“Oh hell no!” I said jabbing my finger at number ten. “Hell no, lady!”
“What?” she said, giving me a look of innocence that I knew was patently false. “I don’t see why you’d object to regular sexual relations. Is there something I should know about you and your physical capabilities?”
“You are bat shit crazy, lady!” I protested. “It’s one thing to negotiate a deal that will give us both what we want, but it’s quite another to negotiate sex! I’m not doing this!”
“Will you please keep your voice down?” she scolded.
“You are seriously trying my patience, lady,” I growled in a low voice.
“So, you’re saying you don’t want to have sex with me?” she asked calmly.
“I didn’t say that,” I hissed. Caught between a rock and a hard place, I had no idea how to navigate my way out.
“Then what’s the problem?” she asked.
“It’s just weird!” I said as I tried to make sense of the situation. I definitely wanted to have sex with her, but having her negotiate it in this way made me feel uneasy. My brain spun as I tried to figure out how to regain control of the situation.
“Haven’t you ever had a friend with benefits or is that too new school for you?” she asked.
“Of course…I mean…what the hell, lady?” I sputtered as she pushed me up against the proverbial ropes. To admit anything made me feel like I’d be at a distinct disadvantage, but not admitting it made me seem stuffy and out-of-date. “Why are you doing this? Why do we even have to discuss it?”
“Because if we’re going to announce our engagement, neither one of us can afford to get caught cheating,” she said as she leaned forward and gave me a sly smile as she said, “And I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in being celibate for the next six months, and we obviously have chemistry.”
“You’re out of your mind, you know that, right?” I said shaking my head as I tried to wrap my mind around how all of this would work.
“I’m assuming you won’t object to sex three times a week,” she said looking down at her papers and circling the number in front of her.
“Once a month,” I countered tersely. I knew that I’d have no problem with her initial proposal, but I also knew that winning the process of negotiation meant not looking too eager, and her business-like approach to this irritated me.
“Twice a week,” she shot back.
“Twice a month,” I replied.
“Good, then we agree,” she smiled as she scribbled a short note and then made a large check mark across the page. “Once a week it is!”
“I didn’t agree to that!” I protested.
“No, but you will,” she said as she continued smiling. “Now, about the GM position.”
“No, that’s off the table,” I said shaking my head. “You got the engagement and the sex, there will be no GM position.”
“Even if I sink the entire deal because of it?” she asked.
“You’d do that?”
“I might,” she said watching me closely. I wanted to reach out and grab her arms and shake her until she came to her senses, but I knew that I was so close to getting exactly what I wanted, and that to drive her off now would be more than unwise. I quickly came up with a compromise.
“How about this? You know as well as I do that I can’t just appoint you GM without doing an actual search for Tony’s replacement,” I said quickly spinning an interim solution. “Besides, the team can survive without a GM for right now because we’re not close enough to the next draft for it to matter, and the scouting staff can gather intel for whomever replaces Tony.”
“And your point is?” she asked skeptically.
“My point is, let me do a proper search,” I said. “Give me until the playoffs to interview prospective candidates and then after that period, we can talk about how you can contribute.”
“Then I’ll be named the next GM?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t say that,” I replied. I wasn’t going to give her false hope; I just wasn’t going to sink the deal before it had a chance to do its work. “I’m saying that you can learn the job as if you had been hired, and then, when it’s time to hire, if you are the best candidate for the job, we’ll talk. You won’t get a salary, but I’ll pay all of your expenses for as long as the contract lasts.”
“Are you bullshitting me?” she asked.