A mysterious woman is always more fun.
A gorilla, dressed in a black suit, a white shirt and a black butterfly, bullyrags before the door: "No ladies allowed." He lifts his thumb to the sign above the entrance, that says «K.G.B.» and below it «Krakow Golf Beach» and below that «G.O.L.F. means Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden».
Scarlett, supreme as if Diana Ross were her closest friend, looks at him, one looooooong second, and says: "Let me show you…"
Without blinking an eye, slowly, slooowwwwllllyyy, she feels the fabric of her dress, piling it up under her fingers at the level of her hips, showing more and more legs at the bottom, creeping unhurried, crawling up, calf, knee, thigh, the eyes of the guard become as big as his smile, will she show him her knickers? Will she be wearing knickers? Long legs. Strong legs. Song legs. Thong!
Scarlett's knee hits him full force in the scrotum. When we walk in, she says, without looking at the half-size double-bend piece of cake: "I'm no lady."
When we enter «The Boardroom» (that's the name of the bar of the clubhouse of the K.G.B.), Scarlett gets more attention than the sun turning into a supernova. That's pure astrology: a black hole attracts everything, even light can't escape. Every eye in the room is glued to Scarlett's big black bum.
Scarlett makes an entrance. She walks towards a young waiter with short black hair and a moustache, smiles at him, slowly moves her index finger from below his jaw to the top of his chin and says: "I've read something and I want to know if it's true. Would you do me a favour? Would you be so kind to help me with a brief experiment?"
"Any gentleman wants to do a lady like you a favour." The points of his moustache curl up under his grin and his eyes look around the boardroom as if he wants to say: "You see, mates? She picked me!"
Scarlett bends slightly towards him, closes her eyes and kisses him on the lips, softly, with her lips, with determined passion and sensual directness, with her full red lips, for five, six, seven long seconds, with her soft and tasty lips, leaving all the other men in the room breathless until her moustached victim drops on the ground, unconscious. Then she moves the tip of her tongue slowly over her upper lip, from left to right, like she's tasting exclusive champagne, and says: "The test said that men with a moustache are better kissers. Complete nonsense."
Now she has all the attention of the seven members of the Board of the K.G.B., she starts doing business: "Gentlemen. Good afternoon. My name is Pearl $. Buck. I'm here for a business meeting with Virginia Creeper."
The seven captains of industry laugh out loud. One of them stands up to present himself. He's the only one I recognise because The Nerd sent me his social report, which included his photo: his name is Axel Conklin and he's the President Director General and also the single owner of Treadstone Investment Ltd, the company that holds 100% of the shares of Treesome Ltd and also owns lots of other companies: "Virginia Creeper grows on the wall. Next to the ninth hole, Miss Buck… May I call you Pearl? Why do you need bad weed? Get a man like me. In the bloom of life. A flowerbed waiting for you. Axel Conklin. Import and Export. 325 and 5%." Axel waits for a nick of a second, for a blink of an eye, but Scarlett's eye doesn't show interest to kiss him like she's kissed the waiter, so he decides quickly not to make a fool of himself and kisses her hand.
The other captains follow the example of their senior officer, stand up, kiss Scarlett's hand and present themselves:
"Pleased to meet you, Miss. My name is John Malkovich, Insurances and security, 210 and 15%."
"I'm Sexton Blake, 185 and 10%. Entertainment: movies, music and media, TV, newspapers and magazines."
"What is a goddess like you doing in a place like this? My name is Robert Cutty, 160 and 10%, adult entertainment and nightclubs. If you call me Bobby, I'll show you my hobby, ha, ha, ha."
"Pleased to meet you. I'm Aaron Goldberg, food industry and light alcoholic drinks, 180 and 7%."
"My name is Carlos Slime, telecom, Internet and social networks, 275 and 5%."
"I'm Arthur Oglethorpe, banking and finance, 295 and 2%."
Scarlett gives Arthur a stunning smile of recognition: "I thought you were familiar. I remember meeting your son. Some time ago, I tried to set his heart on fire, but all I found was a wallet."
"A BIG wallet, of course. He has that from his father. The big spender is from the mother's side."
All laugh.
Scarlett is good at this. She doesn't give the men any space for initiative. She's here with a mission: "Very well, gentlemen. As I said, my name is Pearl, medicines and entertainment, both at the same time. My numbers are 90 - 60 - 90, so I hope you can explain yours. 275 is the length of your… membership and 5% is the time you keep it up?"
All laugh.
Axel explains: "Millions made and taxes paid. Money makes us Count."
I'm not surprised about the numbers. I'm surprised that the Polish economy is in hands of Western men. Colonialism and slavery caused too many problems; just let the locals do the work for hardly anything, and concentrate on taking out all the money. That's doing business.
"As I remember well, the President of the United States earned 150 million last year, and he paid 25% tax.", Scarlett says.
All laugh.
Axel says: "We're hav'ers. He's a do'er. Loser. Wanted to be elected. Had to show his private numbers in public. Americans love millionaires who don't work. Never asked who paid those millions. Never asked what they get back for their money. That President was tired of being a millionaire. Wanted a job. Do'ers earn less and pay more taxes than hav'ers. Remember that interview? 100 days as a President. He confessed. Much more work than he thought. More complicated too. They say working is for the stupid. The reverse is true. It's stupid when you need to work. Become an owner. A hav'er. Much smarter. Doing nothing is easy. Hav'ers have power. We fire up unemployment. Lower salaries, higher profits. We own everything. Do'ers work, make money, bring it to hav'ers. Rent. Profit. Turnover. Taxes. Rising stock prices. Dividends. Interest. Royalties. We're hav'ers. Nobles. We don't work. Just spend money. Easy."
All laugh about Axel's Master Class of Modern Economy.
Scarlett keeps the upper hand and takes the little bridge towards her goal: "The problem of doing nothing is… It's boring. When you do nothing, there's no fun, there's no action and… there's no money to be made. That's what I wanted to discuss with Miss Creeper: money. But I came to the wrong place at the wrong moment. I'm sorry I've wasted your time, gentlemen. It's been a pleasure…"
She turns and walks away, slowly, a strong and attractive businesswoman, showing her back, a dress with an open backside, all the way down, ending just above her vertical smile.
Snow White had her seven dwarves, seven grumpy old miners who forced the beautiful, young princess to do all the work, to clean their house and cook for them, to wash their dirty underwear, without paying her a salary, without health insurance, without insurance against unemployment or accidents during work, without even giving her permission to book the costs of her hairdresser and her make-up on her expense account of her employer, the Seven Old Dwarves Official Mining Industry Enterprise. Snow White never knew how to take advantage of her beauty.
Scarlett, the Black Pearl, learnt from that story. She has learnt that women are the superior half of the species because men run on testosterone, a strong and highly addictive drug, and women are the dealers who control the supplied amounts. Why would a superior woman want seven poor and ugly working-class midgets? Scarlett wants seven handsome millionaire giants of industry, and she wants them to do all the dirty work for her. This is no fairy tale. This is reality, eat or be eaten, survival of the fittest. Scarlett shows real royalty: the black Queen of the Jungle of Businessland winds all these lions on her little finger.
"Wait." - "You came to the right place." - "We can help you." - "We can talk about this." - "We can open doors." - "We can make it happen." - "Don't go away."
Scarlett stops, throws a haughty look over her shoulder and says: "You? You don't even offer a lady a drink. And the waiter's not going to offer me one either, that's for sure."
The Magnificent Seven run to the bar: "Coffee? Espresso? Cappuccino? Wine? Champagne?"
"I would like a Kriek. That's a Belgium beer, scarlet of colour like love, and bitter-sweet of taste like me."
There's no Kriek in the Boardroom's bar. The seven start waking up the waiter, shouting at him, shaking him, slapping him in the face, turning a bucket with ice over his head: "You, go to the shop and buy the lady a drink, you good-for-nothing. We don't pay you for sleeping."
When the peace has returned and Scarlett is sipping mineral water in one of the giant leather chairs in the room, she explains her business to her seven new best friends: "What do you want when you have it all? What's left to desire in life when you get money for nothing and your kicks for free? You want your MTV. Show them, Sting."
Sting, that's me, standing behind the throne of my Queen like a devoted slave. I unbutton the button of my jacket and open the left side, so everyone can see what's pinned to the fabric: little plastic bags with white powder, little plastic bags with coloured pills, a few syringes, a few needles and pins…
Quickly, I close the peep show. I'm happy we thought of taking a few supplies from the ambulance. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but having access to your own 24/7 chemist is a healthy alternative.
Scarlett continues: "We're selling… medicines. The official name is MTV, Multi Testosterone Vanity, a.k.a. Manage Twenty Virgins, a.k.a. Mission Towards Vagina, a.k.a. Money To Vaporise. The name on the streets is White Widow, by the way, but we call it «the girl», to avoid the interest of… let's say… government control on the free market of health and entertainment. Do you understand?"
They all understand. Especially Robert Cutty (adult entertainment, 160 and 10%) is interested: "This… medicine… Does it only improve performance? Or does it attract possible mates as well?"
"Let me explain the use. First, you can rub a bit of the powder between your fingers. When it gets warm, it starts to produce a certain… smell… that attracts potential partners like shit attracts flies. It's a hormone kind of thing. Maybe you get a blister on your little finger, maybe you get a blister on your thumb, but on every other finger of your hands, you'll get someone who'll make your wildest wet dreams come true.
» Second, you can sniff it, like any other powder you all are familiar with. It produces a chemical reaction in your body. It guarantees you'll be the always-on-top King of your bunga-bunga party, and also will your member be the last man standing when the rest of the jungle has passed out.
» Finally, there's a third way to use it, and you won't believe how good it is until you've tried it: injection, directly into the bloodstream, the quickest way to the heart and the head, directly stimulating the organ that produces your strongest sexual pleasures: your fantasy. You thought sex was good with a partner? You thought sex was even better with ten partners? Try sex without a partner and a little MTV. Try sex with the White Widow. I assure you, your imagination runs short until you've tried a little trip with my precious little girl."
"Is it dangerous?"
"Isn't everything dangerous? You are all businessmen. You are used to taking risks. Not all your investments pay the rent plus a little extra. But, being a smart woman, I've cooked up a plan to avoid the risk as much as I can. That's why Sting is here. Say hi to the boys, Sting."
"Hi, boys."
"Hi, Sting."
"Sting is not the one who invented the drugs… I mean… the product we're selling. Sting is a programmer. He wrote an app with the name JunkieXXXL, free available for download on every smartphone or computer. When you open the app, you register with your alias and your credit card or bank account. You enter your order and you make the payment. In return, you get a message with a location, so you can «go and find the girl». We're selling it like it's a game.
» We have a nationwide network of what we call «runners»: children from kindergarten and the first three classes of primary school. They receive an automatic message on their smartphone when a client nearby has ordered a bag of… product. The child also thinks it's a game, hide-and-seek. He goes to the nearest vendor machine (we have them on every corner near every school), enters the secret code that the program added to the message, and receives a small brown parcel (that contains the ordered amount of White Widow). The child hides the parcel in a place where the adult should be able to find it, and then sends a message back with a clue of the hiding place, like «Krakow train station, behind the third lamppost on platform 3» or «Park street, behind the traffic sign in front of the bakery», followed by the game-instruction «find the girl». That's the message the client receives. He has to go out and find the package. When the child sees that the adult has found his package, he confirms the delivery to JunkieXXXL and goes back to the vending machine for his reward: a free chocolate bar.
» The innocent child believes it's a game, played by adults, but we know he's a drugs runner who does his work for the price of a chocolate bar. We sell the clients directly from wholesale and cut out the expensive middlemen. The customers and the police will never understand who plants the drugs or where they come from. All we need to do is fill the vending machines. We don't even pay for expensive marketing: the wonderful effect of the drug turns every client immediately into a regular customer and, when he's spent all his money on our healthcare, he'll inform his environment about it, attempting to borrow money to continue his treatment."
The Magnificent Seven are quiet like Mickey Mouse on the stage of the musical Cats. Finally, Robert Cutty breaks the silence: "When I asked about danger… I meant the usage of the product, not the distribution. I see you've got that well organized."
Scarlett throws him a generous smile: "Is drinking coffee a dangerous thing? One cup of coffee with a little caffeine helps you to become more alert, to get better ideas, to concentrate more, but if you drink a gallon per day… Is drinking red wine a dangerous thing? Every doctor can tell you that drinking one glass of red wine per day is better for your health than not drinking wine at all, but if you consume a barrel per week… The difference between good and bad is always in the amount. Good is good, but twice as good or twenty times as good turns out to be bad, in every element of life."
"Money is good. More money is better. Most money, as we have, is best of all.", laughs Axel Conklin.
Scarlett goes on like she didn't hear the poor joke: "There's a limit to the amount of fun a man can take. You know that a man can bore himself to death, you've probably heard of men who worked themselves to death, and if you take too much White Widow, you can orgasm yourself to death. I'm called The Black Widow for a reason. My late husband designed this drug. After two months of continuous bunga-bunga parties, he died of an overdose. I found him with his hand in his trousers on the toilet. That's the risk everyone has to take."
"I want to take that risk." - "I'm brave." - "I'm braver." - "I'm Tarzan, you Jane." - "I'm the one who taught the former Italian President."
Scarlett calms down the troops with a gesture of her hands: "Thank you for all your support. There's only one thing I need: money. We need some millions to finance our production line and our stock, we need another handful of millions to invest in the network of vending machines, and we need a little patience until the money comes in, which means that we can't talk to the banks because they don't have patience; they want immediate interest and prompt payback and guarantees that we can't give."
The Bang Gang behaves like a class of schoolboys, all anxious with their fingers in the air, trying to behave as well as they can, hoping to be selected by the beautiful teacher to answer that easy question: "I have that money! Take me!"
Axel, the one with the highest numbers, the self-acclaimed leader of the Bang Gang, speaks: "Your business model is clear. I speak for all of us. You're in, Miss Pearl. Part of our elite group. You've made it clear: that ain't working; that's the way you do it.
» I'll explain our rules: we're not do'ers; we're hav'ers. There are two kinds of people. Some work. Some own. There are do'ers. There are hav'ers. We don't work. We have. We own industry. We own every big company. We have what makes the world go round. Our money returns to our pockets after we spend it. That's not working. That's the way you do it.
» Imagine a worker who saves money: he buys a house and lives for free. No. No profit for us. We have power. Our daily lobby with the government. We create crises: lower salaries and higher prices. Working people buying a house? Paying off the mortgage? We make it impossible. Workers depend on money. Money is a drug. They'll never have enough. They work as much as they can. For lower fees. Paying higher prices. Our prices. We own the market. Media are ours. Advertisement is our business. We own public opinion. Our religion preaches: «more is better». We tell them: «spending money is great». That Climate Conference? Hippies! Say the world is addicted to burning oil. To energy. They are wrong. The world is addicted to lack of energy. Sloth junkies. Want money for nothing. Dope without working for it. Bad habit, if you ask me. We, the hav'ers, act responsibly. We own the money. We're the dealers. We distribute money carefully. Small proportions. Low salaries. Nobody dies of an overdose.
» You came to the right place, Miss. I, personally, finance your little company: no interest, no payback, just shares. Usually, entrepreneurs keep 1 to 5 percent. You're different. One of us. You're part of our investment group. I let you keep 10 percent. Perhaps even 15. You earn our membership in no time."
The rest of the Bang Gang deflates like balloons after a birthday party. Power is defined by numbers and Axel has the highest numbers on the bank.
I bend over and whisper in Scarlett's ear, loud enough to be heard by the sharp ears of the audience: "Now look at these yo-yo's. Lemme tell ya, these guys ain't dumb."
Scarlett frowns, thinks for a while and finally says: "Hm. It's an interesting offer. You're an attractive specimen of the male half of humanity, but I'm not that kind of woman, Axel. How can I be sure you're not going to screw me hard and leave me behind, embarrassed, after you've had your fun?"
"We make a contract."
"I'm not really a fan of the monopoly you all try to play. I already have a monopoly here: a unique product that everyone wants. A bit of competition might give me a higher profit and less work. Is there any other gentleman here with a better offer?"
The magic question. Suddenly, the distinguished gentleman's club changes into the floor of the New York stock market on Black Friday: "I let you keep 20 percent." - "I let you keep 24, no, 24 point five, no 25 percent." - "I invite you to my ancient castle in the Tatra mountains." - "I invite you on my new yacht in the Baltic Sea." - "I own the media: I can guarantee you the title of Businesswoman of the Year." - "I own the social media: I brainwash half the population of our planet. I can guarantee you more friends than anybody." - "I offer you a position as marketing manager in my company." - "I offer you a position as chief of the board in my company."
"Boys, boys, boys. Calm down. Where are your manners? Do you think I'm some sort of slut that you can buy with money or titles? Do you think I'm like that trollop of the former Italian President at the congress, that cheap shop-window dummy with inflatable boobs who gets impressed by big yachts and ancient castles? As you can see, I'm a woman of wealth and taste. That taste is best pleased with an invitation for a nice, romantic dinner, with candles and wine, soft music, educated conversation…
» All you think about is yourselves, shouting as loud as you can, trying to impress the virgin with the size of your… membership. I thought you would understand my desires as a woman: I'm not interested in giving the shares of my goldmine to you. I'm a hav'er myself: I have it all. I was only interested in your network of business relations, to add them to my list of addicted clients. You disappoint me. You've really turned me off. I guess I came to the wrong place after all. Come on, Sting. It's time to go. I'm hungry and…"
Axel is the first to react, showing that making money is mostly a reward for having a sharp brain and seeing an opportunity before others do. He jumps up, rushes forward, and offers Scarlett his arm: "I'm sorry. A misunderstanding, Miss Pearl. I offer you apologies. The behaviour of my friends… Unacceptable. A lady like you. We sign the peace. I invite you for dinner. Small. Nice. Romantic. Nothing fancy. Just candles and champagne. At my place. With educated conversation. About fashion. And movies. And theatre. Perhaps read poetry, from Nobel Prize for literature."
"Well, Axel. That is indeed a very nice offer. I hope you don't mind if we take Sting with us. For an obvious reason of lack of cash flow, I didn't have the means to pay him his promised 50% of the minimum wage, so he works for food and lodging."
"No problem, Miss Pearl. My employees work for food and lodging too. Make sure they buy their food and lodging at your shops. Not at the shops of competitors. These men are so easy to fool…"
"Higher profit, fire people. That's my slogan.", Scarlett smiles.
"You're my kind of woman, Miss Pearl."