“I’m serious, Maggie, you need to get dressed.”
“The only thing I need to do is take a nap. Throw your jacket over me, please. I’m a little chilly.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue. I just did what she asked. Before I had time to turn around, she was already asleep.
I sat at my desk and picked up the portfolio but couldn’t concentrate. I felt like a prisoner in my own office. The blinds were shut, the door locked, and every employee on the floor knew damn well what was going on in here. Maggie had made sure of that. Despite my continual warnings and pleading for her to be quiet, she screamed so loud that they could probably hear her down in the lobby.
If I had asked myself just a few days ago which one was crazier, Nancy or Maggie, the answer would have been simple: Nancy, by a long shot. But Maggie was gaining ground quickly, and her latest performance put her in the lead.
The phone rang, and since my lovely assistant was in no position to pick it up, I did the honors. Who else but Nancy was on the other end?
“Hello, Joe. I thought your beautiful assistant screened all your calls. Where might she be? Cleaning up after the two of you fucked all morning?”
“I don’t have time for this nonsense, Nancy. I have a very important presentation to give just after lunch and I’m still not totally prepared.”
“Well, maybe if you didn’t waste so much time screwing your precious little Maggie, you wouldn’t be so behind.”
“What is it that you want, Nancy?”
“No need to be rude. I just want to know if you can drive me to the airport in the morning. My flight is at ten but you can pick me up at six. I wouldn’t want you to be late to work and miss out on any activities you might have planned.”
I closed my eyes and thought to myself, Why am I taking this bullshit? Why is she such a psychotic bitch? Why do I get caught up with women who twist my world around? Why?
“How about I just give you money for a cab?”
“No! I really want to see you without the scent of that dimwit on you. Please, just drive me. Please.”
“Okay,” I said like a pussy-whipped little boy. She didn’t want to come over after work because as she said, she “didn’t want to smell the stench of that bitch.” It was too ironic for me to argue. I agreed to pick her up outside her apartment the following morning. After hanging up, there was no doubt in my mind that Nancy was once again out in front in the crazy department.
It was time to go meet the Japanese delegation. The lobby receptionist called and told me they had just arrived. The conference room was set up with a screen and a slideshow presentation. Japanese executives liked to look at pictures and moving images — possibly because many of them didn’t speak or understand English, or maybe they pretended not to. I made a few adjustments to the portfolio, but I would only use it if I felt I had lost their interest. Everything I needed was already set up in the conference room.
I didn’t bother waking Sleeping Beauty. She was so out of it that for the first time in all our years working together, I believed she might do some serious damage and possibly cost us a lucrative contract. Maggie was usually a key asset, especially when the executives we were trying to impress were all men, and usually execs from Japanese companies were all men. I didn’t know what the hell she was on, but I couldn’t take a chance even after she had been asleep for four hours. I left her in my office.
I greeted the delegation in the lobby. There were eight executives, an American consultant, and a translator. They were impeccably dressed, polite, and keenly aware of their surroundings.
The presentation seemed to be going well, even though with Japanese businessmen it was hard to tell. They seemed to gravitate to the idea of presenting their company, not as an outside force, but as an opportunity for real growth and well-paying jobs for the people of Kentucky. I stressed the idea of assimilation and for the company to embrace the concept of “family values” that were so important to the people of this state. I emphasized that the majority of Kentucky is Christian, and the people take their religion very seriously. More than half of our planned advertising included subtle, positive references to the powerful religious influences throughout the state.
The executives listened carefully to the translator and occasionally bowed their heads in agreement. Suddenly, I turned my attention to the door and saw Maggie walking straight toward me. She was dressed in my sport coat and her high heels and nothing else. Her breasts were barely covered, and as she threw her arms around me and kissed me on the mouth, her bare ass was visible to everyone.
She turned toward the executives and said, “We’re in love.” They all stood up and started to applaud enthusiastically. As she bowed, she again revealed her bare ass to the people who might have missed it the first time. They continued to clap even after she left; the translator turned to me and said, “I think you won them over.”
I continued the presentation, but after Maggie’s performance they didn’t seem very interested. They asked the translator her name, and then they started chanting, “Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!”
If this wasn’t enough to drive me crazy, Jack walked into the room and started shaking everyone’s hand as though he knew them all. Instantly, all the executives started speaking English and warmly embracing Jack as though they had known each other for years.
Jack took me by the shoulders and said to the crowd, “The best! The very best!” They once again started to clap and Jack whispered to me, “Meet us downstairs in the dining area. Lobster and Russian hookers are being served.” They followed Jack out of the conference room as I stood there in a state of amazement.
I walked back to my office ready to tear into Maggie, but when I opened the door and found her eating a chocolate cupcake like an eight-year-old, I didn’t have the heart. All I came up with was a pathetic, “Where did you get the cupcake?”
“The boys in the lobby.” She pointed to a box of cupcakes on the desk. “Have one, they’re delicious.”
I picked up a cupcake and sat down next to her on the couch. “So, how did it go?”
“Wonderful! They’re in love with you.”
“Happy I could help.”
The cupcake was delicious, but my senses were once again overtaken by the smell of Maggie’s perfume, the same scent that had started the day’s bizarre chain of events. Within seconds, Maggie and I were at it again. I didn’t even bother to muffle her insanely loud moans and groans. I was undeniably a pig, no different from Jack. Maybe I was worse … taking advantage of a deranged woman. Something in that perfume drove me crazy. It was intoxicating.
After we finished, Maggie lay with her head down on my naked lap and started to cry. “I’m nothing more than a despicable whore; a dirty, low-life whore.”
“Why would you say such a thing? That’s crazy talk.”
“Why? Because I lied to you, Joe. I’m not using any protection; I’m not on any birth control. We just fucked all day and I let you come inside me over and over again.”
“Why on earth would you do such a thing? This doesn’t make any sense, Maggie. It isn’t like you. None of this.”
“I’m just a dirty, despicable, low-life whore …” She started crying again.
I ordered Maggie to get dressed in her own clothes and stay in the office. I took her car keys out of her purse and went downstairs to the dining area, where Jack was entertaining the Japanese executives with an assortment of Russian hookers, lobster, champagne, and Budweiser beer.
The second I entered the dining area, the executives started chanting, “Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!” I made up a sad excuse that she wasn’t feeling well and had to go home.
When I left the dining area, I was fully confident that Jack had the situation under control. Suddenly, I felt pangs of guilt. Maggie really wasn’t feeling well. She was clearly not herself. I had sensed that she was high as a kite but nevertheless had sex with her several times that day. She was an adult and might have lied, but I was just as responsible as
she was. Whatever consequences might follow, I would share owning it and help her deal with it.
When I got back to my office I almost didn’t recognize Maggie fully dressed. She was sitting at my desk, looking into a mirror and fixing her hair. I lifted her up and embraced her tightly. Today had been crazy and out of character for both of us. I cared about her and would never abandon her.
Maggie sat in the passenger seat, nodding off. If I didn’t know better I would have thought she was on heroin — was that possible? I tried to keep my eyes on the road as I drove along Sunset Boulevard toward Maggie’s home in Brentwood. The twists and turns on the Boulevard could be quite tricky and dangerous, and even though I had been on this road just a few days ago, I still felt uncomfortable driving it, especially at night.
We stopped at a red light just before UCLA. I looked at Maggie, who was reaching between her legs with her fingers and then rubbing her fingers against her lips. “What are you doing?”
“I’m leaking.”
“Leaking what?”
“What do you think, Joe?”
“Stop that, Maggie! That’s absolutely disgusting!”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before we had sex.”
She reached deep inside her vagina as though searching for some foreign object and then suddenly pulled out a flexible rubber cup. She looked at it in confusion then remarked, “I guess you’re off the hook.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s a diaphragm. Surely you’ve fucked enough women to know what a diaphragm is. I don’t remember putting it in, but you’re off the hook. We both are.” She slapped the diaphragm onto my crotch. “Why don’t you keep it as a trophy? A reminder of your conquest over me.”
I picked the object off my lap and flung it out the window. Then I reached for a box of tissues in the back seat to dry off my wet crotch, cleaning the area as well as I could under the circumstances. Handing the box to Maggie, I said, “Please, clean yourself. Please.”
She totally ignored me, staring ahead like a zombie. The light changed and we drove the rest of the way to her house without a word. For the second time in four days, I had to carry her into her house and put her in bed.
As I turned out of Maggie’s driveway and back onto Sunset, I realized that the players had switched places yet again. Earlier today I could not imagine any woman more unstable or crazy than Nancy. But after tonight and that episode in the car earlier, I wasn’t at all sure anymore.
They were running neck and neck, and, by having sex with both of them, I was only adding fuel to an already out-of-control, raging fire. Since having her children, Maggie had regularly shown me pictures of them. She might have married her two husbands for their money, but she loved and adored her children and was exceptionally overprotective of them. As for her ex-husbands, they knew exactly what they were getting into when marrying Maggie, so I had no sympathy for them. They wanted a stunning young wife to show off to their Hollywood buddies, and dishing out a few million dollars in alimony and a house in Brentwood after they were tired of her was worth it. After all, you’re nothing in Hollywood unless you have a few ex-wives to bitch about.
The thing that troubled me was that Maggie had suddenly seemed to lose interest in her kids. It was like they didn’t exist and from what I could see and hear, the nanny had taken full responsibility for feeding, clothing, bathing, and taking them to and from preschool. Maggie wasn’t even tucking the kids in at night, and it wasn’t like she didn’t have the time.
It was all very troublesome, and I couldn’t wait to get home and have a few cold beers, but first I decided to stop at a bookstore in Studio City. Bookstar was originally an old movie theater, and it had recently been turned into a large, beautiful bookstore with an amazing selection of new and old books. Against my better judgment, I bought every book they had by any famous Russian authors, from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy to Turgenev. I even picked up Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece Under Western Eyes, which dealt with a Russian revolutionary turned traitor, who was eventually exiled to England instead of being shot in exchange for information he gave the government on a fellow revolutionary. The fellow revolutionary was naturally killed, but in a strange twist of fate, he turned out to be the brother of the girl the traitor falls in love with while in England. If this all sounds a little confusing, well, that’s because it is. Everything concerning Russia and its people is confusing — well, except for the Russian whores Jack had hired to entertain the Japanese executives.
The books were for Nancy. I figured they’d be a nice gift she could take on her trip. I knew it was already an explosive situation, but she deserved a chance to again take a healthy lead over the ever-encroaching Maggie.
I felt dirty, but the desire for a beer was more overwhelming than the need for a shower. The first five went down so well that I took my sixth beer into the shower with me. The idea that soap and water might wash away the day was absurd, but the beer could at least help me forget.
The phone rang just as I was drying off. Nancy reminded me to pick her up tomorrow morning at six. She was curt, obviously wondering if an intellectually challenged creature like myself might forget if she didn’t remind me.
After my short conversation with Nancy, I called my friend George. He was a limousine driver for the company, taking clients to and from the airport when they were in town. I asked if George could pick me up at a quarter to six and drive me to the airport. He said no problem. I always tipped him handsomely and we understood each other perfectly.
I knew I would be in no condition in the morning to listen to Nancy and drive at the same time. I walked over to the stereo and put on a Sinatra album as I cracked open another beer.
Chapter Ten
I woke up about five-fifteen in the morning, feeling a little dazed and confused from the previous night’s drinking. I took another shower, and George arrived at exactly a quarter to six. We drove less than a mile to pick up Nancy. She was standing, looking stunning, outside her building with a small suitcase beside her. George exclaimed, “Wow!”
“Yes, wow says it all,” I replied as George pulled up next to Nancy. I got out of the car and helped Nancy with her suitcase. “You didn’t have to rent a limo,” she remarked as we both got into the car.
“I didn’t. This is a company limo and George works for us.”
“Hello, George,” Nancy said politely as she reached over and shook his hand. “So you’re in the business of lying, too.”
George shook his head as I replied, “Don’t mind her, George. The only thing more alarming than her astonishing beauty is the nonsense that comes out of her uncensored mouth.”
Nancy slapped my arm. “That’s mean. Sorry if I offended you, George.”
“No problem.” George drove on and Nancy cuddled up next to me.
“So, where are you going?” I asked.
“New Mexico.”
“Why New Mexico?”
“I was invited to a convention on physics.”
“The type of convention someone like me would never be invited to?”
“If you say so.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Four days. I come back Friday night. If you’re not doing anything, you could pick me up. I arrive at eight o’clock.”
She looked at me with her big blue eyes and I was transfixed. I could feel my heart racing.
“I’m pretty certain I can manage that,” I replied.
“Great!”
I was waiting for her to bring up “that despicable little whore Maggie” but she never mentioned her. I figured that was a calculated move on her part. As we got close to the airport I asked, “So where are you staying in New Mexico?”
“I don’t know. You know me, I’ll figure something out.” I took that to mean she would be screwing some celebrated physicist and staying in his hotel room for the next four days. I took out my wallet and handed her one of my credit cards.
“I want you to get a nice
hotel room. If they give you a problem, simply tell them you’re my wife and have them call me.”
“Is this your way of proposing?”
“If that’s the way you want to see it, that’s fine. Just promise me, no guests.”
“I promise, if you promise me the same thing. No sleepovers at Rancho José.”
“I promise.”
“Great! I’ll behave like a nun and you behave like a monk, and when I get back we can screw like two virgin honeymooners,” she whispered into my ear.
“How much money do you have on you, Nancy?”
“Thirty dollars.”
I shook my head and fought back the urge to chastise her. Once again I reached into my wallet and handed her $300.
“I’m never going to be able to pay you back.”
“Have I ever implied that I expected you to pay me back?”
“No.”
I reached over and handed her the shopping bag filled with half the books I bought the night before.
“A little going-away gift. The rest of the books I bought you are at the house. Now that you’re going to behave like a nun, you should have plenty of time to read and take notes while not attending lectures.”
She looked in the bag and her eyes seemed to grow even larger. You would have thought I had given her the biggest diamond ring the world had ever seen. She threw her arms around me and kissed me passionately.
“I love you so much … so much, so much!”
George parked next to the American terminal and I grabbed Nancy’s luggage as she reached into her purse and tried to hand George a hundred-dollar tip. He refused as I slapped her hand. “What in God’s creation is wrong with you?”
She grabbed her bag of books and stepped out of the limo. “I just wanted him to know how much I appreciate him driving me here.”
Targeted Demographics Page 6