Quite well.

Truth to tell, Adam had independently checked out Indus Tree a couple of times, on those rare occasions when his lunchtime was not booked solid, or when he could at least offer the place as a rendezvous. He enjoyed its lunch buffet, as well as its giant screen TV showing ludicrous but often quite sexy music videos, and he had even enjoyed a couple of trysts from among the lovely young Indian executive ladies who frequented the place. In that moment, however, he felt no particular need to share any of this with Linda.

"The Jamzoom party is back this way," a waitress informed Linda, and she led them to a booth far in back. Adam saw a head rise and turn, a quite regal beauty in early middle age, her hair lustrously black but with a few slim streaks of white. The woman, evidently recognizing Linda, smiled as they approached.

"Yutra, I'm so very sorry," said Linda, "but Adam here is a very busy and very valuable man, and sometimes it's all I can do to have him to myself."

Can we please discuss business? Adam wished he could joke. He bowed slightly. "Ms. Jamzoom, I'm pleased to meet you, I'm Adam Ziktor."

The booth was a semi-circle, and Linda had Adam sit beside Yutra. "Where's Srevika?" Linda wondered.

"My daughter will be back shortly ... So, Adam, you and I have never done business before. What are you thinking, I wonder?"

"I'm thinking that your Wuttajavlin Group should find Ubiquitron to be a good friend."

"I hope so. I will be frank: I was very tempted to take my business elsewhere. But I know and respect Linda, and she speaks very highly of you."

Adam took a sip of water, to cover his embarrassment at finally having taken a good look at Ms. Yutra Jamzoom. In sum, his reaction to her was something along the lines of ZOWIE! Yutra possessed not only a kind of smug imperial beauty, but one hell of an impressive bosom, one that somehow managed to stay not only high and proud but more a pair of forward-thrusting cones than simple spheres. Adam could not help but imagine that the poor woman had just been stabbed in the back by a couple of mortar shells.

Before Adam could dream up some clever response, he noticed a young woman approaching them in a clingy sparkling dress. She rolled her eyes as she sat back down. "I'm so sorry, Mother, sometimes there's just no getting off the phone!" She smiled brightly as she noticed Adam.

"My dear," said Yutra, "our hosts from Ubiquitron. Srevika, this is Linda Redstone, and this is Adam Ziktor."

"Charmed, I'm sure," said Srevika, lifted a glass of water as a toast.

"As am I," responded Adam. And he was, too. Srevika was no less a beauty than her mother -- and her bosom, though more conventionally rounded, appeared to be no less mountainous. All in all, he felt very fortunate indeed to have been so thoroughly drained, sexually, by the commercial shoot.

"If I may say so," Adam ventured to Yutra, "Ubiquitron considers Rakorama to be seriously undervalued -- "

"We can talk business later," soothed Yutra. "Tell me, what does a man like you do? What does he enjoy?"

Adam felt a bit off balance. He had prepared himself for all kinds of questions, and yet this particularly simple and obvious and personal question revealed to him a peculiar void. What DID he enjoy -- besides, obviously, sex, which was perhaps not the first best fact to volunteer? Now that he stopped to consider it, he really did not engage in any standard male-bonding activities -- hell, even Irving Korbs leaving him with an electronic spy doll was simply another commentary on sex.

Linda patted his arm. "Adam swims."

Adam kept silent, as that was not strictly true. He was good at swimming when he had to be, but it was not as if he kept up on it.

"So swimming is a sport for you, is it?" pressed Yutra.

"Actually ... ice hockey." At least, he knew that what he saw of it excited him.

"You've played?" Yutra wondered.

"Oh no, I can't skate worth a ... darn. But I admire anyone who can skate, especially figure skaters." And in particular one figure skater he once had a bit of a crush on.,p>"There is no ice hockey in Rakorama," Yutra noted. "You must explain it to us someday, and after that, we swim."

Adam flashed a frown at Linda. Linda knew full well that his swimming in public could get testy due to the near impossibility of his ever finding adequately modest swimwear. But Linda just smiled.

(Originally posted to the BE Addventure by DruulEmpire)