"No," she said, but did manage by some completely feminine and to me quite incomprehensible maneuvers (girdle girding procedure, maybe?) to twist ninety degrees axially.
"When I say 'go,' squeeze the spray bottle," I directed, "and keep squeezing it hard and keep it pointing straight away from your longitudinal axis."
"My what? Now, look, what do you think you'll accom—"
"Wait!" I cut her off. "For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, right? I hope you'll widen your orbit when the reaction sets in."
She was nearing aphelion. "Go!" I cried.
She did squeeze the spray bottle, and kept squeezing it quickly and strongly, but so far as I could judge her orbit wasn't effected one whit. Something was accomplished, however, that made our situation more desperate: those little droplets of potent perfume proceeded to bounce, scatter, splatter and ricochet all over the place. The scent spread. Overpoweringly.
"And you talked about my perfume!" Gladys cried and began to giggle again.
My gaze wandered toward the lovely albeit space-happy blonde.
"Bill!" Helene cried as she swept across my line of sight. She looked like an avenging angel, a very lovely one. She made me feel humble and contrite; I went dutifully back to the problem.