Chapter 5
Over coffee the next morning, Mona posed a very logical question. "Why should I rent an apartment?" she asked. "Why can't I just stay here with you?"
"If you were anybody but Cecil Seagram's daughter that would be the simple thing to do," Reid said. "Unfortunately, your father is a very big man in the business-one of the biggest-and I don't think he'd be exactly ecstatic about his teenage daughter shacking up, with a guy twice her age. Also, I'd be crucified. No job-nothing. It's going to be a little tricky explaining your working as my personal secretary, much less explaining our living together. No, you have to maintain your own residence. We'll spend as much time as possible together, of course-either in your apartment or mine-but you must have your own address."
Mona agreed to the wisdom of this and when Reid left for the office, she assured him she would rent the vacant apartment first thing and then come to the agency at 10:30 sharp. Reid offered to write the rent check for her, but she just laughed in his face. "Look, Daddy sends me more than enough to live very comfortably. He gives me anything I want. I refuse to be a kept woman, at least as long as I can afford it. Go to your office and don't ever mention money again, sweetheart."
Reid had merely shrugged. "Do you know how many guys would like to know a beautiful eighteen-year-old who makes love like a skilled courtesan and is rich to boot?"
"Millions of 'em," she had said, "but I only care about one."
Reid was still thinking about this miracle-his finding Mona again-when he parked in his stall behind the agency. Carrying his briefcase filled with the mediocre ideas he had developed at Malibu, he pushed through the double doorway of Luben's and entered the elegant reception room.
"Good morning, Myra," he said, smiling at the blonde, big-busted receptionist.
"Good morning," she said. "Good to have you back, sir. Enjoy your vacation?"
If she only knew, he thought. "Yes, thank you, but of course it wasn't all play. It was considered a kind of 'working vacation.' Still, it was relaxing. Good to see you, Myra."
Reid pushed the elevator button and a moment later exited on the third floor. For just an instant, he felt a twinge of guilt. Three weeks and he had come up with what amounted to crap so far as the Gibbons and Wonder-Lift accounts were concerned. The problem now would be to disguise this fact from Arthur Luben and dodge pointed questions until he could come up with some answers before making his presentations to either of the accounts. He smiled amiably at employees he passed and chatted briefly with the art director, Jules Guthrie, and his assistant, Anita Trent. Then he went to his office and sat, discouraged, behind his desk.
He had accomplished damned little since he'd last sat behind this desk, he thought, and the idea depressed him. He removed his notes and tentative ideas for the Wonder-Lift campaign. Gibbons toothpaste was one thing; Wonder-Lift was quite another matter. Showing a girl smiling with sparkling, white teeth while admirers commented on the beauty of her smile could take any number of variations, all of them at least passable. But showing a well-stacked girl with jutting breasts and having a couple of guys commenting: "Wow! What a set of knockers! And she owes it all to her Wonder-Lift bra!" That wasn't yet possible. Someday maybe, but for the present the old mammaries had to be handled with care and discretion. That, Reid guessed, was his problem. He had been trying to come up with something entirely new in advertising brassieres while the nature of the product (plus traditional puritanical attitudes) blocked any new and creative approach he could conceive. He had been bumping his head against a wall, figuratively speaking, and now he resigned himself to the fact that his campaign would have to be along conventional lines.
The key then, he decided, would be to mask a rather ordinary approach with a hyper-dramatic presentation-particularly the presentation to the sponsors. Whether the campaign actually sold Wonder-Lift brassieres to the public was another matter. He'd worry about that later. Right now he had to make the account happy--the account and, of course, Arthur Luben. Otherwise, he would be out on his ass. The boy wonder burned out at the age of thirty-six.
How to present it? he asked himself. How? He was sitting there wracking his brain when his phone buzzed. He pressed the intercom button and said, "Reid Hartley."
It was Arthur Luben. "Welcome back, Reid. How was the vacation?"
"Fine-just fine. Just what I needed." What Arthur really wanted to know was whether or not he had completed and finalized his thinking regarding Wonder-Lift and Gibbons. They had discussed his three-week "working vacation" in detail before Reid's departure, and Arthur had made it clear that he expected results upon Reid's return. So now the boss was fishing. No, more than that! He was asking him into his office for a "chat," which was merely a subtle way of asking him for a "report" on his progress.
"Certainly, Arthur, I'll be right there," Reid said. He hung up the phone and sat scowling. He would just have to fake it, he decided, and rose and went out the door and down the hall to Arthur Luben's office.
The door was open. Art Luben, slightly bald, paunchy, his complexion florid, sat dictating a letter onto his tape recorder. Reid cleared his throat and, looking up, Arthur gestured for him to sit down in the big leather chair in front of the desk. Reid went over and sat down.
"Sincerely, Arthur Luben-" Arthur said, finishing his dictation and turning off the machine. He smiled then; gave Reid one of his enormous, toothy smiles. "Well, Reid, naturally I'm curious as to how you've progressed with the Wonder-Lift campaign. Where do we stand?"
Reid stared him straight in the eye and, feigning confidence, even cockiness, told the biggest lie of his career in the advertising business. "Couldn't be better," he said. "I've come up with an idea I guarantee will dazzle the nipples off the Wonder-Lift people." He paused for dramatic effect and grinned. "If you don't mind though, I'd rather keep it to myself for the present. Art. It's a bit unorthodox, but I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised. Let's put it this way. I guarantee results, but I have a finishing touch I want to work out before I reveal it."
"Jesus Christ, Reid," Arthur Luben said. "This isn't Scotland Yard. Can't you give me a-a slight clue? After three weeks, I think I deserve a hint at least. They're coming here for the presentation next Monday, you know."
Reid merely smiled, exuding self-confidence. "I am well aware of that date, Art," he said, "but please trust me."
Art Luben stared at his employee incredulously. As Reid had calculated, Arthur knew that Reid did not lie-at least he never had before-and he also knew that Reid was capable of delivering dramatic results. Therefore, he did not press the matter. He merely mumbled something about three goddamn weeks vacation and now all he was getting was "wait and see." To save face, he switched the subject to the Gibbons toothpaste account. Now Reid decided to mingle his lie with at least some truth.
"Frankly, Art, I haven't decided on the final approach. I have several ideas worked out in fairly complete detail, but I haven't decided on the best approach as yet. That presentation is a week after Wonder-Lift and, if you don't mind, I'd rather take one account at a time. I assure you, we're on firm ground with Wonder-Lift," he lied. He shrugged. "Gibbons is shaping up to be rather conventional-good but nothing startling."
Arthur sighed in exasperation; then good-naturedly he said, "Okay, Reid, I give up. I might as well go home and talk to my German shepherd. I'd get more answers. Good to have you back-at least I suppose it's good to have you back. Frankly, I'm hung-over and I feel lousy. If you say the Wonder-Lift thing is locked in tight, I'll take your word for it. Now get the fuck back to work, mysterious one."
Reid breathed a sigh of relief, stood up and went to the door. Then, remembering, he turned. "Oh I almost forgot, Art," he said. "I've got Cecil Seagram's daughter coming in this morning. I want her to work with me-at least on a temporary basis-as my personal secretary. These next few weeks are going to be pretty hectic for me and she'll be a big help to me. I figure we'd start her at about six-hundred a month. It's just a token salary. She doesn't need it, of course."
Arthur Luben ran his hands over his face. "Cecil Seagram's daughter. How do you know she isn't a spy or something, for crissake?"
"No chance," Reid said. "She hates her old man's guts. I've known her a long time. She's okay and she'll be a big help to me on the Wonder-Lift deal."
"Now you're taking over personnel's job," Arthur Luben said in disbelief. Maybe we should rename the agency Luben and Hartley."
Reid started to speak, but Arthur waved him away. "Okay, okay," he said. Anything you want so long as we make, the Wonder-Lift people happy. Now get the hell out! Please go away! You're driving me crazy, Reid. Absolutely nuts. Go away!"
"Yes, sir," Reid said, and left. When he reached his own office again, he sat staring at the ceiling for a long time. Well, at last he had reached the depths, he thought. He had resorted to outright lies to save his job. Unless he came up with something really dramatic, bold and successful, Arthur Luben would kick his ass out. That was a certainty. "Shit!" he said aloud.
As promised, Mona arrived promptly at 10:30. The buzzer of his inter-com sounded and the receptionist, Myra, announced Mona's arrival. "Send her right up," he said.
Mona sprang into his office jauntily, looking like no other secretary the firm of Luben had ever hired. She wore a miniskirt, which was all right, but her top was a kind of sleeveless Tee-shirt which was very tight and made it painfully apparent that she wore no bra. She also wore a beret. All in all, it was the most outlandish office attire Reid had ever seen.
"Where do you think you are?" he asked. "At a rock festival?"
She looked at him, apparently puzzled, then adjusted the angle of her beret and examined herself. "Rock festival? This is conservative! Would you rather I wore my Indian outfit?"
Reid shook his head. "No, never mind, not that! I guess it doesn't matter. Arthur Luben already suspects I'm crazy, anyway! That outfit will remove all doubt. Forget it... it's delightful... really. Sit down a minute. Then I'll introduce you around and everybody'll know I've gone kooky. After that, you can help me try to think up something for the Wonder-Lift campaign. Oh, and you'd better start wearing a bra. The Wonder-Lift people might not cotton to the bare breast look, okay?"
Mona was pouting. She sat down and stared at the floor. "I'm sorry if I embarrass you. It was a nice warm day and I thought ad agencies, being liberal and all, wouldn't mind a girl who dresses a little different." She crossed her legs and Reid could clearly see the outline of her snatch and the dark patch of her crotch through her white panties.
"No, it's all right," he said reassuringly. "You look fine. Maybe we need a little different look around here. At least you're wearing panties."
She cheered up, smiling. "Yes, white ones!"
"So I saw," Reid said. "Good girl." He got up then and came around and kissed Mona's cheek. "Don't worry about it, sugar," he said. "You look just fine. Anyway, if we don't please the Wonder-Lift people, we won't have to worry about office attire. We'll become beachcombers or something."
"It's really that important, huh?" she asked.
"Yes, it's really that important," he echoed. "Come on, I'll introduce you to a few people and I guess you'll have to fill out an employment application or something."
Mona dutifully followed him from the office and down the hall to the art department where she met the art director, Jules, and his assistant, Anita. Reid studied their reaction to her and was pleased that they seemed to accept her. But then they were art people and art people accepted almost anything.
As they were about to leave, Anita whispered in his ear, "I see you had an interesting vacation," she said. "I trust you came up with lots of fresh ideas-nice young ones." She laughed and blinked significantly. "I like her, Reid. Really. We need something a little unusual around here to perk us up. I love her Wonder-Lift bra!"
Reid merely grinned, trying not to appear too lecherous, and they went down the hall, sticking their heads in and making informal introductions. Everybody seemed to have a twinkle in their eyes, as though they guessed that the relationship between Reid and his new personal secretary was something other than pure business.
Oddly, it was Arthur Luben himself who was the most gracious and responsive in greeting Mona to the firm. Perhaps it was out of respect for her father, Cecil Seagram, an acknowledged genius in advertising, but Arthur embraced her as he might his own daughter and expressed confidence that Mona would be a tremendous asset to the firm and, in particular, to Reid Hartley. There was a great future in advertising for a bright girl with fresh ideas and the courage to vary from the norm (he was apparently referring to her attire) and he assured Mona that he would have his eye on her.
As he hugged her, Reid thought: Eye on her, hell. He would like to have his prick in her. Arthur Luben seemed delighted with Mona and spent a long time staring directly at her large, dark nipples that showed through the filmy material of her blouse. "If you have any problems, dear-any problems at all-feel free to consult me." He laughed nervously, still staring at Mona's luscious boobs. "After all, Reid here doesn't have the answers to everything. Yes, feel free to bring any problems that might arise directly to me, your president."
They left the office and just before they entered the elevator to go downstairs to the personnel office, Reid glanced back and saw Arthur Luben standing in the hall, still admiring Mona's strikingly voluptuous body. He quickly ducked back into his office when he saw that Reid had seen him.
Iris Periwinkle of personnel was probably the only member of the firm that seemed somewhat hostile toward Mona. Of a conservative nature, she seemed shocked at Mona's attire. More important, though, it was obvious that she resented anyone being hired without first going through proper channels. When she learned that Mona had been hired to start at $600 a month she frowned with disapproval, handed Mona an application and practically demanded that Mona list references covering the past five years.
Reid immediately put an end to her insults by taking the application from Mona. "Mister Luben himself approved this employee, Miss Periwinkle." And then to Mona, "Fill the application out at your leisure-no rush-and don't worry about references." He turned his gaze once again to the angry Miss Periwinkle. "I think any personnel department that asks an eighteen-year-old to list references going back five years is due for an overhaul. What do you want? The names of people she used to babysit for? Really, Miss Periwinkle, let's not be ridiculous. Fortunately, you'll be retiring no doubt before this girl has a work history that goes back five years. Come on, Mona. We've work to do."
Back in his office, Reid closed the door and sat with his feet up on the desk. He told Mona to stretch out on the couch and relax. "We can think better relaxed!" he said. "All that crap about conducting yourself like an officer in the army or a mortician never yielded one creative idea." He scratched his head. "You know, I think you've already given me an idea. I see a television spot... a girl walking... she's bra-less and the camera gives us a closeup of her jiggling, firm young breasts. Voice over says: "Freedom... Do your own thing... It's the 'in thing' if you're eighteen... but every woman isn't eighteen... That's when Wonder-Lift gives you that free look... It's like wearing no bra at all."
Reid frowned. "What do you think? We're selling youth and sexual attraction without really saying it. The camera tells the story and the voice merely implies. Jesus! I wish we could say, Let it all hang loose! That would be perfect-sell like crazy-but there's no way we could get away with it." He hit the desk with his fist. "That's the trouble with trying to market something in a medium with so many restrictions.
"I think it's good," Mona said. "Why not? I agree about the 'Let it all hang loose' idea-you couldn't use that-but the rest seems perfectly fine to me. Mrs. Saggy Tits thinks she will look eighteen again. Why not?"
"Why not?" Reid repeated. "Why not?" His mind was elsewhere, racing and trying to figure the reactions of the Wonderlift people. "I hate to ask you this," he said finally.
"Ask what?"
"Would you consider sitting in this office wearing nothing on top but a Wonder-Lift bra?"
Mona nodded. "Sure, if you think it would do any good?" she said. "Sure, why not?"
"Good," he said, and then his eyes lit up. "There's one other thing. Again, I hate to ask it-I hate to make an exhibitionist of you-but would you consider wearing that miniskirt without panties? All you'd have to do is cross your legs just once." Reid laughed evilly. "Lester Forbes and Winthrop Corey-they're the Wonder-Lift heads we have to please-will flip. I just know it! Would you do it?"
"You know I'd do anything for you, Reid," Mona said. "In fact, if you wanted me to, I'd even go to bed with one of them if it meant your job."
Reid waved his hand and grimaced. "No, no," he said. "Let's not be ridiculous. That won't be necessary." Oddly, although he had instantly rejected the idea of Mona having any sexual contact with the Wonder-Lift people, her idea was an excellent one. He found himself visualizing Mona alone in the office, the door locked, with one of the Wonder-Lift men while he lunched with the other in a restaurant. He pictured Mona removing her bra and displaying her bare tits for either Forbes or Corey. No, he thought, that would be asking too much, but he found himself storing the idea for future use should it become absolutely necessary.
"You're a sweetheart," he said. "Already you're an inspiration to me and this is only your first day! Hey, let's get the hell out of here and go someplace nice for a few drinks and dinner." He caught himself then. "Oh, I keep forgetting you're a minor. You can't drink, can you?"
"They hardly ever ask me for identification," she said, "but-but we just take off-I mean, leave the office? This is my first day. I don't want to-to make a bad impression."
He chuckled. "Baby, there aren't any time-clocks here. So long as you deliver-please the accounts-you can do anything you please. I'm the boss and I say, let's split out of here."
"Gee, I certainly love this job," Mona said, standing. "Not too challenging, but the work load is light."
"Don't worry your pretty little head, sweet. You've given me the answer to the whole Wonder-Lift problem. You deserve lunch and the afternoon off. I think we should be able to think of something to do this afternoon, don't you?"
Mona reached down and fondled his balls. "Yes," she breathed. "If we try really hard we should be able to think of something."
Reid broke away, pressed the inter-com button and informed Myra that he would be out for the remainder of the day and to take any messages and hold them for tomorrow. Myra said, "Yes, sir," and Reid and Mona left.