Fem Dom is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 Chardonnay Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 098584762X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9858476-2
ISBN: 9780985847609
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In 2008, I started research on a documentary I was making about the psychology behind people who were into bondage. I was curious to learn why someone would derive sexual pleasure from being tied up and restricted. Why was pain and humiliation so necessary for them? Was it purely sexual? And how did they first get into what is still perceived as a taboo subject? I wanted to find out and what I discovered surprised me. During the course of this research and eventual filming, I interviewed many men and women who had adopted the BDSM lifestyle and were happily living it 24/7. Amongst my subjects were sex therapists, sadists, masochists and dominatrices and it was their experiences that became the central theme to my film, Mondo Bondo and, consequently, became the inspiration for Fem Dom. This book is a work of fiction but much of the story is based in a very real truth.
CHAPTER 1
It was 10.00 a.m. and the hell months were over. The bitter, biting, bastard of winter had faded into a brief spring and now the very welcome beginnings of summer. The sleepy, upscale suburb of Eden Prairie was as pretty as it sounded. And so was one of its imported residents, 34 year-old Tara Drew.
Tara didn’t have a job. Not a real paying job anyway. She didn’t need to work as Clem’s fat monthly paycheck more than provided for the two of them. But she wanted to do something to make herself feel useful instead of merely cleaning house and waiting for Clem to come home to a hot meal every night. To alleviate the boredom of her Groundhog Day existence, Tara played Good Samaritan, feeding those less fortunate than herself, because if there was one thing Tara could do well, it was bake. The lucky recipient of her culinary prowess was the Saint Augustine’s homeless shelter in Bloomington and her twice-weekly deliveries there gave her a sense of purpose.
“Very nice,” Tara said softly to no one in particular as she pulled a tray of piping hot banana and walnut muffins out of the oven. While they cooled, Tara finished wiping down the dark granite countertops in her perfectly color-coordinated designer kitchen. The brushed chrome Viking stove and matching cooktop beautifully complimented the vast Sub Zero refrigerator, which seemed to take up half a wall. Sure, she was house proud and why not? It was a house worthy of pride. What’s more, keeping six thousand square feet of real estate tidy and clean kept her busy. This was Tara’s world but she was going quietly crazy.
Downtown, the imposing glass façade of the Kemp building on Nicollet Avenue housed the opulent offices of the Bergenson & Adler Advertising Agency located on the forty-second, forty-third and forty-fourth floors.
Clem Drew swiveled around in his Herman Miller Aeron chair, kicked up both feet on the glass-topped desk and cupped his hands behind his head. Staring out of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the other faceless steel and glass monoliths, Clem was feeling very content about his life right now and he had good reason. The phone on his desk rang. Clem leaned back and grabbed it.
“This is Clem.”
“You lucky bastard!”
“Mike?”
“Damn! How’d you pull that off?”
“What can I say?” Clem smiled, smugly.
“Let’s go start our own agency. Bring that account with you.”
“Very funny. Go into business with an old hack like you?”
“Fuck you. Hey, let’s grab lunch this week.”
“Love to.”
Somewhere else in the Kemp building, a man wearing headphones listened.
Clem hung up and chuckled then resumed his view. The downtown skyline could’ve been any big city in North America. But it wasn’t anywhere: it was Minneapolis, slap bang in the heartland. Yes, the land of ten thousand lakes and more Fortune 500 companies per capita than New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Handsome Clem Drew was senior VP and executive account director at Bergenson & Adler, the highest grossing advertising agency in the mid-west. He was forty-three years old with over twenty years experience in the ad biz and nearing the pinnacle of his profession.
Clem’s sky-high office was modern and minimal. With its clean white lines, it could be said there was a touch of that German zeitgeist about it, though the only thing Clem had in common with Germany was his company-paid silver Mercedes S600. The week had been particularly rewarding for the hard working ad man. Thanks to his marketing savvy and strategic planning ability, Clem’s team of creatives and account managers had landed a whopping account – the $200 million Rebakor business. The sports clothing and running shoe manufacturer was a global brand and this was a huge win for Clem’s agency. And there it was in print on the cover of the trade magazine Advertising Age – ‘Bergenson Runs Off With Rebakor Account.’
They had indeed and Clem Drew was quoted throughout the article. It was a serious chunk of change for the company coffers but also terrific PR for the agency and for Clem. The kudos belonged to him. His agency had beaten out some tough competition from BBDO in San Francisco, Saatchi’s in New York and Chiat Day in Los Angeles. Those agencies were heavy hitters but Clem’s pitch for the Minneapolis agency had hit it out of the ballpark.
He was now clearly the heir-apparent to succeed the old man; ageing advertising supremo and CEO, Frank Bergenson. Frank was about to retire and he had yet to choose his successor. This win had put Clem in pole position ahead of the only man who could pip him at the post, Kurt Fitzgerald.
“Congratulations, Clem! You sonofamofo!” Earl Chambliss bellowed, as he walked into Clem’s office. Earl was CFO and handled all the contracts. “They’ve signed all the paperwork. We are now officially the agency of record.” Clem winked as Earl shook his hand.
“Thanks, Earl.”
“Frank is pissing his pants he’s so happy. What a way for him to go out, huh? Biggest fish he’s ever landed. You’re gonna enjoy that big office of his upstairs.” Earl chuckled loudly as he wandered off down the corridor.
Clem Drew looked the personification of the successful business executive in his bespoke suits from Barney’s, crisp white Brooks Brothers shirts and snappy silk ties. Look sharp. Think sharp. That was the Drew philosophy.
“Justine? Who’s next?” Clem spoke into his desk intercom.
“Internal with media buyers. One o’clock,” a young female voice replied through the speakerphone.
“Can you move them to noon? I have a two o’clock pre-pro downstairs.”
“Sure. But that reporter from the Star Tribune is coming in at eleven to interview you, remember?”
“Reschedule that. Too busy.”
Tara hurried back to her shiny black Lexus SUV still wearing her spandex yoga pants. Clem would be home in two hours and she hadn’t put the lamb chops in the oven yet. She’d collected his three freshly dry-cleaned shirts, bought him some new socks from the Von Maur department store and had even remembered to pick up more of the frozen coconut lollipops she knew he loved from Kowalski’s grocery store. All in a day’s work for the man she loved.
As Tara drove from Bodyworks Fitness back to her home on Dunkirk Crescent, she planned the evening in her head. A nice dinner, accompanied by a 2009 bottle of Robert Mondavi merlot and then maybe a little ‘hootchie-coo’ as she liked to call it. It was yet another attempt to try and rekindle the flame that seemed to have gotten down to the candlewick for her and Clem. He’d been so obsessed over the past four months with winning the Rebakor business that their relationship and, particu
larly, their sex life had taken a back seat. Tara was putting on a brave face but inside she was not happy and her frustration was starting to show. The more she did to support her husband, it seemed the less he appreciated it. But she understood the pressure Clem had been under and, anyway, it was not in Tara’s nature to mope. So, here she was once again doing her best to make him happy and perhaps he might start to pay her some much-needed attention. They just weren’t communicating they way they used to. Clem was working late most nights and was too exhausted at the weekends to do anything with Tara.
The two had started their relationship in Los Angeles nine years earlier. Tara was just a few years out of UCLA and Clem was working his way up the corporate ladder at Ogilvy & Mather on Wilshire Boulevard. They’d met when Tara had interviewed at the agency to be an account planner. She didn’t land the job but she landed Clem. They were a good match for each other and spent most of their free time outdoors, planning tennis and cycling along the beaches, from Malibu to Redondo.
Nowadays, southern California seemed a lifetime away. Tara had grown up in in the sleepy town of San Luis Obispo, just north of Santa Barbara and south of Big Sur. Those wonderful childhood summers in Morro Bay and Pismo Beach were now but a distant memory. She had good, traditional parents who both worked honest jobs but she remembered how her Dad never lifted a finger when it came to helping her mom around the house. But then he never really needed to. Tara’s mom ran his life for him: cooking, cleaning, and waiting on him hand and foot. Funny thing was, her mom seemed to enjoy it and her dad certainly never complained. It often crossed Tara’s mind that she might be turning into a carbon copy of her mother the way she doted on her father. No, Tara didn’t want to be like that but in truth, she already was.
“Jesus, Clem. Are you allergic to art or something?” Silver-haired CEO Frank Bergenson huffed as he walked into Clem’s stark office and looked around at the bare white walls. Clem swung around in his chair and smiled.
“Hi, Frank. You never come down to this floor.”
“Now I know why. It’s damn boring. Maybe I could lend you a Vermeer or a Brueghel to liven up this place. I don’t like bland.” Clem smiled at his boss.
“Clear walls keep a clear mind.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Clem.”
The Bergenson & Adler CEO carefully lowered himself on the stylish but patently uncomfortable Le Corbusier black leather chaise.
“Crap, this thing’s not butt friendly, is it? Guess this must be a piece of art after all because it certainly isn’t a goddamn chair,” Frank bitched, almost falling off. Clem stifled a laugh as Frank smoothed out his slightly crumpled dark brown suit jacket so it faced front again.
“I assume this rare visit is because you want to thank me for making you even more stinking rich than you are already,” Clem winked as he stood up and walked over towards his boss.
“It is, it is. Thank you, Clem. You did the agency proud.” Frank rolled off the Le Corbusier and stood up. “They just signed off on all the contracts, so now it’s ‘officially’ official. We got the entire business. The whole kit and caboodle -- TV, print, all outdoor, radio, cinema, point of sale, even stupid fucking hats if they want them.”
“Yeah, Earl just dropped by to tell me.”
“Good. Because you’re going to run the entire account….” Frank paused. Clem beamed the smile of a man who just be given two free tickets to the Superbowl on the fifty yard line.
“It’s going to be a pleasure, Frank,” Clem butted in exuberantly.
“…with Kurt Fitzgerald,” Frank finished.
Clem’s feeling of elation just got hijacked.
“What? Fitz? Why Fitz? He had absolutely nothing to do with winning the business. Fitz has his accounts, I have mine! That’s how we work, Frank. You know that.”
Frank put a hand on his shoulder. “Clem. You know how much I think of you. But this is a two hundred million dollar account. Even the brilliant Clem Drew can’t handle all that.”
“Try me,” Clem said flatly as he took a step back and retreated back behind his desk.
“Clem. I want you to suck it up and work with Fitz. Put your ego to one side and consider the greater good – the agency.”
Clem felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. He’d toiled for four months on the huge Rebakor presentation. This was his baby. Sure, it had been a team effort but Fitz’s role had been zero. Clem’s team had won them the business. But now it seemed like Frank didn’t have faith in Clem’s ability to handle the day to day running of the account. It was more than just ego on Clem’s part. He didn’t like Fitz and trusted him just about as far as he could throw him.
“Give me two months and I’ll have the entire campaign buttoned down,” Clem said with his usual gung-ho spirit. The Rebakor account would need graphic designers, web designers, copywriters and art directors working on it full-time to produce advertising campaigns from direct mail inserts and radio spots to television commercials and billboards nationwide. A group of IT guys would need to be hired to create a powerful interactive bulletproof website and to get webvertising campaigns rolling out. It certainly was a mammoth task.
“Clem, you’re smart. Very smart. Jesus, I wouldn’t have hired you if I didn’t think that. But I also hired Kurt Fitzgerald and he’s a different kinda smart.” Clem wasn’t buying Frank’s argument. “When I retire next month, you two are just gonna have to learn to work together, so you might as well start now. If you want my job, Clem, you’re going to have to be a leader and a team player. Learn how to manage Fitz and you two will get along fine.”
“Fitz is too impetuous,” Clem muttered as he walked back to his desk.
“And he thinks you’re too conservative,” Frank snapped back as he started to head for the door of Clem’s office.
“Too conservative, my ass!” Clem frowned.
“Look. You have four other accounts to run, Clem. Have you forgotten that? You’ve been so focused on Rebakor for the past four months you’ve been ignoring them. Do you even know the status of those guys?”
“I’m working on the marketing plan for Best Buy and I’ve just briefed creative on Zell Travel. I have a meeting with the Delfry client on Thursday and Arkitrade are coming in for a meeting this afternoon,” Clem said confidently, knowing he was totally up on everything. Frank smiled.
“Okay, okay. I know you can lead, Clem. Show me you can work with people who don’t see eye to eye with you. Put on your Obama hat.”
“I thought you were a Republican,” Clem quipped.
“I am,” Frank said. “And thanks again for all your hard work. The agency really needed that business. See you later.” Frank walked out of Clem’s office and down the corridor towards the elevator and back to the sanctity of his opulent corner office upstairs.
Clem banged his hand down on his desk in annoyance. It was no secret amongst the rank and file that he and Kurt Fitzgerald were rivals, now his boss was expecting the two of them to partner up. This didn’t make any sense. Fitz was not a man to be trusted. Frank Bergenson had deliberately split his agency right down the middle and, in effect, created two ad agencies in one with their own separate accounts. It was a shrewd move on Frank’s part. He knew the competitive nature of the two: Clem and Fitz were like two pit bulls, straining on their corporate leashes to continually out-do each other. And that meant bigger bonuses for the better team. The winner in all this was Frank, of course, as he saw his agency’s billings grow and grow.
Clem was a west coast Pepperdine boy while Fitz was a Madison Avenue hard ass who’d worked his way up the corporate ladder more by Machiavellian shenanigans than any brilliant marketing know-how. That’s how he’d ended up in the mid-west. He’d pissed off enough people in Manhattan to reach his sell-by date earlier than his ego had anticipated. Kurt Fitzgerald was smart but not that smart. He’d gotten headhunted to Bergenson & Adler two years earlier and coming from the big New York shop Doyle Dane Bernbach, he pulled in a great salary package.
But he was here for more than the money – it was about the opportunity to run his own shop and get back at the boys on Madison Avenue that’d thwarted his ambitions there. What Fitz didn’t know, or what his ego would never admit to, was that his last boss at DDB had paid a headhunter to find Fitz a job as far away as possible. Minneapolis was in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere from a New York perspective and Fitz had taken the bait.
Whether Frank knew that or not, or whether he cared in the slightest, was anybody’s guess. But anytime he got a chance to bring in an employee from either coast, he saw it as an image boost for his mid-west located ad agency. Anyway, one thing was certain, Frank was a wily old fox who knew exactly what he was doing. His agency had quadrupled in size over the past decade and was showing no signs of slowing down even in the struggling economy. The Rebakor win was proof of that. But he was also smart enough to know it was time for him to get out of the business. It was a young man’s game nowadays with the impact of the Internet and web advertising really kicking into gear.
Frank was seventy-four years old and too set in the traditional business model of advertising to embrace these new ways. He didn’t know how to Google, Tweet, send an email or what a URL happened to be. Fact was, he should have retired years ago but the agency was his baby, his life’s work, and he wanted to make sure his legacy was in safe hands. The question was, in whose hands?
As long as he could keep his two generals vying to become his successor, the agency would be fine. Trouble was, what would they do to each other once he was gone? Only one of them could sit on his coveted throne. And while Clem was seemingly the man who would be king in everyone’s eyes, the only eyes that mattered were Frank Bergenson’s.
The lamb was roasting, the potatoes were simmering and the peas were just coming to the boil. In fifteen minutes, her husband would walk through the door from the garage and dinner would be waiting. It was all about timing, as any half decent cook will tell you and Tara’s timing was right on the button. She glanced up at the kitchen clock. Five minutes to seven.
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