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Subject: {ASSM} RP: Absolute Power 1 by Gary Cirby (FM,mc)2/3
Date: Mon,  8 May 2000 08:10:23 -0400
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ABSOLUTE POWER 1
2/3
Send comments to gcirby@hotmail.com



"All right baby," he said, tossing his towel carelessly towards the
laundry hamper.  "Let's get down to it."

He began to climb onto the bed and then he stopped, finally realizing
the problem.  He chewed his lip nervously for a moment, staring at his
wife's body.

"Terry?" he asked carefully.  "Are you all right?"

She did not answer, did not give any indication that she had heard
him.  Terry, in fact, was not moving at all.  She was simply lying
there like a photograph, frozen in place.  The only indication that she
was not a picture or a hologram was the buzzing of the vibrator.  As
far as he could tell, she was not even breathing!  Was she having some
sort of seizure?

"Terry!" he yelled, stepping forward, his erection wilting to
nothingness.

He reached out to touch her leg, to assure himself that she was really
still there.  Before his fingers could make contact a voice called his
name.  It was a pleasant voice, though a commanding one.  It seemed to
come from no particular direction.  He stopped, adrenaline flooding his
body.  He whipped his head around to face his intruder and saw...
nothing.

"Mr. Woods," the voice said again, coming from seemingly nowhere, from
everywhere.  "Please come into your family room and this will all be
explained."

He hesitated, looking around, trying to pinpoint the source of the
voice.  He was very scared, very much out of his element.  And what had
happened to Terry?

"Mr. Woods," the voice said, "I mean you no harm.  Your wife will be
returned to the way she was momentarily.  Please step into the family
room where we will be able to talk face to face."

The alarm clock radio!  The voice had come from there, he realized.
But not just from there.  It had also come drifting from beyond the
bedroom, from the living room and the family room.  It was almost as if
it were issuing from all of the speakers in his house.  But that was
impossible, wasn't it?

"I promise you," the voice reassured once more, "no harm will come to
either yourself or your wife.  Please come to the family room and talk
to me."

"What if I don't?" Paul asked with a trembling voice.  He could feel
fearful sweat forming on his forehead and dripping down his face.  What
in the hell was going on?  Why hadn't he ever bought a gun?

"If you don't," the voice explained reasonably, "then I will disappear
and take the gift I am offering you to someone else.  Your wife will
return to normal and you will go about your business.  But you will
spend the rest of your life wondering what happened on this day and
just what the gift I am prepared to offer you was going to be."

Paul stood there for a moment, glancing from his frozen wife to the
door of the bedroom, wringing his hands together obsessively.  What to
do?  His mind was the cool, logical mind of an historian, of a
teacher.  He was having trouble accepting that a seemingly disembodied
voice was really talking to him from the speakers in his house.  Could
it be a trick?  Performed somehow with some sort of electronic device?
But then what about Terry?  How had that been done?

"Mr. Woods?" the voice said patiently.  "Will you come in, or should I
leave?"

Finally curiosity managed to pull slightly ahead of fear in his mind.
With one last glance at his wife, he began to walk.  Moving gingerly he
made his way out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the family
room of the house.  The voice said nothing during the trip.

The family room was the largest room in the house.  It was a sunken
room, covered with expensive brown carpet.  It could be accessed from
the hall, from the living room, or from the kitchen by descending three
steps.  It had a pool table on one side and a complete wet bar on the
other.  A plush couch, love seat and recliner set was arranged in a
semi-circle around an entertainment center on the far wall.  The
entertainment center contained a bank of electronic audio and visual
equipment that was hooked into a digital surround sound system.  The
centerpiece of the entertainment center was a 32-inch television set.
It HAD been turned off a few minutes before, had not in fact been
turned on once all day.  Paul and Terry generally kept their television
watching confined to the night hours.  But now the screen had come
alive, displaying a picture of none other than President William
Jefferson Clinton himself.  Clinton was not sitting at the oval office
or giving a press briefing on the lawn of the White House however.  The
image had no scenery whatever in the background, just a solid field of
white.  The face of the President was the only thing contrasting the
background.  The eyes seemed to be looking directly at Paul.  Again he
wondered if this was some sort of elaborate and sick joke.

"You'll forgive me if this manifestation of my persona offends you,"
the image of Clinton said, although not with Bill's voice.  It was the
voice Paul had heard in the bedroom and, like before, it still seemed
to be issuing from every speaker in the house.

"Uh..." Paul said, staring, unable to think of anything else to say.

"You see," the image continued, "I really have no form that you would
be able to see.  Nor can I assume a visible form before you without
actually entering your brain and manipulating your visual and auditory
centers.  I would never enter a human's brain without permission.  That
would be a horrid violation."

"Uh..." Paul continued to stammer, simply staring at the screen from
the second step in the hallway.  Was this really happening?  Was he
dreaming maybe?  That had to be it.  President Clinton's image talking
to him? Only in a dream could something that weird occur.

"So what I have to do in order to be seen by you," the image continued,
"without violating your mind is to violate your television and speaker
equipment instead.  The image of your president was chosen because it
is a pattern that is frequently seen moving through your mediums of
communication in this country and it is less effort to duplicate a
commonly seen pattern."  It smiled a bit.  "A little bit of laziness on
my part.  I hope you'll forgive me.  And, as I said, if the image of
President Clinton offends you as it does some others, please tell me
and I'll choose another."

"Uh..." He coughed, shaking his head and closing his eyes for a
moment.  He pinched himself on the arm, feeling pain.  Could that
happen in a dream?

"Would you like another image?" the image inquired politely once more.
"I could switch to an earlier president perhaps?  Or maybe a
supermodel?"

"Uh... Clinton's fine... uh... yeah."

"Very well," the image said, nodding a little.  "Mr. Clinton it shall
be.  You'll perhaps note that the voice is not your President's.  In
the case of audio duplication, it is easier for me to just simulate an
average, typical voice pattern.  If you wish, I COULD imitate Mr.
Clinton's voice."  It switched over to the southern accented voice so
familiar to Americans.  "How about this?  Is this better?"

Paul chewed on his lip a little.  Was this maybe an acid flashback?  He
had dropped acid once back in his early college days.  It had been an
interesting experience, not one that he had ever cared to repeat, but
he had never had anything like this happen before.  Nor did he FEEL
like he was on acid.  "Whatever is uh... easiest on you," he finally
told the image of Clinton.  "But uh, tell me.  If you don't mind that
is.  What did you do to my wife?  Is she going to be all right?"

"She will be fine," it said, switching back to the first voice.  "I
have placed a small electrical, magnetic resonance field around her
that has frozen all of her nerve impulses in place.  She can be kept
like that indefinitely and then released without damage or memory of
the event.  To her it will seem like nothing has happened.  I assure
you, I will not harm her."

"Well what is it that you want from me?" Paul said, his voice a little
more steady, though his fear was still quite palatable.  "And who are
you?"

"Who I am is not important," the image said.  "Let's just say that I
come from very far away and that I have evolved to the point where I
have great power and where a physical body is not necessary.  I am, in
a way, a pure consciousness and, by your standards, I am very old.  As
for what I want from you, well, as I said a minute ago, I would like to
impart upon you a gift."

 "What kind of gift?" Paul said suspiciously, thoughts of Internet rip-
off scams and telephone solicitors going through his mind.  Nobody gave
gifts for nothing in this world.

"I would like to instill within you a certain power Mr. Woods.  I would
like to give you the power to impose your will, whatever that will
might be, upon others of your species."

Paul took a moment to digest that.  The power to impose his will?  "I'm
not sure that I am following you," he said.

"What I am offering you," the image re-phrased, "is the ability to
control the minds, the very thoughts of other people.  To make any
human being do anything that you wish.  Anything at all.  All you would
have to do is suggest something to them or order them to do something
or to believe something or to think something and they will.  I am
offering you absolute power over others Mr. Woods, the ability to do as
you please in this world and to have any other person do as you please."

Paul took a step backward, feeling shudders going through his body.  He
had stopped thinking about solicitors and Internet scams and had begun
thinking about deals with the devil.  "And what..." he asked carefully,
"would I have to give YOU in return for this... gift?"

"Nothing at all," the image said.  "This is a no-obligation offer Mr.
Woods.  You will not have to offer me your soul or your firstborn child
or anything else.  If you accept my offer you will never see me or hear
from me again.  The gift will simply be yours to do with as you please;
to do anything with."

"Really?" Paul said, knowing there had to be SOME sort of catch.  "And
why would I get the honor of having this... this power."

"Because," the image said simply, "you are an average human being with
reasonably high morality.  This is a gift I wish to give to an average
human being and of all the average human beings in the world, you are
the one I chose.  I have no ulterior motives."

"How do I know that though?" Paul asked, his mind reeling, on
overload.  "How do I KNOW?"

"You do not," the image replied.  "Please take no offense to my words
Mr. Woods, but, on the evolutionary scale I am as high above you and
your species as you are above an amoebae.  If I wanted to fool you into
doing my will, I could easily do so.  I could have presented myself as
a genie in a bottle, as a random occurrence, as a number of other
things.  Instead, I am telling you the truth.  Truth is much revered
among others of my kind and I hold with that decree.  My offer is
genuine and there is no catch.  If you do not wish to take me up on
this offer, I will understand, I will even respect that decision, and I
will leave you in peace."

"And if I do take it?" he asked next.  "What then?  Will I have to go
running around the world doing good deeds with it, or doing bad deeds?
Am I supposed to be some sort of... superhero or something?"

"Only if you wish," it replied.  "You may do anything with this gift,
anything at all.  It is a true gift, yours to use in whatever manner
you see fit."

"Wow," Paul said, wiping a layer of sticky sweat from his forehead.
"This is all pretty mind-blowing."

"I understand," the image said.  "And if you would like a moment to
think about it, I'm a very patient soul.  Please, sit down on your
couch and let your mind work the offer over.  But I ask you to ask
yourself: what do you have to lose?"

"What do I have to lose?" Paul asked.

"Precisely," it told him.  "Think about what I did to your wife.  I put
her in a stasis field, an ability that is far, far beyond your species'
scientific or spiritual capabilities.  Do you not think that I could do
anything I wanted to her?  Do you not think I could do the same to
you?  If I were trying to harm you, if I were trying to kill you, I
would have done so and you would not have even known it.  I could stop
your heart if I wished, I could scramble your brains, I could utilize
the same power I am offering you and command you to kill yourself.  But
I have done none of that.  You may not trust my words.  That is
understandable given the current state of your species, but if harm was
what I wished for you, do you not think I would have chosen another way
to harm you?"

"I suppose," Paul said, slowly stepping into the room.  He sat down on
the couch, allowing his legs to stop shakily holding him up.

"So please, allow me to give you my gift.  We will then part company
forever and you may begin using it."

In his very confused mind Paul concluded that the image of President
Clinton and the voice of the average man was right.  What did he have
to lose?  Chances are this entire vision was nothing but a dream or an
acid flashback.  But if that was the case, what was the harm?  And if
it was not the case... well... the things that could be done in the
world with the power he was being offered.  The things that could be
accomplished.  "All right," he said finally.  "I'll take your gift."

Clinton smiled warmly.  "Excellent Mr. Woods.  Truly excellent.  I am
glad you saw things my way."

"So what happens now?"

"Now," the image said, "I will have to enter your mind for the briefest
of time."

"Enter my mind?" Paul said nervously.

"May I point out," the image said, "that I could have done that at any
time, with or without your knowledge.  However, as I said earlier, I
have a moral taboo against doing such a thing without the permission
and full understanding of the human.  In order to give you this gift, I
must make a few... oh, shall we say adjustments to your neural pathways
and your temporal lobe.  You see, the ability I am offering, as well as
many others, is locked away inside of every human's brain."

"You mean..." he said slowly, "that I could have done this all along."

"Not at your current state of evolution Mr. Woods," it replied.  "Your
species has many thousands of generations of growth to complete before
you could even come close to the ability I will be giving you.  While
the ability is there in everyone, and always has been, you do not have
the knowledge or the wisdom to utilize it.  You have a conventional
wisdom among your scientists and medical doctors that a human only uses
ten percent of his or her respective brain.  Unfortunately, this is not
true.  Though you currently use ten percent of the neural pathways you
have been given, you use less than one thousandth of a percent of your
actual brain capacity.  Your doctors and scientists that tell
themselves that they know how the brain functions are deluding
themselves."

"Wow," Paul said again, amazed.

"But in any case Mr. Woods, I will need your permission to enter your
brain and make these adjustments.  They will be quick and painless and
you will suffer no ill or debilitating effects.  After I make the
necessary adjustments, you will have the power until you die."

"It won't hurt?" he asked.

"It will not hurt," it said.  "Now, may I begin?"

Paul took a deep breath, wavering a little.  It wanted to enter his
brain and make CHANGES to it.  That was a very creepy thought.  But it
said it wouldn't hurt him.  And the power!  The things he could do if
such a power was really given to him.  "Okay," he finally said.

Clinton smiled.  "Very well Mr. Woods.  I will begin."

"How will you...  ahhh," he said, startled as a brief burst of light,
almost like a flashbulb going off, suddenly appeared before him.  It
lasted far less than a second.  When it was over, the image of
President Clinton was gone from the television screen.  "What the hell
happened?"

This time the voice did not come from the speakers in his house.  This
time Paul just HEARD it as if he was thinking aloud.  "I am inside your
brain now Mr. Woods," it said.  "I entered by accessing your optic
nerve and moving along the neural pathways.  I have made no changes as
of yet.  I will ask you one more time, before I do, if you are sure you
wish me to do this?"

"Uh..."

"You don't have to talk," the voice told him.  "Just think.  Out of
respect for your privacy, I am not accessing your memory patterns or
thought processes.  But I will hear your conscious thoughts as you push
them forward."

"Really?" Paul thought but did not say.

"Really," was the reply.  "So what do you say?  Should I proceed?"

"Yes," he thought, again thinking of what he could do.  "Go ahead."

"It is done," said Clinton from the television screen a second later.

"You're back in the TV?" Paul asked verbally, in surprise.  "You did it
that fast?"

"It does not take much Mr. Woods," it said.  "Again, forgive my
offensive tone, but your brain is really a rather simple device.  All I
did was activate a few pathways and a portion of your temporal lobe.
The power is now yours."

"Wow," Paul said, shaking his head a little, still convinced he was
dreaming or in the midst of a hallucinogenic flashback.  "I don't feel
any different."

"Why would you?" it asked him simply.  "Nothing about you IS physically
different.  I have altered none of your memories or anything else.  I
have simply awakened a dormant portion of you."

"But... uh... how does it... you know... how does it work?"

"The power is tied into your verbalization," it said.  "When you wish
to employ the power, you simply tell the person what you want them to
do or what you want them to think and you project your will towards
them.  You will see what I mean when you utilize the power.  For safety
reasons, I have tied it to your voice and I have made it require a
conscious decision on the part of your waking brain.  You will not be
able to utilize the power without speaking and without the other person
being able to understand you.  You will also not be able to
accidentally control someone.  You must project consciously.  It is not
hard, but it does require some effort."

"I see," Paul said, although he really didn't.

"You will have to experiment for a while before you perfect your
ability," it said.  "My advice to you is that you do not try to be very
complex at first.  Do not attempt, for instance, to control an entire
room full of people until you are experienced.  Be warned, your words
will be taken very literally when you use this power.  Avoid the use of
slang that has multiple meanings or you may have unforeseen
consequences."

"Okay," he said.

"One other piece of advice and I will leave you to your
experimentations."

"Yes?"

"Learn to undue what you do," it told him.  "And be careful.  Remember
at all times that you are still mortal."

"I will," he promised.

"Very well," it said.  "I will leave you now.  Enjoy your gift and use
it wisely.  When my image leaves your television set, everything will
be as it was in your house.  Goodbye Mr. Woods and remember my words."

"I..." he started, but before he could finish, the image was gone.  The
television was blank and the speakers were idle.  From the bedroom he
could hear the faint buzzing of Terry's vibrator once more.

"Paul," came her voice, sounding a little breathless.  "Come on honey,
I'm waiting for you."

His mind still reeling, still wondering if this had all been a
delusion, he walked into the bedroom.

Terry was startled to see him approach from that direction.  The hand
that was pushing and pulling the vibrator in her vagina stopped on the
in-stroke.  "How the hell did you get in there?" she said.  "I never
saw you walk by me!"

He chewed his lip a little, looking at his beautiful spouse.

"How did you get by me?" she asked suspiciously.

"You saw me go by," he said.  "Don't you remember?"

"You did not go by me!" she said, pulling the vibrator free.  "Paul,
that is so spooky.  I just heard you step out of the shower a second
ago!  And now you come walking in from the living room?  How did you do
that?"

It occurred to him that this would be an easy, painless way to test
whether or not he had really experienced what he had just SEEMED to
have experienced.  If he had this alleged power, then it should be easy
to check.  If he did not have it, then no harm would be done.  He
looked directly at Terry and said, "You saw me go by a minute ago.  I
told you I was going to check the door to make sure it was locked."

She looked at him as if he were crazy.  "You said no such thing Paul,"
she barked, shaking her head.  "You're kind of scaring me a little.
This is like the Twilight Zone or something.  How did you get from the
shower to the living room in less than a second without me seeing you?
How?"

It hadn't worked.  Maybe it really was just a hallucination.

"Paul?" she demanded.  "This really isn't funny."

He licked his lips a little.  Project himself, the image of Clinton had
told him.  Project himself.  He looked at his wife and, while repeating
the sentence he had just spoken, tried to... to push at her with his
mind, to command her to believe him.  "You saw me go by a minute ago,"
he said.  "I told you I was going to check the door and make sure it
was locked."

And this time he felt something, some small force leaving his brain and
moving towards Terry's.  It was a slight sensation, hardly anything
that he would have noticed had he not been concentrating all of his
energies upon it.  But it had been something.

Instantly the confusion disappeared from Terry's face.  The hand
holding the vibrator pushed it back into her wet pussy and began moving
it.  "Well," she said slyly.  "Are you satisfied?"

"Satisfied?" he said slowly, his thoughts abuzz.

"I told you that I'd locked the door earlier," she said righteously.
"And it was locked, wasn't it?"

He swallowed, feeling tingles running through his body at her words.
Had it really worked?  "It was locked," he said carefully.

"And I always lock it Paul," she said.  "You should know that.  I don't
know why you even felt the need to check."

It had worked!  He had told her that she had seen him walk by a minute
ago and she believed that she had.  She believed it!  He really had the
power!  "You're right," he told her.  "I don't know why I even
bothered."

She smiled, spreading her legs a little wider.  "So now that you know
we're safe and secure," she told him, "why don't you get over here and
take care of business?  This little machine feels good, but it's sure
not a real substitute."

Though with his mind on overload as it tried to cope with the fact of
its new ability, and though he desperately wanted to sit down alone
somewhere and think about the best uses of it, Paul stepped forward and
climbed onto the bed.  He would keep up appearances for the time
being.  He would not use this new power until he had a chance to think
it through.  And though he no longer felt like bouncing atop his naked
wife's body, he climbed aboard anyway.  It only took him a moment or
two to get back into the mood.






He kept himself isolated from Terry as much as he could the rest of the
day, locking himself in his computer room.  He lay awake beside her
most of the night, unable to sleep, unable to shut his thoughts down.

He had the power to control others!  To make others do whatever he
wanted them to do!  He, in effect, had absolute power!  Absolute!  He
could make himself the ruler of the Earth if he wanted to and if he
applied himself correctly.  He could be unstoppable.  The question was:
did he want to do that?  Did he want to use this gift to rule the
world? Did he want to use it at all?

As an historian he knew quite well what the perils of absolute power
did to a person.  Look at Stalin, at Hitler, at countless others.  Look
at the human pain and misery that they had caused with their own
absolute power; a power that was not near as strong as what he
potentially could do.  Did he really wish to elevate himself to that
level?  He did not think so.  Certainly not right now.

But what could he use his power for?  He was smart enough, and honest
enough with himself to know that he would not be able to resist the
temptation to use the ability.  Who could?  But what was the best means
of using it?  How far should he go?

Paul Woods was basically a good man.  He was as good a man as could be
found in the day and age in which he lived.  He had no desire to create
suffering or to hurt others.  He had no desire to rule the world.  But
he did have other desires, other problems.  Could using the ability
solve those?  Of course they could.

For instance, he had some struggling students in his classes.  Could a
little jolt of their study habits, of their goals in life perhaps help
them along?  Was anything wrong with doing that?  And he had an
assistant principal that was a vindictive bitch that delighted in
utilizing her own power over those beneath her.  Could a little
readjustment of her attitude really hurt anyone?  Well... maybe.  That
one would require some more thought.

But why stop there?  The Lincoln City Council was currently debating
whether or not to allow fluoridation of the city's water supply.  This
was an issue that Paul, who had studied up on it, had strong opinions
about.  Could he maybe find his way to each of the council members, one
by one, and just suggest to them that they should vote the way he felt
about the matter?  He could do that, could do it very easily.  But what
would the consequences be?  Paul, as an educated and intelligent man
had no illusions about how politicians, even small-time politicians
like the Lincoln City Council members, decided how to vote on
something.  They voted for whomever had contributed the most campaign
funds to them, for whomever's lobby group had granted the most perks.
Politicians were bought people.  What would happen if he went and
forced them to change their votes if those votes had already been
promised and given to someone else?  And, putting that aside, what gave
him the right to decide for all of the other people of Lincoln that
what he thought was right was the way it should be?  What about gun
control, abortion, death penalty?  He had strong opinions about all of
those subjects and he felt he was right about them.  But did that give
him the right to instill his opinions upon others by utilizing his
power?

"Jesus," he whispered to himself, shaking his head a little.  This was
undoubtedly some deep feces that he was treading through.

And then there was the question of discovery by either government or
corporate agencies.  It went without saying that either of those
entities would do just about anything to get their hands upon someone
like him.
 And while he might not be particularly easy to capture - any potential
kidnapper could be easily directed to disregard his mission - his
family would be.  They could be held as hostages of fortune in order
for him to be forced to do their will.  Even if that extreme were not
resorted to, wouldn't the mere existence of someone like himself be
sufficient cause for concern for a governmental agency.  Even if they
elected not to try to use him themselves, wouldn't they at least have
him killed before he could present a danger to them?  Clinton had told
him, had specifically warned him that he was mortal.  He decided that
his prime directive with this power would be to keep it concealed from
all others.  He would never let anyone else know that he had it.

"Learn to undo what you have done," he had been warned and he would
take that warning seriously.  He tried to think of an easy phrasing
that would allow that and, after a while, came up with several.

Sometime around the point where the sky above the city of Lincoln began
to show the first hints of lightening with the coming of dawn Paul came
to a consensus of sorts.  He would confine the use of his ability to
very small things for now.  He would, as the image of Clinton had
suggested, just get the hang of using it and would not try anything
major.  Any big issues that he could effect, he would just let go for
the time being.  He would just let them go and concentrate on little
things.  He would learn and he would think about what else to do as he
learned.

At 6:30 AM, just as Terry was getting up to start her morning routine,
he picked up the phone and called in sick for his classes that day.

"What's the matter Sweetie?" Terry asked him, feeling his forehead with
inside of her wrist, searching for fever.

"I'm just not feeling good today," he said.  "I didn't sleep very well
and I don't think it would be a good idea to go to work."

She fawned over him for the rest of the morning, asking again and again
if he was okay, but finally left to hold vigil over her own students.
She took his corrected papers with her as she went.  Once the door was
shut behind her he immediately fell into a deep sleep.  He would not
awaken until 12:30 that afternoon.



The street that Paul and Terry lived on was in a semi-affluent section
of Lincoln.  It was a pleasant, tree-lined subdivision packed with
tract houses that all looked alike and occupied by solidly middle-class
families.  The neighbors were, for the most part, friendly and
personable, a half and half mix of single and double income families.
The majority had children, most of whom were still in the toddler or
early school years age.  It was a neighborhood where 4th of July block
parties and annual Christmas parties took place, where everyone knew
everyone by first name and gave friendly waves of greeting.  It wasn't
exactly Mayfield from Leave it To Beaver, but it was close.

Paul stepped outside at one o'clock that afternoon to collect his mail
from the box in front of his house.  He was wearing sweat shorts and a
T-shirt as he walked barefoot across his lawn, his mind still quite
occupied with thoughts of his new ability.

"Hi Paul," a familiar female voice called to his right.  He looked over
to see that Julie, his next door neighbor, was working in her garden.
Her husband, Rich, was a civil engineer for the city and Julie herself
was a housewife that stayed home and watched after their nine month old
daughter.  As one of the non-working mothers in the neighborhood, she
had time to indulge a favorite hobby: her rose garden.  Every spring it
was the envy of the neighborhood.  Such a masterpiece of botany did not
come without a price however.  Every afternoon from late winter through
fall she could be seen out in front of her house during her child's
naptime, pulling weeds and clipping branches.

 "Hi Julie," he said, changing course and walking over to her.  "How is
your day going?"  Julie was very pretty.  She was a short, petite
blonde in her early twenties.  She was dressed in a pair of tan shorts
that showed off her legs and a white shirt that allowed her perky
breasts to bulge pleasingly outward beneath it. Her light blonde hair
was tied back in a ponytail and she had smudges of dirt on her forehead
and arms.  She smiled in a friendly manner when Paul approached her.
As a typical male, Paul felt a tug of physical attraction whenever he
saw her.  This day was no different.

"Oh, just clipping a few branches out here while Kyla's sleeping," she
said, standing up straight and dropping the shears she held.  "How
about yourself?  What are you doing home today?  Are you sick?"  Her
blue eyes probed at him inquisitively.

In addition to being attractive and a good gardener, Julie was also the
designated gossip source for the neighborhood.  Though she was usually
not vicious about it, she could cite the job title, yearly income, type
of motor vehicle driven, and just about every other vital statistic of
any person in the neighborhood.  When you had a conversation with
Julie, it was with the understanding that anything you said could and
would be passed on later to the other neighbors in other
conversations.  Paul knew that when she inquired just what he was doing
at home, she was not expressing simple curiosity or making polite
conversation.  She was hoping that he would say something like: "Oh,
Terry and I are going to divorce so I took the day off to consult with
a lawyer" or "Terry found this strange lump in her breast and we have
to go get it checked out".

"I wasn't feeling very well this morning," he said dismissively, no
doubt disappointing her.  "It felt like my body was fighting something
off.  I'm better now though."

"Well that's good," she said, as if relieved about the state of his
health.  "And how is Terry doing?  I haven't talked to her in a few
days."

"She went in to school this morning," he said, watching a drop of sweat
as it tracked down the side of her face and disappeared beneath the hem
of her shirt.  It left a wet trail behind it.  Julie really did have
nice skin.  It was the pale color of a natural blonde's but very soft
looking.  "She offered to stay home with me but I told her to go ahead
and go in."

Julie shook her head.  "I just don't know how you two do it," she
said.  "Teaching high school students in this day and age.  Aren't you
afraid that one of those school shootings will happen?"

Paul shrugged, having only half-heard her question.  While he
mechanically explained about how rare such things really were and about
how the school they taught at was actually kind of upscale, he
continued to take in the details of her body, of her face.  Though he
did not enjoy talking to Julie as far as the conversation aspect went,
he always had enjoyed talking to her for the aesthetic aspect.  She was
just one of those women that you loved to look at, to imagine touching
in intimate ways and, like every other male on the street, he took
every oppurtunity that he could to chat with her.

During his brainstorm the previous night the thought of using his new
ability for sexual pleasure had of course popped into his head on
several occasions.  How could it not have?  It had been a heady thought
that he could now have sex with virtually any person that he desired as
long as he could arrange to have a face to face meeting with them.
Anybody!  Each time that the thought had surfaced however, he had
pushed it aside, telling himself that the giver of the gift had
probably not intended for him to use it to go around boffing everything
with a vagina.  And there was also the matter of his wife.  He had
taken marriage vows that he would forsake all others and he had always
taken those vows seriously.  Several times since being married, other
women, some of them quite attractive, had propositioned him.  What
married man did not experience this from time to time?  But he had
never been seriously tempted to follow through.  When it came down to
it, adultery was wrong and engaging in it would do nothing but
complicate his life.  So, he had decided last night, he would continue
to remain faithful to Terry.  He would not use his gift for those ends.

Of course that decision had been made by a man who had just had two
orgasms in the past eight hours and who had a relatively low level of
sexual build-up floating around in his body.  It is no wonder that it
seemed such an easy path to follow at that time.  Now, however, in the
afternoon of a new day, while he was looking at a woman standing before
him that he had always found very attractive, he felt that resolve
already starting to slip.  He could have her!  He could have her right
now and then tell her that it never happened, to forget it!  He could
have her with no consequences!  He could take her inside of her house
right now and fuck the living shit out of her, take her up the ass,
have her suck his cock, do anything, anything at all!

"Are you okay?" Julie asked him carefully, seeing a strange expression
on his face.

"Uh... sure," he said, casting his eyes away from her face, trying to
control the lustful thoughts he was having.  Shifting his gaze did not
help.  It simply meant that he was looking down at her exposed
midriff.  It was flat and pale, slightly damp looking from her sweat,
the belly button a perfect pink hole in the center with a very fine
fuzz of almost transparent blonde hairs trailing down from it into the
hem of her shorts.  "Uh listen Julie..."

"Yeah?" she asked, her puzzled expression becoming more puzzled.

"Do you masturbate a lot?" he heard himself saying impulsively,
wondering just what he thought he was doing even as he did it.

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