, they took a cab to her place, where he actually had decided he was just going to drop her off before heading home himself, but she invited him up for a nightcap.
He started to search for a way to politely decline. It was late, and he had to work the next day, but he looked into her lustrous dark chocolate eyes and put his protestations aside. He followed her up the stairs to her second story apartment. As they entered her modest but neat little apartment, she tossed the keys casually on the coffee table, then turned to him and planted a long and passionate kiss on him.
She then bounced away saying, “I can’t wait to get out of these clothes! Booze is in the kitchen – help yourself.”
He went into the kitchen as instructed and stood there looking at the several bottles of spirits. “You know, I’m not sure I should have any more to drink,” he said with a voice raised just enough that he thought it would reach her in the bedroom.
She emerged from the bedroom wearing only a red silk robe in an oriental design that barely managed to cover her at all. “Hey, if you’re okay, I’m okay!” Then she held her arms out and twirled for him asking, “So, what do you think?”
His expression answered for him. He was right, the robe was only barley able to cover her when her arms were not held high, and when they were; it failed gloriously on all counts. She flounced down on the couch and patted the spot beside her.
When he sat down, she leaned toward him and kissed him again, long and wet and probing. As they kissed, she moved his hand to her breast, and moaned pleasurably as he squeezed her gently. Then she bounced up and took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom.
The lovemaking was vigorous, bordering on acrobatic. Kelly was quite noisy about it, so much so that it became almost embarrassing for Brent. As much as he wanted not to, he couldn’t help comparing Kelly to Kim. After all, Kim was the only other woman he’d been with sexually. They were so very different. Kelly was quite upfront about being in charge of the whole endeavor. She chose the positions and when they would switch, and was constantly urging him on with loud moans and occasional screams of ecstasy. Kim had been so gentle and slow, and Kelly was actually rather rough - almost frantic.
After she had finally brought him to the moment of truth, he felt an almost overwhelming urge to leave, but she put her head on his shoulder, and gazed admiringly at him asking, ‘Was that good for you, baby?”
He smiled and kissed her, then squeezed her tight. In five minutes, he was out cold. He woke to the smell of cooking, and was briefly disoriented until he remembered the previous night. His head pounded, and his mouth felt like he had been drinking Elmer’s glue. He sat up on the edge of the bed and looked at his wristwatch. It was almost nine o’clock! He should have been in his office an hour ago.
He looked around, found his pants and fished his cell phone out to call Marcy. She answered on the second ring, and he explained that he would not be in until the afternoon. Kelly came in with the food on a tray and a gorgeous smile. He tried to beg off. He wasn’t at all sure he could eat anything, but she insisted and began feeding him pieces of toast.
He managed to get down one piece of toast and a half cup of rather awful coffee. Kelly finally let him go when he made clear just how badly he felt by throwing up everything she’d just forced upon him.
“Oh, baby! You really are a rookie, aren’t you?” She rubbed a warm damp washcloth over his face. “Next time, we’ll take it a little easier. You go home and take a long hot shower and get some rest. Call me when you feel better, okay?” He nodded feebly, got dressed the rest of the way, then climbed into a cab and headed home.
When he got there, he took Kelly’s advice regarding the long hot shower. He took a couple of Advil, then gauging his headache, took two more, then flopped face-first on his bed, falling into a dead sleep right after promising himself that he would never drink again.
He didn’t wake up until eight in the evening, and he felt ravenous but at least his headache was gone. He took another long hot shower, put on fresh clothes and felt like a new man. He headed out in the Lexus to a nearby favorite restaurant and had his supper.
Then, with all the misery incurred by the previous night’s drinking, he decided to head out to some of the clubs Kelly had shown him. It is amazing how quickly a man can adapt to a new lifestyle when given the proper motivation. He wanted to experience women, and he wasn’t going to let one bad experience put him off. Well, it wasn’t that bad an experience really – just different, that’s all.
****
Chapter 4
Nightclubbing in the evenings became his new routine though he was much more careful about how much alcohol he consumed. Sometimes he would get a girl, and sometimes things never progressed beyond a little flirtation; but it was all endlessly fascinating to him. The girls were all so different, some were meek and others were real wildcats. Within two weeks, he’d been with seven girls, and felt he now had a real basis upon which to decide what he liked and did not.
Kim was still his very favorite, and he wondered if it was because she was his first. She was the only one he’d gotten together with more than once – three times now actually. He’d seen her every Saturday night. He was becoming quite taken with her and was beginning to wonder if he’d fall in love with her, or she with him. That would wreck everything. He still had a lot of wild oats to sow, but she was just too good to give up.
Things were going very well in his private life, but he also felt a change in his work life. Maybe it was because he just seemed more confident or happier, but his people were engaging him more than before. Everyone smiled when they saw him. His male employees seemed more respectful and his female employees more friendly.
Even Marcy had changed the way she acted. She was friendlier and chattier than she used to be, and always made eye contact with him. Often, she would come into his office just to see if he needed her to do anything for him. She’d changed the way she dressed at the office, too. Her outfits were more revealing than before – lower necklines and shorter hemlines than before; nothing approaching lewd, but still quite noticeable.
Simmons was Brent’s right hand man at the company and had been since its inception. Brent had always allowed Simmons a great deal of autonomy, but lately, Simmons was being more consultative. Much of the conversation between the two of late had centered on the idea of contracting out some of the legal work to an outside firm. The company was poised for a quantum increase in the market, especially if their dealings with Microsoft went through.
Simmons was uncharacteristically pressuring Brent to take a personal role in this process. He had relied on Simmons for a lot, and he felt if Simmons needed him to take the lead on this one, he could do that, so he finally acceded.
Once the process began, it did not take long to realize why Simmons was anxious to get out from under this particular responsibility. The meetings largely consisted of the four staff lawyers arguing with each other about what seemed rather esoteric points. Brent came to the conclusion that what was really at issue was whether the in-house legal staff would be considered necessary if any of the company’s legal work could be contracted out.
After a few of these meetings, in which nothing at all was accomplished except for scheduling another meeting, Brent took it upon himself to pronounce an ultimatum: “I want a proposal by the end of business today that will recommend the specific legal services that should be outsourced to a firm specializing in software law, and a list of such firms in the area. If I do not receive this proposal by the close of business today, I will find a firm on my own that can handle all our needs, including those currently managed by in-house counsel. Is that perfectly clear?” It was perfectly clear, and well before the end of the day he had the requested proposal and a list of suitable law firms.
He reviewed the proposal, and had Marcy send a copy to each law firm on the list. He instructed her to schedule interviews for him with each firm that responded to the request for services.
“Do you want to do this at your place or theirs?” Marcy asked.
“Set the interviews up here. Get the big conference room.” Brent responded. He looked at his watch – almost quitting time. He walked back to his desk to check e-mail before shutting down his computer.
In a moment, Marcy stuck her head around the door and knocked quietly on the doorframe to get his attention. “Mr. Schoenfeld? Some of us were going to get together down at Friday’s, and – um, well, would you want to come along – you know, have a couple of beers and some snacks, or whatever?”
He looked up from his monitor at Marcy. She looked hopeful. “I guess I could go for a little while. Who all is going to be there?”
“Oh, it’s just going to be a few of the girls from clerical and accounting; five or six, tops,” she responded.
“Okay. Sure, I guess so. When is it? Is it now?” he asked.
“Yea.” She scrunched up her face as if wincing at asking him the next question. “Could I ride with you? I carpooled today, and thought I could catch a ride, but everyone else has already left.” Then she stuck her lower lip out in an attractive pout, and batted her eyelashes playfully.
He laughed, and said, “Now your ulterior motive is revealed.”
“No, that’s not it at all. We want you to come. I want you to come,” she protested.
He grabbed his jacket and walked toward the door, flipping the light out on his way and said, ‘All right, but it’s only because I hate to see you beg. No, wait. I liked that part a little.”
She playfully slapped at his arms, and they walked together to his car. She slid into the passenger seat, allowing a brief glimpse of her rather nice legs, and then fastened her seat belt. When he started the engine, the shoulder restraint moved back and situated itself by forcing a deep valley between her breasts. Marcy looked sideways at him and said, “These things could kill a girl, you know.”
“Still, it’s very becoming on you” he quipped as he looked over his shoulder to back out. On the way to the restaurant, they made small talk about work. The top button of her white silk blouse was undone, but she was nervously fidgeting with the second button on the way. On her figure, this button might be referred to as the gatekeeper button, the main button keeping the show from becoming an order of magnitude more interesting. When they pulled into the parking lot, Brent whipped into a slot, and turned off the ignition. The automatic shoulder harness crawled forward, and as it did so, he saw Marcy give the button she’d been working a little yank. It flew off, and her blouse gaped open, showing a rather amazing amount of cleavage.
“Oh, shoot!” Marcy exclaimed. “That seatbelt caught my button and pulled it off.” She leaned toward him, jutting her bosom forward and asked, ‘Would you be embarrassed to be seen with me like this?”
Since he’d been invited, he looked. He tried to look only briefly, but he wasn’t sure he’d pulled it off quite convincingly. He forced his gaze upward to her eyes, to see her smiling coquettishly at him. “I can take you home, if you’d rather,” he said.
“Rather what?” she teased. “Oh, let’s just go on in. We’re off the clock, right?” She reached for the door handle and was out before Brent could think of anything to say. They walked together inside the main door and Marcy craned her neck looking around for the people they were supposed to meet.
“Well, I don’t see anybody yet. Maybe they went home to change first. Shall we just get a table?”
“Sure. Maybe they can give us something where we can see the door.”
In a moment they were seated in a booth. They ordered a couple of beers and an appetizer platter of hot wings and raw vegetables with ranch dressing. She sat across from him, affording him an excellent view of her ample femininity.
The platter came, and Marcy leaned forward over the table top and craned her neck to her left toward the entrance to see if anybody had come yet. As she did this, of course Brent got the main benefit of the view.
“She sat back and shrugged nonchalantly, “Nobody yet.”
“Do you want to call anyone? Maybe we went to the wrong Friday’s,” he said.
“I don’t know their cell numbers. Anyway, who cares - or am I boring you?”
He put his hands up in protestation. “Not one bit. Honestly, I don’t care if they come or not at this point.”
“Sure. We don’t need them to have fun, do we?” Marcy said. She picked up a celery stick from the platter, dipped it in ranch dressing, and raised it to her lips, where she let it linger tantalizingly, making sure Brent’s attention was riveted before biting it abruptly and cruelly. He started a bit at that and she laughed.
They laughed and talked and teased for two hours. When it became apparent that no one else was coming, Brent offered to give her a ride home. She gratefully accepted. She directed him into the suburbs, where in about half an hour they pulled up in front of an older but elegant house.
“This is where you live?” Brent asked. He couldn’t see how she could afford what a place like this probably cost on her salary.
“Well, yeah. It was my parents’ house. They deeded it to me when they moved to Florida after Daddy retired.”
“Well, it’s a very nice house, Marcy.”
“Thanks. Do you want to come in and see the inside?”
He hesitated. “Oh come on. I’m not going to bite you – not too hard anyway.” And she leaned toward him again, watching his eyes the whole time to make sure his gaze went just where she directed.
He let out a long sigh and finally relinquished his excellent view to look her in the eyes. “I appreciate the offer Marcy, I really do. I just – I don’t know – work and everything – I mean, don’t you think it could get awkward?”
“All right, I guess I understand. You really know how to take the personal out of personal secretary, though.” She gave him a brilliant smile and got slowly out of the car and walked away, shouting over her shoulder, “See you tomorrow!”
He was well on his way home when it first occurred to him that maybe the whole evening had been a setup. Maybe Marcy had fabricated the whole thing about some of the girls getting together just to get him to herself for a little while. He considered this for a moment. He completely accepted that she was very openly flirting with him. There was the thing with the button, which he knew she faked. Then too, she didn’t seem to want to call her friends to see where they were. Ultimately he decided it didn’t really matter much to him. It had been a very enjoyable evening.
****
Chapter 5
That night, he dreamed of Marcy and all that might have followed had he only chosen to accept her invitation to be bitten – but not too hard. In spite of the pleasant fantasy of the dream and the pleasurable nature of the preceding evening with Marcy, he felt a gnawing uneasiness as he prepared for work the next morning.
All the way there, he wondered if she would be there; would she be embarrassed and uncomfortable; were things going to be awkward? As he walked into the building, he exchanged salutations and smiles with various staff members who used to pretty much ignore him. Marcy was at her desk as usual and at least outwardly, no different than yesterday. She greeted him with a radiant smile and indicated she had mailed out the proposal guidelines to all the law firms as per his instructions.
He was greatly relieved to see her this way. “Thank you, Marcy, and thanks for letting me tag along last night. I had a wonderful time.”
“I had fun too. We should do it again sometime.” Then she went back to her keyboarding, eliminating the need for him to accept or decline or to feel awkward about it. He couldn’t quite decide whether she had just dismissed the whole evening as if it had never happened or whether she just wanted to show how well she could separate her business and personal lives.
Brent went to work and the rest of the day was unremarkable except for one thing he didn’t even notice: when lunchtime came, he did not wheel around in his chair to look out his window. It did not even occur to him. From that time on, the women from the building across the street would come and go as they always did, but without their secret admirer.
For the next couple of weeks, life was pretty much just so. Marcy continued to be very friendly but professional. She still wore clothes that were appropriate yet sensual. She flirted with him in such a subtle manner that it never made him uncomfortable. She began coming in to visit at the end of the day and she and Brent would spend a half hour or so after regular business hours just chatting and joking and innocuously flirting.
He continued to see Kim every Saturday night, and maybe once or twice during a week he would look for new adventures elsewhere. He had become more comfortable with the nightlife, and could find attractive women when he wanted, and could usually get what he wanted from them. Perhaps this kept his appetite dulled just enough that he was able to restrain himself with Marcy.
Brent was comfortable in his new routine. Marcy came into his office one Friday a little after five and sat down in the chair opposite his. She was wearing a dark form-fitting knit blouse and a snug dark red skirt that hit her just at the knee when she was standing, but that rode up mercilessly when she sat and crossed her shapely legs. He watched almost mesmerized as the skirt rose to her mid-thigh. Once she was assured his attention was riveted there, she wiggled slightly and scooted down in the chair a bit to bring the skirt nearly to her hip, showing him almost her entire thigh. His eyes widened and she giggled, “I have to make sure you’re going to miss me.”
He looked up at her pretty face, framed in ringlets of light brown and tastefully highlighted hair. She batted long, dark lashes at him. “Miss you?” he asked, absently.
“Don’t give me that! I’m on vacation for the next two weeks – you approved the request months ago.”
He dropped his shoulders as a sense of resignation set in. Of course he remembered. He signed the request back when Marcy barely spoke to him, barely acknowledged his existence, back when she came to work in thick, figure-concealing clothing that was always buttoned up to the very top and beyond, if that was possible.
“Crap. You know how to spoil a guy’s whole day,” he sighed heavily. “So, where are you going?”
“Florida. I’m going to visit with my folks for a while; probably hit the beaches and get a little sun. I got a new swimsuit I’m dying to try out.” She looked at him wickedly.
He leaned forward, putting both elbows on his desk, and cradled his chin in his hands and said, “Well, all right. I don’t know how you can possibly have a good time, though. The interviews with the law firms start on Monday. I’m sure you will be haunted by guilt the whole time. How am I supposed to get along without you?”
“Don’t worry, I got Susan to fill in while I’m gone.”
“Susan? The girl who always wears the corduroy pants?” He looked as mildly horrified as was possible.
Marcy feigned an indignant air, sat straight up and abruptly yanked her hem back down to just above knee level. “Susan will do just fine for you. I’ll be shocked if the two of you aren’t married when I return.”
He winced. “Well, what she lacks in looks, she more than makes up for in the absence of personality.” Marcy giggled a little at this. He slapped a hand over his mouth in what Marcy took to be mock horror at his insensitive remark; but it was not mock horror. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. How quickly he’d adapted to being one of the beautiful people, how quickly he’d gladly joined the ranks of the aesthetic aristocracy in sneering down his nose at the less fortunate. “I’m sorry, Marcy. That was insensitive.”