Chapter 2

The reason I needed a secretary was because my business was expanding. I'm a literary agent. If you don't believe that, just come to my place of business and look at the sign on my office door: Bernard P. Culligan, Literary Agent. That proves it. I mean, I think it was Billy Rose ( or his ghostwriter ) who said that his qualifications for writing a column were the same as those of any other columnist: a typewriter, a byline and a hell of a nerve. It's the same principle.

Up until recently, it had been a one-man operation. The reason for that was because I didn't have any clients. So not only could I not afford to pay any salaries, but I couldn't even pay myself. But now things were looking up. I had a client. In fact, I had two clients. So with this burgeoning sphere of activity, I figured I'd better get myself a secretary to handle all the menial tasks around the place. Now I had Peggy; and although she didn't have the conventional secretarial skills, I thought she might come in handy for other purposes ... aside from the obvious, I mean. A girl who looked like that and who loved sex could be great for drumming up business, no?

I had gotten my first client about a week before Peggy had come into my life. Her name was Jenny Jourdemaine-that's what she told me, anyway-and she was a poet. She was also a doll.

Jenny had appeared at my office unannounced and unheralded one day, while I had been contemplating the folly of trying to start a literary agency with no clients and no contacts. I had been contemplating this folly almost continuously for several months, so I was used to it; it had become a familiar and by this time, almost pleasurable activity. I mean, what else did I have to do? So I was sitting there thus engaged, when a strange and wonderful phenomenon occurred. The office door opened.

It was opened by a girl. She came in somewhat hesitatingly and said, "Excuse me. Um-are you Mr. Culligan?"

She was a small girl, about twenty I guessed, with black hair down to her shoulders and a remarkably-curvy figure. She wore a simple blue dress and horn-rimmed glasses and was kind of cute.

"Yeah," I said.

"Y-you're an agent?" she asked, still seemingly confused.

"That's what it says on the door," I said. "What can I do for you?" The dress was not very revealing, but I could see she had nice, firm-looking breasts and good legs. She carried a brown manila envelope.

"I'm a writer," she said. She took a breath. "A poet."

"Oh," I said.

"Are you going to throw me out?" she said.

"Why would I do that?"

"Everybody else has. All the other agents, I mean. I've been to almost all of them."

"And finally you're down to me, right?"

"Th-They say poetry doesn't sell."

"They're absolutely right," I said. "Don't you write anything else?"

"No. Do you want me to leave?"

"No," I said. "I'm not exactly overwhelmed with manuscripts at the moment. Sit down."

She sat down. "Would you like to see some of my work?" she asked eagerly.

"Well ... Look, Miss ... uh ... "

"Jourdemaine," she said. "Jenny Jourdemaine."

"Pretty name," I said. "Look, Miss Jourdemaine, the fact is, poetry doesn't sell. Unless you're Rod McKuen or somebody. And you're not. I could see that right away. He doesn't wear a dress."

She didn't crack a smile. "My poetry is good," she said, almost defiantly. "If only somebody would look at it ... "

"Have you had any of it published?" I asked her. "In magazines or anything?"

"No." She blushed a little, for some reason. "I've sent it to a lot of places, but ... they say it's too-graphic for their audience."

"Graphic? What do you mean?"

"M-My poems are about ... love," she said.

"Lots of poems are."

"Yes, but ... See, I write about ... well, if you would look at some of them ... "

I sighed resignedly. "Okay," I said. "I'm really not much of an expert on poetry, but I'll take a look."

She brightened. "Oh, thank you!" she breathed. She opened the manila envelope and took out a thick sheaf of paper, which she handed across the desk to me. I looked at the first one, wondering why I was wasting my time. I skimmed a few lines, then blinked and started over, reading more closely. The poem was entitled "Moonglow," and it went like this: With my legs twined around your body White in the moon-dark bed Your heavy lance probing deep inside me Roils my soul and rends my shrieking body Makes me clutch in passion your rolling bottom And shout my joy to the winds of night Blowing over our lust-entangled ecstasy. My moaning mouth hungers for your maleness Even as I split open to eternity And my nipples distend to touch the wine of our oneness As your holy wetness floods my inner being Oh my love.

I cleared my throat. "Ah-interesting," I said. I flipped the page and looked at the second poem. It was called "Rose in Bloom."

I am on my knees to you Filling my throat with the round virility Of your offering. Your thighs are my pillars Guiding my hands to the hanging spheres between And the touch of your fingers in my hair Inspires me to take you deeper While your whispering voice is fire in my ears While my tongue dances on your rigid flesh While the world goes on uncaring of my breasts against Your legs. Oh fill me with your love, Flood my mouth with the joy of you, Let me swallow the sweet whiteness And have you inside me forever.

"Well," I said. I looked up at her, not knowing quite what to say. She looked back at me with eagerness in her eyes. She sure didn't look like a girl who would write that particular kind of poem.

"What do you think?" she asked me.

"Well ... uh ... as I said, I'm not exactly an expert on poetry. They're certainly ... ah ... unusual."

"Do you think they're good?" she persisted.

"I ... I'd have to study them more closely," I prevaricated. "I can see, though, why they might be considered too graphic for ... a family magazine, shall we say."

The girl blushed again. "I write about what I feel," she said in that half-shy, half-defiant tone.

"Right," I said. "Of course. And so you should. But ... "

"But what?"

"Well, it's just that these poems are so-well-so personal."

"Personal?"

"Yes. I mean, so obviously written out of your own personal experiences, that it might be a little-"

"Why do you say that?"

"Why do I-well, it's-I mean, it's obvious. You said it yourself; you write about-"

"I said I write about what I feel," she said. "I didn't say anything about experiences." She was blushing harder. "Look, maybe I'd better just-"

"No, wait, wait a minute," I said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you or anything. But surely these poems come out of your-well, your own-knowledge and ... um ... "

"No," she said.

"No?"

"No."

"Oh," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"You mean ... You don't mean ... "

"Damn it," she said, surprisingly. "The poems come out of my feelings. I have never ... acted them out."

"You," I said wonderingly, "are a virgin?"

She looked down at her hands. "Yes," she admitted.

"Well," I said. "Well." I cleared my throat. Then I said, "Would you like to change that situation?"

She looked at me then for what seemed like a long time. Then she stood up and held out her hand. "Please let me have my poems, Mr. Culligan."

"Sure," I said. I put the pages back together and handed them to her. She put them into the envelope and walked to the door.

"Miss Jourdemaine," I said as she was about to open it.

She turned, her hand on the knob. "Yes?" Coldly.

"I didn't mean to offend you," I said. "If you'll forget about it, I have an idea. Would you still like me to be your agent?"

She hesitated, then came back to the chair. "Do you mean it?"

"Maybe," I said. "Now let me talk frankly with you. I don't know if your poems are any good or not, but I know one thing. They're sexy. Whatever your status may be in real life, your poems sound like they were written by a female Henry Miller. Now, while it's true that poetry as such does not sell, sex sure as hell does. And I have an idea that if we could package this stuff-and you-properly, we just might have something good here. Do you follow me?"

She looked wary. "How do you mean-package?"

"Okay. In order for me to interest a publisher in your poems-and for a publisher to interest book buyers-we have to give them something that will hook them. If we just say, here's a book of sexy poems, that might arouse some interest. But probably not enough. But-if we present them with a book of sexy poems written by a sexy woman-that's got to be a grabber."

"A sexy woman," she repeated. "You mean me?"

"Right. Now, it doesn't mean you have to go around having sex or anything. It just means you have to present that kind of an image. You understand?"

"Image," she said with a hint of distaste.

"Look," I said. "You want your stuff published, right? And I suppose you wouldn't mind too much if it sold a lot of copies? Even maybe become a best seller?"

"I-I guess not."

"Okay. What you do is, you make everybody think you're the hottest woman since Cleopatra. You've got the basic materials-your poems; plus you're good-looking and you have a terrific figure. If you'll just do a few things to fix yourself up-"

"What do you mean?" she bristled.

"Well, I just mean-like, you know, get rid of the glasses, for instance. They're okay, but they're the wrong image. Get contact lenses if you have to. And the dress is nice, but you might wear something ... well ... "

"Sexier?" she supplied.

"Exactly. Then we could take a nice sensuous picture of you-preferably looking horny-which any publisher would be delighted to stick on the jacket of your book. And we could get you on television talk shows and all that kind of thing. You could be a sensation. How about it?"

She hesitated. "I-I don't know if I could do it."

"Sure you could." I pretended more confidence than I felt; I didn't know if she could do it either. She would have to get a lot more self-assurance from somewhere.

She took a deep breath. "All right," she said finally. "I'm willing to try, anyway."

"Great! Now let me see what I can do. Just leave your poems with me and leave me your address and phone number. And get those contact lenses-I may want you to meet with a publisher soon. Okay?"

"Thank you, Mr. Culligan," she said. She wrote out the information and gave it to me, along with her poems. I stood up to walk her to the door. She shook my hand.

"I have the feeling we're both going to get rich," I said, smiling at her.

"It would be nice just to have my work recognized," Jenny said seriously. She started to open the door, then closed it again. She didn't look at me. "Do you think," she said in a low voice, "that I could really convince people that I was ... sexy?"

"Sure you can," I said. "You wrote those poems, didn't you? Just let those feelings show, that's all."

She nodded. She opened the door again. She closed it again. "What you said ... " she whispered. "About ... did I want to change my ... situation ..

"Yes?"

"Maybe I do," she said. "Maybe it would ... I mean ... "

"You're absolutely right," I said and reached for her.

She pulled away from me, but not with anger. "I didn't mean now," she breathed, opening the door again. This time she went through it and closed it behind her.

With a sigh, I went back to my desk. I sat down and began to read the rest of Jenny's poems. They were all like the first two, with the sappy titles and the graphicallyerotic contents. By the time I had finished, my cock was throbbing and I was wishing I hadn't let Jenny go so easily. I closed the office early and went home to screw my wife.