”So, tell me how it went..!” Melissa asked, tucking her fit, bare legs underneath herself on the whi
”So, tell me how it went..!” Melissa asked, tucking her fit, bare legs underneath herself on the white leather couch in her new office, attentively turning to me as she sat up. She’d summoned me to her office to have our Friday coffee, and had made us each a cup. Dressed especially informal for our “casual Fridays” in a v-neck green tee and girlish black short-shorts, her figure was on particularly luscious display today and I’d already caught myself staring…twice. “I want to hear everything!”She was, of course, talking about my long-overdue meeting with her friend Abby, a sales rep from Evolution, a local pharmaceutical company intent on getting my practice involved in a clinical trial of their new product. Melissa, since her start as our new Office Manager, had been unusually invested in setting up a meeting between the two of us; they’d been friends for years, I gathered, and this was a favor to Abby. Little did I know that this favor would quickly spiral into a whirlpool that would threaten to drag me under and drown not only me but…well, read on. I took a look into my “World’s Best Boss” mug - a gift from her. Far too much milk, I saw…but I think I was starting to like it that way. “Okay, uh,” I began, taking my first sip, “yesterday afternoon…”……I had just escorted Mr. Kowalczyk to the desk, pushing him along in his wheelchair, helping him start to check out, when Aubrey had given me the message. “There’s a sales rep waiting for you in your office,” she told me, eyes sparkling. Aubrey - a slim, elegant brunette - had looked especially pretty yesterday, maybe done her hair differently. We were trying her out at her new position as front desk supervisor, and she already seemed to be taking to the job well. “The one from…uh…Melissa’s friend?” I asked, a bit confused, “Abby?” Mr Kowalczyk, hearing the name, asked about Melissa - as he had three times earlier. “She’s off today, she’s not here,” I reminded him, now for the fourth time today, as his wife appeared alongside us. Melissa had this Thursday off, apparently for some doctors’ appointments of her own. “Yes, Abby,” Aubrey answered, turning her attention, for the moment, to our patient’s wife, “Co-pay is ten dollars, Mrs Kawalski…”“That’s Kowal-check,” the elderly woman corrected, narrowing her eyes and apparently none-too-pleased. “That wasn’t supposed to be until tomorrow,” I commented, immediately annoyed but feeling my pulse start to quicken, “I was going to sit down with her on Friday…”. I signed Mr. Kowalczyk’s prescription. “It got moved up,” Aubrey told me, taking a credit card from my patient’s wife, “she’s here now…”Why was I so nervous?“Thank you, Mrs. Kawasaki…”…“…yes, sorry, I should have told you myself,” Melissa apologized, biting her lower lip, after a sip of coffee, “but it was a last minute thing. And I was still at my appointment when I heard…”“Well, yeah, it’s okay…” I replied, eyes dropping to her still-tan thighs as she brushed at them with well-manicured fingers, tips painted a mint green to match her top, “it was just a surprise, is al-“”“Isn’t she so pretty..??” Melissa asked, and urged me to continue my story……“Thank you sooooo much for meeting with me,” Abby had greeted, immediately standing up from the chair in front of my desk as I entered the room. She stepped to shake my hand, “I’m Abby, from Evolution Pharmaceuticals.”“Sure, sure, no problem,” I replied, noticing the confidence in her grip and the dimples in her smile. I recognized her right away from a picture Melissa had sent, early on. Maybe in her early thirties, Abby was an attractive person; lots of sales reps are. My guard was up, as it always was in these sort of sales meetings, but something in the sparkle of her eyes struck me…and her figure was nothing to sneeze at, either. I found my attitude softening already. “Melissa’s friend, right?” She had medium-length, medium-brown hair, and a nice tan complexion. Nice hips.I guess I could give her a few minutes.“Yes!” she answered, as we both moved to take our seats. Abby was dressed smartly, in a grey pencil skirt and sharp white blouse. “She and I met at Evolution, at our clinic, earlier this year. She’s great, so fun…”Wait what?“I know you’re busy, so I won’t keep you,” Abby continued, tucking her skirt beneath herself as she sat, pulling some slick promotional material from the fashionable leather bag beside her, “but I just want to introduce our product, go over some of the opportunities with you…”What followed was both the typical sales presentation I’d seen a hundred times from different reps and at the same time one of the weirdest things I’d ever heard. From the emails and propaganda with which the company had flooded me over the past weeks, I’d read - or at least skimmed through - lots of it before. They claimed to have developed a novel general-health supplement for women; the science was still sort of hush-hush and what they could reveal was frankly a bit baffling. Normally I wouldn’t touch this sort of crap with a ten-foot pole, it all sounded so fishy at first. They were touting ambiguous improvements in mentation, endurance, strength, a whole host of other things. But I didn’t want to disappoint Melissa and, well, while I knew that the “Lean In” grants we were scheduled to receive - and frankly were going to be dependent on - were tied to us supporting female-led businesses, it soon became clear to me in talking with Abby that, um…we almost didn’t have a choice. I was starting to get the feeling that if we didn’t start working with Evolution, there’d be no money from Lean In. And so, becoming nervous, I was slowly forced to pay a bit more attention as we sat across my desk from one another, ten minutes or so into it. I was beginning to realize…we actually needed them.But I still definitely had my doubts, my reservations, a whole load of concerns. How safe was this going to be? “And these patients,” I asked, “for the trial…the subjects. They would come from…?” It was a reasonable question. My practice was geriatric, and this was a product for younger women.“We’d take care of that, we’d bring them in, we have a whole list of gir-…of women ready,” Abby assured me, her disarming smile doing its job, “We wouldn’t need to involve your current patients at all.” She watched me nodding, knowing she had made more than a bit of an inroad with me. “In fact, you wouldn’t even have to do much,” she continued, proceeding confidently, “we’d supply you with the new staff you’d need, we’d bring in all the supplies and equipment. We’d hook you up with our trial coordinator from corporate, she’ll organize everything. You’d just end up doing some video chats with her once in awhile.” At that Abby smiled strangely. “Her name’s Brenda, you’ll like her.”“It all sounds, uh, umm…”Sitting there, at my desk, part of me couldn’t believe I was even considering this, still even talking to this woman. That part of me, though, wasn’t seeing what another small part of me was seeing - that the power dynamic in this conversation, between Abby and I, had gradually shifted. It was her, now, who held the upper hand. She represented the money, she was the big player. I was really the small fish here. The only thing that kept me from feeling like a nobody was knowing that my practice was somehow important to them, that they wanted me for some reason.Why exactly was that?“We’re a small company, but it’s not just money from Lean In that we come to the table with,” Abby continued, eyes sparkling, “we’d been bought a few years ago by a big, international group, so now we’re just ripe with resources. We can help you through tough times like you’ve been having, business down, income fading-.”“Well, now,” I interjected, my pride rankled, “I wouldn’t say that…” I mean, I wouldn’t say it, but it was totally true. But how did she know all this?? Had she and Melissa been talking abou-“Oh, shh, you don’t need to be embarrassed, it’s okay,” she said, “It’s nothing to be ashamed about, we understand. We know your practice is shrinking, but your needs are growing. And that’s why we’re growing too, so we can help nurture you, provide for you.”This was humiliating as fuck but…why was I getting hard? Yes, Abby was attractive, blouse just a little too tight, chest just a little bigger than necessary. She was pretty, yes. No, actually…now with all the power in the room centered on her, with the strength she represented, she was downright hot. And the scenario she was laying out for me, this relationship I’d have with her big, female corporation? It felt positively…maternal. And, it was beginning to feel like a foregone conclusion, that I would be taken under their skirts. But again - why was I getting hard?“Evolution will take good care of you,” Abby assured me, her voice growing subtly more tender, as if reading my thoughts, “and as we get bigger, and grow, we’ll carry you along with us. We can tuck you in to our…corporate structure. You’ll be safe, there, close to us.”If I hadn’t noticed the outline of her bra beneath her blouse before, I was noticing it now. “Would you like that?” she asked, probingly. “Uhh…”“We’d make sure you don’t get left behind, as the world changes,” she continued, “because the world is changing, Dr. J, and we think our product is going to help women succeed in it. Don’t you want to be there with us?”“Uhhhh…”Seeing my anxiety starting to get the better of me, Abby smiled disarmingly. “You probably need to talk to Melissa about it, before deciding on the trial,” she began again, “right?”Oh my god I couldn’t believe it, how demeaning that was, but I knew it was my out - for now. ”yeah I guess I probably should…” I said, weakly…“Of course you do…” Abby smiled. …“So…