Rosemary invited Tom to lunch to chat about ideas.
"Only if Melissa is invited. If we nut out things Melissa should be there from the start as she'll be doing the donkey work."
"Say yes Rosemary," Shona said. "Melissa I want you back here by 3:00."
"Oh brilliantly managed Shona. Come on you two."
After Melissa had returned to the office, Rosemary and Tom finished their drinks and Rosemary took him home. Tom dropped into stud mode but to his astonishment Rosemary told him to put it away. "I'm faithful to my darling Fritz."
In the bedroom she stripped off and teased Tom for the next thirty minutes by wearing a selection of bordello garments.
"Two years ago in New Mexico Fritz and I went into a restaurant that backed on to a bordello. Some of the women came in to eat and we talked to a couple and they invited us to have a look over their workplace. Fritz had a hard-on the entire time, rubbed up a little by the girls not doubt when I wasn't looking. I was quite enchanted how the two women transformed. They'd arrived in jeans and tops to eat and when we returned with them we watched them change and they looked far from repulsive. Indeed, as they worked their veils for us and I saw glimpses of flesh I admit to becoming horny. So I have made quite a wardrobe for Fritz and for me of course because I just love the sexy, flimsy touch. I see that you are aroused.
"Yes."
"Want me to relieve you, just with my hand?"
"No, I'll be fine. I suggest you deeply consider attempting to market this home eveningwear mainstream. My bet is you'll unleash a market of desire for such product. In watching you cavorting just now I could almost hear the tinny music from the bars and old-style cantinas with a bordello influence. Behind the curtains at the back a travel-weary guy will come up with a few dollars to slip between the thighs of a woman in the darkened room."
"You speak with familiarity."
"I've been to New Mexico a few times," Tom grinned. "But it's all in the head. There are slick-looking babes in ultra-modern offices in this city who perform with age-old tradition and don't even bother to ask for money."
Rosemary smiled and said, "You speak with familiarity."
Tom grinned.
"You are an unusual young man Tom Briscoe," Rosemary said, sounding if she was teetering.
"Come I'm calling a cab and will drop you off at your studio," Tom said, pulling out his phone. "I have no wish to corrupt you."
Rosemary sighed and grabbed her handbag followed him out.
* * *
Around midnight that night, covered in drying sweat and body fluids, Shona said, "Um Tom?"
"Yes sweet one."
"I've never taken it backdoor."
"And now you feel your time has come?"
"Yes. I thought you might have the experience."
Tom grinned. "As it happens Texas women spend hours sitting down having their nails done and their hair colored. There are exceptions to that of course. But for those who do there is the feeling their butt is the most under-exercise part of their body and they resort to the favored remedy for that."
"Butt fucking?"
"Right on baby. Here we go... now there's no hurry and you must remain relaxed and ride out any discomfort because I promise you the way ahead will be into new sensations."
"Oooh, new sensations. That sounds very promising. Here's the lube darling. I insist on a condom."
"No problem; so do I."
In the way casual relationships go, Shona and Tom began drifting apart. Shona had found he was too shallow for her and was disappointed although he had vision, his focus was too pragmatic to take her mind into romantic adventure lands of bygone days.
Their split was accomplished gracefully.
Shona said yawning, "Do you think much about your apartment these days?"
Tom rubbed and ear and said, "No, why?"
"I was just wondering."
"Would you like me to move back there?"
"Well since you've brought this up..."
"Okay."
"Tom, there's no rush."
"Oh good. I'll shift out tomorrow."
"Okay. Our company results for this quarter are looking good."
"Are you ready to fire me."
"Oh god no. You are one of the driving forces of our business dear one."
Tom celebrated his freedom by winning $10,000 payable to the writer's agency in an open contest to agencies to write a catch line for the IRS. The photo of Tom with the chief of the IRS public affairs office appeared on TV and in newspapers and the business press. It was stated many great slogans were rejected because they were inflammatory, defamatory, derogatory, silly or not politically correct. Tom's entry was described as 'magnificently simple; we in the IRS should have thought of it." It read:
'Pay your taxes; it's not optional.'
Scores of congratulatory emails arrived, making Tom aware of just how many people he knew in New York and beyond. None were received from Loving, Texas. He read them all including one that he treasured. "I knew you had greatness within despite your well-groomed naivety."
He's replied: 'Hi Jane, thanks. Let's have lunch one day but in the presence of your mother'. Jane never came back on that. Well, that was fine, Tom sighed. Jane wouldn't want to risk wrecking her restored family life.
There were some failures of course, the most notable being 'Book Week America' when at the eleventh hour the national committee rejected Tom's theme that was ready to go to print based on the theme, 'When Did You Last Read a Book Dumbo?'
The book week committee chairman was fired and the publishers demanded their payment of $88,000 be refunded. The partners of Tom's firm agreed reluctantly to refund $10,000 and told the organization to pay better attention when approving a promotional campaign in future. The organization threatened to claim $200,000 in damages but nothing eventuated.
The other more damaging fizzle occurred when the directors paid back $372,000 advanced to promote a black condom Tom assured the promoters couldn't possibly fail and named it the Black Sheik of Sheaths. Ethnic groups lodged complaints about political insensitivity and women went to the media complaining it implied that a black penis was superior to a white, yellow or green one.
The media of course had a field day, mounting a search for a truly green penis and the furious distributor was forced to withdraw the product. The partners accepted culpability in misfiring with the promotion as the name certainly had promoted deep unrest, and returned all fees but refused to accept culpability for marketing so refused the demand to pay the $78,000 costs incurred in withdrawing the product that fortunately had been confined to the state of New York.
Upset he'd cost the agency money and dented its reputation, Tom went on TV shows to defend his product-naming recommendation that had been accepted by the promoters. He became a minor celebrity because of his humor. For instance, he described how he'd envisaged the Black Sheik of Sheaths stealing through the night to carry out its mission of relief for damsels in distress... "even if in most cases it will only be the wife in her patched nightdress." Studio audiences and home viewers loved him.
At the request of a national advertising journal he wrote a cover story he called, 'My Failed Campaign Produced Some Laughs and 19 New Clients.' The cover illustration was a headshot photo of Tom merged into the tip of a Black Sheik of Sheaths. By then the sheaths were selling for up to a hundred bucks each as a collector's item. The distributor began advertising withdrawn product for sale.
Yes, nineteen new clients in five weeks as a result of publicity of Tom's failure and his sterling performance in defending his misfire-of-the-year on TV and then giving examples of his successes. In one instance the interviewer was wearing an exterior armored bra and showed her very trendy fishnet stockings manufactured with ladders and big holes in them. The stockings were marketed under the simple name Tom had suggested, 'Very Trendy Fishnet Stockings with Ladders and Holes'. Sub twenty year olds thought the stockings and the bra were the coolest thing since they'd discovered sex and the more their mothers objected the more pairs of those stockings they purchased. It became a badge of something... no one was sure a badge about what because teenagers are always difficult to figure out.
One of the Tom's new clients had 226,700 long black winter coats left unsold from the previous year. Company buyers ordering for the upcoming autumn were not interested, claiming fashion colors were in. The distributor was almost in tears talking to Tom.
"This will be the ruination of me. I bought the coats cheap and now they are sitting there, filling two warehouses."
"Right Silas. Just leave it to me. How much do you want to spend?"
"I'm poor, I have no money. My family is starving."
"Come on Silas; I come from Texas. Don't attempt to load that crap on me. Load two bucks on to the price of each coat and that money comes to us."
