A Gift in Disguise Ch. 08

Wow! Sharon had never struck me as the techie type, and I expressed my surprised admiration for her skill.

"I realized many years ago that even the real estate business was going to be able to take advantage of information technology, Tom. I have been taking classes fairly regularly at the community college. I figured it would be easier to learn to do the tech stuff myself than try and explain real estate to a nerd. So I became the nerd, I guess. Now, I've got to go. I see the doctor coming down the hall. Please load up the teleconferencing software - very soon!" She disconnected our call.

As I reflected on my conversation with Sharon, I wondered how Jamie's fitting session with Amanda had gone. While I thought about calling her to ask, I decided against it. Jamie would contact me when and if she had anything significant to discuss.

The rest of the week flew by. My master's thesis committee had all but signed off on it. In fact they seemed much more interested in my going into the doctoral program and working on a productive project in conjunction with the University's medical staff, particularly the University's new darling, Dr. Kim Geiler-Callaghan. It was if they were now treating my master's as a formality, a nuisance to be memorialized with the requisite piece of paper.

Thursday I called Lorraine to ask if she could arrange a mutually convenient time for her, Emily, and me to meet and talk out our concerns about my being present at their initial phallus session. Lorraine readily agreed and said she was sure Emily would, too. She promised to call me back after she spoke with Emily.

Early Friday afternoon I was headed back to my apartment when my cell phone rang. It was Jamie. After explaining that the prosthetic phallus fitting for Amanda had gone even more smoothly than expected, she recounted several phone conversations she'd had to see if we could address Kim's and Lorraine's suggestions that the next phallus, probably Amanda's, address their thermal and color change suggestions.

Jamie had been surprised at how easily and safely the phallus's "skin" composition could be chemically altered to change from the basic unexcited flesh color to erection dark red as the wearer became more sexually aroused. Even more surprising, she had learned from her NASA contact that an earlier version of the sealant we were using to make the phallus erect had been rejected by NASA because it was too exothermic. It gave off too much heat.

"So, Tom, to make a long story short, we may be able to implement Kim's and Lorraine's suggestions much more easily than we thought. The R&D has already been done by others, and the end products are already available. All we need to specify is the lower and upper temperatures, the temperature range, the desired rate and volume expansion of the sealant, and the color range from normal to hot."

"You're amazing, Jamie."

"Thanks, but not really. These are the types of suggestions that prosthetic design and manufacture engineers are used to fielding. Consequently, I pretty much know whom to ask and how to phrase the questions properly."

A thought flashed through my mind, so I asked, "Jamie, how much is all this costing you? I mean, this can't be cheap, right?"

"Thanks for being so concerned, Tom, but please don't worry. In preparing my lab's budget, I allocate a considerable amount for R&D stuff, stuff that often never produces a marketable product. But even from experiments that do not turn into a marketable product, I learn a great deal that can help me make improvements on existing products.

With the prosthetic phallus, I've already got most of the physical materials on hand. And I'm an inveterate scrounger, too. Like the sealant from NASA for example - they contracted for a substantial amount of each batch for their tests. When the early tests showed little promise, they declared the leftover product to be surplus. Because I'm a research lab under contract to DoD, I qualify to get surplus materials at no cost. All I have to do is generally account for how I use the material and certify that it is not being resold for profit. I've provided enough prosthetic research for DoD, so they know generally what my research is. And since I'm doing the work myself - meaning none of my employees are involved - there are no labor costs."

"So what's the next step?" I asked.

"My original thought was to cobble up a temperature sensor for Lorraine's penile polygraph. Before I did, though, I called Amanda to get some idea of the temperatures and their rate of change the machine would have to read. It turns out, Amanda already had access to the information.

Doctors have known for years that ambient temperature can significantly affect sexual arousal. As you might expect, moderately warmer and more comfortable temperatures stimulate it, whereas too cold or too hot diminishes it.

I didn't know it, but some years ago both urologists and OB-GYNs wondered if penile temperatures during arousal and orgasm might help predict or explain male impotence. A doctor named Hansen devised an electronic penile thermometer that could capture and store temperatures as data. The first version was wired, but subsequent versions were made to continuously monitor a patient's body temperature at the sensor location, then wirelessly transmit the data to the nearby receiving unit. The sensor is self-powered, self-adhesive, and about the size of a nickel. The receiving unit is self-powered and just a little larger than a cell phone. The sampling rate of the sensor is variable from once per second to three times per hour. The data is stored in the receiving unit. The data can be downloaded via a USB port from the receiver to a computer and displayed graphically on almost any common spreadsheet program. Obviously, the more frequent the samples, the more representative is the graph."

"So are you going to try and find one of these thermometers?" I figured with all her contacts, Jamie could if anyone could.

"I don't have to. Amanda has them at her office. But according to her, analysis of the data collected over several years from a statistically significant sampling of male patients never revealed a significant correlation between penile temperature and impotence. Essentially, though, Amanda already has access to reliable and currently valid data that can give us what we need to make the prosthetic phallus more realistic and pleasurable.

But Amanda still wanted to perform the test on me. She was curious to know how my penile temperature variations and rate of rise would fit the data from men in the earlier tests. I was kind of curious myself, so I agreed.

Amanda shaved a small patch of my pubic hair, then installed the sensor. After doing a quick functional operational test on the device, she had me masturbate myself to orgasm so she could graph the temps from initial arousal through decline after orgasm. All told, it took about twenty minutes. Then she removed the sensor. After I got dressed, she plugged the receiver into her computer, stored, and graphed the temperature data.

It was absolutely amazing, Tom. It had sampled and stored my temp every half second and graphed them in tenths of a degree Fahrenheit. And it turns out that my temperatures and their rates of change more closely resembled genitalia temperature changes which women undergo during arousal and orgasm. Just another bit of information to reinforce that I am a woman in spite of my anatomical variation."

"So the bottom line is that you either have or will soon have all the information you need to make the modifications Kim and Lorraine suggested?" I asked.

"Yes, and in fact, my NASA contact explained that we don't even need to use a different sealant material. Although NASA did come up with a sealant that was chemically different and better met its needs, it also determined that the old sealant's temperature could be regulated by changing the controlling voltage from direct current to a pulsed current. The pulse amplitude and duration allowed the temperature to be very closely managed. NASA preferred to stick with DC, but the chip we're using in the phallus can be easily adjusted to produce the required pulses.

"Will you be including the upgrades to temperature control and coloration into Amanda's phallus, or do you plan to retrofit Lorraine's or Kim's or both?"

"Definitely 'yes' on Amanda's. But as far as retrofitting Lorraine's and Kim's, I'm not sure yet. I think I want to talk with both of them more about that. I particularly want to hear Emily's and Marta's responses to the existing phalluses first."

Jamie's statement had ended with a decidedly unemphatic and uncertain sound to it, so I questioned her about it.

"You sound like something's bothering you. Do you have some concern about the phallus, or is it something else?" I asked.

"Yeah. It's the phallus temperature that just doesn't seem quite right. I deal all the time with the interface temperature between a prosthetic and the recipient. It's more important than people think. If the prosthetic gets noticeably hot or cold, it becomes very uncomfortable for the wearer. That's why we try to insulate the interface between the wearer's body and the prosthetic - to minimize temperature discrepancy sensations."

I gave it a little thought, then suggested, "This sounds like a thermodynamics issue."

There was a long silence from Jamie. I began to think I might have offended her, but I had also learned that on issues relating to physics and engineering, a long silence from her was usually more thoughtful. So I kept quiet.

Finally she spoke. "Tom, that's exactly right! I should've seen it sooner.

The phallus temperature is important, but only to the extent that both the wearer and the receiver perceive it to be natural. It's pretty easy to make it feel natural for the wearer, but even if it feels warm to the wearer, it may feel like a flame or an ice cube when it's inserted into the recipient's vagina.

That's the gap I didn't see. I'm such an idiot. I'm used to designing and building prosthetics that only the wearer feels; I've never had to think about how it also feels to someone other than the wearer. But the prosthetic phallus affects two people, not just one.

Crap! My ignorance is a darned serious setback."

Jamie sounded both dejected and disgusted with herself.

"Wait a second, Jamie. Why is it such a serious setback?" I wasn't just trying to comfort her; I was also not seeing the challenge at the same magnitude she was. Fortunately, she recognized I was trying to help and not minimize the challenge facing us.

"Tom, I'm sure in your engineering classes you've had to work through problems where you had to chain the thermodynamic properties of numerous materials together to arrive at some figure of the thermal conductivity of the aggregate of the materials. How long did it take you to do the math?"

"But Jamie, it seems to me there's a simpler way for us to proceed with the phallus.

Look, we've already got its basic design. We know we can push an electric current through NASA's sealant to cause controlled expansion and produce an erection. And from what you've said, we no longer have a heat generation problem; we have a heat management control problem. Do we really need to define what we're doing mathematically just to fit a formula? Especially since each phallus will have to be tailored to each individual wearer anyway?"

"Fair points, Tom, but what's your alternative way to proceed?"

Her question caused my mind to flash back to the colored CT images she had used to display the effects of orgasm on the brain. It took me a moment to figure out why that image had popped into my head.

"Maybe. You used the CT scans to create a visual depiction of our orgasms, a picture of how our brain is involved in an orgasm.

Could we also produce a similar depiction of the thermal properties of a human penis during arousal and orgasm, then experiment with the phallus until we replicate the thermodynamic properties of the human penis in the phallus?"

Once again, Jamie's thoughtful silence roared like a fighter jet engine through the phone lines.

Then, "Thermography! Thermal imaging! You're brilliant, Tom!" Her uncontrolled excitement exploded.

Actually, I hadn't been thinking of thermography, but the instant she said the word, I knew she was right on the mark.

Jamie was clearly on a roll now, so I just kept quiet.

"I should've seen it sooner," she said excitedly. "You're absolutely right, Tom.

We need to talk with Amanda to see if any of her colleagues have used thermography to visually observe sexual excitation and orgasm. If they have, we'll ask her to get their research results."

"And if they haven't...?" I asked.

Without missing a beat, Jamie said, "Then I know right where to go to borrow a portable ultrahigh definition and resolution medical thermal imager. We'll do the research ourselves.

In fact, I think that might be a better idea than relying on any previous medical research methodology. We should review the studies to learn what they did, how they did it, and what worked and what didn't, but we should still do our own independent research.

Then once we've TI'd your erection and mine and compared their thermal patterns and intensities, we'll have a comparison standard to design the phallus against. That will point us toward whatever changes we need to make in the phallus so that it will feel like a human penis rather than like a piece of electrified plastic, to borrow your term, to the wearer.

Any ideas on a simple way to identify the changes needed in the phallus, Tom?"

I could tell from her lighthearted tone that she wasn't really expecting me to instantly come up with a solution, but in fact, one had occurred to me.

"Maybe, Jamie. You said NASA had rejected the earlier version of sealant, the one your contact is sending to you, because it was too exothermic when a constant DC voltage was applied, right?" I didn't wait for her answer. "So what if we replace our present sealant with the new stuff when you get it, then set it up in your lab to subject it to a pulsating DC current while we view it with the thermal imager? We adjust the DC pulse width and amplitude until we get the phallus's thermal image to match your and my erection and orgasm TIs as closely as possible. Since the TIs represent the heat conducted from the phallus to both the wearer and the recipient ..."

"... the phallus's 'feel' should seem more like a person's penis than the lump of electrified plastic that it is!" Jamie completed my thought.

"Exactly," I responded.

"Tom, your experimental solution will really save us a lot of time. In fact, I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to contact Lorraine and Emily and Kim and Marta and suggest they hold off on having sex with their phalluses until we've completed our experiments. If they go smoothly and as quickly as I expect, we should be able to modify both Lorraine's and Kim's phalluses to fix the color and temperature issues within a week, two at the most. In the meantime, they can continue to masturbate and make their observations using their pre-mod phalluses.

My NASA contact was overnight shipping the older surplus sealant to me, so it should be here Monday. I'll call Amanda as soon and you and I finish talking to see if she has access to a portable hi-res TI. If she doesn't, then I'll try and call my other contact tonight to arrange for her to loan me a portable hi-res TI and get it here by Tuesday or Wednesday if possible."

My curiosity overtook me, and I asked, "Where are you getting the special TI from if Amanda doesn't have one or can't get one?"

Jamie's answer was probably joking. At least I hoped so. "You don't need to know that, and if I told you, I'd have to kill you." She laughed. I did, too, but my laughter wasn't quite as sure as hers.

"So when you get the TI, where and when will we image ourselves? Your lab?" I asked.

"I'm thinking Amanda's office with its acoustic stimulation conditioning and audio-visual recording capability would be a better choice. We can send the thermal images directly to her computer, and she can transmit them to my lab's computer.

If you agree, Tom, I'll call Amanda and fill her in on what we propose to do."

I responded, "Sounds like a plan. Do it!"

Although my mind wanted to pay more attention to the prosthetic phallus project, I forced myself to focus exclusively on my master's thesis for the rest of the weekend. Somewhat to my surprise, by the end of the weekend I had finished and proofread the final draft.

Monday morning I stopped by Dr. Keller's office to ask Mrs. Marsh to schedule an appointment for me to meet with him and discuss my progress. Mrs. Marsh's attitude toward me had dramatically improved. I briefly explained that I had completed my final thesis draft and requested an appointment with Dr. Keller to work out a schedule to deliver the finished version copies and to schedule my oral defense of it. After looking at Keller's schedule, she very helpfully asked if I could return at 4 p.m. that same afternoon for a fifteen minute meeting. I readily agreed.

At 3:59 p.m. I appeared in front of Mrs. Marsh for my appointment with Dr. Keller. She announced me via telephone to him, then escorted me in.

In our preliminary conversation, Keller reminisced about his master's thesis and how it took weeks for him to hire a professional typist to use a typewriter prepare the final version without any typographic errors or erasures or white-outs. I passed on the temptation to ask what a typewriter was.

Instead, we simply agreed that I would print out five originals of my thesis from my computer's word processor on the same one hundred percent rag content, blue-line margined paper the university still required its grad students to buy at the student bookstore. I would also provide an electronic version with each copy. I would provide all the material to him in about two weeks, sooner if possible.

"Now, Tom, as to the timing of your thesis defense presentation. As you know, your committee has the option of waiving that requirement. I can't speak for the rest of the committee members, of course, but having seen the rough draft of your thesis, I would be very inclined to waive the oral defense requirement. I suspect that after reading your thesis, they will agree.

Assuming the other committee members agree but in lieu of an oral defense, I would hope that you and we could meet at some mutually convenient time and that you could fill them in on the project you will be working on with Dr. Klein and Dr. Geiler-Callaghan. Your master's thesis is a fortuitous introduction to that project. Would you be willing to do that?"

"Yes, of course," I answered without hesitation. "But if you and the other members of the committee choose that alternative, may I please be the one to inform Dr. Geiler-Callaghan? And I'm sure she would feel obligated to tell Dr. Klein as well."

"Excellent, Tom. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Once you've dropped off your print and electronic versions of your thesis, I'll have Mrs. Marsh personally deliver them to your other committee members. As soon as they've had an opportunity to digest it, we'll meet to decide whether to waive the oral defense. I'll let you know our decision as soon as possible."

We concluded our meeting, and I hurried back to my apartment. I couldn't wait to discuss the meeting with Jamie.

"Wow!" was her response after I recounted my meeting with Keller to her.

"So," I asked, "Do you think my committee will waive the oral defense?"

"Tom, your thesis chairman, the head of the electrical engineering department, would not have even told you about that possibility unless he was one hundred percent sure that every member of the committee would agree."