I've been away for a while, mostly on the other side of the planet, down under, as the British would say, which is quite another story, a tale so long and winding that I haven't finished it yet. Plus it contains hardly any of the extreme boobs that My Muse is usually about, so, for the time being, you'll have to be content with what happened after my return from the South Seas.

Jockel, our once-upon-a-time buddy and traitor in my personal Rose War, paid a visit to Hamburg and took the opportunity to bury whatever animosity and tomahawks were around. He's attending a meeting about what they call the Euro-course problem - the DeutschMark dropped a solid 25% after the inauguration of that currency nobody's ever seen. I fly a lot and usually to countries where the buck is the standard foreign currency, so I'm rather concerned about that, too.

Actually that's no reason to forget Jockel's treason, he's only doing his job for the Ministry of Silly Walks in Hanover. But after all, we've been pals for ages, so I'll give him a chance. We meet at "Planten un Blomen", where the Euro-conference takes place. Lots of people around, delegations from all parts of EuroLand, accompanied by the most beautiful secretaries of the world. Especially the Greek delegation made us hold our collective breath for a while - a Venus of Milo and a statuesque Nike of Samothrace. We were still recovering from those divine hip-shimmies, when we burst into a delegation of unknown origin (is Boobland an EU member nowadays?): three very serious, vaguely Balkan but somewhat strained-looking delegados} accompanied by Mishka, Minka and - astonishingly - good old ex VIP hooker Domenica.

So apparently she took a typing course and got straight. While the three ladies parade their HH-bras - which takes quite some time, remember: HH! - I find the time to quote that Domenica interview from 1978 where she remarked that once in London she asked for a bra with cups of her size. The inevitable flat-chested shop attendant replied "Why don't you forget about cups and ask for buckets?".

Animosity everywhere.

And here we have our administrative genius from Hanover, Jockel, beaming like the politico he is - as if we didn't know that he spends most of his office time losing against the local Doom II champion, his secretary. Yes, he has a male secretary. But not today. His company is one of those 48-18-34 impossibilities that corset makers and some morphers dream of... The name, I hear, is Elvira. Not Evita, Elvira. Back at school bespectacled, freckled and frequently overweight gals bore that name, and even today it has some provincial odor about it, so it must be the poor kid's real name. And she, like all the other secretaries, is from a high-brow agency that provides escort & typing services. Looks like the emphasis in this case is on escort, and it explains Domenica's presence. No doubt she's only here as a special consultant.

Gerhard, struck by Elvira's features - a come-true of his most secret dreams - is careless enough to ask for additional info.

She produces a dark blue flyer with a few yellow stars and remarks that the prices are in Euros, not DeutschMarks. Even at first sight - let me have a look at the photocopy - yes, even at second sight there are too many zeroes around that document. traX, after leafing through the flyer remarks that apparently they're using binary notation, which seems as good an explanation as anything else for
"...Additional Services... Euro 1,000 to 10,000...".

Nobody likes to be reminded that he's just not classy enough to have his bills paid for by unnamable companies like, say, Kroopp or Seamens, or the vast bureaucracies that flounder about in Brussels and Strasbourg.

But back to business, after all, we have our good old friend Jockel, we have what traX, in his 3D-slang calls "a valuable morph target" named Elvira, and we have plenty of time to spend. Elvira, we hear, is booked until dawn tomorrow, so it looks like there's a lot of fun ahead, and she gladly consents to "show us around". We end up, inevitably, in a place where she happens to know half the population, all the girls, to be precise. Looks like that's where she hangs her hat whenever her typing services are not required. The establishment is what an agoraphobic interior designer would call cozy, which in this case means pink, pink and still more of that light magenta, all split up into tiny séparées (private booths) to give the customers the illusion of anonymity. In fact that leaves blackmailing to the hands of the usual hard-working criminal. traX spots three video cameras zooming in on our little group as soon as we settle down and get comfortable. Professional UNIX stuff, in his judgment, and he starts fumbling around in that skater's bag he insists on carrying wherever he goes. Elvira "reacts spontaneously" to the heat (the place is lit like the video studio that it is), and right before we all get a glimpse at the surgery marks around her nipples, traX emerges from his toolbox with three toy lasers, battery-operated, mounted on tiny suction-platforms, and starts his personal star war. After a short battle the vidcams look for lesser defended targets, and Elvira has our unshared attendance.

What was I talking about? Ah, surgery marks...

As it looks, they are inevitable on the entertainment-business-type of gal around here. The natural quality usually goes along with puppy fat and bulging tummies, and that is not everybody's slice of pie. There are exemptions, of course, like the beautiful Danuta Lato, Chloe, and hardbodied Danni Ashe. But the almost-grotesque quantity that our little fetish is about, is usually the result of surgery, surgery and still more surgery. Elvira rests one of her doctor's masterpieces on the table, explaining stretching and short-time overfilling techniques.

traX has his notebook ready, and mumbles something about jawbone structures. He's modeling her face in his 3D-program. The rest of her body, he says, is plain curvy megaMT standard, whatever that means. He seems not overly interested in that surgery report: I suppose that, as a morpher, he's retouched just too many of those marks away. Jockel, after the initial champagne, switched to his favorite café calvà, a hellish mixture of coffee and calvados, and the stuff, in combination with Elvira's lipstick, does its job. Soon enough he looks like the proverbial decadent provincial politico, and this is when I notice the blinking of a tiny webcam on traX's notebook. My pal is eagerly producing short-time AVIs and fuzzy photos, while Elvira demonstrates unexpected serpent-woman qualities: Those honey-melon-sized boobies of her jump around like a bunch of puppy dogs...too bad that this won't show at twelve frames per second.

While I'm still contemplating the situation - which involves a lot of triangulation (I don't want to be on those photos) - the management of the establishment decides it is time for one of those indeclinable propositions.

Three friends of our Elvira enter the scene, and they are so surprised to find her alone with four gentlemen (we have a strict one-on-one rule here, you see), and the gents don't want her to get into trouble, do they?

The gentlemen don't, as long as the champagne goes on the tab of the Ministry for Silly Walks in Hanover. Besides, traX has finished the preparations and starts rendering a virtual Elvira - this will keep the notebook busy for at least half an hour - so why not have some company?

Mona, Ilse and Dada (we suspect that stands for "Dagmar") are not quite as well endowed as Elvira -- ("still financing advanced adult surgery", mutters traX-- but they are very concerned to keep us entertained. It all ends up in the sauna part of the house. I meet a few colleagues from the Mayor's office, no doubt just investigating entertainment industries as I am, and they have an interesting game of poker running.

The moment we come in, Big Man Schulze (6'3", from the real estate department) decides it is time to have a little private session with his Elvira in one of those wall-to-wall upholstered sauna cabins, and he asks me to take his place. Now, itís not too often you have the chance to play high-level poker at someone else's expense, so don't ask me for any details of what happened during the next hour or so - I was too busy throwing away Schulze's money...

When I awaken, everything is very, very complicated. Not because of Big Man Schulze - he's been in the red all day. No, Jockel, of course. He has passed out in one of those overheated cabins, and traX - he sometimes has his moments - has frankly refused to take any responsibility for the amount of DM 3,358.-- that he was charged in his stead. Anyway, we manage to sober Jockel up long enough to enable him to scribble "little Nemo" on the receipt, and then that leather-clad gang with their German shepherds leaves the sauna. Hardly any casualties, and no harsh feelings... except that Dada, Mona and Gerhard are missing. Most likely a private party.

Unless one of his ears is in his parents' mail tomorrow...

Now, let's get outta here, Jockel.

Jockel?

Thanks go, as usual, to gonZo for his editorial tolerance and to St Stephan for his lectoral same.
I burnt some incense for their souls' enlightenment on Bali...