Chapter 14

I remember getting in the car and arriving home, but not the time spent driving. I think this was because I was reviewing all the things we’d done last night in my mind. Daydreaming. Probably not a good attitude to have while driving, but I made it home without accidents or near misses.

I dropped my shoes on the floor and lay back on the bed and was out within a minute. I guess I needed the nap. It was early afternoon when I woke again. I took another shower, then rummaged in the fridge for something to eat.

The day was pretty much shot, I thought, because even with the nap my whole body felt exhausted. So I started a book I’d been meaning to read and hoped I’d feel better tomorrow.

I did. On Sunday when I awoke I felt considerably better, even energetic. Inspired by coffee and some breakfast I resolved to pick up my exercise where I’d last left off, on my bicycle.

Yes, I know, but you can never be too muscular. So I pulled the bike back out of the storage area in the basement, and headed off to the bike path downtown.

And it actually was a bit easier than last time. It was a nice day so I took it easy and enjoyed the weather and did some people watching. I put in a couple of hours on the bike and decided to take a break only when my legs started feeling a little sore.

I was near the pedestrian mall which was lined with small and medium-sized shops, so I went there. I chained my bike to a handy bike rack and had an ice cream cone, then saw one of the chain bookstores and decided to go in and browse. I’d had a book on my I-should-read-that list and thought I’d look for it.

But I got distracted, and found a new book by a famous biologist on the potential for synthetic life forms and its pros and cons and its ethics, and sat down in a window seat to browse through it. I’d browsed so intently I was a hundred pages into it when a voice pulled me out of my preoccupation.

“Are you stalking me now?”

I jumped and looked up. Liz was standing nearby with a plastic bag in hand and a mischievous smile.

“Wait. How do I know you’re not stalking me, Writer Woman?”

“Point taken. Okay, we’ll call it a draw. What are you doing here?”

“Out riding my bike, and decided to come in and buy a book I’d been meaning to read, but got distracted by this,” I said, holding up the book.

“I see. Looks interesting, thought-provoking. What was the one you came in for originally?”

I told her, and she said she’d read it recently and found it enjoyable.

“And you? Did you have a mission as well, or was this just an afternoon of idle browsing?”

“An old favorite,” she said, and pulled out a copy of Strunk & White’s The Elements Of Style. “My old copy got so dog-eared it was hardly usable any more, so I decided to splurge on a new edition.”

“Can’t go wrong with that,” I said.

I was a little distracted because this was the first time I’d seen her dressed in something other than her conservative work clothes, and it was making my heart beat a little faster. I should have been immune, having been thoroughly drained by an intense twelve hours of sex with Maria, but damn!

She had on casual slacks that were just a bit tight in the butt, and a short-sleeve pullover top that did nothing to downplay her chest. Her work clothes had always been chosen so as to deemphasize her upper torso, so the rest of us could only speculate at what was there. But this, well, it covered everything up to the neck, but the front made a decisively emphatic statement.

“Are you wrapped up in that or do you want to join me for a snack?” she asked.

I thought it was nice of her to phrase it as a request. She could have just wiggled her little finger and said, “Follow me, peon,” and I would have trailed behind her, happily carrying her bags.

I didn’t want to play easy-to-get, so I asked if she’d mind waiting till I found the book I came in for. She nodded, and asked if she could look at the one I held while I found the other one. So I handed it to her and went off to get the other one, easy enough to locate because it was on a display table.

I paid for it and we went outside. “What do you have in mind?” I asked. “I just had ice cream, my substitute for a healthy lunch.”

“I suppose that can be forgiven on a day like this. Oh, there’s a place I like, and they’ve got outside tables, too.” She pointed a little ways down the pedestrian mall, so we went there. On the way, I could sense rather than see male heads turning to follow her as we passed.

We were seated and given menus. I ordered a BLT and she got a salad, and we both got iced tea. I looked at her for a moment.

“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you out of the work environment. You look different. I don’t mean how you’re dressed, I mean you don’t look so focused, so official, you’re more relaxed.”

“Well, isn’t that the point of weekends, to help us relax and get ready for another five days of typing and printing emails.”

I had to smile at that. I knew there was more to her job, but that was the thing everybody sympathized with her about.

“So, has Schwartz never really taken a basic computer course, like how to use email?”

“Oh, sure he has, but he always walks out before the end of it, saying that he’s needed urgently back at the office. The truth is he’s a technophobe, it terrifies him, so he declares himself above it so he won’t have to deal with it.”

“I hope he’s really, really good at the other parts of his job, because this makes him sound like a real prima donna. Wait, can you apply that term to a male?”

“Don’t know, but, yeah, he is. And between you and me, I don’t think he’s very good at it, just good enough to keep his position.”

The conversation moved back to books and writing, and she told me she’d spent a good part of yesterday rewriting the parts I had commented on, and thought they read better. I was certain that was true, given the changes she’d made based on my earlier comments. I was looking forward to seeing how she’d handled it.

We talked a bit about how authors get inspiration, ideas for a book, and the mental process of putting the parts together before she actually sat down at a keyboard. She shared how difficult that often was, and the elation she felt when she was finally able to start the writing.

She brought the discussion around to science and creativity, and how it was like and unlike the art of writing, asking me how I’d gotten into science. We debated the common aspects of the two vocations while we finished our lunch.

I paid the bill and she didn’t care for the idea of my paying for her meal, so in the end she paid the tip and we felt that neither had taken advantage of the other. I think she just didn’t want it to feel too much like a “date”. Okay, so we each stepped away with our pride intact.

“It was nice to run into you, Sam. And this is the first time I’ve seen you outside of work, too, now that I think about it. This was fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She gave a little wave and walked away. I couldn’t help but watch her leave. Along with most of the other men present. Jesus, look at that ass.

Monday, and back to the grind. I found Art and Ted had arrived early and were going over the results of their experiment, sounding excited.

Something had happened to my experiment over the weekend and I was not getting the results I had expected. It looked like the apparatus had gotten contaminated somehow, affecting the sample. I would have to clean it thoroughly and start again. I spent the rest of the morning doing that.

Ted and Art had agreed on what they were going to write up for Clark, and emailed him a short report. Sometime after that, Clark came into the lab and huddled with the two of them, talking back and forth. At the end, Clark nodded thoughtfully and -- I can’t swear to this, but I’m pretty sure he did say it -- told them they’d done good work. They looked like they’d been hit on the head with a Louisville Slugger. Stunned.

Because my experiment had gotten fouled, I spent the morning catching up. I got a sandwich from the cafeteria and brought it back to the lab so I could continue working. Sometime after 1:30 I made the final adjustments and started the apparatus over again. I hoped I’d cleaned out whatever had contaminated it. I made some notes and comments in my log to help me isolate whatever was affecting it.

Around two I checked my email and found nothing that wouldn’t wait, so I decided to go to the cafeteria and have the rest of my lunch. Feeling virtuous, I got a small salad, but I also got pie and coffee.

I was reading a journal article, so I sensed it rather than saw it. The conversation level in the cafeteria dropped off. I raised an eye from my reading and saw Liz coming in the door from the hall.

She had on a conservative business suit, but it ended above the knee and was tight across the hips, showing off the legs and her butt. The jacket was buttoned, but rather than a straight line from the button to the collar, it described a gentle arc because of the bulge underneath it. I couldn’t imagine her going anywhere without guys hitting on her. It must be unrelenting.

She saw me and smiled, and detoured to the serving station. She brought back a cup of tea and a bowl of cherry Jello topped with whipped cream. I looked at it.

“That’s pretty decadent. Did you fall off the wagon?”

“Aside from the whipped cream, this has almost no calories. So there. I’m glad to see you’re eating healthier, however. But if you’re eating salad, who’s the pie for?”

“I planned on giving it to the first homeless person I come across. It’s my good deed for the day.”

She smirked and took a small spoonful of Jello. She made a sound and raised a finger in the air, then reached into her bag and pulled out another large manila envelope.

“Almost forgot, this is the revised version of what you looked at last week, along with a new chapter. I want to know what you think about the changes. Does it flow better? Do the characters make sense? That kind of thing.”

I took it and nodded. “I’m looking forward to it. Y’know, people hardly ever get to see the development process for a novel, how it changes, mutates over time. This is really interesting to see how you do this. I was thinking about this the other day, how it’s like watching a surgeon work, moving one thing out of the way to repair something else, and then making sure everything goes back in place and still works.”

I think maybe she blushed just a bit, can’t be sure. She said, “Thank you, Sam. My mother always wanted me to become a doctor. I wonder if this counts?”

“Call me if you need me to stand up for you. My mother wanted me to be a doctor, too, but an M.D., not a Ph.D. She accepted my degree a little grudgingly, I thought. She likes bragging about me to her friends.”

“As well she should,” she said. “I’m not sure I could do what you do.”

“I think I said one time before that you’re analytical, watching, seeing how things work. I think you’d have made a good scientist.”

“Maybe. I was more of an artsy poet type in high school, and though I liked the science courses I took in college, I perhaps didn’t have the focus necessary to learn the fundamentals.”

“At any rate, Liz, you’re good at what you do and I think it will work out fine. Life’s about enjoying your work and hoping to leave something with lasting impact, whether it’s science or art or writing, or becoming the best dentist in Cleveland.”

She chuckled at that. Dental humor is always a sure bet.

“Okay,” she said, “if writing doesn’t pan out, there’s always dental school.” She started to get up. “Gotta go. Nice to see you yesterday. Oh, I forgot to mention that Schwartz is taking vacation time starting later this week. Almost two weeks, I think, to The Bahamas with the missus.”

“I’m betting he cuts it short because he’s needed urgently back at the office.”

She laughed out loud, and heads turned at the wonder of it. I could almost see the gears turning, “How did he get her to laugh like that?”

“Maybe, but I think Mrs. Schwartz will have a knife at his throat before he starts to pack a suitcase. I’ve met her. She is not to be trifled with.”

“This sounds like a match made in heaven. Does he have a picture of the two of them on his desk? I’d love to see what she looks like. And if they look happy.”

“I think so. If he actually does leave for vacation, I’ll sneak you into his office for a peek. See you later.”

I spent a few moments watching her leave, then packed up my own stuff and headed back to the lab.

Art and Ted were again consulting, heads together. After I had spent a few minutes at my desk, Art asked me to join them.

“So here’s where we are. I had designed something that would hook into the opiate receptors, pretty standard stuff, though the way I went about it was new. And based on the tests it binds pretty well, but it lost its adhesion after maybe twelve hours. Not good.

“But Ted, genius that he is, saw that what he’d been working on might be tweaked so that it worked symbiotically, making the adhesion longer lasting, in fact longer than any of the currently approved opiate blockers.”

“Wow, that’s a big step, guys, congratulations.”

“Thanks. So what we’ve got, in theory, is something that will block opiates from interacting with the brain, but it won’t reduce the cravings, the need, the withdrawal, and without that it’s just Frustration City for the addict. So next step is to find something we can build into it that will reduce those cravings for as long as the adhesion lasts.”

Art went on, saying, “If we can do that -- a big if -- then we’ve maybe got something that’s a big step forward in addiction treatment. Any ideas?”

I had nothing off the top of my head, but said I’d put some thought into it. I wandered back to my area. So far my experiment seemed to be working okay, but it had only been a couple of hours. I’d feel more confident about it at the 72-hour mark.

Later that evening I read Liz’s latest, and the changes she’d made were almost seamless, I thought, and made the whole narrative seem to coast along and also cleared up some ambiguity about the characters.

And the new chapter hinted at some interesting developments that actually made me a bit hungry for the next installment. I decided to wait before returning it so I could jot down some additional thoughts.

I had put Art’s question about how to proceed next in the back of my mind, and I could feel it fermenting, but it wasn’t a finished product yet.

The next day, after work, as I was leaving a drugstore after replenishing some shaving supplies, I ran into Annie, who saw me and looked a little guilty. But having seen me noticing her seeing me, she couldn’t just turn away.

We exchanged pleasantries, and I asked her how she’d been doing, and if the breakup had been as awkward as she’d thought it was going to be. She hemmed and hawed and finally admitted that she’d caved. He was stricken when she asked him to leave, said he loved her, that he hadn’t realized he’d been such a dick and he’d change, he promised, so she caved.

“And has he changed, Annie?”

“Well, he’s still obsessed about biking, but he hasn’t criticized my commitment and mostly has refrained from comments on my diet and the like. So...”

She let it trail off, trying to exude hope and positivity. It sounded more like wishful thinking. But it’s her life, she’ll have to work it out. I told her I was happy to see her and wished her the best.

I walked off thinking that I doubted the truce would last. Guys like that seldom change, because they’re zealots, convinced of the righteousness of their cause, and I didn’t think he’d be able to live for long with someone who didn’t share his zealotry.

Nuts, the errand and meeting Annie had thrown off my schedule and now I thought it was too late to thaw something from the freezer for dinner. It’d have to be takeout. I looked around and saw the usual fallback takeout places and tonight not one of them rang my chimes.

Maybe there, I haven’t tried that Japanese place, provided they do takeout. I went over and looked at a menu in the window. Yes, they do! Okay, I like Japanese food, so this’ll be different from the usual.

At the counter I perused the menu and ordered shrimp tempura, gyoza and miso soup to go. I could feel my mouth watering already. Why hadn’t I done this before?

A woman came in and went up to the counter, saying she was here for the order she’d phoned in. There were some confused looks behind the counter as they scurried about looking here and there. The cashier came back, looking abjectly apologetic and spoke quietly to the woman, who raised her eyes to the heavens, then finally nodded.

She came over and plopped down next to me in the small waiting area for takeout customers. “Did they lose your order, too?” she asked.

“No, I just placed mine. Wait, how did they lose your order?”

“If I believe them, it was mistakenly sent out with the bicycle delivery driver. I was starved, too, and really looking forward to this. Anyway, they’re making me a new order from scratch and giving me half off the price for the inconvenience.”

“So there’s a bright side. Good for you.”

She introduced herself as Amy, chatting away in a friendly way to pass the time while her order was prepared. Mid-thirties, if I were to guess, blond hair cut in a kind of a page boy, green eyes, trim with good legs, smallish chest, good muscle tone. She shared that she was a little too lazy to cook for herself when her husband was away, so she usually ordered takeout those times.

“He travels a lot, technical consulting, so I wind up eating out a lot. It alleviates the boredom of staying home and watching TV or movies.”

She asked what I did, and I told her.

“So, do you and your significant other do a lot of takeout? You’re not both gourmet chefs?”

I said I wasn’t married, nor living with someone, and certainly not any kind of chef. I admired how slickly she elicited the information from me. She continued talking, telling me the kinds of restaurants she liked, and asking what kinds of foods I preferred. She turned toward me so that her knee was touching mine and she could look more easily at me.

We spent about fifteen minutes chatting -- well, it was mostly her doing the talking, trying to keep me interested -- and the cashier came up to the register with two bags and called out our names.

“Finally!” said Amy, and hopped up. We each paid and headed to the door.

“Listen, Sam, if you’ve got nobody you’re headed home to, how would you feel about sharing your meal and continuing the conversation? It certainly beats another episode of The Bachelor on TV.”

“Almost anything does. But I’m really hungry. If this involves a long drive, then I’ll probably pass.”

“No more than five minutes, and I’ll drive. What do you say?”

So I caved, and she led me to a parking lot behind the restaurant, and a late-model, pretty high end car. We put the food in the trunk, and she headed off. She was a good driver, I noted, confident and easy. She talked about her interests, the interests she shared with her husband, how long they’d lived there, and so on.

And sure enough, in less than five minutes, she pulled into a garage under an apartment building, punched a code into the key lock, and the gates opened. It was only a few steps from there to the elevator which went right up to her floor.

It seemed like a very well-kept building, fairly new and well built. When she unlocked the door to her apartment, I saw that I hadn’t been wrong. It was classy and expensive. Technical consulting apparently paid very well.

“We’ll eat in there,” she said, pointing. “I’ll get some plates.”

In short order there were plates, bowls, glasses, forks and chopsticks on the table. We ripped open our respective bags, and for some minutes did not speak, until we had taken the edge off our appetites. She had seated me at the table end, and she just to my right, turned ninety degrees.

So here’s the thing about scientists. The public stereotype is that they are microscopically focused on their field of study, ignoring everything on the outside unless it affects their research. Not true, in general. Scientists are observers, cataloging things, watching, comparing them to other similar events or specimens.

So while she was talking I was noticing the deviation from “normal” social interaction. Amy was using the food seductively, caressing it with her mouth, letting me see how sensual it was to her, touching it with her tongue. It was supposed to be subtle, and in fact most men probably would not have noticed it directly, but would have responded to it.

I pretended I hadn’t noticed, and asked her what she did for work, how she occupied her days with her husband away so much. She admitted that she had worked for awhile in “public relations”, though she wasn’t specific, but gave up the job when it ceased to be fulfilling.

The bottom line, I assumed, was that she now did nothing at all. Well, good for hubby, if she spent her days shopping or lounging in this expensive apartment. Technical consulting apparently paid really well, and he was willing to indulge her.

She was talking again, and had turned more toward me, so our feet were touching. She brought the conversation around to relationships. She asked if I were seeing someone regularly, and I admitted that I had no one special person at the moment. She went on to talk about herself and her husband, who decided to get married because they shared a common view of life and relationships.

“That’s rather an open-ended description,” I said. “Do you have specific beliefs in common, religious or political?”

“No, we’re not really religious, nor are we politically involved. We believe that life is short, and we have to sample the experiences it presents us. Like Japanese food, which I never cared for when I was younger, but he showed me how the subtle mixtures of texture and color and taste made it unique, and now I appreciate it.

“And we also believe that, while we are committed to one another, we can sometimes enrich our lives by experiencing new people and new ... sensations, and later sharing those experiences with our partners. That sharing is what makes us feel like we belong together, even if we have to be apart so often.”

She looked at me, trying to determine if she’d gotten through without being too direct.

“If I understand you, you’re describing what used to be called ‘an open marriage’, or possibly polyamory.”

“Not unlike those things, but ours is more of a, let’s call it co-dependent existence. It is not enough to ... experience new people, but we also share the details of it with our partner, so that the other gets to experience it vicariously. We are very open with one another, and the retelling of an ... encounter can be very stimulating when we’re together.”

I took another gyoza and chewed it while I thought about this. I’d heard of people like this, in the same way that I’d heard of swinging or nudism, but I’d never met anyone who practiced it, at least that they’d admitted to me. I couldn’t imagine being in a relationship like that, but that was me, and I tried not to be judgmental about others who embraced it.

I looked her in the eye and asked her straight out, “Am I to be one of your new experiences, Amy?”

“If you’d like. I find you attractive and I suspect you know your way around, and since you’re not currently involved with someone, it seems to be a win-win all around. What do you think?”

I thought she was attractive and sexy, and I was finding it difficult to think of a reason not to. Except ... I really couldn’t explain why, but there was something bothering me in the way she’d phrased the explanation, about the sharing. Still, she was pretty hot, and I had nothing planned tonight.

I told her, “I think I’m tempted. I hesitate only because I have a rule about being with married women, because it can cause a lot of pain in a marriage. I made the rule because it happened in my extended family, and I saw the results first hand. It’s not something I’d inflict on someone.”

“I can respect that, Sam. I’d hate for that to happen, too, which is why I asked whether you were in a relationship or seeing someone regularly. And in my case, both he and I have agreed that this works for us.”

I nodded. “It’s a little weird, but if that’s the agreement you have, then I’m comfortable that I wouldn’t cause any stress in your relationship.”

She smiled brightly. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. Do you want to move into another room?”

I still wanted to think about this a little longer, so I said, “Actually, I’m still a little hungry. Let me finish my meal first. We can talk in the meantime.”

So she continued to chatter, going on about how liberating their lives were, and how she wished others could see how rewarding it was.

Scientists insist on telling the public that their research is based entirely on logic and the accumulation of facts. Not quite true. Sometimes that’s not enough, and the scientist follows hunches and sees where it leads. That’s where I was. I ostensibly had all the facts and my logic had led me to the decision about taking Amy to bed.

However, my hunch was there was something I’d missed here. And I guessed she’d been careful to omit that thing from the conversation, the ‘facts’ she’d presented. So I couldn’t count on her to tell me the truth. But I had an ace in the hole.

“Let’s bring these into the kitchen,” I said, “and then you can show me the rest of your place.”

She smiled again. “Okay, that sounds great.”

We collected the plates and empty containers, and brought them into the kitchen. I piled my stack onto the counter. As she put her load down in the sink, I asked, “May I use your bathroom?”

She waved a hand, saying, “Of course. Just down the hall on your right,” and when she turned back to the sink I gave one quiet spray over her shoulder from the aerosol in the palm of my hand.

I used the restroom, because I did need to, and then returned to the kitchen. She was still standing at the sink, contemplating the backsplash.

“Hi, Amy. How do you feel? You look a little lost.”

“I’m fine. Just a bit of a pleasant afterglow from the meal, I think.”

“Good. I enjoyed it as well, and being here with you, too. What are you thinking will happen next?”

“I’m going to show you the apartment and then my bedroom, then I’m going to fuck you.”

Well, a no-nonsense woman. No romance, dim lights and scented candles for her.

“That sounds exciting,” I said, “and I’m really looking forward to it. Amy, tell me more about how you share these experiences with your husband. What happens?”

“Normally, when he gets back he’ll ask me for a list of who I’ve fucked, names if I have them, and then he’ll tell me the ones he’s done on his trip. Then we’ll make drinks and sit down, and he’ll ask for details about each one, what they were like, were they good fucks, and so on. Then he’ll tell me about his.

“Then we’ll go into the bedroom and get naked and lie on the bed and watch the videos. If he was able to get videos of his, we’ll watch those, too.”

“Amy, you make videos of your encounters?”

“Yes. We have a hidden camera setup in the bedroom, and the lighting’s good, so it’s like watching porn, except we’re the actors.”

“That sounds kind of hot, Amy. Where are the cameras?”

“There’s only one in the painting above the bed, but it’s a really good angle.”

“And where is the recording equipment?”

“It’s in the back of my closet behind a panel.”

“Amy, you’re feeling really relaxed now, it’s very pleasant to just stand here and listen to the silence. Wait here until I return, please.”

She nodded absently. I went off and searched until I found what looked like the main bedroom, and a closet filled with women’s things. In the back there was a shoe storage rack on the wall, and looking carefully I could see a piano hinge along one side. I pushed on the opposite side of the rack and heard a click, and the panel swung back toward me.

I pulled it open and there it was in an electronics rack. A monitor, a control panel, a hard drive recorder, and a DVR drive. I powered down all of them, then closed the shoe rack and returned to the kitchen.

“Amy, have you noticed how your skin is getting more sensitive now as you anticipate what’s going to happen later? It’s almost like getting zapped by static electricity, except it’s a shock of pleasure, not electricity. Do you feel it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I’ll touch you now and you’ll feel it.” I reached over and laid my fingers on her wrist.

“Oh, my God! Wow! That’s remarkable.”

“Yes, I feel it, too. And have you noticed that your nipples are getting really hard and very sensitive, and that your pussy is tingling and damp?”

She raised a hand and felt her breast and caught her breath. “It’s usually not that sensitive. I wonder why?”