Chapter 9

When Paul got to the office Monday morning, it was so early that Norma, the back-entrance blonde, was still arranging magazines on the low tables in the reception room. She was ideally budt for that part of her job, Paul thought. She had a remarkably neat ass.

She appeared startled when she straightened up and found that Paul had come quietly through the door. But her cool came back at once.

"Good morning," she said, all business.

"Good morning yourself," he said. "Didn't you know I was starting work here today?"

"I didn't, but I'm glad," she said, and her smile wasn't her professional receptionist's smile at all. He smiled back at her, happily. All in all the way he felt, this had to be one of the happiest days of his life. The fringe benefits, he thought. Oh my God, the fringe benefits of working for a living.

"Like they say on Madison Avenue," he said cheerfully, "we must have lunch some time."

"You're damn' right we must," she said. "And remember, there's always Perry Street."

"I have an apartment now, a lot closer than Perry Street." He had to tell someone.

"You move fast When did you get it?"

"Yesterday. Through the Times." Through the Times. The times should know. "I move in next weekend."

"I hope to see it some time."

"You bet your ass you will," he said. "Where do I go from here?"

"Nobody's in yet or practically nobody. You might as well wait in Mr. Wycliffe's office. Hell roll in around rime-thirty and bed you down somewhere. You should pardon the expression."

He walked inside, down the hall, and out into the big open office past all the empty sterile-looking desks to Wycliffe's office. He sat down on a wide leather couch in the dim office, crossed his legs, and lighted a cigarette. He remembered an old song he'd heard somewhere. Something about a bowl of cherries.

And while he was thinking about cherries, Edeen popped through the door of the office, looking more redheaded and bright eyed and cheerful than ever.

"Welcome aboard," she said. "Or whatever it is these jackasses say."

Edeen, the bright little Bronxville virgin. Four, five days ago, and it seemed like a year.

"What do I do now?"

"Nothing. Wait for Wycliffe, and there's a song tide for you. He'd drag you around and introduce you to a lot of people whose names you won't remember, but don't worry about it."

"I'm terrible on names."

"The best way is to keep listening for what other people call them. When they're not mad, I mean."

"Thank you," he said. She was as smart as she was pretty, this Edeen. He just had to remember to keep her away from Martinis. And to get that idiotic virginity notion out of her head.

Sam Wycliffe walked into his office a little after nine thirty. He looked very hung over but he managed to give Paul a large grin and a hearty handshake.

"Welcome aboard," he said. "Soon's we've had some coffee I'll show you around the zoo. The monkey house, the reptile house, the cat house. Jesus, the cat house."

Edeen came in as he was easing himself into his chair behind the big desk.

"Coffee?"

"Black for me," Wycliffe said.

"Black," Paul said. He liked it with cream and sugar but what the hell. Pretty soon they'd have him drinking Martinis.

"You won't have to be sharing an office with that lint head, Dingman, after all. I found you an office across from his that you can have to yourself. It's an inside office with no window but what the hell. A window's just a status symbol and you'll have one soon enough. To jump out of."

"You make this sound like a very happy business."

"Don't mind me, son," Wycliffe said. "It's just Monday."

"Well," Wycliffe said, when they'd finished coffee, I guess we might as well get started and get it over with. First guy you ought to meet is Harold Dingman."

"Ad right," Paul said, standing up. "But maybe you ought to ted me, who is Harold Dingman?"

"Oh. Yes," Wycliffe said. "Wed, Harold Dingman is the account executive on Seaton. Seaton makes Huggable Cosmetics and the whole Huggable line. It isn't the biggest account the agency has, not quite, but it's the biggest pain in the ass. By far, the biggest pain in the ass. They ought to have a companion line called Fuckable Fragrances."

Edeen bounced through the door, carrying some papers, as Wycliffe was talking.

"Excuse me, Edeen," he said.

"That's ad right," she said. She put the papers on his desk and bounced out again. "Nice girl, Eileen," Wycliffe said. "Yes."

"Lay off her," Wycliffe said. "She is a nice girl."

"I know," Paul said.

Wycliffe looked at him.

"How do you know?"

"She told me."

"Oh," Wycliffe said.

They left the office with Wycliffe steering Paul by the elbow. Paul didn't like having people put their hands on him but he resisted the impulse to shake Wycliffe off.

Harold Dingman, when Paul shook hands with him, did not appear to be the ad-around jackass Wycliffe had described. He was a tall, affable, middle-aged man, soft around the middle but not noticeably in the head, at first, at any rate. As the days went by, however, Paul studied him closely, trying to find out what made him tick. Dingman had an ingenuous smile and talked clear, unabashed Brooklyn, and projected all the natural, friendly, bumbling charm of a puppy. Also, he acted as if he were perpetually all fucked up and didn't know what he was doing. That was the core of his charm, his act, his schtick. And very soon Paul found out that his act was not an act at all. He was, genuinely, all fucked up, and very rarely knew what he was doing.

This was the senior account executive on the Huggable account. Paul was his back-up man, or junior account executive. Wycliffe, Paul found, was the account supervisor.

From Dingman's office, Wycliffe steered Paul to an area on the opposite side of the floor.

"The cat house," he said. "The female copywriters. You'll have a lot to do with them."

Paul looked at him, and Wycliffe caught the look.

"But not too much," he said. "I hope. They're the flakiest bunch of creatures on God's earth."

He let it go at that. Apparently he figured Paul could do his own introducing.

Harold Dingman took him to lunch and siphoned off Martinis while "briefing" Paul, he said, on the Huggable account. All Dingman talked about was a woman named Kay Lennen-Mrs. Kay Lennen, divorced and no goddamn wonder-who sounded like a combination of the Dragon Lady and a vampire bat. Kay Lennen was vice-president and advertising director of Huggable and Dingman swore she stood up to pee. Probably had claws in her cunt, Dingman said, and any man who ever went near her would surely wind up a soprano.

"What'd she ever do to you?" Paul asked.

"Nothing. But nothing is the word, with that broad. Nothing's any good, as far as she's concerned. You can't please her, no how."

"How does the agency keep the account?"

"That's a good question," Harold Dingman said morosely. "That's one good goddamn question."

He ordered himself another Martini.

After lunch, Dingman had his secretary supply Paul with a stack of large black books containing proofs of Huggable advertisements, past and present.

Paul leafed lazily through them all through the afternoon, and when Dingman stuck his head into Paul's office a little after five, he was still going through his act with the proof books.

"Why'nt you close up for the night?" Dingman asked.

'I'm in no hurry," Paul told him. "Some interesting stuff here." Interesting, bullshit. He wanted to try to get in a phone call to Karen up at her school. He hadn't been able to get her off his mind since the coitus interruptus by her mother on Saturday night.

"Nothing like being eager," Dingman said. "But it'll wear off."

"Suppose I want to make a phone call later?"

"Switchboard closes at six. Call them now and tell them to leave you a night line, if you're going to be here that late."

"I might be."

"Shmuck," Dingman said, shaking his head. "Good night." He left Paul flipping pages.

Shortly after six, Paul put in his call to Karen's sorority up at her school. He had some trouble locating her, but after a few wrong numbers he had her on the phone.

"I shouldn't talk to you," she said. "What happened to that call at high noon on Sunday?"

"Honey, I was frantic," he said. "I was in the middle of a deal to clinch an apartment, and if I'd left for one second I'd have lost it."

Some deal, he thought. She should have seen it.

She melted a little.

"Lovely Sunday I put in at home," she said. "It was the Crucifixion and the Spanish torture racks all rolled into one."

"I was bleeding for you."

"I did enough bleeding for myself. First my father'd get on me, then my mother, then both of them together. With that God damn psalm-singing sister of mine singing obliggato."

"For Christ's sake, who got her into the act?"

"My mother must have told her. She probably thought my sister would make a great little salt rubber. She was right."

"Honey, I can't tell you how sorry I am."

"About everything?"

"You know better. Just the way it turned out. Your bitch of a mother popping in on us." Karen was quiet a minute, at her end. "You know something?" she said. "What?"

"It was worth it."

"For me, too. You're wonderful."

"So're you. And I can never see you again."

"Bullshit."

"According to them, I can't."

"They better hire some big, strong, round-the-clock guards, armed to the teeth."

"I was hoping you'd say that" His mind was moving fast

"Anyway, honey," he said, "I got the apartment"

"Wonderful. When do you move in?"

"This weekend. Saturday morning. It's all furnished, but why don't you take the train in and we can push around some furniture together."

She hesitated.

"Well," she said, "I shouldn't"

"Why not?"

"Exams coming up, and all."

"All right," Paul said. "I'll come up there."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Well," and again there was a long silence, "I have a date."

Paid felt it was his turn for a long silence.

"Then I guess that's that" he said.

"I'll break the date," she said swiftly.

"That's my girl. I'll meet you in Grand Central Saturday. Call me here at the office when you know what train you'll be on." He gave her the number.

"Saturday, then," she said. "And we'll push ... a ... little ... furniture together."

He had to laugh. Even on the phone, she delighted him.

"And, Paul? One more thing."

"What?"

He felt a presence behind him. A finger ran lightly around the rim of his ear. He turned. It was Norma, the receptionist, smiling down at him.

"Between now and Saturday, behave yourself. I want you in good shape for furniture pushing."

I'll be a monk," he said, sliding his hand up Norma's inner thigh. "See you Saturday."

"Bye, darling," Karen said, and hung up. Paul put the phone in its cradle.

"You'll see who Saturday?" Norma asked softly.

"My uncle from Syracuse."

"Why should you be a monk for him?"

"He's a very funny uncle," Paul said. "What're you doing here?" His hand had run out of thigh on its trip up. Norma's twat was sticky wet.

"I left, but I came back," Norma said. "I had a feeling you'd be here. At least I hoped you'd be here."

She leaned forward and put her tongue in his mouth. His own tongue probed hers. He slid two fingers deep into her cunt

"Every time you went out past the desk today, on your way to the men's room, I almost came in my panties."

"Me, too, every time I had to walk past you," Paul lied. "What panties?"

"I took them off, just now."

Paul removed his fingers from her slimy cunt and slid his forefinger up her asshole. "Ahhh," she said, and squatted downward. Terry Street?"

"I have a roommate."

"Doesn't she like to fuck?"

"Better than eating," Norma said. "She does that, too."

"Then it's Perry Street," Paul said, retrieving his finger.

"Wonderful," she said. "But let's fuck first. I can't wait for Perry Street"

"In this place? Right in the goddamn office?" His first goddamn day? This goddamn broad was clean off her trolley.

"Nobody's here, and the cleaning women don't come in till eight o'clock."

"You're sure?" His cock was pounding in his pants.

"Sure I'm sure. Anyway, there's a lock on your door."

She turned, her miniskirt swirling around her long white legs, and locked his door. In one motion, then, she threw herself forward across his desk beside him and flipped her skirt up behind, exposing the neat swell of her white buttocks, the long pink, gaping wet mouth of her cunt.

Swiftly, Paul got to his feet and dropped his pants and underpants. In one smooth motion, he sank the length of his raging prick deep into the wet folds of her cunt, driving it home once, twice, three times, before she said anything.

"Please, Paul," she said. "You know what I want."

I'm just getting it wet" he said. "Just for lubrication."

He got it wet for a dozen more pounding strokes in the soft warm wet folds of her emit before he withdrew, reluctantly, and placed the head of his still-raging cock against the tiny puckered aperture of her asshole. He pushed, firmly, and again to his astonishment saw the enormously swollen, purple head disappear. He drove the shaft in deep, the entire length, until he was pressed tight against the yielding mounds of her ass.

"Oh, Jesus," she said. "Oh, God, how I've wanted that. All day, I've been waiting for you to do that."

He drew his flagpole out until only the head remained inside, then plunged it deep up her asshole again. She squirmed, and he grabbed her hips to give himself better leverage. Then he went to work fucking her up the ass, driving his cock deep in a furious rhythm, his lower belly slapping against the wet cheeks of her ass, his balls bouncing against the soft wet lips of her cunt. She started screaming as he pumped away, driving his stiff prick deeper with every stroke, and he hoped she was right about nobody being in the office.

She went into orgasm, flailing and thrashing on the desk, and he was about to come with her when a thought struck him. There's a long night ahead on Perry Street. He clenched his teeth, thought beautiful thoughts, and didn't come. His cock was still at the ready when he withdrew.

What the hell, he thought, it'll go down by the time we reach the street. And if it didn't, it would come in handy hailing a cab. They were tough to get, on Madison Avenue, at this hour.