Mel had no sooner finished her first martini of the party than one of her companions at the bar offered to buy her a replacement. "Thanks, Josh, I would like another," she said, "but since I was the one Colin tasked with making the the arrangements for this little celebration, it would be closer to the truth to say I've already bought the drink you're offering to me!" Josh looked appropriately chastened at being roasted by Mel, as well as the laughter of six or seven co-workers within earshot.
Mel, (technically Melinda, but never called anything but Mel) was the longtime assistant to Colin, the CEO of the software company where they all worked, so Josh should have known better. They were gathered to celebrate the firm's very successful IPO, the culmination of 8 years of crazy amounts of work, burning through many millions of dollars of nervous investors seed money and several brushes with bankruptcy.
Mel had been with the company practically from the beginning, other than Colin longer than anyone else currently employed there, so it shouldn't have surprised anyone that Colin had asked her to arrange the open bar, food and everything else they were enjoying at a small bistro near the company's Palo Alto headquarters.
The general mood at the gathering was jubilant. Colin had specified who Mel should invite to the party, and other than Mel the dozen or so attendees were exclusively from the upper echelon of the firm. The IPO had ended up with the company's newly publicly traded stock being priced by the market well above expectations, making all the invited executives, at least on paper, much richer than they'd been when they'd arrived at work that morning! Depending on exactly how many stock options they'd accumulated, and when, they each were worth between 5 and 25 million dollars more than the day before.
Going strictly by the company's organization chart, Mel wouldn't have made the cut to be invited to the gathering, but as much as Colin depended on her nobody gave a second thought to her presence. The other difference, beside being a woman in a very male workplace, was that she hadn't accumulated many stock options. Back in the company's rocky years she had to choose between taking compensation in options or actual money; between not having any family money, her hefty student loan payments and the high cost of living in Silicon valley, she'd decided years ago to pass on being paid in options which might or might not ever be worth much.
Colin had always been fair with her, paying her far more than her job title would call for, but until the company actually went public he really couldn't pay her enough to have made up for her missing out on the windfall she would have had if she'd gone with the options. "At least I know none of these guys are after my money," she thought to herself as she caught several of them ogling her. The attention they paid to her wasn't surprising, nor was it unusual; she had long been used to getting a lot of looks from her male coworkers, and since none of them were obnoxious about it she'd come to enjoy it.
In keeping with the significance of the day's events Mel had chosen an outfit a level or two more eye-catching than her usual workplace attire; nothing outrageous, but....different. High platform heels in place of her usual flats, fine-woven fishnet stockings, a charcoal silk skirt just a couple of inches shorter than any of her usual workplace skirts, and a cream colored sleeveless button down tunic style blouse, a bit more sheer than any she usually wore, just enough so that her cluster of admirers could tell she was wearing a lacy bra of some dark shade.
The gathered employees all straightened up a bit and switched their focus to the entrance when one of them noticed Colin's limo pulling into the parking lot. When their leader entered, coming to the private dining room and bar by way of the main part of the restaurant, they broke out in applause for the man whose inspiration ten years ago had ended up all this time later making each of them pretty wealthy. He called for an end to the applause, then said, "I should be applauding all of you. I had a good idea, but none of this would have been possible without your hard work. To be honest, over the last seven or eight years my contribution has mainly been to keep our investors from giving up on us! Thank you all, and as I mentioned in your invitation, please enjoy the drinks and dinner, my treat!"
The group gathered at the bar all began trying to get the bartender's attention. Colin steered Mel toward a corner booth at the far end of the dining room, telling her he wanted to discuss something important, out of earshot of the guys at the bar. "So," she said, "that encouragement to enjoy the food and drink was meant for the new millionaires, but doesn't apply to me?"
Looking genuinely hurt, Colin replied, "I hope I can make up for taking you away from the party. To be honest, I've been feeling guilty about you missing out on the windfall the rest of us had today, and I thought we could work out a way to, in some small measure, let you join in it."
Thinking back to a short but memorable make out session she and Colin had very early in her time working with him when he was between wives, she eyed him suspiciously. Seeing her stiffen up, he tried to assure her, "I know what you're thinking about, and no, I've always honored our agreement to leave that night behind, never speaking of it again. As I remember it you were the one who suggested that going forward we 'Look, but don't touch', and I've stuck to that plan. I know lots of people doubt me, a man on his third marriage, but I've been completely faithful to Jessica and don't intend to change that!"
"I believe you," Mel replied, "as much as you try to be subtle, I've definitely seen you eyeing several women in the office, including me, but I've got to believe I'd have heard about it if you were actually fooling around with any of them. I'm curious, does Jessica mind your roving eye?"
Pausing their conversation long enough to give a waitress their drink order, Colin continued, "Luckily for me, she's okay with me, um, appreciating beauty wherever I encounter it, as long as I'm only using my eyes, and as long as I'm not being blatant about it when we're together. She doesn't even mind my occasional visit to a strip club if it's in the service of entertaining investors!"
"Well, Jessica seems like a better match for you than either of her predecessors, but what exactly did you bring me back here to discuss? I've made my peace with my decision to take a paycheck instead of stock options if that's what this is about."
Colin's expression shifted from a smile to a more serious look. "Actually that's exactly what I want to discuss. You've never complained about missing out, but I still feel a little guilty about hitting this jackpot without you sharing," Colin answered, "I want to even things out, at least a little bit. We can't retroactively give you options, and now that we've gone public I have to answer to answer to a board of directors, I can't just have the firm give you some huge bonus, but I've come up with a way to reward you."
"Colin, I don't know what you have in mind, but I," she began to reply before he interrupted.
"Before you finish that sentence, let me be clear, I'm not suggesting you do anything which would in any way trouble Jessica!"
"Then what?" she asked.
"I'm proposing a simple transaction; you will be the seller, I'll be the buyer. Interested?"
"Yes, in theory, but I'm not sure what you think I have to sell that would make much of a difference," she replied. I'm sharing an apartment with three other people, I'm driving a 17 year old Camry, well, you get the idea!"
"I'm truly not interested in your car, but would you take $10,000 for the shoes you're wearing? You can think about it while we're ordering dinner."
Mel ordered a Caesar salad with shrimp, Colin ordered grilled salmon and a bottle of Cabernet to share. She tried to decide if he was being generous in some quirky way or had a foot fetish she'd never picked up on.
"Okay," she said, "but do I need to deliver them immediately? It wouldn't be kind to make a 5'-3" tall woman give up any height."
"Sorry," he answered, pulling out his checkbook, "I think for that price getting possession upon payment is reasonable."
"Considering the difference between what I paid for them at the Target on Bayshore Road and what you're offering, I suppose I shouldn't argue. Thanks, Colin that's a nice bonus, even if you're not calling it that!"
"Honestly, Mel, that's just a drop in the bucket compared to what the guys at the bar stand to collect." he replied as she handed her shoes over. He handed her a check, dropped the shoes into a tote bag and set the bag down next to his end of the booth. "Would you be interested making a bit more, by selling me your stockings? I'd go as high as $25,000. That's for both, of course."
