Taking One For The Team

"Earlier, just when we where getting started here," she had pointed out, "a rather handsome young man brought in some papers for Mr. Wolcott. I'm sure you know the one I'm referring to, short light blond hair, cute smile, wearing brown slacks and a tan shirt. He struck me as perhaps an interesting sort, and I think he might make an excellent dinner companion."

Charlie took a loud, deep breath that caused Mr. Harrison to stop his narration. Yesterday, he had been wearing the outfit just described. All the pieces suddenly came together and it now all made sense. Or did it?

"There's something more to this," Charlie said to himself, "something I'm not seeing."

"If I understand you correctly, Mr. Harrison," Charlie said, choosing his words carefully to be sure he understood what was going on, "you'd like me to escort Mrs. Orzeskowa to dinner and the theatre. Is that it?"

"Basically," was his single word reply.

The brevity of his answer was totally at odds with what Charlie knew of Brendon Harrison. There had to be something more here.

"Of course I'll be glad to do it," he said nonetheless.

"Excellent, I'm glad to hear that, Charlie," Mr. Harrison smiled, "and of course the firm will cover any costs you might incur."

"Sir, is there something that I'm missing?" Charlie asked, figuring that now was finally the time to be direct.

"I don't think so," Mr. Harrison said, the tone of his reply less than convincing.

Then, like a flash cube going off in his head, it suddenly became as clear as could be to Charlie.

"Sir," he said as respectfully as he could, "just how far does the firm expect me to go to make Mrs. Orzeskowa happy?"

"I don't understand," Mr. Harrison said, his professed lack of understanding carrying even less credibility.

Although he would never say it out loud, the expression on Charlie's face said that he didn't believe the senior partner. That must've finally come across, as the older man provided an addendum.

"Well, of course we would never ask you to act in any way that you wouldn't think appropriate, Charlie," he said. "We are, after all, Tyler, Dallas, and Harrison."

"You don't know how glad I am to hear that," Charlie said, having imagined the worst possible scenario for a few seconds.

"Still," Mr. Harrison said, as if he was just musing out loud rather than still speaking to Charlie, "it would be a terrible shame if, after all our efforts to smooth over the situation, Mrs. Orzeskowa were to come back into the office tomorrow in anything but an agreeable mood."

"Fuck!" Charlie said under his breath as he realized the situation he was being put in.

His under the breath comment must've been louder than he thought, because it was obvious that the partner had heard him.

"Be assured that whatever contribution you might be able to make in helping retain the Orzeskowa account won't go unnoticed," Mr. Harrison said as he slid off the desk and took a step toward Charlie, his hand outstretched. A clear indication the meeting was now over.

What also hadn't been said, but clearly was just as apparent as if it had been, was the fact that if he wound up being the cause of the account being lost, that wouldn't go unnoticed either.

"Like I said, Charlie," Mr. Harrison said as they reached the open door, "it won't be forgotten that, when the team desperately needed someone on base, you stepped up to the plate."

As the door closed behind him, Charlie caught Paula Madison's eyes viewing him with suspicion. Passing her desk, he turned slightly and gave her a knowing smile, certain that would irritate her even more.

-=-=-=

When he got back to his desk, Charlie found an inter-office envelope with his name on it waiting on his desk. It caught his attention because, unlike the multi-use ones that were closed with a small bit of string, this was a single use version that was sealed with tape and marked confidential. He glanced around to see if anyone was looking, then opened it to find a two page memorandum, two orchestra seat tickets to Grease, and two bundles of twenty-dollar bills that had 'spending money' written on the paper bands. He didn't need to count it to know it was more than he normally took home in a week.

The memorandum, which uncharacteristically was written on plain paper rather than the company letterhead, began with the address of the midtown hotel where Mrs. Orzeskowa was staying, along with the restaurant where a six o'clock reservation had been made in his name. Since only a few minutes had passed since he'd left Mr. Harrison's office, the envelope had to have been left while he'd still been in there. Evidently, the idea that he might have said no hadn't even been considered a possibility.

"I could go back and tell him I've changed my mind," Charlie thought as he sat at his small desk, no longer feeling the intimidation that had surrounded him in the senior partner's office. "Just walk right back there and drop this envelope on Harrison's antique desk and tell him that my services are not for sale."

He sat back in his chair and imagined himself doing just that.

"Right," he said silently, "and then I can march myself right down to the unemployment office and fill out a claim."

His dismissal, of course, would never be for the reason discussed behind those closed doors. No, it would be for any of the dozens of reasons that people got fired every day. They wouldn't even have to look too hard to find one that applied to Charlie.

No, he was trapped and he knew it.

"You know," he said to himself, "Harrison really didn't come right out and say that sex was part of the deal, just that I should be sure the old lady comes into the office tomorrow morning in a good mood. Who knows what really makes her happy?"

Giving it a few more minutes of thought, Charlie almost half convinced himself that Mrs. Orzeskowa might just enjoy the company of young people around her. You saw successful older men attending parties with younger women all the time, and that didn't mean that they were sleeping with them.

"Yeah, and those hot women are with them 'cause they all just like older guys," he countered his own argument.

It then occurred to Charlie, that he had no idea what Mrs. Orzeskowa even looked like. There had been a few women in that conference room yesterday, but he'd been so nervous about being sent in there to begin with, he hadn't given any of them any notice.

Stuffing the envelope into his top drawer, Charlie got up and headed back out to the reception area. The first thing he'd learned back when he was an intern was, if you needed to know something, Brenda was the one to ask. All he had to do was figure out how to ask her without really asking her.

-=-=-=

'So, things go okay with old man Harrison?" Brenda asked him after the usual pleasantries were out of the way. "You're not in any trouble, are you?"

"No, not at all," Charlie smiled, hoping that was true. "He just had a little problem that he needed my help with. I figured I'd cut him a break and told him I'd take care of it."

"Yeah, right," Brenda laughed.

They chatted for another minute or two on another subject and Charlie managed to steer the conversation to yesterday's big meeting. He said that when he had brought the papers into the room, he was hoping to meet the mysterious Mrs. Orzeskowa, but there were a couple of women in the room and he didn't know which old lady was her.

"If all they had were old ladies in the room, then she mustn't have come in yet," Brenda commented as she split her attention between Charlie and a note clipped onto an envelope a passerby had dropped on her desk, the note explaining who was to pick it up. "Eliza Orzeskowa is hardly an old lady."

"Really?" a visibly relieved Charlie asked.

"Not at all," Brenda said as she put the envelope with the note to the side. "I would guess that she's maybe in her mid to late fifties."

"And that's not old?" Charlie said, his relief fading.

"I don't think so," said Brenda, who was herself approaching her mid-fifties, said. "What do you consider old?"

Charlie didn't answer, but if he had, he would've said that to him, his mother might be what he considered old, and she was six months shy of her forty-seventh birthday.

"Charlie, are you okay?" Brenda suddenly asked. "You look a little pale."

"No, I'm fine," he lied.

He asked a few other questions about the woman he would be escorting to dinner in a few hours, but all he got were answers that really didn't tell him anything he actually wanted to know. That was until Brenda stopped for a second and, after making sure no one else was too close, crooked her finger to tell Charlie he should come a little closer.

"You know, I really shouldn't be saying this," Brenda said in a voice that dropped to a whisper, her habit when sharing gossip, "but I have a friend up in Boston that works for one of the daily papers. As I heard it from her, even before her husband passed away, Eliza Orzeskowa was notorious for appearing at functions with a young man on her arm. And never the same one twice."

Hearing that, Charlie got just a little bit paler.

Returning to his desk, Charlie took out the envelope back out of his drawer and gave the memorandum another look. According to the timetable, he would have to be at the hotel no later than five o'clock. It was now just after twelve thirty and he still had to run home to shower and change. Seeing as how he was operating on the instructions of the senior partner, Charlie didn't think anyone was going to say anything if he left now and went home. Still, at the same time, he didn't want to draw any attention to himself when he did. So he gathered up a few envelopes and displayed then conspicuously as he left, giving the impression that he was making some personal deliveries as he sometimes was called to do.

-=-=-=

It was fortunate that Charlie's older brother, who lived in Manhattan, had given him a key to his apartment and let him keep a few changes of clothing there. Since Charlie still lived back home in Brooklyn, it would've been near impossible to get there and back in the time he had.

Of the two suits he kept there, only one was suitable for a fancy restaurant. It hadn't been dry cleaned since the last time he'd worn it, so he carefully checked the dark blue suit to make sure there were no stains on it. Then he took a clean shirt from the dresser and laid out socks and underwear to go with it, along with a pair of black loafers.

The clock on the wall said he still had time, so he made a light snack out of whatever leftovers were in the refrigerator, his thinking being that, even though he was going out to dinner, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a little something in his stomach now.

He listened to Don McLean's American Pie on the radio as he shaved, taking care not to nick himself since there was no styptic pencil in the medicine cabinet. By the time he finally climbed into the shower and turned the water up as hot as he could stand it, the station had switched to the sounds of Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack.

The hot water felt good against his skin as he soaped his body up and then rinsed himself clean. When he stepped back onto the bathroom rug, he took a long look at his naked reflection in the cheap mirror attached to the back of the door.

Hardly the body of an athlete, he thought, but still not in bad shape. What body hair he had was so light in color as to be barely noticeable, even around his cock, although sometimes he worried that the scarcity of hair made it look more like that of a teenage boy than a grown man. Still, he'd done well enough with girls to now consider himself experienced in matters sexual, or at least as experienced as most guys his age. The semi-erect manhood between his legs was, he'd always felt, about average. At least that was the impression he got when he stole a quick look at other guys in the locker room. Those comparisons, which he was sure other guys made as well, had out of self-preservation been as brief as possible. A much better indicator, he'd later decided, was that no girl who had ever seen it had complained, or worse, laughed.

As he began to dress, he thought of a saying one of his history teachers was fond of using to describe actions born out of a sense of obligation that might also apply to his situation, "For King and Country." He whirled the words around in his mouth a few times, then decided that it was too noble a phrase. Buttoning his shirt and reaching for his tie, a better description came to him, one that built on the baseball analogy that Mr. Harrison had used earlier. What he was doing was, "taking one for the team."

-=-=-=

Reaching the hotel at ten to five, Charlie stepped into the lobby and confidently walked up to the front desk, asking the man behind it for Mrs. Orzeskowa's room. The desk clerk looked at him with an expression that reminded Charlie of Paula Madison, and then asked him if he was expected. When he said that he was, the clerk asked his name and then picked up a phone to announce his arrival. At the last second, Charlie remembered to say that he was from Tyler, Dallas, and Harrison, reasoning that Mrs. Orzeskowa might not know his name, just his face.

The conversation was brief, no more than a few seconds, but when it was over the desk clerk's tone was noticeably more accommodating. "You can go right on up, Mr. Owens," he said with a well practiced smile, "Suite 812."

The elevator ride was short and it only took a minute, after which he mistakenly walked the wrong way down the corridor and had to double back to find the room he was looking for. Before he could knock on the door, it swung open and he found himself facing a stunning, twenty-something blonde-haired girl in a traditional maid's outfit. Charlie thought that, nowadays, people only wore that sort of uniform at Halloween parties. A second look told him is wasn't exactly like the costume party version, but it certainly accentuated every curve on the girl's body. And there were definitely a lot of curves.

"Madam will be with you shortly," the girl said with an English accent, closing the door behind Charlie as he stepped inside. "Please be so kind as to wait in here," she added as she guided him to an adjuring room with a large couch and several overstuffed chairs.

"The Holiday Inn this isn't," Charlie thought as he took in the opulent furnishings.

"Can I get you anything while you wait?" the young woman asked.

"No, I'm fine, thank you," Charlie said, surprised by the question.

"Very well," she concluded before excusing herself to go back to whatever task Charlie's arrival had interrupted.

As she walked out of the room, Charlie couldn't help but admire the way her ass swayed as she walked.

'God, why couldn't she be the one I'm taking out to dinner?" he said to himself.

He was still watching when a noise from behind him told him he was no longer alone. It took a moment for him to recognize the sound; it had been one of those forced coughs that people made to let you know they were there.

"Oh damn," he thought as he turned around in the direction of the cough, "please don't let her have caught me checking out her maid's ass."

The woman standing a few feet behind him was about an inch shorter than his own five foot seven, with short hair that was a mixture of steel gray and white highlights. She had a very slim build that bordered on skinny and a bust that could almost be called non-existent. In trying to approximate her age, Charlie decided that the upper range of Brenda's guess was closer to the mark.

'Don't worry, young man," the woman said with a slight smile. "Bridget tends to have that effect on most men. I won't hold it against you."

Charlie felt a surge of relief. For a second, he had a vision of the night ending even before it had begun. How would he even explain that to Mr. Harrison?

"Mrs. Orzeskowa, I'm Charles Owens, from Tyler, Dallas, and Harrison," he said, trying to sound as cheerful as he could.

"It's very nice to meet you, Charles Owens from Tyler, Dallas, and Harrison," she replied, with a cheerful tone that didn't have to be forced, "but I'm afraid I'm not Mrs. Orzeskowa. My name is Jacqueline Foster-Brown; I'm Mrs. Orzeskowa's executive assistant."

"Oh," was all Charlie could say before another woman came into the room from a different entrance, speaking as she did.

"Jackie, be sure that those letters go out with a messenger tonight, I don't want them to wait until tomorrow," said the new arrival, who was dressed in a flattering but conservative blue dress that came down to just below her knees. A beaded bodice covered the top half of the dress, and that in turn was partially concealed by a matching jacket that definitely hadn't come off the rack at Sears. "And I want you to call Jerry Irving in the morning and confirm our appointment with the board next Monday."

She paused and looked up from the watch band she had been adjusting to see Charlie standing there. A moment passed as she carefully checked his appearance; then a smile of approval formed on her lips.

"Mrs. Orzeskowa, I'm Charles Owens, from Tyler, Dallas, and Harrison," he said, this time the words coming much easier.

"But of course you are, dear," she said as, stepping past him, she picked up a small black purse that had been resting on the coffee table.

Miss Foster-Brown presented an open leather bound folder to Mrs. Orzeskowa so that she could sign the letters she had just mentioned. As unobtrusively as he could, taking a cautious lesson from the way he'd checked out the maid, Charlie took a careful look at Mrs. Orzeskowa and tried to balance what was in front of him with the mental image he had formed over the long afternoon.

The same height as her executive assistant, Eliza Orzeskowa had a more developed body, with breasts that, while not as large as Bridget's, perfectly complemented her form. She had pure white hair, cut very short, at least a half inch above her neck line. Charlie had always thought of white hair of a sign of age, but on her it seemed to have more of an ageless effect. Her face had its share of character lines, but they were offset by an image of strength and vitality. It was harder to try and guess her age than it had been for Miss Foster-Brown, but he was sure it had to be on the low end of the scale Brenda had suggested. It would later shock Charlie to discover that the last birthday the businesswoman had celebrated had been her sixty- second.

"Well, I think that finishes whatever business we needed to get done this evening," Mrs. Orzeskowa said as she signed the last letter.

"I'll make sure these go out right away," Jacqueline said as she closed the folder and put it under her arm.

"Excellent," the older woman said before turning to her escort and asking if he was ready to go.

"Yes, Ma'am," Charlie quickly said.

"Eliza ," she said.

"Excuse me?" Charlie asked.

"You can call me Eliza ," she repeated. "I don't want to hear a Ma'am or anything like that for the rest of the evening."

"Yes, Ma'am," Charlie said without thinking, then corrected himself and used her name.

"Good boy," Eliza smiled as she walked past him and gently tapped his cheek.

"Have a good time," Jacqueline said as they headed for the door, which was already being opened by Bridget.

"This is definitely not turning out to be what I imagined," Charlie thought as he followed Eliza out the door, this time keeping his eyes right where they were supposed to be.

-=-=-=

As had been stated in the memorandum now hidden inside his suit jacket, there was a limousine waiting for them at the hotel entrance. The uniform clad driver was waiting at the curb and had the rear door open only a few seconds after he spotted them coming out. The company was certainly sparing no expense, Charlie thought as he waited until Eliza moved into the back seat before getting in behind her.