Switch Bitch

by Roald Dahl

  Henri was hopping and dancing about the room and shouting, 'It's fantastic! It's magnificent! Unbelievable! It works! It works! We've done it, my dear Oswald! We've done it!'

  The action stopped as quickly as it had begun. The boxer suddenly let go of the girl, stood up, blinked a few times, and then said, 'Where the hell am I? What happened?'

  Simone, who seemed to have come through it all with no bones broken, jumped up, grabbed her clothes, and ran into the next room. 'Thank you, mademoiselle,' said Henri as she flew past him.

  The interesting thing was that the bemused boxer hadn't the faintest idea what he had been doing. He stood there naked and covered with sweat, gazing around the room and trying to figure out how in the world he came to be in that condition.

  'What did I do?' he asked. 'Where's the girl?'

  'You were terrific!' Henri shouted, throwing him a towel. 'Don't worry about a thing! The thousand francs is all yours!'

  Just then the door flew open and Simone, still naked, ran back into the lab. 'Spray me again!' she cried. 'Oh, Monsieur Henri, spray me just one more time!' Her face was alight, her eyes shining brilliantly.

  'The experiment is over,' Henri said. 'Go away and dress yourself.' He took her firmly by the shoulders and pushed her back into the other room. Then he locked the door.

  Half an hour later, Henri and I sat celebrating our success in a small cafe down the street. We were drinking coffee and brandy. 'How long did it go on?' I asked.

  'Six minutes and thirty-two seconds,' Henri said.

  I sipped my brandy and watched the people strolling by on the sidewalk. 'What's the next move?'

  'First, I must write up my notes,' Henri said. 'Then we shall talk about the future.'

  'Does anyone else know the formula?'

  'Nobody.'

  'What about Simone?'

  'She doesn't know it.'

  'Have you written it down?'

  'Not so anyone else could understand it. I shall do that tomorrow.'

  'Do it first thing,' I said. 'I'll want a copy. What shall we call the stuff? We need a name.'

  'What do you suggest?'

  'Bitch,' I said. 'Let's call it Bitch.' Henri smiled and nodded his head slowly. I ordered more brandy. 'It would be great stuff for stopping a riot,' I said. 'Much better than tear-gas. Imagine the scene if you sprayed it on an angry mob.'

  'Nice,' Henri said. 'Very nice.'

  'Another thing we could do, we could sell it to very fat, very rich women at fantastic prices.'

  'We could do that,' Henri answered.

  'Do you think it would cure loss of virility in men?' I asked him.

  'Of course,' Henri said. 'Impotence would go out the window.'

  'What about octogenarians?'

  'Them, too,' he said, 'though it would kill them at the same time.'

  'And marriages on the rocks?'

  'My dear fellow,' Henri said. 'The possibilities are legion.'

  At that precise moment, the seed of an idea came sneaking slowly into my mind. As you know, I have a passion for politics. And my strongest passion, although I am English, is for the politics of the United States of America. I have always thought it is over there, in that mighty and mixed-up nation, that the destinies of mankind must surely lie. And right now, there was a President in office whom I could not stand. He was an evil man who pursued evil policies. Worse than that, he was a humourless and unattractive creature. So why didn't I, Oswald Cornelius, remove him from office?

  The idea appealed to me.

  'How much Bitch have you got in the lab at the moment?' I asked.

  'Exactly ten cubic centimetres,' Henri said.

  'And how much is one dose?'

  'We used one cc for our test.'

  'That's all I want,' I said. 'One cc. I'll take it home with me today. And a set of noseplugs.'

  'No,' Henri said. 'Let's not play around with it at this stage. It's too dangerous.'

  'It is my property,' I said. 'Half of it is mine. Don't forget our agreement.'

  In the end, he had to give in. But he hated doing it. We went back to the lab, inserted our noseplugs, and Henri measured out precisely one cc of Bitch into a small scent-bottle. He sealed the stopper with wax and gave me the bottle. 'I implore you to be discreet,' he said. 'This is probably the most important scientific discovery of the century, and it must not be treated as a joke.'

  From Henri's place, I drove directly to the workshop of an old friend, Marcel Brossollet. Marcel was an inventor and manufacturer of tiny precise scientific gadgets. He did a lot of work for surgeons, devising new types of heart-valves and pacemakers and those little one-way valves that reduce intracranial pressure in hydrocephalics.

  'I want you to make me,' I said to Marcel, 'a capsule that will hold exactly one cc of liquid. To this little capsule, there must be attached a timing device that will split the capsule and release the liquid at a predetermined moment. The entire thing must not be more than half an inch long and half an inch thick. The smaller the better. Can you manage that?'

  'Very easily,' Marcel said. 'A thin plastic capsule, a tiny section of razor-blade to split the capsule, a spring to flip the razor-blade, and the usual pre-set alarm system on a very small ladies' watch. Should the capsule be fillable?'

  'Yes. Make it so I myself can fill it and seal it up. Can I have it in a week?'

  'Why not?' Marcel said. 'It is very simple.'

  The next morning brought dismal news. That lecherous little slut Simone had apparently sprayed herself with the entire remaining stock of Bitch, over nine cubic centimetres of it, the moment she arrived at the lab! She had then sneaked up behind Henri, who was just settling himself at his desk to write up his notes.

  I don't have to tell you what happened next. And worst of all, the silly girl had forgotten that Henri had a serious heart condition. Damn it, he wasn't even allowed to climb a flight of stairs. So when the molecules hit him the poor fellow didn't stand a chance. He was dead within a minute, killed in action as they say, and that was that.

  The infernal woman might at least have waited until he had written down the formula. As it was, Henri left not a single note. I searched the lab after they had taken away his body, but I found nothing. So now more than ever, I was determined to make good use of the only remaining cubic centimetre of Bitch in the world.

  A week later, I collected from Marcel Brossollet a beautiful little gadget. The timing device consisted of the smallest watch I had ever seen, and this, together with the capsule and all the other parts, had been secured to a tiny aluminium plate three eighths of an inch square. Marcel showed me how to fill and seal the capsule and set the timer. I thanked him and paid the bill.

  As soon as possible, I travelled to New York. In Manhattan, I put up at the Plaza Hotel. I arrived there at about three in the afternoon. I took a bath, had a shave, and asked room service to send me up a bottle of Glenlivet and some ice. Feeling clean and comfortable in my dressing-gown, I poured myself a good strong drink of the delicious malt whisky, then settled down in a deep chair with the morning's New York Times. My suite overlooked Central Park, and through the open window I could hear the hum of traffic and the blaring of cab-drivers' horns on Central Park South. Suddenly, one of the smaller headlines on the front page of the paper caught my eye. It said, PRESIDENT ON TV TONIGHT. I read on.

  The President is expected to make an important foreign policy statement when he speaks tonight at the dinner to be given in his honour by the Daughters of the American Revolution in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria...

  My God, what a piece of luck!

  I had been prepared to wait in New York for many weeks before I got a chance like this. The President of the United States does not often appear with a bunch of women on television. And that was exactly how I had to have him. He was an extraordinarily slippery customer. He had fallen into many a sewer and had always come out smelling of shit. Yet he managed every time to convince the nation that the smell was coming from someone
else, not him. So the way I figured it was this. A man who rapes a woman in full sight of twenty million viewers across the country would have a pretty hard time denying he ever did it.

  I read on.

  The President will speak for approximately twenty minutes, commencing at nine p.m. and all major TV networks will carry the speech. He will be introduced by Mrs Elvira Ponsonby, the incumbent President of the Daughters of the American Revolution. When interviewed in her suite at the Waldorf Towers, Mrs Ponsonby said...

  It was perfect! Mrs Ponsonby would be seated on the President's right. At ten past nine precisely, with the President well into his speech and half the population of the United States watching, a little capsule nestling secretly in the region of Mrs Ponsonby's bosom would be punctured and half a centimetre of Bitch would come oozing out on to her gilt lame ball-gown. The President's head would come up, he would sniff and sniff again, his eyes would bulge, his nostrils would flare, and he would start snorting like a stallion. Then suddenly he would turn and grab hold of Mrs Ponsonby. She would be flung across the dining-table and the President would leap on top of her, with the pie a la mode and strawberry shortcake flying in all directions.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes, savouring the delicious scene. I saw the headlines in the papers the next morning:

  PRESIDENT'S BEST PERFORMANCE TO DATE

  PRESIDENTIAL SECRETS REVEALED TO NATION

  PRESIDENT INAUGURATES BLUE TV

  and so on.

  He would be impeached the next day and I would slip quietly out of New York and head back to Paris. Come to think of it, I would be leaving tomorrow!

  I checked the time. It was nearly four o'clock. I dressed myself without hurrying. I took the elevator down to the main lobby and strolled across to Madison Avenue. Somewhere around Sixty-second Street, I found a good florist's shop. There I bought a corsage of three massive orchid blooms all fastened together. The orchids were cattleyas, white and mauve splotches on them. They were particularly vulgar. So, undoubtedly, was Mrs Elvira Ponsonby. I had the shop pack them in a handsome box tied up with gold string. Then I strolled back to the Plaza, carrying the box, and went up to my suite.

  I locked all doors leading to the corridor in case the maid should come in to turn back the bed. I got out the noseplugs and vaselined them carefully. I inserted them in my nostrils, ramming them home very hard. I tied a surgeon's mask over my lower face as an extra precaution, just as Henri had done. I was ready now for the next step.

  With an ordinary nose-dropper, I transferred my precious cubic centimetre of Bitch from the scent bottle to the tiny capsule. The hand holding the dropper shook a little as I did this, but all went well. I sealed the capsule. After that, I wound up the tiny watch and set it to the correct time. It was three minutes after five o'clock. Lastly, I set the timer to go off and break the capsule at ten minutes past nine.

  The stems of the three huge orchid blooms had been tied together by the florist with a broad one-inch-wide white ribbon and it was a simple matter for me to remove the ribbon and secure my little capsule and timer to the orchid stems with cotton thread. When that was done, I wound the ribbon back around the stems and over my gadget. Then I retied the bow. It was a nice job.

  Next, I telephone the Waldorf and learned that the dinner was to begin at eight o'clock, but that the guests must be assembled in the ballroom by seven thirty, before the President arrived.

  At ten minutes to seven, I paid off my cab outside the Waldorf Towers entrance and walked into the building. I crossed the small lobby and placed my orchid box on the reception desk. I leaned over the desk, getting as close as possible to the clerk. 'I have to deliver this package to Mrs Elvira Ponsonby,' I whispered, using a slight American accent. 'It is a gift from the President.'

  The clerk looked at me suspiciously.

  'Mrs Ponsonby is introducing the President before he speaks tonight in the ballroom,' I added. 'The President wishes her to have this corsage right away.'

  'Leave it here and I'll have it sent up to her suite,' the clerk said.

  'No, you won't,' I told him. 'My orders are to deliver it in person. What's the number of her suite?'

  The man was impressed. 'Mrs Ponsonby is in five-o-one,' he said.

  I thanked him and went into the elevator. When I got out at the fifth floor and walked along the corridor, the elevator operator stayed and watched me. I rang the bell to five-o-one.

  The door was opened by the most enormous female I had ever seen in my life. I have seen giant women in circuses. I have seen lady wrestlers and weight-lifters. I have seen the huge Masai women in the plains below Kilimanjaro. But never had I seen a female so tall and broad and thick as this one. Nor so thoroughly repugnant. She was groomed and dressed for the greatest occasion of her life, and in the two seconds that elapsed before either of us spoke, I was able to take most of it in - the metallic silver-blue hair with every strand glued into place, the brown pig-eyes, the long sharp nose sniffing for trouble, the curled lips, the prognathous jaw, the powder, the mascara, the scarlet lipstick and, most shattering of all, the massive shored-up bosom that projected like a balcony in front of her. It stuck out so far it was a miracle she didn't topple forward with the weight of it all. And there she stood, this pneumatic giant, swathed from neck to ankles in the stars and stripes of the American flag.

  'Mrs Elvira Ponsonby?' I murmured.

  'I am Mrs Ponsonby,' she boomed. 'What do you want? I am extremely busy.'

  'Mrs Ponsonby,' I said. 'The President has ordered me to deliver this to you in person.'

  She melted immediately. 'The dear man!' she shouted. 'How perfectly gorgeous of him!' Two massive hands reached out grab the box. I let her have it.

  'My instructions are to make sure you open it before you go to the banquet,' I said.

  'Sure I'll open it,' she said. 'Do I have to do it in front of you?'

  'If you wouldn't mind.'

  'Okay, come on in. But I don't have much time.'

  I followed her into the living-room of the suite. 'I am to tell you,' I said, 'that it comes with all good wishes from one President to another.'

  'Ha!' she roared. 'I like that! What a gorgeous man he is!' She untied the gold string of the box and lifted the lid. 'I guessed it!' she shouted. 'Orchids! How splendid! They're far grander than this poor little thing I'm wearing!'

  I had been so dazzled by the galaxy of stars across her bosom that I hadn't noticed the single orchid pinned to the left-hand side.

  'I must change over at once,' she said. 'The President will be expecting me to wear his gift.'

  'He certainly will,' I said.

  Now to give you an idea of how far her chest stuck out in front of her, I must tell you that when she reached forward to unpin the flower, she was only just able to touch it even with her arms fully extended. She fiddled around with the pin for quite a while, but she couldn't really see what she was doing and it wouldn't come undone. 'I'm terrified of tearing this gorgeous gown,' she said. 'Here, you do it.' She swung around and thrust her mammoth bust in my face. I hesitated. 'Go on!' she boomed. 'I don't have all night!' I went to it, and in the end I managed to get the pin unhooked from her dress.

  'Now let's get the other one on,' she said.

  I put aside the single orchid and lifted my own flowers carefully from the box.

  'Have they got a pin?' she asked.

  'I don't believe they have,' I said. That was something I'd forgotten.

  'No matter,' she said. 'We'll use the old one.' She removed the safety-pin from the first orchid, and then, before I could stop her, she seized the three orchids I was holding and jabbed the pin hard into the white ribbon around the stems. She jabbed it almost exactly into the spot where my little capsule of Bitch was lying hidden. The pin struck something hard and wouldn't go through. She jabbed it again. Again it struck metal. 'What the hell's under here?' she snorted.

  'Let me do it!' I cried, but it was too late, because the wet stain of Bitch from the punct
ured capsule was already spreading over the white ribbon and one hundredth of a second later the smell hit me. It caught me smack under the nose and it wasn't actually like a smell at all because a smell is something intangible. You cannot feel a smell. But this stuff was palpable. It was solid. It felt as though some kind of fiery liquid were being squirted up my nostrils under high pressure. It was exceedingly uncomfortable. I could feel it pushing higher and higher, penetrating far beyond the nasal passages, forcing its way up behind the forehead and reaching for the brain. Suddenly the stars and stripes on Mrs Ponsonby's dress began to wobble and bobble about and then the whole room started wobbling and I could hear my heart thumping in my head. It felt as though I were going under an anaesthetic.

  At that point, I must have blacked out completely, if only for a couple of seconds.

  When I came round again, I was standing naked in a rosy room and there was a funny feeling in my groin. I looked down and saw that my beloved sexual organ was three feet long and and thick to match. It was still growing. It was lengthening and swelling at a tremendous rate. At the same time, my body was shrinking. Smaller and smaller shrank my body. Bigger and bigger grew my astonishing organ, and it went on growing, by God, until it had enveloped my entire body and absorbed it within itself. I was now a gigantic perpendicular penis, seven feet tall and as handsome as they come.

  I did a little dance around the room to celebrate my splendid new condition. On the way I met a maiden in a star-spangled dress. She was very big as maidens go. I drew myself up to my full height and declaimed in a loud voice:

  'The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,

  It flourishes despite the summer's heat.

  But tell me truly, did you ever see

  A sexual organ quite so grand as me?'

  The maiden leapt up and flung her arms as far around me as she could. Then cried out: