Free The Grief Team by David Collins

grotesque.  
    Already she had served the Mayor in more ways than one for, poised atop that mountain of flesh like a cherry on top, at seventeen years of age, Ferria d’Mont had experienced a depth of orgasm that even her contraband Male Substitute couldn’t provoke.  She was experiencing the first adult delights of her true nature and, come Revelation Night, Ferria was planning a Personal Listing in the Chronicle that would go a long way towards satisfying everything she wanted to experience.  And she’d be happy to start with sneaking into Countdown to Horror if only the Mayor would turn a blind eye; unfortunately, a rather unlikely prospect. 
    “The Craft Centre people worked all night on her,” said Ferria, walking quickly to the Mayor’s side as he and the producer returned. The man had finally uncoiled his grip on the Mayor and he slithered away, his mission accomplished.
    “What?”  The Mayor was in an ebullient mood. Granting favours always brought out the best in him.
    “I was answering your question.  You said that you thought Rhonda was dead.”
    “I thought she was dead!”
    “She’s not.  Apparently there is a problem with the inflatable bladders that they use. The foreman says that sometimes the rubber they get has been reconstituted so many times that it becomes unreliable.  They want new supplies moved higher up on the Zone Exchange. Do you want to do that?”
    “What is it likely to cost us?”
    Ferria frowned.  “Only the Deutsches have better rubber than we do.  They know that, so the price will be high.”
    “How high?”
    Ferria pulled out her screen and tapped the touch-sensitive pad twice. She read her notes and quickly pecked at the numbers. “The technicians are asking for one metric ton of rubber compound. The Deutsches are likely to ask for three sixpacks of embryos but we’ll get it for two because they owe us for providing the sampling mechanism on their joint venture in the Celtic oil rig in the North Sea.”
    “Two sixpacks. Twelve embryos. Nordics, I assume.”
    Ferria smiled.  “You assume correctly.”
    “What the hell,” the Mayor said, attempting to paste an errant curl with saliva against his forehead, “two sixpacks is reasonable to keep Rhonda’s Fan Club off my back. Put it just below hemorrhoid cream and the new pump for the air circulation system in Oakville Place. We have to have that soon before everyone dies of carbon monoxide poisoning.”
    “It’s already being installed. I told you that yesterday evening.”
    Elias smiled and took her left hand, clasping it warmly between his own. It was like wrapping a bird in warm, moist dough. “I was too busy with you yesterday evening,” he growled.  “Maybe I misheard what kind of pump you were referring to.”
    Ferria laughed, removing her hand gently as she did so. Public displays of affection from the Mayor were still a little disconcerting, torn as she was between the shame of her attraction to those hectares of fat and the stabbing thrills of desires fulfilled. It was, she knew, one of the Seven Sexual Dilemmas (see endnote 5) that she had learned about in school, but learning about something was a lot different than actually experiencing it. Even after the tremendous build-up in the classroom about how great sex was and how the history books told of Mayor Dickie twinning the sexual experience and the social experience, permitting free expression of both, Ferria was a churning dichotomy of new experiences and emotions, almost afraid of her desires, yet learning to love the intensity. What she had felt at fourteen, she knew now, was not sexual fulfillment but sexual disadvantage. It was completely different at eighteen. The sudden impulse that she wanted the Mayor to seize and mount her right there on the cable-strewn floor of the studio almost overwhelmed her.
    ”I wonder if we might get a few extra minutes of screen time for you tonight? An interview with Wilson-Wilson? I know he’d like to