Fun Fund Raising

I was a young woman in my early 20’s, a young bride, and was going to make more money in my new job than made sense to me. My father-in-law had helped me land the job.  I would be working with companies such as Anheuser Busch, Ralston Purina, Pet Milk, and other large corporations.  I was slotted to be a substantial grant developer to garner funds for minority business development. I would travel to the Minority Enterprise Development Agency every morning during the week. I was so excited.

Each morning I would meet with my boss to discuss the companies we would target, what our approach would be, and who we would meet with. Usually, our initial meetings with potential donors were over lunch at great restaurants.

 I was shadowing my boss’s presentations to the donors and preparing to formulate my own.

I was always proud of the way I dressed and had purchased the professional attire I thought appropriate to the job. After a month or so my boss would tell me that I should wear lower cut dresses and more revealing clothes, and told me I should wear red lipstick. Also, I felt he was trying to come on to me when he wanted to kiss me each morning. One time he told me he knew I liked sex because he could smell it on me, “Didn’t you just get out of bed with your husband?” That statement made me more curious than anything. I didn’t know what sex smelled like.

However, I began to feel more uncomfortable and even confused about my obligations to the potential donor when one time the boss excused himself after eating lunch and left me alone with the benefactor.  I did not know how I was supposed to get back to the office, and I was a little suspicious he trying to pimp me. I had finished talking and eating, so what to do.

The women in the office seemed to know something I did not.  Later it dawned on me that the strange looks they had for me when the boss asked me to, “Come in, and close the door,” were coming from a history that I did not share.

One time he set up a meeting in a hotel room with a prominent connected Judge who was hopefully going to provide contacts, introductions, and insights to additional funding sources.  We had set up a small bar and the hotel catered a luncheon for the occasion.  But the judge never showed. We both had a drink while waiting. After a while, we figured he was not coming, and I excused myself to go to the restroom. When I came out, he had sprawled on the bed and had most of his clothes off.  He was very DIS-HANDSOME, he had frog eyeballs looking out of his coke bottle glasses and was grossly over weight. He got up and came over and started helping me with my suit jacket, and then went for my blouse. It started to rip and I told him, “Don’t tear my clothes, I will take them off.” I spoke this without knowing how I was going to get out of this, but I was not having sex with him. He then got buck naked. He kept insisting I take my pantyhose off, and he kept touching me and encouraging me.  At that point, I asked him if I could make us another drink; and he then said, “I knew you would be coming around.” When he agreed to the drink, I had a plan, which involved the door to the hall which was next to the bar. So, when I went to the bar, I slipped out the door. I was then in the hotel hall with just my transparent panty hose on.  

He called from the door saying, ”Come back in, I will leave you alone.”  I did not trust him but I knew neither one of us wanted this fiasco to be discovered.  I kept hidden in an alcove and he eventually came out looking for me with his boxers and socks on.  Fortunately, he went in the wrong direction, and I was able to run back in and lock the door.  When he came back to the door, I pretended to call the front desk to ask them to send someone up so he could hear me through the door. Then I bravely called my husband and told him to come to the hotel and get me.  After dressing, I let him in, and I went down to the lobby to wait for my husband; my boss left the hotel.  My husband drove me directly to the police station to file a complaint, which in reality went nowhere. My father-in-law, however, had the business shut down.

I was such a young, ambitious dupe willing to put up with things I should not have considered.