Advertising, like a lot of other so-called glamour jobs, is a lot of hard work a lot of the time, but it also has its compensations. The story I tell you now is certainly one of them: one of those delightful, exciting sexual surprises that probably happen more times in this business than in, say accounting.
Back when I was in a large advertising agency in Canada, working on a crystal refreshment drink account, there was at one point consideration given to the marketing of some tropical fruit flavours. Why anyone would actually be interested in a powdered mango drink is still a bit beyond my comprehension, but my client was serious about it and therefore, of course, so was I. They had developed a range of these flavours and were in the process of taste-testing them across the country when one of the senior marketing people decided that the taste-test, which was being done in small research cells called focus groups, should also include some sample advertising. As the good agency we quickly developed some rough concepts and I took them to Edmonton which was the final stop in the five city test. (Another of the great mysteries is why the client company would feel that the taste-buds of Torontonians would be different than those of people in Winnipeg or Vancouver.)
I got into Edmonton late and went to the hotel where I met the senior client and a woman named Vida. Vida was the brand manager, but she had just moved over from another brand so I had never worked with her before. She was attractive, I thought, with the sort of dark Jewish looks that created this very exotic aura that never really quite meshed with the fact (as I later found out) that she had grown up in a quite typical middle-class, small-town Canada home. We met in her hotel room since the senior client had already checked out. He was on his way to Calgary that night. The three of us talked about the ads and how we would work them into the focus groups the next day.
When my main client left, it was almost nine o'clock and Vida and I decided we would go to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Vida was wearing a baggy McGill College sweatshirt and said she wanted to change. I offered to leave and meet her at the restaurant, but she said no she would just change in the bathroom if I would wait. She took a blouse, skirt and bra from her suitcase and went into the bathroom and was out again in minutes. Nothing could have been simpler, but I think it was just the quick glimpse of that bra that started me thinking along a line that wasn't altogether pure. I have often found that when you are thinking about sex, even when the conversation is about the weather or market shares or where you went to school, there is an added piquancy to the talk, a heightened awareness to the sensual possibilities: and this feeling is contagious.
We had a glass of wine each before dinner and then ordered a bottle with the meal. The dinner was very pleasant with each of us telling our life stories in capsule form. But, of course, the wine loosened us up some and we each told things you might not normally tell someone you had just met two hours before. For instance, she told me that she had had a nose job when she was fifteen and that it really changed her life, or at least the way she thought about herself. In what way, I asked.
Well, she said, true or not, she simply thought she was more attractive. It was no accident, she thought, that fifteen was the first year she had a boyfriend. It was also, she admitted, the first year she had had a real sexual experience, though not -- she was quick to add -- intercourse. She laughed about it, saying that the boy, who was the same age as she, had begged her to let him make love to her but she had been scared to death and wouldn't agree. And yet at the same time she didn't want to be called a "tease," so when in the midst of some serious fondling he asked her to unzip his pants and stroke him she didn't want to say no. Still, she wasn't at all sure exactly what she was supposed to do.
It didn't matter much as it turned out. When she finally got his penis out of his underpants, while she was still just holding him, he immediately started to come all over her hand. She was startled and started to giggle and rub his jizz all over his cock while he just groaned. Such was her naiveté that she wasn't even sure what had happened, none of the "dirty" novels she had read had prepared her for the for the super-stimulated state a sixteen year old boy might work himself to the first time a girl tenderly touched his penis. She said she was confused and embarrassed at the time and that the boy had not tried to help by explaining what had happened, probably because he too was embarrassed.
All of this sounds as if it were an overtly sexual talk, as if she were trying to seduce me in this restaurant, and I will admit I could feel the beginnings of sexual stirrings as she was telling this story. But the tone was so very light and anecdotal -- with only the slightest hesitation and downward glance before saying words like "cock" or "jizz" -- and she and I laughed so much that it didn't at all feel like a come-on. And it wasn't.
She talked about how, after that incident, she thought about it and read and asked questions of girlfriends until she finally came to a basic understanding of what had happened.
"So how did you feel about it then?"
"Well at first I was just curious, and then I was fascinated. What was it in me that gave me that power? I could see him again and again -- I can still see him now, ten years later -- with his head back and this look on his face like his heart had stopped, all caused by just that slightest touch. I mean for a sixteen year old girl that was pretty overwhelming. And I really wanted to understand it."
"Yes, it's like that Bob Seger song where he calls it 'working on mysteries without any clues.'"
"Exactly. But of course, then I kind of wanted to find out more. So while I never actually had intercourse until almost two and a half years later, I certainly ... experimented. A lot." Vida giggled.
"Like?"
"Like, you know, how I could rub my boyfriend with his pants on. And finding out what kinds of things he liked. The way he liked me to touch and stroke him. Baby oils. Under water. Public places. Like under a blanket at an outdoor concert. You know."
"Sounds like a very lucky boy."
"Yeah, I guess he was. I mean he never got technically laid, but he sure got a lot of sex there for about a year or so. As I said, I never wanted to be thought of as a tease, so I made sure he was satisfied."
"I wish you had been around when I was sixteen."
"Well, you know, it was all pretty exciting for me too. Even though I wouldn't even let him touch me below the waist, I absolutely loved it when he creamed. I would shiver with excitement -- it almost brought me to orgasm. I thought of it as this very feminine magic of giving pleasure. And I was becoming a master of it."
After dinner, even though it was almost eleven o'clock, there was still a bit of light in the early summer sky because of how far north Edmonton is, so we had a drink at the bar. Still it was all quite decorous, certainly nothing indicating seduction. We had, I remember, a pretty mundane discussion about the next day's focus groups. I must admit though that after her revelations at dinner I did take a bit of special notice of her, I now thought, rather magical hands.
There were three focus groups scheduled for 10AM, 3PM and 6PM the next day, and Vida told me how bored she was getting with watching these things after having already gone through them in four cities. We would check out of the hotel in the morning, go to the group sessions (which were in a facility in some shopping centre) and then leave from there to the airport to catch the last flight back to Toronto. We made plans to meet at the checkout counter at eight the next morning and said goodnight in the elevator.
We arrived the next day at the sessions laden with the art case with the ads and our personal luggage, which we parked in the viewing room. Focus group facilities have two basic rooms: a large boardroom-size space for the group and a moderator, and a smaller room positioned behind a two-way mirror with a complete view of the large room. This is the viewing room where the agency and client people watch the session. These viewing rooms are always pretty standard with three or four swivel chairs right in front of the mirror facing the session room and then usually more seating on raised levels behind this front row. The front row also had a large ledge in front of it so the observers could take notes and place their soft drinks and sandwiches which were always available in overflowing abundance.
After briefing the moderator on the new advertising part of the session, we settled down to a long day of watching the groups. I do get a little antsy in these things. Most of the discussion you've heard before and you're stuck there in this darkened room trying to pretend for the client that you actually find what the participants say interesting. We sat through the first session with Vida (who had now seen eleven of these taste-tests across the country) telling me how this one was pretty much like the others in terms of what they were saying about the flavours.
