Readers will benefit from reading earlier chapters to learn how this story has developed. There is some discussion of subjects such as menstruation, which may not be agreeable to all readers.
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Eleanor was constantly thinking of new products that Goose Cookers could develop and market. She had so impressed Janet, the senior vice president who ran the company even if she abjured holding the seemingly highest positions of Chair and CEO, that Eleanor felt she needed to keep coming up with ideas. Janet had been wonderful to work with, because she knew how to convert Eleanor's concepts into real things that sold.
The company's success did relate to its status as a bulwark enterprise of the Women's Republic. Women were in charge of everything now so it was natural for the company, entirely comprised of women, to appeal to this clientele.
Eleanor took a reconnaissance trip to the large drugstore located near her office. She filled her shopping basket with several kinds of tampons, as well as feminine hygiene products that used applicators to insert medicine internally for vaginal disorders, including yeast infections. She also threw in a menstrual cup, which she obtained at the pharmacy counter from a bright-eyed young woman who told her that once she used it, she'd never accept anything else.
Eleanor, despite her experiences and her position at Goose Cookers in which she was coming up with edgy product ideas, blushed a bit but then smiled at the young woman pharmacist. She decided not to freak out the nice young woman by telling her that during the year Eleanor had been infibulated as a punishment, she couldn't even use the smallest-sized tampon much less a menstrual cup.
When Eleanor returned to the office, she closed her door and started to examine all the merchandise she had purchased. She saw that there were plastic as well as paper applicators, but that all the products that would be inserted vaginally by the applicators—not surprisingly—were either made of soft fiber like tampons or glycerin capsules like suppositories.
She then concluded that the kind of tube she had in mind would have to be soft and comfortable inside the vagina but would have to be strong enough to hold fluids. She carefully examined all the products and then called Janet on the intercom to arrange a short meeting with her. She carefully put all the products into a discreet cloth bag.
As she walked through the halls to Janet's office, she started chuckling to herself that if somehow she dropped the bag and the contents fell out, everyone would think that she was having an incredibly heavy period when they saw all the different tampons!
Soon she arrived and went into Janet's office, waved on by Janet's trusty secretarial assistant. She realized that the previous night—the last time she had seen Janet—after the dinner celebration, she had been on her knees between Janet's legs licking her quim. Eleanor did not have much of a thing for women but she had developed increasing respect and now affection for Janet.
The Senior V.P. had been responsible for hiring her and making her ideas work out in the company and the market. Despite Eleanor's love for her husband Jackson, she found plenty of room inside her to adore Janet for all of Janet's qualities of leadership, know-how, business acumen, and, perhaps most important, friendship.
Eleanor explained her idea to Janet and loved the latter's directness in not making Eleanor spend a lot of time going over background stuff. Eleanor said that she had been researching medical journals and learned that existing methodology for vaginal application of medicines for treatment of gynecological problems was primitive. What was needed was a flexible tube that could utilize communications technology to release specified quantities of medicine, likely in fluid form, after being inserted in the vagina much like a tampon.
Janet nodded that nothing so far had left her confused or unclear.
"What nobody seems to have recognized," Eleanor went on, "is that we need to design a flexible tube that will be about as large as a super-sized tampon. Then we put a tiny microchip kind of receiver in it so the user can activate the dispensing opening by pressing on a remote control. In this way, medicine can be dispensed internally at the appropriate time, and by providing the remote control with a graduated scale, in the amount needed.
"The whole device should be relatively cheap to produce because it needs to be disposable," Eleanor continued. "Users will not want to go through the effort to refill it and anyway, that would probably never be able to be made sanitary."
"We may need to contact both pharma companies and outfits that make chips, as well as those that produce tampons, and do this quietly so that we put together a consortium of quality firms that want to work with us and take advantage of our incredible access to the women's market," she summarized.
Janet started asking some pointed questions about why this hadn't been developed previously and Eleanor explained that it would take some delicate developmental work, but that getting the firms together and keeping control would be the biggest challenge.
Janet smiled and said she liked the idea, but that they were going to have to use some people with the complementary skills to get this to the stage where even informal contacts with the other companies could occur.
Now that Eleanor had felt her idea had been received and would get at least a strong developmental inquiry, she grinned at Janet and said there was another possible utilization.
"This device—when it's produced—will look and function much like a tampon," Eleanor began. "It will be a tube but with a soft skin, strong enough to retain the fluid inside. And the hard components like the receiving chip will be deep inside so no one will feel them. If necessary the tip which will have the release valve might be plastic. It will have a tampon-type string for removal.
"Women will use it to apply medicine internally at the appropriate time and in the appropriate amount," she said. "But some women might actually like the idea of being able to pretend that they still have their period if they have stopped menstruating," she added. "I know—sounds crazy—because all anyone ever thinks about, it would seem, are period accidents and doing anything to prevent them.
"But older women sometimes yearn for the days when they were fertile," Eleanor contended. "So if we also market this as a 'menstrual simulator,' I would bet we get some business no one has ever even thought about before. A woman can put a pad or a pantiliner in her pants and then press the remote to release some reddish-brown fluid. Voilà —she has her period again—without the cramps! Plus the device can also serve as a tampon—so she won't have an accident!"
Finally, Eleanor now smiled very widely. "There's one more little possibility," she said with a grin. "In the past there have been crude sorts of things that dominant women have inserted anally in their male subs to simulate having a period. This will totally answer that not-very-measurable need but I bet we get some of our women customers quite entranced with this possibility."
She looked at Janet and knew that the woman she so admired definitely had something of a dominant streak. "Suppose the woman uses the applicator to insert our tube into her sub's anus," Eleanor suggested. "Then whenever she wants to play, she presses the remote to release a little red fluid, or perhaps a bit more, or a lot more if she wants the sub to experience what a period gush is like. And if the release valve is at the base, the tampon won't function as a tampon and the fluid will flow right down and out."
"Now the remote will have settings indicated in CCs, of course," she added, "so this will all appear quite scientific and our advertising to our women customers will have to be delightfully discreet."
Janet was indeed a dominant woman. Few at Goose Cookers Co. knew that she was both married and had children. She purposely kept her other life quite separate. Eleanor recalled that her apartment in the city was quite grand but had no indication that anyone but Janet resided there.
The Senior V.P., who of course actually controlled the company but decided to have others serve as the ostensible heads—the chair and CEO, wanted her private life to be equally under the radar. She did have a regular woman partner but they did not live together or even in the same city. Janet would be absent from the office occasionally and usually she was with her girlfriend or her family, who also lived elsewhere.
She wished she could see more of her children but her husband, who had a responsible job in another city where the family resided, was willing to enjoy her occasional visits in return for her significant provision of strong financial support for him and the two growing daughters. They all delighted in "Mommy's" visits and the family was very happy and close during these times together.
"Yes, Eleanor," Janet finally responded. "This will be a real marketing challenge but this is the kind of project I will be very pleased to devote some time. I want you to start working quietly with Kathy Ann, who is our best technical person. With her you can figure out just how this will work and with whom we need to associate, who has the technical capabilities to do this with us.
"I will focus on the overall development and marketing side," Janet went on. "Let Kathy Ann know that I want her to get together with you pronto and give this very high priority," she stated. "Then both of you get back to me with a plan to develop this, along with a tentative schedule."
Eleanor was able to set up a meeting with Kathy Ann later that day, once she had indicated to Kathy Ann that Janet wanted this to happen right away. Kathy Ann was a lively dark-haired woman in her 40s who had worked in systems world and knew a lot about chip-making and other technical processes.
She tended to be bubbly on the outside but Eleanor knew she had amazing technical capabilities to grasp the entirety of projects and figure out speedily what would have to happen, with whom, and when. She liked to wear the kind of skirt sets Eleanor preferred and as a creative type, Eleanor respected her special skills.
Eleanor went to her office for the meeting and Kathy Ann immediately closed the door and put on the Do Not Disturb light outside.
"Janet told me a little about this," she began as she sat next to Eleanor on the smart-looking beige couch in the office. "Why don't you go through with me what you told her?"
Kathy Ann smiled widely as Eleanor outlined her idea. She only wondered why no one had thought of this before.
"It's do-able," she said starkly after Eleanor finished her spiel. "It's already after five. Come over to my place and bring all that stuff so we can fool around with it." She wrote out directions for Eleanor to drive to her apartment.
