Chapter 19

Time: Tuesday, August 1, 2006 2:00 PM

After a hectic, transition-filled June, the month of July turned out to be peaceful and relaxing. Melanie and I were both surprised to discover that being legally married has changed our relationship in subtle ways. We had thought of ourselves as secretly married even before the wedding, had pledged lifetime commitments to each other years ago, but still...

I guess at the core humans are very social animals. Expressing our union to the world in our marriage made our bonds seem more real. Melanie and I both can feel it. She is my wife, I am her husband, the social roles mix in with our concept of identity. I like the change, Melanie does too. We are incredibly happy with each other.

And I'm collecting a paycheck on my research stipend, $1,365 a month after taxes. It's not what I've earned in the previous summers, but it feels like free money. I have totally free tuition and am being paid extra to write my Master's thesis. It feels like a very sweet deal.

And Melanie got a summer job with a bio-tech company. It started out part-time and then quickly went to full-time as Biotherapeutics realized whom they had hired. So Melanie is pulling in some impressive bucks, not for long but it's a nice boost to the checkbook and she really enjoys the work.

It took a bit of shuffling for both of us to free up a week in August, but we kept our promise to spend a week boating with Melanie's family.

I never realized how much fun boating can be! Their boat is a 47-foot yacht, a two-stateroom Carver 450 Voyager. It even has two bathrooms (which are called heads, I never knew that). Melanie said her parents weren't into boating at all while she was living with them. They must have developed the interest, or bitten by the bug as Benjamin puts it, while Melanie was an undergrad.

Courtesy of Melanie's parents, we flew out to Minnesota on the last Friday in July and took a small chartered plane from Duluth to Silver Bay Municipal Airport. Melanie's family was waiting for us with their car, and we drove to Beaver Bay where their boat was anchored. It was the first time I had ever slept on a boat. I liked it. The rocking motion was soothing.

The next morning we diesel-ed up the boat, over 500 gallons for the twin inboard engines. I gulped a bit when Benjamin wrote a check, thinking about how much it must be for. And then we were on our way.

We've spent the next few days touring the north shore of Lake Superior. It's beautiful country. Melanie and I both loved Gooseberry Falls. I never realized boating could be this much fun! The yacht is opulent, though a bit cozy for five people for a week. We have camping equipment to sleep on land if we want to, and some of the deserted islands are very tempting for an overnight stay.

And the water is cold! Low 50F, too cold for swimming. On our third day out, Patty dared Melanie to an endurance contest. Melanie tried to concede defeat without taking the plunge but then her parents started challenging her to do it too. It all seemed good- natured, just a friendly contest, but Melanie and I still exchanged a quiet look together, trying to figure this out.

Patty is an interesting woman. She's three years older than Melanie, and like her sister has a very keen mind. I never asked her about all the shoplifting in her earlier years, but she has been out of jail for almost four years now and all of that seems behind her.

It's interesting to me to look at Patty. She's like a different version of Melanie. At 5'8" Patty is an inch shorter, but still statuesque. She has slightly bigger bones and is a bit more muscular, but she doesn't have quite the exceptional grace of Melanie. Facial features and hair are very similar, and they both keep their hair in ponytails. Late last evening on deck I caught myself glancing at toes trying to decide if I was looking at Patty or Melanie. Patty's toes are painted. I could have just probed with my sense of course, but my abilities there are so awesome I'm a little embarrassed to do it with other people's bodies. I just don't want to invade their privacy. The contact feels too intimate.

Patty and I have had a lot of time to talk together. The hold has two staterooms, a master stateroom with a queen-size bed, and a second stateroom almost the same size with a queen-size bed and a single. It's a bit crowded, but we only use the rooms for sleep and storage, and we try to be as considerate as possible. Once we adopted the mindset that we're all family it's fine. Earlier this morning while dad was driving the boat and mom and Melanie were preparing lunch, Patty and I cleaned the lower level together.

We chatted about our lives as we cleaned. Patty works now as a legal assistant at O'Hare and Snyder. My impression of Patty is that she's bright, amiable and, if I may say this without being unfaithful to my wife, very cute, a C-cup version of Melanie. The only thing odd about her is her absolute obedience to her parents. From Patty's perspective, her mom and dad are the co-skippers of the boat, and she is the subordinate.

It's a subtle thing to observe, but a good example was this morning, when her mom asked her to clean the lower level with me. Patty asked a few questions to be sure she understood exactly what was being asked, and then immediately changed her schedule to comply. She looked at me and smiled as she went below, and I knew I could either help her now or she would do all the work herself. I don't know... I really can't fault someone for being obedient. It just seems a little extreme...

And then came the swimming challenge. The day itself was warm, mid 80F on deck with a gentle breeze, and we were all dressed in swimsuits, Melanie and Patty in bikinis. We had eaten lunch before noontime, and the time was approaching 2 PM.

Melanie leaned out over the boat and dunked her foot in the water. "Uh, this is freezing! You sure you want to do this sis?"

"Absolutely! You're a college graduate and, if I might say, managed to bag a great husband! You must allow me to still beat you in something!"

Melanie looked reluctant, but then both her parents starting encouraging her to jump in too. I decided to come to my wife's rescue. "Oh, go ahead Melanie! It won't feel so cold once you're in the water!"

Melanie looked at me and suddenly smiled, realizing what I had said. They started the contest a few minutes later. Patty called out a final dare, "Winner gets to be warmed by Eric first!" and then, at the stroke of 2 PM, Melanie and Patty made two graceful dives off the stern of the boat, heading in near opposite directions.

Our sounding was showing more than twelve meters of water, no problem there, but the water really was too cold for swimming. The two sisters swam out about ten meters from the boat and were a dozen meters apart. And then they just trod water as dad timed them with a stopwatch.

After a minute Patty's teeth started to chatter, no surprise there. But Melanie seemed quite relaxed. And she should have been. The water temperature in contact with her skin was a uniform 89F.

The minutes dragged by. I experimented a bit with how I was warming my wife. I found an interesting mode of warming Melanie but not the lake. I was cooling the water 1 cm away from Melanie's body, back down to the background temperature of the lake. Pumping heat from oblivion and pushing it back to oblivion 1 cm away, after a few seconds of practice it was easy to do. And the minutes dragged by...

It was a very difficult endurance contest. Melanie's parents had insisted we study the boat's safety devices and read their instructions the first night we came on board. The thoughts of those manuals were still in my mind. I thought this contest was right at the safety limit, and I think without my kinetic powers I would have raised an objection.

With no PFD's (protective floatation devices), neither woman could curl into H.E.L.P. (heat escape lessening posture). But Melanie didn't need too. She and Patty did need to tread water however, and the waving arms and legs were rapidly pulling heat from Patty's body.

Looking back, I should have warmed Patty too, or just signaled Melanie to come back. I think without that last dare Melanie would have conceded defeat very early, even though she had no reason to. But the thought of her bikini-clad sister stealing cuddle time with me brought out Melanie's competitive spirit.

I don't know exactly how much time went by, but it must have been at least ten minutes. The parents were looking on and smiling, calling out encouragements to both their daughters. And then they started looking curious and puzzled. Melanie should have been at a physical disadvantage. She has the lean hard frame of a distance runner, and I think they were expecting her to lose body heat much more quickly than Patty. But Melanie just kept floating and treading water calmly, as Patty got more and more agitated in the water trying to stay warm.

It was a hopeless battle. Patty's teeth stopped chattering, and she seemed to make some strange hand gesture to us. And then she slipped under the water. Patty's mom started screaming.

Melanie saw what happened and started to swim over. I yelled at her, "MELANIE! MY JOB! YOU COME TO THE BOAT!" and I dived into the water.

Melanie gasped as I lost my power lock on the water around her. Realizing how easy the rescue would be for me, she swam quickly to the boat and climbed shivering up the ladder. By that time I had reached Patty, about five meters under the surface. I had the water around the both of us raised twenty-some degrees F. I could have pushed it more, but I didn't want to heat Patty too rapidly.