Olga Strinofsky was very concerned. As CEO of Oil of Mandalay, she was a very rich and powerful woman her company raking in millions of dollars in profits for years. Her anti-aging cream for decades had been the standard "go-to" treatment for treating wrinkles, sunspots, cottage cheese thighs, crow's feet, laugh lines, cellulite and blemishes of all kinds that plague women who constantly fear the loss of their youthful beauty. Her Company, worth multi-billions in sales had lately however started to see a decline in sales recently and this trend worried her greatly.
Competition in the beauty products industry is fierce and recently some of the newer companies in the business had developed products that, to her great chagrin, worked even better than hers did. Oil of Mandalay was losing its edge, and Olga knew it and the knowledge was eating her alive. Despite spending millions in research and development, she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that they had finally hit the brick wall.
The field of anti-aging creme had reached the natural end of improvement, and now that all of her competitors had essentially broken the code on her product through reverse engineering, it was just going to be a slow erosion of market share and profits for years to come. Her face tightened as she realized that she was going to have to explain to her board that the days of 75% profit margins and endless demand for their brand was coming to an end, and she did not relish giving that news.
As she sat stewing over this development, reviewing the latest sales results and putting the final touches on her presentation to the board, her phone rang. It was her assistant announcing that Veronica Taylor was on the phone and that she wanted to have a meeting set up.
"Veronica Taylor? The supermodel? What would she want to meet with me about personally?" Olga asked her assistant.
"Perhaps she wants to endorse our brand? It certainly would be a boon for the image to get HER on board!" her assistant answered.
"You may be right, put her through" Olga answered, puzzled that Veronica, a multi-millionaire in her own right would be making these sort of pitches herself. Surely her agent usually would handle something like this.
As the line rang, Olga grinned with a twinge of excitement as she was very curious to hear what the elusive supermodel had to say. She did not take many calls as a rule as she was constantly barraged with people peddling something, but she decided to take this one and that was a very RARE event. No one ever got to talk to Olga Strinofsky on the first try unless they were an exceptionally important person.
Veronica Taylor however, fabulously successful for 20 years would be just that person. Painfully beautiful, she was stunning in the extreme was the highest paid most successful model in history. Perfect figure (especially for those who like women top heavy) she had the same 44-28-38 figure she had since she had been a teenager. Her Long shimmering black hair that shone in the light appeared to be made of pure spun silk. Especially interesting to Olga was her skin, as it was absolutely FLAWLESS! Not a sunspot, freckle or wrinkle appeared anywhere on her body she resembled a computer generated model, perfect in every way.
She commanded whatever price she wanted from any advertiser and, as one would expect, always had every multiple available billionaires, movie-stars or indiscreet politicians groveling for her affection. Every woman envied her and every man desired her and ironically she only grew more alluring as she grew older. The list of her former lovers was long and read like a who's who directory. It was even rumored that she was the secret girlfriend of the man of steel himself, Superman.
When Olga picked up the phone she listened intensely to Veronica and what she had to say but had more questions created by the conversation than were answered by it. She was extremely vague in what she was proposing, but what it was appeared to be was a joint venture, NOT an endorsement deal. Fearing that Veronica had gone daffy, she went along with her plans as you certainly would not want to piss HER off, especially if you were in the cosmetics industry.
She asked, and Olga agreed (simply because of Veronica's stature) that they should meet at Veronica's Penthouse Apartment that evening to discuss details, adding that she did not want anything said on the phone or put in writing as she did not want the exposure. The cynical CEO was intrigued when she said that what she was going to present would be worth multi-billions to both of them.
Hearing this Olga's eyebrows raised. Despite her suspicions she was intrigued even though she thought it was probably just the rantings of a beautiful yet silly supermodel. The hearing of the word billions though, was just enough to whet Olga's interest so at 7:00 PM that evening she found herself in the elevator to the Penthouse.
After some initial small talk and pleasantries, Olga asked the obvious question. What exactly was she proposing that could possibly make both of them multiple billions of dollars.
Veronica looked around the room nervously as though she was afraid someone would overhear what she was about to say. Olga herself was getting a little uncomfortable at this paranoia since Veronica was in her OWN APARTMENT and surely should not be THIS nervous.
"Well Olga" the beautiful supermodel began. "You know that I have some pretty famous boyfriends." Olga nodded as that certainly was not a secret.
"Well, I have discovered something about one of them that, if we do this right, will make us both the richest women on earth, but, is kind of on the er shall we say, illegal side."
Olga grinned nervously but nodded, definitely intrigued at what Veronica was going to propose and anxious for her to get on with it.
Veronica continued now, getting more comfortable and more open as she talked.
