Management Consultants Incorporated is the ultimate escort service for clients who want the entire package of companionship and sex. Every experience is tailor-made to suit the client’s needs and wants when matched with a consultant of similar tastes. Each MCI consultant on my expense account has an above average IQ, is well educated, polished in public comportment and skilled in the area of private gratification. The number of consultants in my rotation has dwindled in recent months as some have left the escort business to get married or manage one of their more mainstream business interests. But Sonia remains and for that I am grateful. She has always been—special.
The Thai food Sonia has brought with her is from one of the best places in town. The owner is a client of her more public business as corporate attorney and makes his cooking skills available to her with an instant’s notice anytime, night or day.
Instead of pairing tonight’s courses with wines from my personal collection, Sonia has brought with her several beers from two of Portland’s microbreweries and the combinations match up perfectly.
Put it together with Sonia’s not quite appropriate skirted business suit with the slit on the side that goes up just a tad too high and the blouse that’s been undone to just a tad too low and it all adds up to a feast for the senses that drowns any remaining impressions of the woman from the club in a placid sea of exquisite flavors and a rising tide of blissful anticipation.
But the St. Agnes XO Australian Brandy she has chosen to accompany us to the sitting area before the gas fireplace brings me back to the cognac Gordon was drinking at the club and, hence, to images of rounder, more voluptuous curves than Sonia’s super toned fitness. At least there are no St. Louis snifters in sight but, instead, my Cavendish Bronze Rim tumblers that show off the brandy to perfection and set the tone of two dear friends enjoying a quality drink after dinner with no need of pretense.
“So,” Sonia says as she sits in one of the plush white leather chairs across the coffee table from me as I take the other, “enhanced security tonight, eh? I thought for a moment that Ai-Ling and I were going to have to be engaged.” She smiles at me over the rim of her glass as she takes a sip of the brandy.
“Sorry about that,” I say. “Something happened at the club Gordon and I, and about a million of my security people, were at earlier this evening.”
Sonia raises an eyebrow. “And?”
“What might seem trivial to others isn’t to myself and my security,” I reply. “Some woman knew my real name.”
Sonia’s eyes narrow and shlowers her glass to her lap. “I want to know more of this woman, Chase,” she says.
“She was just a woman,” I say with a wave of my hand. “We exchanged a few words and she blurted out my name and security did what security does. Perhaps they overreacted.”
“I doubt that,” Sonia replies. “And just how did you engage this woman in conversation in the first place? I can’t remember the last time you found someone worth having a conversation with on one of your nights out, which we all wish you would give up, by the way.”
“She was attractive,” I say with a shrug.
“That goes without saying.” Sonia’s voice has developed something of an edge, and I realize that, with her brainpower, she has probably picked up on some clue from my facial expression or body language that I had a stronger reaction to the woman than I wish to let on.
“Jealous?” I ask with a teasing smile.
“A little,” she replies before taking another, healthier, drink from her glass.
“You know, Sonia,” I say. “This is our time and I have no inclination to spend any of it on some club bunny and her little power trip stunts.”
“Stunts? What stunts?” The intensity in her eyes gives me a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Oh, you know,” I say, “that old curl her finger thing with a look that is supposed to say ‘come here big boy’ like I’m powerless to resist her sexual charms or something. That kind of move.”
Leaning back in her chair and looking to her upper left for a moment, Sonia takes another sip of the brandy and says, “Yes, that could tell us something about her. Probably molested or in some other way sexually active at a young age. Learned to think of herself as someone whose only power lay in her sexual prowess. Many of us have been there. It’s not easy to get over.” Then, looking back at me, she says, “What else can you tell me about her?”
“Why should we care, Sonia?” I say. “Let’s get past it, okay.”
“Not yet, Chase,” she says. “She knew you. You’ve carefully stayed off the radar of every newspaper, TV station, governmental and political organization in the country for a long time. To suddenly have someone show up in a public setting and say your name out loud is not something to be taken lightly. Don’t be naïve. We need to know more about this woman.”
Staring at my own drink for a moment, I say as I raise the glass to my lips, “Diane’s coming in and very good people are already on it. There is nothing I can do better than they.”
“Yes, yes,” she says, “you have incredible people, Chase. But they would be the first to admit that you have an ability to see things no one else can. How can you fail to see the significance of this chance encounter happening at the one place you were at this evening?”
Maybe because it felt significant in a new, more exciting, more interesting way.
Clearing my throat, I say. “Fine. I don’t like it either. But, bottom line, I need more data before I can start theorizing about possible motives and reasons for what happened at some Portland club tonight. In the meantime,” I leer at Sonia and take in the lowcut blouse and, as my eyes rove down her body to where the slit in the side of her skirt has slid up and opened to reveal most of a well-toned and very sexy thigh, “if I am going to be able to think clearly about this woman you seem to think might be some threat to me, I’m going to need an inoculation so that my excessive male hormones cannot interfere with my excessive IQ.”
Laughing, Sonia drains her glass and, her eyes now alight with the fierce fire of woman want, rises and holds out her hand. Mocking a sultry tone from an old B movie in an effort to tease me for my dislike of such things, she says, “Come with me, big boy, and show me what you’ve got for me tonight.”
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