'Sauerkraut juice, Mr. Victor. With a dash of attar of wheat germ. It's a health cocktail. I'm sorry if it isn't to your taste.'
'Oh, it's fine,' I lied. 'It's just than when you said a cocktail, I naturally thought -
'That it would be alcoholic. I'm sorry, Mr. Victor, but I don't believe in indulging in alcoholic beverages. It's against my principles. Against S.M.U.T.'s too. That's something else you'll have to curb if you are to join with us. Also, your smoking. I have noticed that you smoke a great deal. We shall have to cure you of that, too.'
'How about sex?' The question sprang to my lips before I could stop it.
'My husband and I are content with a relationship of courtly love,' she informed me primly.
'And he doesn't object?' I asked.
'Not at all. You can ask him for yourself when he arrives.'
Over dinner later, I did just that. Peter Highman was pretty much what I expected. He was a scrawny man with a nervous tic and a Caspar Milquetoast habit of looking to his wife for approval every time he spoke. Still, I sensed something brooding under his surface.
'You don't smoke?' I tried it on him for openers.
'No, Mr. Victor. I did try a cigarette once. I found no joy in it. So I never tried it again.'
Prudence Highman nodded approval.
'And you don't drink, either?'
'That is correct,' he said. 'I indulged myself in a glass of wine once. It made me ill. I've never touched alcohol since.'
Again his wife's nod said that his course was wise.
'How about gambling?' I asked.
'No.' He shook his head. 'I played poker once. I lost. Since then I have never touched a card.'
His wife's nod was peremptory this time. Her mind had strayed. 'Did you look in on Oscar when you came home?' she asked.
'Of course, my dear. Oscar,' he explained to me, 'is our son.'
'Your only child, I presume,' I responded.
'Yes.' Now there was more than a trace of wistfulness in Peter Highman's tone as he explained. 'Since Oscar's conception, my wife and I have lived together in blissful chastity.'
'Blissful?' Somehow I managed to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
'Blissful,' he repeated staunchly. But there was a quaver in his voice.
'You see,' Prudence Highman told me. 'We don't just talk S.M.U.T. We live it. We live by our principles.'
'Yes, I see. Very laudable,' I assured her. 'Quite admirable.'
'And now, Peter,' she said, turning to her husband, 'Mr. Victor and I have business to discuss. You can do the dishes while I take him into the study.'
'Maybe first I can give you a hand with the dishes,' I offered.
'That won't be necessary,' he told me. 'All I have to do is tack them in the dishwasher and whistle. Sonuswitch will se that the washer and dryer does the rest. We're completely automated here,' he told me proudly.
'It's really more than human,' his wife agreed.
'Or less,' I muttered, but not loudly enough to be heard. I was thinking more of their 'blissful chastity' than of Sonuswitch, tough. 'Then why don't you join us in the study?' I asked Highman aloud.
He didn't answer. But the look he shot his wife was the equivalent of a child begging to be allowed to stay up for the grown-ups' party.
'That won't be possible.' Prudence Highman scotched his hopes firmly. 'You see, Mr. Victor, Peter is only a lay member of S.M.U.T. The library contains much confiscated material which I, as an official of the organization, am responsible for holding. It's the hardest part of my job, having to study such filth. But my position obliges me to do it, and so I do. However, I would never subject Peter to such material.'
'Then do you think it's really all right to let me -' I started to say.
'Your case is different, Mr. Victor. I'm sure that you have seen many such examples in your work. Like myself, I'm sure that you are able to control your disgust while viewing the real enemy.'
'Well, I'll certainly try,' I assured her, noticing that Peter Highman looked disappointed but resigned as he started to clear the table. I got to my feet as his wife did and followed her to the library.
Outside the door she paused, mouthed a whistle which had been hanging on a chain from around her neck, and blew it. There was no audible sound. Yet the door swung open and closed behind us as we entered. 'I keep it locked because of the salacious nature of the material stored here,' Mrs. Highman explained. 'It will only open if the proper ultrasonic pitch is sounded outside the door. And this is the only existing whistle capable of reaching that inaudible pitch. That way I'm sure that no one can sneak in here.'
'You mean Peter might try -?'
'I would hope not. But one can never be sure. He is made of flesh as we all are, and flesh is weak. That's why it's so important that the work of S.M.U.T. be carried forward to fight the temptations of the flesh. Here, let me give you some idea of what I mean.' She crossed over to a row of filing cabinets and stopped in front of one of them. She snapped her fingers and a drawer slid open. She took out a folder and came back to me. 'It will be more comfortable if we sit down,' she said, leading me over to a couch. 'Now, just look at this.' She handed me the folder.
I took it and looked at the outside of it. A small ad was neatly pasted on the tab, evidently to identify it. 'GENUINE FRENCH POSTCARDS' was the heading on the ad. I glanced casually at the first three subheads underneath it. 'A Sight for the Discriminating and Knowing Tourist in Paris!' the first announced. 'The Hottest Picture in Montmartre!' the second blurb read. 'A Stimulating Close-Up of a Magnificent French Organ!' the third promised. There was more, but I didn't read further. Curious, I opened the folder instead.
The first 'genuine French postcard' was a picture of the Eiffel Tower. The second turned out to be a shot of a blast furnace in a Montmartre factory. The third was a close-up of a French organ all right – a church organ!
'Sorry. Wrong folder.' Prudence Highman took it back from me. 'We gave these people a clean bill of health,' she explained as she replaced it. 'From the ad we thought they might be peddling pornography, but we were wrong.'
'I can see how you might be misled,' I told her.
'Yes. Ah, here we are. This is the genuin article.' She pulled out another folder and rejoined me on the couch. She openend this one herself.
I found myself looking at a picture of a fully clothed girl. Prudence turned the page and the girl was still fully clothed except that her gloves were removed. When the next page was turned, the photo showed the girl with her shoes off. Now Prudence stopped turning the pages and began riffling them. The pictures dissolved one into the other to show a rapid strip tease. When all her clothes were off, the girl was stretched out nude on a bed.
But that wasn't the end of the sequence. Far from it. Prudence continued turning the pages slowly again, and with each new picture the girl was caressing her naked body more and more intimately. Then Prudence riffled the pages again and the effect was of the girl having an erotic ball all by her lonesome.
The model played with her large breasts until the roseates widened and the nipples distended. The riffling pictures gave the impression of her breasts heaving rapidly as, with eyes half closed, she caressed her lower body. The photos blended into a series of close-ups of this area as she manipulated various objects and the flesh began pulsating as if with a life of its own. Then they blended back into the full view to show her body writhing as her hand disappeared almost to the wrist. The grand finale showed her jackknifing with a double-jointed display that was pretty amazing.
'Isn't that disgusting?' Prudence said, gazing over my shoulder and breathing a little rapidly herself.
'Disgusting!' I granted. 'And I wouldn't have thought it possible, either.'
'It's not. These pictures have been doctored.'
'How can you tell for sure?'
'They had to be. What she's doing is impossible. I checked to make sure of that.'
'How did you check?'
'I tried it. For position only, of course. I'm in pretty good shape, you know. Physically, I mean. So I did my duty and attempted it. Believe me, it's an anatomical impossibility.'
'You certainly do take your work seriously,' I complimented her. 'Not many people in your position would be
