I guessed this was lesson number one.
"Is she, uh, usually like this when she, uh, ovulates?" I asked.
"Not always. But you kind of shocked her hormones into high gear the other day, and with your friend in heat..." Jenny raised her hands. "The perfect storm, as they say."
I made a noise that signified basic comprehension. Different noises came from upstairs. It sounded as if someone was beating the ceiling like a drum.
"She should really tighten the screws on her headboard," said Jenny. "One of these days it's going to detach from her bed at the wrong moment."
I was trying not to picture what was happening on that bed. If anyone could detach the headboard, it might be Jim. He was one strong dude.
"I hope you aren't too shocked," said Jenny. "Kayla isn't exactly a nun. She has numerous boyfriends. Well, not boyfriends, really...more this rotation of guys she knows from work. Mostly athletes she's treated. A very harem of very buff men. Some single, but some of them are married or in relationships."
"Huh," I said. I noted Jenny's half-frown. "How about you? You don't have a boyfriend or anything...?"
Jenny shook her head. "No. Not for a while. But don't get the wrong idea about me, either. I'm no saint. I've done the rotation thing – Kayla even helped supply some of them. Sometimes we even shared men."
I sat up straighter. Now she had my full attention. I wasn't sure if I was titillated or repulsed. Her full lips compressed into a thin smile.
"What do you think about that?" she asked, and I saw a glint of fear or maybe sadness in her eyes. Did she think I might condemn her for that? Me – who screwed a dozen women weekly for science?
"I don't know," I said. "I think it's really hard for people these days. You kinda have to do what you have to do, I guess. And to be honest, I don't really have a clue. I may be hyper, but that just happened, and I don't know much about relationships between normal people."
Jenny nodded, her smile relaxing. "It's hard to find a good balance. If you look like Kayla, you can attract a lot of men, but even for her it consumes a lot of energy to keep it going. Not to mention a lot of your soul."
"Yeah."
"So I stopped a couple of years ago. Not that I don't 'partake' on random occasions when the opportunity's there. As I said, I'm no saint. Just looking for something more."
"Me, too," I said.
Without thinking, I reached across and clasped her nearest hand. Surprise flickered in her eyes. And then something else. Continuing my unthinking impulse, I drew her hand across the patio table and bent my head to kiss it.
Jenny sprang to her feet as if a fire alarm had just gone off. Her beer bottle skittered off the table, landing in a potted plant. Her jaw was set and her eyes were wild and narrowed. She maintained her grip on my hand as she started toward me. I wondered if she planned to punch me out or something. The muscles bunching in her slim arms suggested she was more than capable.
But instead she planted one hand on my chest and pushed me backward through the open kitchen sliding glass door straight across into her living room. Another shove sent me sprawling onto her couch.
She tore off her robe. And as I lay gawking up at her perfection – the six-pack stomach, full but uplifted breasts, the smooth swell over her thighs – she reached down and tugged my swim trunks off hard enough to redden my skin, exposing another part of me that was gawking at her.
"Oh my," she said.
She moved like a cat, straddling and engulfing me in one swift motion. All I could do was gasp and make feeble whimpering sounds – seconded by a chorus of groans and cries from the floor above us.
"Jim...Kayla..?" I moaned.
"No worries," she said between panting breaths. "They'll be a while."
I blew in a matter of seconds, but Jenny just kept bouncing on me, crying out again and again, refusing to let up. I had no choice but to go along for the mind and sense-blowing ride.
I thought the ecstasy might last forever when Jenny suddenly slumped off me and rolled to the floor, breathing as if she'd run a marathon or was having a heart attack.
"No, no, no," she whispered.
I turned gingerly on my side to look down on her. She was lying with her eyes wide open and fixed like a corpse.
"Are you okay?"
Jenny groaned and felt her forehead. "I don't think so."
"What's wrong?" I sat up, paranoia filling me. "Should we get Kayla?"
"I doubt she'll be able to help." She covered her eyes. "Just give me a minute."
I grabbed my clothes and walked woozily over to the first floor bathroom. What had just happened (besides the obvious)? I was wearing Andrydox, and she said she'd sprayed her nostrils with antihistamine. So why had she lost control like that? Not that I was complaining, but I wanted to believe it really had been something more than just chemicals.
When I emerged, Jenny wasn't in the living room. I sat back down outside, stomach rumbling, and helped myself to more cheese and crackers.
Jenny reappeared a few minutes later in jeans and blouse, her face looking pink and fresh-scrubbed.
"Hey," she said, a smile flickering on and off as she sat across from me. "Wow, I didn't see that one coming. I hope I didn't shock you too much – or as much as I shocked myself."
"I didn't see it coming, either." I gave her a roguish smile. "Though I'm glad we both did."
"Ha. More than once." Her smile flicked on and off again. "Much more than once."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
Jenny retrieved her now-empty beer bottle from the nearby potted plant and after brushing it off set it on the table.
"If you call committing an illegal act a good thing," she murmured. "Or spoiling it for every other relationship I might have in the future."
I beamed a bit at her last comment. "I don't believe it should be illegal. Where did they get the right to tell us what to do anyway?"
"I might agree there." Jenny smiled at me with a bit more warmth. "Doesn't change the fact that I could go to prison, though. And it doesn't make what I did with you any less dumb."
"It felt pretty wise to me."
She laughed quietly. Her green-eyed gaze settled firmly on me.
"You're something," she said, making that sound sad.
"You know, I think I kind of get where you're coming from."
"Kind of would be an understatement."
I laughed a little. "I meant I want things to be different, too. I was thinking before how much I want to grow up, to be someone you could take seriously. But I'm trapped in this kid's body."
"You don't have a kid's body, Aiden. Trust me on that."
"Ah, thanks." I rubbed the hot spot surfacing on my face. "Kid's age, then."
"You're trapped in your age." She smiled. "Funny. People these days can identify as different genders. Maybe that could apply to age, too."
"I identify as a thirty-two year old."
"That means you could legally drink and smoke and have sex and attend adult education classes."
"And vote, too."
"Right."
"Get married and live happily ever after?"
"Be one of the thirty-six percent who don't get divorced?" Her snort held a painful note. "Getting married would be the last thing most guys your age would be thinking about. The last thing even most guys my age are thinking about, from what I've seen. You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard guys say they'll get married when they're fifty or sixty when they know their wives can't get pregnant."
"My mom's complained about that sometimes." I frowned and sighed. "Strange, because I always wanted to have children."
"You are one strange teenage dude."
"But as a hyper, the probability is close to zero that I could be a father unless someone finds a treatment."
Jenny nodded, sympathy shining in her eyes. "I know."
"No big deal." I concocted a jaunty smile. "I just need to discover a cure."
"Is that what you're working on at CellEvo
lve now?"
I waved my finger at her.
"Right, sorry. Force of habit."
"You called the Reproductive Safety Agency about exemptions, didn't you?"
I'd been on the fence about asking that – I'd been afraid it might scare Jenny away from me – but now I thought a little fear might be needed to stop her nosiness about CellEvolve. And fear did flash in her eyes – along with surprise. Bingo. I had actually wanted to be wrong about that.
"Why do you ask that, Aiden?"
"My boss – supervisor – at CE mentioned it."
"How would he possibly know about one anonymous call to the RSA?"
"He keeps in touch with people there, I guess."
It occurred to me that trying to discourage talk about CE had led to us talking about it. But that would be a worthwhile violation of my no-talk rule if it halted future nosiness from her. She was chewing on her lower lip, but caught herself and arranged her features into a calmer state.
"That's kind of freaky," she said.
"So you did make that call?"
Jenny nodded reluctantly. "But why would your supervisor tell you about that? He certainly couldn't connect it to you."
"But he did." Now real worry gleamed in her eyes. "Turns out it wasn't a big logical leap because I'm the only one in the U.S. with that exemption – and you called just after he told me about it."
Jenny ran a shaky hand through her hair. "An RSA official taking the time to inform an executive in CE about one phone inquiry..." She shook her head in slow, disbelieving wonder. "You must be working on something awfully important. Something they're desperate to keep secret."
I didn't like that deduction – as obviously sound as it was – at all. An investigative reporter suspecting a desperate secret didn't bode well for my mission to shut down this subject with her.
"So what did he say to you?" she asked.
"He was pretty pissed. He basically told me that if I didn't keep my mouth shut from now on I would be in deep shit."
"Did he happen to define 'deep shit'?"
"Not really. But he strongly implied I wouldn't like it."
"Damn." Jenny took a long, shuddering breath. "When I made that call I never dreamed they'd have a way to trace it to you. I'm so sorry, Aiden. "
I shrugged. "He said it wouldn't be a problem as long as it doesn't happen again."
That was Jenny's cue to be all apologetic and earnestly tell me she was done asking about CellEvolve – but instead, she sat there looking thoughtful.
"Jenny..."
She roused herself, raising her hands. "I get it. I promise not to make any more inquiries that would get you in trouble."
"Thanks. I'd appreciate that. CellEvolve is pretty serious about its secrecy. You should've seen all the forms I had to sign."
"I can imagine. Not that it would exactly be news that CE was working on a cure. I'm sure every big pharmaceutical company has someone working on that." Her thoughtful expression returned. "Though I sometimes wonder what would happen if they found one."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, it would change everything almost overnight. In a matter of weeks or months we'd be back to 1982, before the Ebola and then the MES outbreak. The entire relationship between genders would be turned upside down."
"More like right side up, I'd say."
"True. But I still wonder whether the Powers That Be would release a cure if it was discovered."
"Why wouldn't they release it?" I asked. "Anyone who came up with a cure would make an unbelievable fortune."
"I know it sounds great in theory. But then all the governments in the world would get involved, and you wonder what control the inventing company or person would keep. Besides so many things would change so fast. It would be chaos – at least for a while. And governments don't like chaos."
Jenny's words struck an uneasy chord in me. I remembered Dr. Blumenthal talking about how "certain members of Congress" feared its "socially destabilizing effects", including population increases.
"Well, we'd just have to deal with it," I said with a forced shrug. "We'd survive, just as we did after 1982."
"I know. But we went through a worldwide depression for almost ten years. I remember how stressed out my folks were when I was a kid even though I narrowly missed inclusion in the 'Outbreak Generation.'"
"I think parents are still pretty stressed even now."
"I doubt there's ever been a generation where kids didn't complain about their parents and vice versa. But seriously, Aiden, things are fairly normalized now compared to then."
I recalled Dr. Blumenthal's words: The post-MES world has become the new normal. Maybe Jenny was right, depressing as it was.
"It's hard for us to imagine now what it was like for guys to lose their normal virility and women to lose their men," Jenny continued her dreary monologue. "You know what the suicide rate for men was in those first few years?"
I sighed. "Higher than normal, I guess."
"At one point something like 80% of men under sixty reported suicidal thoughts. 6% of men attempted suicide during the first five Outbreak years. 2% of them succeeded. 2% doesn't sound like much, but that was almost half a million men, up more than a thousand percent from pre-Outbreak!"
Jeez. "That's pretty depressing."
"I'm not trying to be depressing, Aiden." She reached across and touched my forearm, reigniting sparks. I focused on remaining calm. "Just making a point. When there's major change in human life, things will usually get messy. Even if it looks like a positive change."
"You might be onto something there," I said. "You're not the first person I've heard say something like that."
"Who was the other person?"
"Just someone I work for."
"Your supervisor at CE?"
I gave her a droll look.
"Right, right," she said, holding up one hand in defense. "By some coincidence, there's an interesting rumor in the conspiracy circles that CE's new drug, Revive, was designed originally as a treatment for MES, but got 're-purposed' as a treatment for a variety of other ailments. Also, there's an even newer drug – haven't heard a name for it yet – that's supposed to be the real deal."
Man, this had to be the worst "afterglow" discussion ever. She just wouldn't let this subject go.
"You hadn't heard anything about that?" Jenny asked.
I tried to stem the annoyance – and guilty knowledge – I felt edging back into my face with a dismissive wave. "I don't spend much time on conspiracy sites. It seems like there's one for every possible crazy idea someone could dream up."
"Ya, I know. But then some of them turn out to be true. MES was a crazy conspiracy theory – until it wasn't."
"I didn't know that. You've done a lot of reading about this, it seems like."
"Well, it is sort of a hobby of mine. My favorite book on the subject is A Different World, by Joanna Parks. She really digs into the social changes that occurred after the Outbreak. You should check it out."
"Yeah. Maybe I will."
Her dry smile acknowledged the lack of enthusiasm in my voice.
Kayla came bouncing down the stairs in pants and a sweater, Jim following with a self-conscious smile.
"Anyone hungry?" she called out.
I raised one hand.
"I'm not surprised. You two sounded as if you were working up quite an appetite."
"I'm surprised you could hear us over all your noise," said Jenny. "I half-expected your bed to crash through the ceiling."
Kayla laughed. "I really should get that headboard fixed."
Chapter 27
I HAD A VERY bad feeling when I entered Dr. Blumenthal's office and found a woman with long, grey-blond hair standing with her back turned toward me. That feeling increased when she didn't turn around right away and my imagination about who she was and why she was standing with her back to me started to take off.
She was studying a chart on the wall. The chart was on a blackboard and appeared
to have been drawn by hand. The blackboard was new to the wall.
I had no idea who she was. All I knew was that I'd been summoned to the Director of Research and Development's office. That should've meant Dr. Blumenthal, though I'd thought it was strange that I hadn't got the usual "Dr. Blumenthal wants to see you" memo.
The woman turned to face me. I had no idea what I'd been expecting, but she wasn't it. From the grey streaks in her hair, I'd expected someone older. Her face was young – or at least smooth and unwrinkled and as firm as a normal twenty or thirty year old – and had a strange, beautiful perfection, like a wax sculpture of some blond female Aryan propagandist in a Nazi museum. That was what popped into my head anyway. Maybe it was her eyes – the coldest blue I'd ever seen – or the immobility of her features.
"Aiden Stevens," she said. "I'm Dr. Martha Eberhart, the new Director of Research and Development in this branch."
While I stood there, stunned, she motioned to the chair in front of what had been Dr. Blumenthal's desk. Same massive redwood desk anyway.
"What happened to Dr. Blumenthal?"
"He retired."
"But...he never said anything to me about retiring."
"I'm sure he had his reasons."
I sat down but didn't relax the muscles in my legs – in case I had to jump up suddenly. This lady was that scary. I wasn't sure why. She wasn't that big or muscular or ferocious-looking. But her blue eyes and her immobile expression made the North Pole seem tropical.
She folded herself into her chair body part by body part, as if sitting required a series of geometric calculations.
"I called you in because I wanted to introduce myself," she said. "I understand you've been integral to the success of our program here."
"Uh...thanks."
"How are you feeling about your work here?"
I wondered if that was a trick question. Reading her expression was like trying to spot minnows beneath four feet of ice.
"It's...challenging, I guess."
A smile appeared on her face like one of those ships that break through the ice. "Interesting word-choice."
I waited for her to elaborate or say something but Dr. Eberhart seemed content to study me.
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