Beautiful You: A Novel

by Chuck Palahniuk

  To prove product number 241, he was on the prowl for a larger woman. Vaginal tissue was wonderfully absorbent, and to exploit that aspect of it, Maxwell had invented the Burst Blaster, a vibrator containing as many as four internal cavities. Each functioned as a reservoir which could be filled with fluid, and the operator could program the device to release measured amounts during use, be it coffee for a quick pick-me-up, or cough syrup for something more euphoric. Even antibiotics. Or an essential oil for extra lubrication as needed. The tip of the vibrator would spout at the desired time. To prove its efficacy, he approached a lone mother and initiated small talk. To cut her from the pack of other mothers, he complimented her appearance. The strategy proved successful, and soon he’d sequestered her in an otherwise unoccupied kindergarten classroom.

  “ ‘There among the caged gerbils,’ ” he read, “ ‘I wooed the test subject.’ ”

  Her eyes closed, listening, Penny sighed. She knew product number 241 very well. Its caffeinated secretions had helped her stay present on many long nights of endurance testing.

  “ ‘Despite her body mass index, the test subject had exhibited an enthusiastic response to the device.’ ” As usual, Maxwell’s voice was monotone. His delivery deadpan. “ ‘Once application of the appliance began, the subject inexplicably shouted the name Fabio at regular intervals.’ ”

  Penny smiled at his apparent failure to grasp the cultural reference.

  “ ‘The test subject’s heart rate accelerated rapidly to a hundred and fifty-seven bpm,’ ” Max read. “ ‘Her skin conductivity increased dramatically.’ ” He paused to turn a notebook page. “ ‘It must be noted here that the scientist conducting this experiment had great difficulty in maintaining full possession of the product. Test subject thirty-eight ninety-one displayed enormous pelvic strength and was determined to usurp the device and complete the procedure on her own.’ ”

  Penny pictured this. Some lonely woman wrestling with pale, scrawny Maxwell over control of a squirting sex toy. A caged gallery of hamsters and rabbits docilely witnessing these antics.

  “ ‘It was at the zenith of her climax—respiration twenty-five breaths per minute, blood pressure one seventy-five over one-oh-two—that test conditions were radically altered.’ ” Deciphering his own faded shorthand, Maxwell read, “ ‘While application of the product was an unqualified success, the testing location failed to provide adequate privacy.’ ”

  Someone had walked in on them.

  “ ‘The elders of the church school,’ ” Max affirmed, “ ‘entered unannounced. Apparently alerted by the din of our procedure.’ ”

  In a scientific aside, he noted, “ ‘For the record, the test subject must’ve boasted an exceptionally large corpus spongiosum. Upon the entrance of additional parties to the scene, she expelled a copious stream of ejaculate from her urethra, thoroughly drenching them.’ ”

  He briskly rapped his hairless knuckles against Penny’s hypersensitive clitoris, a technique that drove her near to madness. Penny giggled softly. The poor test subject in Bakersfield, she’d spewed fluids all over the leaders of her religious charter school. Penny hoped it was worth the short-lived pleasure Maxwell’s toy had provided. But knowing firsthand the power of the Burst Blaster, Penny suspected the woman had never regretted her furtive encounter.

  The majordomo entered the penthouse bedroom carrying a silver tray. Lolling among the satin pillows and soft folds of the sheets, Penny accepted a flute of champagne. Taking a sip of the icy, thrilling wine, she tossed her head and gestured toward the book that lay open across his knee. “Read me another,” she begged.

  Injury and exhaustion weren’t the only factors that impeded Maxwell’s testing. When Penny’s monthly period arrived, he took it in stride. Seeing her shake with cramps, her stomach bloating, Maxwell came to her aid with tablets of morphine and tiny cordial glasses of sweet sherry. She dozed in a twilight half-sleep, unaware of anything except him sitting near her, reading aloud from his notebook.

  “ ‘Test subject number thirty-eight twenty-eight,’ ” he announced. “ ‘Location: Lower Manhattan, Zuccotti Park. Date: September seventeenth, 20—.’ ” He described seducing a young idealist who’d arrived only days before from Oklahoma to participate in the Occupy Wall Street event.

  “ ‘She gave her age as nineteen,’ ” he continued, “ ‘a fact I asked that she confirm with her driver’s license, as I had no desire to skew any statistical patterns with data garnered from not fully formed, preadult genitalia.’ ”

  The scene had been late at night. While the majority of protesters slept, Maxwell had introduced the test subject to Beautiful You product number 223, the Love Lizard. It was a simple but brilliant telescoping tongue extender. A silicone tongue prosthesis calibrated to augment reach during oral coitus and engage vigorous contact with the cervix.

  Even now, her mind drifting in drugged torpor, Penny recalled the clever novelty device and how it enabled Maxwell’s relatively stunted oral appendage to access her to an astounding depth. At the memory of his attentions, she writhed with unfettered lust.

  “ ‘In a symbolic act of political street theater,’ ” Maxwell read, “ ‘the test subject requested that the scientist conducting the experiment chain her spread-eagled to the security gates of the Bank of America Building.’ ”

  The image played vividly in Penny’s drugged imagination. The girl was nude in the moonlight, her smooth limbs bound wide apart. Test subject 3828 offered herself as this youthful sacrifice on the altar of capitalism. Maxwell knelt at her feet and adjusted the tongue extender to its full functional length. He cupped his gaping mouth over her pubis.

  “ ‘The trick was to wag the tongue,’ ” he read, “ ‘as if singing. To avoid tiring the muscles of the mandible, don’t hold the jaw rigid. After only a brief application of the product, the test subject expressed her approval by shouting, “I’m giving my body to you, the ninety-nine percent!” ’ ”

  Maxwell recounted how such outcries had lured a throng of bearded radicals, all eager to participate in the test. “ ‘With only a brief tutorial,’ ” Maxwell recited from his notes, “ ‘all present were able to successfully operate product number two twenty-three.’ ”

  To Penny the boundaries between fantasy and reality evaporated. Awash in morphine dreams, she felt herself tongued by legions of hirsute political activists. Maxwell’s voice threaded through a hallucination where a team of New York riot police arrived on the scene. Faceless behind the Kevlar shields of their helmets, they unsheathed their batons and menaced the test subject’s nude, shameless form.

  “ ‘Once testing was complete,’ ” Maxwell concluded, “ ‘the subject appeared self-conscious and professed to having ingested an unspecified amount of the drug commonly known as LSD. She requested the shackles be unlocked and asked for a sum of money sufficient to cover one-way airfare to Tulsa.…’ ”

  Olympic training camps. Unsuspecting book clubs. Quilting circles. It was in all of these places Max found test subjects, and it was into this elite sisterhood that Penny had entered.

  After Maxwell’s umpteenth reprimand for faking an orgasm, Penny found herself doing the opposite. She held back her reaction to his efforts. No matter how Maxwell labored to please her, she began to withhold her usual squealing confirmation of his genius. Clearly she was punishing him, but Penny didn’t care. She’d grown resentful. In Max’s world she felt like nothing more than an instrument whose only purpose was to register the degree of his success.

  One night he was testing a pair of nipple clamps on her, subjecting her to low-voltage fluctuations that shot sine waves of excitement up and down her spine, branching out along her arms and legs. Sparks of electric ecstasy shot out the ends of her fingers and glowed from the crown of her head like a halo. Throughout the entire pleasing ordeal, Penny willed herself to remain quiet. She tried to distract her own attention with thoughts about the few bar exam questions she could still recall. She willed herself to silently recite the Gettys
burg Address, word for word.

  Without a warning, he deactivated the batteries and made a point of unceremoniously removing the clips from her nipples. Before he spoke, Maxwell wrapped the wires in a tidy bundle and set the apparatus aside. Only then did he confront her. “You’re angry at me, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t blame me,” Penny replied. “This gadget of yours must be a dud.”

  “A dud?” He snorted a laugh. Squinting at the notes he’d jotted in his book, he said, “Miss Harrigan, your pulse was a hundred and eighty beats per minute. Your anal temperature was a hundred and three degrees Fahrenheit. If this ‘gadget’ were any more effective, it would give you a coronary or a fatal brain embolism.”

  The last time Penny saw Alouette D’Ambrosia in person was at a cocktail party in the Rue St. Germaine. The actress had been escorted by a handsome novelist, Pierre Le Courgette, the winner of that year’s Nobel Prize for literature. They made a striking couple. She lost track of them, but near the end of the get-together Alouette approached her. Glancing around nervously the French beauty asked, “Where is Max?” Without waiting for an answer, she whispered, “I was wrong not to confide in you. We must be allies, you and I. If we are not, we are both in gravest danger.”

  This was the first time the two women had met since the incident with the married stones. The Frenchwoman looked starved, like a leathery husk of her former self. There wasn’t a whiff of booze on her breath, but she was obviously agitated. The heavy sapphire that hung around her neck glowed against her flushed cleavage. “He will spoil you for other men.” Maxwell had entered from a door at the far end of the salon. As usual, his head was bowed as he took notes in his book. He’d yet to catch sight of Alouette as she insisted, “The sisterhood of us, all his castoff lovers, we are his harem around the world.”

  Tensing as Maxwell grew nearer, she said, “I am nominated for a new Oscar, so I must be there, but next month we will talk more deeply, no?”

  Penny stammered, “I’d like that.” The sensation of Alouette’s lovely mouth against her came to mind unbidden.

  “You will not like what I have to say,” warned the actress. Nevertheless, the look she gave Penny was warm. “We will be bosom friends, no?” As Maxwell wandered closer, she kissed Penny on both cheeks and hurriedly returned to her own escort.

  Without taking his eyes off her undulating body, Maxwell pulled open a drawer of the bedside table. He lifted out something and held it to one eye like a mask. It was a video camera, and he panned slowly up and down her nakedness.

  Penny wasn’t afraid. On some level she knew she was safe. If these images were ever made public Maxwell stood to suffer more embarrassment than she did. Many mornings she would wake to find him preparing a new device for her enjoyment. While softly twisting a new toy into her, he’d explain the ancient sex magic rituals of the Sudanese tribesmen. There were more basic tools. Soft pink versions of medical clamps that would spread her buttocks and hold them apart for his leisured convenience.

  Scanning her through the lens, he said, “Good girl, don’t struggle. There is no film in the camera.” He assured her, “I merely want you to feel as if you’re under observation.” Whether or not he was actually documenting her, Penny savored the fact that someone was paying her so much regard. She wondered whether all of his test subjects had loved the attention as much as (or even more than?) the physical sensations he prompted.

  During the day sunlight fell on the bed from tall windows, and Penny snuggled under the smooth sheets, naked, nibbling on a brioche, sipping a latte, and studying her old textbooks on tort law. These days the fashion houses brought their clothes to her. The designers themselves fitted her. If she insisted, Maxwell took her out to the symphony or the theater; otherwise she seldom left the penthouse.

  Beautiful You would launch in another month, and she wondered whether Max would have further need for her. She didn’t delude herself. As demonstrated by his elaborate coldness he’d never loved her. It had been sufficient to have someone who could read her needs so intuitively. Often Max dismissed the team of massage therapists and treated her himself. He could stroke her tense muscles and know exactly her mood. He listened as closely to her breathing as he did to the words she spoke.

  Maxwell had come to know her so well that Penny seldom needed to speak.

  Here was a man who found her intensely fascinating, and who delighted in guiding her to peaks of aliveness she had never dreamed existed. He savored and appreciated her.

  Billions of people were watching him—the wealthiest, arguably the most powerful man in the world—and he was watching Penny. The gaze of his camera, the scratched shorthand of his notes, they imbued her life with even more value. Under his watchful eye she felt secure. Cherished. But, no, not loved.

  Two weeks before the rollout of the Beautiful You product line, Max abruptly froze in the middle of lovemaking. With a resigned slowness he carefully withdrew the current apparatus from her and laid it on the bedside table. Pulling off his latex gloves, he said, “You’re of no further use to me.” He lifted his notebook. “The integrity … the authenticity … the truth of your reactions have become too compromised.”

  As he made his notes, he checked the time on his wristwatch. “My jet is already prepped. You’ll find that your clothes and personal items have all been packed, and your luggage is already aboard, waiting for you.”

  Maxwell turned to her, her head still cradled in the white satin pillow. He pressed two fingers to the side of her neck and timed her pulse. “The pilot is instructed to take you anywhere in the world you desire.” Penny had no chance to protest. She had yet to even close her legs.

  He wrote down the last statistics of her heart rate and temperature. “I’ve deposited fifty million dollars in a numbered Swiss bank account for you. I will wire you the details for accessing it, if you agree to never contact me again.” To underscore his commands he looked at her. “You must never speak of our experience together or I will block your access to those funds.”

  A forever of silence passed. Despite his icy demeanor she sensed Max’s little-boy heart was breaking.

  “Do you understand?” he asked finally.

  Blinking back tears, pulling her knees together, Penny didn’t answer. She was surprised by the suddenness of the rejection.

  “Do! You! Understand?” he shouted. The fury of his words broke her shock and she nodded her head.

  “Test subject unresponsive,” he muttered over his work. There was no mistaking it. His voice sounded choked with grief.

  Penny curled onto her side, facing away from him. It was over. It had been a dream to be Cinderella, but now it was time to wake up.

  “Please know that you’ve made a significant contribution to the development of the Beautiful You line,” his voice continued, a droning. “As a token of my appreciation I’ve placed a small gift aboard the jet. I hope it will meet with your approval.”

  Penny felt the bed shift. His weight left the mattress. She listened as his bare feet crossed the carpeted floor. “You will leave my house within the hour.” The bathroom door closed.

  It had been exactly 136 days.

  Aboard the Gulfstream, Penny found a small ribbon-wrapped box in the only seat that wasn’t heaped with heavy suitcases and garment bags. She’d been hustled from the penthouse so quickly that she wore nothing except a floor-length chinchilla coat and a pair of Prada high heels. Alone in the quiet cabin, she lifted the gift and held it in her lap as she fastened her seat belt and the pilot announced takeoff.

  After they were airborne, she slipped the ribbons from the box and lifted the lid. Inside was a thin gold chain. When she lifted it out, a ruby swung from the lowest point. It was the ruby that Maxwell had always worn in a ring, reset as a pendant, the third-largest Sri Lankan ruby ever mined. Sharing the box was a bright pink plastic dragonfly. Its wings were thick and soft, printed with the curlicue Beautiful You logo. Penny inspected its antennae and the underside of its plastic body.

>   The dragonfly-shaped souvenir was a sex toy. The mass-produced version of a prototype Max had tested on her several times. She’d never grown tired of the effects the little flapping wings had generated. Those unfettered sessions were among her most intense memories, and the sight of the device made a blush rise in her cheeks.

  A trust fund of fifty million dollars. Enough clothes to fill a department store. No, Penny told herself, she hadn’t been too mistreated. As she fastened the chain around her neck and felt the weight of the frigid ruby between her warm breasts, she slipped the plastic dragonfly into the pocket of her coat and began to plan the first day of her new life. Within reach, an open bottle of champagne bubbled in an ice bucket. The flight attendant poured her a glass and turned off the cabin lights at Penny’s request.

  As she sipped the dry sparkling wine, she felt a twinge of sadness in remembering how, just months before, the taste had been a special treat. Between the multiple pounding orgasms and the champagne, life with Max had spoiled her rotten.

  She was spoiled but not despairing. If anything, she felt excited about the future. Tonight she’d need something more than champagne to help her fall asleep.

  Once she was sure the flight crew wouldn’t see, she opened the front of her coat and slipped the dragonfly between her legs, settling it snugly in place. She’d watched Max do this dozens of times. As a special selling feature, he’d designed the toy to automatically warm itself to the perfect temperature. Even without looking she felt the button that activated it.

  She wondered how he would fill his time once Beautiful You was launched. Maybe he was already planning new additions to the product line. Maybe he’d find another girlfriend with “ideal” genitals on which to test his prototypes. Someone who didn’t hesitate in expressing her arousal.

  Girlfriend was the wrong word. More like guinea pig.

  In the inky blackness high above the Atlantic, Penny poured herself a second glass and lay back to enjoy the delicious pulsations between her thighs.