A Major Assignment

     Late July, it was ninety-four in the valleys of Southwestern Virginia, with the humidity hovering on the unbearable. The Buick's air conditioner had grown less functional as the outside conditions came more clearly to require it, and Maggie's skirt and thigh felt as though they were actually glued to the hot upholstery; while the elastic top of her panties caught an occasional drop of perspiration rolling down the back, which nature had intended for the cleft between the buttocks.
     Had there been more than ninety-three miles from the last rest area twenty on the expressway until the designated exit and seventy-three on the local road) before Ridgemont, Maggie would have stopped to freshen up. But promising herself a long shower at her destination, she drove on by. Wet and sticking to the vinyl, she wanted no halfway measure.
     Margaret Anne Robertson had graduated from Sarah Lawrence in June of 1992. A Journalism major, co-editor of the student newspaper, she had applied on graduation to many of the better Eastern journals. And after a short stint in Providence (doing rewrites for the local "Tempo" section), had landed a position in Philadelphia, as a working reporter. However, her initial joy had been somewhat premature.
     She would soon realize that her City Editor, who was neither impressively masculine nor singularly intelligent, expected that in due course she would sleep with him; and made it clear--without anything so tangible as to form the basis for a formal complaint--that "due course" ought to be after a couple of cheap dinners at the nearest outlet of a large Eastern chain. When Maggie had politely declined, he had brought her up:
     "Did you expect Bookbinders?!  You're an adult now, Robertson.  Sex is just a way to keep relationships relaxed and friendly. I don't want to put strings on you. I just thought that we should get to know one another--as long as we are going to be working together professionally."
     Thereafter, her enthusiasm for the job had rapidly waned. It was not just the strained working conditions. Her assignments, never better than fair, were now those which no one with status would accept. It was then something of a Godsend, when an older friend (the senior editor, when as a sophomore, she had joined the staff of the collegiate newspaper) had called from New York to say that there was an opening on the Times.  That had been in August, 1993.
     Now in 1994, Maggie faced her moment of truth. For eleven months, she had accepted every task with a cheerful smile and a ready pencil, while always expressing the wish for greater challenge--for a chance to cover a developing story where initiative and insight could make a difference--with maybe, just maybe, the possibility of a byline. And opportunity had come at last in the unusual three-cornered contest for the Senate from Virginia.
     Her editor had decided on a true experiment. Why not let a young woman of the '90's cover the campaign of the intellectual "Neanderthal," now challenging the verity of two generations of social progress. Maggie had the right credentials: An impeccable academic background from a first rate private college; a personal commitment to the basic ideals of the Woman's movement--not from any lack of feminine charm or physical endowment, but from the confident acceptance of an emergent role as only right and fitting;--yet neither awed by men, nor antagonistic to their sexuality; indeed, in the editor's eyes, the perfect example of a healthy, heterosexual young career woman, whose very existence would prove an antidote to the reactionary vision of freshman Congressman Charles Daniel Stuart.
     For two weeks, Maggie had criss-crossed Virginia, interviewing local politicians, editors, organizational heads, and representative samples of the voting public; learning much and reporting those findings she thought significant, each night, to her employer via a small laptop computer with a telephone modem. While at first rather unselective, day by day her copy had improved. And the editor had long since concluded that he had made a most fortuitous choice in picking Maggie.
     The race had attracted considerable attention from the moment the handsome Representative from the Virginia Piedmont had declared in January. His candidacy had captured the imagination of right wing idealogues, the paranoia of those on the left, and the apprehensions of a broad mainstream of bipartisan politicians.
     Seizing the reality that the major parties were about to nominate near carbon copies of one another's middle-aged candidates, the debonair thirty-four year old had announced that he would seek the Senate as a Jeffersonian independent--in the not too distant tradition of former Senator Harry Byrd, Jr.--laying bold claim to the ideological mantle of Harry, Sr..
     When shortly thereafter, the Virginia branch of NOW had announced that it would also field a candidate--in part as an angry reaction to the "studied" moderation of the Republican and Democratic nominees on "Women's Issues" in the face of the "studied reaction" of the independent;--an elderly analyst in Richmond had written a provocative article, which had come to be widely circulated.
     He had suggested that, even in this post-poll tax era, there were still enough hard-core conservative voters that the "Albemarle Blueblood" (a distant cousin to the celebrated "Bonnie Prince Charlie," still living in a 1746 manor house, where Jefferson and Madison had been frequently entertained) might just "pull it off" if the vote got any more fragmented; and that the NOW candidate, by stirring the cauldron, could only serve to popularize Stuart with his own element, and bring out the largest possible reactionary vote.
     At this point, the pollsters had taken over, and the mainstream apprehension had grown into an alarm, while the left-wing paranoia became a panic. By late May in the Piedmont, where he was well known, Stuart was showing at 32%, compared to 29 for the Democrat, 27 for the Republican and 2% for NOW, with 10% still undecided. Statewide, the respective numbers were 25, 33, 30, 3 and 9. But with the momentum clearly beginning to flow in Stuart's favor, there was scant comfort for the major parties. More perplexing, with voters under twenty-five, he was at 30% in the State totals; and despite having been denounced as "Sexist" in the media, was only slightly stronger with the young men than with their sisters.
     In June, a Washington Post correspondent had cornered Stuart's twenty-five year old South African born wife, emerging with the couple's three year old daughter from a Matinee screening of the Disney version of "Snow White," and had forced an interview soon heard round the continent.

     "Mrs. Stuart, can we ask you some questions on the campaign?"

     "I am sorry, but I leave the answers to my husband."

     "Can I take it from your response, that you agree with the attitude for which he has been denounced as 'sexist' by many of the leading women's organizations?"

     "I am not sure what you mean by 'women' or 'leading.' But I am quite certain that a wife, who 'isn't yet a citizen,' should not be commenting on public issues."

     After several other unsuccessful forays, the reporter had tried something more imaginative.

     "Mrs. Stuart, I see that you have taken your daughter to 'Snow White.' Did she enjoy it?"

     "Very much, thank you."

     "As a parent, were you concerned about the image of a young woman sitting around wishing--then dreaming--that a hand-some Prince might come along to solve her problems? Couldn't a movie of that type leave your daughter with a harmful impression?"
     "You mean as opposed to one showing young women in military combat, with the upper body strength of Sumo Wrestlers; or one with asexual robots fighting other asexual robots?
     "Snow White is shown as a good cook and eager homemaker, who enriches the lives of the little men. I know 'Prince Charmings' sometimes need encouragement. But the image of a virtuous young woman, who pitches in and does what is necessary to enhance the happiness of those around her, is exactly what my husband and I would want for our daughter.
     "And if the pretty songs help Mary Anerley to realize that finding the right man, someday, will be the most important thing in her life--I know it was in mine--then all the better!"
     "That sounds very romantic. But don't you expect more for your daughter than being a good cook or maid? I mean, isn't that really all that Snow White is for the Dwarfs?"
     "Men have careers. Women have families! It takes more effort and intelligence to keep a home clean and cheerful, than to work in an office under the direction of a corporate supervisor. It takes more energy, brains and enthusiasm to be a good mother--which condition usually comes soon enough to the good homemaker--than it does to be an average doctor or lawyer.
     "I'm not criticizing married women who have to work--and I have only sympathy for those who can't have babies. But no amount of money can buy the contentment that a good woman can provide to her husband and children, and with them--and through a mutual happiness--to herself.
     "It is no different now than it has always been. The ideal is for the man to earn enough that the wife may pursue the art of living--her job to maintain a haven where they can love, and each can be restored to face whatever he must deal with."
     "You don't think that most women would prefer to take advantage of the more attractive opportunities, now available?"
     "Any work without love is drudgery! The only thing that has changed are the settings. Where women once worked in the fields or as domestics, today they work in offices and factories. But where they labor only for money, the result is still drudgery."
     The reporter had turned in a tape of the actual interview with his story; and the liberal editor had concluded--after the manner of the more opinionated of whatever persuasion, who feel that most of the world share their primary assumptions--that a transcript of the former could be safely offered as an expose' of the blatant "sexism" of the Stuarts.
     A day later, the paper had reprinted much of what had appeared in the original article in an editorial headlined. "KITCHEN AND LAUNDRY VS. CAREER AND OFFICE." And in the mysterious ways of the media, that same afternoon, a disc jockey in Northern Virginia had come up with a copy of the tape, which he had proceeded to play in thirty to forty second segments over much of his air time--orally smirking at regular intervals, "How do you gals like this philosophy?"
     But before the night was over, the mainstream alarm had turned to confusion; while more moderate liberals had begun to join the left-wing panic. What on the right had been mere interest and enthusiasm, had turned to elation. The Sarina Stuart interview had become the subject on every radio talk show in Virginia and Maryland, and the calls were running six to one in the lady's favor.
     Although some only wanted to denounce the insensitivity of the press in trying to force an interview on a young mother, taking her daughter to a fairy tale classic; many working women phoned in to applaud the woman who "told it like it was," and to offer to retire tomorrow, if they could possibly afford to; while others called in to describe the "Prince Charmings" for whom they would gladly scrub floors. Some, male and female, expressed an appreciation for the fact that someone in the public eye had finally put the proper emphasis on romantic love.
     The next day, the callers were more balanced--yet probably still 3 to 2 in favor of the Stuarts. But for four more days, the subject continued to dominate, with the ratio shifting steadily back to one more overwhelmingly favorable to the position taken in the interview. It was on the second day of this radio reaction that the NOW candidate announced her withdrawal, throwing her support to the Democrat Muggeridge, and calling for a "United Front against a reviving sexism."
     It was shortly after this debacle that Maggie had been offered her big chance, and had driven South, determined to separate reality from rumor.
     She had not felt then--nor did she now--that the supercilious attitude of the mainstream media towards the off-handed remarks of the young mother was fair--not to Mrs. Stuart, and certainly not to a feminist movement, with which Maggie more or less identified. The issue had never been one of the relative merits of an office career versus a full-time pursuit of the domestic arts. And suggesting that it was, could only hurt the cause for a truly emancipated femininity.
     The issue was the freedom of the individual woman to choose her own path, free of the familial or societal pressures, which through the ages had forced sexually determined roles. And Maggie could only cringe at the thought of how the heavy-handed Post treatment had played into Stuart's hands. The young women calling in to support Mrs. Stuart, and to treat the feminist concern as little more than a bad joke, no less than the obvious response of the full-time homemakers, were the predictable reaction to an overreaching journalism.
     But Maggie was not so certain of her own assessment of the Stuart candidacy. Yet after two weeks, she felt that she knew her subject fairly well--although she had met him only once, after a luncheon in Charlottesville.
     Starting in the north, she had visited every definable region of the State save that to which she was now headed. She had been impressed by Virginians' courtesy, and by little touches of refinement for which her New England based prejudices had not really prepared her. Never very parochial, she had expected a people culturally as devoted to the arts as those in whose midst she had grown. But a bit of a cynic, she had expected to find the fabled manners an affectation; much as she viewed the southern accents of older women, who had spent most of their lives in the North, yet had never changed their mode of speaking. Instead she had found the manners natural and unaffected; a people who, whether liberal or conservative (or reflecting the studied moderation of the mainstream candidates), could always put you at your ease and make you feel accepted. That Stuart came from such a heritage, made his confident good nature, even when he was advocating the most outrageous views, seem totally plausible.
     And while Maggie did indeed find some of the would-be Senator's views to be truly outrageous, she had come to respect him as an intelligent, thoughtful spokesman for a once accepted doctrine, which he could still persuasively espouse. For Stuart was more than just a conservative on economic and social issues; more than just an advocate of States' Rights, frugality and limited government. In his speeches, the candidate clearly disdained the very concept of human equality; equality as a goal or equality as a verity; both equality among men and equality with women.
     At first, her reaction had been the angry one of the young career woman. Yet Maggie was already too good a journalist to let emotions block a perception of what was really being said. And as she proceeded on her assigned task, she found that her impressions were constantly changing.
     Not that she was being won over.
     Yet, increasingly, she saw in Stuart a mind superior to the usual defender of the "verities" that she herself subscribed to. She could easily conceive of his winning adherents among those less than impressed by the ex cathedra spokesmen for the new enlightenment: A new orthodoxy, which not so long before had prospered, when it had itself been seen as an overdue challenge to the pompous doctrines of an obsolete order. Could Stuart, by setting in motion a new iconoclasm of the right, turn back the clock full measure? The idea was frightening, but seemed almost possible.
     Thus, without abandoning a good reporter's quest for objectivity, she had come in leisure to reflect on Stuart's pronouncements from the standpoint of how one might answer, point by point.
     For three days, this had served to pacify her fears. But that morning, she had scanned the teletype of an address, delivered at the State Teachers' Convention in Norfolk, the night before, on "Women Hostage To Contrived Delusion," and was now more troubled than ever, because she had no answers to much that she "knew" was wrong. Moreover, the Virginian had apparently won converts in the two thirds female audience. For according to most reports, an initial preponderance of "boos" had turned over the course of forty-eight minutes to an at least respectful applause--with pockets of outright adulation.
     But the real proof had been on the news that noon. The convention, which had been expected to endorse the Democratic candidate at the morning session, had been too divided; and had adjourned without recommendation.
     Worse, Maggie found her own stereotypes in shambles. She had believed that conservatism was closely linked with a "New Right"--with sexual repression, no less than forced roles. Yet Stuart, while maintaining an almost Edwardian good taste, had treated human sexuality (at least the heterosexual variety) more openly than had any other serious American political figure in her lifetime. Or how else could one construe this passage(?):

     So far, of course, no real reason to reject any of the verities of Maggie's life. An independent young woman, she had still never abandoned her own adolescent hope of someday marrying the right man, and giving back in full measure the love she hoped to receive. Those adolescent cravings--if not quite so overpowering as Stuart suggested--had once been dominant enough.
     But there was nothing in any of this to require the abandonment of a career, or a retreat into some sort of renewed serfdom--as she had come to view the traditional status of the full-time homemaker. On the other hand, she did wonder in passing, if she had allowed older, more cynical voices--male or female--to engender a species of self-reproach at her own instincts beyond what was necessary. Stuart's thoughts on this, at least, did not degrade; and could perhaps only be faulted, as being too obvious to need recital.

     Maggie wasn't sure that she even still believed in a material or a spiritual God. She had once--as a child. That she could well remember. But in college, she had come to doubt and to question.
     Yet treating other people's sexuality as a reflection of their respective levels of existence, certainly didn't bother her. Nor did Stuart's claim, a little later, that women ought in fairness to respect the greater urgency of the male need. That was not the sort of distinction that threatened the emergent rights of woman. And she remembered, also, her own first experiences at the not so tender side of passion.
     Maggie had been fifteen, when she had first achieved an orgasm. But the orgasm had not been Maggie's.
     On a summer Friday, she and David Stanfield, then sixteen, had gone with two other couples to a PG-13 movie, which featured a thoroughly emancipated heroine, who had enjoyed the services of several men while surviving and triumphing over a not so convincingly handled male intrigue. In the dark, Maggie and David had ended up by the wall (off a ways from the other couples), where they had enjoyed a genuine sense of privacy.
     She wasn't even clear now, just how it had gotten started. But they had fallen into a pattern of heavy petting--actively groping for one another's privates during the sex scenes. And at one point, Maggie had reached her hand completely into his pants to measure the male part, while he rubbed the female, and David had erupted like Mt. Vesuvius.
     It had been awkward at the time, what with the volume of the fluid that had suddenly gushed over her hand and wrist. Without even a tissue to clean it off, she had been forced to wipe the hand on the seat beside her; dying a little, when the lights came back, lest anyone recognize the nature of the traces. She had also experienced a little never stated resentment, that he had been released while she had not.
     But though Maggie had had steamy, well-lubricated moments in her previous sex play--and some very satisfactory culminations since;--she had recognized from the volume of "gunk," which David had produced, that men and women experienced sex in physiologically quite different ways. And while she would probably not have volunteered the viewpoint, she had no qualms in conceding that issue to the conservative candidate. Yet she would never have seen in the phenomenon much reason to be deferential.
     A spirited girl in her own right, Maggie had a genuinely healthy libido, for which she felt no guilt. Indeed, she had been doing the wash in the basement laundry, the day after the David Stanfield experience, when still miffed at how easily the boy had climaxed, she had decided to try something, she once had ridiculed. It had come from the passage of a book, read by a friend, suggesting how a young woman might obtain an orgasm by pushing her "clit" against the corner of an automatic washing machine, as the agitator worked the clothes.
     With some help from one hand--and some trepidation, even though she was alone in the house, lest anyone discover her in this absurd position--Maggie had achieved her first actual orgasm. But she had remained embarrassed ever afterward about the specifics; and had since come to rely upon the efforts of congenial young men, rather than mechanical objects, for all her outlets. Though it had been about a year later, before she had really gotten started.
     It was at the end of her Junior year--during the "AIDS" panic. Maggie had gone to a graduation party for about 15 to 20 couples (including several other juniors), at the home of a boy whose wealthy parents were committed to "sensible responses" to "sensitive problems." And these latter--without bothering to check on the attitudes of the other parents--had demonstrated an awareness of public health and "safe-sex," by placing a generous supply of brochures and "condoms" on each of two tables--one in the front hall, one in the living room--as the graduate and his date were greeting the first guests on the front porch. The "sensible" parents had they hied out the back door for a nearby resort.
     The brochures had explained for any young man, not sufficiently acute to figure out how the little balloon-like devices worked, their proper use; and, for all the world, the paramount importance of "Safe-Sex"--in the "present crisis."
     While many of the invitees had originally been startled at the blatant display; as the evening wore on, "Safe-Sex" had become an idea whose time had come; and the generous supply of form-shaped latex had decreased rather faster than the stack of pamphlets.
     After a time, Maggie had followed the example of the older girls--who with varying degrees of enthusiasm had done their part for public health;--and had allowed her date "Safe-Sex."
     Although the first go had been a bit disappointing, she had become sufficiently aroused that when, after some fingering and much additional fondling, he had wanted to make another statement; she had proven more eager, and had experienced her first true spasms against the organ of a man.
     Thereafter, a budding feminist outlook had not prevented Maggie's enjoyment of "Safe-Sex" on a frequent basis--at first with one or the other of two boys in her class in high school; later, in college, with another boy, who was studying to be a doctor. (They would split when, on the eve of graduation, it became clear that he was looking for an old-fashioned wife; while she was definitely committed to a career.)
     Since graduation, she had had several lovers, whom Maggie would have been the first to acknowledge had been casually selected and casually used; much as a traditional male might have used a willing girl, with no thought of permanent commitment. And she smiled to herself, as she remembered Stuart's outrageous male "chauvinism," that the greater male need of which he had spoken, made it easier for a young woman (who knew what she wanted) to use men, than it had ever been for a young man to use women!
     But Maggie also realized, stuck to that damn artificial vinyl, that for all of her emancipation, she had only once in her life held the exposed flesh of an aroused male within her loins. That had been on another date with David Stanfield, about four months after the one previously described--and well before the events at the party.
     David had just started driving. And they had been alone in his mother's car in a wooded area of upstate New York, when after a period of heavy kissing and fondling) she had agreed to an actual insertion, upon a promise of withdrawal before anything "happened." He had kept his promise; although he had made a worse mess on her stomach, than he had on her hand in the theatre.
     Reflecting on these events, she wondered whether "unsafe sex" (she laughed at the term) would be more or less fun than what she had known for the past seven years;--or whether there had been something in that Norfolk speech, or in the general attitude of the political maverick who had delivered it, which had somehow turned her thoughts in a more carnal direction?
     That post-luncheon encounter with Stuart had taken place ten days before (on her fifth in the State); and she had been slightly shaken by his manner. He had been addressing the Charlottesville Rotary, and she had waited her moment in the outside hallway, to go and introduce herself just as the last of the crowd had dissipated.
      "The New York Times!" he had remarked with a sly wink. "I hope that you won't be too hard on this reactionary Virginian."
      But though the words were jocular, the look reminded her more of the penetrating, once-over assessment, which an attractive and perceptive young woman in a cosmopolitan center, comes to recognize as one of the more visible traits of an accomplished "womanizer."
     And yet that look had gradually softened, while the tone remained. And she had supposed at the time that she might have been mistaken. She had later heard stories, when still in the Piedmont, which suggested that though Stuart and his wife appeared to have an idyllic marriage, he did indeed have a past. And Maggie had wondered ever since, what the "chauvinist bastard" had determined by that assessment.
     She now wondered whether, however she might resent the Virginian's smug attitude, she was not somewhat attracted to him. Would she be willing to make love to the MAN, in order to gather additional information, with which she might expose the real danger of the CANDIDATE? Would she be willing to make love to him for any other purpose?
     But this was foolish! There were less than thirty miles to Ridgemont; and her thoughts returned to the actual assignment.
     She did not need to stoop to anything devious. Stuart's views were unusually open for a politician's. And there were certainly plenty of attractive men who would respect, rather than belittle, her career. That was what really stung in the Norfolk speech. It had come in the way that he had summarized the results of the woman's movement:

     In an age where reason and intellect were supposed to govern, Maggie wasn't at all sure that the last point made one. But it was the overall thrust, which was the more disturbing:

It was equally obvious to the young reporter, that the Senatorial candidate did not have much to offer to the woman who, whether from choice or circumstances, was never destined for parenthood. While he expressed compassion for the childless, it was the compassion of a patronizing chauvinist; which nowhere could acknowledge that a woman might legitimately decline the traditional role--however personally or socially useful--simply because her interests lay elsewhere.

     So far as Maggie's outraged feelings were concerned, the acknowledgment that Stuart was speaking primarily of a comparison of average men and women, and that there had always been women of extraordinary talent--even in the fields of usual male domination--to whom such comparisons had no applicability; did not help. All such a concession could do was to dilute the effect of the obvious retort. Yet if all the world thought like the Virginian, how would any of those extraordinary women ever have a chance of being discovered?
     The candidate's basic assumption seemed the hated one that nature, herself, had predetermined human roles; and that the free will of individual men and women could never matter. Maggie did not have point by point answers. But a generation of progress away from that underlying assumption, certainly seemed to imply that society, collectively, had found its answer.
     She observed the road sign. Only six more miles to Ridgemont.
     Maggie wondered further about Stuart the man, and those stories she had heard; muffled tales of romantic exploits while yet a student at the University of Virginia;--muffled because Virginians still didn't talk that freely about their sex lives. Might he not have some serious personal "hang-ups?" Might there not be more to this defense of an almost dead order of human relationships, than the intellectual argument at which he was so facile?
     She remembered again that meeting in Charlottesville. She couldn't quite believe that his interest in women went only to keeping them in "their place," politically and socially. And despite herself, she began to find a certain romantic allure in his conclusion:

     If only life were really that simple, Maggie thought, and people could always play at romantic games. But she was puzzled at her own preoccupation with the physical side of Stuart's remarks--rather than with the almost cavalier way that he had called for a halt to all Federal intervention, directed towards the elimination of discrimination.
     Perhaps she was more subjective than she had realized. Her own employment now seemed fairly secure; at least since she had been informed of the editor's expressed satisfaction with her copy, only two nights before.
     But if Stuart were genuine, and not the "threatened neurotic," which spokeswomen for the feminist movement were fond of painting as their typical male opponent; he might just make some woman a reasonably decent lover. Maggie also reflected on Mrs. Stuart--whom a liberal columnist had jocularly dubbed "the perfect 19th Century political wife," after that Snow White interview;--and tried to imagine what sort of a physical life they might have. But that too was hopeless.
     There was no denying that they were a handsome couple. And there was no denying that the one area in which Stuart had rhetorically conceded a freer, more emancipated role to the modern woman, was in the quest for sexual fulfillment. It had come in an acknowledgment of the significance of improved methods of contraception as a factor in changing perceptions of acceptable conduct. But that didn't really conflict with an avowedly sexist philosophy.
     It was hard to imagine a man with such generally reactionary views, being a particularly sensitive lover. No! He was probably only a "user."
     And yet, although the young reporter felt that she should despise the man for his seeming contempt for all that motivated her career and life, she perceived instead a strange fascination; hot and stuck to that vinyl seat, a physical curiosity which made her squirm slightly, causing a painful, tearing sensation on the backs of her thighs. Her instinct told her that there was more to the man than either a sick, rationalizing neurotic, or a callous user of women.
     But just what kind of a lover would  Stuart make? Would one with his benighted attitude ever "go down" on someone? She squirmed again, working a little freer of the vinyl, and feeling a passing longing to be touched. As the large blue and white sign, "WELCOME TO RIDGEMONT," came level with the Buick, she had started to amuse herself with thoughts of the candidate's face between her sweaty thighs, satisfying her before she would shove him off--rudely unrequited!
     Maggie decided that she might have been too quick to concede the assertion that men had the greater need. She had been too long without. While it might not fit the image of either an old-fashioned girl or an independent modern woman, she felt that she could definitely use the services of a vigorous, virile man. And although she knew that she would be too embarrassed to be with any man until she could either bathe or shower, it tickled her fancy to think of humiliating the "chauvinist bastard," and sending him back in frustration to that "19th Century wife." He didn't deserve the companionship of a woman of the '90's!
     Then she caught herself. She was here on major assignment--her first major assignment. And if she was going to let hot, "horny," impulses dominate any part of her thinking, then the Charles Daniel Stuarts of this world had won.
     There was a time to use men--as men had so long used women;--maybe, she hoped, even a time to love one. But if any level of involvement were ever to become her first priority, she would be no better than any of the day-dreaming, empty-headed little "ditzies," who devoured romantic novels and prayed for "Prince Charmings" to come and rescue them from a stern reality. So long as intelligent and educated women continued to flirt with the same fantasies, women would never achieve a true equality.
     She would find a room and freshen up. Then there was a job to be done.

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