Purely Professional (2 page)

“Comedy. My week sucked. I want something to make me laugh.” Helen handed Bridget the menu for the Golden Peacock. “I assume you’re trying something new tonight? You know, since you haven’t liked any of the last three meals you’ve ordered?”

Bridget nodded, taking a break from Netflix surfing to scan the menu. “I should really start keeping track. I don’t want to order the same sucky thing twice. Okay…Number Five. Extra spicy, with an egg roll and pork fried rice.” She put a finger on her nose. “‘Not it’ on calling.”

“You never call.” Helen had already started dialing.

“You know I hate the phone.”

While her best friend ordered dinner, Bridget went back to scanning the movie listings, eventually choosing a rom-com they’d both seen. It was easier to talk while watching a familiar movie than a new one.

“So your week sucked?” Bridget asked when Helen put down the phone. “What happened?” As the opening credits began to play, she curled her legs up on the recliner.

“Just obnoxious clients.” Helen ran a hand through her long blond hair. Helen Simmons was always dealing with extremes: ecstatic prospective homeowners who’d been preapproved or morose wannabes with bad credit. Apparently it had been a bad-credit week. “There’s an upside, though.” She settled back against the cushions. “I’m going out with Jessica again tomorrow night.”

“Again? That’s three weekends in a row.” Bridget grinned.

“So it is.” Helen smiled a bit. “She actually asked me out tonight, but nobody messes with Netflix-and-takeout Friday.”

“Aww, you could’ve gone out. I’d have understood.” Bridget fetched them each a beer out of the fridge.

“Far be it from me to mess with tradition. Cheers.” Helen clinked her bottleneck with Bridget’s and took a long swig, then looked at the label. “Sam Adams Summer, already?”

“It’s almost June,” Bridget pointed out. “So things with Jessica are going somewhere?”

“Maybe.” Helen studied the beer bottle with more pointed interest, not making eye contact even as her mouth quirked upward in a smile. “What about you? How’s your moratorium?”

Bridget grimaced. “It’s not a moratorium. I’m just giving up dating for a while.”

“Until when?”

“Until I find a man who’s not so stupid.” She drank, the beer sour in her mouth.

“You’re just too critical.”

“So I should settle?” Bridget shook her head. “No, thank you. I have no desire to hop into bed with some moron just because it’s been a while.” She stared at the screen, where the leading lady was being introduced to the leading man.

“How long?” Helen cast a sidelong glance at her from the sofa.

“How long for what?” Bridget feigned confusion and began picking at the label of her beer.

“How long since you’ve had sex?”

“With someone other than myself?” Bridget paused, counting months. “A long time. I don’t really want to think about it. It’s depressing.” She took another swig from the bottle and stared at the television, looking without seeing. Her last sexual partner had been Ryan, who worked downstairs from her. It had been their second date, and he had cried afterward. She snorted.

“It was Ryan the Crier, wasn’t it?”

“I
said
I don’t want to think about it. How long for the Chinese food?”

Helen checked her watch. “He said half an hour. Okay, fine. I won’t interrogate you about your sex life.”

They watched the movie in silence for a little while before Helen picked up the conversation again. “So how’s Marcy?”

“Oh, God, don’t remind me.” Bridget closed her eyes. “I miss Tyesha. She was the perfect executive editor. She let me do my own thing, write what I wanted, and everything was fine. I could do no wrong. Marcy’s nothing like her. She keeps giving me ideas for articles, sending my pieces back with feedback. It’s awful.”

Helen flicked her gaze upward. “You’re a piece of work. For the last six months, I’ve heard about how Tyesha’s holding you back, how you’ll never make managing editor under her, and now look at you. Tyesha leaves, Marcy replaces her and you bitch because she’s giving you feedback?”

“Aren’t you supposed to comfort me?” Bridget countered, not really angry. “What kind of friend are you?”

“The worst kind. An honest one.” Helen smiled and drank her beer.

“I wish you’d lie to me now and then.” Bridget let out a long sigh, considering her career. “It’s just…it’s not that I don’t want to work hard. You know me. But I’ve put all this work in under Tyesha, and we worked really well together. I always knew what she wanted.” She picked at the seam of a throw pillow. “Marcy’s different. I don’t know where she’s coming from.” She hesitated, trying to put her thoughts into words while trickles of condensation slid over her fingers from the beer bottle. “I’m worried that if she doesn’t like my writing, or doesn’t think I work well with her…” She slashed her finger across her throat in a cutting motion.

“I wouldn’t worry about that.” Helen’s voice soothed, all teasing gone. “You’ve been there for years. You’ve had nothing but great reviews.”

Bridget shifted on the chair anyway, the unease still heavy in her stomach. “I can’t read her like I could read Tyesha. I want to be agreeable, but I don’t want to be a pushover. I want her to respect me as a professional, but I don’t want to piss her off.” She ran a hand over her eyes. “Transitions blow.”

“Maybe you’ll finally get promoted,” Helen reminded her. “New management means new opportunities.”

“Maybe.”

Helen leaned forward. “Just be yourself. And whatever she asks you to do, you do it. Deal?”

“Fine.” Sometimes it was uncomfortable when your friends knew you better than you knew yourself.

“You’d be a lot more easygoing if you were getting laid.” Helen pointed at her with the mouth of her beer bottle.

“I thought we were past that. I seem to attract pussies.”

“That’s my job.” Helen smiled. “What about the guy next door? You’re always lusting after him, right?”

“Max?” Bridget snorted. “He’s eye candy, sure, but I hardly know him. Plus, he’s a total man whore. He’s got women there all the time.”

“Maybe it’s not what you think.”

Bridget was spared from continuing the discussion by the arrival of the Chinese food. To her relief, Helen didn’t pursue the subject, and she could eat in peace. Too bad Combination Platter Number Five was just as mediocre as every other meal she’d ordered from the Golden Peacock.

Helen left at midnight. When Bridget was seeing her out, she noticed a white Toyota Matrix in Max’s driveway that definitely didn’t belong to him. The only light shining in his house came from the small half windows in the basement. Was his bedroom in the basement? Who was in his house that night? Sure, she’d seen cars come and go all the time, mostly on weekends, but always gone within a few hours, maybe half a day. Not that she’d been keeping track, of course.

Now, though, someone was spending the night?

The pang of jealousy surprised her. Was she was jealous of the woman with Max, or just that he’d taken someone to bed when she would spend another night alone?
Man whore
. Bridget sighed and shut the door behind her.

Chapter Two

Bridget hated Monday mornings. She really shouldn’t complain: she only worked in the office three days a week, but the hellish commuter train ride always left her feeling harried. She already felt twinges of stress as she walked past the cubicle farm to her own tiny office, which fortunately was separate from the cubicles, although not much bigger. At least she could shut her door and escape the endless chatter and ringing phones outside. She even had a window. Bridget pulled open the blinds and looked out on the Manhattan morning, sunlight streaming between the skyscrapers, illuminating her reflection in the glass.

Her phone rang, disturbing the tranquility. “Oh, good. You’re in.” She recognized Marcy’s clipped tones. “See me in my office once you’re settled.” The line went dead.

Bridget groaned. What could it be? She’d always met all her deadlines, and the feedback on her sex toy article had been positive. Still she felt a twinge of anxiety. Why did she always assume the worst?

She waited a few minutes to not seem desperate, then headed down to Marcy’s office. Her knock was greeted by a curt “Come in.”

Marcy didn’t look up from her typing right away when Bridget came in. Older, weathered, with a short haircut and a wardrobe that tended toward androgyny, she looked every inch the bulldog executive editor. At last she looked up and smiled, though her smile was brief and tight-lipped. “Have a seat, Bridget.”

Bridget sat opposite Marcy and smoothed her gray skirt down over her knees, trying to ignore the feeling that she’d been sent to the principal’s office.

Marcy leaned forward, raptorlike, and folded her hands on the desktop. “Bridget, you’re a very talented writer and a solid editor.”

“Thank you,” Bridget said, knowing a
but
was about to follow. What would it be?
But we’re letting you go?
But we’re moving you to personal ads?
But we think you should
have
sex if you’re going to be writing about it?

“I think you’re wasting your talents.”

“Come again?” Bridget raised an eyebrow, wary.

“These articles you’ve been writing are too mainstream, too
Cosmo
. Tyesha kept things too tame. This is a new generation for
Sultry
, and I think we need to be taking the magazine in an edgier new direction.”

“Well, the readers seem to enjoy what I write. I get a lot of positive responses to my articles.” Bridget tried not to sound defensive. Was that going to be her tone for this entire conversation? Trying not to sound defensive?

Marcy nodded. “You write very well, and the magazine’s been happy with your work. But we’re investigating some new test markets, some more far-reaching targets, and we want
Sultry
to develop a more varied fan base. Specifically, we might want to offer an offshoot of the magazine that’s a little shocking, appealing to the borderline crowd. As the mainstream mags get more risqué, we have to go further. I want
you
to go further.”

“All right.” Bridget still felt a bit wary. A new, edgier offshoot? What would this entail? “How much further? I mean, what do you want me to write about?”

“You’ve always generated your own topics, right? It’s a key part of your position here.” Marcy rested her chin on her hand. “I didn’t think senior editors usually needed hand-holding.”

Was that a threat? Bridget went from feeling defensive to feeling a bit hostile, her cheeks flushing with anger. She had been with this magazine for seven years, right out of graduate school. How dare this transfer from another company make her feel inferior? Adrenaline accompanied her anger, and adrenaline made her impulsive. When she felt unsettled like this, reckless, she automatically sought the position of power. Despite her recent conversation with Helen about promotions and her fears of losing her job, she wanted the conversational upper hand.

Her mind raced, and she grasped for something, anything, wanting to shock Marcy. “So I could write something about BDSM.” She surprised herself at the ease with which it came from her lips. “You know, the ins and outs of the community.”

Marcy leaned forward, her stare locking onto Bridget with laser intensity. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. That’s an underrepresented information base that our regular readers probably don’t understand at all. You can teach them from what you’ve experienced.”

Rather than gaining the upper hand, Bridget suddenly felt like she had lost ground. Remembering her last fantasy, she felt a jolt like a mild electric charge and hoped it didn’t show on her face. Shit, this was not the place to be thinking like that. But how did Marcy reach this point? Had Bridget implied an involvement with the BDSM community? Something about her own sexual preferences? She reviewed their conversation, the casualness with which she had spoken. Yes, she supposed she had. She opened her mouth to correct Marcy, to confess that she had no real prior experience with BDSM, but then she remembered Helen’s words—
New management means new opportunities.
Whatever she asks you to do
,
do it
—and the confession died in her throat.

“All right,” she said.

“So it’s settled.” Marcy began gathering a few papers into a pile. “Write me something for the end of the week, and we’ll run it by the test readers and see how it plays. Who knows where this might lead for
Sultry
?” She smiled her thin, tight take-no-prisoners smile, and Bridget could do nothing but nod speechlessly and walk out.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! What had she gotten herself into? As the adrenaline faded, anxiety replaced it. This was not going to go well. What if she failed? Would she lose her job, end up writing second-rate columns in some paltry local newspaper?

As soon as she got back to her office and shut the door, she texted Helen.
Lunch today?
911.

Helen texted back right away. It must be a slow morning at the bank.
Sure!
Noon?
You OK?

In a mess.
Noon’s good.
Meet you downstairs.

Bridget tucked the phone back into her purse and sank into her chair, taking slow, deep breaths, calming herself down. All right. Maybe this would be fine. She could do research, right? She’d been a journalism major in college, gone to graduate school for the same, and she could search a database as well as anyone else. That was how she got through school. When people wanted to learn things, they looked them up. She could look up BDSM.

A few keystrokes revealed not much in the traditional academic journal database. She’d been afraid of that. Well, Plan B was Google.

Where to start? Her first attempt made her wish she’d kept safe search on. Why were all the hard-core sites the first to come up? She shuddered, scrolling down for only a minute or two before closing the browser window. It may be legitimate research, but she did not want to be looking at this stuff right now. Maybe later, after lunch, when she’d settled down a little and could scan through listings like Hardcore Bondage Sluts and Cock and Ball Torture without feeling so overwhelmed. She stared at the blank screen. All right, she’d brainstorm. Freewriting was often helpful in the early stages of her writing, giving focus to her subsequent searches. She opened a new document and titled it Research. What did she know about BDSM?

Not much, she confessed to herself as she started to type.
Bought a pair of handcuffs once.
Not even the locking kind
,
but the kind with the little safety tab.
Never used them.
That was pretty embarrassing in itself. She was thirty-one years old; she should have done more experimenting.
Not sure what BDSM stands for.
Bondage is in there.
Maybe sadism and masochism.
Don’t know about the D.

What did it make her think of?
Spanking
, she typed.
Whips and chains.
Masters and slaves.
Power dynamic.
Dominatrixes.
She stopped; the word looked wrong. Dominatrices? How did it pluralize? Not important. She shook her head and kept typing.
Lots right here in New York.
Probably sex clubs.
Leather.
Collars and spikes.
After a pause, she kept typing.
Blank from there.
Abuse?
Is this healthy?
How do people live like this?

Bridget left the file open and sighed. This was not going to go well, she thought again. She looked through the other notes on her desk and decided to take care of some other business before lunch. Maybe it would take her mind off the situation.

By the time eleven-fifty arrived and she logged off her workspace, she’d finished the rest of her new business. She’d research BDSM later, after lunch, or maybe at home where she could drink half a bottle of wine ahead of time. But first, there was the matter of lunch with Helen, with her sound logic and hopefully a sympathetic ear.

* * *

“You did
what?
” Helen burst into hysterical laughter. “You told her you’d write about
what?
”

“You heard me.” Bridget leaned back and stared at the umbrella over their little café table. “How could I have been so stupid? When will I learn to think before I talk? I hate it when I blurt out shit in meetings that comes back to bite me in the ass. Like volunteering for that subcommittee on personal ads. What the hell was that? What the hell is
this?
”

Helen hadn’t stopped giggling. She shook her head, blond hair swinging. “You’re in over your head this time, Bridget.” She sipped from her glass.

“Stop laughing.” Bridget made a face. “This is all your fault, you know. You told me that whatever she asks me to do, I should do.”

“Not if it means making up experience you don’t have!” Helen argued back. Suddenly she paused, looking up from her grilled chicken salad as a thought occurred to her. “Unless you’ve
got
experience.” She leaned in. “So…do you? Have you…experimented?”

“
No
.”

“I didn’t think so.” Helen turned back to her salad. “You always struck me as pretty vanilla.”

Something about the way she said that seemed odd. Bridget looked at her with curiosity, but Helen didn’t look up from her salad.

“So what are you going to do?” Helen asked at last, gesturing with a forkful of chicken. “What’s your plan? Going to go in and tell old Marcy that you don’t know anything? Fess up?”

“No. I’m definitely not doing that.” Bridget paused. “I’m going to do some research.”

This time, Helen’s laugh was gently mocking. “You can’t learn about this kind of thing from the Internet, Bridget. You’ve got to talk to somebody.”

This also struck Bridget as odd. She surveyed her short, curvy, giggly friend across the table. “Helen, what aren’t you telling me?”

Helen looked up and met Bridget’s eye, and Bridget was gratified to see her color a little. She looked around at their mostly deserted corner of the restaurant. “All right. Remember Leslie?”

“The girl you were going out with a few months ago? Sure, I remember her.” Bridget swallowed a bite of sandwich and grimaced.

“What?” Her expression wasn’t lost on Helen. “Don’t tell me you’re complaining about a sandwich, now.”

Bridget opened the offending sandwich. “It’s soggy. Look, they didn’t put the lettuce against the piece of bread with the mayo on it, so it just soaked—wait, don’t change the subject. What about Leslie?”

Helen took another mouthful of salad and seemed to chew forever as Bridget waited. Finally she continued her story. “Leslie was into that sort of thing. She knew some guys and girls in the scene. I met some people and we tried a few things. It didn’t work out between us…it wasn’t really my thing, and she ended up moving out of state anyway.”

“How come you never told me before?” It came out a little more defensive than Bridget had intended. “I’m your best friend.”

“Oh, so what am I supposed to say?” Helen put down her fork. “‘Hey, Bridget, let’s order Thai food, and did I mention Leslie asked me to tie her up and spank her?’ It’s not something you usually
share
with people. I didn’t learn much from Leslie, but I
did
learn that people are really quick to judge when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“I wouldn’t have judged you.” Bridget felt a little hurt.

Helen’s gaze softened. “No, probably not. But TMI, right? I’m sure you don’t want to hear the details of my sex life.”

“I…” Bridget began, then trailed off. “You’re right. But back to you. Can I interview you about this?”

Helen shook her head. “I’m not the right person. Like I said, it wasn’t really my thing. You want to talk to people who are into it.”

“But you know people who
are
into it?”

“I have some contacts.” Helen was smiling again, and there was something a bit devious in her smile that Bridget didn’t quite understand. “I’m thinking of one in particular, a really nice guy. He’d probably meet with you.”

“I’m not going out on a date with him.” Bridget knew how these things often went with Helen.

“Of course not. Your moratorium. I know.”

“It’s
not
a moratorium.” Bridget hesitated. “Is it safe to meet this guy?”

Helen laughed again. “Of course it’s safe. He’s not a deviant. He’s a nice guy who’s into some alternative sexual practices. Should be fine for a ‘sex-positive’ woman like you.”

“Don’t throw the
Sultry
slogan back at me.” Bridget rolled her eyes. “I’m not feeling very positive about
anything
right now.” She considered the gamut of possibilities, a few of which ended up with her in the back of someone’s panel van. This was Helen’s contact, though, so he couldn’t be that bad. “We’ll meet in a public place.”

“Of course.” Helen had already started scrolling through the contacts on her phone.

“He’s in your phone?”