Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 <p>The next fortnight turned out to be hectic.  I spent a couple of days
sorting out the CareSpan project plan, mapping out initial impressions of
staff strengths and interests (from their CVs) against the organisations
targets and ambitions.  These would feed into the early scoping interviews
with senior staff and thereafter the CastList model that would eventually
produce the bulk of the outcome.  Simultaneously, I was dealing with Debbie
at PCW and beginning to engage with the American side of the operation. 
The former simply involved arranging a move in date and ordering stuff for
"my" new offices at Hertford Square- basically a couple of PCs for the
Linux side of things and some white boards.  (PCW being PCW these turned
out to be the interactive, electronic variety: Apparently they didn't know
there was another type.)

   As for the States, actual conversations turned out to be limited - I
quickly realised that Carla was even busier than usual - but e-mails were
extremely frequent and from a bewildering number of different people in C's
organisation.  Virtually all of these concerned money and corporate
technicalities which I simply didn't understand and frankly I asked Debbie
so many questions that she finally just got me to forward them on to her to
deal with.  Which delegation worked surprisingly well - at least for me -
until the thorny issue of the details of corporate structures finally had
to be resolved.

   At this point I also became aware that at some point I had been
allocated a basic salary of euro 100k, which Debbie had helpfully
negotiated up to 150k - plus bonuses.  Which was OK: I couldn't possibly
imagine spending that much in a year but I knew that there were loads of
charities around who undoubtedly could, so...</p><p> It became a problem,
though, when I suggested that the operation should be as far as possible
worker owned.  OK, Carla and PCW had put up a lot of dosh, but future
activities - and the return on their investment - would depend on the
people doing the business.  Specifically, me and the people working with
me. So I thought it was only fair that they should have a stake in the
thing - preferably at least a fifty per cent stake.  And, I felt, there
should be a strict limit on the salary range within the team - a crucial
word, from my point of view - so that no-one could earn more than five
times more than anyone else.  This last went down like the proverbial lead
balloon.</p><p> Even Carla - who presumably had a better idea of where I
was coming from than most, given that she'd got me into this in the first
place - seemed appalled that we could be employing a photocopier assistant
on euro 30k a year.  Personally, I couldn't see why we would be *employing*
a photocopier assistant in the first place - the things aren't that
complicated - but it was a matter of principle for me, and thus
non-negotiable.

   I'd already had my feet under the (trendy, solid ash) desk and my bum on
the all singing, all dancing executive chair for a few days when all this
came to a head.  Actually, I'd just shown CareSpan's Head of Finance out of
the office (why use their place for interviews when I had such a nice space
available?) when Debbie came in.  Specifically, Debbie came into the office
looking unusually severe, with a crease to her business trousers you could
have cut yourself on and a look on her face that would have terrified a
lesser man.  Or maybe just a more observant one.

   "Have you seen this?" she said, brandishing an e-mail print out.

   "Umm, no, probably - I thought that was your job.  The detail stuff,
anyway ..."

   "My job, Dave, is to maximise my employer's shareholders' returns." I
was impressed that she managed to keep a straight face.  "Not", she went
on, "to wipe your bloody arse!"

   OK, it was serious.  I'd never seen Debbie lose her rag before.  I
stopped scrolling through CastList code and sat up facing her, looking for
a clue as to what the problem might actually be.

   "Your American friends are sending some guy called Zhu Lui over to meet
with my bosses to, and I quote, 'finally resolve outstanding difficulties'.
From this, it appears that he might just get round to meeting you at some
point as well.  It looks to me, though, like politics hereabouts have just
shifted to a higher plane ...  and we're not in a particularly brilliant
position."

   Brilliantly, my brain focused on the 'we' for a moment - quite a happy
moment - before engaging with the issue at hand.  I took the e-mail from
her, quickly read it.  We had a week, basically, I mused.  Not a lot of
time for politics, even if I wasn't committed to spending so much of my
time with CareSpan - in fact I was due to meet their Chief Exec, May, that
afternoon.  I decided to do what I do best in a crisis: Delegate.

   Debbie didn't look remotely surprised when I asked her what she would
do.

   "Think, obviously.  Which requires both caffeine and nicotine on both
our parts.  So I suggest a quick trip to Romano's - let me just let the
boss know that I have some more than usually complex hand holding to do and
won't be back for him to patronise ..."

   She made the call on the way down the street, while I took the
opportunity to get hold of May and suggest that she try the cafe first in
case I wasn't back in time.  Debbie bought the coffees - it occurred to me
that I was now possibly earning more than *her*, though for how much longer
was in some doubt - and thus gave me time to write a short list of options,
which I handed to her as she sat down.

   "Hmmm ...  OK.  Lets see.  Three options, then?", she said, glancing at
me over the paper.  "Give in, walk away or come up with something
brilliant." She paused.  "You know, I think this may be quite the best
strategic options paper I've ever seen.  And produced so quickly, too."

   Even I can recognise sarcasm - or was it irony?  - when I hear it, so I
felt the need to explain.  Which I did: I felt that I could simply agree to
be an employee of a conventional company - at least in theory - or I could
just go back to doing what I'd been doing before, which is to say broke but
almost completely unstressed.  Alternatively, I thought it might be
possible to pull some sort of *force majeure* in the next few days. 
Getting a few employees in on binding contracts might complicate the matter
a bit, I thought, and there were Carla's frequent references to my being
'indispensable' to the operation - and presumably to PCW, too.  Though
admittedly the latter was not something I actually wanted to rely on, while
the former would be difficult to do and - even if successful - would simply
make things difficult in the future.

   Debbie thought so, too.  "Actually, you'd have difficulty in recruiting
at the moment - the corporation doesn't legally exist until all this stuff
is sorted out.  Not to mention the fact that we'd have to find people in
days.  Against that, though ...  frankly I don't see what the Lords and
Masters back at PCW see in you [she did smile, slightly, as she was saying
this] but I can tell you for a fact that they wouldn't touch you with a
bargepole if they didn't think there was money in it.  So you do have that
as an edge.  Shame that the basic software this is all based on is in the
public domain, of course - you may - or may not - have some unique skills,
but there's always someone else out there willing to bodge things if you
don't."

   She paused, sipped her coffee and took a drag on the roll up.  "You
could just compromise, of course.  You'd still end up rich and might still
have some sort of positive influence - you know, humanising global
capitalism and all that bollocks you were talking when we first
met."</p><p> I shook my head.  "Bollocks or not, the Unique Selling Point,
so far as I can see, is precisely that this is a different approach to
managing people.  Which I think necessitates practising what we preach. 
Actually, I don't think that: I know that.  I would rather walk away
completely, let them either drop the idea or have someone else balls it up,
that's up to them."

   She looked thoughtful.  "Yeah, I thought that would be the line."
Shrugged.  "Actually, I'd have been disappointed if it hadn't been.  I'd
hate to think of you as just another bullshit merchant, talking the talk
right up to the point that serious money enters the equation." </p><p> She
paused and I began to interject - something self effacing, lovably modest,
you know the score - but she went on, resignedly.  "I've been working with
you for a week now and in that time you haven't patted my bum, stared at my
tits or even developed sudden deafness when I made a suggestion.  Ten years
at PCW and that is one hell of a breath of fresh air, believe me ...  So,
I'd like to help any way I can."

   "And sod the shareholders' returns?  That might not be a brilliant
career move if/when this whole thing goes pear shaped."</p><p> "Sod the
shareholders, the management, the executive, the subsidised sodding staff
canteen." She laughed.  "Yeah, even unto the highly generous Pension Plan
and comprehensive private health care."

   Which was a bit of a turn up for the books.  I thought for a second - my
coffee was untouched but cold, I noticed - then acted on impulse.

   "If you feel like that about PCW, why not relocate to Hertford Square,
at least *pro tem*?  I mean, you could tell your lot that it was necessary
in a last ditch attempt to get me back on track - no point in burning any
boats - while I could use someone competent around the place at the moment.
Also, it would be nice to work more closely with you while we have the
chance ..."

   She gave me an old fashioned sort of look, saying merely, "Why, Dave,
and I never knew you cared ..."

   "Oh, shit ..." I said, quickly "...  Sorry.  I mean, if that sounded
like some sort of chat up line ...  like I was coming on to you ...  well,
look, I'm sorry ..."

   She leant forward, cupped my chin in her hand and asked seriously, "And
quite would that be such a disaster, Dave?"

   I didn't get a chance to respond.  Her eyes flicked away from mine,
looking over my shoulder.  I turned and saw May coming into the cafe,
smiling happily and waving at us both.

   *** *** ***

   Debbie left to go back to PCW after all, and I finally got to drink a
coffee with May, who was in expansive and relaxed mood.  She'd just come
from a management team meeting, she explained, and people were already
excited by the way the project was going: How the questions we'd been
asking had made them think, some of the new ideas it had suggested.  I
pointed out that it was early days yet and that the proof of the thing -
actually, the interesting bit - was involving the more junior staff, given
that the executive worked closely together and might be expected to agree
on a lot of things.

   I probably sounded a bit glum in saying this because she asked me what
was wrong - and why I was sitting in a cafe in the first place.  So I
explained some of what had been going on, and the decisions that needed to
be made.  Unsurprisingly, she agreed totally that "selling out", as she put
it, was not an option but didn't come up with anything brilliantly new,
either.  I did reassure her that the work I was doing with CareSpan was not
a problem, though, given that I didn't have an exclusive contract - any
contract at all, actually - with my putative other employers and anyway
could be presented to the latter as a useful exercise in honing the
CastList toolset.  So we went back to the office and talked about CareSpan.

   Which was a useful meeting - we got the CastList matrix pretty much
resolved, at least in an alpha version, and had a perfectly pleasant
afternoon to boot.  I kept one eye on both my e-mail in-box and my mobile
but there was no further contact from either PCW or California - it seemed
I was definitely out of the loop, a fact that bothered me a great deal less
than it probably ought to have done.  In fact by the end of the afternoon I
was feeling about as relaxed as I had for some weeks: May was very easy
going company - how did she ever get to be a chief exec, I wondered?  - but
I was also firmly back in my comfort zone, doing stuff I knew I was good
at, making a contribution I was sure of.  </p><p> I was more than happy to
take up her offer of a drink at the end of the day, again, so we walked
back down to the river, going to the Barrowboy, a barn of a pub just on the
south end of London Bridge but which had friendly staff and was close to
May's train home.  That it was just over the road from PCW's offices only
occurred to me as we were on our way but once it did I thought I'd give
Debbie a ring on the off chance she fancied a quick half, too.

   She did.  In fact, she was at the bar when we arrived, fending off the
attentions of a bunch of guys who turned out to be from PCW, too.  OK, so
it was a poor choice of pub after all.  And maybe I should have mentioned
that May was going to be there, too.  Still - an interesting exchange of
dirty looks - from the PCW gorillas at some hippy usurping their evening's
plaything and, more restrainedly, from Debbie towards May.  Well, I
thought, file that one for future reference, however unjustified.  We
repaired to a conveniently vacant table, supped drinks for a while in
companionable silence.  Or silence, anyway.

   I broke the ice with some formal reintroductions but May saved the day
by being exceptionally charming - probably, I realised, the secret of her
success, professionally.  Debbie relaxed very quickly and was soon sharing
her news: Her boss had agreed to the suggestion that she should relocate
for the immediate future - with a subtle barb or two about her risking
going native or otherwise being tainted by the experience - and had also
implied that things were even less rosey than we had thought, in terms of
PCWs attitude to the project.  Apparently, they really had only bought into
it on the basis that Carla was so enthusiastic and now found themselves
dealing with less convincing people over the water - I guessed the
mysterious Zhu Lui - while I was acting like some sort of anarchist and ...
well, they had a bad case of cold feet.  Possibly to the chilblains stage.
And not showing any signs of improvement.

   All of which was hardly promising news but was at least a significant
increase in the data we had to go on.  We toasted the spy - discretely, the
gorillas were still at the bar, albeit involved in an interminable
arguments about (what else?) football - and got down to discussing options.

   I'm not quite sure how May got to be so centrally involved with the
discussion, or why she was quite so interested in how everything panned out
- the work I was doing for her would be completed regardless - but she
turned out to be a veritable fount of ideas, and of common sense, both of
which we needed.  After a lot of debate, we agreed that I would make a
concerted effort to actually talk to Carla directly and get her back on
board - I had to explain the details of my previous relationship with the
woman, which got me a couple of pointed looks - while Debbie would do what
she could with PCW.  Central in all of this, we realised - OK, May rather
forcefully pointed out - was using the CareSpan work as a practical
demonstration, given that no-one else involved had ever actually seen a
completed CastList project.  And, conveniently, it was a big enough charity
to draw useful parallels between its experience and the corporates our
"partners" were targeting.

   All of which felt good, and would have done even without the alcohol
that had liberally fuelled proceedings.  When May left for her train, she
got a hug from both of us, hugged both of us just as enthusiastically back.
Debbie and I lingered on the pavement for a while, smoking.  I tried
phoning Carla but got her voice mail again.  Debbie took a call herself,
wandering a few paces away as she talked to whoever and then returned
smiling slightly bashfully.</p><p> "Sorry about that ...  just ..." she
paused ..."A Friend." Another pause.  "But anyway - I really should be
going.  One thing, though?  Tomorrow morning, given that I'm going to be
seconded to you, what's the corporate dress code?"

   "God knows - there isn't one and isn't going to be one while I'm
around." My turn to pause, looking carefully at her now slightly rumpled
suit.  "Personally, though, the dominatrix look never did anything much for
me, so ..."

   She stuck her tongue out at me.  "Your wish is my command..."

   God knows what that meant, I thought, but by then she was off into the
night.

   *** *** ***

   I never did get to speak to Carla before the crucial meetings but I did
establish some contact via e-mail.  She was apologetic - some vague
reference to personal stuff (Ah, Mr Snorey, I thought) and to how she had
thought her crew were capable of handling stuff - until she let them try.
It occurred to me that throughout the whole time she was in London she had
hardly ever referred to colleagues - I had originally thought she was
pretty much a one woman band - which I thought might show a lack of
practice in co-operative working, possibly even an explanation for current
difficulties.  More positively, she was cautiously supportive of those
ideas of mine that had got us into this position in the first place and had
informed the Zhu Lui person to meet me in person as soon as possible on
arriving in London.  I wondered for a moment if this would involve cloak
and dagger stuff at the airport, again, avoiding meeters and greeters from
PCW but just smiled at the thought.  ZL could handle it, I supposed, being
an Executive Specialist and all.</p><p> I certainly wouldn't be going to
the airport this time, that was for sure: I was now far too busy getting
the CareSpan work to a stage that it could be usefully presented.  May was
hugely useful in helping to accelerate the process, a fact that was
probably helped by my agreeing to waive my previously arranged consultancy
fees.  Which I suppose reflected a growing faith, at least on my part, in
the ultimate success of the venture - or at least a belief that we now had
a fighting chance.</p><p> Another factor contributing to this was Debbie,
who was now working full time out of Hertford Square - and had shown such a
knack for the CastList model that she was already doing some of the
interviews.  Only slightly less significant was that she'd introduced a
very pale looking, gangly young man called Naz, apparently, who she
described as a refugee from the PCW IT crew.  I admit I wasn't all that
taken with him at first - he turned up wearing a ridiculously ill fitting
suit and a surly expression.  Once the rules had been made clear and he was
back in his natural colours (very tight jeans and offensive t-shirts,
generally) and working to his own rules (I was sure I could smell dope
smoke lingering whenever he came back in from his frequent breaks) he
turned out to be a very quick, very accurate C++ programmer who actually
knew his way around Windows.  Not the worlds greatest conversationalist,
but capable of sitting in a corner and writing code with the best of
them.</p><p> And that was the team we had assembled when Zhu Lui finally
pitched up, as agreed, to meet with us prior to having any contact with the
PCW crew.  It was quite nice having Carla back on side, at least to some
extent.

   *** *** ***

   The morning of the fateful meeting I was at the office by eight but I
was still beaten in by Debbie.  She was sitting at her desk, chewing a pen
and looking thoughtful.  She was also - I was surprised to notice so
immediately - back in the suit, this time a severe black number with a deep
blue (silk?) blouse.  I'd got so used to her in jeans and combats that I
was quite taken aback.  She noticed, stood up, did a little twirl.  Hmm. 
Much shorter skirt than I thought was standard for office wear, and higher
heels than I'd ever seen her in before.  She laughed at my expression. 
"May not do anything for you, but sometimes sex sells and I'm not going to
miss any chances ...  I mean I'll be back in PCW soon, anyway, so what the
hell, eh?"

   This time my witty riposte - actually it was going to be a quizzical
riposte but the distinction was irrelevant as yet again it was interrupted
by an arrival - this time of Naz.  Naz, never previously seen in the office
before 10, undoubtedly there at just gone eight ...  and wearing what
looked like a brand new suit - and one that actually fitted him.

   "Debbie bought it for me", he said.  "Thought it might make a bit of a
difference" I agreed it did, and told Debbie that she could take the cost
on expenses except that she quickly told me that she already had.  Ah well
- hands off management and all that.  And, anyway, I was still wondering
whether it could be true that Naz was actually *not stoned*.  Wonders would
never cease ...

   And, for the immediate future, they didn't.  First there was Naz making
coffee for us all, then the arrival of a FedEx guy with a large package
which turned out to be a rather pleasant glass sculpture, enclosed with an
encouraging message from Carla, no less.  Granted, I wasn't quite sure why
we needed a sculpture (let alone one just air freighted across the
Atlantic) and the message said something like "For gods sake get your act
together and make us all lots of money" but I reckoned it was the thought
that counted and carefully put the thing somewhere Naz couldn't trip over
it when he went back to being stoned.

   Or, I thought more realistically, *if* he went back to being stoned.  At
least around here.

   But no sense in depressing the troops, so we all went to our respective
desks and pretended to look busy for a while.  Until the next visitor,
which turned out to be May, this time bearing a large bunch of flowers and
generally exuding good luck wishes.  OK, so we had to borrow a vase from
the architects upstairs but again ...  its the thought that counts and all
that.

   It was also a useful opportunity to review for the fiftieth time our
tactics for the plenary in the afternoon, when we were due to give the full
scale presentation to both PCW and Zhu Lui and at which May was, we hoped,
going to make a significant impact.  As, it turned out, she did.  If not
quite in the way we were expecting.

   Before that, however, we had to do the individual stuff, and get Zhu Lui
if not on our side at least off our backs.  Was that mixing metaphors? 
Frankly, I was too wired to care.  I wasn't even that surprised when
reception buzzed up to announce that our visitor was at the door - and a
couple of hours early.  Well, maybe there had been some confusion about
time zones or something.

   In any case, I went down to do the welcome, showing May out at the same
time.  Which I was bizarrely grateful for, given that it confirmed that it
wasn't merely my assumptions that caused me to experience quite such a
double take.  As, standing in the lobby waiting for us was not the
be-suited or be-chinoed Chinese American guy I'd been expecting but an
incredibly diminutive woman, dressed all in black and carrying nothing but
the smallest laptop I'd ever seen.  I did the introductions, briefly, then
excused myself to show May out the door.

   I thanked her for the flowers again, hoped that we would see her later.

   "Oh, you bloody bet you will," she breathed into my ear.  "Isn't she
just so bloody *cute*?"

   *** *** ***

   There's a lot that could be said about the morning's meeting, but none
of it would be good.  Frankly, somehow, we just got off on the wrong foot
and never quite got back onto the right one.  In part this was because I
attempted to go into some detail about the project while Lui appeared to
feel that she was an expert on the subject already (quite how escaped me as
she clearly hadn't a clue) and merely wished to discuss the contentious
issues of structure and pay ranges.  My attempts to counter on the basis
that such things were not corporate apostasy but actually integral to what
was potentially a new approach to business did not go down well.  Hell,
she'd probably spent a lot of money getting truck loads of MBAs and things
so it probably shouldn't have come as any great surprise that her world
view was a bit, well, settled.

   To cut a long story short, we failed miserably to agree on pretty much
anything and by the end of the morning all of our tempers were getting
short - except Naz who looked alternately confused and depressed, probably
seeing the prospect of a return to corporate IT looming only too clearly in
the near future.  I even bailed out of going to lunch with the woman on the
dubious basis that she did appear to listen to at least some of the points
Debbie put to her and that I could have a last shot at getting Carla
engaged again.

   So off they went, and I spent a couple of fruitless hours phoning and
e-mailing the states with increasing urgency - including yelling at the
Bronstein Associates switchboard that several million dollars were at
stake. Which clearly impressed them, but didn't actually achieve anything.
So I just got despondent, gave Naz the afternoon off and kind of vaguely
hoped that plan B (Debbie getting Ms Zhu completely plastered at lunch)
might just succeed after all.

   Once again, I was a less than happy punter as I took the (literally and
metaphorically) treacherous steps down to PCW HQ.  Waiting in the lobby
were Debbie and Lui - pretty much ignoring each other, I noticed - and May,
who was, by contrast, chatting amiably with our guest.  No idea what that
was all about but I conjured up a stiff upper lip and rejoined the fray,
hopefully looking a bit more positive than I actually felt.

   That the afternoon presentation was merely inconclusive was probably, in
the circumstances, something of a result.  May of course, was brilliant,
subtly but effectively overstating the effect that our work was having on
her organisation while Debbie managed to parlay that into more mainstream
corporate terms with some aplomb.  Even I managed to talk reasonably
fluently on the importance of flat management structures, role flexibility,
shared responsibility and all such good - if somewhat vague - things.  The
ghost at the feast was Ms Zhu, however.  Admittedly, she never actually
opposed what we were saying, but her silences could be just as eloquent. 
While there was never a moment of failure, I felt the thing slipping away
throughout the afternoon.  It was almost a relief when some random guy in a
suit declared that they'd heard enough and would look forward to making a
decision with Zhu Lui the next morning.

   *** *** ***

   Debbie and I ended up back out on the street without the others.  I
assumed that Lui had been taken into conclave by some executive or another,
while May had last been seen heading for a bathroom ...  and quite possibly
was even now blagging corporate sponsorship off some hapless apparatchik.
We didn't really have much to say to each other, but sort of instinctively
headed into a pub - not the one over the road, but one a little further
from the scene of the debacle.  And we sat there in silence until my mobile
rang, followed a second or two later by Debbie's.

   My call was - with perfect timing, I thought - from Carla.  I wasn't
exactly thrilled to hear from her at that point and probably made that very
clear.  Nonetheless, she was friendly enough but curiously distracted given
that I was describing the probable failure of a venture that had been her
idea in the first place and from which she had once hoped to make a very
large amount of money.  She didn't even react much when I expressed a few
choice words about her representative on (this side of) Earth.  It was a
thoroughly frustrating conversation, the more so when I recalled the witty
and vivacious woman I'd met barely a month before.  Thinking that, I
remembered myself to ask her if there was something dreadfully wrong but
she said something non committal, told me she'd check with Zhu Lui later
and rang off.

   I swore, extensively, then looked up and saw Debbie looking at me with a
strange, unbelieving sort of smile on her face.  Great, I thought.  Glad to
know that I can still give people amusement.  Then the flash of anger
passed and I realised that whatever the hell was going on, Debbie wasn't
laughing *at* me.

   "Salvation may come from unlikely places," she said.  "That was May. 
Lui's just agreed to go out to dinner with her, maybe a club afterwards ...
I said to put it all on our expenses, hope that's OK." And she started
laughing uproariously.

   *** *** ***

   We only got the full story the next afternoon, just after PCW phoned to
say that the contracts had been signed, all my conditions agreed to, and
they were just waiting for me to drop by and graciously add my thumb print
to a number of documents.  Of course, by that time, we already knew we'd
won - Carla had been on to say congratulations, for a start, not least
because 'if we could convince that b***** Zhu then the rest of the Universe
should be easy'.  Oh, and we'd had another couriered package.  This time
containing a pair of lace panties, very small, and a bundle of
eye-wateringly large receipts.

   We'd given Naz the afternoon off again - after the previous day I was
slightly surprised that he'd turned up in the first place - but he'd stayed
anyway.  Instead of working we were sharing a bottle of wine - yep, we had
to borrow the corkscrew from the architects - listening to some terrible
dance music that Naz had found on the internet and generally being
completely unprofessional.  Well, not *completely* unprofessional: I was
still insisting that Naz went outside for his refreshment.  May turned up
midway through a discussion on where we might want to base the business
after Naz slurred something about there being no actual need to be in
London.

   She looked amazingly good for someone who said she'd got home - or
rather, *to sleep* - at about 5 am.  OK, there was a slight tremor to the
hand and she accepted some wine with unseemly enthusiasm but her hair was
even curlier than normal, her eyes sparkled and, generally, she glowed.  Or
maybe that was because we were looking at not an old friend and
collaborator but something like Salvation incarnate, Buddha and Christ in a
single corporeal frame.

   Although it was hard to imagine either of those two worthies telling the
story she did.  Which was, basically, that she'd picked up a vibe from the
way Lui had been leaning into Debbie when they came in from their lunch
(Debbie hadn't noticed a thing, she said) and basically decided to try a
very old fashioned negotiating technique.  First, just making a lot of eye
contact in the meeting, then catching Lui in the corridor afterwards and,
yes, dropping some papers on the floor and making hand contact too when
both women had knelt to retrieve them.  After that, she said, it was all OK
- a rapid invitation to dinner, a few glasses of wine and then some
champagne, a small club she knew ...  back to Lui's hotel.  All in all, she
commented, the way to a man's heart may be through his stomach, but with a
woman the clitoris was always worth a try...

   I sighed at the political incorrectness of it all, looked at Debbie.  We
started laughing, couldn't stop.</p><p>In the corner, Naz started to snore
quietly ...

   A short postscript

   A few days later I was in the office with Debbie after Naz had gone home
- or somewhere - and I finally asked her if I could ask her a question. 
She looked a bit sheepish, and started before me.

   "If you're going to ask me out, or something, Dave - I mean, y'know
properly, not just for a drink after work - then ...  well, umm - its a bit
complicated." What isn't, I thought to myself.  "Its just that I'm sort of
involved with someone, or not involved but still a bit entangled and he's a
nice guy - you're a nice guy, too, but the answer is yes, I'd love to go
out with you, get to know you better in all sorts of different ways, but
... well, but not yet."

   OK.  Wasn't expecting that.  However, "Actually, I was going to ask you
that - and given what you just said, I undoubtedly will ask you it at some
point in the future.  What I was going to ask you first, though, was
whether you'd like to come and work on this project full time, say as ...
well, decide your own job title, but as general co-ordinator, manager -
chief organising and coping with stuff person, really."

   She smiled.  "Yep, organising and coping - that sounds like a job I
could do.  And god knows, you need it doing ..."

   And she kissed me.  Lightly.  On the cheek.

   ooo+++ooo+++ooo+++ooo

   Did you enjoy this story?  Hate it?  Let me know -
extrusionuk@googemail.com