Lippincott nodded. "My wife's fine and your associate, Dr. Beers, stays here all the time now to take care of her. It couldn't be better."
"And you?" she asked.
He reached mockingly for her breast. She leaned back and his hand closed on empty air.
"Elena," he said. "I'm randy as a billy goat."
"Not bad for a man your age," she said. She had filled the hypodermic with the clear liquid from the vial.
"Not bad?" he said. "Good. Good for a man any age."
She took his left arm, and wiped the inside of his elbow with a cotton pad saturated in alcohol. As she inserted the tip of the needle, she said:
"Well, just remember, before you go spreading the joy around to every nubile woman in your employ, you're not shooting blanks anymore. Be careful or you'll have more Lippincotts running around than you know what to do with."
"Just one," he said. "Just one will be fine."
He smiled as the needle punctured his skin and he could imagine a glow of health and well-being as the clear liquid was injected into his veins.
Dr. Elena Gladstone injected the fluid slowly, pulled the plunger back out to dilute the fluid with Lippincott's blood, then slowly injected the mixture back into his arm.
"There you are," she said as she withdrew the needle. "Good for another two weeks."
"You know, I just may outlive you," Lippincott said to the woman. He rolled down his sleeve, buttoned his cuff and put his jacket back on.
"Maybe," she said.
61
He carefully buttoned all three buttons of his jacket. Elena Gladstone had nice breasts, he decided. Funny, he hadn't noticed before. And the swell of her hip and the long line of her thigh were something, well, they were something he could do something about. Without attempting to appear casual, he walked to his office door and locked it, once with the button lock, and twice by turning the key.
When he turned back, Dr. Gladstone was smiling at him and she had a wide lovely mouth of beautiful teeth and a warm smile, and a man could do something with a smile like that and she seemed to sense it. She knew what he was thinking because she began to open her rust colored blouse, but before she could, Elmer Lippincott Sr. sped his eighty-year-old body across the room to her, lifted her roughly in his strong arms, and carried her to the blue suede leather couch in his office.
Upstairs in Elmer Lippincott's bedroom, his wife Gloria stirred. She stretched languidly in her sleep, then slowly opened her eyes. She turned to her right, saw that her husband was not in bed, then checked the clock on the small marble table near her bed. She smiled and reached out her hand for a button on the table and pressed it.
Twenty seconds later, a tall dark-haired man with light green eyes entered the bedroom through a side door. He was wearing a tee shirt and blue slacks.
Gloria Lippincott looked at him with expectation.
"Lock the doors," she said.
He locked all the bedroom doors, and turned back to her.
"I want an examination, Doctor," she said.
62
"That's why I'm here," said Dr. Jesse Beers with a broad smile.
"An internal," Gloria Lippincott said.
He nodded again.
"As I said. That's why I'm here." As he walked toward her, he began opening his trousers.
Back downstairs, Elmer Lippincott zipped up his trousers and put his jacket back on.
"So that's how young you feel," Dr. Elena Gladstone said. "Mmmmmmimn."
"Exactly," he said. "And I owe it all to clean living, good diet and . . ."
"And a healthy dose of erotic juices from the Lifeline Laboratory," the redhead said. She stood up from the blue couch and smoothed her skirt around her hips.
"I give my money away to every dipshit cause that anybody asks me to donate to," Lippincott said. "Your lab's the first one that ever did me any good."
"Our pleasure," she said.
The intercom buzzer rang on the phone on Lippincott's desk, and he walked quickly over to the receiver.
"Yes," he said.
"I'm thinking of you, dear," said Gloria Lippincott.
"And me of you," said Lippincott. "How do you
feel?"
"Fine," his wife said. She giggled slightly.
"What's so funny?" Lippincott asked.
"Dr. Beers. He's giving me an examination."
"Is everything all right?"
"Oh, it's fine. Just fine," Gloria said.
63
"Swell," said Lippincott. "You be sure to do just what the doctor tells you."
"You can count on that," said Gloria. "Anything he says, I'll do."
"Good, and I'll see you in a little while for lunch."
"Bye, bye," Gloria said as she hung up.