“What the hell was that?” Jamie told Perry about her awkward meeting. “I mean … what the hell? Was it harassment? Was he mocking me? He was upset that I lied about my name and accused me of luring him into some kind of a sex trap … and then he had the audacity to offer me ‘assistance’ for … and he refer it as a biological urge cycle in a mating season! Who does that??” she paced up and down the living room.
Perry held his amusement after listening to the whole story. “He’s a single 44 year old billionaire, good looking … very … I might ad … and single … have I mentioned that already? Even if he’s not a billionaire it would be weird for someone like him to be single … I’m sure his strangeness had a lot to do with that,” her judgemental hat was talking.
“I mean … Can you believe that a guy like that had never had a ‘no-strings-attached’ sexual intercourse? Can you? I can’t … he knew his way around the bed, I can assure you that … he probably had sex slaves tied up somewhere in his mansion to practice with or something!” she blurted out everything she actually wanted to say in the meeting.
“What do you think he’ll do once I start working with him?”
Perry lifted his shoulders, “How would I know? As far as we know he’s a very successful businessman who’s good with his words, I don’t doubt that working for him will be beneficial for you, experience wise, compensation wise, but personal wise … you’ll have to find that out for yourself.”
She put both her hands on her head and pulled her hair, “I’m starting to doubt this will work … he didn’t have a real secretary, you know? He used a virtual secretary, a recorded voice and then he had two monitors on his desk to spy on the whole building, he made me wait for 30 minutes while he sat on his desk watching the surveillance camera … can it get any weirder than that?”
Perry scratched his temple, “If that’s the amount of weirdness you get on the first sit down with him … I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of that in the long run.”
Jamie’s eyes widened. Perry usually said things that comforted her but not this time. He threw a dismissive hand, “Hey … I’m just saying … you need to know what you’re up against and that’s my honest opinion … he’s weird, Jamie, that much we can establish, but his offer is the best I’ve ever heard anyone ever made for a charity program.”
Jamie halted her pacing. “That’s true,” she tied up her hair into a bun. “I can’t believe I slept with him … see … this is why we need one-night-stands … ’cause you’ll never know how weird the guy is if you have to see him more than once.”
Perry laughed, “I think it’s the other way around, honey, this is exactly why you don’t do one-night-stands … you’ll never know how weird the guy you slept with … look what’s happening to you right now?”
She closed her eyes and grimaced, “I know … I was just trying to make myself feel better because you’re obviously not helping me right now.”
Perry stood and approached her, “Hey … it’s okay … I’m not here to make you feel better all the time … I’m telling you like it is … it’s gonna be okay, it’s a great deal you’re having with this program, you can use this for your next pitch and who knows … if you do a great job, which I’m sure you will, he’ll agree to fund your next program, and the next and so forth … so he’s a little strange, just work your way around it,” he kissed her forehead.
She hugged him and rested her head on his shoulder, “You’re right … I just never done anything like this before … Do you realize he managed to make me work for him? The one thing I told myself I would never do again … and now I’m bound to a contract for a full year,” she chuckled at the irony.
Perry smiled, “They don’t dub him the cleverest businessman of the decade for nothing … he sure has his way with you, doesn’t he?” he referred to the night Richard had broken all her rules, and now this.
She suddenly felt queasy from the stress, “Oh God … I think I’m gonna vomit.”
She ran to the bathroom in a hurry. It seemed like she couldn’t run fast enough as all her insides pumped out through her mouth and nostrils. The image of her having to work a day job every day has taken its toll on her nerves.