Melina stretched and rolled over. It wasn’t until her right arm touched something warm and slightly hairy that she remembered someone else was in bed with her. Oh God, it was the boy from the bank. Arnold.
She had gone to see him the day before to plead for an extension on her overdraft privileges. His wasn’t an actual office, rather a plastic-partitioned space between the bank’s assistant manager and the head of customer service. Arnold had done his best to make it look more than it was. A cheaply framed Renoir poster hung on his allotment of wall, and a glossy photo of a dimly smiling woman and sulky-looking baby took a prominent position on his desktop. But mostly it was his attitude, one of stiff superiority, that gave Melina the feeling that Arnold was trying in his own way—just as she was—to make an impression.
“Ms. Bliss,” Arnold greeted her nervously, “this is truly unnecessary. Coming up here in person will not alter one iota what I told you on the phone. Unless your client comes through with payment by the end of office hours tomorrow, we will be forced to cut back your credit line to zero.” She had forgotten how ungainly he was: tall and lean and rawboned. His scrawny neck looked chafed and stretched; it swam inside his cheap white button-down collar. His hands were huge, the fingernails bitten down to the nub. There was a Band-Aid on his right thumb. Melina let her gaze rest on his face. His large-pored features hadn’t quite jelled into a semblance of adulthood. A small nose drifted above his wide mouth, close-set eyes moved suspiciously under a forehead that seemed far too broad and brooding for his otherwise boyish face. His hair, damply parted and carefully combed, was the dull brownish color of store-bought shoe polish. She lowered her gaze to his full, wet lips and smiled.
“I know that’s what you told me, Arnold,” Melina purred, sitting down uninvited on the chair next to his desk. She now looked up at Arnold, and he was able to look down. She was wearing a white off-the-shoulder spandex tank top that cupped her breasts and just about thrust them into the viewer’s hands for inspection. Arnold’s right leg twitched. “But I’ve always believed that if you really wanted something done, well then, you should just go do it in person. And, Arnold, honey, I really want that overdraft to stay put for just another few short days.” Actually, she might need weeks. City Slickers, who now owed her for two full months of billing, had told her yesterday that they were dropping Bliss Enterprises.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Fran Slick had calmly informed her that they were taking the account back to Dorn & Delaney.
“To where?” Melina had demanded.
“Zach and Janie,” Fran had replied. “They came by here yesterday with the most brilliant marketing plan I’ve ever seen. It might just pull us back from the brink.”
“And what about me?” Melina had hissed. “What about the campaign you’re running—and not paying for—with me? Fran, you owe me on this. I’ve stuck by you through your bad times. You can’t let me down.” Melina had heard the pleading note in her voice but was unable to muffle it. “You just can’t. We women have got to stick together. I thought we were a team. I thought we had a relationship.”
“Melina, I’ve been trying to tell you for months now,” Fran replied with a sigh, “that Slickers was in trouble. Deep trouble, hon. We needed more from you. I asked you several times for some alternate plans—promotional solutions, anything—to get our inventory moving a little. And what was your answer? Stick to the campaign you and Janie first gave us. A fortune in space costs that wasn’t doing us a bit of good.”
“Consistency,” Melina had tried to explain, “is the key here. I just wanted you to run the campaign long enough to…”
“Sink us,” Fran replied. “It was fucking sinking us. And, as Zach pointed out, it was giving off totally the wrong message to our core consumer.”
“Don’t quote Zachary Dorn to me,” Melina had said. “You want to crawl back into the mire with that son of a bitch, that’s your choice. But I don’t want to hear about it, okay? I just want what’s coming to me, Fran, and I want it soon. Or else I take legal action. Understood?”
“Of course,” Fran had replied. “Though I think you might be interested to know that part of Janie and Zach’s strategy is that we file for Chapter Eleven—to protect ourselves from our creditors. So, in other words, Melina, you’ll get your money eventually. I’m just not sure when.”
That had been the last straw. Leave it to Zach to find a way to not only steal an account but to do it in a manner that could ruin Melina in the process. Because that’s what she was facing. She had media bills outstanding sixty days. She hadn’t paid suppliers in over ninety. Every day, almost every hour, Tina would take calls demanding payments for invoices past due. Her mechanical artist had quit. She had been forced to sublet Janie’s space to three free-lance artists in order to raise a little money. One of them, the youngest and least experienced, had agreed to work on the Ramona boards for the slave wages Melina was offering. But even Melina sensed his lack of skill: the type was often crooked, photos badly sized, repro buckling from too much glue. But Madame didn’t complain, so why should Melina? At least she had the old bat where she wanted her. Ramona International, her biggest account, remained the least of her worries. And these days, Melina was so busy trying to work out where the next buck was coming from that she didn’t have time to pitch new business.
She now regretted that last night with Alain. Her small victory in proving he could never be a faithful husband was immediately followed by the major defeat of losing Janie, the Chanson account, and Alain’s financial support. She could have kept all three if her pride hadn’t gotten in the way. But it had just seemed so cruel and unfair that Janie should walk off with all the prizes. So she had let her anger and jealousy get the better of her. She’d let passion cloud her thinking. Well, she simply couldn’t afford the luxury of indulging her emotions any longer, she realized, after her talk with Fran Slick. It was then she decided that she’d do something she promised herself never to do: seduce a man she didn’t like.
Oh, Arnold had put up a small show of resistance. He’d tried to convince her that he personally could do nothing to extend her credit, that it was in the hands of his higher-ups. But the longer Melina sat there, the more she cajoled and smiled, the less certain Arnold was of his total lack of power.
“Well, I suppose I could maybe…” he conceded finally as he sat down in his creaky swivel chair.
“Maybe … what?” Melina had asked breathlessly, scooting forward quickly so that her stockings grazed his pant leg. She crossed her knees, allowing her right leg to swing against his trousers.
“Just a thought,” Arnold replied quickly, breathing rapidly through his mouth. “I can’t promise a thing, but I imagine that for a day or two … three on the outside … I could sort of sit on the paperwork for a while…”
“Oh, Arnold,” Melina said, sighing and licking her lips, “that would be so, so wonderful if you could!” Well, it would be a start, anyway, she had consoled herself. And once she had gotten him to bend the rules for her a little, she was convinced she could get him to go as far as she wanted. Though, of course, she’d need some sort of hold over him. She glanced quickly at the photo of his wife and baby, and then added in her throatiest voice, “Is there anything you’d like me to sit on … for you?”
His face had flushed such a deep shade of red that for a second Melina was afraid he was going to come right there at his desk. But he somehow recovered himself, arranged to meet her after work that night, and escorted her with a semblance of formality to the receptionist’s desk.
Melina had managed to coast through the evening on a sea of scotch and self-pity. She listened with half an ear to Arnold’s earnest career talk. In the end, it took very little finesse or energy to get him into her bed. Arnold’s impassioned thrashing lasted less than a minute.
“Are you always that … fast?” Melina asked, pulling herself free of his awkward, knobby limbs.
“Well…” Arnold breathed heavily, “I guess you could say I’m not very experienced.”
Melina tried to imagine what pleasure his wife could possibly derive from the marital bed.
“Even the second time?”
“I’m sorry?” Arnold asked, clearly puzzled. “What do you mean by second time?”
“How about if I show you instead?” Melina replied, turning to him in the darkness. She knew that their lovemaking would have to be memorable to insure that he kept his promise to her. The scotch helped to blur Arnold’s features and clumsiness, but even then Melina was unable to bestir much passion within herself. Arnold, however, was another story. He was a fast learner, and a grateful one. He mounted her twice more before the night was out, besides eagerly practicing the oral exercises Melina, as experienced teacher, had given her new pupil. Even as Melina drifted off to sleep, she could feel Arnold snuggling up against her, his erection at nearly full mast.
It must have been aloft all night, Melina thought, as Arnold rolled against her that morning.
“I’ve got to get up,” Melina protested as he started to fiddle with her breasts. “And I’d imagine you should, too. You’ve got my paperwork to, uh … take care of, remember.”
“Sure,” Arnold replied, smiling. “I remember. Don’t worry, it’ll get lost under something for a day or two.”
Melina climbed out of bed and pulled on a silk bathrobe. Turning toward him, she said, “I’ll tell you the truth, Arnold, I need more than a couple of days on this thing.”
“But I can’t stall any longer than that,” Arnold objected, sitting up on one elbow.
“You’ll just have to,” Melina retorted, flipping her hair back and smiling down at him. “You’re just going to have to put your thinking cap on, honey.”
“I’m sorry,” Arnold replied, “I thought I made it really clear to you. There’s not a whole lot I can do except stall for forty-eight hours or so. It’s not up to me, Melina. Those are just the rules.”
“Then break the fucking rules. I need at least a week.”
“Impossible,” Arnold replied, his face starting to redden. “It’s not that I wouldn’t like to help, it’s just that I can’t.”
“Is that right?” Melina hissed, pulling her robe tighter at the waist. It was time to play her trump card. “Is that what you’ve been saying to your wife every night when she begs you not to break the world’s record for orgasm again? You say, ‘Gee, baby, I’d like to help, I just can’t’?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Arnold replied, his face now beet red. He sat up in bed, and for the first time Melina noticed that he had acne on his chest and upper arms. “I’m not married.”
“Not married?” she retorted. “Don’t hand me that. I saw that photo of your wife and baby on your desk.”
“That’s my sister Julie,” Arnold replied coldly, “and my nephew Dudley.” Arnold sat up and slowly pulled on his boxer shorts. He stood and faced Melina, saying, “You know what I think, Ms. Bliss? I think I just found your account record. And I think I’m going to see the credit manager first thing this morning and tell him I think we should cut you off right now. Today. Dead.”