Seductive Viennese Whirl by Emma Kaufmann Page B

reruns on TV.
    I click shut my briefcase, which I've taken to carrying around to give me an air of professionalism. Today it contains a Mars Bar, a chocolate Slim-Fast shake (which I carry around just to prove to other people that I'm dieting - sad isn't it?) and an unread copy of the advertising paper Campaign that I sometimes prop up on my desk for show. I hope Eva doesn't wear McManus out this weekend. We need him here, bright eyed and bushy tailed Monday morning to okay a new slogan, visuals supplied by Simon, which I was working on today: We take our game seriously . McManus' luxury pies. She needs to keep his five minute sexual bursts to a minimum, or he'll be cranky and tired and might make us redo the whole thing. He's already rejected two ideas.
    First idea, a man has been sitting beside Loch Ness for months now, staring down his binoculars, hoping for a sighting of the Loch Ness monster. While he's sitting there he scoffs one of McManus' pies. He falls asleep, leaving a last chunk of pie on his plate and as he sleeps the monster creeps out of the Loch and demolishes the last bit. When he wakes up again the monster has disappeared back into the Loch. McManus liked the idea of the pie being alluring, but said the Loch Ness theme had been done to death. Bearing his comments in mind I pitched the second idea, a woman has been in labour for sixteen hours and is at the end of her rope. The doctors tell her the baby doesn't seem to want to be born. In desperation one of the nurses says, "Let's see if this won't lure the little one out," she says, waving one of McManus' steaming hot pies over the mother's belly. Immediately the woman has a strong contraction and the baby zooms out. It was meant to show that the tantalizing smell caused the baby to get its skates on, but McManus said it was in bad taste. So back I went to the drawing board, gritting my teeth. If I have to do it over again I think I'll scream.
    As I prepare to make my escape I notice that Sparky, whose desk is right at the exit, is slowly unravelling the wrapper from a Murray Mint and popping it into her mouth. As she savours the sweet she closes her eyes in ecstasy and rubs her thighs, clad in mauve nylon slacks, together in a way that is vaguely obscene. I wait until she's opened her eyes and is immersed in her newspaper. All clear. I'm just creeping past her when she starts barking, "Will you take a look at that! Will you?" She stabs the paper with her finger. "I've never seen my knickers going so cheap! You can't miss out on this, chuck."
    "I'm all right for knickers at the moment, thanks," I say. This prompts her to start hooting with laughter. I wait, perplexed, while her nostrils flare like a horse as she whinnies to a climax.
    "Not knickers, pet. My-ka-nos, the Greek island. Seven days for three hundred quid." I shift my briefcase from one arm to the other, aching to be gone. But Sparky's only getting started. "I've been to Mykanos before of course. That was one of my holiday's without mother. I met a very nice gentleman there."
    "Really?" I say, feigning interest.
    "Yes, Demetrios."
    I see Eva come down the hall. Her face is full of thunder as she barges past me, sweeps her chair clear of mess and collapses onto it. I'm itching with curiosity to know what's going on, but don't know how to curtail Sparky's trip down memory lane.
    "He was a very good lover, if I remember rightly," she says, fiddling with her plum tinted hair. An image hops into my mind of Sandra doing a slow striptease for Demetrios. Rolling off polyester separates to reveal a white wobbly body.
    "Sounds great," I gulp.
    "Shocked you, haven't I?"
    "Not at all," I say, stumbling backwards against the corner of a desk. I grimace as a spear of pain shoots through my left buttock. Behind me, Eva is loudly opening and closing her desk drawers and rifling through them while Sparky rambles on.
    "Sorry, what?" I say, biting my lip as the pain in my bum slowly subsides.
    Sparky's getting up and