The Sex War

He sleepily propped himself against her door. 'Anything happen?'

'The sky fell in, that's all.'

He surveyed her through lowered lids, unexcited. 'Any casualties?'

'Charles rang. He sounded like a man in a state of panic. He wanted to know when you meant to get off your chair and do something to find The Face.'

'Did he ask where I was?'

'What do you think?' Lindsay leaned back in her chair and smiled at him. 'I told him you were out hunting for the girl of his dreams.'

Chris put two fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss, and she laughed, shaking her head at him.

'He also asked if you'd have lunch with him,' she pointed out. 'So that he could harangue you on the subject for a few hours.'

'What did you tell him?'

'That I thought you had an appointment.'

'So I do,' said Chris, ruffling his blond hair thoughtfully as he stared at her. 'And so do you, my angel.'

'Do I?' She leaned over to flick open her desk diary. 'I haven't written it down—who with?'

'Me,' he said. 'We're going to have a long, quiet lunch and put our thinking caps on…'

'I thought you had yours on already,' she said, glancing down at the pile of work she had in front of her. 'Chris, I've got to get all this stuff done.' She had been working flat out since nine o'clock that morning, but she didn't seem to have made any dent in the work which had been piling up in her in-tray for days. None of it was urgent, which was why she had left it untouched for so long, but it had to be done sooner or later, and she was in the right mood to be efficient.

'It can wait,' Chris said as he strolled away. Lindsay glared after him—that was the motto he lived by, everything could wait and usually did. What was amazing was that he got away with it. Problems he left unsolved seemed to solve themselves, letters that didn't get written ceased to be necessary, people he ignored went away without complaining. He was just born lucky, she decided.

'Lady on the phone, came out in a rash after using Moonglow Seventy-Nine,' her secretary said on the intercom, and, sighing, Lindsay picked up the phone, her voice automatically becoming soothing, horrified, sympathetic.

She had no sooner put down the phone again than her door opened and one of Vivons sales team came in to complain about the way complaints were handled by the office. 'I'm sick of promising we'd look into it,' he said, perching on her desk and picking up her pen. She watched him doodling with it on a spare piece of paper as he talked.

'I'll give the complaints section a talking-to,' she promised.

'Don't forget,' he said, sliding off the desk. He looked at her with appreciation and gave a coaxing grin. 'Have lunch with me and we'll discuss it further.'

'Sorry, I have a date.' Lindsay put out her hand. 'Thank you.'

He was putting her pen into his jacket pocket. Blankly, he said: 'What?'

'Pen,' she said.

'Oh, sorry, just habit,' he said, handing the pen back with his eyes on the smooth, curve of her figure from her high, rounded breasts to her slim hips. He backed out, talking and staring. Lindsay made a face at the door after it had shut behind him. He had a fantastic sales record, buyers ate out of his hand, and she could see why: he responded to women like a man in a desert spotting an oasis, and most buyers working with cosmetics were women, it was not a male territory. Lindsay found it irritating, to try to work with a man who couldn't stop looking at her figure. Given half a chance, he would use his hands as well as his eyes, he was a bottom pincher and an arm fondler. Her. secretary came in, flushed, and wailed: 'I'm black and blue! I should get danger money!'

'Sorry, Ann,' said Lindsay, laughing. 'Next time he comes in, keep the desk between you,' and Ann said she would remember that.

Lindsay dictated several letters, read a few of the snarling memos which their managing director was fond of despatching around the building, then tried to get back to her paperwork, only to have Chris saunter in and ask: 'Coming?'

'It isn't lunchtime already!' she protested, looking at her watch. It was almost one o'clock. 'Where's the morning gone?' Lindsay moaned, pushing back her chair and getting up. 'I haven't done anything!'

'You should be organised,' Chris told her. 'Like me.' He yawned, his thumbs in his jeans back pockets, and she eyed him with suppressed fury. A lot of the paperwork she was wading through should have gone to him, but if it had, he would have dealt with it by the simple method of screwing it up and chucking it into the nearest wastepaper basket.

'I'm going to the cloakroom,' she announced with dignity, and walked out. The office was almost empty, everyone else had gone to lunch, only the office junior remained at her desk, eating an apple and drinking a low-calorie orange juice.

As Chris and Lindsay left five minutes later, the girl smiled at them, gazing at Chris with wide-eyed eagerness. Everyone in the office liked him, he had a smile for everyone, but then they didn't have to do his work for him, they didn't have to run around in his wake dealing with all the problems Chris decided to ignore.

He took her to lunch at a small back-street restaurant that took its time over serving you and didn't seem to mind how long you took to eat your meal. The menu was limited and Italian, groaning with calories. Lindsay skipped past the tempting pasta and ordered melon, then chose a main course of chicken with a side salad. Chris ate his way through a banquet, rich in sauces and highly spiced, but then he always did eat without caring about calories and got away with it. He was as thin as a rake, it wasn't fair.