Okay, so I show up at ten till seven this morning.

That's 6:50 a.m., the time of day I usually spend leaning against a wall in the kitchen, sucking down my first cup of coffee.

I was out of bed, dressed, face nicely scrubbed, and at my desk, ready for this morning's 7:00 a.m. conference-training call in plenty of time.

It's sad to be all alone in the world. Especially in the office at 7:00 in the morning. My trainee, who shall remain nameless, failed to materialize.

I called her office, she wasn't working today.

I dialed into the 800 conferencing number and the internet software (both of which, by the way, cost by the minute) and sat there for fifteen minutes, hoping she'd appear. No dice.

Spending the next hour not working was just...well, it was okay. Because, technically, it was "my" time. The two hours after that...not so forgivable.

That's why I'm not calling Nameless Woman any names, though.

I mean...I was here. I had time on my hands. Writing ensued.

Nameless Woman? Thank you.

When I stopped writing last night, I had the guys in a closet. (I argued with Mac for a week, okay? He was adamant about the closet. There are few things I hate more than losing an argument with an imaginary person, so I gave in and pretended it was my idea in the first place.)

Now I'm sort of brooding over how much UST is too much, you know? This is mostly a case story, with romantic-possibly-leading-to-sexual interludes. So I'm thinking that maybe eight pages of "plot development" that actually contains six pages of UST might be a bit much.

On the other hand, you never go wrong in fandom by assuming the reader mostly wants to read about how amazingly turned on the guys get for each other, right?

If one of the guy's pulse gets a little rapid, if his heart starts racing, if he starts feeling overheated and more than a little overdressed...well, that's what we all live for. If he's standing there, screaming in his mind for his partner to just reach out and grab him already, please, well, that's what we come to slash to read, right?

Besides, it serves Victor right. He hasn't been very cooperative over this story. If he doesn't behave himself, he could wind up standing there, sweating in the dark, for a looong time. I'm just saying. I know I always say, "no character abuse" but there's a certain level of abuse I'm more than happy to inflict on a stubborn, opinionated, uncooperative character, so he'd better watch out.

Anyhow. Where was I?

I could go do some work. It's not inconceivable.

Later note....

My 1:00 conference call dissed me just the way the 7:00 one did. But I've been working, for minutes at a stretch, today.

Also, I wrote two more pages of UST before I got the guys to the smooching stage and then...I forgot how to write about kissing.

The rest of the day will be spent on non-erotic, paid endeavors.