There was a long silence on the other end.
“Oswald? Did you hear me?”
“I heard you, Mr. President. It’s just that there have been certain developments of which you may not be aware. You see, sir, we don’t exactly have Jonathan Relevant at this time.”
“What the hell do you mean? Isn't he at Harnell?”
“As far as I know he’s there, sir. But Harnell's going up. SDS has taken over the Science Research Institute and our man Pigbaigh’s trapped there. Black students have seized the Administration Building and at one point they were holding the chancellor hostage. As to Jonathan Relevant, there are conflicting reports. We don’t know whether he’s in the hands of the blacks, or the SDS, or neither. One of our agents has infiltrated the SDS group, but communications with him are impossible at this time.”
“Oswald! Do you mean that a bunch of college students have taken Jonathan Relevant away from the CIA?”
“We’re not sure, Mr. President, but it seems likely.”
“Now they’ve gone too far! Under no circumstances will I be affected by demonstrations of this sort!”
“Careful, Mr. President. That’s an unfortunate choice of words. Remember Trikkidikki.”
“If they buck me, I’ll get Hershey back! That’ll show those snot-nosed punks.”
“Please, Mr. President! If the papers ever got hold of that —”
“Oswald, if we can’t produce Relevant, we’ll have more international egg on our face than Nasser eating an Israeli omelet!”
“That’s no yolk, Mr. President. Heh-heh!”
“Oh, my God!” The President slammed down the phone. He thought a moment and then dialed again. “Hello, General. Now hear this! I want ten thousand paratroopers with complete battle gear to proceed to Harnell University immediately. The SDS has taken over the Science Research Institute. I want it liberated—-and fast! . . . Sure, use tear gas if you have to! Use cannons if you have to! . . . That’s right, I said cannons!” The President hung up the phone. “I’ll teach those kids the meaning of Democracy!” he muttered to himself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Did you ever have doubts about your manhood? Not you, lady! That’s another problem altogether——although not completely irrelevant to Jonathan Relevant. His manhood doubts, you see, did result from a not dissimilar confusion in the mind of a certain lady.
The lady was Nancy Hardlign, young wife of the chancellor of Harnell University. Nancy was not a happy lady. The reason for her unhappiness was that All-American neurotic syndrome: sex.
Her husband, the chancellor, was not the world’s greatest lover. Nor was he the world’s second greatest lover. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even in the first division. Or the second. The very bottom third of the bottom third -— that’s where the chancellor stood, just barely nosing out a few terminal prostate cases.
Now Nancy was easily attractive enough to have found a substitute. And she was definitely frustrated enough to justify the taking of a lover to herself. Yet, strangely, she didn’t really feel tempted by other men.
Other women? . . . Well, yes, Nancy had on occasion felt a groin-tensing thrill of arousal provoked by some particularly attractive member of her own sex. But she’d never done anything about it. (Except for that one experience before she was married, and she thought she’d banished that from her mind.) After all, there was her status as the wife of the chancellor to be maintained.
Earlier that eventful evening, Nancy had been down in the cellar trampling grapes when her husband came home. Twenty minutes later he’d called down the staircase that he was leaving again for a meeting with the Board of Trustees and certain key members of the Alumni Association, and that he’d probably be back late. Some time passed, and then the doorbell rang. Nancy went up to answer it.
It was quite late for a caller, and she assumed that her husband must have forgotten his key. But it wasn’t the chancellor. It was a quite beautiful blond girl she’d never met before.
Odd, there was something familiar about the girl. It took Nancy a moment to realize what it was. When she did, she blushed at the memory.
It had been a long time ago, before she met the chancellor and married him, her one premarital affair with another female — if a long weekend with a girl she was never to see again could be called an “affair.” Nancy had instigated it, really taken advantage of the other girl, who was both younger and more naive than she was, reveled in it, and then moved on, retaining only a memory of ecstasy that faded until it seemed no more to Nancy than an exaggerated fantasy. But here was this curvaceous young blonde, and her presence in Nancy’s doorway somehow brought it all back.
Jonathan Relevant wasn’t aware of the lengthy silence which followed the opening of the Hardlign’s front door. He wasn’t aware of it because his mind was too busy being appalled at what had happened to his body. The news was brought home to him in a quick series of perceptions.
First there was a strange heaviness in Jonathan Relevant’s chest. A quick look downward brought the cause into focus. Jonathan Relevant had sprouted breasts!
He felt the tickle of blond hair grazing his shoulders. He put his hand in his pocket and his hip felt strangely round. He had to tighten his belt over a waist grown strangely narrow. He reached deeper into his pocket and —
It was gone!
There was a vacuum where his penis should have been.
Baby, face it! Have you ever got a manhood problem! Jonathan Relevant told Jonathan Relevant. The thought seemed to echo effeminately through his mind.
“Yes?” Nancy Hardlign found her tongue first. “Are you looking for someone?”
“Something!” Jonathan Relevant blurted out.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’d like to see Chancellor Hardlign.” Jonathan Relevant recovered.
“He isn’t here. Would you like to come in and wait, miss?”
‘Miss’! “Yes, thanks.” Jonathan Relevant followed Nancy inside, feeling his hips sway and his high, plump derriere bounce as he walked. Myra Breckenridge is alive and well and Relevant! With an effort, Jonathan Relevant (or is it Joanna now? he wondered) stopped being introspective and directed his attention outward. “Your nose is purple,” he-she told Nancy Hardlign.
“Oh, dear!” Nancy scrubbed vigorously, but ineffectively, with a wisp of handkerchief. “Is that better?”
“No, but why bother? It’s really a very attractive contrast to your red hair.” In some confusion, Jonathan Relevant took a good look at Nancy Hardlign. The confusion stemmed from the fact that Nancy’s trim body, with its small, high, pointy breasts and long shapely legs, aroused strong erotic feelings in Jonathan Relevant. And that missing appendage raised the question of just what possibly could be done about those feelings.
“Thank you. It’s been a long time since anybody, man or woman, paid me a compliment like— You see, the chancellor is a very busy man, and he—” Why was she saying such things to a total stranger? It wasn’t like Nancy to air her secret frustrations. And yet —
“I understand,” Jonathan Relevant told her.
Nancy believed the blonde did understand. Suddenly she felt more relaxed than she had in years. She found herself revealing things that she’d barely admitted to herself before. And it seemed perfectly natural to be confiding them to this girl.
“He’s really a very good husband, you see. I mean, he’s kindly, and considerate, and generous. He never complains about my spending money, or anything like that. But the physical side of our marriage—- Well, I really have no right to complain. I should have anticipated that when I married a man twenty years older than myself. Somehow that didn’t seem so important at the time. I mean, he was the first man I’d met who wasn’t just interested in my body.”