My Only Talent Ch. 32

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Dwight soon discovered that Shaniqua's real name was Charlene Jackson Johnson. Small wonder she wanted another name for herself, not to mention another life. Her 15-year-old mother was a hopeless crack whore, turned out by her own half-brother and pimp, who ended up killing Charlene's biological father before Charlene was even born. That might have been his only good deed. An almost endless parade of foster homes followed, and they ranged from mildly neglectful to severely abusive. Young Charlene was very bright, and formed the iron clad conclusion that it she didn't look out for herself, no one else ever would.

Dwight's employer had a very extensive program to characterize childhood drama and bin sort the resulting adults into categories by most likely successful means of manipulation and usefulness to the agency, and Dwight saw a couple of possibilities for Charlene/Shaniqua. Her interactions with the state's child services, foster parents, and police had left her with a profound disrespect for authority, and the ease with which she extracted large sums of money from nouveau riche fools like Professor Jack left her with little respect for the so-called academic stars and rising business leaders she worked on every day. She did respect her savings account, and her plan to move far away with another new name and a whole new life. Dwight could use that.

Shaniqua's accounts were pretty easy to find, and the money trail led to a three-year-old daughter, adopted, that was apparently the only other person that really mattered to her. Dwight was a little suspicious of the adoption, but the papers were in order. A little judicial records search and mobile phone metadata grouping and snooping discovered that the attorney of record and the family court judge involved were also escort clients, and that explained a lot. But it was also a vulnerability that Shaniqua couldn't afford to leave uncovered. Dwight could use that too.

But the real ringer turned out to be some of those other phones in Shaniqua's mesh: several were watch listed as being in use by China's foreign intelligence service. He started an extended connection search, but Dwight already knew what was in Shaniqua's future. He was actually going to need Roger Sherman to do the doubling on this op. Hopefully Roger wouldn't' screw it up.

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Ramesh liked to mess with the support callers, sometimes. Life in a Bangalore call center was sure better than begging on the streets or working in the cane fields like his grandfather had, but still he was not happy. He should have gone in with his now multi-millionaire cousin on that outlaw SIM card deal, but he didn't like the idea of traveling to Africa. His center mostly took calls from internet customers of cable conglomerates in the USA. Boring! Reset your modem, clear you cache, restart your browser, make sure the cable is plugged in, which lights are lit on the front of your cable modem? These people paid more per month for lousy cable and internet service than most of Ramesh's co-workers made at two jobs. They had money to burn, but they were so dumb! He just couldn't resist messing with them.

One of his favorites was a woman who called to say her husband had hit 'our black box' with a baseball, and she was not getting internet any more. Ramesh made her check the revision level of her browser and OS and detail her browsing habits before telling her she had to either wait five business days for a service call or take the modem to one of the cable company retail locations to swap it out for another one. That was fun! Another male caller was complaining about how slow the response time on his browser was getting, and Ramesh told him about malware, super cookies and memory leaks, and then made him confess to porn surfing on nasty and surely virus laden web sites before finally relenting and telling him how to download the free MacAfee that the cable company offered.

But today somebody was messing with Ramesh. The message had come in on the internal email, but certainly not from one of the other call center people. It featured a picture of Ramesh and his supervisor from the webcams on their workstations, and some details about how Ramesh had been manipulating the call statistics to make him look better, plus definitive documentation refuting his phony filing claiming to be lower caste than he was to get favorable treatment at work. It made his skin crawl.

The emailer wanted Ramesh to do things to the account of a certain caller from California. When she called in, Ramesh was to offer to remote into her computer and fix things for her, and in the process change a few settings and leave some things on her machine. There were instructions as to how to do this without leaving any threads to trace back to Ramesh, and they were pretty slick exploits, too. The writer assured Ramesh that the customer would call this evening (California time) and that the call would come to Ramesh. How did they know that? Then the email just vanished from his inbox without him doing anything, leaving a few executable files that looked innocuous on his desktop. Kuthra Sala!

Then a pop up message (not a regular SMS!) on his cell phone with a photo of the block of flats where he lived: "Thanks, Ramesh". Damn it. He didn't have much choice, did he?

The call came through later that day, from Redwood City, California. A pushy and loud young woman was having trouble connecting with her cloud based financial management software, just like the email said she would. Ramesh used the remote support app, having the woman open another browser window and give him the 6-digit code to let him into her machine. He opened a script, supplied by the emailer, that opened another window, minimized itself, and began delivering its payload to her laptop. Ramesh took his time fixing the other simple problem that had been artificially created on her machine by a little java applet that could have come from any pop up ad. The mystery script finished before Ramesh did, then deleted itself without a trace. Shaniqua even told Ramesh "thanks" when he was finished.

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Rock Tappert was glad someone else was driving back from the 'rodeo'. He chuckled internally. Everybody else is probably glad too, given my driving record. This Rodney guy seems like a real professional, and he has a vocabulary way above your average limo driver, too. His mind was racing. Robbie Roberts had really surprised and astounded tonight. Seeing Veronica get her world rocked always 'rocked' him - literally and figuratively. He felt alive with consciousness expanding, and very horny to boot.

Veronica had had him on a sexual work stoppage for the last week until he finished his monthly patent papers - no action until they were final and sent to the attorney. She had learned that Rock often had many good ideas each month that he didn't even write down before he forgot them, and she put in place a procedure to make sure they benefited from those ideas if at all possible. He would write a technical brief on the prior art and possible claims and send it to his patent attorney who would turn it into applications to the patent office. Once that brief was sent off, the sex would start up again. The more he did, the more he got.

His patent guy, Homer, was a high functioning Asperger's Syndrome semi-autistic 'rain man' kind of guy, but he was a licensed attorney who really knew his materials science and he was a magician at turning potential claims into solid filings that the examiners issued patents for. Sometimes Rock would send him what he thought were two patents worth of ideas only to discover that they had turned into ten patent applications after Homer worked his magic. Homer was independently wealthy from a family inheritance even without his legal practice, but he was somehow driven to do patent law. He lived way up in the mountains of New Mexico and rarely saw anybody in person, but he was a friggin' genius at his specialty.

Rock had been suffering from 'writer's block' or 'inventor's block' or whatever you called it, for at least a week. Suddenly he realized tonight's little fuck fest had cleaned out his pipes! He saw several other ways to get around what he had been bumping up against, and let his mind run with the possibilities! Why didn't I see that before! He tried to make mental notes so he could write everything up when he got home. Shit, maybe I should make Robbie Roberts co-inventor on some of these!

When they got home, Veronica was amazed that Rock went immediately to his home office and fired up the laptop. She thought he would pester her for a 'hall pass' for some action after tonight's show even though he hadn't finished the patent briefs for this month. She took a long shower in her own bathroom, washing her hair, and working on her nails, getting everything back together and then she tried to stay awake until Rock came to bed. Two hours later he came into their bedroom with a big sheaf of papers and a big Manilla envelope addressed to New Mexico.

She glanced over the pages - six briefs for six apps, and all for new kinds of solid state devices. "Oh, Rock, this is wonderful!"

He took the pages, put them in the envelope and sealed it, and then put it on the night stand.

Then, with a huge smile on his face, he dropped his pants, revealing a raging hard on, and reached for the back on her head!

"Oh, Rock, this is wonderf...mumpf." She just loved it when he got this way. She would do anything for him, and he knew it.

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One the way back from the ranch, my little car was brimming with sexual tension and you could almost see the estrogen molecules floating in the air. Candy, Nora, and Suzanne had all watched the proceedings in the rodeo arena with interest, and although Suzanne had the most visible and visceral reaction, I could tell it had a major effect on all three of them. I cracked the window a little to release some of the tension. We had about 25-minute drive back to campus.

I saw Suzanne looking up into the rear view mirror to make eye contact with me, and then she held her tongue up on her upper lip in obvious provocation. She glanced around at Lara and Candy, and I saw a mischievous smile on her face.

Lara spoke up, trying to sound innocent. "So, what do yawl want to talk about?"

The other three erupted in a storm of giggles. Candy took one of the little party favors, and held it up in front of her face where everyone could see it. "So," she began haltingly, "let's talk about... dicks!"

Another round of giggles, followed by snorting inhalations.

Lara smiled. "Whatever made you think of that, dear?" Belly laughs.

Suzanne couldn't resist another upper lip touching grin and leer. "I am TA'ing a statistics class next semester, and I was looking for fresh articles that the students would find interesting that would also be relevant to the material."

Lara looked lost, but Candy smiled. "You mean that one about the latest statistical data on penis size?"

"Exactly!" Suzanne sounded pleased. "Kings College London undertook the study from NHS data because so many British men were 'concerned' about their size compared to other men." All three for some reason looked at me. "it turns out the average size is smaller than most people thought."

I remembered another sophomoric discussion at the UDP house and an old Saturday Night Live skit where the actresses discussed an average penis size of nine to ten inches when erect, sending many teenage boys like me scurrying to the encyclopedia for some numbers and some hope.

Lara spoke up. "I saw another article. Not about size, but about quality!"

The two other girls turned to look at her, obviously surprised. "Quality?" they said in unison.

She continued. "They surveyed women about what they liked and disliked about dicks. Years ago when many of the original studies were done, most women hadn't seen enough of them to really compare and contrast and learn what they preferred."

Suzanne swiveled to look at her. "What did they ask them?"

"Well, they asked then to list the most important things to them and to do a ranking of relative importance. If turns out length was way down the list."

Candy spoke up. "You mean it's no big deal?" Giggles again. "What was number one?"

"General cosmetic appearance was most important. Then the pubic hair, appearance of the skin. Girth was more important than length, and then the appearance of the scrotum. The opening at the front and the shape of the head was least important."

Suzanne let out a conspiratorial sigh, then spoke in a whisper. "When I was a teenager in North Africa, I had a very prim and proper French governess. She didn't know I had discovered her stash of erotic literature, all written in French. One of her books had a short story called "The Man with the Perfect Penis."

Another round of giggles ensued.

"The story said his penis was not too long, and not too short. Not too thick, and not too thin. It was perfectly proportioned. The skin was fair, unblemished and clear. He was circumcised and very symmetrical. Any woman who saw it was immediately captivated by it. His balls were symmetrical and big and but did not hang down too far. His pubic hair was clean and curly."

All the other girls looked off up and to the left as she described this. I tried to look away, or at least at the road.

"So, Suzanne" said Candy, "What do you think is the perfect penis?"

Suzanne smiled. "I need more data." Gales of laughter, except from me.

I said nothing, but decided that I only have one penis and I really don't have any opinions about any others. Mine is the only one I am ever going to have, so I have to think it's wonderful. If they don't think so, then fuck 'em. If they do think so, then...really fuck 'em! That's my philosophy.

We all had classes and or exams the next morning. I dropped Candy at the Villas near the PIG house, then Lara at her place just south of MLK, then drove Suzanne to her apartment south of the river. I thought she was going to say something more about tonight's activities, but she was strangely silent. I walked her to the door and kissed her goodnight, unsure of what either one of us was thinking.

As I drove back toward campus, I tried to have an adult discussion with myself. Was she thinking about her own little gang bang? Would she enjoy it as much as Veronica Tappert obviously had? I was absolutely sure I wouldn't enjoy it as much as Rock Tappert had. But could I stand it? To let her get her fantasy for once? Should I?

I was the one that used her own desire for some 'wild college days' to get in her pants. I offered to be her meat puppet with no commitments that she could dump at any time. If I was really thinking only of her excitement, I should put together a foursome with me, Ralph, and Husky Varna all working her over. Maybe Kevin, too. That would send her 'round the bend, wouldn't it?

It was funny, but doing her along with Ralph and Husky or even Kevin somehow didn't seem as awful as it had with Günter. Why did Günter freak me out so much? That was some kind of paradigm shift! Or as my father called it, that paradigm shit. Would I lose my nerve at the last minute and shoot an incapacitating Suzie blast at Husky or Ralph?

I was certainly on a philosophical journey leaving traditional monogamy behind. But where hell was I going to end up?

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I wanted to go up to RLM to check something with my math TA, and I knew she would dutifully keep her office hours even on the day before Spring Break officially began. But it was raining cats and dogs outside. I refused to ride a shuttle bus just to get a few blocks north of the dorm, rain or not, but to minimize how wet my clothes would get, I made my way under cover from building to building to get there. Real ESU men didn't use umbrellas on campus, nor ask for directions. They might wear a windbreaker, and they know where they are going. This plan meant I would go through Welch Hall, aka the Chemistry Building. It had been under construction (and fundraising campaigning) for years, and in its new form would include monuments to Monsanto, Texaco, and anyone else who ponied up the cash and/or recruited enough ESU chemistry grads. The huge second floor hallway was finished and ran roughly South to North. I had never been through there before, and it was a zoo.

I had heard that ten thousand students attended classes there every day. At this particular time literally several hundred, maybe even a thousand, milled about in this one hallway: going in and out of several big lecture halls, picking up graded exams, talking about the exam they just took, sitting in chairs eating lunch or studying, or just staying out of the rain like me. It looked like the DFW airport gate area on the day before Thanksgiving, or a scene from that weird sci-fi movie Kevin had showed me - "Soylent Green" where people just walked around all day because there was not enough room for all of them to have a bed or even a chair. All of the people were between 18 and 20, and most had backpacks on. They were short and tall, thin and fat, well dressed and not, in every variation you could imagine, from at least 20 different countries and speaking at least 20 different languages.

I was reminded of Suzanne telling one of her 'economics inside jokes' about consultants. It seemed some consulting outfit had made millions as consultants often do - repackaging things their big client firms already knew and charging a lot for doing it. This particular firm like to use two axes to divide things up into four quadrants and develop and recommend four or more different strategies based on this, presumable charging four times as much. The comic strip Dilbert had wickedly spoofed this by setting up an X axis that ranged from 'ugly' to 'cute' and a Y axis that ranged from 'dumb' to 'smart', and then dividing all people in the workplace into four quadrants. The lower left was ugly and dumb, the upper right was cute and smart, lower right was dumb and cute, upper left was ugly and smart. Sic transit gloria mundi.

I then thought about some of the women I knew. Jean Nancy, of pecuniary Suzie note, was very cute, but not too bright. Lower Right. Orinda McDaniel was top of the scale beautiful, but just above average in brains. Suzanne and Lara were surely very cute and very smart: Upper Upper Right. Nora was a genius with the looks of a goddess. Extreme Upper Right corner. I didn't really know anybody on the Lower Left. Well at least they didn't come to ESU. There were a few in middle school, though. Actually more than a few. Then it struck me: I was strictly in the middle somewhere. Brighter than average, but not way up there. Average looks, too. All my parts were there and in relative symmetry, but I was never going to be offered any modeling jobs.

That's why people looked at me funny when they saw me with Lara, or Suzanne, or Nora: I was out of my lane. I had first heard that expression from Theo Cadwallader and his old money frat brothers when someone of merely moderate financial means was trying too hard to get a bid to pledge PIG. Out of their lane. I couldn't help but try to place all these people traipsing by me in Welch Hall into their proper quadrant. Analytic people watching!

When I reached RLM, my TA was in her little shared office. She was wicked smart, with above average looks, and she answered my multivariable calculus questions most efficiently.

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Lara had taken her LSAT in February, and was planning to take it again in June if her scores weren't great. I heard that applications to law schools were way down, and I thought she could get in somewhere. But she didn't just want to get in somewhere. UT Austin, which considered itself a hot shit law school, was her extreme fallback backstop emergency school. Her dad could get her into SMU with a phone call, but that was way below her aspirations. Likewise, she wouldn't even consider Duke, Michigan, or UVA. She laughed at Georgetown, saying they were 'so forty years ago'. She wanted Yale, Harvard, or Stanford, with maybe Columbia or Chicago for a fallback. I hoped she wasn't riding towards a fall.