It's Getting Harder All The Time

by Troy Conway

  I resumed thrusting in a slow, lazy rhythm. “Tell me more about Douzi,” I said. “How did you happen to come to work for him?”

  She hesitated for a moment, as if wandering whether she should tell me. Then her hips fell into tempo with mine, and she said, “It all started back when I was in Russia. I was working at the nuclear development laboratory in Kiev, and so was my husband. We didn’t have much of a marriage. In fact, it was a marriage of convenience rather than love. But while divorce is accepted in Russia, it’s frowned upon among high-ranking members of the scientific community. Consequently my husband and I remained nominally married, while actually we both sought our pleasures apart from our relationship—he with his first and greatest love, science, and I with a number of fellow scientists whom I believed to be discreet.

  “Unfortunately one of these scientists was not nearly as discreet as I had taken him to be. He began bragging about his escapades with me, and word soon reached the ears of not only my husband but my boss, the chief of the nuclear development laboratory. A scandal seemed imminent—a scandal which would ruin both my career and that of my husband. The chief of the laboratory, seeking to avert such a scandal, suggested that 1 take a sabbatical leave.

  “It was at precisely that time that I received through governmental channels an invitation to lecture for a semester at the National University of Belgravia. I wasn’t especially eager to leave Russia, but the invitation gave me the perfect opportunity to get away from my husband and the impending scandal—at least for a while. At the urging of the chief of the laboratory, I accepted the invitation.

  “When I arrived at the university, I was welcomed enthusiastically. I began my lecture series, and I conducted some private research at the university laboratory, the facilities of which were placed entirely at my disposal. About a month later I was invited to an informal dinner at the presidential palace. Superman was assigned as my escort. After the dinner he brought me back to my apartment and we made love. I don’t have to tell you about his qualifications as a lover. And I don’t have to tell you how pleased I was to have a man again after having remained abstinent ever since the potentially scandalous incident in Russia.

  “A short while later I was again invited to the palace—this time for an interview with Dr. Douzi. After exchanging cordialities, he bluntly spelled out a proposition to me. He told me that he wanted me to move into his palace and begin working with some other nuclear physicists on a program his country was undertaking. He promised that I’d receive a generous salary and that I’d enjoy Superman’s sexual services for as long as I worked on the program. I didn’t know I’d been fed aphrodisiacs to make me constantly passionate.

  “I didn’t know at the time that the program involved development of a bomb. I was still suspicious, so I declined the offer. However, a few days later, Douzi summoned me for another interview. This time he had a new proposition, submitted in the form of a threat. He said that if I refused to work on his program he would complain officially to Russia that I had behaved shamefully while at the university. He added that criminal charges of ‘indecent behavior’ and ‘lewd and lascivious conduct’ would be lodged against me, and that I would be tried on these charges, convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. I knew that Russia would not come to my defense, especially in view of the near-scandal at the nuclear development laboratory in Kiev. So, with many misgivings—but unable to see any other solution to the problem—I accepted the proposition.”

  I clucked sympathetically. “So that’s how Douzi got you here—blackmail.”

  She nodded. “And that’s how he recruited the other eight girls also. That and drugs. I’ve discussed the matter with each of them, and the circumstances in all eight cases were virtually identical. Each girl had been invited to Belgravia after having become involved in a sticky situation at home. Each had been treated to a night in bed kith Superman. Then each had been coerced into coming to work here in Douzi’s laboratory.”

  “What happened after you started work?”

  “When all nine girls had been assembled, Douzi appointed Olga as supervisor. Her job was to coordinate the research of all the others. Initially none of us knew that we were developing a bomb, but she evidently did, because it was she who assigned our various projects.”

  My eyebrows arched quizzically. “Are you talking about the same Olga I think you’re talking about?”

  “Yes. The one who was making love with you on the bench during Superman’s performance yesterday afternoon.”

  I groaned. Talk about luck! The one girl who knew more about the project than anyone else couldn’t tell me what she knew even if she wanted to because she couldn’t speak English!

  “I don’t know how Douzi persuaded her to work on the project knowing that it involved a bomb,” Tania went on. “But, of course, she had been lured to Balgravia just as therest of us had, so it’s safe to assume that blackmail was involved. In any case, the project began. Each morning at ten we girl report to the laboratory and received our assignments. Generally we work for eight to ten hours a day, sometimes longer. When work finally is over, Olga rates us numerically on what we accomplish for the day. The girl who has been rated number one is permitted to be Superman’s first lover for the night, the girl who has been rated number two becomes his second lover, and so on.”

  “When did Olga get a crack at him herself?”

  “She always took the number nine position. I don’t know how Douzi persuaded her to accept such an arrangement, especially since Superman inevitably becomes surly after his first three or four girls. But, of course, the last girl on the list always got to spend the rest of the night with Superman, so maybe that was compensation enough for her.”

  “Is Superman a good lover?”

  “Quantitatively, yes—at least in the beginning. Soon, however, he is mechanic. You know, no variety. Then he becomes inattentive, and wants only to get the job done with as soon as possible. That’s why Douzi brought you here. For the past month or so, the had been complaining that Superman wasn’t satisfying them. The complaints became more bitter as time passed, and there was even talk about our deliberately slowing down the project. I’m sure that things never would have come to that point since all of us now know that Douzi is a man who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. But apparently our sexual discontentment caused some concern, because here you are.”

  “Now that you know you’re working on a bomb which could annihilate all mankind, why don’t you stop working? Or why don’t you at least make some attempt to throw the project off course? Is sexual satisfaction so important to you that you’ll jeopardize countless human lives just to achieve it?”

  “That’s a hard question to answer. Actually of course, we can’t stop working. If we did, we’d all be killed—or we’d be subjected to tortures worse than death. And we can’t throw the project off course, because Douzi has been following our work closely and would realize what was happening. Perhaps we should take a humanitarian view and say that our own lives are small enough a sacrifice to make when the world itself is in peril, but I’m afraid that none of us is quite that humanitarian. Besides, if one of us refused to work, there’s no guarantee that the other eight would also refuse. And even if all nine of us refused, it’s possible that Douzi could recruit other physicists to take up where we left off. Also—though this may be a rationalization—I don’t think any of us believes Douzi will actually use the bomb. More likely than not, having developed it, he’ll merely use the threat of it to intimidate other nations into doing his bidding. Isn’t that what Russia and the United States both have done with their bombs?”

  I could’ve debated the point, but an argument on international political ethics was the last thing I wanted at this stage of the game. “Where is your laboratory located?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  “On the palace grounds.”

  “In the cluster of heavily guarded buildings near the Hall of the Eunuchs?”

  “Yes.
”

  “And where are the fully developed bombs stored?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think Olga might know?”

  “I doubt it. Douzi is very secretive, even with the people he trusts most. Generally the physicists who develop nuclear weapons for a nation are required to attend the tests of the weapons they’ve developed. But Douzi hasn’t permitted any of us—not even Olga—to witness the tests of his bomb. We work in the laboratory until we’ve established a formula from which a bomb might be constructed. Then Olga turns over the formula to Douzi. Presumably the actual construction is entrusted to native Belgravian scientists.”

  “Might these scientists also be at work in the same building which house your laboratory?”

  “No. The buildings are given over completely to us nine girls. I’ve been through every inch of them.”

  “How about the basements?”

  “I’ve been through the basements too.”

  “Might there be a hidden passage leading from the basement to an underground worksite?”

  “There might, but I really don’t think Douzi would have the actual construction of the bombs done on the palace grounds. There’s always the possibility that a bomb might detonate accidentally.”

  “Where would be the most logical place for the construction to take place?”

  “As far away from population centers as possible—perhaps somewhere out in the Belgravian rain forests. The rain forests would be especially good sites because the climate is conducive to bomb storage. Also, the bombs could be shipped by river to the airport at Port duBeers in the event that Douzi ever decides to use them.”

  I was sure she was leveling with me, but I needed more information—information which she evidently didn’t have. How to get it?

  “Is there any other girl in your group,” I asked, “who might know more about this than you?”

  “Only Olga, and as I said, Douzi doesn’t tell her too much either.”

  “Will you try to find out from her anyway? Will you ask her and all the other girls in the group some discreet questions—questions that won’t make them suspect you, but that might give me a lead I can follow up profitably?”

  “I’II try,” she promised.

  I kissed her reassuringly on the nose. “Good. And don’t let any grass grow under your feet. I have it on reliable authority that the Peoples’ United Front plans to attack the palace in less than two weeks unless the United Nations intervenes. If the palace is attacked, and if any of the bombs are stored nearby, we’re all liable to be blown to bits.”

  She gulped. “I’ll really try, Damon. And I’II let you know what I find out the next time I see you.”

  “When will that be?”

  “After dinner tonight. I’m only number eight on the list, but I’ll wait my turn with you even if it means staying up all night. And I’ll come to you every night from now on. Actually 1 planned to come to you anyway, because you excite me so. And now that I know how good you really are” —she gave my manhood a vigorous squeeze, as if to lend force to the compliment—”wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”

  I responded to the flattery by giving her more to be happy about. She squirmed deliciously in reply to the increased vigor of my attack. “But don’t sneak to my room anymore during forbidden hours,” I warned. “We can’t risk having anyone suspect us.”

  She nodded. “I won’t. I—I—oh, Damon, it’s starting to get very good again …”

  The look in her eyes told me that I’d have to put the brakes on fast unless I wanted to lose her attention. But I didn’t really have any more questions to ask her. And, frankly, my own attention was beginning to drift.

  I picked up my pace.

  She fell into tempo with me.

  The feeling built and built and built until we both soared over the top together.

  When it was over, she dressed and slipped out of the room. Then I showered, shaved and woke up Mazimba. It was time for dinner.

  I entered the dining room feeling more confident than I’d felt since I fell into Lin Saong’s clutches back at Port dubeers. I was safely inside Douzi’s harem, I had come up with a plan to tip Walrus-moustache off about Red China’s double-cross and I’d even managed to enlist the services of a femme physicist as a spy. Now, if my luck stayed good, things’d really get hopping in no time flat.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Things got hopping all right.

  But my luck didn’t stay good.

  For a while it was fair.

  Then it very rapidly turned bad.

  Then it got worse.

  And by the time the week was up, I felt like the guy they invented the word “jinx” for.

  Dinner went swimmingly, as did the social hour which followed, as did the subsequent bedroom action. All told, seven of the nine femme physicists stopped by my room for sexual servicing, including Tania and Olga, the latter of whom wound up spending the night. But Olga couldn’t speak English, and Tania hadn’t been able to find out anything she hadn’t already told me. Meanwhile, not wanting to tip my hand to too many people, I had refrained from questioning the other five girls too intensively; my innocuous queries got innocuous answers, and when Olga finally left at nine in the morning, I was no closer to solving the mystery of Douzi’s bombs than I had been when Tania left my room just before dinner.

  The night’s carnal carnival had left me so pooped out that I didn’t even bother to eat breakfast. Instead, I racked out until two in the afternoon. Then, after lunching on some rare Belgravian delicacy that looked like mud and tasted like what Army cooks euphemistically call “S.O.S.” (real name: creamed chipped beef on toast), I went about the business of walking the legs off my boy Mazimba so that I could get away from him long enough to beam another transmission at Lin Saong.

  The eager-to-please eunuch must really have eaten his Wheaties, because it took me all of four hours to get him weary enough to call it quits. Finally, just before seven, he packed it in and headed back to my room. That left me with little more than an hour to make my broadcast, shower, shave and dress for dinner.

  Hurrying to the hill from which my previous transmission had been beamed, I uncased the transistorized contraption which Lin Saong had given me. Then, putting on my razzle-dazzle disc jockey’s voice, I began.

  “Hellooooooo out there in spy-land. This is your old record-spinnin’ buddy, Rod Damon, with another program of platters and chatter from high atop Melody Mountain in good old Belgravia. There won’t be too many platters today, because there’s lots and lots of chatter—and I really thing you ought to listen close, ’cause the chatter’s gonna be right up your alley. But first, for the benefit of all you music lovers out there, you hand-holding teenyboppers, and you blissfully wed young marrieds, and you middle aged grandpas and grandmas who still have what it takes, and even you lonely old men with walrus-like moustaches—yes, for all of you, from all of me, here’s a song—that’s ‘song,’ as in Lin Saong—the spelling’s different, but the name’s the same, and the girl who owns the name—are you listening, you old men with the Walrus-like moustaches? —yes, the girl who owns the name is a real beauty, a real knockout, the type of chick you just gotta flip for, even if—and that’s a cue, orchestra leader, if I ever heard one—”

  I hummed a four-bar intro, then went into a nasal rendition of an old hillbilly tune titled She Done Me Wrong. The tune didn’t really contain any clues about her double crossing me, but just the title of it should be enough to give Walrus-moustache the gist of what had happened—if he was listening in. Meanwhile, the two minutes-plus that it took me to warble my way through the three verses and four choruses might help whoever was trying to intercept my beacon to zero in on me loud and clear.

  The tune over, I resumed chattering. “And now for the news. Item A from Melody Mountain today deals with a cluster of buildings. There are three clusters of buildings on the neatly manicured grounds of Dr. Albert Douzi’s estate here in Belgravia The first of the
se is the mammoth presidential palace. The second is the Hall of the Eunuchs, where Dr. Douzi’s housekeeping crew passes its off-duty hours. The third is an unnamed cluster that is very heavily guarded. Those of you out in radio-land who may have wondered about certain scientific goings-on here at the estate probably suspected that this third and unnamed cluster of buildings serves as the laboratory where Dr. Douzi’s task force of female physicists is working feverishly to develop a bomb. Well, I can now confirm your suspicions. The physicists are indeed working here to develop the bomb. And they’re working hard. But they’re not making as much progress as Dr. Douzi would like. In fact, according to authoritative sources who have spoken personally to this reporter, the bomb program has fallen far behind schedule. So, if any of you have been worried that the bomb would be ready in two weeks—or any similarly brief time interval—forget it. you’ve got nothing to worry about. Call off your attacks, kiddies. you’ll only be wasting your time if you don’t.”

  Abandoning the disc jockey patter-pattern for a moment, I continued, “And listen closely, Lin Saong. I haven’t yet discovered the exact location of the bombs which Dr. Douzi now has in storage, but I can say without qualification that the bombs are not—I repeat, are not—stored anywhere on the palace grounds. The storage spot is somewhere in the Belgravian interior. In a few days I’ll be able to tell you exactly where. Meanwhile, just stay cool, and above all, don’t do anything rash like sending the boys from PUF to attack the palace. If you do, you’ll destroy the only chance you have of getting to the bottom of the mystery.”

  Still addressing Lin Saong, but speaking mainly for the benefit of Walrus-moustache, I added, “I realize you might think I’m feeding you false information, sweetie. And you have every reason to think so. After all, if PUF attacks the palace in two weeks, as you told me it would when you announced that Red China was double-crossing the United States, I’d be killed along with everyone else, and of course dead counterspies can tell no tales. But hear me out, baby. I’m not being vindictive. I’m not trying to get revenge on you for reneging on your deal and for killing the radioman who accompanied me to Belgravia. I’m just trying to get out of this mess alive. And I know that the only way I can get out alive is by playing ball with you. I’m playing ball, honey. I’m playing ball like I never played ball before. Trust me—just like the United States trusted you. you’ll find that I, like the United States, can be counted on to keep my word—even though you and your creepy Commie comrades can’t.”