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blouse tautly without the aid of a brassiere. I decided they d more than do. So I turned away scornfully
as his vast top-down convertible cruised past my street lamp. I struck my hip and a big match against the
fluted column, and lit a cigarette. I was Lili Marlene to a T or rather to a V-neckline. (I must tell you
that my command of earth-idiom and allusion is remarkable, but if you d had my training you wouldn t
wonder.)
The convertible slowed down and backed up. I smiled. I d been certain that my magnificently formed
milk glands would turn the trick. I puffed on my cigarette languorously.
Hi, Babe!
Right from the first I d known it was the man I was supposed to contact. Handsome hatchet face. Six or
seven feet tall. Quite a creature. Male, as they say.
I hopped into his car, vaulting over the low door before he opened it. We zoomed off through New
York s purple, smelly twilight.
What s your name, Big Male? I asked him.
Scorning to answer, he stripped me with his eyes. But I had confidence hi my milk glands. Lord knows,
I d been hours perfecting them.
Slickie Millane, isn t it? I prompted recklessly.
That s possible, he conceded, poker-faced.
Well then, what are we waiting for? I asked him, nudging him with the leftermost of my beautifully
conical milk glands.
Look here, Babe, he told me, just a bit coldly, I m the one who dispenses sex and justice in this area.
I snuggled submissively under his encircling right arm, still nudging him now and again with my left
milk gland. The convertible sped. The skyscrapers shrank, exfoliated, became countryside. The
convertible stopped.
As the hand of his encircling arm began to explore my prize possessions, I drew away a bit, not
frustratingly, and informed him, Slickie dear, I am from Galaxy Center&
What s that a magazine publisher? he demanded hotly, being somewhat inflamed by my cool milk
glands.
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& and we are interested in how sex and justice are dispensed in all areas, I went on, disregarding his
interruption and his somewhat juvenile fondlings. To be bold, we suspect that you may be somewhat
misled about this business of sex.
Vertical, centimeter-deep furrows creased his brow. His head poised above mine like a hawk s. What
are you talking about, Babe? he demanded with suspicious rage, even snatching his hands away.
Briefly, Slickie, I said, you do not seem to feel that sex is for the production of progeny or for the
mutual solace of two creatures. You seem to think
His rage exploded into action. He grabbed a great big gun out of the glove compartment. I sprang to my
two transmuted nether tentacles most handsome gams if I, the artist, do say so. He jabbed the muzzle
of the gun into my midriff.
That s exactly what I mean, Slickie, I managed to say before my beautiful midriff, which I d been at
such pains to perfect, erupted into smoke and ghastly red splatter. I did a backward flipflop out of the car
and lay still a most fetching corpse with a rucked-up skirt. As the convertible snorted off triumphantly,
I snagged hold of the rear bumper, briefly changing my hand back to a tentacle for better gripping.
Before the pavement had abraded more than a few grams of my substance, I pulled myself up onto the
bumper, where I proceeded to reconstitute my vanished midriff with material from the air, the rest of my
body, and the paint on the trunk case. On this occasion the work went rapidly, with no artistic gropings,
since I had the curves memorized from the first time I d worked them out. Then I touched up my
abrasions, stripped myself, whipped myself up a snazzy silver lame evening frock out of chromium from
the bumper, and put hi time creating costume jewelry out of the tail light and the rest of the chrome.
The car stopped at a bar and Slickie slid out. For a moment his proud profile was silhouetted against the
smoky glow. Then he was inside. I threw away the costume jewelry and climbed over the folded top and
popped down on the leather-upholstered seat, scarcely a kilogram lighter than when I d first sat there.
The minutes dragged. To pass them, I mentally reviewed the thousand-and-some basic types of mutual
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