Daddy
(4-14-2011)
“Daddy!”
Zipper Zimmerman smiled wildly whenever he heard it. The nickname had been something of a lucky charm that had followed him for the last six odd years and as luck would have it he was living a life of charm. Somewhere in the middle of his nostalgic wide-eyed daydream he hears Francesca call for his attention again.
“Look, baby!” She cries before diving head first into the pool.
Zip always liked when his girls were having fun especially when it involved skinny dipping in the pool. The oversized oasis was covered in bare women enjoying the sun and playing. At thirty-four years old one might think that a man ought to know better than to have a backyard full of bathing beauties but this was no ordinary man and his household only had one rule: Clothing optional.
“Go on Francesca! Do it again” he yells back and snickers while patting his hand on Thierry Ann’s bare leg. Thierry looks back at him with a smile before lowering her oversized glasses to take in Francie’s dive. At this moment with all the women including the one that agreed to be his, Zip knew he was the luckiest man alive.
But it wasn’t always like this dream that rested before him. It started out small and ended up larger than he could have ever imagined. A dream that may have never been without the women in his life.
Zip Zimmerman was a ladies man with the utmost respect for women. His mother was a class act that never let her son go a day without understanding the importance of how to treat women. Somehow his love of women and dream of the printed word made him a bit of a success.
Zip was a newspaper man when started. Albeit not a very noticeable one, he was one nonetheless. He always prided himself on being the working man’s Citizen Kane, despite only having one publication to his name. As a young man Zipper dreamed of an empire of print. Both rags and serious muck racking alongside each other in the same building. But that’s not what he ended up printing. For you see that Zip created a bit of a pulp newspaper that he marketed primarily toward gentlemen. Although this publication was quite lucrative it was a far cry from the professional journalism that other great men had produced.
Now some might be ashamed of the type of newspaper that Zip sat behind. But not him. In fact Zip knew that day in and day out he was creating something of a fantasy filled with so much more and it was meant to be enjoyed. In addition to scantily clad beauties with their most stylish hair and accessories, it provided the how-to’s and hobbies like the other’s of its kind but also the standards, the disciplines and the important questions that men sought to be apprised of. At least he thought that’s what they wanted. With the occasional editorial from one of his favorite beauties Zip encouraged a strong female audience to participate in his newspaper. He felt that this would separate his material from what had been out on the newsstands. Zip thought it was important that a man entertain a female perspective on things and without a question he was right.
In addition to his steadily increasing male readers, Zip found that his female readership was higher than most male driven publications. Women wanted to know about the male mind and understand what they found to be attractive. And as such Zipper relied upon the opinion of women whenever possible. He knew that behind every successful man lay an amazing woman. With many women, Zip wondered how he could possibly go wrong. Amazing thoughts pressed out from happy women.
Daddy is what the girls called Zip when he acted like a father figure. It wasn’t that he was trying to be. But unlike the other men he didn’t try to undress them. Although he hardly tried to stop them from it. Zip found that letting the women do what they wanted around him went further than anything else he could have done.
Like most children his girls were always looking for the same type of response. Love me, support me, and tell me. People often think it’s sexual when they hear about a grown man running about with half-clothed women. It’s funny, but Zip knew it wasn’t like that at all most of the time. In his experience anything in the way of support went further than anything else he could provide to his girls. And so often his attention came back in their words and actions.
To say there weren’t hardships along the road to success would be an understatement. But of course hardships were exactly what changed the course of everything. In the early days of his solitary endeavor Zipper often found himself knee deep in scandal with the law. A newspaper that demonstrated a willingness to remain open-minded in an industry of close-minded ritualism could hardly be expected to avoid litigation. But it wasn’t that there were issues with the standards. Zipper Zimmerman often found that his legal problems came with the employment of his male associates. As one might suspect if you put too many women in a male driven environment you might find yourself for an interesting mixing pot. The surprise came when Zipper Zimmerman stood on the side of his female employees. Instead of playing by the rules of the old boys club, Zip satisfied his own beliefs by representing the women.
It was through those formidable times and some hefty situations that his newspaper evolved into a successful publication. The sexual harassment cases endured by his publication became fodder for the lesser male publications to grab hold of and promote as their news. It was hardly news to Zip and he felt it to be quite distasteful when the matter came out. Mostly because these situations were delicate and more often than not damn embarrassing to the women involved. It wasn’t so much as a scandalous affair as it was a pity that a girl’s name had to be smeared through the mud. What made it worse was that it was one of his girls. That was something that Zip Zimmerman couldn’t endure.
Zip pressed for a change in the ethics involved in his endeavor when it became an open target for negative attitudes. He changed the way things were handled in his offices. From top to bottom Zip became a champion of women’s rights. No longer were his offices filled with the sexist men that it had once employed. His newly approached standards shifted his ratio of women to men 3:1. This placed a woman in nearly every position within the publishing offices. Newspaper became magazine leading toward radio then television. Leaving Zip Zimmerman as head of one of the world’s leading male publications primarily ran by women.
From the time he first represented them in court and continuing long after he made his first television appearance the women all called him “Daddy.” Zip was always incredibly nostalgic to those early days when he heard his moniker called out. Even with Thierry by his side now, it was always incredible to hear them call him. With a smile Thierry always greeted the nickname as she knew the happiness that her Zip had brought to so many women through his endeavor. Had he not been so kind and benevolent with other females they may have never met. Without a man like Zip running a publication Thierry would never have been a woman in his offices.
With this realization Zip snaps back to reality with the full knowledge that he is living the dream as he pats Thierry Ann’s leg once more while watching Francesca dive.
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