The Curator Ch 01

Chapter 01: The Curator's New Position

Sue quickly questioned her career choice. Archaeology was a lot more Joe Accountant than Indiana Jones. After finishing her degree, she went straight to field assignments figuring that was where to find the action. When some of her finds appeared in archaeology journals credited to the dig leader she knew it would be a long hard road establishing a reputation of her own. The glass ceiling could even be found in remote locations, and a whole culture of entitlement and "putting your dues in" existed. No matter what her contribution, she was always told that she didn't see the big picture and needed more experience. There was little respect for new people, new ideas and women in general on field expeditions.

Practical matters were even worse. She found herself the only female in remote locations with lots of leering men, far from home, girlfriends and wives. She didn't consider herself good looking and took regular inventory of her faults in the mirror: could stand to lose a few pounds; was barely B cup; flat ass; narrow hips; bad nose and even worse vision. Contact lenses gave her problems, so she was forced to wear extra thick dorky glasses for her astigmatism and was very self conscious about them. On location in the field, she felt nothing but all the men's eyes roaming over her and tallying up her faults while still thinking, "I'd do her anyway." The boredom of remote sites brought out the worst in people. She was soon on a plane home.

Out of work and struggling without the requisite recommendations for the best jobs, she figured out how to work the system as a matter of survival nonetheless. Government grants could open doors, and finding a neglected area of study that could justify funding created jobs. The big machine would turn its wheels if you pushed the right buttons.

A large cache of artifacts was discovered almost 80 years ago. They were associated with a forgotten people called the Nuymeans (she never found the origin of the name). The artifacts ended up in several museums, but most of them went to the gigantic National Museum where they were promptly filed away and largely forgotten despite the efforts of one extraordinary woman.

Dr. Maggie Barnes studied them for most of her life and arranged the current collection, but little else was ever found. The area of rainforest where they came from was burnt and bulldozed less than a decade after the discovery without a second thought of the archaeological value. They grow sugar cane and marijuana there now. For the over 20 years since Dr. Barnes death, little funding or interest was devoted to Nuymean research in academia. To Sue, it was like someone decided Gobekli Tepe or Leptis Magna was a waste of time and stuck an oil well in the middle.

Paperwork approved, a door opened for her. The National Museum was soon paying peanuts for an Assistant Junior Curator. It was a job regardless, and she got to keep her apartment. Hopefully she could turn it into a stepping stone to something better. She had a modest basement office with an old hand-me-down computer. Career choices aside, the Nuymeans seriously intrigued her, and she felt a bit of an obsessive compulsion to find out more about them. They had completely different notions of sex and culture. More importantly, they had strangely advanced technology for an ancient people in the rain forest. As near as she could tell they had complete mastery over the problems associated with uninhibited sexuality including over-developed morality, pregnancy and disease. Sexuality permeated everything Nuymean.

The craftsmanship of the artifacts was very out of place in the timeframe for which they were dated--well before the renaissance. In fact, some of their abilities with materials such as stone, metal and rubber were arguably ahead of modern technology. Several alien hunter groups were convinced the Nuymean were, or had contact with, extra-terrestrials. She easily could see how some of the conspiracies would not take much exaggeration.

Sue quickly found why academia avoided the Nuymeans for two decades. Much like any reputable scientist would not be caught dead on a Bigfoot expedition, association with Nuymeans was considered pure career suicide if not sexually deviant. She may have ruined her career chances and would probably be considered some kind of pervert by some of her conservative colleagues.

The other problem with the Nuymeans was the science itself. They largely left behind artifacts of metal and stone. These types of items did not provide a lot of information. To most archaeologists the worst thing to find was gold. It could not be dated and interested thieves in their work while yielding few facts.

All of the Nuymean metal artifacts in the museum's collection were made of a metal alloy Dr. Barnes christened 'lusterite.' It looks like gold but is nearly indestructible and never tarnishes. When first publicized, the military had even confiscated some of the artifacts trying to uncover how they were made. She had the complete classified report from 3 years of testing courtesy of Dr. Barnes skills in acquisition. Lusterite was immune to grinding, acid, denting and almost all forms of damage attempted. Even a diamond blade could not cut through it. Analysis showed it had an austenitic face-centered cubic crystalline structure like an aerospace superalloy, but it still had an unusually high atomic packing factor so was exceedingly dense. Lusterite could be melted at a lower temperature than should be possible, conducted electricity and was a lot heavier than it looked--even if it had been real gold. They believed the Nuymeans were able to use the low melting point to construct the items, but they were unsuccessful in creating their own and equally unable to admit the Nuymeans had a superior technology.

At first she was just relieved to have a job and happy to put the National Museum on her resume, but now Sue had second thoughts. Most of her work involved answering a stream of the same suggestive questions from wide-eyed patrons and conducting tours of the museum "Nuymean Room." The exhibit was somewhat popular, and the museum just wanted a pretense of science for their ticket buying tourists. She feared she would jump out a window the next time she had to show a drooling busload of high school age adolescent boys the case full of golden phalluses and dildos or see the giggling smirks of a foreign tourist while they took endless pictures of her holding up one of the items. The internet was probably full of cleverly captioned pictures of her smiling while holding a golden dick. The teasing and snide comments were even more annoying when it came to the golden bras and panties...no, the bra was not her size; yes, the panties were all thongs. The girls would seem embarrassed and intrigued at the same time while blushing and secretly juicing in their panties.

The artifacts were incredible works of art regardless. She totally appreciated the detail involved in making them. The phalluses came in all shapes and sizes complete with skin texture and veins. Each one was unique, yet they all had exactly the same base which could be mounted into other artifacts.

The bras and panties were made of a combination of solid metal pieces mixed with woven metal fabric. The fabric was made with nearly invisible links interwoven like microscopic chainmail. The woven metal was so minutely fine that it still looked like solid metal to the casual eye. Aside from the basic construction, each set of panties and bras were engraved with detailed artwork. Most were of large cats, tropical birds and other similar exotic creatures found in the rain forest. Lusterite construction aside, no one had the slightest idea how the Nuymeans formed the weave or did the engraving, and no modern technology could duplicate it. Alien hunters were fond of citing the metal artifacts as proof of extraterrestrial origins.

As if just to add to her stress, the museum director was pressuring Sue to produce some kind of publication. They had to justify her position and maintain scientific appearances. It was also a condition of the government funding: a formal publication of findings in a recognized journal. She was hired on probation and knew her job was in the balance. Other gullible young academics could be found if she were fired. Other people could use the door she had opened. She suspected that the popularity of the Nuymean room, with its corresponding ticket sales, was the only reason they hired her to begin with. It was unseemly to have a popular exhibit without an in-house expert.

She still had no idea what she was going to write about. There were some written Nuymean works, but the language was cracked by Dr. Barnes long ago and would not be a suitable "discovery." The publication needed to reveal something new and revealing. Almost all written Nuymean works were instructions and recipe-like lists of things to do and how to do them. The detail was complex and meticulous. In many cases, there were also detailed diagrams. Intriguingly, most of them were about sexual practices. There were works showing how to size a dildo to a woman, the best sequence to whip a woman for escalating arousal, hundreds of bondage guides, guides on how to overcome a gag reflex, a guide to piercings over 500 pages alone and many more. Strangely, though, none of the works were ever about men. Why? It has to be an important clue about their culture. Truth be told, the artifacts intrigued her as much as they did the high school kids, but she could never let anyone know; she had to show a sense of academic detachment.

Little known to the public, only a small number or representative, carefully selected, items were on display in the Nuymean Room of the museum. In the basement, she had several more large rooms overflowing with tightly packed movable shelving, large crates and sturdy racks. A private side room was devoted to Dr. Barnes research records and items she had set aside for specific research, while yet another room was filled with jars full of liquids and solutions that she had carefully labeled with painstaking detail. So far, Sue had not found any records describing why Dr. Barnes had been so focused on them.

With the museum dust and climate control, everything was in place as if Dr. Barnes just left yesterday. Sue felt a little odd looking through the items. They were more like Dr. Barnes personal effects than museum property. Of course she had already studied all of the typed and filed research which made up the official record, but there were hundreds of additional notes, articles and academic papers--few of which were ever published. In addition, there were still a dozen untouched chests, file cabinets and drawers containing more research from a lifetime of study. Having never been published and predating the internet, it was all essentially unknown to the scientific community. Seldom had any publication been allowed with such sexual content, and little could be discussed about the Nuymeans without sexual content. The whole Nuymean topic was effectively blacklisted--even with a properly objective academic detachment. All of the attention from alien hunters made the situation even worse.

The side room had a stout steel door and as far as Sue knew, she had the only key. It gave her a place to conduct her own private "research." Her favorite artifact was similar to a chair, perhaps even a throne, carved into a huge block of smooth dark stone. It arrived as part of a recent acquisition about a year ago. A smaller museum that she had never heard of fell on tough times and donated their whole Nuymean collection to the National Museum. In fact, several other smaller museums had quietly donated their collections over the decades like they were trying to stash their embarrassment away. Artifacts were quietly shipped and quietly moved to the basement for years with no curator to even open the packing slips. Two storage rooms and part of another were waiting to be cataloged.

Sue had the chair uncrated and moved to this room for closer study. It appeared to be one of the most interesting of the new objects. The seat back was tilted like a recliner and specially angled in relation to the phallus mount point. Any of the phallic artifacts could be placed in the standardized squared hole, and it would hold fast. Large solid chair arms, perfect to hang onto, were placed closely on each side. With the huge stone base, there was no danger the chair would tip over. If a woman mounted the chair, her feet would hang off the ground by a least a foot even if she was over 7 feet tall. The seat angle was cleverly arranged to push her towards the phallus using her body weight as pressure. Any movement would cause her to slip further downwards, impaled deeper. The sides were contoured to guide and hold her hips in position.

The seating surfaces themselves were highly polished and smooth as glass. She could only guess what the original significance of the chair might have been and had always wondered if they strapped women onto chairs such as these for some test or ritual. Once she mounted the chair, she found it difficult to raise herself back off the phallus and was never willing to go all the way and put her full weight on it. The angle of her body versus the position of the arms of the chair did not allow for much leverage.

She tried the chair the same day it was moved. How could she not? Little did she suspect she would soon crave to use it. Her vibrator alone could not equal the intense sensations or powerful climaxes of the chair. The locked side room became a sanctuary for her guilty pleasures.

At home, one of her neighbors had found a hidden camera in her apartment. Rumor was her creepy landlord was a voyeur. After that, Sue never could feel comfortable in her own apartment thinking he might be watching. He had a key so it would be easy enough for him to secretly wire her place as well. As soon as her lease was up, she was moving. Masturbating at home was pretty much off-limits to her mentally. Eventually her desires would be strong enough to outweigh the guilt and fear of getting caught, so self-pleasure was a regular ritual at work now.

Her routine was to place a stout wooden storage crate at the foot of the chair when using it so that she did not need to hang on the phallus with her full body weight. She wasn't about to drive it inside with that kind of force. The crate was just high enough for her to use tip toes for support. Sue was convinced this was close to how the women who used the chair felt, but it still seemed safe. She felt fully penetrated despite being able use her legs to move and climb off when done.

She had followed the Nuymean guide to dildo sizing to the letter and knew immediately which phalluses would be uncomfortably large or too small to have the desired effect. The tiny symbols on each were one of her recent discoveries. Three separate symbols indicated length, girth and a rating for texture. She had tried a dozen or so different ones with a selection of about 6 favorites she kept separately, "highly polished," in a cabinet near the chair. No one would question a few more Nuymean artifacts in storage.

One phallus in particular had become her favorite by far. Something just felt completely right about it. It was just large enough that she could never quite get used to it, but it was not painful. Tiny nubs created the perfect amount of friction and sensation of texture. The Nuymean sizing guide rated it as "challenging." She always got a shiver up her spine inserting it. Her only complaint was that the heavy lusterite was cold and took a long time to warm up. It weighed in at 9.1 pounds. Doing the math, the lusterite was denser than gold and less dense than platinum, fairly close to the density of tungsten.

Sue also kept a sizeable variable speed vibrator and a long extension cord locked in her desk drawer. With the added vibration, she felt like the chair was thrusting up to meet her, but she knew that was impossible. She thought that somehow the chair had just the right combination of angles and positioning that she could feel her own heartbeat against the pressure of the phallus and vibrator. It was easy for her mind to run wild with fantasies when she was about ready to have the big O.

She made a huge breakthrough by convincing the museum board of trustees to let her do research at night. In the end, they would rather have her handling the erotic artifacts, especially when working in the Nuymean Room public display, well out of the public eye and understood her need to get away from the daily crowds to concentrate on her work. They approved an intern she found at a local college to do the daily tours. It wasn't long until she took advantage of the privacy and spent more and more time in the side room. She would give Charlie the night guard a smile and a wave and then disappear into her own basement world. Charlie seemed like he was 80 plus years old, moved slowly and didn't seem to hear too well, so she wasn't concerned about him being a problem.

Many nights, Charlie and Sue were the only people in the museum. She kept a large bottle of lubricant with a pump dispenser in the drawer next to the vibrator. Exciting though they were, her nighttime adventures were starting to become too routine. She thought she might eventually get caught, but she still felt an unexplainable compulsion to continue. She always felt better after using the chair. It was deeply satisfying while it cleared her mind and reduced stress so that she could focus on her work the rest of the night. She had a comforted feeling like she had actually accomplished something beyond the pleasure alone.

She thought about trying some of the other artifacts for variety. The golden lusterite bras and panties were of little interest. She found that they all were for large breasted women so would definitely not fit her. They all had the same D or double DD sized cups, depending on how she did the measurement. In fact, that was another of her discoveries. All the bras, both straps and cups, were the same size. She was never able to find any kind of clasp to close one. They had a T-shaped back like an athletic bra. They could be dropped down over the shoulders and closed at the sides, but the strap ends had no kind of hook, catch or attachment. They had perfectly smooth matching flat ends. The panties used the same kind of closures, if you could call them that, on the sides above the hip bone.

Unknown to the public there were also high-heeled shoes. They looked so much like modern high heels that the alien hunters would have a field day if they knew of them. They would have been completely impractical in the rain forest, so had some other unknown purpose. Every pair also had the same design with ankle straps that ended with the same bare ends that did not connect. Again, they were all the same size, about modern women's 8 with 5" inch heels. She was an 8 and a half and could squeeze into them, but they were so uncomfortable that she could only stand them for a short while. The material was another thicker style of the fine mesh metal fabric while the pointed toes were smooth and rounded solid metal. The soles were solid lusterite and heavy with some cross hatching for traction.

The shoes gave her an idea. She remembered reading an article about a new technique which was all the rage with young academics called "participant archaeology." Advocates insisted that you could only discover the truth about some artifacts by using them. They would have mock battles with ancient weapons. They would re-create ancient garments and wear them while performing tasks thought to be realistic. They even used ancient torture devices to judge their effectiveness. They were constantly discovering new ways to re-enact the past in context.