Chapter 7: We Have The Technology

Louise struck lucky with a laboratory at about eleven-thirty that morning. She had said she needed to run some tests on possible reactions between softened water from a particular type of softener and milky coffee of a particular brand. The technician wasn't thrown at all. She asked what sort of reaction we were looking for, and Louise said it might be the sort of reaction which had an effect on human cells in certain parts of the body. The female body. The breasts. Making them grow.

Can you bring some samples? Yes we could. Louise said we would drop in and visit them this very afternoon.

Louise had put the phone down, telling Jessica that the woman at the lab sounded as if fifty people every day came to her to find out why their daughters had suddenly grown hundred-inch tits.

Barbara Mackay-ffinch, the technician, Louise told me later, was a tall, slim woman, striking rather than attractive. Louise had left our samples with her, and she had started work on them straight away. "Give me a call tomorrow afternoon, around close of play, say about five-ish, and I'll be able to tell you more."

Louise had not, I was glad to report, ever reached the hyper-randy stage which had affected Claudia and almost killed poor Davie. Even so, her appetite was more than a match for mine. She woke me three times that night. When I did get to sleep, I was troubled by strange dreams of herds of dairy cows in school uniforms, sitting in rows at desks.

At least, Louise wasn't scaring me half to death by screaming in front of the bathroom mirror any more, her breasts were the same wonderful fifty inches they had reached at the weekend. I could quite easily get used to them like that. It would almost be a shame if the lab found an antidote and we had to make them smaller again.

I mentioned that thought to Louise. "As a matter of fact", she said, "I was wondering whether to go back on to the coffee again for a few days! What do you think?"

That, I thought, was a thought better not thought about. But I still thought about it.

Louise and Jessica had gone to the shops during the afternoon and had not yet returned. There was a scribbled message for me to ring the labs and see what the news was. I dialled the number and asked to speak to Barbara Mackay-ffinch. Fortunately, I didn't know how the name was spelt, or I would certainly have tried to pronounce the hyphenated part with a stutter, Mackay-f-f-f-finch.

"Barbara Mackay-ffinch", said a husky voice. The soles of my shoes melted.

"It's to do with some tests you were carrying out into coffee and soft water, a Ms Woods called you yesterday."

"Oh, yes, Mr Woods, it seems quite promising! There are a few more tests to do, but I should know something by tomorrow afternoon. Tell me, if you know, how long does it normally take for this combination of substances take before any ... effects occur?"

"Well, it varies," I said, trying to think. "A few days, say four or five, and if anything is going to happen, it will have started by then."

"And, forgive me, but Ms Woods and her friend didn't tell me this, are the effects gradual, or immediate?"

"Gradual over the first few days, then they get more marked ... the growth rate, as it were, speeds up. In some cases, the speed-up is quite dramatic!"

"Good," said Barbara Mackay-ffinch, "and ... forgive me..." she said again. I forgave her. With that voice, I would forgive her many things, " ... forgive me, but Ms Woods and her friend, were they affected by this occurrence?"

"They both reached the second stage, then we stopped their intake of coffee, and checked the growth. We don't yet know what the effect of resuming their coffee intake would be, whether they would start growing again, or whether they would go straight into the third or fourth stages."

"These other stages sound intriguing," she said. "Do tell me more!"

"Well, where can I begin? It seems to vary between women. We had one who wanted to ... to make love with much greater frequency. If she did, she was fine. If she stopped making love for more than a few hours, her breasts grew at a tremendous rate!"