Company evening

While the applause went on, he used his phones flashlight to see what was next on the program. It simply said: Casanova, hypnotist. Great, another half hour of people walking like a chicken and crying on demand to look forward to. Perkins cringed and wished he had stayed home to watch the game.

And of course, it would all be a hoax, like always. All the 'volunteers' would be paid actors, for sure. The whole theater was filled with about six hundred people, from about twenty different companies. How was anyone to know which participant was a worker from what company? Balloney, all of it.

The hypnotist turned out to be a tall, slender man. He was dressed in a tuxedo and wore a turban. He seemed oriental, and he spoke with a slight accent. And as expected, he invited various members of the audience on stage, all male, only to turn them into a laughing stock in the following minutes. He made them do cartwheels and handstands, proving that these were indeed trained athletes, Perkins thought. It was so obvious. After a few minutes, he had already become bored by the dog and pony show, and he started to check his phone.

He didn't even notice that the men had left the stage and that the artist had invited the first woman for the evening to join him.

This changed in a flash as, when asked to do so, she stated her name for the audience.

"Penelope Ann Prentiss."

He couldn't believe it. It was indeed Miss Prentiss, their head of sales, but he had to look twice before he recognized her. At the office, she would always come in wearing these elegant two-piece suits, consisting of a jacket and pants. But here she was, on stage, in the lights, dressed in a little black dress! For the first time in the seven years that he had known her, working under her, he could see her legs.

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