Free The Hinky Bearskin Rug by Jennifer Stevenson

you.”
    Jewel elbowed
Clay. “Tannyhill! Holy shit, do you suppose there’s a connection?”
    Clay muttered,
“Don’t curse. It puts off the marks.”
    On the fourth
floor they were met by Miss “call me Onika” Tannyhill. Onika was a
sixty-something old bat with hard miles but an excellent repaint job. She wore
her dyed orange hair in a smooth Hilary, tons of striking makeup, white mink on
the collar of her deep blue suit, and diamonds on her long cigarette holder.
Her eyes were as blue and snappy as her suit. She ushered them into a vast,
hypermasculine office full of dark wood and leather wing chairs.
    They sat in
the leather wing chairs. Onika said, “What can I do for the City of Chicago
today?”
    Jewel
explained about Adult Use registration. Then she said, “We were surprised to
find that Chicago had another adult publishing company.”
    Onika fitted a
cigarette into the jeweled holder and lit up. “Don’t mistake me for Christie
Hefner. I don’t have her brains or her money. She went to Brandeis for summa cum laude, I went to the Bahamas
for a tan. I’m just a bad girl who got handed a great big fun toy.” She grinned
around the cigarette holder.
    “So Artistic
is a family business?”
    “Yep. My
grandfather founded this company almost a hundred years ago.” Onika sucked in
smoke, coughed, sucked deeper, and coughed again. “My father took over in
seventy-six. I got it—” she paused and coughed horribly for a minute, then
croaked, “Oh, hell,” and stubbed out her cigarette. After a sip from a glass
she said, “I’ve only been in charge two years. You’ll forgive me if I don’t
know what the kumshaw runs to these days.”
    Jewel said, “We
don’t do shakedown in my department, ma’am.”
    “Guess that’ll
have to wait, then,” Onika said, unruffled. “Did you want a tour?”
    “That would be
great,” Jewel said, keeping her temper. Everyone stood. Something caught her
eye. Bingo! “Who’s the blonde beauty
in the painting?”
    There she was,
the minx they’d seen in poppet form both in the locker at the Kraft and in
O’Connor’s apartment. The oil painting made her look classier. Jewel was
reminded of the nude who reclines full-length over the bar in a cowboy movie.
It was a nice painting. The blonde’s blue eyes sparkled, and she seemed to say Peel me a grape from clear across the
room.
    “Sweet, huh?”
Onika said in her gravelly voice. “The original model was named Teüschnelda
Wilmerding, but everybody here calls her Wilma. She’s our mascot. You’ll be
seeing a lot of her.” She put down her glass, which contained Scotch by the
smell of it, and shepherded them all out of her office.

Chapter Ten

    Onika showed
them layout and editorial. She showed them photo production. She showed them
accounting, MIS, and website management. In the elevator, they felt a deep,
rhythmic thump. “The presses are old and slow, so they run twenty-four-seven
when we’re on deadline.”
    Wilma was
everywhere. Framed paintings of Wilma from the Year One, wearing a lacy corset
and high button shoes. Tattered posters under glass of Wilma in abbreviated
pink gingham undies, pinning a rose on a WWI doughboy. Wilma cooing over a
puppy held between her perky naked breasts. Wilma roller skating naked. Naked
Wilma laughing while she roped a snorting, bucking Brahma bull from the back of
a bucking horse.
    Yeah, it was
total fantasy, but it had energy and wholesome appeal. Wilma was out-of-control
sexual, yet adorably innocent.
    Jewel felt
herself blushing, which embarrassed her and made her blush hotter. Darnit, I’m too sophisticated to let lame
porn bother me. The pages of the current issue tacked to the corkboard in
editorial were considerably raunchier than Wilma. She swallowed.
    A young woman
with horn-rimmed glasses and a her dark hair in a bun came up to them.
    “This
morning’s online orders, Onika.” Her dark suit was so severe, it was a parody
of Jewel’s navy polyester. She was the