Phaze Fantasies, Vol. VI

by Jude Mason, Yvette Hines, Jessie Verino

  Bob Wilson checked his watch. He had been standing, for two long uneventful hours at the top of the uninviting stone stairs that led down to the club's basement entrance, standing with his shoulders hunched against the brittle chill of the evening, surrounded by, immersed in cold. And, it was as he was blowing hot breath onto his hands that he saw her loitering uncertainly across the street from the club's entrance. She looked just as Paul, the Door Manager, had said she would: long, slim and breathtakingly lovely. She reminded Bob of one of those international models he leered at in the girlie magazines: tall, aloof, with a brittle arrogance. But, under that carapace of affected confidence he could see that she was rigid with fear.

  Just like all the first-timers to So-UnReal-Ism.

  Bob Wilson clicked on his microphone, “She's here, Paul, that girl you told me to look out for. Across the street, wandering up and down, working up the courage to try and get in."

  "Right,” came the echoing reply, and about thirty seconds later Paul, resplendent in an immaculate black evening suit and matching mask, appeared through the door. He was a big man, bigger even than Bob Wilson, with a thatch of blond hair and sharp eyes only partially hidden by the mask he wore. He was in every sense larger than life, though his voice was surprisingly quiet; he spoke with a soft pedantic tone.

  Immediately Paul showed himself there was an excited fidgeting amongst the crowd of hopefuls. Paul, the crowd knew, was the man who controlled who did, and, much more often, who did not, get into So-UnReal-Ism, and the very fact that he was there, standing at the entrance, gave everybody hope. He even gave Bob Wilson hope: hope that he'd be allowed to take a break so that he could go to the bar down the street and induce some feeling back into his frozen extremities. Bob nodded a greeting to Paul then raised his hands to his mouth, cupped them and breathed noisily onto his fingers. He hoped his boss would get the message. He did.

  "You cold?” asked Paul indifferently, his eyes never leaving the girl who strode so indecisively back and forth across the road from where they were standing.

  "Nah man, I ain't cold,” Wilson demurred, “I've gone way beyond “cold". On a thermometer I'd be somewhere south of “fucking freezing". If the fucking CIA were monitoring us with thermal imaging equipment they'd think I didn't have any fucking feet."

  Paul shrugged the complaints away, “You're doing what you're paid to do, Bob, just as I am. We're both paid to wait ... but fortunately for us both, I think, our waiting is over. And I think, this young lady might be about to bring some heat into our evening."

  The two men watched as the girl suddenly changed direction and walked resolutely across the road to the club's entrance. She moved really well, thought Bob, and every shimmy of her delicious body racked up his arousal another notch. She was obviously one high-class lady, a lady used to giving orders and getting her own way. She tripped down the stone steps towards them, the steel-tipped heels of her boots clicking sharply on the chilled stone, and halted in front of Paul. This was one girl who obviously had an instinct for who was the decision-maker in the duo.

  "I'd like to go into So-UnReal-Ism,” she said in an educated and bloody irritating tone, her pronunciation flecked with a quite charming foreign accent. Close up, she was mesmerisingly beautiful, the black leather mask she was wearing emphasising rather than hiding her pale, wan loveliness. There was, Bob decided, something of the Slav about her; her cheekbones were high and pronounced, and her hair long, straight and almost white-blonde. She was tall too; she almost managed to look Paul the Manager straight in his eyes, and not many people could do that ... not that many people wanted too.

  Not if they wanted to keep their teeth.

  "So...?” sneered the Manager.

  The reply threw the girl for a moment; she was obviously unused to having to deal with people who didn't jump when she said “jump". “I said I'd like to go into So-UnReal-Ism..."

  "And I heard you,” answered Paul curtly. Bob Wilson arched an eyebrow; Paul could be bloody dismissive with the punters when he wanted to be, but he seemed to be going out of his way to be difficult with this one.

  The girl's mouth tightened into a thin determined line, “You're being very unpleasant."

  "What do you want me to do—tell jokes?” snarled Paul.

  "No, I want you to let me into the club."

  "Are you ready to submit?” came the brusque retort.

  "Submit?"

  "Yeah, submit. Anyone who comes to So-UnReal-Ism has to be prepared to submit, to play the Bottom."

  "The Bottom?"

  "Yeah, it's a rule of the house. Submit or walk."

  The girl shuffled her feet nervously, “So how do I show I'm willing to submit?"

  The answer came back in a snap, “Take that coat off for a start. I'd like to see the goods on offer."

  There was a poignant silence for a few moments as the Door Manager and the girl assessed each other's resolve. Finally Svetlana raised a surprisingly delicate hand to the coat's single button, undid it, and then shucked the coat off her shoulders, letting it tumble carelessly to the pavement. That's no way to treat a thousand-dollar piece of cashmere, thought Bob Wilson. He did though have to admit that without the coat the girl looked even more devastating: never had he seen a girl to match the ineffable loveliness of this one.

  "Nice tits,” murmured Paul, “shame to hide them.” He stretched out a hand and with studied condescension undid the top five buttons of the girl's blouse, then eased one-half of the blouse aside so that her right breast was unveiled. The stiff nipple nodded in the chill of the evening, a chill that was as nothing to the look of pure arctic hatred that sparked from the girl's eyes at her very public humiliation. “Very nice,” repeated Paul, “but we get a lot of beautiful women trying to get into So-UnReal-Ism. You're nothing special."

  Bob Wilson's mouth fell open in astonishment: it seemed incredible to him that Paul was blowing off someone as gorgeous as this girl.

  The girl's anger flared in her eyes, “So just what do I have to do to get into this club?"

  "You gotta show you're willing to go that last ten yards, or, in your case, the last seven inches. Most people coming here can't, mostly they bottle out and run home crying to Mummy."

  "So how do I show you?"

  "Gimme a blow job ... here ... now."

  Bob Wilson felt as though he needed to pipe some air in. He was so shocked he could hardly breathe. Paul had never asked for anything like this before: sure, he'd been shitty with some of the no-hopers, but never had he asked for a blow-job in exchange for admission.

  "Fuck you,” the girl snarled.

  "That's what I'm asking, honey. Don't get bent outta shape about it, I ain't asking for you to donate a kidney or something. If you wanna come in you've gotta use your mouth."

  "Fuck you,” the girl said again and with a dismissive shake of her long platinum hair, she stooped to pick up her coat, then strode off down the road.

  "Wow,” said a stunned Bob Wilson as he watched the marvellously undulating ass disappear around a corner, “that is one pissed-off lady."

  Paul shrugged, “Don't think anything of it. She'll be back, and when she does, I want to be the first to know."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Two

  Given a choice, Svetlana wouldn't have chosen that particular week to have had to prepare for the most important presentation of her career. Not when she was so distracted by thoughts of what the anonymous e-mails said. Not when she'd spent the week fretting about her inability to even get into So-UnReal-Ism. Not when the image of that horrible man, demanding that she fellate him, kept popping up in her head.

  But then, she ruefully decided, one is rarely given a choice as to when shit will happen.

  Of course, the situation, whether real or simply malicious slander, regarding how she was regarded by the Boss was the persistent, troubling, background static to her life. She had tried as valiantly as she could to carry on as normal and not to worry about losing
the perfume account, but it had always been there at the back of her mind, gnawing away. Thinking back, she wished she had given the guy guarding the door at So-UnReal-Ism the blow-job he'd demanded: in retrospect it now seemed a small price to pay for peace of, mind.

  And, to cap a very bad week, it had been a bad day for Svetlana. The presentation of the perfume marketing campaign had been a travesty, a failure, a humiliation.

  It had begun well enough with the Client, in the very attractive shape of the perfume's Brand Manager, Pauline Trent, passing around sample bottles of the new perfume, the bottles identified solely by the “#47” written on their labels. “This is the perfume we are preparing for production,” she added by way of explanation, “and the one we're seeking to place with an advertising agency."

  After this, the presentation went into crash-and-burn mode.

  Henry, Svetlana's Design Consultant, was the first to put his foot in it, “Great name ‘#47'; sort of minimalist..."

  "Unfortunately,” Trent interrupted curtly, “that is just the number of this particular formula. The perfume is as yet unchristened. I think you'll find, young man, if you were to take the time to study the perfume market, that Chanel has something of a lock on names of perfumes that use numbers.” It was the most scathing of put-downs and Jake had the good grace to blush.

  Svetlana tried the perfume, easing off the glass stopper and bringing the small bottle to her nose. Even this generated a rebuke from Trent, “In order to properly appreciate this perfume you should not smell it in the bottle. Doing that ensures that you only experience the transient top notes of the perfume and the alcohol that has been used to dilute the fragrances, rather than the full spectrum of the perfume's aromas. Perfume should always be smelt on the skin; it is part of the perfumier's art to devise a perfume that melds synergistically with the skin's natural fragrance."

  With an apologetic shrug, Svetlana did as she was told, using the bottle's glass stopper to dab a little of #47 onto the inside of her left wrist. The perfume was too heavy for her, too provocative ... too sensuous. As though reading her thoughts, Pauline Trent explained, “The owner of our company, Madam Durst, has spent her life developing perfumes, seeking to create the elusive fragrance that replicates the ecstatic scent of sexual arousal, which is, of course, the Holy Grail of all perfumiers. Although now well into her eighties, Madam Durst is still very active, and this perfume, she believes, is the culmination, the climax of her life's endeavours.” Trent raised her wrist to her nose and breathed in deeply, making a very theatrical show of inhaling the perfume, “In short, ladies and gentlemen, #47 is a triumph of the erotic art of perfume making, it is a perfume that plays on men's desires as effectively as a concert pianist plays on her keyboard. It is your job to sell it."

  Now it was Svetlana's turn to perform, and even as she moved to the dais, even as she flicked on the first page of her PowerPoint presentation, she knew what she was to propose wasn't right for the product ... wasn't good enough for the product.

  And unfortunately Pauline Trent agreed with her.

  Svetlana had completely misjudged the campaign and pitched something that Pauline Trent dismissed out-of-hand. To be told, in no uncertain terms, in front of her team, that her concepts were wishy-washy, drab, stale, uninspiring and more appropriate for use in advertising a washing-powder than a perfume, had been demeaning.

  Especially when such criticisms were accurate...

  She had had to endure a lecture on what a perfume was. Had to sit there like some recalcitrant schoolgirl, whilst Pauline Trent assailed her with a repetition of the Client's brief, and had to be reminded that the Client had come to the Agency because of its creative reputation, not in the expectation of being served creative dross. Didn't Svetlana understand, the increasingly hateful Pauline Trent had asked in her condescending tone, that perfumes were the stuff of dreams, and that they needed a campaign that did just that ... sold dreams? She'd even had the audacity to quote Coco Chanel"s famous maxim at her—the one that opined that perfume heralds a woman's arrival and prolongs her departure—as though Svetlana's research wouldn't have been diligent enough to have discovered it.

  Svetlana had slunk out of the meeting with her tail between her legs and her self-confidence in tatters.

  But worse, much worse, was to follow.

  The de-briefing session with the Boss that followed the presentation had been horrible: he was even more excoriating in his assessment of her performance than Pauline Trent had been. His words still rang in her ears: “I don't think you've got it, Svetlana. I don't think you can do sexy or erotic. To you, perfume is a mixture of essential oils and other aromatic compounds that, when applied to the skin or hair, produces a pleasing smell. To me and to the Client it is that special something that makes a body redolent with the word “Yes". Perfume, in short, is bottled lightening. You want to sell a smell; I want you to sell adventure and love and longing."

  She'd tried to protest, to fight her corner, but it was useless.

  In the end the Boss had been brutally blunt, “I want a campaign,” he'd demanded, “that speaks in the language of lust. I believe that fragrance communicates to women and men secretly, almost subliminally, using a silent sensory language. And hence your campaign must be similarly subtle, similarly subliminal. You've completely missed the point,” he stated in a flat, disappointed voice, “I don't want you to persuade women to buy this perfume, I want you to seduce them into buying it."

  For long moments, Svetlana had sat stunned, empty, numb, but unfortunately he hadn't finished his tirade, “Acting in an erotic manner means taking your sexual instincts and making them fantasy. Sex to you is just a series of motions towards procreation. But to others it is an experience of sublime pleasure and of the forging of an intimate link between two people. The difference between sex and eroticism is the willingness to take that step that turns your sexual fantasies into reality. That one step is the difference between being sexy and being erotic, and, unfortunately for you, Svetlana, the difference between you keeping the lead-role on this account and losing it."

  She could see him now, pushing back in his chair and gimleting her with his eyes. “You know, Svetlana,” he'd begun, “I don't think you can do it. Maybe it's your upbringing, maybe it's the fact that you're Russian, maybe it's just that you're just too bloody cerebral, but one thing is for sure: you can't do erotic. Look, the owner of the company producing the perfume wants to attend the final concept presentation next week and I think it'd be best for you to hand over the reins to someone else. We need a completely fresh approach to this campaign."

  That was how close she got to losing the account.

  It was only by begging and pleading that she was given a begrudging reprieve, a second chance, to make a final retributive pitch in a week's time. But, after the meeting, when she'd returned to her office and sat slumped disconsolately down in her executive leather chair, she knew she'd survived by a hair's breadth. As a put-down, it was the most damning the Boss had ever visited on her and it had hurt. And it had also confirmed everything those bloody e-mails were saying. Now she had just one week to develop a campaign that would secure the account (huh, fat chance) and to re-establish her creative credibility in the eyes of the Boss. And she didn't have a clue where to begin. Her old faithful Constructivism didn't seem to provide the nuances necessary to help sell eroticism and promises and seduction. And without the intellectual sheet-anchor of Constructivism she was creatively adrift. All she knew—and hadn't she been told the same thing twice in a week—that if she wanted to keep her job she'd have to stretch herself sexually, she'd have to go that one extra step.

  With a sigh she switched on her computer and scanned her messages. There was another disheartening message from her mystery e-mailer:

  "I told you so. The Boss thinks you're useless. If you fuck up again, he's gonna give the perfume account to that schmuck Peterson, and then it's adios Svetlana. And just because you haven't the stomach or the je ne sais quoi nec
essary to get into So-UnReal-Ism. The most beautiful body in the world and you don't now what to do with it. Such a shame, I'll miss you. Oh ... by the way, the best jobs are always carried in Thursday's Herald."

  As she deleted the e-mail, Svetlana resolved, come hell or high water, she would get into So-UnReal-Ism that night.

  * * * *

  The last e-mail, whilst upsetting her, had also removed her last vestige of circumspection. There was no room now in Svetlana's thinking for coyness or propriety, everything she was doing was aimed at one thing, getting into So-UnReal-Ism and proving herself to be a sexy woman. And to do that it was obvious that she'd have to show that huge man who guarded the door of the club that she was willing to submit.

  Every woman knows that the first rule when you're trying to be chosen for anything is simple: get yourself noticed. Relying on blind luck to be picked out of the mob crowding around So-UnReal-Ism two Tuesdays in a row wasn't acceptable to Svetlana. She had to stand out from the herd. Therefore, Svetlana decided, as all the wannabes milling around So-UnReal-Ism favoured a uniform of gothic black and pagan purple, then she would wear virginal white. Oh, it would be provocative virginal white—a very provocative virginal white—but white nevertheless.

  To this end, she'd made a shopping expedition to the more Bohemian districts of the city and had managed to find just what she wanted for her assault on So-UnReal-Ism. It had been an interesting excursion and had been the first time she had toured these types of stores without embarrassment. Before she'd been shy and apologetic as she'd examined the strange collections of clothes and accessories carried by the outré little boutiques, but today she shopped brazenly. She listened to the advice of the assistants, allowed herself to be persuaded to try clothes she would normally have eschewed and to do things she would, just the day before, have been shocked by.