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Subject: {ASSM} Reversion {Varkel} (M+m+b+g+f+F+) [09/21]
Date: Sun,  3 Nov 2002 10:10:02 -0500
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Reversion

a Novel by Varkel
Fall, 2001



Chapter 9:  The Too-Clean House


When I sat down for breakfast, Clara had already poured my
morning coke.  Alice raised her cup of coffee to her lips but
paused.  Eyes widening, she noted, "I thought the doctor said
_he_ would have to remove your tattooing!"

I responded, "Let me see your other wrist."

She raised the hand to the table.  Both wrists were free of tape
and showed no evidence of bruising.  She tossed her head.  "I
threw the wrappings away.  They don't hurt at all."

"I heard him say you should wear it for several days."  I looked
at Clara.  "I didn't know medicine was so incompetent in 1948."

"It's not," she stated, looking distantly over my head.

"Just Dr. Grienbaum?"  I sniffed.  "I was surprised he didn't
order x-rays for Alice's wrists.  But why would he tell me I had
to come to his office to remove the gunpowder?"

Alice grinned.  "And males say they don't need mirrors!"

"They need them," I admitted stiffly, "to shave."

Clara's face was blank.  Too blank.  Suddenly I recalled a few
things.

I studied her.  She wouldn't meet my eyes.  "Clara," I said
softly, "don't you think it's time to clue us in?"

"Clue you in?" she repeated, looking down at the tabletop.

"The anomalies are starting to mount up."

"Anomalies?"

"Are you practicing as a parrot?" I demanded snidely.

"Tim!" Alice protested.

Clara looked up at me at last.  Her heart-shaped face showed
concern and something else.  She bit her lip.  Then she squared
her shoulders and composed her expression.  "What anomalies,
Tim?"

"I suspect it's a long list."

"Tell me."

"Well ...  We can begin with my forehead and ear and Alice's
wrists.  I guess sprained wrists _can_ get well overnight, but
powder particles embedded in the skin --"

"Yes, yes."  She interrupted, waving a hand impatiently.  "What
else?"

"I was going to say that I found loose black particles on my
pillow, too big for dust, which is what caused me to check the
mirror in the first place...  What else, you ask?  Let's go back.
You served us a hot supper last night when we had hardly hung up
our coats.  How could you possibly do that?  And those fake birth
certificates with the so-official looking seals that the FBI
nevertheless believes are absolutely authentic -- how'd you manage
that?  Hmm.  Given that somebody tipped them about us being
special, how did the Russians know we'd be in that restaurant?  I
can't believe Rosalind is a spy."

"She may have told someone," Alice suggested, "quite innocently."

"That she was taking a couple of kids to lunch?  Her mother,
maybe?"

Clara said, "You'll soon find out about the Russians."

I blinked.  "What do you mean?"

She took an impatient breath.  "Anything else on your list?"

"The closets," said Alice.

"Yeah, the closet here and the one in Hightower with the
super-duper locks.  Why do they _hum_?"

When I ran down, Alice added another item.  "And the
self-cleaning houses.  Our dirty clothes we throw in the hampers
only to show up the next day in our chests of drawers, cleaned
and pressed."

I contributed, "And you still haven't told us how you made those
Mandelbrot paintings."

Clara chuckled humorlessly.  "I wondered if you noticed that I
hadn't."

"Oh, _we_ noticed!" I declared.  "While we're at it, you never
said how you got so filthy rich.  I'd guess on the stock market,
but I've never caught you calling your broker."

I recognized a flicker of apprehension in her face.  She got up
from the breakfast table and went to stand before the sink, her
back turned to us.  Her fists were clenched.  Alice and I stared
at each other in wonder.

"Tim," Clara muttered.  She heaved a sigh and turned around.  "I
meant to tell you.  Both of you.  When your degrees are
conferred."

"Tell us what?"

"How much more is available to you than you realize."

I considered the implications of that.  "Because of you?"

"Because of me and where I derive."

"From the Twenty-Fourth Century?"

"Yes.  And because of the fact that you are my grand obsession."

I'm sure my astonishment showed.  "Are you saying the people of
your time have found a way to transmit more than minds between
the continua?  My math says that's impossible!"

"Your math is still right.  What we found was a way to enlarge
the storage capacity of a mind -- by orders of magnitude, then
transmit the whole of it."

Her face contorted.  "Don't look at me as if I'm some kind of
monster!  I always had genius-level intelligence, though not so
high as yours, nor even approaching Alice's.  My intelligence was
not enhanced.  The only difference is that I have in my head all
human knowledge that was -- will be -- publicly available in 2398,
including the old records from the Twentieth Century, organized
and more readily accessible to my consciousness than even your
computerized encyclopedias of 2002."

"How is it stored?" demanded Alice, the computer expert.

The woman turned to her.  "I can give you all the details that
you wish.  Let me say now only that the process subtracts from
the brain's tremendous redundancy and in those detached neurons
substitutes data-coded DNA for all functionality beyond simple
cell maintenance.  The level of complexity and thus capacity
increases by many orders of magnitude."

Alice blinked, wheels visibly turning.

I asserted petulantly, "Thought you said nanotech was outlawed in
your time!"

"This isn't nanotech, quite.  It's nanobiology."

"Huh?"

"I told you we retained Springer's electrostatic scheme to view
the molecular scale.  That's key also to control of living cells.
The human race in my time is master of its bacteria, fungi and
viruses.  In fact, Tim, we learned to _direct_ them, to control
their behavior, not just to kill them."

"Huh?"  I goggled at her.

"Good god!" murmured Alice.

Alice is smarter than I?  I put that aside for later
consideration.

"And I have all that information."  Clara put a finger to her
temple.  "Right here."

I asked, "Have you been able to apply it?"

"Oh, yes.  And you will take it even farther, I am confident."

"How have you applied it?"

Her eyes twinkled.  "One of my early projects was building a
biological computer, that is, a device with a programmable brain.
To test it, I had it produce those Mandelbrot paintings that so
inadequately mystified you."

"Why 'inadequately?'"

"Because you didn't press me for the explanation."

I protested, "Because we respected your privacy, which is the
same reason we didn't ask you about your self-cleaning house and
your humming closets with bank-vault locks."

She smiled.  "I didn't think to camouflage the locks."

"Where is this wonderful computer?" Alice asked.

"Replaced long ago.  Of course I have others now."  The woman's
smile vanished.  "Privacy."  She shook her head.  "There's our
true problem."

"Among ourselves?" asked Alice.  "_What_ privacy?"

"You still have an illusion of it," Clara remarked, looking away.

"Not much illusion," the girl retorted.  "The only time I'm out
of sight of one of you is at school or in the bathroom."

Clara shook her head.  "Not even then, Alice.  You are never out
of my sight."

The younger eyes narrowed.  I said quickly, "Explain what you
mean, Clara."

The woman took a deep breath.  "All right.  I guess I have to do
it sooner or later.  Brace yourselves, darlings.  You're in for a
series of shocks, but please remember always, I love you both to
death."

Inset in the wall above the kitchen sink was a small, circular
window, an eight-inch peephole perhaps designed to let a mother
spy on children playing in the back yard.  Clara grasped a
bracket set into the side of it and pulled.  The window rotated
inward on a vertical hinge, somewhat as a porthole on a ship.  I
had not realized it opened at all!

But that was merely the beginning.  With wings spread in a stall
and only inches of clearance a small gray bird sailed through
that opening and landed on Clara's outstretched finger.  It
immediately folded its wings and looked twitchily around at us.
Its head was black with white streaks.  It could hardly have been
more than three inches long.

"This is a chickadee," Clara intoned.  "It is friendly and wishes
to tell you so."

As her voice died the bird warbled shrilly, "Dee-dee-dee-dee."

Alice got to her feet and approached.  Gently the woman swung her
hand around until the bird was perched almost in the girl's face.

"You caused it to sing?" she asked.

"Yes."

"How?"

"Milliwatt radio, powered by biological mechanisms, works very
well at this range."

"Do it again."

Now the bird changed its tune:  "Sweet-sweet-sweet."

"Good god!" Alice exclaimed.

I licked dry lips and asked again, "So what?"

"Watch."  Clara raised her other hand before the bird, which
leaned down, opened its beak and deposited a small black spheroid
with a red dot -- hell, a ladybug! -- upon her palm.  The bug
spread its wings and flew up to perch in the lobe of the woman's
ear.  I surged to my feet.  Would it crawl into her ear canal?
Apparently not yet.

"So the bird delivered you a ladybug," I noted.

Alice had observed more than I.  "In the middle of winter!"

Clara smiled.  "Protected from the cold in the bird's craw."

"So what?"  I'm sure my amazement sounded almost belligerent.

"So an enhanced insect brain is able to store hours of highly
detailed environmental samplings."

"Temperature and humidity?"

"Oh, them too.  But scenes of human actions and conversation are
much more interesting.  And no one notices a beetle hanging high
in a corner."

I stared at her, at last beginning to understand.

The ladybug reversed its path, flying from earlobe to palm and
folding its wings.  The chickadee snapped it up in its beak and
jerked its head presumably to swallow.  In any case the bug
disappeared.  With a flutter of wings the bird launched itself
into the kitchen air, swooped sharply and vanished outside
through the circular window.  The woman pushed it closed.

"Sit down," she said, "and finish your breakfasts before they get
completely cold, then I'll show you a recent recording."

We obeyed dumbly.  Clara had just performed real magic of a kind
reminiscent of fairy tales.  My hand was shaking.

"Tim," she admonished, "egg is falling into your lap.  Please
spread your napkin."

"Yes, Mother," I responded sarcastically and automatically.

"Mother!" Alice sniffed, picking up her fork.  "And what does
that make you?"

"A mother lover," I submitted, biting off a chunk of ham.  "Did
you cook this, Clara?"

"I caused it to be cooked," she said, sitting down before her own
plate.  She looked at me wistfully.  "Would that I were your
mother!"

"I prefer you as a lover," I said around the food.

"It would make no difference to that.  Think what control at this
level means."

"Of course!" I said, snapping my fingers.  "That's why you don't
worry about contraception."

"Exactly."

I recalled something.  "That white powder in Harvey's drink, 'BC
plus a little insurance,' you said.  What did you really do to
him?"

Her eyes were cold.  "Harvey Gambel Springer will never father a
child.  His spermatozoa are now and forever curiously susceptible
to the protective acidity of the vagina.  None can survive to
reach his partner's fallopian tubes."

I felt a chill.  "I'm damned glad I didn't study nanotech."

Alice sniffed.  "You couldn't until Drexler named it in the
Eighties."

"Then I'm damned glad I never thought up the idea."

"That was Richard Feynman in the Sixties."

"I might've known."

Clara was first to finish.  She excused herself and went
upstairs.  Alice and I stared silently at each other, eating the
last of our breakfast, not yet prepared to discuss these
incredible events.

The woman returned from her room with a strange object in each
hand.  She held out one to both of us.  "Try these."

They were opera glasses, the short, wide-field type of only two
or three power.  Her hand slipped into a pocket of her robe and
passed each of us a flesh-colored "candy kiss."

"Put that in an ear and hold the glasses to your eyes as if you
meant to look out the side window."

We obeyed her.  I heard a man's voice in my ear as I raised the
opera glass, facing toward the bright morning sunlight flooding
through the large side window.  I saw a scene in both eyes: a
conference table with several people around it:  Clara, Alice,
myself, Halleck, Raimer and Avery.  I recognized Raimer's voice.
"Mrs. Edgeworth, are you in fact the boy's aunt?"

The depicted Clara responded clearly, "We have already gone over
this."

"Please, ma'am.  This is for the record."

I sat in amazed fascination as yesterday's meeting with the FBI
played out in perfect detail.  The kitchen table and my present
companions faded from awareness.  The camera -- meaning whatever
captured this image -- was high at one end of the room.  It was a
wide-angle shot that, playing back in the opera glasses, filled
half my own field of view.  The stenographer, Vi, sat below me in
the foreground, the top of her head visible along with the
notepad and its curly shorthand loops.  The other six people were
gathered around the table as I remembered.  My face was only too
recognizable.  The resolution was incredible!  My own eye's
registry of the original scene could have been no better.

Alice's comment in the restaurant, that I was a poor liar, proved
on the mark.  When Raimer mentioned Tonio, my surprise and
consternation were obvious, though I thought at the time to
exhibit only stolid indifference.  I made a note to ask Clara why
she had been forced to chuckle at that strategic moment, behavior
Raimer had interpreted so accurately.

I was not at all impressed with my own performance, especially
later when I faced the huge chieftain alone.  I ended up as a
child taunting his elder to react, when in fact it was the other
way around.  Clearly Avery got more from our interview than I
did!

The image jumped.  Artificial light illuminated the room instead
of the light from the windows.  The stenographer, Vi Jones,
entered ahead of bald Raimer.  She took a seat across the table,
he next to the door, leaving it open.  She sat with notepad
spread before her, pencil poised.

He said, "This is the protection schedule for UGH."

Vi giggled while her pencil looped.  "That's U.G.H., right?  Tell
me again what it means."

Raimer grunted.  "Some of Avery's irony, assigned while we were
still looking for them.  'Unnatural Genius Hunt.'  It means those
two Reverted kids.  You do know, don't you, Vi, not a word about
them can get out of this office?  In particular you can't talk
about that _Reversion_ bit."

"Sure.  I keep a lot of secrets around here."

"I know you do, you sweetie.  All right, I want Halleck and
Campbell to start the watch with a ten-hour heel and toe.  We'll
add Smith when he finishes that surveillance on Tuesday.  I mean,
add him on Wednesday.  Give him a day off."

"Is three enough for a 24-hour watch?"

"No, but Avery has more help coming.  The director definitely
doesn't want the Russians to get these kids."

"So who do you want to take the duty tonight?"

"Campbell can start.  He's had the day off.  That Russian wiretap
Berensky found on the Edgeworth phone line: tell Berensky we're
taking it over.  It will give us advance notice on their
movements.  Add it to his list.  Also make a note for me to get
the Edgeworth dame's permission for it.  Might as well do it
legally.  She ought to be very willing after that attempted
kidnapping."

He waited briefly while her pencil flew.  When she looked up, he
added, "And make out the application for a tap on Peyton Dell.
His dossier has a red flag.  Avery snarled at me for overlooking
that, but _he's_ the one who passed it by!"

"Just his home?"

"Hell, no!  Office too."

"You think the kid was right?" she asked, still scribbling.

"It's too good a chance to overlook.  We know he corresponds with
their consulate here.  Avery has asked to close that down but
Washington won't agree.  They're afraid of a reciprocal closing
in Leningrad.  I don't know what makes them think they get more
from the Russians than --"

A door slammed somewhere in the building.

The woman folded up her notebook.  "You think that's Avery?"

"He was the last one here.  That was the main door.  Well, Vi, my
sweet, the cat's away."

She grinned.  "And now the mice will play."

Both of them stood up.  She reached under her skirt, bending and
stooping.  Raimer dropped his pants and shorts, pushed the chair
back and sat down again.  She hurried around the table, leaving
pink panties on its surface.

"Ooo!" she murmured.  "All ready for me."

He grinned smugly.  "I've been encouraging it."

She threw a nylon-encased leg over his extended hairy ones,
settling into his lap facing him.  His hand slipped between them.
Her hips performed a hook and twist.

He chuckled.  "I'm not the only one who was ready."

"I'm always ready.  Oh god, Paul, that feels good!"

He chuckled.  "The advantage of bald heads."

Their arms went around each other and their faces met while hips
rolled in counterpoint rhythm.  His chair creaked.  That and
their breathing were the only sounds in the building.

I heard Alice say, "What was his title, _supervisor_?  That son
of a bitch!  She ought to sue him."

I lowered the glasses.  Alice was still holding onto hers with
both hands.  Clara leaned against the sink with a wry smile.

I said incredulously, "You think Vi is being sexually coerced?"

Alice answered, "She can surely claim it!"

"40 years from now," I muttered and turned to Clara.  "You want
to tell us how this works?"

"I released a beetle in that room.  It flew out behind Raimer and
Vi.  The chickadee was waiting when they opened the outer door.
It brought the beetle to me."

"The same beetle?" asked Alice, who had finally lowered her
glasses.  We both removed the earpieces.

"No.  It's much easier to co-opt a fresh beetle than to erase the
storage of a used one."

Alice's eyes glittered.  "What happened to this one?"

"She became the chickadee's reward."

"Some reward!"

Clara chuckled.  "I assure you the bird thought so."

"And these glasses?" I asked.  "How do they work?"

"By means of white light diffused and transmitted from some
external source such as that window.  It has not yet been noticed
in 1948 that certain primitive retinal cells can work in reverse.
That is, nerve impulses can cause them to absorb or transmit
light of the frequency to which each is dimensionally attuned.  I
have replaced the objective lenses of those glasses with living
tissue, consisting of a translucent substrate coated with avian
retinal cells, having a salamander's veins and gut for support
and another insect brain for data storage and control.  I can
download them with an hour's images by holding them close to my
head for a few seconds."

Alice may indeed be faster on the uptake.  While my astonishment
was still settling in, she asked, "Then _you_ don't need opera
glasses to get the report!"

"That's right.  When you two have won your degrees so you can
leave Chicago, I'll install that capability in your heads too."

"My god!" I breathed, turning the glasses this way and that.
They were identical to standard opera glasses, including a Bausch
and Lomb imprint on the lens rings.  I noticed two small holes on
either side of each lens barrel.  One was dry.  The other seemed
moist.  On an impulse I shoved it under my nose and sniffed:
faintly offal.

"How often do you feed it?" I asked dryly.

Clara's eyes twinkled.  "It's quite efficient.  It emits no
energy except a very slight amount of heat.  Each lens needs a CC
of beef stock about once a month."

"If you use two beetles, can you sync them and get 3D images?"

"One beetle has two sets of eyes, you know."  She gestured toward
the glasses.  "What you saw _was_ 3D, though set to wide-angle it
is far less noticeable."

"Implying a zoom capability?"

"By limiting the field, yes.  But it gets grainy.  Unfortunately
a beetle cannot guess what you might consider important."

I laid my instrument on the table and pushed back my chair.
"We've learned a little," I summarized.  "The Russians found out
about our trip to Spatenhaus because they had tapped our phone
line.  But how did they get interested in us in the first place?
Maybe it wasn't Dell, though it's interesting the FBI has a
red-flagged dossier on him, whatever that means.  I'll bet he at
least verified something about us for the Russians.  He's still
obsessed with a certain Russian woman.  Wonder why he didn't
marry her and bring her back with him."

Alice sniffed.  "Because she's more useful to the NKVD where she
is."

"Yeah, you may be right.  What about the rest of my list, Clara?"

"List it again."

"Huh!  I shoulda wrote 'em down.  All right.  Alice's wrists and
my gunpowder marks."  I stared at her.  "Have you started
controlling _our_ bugs?"

"Only marginally.  You may have noticed that head colds and
coughs have troubled neither of you this winter, though you told
me, Alice, that half your Russian class was out for colds.  I
kissed your face and earlobe last night, Tim, as we made love, if
you recall.  Nanobiots in my saliva caused your skin to eject the
powder particles and grow over the cavities during the night."

Alice sniffed.  "But you didn't kiss my wrists!"

"Your tendons had to be strengthened from the inside.  I blew
programmed nanobiots into your lungs as we kissed."

"My god!" I breathed again.

Clara laughed softly.  "Does that make me a monster, Tim?"

"N-no."

"Then please look upon me with love instead of horror."

"I'm sorry, my darling," I admitted, squaring my shoulders.  "You
did warn us of shocks."

"They're not over yet."

"The self-cleaning house," said Alice.  "That's gonna be a
doozer."

"Well," Clara demurred, "it's not truly _self_-cleaning!"

"Then what cleans it?"

Clara leaned forward over the table.  Casually her arm swept out
and knocked over my tumbler of coke, still with about an inch of
dark liquid in the bottom.  It fell toward the center of the
table, where its content mostly splashed.

"What the hell?" demanded Alice, sliding her chair back.

"Watch," said Clara, retreating from the table.

Suddenly I heard a humming buzz, growing louder.  A dark
shimmering cloud swept into the kitchen from the hall.  It
swooped onto the tabletop, where I finally recognized the
individual forms of ... _wasps_!

I surged away from the table involuntarily, knocking over my
chair, stumbling to my feet, ready to flee.

But the swarm of insects ignored the humans.  They settled on the
sticky spilled liquid in churning clumps, their buzzing greatly
reduced.  Within five seconds they lifted off the table, buzzing
fiercely again, formed into their writhing cloud and zoomed back
into the hall.  The humming died away.  The enameled tabletop
gleamed spotlessly.

Alice's eyes were popping.  I'm sure that mine were bulging
exactly as she had described them for the FBI.  I could only
gasp, "Those are _wasps_!"

Clara stood with eyes dancing, a hand over her mouth.  "Yes, they
are.  But even if you crush them they won't harm you."

Alice caught her breath.  "You clean house with wasps?  But how
do they do the cooking?  And the laundry?"

The woman's humor faded.  "Brace yourselves," she advised, "and
look again in the doorway."

I spun about almost reluctantly, expectant some monstrous robot,
thus momentarily overlooking what stood there -- until it bowed
low as if to conclude a stage performance.  It was a small brown
monkey with a black head and tufted ears, standing less than two
feet high.  Behind it curled a tail, the last half of which
formed a tight coil.

It straightened up -- _he_ straightened up -- and raised his
sharp-nailed right hand, palm forward, as if greeting us.
Suddenly he turned a forward somersault, stood erect and again
raised his hand.

"How cute!" simpered Alice breathily.

I would have turned to stare at her in astonishment if the monkey
had not obviously reacted to her remark.  He clapped his hands
several times over his head as if applauding, bowed once more,
and lifted a piece of metal from a fine chain around his neck.
He put the thing to his mouth -- a whistle? -- and leaned forward.
I heard only the hiss of air, but it was nevertheless a signal.

Feet scampered in the hall and several other monkeys identical to
the first appeared to form a phalanx of four, three monkeys deep,
behind him.  A dozen new monkeys now faced us.  And bowed
simultaneously.

Alice clapped.  Shortly I joined in.  When we ceased, they stood
up and waited passively.

"These are your chefs and maids?" asked Alice in wonder.

"_Our_ chefs and maids," Clara corrected.  "These are Capuchins,
native to the Brazilian rainforest.  They are my abject slaves,
yours too when you graduate, but I assure you they don't object
to their status in the slightest.  Sit quietly and watch."

The first two ranks of monkeys swept forward, jumping to the
tabletop, from there to the sink, in the process transferring all
our plates, cups, tumblers and silverware.  A paper napkin was
snatched from my lap.  I had a glimpse of it and others vanishing
below the raised lid of the trashcan while water ran into the
sink.  One monkey was scattering washing powder over the stacked
dishes.

Alice and I sat in complete bemusement under Clara's proud smile
while this small troop washed our dishes along with the greasy
frying pan, dried them all, put them away in the proper cupboards
and hung up the dishcloths.  As they were finishing up, the
earlier buzzing renewed itself, only stronger.  A larger swarm of
wasps appeared, settling on the table, on the floor where some of
my coke had spattered, and on the sink among the monkeys.
Neither kind of animal interfered with the other.  Shortly the
monkeys retreated to their formation, where the rear rank of four
and the ... alpha male? -- waited stoically.  Within half a minute
the wasps concluded and reassembled in their own airborne
formation before buzzing away up the hall.

The kitchen gleamed in spotless perfection.  The whole thing had
taken hardly four minutes.

"Well?" asked Clara, regarding us with amused pride.

I spread my hands.  "I guess in two lifetimes that was the most
amazing demonstration I ever witnessed."

Alice asked sweetly, "More amazing than 15 Italian lovelies
undulating for you at once?"

"_Will_ you quit that!" I squawked.  "Besides, they didn't
undulate all at once."

"What are they waiting for?" asked Alice.  Indeed the formation
of monkeys waited unmoving just inside the doorway.

Clara answered, "Altering them necessarily increased their
intelligence while giving it purpose.  They know humans sometimes
react badly to their species.  They wait to see what you'll do."

I'm not that dumb.  I said with a grin, "Because _you_ are
waiting."

"Yes, of course."  She returned my grin.

My mind was beginning to work again.  "The too-ready meals and
too-clean house began on the second day.  How did you get them
here that quickly, Clara?"

"Watch this."

Her voice had hardly died before the 13 monkeys _merged_.  That
is the only word.  They came together, cheek to jowl, and I do
mean nether cheek; arms, legs and tails intertwined, until they
formed a _bale_ of monkeys -- a rectangular parallelepiped very
like a small, brown and furry hay bale with beady black eyes
watching us from all over its surface.

Clara asked, "Do you recall that large steamer chest you two kids
helped me load into the trunk of the car?  It contained the
Capuchins and the _Vespidae_, plus my tools."

"The _Vespidae_?" I asked.

"The wasps.  'Paper wasps,' they are called, because of the nests
they make.  Even unmodified they are much less toxic to humans
than the hornets they somewhat resemble."

I waved at the bale of monkeys, wondering at the correspondence
to _barrel of monkeys_ that nothing is supposed to be funnier
than.  "How long can they stay like that?"

"As a matter of fact, I can cause them to hibernate in that
arrangement.  Then they hardly breathe and can exist as such for
several days.  But they don't like it very much."

As she finished, the bale sprang apart and again became 13
monkeys standing in their previous formation.

I snapped my fingers.  "Scurrying!"

Clara grinned.  "You've heard them in the night, have you?"

"Yes.  I thought it was squirrels in the attic.  They only, ah,
come out at night?"

"Until now, only when you two were both asleep or at school."
She smiled fondly at the waiting troop.  "We meant to give the
place a good general cleaning and airing yesterday afternoon, but
that plan rather fell apart."

Alice stepped forward, looking intently at the leader.  "Does he
have a name?"

"_He_ does, and he knows it: Alazar."

I'll swear the male in front turned his head from woman to girl
_before_ she called him, suggesting that Clara had a mental
finger involved in what happened next.  Alice fell to one knee
and called softly, "Alazar, come here, pretty boy.  Come here,
Alazar."

The little figure strutted across the room to her, shoulders and
arms swinging, in perfect mimicry of a small boy's unjustified
swagger.  He bowed low, coiled tail rising comically behind him,
raised up and stretched out furry arms toward her.

Of course she picked him up and hugged him gently to her flat
chest.  "Oh, Alazar, you little sweetheart!"

I stared in disbelief.  Alice seldom shows affection.  I never
saw her offer it even to her own children.  Only too rarely she
shows it to me!  But now her face was dissolved in love.  The
little boy in me wanted to puke.  The old man wondered at the
size of a monkey's penis.  Didn't the _Kama Sutra_ mention
congress between monkeys and women?  No, not monkeys:
chimpanzees.

I forced my mind back onto the rails.  "I gather both monkeys and
wasps live in your humming closet."

"Yes," Clara admitted.  "The wasps beat the air with their wings
for circulation.  When I tried suppressing that instinct, they
suffocated."

"When do you feed them?  Also at night?"

"The monkeys eat as they clean up after us.  Being as omnivorous
as we, they take what else they need from our larder.  They make
up a nectar for the wasps."

I allowed incredulity into my voice.  "These _monkeys_ installed
those bank-vault locks?"

"With my help," she admitted.  "Some things are beyond their
strength, of course."

I shook my head.  "The implications of such control are
staggering.  I am just beginning to appreciate this."

"What else do you want to know, Tim?"

"How rich are you?"

She shrugged.  "I have accounts in many banks, many millions of
dollars.  Money will never be a concern of ours."

"All right, tell me this, then.  How did your phony birth
certificates fool the FBI?"

"The FBI took them from the county files in Hightower.  If you
wonder how false certificates came to be in those files, the
answer is because I put them there, after creating them by
reference to the paper, ink and typewriter peculiarities of your
valid certificate.  Present technology is not good enough to
detect that forgery."

"You couldn't have done all that on Sunday afternoon!"

"No, of course not.  I did it while we still lived in Hightower.
I was confident we'd need them."

I took a breath.  "You are such a remarkable person, Clara!"

She came around the table in a rush and embraced me, compressing
me against her breasts.  "For you, Tim, only you!"

At those words I saw Alice look up.  She released Alazar, who
gathered up his troop and disappeared down the hall, leaving the
girl to stare at us thoughtfully.

* * *

Rosalind failed to answer her telephone.  I came back to the
kitchen, where my women were discussing the different approaches
required in programming the serial machines familiar to Alice
versus the massively parallel structures of biological systems.
I sat and listened for a while, gathering from Alice's bemused
expression that whole new vistas were opening for her, but when
they segued into input-output techniques, discussing parallel
sensoria and command-response channels, I interrupted.

"Excuse me, ladies.  It's Monday, you know."

Alice's eyes widened and she glared up at the clock over the door
before relaxing.  "I've got an hour and a half."

"I guess Rosalind has already gone to school," I responded
obliquely.

She frowned at me.  "What were you going to tell her anyway?"

"Tell her?  I meant to make sure she was all right, that the FBI
delivered her home."

"Is that all?  How did you mean to answer her questions?"

I shrugged.  "Somehow."

She sniffed.  "I'll bet you planned to spin some fancy lie about
us being Tsar Nicholas's grandchildren."

I looked at her admiringly.  "That's not bad -- about the Russians
thinking so, at any rate!"

Alice stared meaningfully at Clara.  "How like a man to lie!"

Clara chuckled and winked at me.  "If his woman gives him the
idea."  Her face became serious.  "We've agreed Rosalind is
socially valuable to us, one of the few who'd raise a stink if
the government got too overbearing.  We do need to tell her
_something_."

Alice's eyes narrowed.  "I'll take care of it."

"You?" I asked.

"Without angling for a blowjob, either.  Timmy, what _is_ it with
her?  Does she really do that so much better than Clara or I?"

I shook my head.  "I can't believe you're asking for a
comparison!"  I spread my hands.  "But that's a good idea.  _You_
take care of it!"

"Don't think I won't!"  She stood up.  "I have time for a good
long soak."  She grinned askance at Clara.  "Do you suppose
Alazar and some of his buddies might wash my back?"

Clara's eyes twinkled.  "You might miss your class."

"Do you mean he actually does that?"

"Oh, yes.  The Capuchin often help me with my toilet."

The girl blinked and smiled sheepishly.  "I just realized: I
can't tell him what to do."

"Before you two came to live with me, I communicated for years
with them in English."

"They understand?"

"Simple words and gestures, nods and head-shakes, for example.
One of these days I'll undertake the throat modifications to let
them speak."

"Then ..."  Alice licked her lips.  "Do I just knock on the
closet door?"

Clara grinned.  "Why not?  Like this."  She rapped three times on
the tabletop, paused then repeated.  "I'll tell him to expect
you."  Her face took on a pronounced leer.  "The males love our
massive fleshiness."

The girl nodded pensively and remarked in an off-hand manner, "I
noticed Alazar's erection."

I stared at her in surprise.  "When?"

She returned my stare levelly.  "When I hugged him.  I don't
think I need _your_ permission.  There's only 13 of them, you
know, not 15."

I grunted and turned away.  As Alice left the room, I saw that
Clara had covered her mouth with her hand.  I inquired, "Are
Capuchins large enough?"

"No, Tim, not to replace a man," she said with quick seriousness.

Somehow I didn't have the courage to ask her about a boy.

* * *

"I've made a few improvements in the viewers," said Clara,
extending one to me.

The three of us lay entangled and sweaty upon her large bed.  At
Alice's insistence we had adjourned early tonight for our usual
evening calisthenics.  The girl had behaved toward me with
unusual tenderness.  I thought snidely that the monkeys must be
less than satisfactory -- but I didn't say it.  She even detected
my approaching climax, abandoned Clara's cunt and swung down in
the bed to take it from me orally.  Afterwards she looked up at
me with a pleased smile, a dollop of spunk on her chin.  I could
only stare in grateful disbelief until our breathing eased and
Clara distracted me.

I took the modified opera glasses but she held on to them,
pointing out features with the fingers of her other hand.  "We
all have perfect vision, so I set the eyepiece to a fixed focus
and converted the focusing knob to a zoom control.  Play with it
and you'll see how it works.  This new button is the pause and
release.  Hold it down for two or three seconds and it will
restart a scene at the beginning."  She released the device and
handed me something from the headboard.  "Here's an earpiece."

Both females were watching me.  With a shrug I fell back beside
Clara, tucked in the earpiece and put the glasses to my eyes but
saw only dim grayness even when directed at the ceiling light.

"Nothing's on," I said as I might in ten years whenever the TV
was uninteresting.

"Press the restart button," Clara advised.

When I did so, sound arrived at my ear: the background rumble of
a city and someone's boots crunching in the snow.  The scene
presented to my eyes was a snow-lined neighborhood street along
whose sidewalk the camera was moving with a slight bounce.  I
recognized it:  59th Street.  Suddenly the camera -- I know it
wasn't a camera but after years of using camcorders that's how I
thought of it -- turned in a sidewalk to a familiar apartment
building and began to descend the stairs to the basement.  I
recognized the scuffed door.  This was Rosalind's place.

I pressed the pause button and looked into Alice's intent eyes.
"You went to see Rosalind today?"

"This afternoon."

I looked around at Clara.  "Where was your ladybug, on her cap?"

"Not exactly," the woman answered, eyes twinkling.

In the depicted scene a gloved fist rose and banged on the door.
I also heard feet stomping, possibly to dislodge snow and
stimulate blood circulation.

"Who's there?"  Rosalind's voice came muffled from behind the
door after an annoying wait.

"It's Alice.  Open up!  I'm freezing!"

Stomping feet sounded again.  After long seconds the gloved fist
rose to knock again just as Rosalind called, "It's a bad time,
Alice.  Could you come back later?"

"No!" the girl shouted angrily.  "It's ten degrees out here.  Let
me in!"

Again a wait.  Alice began to kick the door with one foot,
persistently but not too hard.  Finally the lock clicked.  The
door opened a crack, just wide enough for Rosalind's nose and
half her face to peer at me directly.  Suddenly I realized this
camera must have been on Alice's face itself.

"I have a visitor," the older girl whispered urgently.  "You
can't come in now."

Alice's face thrust toward the door.  She grunted as it flew
open.  Rosalind was obviously thrown off balance.  As she
staggered backward her robe parted.  Without its scant cover she
would have been fully naked.  The camera flicked oddly around the
suddenly revealed room -- a capability the ladybug had never
demonstrated -- and came to rest upon a young man lying stark
naked atop the bed.  He made no effort to conceal the smug grin
on his handsome face or an erect penis of modest dimension.

Out of sight behind the camera the door shut solidly.  Rosalind's
voice emitted stuttering objections.  The camera rolled back and
forth but remained centered on the erect member, as Alice shed
her parka and pulled off blue snow pants in what must have been a
comfortably warm room. The guy's dick was thicker than my twelve
year-old specimen but not much longer.

"Hah!" the fellow snorted in an amused baritone when her outer
garments lay on the floor.  "I thought you were a boy."

She was probably still wearing a dress.  The camera advanced
beside the bed and stared pointedly at the dick too dry to have
seen recent use.  Alice sneered, "If I were a boy I'd be better
equipped than you."

The guy rose onto an elbow to retort indignantly, but Rosalind's
shoulder heaved into sight between them.

"You'd better go, Dicky," she said in a flustered voice, looking
around at Alice behind her.

"Little Dicky's not finished," Alice taunted.  "I can wait.  He
won't take a second."

"That's right!" the guy exclaimed and pulled Rosalind onto the
bed.

He rolled atop her in a flash.  His hips thrust unmistakably.
The prone girl's eyes went wide.

"Get off!" she screamed, flailing at the man.  Apparently he was
too heavy to dislodge.  She wailed, "You're not wearing a
rubber!"

Alice reached down to seize the man's hair in both hands.  She
pulled fiercely and Rosalind pushed.  Their joint effort
succeeded, sending him sprawling to the floor with a thump.
Scowling, he jumped adroitly to his feet.  His mouth opened as
though to issue a stream of profanities, but instead he smiled.
After a graceful wave of his arm with a courtly bow he collected
his clothes and took them into the bathroom.

The two girls stared wordlessly at each other during the minute
Dicky required to dress.  He returned to the room ready for
outdoors.

"Sorry about the misunderstanding, Ros," he said with an arrogant
grin.  "I'll see you after class tomorrow."

With an amused glance at Alice and a slight toss of the head he
left the apartment.  Neither of the girls spoke until they heard
the outside door close upstairs.

"He put it in me!" the older one exclaimed bitterly.  "Do you
think it was rape?"

"Perhaps."  Alice sat on the bed beside her.  "But didn't he only
catch you by surprise?  It was a playful way of saying good-bye
after I interrupted your fuck."

Rosalind glanced quickly at the smaller girl and then examined
her fingernails.  "You did interrupt, of course.  We intended to
spend the afternoon together."

"So now you have an unscratched itch," Alice responded snippily.
"I'll tell Tim.  I'm sure he'll rush over to help."

Rosalind flushed slightly.  "By the way: what are you doing
here?"

"To make sure you're all right.  Tim couldn't reach you on the
phone."

"He called?"

"Yes, this morning.  He's in class.  You and I don't have one on
Monday afternoons, so I came to see if you had some good reason
not to answer the phone."  I heard the smirk in her voice.  "Not
a very long reason, was it?"

Rosalind giggled.  "I had a special use in mind for that short
one."  Suddenly her face was serious.  "What happened yesterday,
Alice?"

"You mean after we left you?"

"Didn't the FBI take you home?  What I mean is, why did it
happen?  I'm a language student, remember?  And I'm pretty sure
that kidnapper you ran from spoke to you in Russian."

"I didn't understand it either," Alice responded in tones that I
recognized to imply no big deal.  "My Russian studies haven't got
that far yet.  But would you believe it was all a wrong number?"

Rosalind blinked.  "Would I believe it?"

I chuckled, pleased that Alice could also be guilty of
anachronisms.

Ignoring the question, the young girl asked airily, "You've heard
of Anastasia, the lost daughter of Tsar Nicholas?"

Rosalind's eyes widened.  "By now she'd be in her forties!"

"It seems the Russians thought we were her children."

"Good heavens!"

"Just a case of mistaken identity."  Alice's hand appeared in a
deprecating gesture.  "Does Dicky being here mean you're through
with Tim?"

Rosalind smiled slowly.  "Are you jealous _for_ Tim?"  She
chuckled.  "No need for that.  Tim and I are just good friends."

"That's what Tim says," Alice retorted.  "But don't you fuck
regularly?"

"No."  Rosalind's lips curled down, but her finger toyed with
back of the girl's hand.  "I think he's been avoiding me since
the party -- until Sunday, at least.  And look what happened!"
Her voice softened.  "Tim was my first guy, you know."

"Mine too," Alice admitted quietly and tangled a finger around
Rosalind's.

"I thought so," the larger girl said, taking the other's hand.
"But I hesitated to asked him about it because you're only ten
and also his cousin."

Alice sighed and studied the other girl's face.  It denoted
sincerity, perhaps an offer of friendship.

"I've only recently begun to enjoy sex," the younger confided.  I
heard a smile in her voice.  "I'd like to try it with other guys
before, you know, Tim and I settle down together."

"That should be years away, don't you think?" the older said
cheerfully.  "You could have dozens of guys by then."  She raised
an arm that seemed to go around Alice's shoulders.  Her head drew
closer.

Alice asked boldly, "How about hundreds?"

"Hundreds!" Rosalind squealed in delight.  "Wouldn't that be
something?"

"I'd mainly like to feel a adult cock while I'm still small."

The older looked serious.  "Why would you want that, Alice?  Some
of them can be rather long.  They can hurt."

Alice snuggled close and fingered one of the older girl's
curiously small breasts.  "At least I'd like a fat one to fill me
up.  Have you ever been hurt?  I mean after the first time."

Rosalind's face and neck began to flush apparently in response to
Alice's unexpected attention to a nipple.  "The second guy," she
murmured in a distracted voice.  "He was too long."

"If it hurt maybe you put him in the wrong place."

Rosalind's stuttered, "But, but ..."

"Right!" cried Alice with a giggle.  "They can't be too long
there."

"Are you ... _sure_?"

"Try your big guy and you'll see.  Of course they can be too
_fat_ there.  Was he too fat?"

"Oh, no!" Rosalind breathed dreamily.  "He was perfect that way."

Damn it!

"I want that too."  Alice's hand frankly palmed the breast.
Suddenly Rosalind's cheek was so close the proximity cut off the
light.  Apparently Alice had kissed it.  "Do you ever play with
dolls?" she whispered.

I had a glimpse of Rosalind's full face before the scene dimmed
again.  "I've never had a live doll," she said in a quivery voice
whose passion I recognized.

Both fell back onto the bed.  Alice must have landed atop the
other's naked body.  Both made tiny moaning sounds in curious
harmony.  After many mewling kisses Alice brushed her face
quickly over the small breasts and flat stomach to find the moist
pubic bush.  With the experience of decades plus recent practice
with Clara, Alice well knew what stimulates girls.  She rapidly
brought the elder to a screaming climax.

Shortly she backed away from an inflamed, wet clitoris and stood
up.  The darkness of her dress passed upward over her eyes, but
she remained focused on Rosalind's face, still registering its
surprised delight in the quickness and deft satisfaction of that
orgasm.

When Alice arose after removing panties and stockings, the
reclining girl's eyes raked her thoroughly.  "You have the legs
of an older girl, but the rest of you is only ten."

"Almost eleven," Alice corrected and returned to cuddle on the
bed.

They were soon squirming their bodies together.  The scene in the
viewer wobbled enough to make me dizzy.  After a while Alice fell
back.  Rosalind crouched beyond the hairless crotch to explore
her new doll, to kiss its body, to fondle it and from the visible
wrist contortion, to insert some fingers.

"I had to do that," Rosalind giggled, tasting them afterwards.
"I needed to prove you were truly not a virgin."

Alice giggled.  "What if I had been?"

"I don't know."  The elder's eyes widened at first but narrowed
with a scornful laugh.  "Not a chance of that!  No virgin would
know how to make me come so quickly."

She took a breath.  "Except for your legs, you look exactly like
a little girl, but now I know better."  She chuckled.  "Maybe you
told that waiter the truth.  I think you could certainly handle a
grown man.  If it were summer I'd have a cucumber and we could
pretend it was a fat cock."

"I prefer the real thing," Alice remarked agreeably.  "But right
now I'd like something more gentle."

Her hands appeared, pulling Rosalind's head lower.

"I've never done this before," the older girl protested
nervously, but allowed her face to approach the soft stomach.

"You know how, Ros.  You know exactly what to do."

Alice's hands fell away.  She seemed to wait in total passivity
after raising her knees and turning her hips upward.  Rosalind's
eyes, staring with an almost ludicrous mixture of anticipation,
timidity and reluctance, hovered just above the pale flesh at the
bottom of the young belly -- which writhed suddenly, accompanied
by a soprano gasp.

"Oh, yes!" Alice sighed after some moments.  "Now do me fast!"
Her whole torso quivered and ... the lights chose that moment to
go out just as the young girl screamed.

Then I understood.  She had clenched her eyes shut.  Had Clara
actually put her "camera" inside the girl's eye?

The eyes fluttered open in time to reveal Rosalind rising to
hands and knees.

"Was that good?" the elder asked.  "Did I do it right, darling?
As good as Tim?"

Her face approached.  They folded into a gentle embrace.

"As good as Clara," the young girl admitted dreamily.

"Clara!" Rosalind exclaimed, her eyes large in excited surprise.
She sat up with an avid expression.  "Does Tim do Clara too?"

"Yes."

"You certainly have a naughty family," the older girl remarked
with a nervous laugh.

"That's true," Alice admitted.  The perspective changed.  Perhaps
she had risen on an elbow.  "But you love naughtiness too.  Well,
we can be naughty for the rest of the afternoon.  Do you have
any, uh, toys to play with?"

Rosalind's pretty face took on an adventurous look.  "I have a
kielbasa," she said with rising excitement.  "It's not as thick
as a cucumber, but ...'

"It'll do," Alice declared, lying back languidly on the bed.
Again the lights went out.

"I'll be right back!" Rosalind said breathlessly.  I heard the
unmistakable sound of a drawer pulled open, but the scene
remained dark.

* * *

One afternoon about two weeks later when I had hung up my coats
and flopped on the couch beside Clara, I found Fuzzytop waiting
with a glass of coke on ice.  That's the way I love it, but the
ice crusher built into the refrigerator door hasn't been invented
yet.  A monkey, however, who is able and willing to take ice
cubes from the freezer compartment, bash them up with a hammer in
a cloth bag, scrape the results into a tumbler and pour coke over
it, is even better than the machine, which after all can only do
a part of that.

But as I thanked him and took the glass, the little bastard
widened his tongue and deliberately licked my fingers.  It
tickled, almost causing me to spill the drink.  He knows I hate
that, at least from another male.  He sat back on his haunches,
stared up at me and made the "Tch-tch-tch-tch" sounds that Clara
has declared to be Capuchin laughter.

"You little devil," I intoned, which sent him away, chattering
more frenziedly.

"He loves you, Tim," advised Clara behind a warm smile, "almost
as much as I do."

"Why does he love my _taste_ so much?"

Her smile became a giggle but she shook her head.  "That's not
why he licks your fingers."

"Yeah, I know.  What he really loves is to annoy me."

"Not even that, though he does love for you to recognize his
existence.  Think about it.  When was the last time you washed
your hands?"

I blinked.  "I guess this morning."

"Right.  The Capuchins have much better developed senses of taste
and smell than we.  If he could speak I'm sure he'd tell you
everything you've handled since you left here this morning."

I sneered, "No doubt including how many times I stroked my dick."

She chuckled, though with less humor.  "I'm interested in that
too, Tim.  If it were possible, I'd love to follow you around and
do it for you."

I had to laugh a little.  "You almost sound like you mean it."

"Oh, I do, Tim.  You have the sweetest little organ in the
world."

I cringed.  "Emphasis on little, eh, Alice?"

The girl looked up with a snicker.  "Enjoy it while you've got
it."

"_Enjoy_ it?"

"Ask Clara.  More bang for the buck in the little ones -- for the
owner, that is."

"What are you talking about?"

"Tell him, Clara."

The woman looked at me.  "The lower blood volume and surface area
result in marginally greater overall stamina."

"You have measured this somehow?"

"Not I, but I have the results of a kinsey investigation in, ah,
2104, your reckoning, which produced such measurements.  It only
stands to reason, Tim."

I spread my hands.  "That may very well be true.  That you claim
it is good enough for me.  But don't you broads understand the
problem better than that?

"Broads!" repeated Clara.

"Hey, don't knock it!" Alice advised smugly.  Damned if she
didn't sit straighter and twist her ass around!  "What problem do
you mean?"

"The problem of having a little dick!" I thundered.

Both sets of brows knit.  "Explain, please," intoned Alice.

"Who cares about stamina?  The problem with having a little dick
is you women prefer larger ones."

"We do?" asked Alice.

"My god!  Am I suddenly in the Land of Oz?  Didn't you and
Rosalind go ga-ga about fat ones just this month?"

They stared at me.  Clara smiled slowly.  "We all love your
little one, Tim."

That made me feel slightly better, especially when Alice chimed
in agreement.  I sat back, sipped my coke and commented with a
touch of smugness, "At least it's the largest one in _this_
house."

"And we'll take care of it," Alice declared.  "Just wait till you
grow up."

I sniffed.  "I'm afraid to ask what _that_ means" -- which was
literally true and suggested a fast change of subject.  "What do
your histories say, Clara, about the date when Chicago gets a
reliable TV station?"

"You want to watch television?" asked Alice.  "I can't believe
you said that."  She looked at Clara.  "He bragged that he
wouldn't have a TV in his house."

"That's not true," I retorted.  "My palmtop could receive the
news.  On nine-eleven I hardly looked at anything else."

"Nine-eleven?" asked Clara.  "Oh, you mean those buildings in New
York."

"Poor Tim is bored."  Alice got to her feet and crossed the room
to hand me an opera glass and an earpiece.  "Here, if you want to
watch TV."

"What is it? -- not more of you and Rosalind, I hope!"

Alice didn't smile.  "Just my family obligation."

I took the device almost reluctantly.  She studied me
contemplatively.

In the viewer I was again seeing through her eyes.  She shrugged
off a heavy woolen coat immediately upon entering the foyer of
some building, tossed it on a chair near the front door and
looked back at the man behind her.  I recognized him from my own
experience of the last two weeks: FBI Agent David Campbell.  He
was more deliberate and hung his coat on a rack.  They were in
the commuter lounge, empty as usual because most local students
preferred the dorm population to their own company.

The girl, tall for a ten year old, stood close to the large young
man and grinned into his face.  "But you know it's true," she
said insistently, obviously continuing a discussion begun
earlier.  "You've been briefed.  I'm really not ten years old and
you don't have to treat me like a little girl."

He shook his head.  "I've been told some strange things about you
and your cousin, Alice, things I don't think about because
frankly they're incredible, who_ever_ says so!  As far as I'm
concerned, you're just what you appear to be: a kid no older than
my brother's daughter.

Clara had improved the glasses again.  I could feel the tension
in my own face when Alice scowled, as she did now.  She went into
the main room where she flopped on a davenport, one leg half
raised against the back of it while the other splayed to the
floor.  Her skirt bunched up to reveal shapely legs from white
anklets to panties.  She obviously knew what she was doing,
because she ran fingertips along one inner thigh and stared up at
the man, who took a chair nearby.

He groused, "I'm not supposed to be talking to you, except in an
emergency.  Hell, I'm not even supposed to follow you in here, at
least not into the same room.  You know all that, don't you?"

She shrugged.  "I don't care about your rules."

He took a breath and asked patiently, "What was so urgent,
Alice?"

"Does your brother's daughter sit in your lap?" she asked, now
palming the thigh and kneading it.

"Sometimes, sure." he replied in a distracted voice, his
attention riveted on the exhibition before him.

"And squirm around deliberately?"

"Deliberately?  I, ah, I don't --"

"Does she masturbate?"

His eyes widened in shock.  "What?  How would I know?  She, she
must be too young for --"

"Many girls start at that age," Alice persisted, a finger now
tracing a crease in the front of her panties.  "They discover the
pleasure even before they develop hair or boobs."

Campbell gawked as the girl's hand slipped beneath the elastic
top of her panties.

She asked as if continuing the statement, "You'd put a grown man
in jail for violating a ten year old, wouldn't you, Davy?" 

It was a reasonable question to ask a lawman but she spoke the
words distantly.  She brazenly began to diddle herself.

"Yes, of course!" he replied with a nervous squeak, mouth agape.
"Such guys should be shot!"

"But which is the greater sin -- ravishing a young body or
corrupting an innocent mind?"  She stared at him intently.

His mouth sagged, eyes following the masturbating fingers, but he
managed a cop's response.  "The law does not make a distinction.
The age of consent is specific."

"The age of consent!" Alice exclaimed.  She wriggled languidly
against the fist in her panties.   "It's the mind that drives
sex, not the body.  Can't you imagine a boobless grown woman who
has shaved her pubes to resemble a ten year old?  Would she not
meet your age criterion?"

Campbell shook his head as if to clear it.  He smiled broadly.
"Yes, that's true, but why would an adult man be sexually
interested in a hairless and titless female body?"

Alice uttered a small gasp and her body stiffened momentarily.
I'll say Clara had improved these glasses -- I even felt a tingle!

The girl retrieved her hand from the panties and raised it to her
face to suck on the forefinger.

"Why?  For curiosity, perhaps," she answered with a lascivious
grin.  "Especially if close up the woman could not be
distinguished from a real ten year old."

"That would be a perversion!" the man objected, yet his voice
faltered.

"Yes," Alice cooed seductively, "wouldn't it?"

He stared blankly at her then stood and moved toward the hallway,
perhaps seeking to put some distance between himself and the
young temptress on the couch.

"Your aunt is waiting for you," he said without turning to her.

"She knows I sometimes stop at the library."  Alice got to her
feet and moved silently to stand behind him, adding in childish
tones, "We have at least two hours, Davy."  She caressed his
back.

He emitted a squawk and faced her.  She stood close, more than a
head shorter than he, her ponytail not quite grazing his chin.
She took his hand in hers.

"I know a private place we can go," she said softly with head
against his chest.  "And I know how to keep secrets better than
anyone in the FBI."

With hands gently on her shoulders he held her back to gaze into
eyes that were limpid and inviting, judging by the reflected
expression in his own.

"This is not right," he said unconvincingly, even to himself.

Without a word of retort she took his hand and pulled him along
the hallway to a door with flaking green paint.  It opened to
reveal a narrow, dusty staircase that led to an upper level above
the lounge.

"Tim and I discovered this place last week," she exclaimed in a
tone of rising excitement.  She closed the door behind them and
pushed him up the stairs before her.

The stairs opened into a desolate windowless room, empty except
for a wooden chair, a table and a bed at the head of which lay a
rolled up, striped mattress.  Campbell seemed reluctant to leave
the head of the stairs, but Alice thrust him inside.

"No one ever comes here," she whispered encouragingly yet with a
hint of caution.

"How would you know?" he objected.  "You're as new to the
university as I."

He surveyed the place like a cop, which took just seconds
considering the small, bare space.  When he turned to the bed he
found that Alice had rolled down the mattress and was sitting
upon it demurely with hands in lap.  He stood awkwardly in front
of the girl and glanced at the stairway.

"Relax, Davy.  I bolted the door from the inside."

"What is this place?"

"Tim and I think it was meant for an after-hours guard or
caretaker.  But they found they didn't need him."  She patted a
spot next to her.

"Alice," he began and then fell silent.

Clearly whatever had induced him to accompany the girl up the
stairs was rapidly dissipating.  Alice pulled on his arm.  He sat
stiffly beside her, leaning slightly away.  She put her arms
around his neck to bring him close.

"Let's start by kissing," she breathed against his lips.

He moved away abruptly and almost stood.  "Please, Alice!  You're
too small."

"Too small?  At least you didn't say too young.  I'd like to
experience something big, Davy.  Do you have it?  I'm not a
virgin, you know.  You won't hurt me."

"Not a virgin!"  He laughed scornfully.  "What have you tried,
the little boy next door?"

She smiled.  "You guys would have a record of that, I expect."
She held up her forefingers about a foot apart.  "Would you
believe --  I mean, I've used a kielbasa this long."

"You --  You're pulling my leg.  You couldn't begin to get that in
you."

"Can't I?  Yours isn't that long, is it, Davy?"

"Ah, not quite."

"Ooo!  I'll bet it's lovely."

"God, kid, do you have any idea what you're doing to me?"

"Making that lovely thing hard as a rock, I hope."

"Oh, Jesus!"  Whether because of curiosity or lust or more likely
both, the man surrendered.  Sadly declaiming, "You're proving one
thing: I for sure don't belong in the FBI!" he embraced the girl
for a kiss and ran his free hand up an illicit, smooth thigh
until finger tips found her panties and the soft labia.  I heard
one small thud on the wooden floor and then another as Alice
kicked off her boots.  They leaned back onto the mattress,
kissing passionately, his hand inside the panties, fingers
exploring the hairless groin.

"Kiss me down there!" she gasped.  "You'll never find one
fresher."

In an instant he was on his knees pulling the panties down
graceful young legs that dangled off the bed.  With trembling
hands he pushed up the skirt to see more clearly the naked, puffy
lips with clit hood protruding invitingly.  Doubtlessly he was
familiar with the anatomy but never one so new, except perhaps
glances stolen of careless sisters.  He paused to gaze, tongue
extended, then set to work with deft, practiced kisses, licks and
gentle sucking.  Alice responded immediately, squirming in
delight, groans quickly reaching a crescendo until she cried
aloud and pushed insistently at his head.

"Do it now!" she pleaded in a ragged voice, pulling on his ears,
wanting him atop her.

But her lover had sudden second thoughts even as he undid the
belt and unbuttoned his fly.  When he raised his head to look at
the girl he discovered she had undone her blouse to expose a flat
chest with small nipples surmounting vague puffiness.  As if in a
dream he continued to expose himself, pushing down trousers and
underpants, but his mighty manhood began to shrivel at the sight
of a half naked ten year-old.

"I can't do this," he moaned to the girl, who raised herself on
elbows to assess the problem.

"Jesus Christ, man!" she exclaimed in outrage.  "You can't leave
me hanging!"

"I'm sorry, Alice," he said resolutely, although his hand
caressed a soft thigh.  "I can't fuck a child."

"Get up here!" she commanded like an angry aunt and grabbed his
arms.

He rose to his feet and then lay beside her on his back with no
evident intention to proceed further.  Alice had other plans.
She knelt above him with a hand grasping his soft member.  After
several futile pumps she leaned down to take the head of it into
her mouth.  This had the desired effect, and it quickly grew to
seven or more hard inches.  With a determined look on her
attractive face she swung a leg over the man and wriggled the
pole into her until she sat comfortably upon his groin.

"Marvelous!" she exclaimed, a note of triumph in her voice.
"Just marvelous!"

With the deed done, Campbell seemed to relax and enjoy the
experience.  He ran his hands up and down the girlish thighs and
began to thrust urgently.  When she leaned down to kiss him, he
embraced her and finally fucked in earnest.  His powerful,
lengthy jabs did not cause her any distress.  Moaning excitedly,
she covered his face with kisses.  Her orgasm was not dramatic or
particularly loud; a delighted "Eek!" marked her finale.
Campbell, however, roared like a bull soon afterwards

Alice sat upright atop him as the penis wilted inside her.  She
appeared to be very pleased with herself.

"I've wondered what it would feel like to have this small body
fucked by a large cock," she announced in high spirits.  "The
first time it happened I was too drunk to really appreciate it."

His lust abated, Campbell's troubled expression revealed
conflicting emotions; fear of the consequences, disgust at
himself and love for the impish girl-woman.  He reached up to
finger a boyish nipple.

"I could get a place for us, Alice," he said fawningly.
"Somewhere we could meet together.  It would be exciting to watch
your body grow to adulthood."

"I doubt you could afford that on a cop's pay, Davy," she
responded cruelly as she dismounted.  "And besides I know being
around you all the time would bore me.  I was just curious.  You
did a good job, but this was a one-shot experiment, a one-night
stand, if you know what I mean."

The man's face betrayed both anger and consternation.  "You
can't mean you just used me for your own pleasure!" he exclaimed
indignantly.  "I suggest you think over my offer more seriously."

"Can't I mean it?"  Her menacing expression was reflected in his
wide eyes.  "This never happened, Davy.  If you insist that it
did, you'll be very sorry.  I suggest you think _that_ over!"

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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