This Other Eden by Ben Elton Page B

stretch
laminate.
    ‘The
spray-on condom has to be the greatest invention since inflatable handguns,’
said Krystal as she blew on it to help it dry.
    ‘I like
this bit,’ said Max. ‘I hope you have some solvent, though.’
    Max
spoke from painful experience. The spray-on condom was a triumph of synthetic
fibre engineering. It could be applied to a flaccid member and would then
stretch and move like a second skin. Obviously, with a conventional condom
there is a teat on the end which provides somewhere for the ejaculation to go.
With spray-on jobs the laminate simply stretched to accommodate whatever was
necessary. It would stretch, but it would not break, ever. This was fine for
the containment of a bit of sexual effluvia, but less convenient if you needed
a wee and you had no solvent. Max, like most men, had experienced the pain and
embarrassment of driving to the chemist with a big balloon of piss hanging off
the end of his dong.
    Krystal
drew Max down on top of her. They embraced and she kissed him long and hard. In
a town where good kissing was the norm, Krystal was a star. It was said that if
you had had a cosmetic lift you should not kiss Krystal for at least six
months, because she would suck your face right off. This rumour began when
Krystal was just sixteen. She had been a child star and, having been through
sex, drugs, college and fully diagnosed media dependency, she had married an
ageing star, a man with the career of a seventy-year-old and the face of a
thirty-five-year-old. At least, he had the face of a thirty-five-year-old until
his wedding night with young Krystal. Loud screams were heard from their hotel
suite in Aspen, Colorado. A paramedic Cosmetic Surgical Rapid Response unit was
scrambled from Cedars Hospital LA, and the ageing star was not seen in public
for four months.
    ‘Ate
the old boy’s face right off,’ the gossips assured each other.
    ‘I
heard they had to cut his teeth out of the back of her throat. That little girl
nearly choked on her old man’s dentures.’
    Krystal
was now giving Max the benefit of her plunger-like skills, but despite
administering a kiss that could have unblocked a drain, she could feel that the
fire was not getting lit.
    ‘I’m
not stretching your laminate, am I, honey?’ she inquired gently.
    ‘It
isn’t you, Krystal, it’s just early, you know? I had a gutful of booze last
night and. .
    ‘Hangover
hanging over, is it?’ she said. ‘Let me show you something I had fitted last
week.’
    Krystal
rose to her feet and glided across the room. It was a walk that had made a
hundred million Virtual Reality helmets steam. Crossing to her dressing-table
and perching herself gently against it, she looked down at the prostrate Max.
    ‘Like
what you see?’ she inquired, and Max would have had to have been made out of
granite to demur. What’s more, it would have had to have been granite which was
probably gay, anyway. Krystal was an extraordinary vision of market research generated
design perfection. She looked as if a Japanese porn artist had just created her
from computer graphics. Certainly it was a little soulless, but as her body
sculptor often said, Krystal, there are tits men, and there are ass men, the
only soul men I ever knew were musicians’.
    ‘You
think this is good, huh?’ Krystal pouted. ‘Watch.’
    She
took up a thin tube that was attached to a little cylinder in her vanity case.
Max watched in astonishment as she removed what he had imagined was a tiny mole
deep within her cleavage. She attached the tube to the spot where the mole had
been, there was a hiss and Krystal’s already generous bosom began to expand.
Max gaped, he had never seen anything like it. Krystal laughed at his
confusion.
    ‘Neat,
huh? It cost an awful lot,’ she said. ‘Great for the career, though, so it
should pay for itself. You see, now I can do big girl parts and little girl
parts. Versatility is so important for a serious actress, don’t you think?