It was 10 November, and the temperature in Adamsville, Ohio, was minus two degrees Celsius. The underfloor heating ducts pumped out warm air for all they were worth, their strenuous effort masked by the quiet and gentle hush of blowing air, which was the only sound that could be heard in Harry Slan’s office.

Harry Slan sat down at his desk. It was two minutes to nine, and he was frozen stiff. He stared through the window, the lower half of which was misted up, at the glow of the weak sun on the snow-covered ground, and at a gritting truck that moved slowly down the road outside, its blue lights flashing brightly.

There was a large pile of mail on his desk, which he looked forward to opening. He enjoyed opening mail, especially when he couldn’t tell from the outside what the contents were, or who this or that letter was from. There was always a chance it could be from some anonymous benefactor enclosing a cheque for vast riches – unlikely, as he knew, but possible.

Third down in the pile was a postcard from a workmate on holiday in Hawaii. The picture showed a glorious stretch of white beach, with a scattering of yachts anchored a short way out to sea. A grin came across his face as he cast his mind back to Chanson II. Nearly two months had passed since that glorious, incredible, utterly decadent, utterly filthy, most wonderful long weekend of his life. He had toyed with the idea of writing to Eva, but fear of being discovered by his wife, Myrtle, had so far prevented him. On many occasions during the past six weeks he had sat back, his eyes open, but the shutters at the back of them drawn, his mind four thousand miles away, inside a body that lay on soft cushions on a hard teak deck, under the glow of a hot mediterranean sun, out of sight of the rest of the boat, while his stunning German beauty gently nibbled away at a very hard object she had just removed from his bathing trunks.

He was snapped out of his reveries by the sound of his office door opening, and Matt Krosnick, the chief engineer of the Adamsville plant of American Fossilized Corporation, came in. It was Thursday morning, inspection morning, when the two of them would walk through the entire plant.

‘Morning, Matt,’ said Slan. He started to get up from his desk, and then stopped, and felt himself blush a little, and tried not to blush, which made things worse. He couldn’t stand up, not in front of anyone, not right now: he had a gigantic erection.

‘Morning, Harry,’ Krosnick looked at him oddly. ‘Oh – you haven’t finished your mail. Want me to come back in ten minutes?’

‘No,’ said Slan, desperately wanting him to go away and come back in ten minutes. ‘No, don’t worry.’