Morris stared at the office in some dismay.  Then he consulted a card crumpled in his pocket.  The card assured him he had the right address.  But he hadn't really been in any doubt.  He'd just been hoping against hope that this grimy, dank little hole in the wall was not really the Mecca he'd come all the way to Schenectady to find.

Brainstorm, Inc. proclaimed the large, official printing on the window.  And underneath, in a gaudier script, was scrawled,

Tacked onto the door was a note reading,

Students!  We also provide term paper and thesis ideas!

Morris shuddered.  Then, summoning his fast departing courage, he opened the door and entered.

The inside of the shop was clean at any rate, and a little larger than a good sized closet.  It contained a desk attended by two comfortable looking chairs, and a tall, freestanding machine.  The walls were hung with cheerful inoffensive landscapes.  The carpet was soft.

"Well, good morning, young man.  And what can I do for you?"  Morris whirled to find that a plump, matronly woman of about four foot eleven had somehow snuck up behind him.  To punish her for startling him, he glared.  But she only beamed up at him, and smoothed her thick hair back into its bun.  Her blue eyes twinkled furiously through her bifocals.  It dawned on Morris that she looked exactly like his mother.  Since Morris' mother was tall and slim and chic, he couldn't help wondering at the resemblance.  He stopped glaring.

"I'm Janie," she informed him.  "I own Brainstorm, Inc.  Now why don't you have a seat, and tell me what kind of idea you're looking for?  Something interesting in a term paper, perhaps?"  She paused to settle ceremoniously into the chair behind the desk, and to sigh with the relief of getting off her feet.

"Well, no, actually, I was thinking more on the line of a short story."  Morris was not pleased at being spotted so quickly for a student.  "Something marketable."

Janie was clearly impressed.  "You're a writer?  So young?  Well, you must be a very remarkable person."

Morris warmed to the praise with the air of a boy who had never heard any before, and indeed, he'd heard very little.  Seating himself across from Janie, he took her into his confidence.  "Actually, I'm just breaking into the field.  Naturally, I have quite a few stories making the rounds right now." He had two.  "But you couldn't really say I'm making a living at it yet." Morris had never sold a word in his life.

Morris agreed with her one hundred percent, but it occurred to him that it might not sound very professional to say so.  "Oh, it's not so bad as all that.  Naturally the editors want to check you out, see if you've got what it takes.  But they're on the lookout for new writers.  After all, we're their bread and butter."  He indulged a cynical chuckle.  "Of course, you've got to watch out for them.  Once they've got their hooks in you, they'll bleed you dry if you let them."

Janie shook her head at the wickedness of the world.  "Well, I just don't know where you young artists find the heart to keep at it.  I know I couldn't."  She laughed deprecatingly.  "Not that it would do me any good if I could.  I can't even string two sentences together."

Morris smiled condescendingly.  "It's a talent."

Janie nodded emphatically at his profound insight.  "It certainly is.  I only wish I had it.  But . . . ."  She shrugged and gestured to the computer.  "You do what you can with what you've got.  No use crying over what you can't have."

Morris glanced at the computer as casually as possible.  "Is that where you get the ideas?"

Janie laughed like a tinkling of small bells.  "You mean from Ignatius?  Good heavens, no!  You can't get ideas from a machine." 

Morris suppressed a sigh of relief.  Play-stations were all very well and good, but he wanted real, human-type ideas.

Morris could not, for obvious reasons, conceive of having an idea to spare.  "Why sure, maybe I will," he assured her with a generous sense of noblesse oblige, hoping he wasn't committing himself to anything.  "Of course, I can't give you anything today.  I'm a little dry right now.  But usually I have plenty of ideas.  I mean, all writers get a little block now and then."

"But of course they do!  Otherwise, I'd be out of business."  Janie had come in a little too promptly on cue, and Morris looked at her suspiciously.  But she was gazing at him with earnest understanding, and he decided she had intended no sarcasm.  "Why, I can't tell you how many of my clients have come in here and said to me, 'Janie, I just don't understand it.  One day I've got so many ideas I can't get them down on paper, and the next day I'm dry as a bone.' That's their exact words.  And I always tell them the same thing.  I say, 'That's what I'm here for.'"  She nodded emphatically.  "And it's true.  That's what I'm here for.  So."  She straightened up and smiled.  "What can I do for you?"

Morris felt so safe in her perfect comprehension that for a moment he forgot and stopped posing.  With genuine boyish charm, he shrugged, spread his hands, and grinned wistfully.  "I need an idea."

And Janie smiled back with a gentleness that was not at all reminiscent of his mother, even if he persisted in thinking it was.  "Whatever you want, honey.  Any particular genre?"

Morris basked in the endearment and the smile for an eternity before remembering that he was a sophisticated man of the world.  "A mystery, I think," he intoned with his most judicious air.  "That's where the real money is these days."

"That's the truth," intoned Janie with immense and visible respect for his business sense.  She rose and crossed to Ignatius, pushing a button on the front panel.  "Would you prefer something action oriented, or one of those chess problem plots?"

Morris considered.  He personally preferred the action stories, but he was afraid his own tastes might be called plebeian.  On the other hand, there was probably more money in thrillers.  But he didn't want people to think he was in it for the money.  He wanted to be a class writer.

"A chess problem," he told Janie.  "I think tight plotting is the most important part of writing."

Janie gave him the warm admiring smile again, and he was glad he hadn't risked her good opinion on an action plot.  She punched a few more buttons, and a half dozen printed cards spat out of a feed slot.  She thumbed through them, making little faces of discontent, until she found one she liked.  "This one ought to run about eight thousand words, if that's all right."  She offered the idea to Morris.

He grabbed at it.  "That's fine, fine," he muttered, scanning the card.  And then he sighed.  The idea was beautiful, a tight little plot outline of a crime as complex and original as he had seen in years.  It was perfect.  It was complete.  It brought tears to his eyes.  He looked down at Janie.  "How much?"  Junkies had inquired the price of their desire more calmly.

Janie smiled.  "Ten percent of whatever you sell the story for."  She returned to her desk and pulled a form from a drawer.  "If you'll just fill out the standard contract."

Morris would have filled it out in blood if she'd asked.  He signed on the bottom line, shoved his idea into his pocket, and took Janie's hand.  "Thanks a million.  I mean, well, I mean, thanks."

He ran out the door in his eagerness to get to work on the story.

He should have turned to wave goodbye to Janie.  He might have enjoyed watching her grow another foot taller.  He would certainly have enjoyed watching her figure slim down and fill out to proportions undeniably voluptuous.  Of course he might not have liked it so much when she sprouted sleek green fur, but you can't have everything.

***

Yania turned with a sigh to regard her mate.  He was, as usual, curled up in the corner, engrossed in a book.

Inato raised glazed eyes from his reading with difficulty.  "More money?"  He looked bewildered.

"What do we need money for, Yania?"  She reflected briefly on a larger, more luxurious home, not to mention the bookstore bills, and sighed again. 

Inato shook his head.  "The less we charge, the more customers we get.  And more customers means more writers, and more books.  And we need more books."

"It would almost be easier to write them ourselves," she whispered.

"That would take too long," he snapped.  "And besides, writing them is not the same as reading them."  His eyes sank gratefully back to the volume in his lap.  He had nearly finished it, and there were only two more left.  He needed more books.

"The things you have to do today, just to get something to read."