The next time Mandy got the notion to put on a show, she decided to up the ante. When she told me what she wanted to do I nearly shit myself, but my hardon had a different reaction. It seemed to like the idea, and to that, I could not say no.
So, the next day we got in the pickup and drove over to the nearest big city, about an hour away. It was early afternoon when we stopped off at a deli and bought a platter of cheese, crackers, cut up fruits and vegetables and a bowl of dip, all wrapped in plastic. Then we started checking out the hotels.
The first one was too fancy. Mandy wanted the kind where there'd be meetings of businessmen. The second one we went to was perfect. The first thing we saw when we walked in was a sign that said: "Welcome Alumacan First District Sales Team." That First District Team was in luck; they were going to be the audience for Mandy's wildest show ever.
We walked through the lobby and followed the signs to a large room where the sign outside the doors said the Alumacan salesmen were meeting. There were some chairs there in the hallway and no one around. Mandy sat in one of the chairs with the tray on her lap while I went cautiously to the doors and opened them just enough to look the room over quickly. Someone was standing in front, talking about a slide on the screen to a roomful of men. I only saw a couple women in the room and no snack service. I closed the door and went back to where Mandy was sitting stiffly on the front edge of the hotel chair.
"It looks okay," I whispered.
She looked up with a serious expression, took a deep breath and nodded.
When we walked in, about half the heads in the place turned and watched us. There must have been 60 men, still only three women. They were sitting at round tables, as many as 6 to a table. A slide showing bars of different heights was projected on a large screen at the front of the room, where the man was speaking. The room was half dark, and the salesmen were half asleep. They turned to us, thankful for any diversion that would help them keep their eyes open. It looked like a beautiful young girl in a showy 'waitress uniform' did the trick.
I found us a table in the corner that was not in use and we put out our tray and the bowl of dip. Then we stood beside the table and waited for the windbag up front to wind down. He was standing between the projector and a table with a little stand where he kept looking down at his notes. When he put another slide on the projector, I noticed he took it from a pile that was half an inch thick. I couldn't believe he meant to go through all those slides. But, after he put on the third slide, I was pretty sure that's exactly what he planned to do.
As the minutes ticked past, I was getting more and more nervous about this whole thing. I kept thinking any minute one of the hotel's staff was going to come through the door with the real afternoon snack. Mandy was strung pretty tight right then, too.
"I've had enough of this," she suddenly burst out. "Be ready to start the music."
As she walked up to the podium, my heart was pounding in my ears, but she must have got control of her nerves. There was a confident little smile on her face.
The podium was on a raised platform at the front of the room. By the time she reached the platform, all eyes in the room were on her. I took a deep breath and thought,
Okay, Mandy, you're on. Make it good.
The guy giving the talk looked a little put out when she came up to join him on the podium. But he was a little curious too, and he seemed just as interested in Mandy as all the rest of them. She walked right up beside him and whispered something, looking just as sweet as pie and sexy as hell, in her flouncy little maid skirt that flared out and showed off her pretty legs.
"Well,..." the guy started to object. Then his curiousity and lust, took over. He shrugged and waved her to the stand. "It's all yours."
She turned to face the room with her 1000 watt smile while the man sat down at a table in front. The room was silent. She had their attention.
"Thank you," she said primly. "Now I'm sure you guys are having a real good meeting here. And I know you're all eager to hear some more about this 'First District Sales as a percent of the Northeast Region'," she read off the slide.
"But I saw some of your heads nodding, and your management knows it's not easy to keep focused. So, we're bringing you a little break to perk you up and stimulate your imaginations." She paused, to let it sink in.
"You up for that?"
A polite mutter ran around the room.
She put a hand to her ear and made a mock frown. "I can't hear you."
"Yeah," a number of them shot back, loud enough for everyone to hear, causing some of the others to laugh.
Mandy stood there facing them head on. Her lips and eyes wore a happy smirk. She turned to me. "Okay, Maestro," she said with an arrogant flick of the wrist.
I fired up the boom box and a couple seconds later the room was rocking to the sexy beat of the Latin number we picked. She slipped the slide off the projector but did not turn it off. When she stood in front of the screen, the focused light of the projector was like a bright spotlight. For the last week she'd been practicing dancing to that song every day. With that roomful of men straining their eyes on her standing there in the spotlight, she launched into that dance like it was something inside her that just had to come out. I had a burst of pride watching her.