Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon
63
Space Station
I FELT PARTICULARLY DISGUSTED when I’d finished at the preacher creature’s house. When the flames died in his torture chamber, the ash dissolved into dust and evaporated into the primordial mass from which he had come. I collected the priestesses into Areola and left, getting back to the hotel before morning. Once there, I locked the doors and entered Areola where the priestesses, with Zhi and Artemisia, met me and bathed me in the pool and in the glow of their light.
The victims we had rescued were in various conditions, some having not fully transformed into the automatons the traffickers were trying for and others having gone so far into a different head space that there was nothing we could do for them but purge them of the drugs and return them to the natural world, usually just inside or outside a hospital that could care for them.
Why? Why not care for them in Areola? Those brought into Areola ceased aging, no longer subject to death. It would have been cruel to keep them trapped in their damaged minds forever. At least in the natural world, they would age and die and be released from their pain. It was the best I could do. I truly wished I could heal their minds, but they were beyond the reach of even The Bob.
“Cleveland,” I said. “This one looks intriguing.”
I looked at the crew and my family and they nodded. They’d presented me with a list in some semblance of order that would let me jet around the world again interviewing the candidates and recording the show.
May Abernathy was the candidate in Cleveland. Doug had a good cover for me. I was a new resident of an incubator office building. It was a concept in which new companies could rent discounted office space that included secretarial services and janitorial services. He confided that he’d found a person trying to organize a space and funded him, so I was essentially renting an office for my import/export business from myself.
Nonetheless, May had started a janitorial service and hired a small staff of maids who cleaned four office buildings in the office park and got free office space in our building in return for cleaning ours. I landed in Cleveland and became a desk jockey named… I’ll just go by Bob for convenience’s sake. Just understand that I didn’t register the business under my name. I was not The Bob in Cleveland.
“Oh, good evening. Are you Mr. Bob? I was told today a new company opened in this office. I’m May and I’m here to clean,” said the sturdy brunette in my doorway.
By sturdy, I mean she was solidly built. With her sleeves rolled up, I could see the muscles in her arms, and it was a cinch that she was not petite. But she was nonetheless attractive and had a bright smile.
“Oh. Hello, May. They told me I should expect you to come in tonight. I’ve just been… well, working, obviously. I didn’t realize it had gotten so late,” I said.
“No problem. I can come back a little later. I don’t want to interrupt your work. I’ll vacuum last.”
“Thank you. Could you tell me how this works? I’m still new at it all. You just come in and clean? How frequently and what do I owe you?” I asked.
“You don’t owe anything for me. Unless you need something special done.”
“Special?”
“There’s some kind of marketing guy on the third floor who gets carried away and I have to scrub the marker off his window. He just starts writing his plan and outlining campaigns and uses every available surface. Washing windows is something we do once a month. If you need it more often, that will cost you.”
“I see. But normal cleaning each night, like emptying the wastebasket and vacuuming the floors is just included?”
“Yes. Of course, if you really like my service, an occasional tip is nice, but not expected. Same with Christmas gifts, but that’s a long way away,” she laughed.
“I’ve been so focused on my travel arrangements that I guess I really didn’t listen that well during the introductory orientation. Secretaries are the same, right?”
“Sort of. You’ll find a lot more services they offer are in the extras category. Telephone answering, message taking, and greeting visitors is in your package. If you dictate letters or need someone to type up a proposal, that service is extra.”
“I see. Thank you for taking the time to explain. Sometimes I get confused.”
“That’s not at all unusual. The concept has been around a while, but in order to work, a big investor has to basically underwrite the operation in hopes that there will be a big payout when your business matures. Import and export, your door says.”
“Yes. It’s funny. I never even see what I’m shipping, but I still travel all over to make deals. I’ll buy a shipload of grain in the Midwest, sell it to a broker in the Middle East and buy a tanker full of oil there to ship to Florida. That kind of thing.”
“You just buy these things?”
“It’s more like brokering. I find a client in the Middle East who wants the grain and I negotiate the pricing and delivery parameters with the grain producers in the Midwest. The only part of the transaction I see money from is my commission. Which is usually pretty good.”
“Wow. Uh… Sounds really interesting, but I should let you get your travel plans made and I should get back to cleaning. See you later.”
Introduction accomplished. I set about stage two, which was emptying and breaking down all the boxes Doug had shipped to me for my ‘new office.’ Everything was well-organized, so by the time May got back to my office, I had a stack of boxes to take to recycling.
I timed things right so I was backing out of my door with a stack of corrugated in my arms and bumped into May.
“Ah. We meet again. I was just trying to get these boxes out of the way so you can vacuum. I’m sorry, but there’s a lot of paper dust in there.”
“No problem. This is my last room for the night.”
“Can you tell me where to take all these for recycling?” I asked.
“Oh, just leave them. I’ll get them out to the loading dock.”
“Loading dock? It’s no problem. I don’t want to create extra work for you. I’ll take them down. Can I take anything for you?”
“Really? Um… If you want to. Let me dump your baskets and you can take my bag of recycling with you.” She quickly added the few scraps of paper I’d thrown in my recycling basket to her bag, tied it off, and handed it to me. “If you use the first set of stairs, the dock is right at the foot of them. The recycling dumpster is to the left of the dock.”
“Thank you. This won’t take but a minute.”
It took a few minutes and I was afraid I would miss May by the time I got back from juggling the flattened but still unwieldy boxes. When I got back to my office, she was just winding up her vacuum’s cord. The office was spotless. My desk had even been wiped down and everything on it was arranged tastefully.
“If you leave papers or anything related to your business on your desk, I won’t touch it. But if it is just your decorative items and office supplies, I’ll dust them and make sure everything on your desk is clean.”
“You’re so efficient. I guess I can close up for the night. If you’re off now, I’d happily buy you a drink. I’m so wound up and excited about having an office that I could use a drink to settle down. For three years I’ve been running my business out of the front seat of my car and my briefcase.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t usually. But… um… give me a minute to stow my things in the janitor closet and I guess I’ll join you, just to celebrate your arrival.” She glanced at my desk and then took off for wherever her janitor closet was. I grabbed my hat and satchel and was locking the door when she returned.
“There’s a little after hours bar across the parking lot if that’s okay with you,” she said. “We might even meet some of the other late workers from the office park there.”
“Sounds great.”
We got to the little bar and there were a couple of other office workers that May stopped to introduce me to. She was obviously known and liked by everyone. We sat at a table and ordered drinks.
“So, Mr. Bob, I noticed that you have a pen set in recognition of service to Space Pioneers. What did you ship for them? Have inside information on where their launch is going to be?”
“Oh, no. I’m afraid not. I arranged a shipment of parts that were urgently needed from Japan to California. I think, frankly, they could have sent an email and gotten them just as quickly. But my company expedited the customs process and made sure the correct fees were paid, so I suppose we did our part,” I said.
“It’s too bad about their delay. I could have told them they wouldn’t blast off on the schedule they’d set,” she sighed.
“You could? How’s that?”
“They’re going about it all wrong. I appreciate the idea of wanting to keep their launch location a big secret, but everything I’ve researched indicates the ship they are building is way too small to be effective for interplanetary travel. Maybe for resupply and communications, but not for colonization. Even if The Bob has a portal, like he says he has.”
“You doubt that?”
“I’m a physicist. There are a few things I understand about things like instantaneous travel from one point to another,” she said.
“I thought you were a janitor!” I said.
“I own a janitorial service company and I clean offices in our building in exchange for an office and services myself. But I’ve got a PhD in Physics with a thesis on orbital escape velocities. Their little ship can’t carry enough fuel to escape from Earth’s gravity well and power a flight all the way to Mars. And they have to understand, of course, that it’s a one-way trip because they won’t have enough fuel to get back, even out of the weaker gravitational field of Mars.”
“Wow! What are you doing cleaning offices?”
“Check the job boards tomorrow for employers seeking a Doctor of Physics with a specialization in orbital mechanics. Oh, there are jobs for scientists with my qualifications, but they aren’t engaged in space travel. NASA is still a good old boys network, no matter what you hear about the training of female astronauts. Did you know that even in the sciences, women are paid less than 80% of what their equally qualified male counterparts are? Don’t get me started.”
“Well, how about going to work for Space Pioneers? I hear they have a good reputation for women in the business.”
“I haven’t managed to get anyone to return a call from Space Pioneers. That’s why I joined the applicants for that TV reality show. Stupid, really. It’s not like The Bob would ever look twice at me. I know I’m a nerd and I’m… a little bigger than most of the candidates he’s had on his show. And I don’t just sleep with a guy because he’s rich.” She kind of laid that on the table and looked at me until I’d met her eyes. “I’d never be able to get out of bed if I did that. I just want a chance to show my stuff,” she said. She might be self-conscious about her size, but I saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. I’d love for her to show her stuff.
Okay, I needed to tone down my runaway libido and really think about what she had to offer.
We headed back to the offices—me to my car and just before we parted, I said, “May, I really liked spending a little time with you and appreciate you making a couple of introductions. I am leaving tomorrow afternoon for a week… eight days. Is there a chance we could get together again when I get back?”
“Hmm. I guess so. Just something light. I’m really not at a stage in my life where I can consider anything serious. Okay?”
“That’s great. Let’s plan for a week from Friday evening. I’d just like to sit and talk for a while. Nothing serious. You sound like a great friend.”
She waved as I opened my car door. I held it open long enough to let my camerawoman crawl in before I slipped in.
“She didn’t say anything about being a PhD in physics in her application,” Paul said as Julie sat on his lap. He’d read through the apps with Julie when they weren’t screwing. Or when I wasn’t screwing her. He was our resident expert in Astrophysics.
“I’d just hire her on the spot,” Karla said. “What kind of an idea does she have that will get us into space faster?”
“I’m not sure it will be faster,” I said. “But it should be interesting to discover. I was careful not to probe too deeply when we went out.”
“What a loaded word,” Deedee said as she settled into my lap. “You can probe me deeply, lover.”
That was a great thought. In fact, it was how I spent most of my night in a hotel room in Cleveland before I caught my flight to Europe the next day.
I flew in business class to Amsterdam and first class from Amsterdam to Bucharest, Romania. I found the flight attendants to Europe to be less flirtatious than the ones I’d encountered flying to Asia. I suppose it all depends on who is on your flight. I’m sure there are both flirtatious flight attendants and strictly-business flight attendants of all races on every airline.
My reservation in Bucharest was not until the coming night, I discovered, so I quickly booked a luxury hotel for the weekend, even though I was supposed to be in a Rent-a-Bed room in a private dwelling. My hostess, the next candidate, owned the apartment and kept one room she called her “Bohemian Flat” for Rent-a-Bed guests. If things were too uncomfortable, I would return to the hotel.
Once in my Executive King Suite, I locked the doors, opened a gateway, and went to Areola. We all strategized how the interview should proceed. It was a bit unusual, I thought, to book a room in the home of my candidate. But I supposed that I might learn more about her in this short time than I would if just stumbling upon her on the street and trying to get a date.
After we had worn ourselves out with our strategies, I took Penelope and Princess Agora to bed with me.
I realize that I have told you a great deal about the contestants on the reality TV show and the love affairs I’ve had, without telling you about the wonderful wives and possessions I have. Penelope was my second wife in the infinity room. She was the wife of the Greek, Odysseus, and when I was pretending to be him, I had to rescue her from the predators that styled themselves as suitors for her hand. They were despoiling the palace and land. Athene requested—required??—me to get rid of these uncivil bastards and rescue Penelope, ensuring that Odysseus’ son was placed on the throne in Ithaca. I confided in Penelope and she pressed me to take her away with me and let her become my wife. I agreed.
In the TV show, Penelope played the role of my ex-wife and mother of my two daughters, while Peninnah was my much younger trophy wife. Even though Penelope had been nearly forty when she entered the infinity room, much of her youth and vigor was restored simply because her health was made perfect. She didn’t really look old enough to be the mother of a seventeen and eighteen-year-old.
She was a brilliant manager of our internal trade relations in Areola, just as Peninnah managed our trade relations in the natural world. And she was a marvelous lover. Being Greek, she enjoyed some less conventional sex acts and was always ready to welcome me into her backside. Personally, I’d just as soon put my cock in her pussy, but I do try to accommodate her anal predilection. It’s been good for us for over three millennia.
And this night was no exception. She lifted her ass in the air and placed her face in Princess Agora’s pussy. It was an open invitation and I accepted. It wasn’t so much the aperture in which I was lodged as the vigor with which Penelope fucked me. She drained me so well that it took me several minutes to get back up for the princess.
Princess Agora was the daughter of an island king who believed his island was the entire world and he was the ruler thereof. When I announced that I would be leaving on my little boat, the princess had implored me to let her stay with me. I think she believed I was just going to sail around the island and she would always be able to see her home. When we sailed out of sight, she began to panic. The panic turned into a full agoraphobic onslaught that left her nearly catatonic. There was nothing I could do to restore her. So, I took her to the infinity room and possessed her. She is the only woman I have ever possessed without her consent. I did so to save her sanity and swore I would never do it again.
I’ve mentioned that when I possess a woman, we become one mind and one heart. She has her identity, but I have it, too. With my possessions, I seem to always know exactly where they are and what they are doing, what they need, and what they want. With Princess Agora, I experienced a bit of her fear of open places and had to work at overcoming it.
I offered to set her free and she begged me not to. She stayed in the palace, most often near or in the bedroom. I asked her once how she preferred to spend her time and she said simply, “I see the world through your eyes. I could never go out there, but when you are in the natural world, I see a dreamland that is quite entertaining.”
I see. I think.
Agora had no phobias about sex. If I had been fucking her, she probably would have been fine anywhere I took her. She totally lost herself in the sensations of being my mate. And, as with my other possessions, I believe there was a feedback loop that let us both experience a bit of what the other was feeling and experiencing. It was quite magical and we made love for hours.
I found the Bohemian Flat the next afternoon and followed the instructions for entering through the door with a dog flap and climbing the three stories to the top floor. Tassa greeted me there and welcomed me into her apartment.
“Just drop your bag there and let me fix you a cup of coffee. We’ll sit and talk. I want to know all about you,” she said.
“This is a lovely flat,” I said, joining her in the kitchen.
“You have the run of the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and your own room, which I’ll show you shortly. Please don’t enter any other rooms as I have a couple of boarders and, of course, my own room.”
“That is quite a little business,” I said.
“Oh, it isn’t really a business. This was my mother’s flat and when she died it was just me here and was very lonely. I started letting out rooms just so there would be company occasionally. Now what brings you to our lovely city?”
Speaking of lovely, I will say that Tassa was a young woman under thirty—I’d have to look at the application to get her exact age—and was elegant in a way that I learned to expect of most women in Romania. She wore a skirt and a blouse with a large bow at the collar. Her hair was just less than shoulder length and beautifully styled. Her fingers were nicely manicured and painted red, a color I noticed on her toes as they peeked out from her open-toed high heels. Her makeup was perfectly done. As I observed her, I noticed my camerawoman of the day scanning her as well.
“I am in your lovely city on business, but came to spend the weekend first. I thought that taking a Rent-a-Bed would give me an opportunity to see the city without being fed a false image,” I said.
“That’s very good of you. So many people come to Bucharest, see the Parliamentary Palace and see the grave of Eugene Ionesco, who is actually buried in Paris, or to attempt to meet Nadia Comaneci, who actually lives in Oklahoma in America. People have so many misconceptions.”
“Where would you recommend that I go to see the real Bucharest, eat good food, and meet people?” I asked.
“There are many places. I have a little map here with various walks that you might take, with sights that are worth seeing marked on it.”
She proceeded to unfold a map that she had obviously drawn on and annotated. She highlighted routes as we talked and I assured her my preferred transportation was by foot. We sat there drinking coffee for over an hour before she showed me my room.
“Keep your head down. The ceilings are low on this end of the apartment.”
They were, indeed. I could stand up straight in the center of my room, but the ceiling soon sloped down under the eaves. My feet in the bed would be only a few inches from the ceiling. Fortunately, the head of the bed had a ceiling high enough that I could sit up.
“Tassa, I’m wondering if I could hire you.” She caught her breath. “Hire you to guide me on some of these routes. Show me your favorite places and let me see Bucharest through your eyes.”
She tilted her head quizzically.
“I have often been propositioned, but never hired as a guide. Please do not think my service would include anything else. If we can agree to that, I would have no difficulty accompanying you on some of these walks. They are my favorites.”
“Would one hundred leu per day plus meals and treats along the way be adequate?” I offered twice what I’d rented the room for. She smiled.
“That would be excellent. How soon would you like to leave?”
We agreed to head out immediately and had a wonderful time as she described to me a city that she certainly loved. We walked for miles and I was concerned about her feet in her high heels. She seemed to be impervious to strain, though, much like Peninnah.
It was a lovely day. In the morning Tassa took me to the Orthodox church she attended—an historic building that had been one of the few left in the hands of the church during the communist regime. We dined in the out of the way bistros, listened to very Bohemian music, and drank vodka. We were a little tipsy when we returned to her flat that evening. She paused at my door and gave me a little light kiss on the lips. I was ready for much more.
“Bob, I think you are a wonderful man and would probably be a good lover for the right woman. And I thank you for the opportunity to show you my fair city. But I must tell you that sex doesn’t interest me. I don’t mean sex with you doesn’t interest me. Sex at all doesn’t interest me. With anyone—male or female. I’ve tried, but it isn’t that I can’t get turned on, it’s that I’m just not interested in it. I hope you will understand and not attempt to pressure me. You would make a very good friend.”
She left me at my door and went to her own room. Was this the infamous ‘friend zone’ I’d heard mentioned so often? Hmm. As I thought of it, I really didn’t mind. Tassa would, indeed, make a great friend.
I will not bore you with my adventures in Pakistan or the Philippines. In one instance, the woman I met would not speak to me because I was not Muslim. I wondered what she thought The Bob was. The Filipina woman was ready to move with me to the United States at once. With her mother, aunt, three sisters, and a cousin. I was very happy to return to Cleveland. Alone.
I made some calls and then planned out my date with May. I really liked her and I was waiting in my office for her when she arrived to clean Friday evening.
“Oh! You’re here!”
“Yes. Sadly, I didn’t have your phone number with me. We didn’t set a time this evening, so I thought I’d just stay here until you showed up.”
“Bob, that’s a weak excuse. You could find my contact information through the office building. But it doesn’t make any difference. I really wasn’t expecting you to call. I was only half expecting you to show up tonight. I’m kind of pleased you did. Give me half an hour to finish my chores and I’ll be back and ready. And I’m starving. I didn’t get a chance to break for lunch today. I switched rotations with one of the girls from building C, just in case you were here and I needed someone to cover the rest of my offices tonight. Give me thirty?”
“Absolutely. I’ll find a place for dinner.”
I hadn’t asked May what she’d like to eat, so I took a wild guess and made a reservation at a highly rated Italian restaurant near the water. I was ready to go and my camerawoman was ready to slip into the car with us. May arrived and we headed out to eat.
This time, I probed a little more deeply regarding her concept for the colonization of the planet, and a ship that would get us there, careful not to ask questions that would seem like I knew too much. It was so tempting to just say “I am The Bob and I want you!”
“It’s simple, really, but I suppose they’re trying to cut costs. We used to have a space station up there in orbit 250 miles above the earth. That still wasn’t enough to keep it from crashing into the atmosphere when the alliance fell apart and the station was abandoned. I wish we’d been getting ready for a colonization trip back then. Rather than risk it crashing down on a populated area, they blew it up and most of the pieces burned upon reentry. But conceptually, they had the right idea. Launch a core into orbit and then keep delivering parts, one ship at a time, until you’ve built a ship the size needed to hold a colony starter. Equip it with a rocket engine and transport fuel for the journey. Atomic fuel. There’s no sense fooling around with liquid fuel for a ship this big. They could even conceal its capability by sending a ship up to ‘move it to a higher orbit’ every few months. Once we have an orbit at about 400 miles, breaking out of earth’s gravitational well is a relatively simple feat. Even for a ship that is estimated to weigh 20,000 tons, we could bust out of the gravitation well with no more thrust than it takes to do a lunar landing, and be happily on our way with an atomic engine.”
“Do atomic engines work?”
“Nearly all the serviceable submarines in the world now are atomic powered. There’s no reason it wouldn’t work. And I’ll bet even on Mars we could find fissionable fuel. It just seems like such a waste to keep redesigning and building a ship for a dozen people when that won’t even begin to get us to a colony.”
Well, I had information that she didn’t, regarding how much three and a half million people weighed. But conceptually, I liked her idea.
“I know some of the people there. May, how would you like to visit Space Pioneers?” I asked.
Her eyes got very big.
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