The Carrot and the Stick (14 page)

‘Then when I was leaving, he told me I could borrow the camera whenever I wanted and that I already knew the price. He didn't seem angry by then. He told me I was an honorary young man. He didn't even want to know my real name. He would continue to call me Charlie.'

‘You poor baby.' Beth stood up and put her arms around her young friend. ‘You need a gentle touch now. I'll run you a bath.' As she was leaving the room, she said, ‘Men are such brutes...' and then she giggled. ‘But then of course you know that; you were one for a couple of hours!'

 

 

Beth took her time strolling to the jeweller's shop the next morning. It was a lovely day following an even nicer night - oh, what a night! She never realised that two girls and one vibrator could have such fun. After her bath and a good supper she had seduced ‘Charlie' by performing a striptease and lap dancing until ‘he' was overcome with lust. The vibrator held upright between ‘his' legs was the evidence.

Celeste made Beth watch as she fitted the blunt end of the vibrator between her legs, lightly gripped by the lips of her vagina. ‘This is my penis, girl - worship it,' she ordered, and Beth dutifully sank to her knees and took the still vibrator into her mouth, wetting its smooth surface.

‘Oh,' Beth gasped, ‘please use it on me.'

‘I will,' Celeste retorted, ‘and I want you on your hands and knees.'

Beth obediently fell onto all fours, her bottom in the air. With difficulty, Celeste held one end of the vibrator in place while the other penetrated Beth's sex. Shrieks of amusement had turned to moans of rapture as the electric penis worked its magic on both girls. It was a rapture heightened by watching themselves in the wall mirror, two pink and beautiful bodies connected by a pink and vibrating dildo.

Then it had been Beth's turn to be ‘Charlie'...

No wonder she was warm now, she thought; it was not just due to the sun!

In the jeweller's she handed over the pendant to be cleaned. As the assistant was filling out the receipt Beth spotted a number of picture frames, exactly what she needed for Richard's present. She particularly liked an embossed silver frame, and taking the folder from her briefcase, surreptitiously slid out the full length nude photograph of her wearing the pendant, to make sure it would fit. And it was perfect - very expensive - but perfect. He would love it, so to hell with the cost.

Outside the shop she glanced at her watch and realised that she was really late for work, but even this did not ruffle her good humour; no one would mind, least of all Richard once he received his present.

About ten seconds after entering the office, however, her good humour evaporated. Something was wrong. A secretary looked at her with a cocked eyebrow.

‘Where is everyone?' Beth asked.

‘In the boardroom, where you are supposed to be,' the secretary replied. ‘Richard has been looking for you,' she added with a note of malicious pleasure in her voice.

Without stopping to brush her hair or check her make-up, Beth rushed to the boardroom. She knocked and opened the door, and was appalled to see at least a dozen people inside, sitting around the long, polished table, listening intently to Richard Cross.

He looked up and frowned when he saw her, then turned to the others. ‘I see Ms Forrester has arrived,' he said precisely. ‘We have waited this long, perhaps you won't mind waiting a further minute or two.' He stood up and walked to the door, ushering her back outside with him.

‘Where the hell have you been?' he demanded.

‘Shopping,' Beth said lamely.

‘Shopping?' The word came out with a sibilant hiss of suppressed fury. ‘
Shopping
?' He was quivering, almost white with anger. ‘They are the Internat crowd and you've been shopping!'

Beth slapped her forehead with the palm of one hand. ‘Oh, shit!' she exclaimed. ‘I completely forgot,' she added weakly.

‘Forgot. You forgot.' His voice was like ice. ‘I won't forget. I'll see to you later. Now get in there and get a deal.'

In the next minute or two, Beth saw at close quarters just why Richard Cross was a successful man. In the second it took to reopen the door of the boardroom, his dark fury turned again to warmth and charm. ‘It is the prerogative of genius to be late,' he said to those seated around the table. ‘This is our youngest and best account manager, Beth Forrester.'

As the visitors stood up to be introduced, Richard whispered to Beth, ‘And it is the prerogative of the late to be a genius.' He then raised his voice and said, ‘I'd like you to meet Chester Hampton, the founder and managing director of Internat.'

Beth knew she did not stand a chance. She had totally forgotten about the meeting, had not prepared, and would much rather be crying in the toilet. She looked at Chester Hampton. He had a kind face, the shy, bookish look of an academic, and he appeared surprisingly young for someone so incredibly successful. She would talk directly to him.

As she opened her briefcase at one end of the table, she tried to recall what she knew about Internat. The company was a sensation in the already sensational world of information technology, a by-word for overnight success and brilliant thinking. Hampton himself had come up with not one but two remarkable pieces of software, both unique and wanted by every user who ever switched on a computer. Every advertising agency in the western world wanted Internat's business and here the founder was, sitting along the table from her with an expectant look on his face.

Beth wished the floor would open up and swallow her. None of what she remembered helped her; in fact it made things worse. It made her realise how little she knew and how much she should have prepared.

But it was too late now.

‘What can Cross, Carstairs and Denton do for Internat?' she began rhetorically. ‘Well, the best way I can inform you is to tell you what we have done and are doing for Rybix Limited...'

She sensed Richard Cross frowning, but ploughed on blindly. For half an hour, not always coherently, she explained the campaign she and her colleagues had drawn up for Rybix. She took out her folder of photographs from the previous day's shoot and spread them over the table for Hampton and his colleagues to see. She explained how they would be used on posters and press advertisements, and how a separate television advertising campaign was being planned.

At the end of the half hour she stuttered to a halt, trying to mask her lack of anything further to say by reaching for a glass of water. After an anxious sip, she concluded lamely, ‘You can see that we always give one hundred per cent to everything we do.'

As she sat down, sincerely wishing she were somewhere else, Richard stood up. ‘Thank you, Beth, for the concise account of what we can and are doing for another client,' he said cuttingly, and then turned his attention to Hampton and the others. ‘Of course, what we would do for Internat would be totally unique, and unlike any other campaign we've run.'

For ten minutes or so he spoke fluently and apparently extemporaneously. He described a campaign on both sides of the Atlantic that would, first and foremost, use the singular properties of the internet itself, supplemented by a highly organised but apparently impromptu word of mouth whispering campaign in London and New York.

‘The best advertising,' he concluded, ‘is advertising that the client does not have to pay for and the customer does not realise he is getting.'

With that, a member of staff popped a champagne cork, and drinks were offered around. The dozen or so people in the room stood up, stretching their limbs and reaching for their suit jackets and drinks. The informal negotiations were starting, the getting-to-know-you period between members of each side.

Beth gathered up the photographs from the table, stuffing them back into the folder.

‘Thank you, Ms Forrester.' She looked up to see Chester Hampton alongside her. ‘It was good to learn what you're doing for another company.'

She pushed her hair out of her eyes with an impatient gesture. ‘You are being sarcastic, I presume,' she replied, somewhat belligerently, unsuccessfully trying to suppress the self-annoyance she felt.

‘No, I assure you, not at all.' Hampton seemed taken aback by her aggressive tone. ‘I mean it. I was genuinely interested to hear what you are doing for another company.' He smiled warmly. ‘It's all Greek to me; I am fairly new in business.'

Beth chuckled. ‘Not that new, I gather,' she said, trying to imagine how it must feel to have his millions, but as soon as she said it, as she heard her own words, she rebuked herself. Why was she being so rude? The poor man was trying to be nice, despite the whole crappy presentation being her fault, and her fault alone. She was only making things worse, and being unnecessarily rude to a major client who seemed prepared to overlook her lack of professionalism and was trying to be nice. She glanced across the room and caught Richard's eye. His slow, almost imperceptible shake of the head reinforced what she was feeling. He was warning her.

‘You look fairly new yourself,' Hampton was saying. ‘You are very young to hold such an important position.'

Beth hardly heard what he was saying; she was so flustered by the expression on Richard's face. In her confusion she dropped the folder she was holding, and some photographs spilled out onto the floor, face down. She quickly bent to scoop them up, almost banging heads with Hampton, who politely knelt to help her.

He retrieved two and glanced at them before handing them back. As she took them from his hand she noticed a blush on his cheeks, and looking at the photographs as she replaced them in her folder, she realised with horror that they were of her naked and glowing bottom.

Richard Cross was approaching them with a determined stride. He had seen the folder fall and was obviously not amused.

Beth felt she owed Hampton some sort of explanation. ‘Um, those are for a different campaign,' she said with a nervous, unconvincing laugh. ‘More hard-hitting, gritty realism. That sort of stuff.'

But before Hampton could reply, Richard Cross took her by the arm. ‘Beth, you have another appointment, don't you,' he stated, squeezing her wrist painfully to emphasise his words, so she shook hands with Hampton and gathered up her bag, preparing to go.

‘And don't forget you have an appointment with me later,' Richard added, his voice neutral. ‘In my office.'

 

Beth hurried along the street, her mood now the opposite of what it had been a while earlier. She cursed herself. She had been going to use the previous evening for research into Internat, to prepare a presentation. And then Celeste had to come home as ‘Charlie', and from that moment they both had other things on their minds. It was all Celeste's fault. Of course it was. But that was no real excuse, and did not make things better with her boss. Perhaps the second present she was now seeking to buy for him would help. Perhaps, but it was unlikely.

 

At about five o'clock she knocked on Richard's office door carrying a strangely shaped package beneath one arm. On hearing a muffled, ‘Come in,' she entered to find her boss sitting behind his desk doing some paperwork.

‘About time,' he said grimly, putting down his pen, and then added, ‘What on earth is that?' indicating the package. ‘Let me guess,' he went on. ‘It's a metal detector.'

Beth looked down at the wrapping paper. It could be a metal detector, she thought. It had a long thin handle and a heavy square end. ‘It's a present for you,' she said.

‘A present?' Helen Cross turned from the window, a drink in her hand. ‘Look, Richard, the little darling's brought you a present. Isn't that sweet?'

Beth, who had been unaware of Helen's presence until she spoke, quickly put the package on the desk.

‘Why would I want a metal detector?' Richard queried, then looked at his wife. ‘Darling, you remember Beth Forrester, don't you?'

‘Of course I do, though I hardly recognised her with her clothes on,' Helen snorted patronisingly, easing gracefully down onto the leather office couch.

‘So,' Richard addressed Beth again, ‘do I get my present now?'

Beth glanced at Helen, who was sipping her gin and tonic. ‘Not now, Richard,' she said. ‘Perhaps some other time...'

‘Yes, now, I think,' Helen interrupted. ‘I'm intrigued.'

‘Please, Richard, not now,' Beth said, looking pointedly at Helen. ‘It's not... it's not appropriate. I didn't realise... I thought we would be alone.'

‘Now I
am
intrigued,' Helen scoffed. ‘We must open it straightaway, mustn't we, Richard?'

‘Yes, Beth,' Richard said, ‘I think you should open it.'

Reluctantly, with shaking fingers, Beth unwrapped one end of the parcel and slid out a long, thin bamboo stick. It had a red ribbon tied in a bow at one end, holding a gift card.

‘Goodness! A cane, Richard, for you.' Helen smiled wolfishly at her husband, rose gracefully, and approached the desk. ‘I have always said a man can't have too many canes, haven't I?' She turned to Beth. ‘And whom is he supposed to use it on? Let me look,' she added, and snatched at the ribbon and card.