Chapter 56: Friday

"Saul, how'd you do with 3M?" Anne asked.

"I've got a non-disclosure agreement that covers their adhesive and our use of it. I think we can get something like a five-year exclusive use agreement for our market, or for our application of the material. I've asked Dad to contact a lawyer who can tell us how to get a patent or copyright or whatever."

"What about you, Heather?"

"Anne, I'm experimenting with the stuff. I got some silk-screen equipment set up in the workshop and I'm working with it. Look."

She pulled off her shirt and stood up. Her chest and breasts were covered with all sorts of figures and images in a riot of colors. On her abdomen were words and phrases in different type faces.

"Looks pretty damn silly right now, but the news is, it works. I'm going to leave this on for a day or two to see how it lasts, 3M says about ten days. I've already tried putting them on my hands and taking it off. The lemon soap works like a charm." She raised her hands. They were clean.

"And I took a shower with regular soap before the meeting. Nothing washed off." She sat down. "You've seen Letraset?" she continued.

Will and Alex nodded. The others looked puzzled.

"It's a system where they put letters on a sheet of plastic. You transfer the letters to paper. They're held to the backing with wax. We could do the same kind of thing with type, images, designs of any kind. We can do whole sheets in a single color, so you can make your own designs or cover large areas. And you can use it like paint."

She stood again and turned around. Swathes of color swept across her back.

"Alex put this on with a brush. Dried real fast." She sat down again.

"Point is, we can do anything we want with this. Any color, metallics. It's non-toxic, based on a natural, sticky substance that they've enhanced. The stickiness goes away when it reaches body temperature. Easy on, easy off."

"Would you come over here, please? Can I touch it?" Saul asked.

Heather stood again, stepped out of her skirt. Her thighs were striped, one leg horizontally, the other vertically. Her buttocks were checked in black and white. She walked around the table and sat on it in front of Saul and Anne.

"Touch all you want. You get me stirred up, you gotta fix it."

They all touched Heather's lurid body, feeling the dry, warm surface of her skin. The colors were opaque, leaving only the texture of the underlying skin. Where her nipples were painted, the texture of the flesh remained.

"Side effects? Problems with long term use?" Mary asked.

"3M says no," Saul said. "They say the skin can still breathe through it. They've tested it every which way. Same with the removal soap."

"What about out of doors? Any problem in the sun?"

"I don't think so, I'll double check. It's opaque, so it should be a sun block."

"There has to be something wrong with it." Mary said. "There's no free lunch."

"There are two problems I know of." Heather said. "It doesn't work with pubic hair, just gunks things up. I had to wash my crotch three times to get it all off."

"Won't bother me," Anne said with a grin.

"I'm thinking of getting a wax job." Heather grinned and went on. "The other problem is going to be how to hold the image on the supporting paper and have it release easily once the color contacts the skin. I think it's going to have something to do with heat. Body temperature frees the image from the backing. That's something I'm looking into. Anyway, once I finish this endurance test, I'm going to try using this as my major body covering. In the house, anyway."

"Uh... Heather? What does it taste like?"

"Lick me and find out, Tom. But take your clothes off first."