26 Women Draft Pages 4921 by JEFFREY W JORDAN

Author:JEFFREY W JORDAN
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Anastasia Domas

I’m in my senior year at Brighton State College. My graduation will be mid-year because of all of the summer courses I took. My home office job experiment with WI4Y is working better than we thought, mainly because I didn’t have to schedule my work hours around my classes.

Lynn, however, insists I continue to accompany her to some of the business entertainments and functions. I’m so accustomed to these activities that I didn’t notice for quite some time that people we encountered at them began to think I had more power than I did. At the very least, they knew I had Lynn’s ear.

I also knew that Lynn allowed suspicions about the intimacy in our relationship to continue. At the time, I couldn’t see the advantages to her. More often, on these business/social occasions, I would find myself corralled and gently but persistently grilled.

What did Lynn think of this or that? What’s the best way to get her convinced of their project idea or proposal? Often I knew or thought I knew the answers to these inquiries. Still, I never followed up other than to report to Lynn about these questions. Finally, I confronted her.

“Lynn, I want to preface this with the understanding that I’m not unhappy or reluctant to keep things going the way they are, but I’m curious. Why are we operating like this?”

“How do you think we are operating?”

“For starters, as you have consistently admitted, many of the people we interact with think you and I are a couple. I’m trying to figure out where it works to your benefit.”

“Okay, You deserve some explanation. As a businesswoman, I’ve learned that most men think they can beat, control, or even just influence you if they can sleep with you. My biggest problem is that if they approach me, I lose no matter what I answer. If I say yes, they win, at least in our contemporaries’ eyes. If I say no, I offend their tender egos. That can be a problem and get in the way of future business. You provide me with the cover, so I avoid propositions. Remember when we talked about Clive Bamberger?”

“Clive and I get along fine, mostly because he was roundly embarrassed about his drunken proposition. Indeed, he’s convinced I’m just fine in my relationship with you and knows to compete is futile.

“My biggest problem is I am a woman, but using my sex to be sexy isn’t good business practice. I can’t use it to flirt or embarrass my male contemporaries. Yet, I can’t be one of the guys either. It’s like dancing on the razor’s edge. Leaning one way or another is inviting trouble.”

“Okay, I guess I understand, but what if you became attracted to one of these guys?” She smiled.

“What makes you think I haven’t?”

“Lynn, you and I have been pretty close for a couple of years now. I’ve never heard, nor have I seen anything that would indicate you were interested in any of the men you contact in business.

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