Copyright Β© 2006 Trace Ekies. All rights reserved.
I was sitting by myself in a semi-circular booth at the edge of the dance floor. I had just started my second drink. Smitty's was a popular dinner/dance club about ten miles North of the city's center. When I came here after college this area was a cow pasture. But the city grew rapidly to the North; Smitty's was surrounded by high-rise office buildings and now this area wouldn't even be considered suburbs.
It was almost eight on Friday night. Kara said she would meet me at Smitty's after work, sometime about now. Smitty's isn't very close to her office but it is close to where we live. The place is a top drawer "meat market"; a favorite meeting spot for the young single professionals that work in the area.
Most of the customers at Smitty's come right from work. The food is good, though not gourmet; the drinks are generous, even if expensive; and the music is loud, a throbbing disco sound that starts at four in the afternoon and goes until closing. Smitty's doesn't officially shut down until two in the morning but it starts thinning out around nine or ten, even on Friday night. The people who come right from work usually get paired off and leave before ten.
The women were dressed to kill: up-lift bras with deep cleavage; short dresses and skirts that made you think the legs went all the way to the arm-pits; and pants that looked like they had been painted on. Most of the women did come right from work. If they had to wear something more professional at the office they carried their dancing attire with them and changed just before leaving. Kara would come directly from the office. I hoped she had remembered to take a change of clothes when she left home this morning.
Kara walked in about eight. I had asked the head waiter to be on the lookout for her. When she arrived he brought her right to the table. We were both hungry and ordered immediately. I was disappointed. Kara was still dressed in her business attire, boxy looking shoes, pants and jacket, a frilly blouse and a little bow tie. I had expected her to change into something more feminine. Of course I knew better than to say anything.
Kara however, could sense my lack of approval. From the way she spoke you would think she had just been told she flunked the bar exam. "I know you don't like the way I'm dressed, I don't either. But if we had gotten to discuss my meeting with Grayson the other morning, you might understand."
I tried to calm her some. "You're right, we got sidetracked a bit and never got to it." I asked, trying to take the chill off, "What was the meeting about?"
Kara's tone lightened. "Well I got pretty upset and the meeting didn't last long. The bottom line is that Grayson, and probably his wife, are nosing around in our personal business. They know we're living together and I don't think they like it."
I let her talk. "Grayson reminded me that you're very well known in this town and anything that we do together in public is going to reflect on the firm. If there's anything that sounds even a little bit wild, my guess is that his wife will make sure I never become a partner."
I questioned, "And thats why you're afraid to dress like a woman?"
"Right, they might not know me in here but they surely know you. If you're seen with someone showing a little cleavage or wearing a short skirt its bound to get back to Grayson and I'll lose my partnership. I guess I can be as wild as I want at home but at least until I make partner, I'm going to have to cool it in public. As Grayson put it, we can't do anything that will cause us to be noticed."
"So that means that when we go out, you wear some little business suit and those clunky shoes."