This is the big pitch. This is the one that's going to elevate us up into the advertising stratosphere, and that's why I'm the only one who's going to make it. That's the way it's always been with Howie and me. He's the creative force, the one who comes up with the ideas the clients want, and I'm the one who sells it to them, makes them wet themselves and scribble obscene numbers down on contracts to get us to work for them.
We've been working together three years, and we've gone like a storm that whole time. London didn't know what hit it when we realised what we could achieve together. We've gone from going-nowhere juniors to the Next Big Thing β and that's not me boasting, that's what all the trade mags (and some mainstream ones too) say. Normally followed up with a description of Howie as 'notoriously reclusive' and me as 'brash and vulgar', as if that's a bad thing.
Vulgar's just another way of saying 'richer than me, and not afraid to show it'. This is the City, and if you don't show what you've got β and how you're willing to spend it β then you're nobody. So yeah, I'm vulgar, I'm brash, and I'm currently ordering several bottles of champagne that each cost more than any of those journalists earn in a month. Sticks and stones, kids, sticks and stones.
The pitch is tomorrow morning, 11am sharp, but right now I couldn't care about that. I'm showing a bunch of traders just what conspicuous consumption is all about. I'm showing them β and making up the rules at the same time β a game that finds out whether an expensive watch or a magnum bottle breaks first on contact, and at the same time I'm getting some definite attention from a hot blonde at the bar.
This is how I relax. I'll drink and fuck and snort and eat all I want tonight, crash for a couple of hours, knock back some ridiculous-strength espresso and then give them the pitch of their lives like I'd been tucked up in my pyjamas at nine pm. You couldn't live like that, but I can, that's why I get the headlines calling me Jason Connor, London advertising's new
wunderkind.
That's the sort of dedication you need to get ahead in the City. It's not about how much work you do from nine to five, it's about how well you fill the time after it. Work hard, play harder, and use the cash you earn to employ a personal trainer to make you look as good as I do.
You can clock off at the end of day, get the train home, curl up in front of the telly and be fresh-eyed in the morning, but then you'll never know what's really going on. You'll have a long, dull and safe career with a nice pension at the end, but you'll always be envious of guys like me. We're the ones who fill those bars you walk past on the way to the station, the ones full of chrome and glass, the ones where there's no menu, no price list, because they'll get you whatever you want and if you have to ask the price you can't afford it.
That's my territory. That's where I'm alive and filling myself with the energy to blow their minds tomorrow. I'm checked over Howie's ideas, and they're dynamite, the sort the clients have flown all the way from California to see. They've come to London because they know this city boils with the creativity they need. Sure, they're seeing other firms, but as far as I care, that's a formality. We're the ones they want, and even if they don't know it yet, I do.
The blonde's coming over, and that's good, because the traders are boring me now and I need something new. I can feel myself getting hard just watching her walk. Her body's tall, slim and tight, the product of hours in a gym every week, and even if she's not completely dressed to kill, you could put her in a sack and she'd still be able to severely maim you. Tight black skirt over black silk stockings and four inch heels she knows how to move in, topped off with a black jacket over an emerald green shirt that's unbuttoned enough to show wisps of black lace as she moves.
Me? I just make it over the six foot tall line, my hair's all my own and still naturally black, brown eyes, sharp smile and a body that earned my personal trainer a five-figure bonus for getting me to it.
She leans over as she comes to the table, her long straight blonde hair falling forward as she gives me a quick glance at her perfectly firm lace-clad breasts. "Jason? I'm Carrie. Howard Rose told me I'd find you here."
Oh, nice one Howie.
He knows just what I need and I'm sure this girl's going to fit the bill perfectly. "Did he now?" I say. "Then I guess I should offer you a drink."
She takes the champagne with a wink. "Only a drink? I thought you had more to offer than that."