Beautiful You: A Novel

  Others edged closer, swaying, unsteady, craning their thin necks to see what Penny was up to. These curious zombies, Penny could see that their hair was breaking off at the roots, no doubt from malnutrition. Bald patches shone on their scalps. It wasn’t lost on her that an earlier sexual revolution had created walking skeletons so similar to these. Not long ago, these staggering skeletal waifs would’ve been the victims of AIDS.

  To rally them, Penny said, “You don’t need another sex toy.” Thrusting clipboards into every pair of hands, she said, “We need to make Beautiful You accountable for their crimes against women.” By now she was shouting. “We need to shut down their business and demand reparations!”

  The cadaverous girl at the head of the line swallowed. Her thin lips moved with the effort to form words. “You … want … to … close … them?” Her voice was a thin whine of terror. A murderous grumble echoed back along the line.

  A voice called, “Wait until after I get my new Dragonfly. Then sue them.”

  Another voice charged, “Whoever she is, she’s against a woman’s right to own her sexual fulfillment.”

  A clipboard sailed through the air, barely missing Penny’s head. It clattered to the sidewalk. A chorus of catcalls followed:

  “She’s a self-hating, body-hating antifeminist!”

  “Loosen up, sister! And get your fat ass to the back of the line!”

  “We’ve got to protect our right to shop at Beautiful You!”

  A painful hail of clipboards came at Penny from every direction. The air was thick with hurled ballpoint pens and vituperative screams of female anger. This army of frustrated women was stoning her with vampire-themed paperbacks. In another minute they’d remove their clunky shoes and beat her to death. Helpless, she called out, “Maxwell is only manipulating you!” Her arms raised to ward off the hurtling books, she yelled, “He’s making you into his slaves!”

  As the crowd surged at her, countless hands seized Penny’s hair and colorful Betsey Johnson micromini. Enraged fingers clutched her around the wrists and ankles, and she felt herself being pulled apart. Subjected to cries of “Oppressor!” and “Prude!” she was being painfully rent limb from limb. Torn to shreds.

  A wild voice shrieked, “Beautiful You helped me kick my drug addiction!”

  Another shrieked, “Thanks to Beautiful You I’ve lost seventy-five pounds!”

  Almost inaudible against the animal screams of the mob, a lock clicked. A key turned, and a bolt snapped open.

  Almost inaudible. “The store,” Penny gasped. Faint with the effort to save herself, she gasped, “They’ve opened the store.…”

  The announcement rescued her, as thousands of frantic shoppers turned en masse and stormed the big pink building. Dropped to the sidewalk, Penny curled into a protective fetal ball as countless ugly, clunky shoes stampeded past her to embrace their ultimate fate.

  That night Penny slipped into a comfy pair of flannel pajamas from L.L.Bean. She went to bed early, nursing a glass of pinot gris and not a small number of clipboard-shaped bruises. After the day’s aborted mission to collect plaintiffs, she’d arrived home crestfallen. She ached. Her smart micromini was grubby with handprints, and the crowd had shredded her Versace coat. She’d decided it was beyond repair and had searched the pockets for coins and chewing gum before consigning it to the trash bin. Crumbled in one pocket was the pale-green handout given to her by the frantic man in the park.

  “Call anytime, day or night,” it read. “Reward.”

  In bed, Penny smoothed the paper. She set aside her wine and retrieved the phone from her bedside table. A man’s voice answered on the first ring. “Brenda?” It was the stranger. Her wrist still tingled from where he’d held her so tightly.

  “No,” Penny told him sadly. “I met you this morning.”

  “At the park,” he interjected. He said he remembered because she was the only normal woman he’d seen all day. Actually all week.

  “Every day,” he wailed forlornly, “I pace that waiting line along Fifth Avenue, searching … searching … but Brenda is never there.”

  Choosing her words carefully, Penny encouraged him to talk. “Her disappearance, how did it happen?”

  The man poured out his anguished tale. Feeding his grief was guilt. He had been the person who’d bought the initial Beautiful You item for her. It was supposed to be a birthday gift: product number 2788, the Instant-Ecstasy Probe. Brenda had blushed with embarrassment when she’d opened his gift in a crowded restaurant, but he’d gently encouraged her to use it. “Not right there in the restaurant,” he added, insisting, “Only a tramp would submit to using a sex toy in a public restaurant.”

  Penny’s mind flashed on her own French eatery episode with the Peruvian married stones. She squelched a twinge of embarrassment with a deep swallow of chilled pinot. Lying abed, she watched the fresh bruises on her arms shift in color from pink to red to purple. She reflected on her time in Paris and thought how it seemed as if she’d spent half her life drinking wine in bed and covered with contusions. This, it occurred to her, was how it must feel to be Melanie Griffith.

  “One day,” continued the man on the phone, “Brenda was the most influential power broker in the chemicals industry, and the next day …” His words trickled off in tired resignation. “She was gone.” He’d searched her duplex co-op on Park Avenue and found that the only thing missing was the Instant-Ecstasy Probe. That was two weeks ago. Since then people had phoned to report a few sightings. One was under the rotting piers near Hoboken. Another time, security cameras in a bodega caught her shoplifting batteries in Spanish Harlem.

  Listening to his account, Penny gulped her wine. She reached to where the bottle stood on the bedside table and poured another glass. She’d finished every drop by the point the lonely man’s mood evolved from hopeful to fearful to savage.

  His fury was audible over the phone. Even soused as she was, Penny could sense that he was red-faced and that his entire body was trembling. “If I ever meet the person who invented those demonic sex playthings …” He paused, choked with rage. “As God is my witness, I’m going to strangle her with my bare hands!”

  The ugly shoes and fantasy novels were just the tip of a newly emerging trend. Day by day, Tad tracked the swing in shopping habits. One Monday almost sixteen million housewives abandoned the laundry detergents they’d been buying for decades and switched to Sudso, a brand introduced only the previous week. Likewise, an entire generation of female music lovers flocked to concerts by a new boy band called High Jinx. They fainted. They screamed. Watching these girls on television, Penny observed that they didn’t behave very differently from the convulsions that had seized Alouette on the night of the Academy Awards.

  Behavior and marketing specialists couldn’t make heads or tails of the phenomenon. It was as if vast blocks of female consumers were responding to the same impulses. In the shadow of the president’s self-assassination, the stock markets were a roller coaster. Share prices tumbled for almost all publicly traded companies. But, as Tad pointed out, every subsidiary of DataMicroCom was rocketing in value.

  “Especially Henhouse Music,” he insisted.

  When the people around him responded with vacant looks, he added, “That’s the record label that represents High Jinx. They’ve got songs in six slots of the weekly top ten.”

  Investors with forethought, Tad explained, were flocking to the commodities market. Manganese and potassium, specifically. Zinc, also. All the ingredients that went into the production of alkaline batteries. Speculators were bidding copper through the roof. Battery shortages had sparked riots, and a robust trade on the black market was prompting burglars to swipe half-depleted batteries from flashlights and children’s toys. In the same way car break-ins had once prompted drivers to post “No Radio” placards in their windshields, now homeowners tacked highly visible “No Batteries” signs on their front doors in the hope of deterring thieves.

  The whole world was struggling to make s
ense of what popular culture called the “Beautiful You effect.” On television, pundits and analysts bantered about something known as arousal addiction. Prior to now, no one paid it heed, because it had hampered only the lives of boys. In recent decades it had been primarily young men who’d fallen victim to the crippling pleasures of sustained arousal. They’d been seduced by the soaring levels of endorphins generated by playing video games and perusing sexy Web sites. A generation of young men had become entranced by the lure of loveless release and had fallen through the cracks of society. They were hunkered down in basement rooms heavy with the reek of their dissipation, oblivious to maintaining real relationships with actual love mates.

  Penny tried to dismiss the reportage as male hysteria, but the concept was hard to ignore. According to experts, the trouble arose when our primal animal impulses were manipulated by breakthroughs in modern technology. Butter brickle ice cream was an excellent example. Its sugary, fatty goodness was exactly what our animal selves craved to survive. That was why Penny could never stop eating until the pint was empty. Her own evolutionary instincts were being used against her by product marketers. To date, arousal addiction had come to men visually, via fast-paced video games and high-speed Internet pornography, but Maxwell’s new product line seemed to be having a similar effect on women.

  It made perfect sense! The constantly changing stimulation was gradually rewiring their female brains. The limbic portion of the mind was awash in surges of dopamine. The hypothalamic regulation of rewards was foiled, and the prefrontal cortex was no longer in control. Oh, Penny thought as she pored over the medical studies—it was so complicated, yet so obvious!

  Once addicted, ladies would binge on pleasure. The Beautiful You effect. Ordinary leisure activities would bore them. Regular pastimes would fail to hold their interest. And without the constant arousal of Maxwell’s personal care products, women would lapse into severe depression.

  Social commentators were quick to point out how advertising had long ago exploited men’s natural sexual impulses. To sell a certain brand of beer, the media needed only to display idealized female bodies, and male buyers were hooked. This age-old tactic looked like it was exploiting women and pandering to men, but savvy observers had recognized how the minds of intelligent men were constantly being erased—their ideas, their ability to concentrate, their ability to comprehend—by each glimpse of enticing breasts and taut, smooth thighs.

  It was the same way Max’s Beautiful You tests had wiped Penny’s mind clean of dreams and aspirations … of plans for the future and love for her family. The general culture had been blithely using sex to attack the brains of young males for so long that society had long ago accepted the evil practice.

  Perhaps that was why the world was so quick to accept the disappearance of women into the same abyss. Artificial overstimulation seemed like the perfect way to stifle a generation of young people who wanted more and more from a world where less and less was available. Whether the victims were men or women, arousal addiction seemed to have become the new normal.

  On a rare evening outside the office, Penny and Tad had gone to a mixer at the Yale Club. Surrounded by Bucks County bluebloods, he seemed to be immersed in his element. No, he wasn’t ready to drop the class-action lawsuit, despite Penny’s bruising failure to rustle up some plaintiffs. He’d adopted a sensible wait-and-see attitude. Given some time, he was certain more women would materialize to file claims. Until then, he was ready to move forward with her suit to contest the ownership of Beautiful You patents.

  That was another reason to venture out tonight and have some fun. Tomorrow Penny would be confronted by the senior partners of BB&B and she’d be compelled to give her deposition.

  At the Yale Club, Penny admired the casual way Tad wore his tuxedo. He greeted some of the wealthiest people in New York as old friends. He was a keeper for sure. If only he didn’t keep pressuring her for vaginal intercourse. They’d done pretty much everything else, but Penny couldn’t risk hurting him. Nor did she care to explain her growing fear to him.

  Lost in these thoughts, she collided with another guest. A few drops of champagne were spilled, but no permanent damage was done. The tall, bearded man looked familiar.

  “You are Penny Harrigan, no?” He offered his hand. “I am Pierre Le Courgette.”

  It was the prizewinning novelist who’d been dating Alouette at the time of her death.

  “It was very sad,” he said.

  Penny squeezed his arm. “You must miss her very much. She was so lovely.”

  Wistfully, he replied, “Do not be mistaking me. We were not intimate lovers.”

  Penny waited for him to say more.

  “We tried many times,” he admitted, “but I could not know her in that way.”

  Dread washed over Penny. She pictured the blood gushing from her attacker’s erection in the subway.

  “Something … inside my Alouette,” he began, but his voice trailed off in misery.

  Penny risked finishing his confession. “Did something jab you?”

  “Jabbed?” he asked, confused by the word in English.

  “Like a harpoon,” she coaxed. “Something impaled your penis.”

  His eyes flashed with understanding. “Oui!” he cried. “Mon dieu! It was hidden there, inside her chatte. She was convinced that Maxwell had left some tool inside her, although the doctors could find nothing.” He reached to grip her by the elbow and steady her, saying, “My dear, what do you know of Alouette’s condition?”

  Penny reeled. The room spun. Was this the secret Alouette had planned to tell her over lunch?

  At this Tad materialized and slipped an arm possessively around her waist. “I think it’s bedtime for somebody.” He held her so close she could feel his erection through the thin fabric of his tuxedo pant leg.

  There it was again. He was pressuring her for sex. Just out of her growing irritation Penny was almost ready to let Tad take that dangerous chance.

  The following day, on the sixty-fifth floor, seated in a conference room where she’d delivered so many extra chairs in the past, Penny gave her deposition. The only employee of the firm not present was Monique. Poor Monique was still barricaded behind her bedroom door. Otherwise, Penny faced associates and partners on all sides. Their expectant eyes scoured her for traces of falsehood. Any nervous tic might suggest she was lying. A microphone collected her words as she described the first night Maxwell had filled her with the pink-champagne douche. A stenographer scribbled notes as quickly as Max had.

  The majority of her coworkers listened, spellbound. Their jaws hung in disbelief as she haltingly described the process by which Maxwell had battered her cervix to racking spasms of fulfillment.

  Periodically, Brillstein fired off questions to challenge her. “Miss Harrigan, you said earlier that Mr. Maxwell placed a hand inside your vaginal orifice. How is that possible?”

  The memory shocked and excited Penny. With the entire firm watching, she stammered, “I don’t know.”

  “Take your time, sweetheart,” Tad assured her. He gave her a wink and a quick thumbs-up. “You’re doing great!”

  Relentlessly, ruthlessly, Brillstein continued. “Would you say, Miss Harrigan, that your anatomy was especially suited for such extensive exploration?”

  Penny bridled. “Are you asking if I’m a slut?”

  “I’m inquiring,” Brillstein sneered, “whether you contributed any unique abilities to the research process.” He said unique as if it were a dirty word.

  “There were times I almost died,” Penny shot back. She tried not to fidget under his penetrating gaze.

  “From the pain?” Brillstein hated her.

  “Not exactly.” With eyes in every direction, the only safe place for Penny to look was the floor.

  Brillstein redirected. “You mentioned how Mr. Maxwell had made an exhaustive study of all things erotic.…”

  In turn Penny told them what she could remember about the various swamis and courte
sans Max had mentioned. She described Baba Gray-Beard, Max’s primary mentor, and how the great woman lived high in the Himalayas in a hermit’s cave, where he had sought her out. Penny related how the ancient teacher had mentored her billionaire student in erotic techniques that dated back to the dawn of human evolution. Penny did not mention Clarissa Hind and how the doomed president had urged Penny to also seek out and study with the fabled crone. Why drag the tormented president’s memory through this?

  Again, Brillstein interrupted her. “If my questions seem antagonistic, Miss Harrigan, please understand that I’m doing you a great favor. The counsel defending Mr. Maxwell won’t be any easier on you.”

  Penny steeled herself. Shoulders squared, chin held high, she waited.

  His eyes leered. “You’re saying that you allowed Mr. Maxwell to anally stimulate you in a posh French chow hall?” Brillstein was grilling her with relish. His gaze was dissecting her body the same way so many wealthy strangers had tried to analyze her sensual secrets at Parisian parties. His clear assumption was that she was a deranged nympho in the sack.

  In icy tones she replied, “Maxwell and I were coresearchers.” She sensed he was preparing to fire his big guns. Despite the steady incoming rush of air-conditioning, the conference room felt like a sauna. Men pulled at their collars and loosened their ties. The few female associates seemed to swoon in empathy with her, fanning themselves with whatever legal documents were at hand.

  “Is it true”—Brillstein consulted his notes—“that on the date of April seventeenth, between the hours of seven and eight p.m., you affirmed to Mr. Maxwell that you’d enjoyed forty-seven distinct orgasms brought on by what you now refer to as ‘research’?”

  Penny stiffened. It was true, but there was no way Brillstein could have those numbers. She hadn’t mentioned them. He could only know those details if he’d conferred with Maxwell himself. The realization chilled her: Brillstein was secretly allied with Max.