He doesn’t answer and his silence adds to my torment. My hips wriggle and wiggle, doing everything within my power to turn him on, to please him. And in answer, my little clitty, red from the crop, stinging and sensitive from the weird-ass orgasm that had catapulted me upward, is pinched. Hard.
“Cum, princess. Cum for me. Now.”
And once again, I’m thrown forward. Almost as though I’m in a car, no seat belt on and there has been a head-on collision. I’m propelled forward into the unknown of a searing orgasm. Pleasure and pain fill me; it’s too good, too hot and then, the cooling balm of his scorching seed floods my overheated womb. The heat is nothing to the searing agony of the climax absorbing me and the soothing splash of his orgasm grounds me. Stops me from collapsing atop him in a pile of limp and lax bones.
As it is, I’m pulling at my bonds. Every muscle straining taut, lifting me high, until I’m almost in a yoga asana again. His hands clench at my hips and slowly lower me to Earth. And then, he’s leaning back, his fingers are at the ties at my ankles, releasing me and urging my legs to curl about his waist. I surround him for once, but still, I’m all encompassed by him.
Every inch of me is embraced, tucked against his warmth. His fingers smooth up and down my back, caressing, gently tickling. My skin bobbles with gooseflesh, every part of me feels his loving touch and somehow, even though those were the two strongest, most powerful orgasms of my life, this feels like the most exquisite, beautiful moment of my existence.
Chapter Eighteen
I’ve always hated the labs. In a family of scientists, I’m a rarity. An artist. Had my IQ not been on par with Einstein’s and had I not won awards for my pieces from a young age, I doubt my parents would have tolerated me as much as they did. And they hadn’t tolerated me much at all.
If I say they spent eighteen hours a day here, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
Mom, the biologist, and Dad, the biochemist…their shared love for biology had been the courting phase of their relationship and the eugenics project, the actual foreplay. If they touched each other after my conception and birth, it would have been a shock. I don’t think I even remember my mother ever rubbing his neck or shoulders, and it was the same with father. They were the least tactile people I’ve ever met, and living with the Brainy Bunch, I’ve known some awkward folks.
The labs were more their home than the homestead was. They even had cots in their offices to sleep on. And I’m not talking crappy camping cots, but beds. When I was really young, they’d eat their meals with me. I think to instill the importance of proper nutrition into their daughter. After time, they shoved me on to the housekeeper, Bitch Brownley as I used to call her, and left me to the staff. I only ever came to the labs to be punished or lectured. Why do you think I hate them?
Not that they’re like they used to be.
Every year, we spend millions on updating the equipment, improving security, upgrading the facilities. It’s one of the costliest parts of the commune but one of the most lucrative. At this very moment, we have government contracts in play. Defense contracts for bio-weaponry and all kinds of crazy shit that would terrify me if I were a civilian. As it is, I’m fucking used to all the James Bond stuff. Very little surprises or frightens me where this lab is concerned.
In fact, it isn’t the science that is a cause for concern, but the scientists. It’s easy to lose yourself here, tucked away in Montana, cosseted by the commune and protected from harm. It’s easy to lose your morals. And I don’t mean in a ‘having an affair’ kind of way. Nothing so trite. I mean the simple act of forgetting your humanity. That, more than anything, is terrifying.
What do I mean by that? Well, let me give you an example.
It has come to my attention—yet another thing Uncle Sam has hidden from me—that we have a problem with four of the same sex couples who live at Blue Ridge.
Now, everyone is welcome here so long as their genius is proven. Black, white, gay, straight, rich, poor, man, woman. We don’t give a damn. The only prejudice on this commune revolves around intelligence, and we can be a mean bunch. Even the older folk, the people from an older generation, they don’t really care which hole is filled or what’s doing the stuffing. All they care about is the eugenics project, and I understand their concerns.
I’ve been looking into purchasing the equipment for a sperm donation service. The more I look into it, the more complicated it is, and at the same time, more considerations pop into my head. Blue Ridge is a place where if you don’t go big, you might as well go home.
Hence, my annoyance with Uncle Sam and this goddamn horsey fund he has managed to hide from me for nigh on a year according to the un-doctored accounts I’ve found in the office. His lies, the fact he didn’t consult me, and then the deceit, they’re my major problems with Sam. But the size of the damned stable is also an issue.
There’s an old English phrase, one a great-aunt used to tell me as a child, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ And in this instance, I’m thinking as Sam did with his purebred project; let’s go all out.
There are couples here who can’t have children. If we could somehow make a fertility clinic, have an IVF center with a sperm donation service…the idea bears merit.
The only problem stems from the geneticists we have here. And their lack of humanity. I’ll undoubtedly have a moral fight on my hands, because this is the kind of place where people don’t ask why. They ask why the hell not.
Within days of introducing such a center to the ranch, I’ll have a moral fight on my hands.
In fact, it’s a shock that test tube babies haven’t been a part of the Brainy Bunch’s agenda for a long time. Maybe my granddaddy and father also came across this particular roadblock. The idea of designer babies isn’t a new one, and I know the geneticists will bitch and moan, their longing to experiment with something no human has the right to mess with, will be the cause of many a headache. To me, it’s abhorrent. And it should be to everyone here.
I’ll just have to see how it all goes. As it is, it’s a pain in my ass waiting to happen. But it's a solution to my other problems with the same-sex couples and the pairs who want to have kids but can't. No matter how much hassle it’s going to cause me, it’s something I’ll have to seriously consider.
Grunting at the thought, I stop staring up at the main entrance to the labs—yeah, I haven’t even taken a step inside and already, my brain is flooded with memories and procrastinations—and finally push the door open. The smell hits me first and it’s a weird one. Kind of like a hospital usually smells, apart from the one where Nate was a patient, but there’s also the smell of o-zone. It makes my nose twitch.
I’ve taken an interest in most aspects of the ranch over the last couple of weeks. Trying to reconnect with a bunch of people to whom I’ve never really been connected, save by the land itself. I can’t deny it’s been hard, but it’s a first step. I don’t want to be an absentee guardian anymore and the ranch has had enough of that with my father. He might never have taken a step outside Blue Ridge after becoming an adult, but still, he was absent from his duties because the ranch itself wasn’t his principle concern. His research was.
Well, no more. I want a different relationship with my people. I just have to cultivate friendship with them and that shouldn’t be too hard. Right?
Grimacing at the thought, I wander down the sterile corridors. The labs are housed in a huge square building. Inside, there’s a corridor that runs around the inner perimeter and it takes you to every corner of the place. The corridor is windowed on both sides so I can look into the labs as well as look outside and not ten feet into the place, I come to a halt.
They’re there again. All three of them sat together, talking together, whispering together… Alexei, Greta, and James.
I don’t know what it is about them, but something, some niggle keeps on bringing them to my attention.
Why is no one else freaked out about it?
I mean, surely they remember the ho
stility? Even as a kid, I saw it. Felt it.
The men had been best of friends before Greta had shown up and ruptured what had once been a beautiful, innocent friendship. Like a siren, she’d dived right in and caused mischief and havoc; inspiring jealousy between Alexei and James, as well as the long-deceased John. The amputee that had killed himself one summer, long ago.
I hate labeling him like that. The amputee. As though that defined him. Not his mathematics genius. Or his abilities. Just his physical disability. The thought is definitely unpalatable.
I narrow my eyes at the three of them, wondering how hostility had turned into friendship. Anyone else, I’d have thought bygones had simply become bygones. As it is, where Greta’s involved, I’d say shit had a chance of smelling like honey first.
Without taking the chance to think about it, I open the door to their quarters and step inside the sterile environment. The temperature control is set low and in my thin jacket, I shiver a little but brush it off as all three of them jerk back in surprise at my entrance.
I’ve had to temper my brusqueness these last few days. Had to pretty up my words and make sure I don’t create enemies where I want allies. As it is, I doubt I can keep a civil tongue in my head with these three. They get my back up. A part of me registers it’s a long-lost loyalty to the man who took his own life over the situation these three stirred up, but I ignore the thought and the distant memories of John to ask, “What are you doing in here, Greta? I didn’t realize you’d switched specialties.”
“We’re working on an experiment together.” The blonde’s smirk has me shutting down my temper. It would be easy to lay into her. Way, way too easy. She’s that sort of woman. Within seconds, she has you wanting to tear her hair out. I don’t know why, but she does.
“Yeah?” I ask. “What kind of experiment, James?”
It doesn’t escape my attention that the men have ducked their heads or that Alexei is slightly pink. It might not be a lie. The three of them work in compatible sciences. Greta in computer science, Alexei in biophysics, and James in math. I’m just curious as to what that experiment might be.
Greta’s quick to open her mouth to try to reply, but I hold up my hand. “James has a tongue, I believe, Greta. And I did ask him. What kind of experiment are the three of you involved in?”
James is a Brit. He came to us in the seventies and has been here ever since. Just like Eddie, he tends to say the weirdest phrases. Sometimes, it makes me question if Brits and Americans speak the same language. I watch him as he tugs at his collar and in a voice so low it might as well have been a whisper, he says, “A bionic experiment.”
“You’re the team working on Nate’s hand?”
Greta’s smirk has made a reappearance. My hand itches with the desire to smack it away. Fuck, she rubs me up the wrong way. “Yeah, a clever device, isn’t it?”
I’d like to deny it, just to spite her, but it’s a frickin’ miraculous device. The fingers of the hand are on a ten to fifteen second delay from the time Nate thinks about something he wants to do, to the bionic prosthetic actually reacting. The motility, the dexterity… the creation’s capabilities are worthy of a Nobel Prize. There are plenty of models starting to make their way on to the market, but this one is purely in the prototype phase. Even at this stage, it’s incredibly advanced.
“It is. Congratulations.” I study the three of them, saying nothing, just watching them with a frown on my face until even Greta starts to fidget.
“Is there a problem?” she asks, voice brittle.
I start to shake my head, but I pause, hesitate over my words until I eventually say, “This is a new development, isn’t it?”
“What?” she snaps.
“The three of you. Together.”
Alexei’s head pops up and he glowers at me. “What are you suggesting?”
Despite myself, I snicker at his offense. “Now who’s got a dirty mind? Get your thoughts out of the gutter, Alexei. I meant the three of you in the same room. The last time I was here, you couldn’t stand to be in the mess with James, Alexei. Yet here the three of you are. Chatting, gossiping like nothing happened. What’s changed?”
“Time heals all wounds,” Greta slots in, as smooth as silk.
Humming my disbelief under my breath, I ask, “Since when? As far as I was aware, John’s death didn’t do anything to improve your relationship, so why should time? And why now? After so long has passed.”
Alexei’s tone is sharp, as he bites out, “At our age, we can’t afford to let old friendships die out.”
“Bullshit.” Oops. Hell, it just popped out. “John committed suicide; if that isn’t something to make you reconsider your stance, your own mortality won’t affect you.”
“There comes a time, when bygones must be bygones,” James comments, his eyes somber.
I let my gaze drift from James to Alexei and back again. What they’re saying isn’t unbelievable, so why don’t I believe it?
As a kid, I wasn’t interested in the adults on the commune, unless they directly affected my life. So, I gave a damn about the artists who helped me and who taught me their techniques. But the scientists were outside of my radar. And yet, the sheer hatred between John, prior to his death, and these two was of mammoth proportions. It filtered all the way down to me. So such an easy, simple answer doesn’t sit well with me.
You just can’t switch off those kinds of feelings. No matter how much time passes.
I narrow my eyes at the trio, who are all seated on a round table. A large one, granted, but still, they’re all close. This is their primary work surface and there’s all kinds of shit on there I don’t even have a clue about, save the computers. Papers litter the top, printouts and coffee cups. It’s a natural work environment for three scientists. Sometimes, you get the anal-retentive folk and other times, like in this instance, you get the messy ones.
As I study them, I say, “If you say so, James.” I don’t hide the fact I’m not convinced. Instead, I step forward to their work surfaces and continue, “How close are you to tying up the loose ends on the prototype of the hand?”
“Nate’s going to be fitted with a newer, updated version within the month.”
Nodding at Alexei, who was the one to make the comment, I ask, “What kinds of upgrades?”
“Ever since the military showed their interest in the prosthetic, we’ve had to upgrade the motility functions. As it is, the fingers were nimble. Capable of peeling a banana, for example. But with the military… well, we had to ensure the fingers were capable of firing a weapon. We’ve tightened up the system, that’s all.”
“And this current prototype, is it functioning?”
“Almost.” It’s James’ turn to answer. “We’re having problems with the battery.”
“Problems I should be concerned about?”
“No,” Greta replies, her voice, for once, professional and free from smugness. “We’ve managed to iron out why the problem exists; we just need to implement it and we’re waiting on the technicians to put the updates in place with the newer version of the battery.”
“Okay, well, it sounds like you’re all working brilliantly together.” Even though I don’t believe them, I tell them the opposite. “I’m glad you’ve laid the past to rest, because what you’ve invented is going to change a lot of people’s lives.” Trying to sound sincere is difficult, but I suck it up. “I only popped in, because I wanted to let you all know that while you can still talk to Nate about any general problems or concerns with the ranch’s herd, that’s it.
“Now I’m back, you can come to me for the more pressing issues where the commune itself is involved. Be it a dispute between you and somebody else or a question about your annual grant. I want you to come to me. Sam is no longer a part of the administration, so he can’t help you. And if you go to him, thinking you can make him persuade me, it won’t work. Come direct to the source.” I smile at them to take the sting of that last remark away.
“We un
derstand, don’t we, boys?” Greta murmurs, that saccharin-smile on her chops again.
Eying her, I nod rather than reply and turn on my heel to leave their lab.
The rest of the visit ran pretty smoothly. I’ve few bugbears with the folk on-site. As a kid, I kept my distance from most people, so I’ve no past grievances to muddy the waters. I said my bit in kinder tones to the rest of the people in the lab and made my escape into the cooling late afternoon.
I haven’t been here all that long, but already, I’m feeling a lot better. The constant griping pains that had become a part and parcel of my day had disappeared. I guess I’d been a fool to ignore them as long as I had in New York, but in truth, it had never crossed my mind there would be something physically wrong with me. Hell, you try being harassed by people you know would as soon as put a bullet in your brain if you happened to say the wrong thing and come out of it without feeling slightly stressed.
As it is, I’m not exactly a million miles away from New York, but I hope the distance is enough. Ever since that farce with Mona—who still isn’t picking up her phone, by the goddamned way—I’ve made a point of scouring the papers every day and I’ve seen nothing. No political scandal over politicians using the services of high-class hookers. It’s too early to say that I’m in the clear, but each day is a stepping-stone, and I’m taking it slowly.
With the lab at my back, I take a look over the pastures and just take a moment to suck in a breath and be. Making a bridge with my hands, I lift my arms overhead and stretch. Wiggling to loosen the kinks in my shoulders that interacting with Greta had created.
God, that woman rubs me up the wrong way. There’s something about her. Snide and catty, she’s a difficult woman for other females to like. The annoying thing is most guys would say it’s because of the way she looks. And that’s just BS. Eddie is the epitome of female beauty. You have not seen a more gorgeous woman than my best friend and yet, she’s exactly that. My best friend. I don’t hate her guts because she’s hot. So there’s no reason to be envious of a woman in her mid-fifties, who still has her looks, but they’re nothing like Eddie’s.
Sinfully Mastered: Naughty Nookie Page 23