"What a clown," Mark mutters to himself as he tosses open the door to his dressing room and dumps himself into his club chair.

"Whew. Nancy," he says to his go-fer, at the moment waiting in his dressing room for her next assignment, "I guess this world will never stop producing morons. And thank God for it."

"Do you need anything at the moment, Mr. McGovern?"

"Yeah . . . I think right about now I'm in the mood for some sexy figures . . . send Sally and Rachel from bookkeeping in here, will you?"

"Right away, Mr. McGovern."

Nancy exits promptly.

"Ooh, boy," Mark sighs, taking off his shoes and massaging his weary feet.

. . . I don't know how long I can keep this up. The constant grind really seems to be getting to me, Mark thought to himself. Day in, day out. Get up at ten, home at five. Lordy, I don't know a single person in the biz that put's in seven hour work days anymore. . .

Mark continued to stroke his feet and console himself for his treacherously fast-paced work routine. . . . before I know it I'm going to be fat and fifty. If I don't watch myself, I won't live to be fifty. I'm headed straight for a coronary, the way I grind myself. Go, go, go for Mark McGovern. No rest, no relaxation. I'm a man in perpetual motion. My mind runs non-stop. I guess that's why I get the big bucks . . .

Mark smiled smugly.

. . . there are the rewards. He contemplated Butch and Brimstone, the male erotic dancers he'd spent the night with last weekend. They didn't sleep with just anyone. They were the very height of arrogance. They saved themselves for only the best and the brightest, the kind of people who had their own parking space at Zucka Ztudios by the age of thirty-four, the kind of people who owned rooms at the Cardigan Hotel they were so promiscuous--God, I'm so promiscuous, Mark lauded himself--the kind of people who were so chic and stylish that French designers flew to New York and asked their input before the coming season, people, no, not just people, demigods, demigods like Mark. Butch and Brimstone were a triumph. Probably only 1% of the city's very best had had them before. . .

Mark glowed at being part of this select group.

It was true. Butch and Brimstone were a triumph. In total, the duo had deemed only 1453 of the hottest New York celebrities hip enough to be slept with. And Mark could count himself as one of the elite. Butch and Brimstone were definitely a conquest worthy of gloating over. Since Wawonna's new book, REX, had come out, with Butch and Brimstone's sensual forms, in intimate positions with various pedigreed dogs, slathered suggestively over twelve glossy pages, the two hunks were probably the most desired people in the city.

. . . God did they deserve it, Mark shivered. Of course I did have to promise them a spot on the show to get them, but what does that matter? They schmooze favors for sex from all their cohorts. It doesn't demean me that I did a favor for them. I chose to do that favor. I wanted to do that favor. They didn't use me; no one uses Mark McGovern . . .

A cloud of self-doubt came over Mark.

. . . They certainly were enthusiastic though. No one could be that enthusiastic just for a favor. Boy, the way Butch . . .

Mark slipped out of his fantasy as a curt knock sounded against his large, important-looking, embossed door.

. . . huh? What? Oh, I guess that pounding was the door and not Brimst . . .

Mark retrieved his hands that had inadvertantly slipped to his crotch area and spun his chair around, remote ready, and buzzed the door open.

There were Sally and Rachel. An alluring mist enveloped the two women. Both wore tight, tight, tube dresses and assumed poses of unabashed sexuality. Sally straddled the door jam, undulating against the lucky wood so femininely, but oh so firmly. Rachel's hip thrust teasingly against the red fabric of her dress. Her arm glided seductively upward, resting against the doorway--the quintessential do-me pose. She narrowed her eyes as she gazed at Mark and spread her lips quiveringly.

"Hi girls. How's it going?"

"Oh good. How 'bout you?," answers Rachel as the two women stride jauntily into Mark's dressing room.

"Glad you could come. Take a seat. Take a seat."

"Nancy said you wanted some good figures," Sally offers.

"Yeah. Whatcha got for me?"

"This is what I got for you, baby," suggests Sally, as she stands, legs wider than shoulder-width, and pulls a large, leather-bound binder from her cleavage. "The profit breakdown for last quarter."

"Oh God! Oh, you make me shiver when you say that! Run through the numbers with me, quickly!"

Rachel leans sultrily across the desk, her boobs hanging right at Mark's eye level. Pointing at the figures in the binder, Rachel says, "This is advertising revenue. This is production costs. This . . . is your salary."

"I think I came," he pants and collapses back into his chair.

Back where you came from