A for Effort

The Clean Genie was about seven inches long and two inches thick. It had a hemispherical head and a spherical reservoir at its base, and was covered in soft latex with a skin-like texture. The shaft was dotted with pinprick-size orifices. The head sported several more of the tiny openings around its rim, and a larger one at its tip. It emitted a faint but delightful scent, at once fresh and delicately musky. Morgana regarded it soberly.

"Why a woman would want to stick that into herself is beyond me," Glynnis grated.

Morgana turned the device over and read the tag glued to its base. " 'Cleanses, soothes, and deodorizes. Best used in a warm bath.' "

Glynnis snorted. "Have you got an infection?"

"I don't know. I might."

Another snort. "You're obsessed with your odor."

Morgana clenched her teeth.

Don't get into it here. You know what she's like and you room with her anyway.

She looked for the price, found it, and beckoned an Albrecht's saleswoman over from the main counter.

The saleswoman was a willowy blonde, elaborately dressed and made up. "Can I help you, Miss?"

Glynnis's lip curled. Morgana forced a smile. "Do you carry the refills for this separately?" She presented the Clean Genie, half embarrassed to show the thing to the store's own staff.

The saleswoman glanced at the device and smiled, demonstrating considerably more self-control than Morgana could have mustered. "Yes, we do. Citrus, pomegranate, vanilla, honey, and Heavenly Breeze, our best seller. They're a dollar ninety-five each."

"What does Heavenly Breeze smell like?"

The saleswoman gestured at the appliance. "Like what you're holding."

Morgana mentally totted up her discretionary fund. "Then I'd like one of each." She handed the appliance to the saleswoman, who returned to her counter and started working the register.

"Meg --" Glynnis's tone was half pleading and half monitory.

"Enough, Glyn. Two minutes after I step out of the shower I stink like Cannery Row, and we both know it."

"I don't mind, damn it!"

It's not you I was thinking of.

"That's very tolerant of you, but I'd rather not have to wear a plastic diaper to my graduation."

Glynnis's eyes narrowed. Her short, round body seemed to tighten from her neckline all the way to her knees. "You aren't getting involved with...men, are you?"

Morgana turned to face her squarely.

"Let me remind you of a few things, Glyn. You're a lesbian. I'm not. I'm a twenty-two-year-old heterosexual woman who hasn't had a date since she was

fifteen years old.

That might not bother you, but it bothers me!"

Glynnis's eyes went from threatening to pleading in a millisecond. "But, Meg --"

"

Enough,

Glyn. I'm getting tired of being alone in the world. My odor has to have something to do with it. So --"

"You're not alone!" Glynnis wailed. Despite her baggy clothing, Morgana could see her quivering. "You have me. For two years now!"

Morgana started to reply, bit her lip instead.

From the first weeks of their acquaintance, she'd known what Glynnis wanted from her. Artfully concealed when the young lesbian answered Morgana's ad for a roommate, shortly thereafter it became as plain as print. Even so, Glynnis was a good roommate: clean, responsible, and always respectful of Morgana's privacy.

Well, almost always.

"Someday you'll find someone, Glyn." Morgana kept her voice low and soft. "You'll meet her at school, or in our complex, or in the city somewhere. And I'll be overjoyed for you. Really! But it won't solve

my

problem."

Glynnis's eyes grew moist. Morgana held back a cruel remark.

"Miss?" the saleswoman called from behind the register. "Will this be cash or charge?"

Morgana fumbled for her wallet.

***

As soon as they got home, Glynnis ran to her room and slammed the door. Morgana sighed, tossed her purse onto the dinette table, and extracted the Clean Genie from her shopping bag. She slumped onto the couch and cradled it in her lap, pondering what she'd embarked upon.

From before the onset of puberty she'd been short and pudgy. She'd accepted her physical mediocrity as a fact of life, and had concentrated on the expansion of her intellectual horizons. It had been effort well spent. In six weeks she'd be awarded a Master's degree in engineering with

summa cum laude

honors. She'd accepted a lucrative full-time position at Onteora Aviation that would begin a week after that. She'd be poised to launch her career, in a field that employed twenty men for every woman. Men who were legendarily desperate for female company.

But she stank like a fish market on a July day.

It pained her even to think about the emissions from her nether parts. She'd been this way for seven years, but had never dared to seek a corrective. It was a handicap, but it was also an excuse. What if, once she was stripped of her odoriferous defenses, she

still

couldn't attract a man?

You know it's possible. There's more than your odor to think about.

In the past, she'd veered away from all such thoughts. But her mind, conditioned by six tough years of study to rigorous analysis of data and the close examination of theories, would turn from them no longer.

She took the Clean Genie into the bathroom, closed the door quietly behind her, and regarded herself in the full-length mirror that hung there.

Still short and pudgy. Well, the short was genetic, and not to be undone except by artifice of clothing. But the pudgy...

It wasn't hopeless. Twenty pounds or so. Perhaps it was time to start an exercise program. She'd have time for it now, with her thesis work complete and graduation in sight. If she could get the weight off, perhaps she could motivate herself to upgrade the rest of her grooming.

For the first time in years, she studied her face.

It wasn't a bad face. Her skin was clear, her forehead high. Her features were regular, properly sized and spaced. Her teeth were white and straight. Her hair had promise. It was a deep, lustrous brown, thick and healthy. She'd never done anything with it -- why bother? -- but perhaps a shoulder-length cut and a wave...

She looked at the Clean Genie in her reflection's hand.

She'd spent good cash money on it. She was going to use it.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," she murmured.

The tub took seven minutes to fill.

***

It was a shame Morgana had to get out of the tub. She'd never before felt this relaxed, this complete, this luxuriously right. But she was turning pruny, and dinner wouldn't make itself.

As the water gurgled down the drain, she hoisted herself out of the tub, wrapped a towel around herself, and contemplated the evening.

Is it too late to call a few health clubs, ask about membership plans? They must make appointments in the evening. Most people work during the day.

She patted herself dry with particular care. It had been months since she'd last shaved her legs. It took a long time. But the results had delighted her. Her smooth, taut skin seemed to glow with a new vitality. It brought such a sense of renewal that, feeling slightly naughty, she'd continued northward to remove all the hair there as well.

Morgana was reacquainting herself with her own body. Every turn produced a new surprise.

The Clean Genie had produced more than one surprise.

Subconsciously straining to minimize the import of her actions, she'd thrust the device into herself unthinkingly, with a what-the-hell motion. Something she'd forgotten about gave way with a spasm of exquisite pain. But it was only a few seconds and the flick of a switch before the pain was an irrelevant memory.

The Clean Genie didn't just soothe, cleanse, and deodorize. It hummed. And hummed, and hummed, and hummed.

It ran for half an hour before the pump exhausted its reservoir of Heavenly Breeze and started to complain. Removing it and switching it off took all the willpower she had.

The device had left her sweetly clean. The powerful nether odor that had tormented her and anyone near her for a decade was entirely gone. In its place was the fresh, slightly musky scent she'd first smelled in Albrecht's.

She peered into the mirror again, unsure what to expect.

Her reflection was strange. It was recognizably her, of course, but there were differences a bath and a shave wouldn't account for.

Was it the absence of tension? Or the sense of new vistas unfolding?

"Doesn't matter," she murmured. She folded and hung her towel, slipped into her robe and ambled barefoot out into the apartment.

Glynnis was sitting on their couch, staring at her. The intensity of that stare almost stopped Morgana in her tracks, but her newfound serenity reasserted itself at once.

"Something wrong, Glyn?"

"You were in there a long time." The words hovered at the border of reproach.

Morgana smiled. "Sorry." She went to their kitchenette and rummaged through the cabinets for a quick snack. She found a granola bar at the back of a low cupboard, stood up and turned, and found Glynnis standing right behind her, looking abashed.

"Meg? Does it, uh, work?"

Morgana peeled the foil wrapper from the granola bar and took a leisurely bite. She chewed carefully and swallowed.

"Oh my, does it ever."

"Meg --"

"Get your own, Glyn."

***

The six weeks to graduation went by like so many days.

Morgana transformed her life with a thoroughness that shocked everyone around her. She joined a health club, visited it thrice each week, and drove herself like a team of oxen. She purged her larder of all the starchy, sludgy things she'd subsisted on throughout college and replaced them with lean meats, vegetables and fruit. She returned to Albrecht's several times, not just for refills for the Clean Genie, but for clothes, shoes, cosmetics and perfume. She pushed every limit she'd ever had, including a few she hadn't known about.

And she changed.

Her excess weight blitzed off her as if it had been packed and awaiting an order of eviction. Her waist and thighs narrowed. Her muscles gained tone and power. Her plodding, self-concealing walk became a confident stride. She sloughed her sweatshirts, jeans and loafers in favor of sheer blouses, short skirts, and high, high heels. Passers-by took note and pointed her out to one another. Men smiled at her, and she smiled back.

And each night, she filled the tub and took her ease.

When the Dean of Students called out "Morgana Rothman, Master's in Engineering," and she mounted the dais to accept her diploma, he looked at her, then at the diploma, then at her again. She almost had to rip it out of his hands.

After the ceremony, her reserved, standoffish father hugged her with an intensity that was near to life-threatening. He'd been as bowled over by the new Morgana as anyone else.

Her mother kissed her, tears of pride running down her face, and whispered, "You can do anything."

It wasn't what Morgana was accustomed to hearing from her mother. Grace Rothman had been less than encouraging about her daughter's academic and professional ambitions. She was so stereotypical a suburban homemaker that even her closest friends joked about it when she was out of earshot.

Her classmates headed off to a local watering hole to toast one another and celebrate their commencements. Several approached Morgana to invite her, but she excused herself, bade her parents farewell as they departed for Westchester, and returned to her apartment.

Glynnis was sitting in their little living room, reading. She said nothing as Morgana entered. Morgana bade her a cheery hello. In response, Glynnis marked her place, rose, and went to her room, closing the door emphatically behind her. Morgana could only shrug.

When she'd folded and boxed her graduation gown properly for return to the rental center, she removed her tailored pink skirt suit, her slingbacks, and her glitter-flecked pantyhose, and filled the tub.

***

Things changed when she started at Onteora Aviation.

Though intellectually she'd known better, Morgana had subconsciously assumed that work would be much like school, with many options and alternatives to choose from. The pace and intensity of OA's Engineering Center jolted her from the moment she arrived. Her manager, Dick Orloff, was a kindly, fatherly man of middle years who expected excellence from everyone he supervised, and always got it.

She hadn't been expected to be fully competent from her first day, but it was plain that her more senior colleagues would not carry her simply because she was new and female. Though they never said so, they regarded themselves as an elite, membership in which had to be earned. She received no indulgence, no special treatment.

Morgana struggled to absorb the huge knowledge domains that were prerequisites to getting anywhere in aviation engineering. At first, her schedule came under intense pressure. She gritted her teeth and bore down, refusing to give up her health club, her grooming appointments, or her time in the tub.

Toward the end of the summer, it started to pay off. At first acutely conscious of being "the new kid," by October she carried herself with the authority of burgeoning, well-earned confidence. She spoke up at meetings. Her colleagues sought her opinion on design questions. Her struggle to master her new field began to abate.

Each night she got home tired. Each night she found Glynnis waiting in the living room, silent and immobile. Waiting for Morgana's return only to rise from the couch and seal herself into her bedroom. Morgana would simply shrug, undress, and fill the tub.

It went on like that through the fall and into winter.

***

"Meg?"

"Hm?" Morgana looked up to find Dick Orloff standing in her cubicle entrance. The manager looked slightly apprehensive.

"Want to be on a tiger team?"

"What! Who, me?"

He nodded. "On the F/B-6 upgrade. They need an ace at wringing the oscillations out of a multi-layer digital circuit."

Her brow furrowed. Tiger teams were always formed from the Engineering Division's elite, and only to handle utter save-the-baby emergencies. When a tiger team was assigned to a problem, regulations and procedures were swept away. They operated under only one rule: Get it done.

"Dick, are you sure you want me for this?"

He grinned. "Can't quite believe it, can you? You'll be working with Emil Deukmeijian on the self-protection jammer. Have you met him?"

She shook her head. He gestured her out of her chair, and she followed him down the corridor of gray fabric panels.

"Now's a good time. You'll like him. He's the sharpest engineer in Tactical Software, and a hell of a nice guy to boot." Orloff looked furtively from side to side. "Don't tell his boss I said that."

She laughed uncertainly.

Deukmeijian awaited them in a small conference room. He stood as they entered.

"Emil," Orloff said, "this is Meg Rothman. She's new, but she's my best debugger. You two play nice." Morgana blushed and held out her hand. Deukmeijian took it gently. Orloff vanished as they regarded one another.

Deukmeijian was tall, broad-shouldered, husky, and darkly colored. His hair was an unruly mat of thick black locks. He moved fluidly, very much at home in his big body. There was a suggestion of pain behind his eyes, as if there were something on his mind he couldn't chase away. But his smile looked genuine, and his voice was deep and pleasant. There was a plain gold band on the ring finger of his left hand.

"Hello...Marguerite?"

She smiled. "It's Morgana, actually. But Meg will do fine."

"How'd you wind up being called 'Meg'?"

"I didn't like 'Morg,' and all the other good nicknames were taken."

He grinned. "Okay. Did Dick tell you about the problem?"

"Only that it's an oscillation in a multi-layer digital circuit."

Deukmeijian nodded. "I hope you're as good as Dick said you are, because this one's a doozy. Bit-slice design. Three parallel processors. Mucho pressure. Come on, let's get to work."

***

They made a most effective team. Emil's knowledge of the programmable parts of the circuit was encyclopedic. He had an equally complete knowledge of the huge microprogram that drove the nanosecond responses of the jammer. Whatever sort of pattern Morgana needed to trace the behavior of the circuit, he could easily provide.

They worked almost continuously, from eight each morning until well into the night. She found his intelligence and grace powerfully appealing, wedding ring and all, but on the few occasions she ventured a personal sally, he deflected it neatly back to engineering. Even over lunch, she could hardly get him onto another subject, be it politics, sports, or entertainment. She sensed a layer of sorrow wrapped around him, something that forbade him any personal involvements. Plainly, he used his work to buffer them away.

In six working days, they pinned down the source of the problem: a heat-sensitive clock generator that could be driven over the edge by too tight a loop in the microprogram. They debated whether to work around it in the code, or replace the clock with a more stable model.

Morgana wanted to work around it. Respecifying the component would require government recertification, and would cost enough time to endanger the contract. Emil wanted to fix the board. A software kludge might have unforeseen unintended consequences. They fought it out for three hours, late on a Friday evening when all their colleagues had already left, until Emil called for a truce.

"We won't settle this tonight. Hungry?"

She grinned. "Almost always."

He was silent for a long moment. She was about to pack up and head home when he said in a tight voice, "There's fresh swordfish at the Aquarium tonight. Join me?"

It caught her off guard. She was slow to answer. He was married, after all. As she dithered, the corners of his mouth drooped.

"That's okay, Meg. Never mind. I'll see you Monday morning." He shoveled his working notes into his briefcase and made for the door.

"Wait!" she all but screamed. He halted and swung about to face her.

"I, uh, I'd love to." His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. "How far is it?"

Something crept over Emil's features. Something slow and heavy, half sad and half sweet, at once wistful and hopeful.

"I'll drive," he said, and held out his hand.

***

They took a table near the restaurant's front window. Emil ordered for both of them, and then fell silent. Morgana asked about his wife and family, in the hope of discovering something light and pleasant to talk about.

It developed that he was a widower. His wife's name had been Katrina, and she had died in a plane crash. He would say nothing more about her, despite Morgana's gentle prodding. Indeed, he said little enough about anything.

Morgana didn't want to talk about work, so she talked about herself. With Emil sitting there, listening silently, it proved surprisingly difficult. It wasn't until she started in on her master's thesis project that she was able to get him to participate. It propelled them through their entrees and well into dessert before she became embarrassed and ran down.

"I shouldn't go on about myself like that," she said.

His mouth dropped open. "No, don't stop! I haven't enjoyed listening to a woman this much since --" He jerked to a halt. His eyes slid closed and the cords of his neck stood forth.

She reached across the table and laid her hand over his. His eyes opened again. They were filled with pain and guilt.

"I envy her, Emil," she murmured. "You must have loved her very much. I've never had anyone to love me like that. How long has she been gone?"

His shoulders jerked against the urge to hide his face. His facial muscles contorted against the need to cry.