Samantha had moved on. The London office had terminated her employment but had arranged for her to fly back to the UK first class with Virgin – ironic or what? We never heard from her again.
I have to admit that going back to my apartment at night and being on my own was quite dispiriting. I really missed Samantha but within a few weeks of being celibate I’d decided to make some changes to my life. I sub-leased the apartment and moved back into the duplex at the Chambers. I took up jogging and used the various trails through Central Park to get rid of some of the flab which had gathered around my middle and which had affected my performance, as Samantha had commented on a couple of times.
The girls in Madison had obviously known that Samantha was ‘numero uno’ and had kept their distance, not daring to come near me or even smile in my direction but now she’d gone, it was like a man-hunt. It was all so terribly obvious that I had to laugh but it didn’t stop me taking advantage of it all.
The first was Shelagh, who despite her Irish name was from Boston. She was some sort of admin clerk. She had a fabulous body, a bit on the short side but terrific legs and long blonde, semi-curly hair. Had Shelagh been another 4 inches taller she would have been stunning.
A couple of lunches was all it took. She literally dragged me back to the Chambers, told me she was a virgin and begged me to get on with it. I was stunned by her revelation given how forward she was but I did my best to help start her sexual education and boy, when she started, she didn’t stop – ever!
She was the original Martini girl – anytime, anyplace, anywhere! Public, private – it made no difference to Shelagh. One of her favourite tricks was to drop a fork in a restaurant and not reappear for 10 minutes by which time I was choking on my food. In the three years she, sorry, we, continued with her education, she built up an encyclopaedic knowledge of Manhattan restaurants which had either discreet dining booths, or long table cloths, or both! I wouldn’t go as far as saying that Shelagh was a nymphomaniac but she certainly erased any memory of Samantha and indeed made her look like Mother Teresa by comparison!
The problem was that she was engaged to be married but whilst the engagement continued, so did her ‘education’ but she’d made it quite clear that once married, that would be it, but in the meantime she’d continue studying!
The last time I saw her was two days before her wedding. I was sitting in Madison flicking through the Wall Street Journal before heading off to see a client for a breakfast meeting when the phone rang – it was 8am. I recognised the voice immediately despite the fact that Shelagh had resigned two months previously to get ready to move to Boston with her new husband.
There was no small talk. ‘My wedding dress fitter is arriving at my apartment in precisely 90 minutes. If you can get here in under an hour, you can give me my wedding present’. The phone was heading for the cradle before she finished her sentence and I was heading for the door where a Town Car was waiting to take me to my client’s offices. A quick call to the client cancelling our meeting and the car was heading off to Queens. Luckily I knew where Shelagh lived having dropped her home and steamed up the lifts on quite a few occasions and even more fortuitous, all the traffic was heading the other way. My driver made it in 50 minutes and we even stopped for champagne and flowers. He got a $50 tip and was told to wait.
I entered her apartment where she was wearing the most amazing French lingerie set and had the most amazing sex of my life. When I left later that morning, that was that – I never saw or heard from Shelagh again.
Then there was Cheryl …….
