Daphne

(32) An unlikely alliance

The phone on Coach Bradford's desk rang.

"Hello."

"Coach Emily Bradford, please."

"Speaking."

"Hello, Coach. I'm Leo I don't believe we've actually met, but we have several mutual acquaintances and you were my guest at my place of business last weekend."

Mutual acquaintances. That's choice!

"Yes, I suppose we do. So, what do you want?"

"Straight to the point. Very good. Well, if you would, please, I'd very much like you to come here for a meeting. I have something important to discuss with you, and I'd prefer to do it face-to-face."

She arrived after an hour – fifteen frustrating minutes late because she'd gotten lost in the industrial park. All the buildings looked the same, all the streets had forgettable names like Enterprise and Finance and Merger and Dividend, and the intersections with forgettable street names and interchangeable buildings all looked alike. It was like a demented social scientist's rat maze experiment for people...

There was an empty space a few feet from the front door. She parked. As she opened the front door and entered, she saw another door, open, to an office.

"Coach Bradford, is that you?" said a voice from the office.

"I'm so sorry – I got lost!"

She entered the office.

He doesn't look sleazy...

"Ha! Ha! That's OK – it happens to everyone. Usually more than once – I could tell you stories... Ah! Don't worry about it. Look, I wanted to give you a heads-up, personally. A proposal, of sorts..."

"Can I keep my clothes on if I accept?"

Leo grinned. "Depends completely on the dress codes at your school. But if you want to get naked I could make you a second proposal..."

Emily waved her hands, "No, no NO! Hah! No thank you. So what's the proposal?"

"Too bad. I'll bet you look mighty fine as God made you..."

Emily felt uneasy; Leo was looking at her as if he could see right through her clothes... "Anyway, I'd like you to help me." He motioned her to a chair and he sat behind his desk. "Tomorrow morning the Dean will offer you a special assignment. The assignment will be to monitor a selected group of students. Physical, mental, every way you can."

"Wait a minute... the Dean? How much pull have you got?"

"Enough that with a single phone call I was able to arrange an independently salaried special position just for you."

Emily took a breath. Wow. "OK, what's really up?"

"Oh, that's right, I'm a sleazy man in a dirty business exploiting nice, young girls for my own disgusting greedy purposes... I know you were here last weekend – I invited you. Remember?"

Emily nodded.

"Is that what you really got out of your visit here?"

Emily was about to launch into a tirade about the sexual exploitation of women, sexual slavery and a thousand ills perpetrated against her gender by his since the dawn of time. She froze with her mouth open. Somehow all that seemed to belong to an alternate reality. She'd seen all of her girls excuse themselves one by one, and then let people use their bodies, at times in extreme ways. Who was being exploited, exactly? She didn't know what to say. "It's complicated" was her reply.

"No shit!" He took a breath, then continued, "Coach, it takes a special person to do what my girls do, and frankly, it's possible that some of them might not really be 100% up to it. Are you with me so far?"

Emily nodded again.

"OK. Terri and I only see them occasionally, and then for only a few hours. It doesn't happen often, but if there is something wrong we might not know until there's nothing we can do about it. We know that most of them know each other on the outside and that they look out for each other – and we do get feedback from them sometimes – but we're experimenting with getting an independent set of eyes to more regularly, more systematically monitor our girls."

It sounded like a good idea, but Emily had lingering doubts about Leo's actual concern for the girls. "What's my authority? What if I think that some girl shouldn't go on stage..."

"You red-flag her, and we'll – that's you, me, and Terri – together we'll figure out what to do. That's as far as I've gotten, to tell the truth, but I guess the worst case would be to get a pro to check her out and pick another girl to take her place."

"And then what?"

"Well, we do whatever he says, of course."

Emily leaned forward. "Who picks the pro?"

"The whole point here is to delegate authority, so we're leaving that up to you. Think of me as the Manager/Head Coach and yourself as an Assistant Coach. I can't do everything and you are in a perfect position to help. If you see trouble, I need to know about it and we can work on it together. If you need a professional to help from time to time, I'll want to thoroughly check him out first, of course, but I'll probably only veto him for one reason: he absolutely, positively, cannot be associated with the University in any way. If you want to get help from out-of-town, that's OK – out-of-state is even better – I can arrange all the logistics. Both me and my girls have good reasons to want to keep out of the limelight and airfare is cheap compared to the cost of exposure. I will not take any chances with anyone on my team compromising anyone else's privacy. Agreeable?"

"You've obviously given this some thought."

Leo nodded. "A couple girls have broken over the years. Maybe if someone had been keeping a closer eye on things..." He sighed. He looked directly at Emily. "You're in a perfect position to help, and you won't be alone in this because my girls keep an eye on each other already. I spoke of exposure a moment ago; they have more than a passing interest in what the others say and do, so they'll probably spot most problems before you will – and report them – as they have in the past. I'd just feel better with a more pro-active system in place. If you are who I think you are, I suspect you would too."

The coach was beginning to warm up to Leo.

"One more thing. If you don't mind me saying, it's bad enough that you know as much as you do. My girls are convinced that you're OK, but I'm not so sure you're not a danger in sheep's clothing. And, of course, you hear the same about me from your girls and are conflicted about me, Mr. Sexual Exploitation in the flesh. So, let's you and me see if our girls are right; let's see if we can work together and respect each other, OK?"