Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. (C) Copyright 2002. M.C. All Rights Reserved. All Reproduction for fee or profit forbidden. Copies of my stories can be downloaded from: </files/Authors/MikeC/> Send all comments and suggestions to MikeC@NSpace.net ============= James Part VIII. Lofty Goals Chapter 49 Saturday morning saw me busy stringing computer cables through the Wheel. I wanted Wireless Networking but its limited bandwidth was forcing me to add hardwired hubs to service the offices and the main display area. I also dropped a wire down to the main workshop where Sara and Amanda were getting ready to test the modifications that were made to Gyro 2. They had removed the huge coolant intake scoops that were slowing the boat by 10mph or more and replaced them with a single 2" diameter intake inside a V-shaped notch on the keel, 4 feet from the stern. Sara was double checking Brenda's calibration measurement from the laptop. "We'll start with this and work up if we need to." Amanda showed me the engine compartment, "We had a hell of a time getting this far though, Max was still working on this stringer strut yesterday to build up enough support for the keel." I could see the heavy fiberglass bridge that he had added around the opening. "But now the 2" opening matches the coupling to the cooling hoses so it simplifies things there." The other additions from the factory included a wicked-looking racing propeller and variable-assist hydraulics designed to give better control of the boat at the high speeds we were expecting. "Peter's really excited; they've got a lot riding on this. They have at most two seasons to try and gain market-share before the other manufacturers jump on the bandwagon. And a lot of their reputation is riding on it too." Sara started fiddling with the network connection on the laptop, "Oh great and powerful computer geek-person, I can't get on the Net!" as she pounded on the keys, "Peter's got this web-based Inviscid Flow calculator for us and I need it now!" "Sorry - I'm still just stringing the wires. It'll be an hour before you can get service." "Men!" Sara glared at me, "Good thing we have a more reliable source..." she pointed me in a chair and sat on my lap as she dialed the phone. "Hello, can I speak to Brenda please..." She leaned on me and nibbled on my ear while we waited. "Oh, hello, you came highly recommended as someone who gives great head..." Amanda burst out laughing and rolled around wheezing on the ground, "Er, do you have any free time? My girlfriends and I would like to book you for a few hours of good cunt nuzzling..." Sara started giggling as she held the phone out so I could hear. "Listen, you... you meanie!" Brenda said in a fierce whisper, "There're six guys here all coming on to me and all I need is for ONE of them to overhear you!" She paused, then softly, "But yes, I believe I can accommodate you and your friends on Monday..." Sara purred, "Then it's a date, lover... And your boyfriend wants to know if you have an opening for him..." "Hmmm, tell him it'll be tight, but I just might squeeze him in..." Brenda breathed. "Honey, we've asked our folks to come up tomorrow, you sure you can't come back then?" Sara continued. "No, we've got too much planned - I'll be up early afternoon on Monday. But I'll check with mine now and see if they want to go up anyways..." Brenda replied. "Do you know your flight number? We'll come pick you up!" "No, I'll manage. Just stay by the phone Monday!" "No problem, and sweetie, can you run some numbers on the computer for me? I need the Reynolds matrix and Bernoulli's integration for..." Sara rattled off a bunch of measurements and added, "Yes, that's 55 to 95, in 5 mph intervals, can do? And can you email them to me? The genius here says we'll be online in an hour. Thanks - we love you and miss you!" We added our kisses and goodbyes before hanging up. "So you want to go for a test cruise?" Amanda asked, "We're going to the house to pick Sherri and Celeste up." "Er, perhaps later, I'd better get the wiring done before I lose my job!" Sara kissed me, "Bet you miss the fringe benefits more!" She pulled Amanda down on me and helped me investigate the more tangible aspects of our benefits package. After giving their cute fannies a fond farewell caress I returned to my cables. I went around to the back where Max had his apartment, throwing another log onto the fire under the cold smoker as I passed it. "Max!" I pushed the door open, "Oh, hi Marjorie!" She was in a house dress and cooking at the range, "Er, I just have a question for Max, I'll come back later." "Oh pshaw, James," Marjorie scoffed, blushing just a little, "Come right in, it's not as if you're likely to be shocked by anything WE can do!" "Hello James," Max came in the room, clean shaven and smelling of cologne. "Marj has been making sure I eat breakfast before I start work." He looked at her tenderly and she smiled back. "Max, I was wondering if you'd like me to set up a computer here..." "James, you know I can't..." "Say yes, Max." Marjorie said, "Thank you James, it would be lovely. Max and I should get acquainted with the 21st Century," she looked at him and took his hand, "Because we intend to live every second of it." I snuck a wire into his living room and crimped the ends to the plug. "Max, what's that contraption you have in your workshop? It looks an awful lot like an airplane fuselage." "Yeah, Amanda found me this plan of a homebuilt which uses car engines. And I happen to have 2 decent VW air-cooled engines around, so I figured I'll build one and maybe Harry can use it. Or maybe we can take up a new hobby!" He smiled at Marjorie, "We've talked about touring the country before we got too old..." They convinced me to stay and I finished their breakfast as we talked about the marina and the Wheel. "You know the community center is looking at an addition and the RFQ is coming out Monday, do you think Celeste might want a crack at it?" "Let me work something out - I'm thinking the best bet is to join up with the contractors in town. They do good work and Celeste can consult with them. She shouldn't be designing independently until she gets her degree." I reminded her. "Yes, I agree," Marjorie nodded, "We'll have to help her get it as quickly as possible!" After my coffee I went back to the offices where Jules was working on the Internet with Nicole. "'Scuse please ladies, coming through!" I said as I crawled under the desks with the ends of the cables and started crimping the connectors on. "We've got 2 months before they peak." Jules continued, to Nicole, "What I plan to do is to sell in a month, at about 90% of fmv and then transfer to Peter's company. We'll buy short and get about 7% of the holdings, which should give us a..." She stopped, "Nicole, I think somebody is looking up my skirt." She peeked down and grinned, "I can hear your panting from up here!" "Lady! Who do you think you're talking to!" I said indignantly, "I wouldn't look up your skirt even if you had your sheer panties with the pink hearts on!" Jules started laughing and kicked her feet up, waving her sheer panties with the pink hearts at me. Suddenly she reached down and whipped them off, then she rested her legs on my shoulders and sat back, "Hmmm, when was the last time you worked for a pair of my panties?" She hiked her skirt up and scrunched down even further. "You still remember what you're supposed to do?" I kissed my way along her thighs. Then I looked up, "Can I borrow a flashlight?" She started cackling again and drummed her heels on my back. With a sigh I slipped back down to gave her light blond muff a wet kiss. "Oooh, oooh," Jules squirmed, "That's good sweetheart, mmmm... Nicole, gimme your hand... Ahhhh, oooh, oh my, oh my god!" She stroked my hair as she sighed and shook, "Mmmm, god J-James, you do all the wrong things and I j-just keep coming and coming! Ahhh! Oh my god! Oooooh!" She sighed as I gave her another long lick. "Mmm, that was good... Ahhhh..." She slumped in her seat, "Nicole... honey, where're you going?" "Going to change into a skirt." We managed to get very little done the next hour and I barely had time to hook up the network boxes before Gyro returned. They piled in the room and Amanda flopped down on Nicole, almost in tears. "Oh, the usual good news, bad news." Sara said at my look, "Good news is we cracked 80mph. Bad news is we almost got killed doing it." "I'm sorry..." Amanda whispered. "Oh we all know it's not your fault." Sara continued, "The boat was great until 75, then it porpoised and shimmied and, at 82 it kited and almost flipped over." "If I hadn't dropped the prop so low..." "It was cavitating like crazy, even at 70. No way you could tell." Sara shrugged. Nicole hugged and kissed her, "Hush... Don't think about it. Everybody's safe, you're fine, and that's the important thing." "And Mandie?" Sara said, "If it wasn't for you, we would've really been in trouble. You SAVED us!" Sara and Celeste went over and kissed her. Sherri took her hands and stood Amanda up, "You know, if you hadn't told me about it, I would've thought you did it on purpose. It scared the bejeesus out of me..." Sherri smiled, "And got me SO horny!" "No..." Amanda stared at her friend, "You are SO sick!" "It's like why people go for rides at the amusement parks!" Sherri giggled, and hugged Amanda, "But I always feel safe with you." They kissed, "OK?" "OK." Amanda whispered, "Love you..." "Love you too..." Sherri purred and gave her lips a little lick, then she looked around, "Are you guys waiting for something?" "We thought you two might start getting hot and heavy, we wouldn't want to miss that!" Jules dimpled. "But apparently WE missed out when YOU guys got 'Hot and heavy'!" Sherri retorted. "I have NO idea what you mean!" JulieAnn scoffed. "So why is Nicole down to her panties?" "Hey, don't get me involved! I was changing!" Nicole answered and crossed her legs over the damp spot. "Then why are YOUR panties on the desk, Jules?" Jules looked at them, "They're not MY panties!" she sniffed. "They were when you put them on this morning! Do you want proof?" Sherri reached out and Jules jumped back. "Hey, that's sexual harassment! James, stop her!" Jules hid behind me, "Besides I know somebody else who's got no panties!" She pointed and we all looked at Sara, whose un-pantied-ness I had discovered firsthand. Sara smiled, "Wanna bet?" She pulled up her dress and she had black bikini bottoms on. They were tight and molded her exquisitely. We all sighed when she dropped her skirt back down. "Hey, those are mine!" Amanda yelled, "Where'd you find them!" "Oh, in the cabin." Sara smiled, "Where you left them yesterday!" "And why are you wearing my stuff?" "Because," Sara grinned, "I was leaking - your crazy stunt got ME horny too!" She stroked Amanda's cheek, "Horny for you!" "I can't believe it!" Amanda shook her head, "I almost killed everyone and all you think about is sex!" She turned to Celeste, "And you? Did you get turned on with my stupidity too?" Celeste shrugged, "Ehh, you know me, I'm always horny for you..." "Arggh! I can't stand it! You're supposed to hate me and yell at me." "And instead everyone is telling you how much they love you." Nicole said tenderly as she tugged Amanda back on her lap. "Because we DO love you. And we don't like to see you unhappy." Nicole stroked her hair, "Especially not for doing all right things to save your friends!" Amanda sighed and curled up tighter. After a while, Amanda whispered, "Are you getting horny too? Why are your nipples hard?" as she reached for one and caressed it. "Mmmm," Nicole sighed, "Who wouldn't get excited with a beautiful, squirmy little girl in her lap? With the softest skin and the yummiest boobies!" She demonstrated with soft kisses and caresses. Then she kissed Amanda on the nose and said, "Feel better?" and at Amanda's nod, "Now what you have to do is to go and fix the boat so it behaves! Right?" "Nicole..." Amanda got REALLY squirmy, "Can we do this again? Later, I mean..." "Yes, honey..." Nicole smiled softly, "We'll do this, later..." They kissed again and Amanda raced off downstairs, hand in hand with Sherri and Sara. "Nicole..." I sighed as I slid on her, "Can we do it... NOW?" "Spare me!" She laughed as she dumped me on the floor. "Celeste and I are going back to town to get her ready for the taping." She looked at Jules, "Are you coming along?" "No..." Jules helped me up, "I'll stay..." she sighed as she hugged me, "He wants me to do something for him..." She leaned on me and kissed my cheek. "Well enjoy yourselves..." Nicole looked at us, "But you two had better start studying - next Friday is Exam day!" She smiled demonically, kissed us softly and left. We looked at each other. "Oh shit!" "I'm toast." I said. "I haven't cracked a book for ages!" "Me neither!" Jules sighed, "Do you think she'll give us an extension...?" "No!" We agreed. We went down to the boat and by their shell-shocked looks they also got the news. "I'm gonna flunk!" Amanda looked ready to cry again. "Don't worry!" Sherri said, "I'll study with you!" "And our folks are gonna be here all day tomorrow... And the boat..." Sara added gloomily, then paused, "Oh, wait..." She ran off. A minute later she returned with Max in tow, "OK, Max, you gotta help us out." She outlined the situation, then she took him to the boat, "The first problem is the coolant intake - there's barely 15 psi of pressure so we need to get that up by about 5 for insurance. "Second is the cavitation starting at 70. A lot of our problems stem from that... "And third, the instability and kiting. Max, can you help us on the first 2 problems? Oh thankyou-thankyou-thankyou." She kissed Max before he could answer, but he smiled and nodded. "You know what?" Amanda's eyes glinted, "I'll bet Brenda doesn't know about the exam yet..." "Oh, let the poor girl enjoy her last good weekend!" Sara sighed, then turned, "Sherri, we'll be busy, so you'll have to study up on Gyro 2, then work with Bren on the computer numbers." She blinked and dusted her hands, "So, that's that. Let's go study!" "We have a problem." I noted, "The books are THERE and the Internet is HERE!" "Let's go back to the Eyrie and save the research for later. We can work something else out if this doesn't pan out." Jules looked at me, "But I can see another problem..." "Food!" They all shouted. "OK - let me get lunch at the restaurant and you can..." I stopped. "No - change of plans. We'll bring the books here. And the manuals. Amanda and I should be able to handle it. You three stay and get things ready..." "And don't forget the food!" I yelled back as we took off for USS Dweebus. I held Amanda in my arms as she steered us out of the bay. "How are you feeling?" I said, kissing her ear. "Aside from having my short life flash right before my eyes, twice, I'm fine." She managed a weak giggle. "Are you that worried about the test?" "No, not really. I'm OK on most subjects, and in some, like physics and maths, I'm WAY ahead!" "You want to talk about Gyro?" "Hmmm..." she shrugged. "As long as you know nobody's blaming you for what happened." "Yeah, I know. I did pretty good, under the circumstances." She turned around and hugged me, "You drive, I just want to cuddle on you for a bit." She wrapped her legs around my waist and laid her head on my shoulder. "I was just giving myself a pat on the back about getting the extra speed when the thing just launched itself out of the water. No warnings, just lost it in less than a second! It felt like it was going straight up and we were gonna flip over for sure. And all I could think about was us smacking into the water at 80mph." She shivered, "Sara, and Sherri and poor Celeste! "Fortunately, the experience in the planes taught me not to trust my senses all the time, so I was able to throttle down. Thinking back, I don't think at any time the bow was more than 5 feet out of the water. But it scared me, and worried me that nobody would trust my driving anymore." She burrowed deeper on me, "And you know what was the absolute pits? The worst thing was that I got horny too! We were still shaking and thanking god we were alive and all of a sudden I was wishing you here there and you would hold me and touch me..." I pulled her close, "Honey, don't let THAT get you down! It's not that uncommon, and you know it affected the others as well." I stroked her hair, "It's instinctive - when your mind feels threatened, it reacts with the urge to have sex, and have babies - for the survival of the race." She looked up, "Really? It's not sick or unnatural?" "No - it's VERY natural. So it's nothing to be worried about!" She sighed, "Hmmm, about that horny thing? I STILL want to have sex with you, but not now... Right now I just want to hold you and be thankful you're here, OK?" "OK..." We kissed as I stroked her soft hair, our bodies nestled in warm companionship. It took an hour for us to load all the books, manuals and bookshelves back into Dweebus and return to the marina, where Max was already putting Gyro 2 through her paces in the bay. The girls met us at the dock and together we transferred the books up to the large room. Jules returned from the restaurant with sandwiches and drinks, along with salads and a huge roast-turkey sub for me. We sat around the counter and munched on the food and looked at the printouts of Brenda's calculations. Sara showed us one. "This is the Reynolds Matrix of the flow characteristics along the sides and bottom of Gyro 2 at a specific speed. Normally this is used for preliminary calculations only, but because we can pinpoint the plane locations of the boat, we can be much more accurate in defining the displacement geometry. "Now, each number here represents the 'quality' of the water flow. Under 2 means it is smooth, or laminar, and over 4 is pure turbulence. The area in between is a transition area with a mixture of both. We've connected the transition points together to get an idea of the overall performance. "Let's start with the chart at 55mph, you see how the transition band is almost uniform in thickness all the way round." She selected another chart, "Now at 75 we see a thinning of the area, this is normal in all curved surfaces, and it is desirable because it permits controlled aeration. "Now the rest are projections - at 80 and 85, things progress normally, but look at the one for 90, that area has suddenly moved back and is almost completely pinched off. In other words, the boat is generating so much turbulence here that it is actually fighting against itself. And that's where it starts to lose cohesion and becomes airborne." "But why did it happen to us at 82?" "Part of the reason I can see is the cavitation, which is simply air dragged under the stern, decreasing the buoyancy and THAT made the back of the boat sit lower. Then by lowering the I/O unit, we changed the attitude of the boat by a couple of degrees; the combined effect is to cause the problem to occur sooner." Sara paused, "And it may have been a good thing, because this chart shows that if it had happened at 90, it would've been even more abrupt and much more powerful." She smiled at Amanda, "So we were actually lucky it happened then! "But take a look at this!" She pulled the remaining chart out, "At 95, it's smooth sailing again! Which tells me that it's a fairly small inconsistency in the hull profile which is causing this." Jules said slowly, "Can't we use MiniMax to follow and watch...?" "That's exactly it!" Sara glowed, "With a pace plane monitoring the performance, we can narrow the problem down even faster!" Jules mulled it over, "Why don't we let Max do his thing today, then we work out a systematic plan to test the boat on Monday?" "Yeah, and I wouldn't feel too good unless I got some studying in soon." Sara sighed, "Jules, what will you and James be doing tomorrow?" then she added, "That's different from what you'll be doing tonight, I mean." Jules dimpled, "We're gonna fly up to visit his sister." They looked at me and I told them about the Gymnastics Camp and my invitation to visit them there. "James, if you're supposed to be used as a model of good eating, why are you still packing the food away? " Sherri observed, "You must have put on 10lb since last week!" They all nodded and added their observations about my rapidly deteriorating physique. "I was planning to burn it off with some incredibly strenuous and acrobatic sex tonight." "Are you kidding me? Our PARENTS are coming up tomorrow!" Sherri said, shocked, "I don't want them to even think I know the word 'Sex', let alone smell it all over!" Then she grinned, "At least not until after they OK my modeling contract..." "Yeah maybe we should bunk here tonight and James can..." Sara bit her lip. "And I suppose I'll be stuck babysitting him..." Jules sighed, and batted her lashes at me, "You won't be too demanding, will you?" She asked eagerly. "Ladies," Amanda drawled as she hugged me, "It appears we still have a while before tomorrow yet and MY mommy's told me never to study until my meal's fully digested. So I propose we use the time to help our friend here burn off his embarrassing layers of fat." She slipped a hand down, "Mmmm, are you keeping another lunch in there or you just LOVE my idea?" ============= (C) Copyright 2002. M.C. All Rights Reserved. All Reproduction for fee or profit forbidden. Copies of my stories can be downloaded from: </files/Authors/MikeC/> Send all comments and suggestions to MikeC@NSpace.net