Polly Tinted World: a Short Love Story

Corry Plaistow sipped his hot tea. It was one of the countless blends you could get in small shops all over the world he had no idea what was in it actually. There was snow on the ground outside the bay window where he nestled down on the collection of pillows and a blanket. Looking at the snow made him feel cold and he pulled Polly's blue blazer tighter around his shoulders. Polly was a tall woman, the sleeves hung down practically over his fingertips and if he stood up, the bottom hung below mid thy so it didn't matter so much that he wasn't wearing any thing else. He got up and walked across tall woman's bedroom, stopping in front of the large mirror behind her dresser. Makeup and various potions covered it, he let the blazer fall open to reveal a long dark blue-green streak from his navel to his sternum. His mouth dropped open and a small gasp escaped. He put his hand to his mouth, he had forgotten about Polly's art project with the lipstick. A laugh escaped him;"I need a shower" he thought and finished the tea off. Polly's room wasn't too messy, but it was definitely lived in, he straitened up some things, putting her cloths in the hamper in the corner. He changed the sheets on the bed and made it up. "Might as well put all this in the wash" he thought, grabbing the hamper and heading down stairs in Polly's way too big slippers. By 7:20 he had managed to find his grey turtle neck and slacks that made up the companies uniform and slip into it securing the video communication device to his belt and crawling into his thick trench coat. Corry wasn't too small of a man; standing about five foot nine, but 6 foot 3 tall, Polly would have teased him about being swallowed up in his thick coat. He reached his little hybrid Toyota and fumbled with the transmitter device. Polly's drive way was on an angel, and icy, so he had to watch his step. He opened the locks and swung the door open tossing in his coat. "F____K the cold!" he said aloud, as the control panel lit up, the engine started easily, and in a few minutes he reached the lab.

The mammoth building soared skyward with broad steps leading up the front. He fumbled in his pocket of his plastic I. D. tag placing it on his shirt beneath his coat. Good morning Dr. Plaistow said the guard behind the desk. Oh good morning Cindy. He looked at the menacing cameras everywhere and the somewhat totalitarian architecture. He imagined the opening to a children's show "I'm Dr. Plaistow!" "Welcome to Biocorp boys and girls!", then some silly music and the black clad pistol packing guards doing a little dance. He got through the door and walked past some of the company officials in the large hall with it's high ceiling. He reached his lab, removed the little videophone from his belt, and aimed it at the door, it beeped and the door slid open. It was here at the company that he met Polly. Suddenly big, tall, Polly's face appeared in his mind larger than life, her short downy hair, funny little eyes and, that intenseness, that power, like standing next to some big powerful engine that vibrated the ground under your feet. Than there was her height all that sophistication, softness and sweetness combined with such strength and power, she was a very tall woman, Polly stood 6 foot 3 and a half. He shivered slightly and his shoulders hunched in an embarrassing little hiccup like tick that he got around women that he really liked.

Inside the lab his techs were busy with what he mockingly called the "super juice", a term which evolved in his privet lexicon into "stupid juice" a little to his regret, since he had almost used it in a meeting when he was tired. Stupid juice was supposed to give people unbelievable energy allowing them to go 24 hours with out sleep and develop muscle tissue twice as fast, improve O2, transport and a number of other things. Some progress had been made with primates but Corry knew it wasn't for the general public. It was for all those live babies that didn't get aborted, so they could be made into nice dead soldiers, or not, if the juice actually happened to do it's job. He laughed at the gel boxes and tubes running around carrying the nauseous stuff. It didn't smell so great either and Corry didn't envy any one having to drink or inject it.

But this was the project they had handed him to work on and he said nothing. He was good at utilizing the lab techs and had them all busily working on the stuff. They worked so well and made so much progress that he had the time to set up what he called his "real lab" in an abandon room behind his small office. The room had been unused and forgotten for probably 15 years; he had been told it was the office of some sales rep for Glitz magazine that had been in the building before Bio leased it. She had allegedly drank her self right out of a job back than. Corry could still get a depressing vibe when he thought about her as he looked out the 15th floor window that she used to.

Cory's video com device beeped and he grabbed it off his belt. The face of Mike Simons appeared on the small screen. "Corry, some one from the Army is going to come see you today about the enhancer so make us look good," said Simons in his somewhat smarmy tone. "Ok I will." He clicked off the little device and replaced it. He called and got data on the visitor, some colonel something or other and a couple of assistants. He hoped these guys wouldn't be a bunch of reptiles but he had no illusions as to their nature.

Some time passed and he looked at the readout on his videophone device, all most lunch! Lunchtime finally came around and Corry retired to his "real" lab he inserted a flash drive into a stereo and selected a song on the screen. Squeeze toy by Kim Esty started playing and Corry took out an apple and some sushi from the small refrigerator. Out of his peripheral vision, a familiar figure appeared in the door, no mistaking her, she filled the doorway. Polly! She walked over to him and put her arms around his waste picking him up off the floor. He put his arms around her neck and she french kissed him, carrying him over to the middle of the room. She slid her hands up and down his sides and around his back. "I missed you sweetie, I had to see you, so I waited for lunch." His breath came in little ragged gasps, oh Polly I wanted to see you to.

Oops Polly thought and quickly put her ear to Corry's lips. "Your doing that thing" he looked up at her. "What thing?" "Your heart is beating so hard it's pushing you diaphragm up and you're making those little gasping noises."

He looked a little embarrassed. Polly had never known a man with so many little peculiarities. A couple of times she had literally kissed and teased him to tears, he could be extremely calm some times, and others like a little Chihuahua. She giggled and held his wrists, his hands were shaking, she checked his eyes they had the unmistakable look of shock. Ha ha she laughed in here head.

She looked at him and smiled, shaking her head. "It's going to suck, the day you get used to me and none of this happens any more." He gave a little "jhic" sound and flinched, a lock of hair fell into his eye and he looked down, turning red. Polly put her hand under his chin and raised his head up, brushing the lock out of his eyes, still smiling and shaking her head. "So what have you got today?" "Sushi and an apple?" she asked puling the small box out of the refrigerator. "I brought some beef stroganoff and a vegetable dish, brussel sprouts, and pineapple on rice."

She put her food in Corry's microwave and set it for 3 minutes. Corry watched her with a sick ache in his stomach, he sighed, it would pass or he would shake it off in a bit, but not right now, he just wanted to wallow in it a few minutes.

They had a good 10 minutes of lunch left when a man in a military uniform peeked around the doorframe. I'm colonel Bick He strutted up to Corry and grabbed his hand in a way to firm grip that almost hurt. These are my assistants Sergeant Pores and Captain Rice. Bick was a tall good-looking fellow of European descent and all business. Every bit of his polished manner was fake and purely for show. He was a tight assed as they came. A name came to Corry's mind, plastic bastard. He was a sickening sole to be around to be sure, but maybe he was being to hard on him. Rice was a young black man also all business but obviously not as used to the game as Bick. Pours was short and stalky with curly red hair and a laid back manner. He struck Corry as the college type; there was a light in his eyes. Pours could put on the fake survival oriented edginess but it didn't actually fit on him like it did the others. Pours was a human being, the others would cut your throat like tossing a snotty Kleenex in the trash if the felt it was necessary. In his younger days Corry would have despised them a lot more, but now he looked on them as he would rocks on the ground. There were a lot of different rocks, round smooth ones, ragged ones, brown crumbly ones etc, Nature had created the rocks in a certain way, and nature had created these people in a certain way, that was all there was to it. They would be that way until a way was found to improve them. That was the job of scientists like him self.

Corry was shaken out of his musings by Polly's hand on his shoulder. "A lot of progress has been made on the enhancer," she said.

"Oh yes ah, this is Dr Polly Polosio. She helps me once in a while." Bick sized them up. Dr Plaistow was a typical nerdy type, odd, probably had a stack of comic books at home or something. Polosio was attractive but he didn't want to be attracted to her, a real man, wanted real women and that meant cheer leaders, and models, he never settled for less than that, or he was settling for second place. This girl was probably one of the very feminists that was ruining the military every day. Women that weren't satisfied with the role that god had given them. They had to go and try to take all the power for them selves. Step out of their natural role and become doctors, mechanics, and worst of all soldiers. He bet that Polosio and Plaistow had some kind of thing, and she had picked the little bastard because he was easy to control. She was afraid to be with a real man, he mused while pushing a creeping emotion back hard into his subconscious where it wouldn't' bother him the emotion of fear.

Corry Dutifully took Bick and his entourage over the enhancer project. Bick salivated greedily over it. Corry stopped to gaze at the look on Bick's face as he stood there muscles straining his uniform, hard eyes playing over the tubes, flasks, and read outs. The man had no neck. Cory felt laughter rise in his throat. Oh shit, don't laugh at this psycho what ever you do! But that made it worse, the thought of Bick stabbing a bayonet into some one who had laughed at him, eyes a little misty with hurt, while his soldiers tried to comfort him. Inside, the laughter just roared out. Polly noticed the look on Cory's face, and knowing him like she did, deduced what was happening.

Bick didn't look to have much sense of humor beyond human pyramids, and water boarding. Bick's head turned slowly, a confused look was on his face as he looked at the couple behind him. He smelled of some pricy cologne. Corry tried to let fear of Bick override the urge to laugh. "That must be so he smells good when he kills you," he thought. Polly put her hand on the back of Corys head, grabbed a hand full of hair, and yanked. Instantly the pain made him forget about teasing big dangerous animals and bought him back to being a scientist.

Bick eyed the two with suspicion, what were they doing? Some kind of signals had passed between them. He wanted this stuff bad, he wanted to try it on himself actually, his mind played over the possibilities, the power it offered. Still, something was up with those two. He would sign off on the enhancer immediately, but those two needed checking out. He would do it personally.

It took Bick little time to locate Polly's house. He walked up the steps and easily defeated the alarm system. Within moments he was inside. Neighborhoods like this were flooded with bright lights, but this was the daytime. Bick wore a uniform like a cable tec and drove a mini van loaded with electrical gear. Cordless drills etc. hung from his belt as he strolled in to the house. He made his way up stairs to a large bedroom. It was here that all the good stuff would be. He approached a computer on a long desk against one wall. As he suspected, the computer was still logged on.

He entered the hard drive and found an AVI file. He clicked it open. What do we have here? Bick was actually hoping for a sex video but it turned out to be Corry and Polly with some instruments playing Manic Monday by the Bangles. Corry had a keyboard and Polly sang. Occasionally they sang together. The whole thing was fairly professionally done with graphics and animations galore. A You Tube production he thought, brainiacks he had wasted valuable time. He dug deeper when a half open drawer caught his eye. Inside was a little flash drive in a clear plastic box. They didn't want to loose this drive he thought. He opened the box quickly, inserted the drive in a port. A file called y1c came up. He began browsing through the file; it opened with a dissertation on gene suppressing proteins and went off into technical jargon that made Bick curse brainiacks even more. He went to the conclusion at the end, It had a closing note. Success has been achieved in both Corry and my self, the new genes have taken hold well and now completely control both of our ageing processes as in the mouse, and primate subjects. More jargon followed that made Bick heave a sigh. He had to get out of here, what ever was on that drive, it wasn't about the enhancer or payments to some foreign government. If these two quacks thought they had conquered aging, they were both crazy. These college types smoked way to much pot and listened to that goofy music. He began to feel a little sick looking around the bedroom. It was a little sloppy. What kind of abnormal acts must take place in here? Acts men and women were never meant to do, acts that mocked manhood, and nature. He quickly left the house and jumped back In his mini van.

Bick drove into the setting sun. As night fell he rounded a corner. Assorted girls lined the streets. Bick eyed one blond," nice." He pulled over and invited her into his car. "What kind of party do you want honey?" she asked.

Corry entered the lab, it was Friday. He had a note from Polly in his e-mail. He opened it.

Have you seen this, it started? He opened a clip attachment to reveal a picture of Bick from the morning paper. Top Army Colonel Nailed in Prostitution Sting. Col Edward Bick was arrested last night for soliciting prostitution from an undercover police officer. "A lot of these guys are habitual offenders." said Officer Cynthia Davis... I wonder if they will send some one else to look at the enhancer?