Chapter 1

Magus flipped through the thirty eight pages of the first section of the Boston newspaper searching for his new advertisement. There on the last page was the simple two line advertisement that took up an inordinate amount of space on the page considering the brevity of the text. The first line read: Solutions, Incorporated. The second line was a phone number. He smiled thinking that it was nice when the owner of a newspaper would negotiate a service directly with him.

Having a fully functional office and an advertisement in the newspaper, Solutions Incorporated had officially moved to Boston and was open for business. It was now time for Magus to get to work. Magus was very pleased with the situation. He pushed the button on the side of the desk. The desktop moved upward and then forwards eight inches. A projector displayed the computer screen on the wall across the room from the desk. He bent over the keyboard and starting typing.

It was mid-morning when a noise disturbed the quiet of the office. Magus looked up from the keyboard when he heard the front door close. He could hear Stephen typing in his office so he knew that it must be a visitor. It would be the first visitor in his new place of business. He pushed the button on the side of his desk to lower the desktop and turn off the projector.

He called out, “Come in the office on the left.”

He looked over at the door waiting for his visitor to enter. There was a noise that appeared to originate from the chair at the receptionist’s desk. It sounded like someone was seated at it and moving around. The only problem with that was that he didn’t have a receptionist.

He frowned and then shouted again, “Come in the office on the left.”

No one showed up at his door. The noise from the reception area continued. Grumbling, he got up from his desk and headed towards his office door wondering if his visitor was hearing impaired. It had been a while since he had used sign language and he hoped that his skills were still up to snuff.

Upon reaching his office door, he looked at the desk in reception area and gave a small scream of surprise while his eyes got big. He waddled back to his desk. He ducked behind it trying to look as small as possible. He pressed the panic button under the desk. After a minute he looked over the desktop and saw that he was alone in the office.

He shouted, “What are you doing here?”

“I decided that I preferred the commute here over the job you had lined up for me,” Claudia shouted back. It was hard stifling her giggle. His reaction had been perfect.

“That’s ... You ... No...” Magus said unable to frame a coherent sentence much less a rational thought.

From the office at the far right end of the reception area, Stephen shouted, “Is that you, Claudia?”

“Yes, Stephen,” Claudia answered. When Stephen stepped out of his office she put a finger to her lips to let him know to be quiet. She then made a come-hither gesture to get him to join her at her desk.

Magus made a second attempt to speak and was more successful in the endeavor. “This is a disaster!”

“Did you miss me, Magus?” Claudia asked.

Magus considered his words very carefully and then asked, “What do you want from me?”

“I was hoping that you’d give me a welcome back hug,” Claudia said.

She held a hand over her mouth when Magus squawked, and she laughed without making a sound. Stephen was finding it nearly impossible to keep from laughing. He thought Magus’ attitude towards beautiful women hilarious.

“Keep your distance from me you evil woman,” Magus said.

Few men would have used the adjective evil to describe Claudia Alford. In fact, she was a stunningly beautiful woman with long blond hair, blue eyes, and a figure that was the stuff of fantasy. More than one man had been injured by walking into a sign post because he was too busy staring at her to watch where he was going.

Claudia moved over to his office door and looked in at him. All she could see of him was the top of his head poking up behind his desk. She smiled and said, “You can get out from under your desk now.”

“I’m warning you. Keep your distance from me. You are not going to trap me into marriage no matter how gorgeous you are,” Magus said.

“So you think I’m gorgeous?” Claudia asked. She winked at Stephen.

Magus looked over the desktop at her. He groaned when he saw the tight fitting clothes she was wearing. He said, “Why does this always happen to me? I meet a beautiful single woman and then she chases after me all over the country. I am cursed!”

“Cursed?” Claudia asked. She was amused at the idea that he thought she was chasing him all over the country.

“Stunningly beautiful women love men with intellects like mine. They just can’t resist us. Our brilliance to them is like a candle to a moth,” Magus said.

“Do you really think it is a curse to be pursued by a woman that looks like Claudia?” Stephen asked.

“Yes. Definitely. There’s no doubt about it.”

“She is a living walking wet dream. I wish I had a woman half as attractive as her chasing me.”

Claudia smiled at Stephen and said, “That’s a nice thing to say about me.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Stephen. Stay away from Claudia.”

“Why?”

“Why? Beautiful women like her get into your head and destroy your ability to think. In the process they destroy every bit of dignity that you have. Once you are completely destroyed they drop you like a hot potato because you’re no longer attractive to them. You are left a bitter shallow shell of your former self,” Magus said.

“Oh, come on,” Claudia said. She was quickly coming to the conclusion that some woman had really done a number on Magus in the past.

“It has been happening since Biblical times. Look at Samson. Delilah cut his hair and got him blinded, imprisoned, and put to work grinding corn just because he got stupid as a result of her beauty,” Magus said.

“You’ve got a point there,” Stephen said. “Come to think of it, Cleopatra did ruin to two smart men. Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony both ended up dead.”

“That’s almost right,” Magus said. “You need to revisit your history a little on that. Cleopatra took down more than two men during her lifetime. She married both her brothers and they ended up dead. She was worse than the black plague when it came to ruining smart men. The only woman who was worse was Helen of Troy.”

“I didn’t even think about Helen of Troy. A lot of men died because of her,” Stephen said.

“A face that could launch a thousand ships, indeed. Homer should have said that it was a face that could kill a thousand men with one smoldering glance,” Magus said.

“She did take down a whole city.”

Magus said, “You’re darned right she did. History is full of stories about beautiful women destroying men of intelligence.”

Putting a hand on Stephen’s shoulder, Claudia said, “You don’t believe that nonsense, do you Stephen?”

Stephen backed away from Claudia looking a little uncomfortable at being touched by her. He said, “Now that I think about it...”

“Oh, come on,” Claudia said. She gave Stephen a little pout intended to get him to feel sorry for his treatment of her.

“It might be best if you keep your distance from me,” Stephen said quickly taking two more steps back. Her pout had been extremely effective and that worried him. A couple more looks like that and he would turn into a blithering idiot. All of a sudden he imagined himself walking a poodle that was wearing one of those frilly sweaters through downtown Boston. He was beginning to see what Magus meant.