Her good memory was still an asset, she just used it to remember company fundamentals and market statistics now.
“It might be fine for models and photographers and whoever to have orgies in your industry, it’s not in mine. You can’t have an intimate relationship with a client, and you have to disclose any prior association that might affect the quality of your advice.”
“Holy fuck. You mean you have to tell your bosses that you once slept with Grip. That makes no sense. Especially if he doesn’t remember it.”
“I know, but the point is I remember it.” In full living, high-definition color, word perfect. “The ethical thing to do is to resign him as a client.”
“And then what?”
Then it would get awkward, because questions would get asked and Mena would need to be at least semi-truthful and Caroline would need to speak to Grip about the reason for changing his account leadership and then it would be stupidly embarrassing when Grip admitted he’d never met Mena before, let alone spent a week with her. The upshot of all that was her partnership inexplicably failing to happen after years of striving for it.
“He asked if we’d met before,” she said, with a shiver. “It spooked me big time.”
“Fuck me dead. He does remember you?”
Mena shook her head. “I don’t think so. I had an intense reaction to him, and I think it confused him as much as it did me. I think he was reacting to me trying not to react to him.”
“That sounds boringly sensible. What if he does remember you?”
“We were alone after we dropped Caroline at the hospital. He’s not shy. He would’ve said something.”
“Like, how about it for old time’s sake, babe.”
Mena rolled her eyes. “Exactly like that, because he was so turned on by the confused uptight frump vibe I was giving out.”
Vera snorted into her now empty glass. “What did you talk about? We didn’t target these guys for the quality of their conversation. We just wanted to party hard with them.”
It’d been all about the sexual thrills back then. The guys they’d targeted had been hot and talented, not necessarily making bank; some of them, like Grip, had been in up-and-coming bands working to break out and that struggle was heroic and romantic and they’d both thought of themselves as potential muses. The reality was that no one was looking for career advice from chicks they’d plucked from the audience, and conversation had been a bonus round.
Half the after-parties Mena and Vera had gone to were boring affairs where tired musicians drank too much, spent too long on the phone lying to their significant others, did drugs and fell asleep. They’d been both ignored and left to their own devices, and expected to entertain, by dancing or making people laugh, had their phones confiscated and had to sign scary sounding non-disclosure agreements, but the music was always excellent, the food free, the booze endless and the bragging rights supreme.
They’d been high on their own audacity and skill at the game before anyone ever asked them to strip or get on their knees.
Occasionally one of the musos on their list would be needy and sweet or just an excellent lay who knew how to give as much as they took in the bedroom. Some of those guys were married. Most had girlfriend. Some were egomaniac assholes. Some made you believe they really did care about you and stayed in touch.
Vera had hooked up with the lead singer of Slash Burn for their whole Australian tour. It was like a committed relationship for fifteen nights and then he’d never bothered to say goodbye. Just got on his private plane and went to the next city in the next country. He’d looked her up years later and apologized and she’d charged him a small fortune to style him for a shoot. They were Facebook friends now.
Being a good groupie wasn’t all about looks and a willingness to give blowjobs. It took skill to get invited to stay longer than it took to make your conquest come. And if you knew what you were doing that might only take ten minutes, which included being shown out by security.
You had to know how to appeal to a musician’s ego. You had to know how to engage them, even if that was just listening to them brag about themselves or tell you their problems. That meant learning everything there was to know about them and their band.
Successful groupies were sexy encyclopedias who had no needs of their own, apart from getting to hang with their idols.
It was a lot like the work Mena did now, with an excellent salary and without the music and the sex. Who knew being a groupie would be good training for running a multiclient investment portfolio?
But it had all been different with Grip.
He’d been in a class of his own. He’d been upfront with Mena. Promised her a good meal and a bed beside him for the night or a taxi home, which was already a lot better than a narrow bunk on a parked bus or a lounge in a room full of other people. He’d shown her a good time partying with his band and then bought her room service in his shabby hotel room before they’d even done more than hold hands and sit close. He’d asked permission to kiss her, even when it was obvious that and more was what she was there for.
It had been the softest
