Chapter 9

A man and a woman sat alone at a sparkling breakfast table atop the penthouse of the luxurious Century Forward Motel in Chicago, staring at a glass of water that was faintly tinged with gold.

"It's a weapon," said Gwen Rand.

"It can alter minds," said Monty Rand.

"Used one way it could turn this nation into a body of hard-muscled athletes," she said.

"Used another, it could become the most dangerous drug on the face of the earth," said Monty.

The Product Psychologists had come to Chicago to deliberate on the new, mind-blowing product known as Golden Water. Kellogg - General Grocers was prepared to put a half a billion dollars behind the new product if the Rands gave it their approval. If they approved, two hundred thousand new jobs would be created overnight and countless regional distributorships in America and elsewhere would employ still more thousands and create minor fortunes. The Kellogg - General executives would jet in from Battle Creek tomorrow.

Those executives had to come to the Rands. They were too powerful to bother with going to company headquarters in some minor city. Their clients must meet them in New York, Chicago, L.A. or San Francisco, and occasionally in New Orleans if it were Mardi Gras time.

Their entourage had arrived the night before to sweep the penthouse for listening devices, since they delt in company secrets worth millions, to install their chefs in the motel kitchen, to prepare the clothing and vehicles they would need for this visit, and to set up media safeguards so their precious time might be saved. The media were wild to find out what the Rands worked on, because it shaped the future of America. They had already had the customary two-way TV greeting and visit with the governor of Illinois down in Springfield and would surrender their luncheon hour to the mayor of Chicago, not without reluctance. Long experience had taught them that politics made dull luncheon conversation.

Golden Water was designed as a soft drink for children in grade schools. It lessened their desire to eat sugary sweets, it gave them vitamins and minerals and the reason for its value was it stimulated young minds towards serious learning. No one was quite sure how this worked but it did. To make better students of the children was a fabulous and useful contribution towards a better America.

Wrong.

The Rands had investigated this product with their usual care and depth and found out much, much more about it than K-G had ever suspected. Its molecules combined readily with an incredible number of substances. It could easily be turned into an addictive drug that permanently warped minds. It could be hyped with substances that starved the muscles just enough to turn the users into twenty-four hour athletes, narrow, fanatical and totally involved with their body muscles. Still another additive made it affect the judgement centers of the mind so the user easily fell under the sway of any strong-minded demagogue, political or religious leader.

Worst of all, it made an admirable carrier of chemical warfare viruses that could wipe out whole segments of a population.

"Of course there are a hundred harmless additives that could make it fun," Gwen pointed out.

"It has a haunting, pleasant flavor that makes it easy to sell," said Monty.

"I think it's only good as a prescription drug for children who are low achievers," said Gwen.

Monty sighed. "K-G is really high on it."

"We've only got one country and one span of life," said Gwen. "Why wish another burden on our poor fellow Americans. I say push Golden Water forward into the 21st century and let someone else decide whether it should go."

Monty sighed, poured himself a drink from the glass and took it down. He was a white-haired man, thin and erect, of forty-five with a commanding eye and a soft, burring voice.

"Well, we have one more day to think about it."

He put it aside. There were a half-dozen other Chicago projects demanding their attention, and it was going to be a full day, with more to come tomorrow.

"Gwen, isn't there something on the agenda that'll give us a little fun and relaxation?"

Gwen was a dark-haired woman of forty, with a supple figure, beautiful hair, and a brash exterior that belied a soft, caring nature.

She leafed through a thick stack of papers.

"Here's a fourth level local corporation that claims to make sex robots and something called Smart Suits. It's optional. It could be a fun evening project to relax with."

"Ugh, that again. Every five years a robot company gets a wild idea."

"You forget we're national officers of an American Moralist Society."

"Not at all, dear husband. A negative Rand report and sex robots are dead, along with Smart Suits, whatever they are."

"I don't fancy a cute sex robot, or a cuter Chicago hooker in a Smart Suit climbing in my lap to seduce me."

"Don't be rediculous, Monty. I wouldn't TOUCH a sex machine or a sex person demonstrating such a vulgarity. Sex robots are just not to be taken seriously. We'll kill the idea, of course. But it could make for a colorful evening, and we'd have something new and encouraging to report at the next board meeting of the American Moralist Society."

"All right, we'll do it. But I may fall asleep." Monty always thought that adults playing with robots were like children playing with dolls and wondered if his wife had ever grown up in that one respect.

Later that morning at a meeting in the A-C building, an elated threesome, Nelson Harper, Cord Bannister and Nancy Lyons met, happy to celebrate the defeat of VP Ellers and his group. Since that wild night two days ago, the Ellers' group and the opposition on the Board had practically melted away. It had been easy, of course, to pressure Morton to withdraw his forces, when they had those damning pictures of the old man having incest with his daughter. He practically begged Nelson to let him change his mind.

After they'd chewed that around, Nelson got serious again.

"There are still the Rands. They are in town and they have sent word they'll look at our robots and Smart Suits tonight. If they go negative, we'll never make it out of the lab."

"They aren't God!" cried Nancy.

"They are in the product field," said Cord gloomily.

"I've checked," said Nelson. "They are big wheels in the American Moralist Society. Ellers really hung a heavy one around our necks with this test."

"We have got one chance," said Nelson. "We don't send the robots or the Smart Suits at all."

"What!"

"WHAT!" cried Nancy.

Nelson pointed at Cord. "YOU go as Big Sam. They've never seen you anyway. And YOU, Nancy, go wrapped in ordinary plastic, no suit. You both can go through all the functions... you know them all well enough."

Cord looked astonished. "ME, imitate her cornball robot, Big Sam?"

"How about ME!" she cried. "Pretending to wear one of those miserable hot suits! Never!"

"It's our only chance, kids. You'll be so lifelike, it'll give 'em pause for thought. We don't need a positive report. Just so they don't go negative. Reasonable doubt... they're fair. I think we can win that."

"I won't be pawed by some phony over idealized psychologists!" Nancy insisted.

"Oh, they won't touch you. Not members of the AMS. Listen, it's our only chance. You'll both be so lifelike they'll be intrigued."

They fought like tigers, shocked at his trickery and double-shocked to have to represent each other's devices.

"If you represent your own inventions, you'll blow it. You're too involved, you'll explode when they criticize."

They fought, but in the long run Nelson had his way, as he always did. That night, after a hard, crazy day of sweaty practice, Nelson delivered his "robot" and his "SS girl" to the Century Forward penthouse and the Rands... and made a fast escape.

Cord, in a grey jumpsuit, and Nancy, in a blue jumpsuit, stood there nervously as aides, assistants and secretaries surrounded and almost concealed the white-haired man and the erect woman who seemed to be doing twenty things at once. For a whole half hour the Rands paid them not the slightest bit of attention, after that first glance when Nelson had brought them in. Then the man and the woman stood up, as if on some cue.

"ENOUGH!" called Monty Rand, and the hubbub subsided, as their staff scurried out several doors and disappeared, leaving the Rands alone with Cord and Nancy.

Monty yawned and said, "It would be simplest if I took the male robot and you took the suit girl," he told Gwen.

"Quickest," she agreed. She arched her back in a luxurious stretch. "It's been a long day."

"But if they're sex objects, I suppose we'll have to do it the other way."

"MONTY, I have no desire to poke at a male robot."

"We're professionals," he insisted, "that doesn't stop just because it's eight o'clock at night."

She sighed, "I suppose you're right... follow me, robot."

Cord rolled his eyes at Nancy and followed the woman off into the interior of the penthouse. He thought Gwen Rand had a nice ass, not a bad figure. If she got, uh, intimate, he might be able to perform...

Monty watched them go, then shook his head. "The crazy things business people invent to sell."

"I know what you mean," said Nancy. The clear plastic under her suit made her itch.

He led her to a bedroom of which the penthouse seemed to have several. It was a gorgeous room, done in bridal white and it had a fantastic, large bed.

"Take off your clothes, and lay on the bed," he ordered.

Nancy had been near the point of revolt all day long.

"Listen, Mr. Rand, I'm no hooker. It's hard enough to show you this dumb suit naked without getting pawed."

He looked at her in surprise.

"Didn't A-C pick you to demonstrate the suit?"

"Yes, but they picked the wrong cookie. The Smart Suit is a stupid idea. It keeps you hot or cold, as if you didn't have your own skin. It makes you walk, as if you didn't have your own legs. It wards off blows as if you were a weakling. It broadcasts data to your brain, as if you were too ignorant to read or listen to tapes."

He stared at her. "This is hard sell?"

Her fury had mounted all day long at Nelson's crazy idea, and the long wait while being ignored and with these two snobs showing off had enraged her past reason.

"Listen, he's got a sleeve that fits up my vagina. It's supposed to make the sex feel better. Instead, it makes my cummy box feel like it's stuffed with soft glass. And wait till you see what it makes a woman look like!"

She practically tore off her jumpsuit to expose her naked body gleaming inside the clear plastic sheeting that was supposed to con the Rands into thinking she wore an SS.

"Whore time, huh, Mr. Rand? Hooker haven. I look like a State Street peep show."

She turned around and about, demonstrating the glitter of her covering in that elegant room, feeling like a two-bit nobody. It was all Nelson's fault.

Monty had sunk into a chair, watching her and listening with fascination. He stared when she exposed her nude body in the plastic.

"This is a colossal FIRST!" he cried. "People beg, con, cheat, and wallow in compliments to us to sell their products."

"Now, honestly, Mr. Rand... I'm going to call you Monty... would any sensible human put on stuff like this? To go to bed yet?"

Monty stood up, still shocked. "Well, all the things you mention have some advantages, you know." It was weird, finding himself defending, instead of tearing apart, a product.

Nancy was rolling too fast to stop.

"It's supposed to broadcast microwave signals to turn the opposite sex on. Do you feel my cunt, yes CUNT, broadcasting to your poor, lonely penis, Monty? Are you rock-hard? Crazy to be sucked? Wild to FUCK?"

She had reached the pinnacle of her contempt for Cord's Smart Suit. She marched up to the hypnotized man and grabbed his cock in his pants.

"I'm sure you're wild to..."

She stopped. The anger began to die from her face. She stared up at him in astonishment. His cock was so hard it strained the cloth of his pants.

"Why, you ARE hard!"

He blushed. "Your body in that suit is the sexiest sight I've seen in months. You've got an incredible build. Your anger is balm to my ears. All I get is shit, all day long, day after day; oozing, wheedling voices."

"I... I... I..."

But her trip seemed to break through some thin membrane that contained his own inner feelings.

"You think my life's so great? I sit through hours of dull, egotistical nonsense and some secretary or woman exec comes in the room and all I can think about is her ass or her tits, or think of shoving my cock in her cute face. They bring in coffee or wine, and the room lights up. They go, and I die. I want to be out there in their cubby hole offices, fucking their sweet cunts off. But NO! The mighty Monty must sit and listen to some asshole company president grind away."

Shades of Wally Butterfield, thought frozen Nancy.

"We're at the TOP, you understand? No hookers, no secret loves... EVER. The slightest breath of off-color cannot be tolerated because our decisions endlessly affect the lives of millions. Even the President has more freedom. Because we're the golden door to money, money, money, and besides money, sex is dust. Just once, ONCE, I'd like to... to..." Monty's face was red and his arms sawed the air..." Just once, I would like to jump on top of the table, grab one of those soft-eyed, round-assed sweet young bitches, and FUCK!"

"Honey, your wife isn't bad-looking..."

"Wife? She's in the same prison. We go to bed, try to do it. But we can't help talking about this project, or that one. You can't turn off the power of MONEY when it coats your very brain. It's the worst drug men ever invented!"

She said: "Mister, there's an old, ancient phrase, 'You sure need your ashes hauled'!" She undid his zipper. She brought out his cock. She knelt and sucked the end of it as it became even stiffer in her hands.

"OH, WOW!"

He pulled her up and started her for the bed.

"I... I'll just get rid of this dumb..."

"No, no, leave it on, it's incredible. Like you're glittering essence of all the cute secretaries, smiling coffee-bringers, sexy receptionists I ever lusted for!"

She scrambled on the bed, he stripped and with a cry of triumph sunk his cock into her soft pink cunt, which fortunately had oiled just enough to receive him. It was free of the sleeve; she having refused to wear that.

"Oh," she said. "OH!" Her eyes went big with his furious lust.

She had never felt such a hot, fast-moving prick in her cunt. He was like a madman with the release of his bottled-up sex need.

"Huh, huh, huh," he went. He shivered in his intensity to fuck her to a froth. His body sweated, his heart pounded. "Oh, God, I'VE WANTED THIS!" he cried, his voice bounding from the walls. He was practically sobbing. "Hot, young, tight, beautiful, FUCK DOLL. No big decision, no earth shaking, just FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!"

He could not last. He was like a maniac in his hunger for sex. She thrilled, furiously gasping and arching up, trying to protect her cunt from his mad lunges. It wasn't that he hurt her. It felt TOO GOOD. His passion exceeded anything she'd ever met.

"Hah, hoo. Oh, Nancy, oh BABEEEEE!" he sang.

He went still and she thought he'd had a heart attack. Instead, he lifted his head, cried out in exquisite pleasure, and burst virile spurts into her cunt.

WHAM, WHAM, WHAM. "At LAAASST!" It was nearly a shriek of wild joy.

She went dizzy and weak from his possession of her. But she still had not had enough stimulation to come with him. She just felt aching, tender, tremendously sorry for the man who made these dazzling, complex decisions and hungered only for a hot cunt of a nobody secretary. She'd never in her life felt so much like playing the soft, taking, healing woman and it was SEXXXXXY!

"Oh, Monty, ream me off. Enjoy," she whispered.

He hunkered on her body and spent it out with sobbing gasps. It lasted a surprising time, considering his age. When he tapered, he clung to her like a small boy, wheezing and panting his pleasure.

At last, he looked into her face wth the stricken look of a man who was completely satisfied, glowing in love with her, at least for now.