For two months, I'd been editing, recutting, and generally power-tweaking the "Tempted?" spot, trying to find a balance between what the clients wanted and what the law(yers) would allow. On those rare occasions when the work met both sides' approval, it hadn't met Jenner's. I suspected that Jack was behind all the bother, just to make my life as complicated as possible--as though I needed him for that.

Finally, though, the damn thing was done--and ironically, it wasn't much different from the original. The only content change was the kiss in the middle, which had been reshot with a clearly heterosexual couple. I'd also recut the segment with the unconventional pairings. They were all still there, but now, some of them were flashed on the screen as subliminal images. I'd fought against that tactic for a solid month, for reasons of ethics, but it was like arguing ethics with the lords of the Late Roman Empire. This ad was just what their home videos might've been, if only they'd had the camcorders.

The ad was done, though, and finally out of my hands. I no longer felt even the slightest responsibility for it, let alone any pride of authorship. After all that work, I was sick of the spot, sorry that I'd written it, and ready to get the final in-house screening over so that I'd never have to see it again. That was how I always felt about my ads by the time they went out, but this one was especially unbearable now.

My colleagues, however, had a much higher threshold of pain. When I got to the conference room, a few minutes early, they were already there, running the tape.

"Jenner and Jack aren't here yet," I pointed out.

No one paid any attention; they were all but sucked into the screen. So I just took a chair and looked out the window, trying not to even hear the music. I was sick of that by now, too.

When it was over, there was heavy silence.

"Somebody give me a cigarette," Walt finally said.

"You don't smoke," Chip reminded him.

"I'm smoking right now. That's why I need the cigarette." Nervous laughter, mercifully interrupted by the arrival of Jenner and Jack.

"I'll see it," Jenner said, taking his chair.

Jack ran the video. At the end, to everyone's astonishment, Jenner started laughing.

"Sir?" Jack asked.

"This'll just kill that sonuvabitch Bennett at Ad House. Thinks he can outdeviant me, does he? Not in my town. Fine work, Miss Devlin. I ought to promote you one of these days."

I guessed that the man was off his medication again, so I said nothing.

"It's just a small account," Jack said stiffly. "Late-night cable and a little print, in the underground tabs."

"But people will talk, Harper. We want talk. Talk is good for business." Jenner reached into his inside suit pocket for a microcassette recorder and clicked it on. "Miss Sanchez, mail a cassette of the 'Tempted?' spot to the Family Foundation. Anonymous. No label on the tape. Plain mailer; postage stamps. Mail it from another ZIP code, while you're at it." He turned off the recorder and grinned at Jack. "That'll get 'em."

"Mr. Jenner, they've ignored the last three mailings. We haven't gotten a press conference out of them since March. They might be on to us."

"This is different," Jenner told him. "There are queers in this one."

Jack considered that point. Cassie gave me a sympathetic glance, which I pretended not to see.

"I've done it again, Harper."

"Yes, sir," Jack agreed.

Jenner rose and left the room, taking the time to look down Cassie's blouse on the way out. As soon as he and Jack were safely gone, everyone exhaled.

"I should've listened to my parents and gone to nursing school," I said, to no one in particular.

An account exec I hardly knew laughed. "Yeah, you'd make a great nurse. 'You want a bedpan? Not on my shift. Go in your water glass.' "

" 'You want a pain pill?' " Walt chimed in. " 'I'll give you pain. I'll break your other leg.'"

"Sponge baths would be out of the question, of course," Kurt said, enjoying himself.

"Well, think what you just saw," Walt said. "What if the patient's a girl?"

I froze.

"Naaah. She's celibate. That's even worse," Kurt told him. "It'd be more like this: 'You go ahead and give yourself that sponge bath, miss. I'll watch.' " Laughter.

"Knock it off, Kurt," Cassie warned.

"I can't help it," he told her happily. "I'm just naturally creative."

I got up and made for the door. "Channel it into your work for a change. I'm leaving."

"Didn't she used to be more fun?" Walt asked behind my back. Laughter.

Cassie caught up with me in the hallway. "Are you all right?"

I shrugged. "I wrote the damn ad. You tell me."

"Jenner's a squidbrain. And so are they. When did you stop knowing that?"

"When did you start defending me?" Immediately, though, I backed down. "Sorry, Cass. I guess Jenner just punched my ticket in there. I'm not big on the Q word."

"Neither am I," Cassie said, and started to add something about not taking it personally when we saw someone approaching: Connie the Barbarian, pushing a mail cart. Both of us made all the room in the world in the hallway, and as the Barbarian passed, she tried to look down Cassie's blouse.

"Not if she were the last man on earth," Cassie growled.

"Like I said."

"Well, don't worry--you're not anything like that. At least you're perverse in your perversity."

"Just naturally creative?"

"Too much for your own good sometimes. And this is certainly one of those times. What if I talk to Sanchez and see whether I can get her to lose the tape in the mail?"

I looked at her sharply, suddenly understanding. "You've done this before, haven't you?"

"Oh, only the last three times." She smiled and patted my shoulder. "Hang in there, baby duck."

I watched her partway down the hall, then smiled too and took off in the other direction--and almost collided with the Barbarian, who was just coming out of an office.

For a split-second, I would have sworn that the creature winked at me. I didn't stick around long enough to find out for sure.

"I didn't get a chance to ask later," I said, not bothering to say hello. "Did Sanchez lose the tape?"

"Tape? Tape? What tape?"

"Great. Remind me to do something nice for you sometime. But not any time soon. What are you doing home?"

"Watching the 'X-Files' movie in bed. Alone. That's what I'm doing home. What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Monica isn't here."

"How nice of you to call to tell me that," Cassie said icily. "So you have a few free minutes before the orgy and wanted to make a pity call to your spinster friend, did you?"

"I did not. I just wanted to talk. And let's not fight on the phone. We lose all the visual effects that way, so it's not as much fun."

"No. But we still have the sound effects. Did I ever tell you that you sound like Daffy Duck on helium when you get really, really mad?"

I laughed. "I'm not doing this, Cass. Besides, I know better than to pity you. Considering what you usually date, a night off might be a good thing. What was the last one? A CPA?"

"That was two months ago."

"Oh. Right. So who was the last one?"

"That was the last one."

"Stop it. I told you, I'm not fighting with you over the..."

"Then shut up and let me tell you all about it," Cassie said.

So I shut up, and she told me all about it. She'd had a dismal time on the dating front lately, the way she explained it. There'd been the guy who spent the entire date trying to sell her an annuity. There'd been the guy who talked bond funds with dinner and bondage with dessert. There'd been the blind date with the spray-on hair and the one with all the earrings. Then there'd been the perfect man with the fatal flaw ("He wears Old Spice. My father wears Old Spice").

Then there was the CPA, who apparently came up short too. That had been all, she said. For two long months.

"I don't believe it. St. Cassandra? Cassandra the Celibate?"

"Shut up, Devvy. You should talk."

"I know. But let me enjoy the moment."

"It isn't funny."

"I never said it was. How come you didn't tell me all this before?"

She snorted. "You think you're the only person who can have secrets?"

"No, but..."

"No, period. So stop right there."

I did. There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"How did you stand it?" she finally asked. "Celibacy, I mean."

Oh, well, I could have at her later, in person; I'd take her seriously now. So I started to tell her about long workouts, cold showers, and total abstinence from pay cable when Monica materialized in the bed and did something that made my voice crack.

"What's going on?" Cassie asked, suspicious.

"Nothing. Monica just got in. She..."

"I don't want to talk about her."

"We're not going to. Wait a minute....Monica? Hold that thought. I'm on the phone."

"Not anymore!" Cassie shouted, and slammed the phone down.

I listened to the dial tone for a second and then slammed the phone down myself. "Was that necessary, Monica?"

"Very," she said, and kept right on doing what she'd been doing.

Cassie was already talking when I picked up--and not making much sense, even for her. After a few minutes of effort, I finally worked her down to the facts: Something had happened, her house wasn't safe, and I had to meet her someplace ASAP.

"Fisher's Grill in 10 minutes," I told her. She was still talking when I hung up.

(c) 1999, ROCFanKat

Continued - Part 15