Fem Dom (2 page)

“Yeah, Earl just dropped by to tell me.”

“Good. Because you’re going to run the entire account….” Frank paused. Clem beamed the smile of a man who just be given two free tickets to the Superbowl on the fifty yard line.

“It’s going to be a pleasure, Frank,” Clem butted in exuberantly.

“…with Kurt Fitzgerald,” Frank finished.

Clem’s feeling of elation just got hijacked.

“What? Fitz? Why Fitz? He had absolutely nothing to do with winning the business. Fitz has his accounts, I have mine! That’s how we work, Frank. You know that.”

Frank put a hand on his shoulder. “Clem. You know how much I think of you. But this is a two hundred million dollar account. Even the brilliant Clem Drew can’t handle all that.”

“Try me,” Clem said flatly as he took a step back and retreated back behind his desk.

“Clem. I want you to suck it up and work with Fitz. Put your ego to one side and consider the greater good – the agency.”

Clem felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. He’d toiled for four months on the huge Rebakor presentation. This was his baby. Sure, it had been a team effort but Fitz’s role had been zero. Clem’s team had won them the business. But now it seemed like Frank didn’t have faith in Clem’s ability to handle the day to day running of the account. It was more than just ego on Clem’s part. He didn’t like Fitz and trusted him just about as far as he could throw him.

“Give me two months and I’ll have the entire campaign buttoned down,” Clem said with his usual gung-ho spirit. The Rebakor account would need graphic designers, web designers, copywriters and art directors working on it full-time to produce advertising campaigns from direct mail inserts and radio spots to television commercials and billboards nationwide. A group of IT guys would need to be hired to create a powerful interactive bulletproof website and to get webvertising campaigns rolling out. It certainly was a mammoth task.

“Clem, you’re smart. Very smart. Jesus, I wouldn’t have hired you if I didn’t think that. But I also hired Kurt Fitzgerald and he’s a different kinda smart.” Clem wasn’t buying Frank’s argument. “When I retire next month, you two are just gonna have to learn to work together, so you might as well start now. If you want my job, Clem, you’re going to have to be a leader
and
a team player. Learn how to manage Fitz and you two will get along fine.”

“Fitz is too impetuous,” Clem muttered as he walked back to his desk.

“And he thinks you’re too conservative,” Frank snapped back as he started to head for the door of Clem’s office.

“Too conservative, my ass!” Clem frowned.

“Look. You have four other accounts to run, Clem. Have you forgotten that? You’ve been so focused on Rebakor for the past four months you’ve been ignoring them. Do you even know the status of those guys?”

“I’m working on the marketing plan for Best Buy and I’ve just briefed creative on Zell Travel. I have a meeting with the Delfry client on Thursday and Arkitrade are coming in for a meeting this afternoon,” Clem said confidently, knowing he was totally up on everything. Frank smiled.

“Okay, okay. I know you can lead, Clem. Show me you can work with people who don’t see eye to eye with you. Put on your Obama hat.”

“I thought you were a Republican,” Clem quipped.

“I am,” Frank said. “And thanks again for all your hard work. The agency really needed that business. See you later.” Frank walked out of Clem’s office and down the corridor towards the elevator and back to the sanctity of his opulent corner office upstairs.

Clem banged his hand down on his desk in annoyance. It was no secret amongst the rank and file that he and Kurt Fitzgerald were rivals, now his boss was expecting the two of them to partner up. This didn’t make any sense. Fitz was not a man to be trusted. Frank Bergenson had deliberately split his agency right down the middle and, in effect, created two ad agencies in one with their own separate accounts. It was a shrewd move on Frank’s part. He knew the competitive nature of the two: Clem and Fitz were like two pit bulls, straining on their corporate leashes to continually out-do each other. And that meant bigger bonuses for the better team. The winner in all this was Frank, of course, as he saw his agency’s billings grow and grow.

Clem was a west coast Pepperdine boy while Fitz was a Madison Avenue hard ass who’d worked his way up the corporate ladder more by Machiavellian shenanigans than any brilliant marketing know-how. That’s how he’d ended up in the mid-west. He’d pissed off enough people in Manhattan to reach his sell-by date earlier than his ego had anticipated. Kurt Fitzgerald was smart but not
that
smart. He’d gotten headhunted to Bergenson & Adler two years earlier and coming from the big New York shop Doyle Dane Bernbach, he pulled in a great salary package. But he was here for more than the money – it was about the opportunity to run his own shop and get back at the boys on Madison Avenue that’d thwarted his ambitions there. What Fitz didn’t know, or what his ego would never admit to, was that his last boss at DDB had paid a headhunter to find Fitz a job as far away as possible. Minneapolis was in the middle of
Bumfuck, Nowhe
re from a New York perspective and Fitz had taken the bait.

Whether Frank knew that or not, or whether he cared in the slightest, was anybody’s guess. But anytime he got a chance to bring in an employee from either coast, he saw it as an image boost for his mid-west located ad agency. Anyway, one thing was certain, Frank was a wily old fox who knew exactly what he was doing. His agency had quadrupled in size over the past decade and was showing no signs of slowing down even in the struggling economy. The Rebakor win was proof of that. But he was also smart enough to know it was time for him to get out of the business. It was a young man’s game nowadays with the impact of the Internet and web advertising really kicking into gear.

Frank was seventy-four years old and too set in the traditional business model of advertising to embrace these new ways. He didn’t know how to Google, Tweet, send an email or what a URL happened to be. Fact was, he should have retired years ago but the agency was his baby, his life’s work, and he wanted to make sure his legacy was in safe hands. The question was, in whose hands?

As long as he could keep his two generals vying to become his successor, the agency would be fine. Trouble was, what would they do to each other once he was gone? Only one of them could sit on his coveted throne. And while Clem was seemingly the man who would be king in everyone’s eyes, the only eyes that mattered were Frank Bergenson’s.

The lamb was roasting, the potatoes were simmering and the peas were just coming to the boil. In fifteen minutes, her husband would walk through the door from the garage and dinner would be waiting. It was all about timing, as any half decent cook will tell you and Tara’s timing was right on the button. She glanced up at the kitchen clock. Five minutes to seven.

Clem’s silver Mercedes sped along Shady Oak Road and turned left into Cherry Lane. He was tired. It’d been a long day and he was still very irritated about the whole Fitz thing. It just didn’t feel right. Something was going on and he didn’t like it. Fitz hadn’t put in the graft Clem had. Why should he now be on equal terms with him? Clem wondered. None of it made any sense.

Tara took the sizzling lamp chops out of the oven just as she heard the garage doors open. The island counter was set for two and culinary aromas floated tantalizingly around the kitchen to intoxicate anyone with even the faintest appetite. Clem walked in carrying his laptop in a shoulder bag and talking on his cell phone.

“Yes, Justine, I know but we need the final layouts ready to take to the client tomorrow. And no, I’m not doing a dog and pony show on Skype. No way. There’s never enough damn bandwidth anyway.”

Tara smiled to her husband as he walked through the kitchen towards the stairs. He acknowledged her with a raised eyebrow. She wasn’t going to interrupt what sounded like an important call. Clem continued his phone conversation as he went up to their bedroom. It was obvious her husband was not in the best of moods but a glass of vino would soon fix that, or so Tara thought. She poured the Mondavi.

Moments later, Clem appeared from upstairs, minus jacket and with his tie loosened. Tara handed him a glass of the velvety smooth red nectar. She enjoyed working out and had a lean and toned body to prove it but boy, did she love a glass of wine in the evening.

“It’s your favorite. Lamb chops with all the trimmings!” Tara announced with a proud smile as she placed the lamb chops with rosemary on two warm dinner plates. Clem took a gulp of wine and walked into the living room.

“Maybe later. Sorry, honey. I’m not remotely hungry.”

Tara stared at the two perfectly prepared meals. She’d gone to a lot of trouble once again but this was not the first time this had happened over the past four months. Tara gritted her teeth. She wasn’t going to make a big deal of it. After all, Clem had been under a lot of stress at work and if the guy wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t hungry. Tara walked into the living room and over to Clem who was now slumped on the couch with his feet up, shoes off and TV remote in hand flipping channels. He stared at the changing TV screen without any trace of emotion.

“Honey, you have to eat,” Tara said, hoping he’d magically change his mind and suddenly develop an appetite.

“I’ll heat it up later,” Clem said, not bothering to look away from the television.

“How was work?” Tara asked, sitting down beside him and trying to hide her own frustrations. “You seem very annoyed about something.”

“Same old bullshit.” Clem hit the remote again, in no mood to engage in conversation. Getting Clem’s attention when he was in one of these moods was an exercise in futility so Tara walked back into the kitchen. Clem continued to stare mindlessly at the plasma screen.

“I’ll put both the plates back in the oven. We can eat later.”

If Clem didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to talk and she wasn’t going to try and force a conversation out of him. He looked pretty wiped as it was. Tara opened the warming drawer of the oven and carefully slid the two plates onto the rack. She knew the chops would be tough as old boots and she was not a happy camper. Tara walked back into the living room and sat down beside her distracted husband.

“They work you too hard, honey. I thought all the pressure was off now that you’ve won the business.”

“It’s not the work, it’s the fucking politics. Frank Bergenson’s playing mind games with me and Kurt Fitzgerald.”

“Oh, just enjoy your wine and chill,” said Tara, as she topped up Clem’s glass, hoping to lighten his mood.

“The old man is loving watching us both duke it out for his job. After everything I’ve done for his agency, I
deserve
his damn job.”

“Well, I appreciate you. I know how smart you are. You should be their next CEO. That Frank’s an idiot.”

Now that the Rebakor pitch was over, she’d been expecting Clem to be back to his jolly old self. Tara was a good wife and she had a deep love for her husband but it was getting increasingly hard emotionally for her to be supportive. Clem was putting so much energy and effort into getting the impending CEO position that he had nothing left for her. He was coming home a spent force. It was like he was turning into a different person.

While Clem was living his life in the fast lane, Tara’s was plodding along. Every day was the same old same old for her, like Groundhog Day. She was tired of living her life vicariously through Clem.
And where was the affection?
Tara couldn’t remember when they’d last had sex. It was time to get their marriage back where it had been before Clem had become so blindingly ambitious.
Hell, maybe Clem just needed a blowjob to get him to unwind.

While Clem stared silently at two boxers beating the crap out of each other on ESPN, a seductive smile crossed Tara’s face as her hands slid over his stomach and then down to the zipper of his pants. She slowly pulled at the zipper tab.

Clem flinched. “No, I’m shot.”

He grabbed her hand and pushed it away. Tara pulled back from him feeling totally rejected.
What man turns down a blowjob?
Clem flipped the remote and the fighters were instantly replaced with a re-run of The Honeymooners and annoying canned laughter. It was in stark contrast to the mood in their living room at that very moment. Tara stared at Clem with an expression of anger and frustration. She got up, walked over to the television and yanked the power cable out of the wall socket. The screen turned black, so did Tara’s mood. She stood defiantly in front of the TV with her arms crossed tightly. Clem took a very deep breath then puffed it out like a party balloon slowly deflating.

“It’s all work, work, work with you, Clem. There’s never any time for us anymore,” Tara complained.

“Look, it’s not you, Tara. That’s the ad business. It’s never been a nine to five gig, you know that.”

“Come on, Clem. Do you work to live or live to work?”

Clem looked at Tara for the first time that night. “I’ve been in this damn business long enough to know when someone’s fucking with me,” snapped Clem. “If I don’t make CEO then Fitz will. And the first thing that prick will do is fire me. Then what? Well, I’ll tell you what. We’ll have to up sticks and move. I got hired right before the recession hit and I’m on a big stick, you know that and there aren’t a ton of jobs out there.”

Tara felt a bolt of emotion shoot through her but she knew that arguing about her needs seemed useless and trivial when Clem was on a rant like this.

“I thought as you climbed the corporate ladder your working life would get easier,” Tara said, getting a little choked up.

“That’s funny,” Clem said sarcastically. “I want CEO. And I deserve it. Jesus, I’ve earned it, dammit! It’s my inheritance after reeling in Rebakor. Biggest account that agency has ever won.”

Clem got up from the sofa and plugged the TV back into the wall. He sat back down and flipped it on again.

Tara spent the rest of the evening busying herself around the house rather then try to engage her husband who was obviously not even interested in talking let alone having an orgasm. Clem went to bed early that night after finishing off the bottle of merlot all by himself and popping a couple of pills. By the time Tara climbed into bed, Clem was asleep. She felt bad about their earlier confrontation that evening so she snuggled up against his warm, naked body and gently stroked his shoulder. She felt a lump on Clem’s back. She studied it as best she could in the dark. It looked like a painful red welt.