Chapter 5

The redhead kept staring at Cord Bannister. Normally, he would've welcomed this attention because she was a stunner, with soft, gleaming hair, a beautiful face and a nicely curved figure. She knew she was special too. She wore a black dress that bespoke elegance. She was no more than twenty-five. It was a restaurant in Oregon - she wasn't alone.

Cord, however, was in no mood to deal with females, beautiful or otherwise. He'd been in Oregon for two weeks now, testing his Smart Suit. First he'd gone to the University of Oregon at Eugene where he had a contact with the Psychology Department. Young coeds tested a half dozen of the smart suits. They thought they were great. The professors were quite interested in their reactions, so they reported they were great - left the lab and promptly forgot about them.

Cord had also done some testing in downtown Portland, with Andy Lang, the West Coast A-C man setting up some tests with a local marketing bureau. They selected both housewives and working wives. The wives thought they were great. Of the dozen or so suits put out, Cord was fairly certain that nine people took them home, shook them out, put them back in the box and returned them next day saying they were great without even wearing them. Two others seemed vaguely embarrassed. He guessed they'd actually tried the suits with their husbands. One woman was enthusiastic.

Cord had selected Oregon instead of the large cities of LA, San Francisco or Seattle because he feared the city people were novelty oriented. There'd be a fad rush - then nothing. Also robots had just begun to reach the West Coast. That didn't help his SS suit tests. It sickened him to think that Nancy Lyons and her robots might win the day.

The redhead was part of a party of four. She was obviously married to a big-shouldered, dark-haired young man, and there was another couple with them. They sat at a table next to Cord, who dined alone in a booth. They bantered in the easy fashion of young married couples out for a nice dinner and evening, but the redhead who sat at an angle to Cord, kept staring at him. She was certainly no one he knew, but of course he wore nothing but the Smart Suit which mightve caught her eye. Tight to his skin, but opaqued to a nice blue color it did make him stand out in any crowd.

He had left Portland to come to this small coast town to ponder what to do next. If people loved a product, or hated it, you had no problem. You sold it, or junked it. What did you do when they merely LIKED it?

The redhead raised her glass of wine and toasted him. Cord nodded and smiled briefly, while her husband glared and said something to her. Cord's mind was off and spinning again.

Nancy with her robots would have her problems, plenty of them. But she rode the crest of robot popularity - everybody was going to get rich on robots as they had once on stocks and later on real estate. Maybe he should go the opposite. Instead of going for the mass market, he should sell to the select few and make the SS a Rolls Royce type of item that the upward mobile people would seek because their social betters all owned one. Interesting idea.

The redhead was doing something very strange. She sat in her chair swaying slightly, her eyes sparkling, her lips wet and her face flushed. Cord thought she looked like someone in the middle of a sex experience, which was startling to see in the middle of a public restaurant. She looked right at him and smiled.

"Marsha, are you crazy?" her husband snapped.

The woman looked at him with glazed eyes, a superficial smile on her face. There was no question about what happened to her. She was having an orgasm. There were beads of moisture on her forehead, a sublime look on her face, a flushing and soft gasps.

"Marsha, are you sick?" asked her husband.

"N-no, Roy, I'm not sick," she gasped. Her eyes hung on Cord's face.

The husband swung around to glare at Cord. Cord, wanting to go inside of himself deeply and wrestle with his problem, gave a polite, impersonal nod and smile and looked elsewhere. The redhead finished her seizure, whatever it was, and the incident was over.

Cord had enormous powers of concentration. Outside it was raining, inside the crowded restaurant people talked in a happy, warm babble as people do when warm and cozy against the elements. Cord ate absently, his mind a thousand miles away, turning his problem this way and that.

He felt a disturbance at his elbow. He looked around - the redhead had joined him in the booth, gleaming hair, black dress and all.

"I'm Marsha Collins," she said in a tremulous voice. She sipped at her wine glass and peered at him shyly.

"Marsha," he said startled and annoyed. "I'm pleased to meet you. But I think you're disturbing your husband."

"That's a nice suit you're wearing."

It was clearly time to escape. For some reason this local beauty had fixed upon him, but he had no desire to achieve a pickup.

"It's a Smart Suit, Marsha," he said. "Someday you'll read all about it, but tonight I can't take the time to discuss it."

He reached for his check. A tall, angry and broad-shouldered young man stood menacingly in front of his table.

"What are you doing to my wife?"

"Absolutely nothing," said Cord standing up. "I don't know her. I don't want to know her."

"Marsha, why are you sitting with this man?" said young Collins.

"I-I-I don't know," she said, blushing.

"YOURE DOING SOMETHING TO MY WIFE!" cried Collins.

Cord didn't deign to answer. He took his check and started to leave. Heads turned in their direction, the chatter of the crowd diminished as they had become the center of attention.

The young man took a swing at Cord. The other woman in his party screamed and the nearby waiter froze.

Naturally the blow never landed because Cord wore his Smart Suit. The fist angled off harmlessly into the air. Cord started to brush by him.

"You... you... ," cried the angered young man. He swung again and again, but each blow failed to land and he spun away from Cord from the exertions of his swing. Cord moved away. Collins sprawled on the floor.

"Did you see that?" someone gasped. "The guy swung - he couldn't hit the guy in the funny suit."

"Blows never touched him," said another. "Wow!"

Cord couldn't help a grim smile. It was advertising for the Smart Suit - but not tonight. He left the confusion behind him, loud voices, feet trampling and the friend helping the young husband to his feet.

The headwaiter took Cord's money card and bill. "Somebody said you knocked down young Collins."

"Somebody's wrong," said Cord. "He swung at me and missed. I did nothing, not to him, not to his wife."

"I ought to call the police," said the headwaiter. He was angry with Cord but aware of his big size. "Collins is a good customer."

"On a rainy night like this they wouldn't show up very soon," said Cord lightly.

He grabbed the check, signed it, retrieved his money card and escaped before things could get worse. He welcomed the emptiness of the parking lot, the heavy rain, the sense of isolation. He had to go back to his motel and work out this problem.

He had barely gotten into his rented Skimmer when there was a rush of a figure approaching in the heavy rain. A body hit the side of his car. A door jerked open. It was Marsha Collins.

"I have to... to go with you," she gasped.

She was soaked to the skin in the elegant black dress which was now a mess. Her attractive hairdo had melted in the rain. She must've slipped away in the confusion inside.

"Are you crazy, woman?" he said. "What do you want with me?"

"I have to... have to... go with you."

She got inside the Skimmer and closed the door.

Cord looked around desperately. There was no sign of anybody else, not yet. The woman was soaked. He was puzzled. He was pretty sure now that her strange actions had something to do with the SS and he wanted to know. He lifted the Skimmer off the ground. Young Collins would just have to surrender his wife for a couple of hours while Cord probed this mystery.

On the way to his motel, soaked and bedraggled as she was, Marsha Collins had another orgasm.

Inside his motel room he had her strip out of her soaked clothes and jump into the bed. She offered absolutely no objections to peeling down to the nude in front of him. He tried to keep his mind on the scientific mystery - she was one beautiful female.

When she was safely in the bed, covers pulled up, he said, "Now, young lady, let's get to the bottom of this. Why are you so stuck on me?"

She still had that strange dazed look.

"I... I don't know. I like your face. You... have the kind of body... body type I like in men. Like my husband."

"Is it the suit?"

"The suit... unusual... very attractive."

Her hand, under the covers, made motions. He couldn't believe it. She had the same flushed look as in the restaurant and in the Skimmer. She was...

He jerked back the covers. She had her legs spread, revealing lucious creamy thighs, bright red pubic hair - and an eager hand busily at work on her cunt. She looked up at him, eyes sparkling, dogged and determined. He felt a crawl of weird excitement. It HAD to be the suit.

"I'll just turn this off and remove it," he said. He had had the heat on the suit turned all the way up against the cold of the day. He touched the proper controls and the microwave heaters died at once.

"Ohhhh, that's better!" cried Marsha, with a huge sigh. "Oh, my goodness, what have I done?"

She suddenly came out of her daze, stopped masturbating and pulled the covers back over her nudity. "Oh, that's BETTER."

Cord had not yet removed the suit. He stared at her - he stared at the suit. He turned the microwave unit back on - to high, as it had been. He looked at the woman who had started to blush and apologize. As soon as he turned the MW on she stuttered, stammered in confusion and began to move her loins under the covers.

"I'm hot again!" she protested.

Cord turned off the suit and sat down to stare at the young woman in amazement.

"My suit did it to you, Marsha. My suit broadcast microwave heat - from my crotch - uh, my loins. Somehow it reached you."

"Got so hot!" she said. "Felt as if... I was doing it... had to do it, or die."

"Buy why you? Why not the other women in the place?"

She just shook her head. She was relieved to be released from her bitch heat.

"Back in the lab this never happened," puzzled Cord. Then the light began to break.

"Marsha, this is important. You dug me. I mean you liked my face, and you like my body type. Is that right?"

She nodded. "I've always gone for big-shouldered square-built men with V shaped faces. But I've never acted crazy like this."

He understood then. It had never happened before because none of his three or four female assistants in the lab dug his physical appearance that much. This woman turned on to his looks - and sat close enough so that those MW signals reached her in full force and fury. He laughed, delighted. Suddenly the SS had a new sales point that he'd never discovered because he hadn't been out in the field with it. Those MW's probably affected all women in his vicinity when the suit was turned on high, but if they weren't predisposed they'd simply feel it as unlikely heat between their legs. He remembered now that the other woman in the party had seemed uncomfortable.

"Marsha, I owe you and your husband a big, fat apology. My electronic suit turned you on beyond your power to resist, and I didn't even know it. Caused you deep embarrassment. As soon as your clothes dry, I'll rush you home, and tell your husband."

She mumbled something.

"What?" asked Cord.

"I said, turn on the suit again. I like you and trust you, Cord. I don't want to go home - just yet. My husband has cheated on me, lots of times. I've been good. Soooo good. Lots of times I've looked at other men and turned on to them, but I never had a boost like your electronic suit. It was like something reached down deep inside of me - I feel very loving - I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS!"

Cord did a turn around the rug. "Now look, Marsha..."

"I don't care! If you don't want me, let me do it myself. You know where my hubby is right now? He's not looking for me. He's rushed to his secretary's apartment, crazy to get sympathy for what I've done. He gets another freebie tonight. He hopes I won't come home."

"But, baby," said Cord, "you're so good-looking. Why, there can't be another woman in this small town, here in Henderson, half as good-looking as you."

"There isn't. She has half my looks, but to Robert I'm a wife. W-I- F-E. The day we walked out of the church his eye started roving."

Cord shrugged. Inside he did not feel indifferent. The redhead turned him on like fury. He hadn't had any sex since that day in the lab with Marybelle, bless her blonde soul, who'd done quite well, considering that she didn't turn on to his body type.