Like a lot of good tales, this one starts with someone doing something stupid. In this case, it was what happened when the rednecks racing along the highway in a pickup truck and taking target shots at the ceramic insulators on the high tension lines actually hit one.
“YeeeHAW!”
“Yew actually hit sumtin?”
“Go! Go! Get the hell outa here!”
“Haw! Haw! Haw! Wutchew worried ‘bout? Took’em half an hour ta git here when I got mine.”
Regardless of his drunken buddy’s time estimate, and possibly because the buddy had been stupid enough to hang around and get busted, the driver gunned the engine and took off. The sudden acceleration knocked the short guy who’d stood, beer in hand, to get a better look off his feet and slammed his head against the tailgate.
In some stories this might have been enough trauma to give him psychic powers and make him the protagonist, and in fact when he woke up in the hospital, the nurse was giving him a mighty fine blowjob. Afterwards he became unbelievably popular with the ladies. Maybe the crack on the noggin did give him psychic powers, but it didn’t make him the protagonist. It just made him one lucky son of a bitch.
No, our protagonist's going to be someone like …
“And these wrap-around electrodoohickies?” asked the dizzy blonde, as she squinted stupidly at the sampling array.
Not dizzy blonde, thought Ed. Can’t allow myself to categorize the subjects. She’s just number one-one-nine.
A very hot looking number one-one-nine, Ed categorized and marked the “F” box under gender with a thicker than necessary check. Why are all the really hot chicks in arts?
With that question, Ed had somehow forgotten about the normally unforgettable Melissa Carter, fellow grad student and the person who would be doing the actual data analysis on the samples Ed collected. She was hot and easily on par with one-one-nine, if your preferences ran to blondes and redheads about equally. She was also sciences to the core and she was about as interested in Ed, sexually, as number one-one-nine.
This is all because Ed had an “away” with women. This is not a typo; women in Ed’s life always just … went away. Maybe it was because he was a geek. Maybe it was because ninety percent of people he knew never saw him in anything other than a colourless ensemble or the equally colourless lab coat. Maybe it was because he just assumed they weren’t interested and never asked, so they gave up and sought companionship elsewhere.
“Those do two things. One part will be tracking the heart rate and brain activity though chances in temperature due to blood flow as you watch the presentation and the other will take snapshots of the magnetic resonance in your brain.”
“Oh. Like MRI. Why so many? Oh! So you can extrapolate a 3D image. That’s really cool.”
One-one-nine moved herself upwards in Ed’s world by a few light-years. He’d had to ask the professor that question and wait for the explanation. Not that he’d been thinking of asking the girl out after the experiment, but now most of the subconscious illusions and fantasies were all blown to hell. The fantasies that were buried down too deep to give a damn what the upper layers thought were still going strong however. Brain death is generally required to get those fantasies inline with reality, and those bits of his brain were already working on the serious boner Ed was going to wake up with in the morning.
It’s sad really, because if Ed saw Holly—also known as one-one-zero—in her glasses, those deep fantasies could have forced him to ask her out, to hell with what the rest of his brain had to say about it. The arm on Holly’s glasses had come unscrewed and the screw was lost, so she left her glasses at home and resulting in the squinting that had Ed originally discarding one-one-nine in the dizzy bimbo mental bin. So, for want of a screw, the romance of Ed’s life was lost. Or maybe he just narrowly avoided being slapped. These “what if” games get tricky because there are always more possible outcomes and few contain wanton screwing with an extremely hot blonde.
Regardless of how things worked out in other universes where the glasses didn’t get unscrewed (and especially ignoring several of the less likely ones where he got screwed including a one-in-a-googleplex chance encounter with Aria Giovanni in a hot tub), in this reality Holly sat down, Ed adjusted the device so that her head was centered correctly, began running the tape, and left the room. Then Ed looked around for number one-two-zero to give him the briefing while one-one-nine ran. One-two-zero was late, so, because Ed’s such a conscientious worker, rather than checking his email for the missing one-two-zero’s “Hey, man. I forgot it was my uncle’s birthday, so I can’t show up tonight.” message. He did finally check and read the message when the one minute warning sounded to alert Ed that one-one-nine was almost done.
Meanwhile, outside of town, a burning power wire snapped and fell into a creek.
Without the weekday bus schedule running, it took a bit over two hours for Ed to get from his parent’s place to school. Without one-two-zero, Ed was going to have to come to school on a Saturday. Ed had a paper due Sunday, six PM which he’d researched and roughed out, but if he lost two hours getting to school, a quarter hour setting up, half an hour briefing, a quarter hour disassembling and properly storing the equipment, and two hours returning home, if he didn’t have to wait a half hour for the first bus, five hours of work time would be burned and his paper would be late.
He could hear Dr. Obradovich now. “Did I not say, get start early? I know I did. You know I did. You get ‘F’. See you next year.”
Fuck.
As soon as Ed had Holly unstrapped, debriefed, and paid, he filled out the form for one-two-zero, fudged his height a little, sat down, strapped his head in place and did his best to center the machine.
Meanwhile, across town, a power substation blew.
Ed hit the switch with a thrown ruler. That sort of physics had always come easy to him. He had yet to meet a person who could beat him at pool or darts, but, because economics never came easily to him, it never occurred that he should go professional. The tape began to run displaying a colourful kaleidoscope effect on the wall mounted plasma display. In theory, once the display of colours numbed the mind enough, as determined by the readings, images would be shown and the readings would be recorded. Then All Ed had to do was package everything up and dump it into the research cluster for Melissa.
The lights brightened. Ed felt, rather than heard, the pop as the magnets flared. The lights went out. And so did Ed.
See? I told you someone like Ed would be the protagonist. I must be psychic or something.
The lights, the ones that didn’t blow in the power surge, came on and woke Ed up. Blinking away the headache, his brain felt like it had been twisted sideways, only made thins worse because he saw the professor’s beloved brain scanner. He lifted the device off his head and unstrapped himself slowly because quick movements just hurt too much. The scanner was wrecked.
Leads headed into the magnets? Fried. Infrared camera array? Fried. Concentrator processing unit? Fried. Getting up and walking into the lab, he could see that his computer was fried. He’d left the coffee maker plugged in. It was fried. Ed tried to phone in to security and maintenance, but guess what?
The phone was fried. The magnetic lock on the door was fried. The alarm system was fried. Ed mentally wrote the lab off and shook his head in disgust. Big mistake: His head was fried too.
He staggered over to campus security, but since no one was there and every second or third light was dead, Ed figured that they already knew about the problem and were out in force. But they did have a clock on the wall that looked like it still worked.
At one in the morning, the best he could hope for was a two bus transfer into the burbs and a walk home from there, but it was better than nothing, so he crashed out on a bench at the bus stop and waited. Twenty minute later, Ed sat at the back of a bus headed to the Central Exchange and there he’d wait another half hour for the Raymond Center bus. Normally he’d take that one all the way to the end and catch the Donahue Loop, but the Donahue bus only ran until eleven PM. Instead, if you got off on Rupert, you could, forty five minutes later, be on White Oak and at his house. Total trip time two hours, thirty minutes, give or take five minutes.
Central was a nasty place to wait for a bus at one AM Saturday morning, so Ed stayed well away until he saw the bus that would become the Raymond Center pull in and let off a few people. The driver would head in, grab a coffee, chat for ten minutes, and come back out again to start up the bus and take on passengers. The driver took fifteen, so either he’d arrived early or Ed could count on the plus five minutes swing.
Seated sideways, Ed looked across the aisle and sized up the lady across from him. Open appraisal was OK because the plainly exhausted woman had dropped her fashion magazine and zonked out. Not too bad, but nothing special like one-one-nine. And she had the right idea. Ed put his book away a few blocks later and grabbed some shut-eye. He thought about one-one-nine for a while, but drifted to the more traditional porn stars and models before settling on something unusual.
Getting ready to do a runway walk was a nervous, but pretty good looking girl. All dressed up in the evening gown and professional makeup the somewhat straggly and frazzled young lady that wore the white and black of a waitress in some restaurant that sat across from him did look quite elegant.
Marsha stood just off the stage, getting ready to step on her first real runway at a real show. She looked good, and the gown she was modelling looked great. Sleek, black and fabulous, the gown was tight where it needed to be tight and allowed air and mobility where it didn’t.
Okay Marsha, she thought. Let’s do this gown justice. You got it? I got it. You got it, you flaunt it. Go!
She took a step, walking a slow, measured, practiced stride. Today was the day. Today she’d get noticed today was her dream day. She took another step. Something was wrong and she almost stumbled. Like her leg was longer or something.
Don’t look down, she silently admonished. Recover and keep going. That’s right. Next step.
She didn’t look right in that gown with the shoes she wore, so Ed re-imagined her in stiletto heels. That was much better, but she still looked a bit short so Ed added a few inches to the bottom of her shoes. Now they looked a bit excessive, more like a stripper heels and not model’s elegant shoes at all, but who cared? This was Ed’s fantasy.
Marsha put her foot down cleanly and kept going without a stumble.
Heels are just taller than you thought. That’s all. You can do the walk. Tilt the head. Give the look. Let them see … now what? Her hair bounced around her head, ruining the profile she presented.
Stay cool. Stylist got in more bounce than usual, that’s all. Peripherals are all shot to hell now, so turn and let them see the smile. Don’t let the hair distract you. When things go wrong, the way you overcome them can sometimes be worth more then the damage caused. It shows you’re dedicated. Next step. Remember the big time is right around the corner.
Straight hair wasn’t his thing either, so the blonde sheet became a blonde mane, full of body and curls. Now she looked more hot than elegant, so she needed a hotter walk. Ed sat there with his eyes closed, imagining the girl in her gown, strutting along the runway with an exaggerated sway.
Give them a bit more tail. Thaaaat’s right. Remember your ass is your best feature. Show it off, but don’t eclipse the gown. We’re here to show the gown.
She reached the end and with a series of erotic turns, she displayed a firm, but impressively rounded, ass that pulled the eye away from the gown before gliding back down the runway and away.
That wasn’t so bad. If only I could do it for real.
She wasn’t too bad, but she still didn’t do the gown justice. She just wasn’t tall enough. As the daydream girl went to change, Ed wondered if she had more of a beach body. More images followed, the woman in an array of other outfits, but, since there was nothing quite as nice as the gown, Ed’s mind wandered to a bikini shoot.
Standing in front of a camera beside a swimming pool, Marsha wore a blue one piece bikini on her slender body. The photographer called for poses, she delivered.
Ed snapped a picture. “Turn a bit, now look at the camera and smile.”
She had a nice profile he noted as he thumbed the lever, but needs a bit more up top. Her rack’s just not doing that suit justice. Ed thought. Be nice if she was a bit chestier. And with green eyes. Blue eyes just don’t work with that face and hair. Click. What the hell am I doing fantasizing about a flat bikini model?
I hate this stuff, Marsha thought. This is more about showing off me than showing off the suits. At least it’s a classy bikini and a good photographer. Not too much skin showing. This is a good thing since I don’t really have the rack for this sort of modelling. Rack … railing against sexism one minute and using the vocabulary the next.
Pushed by the suddenly much larger contents, the bikini stretched outwards. Click. That’s better. “Tilt your head to the left.” Ed took another picture of her inflated chest. “Looking good! Er … could put the next suit on please?”
Marsha walked into the changing booth, looked in dismay at the next suit she had to model, and started to strip. Ok, I don’t like this anymore. Last suit wasn’t so bad, even if it did really emphasize my chest. This new bikini doesn’t cover anything. I might as well be naked, and I will be in a few moments when my tits fall out of this tiny thing. And it’s emerald green. This totally clashes with my eyes.
“Ready?” asked Ed. Huh. What worked in the last suit’s not big enough for this one.
Ed took another picture as her bikini leapt outwards again, straining to contain the swelling contents. That’s a lot better!
“Smile,” said the photographer. “Good. Sexy pout. Thank you. Hands behind your head. Come on, fluff out the hair and show the camera those huge breasts. Marvellous. Where’s my smile?”
Where’s the smile? I feel like a piece of meat out here. Huge breasts, I wish!
Feeling her chest jiggle far more than it should have, Marsha looked down. Before, the bikini covered little, but now it covered nearly nothing. It wasn’t because the bikini got any smaller, either.
Whoa. The photographer wanted big boobs, but man! she thought, looking down at the stupendous orbs jutting from her chest. What the hell’s going on?
Her mouth opened to protest or question, but the photographer kept cheering her on. “Need a smile here. Just relax, be sexy, and have fun. You’re hot, baby. Ok now: Big smile and show it off!”
“Ok, baby. Is this big enough?” Marsha said, surprising herself by cranking the wattage to the max and thrusting her huge new tits right at the camera. It looks like I’ve got them so I might as well show them off.
“Beautiful. Look at the camera. The camera loves you, baby. Love it back.”
“That camera’s seen nothing yet,” Marsha told the photographer as she struck another, more sexually aggressive, pose. “I’m going to melt its lenses off.”
“Perfect. Perfect. Just think of all the poor guys looking at the cover of their girlfriend’s magazines and wishing they were dating you instead. Turn around. Look over your shoulder and show off that hot ass. You’re going to make that magazine yours.”
Hot ass? Where’d they find this guy? She turned as requested and caught a glimpse of herself in a window. Oh wow. That is a hot ass! That’ll get the guys flipping through the magazine and hard. This is fun! Not very professional though. I’m selling myself more than the bikini. Hell. The thing’s tiny, no one’s gonna look at it. Not with me in the shot. She kissed at the camera and smiled again. “You getting hard, Mr. Cameraman? Oh yes you are.”
“Oh yeah, I’m yours baby. Come on now. Turn a bit more towards me. Let me see those beautiful breasts in all their glory.”
He doesn’t want me making out with the camera. He wants it for himself! On a whim, Marsha cupped her massive new rack and pushed it up and out. She looked down and savoured the firm weightiness for a moment before the bulge in the camera man’s groin drew her away from her glorious chest. She looked up at the camera, winked and gave her boobs a squeeze. “I could get to like these. I hope you’ve got a lot of film … and a big cock.”
Click. He snapped that one while she licked her lips.
“Amazing,” the photographer whispered, his eyes locked on the swollen peaks that capped her perfect new breasts.
I am so turned on! Who’d have imagined that skin shots would feel so … sexy? Turned on? I’m horny. I’m getting wet. Making him hard’s so … so …. Wow.
“Absolutely amazing. Alright,” the photographer continued while changing cameras. “Now reach back and untie the top.”
Marsha’s hands had the knot undone before she realized what she was doing. The bikini top started to drop.
“Oh fuck that!” the waitress mumbled. Just as it looked like she was going to take her top off and put her boobs on full display, the waitress jerked awake, looked around wildly, and pulled Ed from his idle dream. His headache spiked.
“We pass one-oh-six yet?” she asked, her voice thick with recent sleep and adrenaline.
“Uh … Don’t really know. I was sort of out of it too,” Ed mumbled into the waitresses’ stunning rack. She looked huge when she sat up straight. Slouching they way she’d been earlier really ruined the effect. Doesn’t look like she’s wearing a bra either!
The waitress… Marsha. She sort of looks like a Marsha. Dunno why, it just seems to fit. Followed his gaze down and then jerked her head back up. She pinned his eyes with her glorious greens as her jaw dropped.
“Eeep,” she squeaked before looking down again and experimentally touching her chest. “I-I! I’m. I’m hot.” she stammered. “Amazing. Absolutely amazing.”
Her hands shook a little, she jiggled a lot, and Ed, the exact details of his little fantasy already growing fuzzy, came to the conclusion that this babe was on something. He did the safe thing—you really don’t want to get mixed up with a girl with drug problems, Ed’d seen the wreckage of some college friends who had—and ignored her as much as he could. It wasn’t easy to ignore a body like that, so Ed really worked at it.
“Be afraid of anyone who talks to themselves in public,” Ed whispered to himself listening to “Marsha” argue with herself.
“Marsha” relaxed again after the bus drove under the 88th street overpass, but every now and then, because he just couldn’t stop himself, Ed would try and steal a glimpse of “Marsha”. She watched like a hawk, watching him watching her and over the next few blocks her confusion seemed to be replaced with enjoyment and finally a large, inviting smile.
“Like what you see?” she asked. “Better get a good look now, ‘cuz I’m getting off after the next stop.”
True to her word, she rang the bell, stood up on her overly elevated high heels, and wobbled slightly on her way to the rear door of the bus.
God Damn! thought Ed, ogling her amazing, if short, legs. How could she work in those heels?
She did pretty well when you counted in the sway in the way she walked, the extreme height of the heels, and the bus’s sometimes erratic movement. From behind, she looked just as good as he’d imagined and, not wanting to lose sight of her before he had to, Ed took a look out the window. With all the light inside the bus, he couldn’t see much through the reflections on the glass.
But, by shading a portion of the window with his hand, he did see the waitress pull the scrunchie from her long, rippling hair and was treated to the cascading waves as her head shot up. He didn’t hear her gasp as it tumbled, much longer than she was used to around her face and down her back. She brushed away the hair, tugged on her too tight blouse, smiled and then blew him a kiss. The bus was driving away before he could see the way she strutted, the motions of her awesome ass visible through her skirt, following the sidewalk towards her home and a cup of coffee.
There was no way anyone could have known about the debate raging in her head over whether she should stick to her dreams of being a runway model or go for the easier money in cheesecake pics and maybe a little implied nudity—no porn though. She was adamant about that. She was so hot, that guys would easily get it up looking at her in skimpy bikinis so why go all the way? An observer may have noticed the expression on her face and the way she mumbled about drinking too much after work; hallucinating that her boobs were so large, so perfect; and how everything would be better in the morning. In a way some things were better, but what she’d really meant was everything would be back to normal and that certainly wasn’t the case.
Because Ed drifted into something closer to real sleep this time, he missed his stop, but managed to convince the driver to let him stay on the bus for a few miles as the driver headed back to the yard. The walk only took about half an hour. So just before five in the morning, Ed finally got to bed.
Got to bed but he didn’t get much sleeping done because his sister was nattering to someone. What the hell is she doing up this early? Shut it, you brat!
Thank you.
Still, as the headache slowly receded, he lay there staring at the ceiling.