Peaked too early?

It's been a tough week, and not even SD's goading has forced me to make up the lost words. I'm on 18,500 when my target was 24,000 at the end of day 12. *sob*.

But SD was inspirational last night as we created a slightly monstrous character, with no real purpose in the plot other than to set up a couple of lame gags. Here was a snippet from last night:

“Ohmigod you’ll never guess what,” screeched Libby, the words pouring out. “You know my boss Marina? Well, it turns out she knows Simon McAllister from the old days – and I’m thinking there’s dirt to be dug there! Good job we have an ‘in’ through Jack, who’s most definitely in Marina these days.”

Caro’s boss was Marina Potter, who was managing director of the advertising agency Potter, Powell and Callaghan.

PP&C was a fairly small agency, which was probably past its best. After a flurry of awards a couple of years ago, the agency had started to become a non-entity. All in all, they were solid, acceptable and a little boring.

The same couldn’t be said of Marina. She was an older woman, estimated to be about 49 though some recent Botox treatments seemed to have temporarily frozen the ageing process. She had long brunette hair, which was just a little too long to be chic, and which she tossed around like a schoolgirl, most noticeably when storming out in the office.

She was a great believer in the power suit, though sometimes misjudged the balance between looking appealing or looking slightly tarty, and also provided the occasional sartorial flashbacks to the 1980s. But she had an unmistakeable air of glamour about her, as well as a hint of mystery that came from never having married. The women called her Marina, where more boats had docked at her port than any in the Gulf, while her young male admirers referred to her as MILF, standing for Marina I’d Like to F………

Marina also had a chequered romantic history, which had become legendary in local circles: her preferred flavour was definitely married men, and Caro had her suspicions that a few of the clients on the agency roster had been won through some extracurricular pitching by Marina.

Her current plaything was Jack, one of the account directors at the office. Jack was the office slob. At 29, he had talent and laziness in equal parts. When he felt like exercising his creative streak, he would blow the other account directors away with the audacity and sheer brilliance of his concepts. But that happened about once a month, and the other 30 days were spent either in the pub, or asleep. It had taken Caro a couple of weeks to realise why he was getting away with it.

The rest of the staff were continuously struck dumb by Jack’s lack of effort and by Marina’s unwillingness to get involved. Jack had missed new business pitches (he was watching the Ashes in the pub), failed to turn up for a work trip (he was watching the rugby World Cup in the pub) and missed meetings too countless to mention (he was drinking in the pub). Most mornings, he would stroll into work after 11am, with yesterday’s stubble and his tie askew, and with a distinct smell of beer on his breath.

Yet there was something in his demeanour that made you forgive Jack. He was very tall and a bit lanky, and just looked like an overgrown schoolboy for whom the world was just a little too much. He irritated the hell out of Caro, but she couldn’t help liking him. They had lunch together on the days Jack stayed in the office for longer than two hours, and quite often met for a drink after work. As co-worker relationships went, Caro guessed they were friends.

Marina was too subtle to be overtly biased towards Jack, but he was definitely allowed to get away with most things in return for giving her a MOT (Marina Orgasm Test, as the office called it) from time to time. Caro could tell that Jack had no great feelings towards Marina, and she knew he could prise some information out of her during pillow talk.

Two days later, Caro called with an update. “Jack has agreed to do it – he’s rather turned on by the idea of screwing a woman and actually encouraging her to talk afterwards. He said there was a first time for everything.”