About then both racism and poverty were becoming obsolete, and selling a first novel was as hard as ever. Stuart had been toiling at Pussycat for five years, dickering with a novel about a parallel universe where racism still existed and a malignant black magician takes over the country by demonically possessing the body of the white President.
Last year the staff of Pussycat had quadrupled. Sput Sputnik had grown annoyed by the ever-increasing number of imitations of his Illustrated Fantasy Book for Onanists. Every editor at every competition publication had been hired away at a juicy salary increase.
Pussycat suddenly had six Senior Editors, twelve Associate Editors, twenty-four Assistant Editors, and thirty Junior Editors. The other publishers found themselves confronting deadlines with nobody left on their staffs. Two went bankrupt; one committed suicide; the others took a year to get back in gear again.
"Business is business," said Sput. He liked to think of himself as a tough, hard-driving businessman, as well as the twentieth century's leading philosopher, the superstud of every girl's tender dreams, the hero of the free press, the foe of bigotry and intolerance everywhere, and the world's unacknowledged Master Psychologist. If he had known there was such a thing as pie-eating champion, he would have aimed for that title also. He considered himself a Renaissance Man.
Although Stuart had advanced from Junior Editor to Senior Editor in spite of this competition, he hardly knew Sput at all. Sput never came to the offices, preferring to work in his mansion in Manhattan, and Stuart saw him only on the rare occasions when he was called upon to fly to New York for a conference.
Those conferences tended to be a bit much. Like certain movie actors who are always "on," even when nowhere near a soundstage, Sput was as determined to impress his editors as he was to overwhelm the whole world. For years, he had insisted on playing chess during conferences, keeping an impoverished grandmaster on hand for a stiff competition; since the grandmaster knew which side his bread was buttered on, Sput always won. He had gotten this idea from a very inaccurate historical novel about Napoleon, in which the little Corsican sociopath was portrayed as playing masterful chess while discussing military strategy with his generals and the Napoleonic legal code with his judges.
More recently Sput had read a novel about Nero. The effect was even more disconcerting than trying to talk with him while he laboriously evaded an obvious Noah's Ark trap. He was seated behind his desk receiving a blow job when Stuart had been ushered into his presence the last time. It was unnerving.
"You wanted to discuss the interview subjects for the next six months?" Stuart asked, taking his seat and noting that the erotic technician kneeling before the Great Man was a recent Pussyette from the mag's foldout. In fact, she was the first to appear, not in an ordinary crotch shot (they were now becoming commonplace, not only in Pussycat, but in its imitators), but in a randy low-angle crotch shot in which her vulva lips could clearly be seen pouting beneath the pubic hair. Stuart had been curious as to how that effect was obtained and asked the chief photographer, "Were you rubbing her off just before you snapped that?"
"Nah," was the laconic answer. "We tried that, but the lips still weren't visible enough. We ended up stuffing her snatch full of my hashish stash."
"Lawd!" Stuart was astonished, and dropped back to his mother tongue.
"That's why she had that far-gone look in her eyes. Stoned out of her head by the time we got it all out of her again. Bet you didn't know it was possible to get high that way."
"Wonder what it would be like to navigate her geography right after the hash came out," Stuart said thoughtfully.
"Wouldn't know," the photographer sighed. "Sput put an exclusive on her soon as he saw the test shots."
Now she kneeled, nude and covered with some kind of oil that Sput had read about in the Nero book, and carefully licked his wingwang up and down while he, imitating supercool, went over the interview list.
"Don't want President Hubbard," he said. "She's too controversial."
"But dammit, Sput, our interviews are supposed to be controversial!" Stuart seemed to recall saying that at each of these conferences.
"Not that controversial," Sput said. "The intellectuals all hate her because she's a scientist.* Now, here, Jane
*Terran Archives 2803: At the time of this comedy those primates who specialized in verbal manipulations of the third neurological circuit formed a gene-pool separate from those who specialized in mathematical manipulations. The former, controlling the verbal environment, had dubbed themselves "the intellectuals."
Fonda and Timothy Leary, they're good. But, Jesus H. Christ, Robert Anson Wilson, for Chrissake-he's a fucking science-fiction writer!"
"We interviewed Vonnegut," Stuart said, watching the lady's head bobbing up and down at Sput's crotch.
"Yeah, but his books are serious. That's different," Sput said, breathing a bit heavily by now. "Besides, everybody says The Universe Next Door drives people wiggy and makes them become nudists or Buddhists or something. That kind of trouble we don't need. And one science-fiction writer in five years is enough, already. (Gently, doll, gently!) I see you don't have the Attorney General on the list yet."
"It's the same as ever," Stuart explained, noting that the girl's hand was sneaking down her belly into her crotch. "She just won't give us an interview. She still says we're a dirty magazine."
"Dammit, we never go beyond contemporary community standards," Sput protested, hurt. "That old bitch is a bigot."
"Well, bigot or not, she won't give us an interview."
"Fascist reactionary old bat," Sput fumed. "Someday I'll-" Then he brightened. "Listen, doll," he said to the girl at his feet. "You're the Attorney General-now really go to it, like a fucking vacuum cleanerl" The girl's head began bobbing faster, and Sput slouched back a bit, smiling contentedly.
"Reactionary WASP bitch," he muttered. "That's right, take it, take it all, you foe of the First Amendment!"
"Er-Dr. Francis Dashwood," Stuart prompted.
"Very good, very good." Sput was whispering, as if toking a marijuana cigarette. "You Gestapo pig, " he added to the girl at his feet.
"How about Jackie Kennedy Onassis?"
"Yeah, yeah, class," Sput said vaguely. He was beginning to tremble a bit. "Who else you got?" he whispered, trembling more.
"Dr. Spock."
"Spock?" Sput asked. Then he repeated, shrilly, "Spock? Spock! SPOCK!???!" He was coming, Stuart realized with an embarrassed twinge. "Swallow it," Sput was roaring. "Swallow it, you wire tapper!"
It was a distracting conference all around, Stuart thought, remembering.
His secretary was at his door. "I finally located Dr. j Dashwood," she said, "at this home. He's on the phone." j
Stuart picked up his phone, saying, "Ah, good afternoon, Dr. Dashwood. It's a great pleasure to speak to you."
"Is this on the level?" came a tense voice. "You're not involved with that Poop or Foof place, are you?"
Stuart was dumbfounded. Could the head of the best-known sex research organization in America be a paranoid nut? "I am speaking to Dr. Francis Dashwood?" he asked carefully.
"Yes, yes-but how can I be sure who I'm speaking to?"
"Well," Stuart said, "if you have your doubts, call me back. Go through information, to check the number, and | then have the Pussycat switchboard put you on my line. That should convince you."