Kelly sat on the train taking her to the airport. She was on her way home from a conference. She had her computer tablet on but was actually daydreaming. Had she achieved what she needed? Was this the impetus that she needed for her career? She thought so.
The conference was medium sized, pan-European but not truly international. Three hundred delegates all here to discuss things the man in the street would not understand. Highly technical, very talented individuals. Like most professions now, the younger delegates split fairly evenly between men and women, but the older, more senior people were predominantly male, though women had a sizeable minority, and an observer could see that soon it would be more even. Kelly had been asked to sit on a discussion forum, and from other people’s comments had acquitted herself well.
Kelly started out and had to be a team player, then she had to have a skill set, next, to manage non-professional subordinates, then to manage colleagues, finally to be responsible for finances. She had achieved all that and was now ready to move up, but at this point, the rules changed, or as she thought, politics came in. She had looked around her at those more senior and saw they came in three shapes. Backstabbers, who spent more time destroying others than actually working. Brown-nosers, a term she learned from an Englishman, who stuck as close as possible to their own boss. Finally, and the only route for Kelly, was patronage. She always laughed at this strange word. To her, it meant the Medici family supporting Leonardo da Vinci, not something for the twenty-first century, but it was still here.
Kelly had approached this conference as a showcase for her talents. She did not have a specific patron in mind, but she was going into a shop window and would work it to her advantage. Kelly was a good-looking young woman, not very tall but with luxurious hair, nice features, a bust that men noticed all the time, swinging hips and nice legs that were usually enhanced by wearing heeled shoes. She learned early on that if she wanted something, one way was to dress for it. If her manager was a “tit” man, she wore lower-cut tops; if he were a “leg” man, then she wore shorter wider skirts. She had found that crossing her legs and revealing some thigh was almost a guarantee to get what she wanted. If it worked, why not?
For the conference, she had bought two specific outfits. For her appearance on the discussion forum, she had found a deep blue quite austere dress that reached all the way to her knees. She teamed it with a single strand of pearls and matching pearl earrings. The dress hugged her figure so all the men could get some “tit”, “leg” or “ass” stimulation. But overall it said she was a serious player, someone destined for a higher position. And she had looked good, and as importantly, she had felt good; she had earned her right to be there through hard work and if she was dressed to impress, then good.
The second outfit was trickier to find. This was to wear at the cocktail reception, where the high and mighty mingled with the mere mortals. She needed a patron. She assumed her performance at the forum would get her noticed and she hoped that the reception would allow someone to make contact in the mix of people. Her outfit was a balance between blatant and demure. She knew looking like a hot woman would get the attention but going too far gave out the wrong signals.
She settled on a little black dress, an obvious choice but she had it with a mandarin collar and a deep opening down to the point where her breasts swelled. And a very flimsy, fancy lace bra.
Most men were taller than her so they could look down and get an eyeful, but of course, that had nothing to do with Kelly. The skirt of the dress followed her shape and had a slit on one side to make it easier to walk. Stockings and high heels completed the ensemble. She looked good; she knew it as soon as she looked in the mirror.
The reception went partly as expected--chatting to her genuine friends, being approached by several men on rather spurious pretexts but everyone behaved, no suggestions. Two years ago at a conference like this, a small older Englishman came up to her, touched her arm, told her he was bored and asked if she fancied a fuck. She roared with laughter, causing the whole room to stare. They never did fuck but what that man could do with his hands and fingers was amazing.
The reception was winding down and it looked like Kelly was not going to achieve her aim.
“Good evening, Senora Kelly.” Kelly almost fainted; she recognised the voice before she had turned round to face him. The keynote speaker for the whole conference, an eminent Spaniard, stood beside her.
