Free Sex and the High Command by John Boyd Page A

persuasive, I reckon you’d better throw in the hymen.”
    “I’ll have the hymen certified by a bureau doctor and present the certificate to you.”
    McCormick still looked dubious. Hansen felt the time had come for him to intervene in the matter. Speaking in a low but authoritative voice, he said, “McCormick, quit shilly-shallying. Stand up and volunteer!”
    McCormick stood up. “Gentlemen, I just had a conference with Captain Hansen and I got the word. If this John Pope brings me a doozy with a maidenhead, you boys have done got yourself a President.”

CHAPTER 6
    After the medal-awarding ceremony, the Navy men emerged to find darkness had fallen. As Hansen and the admiral waited for the commander to bring up the station wagon, Hansen, from long habit, checked the skies. Between a rift in the clouds he could see the stars, and he could feel their remoteness in the voids of space. The cold stars and the priesthood, the colored senator had said.
    Sensing his junior officer’s unease. Primrose said, “Captain, I know you’re a man who looks at facts, but these are hard to look at. It helps if you practice what the literary boys call a willing suspension of disbelief.”
    “I’m learning that tactic. Admiral, but one fact I can’t accept, no matter how hard I try, is that Senator Dubois will be the last manchild on the merry-go-round.”
    “Don’t ever,” the admiral said. “As old and as disinterested as I am, if there were one available woman left in the world with Honeysuckle Dubois and me, Meriweather Primrose would walk off with the prize.”
    “I was thinking more of my wife,” Hansen chuckled, “who is true-blue Navy. However, it seems to me that the government is making a mountain out of a molehill, and Secretary Lamar seems to agree with me.”
    “Lamar has a hidden ace… The whole situation sounds irrational,” the admiral agreed, “but, after all, it’s only our own rationality which gives order to the irrational… Hmm, that sounds like Ogie.”
    “Ogie?”
    “Oglethorpe Pickens, the Defense Secretary. Now, Captain, when we return to the BOQ, you’ll probably have a message to call your wife. Do so. Tell her you were brought here to receive a Presidential citation. Tell her you’ve been appointed to my staff, which you have been, effective since you tossed that idea on the table. You’ll be in Washington over the weekend. Express a longing to see her, but don’t discuss the subject of today’s meeting with her, other than your DSM. Never let her suspect that you know that she’s gone over to the other side.”
    “Helga hasn’t. Admiral.”
    “Good! Continue to believe that and you’ll find it easier to pretend.”
    In the station wagon, the admiral huddled in a corner of the back seat, lost in speculation and his huge raincoat. Hansen respected his silence until Primrose aroused himself to say, “Remember, gentlemen, no word around the Pentagon, tomorrow, about Operation Chicken Pluck.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    All three were silent as the commander steered the vehicle into the dinner-hour traffic, overpaying honors to the speed limit. Hansen could understand his preoccupation. Finally, the admiral asked, “Captain, what’s your estimate of the situation?”
    “A Navy man puts his trust in God and the High Command, but he has to believe in his family, too. My family is two girls, and women make up half the country. I’m still one hundred percent American.”
    “Yes, Captain. I’m a widower, but it must be shattering to realize your wife, daughter, or sweetheart, is an enemy.”
    In matters of policy, the admiral was supreme. In matters relating to Helga and Joan Paula, Hansen was the authority. His girls would never defect, he knew, but holding his disbelief in suspension, he went along with Primrose. “You’d think, Admiral, they’d have more gratitude after all the groceries and shoes we buy them.”
    “Gratitude is a two-edged sword. Remember Polonius.”
    Hansen was