The Vice President of the firm invited him back to his office after lunch to continue their discussions and Howard accepted. He wasn’t sure where the discussions would lead, but he felt a responsibility to himself to find out. By the end of the day, he found himself bent over the executive’s desk, poring over a tentative layout of a new project. When the vice president’s secretary Barbie brushed against his rear as she delivered cups of coffee to the two men, thrills of excitement ran up and down Howard’s spine.

 

Howard stopped by the secretary’s desk after the meeting was over to arrange to have copies of the layout sent to his office. After a few minutes of cordial conversation, he found himself offering to take Barbie out for a bite to eat after work. He didn’t exactly intend anything untoward by the offer, it simply felt like the appropriate thing to do under the circumstances. The dewy-eyed woman accepted readily and the date was set. He met Barbie at a restaurant not far from the company and they shared such an enjoyable meal together that Howard impulsively made another dinner date with her for the next day. One thing lead to another and within a week Barbie was making dinner for him at her apartment.

 

Barbie’s apartment was exactly as he expected. It was a one room efficiency with a small but adequate kitchen for cooking. The wall-to-wall carpet was the same color of shabby grey-green shag that he had seen in innumerable apartments when he was in college. The furniture had the slightly worn institutional look that indicated it was probably owned by the apartment complex rather than having been purchased by Barbie. The room had an inexpensive but adequate stereo system next to a medium sized TV. She had stored her tiny collection of CDs and DVDs on the bookshelves over the stereo system. The paucity of books on the built-in shelves as well as the small size of her audio and video collection indicated she did not have a very active intellectual life. From Howard’s point of view, Barbie was merely a bubble-headed bimbo.