12 comments/ 14823 views/ 0 favorites Shag the Veep, Save the World By: MarshAlien CAUTION: This story depicts sexual activity with former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr and his wife Tippy. Tipper. Whatever. What are you, a frickin' reporter? Anyway, it may be inappropriate for children under the age of 14. For that matter, it may be inappropriate for children of any age, as well as for adults with weak hearts or stomachs. Should you decide to read further anyway, side effects may include nausea, vomiting, uncontrollable shuddering, having your face freeze in the likeness of Edward Munch's "The Scream," dyspepsia, bad breath, chiggers, warts and in rare cases a coma leading to death. According to both law students I consulted, I cannot be held responsible for any of this. Still, they did suggest I warn you in advance. CHAPTER ONE Like any good girl, Jennifer had very properly declined to entertain any thoughts of a sexual nature until her eighteenth birthday. Since, then, however, two months ago this coming Tuesday, she had thought of little else. Possessing considerable advantages -- lustrous long blonde hair, an ample chest, a brilliant smile, a pair of lithe, tanned legs, and a rented cheerleading uniform -- she had managed, in the six weeks remaining before her high school graduation, to earn the nickname "Many Men Jen." It had taken two of those men, in fact -- the chairman of the English Department and Jennifer's history teacher -- to ensure that her graduation took place at all. Fortunately, both had agreed with Claire Jackson's suggestion that it was much better that her daughter be allowed to go away to college than that her dalliances become public knowledge. For that matter, Claire would have preferred not to have known any more herself. Other than that one intervention, Claire chose to deal with her daughter's new-found concupiscence by ignoring it. Getting Jennifer her own phone was simple enough, and failing to hear the girl's repeated late night returns to the house was just a matter of not kicking her husband when he snored, thereby silencing sound that could block out the trumpets on Judgment Day. But when Claire's sister indignantly reported finding a half-naked Jennifer in bed with her son -- who at age seventeen naturally had no idea whatsoever of the meaning of his cousin's suggestions -- Claire realized that she had to act. "Like, oh my God, what the fuck is going on?" Jennifer exclaimed as she looked around the sparsely furnished room, lit only by candles, that served as the office of the abbess. "Ma cherie," the graying woman behind the desk said before continuing in heavily accented English, "I must ask you to restrain your language while you are among us. At the request of your mother, you will be here for the summer. In August you will return to America to attend your college and" -- she briefly considered how to rephrase Claire's exasperated "fuck whoever the hell she wants" -- "resume your normal life." "You mean I'm like your prisoner?" Jennifer asked with a squeak. "I prefer to think of you as a guest," the woman said. "I am Marie-Elaine, the abbess." "But like you don't even have air-conditioning," Jennifer whined. "Nor any electricity," the abbess added softly. "We live a simple life here, in service of Our Lady, trusting that the Lord will provide. Deus mihi providebit." "Without television?" Jennifer's high-pitched squeal appeared to be bordering on hysteria, and the woman at the desk smiled and touched a bell in front of her. "Mother Marie-Elaine?" The young woman who pushed open the door enough to poke her head through had her brunette hair cut, although chopped might be a more accurate word, in a simple pageboy. As the older woman waved her in, Jennifer saw that her outfit was even simpler, a long white shift with a strand of white rope knotted about her waist. "Marie-Renee, come in. I should like you to meet Jennifer Jackson. Marie-Renee is our youngest member, Jennifer, the closest in age to yourself and our best speaker of English. She will show you to your room and answer any questions you have." "I am delightful," Marie-Renee said to the horrified teen. "Shall you accompany me?" "Whatever." Jennifer blew out a long exhalation and with one final glare at the abbess left with the newcomer. "You know that I'm outta here first chance I have, right?" she said as the two walked down the corridor outside the office side by side. Marie-Renee stopped at a window at one end and gestured outside. Rolling her eyes, Jennifer stepped to the window and looked out. And then, when that brought nothing into view, she looked down. Far below them was a village. Jennifer took a quick step backward. "Sorry. I hate heights." "Then you may wish to ask Mother Marie-Elaine for an interior room," Marie-Renee said with a small chuckle. "The abbey is built on a plateau high above the river. Only the front door gives access to the pathway down, and only Mother Marie-Elaine has the key." "You mean, like, I really am a prisoner here?" Jennifer's shrieks echoed throughout the deserted stone hallway. Marie-Renee shrugged. "You will not leave without her consent, non." "So what, uh, village is that?" Jennifer asked with as much nonchalance as she could muster. "I am forbidden to say," Marie-Renee said with a sad shake of her head. "But it's France, right? You can tell me that much." "It is," the girl smiled. "Now, shall you be shown your room?" It was even starker than the abbess's office, with only a twin wooden bed, a dresser, and a candle. "You will find additional clothing in the dresser," the French girl said. "I will return for you before matins." "Say what?" "Evening prayer," she explained. "Wait a frickin' minute. You mean like this place is full of a bunch of nuns? Marie-Renee laughed, a delightful giggle that echoed throughout the stone-walled room. "I have only taken temporary vows myself," she explained. "I came here when I was sixteen, and spent two years as a novice. I intend to petition for my permanent profession this fall, on my twenty-third birthday." "You've been here for . . .," Jennifer's face clouded as she struggled with the math, "like six years?" Marie-Renee inclined her head, and left the room with a wave. Jennifer stomped over to the dresser and yanked open the drawer. "You must be fucking kidding me," she said, staring at the novice's robes that filled it. "I'll just keep these on, thanks a lot. Speaking of which, though , . ." She sat down on the bed and pulled off her tennis shoes. For the last two months, she had made a practice of keeping absolutely nothing in the pockets of her skin-tight jeans that would have interfered with the silhouette of her curvy hips and slender waist. Not that she needed anything other than a credit card, which she kept in her right shoe, and a razor-thin cell phone, which went in the left. To her relief, both were still there. To her delight, her cell phone was getting an exceptionally strong signal, and she quickly depressed the "one" key to dial her best friend forever and demand that she drop everything she was doing to get Jennifer out of this predicament. "Where in France?" Julie Astin asked. "How the fuck should I know?" "Can you see the Eiffel Tower?" "No, I can't see the freakin' Eiffel Tower, Julie." "Well, what the hell do you want me to do? Fly to France and start asking for convents? First off, I'm grounded 'til next month because Mom caught me and Billy doing it in the den, and second off, France? Isn't that that, like, in Africa or something?" "Julie, you had that goddamn exchange student boyfriend. Wasn't he French?" "Jean-Claude? I guess. We didn't really talk about it. We didn't really talk much at all now that I think about it..." Julie had started to laugh. "Julie! Just find his phone number. When I find out where I am, I'll call you, and you can call him and tell him to send the police." For the next two weeks, Jennifer made every effort to learn the whereabouts of her prison. When Marie-Renee proved to be impervious to her wiles, she turned to the older nuns. They ignored her with practiced silence, casting disapproving glances at the clothing that she continued wearing day after day. In desperation, she donned a novice's robe. The older nuns smiled in response, and at least acknowledged her presence, but proved no more forthcoming than Marie-Renee. The young nun continued in her role as Jennifer's guide, taking her to prayer every day, gently suggesting activities -- gardening, reading, learning -- that drove Jennifer nuts, and escorting her to meals. It was there, in the abbey's communal dining room, that Jennifer finally took an interest in something other than her escape. It was a painting of three nuns kneeling one in front of the other. The first two, who looked nearly identical to the women with whom Jennifer was sharing the room, were clutching their prayer books and staring resolutely forward. The third, much younger, had her face turned toward the artist, a Mona Lisa-like smile playing across her mouth as she raised a suggestive eyebrow. Her robes, also unlike those of the others, hinted at quite a figure underneath. And she held her prayer book in only one hand; the other pointed downward at an odd angle, the first two fingers extended toward the bottom right-hand corner of the picture. "What's that?" Jennifer whispered, only to be glared into silence by all of the others in the room. Marie-Renee gave her a look and a nod, and after dinner was over, sat down in Jennifer's room to explain. "That is a Materlio," the nun said proudly. "One of only three of 'is works known to exist. It is fresco, of course, painted directly on the walls while the abbey was being built." "Couldn't spell very well, huh?" "Pardonnez-moi? I don't understand." "Up above the nuns, on the banner over the picture?" "Notre-Dame-sur-la-Durance?" Marie-Renee wore a puzzled expression. "It is the name of this convent." "Is it?" Jennifer asked, trying to appear nonchalant. "Well, he put an extra "s" in. It says 'Nostre-Dame-sur-la-Durance.' Even I know that." "Non!" Marie-Renee reached out and grabbed Jennifer's arm, her eyes radiating excitement. "Nostradamus?" "No," Jennifer said slowly. She hadn't seen this side of the French girl before, and it alarmed her. "Nostre-Dame." "But that was 'is name -- Michel de Nostredame." "Okay," Jennifer agreed, edging a little further away. "Whose name?" "Nostradamus," Marie-Renee answered, her hushed voice quivering with excitement. "Surely you have heard of Nostradamus." Jennifer shook her head. "He spent most of 'is life right 'ere in this city. 'E was my 'ero in school. Mon Dieu, do you think 'e established the abbey?" "Sure," Jennifer said agreeably. "Why not? Look, I'm kinda tired now. So maybe we could talk about it tomorrow, huh?" "Certainly. Oh, I am so sorry. I will see you tomorrow for lauds, non?" "Yeah sure. Lauds. Whatever." Jennifer waved as Marie-Renee backed out the door, and then leapt for the phone. "Fuck! Where the hell are you, Julie? It's only like . . . well, I have no idea what time it is there, but you can't possibly be asleep. Anyway, the convent is called something liked Notre-Dame-sure-la-Dance, or something like that. I'm near some town where some guy named Nostredame ended up. Some famous guy. I'll call tomorrow night, same time. Don't let me down, Jules." But there was no answer the next night, nor the night after that. And on the following morning, Jennifer discovered that she had failed to turn the phone off the night before. The battery was completely dead. There would be no rescue. That evening at dinner, Jennifer found that she still could not tear her eyes away from the painting. It was not the attractive girl in the back, although Jennifer's attention to the painting over the last three days had started to attract snickering from the novices, and looks of disgust from the nuns. No, it was something else about the picture, something about the unnatural angle of the younger nun's arm. With a start, Jennifer found her eyes following the arm downward, to a barely perceptible crack in the wall in one corner of the dining room. Jennifer waited until long after the final prayer service that evening, and then quietly made her way to the dining hall. She tiptoed down the hall with practiced stealth, her flickering candle lighting the way. The room was deserted, and she eagerly brought her candle over to the corner where she had spotted the crack in the wall. She pushed at it, she tried pulling on it with her fingernails -- all to no avail. She stood up and looked at the picture again, seeking yet another clue. It had to be a passageway. It just had to be! With a frustrated stamp of her foot, she stepped back for a better look. And the hidden doorway, its machinery still intact, slowly responded. CHAPTER TWO Dropping to her knees, Jennifer crawled toward the opening and extended her candle through it. A set of steps led downward, and she eagerly crawled through and began to descend. She was nearing the bottom, as the stairway opened onto a dusty room, when a voice from above nearly gave her heart failure. "Zhennifer? Are you down there? What are you doing?" "I'm here, Marie-Renee. Down the stairs. Quiet down, huh?" "What is this place?" the French girl asked as she came thundering down the stairs. "I was hoping it was a way out," Jennifer answered. "But it looks like a study of some sort." "What is this?" Marie-Renee asked, picking up the only thing in the room not covered with a thick layer of dust. It was a small U-shaped instrument constructed of wood and leather, with a leather covering on the end of arm and a hand-operated crank at the end of the other. Marie-Renee slowly turned the crank, and the leather end gyrated wildly. "I cannot think what it could possible be for," she said. Jennifer blushed. It's . . . it's, um . . ." "Do you know?" "It's a dildo. This end rests on your belly, this end goes in your pussy. You turn the crank, and . . ." Marie-Renee's eyes went wide. "Who would have made it?" "How the hell would I know?" Jennifer said. "Maybe the book on the table will help us find out. Shit, I have no idea what this says. And I had three years of French. True, I got B's and C's. Well, and a D. But still, you'd think some of it would make sense." "It is Medieval French," Marie-Renee said, looking over Jennifer's shoulder at the book the young girl had found on the dust-covered desk. "Mon Dieu! The last notebook of Michel de Nostredame!" "You read Medieval French?" Jennifer asked skeptically. "Naturellement," Marie-Renee said. She eagerly began to skim through the book. There were only a few entries; evidently it had been prepared shortly before the seer's death. As her companion studied the book, Jennifer began to look around at the other items on the shelf. "This Nostradamus was certainly a horny little toad, wasn't he?" she said, picking up one book. "He's got a whole book of dirty nun pictures here. Oh my God. These are the three nuns in the picture upstairs. The older two are kissing, and the younger one is using the dildo on herself. Do you think he built this whole thing as like, some sort of whorehouse?" "Mon Dieu," Marie-Renee whispered, her voice filled with alarm. "Hey, I'm sorry. I forgot he was your hero and all." Jennifer whipped around to find that Marie-Renee was paying her no attention at all. "Look at this," she said, pointing to the last page in the notebook. "Nostradamus predicted that on the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the next millennium, a giant asteroid will come within one thousand miles of the earth." "So?" Jennifer was bored already. "So that's next month!" Marie-Renee exclaimed. "Oh, get out. For one thing, we just had a millennium. There won't be another one for like, a hundred years or something." "Non. The millennium comes every thousand years. Nostradamus was writing in the sixteenth century. The fifteen hundreds? Anyway, the millennium he's talking about to was the last one." "Okay," Jennifer said, once again slowed by the need for math. "But that was like, on January 1, 2000. Y2K, ya know? So we're already in the ninth year, right? So we're fine. Nothing happened." "Non," Marie-Renee repeated. "The millennium began on January 1, 2001. This is the eighth year. August 8, 2008 is the eighth day of the eighth month. That's next month!" "But it's not like it's gonna hit us," Jennifer pointed out. "Thank God. I mean, an asteroid. Like somebody could get really hurt if that happened. I'd hate to be standing under that bad boy." "Yes," Marie-Renee said, "or it could lead to the extinction of all life on the planet." "Huh?" "An asteroid, ma cherie, is what most scientists say caused the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Era. It hit the earth and created a huge cloud of dust that reduced worldwide temperatures to such an extent that it killed all the dinosaurs." "Yuh. Anyway, it's not going to hit." "Nevertheless, Zhenifer, it would be an environmental catastrophe." "How do you figure that?" Jennifer asked, getting a little tired of her friend's know-it-all attitude. "An asteroid with any significant gravitational pull would be able to drag the earth into a lower orbit around the sun, leading to global warming that would dwarf anything we 'ave seen to date." "I bet you're a lot of fun at parties, huh? The orbit?" Marie-Renee drew a circle in the dust on the desk and put an inkwell in the middle. An ancient coin became the earth, and another the asteroid on the far side of the earth. With infinite patience, the nun explained to a horrified Jennifer how the asteroid could pull the earth closer to the sun, leaving it in an orbit that would turn the entire planet into a lifeless desert. Jennifer tried one last argument. "Why are you taking this so seriously? Some creepy old perv writes down a prediction, and you're like, oh, mon dieu, we're all going to die." Marie-Renee stared her younger companion into silence. "Because too many of his predictions have come true. Napoleon, Hitler, the 'olocaust." "All right, all right. So what do we do? Tell the police? The army? Have them shoot a missile at it?" "Non. Nostradamus correctly predicts that there is no technology capable of moving the asteroid. But there is a way to prevent it. 'E says the wearer of the ring must have carnal knowledge of the man who was the second most important person in the most important country in the world at the turn of the millennium." "But you just said that was over," Jennifer protested. "The millennium, yes. The carnal knowledge need only take place before the asteroid arrives." "Okay. So what's a carnal knowledge?" It was Marie-Renee's turn to blush. "Sexual intercourse." "So you're telling me that somebody with some ring has sex with some important guy, and the asteroid disappears?" Marie-Renee shrugged. "It does sound quite strange, non? Apparently the ring has tantric energy in it, and once activated, it will drive the asteroid away." "O-kay." "It is not a chance we should take, is it?" Jennifer rolled her eyes. "Okay. So first off, what is this ring you're talking about?" "According to the notebook, in the third drawer of the desk." To her surprise, Jennifer found an elegant silver ring in the drawer. "All right. So who's the guy? I mean, if it'll get me out of here, I'll go do it." "Well, the most important country in the world is France, and . . . stop laughing." "Sweetie, the most important country in the world is America. And the president back then would have been that other pervert." "Bill Clinton?" Shag the Veep, Save the World "Yeah. So the second most important guy would have been . . ." "Alan Greenspan?" "Gross. No, the vice president guy." "Al Gore?" Marie-Renee asked with excitement. "'E is my 'ero!" "Him, too?" "Oh, 'is presentations on the global warming have been fantastique. The Academy Award. The Nobel Prize." The young nun looked as if she were about to swoon. "Well then, you can fuck him, girlfriend," Jennifer said. "Cause from what I remember, the guy is basically a statue. He couldn't dance if you like moved his feet for him. So I can't imagine what fucking him would be like. Worse than that dildo, probably" She pushed the ring in her hand toward the French girl, only to watch her eyes widen in horror. "But I am -- how you say -- a virgin?" "At twenty-three?" Jennifer squawked. "I'm sorry. I forgot. The nun thing and all. So he'll be your first." "I could not," Marie-Renee protested. "All right. Well, look, he's got a wife. Tippy or Tipsy or something stupid like that. We'll just get her to wear the ring when she fucks him. Easy, peasy." "But we must get her the ring." "First we gotta get outta here," Jennifer said, a confident smile spreading over her face. "And that you can leave to me." CHAPTER THREE "I still can't believe you talked Mother Marie-Elaine into letting us leave." Renee was marveling at the plush seats in first class as the plane made its way across the Atlantic toward the United States, sipping from the champagne glass that had been handed her as soon as she boarded and that had been refilled several times since. "Yeah, well, she took this whole Nostradamus prediction thing very seriously," Jen answered. Much too seriously, Jen thought. The abbess had reacted with alarm at first, announcing that she had no intention of trusting the environmental future of the world to two young girls. She had changed her mind only after Jennifer pointed out that there was probably a reason that Nostradamus's dildo was the only non-dusty item in the room. Perhaps it had had something to do with the footsteps in the dust on the floor, the ones that led from the shelf on which the dildo had rested to a wooden door in the corner of the study. The door in question, Jennifer observed, lay just below the abbess's own quarters. Wasn't that strange? After that, Mother Marie-Elaine had enthusiastically endorsed Jennifer's scheme to get the ring in the hands of Al Gore's wife. The conversation, and particularly the 200,000 euro line of credit that Mother Marie-Elaine had made available, had begun to turn Jennifer into a believer as well. There must be something to this if it could Jennifer out of this dive, with money in her pocket to boot. And so the two women's trip became more than just a convenient way of leaving the abbey; it became a mission to save the planet itself. Albeit not an entirely serious one. "What I can't believe," Jennifer continued, "is that you put that dildo in my suitcase. I was lucky the security guard was a woman. Have you tried it yet?" Marie-Renee sheepishly raised four fingers. "Four times? We've only been gone four days. God, I hope you like fucking cleaned it before you threw it in my suitcase." The young French girl blushed, and decided to change the subject. "Thank you again for the shopping." "Don't thank me, girlfriend. You didn't buy any of the clothes that I picked out for you." The two women had spent three days in Paris, buying entirely new wardrobes. Renee, who had dropped the "Marie" as soon as she was out the door of the abbey, had evidently spent her time there studying fashion in addition to Medieval French and paleontology. She had an innate sense of what would look good on her, and had turned into quite the young gamine. Her beautiful face had been difficult to hide even under that hideous haircut, but her stunning figure had been a shock. During the last day they had spent there, she had attracted as many, if not more, admiring glances from the men in the French capital as Jennifer had. It was annoying, really, and only her sunny and open disposition had saved her from the younger woman's jealous wrath. "So are you going to tell me about your plan for getting the ring to Mrs. Gore?" Renee asked. "Or are you going to keep it a secret until we reach New York?" A smile on her face, Jennifer leaned toward Renee to whisper in her ear. CHAPTER FOUR "It is not a ''orrible plan.'" Jennifer protested. "Fine. Then explain to me how you plan on getting Mr. and Mrs. Gore into a hot tub with two strippers, two midgets, and a trained seal." Jennifer sat back and her seat and glared at Renee. "Okay," she finally said with a pout. "That's a good point. Maybe we should go to Plan B." Once again she leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. CHAPTER FIVE Jennifer was just finishing attaching her second earring when Renee emerged from her adjoining room and breathlessly asked how she looked. "You're good," Jennifer admitted, although a more objective answer might have been "outstanding" or "superb." Renee's bust wasn't in Jennifer's league, but it perfectly complemented her slender hips and long torso. "The gown, she is gorgeous, non?" She twirled around. "I still do not understand 'ow you are affording all of this." "I told you. Mother Marie-Elaine gave us some cash." "I assumed it was a few hundred euros." "Yeah. Well, it was a little bit more than that. Enough for us to buy clothes and put on this dinner anyway." "Are the Gores really here?" "Julie just phoned. They're down the hall." "And you 'ave your speech all prepared?" "Oh, yeah. Blah, blah, blah, family values. Blah, blah, blah, evil influence of rock music. Here's the ring. Thanks for coming on behalf of the Children Are Our Future Coalition. All the people burst into applause." "People?" "It would be a pretty poor awards dinner if we didn't have a crowd, honeybunch. Don't worry, Julie's got it all taken care of." Julie Astin might not have been much help in escaping from a foreign country, but when it came to planning a party, the girl had few peers. Even from her home in California, where her mother had been forced to extend her grounding, the girl was perfectly capable of setting up a lavish dinner at a posh hotel in New York. The crowd in question - the other "members" of the "Coalition" - were being drafted from the Metropolitan Opera's matinee performance of Rigoletto. If they behaved, and nobody booed, they would all get another two hundred dollars when the dinner was over. "Then Tipper speaks. People clap again. The world is saved from environmental disaster. Thank you, Jennifer Jackson." "So you 'ave the ring?" "Right here on my finger, Renee. Didn't want to take a chance on losing this baby." Jennifer held up her right hand. "No pockets in the gown, either. Shit. It won't come off. Shit. Help me get it off. Shit, shit, shit." "The bathroom!" Renee pointed. "Let's get some soap. Merde! It is really stuck, Zhenifer. Maybe some lotion. Non. Let me think. Ah, I 'ave it." She ran back to her room and returned with a tube. "K-Y jelly?" Jennifer raised an eyebrow. "What the hell have you been doing in there, Renee?" "Quiet. I'm trying to get off your ring, Zhenifer." "It's not my ring, babe." "It is if I can't get it off, isn't it?" The two women worked furiously, but to no avail. It was almost as if the ring had decided that the responsibility to save the planet was Jennifer's alone. "What do we do?" Renee asked. "Okay, first off, we don't panic, okay? Okay?" "Oui. Yes. I am sorry." "Good. Now, it's too late to cancel the dinner. I'll call Jules and tell her what's going down. But we'll have to keep the Gores from showing up." "Why do we have to cancel the dinner?" "And give her what? A pen from the Waldorf-Astoria? All we have is the ring." "C'est vrai," Renee admitted with a shrug. Jennifer made a quick call, and two minutes later, they were knocking on the doors of the suite occupied by Al and Tipper Gore. "Yes?" The former vice president answered the door with his bow tie in his hand. "Mr. Gore, I'm Jennifer Jackson, the executive assistant to Mrs. Barton, the president of the coalition. I'm afraid there's been a terrible accident." "What's wrong?" Tipper Gore joined her husband at the door in a glorious brown evening gown. "Mrs. Gore, I am so sorry. I'm afraid we're going to have to postpone the dinner. Our president, Felicity Barton, um . . ." "Yes?" Tipper asked, genuine concern furrowing her brow. "Died," blurted out Renee. "She died?" the Gores asked in unison. "Just now?" "Yes," Jennifer said slowly, her eyes narrowing as she stared at Renee. "Of a horrible French disease. My colleague, Renee, um, Paris, can fill you in." Renee returned Jennifer's glare before she turned back to the Gores. "Meuniere's syndrome," she said smoothly. "It does strike very quickly sometimes." "Goodness," Tipper said. "I am so sorry." "Really," Al added in his well-known two-note baritone. "Such a tragedy." "Yes, well, perhaps we could reschedule it." "Of course," Tipper agreed. "Although it will have to wait a while this time," Al said. "It was our good luck that we had today open on such short notice when you called last week." "Oh?" Jennifer asked. She could not imagine that the life of a former vice president was that complicated. After all, it wasn't like the current vice president did anything. "Yes," Al explained. "Tipper and I will be in Japan for the next three weeks, at a spiritual retreat to promote awareness of global warming. And then after that, we'll be representing the United States at the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing. I think that's on the ninth of August." "The eighth," Tipper gently corrected him. The two girls traded alarmed looks. "August eighth?" Renee asked. Two-thousand eight?" Jennifer chimed in. "Yes." Al nodded slowly. "It is this year." "Merde," Renee whispered under her breath. "Shit," Jennifer added. "Well, since the dinner is cancelled," Mrs. Gore said, "would you like to join us? We can order something from room service." "Great." Jennifer reached a quick decision and pushed past the Gores into their suite. "I am starved. Renee, how 'bout you order us a bottle of champagne to start?" "Champagne?" Al asked. "Do you think that's appropriate? I mean, with Mrs. Barton's death?" "She would have wanted us to entertain you properly," Jennifer lied. "And to toast her wonderful life and all her magnificent achievements." Two hours later, the two girls were still sitting on the couch in the Gore's hotel suite. They had amiably helped their hosts drink two bottles of champagne, and had not yet gotten around to ordering dinner, when Jennifer realized that the conversation was winding down. "So, Mr. Gore," she said, "tell me about this global heating thingy." "Warming," Renee said with a hiss. "Whatever," Jennifer whispered before turning back to Al with a smile. "Global warming. It can't be as bad as everyone says." She batted her eyelashes a few times. "Can it?" "Are you sure?" Al asked. He had had more than his share of the champagne, to the point of unbuttoning the top button on his shirt. "We would love to know more," Jennifer purred. "Well, I don't have my PowerPoint slides with me . . ." "Oh, Al," Tipper said with a laugh as she whacked him on the arm. "Just tell them. I'm gonna order some more champagne. Does anyone want dinner? No? Okee-dokee." "Basically," Al began, "no responsible scientist would argue with the proposition that global temperatures have been increasing over the last half-century, or that this period has corresponded with man's increased use of fossil fuels - oil, gas, coal - to drive the economies of the industrialized nations." "Fascinating," Jennifer said. "Isn't it Renee? The French girl answered with a hiccup. "So the issue becomes the extent to which scientists are willing to conclude that the two are related. In other words, has our use of fossil fuel contributed to the production of so-called 'greenhouse gases.' So called because they act as a greenhouse. Just as a greenhouse keeps the plants inside warm, so these gases prevent the planet from dissipating its heat. And as that heat remains, the earth begins to warm. Slowly at first, but the better science believes that the rate of increase will itself increase exponentially over the next half-century." Renee opened her mouth and hiccupped again, but decided she should still try to support her friend with some appropriate devil's advocacy. "But couldn't that warming be caused by natural events," she asked. "Volcanoes, solar variations, climate cycles?" "Farting cows?" Tipper blurted out with a guffaw. Al smiled. "That's an excellent question, Renee. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with which I shared the Nobel Prize, concluded that the main source was anthropogenic greenhouse gases. In other words, man-made. Although it's actually quite humorous. The term "anthropogenic" actually means "producing humans." The term for "produced by humans" is actually "anthropogenous." So in fact the IPCC concluded that the greenhouse gases were caused by the act of producing humans, which as we all know is sexual activity." "That is funny," Jennifer agreed after she realized that Al had paused for laughter and that Tipper was giggling uncontrollably. "Isn't it, Renee?" "Mais oui," Renee agreed. "Although such a serious subject." "Exactly." Al was off again. "Far too many people these days take the whole situation much too lightly, expecting that their children will . . ." ********* "Renee!" The French girl felt her shoulder shaken violently and came awake with a start. "Thank God," Renee said. "I was afraid I was going to have to do the whole fucking thing myself. Take off your clothes." "What?" "I said, 'take off your clothes,'" Jennifer said. "If those two wake up, I don't intend to be the only one naked." "What happened?" Renee asked as she began stripping, looking at the two Gores slumbering peacefully on the other couch. "She had too much to drink," Jennifer said, "and I have this hazy recollection that Al sort of talked himself to sleep. Oh, all right. You can keep your bra and panties on. God, you're like such a nun. Now help me get them undressed. Oh, for fuck's sake, look at this. The guy's out like a light, and he's already got a woody. I told you he was a stiff." "You mean you can have sex with 'im while 'e is asleep?" Renee asked with a squeak. "I don't know why not. I have to have carnal knowledge of him, right? He doesn't have to have jack shit of me. So he can stay asleep as far as I'm concerned. He's not hard enough yet, though. Maybe I should blow him first. I give a mean blow job." "Will that work? Have you done this before? Are you any good?" "Am I good? Honey, one of the guys I was doing bet one of his friends that he could put an olive between his teeth and I could suck the pimento out." "Mon Dieu! What did you do?" "I bit the son of a bitch's cock next time," Jennifer said. "I told you I gave a mean blow job. The dickhead." Jennifer wrapped her fist around Al Gore's cock and slowly began to pump him. After a minute, she brought her lips into the game, taking the surprisingly large head into her mouth and swirling her tongue around it. In another minute, she was deepthroating him with abandon. Renee looked on with awe as her friend worked over the famous man's cock. But as far as she could tell, it was having no effect at all. And after five minutes, when Jennifer pulled herself off in disgust, it was clear that her diagnosis was correct. "Fucking boy scout," Jennifer said. "Probably never gets it up for anyone but his wife. How come we couldn't get Bill Clinton? That guy never saw a pussy he didn't want. Damn it!" "What shall we do?" Jennifer would have been hard-pressed to explain the thought process by which she arrived at her next conclusion. Perhaps it was her remark about Al Gore's reputation as a straight arrow, coupled with the fact that he had been with his wife now for, like, nine hundred years. Perhaps it was the way that Tipper looked, sprawled on the couch next to her husband in a champagne-induced haze. Jennifer and Renee had stripped both of them, and as she looked over, Jennifer noticed the way that Tipper's surprisingly heavy breasts lay so peacefully on her chest, rising and falling with each breath. Her legs were splayed open, revealing a pink slit that was only partially hidden by the brown pubic hairs that fell across it. "Get the K-Y jelly," she ordered Renee. "From the room?" Renee asked. "You want me to go down the hall like --" "No not from the room," Jennifer interrupted her. "From her suitcase." "How do you know she 'as K-Y in 'er --" "Just get it." Jennifer nodded toward the bedroom. Renee returned in minutes with the tube. By then, Jennifer had moved out from between Al's legs and was sitting beside Tipper on the bed. She squirted a generous dollop onto her fingers and slid them down between the older woman's thighs. It seemed only a matter of moments before Tipper was squeezing her thighs together in response to Jennifer's rhythmic probing. "Mmmm," Jennifer purred softly as she bent down to Tipper's ear. "You like this, don't you, baby?" Jennifer's other hand drifted toward Tipper's breast, cupping it, kneading it, squeezing it. The former Second Lady moaned. "Yes," Tipper whispered. "Just like that, baby." Jennifer's eyes were not on Tipper but on her husband, and when she saw his cock twitch in response to Tipper's plea, she knew she had her answer. Standing up, she beckoned Renee over and squirted a glob of lube into her friend's hand. "What is this?" Renee asked in horror. "Do her." Jennifer nodded toward Tipper. "It's the only way to get him up." "Do her?" Renee was blushing. "I 'ave no idea what you --" "Oh, like get out, Renee. Six years in a convent? I think you have a pretty damn good idea." Jennifer was quite right. In less than a minute, Tipper was producing sounds that had her husband's cock hardening under Jennifer's attentions. "Perfect," Jennifer whispered. "Nice and hard. And big too. Now go get the condoms." "From her suitcase?" Renee asked. "No," Jennifer said. "From my purse. Honestly, Renee. She's like 60 years old. Why would she be carrying around condoms?" "Sorry," Renee said. "Here you are." "No, give me all three," Jennifer said. "Three?" "The last thing I want is taking care of a little Al Gore for the next eighteen years," Jennifer said. "Don't worry. I'll make him cum. I had one guy tell me I could milk a barren cow with this pussy. Now, get back to work on Tipper. Use some tongue this time, girl." With Renee's face buried beneath Tipper's thighs and Jennifer impaled on Al's cock, the ringbearer's carnal knowledge of former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., was assured. "Oh, God, yes, honey," Tipper cried as Renee sucked and licked for all she was worth. "Right there, baby. Right there! Harder now! Harder, baby! Do me deeper!" Jennifer kept her undulating midsection in perfect synchrony with Tipper's cries. Her youthful but experienced muscles cradled Al's cock in a velvet glove, squeezing his manhood in a grip both soft and vise-like. "That's right, Renee," Jennifer whispered. "Just a little more. Almost honey. I can feel him tensing up. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Cum for me, Al baby. Cum for me, honey. Fill that rubber and save the world." With the cock inside her deflating rapidly, Jennifer jumped off, removed the condom, and hauled Renee out from between Tipper's legs. The two dressed in silence, knowing that when they awoke, the Gores would be none the wiser. They quietly left the suite and returned to their own room down the hallway. Shag the Veep, Save the World "Ya know," Jennifer said when they were alone again. "I was kind of expecting something a little more dramatic, like a beam shooting out from the ring to deflect the asteroid." "Moi aussi," Renee agreed. "Look, we have a message on our phone." "You listen to it, babe," Jennifer said. "I need to clean up a little." Renee's face was ashen when Jennifer emerged from the bathroom in a plush bathrobe, with a towel wrapped around her wet hair. "Honey, what's wrong?" Renee swallowed hard and pointed to the telephone. "It was Mother Marie-Elaine," she said. "What did the old battleaxe want now?" "She and the sisters have been examining the Nostradamus records." "And?" Jennifer prompted her. Renee gave her friend a weak smile. "The good news is that we actually have until October eighth rather than August eighth." "Well, that would have been nice to know before tonight," Jennifer said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "How do they figure that?" "It seems that before Julius Caesar became emperor of Rome, the year began in March. That is why October begins with the prefix "o-c-t," which means eight. According to Mother Marie-Elaine, Nostradamus consistently rejected the Julian calendar that Caesar established. He always used the old calendar. So the eighth day of the eighth month would be October eighth." "Well, I've already fucked the guy, so I'm not sure what the big deal is. It's over, honey. The world is safe." Renee shook her head and swallowed again. "It also means that the millennium did not begin on January 1, 2001. In Nostradamus's calendar it began two months later, on March 1, 2001." "Again, so?" "Your country inaugurated a new president on January 20, 2001. So the vice-president on March first was not Al Gore but Richard Cheney." The two women stared at each other in horror before the same word simultaneously burst from the two throats. "Ewwwwwww!" In a state of shock, Jennifer found a seat on the couch next to Renee. After a few minutes thought, she turned to the French girl with one final idea. "So realistically, since nobody's seen this asteroid thing yet, there's probably only a fifty percent chance of this prediction coming true, right?" Renee nodded numbly. "And there's also a fifty-fifty chance the thing will come by the sun first, right? And if it does that, wouldn't it pull the Earth into an orbit farther away from the sun?" "Oui." "Which would make us colder, and not warmer. I mean, that would like probably balance the global warming, wouldn't it?" "Perhaps," Renee agreed with a shrug. "So really there's only like a twenty-five percent chance of something bad happening, like our being sucked toward the sun." "That's true." "Versus my fucking Dick Cheney." "Oui." "I can live with that. How about you?" Renee smiled. "Certainment. Until somebody actually sees an asteroid 'eaded towards us." "You can just shut up, girlfriend. Now I'm gonna need another shower." This story was inspired by, and is dedicated to, tickledkitty. It is an entry in the 2008 Earth Day contest, and if you actually made it to the end of the story, you might as well let me know what you thought about it by commenting and/or voting. In any event, my thanks for reading.