L.A. Caveman (3 page)

Especially since she’d offered Ian the
column idea even before she was hired. She wanted to write a
civilized and enlightening women's opinion column for men. During
her interview, she'd pitched the idea with all the enthusiasm her
heart could muster, and Ian had been so impressed that he not only
assigned her the column, but also agreed to her ambitious terms for
a contract: Three years.

Unfortunately, she was sure the
contract wouldn't protect her column from Jake's editing each week
as he threatened. As the head honcho, he had the right to alter her
copy. Her mind, in good journalistic spirit, faithfully documented
her feelings about that:
Magazine columnist's head cooks to
boiling point and then explodes in a superheated geyser of blood!
Magazine's new owner comments, "That's what happens to angry
feminists. In our next issue, Men's Weekly explores this phenomenon
in our new replacement column, 'Stan Says'--with a new replacement
writer."

She ground her teeth together in
frustration. She could leave, she supposed. Or become a
receptionist. She couldn't believe he had the gall to suggest that
one.

She focused on the screen in front of
her: her column. She couldn't give it up without a fight. Getting
the column was the biggest achievement of her life. She’d had a
career setback, but she wasn’t out for the count.

That would let Jake and what he
represented win.

And, though she didn't particularly
want to, she could see why he was being so stubborn and blind. It
was because the jerk
believed
that junk about her not having
the proper equipment. He was misinformed, of course.

About the "proper," not about her
"equipment," she wryly mused to herself with a flush of amusement
that soothed her ruffled psyche.

She snorted, and smoothed the wrinkles
out of her pants. She wondered if a guy like that was even a little
bit redeemable. It was possible, she mused. Highly unlikely, but
possible.

She stared at the screen for a long
time, but no column ideas came to her.

"He sounds like a charmer." Telly
scooped another green grape from the bowl nestled next to her on
the antique chaise lounge and dropped it into her lush mouth,
Cleopatra-style.

Stanna felt the tension of the workday
begin to drain away in the familiar environment of the two-bedroom
apartment they shared, but she knew her stiff perch on the edge of
their cream-colored couch told her best friend and roommate even
more than her tirade.

For her part, Telly stretched out
sinuously, catlike. She reposed in a velvety midnight-blue
nightgown that was just a touch too fancy for the casual event of
two roommates lounging at night. But that was just Telly being
Telly.

Stanna herself wore simple sweatpant
cutoffs and a T-shirt. It was amazing, she thought, that the day's
confrontation hadn't given her a monster headache instead of just
stringing her emotions taut. The single glass of red wine was
helping, but after unburdening herself to Telly about her
experiences with her new boss, she still felt the urge to
vent.

"It's not just that he wants to make
the magazine more profitable. It's that he really hates women. The
guy had that look in his eyes that says, 'You are a bug.'" Stanna
demonstrated by narrowing her eyes the way she'd seen Jake do, and
then exaggerating an affected disdain that made Telly nearly choke
on a grape with laughter.

"He probably feels threatened by you,"
Telly said when she caught her breath. She smilingly ran one
painted-nail finger over her hip and Stanna had no doubt she was
thinking of times when she had "threatened" the males of the
species. But for all of her obvious charms, she still hadn't found
Mr. Wonderful, either.

Stanna surreptitiously evaluated
Telly's looks: short, spiky blond hair, perfect makeup, voluptuous
body. And, of course, excellent taste in clothes.

Very different from her own minimalist
makeup style. Her single tribute to face paint was her dark pink
lipstick, and the lack of other makeup made hers a "French" style,
she’d read somewhere. Which sounded way more glamorous than she
was. She kept her straight, thick, blunt-cut blond hair clean and
frizz-free.

Her body was not nearly curvy enough,
she compared, critical. But she was happy enough with her bod.
Since she'd been an adult she'd never been confused for a boy.
Telly was better endowed, maybe, but she always moaned about men
gawking at her more generous chest long before they noticed she had
a brain.

Stanna considered Telly's comment that
Jake might feel threatened, for all of two seconds, then shook her
head. "He's too in-control for that. Like nothing could faze him."
She stared at a spot in the cream couch and tried to imagine the
strong, powerfully athletic man who was her boss feeling
threatened. She failed utterly. She was unaware of Telly eyeing her
speculatively, with a mischievous smile curving her flawlessly
lipsticked mouth.

"You could..." Telly paused
dramatically and then continued with the seriousness of a scientist
announcing a medical breakthrough, "try tickling him."

Stanna greeted that outrageous
statement with an unladylike snort of laughter. She felt her face
completely relax at the thought of tickling Jake. "That would be
about as effective as tickling a marble statue."

Telly paused her hand in mid
grape-delivery and raised one thin brown eyebrow theatrically.
"He's that good-looking?"

"Believe me," Stanna responded
emphatically, feeling her face tighten once more, "good-looking
means nothing when the personality is poison. And this man has RAID
running through his veins. Regarding women, anyway. I don't know
how I'm going to work under him for another two years." What was it
about the man that just the thought of him made her skin crawl
interestingly and her muscles tense as if in anticipation of a
fight?

"From the look on your face when you
were thinking of tickling him," Telly needled, "you wouldn't mind
working... under… him too terribly much." Stanna glowered at her
roommate, punching a crocheted beige pillow to emphasize her next
words. "No! No matter what kind of pheromones he oozes that let me
ever even consider... that... which I have
not
, just for the
record... but even if I
had
..." She paused for a deep
breath, trying to compose her words. It was tough, trying to
explain why she could never be intimate with Jake, and she wasn't
sure why. The man was like some kind of a wicked demon, for crying
out loud. Absolutely off limits.

Telly smiled affectionately and said,
"Enough about that." Stanna nodded in agreement, waving her hands
in the air dismissively, as if to wave away a bad odor. "My guy
situation is exactly the same as it has been since I moved down
here, since we won't count that ogre-in-residence at work. What
about
you?
Any fun prospects?"

"Only if you think putting together
rare sci-fi monster models for 3 hours is fun." In answer to
Stanna's questioning look, Telly grumbled, “Don’t ask. Where, I
would love to know," she paused dramatically, and Stanna joined her
in the little ritual, "are the really
good
men?" They gave
each other matching lascivious grins. "But, not
too
good."

"They're all home reading my column,"
Stanna quipped.

Telly looked at her with interest. "Do
you ever get fan mail from them? With pictures, maybe?"

Stanna thought back. "That's funny...
I never thought about it, but I haven't received even one fan
letter from a guy. I got a couple of emails from grateful
girlfriends who read the column. They were really positive emails,
praising me for keeping up the good fight. Nothing from a guy."
Stanna arched her back, stretching the kinks out, then shrugged.
"They'll thank me when they see how well my advice helps them in
their lives, especially in relationships."

"I've read your column, and I agree
one thousand percent," Telly said. "If my sci-fi friend on Friday
had read your column...if
any
of my recent dates had read
your column... my weekends would offer better memories."

"And mine," Stanna moaned. "What's
with our luck lately? My few dating adventures here were a waste of
time, too. Is it a big-city thing, maybe? The guys here are just
freaks? I dunno. The more I hear from you, the more I want to stick
to red wine and a good book on Friday and Saturday
nights."

Telly spoke again, reproachful. "You
can't just hide. The dears can't all be duds. There are good
companions out there."

She sounded to Stanna as if she were
trying to convince herself as well, and Stanna couldn't resist:
"The best ones have a lot of fur, cuddle with you on command, and
are affectionate and obedient by nature." Now, why was she suddenly
thinking of Jake's golden chest hair peeking through the V of his
white shirt? Shaking her head and smiling, she added, "And if
they're bad, you can give them a good smack."

Telly whistled. "Careful what company
you spout that sort of thing in. If a guy said that, he'd be carted
off for a chauvinist pig."

"Pigs are better, too. Nice, clean
pets."

Bemusedly imagining a pot-bellied pig
trotting across her light-brown berber carpet, Stanna rose from the
sofa to get some food for her empty stomach. The wine clearly had
taken over her brain. "The problem with men -- and I've said this
in my column -- is that they're too male." Her gray eyes sparkled
with humor.

"Exactly!" Telly agreed. "Now, why
can’t they be masculine without those nasty old side affects?
Something ought to be done." She put her arms out in front of her,
palms up, and loudly beseeched an unseen audience, "Somebody do
something!"

"How about... governmental
deprogramming!"

"A medical study!"

"Female hormones in the drinking
water!"

"A woman for President!"

"Penile shut-off switches! They have
chemical castration for pedophiles, so it could be
done…"

"A cult of modern-day
Amazons!"

Stanna suddenly became quiet on
hearing that. She paused halfway between the couch and the kitchen,
and stared fixedly into the distance. What a neat idea. Women
banded together to show that men weren't the only ones who could
kick ass.

"Stanna. You're getting an idea,
aren't you?" Telly didn't sound surprised. Living with a columnist,
she was used to Stanna's creative fugues. Stanna murmured to
herself, "Cults are pretty common, actually. Maybe not of Amazons.
I mean, that wouldn't fly, would it? They kill people, and the
whole right-breast removal thing sounds a little gratuitous. But a
group of modern women who want good guys instead of the jerks that
are out there… it might just get a lot of media attention and
volunteers."

Stanna turned to catch Telly peering
at her suspiciously. "Are you going to start your own little
tribe?" She tipped an index finger at her, an I've-got-it gesture.
"This is because of your new boss, isn't it?"

"No," Stanna replied a shade too
quickly. "Well, maybe," she amended, to be fair. "Maybe I just like
the thought of Jake Tremere trussed up and hanging over a bubbling
cauldron ringed by tough chicks. He needs a demonstration that men
are not roughly forty feet higher on the food chain than
women."

"Cauldrons and food chains!" Telly
giggled. "You know what Freud would say about your edible
metaphors? That you want his meat dipped in your
cauldron!"

Stanna lunged for the couch and hurled
an embroidered pillow at Telly. Telly dodged, still laughing. Freud
was a fool, anyway. Just another man who thought with his phallus
and thought everyone else did the same. "Ooooh," she suddenly said,
thoughtful.

"Another idea?"

Stanna felt a devilish grin stretch
her lips. "Woman's Word' just got the word, thanks to Freuddy-poo.
And Jake won't like it at all."

"Uh, Stanna? Not to state the
painfully obvious, but didn't he tell you to change the 'Woman's
Word' column? And, isn't he your boss?" Telly's expressive eyes
managed to both smile and telegraph her concern.

"He's the editor, which I would've
been if it wasn't for him," Stanna replied, frowning. Thoughts of
food fled her mind. Jake was mangling her column and her career.
Intolerable.

Before she knew it, she was halfway
down the hallway. "I'll talk to you later," she called back over
her shoulder, belatedly. Oh, well. Telly knew she was impulsive and
wouldn't take her abrupt departure personally. Her roomie was
probably rolling her eyes with the kind of eloquence and grace only
Telly could manage.

She sped to her bedroom and flew to
her desk, parking herself in front of Old Reliable. She stroked the
keyboard, composing the column in her mind before typing a word.
Then she began.

Reviewing it an hour later, she
couldn't help laughing. It worked just fine in letting her new boss
know she wasn't one to be pushed around, and she felt oh so much
better now too. This was even better than drinking wine and talking
to Telly, 'cause the tyrant in the corner office would actually
read this!