Fashionably Late (For My Funeral)

I tried hard to stop myself from talking too much about my work, sensing that if I didn't, stop that is, she might get the impression that it was all that I was interested in. I must have been successful because we ended up in a small coffee shop where we talked for hours before I took her home.

The cab pulled up outside her apartment building. "Do you want to come up for a cup of coffee?" I thought that the question interesting because we had consumed several cups of coffee during the course of the evening and if I had another I wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. I learned later that this was something of a coded invitation for something completely different.

I paid the driver and we entered her building. There was a security guard seated at a desk just to the left of the entrance. His job was to monitor an array of video monitors and to log the comings and goings of the tenants. His eyebrow ascended his forehead and would have disappeared into his hairline if he had one, as he saw that Melissa was not alone. "Are you in for the evening?"

"Yes, we won't be going out again until morning." He wrote something in his log.

"Another lucky bastard." His whisper was just loud enough for me to hear without understanding.

Melissa of course ignored him, after all he was hired help and in her circles one just did not talk to hired help unless necessary or one could gain some sort of benefit from it. The elevator took us up to the top floor and we walked down the corridor to her apartment.

Melissa was at this time a successful business woman and her apartment reflected that success. It overlooked Central Park and was furnished in expensive but good taste. "Would you like a cup of coffee or something else?"

"Please, I don't think that I could face another cup of coffee."

She chuckled as if my fledgling career as a stand-up comedian had gotten off to a stupendously successful beginning, "Would you like something else to drink?"

"Before I answer that, do you mind if I use your bathroom?"

"Surely. It's the first door on the left."

I only just made it. Relieved, I walked back into her living room to find her changed, she now wore a house coat that was obviously intended to be worn only inside the house. She was seated on the sofa, her legs tucked up under her, with a glass of a brownish liquid in each hand. "I thought that you might like a cognac to cap off a really memorable evening."

"Really? Did you find it memorable?"

"Of course, didn't you?"

"Well yes, but then I have never been in the company of someone as beautiful and intelligent as you. In fact, as far as I can remember, this is one of the few times that I have been alone with a woman."

"Come now. I find that hard to believe."

"I'm afraid that it's true. Except for the students that I tutored in college and you could hardly count them. You see I have never really had the time or the inclination to contemplate anything that could remotely resemble a relationship, and because of that I have never missed not having one." I made a mental note to make an effort to sound a little less sanctimonious.

"I thought for a minute you were going to tell me that you were gay."

"Now of that I'm sure. I'm not. I've never really had what could be described as a close relationship with a man either." I sipped the cognac and winced as the liquid burned its way through my unprepared throat and dropped into my equally unprepared stomach. My digestive tract was churned up enough as it was, but now it positively rebelled.

"I'm glad." She sat right next to me and her hand brushed lightly through my hair. I took another, larger, swig of the cognac. I was feeling a little light headed.

She was close to me and her breath smelt sweet. Her hand had come to rest on the back of my head and she drew my face close to hers. Our lips touched and my stomach decided that enough was enough. Breaking free from her I rushed back to the bathroom where I spent several minutes with my head down the toilet bowl bringing up a uselessly expensive meal.

Eventually I went back into the room. "I hope that I don't always have that effect on you."

"So do I." I resumed my seat beside her and soon found myself kissing her. This time my stomach behaved itself.

We didn't make love that night. I couldn't have stood the excitement, but I did sleep with her because we decided that I wasn't in any condition to go home. If I was capable of such a thought I would have thought that the reason that Melissa asked me to spend the night was to preserve her reputation with the security guard. I could most likely count the number of her men who left early on one finger.

Melissa slept close to me, her body, naked by the way, touched mine, her arm around me. She made a futile attempt to arouse me but I was suffering from what I had read described as brewer's droop. She eventually gave up and we slept.

The next day, a Saturday, I spent entirely with her. We went to the museum, ate hot dogs, another new experience for me, and took in an opera that night. She took in the opera, I fluctuated between sleep and euphoria. That night she slept at my apartment with me. That night we made love and at least one of us lost his virginity in the process.

Melissa was interested and a little amused when she entered my modest apartment. It differed from hers in many ways, not the least of which was that the furnishings, which while not expensive like hers had taken on a functionality, (do you like that word? I think I'll use it more often), which differed from that originally intended. Chairs, tables and desks all served to keep my huge supply of books from the floor. Until the advent of the word processor that allowed a writer to correct the work in progress prior to printing, there would have been piles of rejected 'work in progress' scattered in the general vicinity of the waste basket.

There was just enough room in the kitchen to prepare my version of whatever I cooked. By stacking books in the corner of the dining room I was able to clear the table so that we could dine in relative comfort.

She was relieved to find that there were no books in the bathroom and, apart from three that I alternated between on my bedside table, none in my bedroom.

My bed had until that night served purely as a place of rest. I was unaware that a bed could be used in so many different ways.

Melissa was very patient during the whole procedure. Oh I knew how it was done, I had read and written about it often enough, but this was the first time that I had actually done it. She had a great time putting the condom onto my surprised erection. She had provided the protection for the evening. "I'll do this, this once." She removed the condom from its foil packet. "But in future if you want to make love to me you'll have to take responsibility and supply the protection." She started to roll it over my increasing member, her hands caressing every erogenous area in the process, by the time that she had finished I was a mental wreck.

She led and I followed through the night. I couldn't believe her appetite or her passion. We used the missionary and several non-missionary methods during the course of our first night's passion. If I had been a strict 'Christian' I would probably have had feelings of immense guilt over some of the positions, I especially liked it when she sat on me and when she knelt on the bed and I entered from behind. I have read about women like this but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that this would ever happen to me.

There was another painful experience coming up, that of going into a drug store to buy a packet (of condoms). I almost resorted to paying a teenager to buy them for me. As it turned out, if the only reason was so that Melissa didn't get pregnant, the money was wasted. Tests would later prove that it was impossible for me to father a child.

Melissa inspired me to greater heights in my writing. I was now able to write about sex from personal experience, in the past this was implicit rather than explicit, and this was showing in my work. The reading public loved it but I do remember getting a rather caustic letter from one of my professors in which he berated me for stooping to sex to sell my work. Stupid old fart, he probably never had sex in his life, certainly nothing like the sex that I was having.

I was also learning more about life and living. My world expanded at an alarming rate, we attended a series of parties to which we always arrived 'fashionably late', and where I was introduced to a wide range of influential people all of whom hung off my every word as if I was some kind of latter-day guru. This hanging off improved my self confidence.

My image was changing. Gone, but not without a fight, were my comfortable corduroy trousers, plaid shirts and tweed jacket complete with leather elbow pads, that had, for years been my uniform. In their place appeared the tailored designer suits, silk shirts and shiny leather shoes. Contact lenses had replaced the black rimmed glasses and my hair was styled, not cut. I looked for all the world like a successful businessman and 'at home' in the inner sanctum of New York society.

Physically I was changing, gone was the comfortable cushion of fat around my waist, the culmination of years of politically incorrect food and a lack of physical exertion. Under Melissa's guidance I now attended the trendiest of gyms where my body was whittled into shape with a carefully designed program of exercises, diets, massages, saunas and designer gym clothes. I had to admit that I had never felt better in my life, and when I looked at myself in the full length mirror I was quite pleased with the result.

Initially Melissa came to the gym with me but as I became used to the routine she reverted to her heavy work schedule, leaving me to press on alone. If I were of the type that took advantage of the situation that was presented to me I would have found myself falling victim to the attentions of the women who used the gym at the same time as I did.

I didn't feel at all comfortable with this metamorphosis but, in time, I sort of grew into it.

When Melissa and I married, it was only six months after we had met, the final stage of my renaissance was completed. I sub-let my comfortable apartment in the unfashionable part of town to move into Melissa's much more 'appropriate' apartment.

I was happy with my life. I now had a wife who loved me enough to want to see me succeed in my chosen career, who took an interest in what I was doing and whose physical love was the most sublimely wonderful experience in my life.

Felix was also happy for me and it was in a quiet moment during the reception that he revealed to me that he had tried for years to match me up with many women. "You have to be joking!"

"It's true! Didn't you ever stop to think that there was always a beautiful woman or two at any of the literary functions I arranged for you?"

"I just thought that they were the usual crowd that attended those shows."

"Didn't you ever wonder why the most beautiful always managed to single you out from the crowd and strike up a conversation?"

"It never occurred to me that there was anything unusual about that."

"I always knew that you were naïve. I was sure that you would find at least one of them interesting enough to form a relationship with."

"I guess that I never gave it any thought."

"You can't imagine how pleased I was when Melissa came on the scene."

"Not as pleased as I."

Melissa came and dragged me off to meet some more of her acquaintances, some of whom I had seen briefly in the past and found un-interesting and others that I would meet again in the future and probably find un-interesting. There were few people there, on either side, who I would ever consider worthy of more than a passing interest. There seemed to be a universal shallowness in their personalities that I found, for want of a better description, un-interesting.

"Darling," Melissa was curled up on the sofa, her head in my lap, she wore her house coat and a smile, as she read the latest effort to emerge from my computer, "I have never pried into your finances, but how much money do you have?"

"I don't really know. Felix gives me the money that's left after he takes out his commission and I put it straight into my bank account. I draw out as much as I need to live on, the rest is still there but I wouldn't have a clue as to how much there is. Why do you ask?"

"I just thought that if you invested it in something that would bring you a higher return you wouldn't have to work for as long."

"What do you mean?"

"In my business we are always looking for ways of making the most of the money that we earn, maximizing our opportunities, so that we have more money to use doing the things that we do best."

"How do you see this helping me?"

"If you were to take some of your money and invest it somewhere that gives you a higher return for your dollar than the banks, you will become richer quicker."

"You mean something like the stock market?"

"Something like that, yes."

"But I know nothing about the stock market and besides I think that it's gambling. I am not a gambling person."

"It is only gambling when you don't know what you are doing. Now I can introduce you to someone who can explain how the system works and can make the right investments for you. It is as safe as the banks but the return is more than double what the banks are paying."

"I'll think about it." I had this uneasy feeling that there was something wrong with what she wanted me to do, I couldn't put my finger on it because I had no experience in this area, but it just didn't feel right.

As it was I wouldn't have wanted to put my finger on it because it and the other nine were busy elsewhere.

Melissa left it at that and continued to read. "Darling, this is brilliant."

"Thank you, I don't like parts of it and will probably rewrite those sections in the morning. Would you like a drink before we go to bed?"

"Thank you, I would."

I moved her head from my lap and getting to my feet I walked over to the bar and poured us both a fairly substantial cognac. Melissa leaned against my shoulder as we sipped our drinks. She was like a cat, you could almost hear her purr as she snuggled against me. I was in heaven.

It was some time before we made it to our bed. The journey was via the sofa, the floor, the dining table and the shower. I never realized the uses to which such places could be put.

At around ten thirty the next morning she rang me from her office. "Darling, I want you to get dressed up and meet me at the office at five thirty. I have arranged for us to have dinner with James Craigmore, the business adviser that I was telling you about last night."

James Craigmore III had an office just like any other office in his industry. It was slick, opulent and decorated in the latest corporate fashion down to the decorative receptionist (Felicity) seated at her desk leafing through the society pages of the latest fashion magazine.

There were several reasons for this interest, not the least of which was so that she could recognize the right people when she went to the right places. She also had to be able to draw James' attention to any new and well heeled players on the scene. When Melissa had first begun my metamorphosis it was Felicity who drew James' attention to it.

Actually James' attention didn't need to be brought to my existence as he already knew that Melissa and I were married, a subject that he raised at a meeting he had with another of his clients.

Marshall Griffin sat across the table from James, his eyes darting from side to side, checking the comings and goings of the people around him. He was used to being secretive because that was part and parcel of his trade.

"We have several million dollars to invest in the enterprise that Guido is putting together."

"Why don't you just take it to him, why come to me?"

"Because we choose to use a third party, this ensures that our involvement in this enterprise is not compromised in any way. No-one and I mean no-one is to know where this money has come from, understood. We are looking at total deniability."

"Sure. How do you propose that I do that?"

"You are to canvass as much money from your corporate and institutional contacts as possible. Intermingled with this money will be ours. If anyone should investigate the transactions they are only to find the other investors. If you must keep any records, and I strongly advise against it, they must be separate from your normal records."

"I get it, if someone invests, say a million, the entry will be for two million."

"Right."

"Why are you doing this, don't you get enough funds from Washington?"

"We get enough to run our up-front operations but that is just the tip of a very large iceberg. We need considerably more money than we get to be able to carry out our other operations, money that we have to find without any official record being kept."

A waitress, blond, beautiful, and surprisingly tanned given her occupation and the location, approached the table. "Do you want anything more to drink?"

"Sure Honey," Griffin placed his hand familiarly around her waist. "I'll have another scotch and my friend here will have a bourbon." He took two notes from his billfold, placed one on her tray and the other he placed in the waist band of her G-string, the only attire she was allowed to wear on the job. She tottered off on her high heels to fill the order.

"I'm surprised," James said, "That you are able to tell me as much as you have."

"Well Hell, why not. If you so much as breath a word of this it will be the last breath you'll ever take. If you have family and friends they will soon be paying a visit to Missing Persons in the forlorn hope of ever finding a trace of you. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Perfectly."

Their drinks arrived at the same time as the already dim lights got even dimmer except for those over the long bar. Music crashed through the smoke haze announcing the arrival of a dancer incongruously dressed in a brief representation of cowboy attire of chamois leather bolero styled jacket and chaps with the addition of fish net stockings and high heels.

She strutted up and down the bar a couple of times before slowly removing her tasseled leather jacket and flinging it in the face of one of the patrons. Her breasts swayed to the music, their silicone enhanced perfection covered only by tassels on her nipples. These she presented, one at a time to another patron who removed them with his teeth.

Rising once more she strutted back and forth while she worked slowly at the waist-band of her chaps, they seemed to present a problem for her and when she indicated that assistance would be required the bar was almost swamped with eager potential helpers. She was now clad only in a bright red frilled garter belt holding her black fish nets, shoes and an extremely small G-string.

She sat on the edge of the bar while willing helpers removed her shoes and stockings followed after what seemed to be un-necessary fumbling around the tops of her legs, by the garter belt. She danced her way back and forth a few times before the G-string followed the rest of her clothes onto the top of the bar.

Entirely and gloriously naked she danced in what, to the regulars, was a familiar and anticipated routine to the centre of the bar where there was a shining metal pole. Around this she proceeded to writhe, entwining her legs and moving up and down suggestively. Bent back with her hips and one hand the only part of her in contact with the pole, she slid up and down, her speed increasing with the tempo of the music and the sounds of ecstasy from her parted lips.

The patrons were focused on her movements as she and the music reached their almost simultaneous crescendo. The patrons, well almost all of them, didn't know or care that she had beaten the music to its climax by half a beat, all they were interested in was the fact that she had, they were convinced, orgasmed with the pole, and almost to a man they wished that they were a pole substitute. The crowd erupted when a girl dressed in the skimpiest French maid's uniform trotted onto the bar and proceeded, after slowly and deliberately sniffing the pole, to lick it where the dancer had been, to wipe it clean.