The next morning the weather had improved substantially. The sky was clear and the Sun shown brightly on the cold ground. When Howard got up he had not recovered from his illness. He still felt feverish and drained of energy. His joints ached so badly that he wondered for a moment if he had Dengue fever. Howard had read of an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease in a Reader’s Digest Article while he was waiting in the Urologist’s office and remembered the hideous symptoms of the painful disease. His professional excursions into the field often took him to secret chemical dumps guarded by swarms of hungry mosquitoes. He rarely returned from one of his expeditions without at least one mosquito bite, despite saturating himself with the most powerful chemical repellant on the market. Since he had read that there was no treatment of the disease other than a palliative treatment of the symptoms, he decided to stick it out and see what developed. Besides, he didn’t have the characteristic measles-like skin eruptions and the high fever associated with the disease. If he had Dengue fever, he would be over it in seven days at most. He called in sick again that day and the day after as well when the symptoms continued unabated.
Day-by-day his anatomy transmogrified as his reversed biological clock returned him to the body he had occupied in his youth. Anita canceled her Sunday brunches in sympathy for his feelings so that he wouldn’t have to hide from the women in the neighborhood. In the space of two weeks, he looked like an eighteen year old; the hair on his chest had thinned and his physique lost the bulk it had acquired in his senior year of high school. Howard was in a panic. He couldn’t return to work looking like a high school kid! How could anyone take an eighteen-year-old’s engineering advice? He’d be laughed out of the boardroom! What would his mistress say? After he considered Barbie’s likely reaction to his new found youth, he convinced himself that Barbie would be even more attracted to him. Barbie was such an empty-headed tart that she’d probably like having a teenager for a boyfriend. About the only male intellectual equals Barbie had were fifteen-year-old boys. His regression might make her feel more at ease and therefore more accessible to his passions.
After thinking about it for a few hours, he concluded he might be wrong in his initial estimation of Barbie’s reaction to his change. He decided that he was right that Barbie would probably be untroubled with his new age. The only problem was that she’d probably be too comfortable! Barbie might unilaterally decide that their age difference entitled her to become the ascendant individual in their relationship. The idea that she would try to boss him around had never occurred to him before. He had always been the one who made the decisions and it had never crossed his mind that she would react any differently. Suddenly, he was seized by a mental image going to a restaurant with her and being shushed by her so she could order their meal. He imagined how he would wince in embarrassment when she refused to order his customary beer for him and request that the waiter bring Coco-Coca for him to drink instead of an adult drink. It would make him feel like he was being treated to dinner his babysitter rather than going out on a date with his mistress. Once he thought about it, he realized that she wouldn’t have much choice in what she ordered for him to drink; the restaurant wouldn’t serve him if she ordered booze for him and not even an air head like Barbie was stupid enough to order an alcoholic beverage for someone who was underaged. If they made a scene, the restaurant’s management might decide that she was “contributing to the delinquencyÖ” and call the police. He’d be lucky if she didn’t order milk for him to drink!