Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗

else is available. Got to find you a good one,

too.”

Scott shook his head. “I don’t know . . .”

“What, you don’t wanna get laid? What’s the matter with you?”

The Spook couldn’t believe his ears.

The sheer intensity of the omnipresent sexual stimulation gave

Scott the urge to pause and ask himself why. The desire was

physically manifest, but the psychology of hookers; it wasn’t his

style. In the three years since he and Maggie had split, Scott

occassioned to spend time with many ladies. He had kept himself

in reasonable shape without doing becoming fanatic about it, and

his high metabolism helped keep the body from degenerating ahead

of schedule. So he had had his share of companionship and oppor-

tunity, but right now he was enjoying the freedom of his work and

the pleasures that that offered. If a woman was in the cards, so

be it, but it was not essential at the moment.

“Nothing, it’s just that, well, I prefer to know the lady, if you

know what I mean.”

“Oh, no problem!” The Spook had an answer. “That’s an all night-

er and will cost you 1000 guilders.”

“No, no,” Scott said quickly. “That’s not it. I just don’t get

a charge from hookers. Now, if some friends set it up to like a

real pick-up, at the beach, a bar, whatever, as long as I didn’t

know. That could prove interesting. Hmmmm.” He smiled to

himself. “But honestly? I been a couple of times, just for

giggles. And boy was it giggles.”

Scott laughed out loud at the memory. “The first time it was a

friend’s birthday and a bunch of us put up enough to get him laid

at the Chicken Ranch.” That was the evening Scott had lost

almost two hours of his life on the drive back to Vegas. He

speculated to himself, in private, that he may been abducted by

alien creatures from a UFO. Right.

“I know the place,” added the Spook.

“I was designated drunk driver so I drove him over to the high

desert in the company van, about an hour’s drive. Before we went

in I insisted on a couple of beers. He was getting laid and I

was nervous. Go figure. At any rate, the security cameras let

us in and two very attractive ladies in slinky gowns lead us over

to the couch. They immediately assumed that we were both there

for, well, the services. I was too embarrassed to say no, that I

wasn’t interested, but then out came a line of 20 of the most

gorgeous girls you could imagine. The madam, I forget her name,

stepped in and begged our indulgence for the interruption. It

seems, she said, that the BBC was filming a documentary on broth-

els, and they had a camera crew in the next room, and would we

mind too terribly much if they filmed us?” Scott feigned extreme

shock.

“Filmed you? For TV? Even I won’t go that far,” the Spook said

impressed with Scott’s story. “My movies are all first run

private. Alphabetical from Adelle to Zelda.”

“Not film that, pervert!” He had pegged the Spook. “They only

filmed the selection process, the initial meetings and then the

walk down the hallways to the bedrooms.”

“So what’d you do?” The Spook asked with interest.

“We did the camera bit, Jim got laid and I take the fifth.”

“You chicken shit asshole,” hollered the laughing Spook.

Scott took that as a compliment from the male slut to whom he was

speaking. “Listen, that was a long time ago, before I was mar-

ried, and I don’t want it to screw up our divorce. Three years of

bliss.”

The Spook kept laughing. “You really are a home boy, huh?” He

gasped for air. They continued down a side street and back up

the Oude Zijds Achterburgwal, the other main canal in the Dis-

trict, so Spook could check out more windows. Those with the

curtain drawn indicated that either services were being rendered

or that it was lunch hour. Hard to tell.

As they passed the Guys and Gals Sex Shop, the Spook abruptly

stopped and stepped back toward the canal. He whistled to him-

self in appreciation of the sex goddesses that had captured his

attention. In the basement window was a stunning buxom brunette,

wearing an invisible g-string and bra. She oozed sexuality with

her beckoning lips and fingers when she spotted the Spook’s

interest. In the first floor window above the brunette were two

perfectly voluptuous poster blondes, in matching transparent

peignoirs. They too, saw the Spook, and attempted to seduce him

to their doorway. Scott was impressed that the ladies were so

attractive.

“Some sweet meat, huh?” Said the Spook ogling his choices. “Well

are you or aren’t you?” He asked with finality. “I’m all systems

go. You get first choice: 2 from window A or 1 from window B.

What’ll it be?”

Scott responded immediately. “I got a safer way. There are five

billion people on the planet, and at any given time at least a

million have to be having sex. So all I have to do is tune into

the Planetary Consciousness, the ultimate archetype, and have an

orgasm anytime I want.”

“You’re a sick mother,” laughed the Spook. “Transcendental group

sex. At least I can tell the difference between pussy and pray-

ing.” He asked Scott again to pick a girl.

“I have to pass. It’s just not my thing.” Spook glared at him

askance. “No really, go ahead. I’m a bit tired, I just arrived

this morning.” He had forgotten to take his 3 hour afternoon nap

and it was close to 6 in the morning body time. “I’ll see you at

the conference tomorrow. All right?”

“Fuckin’ A!” The Spook beamed. “I get ‘em all.” He motioned to

the girls that he would like to hire all three of them, at once.

They indicated that that would be a fine idea. “Listen, I don’t

mean to be rude, but . . .” the Spook said to Scott as he pro-

ceeded up the stairs to meet the female triumvirate. He turned

briefly in the open doorway with two of the girls tugging at his

clothes. “Scott! What happens if the medium or the message gets

sick? Think about it.” The door closed behind the Spook as the

girls shed their clothes.

“Medium? Jeez you are really fucked,” laughed Scott. “Pervert!”

He called out as the window curtains closed.

Scott got directions to the Eureka! from a live sex show sales-

man. For all the walking he and the Spook had done, miles and

miles, it was odd that they had ended up only a few blocks away

from the hotel. Ah, but that would figure, thought Scott. The

Sex Starved Spook was staying at the Europa around the corner

from Sin Street. Scott rolled a joint of his own to enjoy for

the pleasant evening promenade home along the canals. Spook,

what a character. In one breath, perfectly rational, but then

the Jekyll and Hyde hormone hurricane. Wow.

What Scott Mason could never have imagined, indeed quite the

opposite, was that the Spook was unable to respond to the three

very attentive ladies he had hired for that very purpose. Noth-

ing. No matter what stimuli they effected, the Spook’s brain

could not command his body to respond. His confusion alternated

with embarrassment which made the problem only worse. Never

before had the Spook had such a problem. Never. One of the

ladies spoke to him kindly. “Hey, it happens to everyone once in

a while.” At hearing that he jumped up, removed the loose condom

and zipped his pants while screaming, “Not to me. It doesn’t

happen to me!”

Scott did not know that the Spook bolted into the street and

started running, in panic, away from the scene of his most pri-

vate of failures. He ran all the way, in fact beating Scott to

his hotel. He was driven by the terror of the first sexual

failure in his life. The Spook felt emasculated as he sought a

rationalization that would allow him to retain a shred of digni-

ty.

He was used to commanding women, not being humiliated by them.

What was wrong? Women fell all over him, but why this? This of

all things? The Spook fell asleep on the top of his bed with his

clothes on.

Scott did not know that he would not be seeing the Spook tomor-

row.

* Wednesday, January 6 Washington, D.C.

“Eight more!” exclaimed Charlie Sorenson into Martin Templer’s

face. “What the hell is going on?” The private office on twenti-

eth and “L” Street was well guarded by an efficient receptionist

who believed she worked for an international import export firm.

Consulting offices were often easier for senior intelligence

officials to use for clandestine, unrecorded meetings than one’s

own office. In the interest of privacy, naturally.

The two NSA and CIA agents from “P” Street held their clandestine

meeting in a plain, windowless office meagerly furnished with a

desk,