"It's the place where they adjust mother nature's spine..."

He mixed the Manhattans, licked the swizzle stick and nodded approvingly at his work, handed me mine
and took a seat in his swivel chair at the desk.

Leaning forward, leering down the top of my boat neck blouse and staring at my cleavage, putting his
elbows on his knees, he said, "What I'm telling you must be kept confidential - or else. I have it on the
highest authority that this year, on the island, they will be doing some experimental tuning at the gear
wrench site."

I looked at him with a blank expression. "The what kind of site?"

"Oh, that's right," he said, snapping his fingers and throwing up his other hand in mock surprise. "We've
been together so long I had forgtten you're a girl and you don't know these things - simply because of
discrimination against your gender!"

I sipped my drink, crossed my legs and smoothed my skirt. I knew we were in the deep shit this time.

He gets like this, usually in November when the air turns crisp and tangy, the harvest moon is gone and the
moon of the time when the animals rut returns.

Okay, you know about the island, don't you?

"Of course," I said, "it's the one thing around here that females who know they don't know know all about
and wish they didn't."

I shrugged, mindful that my tits were swaying back and forth in the lacy little French push-up bra I bought
when my muscle tone started to really go into high gear after the martial arts program began to take hold on
my body.

Yes, working for Smitty Mulholland had its perks. He'd turned me back into a clawing, scratching
FEMALE. What he called a "pure dee bitch," in that Okie accent he sometimes affected. "Bee-yitch."

I was ready for a fight, the kind where the combatants lead with their genitals and don't fear the
consequences. Somewhere, somehow, I dimly perceived that I was becoming - ah - dampened - and
relished the fact. My body shivered, starting at the base of my spine and going all the way to my skull. I
put a hand to my throat, breathed deeply.

He grinned. Then he gave himself a quick "where was I" shake and leaned forward again to talk to me
some more.

"Okay, the island is up in the New Hebrides. It was a distant early warning radar tracking site back during
the ICBM ugliness of the space race, back in the fifties and sixties. Top secret. That's when they found it."

"Found what?"

"The seam. It's a place where you can pull back a very delicate skin on the earth's crust and there are - uh -
well - this set of gears under there. There is a special wrench and you turn those gears and it makes the
planet - well - you know - it adjusts the axis of the planet - just enough. They steer the orbit of the earth
from there. They can control the climate, bring on or stave off ice ages..."

I looked at him dead pan. You never knew with this prick when he was being serious or just having you on.
All I knew at that point was that I wanted to get drunk with him - again. I wanted him to fuck me long and
hard and fast. I wanted his baby, simply because I could look at his face and see precisely the kind of boy
he was when he was...oh, you know, before his voice changed, when he was one of the troops in their little
tribe, their little hunting party. You know the phase of human male development I'm talking about if you
have sons or you ever had a little brother, or if you're, if you're, you know - in lust with some dude.

Because that's what he was at moments like this. He was a dude!

He grinned at me. The bastard. The bastard! He knew he was broadcasting it at me, that mojo, that all-boy
magic, that little old cave man look they all get when they know they will score. Oh, I had been there
before.

I decided to play along. I like to play.

"What do the gears look like? Are they very big? What are they made out of?" I batted my eyelashes at
him.

"I'll show you if you are willing to dress up like a man and come on our next trip up there. It'll be our little
secret, just you and me."

I looked at the cluttered desk, the old portable typewriter, the grimy old fedora, the anachronistic 35 mm
Leica, stacks of manuscripts, dusty old racing forms. It was his office, the place where he went to work
nights, days, weekends, holidays - any time the mood struck him.

"It's the place where they adjust mother nature's spine," he said, grinning, saluting me with his drink before
he took a sip and shuddered from the pleasure it gave him. He shrugged, said it again, "Top secret."