It has been many years since I obtained what I thought at that time was my heart’s desire. I was a senior at the end of a five year course at a prestigious university. On our Spring Break, I made what I later discovered was a bad mistake, and went to Florida. Never mind where, but it was sunny and overly warm for someone used to the snows of northern Springs.
Many of the "breakers," some few of whom I knew, were the typical college girls of those days and wore little more than very tiny thongs, no tops, at least during the day in the sunshine. What they wore at night.....
One group from our university, three of the five of them, went to the same college as I, stayed pretty much together, and although I was certain they must be sorority sisters, they just acted that way. They remained, as I said, in a group, but they flirted outrageously with any boy—man, I guess—who passed by, and obviously promised a lot more than they would—or could, I thought—perform. I suppose their group acted as chaperone and emboldener in one. I found myself smitten by one particular beauty, a slim, dark-haired gal from Buffalo, New York, whom I had once dated, back in freshman year.
After three days I was becoming frustrated and bored out of my mind, but luckily my good friend, a gay fellow from Germany named Reinhardt, dropped by. Reinhardt, despite his predeliction for guys, had never hit on me, and we remained pretty close for not having sex; he was in the College of Technology and Engineering, which I thought, being an Arts major, was guys doing things to steel and concrete.
"Actually, not entirely, Herman," he said when I had expressed this thought to him. Reinhardt liked my name, although he said I did not spell it properly (should have been "Herrmann," he’d tease)—God help me, he was an admirer of Herrmann Goering, but as a WW I ace, not as the overly fat Reichsmarschall and possible queer, definite sybarite.
"I see you looking, Herman, and you have want in the eyes, no?"
"Well, perhaps you’re right, Reinhardt, ol’ buddy, but there’s no way I’m going to break one of these gals loose from that bunch, is there?"
"Well, that’s as may be, fr-riend." When he was particularly enigmatic, Reinhardt liked to roll his "r"s.
"What, you engineers have come up with something to pull a girl from her bunch of friends—on Spring Break?"
"No-o, not exactly, Herman, but there just might be something I could help you with.."
When he got excited, which he obviously was now, Reinhardt fell back into a heavy Germanic accent, so he sounded so guttural that I had trouble understanding him for a second or two. I imitated his accent. "You tr-ruly dink you can, hah?"
"Don’t you make fun uff me, Herrmann! I give you der Nazi saliute und ruin your chances foreffer mit pretty Jewish girls, hah!" he replied.
"Shit, don’t do that, Reinhardt, Jewish girls are as nice as gentile, any day." I had in fact been living for about eighteen months with a blonde who turned out to be honestly blonde and Jewish, too. She always amazed me with her personal bias against Hispanics! That’s why we broke up finally. Despite my name, I came from the Southwest and my mother was Mexican. And that’s why I’d come to Spring Break in the nameless Florida town.
"Well, I’m sorry, Reinhardt, but what is this that you think you can do for me?"
"O K. We still develop this, you see, for. . .better I not tell you who. . .and we can use field test. Had no idea who to ask, but will you help us by testing?"
"Sure, I’ll do a lot for you, buddy."
"Would you...?"
"You know me better’n that, Reinhardt!"
"Yah, just the testing, then."
"All right, I trust you not to say one word of this to anyone, even girlfriend, understood?"
"Yes, I swear." "Very well. You meet me in half hour at my room, 431 in P........ Inn. O K?"
"Sure, I’ll be there." I spent the half hour, or part of it, admiring my beloved’s curves and the way she tossed her head. She was, of course, quite unaware of my interest, I thought.
"Well, here I am, Reinhardt. Oops, sorry, did I interrupt some...?"
Another guy was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, but he was clothed. He got a really hard look in his eye. So I was sorry I had said anything.
"No, you’re not interrupting a tryst, you think, eh? This is Martin, he and I work together on this project—senior honors, you know, eh?" I was enduring a mostly "fixed" competition in blank verse withinout college for the same end, and I groaned sympathetically.
"Nein, we make out good. Martin has refined to point of excellence, all we need is final test and we can produce. Eh, Martin?"
Martin was sour-faced, but he allowed a fleeting grin to cross his mouth. I noticed that his eyes did not light up as well.
"Yes, Reinhardt. This is our subject?"
"No, this is our object. . ive. . .the tester, Martin."
"Certainly, Can he be trusted?"
I was resenting Martin’s high-handed manner, and I broke into their discission.
"Martin, you’re the guy who set off those fireworks by remote, two years ago, right?"
"How. . .how the hell do you know that?" he asked, taken aback.
"Well, I’ve known it for some time, but. . .you see. . .I’ve never told anyone else about it. I liked the way you set that up, as I understood it, the way it was explained to me."
"Who. . .do you know that could explain that?"
"Well, since I haven’t told anyone about your doing that, I’m not going to tell you who told me. I know he’s never told anyone about it, either!"
"Look here," Reinhardt broke in, "Herman knows how to be quiet when it’s the right time, correct? He will not say anything about the project, nor his part in it, nor who the experimenters are, O K, Martin?"
He seemed angry at Martin, and for a moment I thought that probably "Martin" wasn’t his real name, anyway.
"Very well, then. Herman, you understand that this is, like, the beta copy, not the finished product?"
"Yes, so Reinhardt told me."
"O K. Now, here are your instructions. I understand that there is a person you would like to influence, right?"
"Yes, sh...."
"No, I don’t want to know who, I want to know when."
"Soon as possible, I suppose, We only have three more days of Spring Break, then we’ll all hafta wend our ways back to the university, eh?"
"Yes, sure. Well, now...." he went into a lot of technical stuff that you don’t need to know, but the gist was that I was to sneak up to this "person," affix a tiny "receiver," he called it to his or her neck near the head, or actually on the head, under the hairline. The "beta" model would not sink into the skin, as would the final product, but remain visible with luck, so that Martin or Reinhardt could remove it with "special means." Martin was vehement in making me understand that the effect of whatever I did to the person would continue for several hours after it was removed. He concluded,
"...so you can in effect control what the person wants, what the person sees, what the person likes, tastes—everything about the personality. Got it?" He had become so enthusiastic about his "beta" model that he was almost spitting in my face as he finished his peroration.
"Yep," I said, pretending to wipe my glasses.
"Here it is,"" said Reinhardt, coming into his living room from the bedroom, which I assumed must be his "laboratory."
The transmitter was about the size of a half-package of cigarettes, the "bug," or receiver so small I could barely see it against my hand. It was flesh color, too, which did not help its visibility.
Reinhardt smiled widely at me, after Martin had left, making certain I was going to maintain my silence.
"Well, she is yours, buddy."
"Really..."
"Do you want to try it?" he leered, fondling his engorging penis. Hell, he was only wearing tight Spandex biking shorts, and all his magnificent—if I do say so—physique was visible. It was too damn’ bad he was gay, ‘cause the girls would have really swarmed all over him if he had showed the least interest. As it was, some from other colleges gave him the come-on every day. I wondered where he was getting his loving, but figured that this was Florida, there’d be plenty of his type around.
"Not on me, thank you very much, Reinhardt. I think you’d have me wide-cheeked in about three seconds, friend!"