© Copyright 2004, 2006 by silli_artie@hotmail.com
This work may not be reposted or redistributed without the prior
express written permission of the author.
A work of fiction, meant for adults. Read something else if you are
not an adult, or are offended by stories with sexual content. Then
again, if all you’re looking for is in-out, in-out, in-out, you
should probably read something else. I welcome constructive comments.
Enjoy.
4
Deev
I’m a physicist, not an anthropologist or sociologist. Still, I’d guess that most would consider the definitive act of maleness, of aggression, to be sexual insertion. Guns, swords, all those “boy” things, so phallic. Rose tells me there must be a genetic, archetypal component to such behaviour, as boys still play that way, even outnumbered by girls as we are, four or five to one. And the feminine? Receptive, accepting, nurturing. Right.
I suppose an anthropologist would say that whenever a niche evolves, that niche will be filled.
That brings me to Deev... Feminine? Female, certainly, a goddess, an Amazon (two-breasted, two full, sensuous, and sensitive breasts). But she’s also the most sexually aggressive person I’ve ever met. “Aggressive breasts” may sound strange and contradictory, but it applies to Deev. No, just make that aggressive. Everything she does, she does all out.
She entered our lives Sunday morning. I was at my desk preparing for the upcoming week; Rose was puttering in the kitchen. I saw motion out of the corner of my eye and looked up. A cart was coming along the path to our place.
“I believe someone has arrived,” I called out.
“Deev!” shouted Rose. She ran to the door, flung it open, and ran outside. “Deev!”
“Siggy!” was the equally enthusiastic reply.
I got up when the noise moved to the entranceway.
And when I looked, just inside my door, I saw enthusiastic, passionate hugging and kissing. Rose is about my height, Deev at least a head taller.
Rose was grinning from ear to ear when she finally stepped back. Both of them looked pleasantly pink from their mutual greeting. Deev has a roundish face and sparkling green eyes. They were still holding hands.
“Sister Deev, Alan Edwin Grant,” Rose introduced us.
“At your Service,” I tried to say formally, but was having trouble keeping a straight face.
“Deev is here to study your notebooks ,” Rose said, poking Deev in the ribs for emphasis.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I said with a smile.
The wrong thing to say -- Deev grabbed me, pulling me into a kiss. I held on; she pushed me against the wall with her entire body. I felt hard nipples and full breasts pressing into me almost at my clavicle level. She was passionate; I responded.
Rose pulled us apart, laughing. “I said notebooks!”
Deev looked at me, what a lascivious, lusty look! “Yeah,” she growled.
“Let’s get your things inside,” I suggested.
She had four bags, half technical by the looks and weight of them.
“You’re early!” Rose exclaimed happily.
“Strong tailwinds, and we took off early,” Deev told us, moving the last of the bags. “Oh Siggy, it’s so good to see you!”
“See ?” I had to interject.
Deev gave me a carnivorous look. Rose chuckled and hugged her friend again.
“Anyone for lunch?” I suggested, looking at the clock.
“I’m starving!” Deev exclaimed. “They hardly fed us!”
Rose shook her head. “I’ll clean up a bit and we’ll go.”
Deev gave her a quick hug and let her scamper up the stairs.
“Professor Grant, I’m sorry if I was forward,” Deev half-apologized.
I shook my head. “Please, call me Alan. No apologies necessary.” That seemed to relax her a bit. “Why ‘Siggy’?” I inquired.
“Her pet name for me,” Rose replied as she came downstairs, “after Sigmund Freud.”
That confused me. “Really? I would have thought you’d take after a woman psychologist, like the U.K. woman, rather than him.”
“Klein? No. Let’s go,” she said, shooing us to the door and outside. “It’s a historic reference. Professionally, I take after the American husband and wife team from early this century, Andrew and Rachel Wilson.”
We fell into step, Rose between Deev and I, holding both of us. Deev and Rose chatted about goings on back “at the lab,” which I took to be Kalansky’s place.
When we got to the door of the hall, Rose stopped. “Wait here,” she told us. She moved closer to Deev and gave her a big hug and a peck on the cheek. She gave me a big hug and a very nice kiss. Then she popped in the door.
She looked amused when she waved us in. One of the women who runs the dining hall took us to our table. Rose wore an interesting grin. Our server set out water, utensils, and napkins, but no menus.
“Sister Deev,” Rose began formally.
Deev sat back. She’s a big girl. “Yes, Sister Rose,” she replied with equal formality, an eyebrow raised.
“You are here for the next few weeks,” Rose continued, “primarily to research and evaluate Professor Grant’s notebooks.”
Deev and I nodded.
Rose continued. “In addition, you will be attending to certain other tasks. We have arranged for you to participate in an exercise regime...”
“What!” exclaimed Deev.
Rose nodded. “To make it easier, the same time and location as Professor Grant.”
Deev didn’t look pleased.
“In addition,” Rose said, “our meals here will be carefully prepared.”
Deev grumbled under her breath.
“And don’t even think of running off for something,” Rose told her. “Is that clear?”
Deev nodded her head. “Yes,” she said dejectedly.
We had a fairly normal lunch. I got the feeling Deev might be used to larger or multiple portions, but she didn’t grumble about it, or at least not much.
“You can have my broccoli,” I offered. Rose and Deev laughed.
As we walked back, Deev asked, “When can I get started with your notebooks?”
“When we get back. How much do you know?”
“Not much -- deliberately. You’ve encoded information in a non-textual manner, and evidently outside the area captured in existing images. I thought I’d spend the afternoon looking things over to see if I can spot something on my own.”
I liked that. I showed her the notebooks, explaining history and sequence. She showed me some of her equipment, including a digital camera she’d use to record marks of interest, if I gave my permission. I didn’t have a problem with that. Rose took her two clothing bags upstairs. Deev settled in on the couch with a stack of notebooks and a notepad. We moved a reading lamp closer. I returned to my desk to work.
I glanced over after a few minutes. “You’re holding that upside-down,” I suggested, looking at the way she was holding a notebook.
She looked up and smiled. “Yes -- it helps me spot patterns.”
I nodded. “Interesting approach.”
She smiled.
Rose came down a while later, wearing her gray undergarments, her usual dress when students weren’t around. Deev glanced up and raised an eyebrow.
“Residence hall rules,” Rose told her.
“Really?” Deev asked.
Rose looked to me. “Alan, do you mind if Deev goes around like this?”
“Not at all,” I told both of them.
Deev smiled, leering at me. “I’ll get comfortable when I complete this volume.”
“I hope you brought slippers; the floors get cold, especially downstairs,” Rose warned her as she stepped around the desk. She gave me a kiss on the head and sat down at her computer.
“Show me where things are?” Deev asked Rose a while later. They went upstairs.
...And came back down quicker than I’d have anticipated, but I didn’t comment. Both looked rosy.
From our lunchtime conversation, I expected -- I don’t know what I expected. Deev certainly didn’t look overweight. She looked to be in very good condition. I was glad I was sitting down -- I had quite the erection. She gave me a smoldering look, which didn’t help matters, but then sat down and picked up her notepad and the next notebook.
Rose giggled. I turned and looked at her. She made a face and returned to her work. I shook my head and did the same.
“Dinner break,” Rose called, standing up to stretch.
I looked up. I’d actually gotten quite a bit done! I looked to Deev; she sighed and stretched. God, she looked good! She saw me looking and smiled, almost licking her lips. I was in trouble, and it was going to be glorious!
The ladies went upstairs; I used the downstairs loo, then grabbed my coat and their cloaks. It looked drizzly out, no surprise for this time of year.
“Tentative conclusions?” I asked Deev as we walked to dinner.
She maneuvered between Rose and me, holding us. “Not yet -- let me worry it through dinner.”
Sunday, lamb night. We had generous portions, and it was delicious. Deev talked about her schooling, growing up on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (a “yooper,” she told us proudly), going to Stanford, then Johns Hopkins and Kalansky’s lab. With a frown, she said a lot of her colleagues had a tough time distinguishing correlation from causation, let alone what was required for statistical validity.
After dinner, we continued our conversation in the study. Rose got up to prepare tea.
When Rose returned, Deev asked, “Ready for some guesses?”
I was in my tutor’s chair. “Certainly!” I replied with a smile. I pointed to the whiteboard. “Be my guest.”
Rose held the tray in front of me and said, “Pick one.”
I looked up at her and smiled. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Deev picked one and moved a chair closer to the whiteboard. She had a sip of tea, started to speak, and asked, “Is this place clean?”
Rose and I looked at each other. “As far as I know,” I told her, shrugging.
Rose nodded. “As far as I’ve been able to determine.”
Deev sighed and took another sip. “Thanks. I’ll start with my assumptions.”
She shuffled paper for a moment. “First, what I’m looking for is non-textual in nature. Second, it repeats and evolves over time. Third, someone is too anal-retentive to have allowed any hard science types to look this material over. Fourth, they wouldn’t tell us if they had!”
“Most likely valid,” Rose pronounced.
Deev grinned. “Okay. I grouped things into four classes of non-text markings. I’m excluding recognizable math from the start -- that’s math recognizable to me. One class looks like circuitry and block diagrams. One class looks like ink blobs; an aunt of mine used a fountain pen and fussed with it, producing similar blobs. That leaves these two classes.”
She picked up a marker and started drawing on the whiteboard, putting a line down the middle, then drawing from her notes. “One class I’ll call leaves, as to me they look like stem patterns or branches.” She drew a few of those. “The other, I’m not sure what to call. They’re closed curves, and related, sometimes with symbols like those from set theory or higher maths. Both have repeating elements and evolve over time, meeting my criteria.”
She sat back, capping the marker and looking at me.
“You found it,” I told her with a smirk I know I’d picked up from Rose.
Deev tossed the marker at me and stuck out her tongue.
“Not unless you’re going to use it,” Rose said in half-jest. Deev gave her a lusty look.
“Ah, any guesses?” I interrupted. “The blobs are indeed blobs, so you can throw them out, and the math, and the block diagrams.”
Deev shook her head and looked back to me. She pointed to the second set. “These look really interesting. There are patterns and progressions, verbs or operators, almost a language.”
I nodded, easing back and having another sip of tea. “Those are notations I use in working with the evolution of quantum theory.”
Deev nodded, a look of concentration on her face. She reached for a notebook, opening it to a page. “But here -- you’ve got them at different ends of the page, and stuff with a question mark connecting them, looks like Hamiltonians and tensors run through a blender.”
I smiled and described what I was working on, the quest to integrate gravity with existing quantum models. That led to the problem of action at a distance, the work of J. S. Bell, and quantum nonlocality. After a few minutes, both Rose and Deev were squirming in their seats and frowning. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“That’s so bizarre,” Rose said.
I nodded. “And it’s a measure of your intelligence that this makes both of you uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, it means I made the right choice to bail out of physics,” Deev muttered.
I shook my head. “No, it means you’re both very intelligent to be able to grasp the implications.”
“But why?” Rose asked.
I shook my head. “Don’t ask ‘why,’ seek to understand ‘how’ first. Kepler did that -- the orbits of the planets cover equal areas in equal time. That was how, fitting hypothesis to data. Later, Newton came along and said why it had to be that way, and connected falling apples to orbiting planets. Well, until someone looked closely enough at the advance of the perihelion of Mercury, peeling away another layer of the onion, asking questions again. Explaining that opened up far more questions.”
That got the puzzled looks I expected.
“One of my colleagues gives wonderful lectures on the history of science, of physics. I’ve written some of the lectures.”
Deev said, “I’d love to hear you talk.”
I sighed and looked at my empty teacup. “They don’t let me. Something about being in front of crowds.”
Rose frowned, almost snarled. “That’s got to stop.”
I looked at her and nodded.
Deev said, more excited, “That means the leaf things -- they’re it? That’s what I’m looking for?”
“Yes, dear! Would you like an explanation of some early ones? They have evolved over time, and as I told Rose, will require context to understand.”
Deev smiled. “Oh yes! But I’ve got to pee first!” She bolted for the downstairs loo.
“I’ll go upstairs,” I said with a chuckle, standing.
Rose hugged me and picked up our cups and saucers.
Returning to the study, I sat between Deev and Rose on the couch. Starting with an early notebook, I explained a few of the diagrams, the main line representing time, the markings above the “stem” line representing sexual encounters, and the markings below the stem my feelings. I skipped to the notebook for March 2090, going through those entries, explaining them, demonstrating to Rose and to Deev how I concluded that’s when the medication started, pointing out the obvious changes in handwriting as well as recorded differences in how I felt. I skipped to the latest one, going through the week before Margaret and Rose arrived, the circles I used to represent feeling so empty, and pointing to my latest entry, where instead of an empty circle, a small arc appeared. “What’s that look like?” I asked them.
Rose looked puzzled.
Deev said, “A smile?”
I nodded, smiling. “A smile -- I’m happy.”
Rose threw her arms around me. I held her as well.
As we separated, Rose made a giggling sound. I turned around.
Deev had taken off her top and bra. Her breasts were magnificent! She pulled me to a proud, erect nipple.
My eyes closed as my arms flew around her. She growled and rumbled, moving my head around, almost suffocating me as I sucked on her, trying to fill myself with her.
We made it upstairs, shedding clothing as we went. As she pulled me to her once more I managed to confess, “Do something or I won’t last long at all!”
Deev laughed, letting me go on to my back. Rose leaned over and whispered in her ear. Together they stroked me, sending shivers through me as my eyes closed.
Her weight felt so glorious on top of me! She jammed a pillow beneath my head to prop me up, and held me to her as she rode me. After I was spent and had slipped out, she still held me. Deev started whispering, and I didn’t even have the strength to hold on. But I didn’t need to; she held me.
Deev and I made love at least three more times before we got up in the morning, and after the last time, both of us shuddering as Rose orchestrated us, Deev held me again. I couldn’t get enough of her.
Rose got us out of bed, though, and ready to go exercise -- too late for breakfast at the hall. As we walked in the early morning light, Deev muttered, “No wonder he’s got such a good immune system.” Rose laughed and gave me a squeeze. So did Deev.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
Rose was still chuckling. “Nursing develops the immune system,” she told me.
“And you haven’t stopped,” Deev added with a squeeze.
“Never will,” I said, “And I didn’t hear any complaints...” I squeezed the side of a breast.
Deev held my hand in place. Rose chuckled.
We separated once we got in the building; I worked with the usual crew. After a nominal workout, I stretched out for a massage.
“Hmmm... Someone should trim their nails,” Shirley offered as she worked my back.
Deev and I met in the lobby, returning for toast and tea before my tutorials started. Deev set up her camera in the kitchen and started recording notebooks.
Deev was still bubbling over at lunch, excited with the project. She was recording and dating images, and once she had a database, would start going through it with me. Rose met us, returning from the Order’s office. Tests showed she was close to ovulation -- tomorrow morning would be it. The specialist who was doing the retrieval was a woman she’d worked with before. We held hands for a moment. Deev told her she’d be at her side all the time.
Deev grumbled about not enough lunch. We sat down together when my tutorials ended and covered a lot of ground. Initially Deev was checking with me only when things looked different. I told her that was a good first approximation, but she needed to be cognizant of holidays and such, things that supplied context. She assured me we’d go through things day by day at least once.
And at the end of an hour or so, she did it to me again. One moment I’m looking around, and the next moment she’s squeezing me to a nipple. This time she’s put on perfume, and I really can’t get enough of her. We made it upstairs and she wiped me out.
Rose roused us; we made it to dinner. After dinner, we moved to the kitchen, talking about things as Deev imaged more notebook pages. Rose took over that task as it was pretty mechanical and repetitive, and joined in as Deev and I discussed specific dates, adding context.
Rose was interested in some of the events, primarily the times when I cried. She wanted to “drill down” into that. Didn’t sound like fun to me. Rose and Deev said they’d make it up to me, they promised. I could tell from the way Deev looked that she wanted to make it up to me pretty damn soon!
After cleaning up downstairs, we went upstairs and got ready for bed. Rose told me to relax on my back. Right -- I could lay on my back, but I didn’t think it was going to be an easy, relaxing trip.
They snuggled up on either side of me. Deev held me and Rose started whispering. I took a deep breath as I sucked gently on Deev, and when I exhaled, I dropped deep into trance.
It was hard for me to remember, to go back to those days when I woke up alone and cried. I didn’t want to go there; the more recent times were so much stronger, waking up alone and so empty. Those were so dark, so empty, like being at the bottom of a hole, days on end when I didn’t want to get up. But that was recent -- for years and years I’d responded differently, being hurt and angry. The empty stuff was newer, the last few years.
We moved forward, past that. I didn’t have to be empty; they were here, now. I was so hungry, holding her, devouring her. And the sensation of skin against skin, the sound of her moaning in pleasure set me afire; I was on top of her, pounding into her, then at her side once more, nestling in, attached once more, being held and rocked.
Half awake in the morning, being wrapped up in her again, this time as she held me, hearing her voice, feeling hands on my cock and balls, her squeezing me and coming so hard, relaxing into her embrace again.
“Alan, time to get up.”
Deev and I unwound. Rose was up, half dressed. I looked at the clock -- it was still early.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
Rose shook her head, smiling, a forced smile. “No, but we should get to the Center.”
Deev rolled out of bed. I saw sealed collection kits on the side table. I cleaned up as quickly as I could.
I hugged Rose before she could get out the door, holding her close.
“Don’t worry -- I’ve been through this many times,” she told me.
I looked in her eyes. “Well I haven’t.” I turned to Deev and hugged her. She squeezed me oh so deliciously. “Please take good care of her; keep her safe,” I asked.
“I will. We’ll see you later. I might see you for lunch,” she said.
I watched them walk off in the early morning mist.
“Professor Grant?”
I was eating lunch alone, and not enjoying it. I looked up to see a middle-aged woman standing at the other side of the table. She was smiling.
“Yes?” I responded.
She held out a hand. “Andrea Hastings. May I join you?”
“Of course, please have a seat,” I told her. I’d just ordered lunch.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked.
She laughed. “You’re going with us to Stonehenge; I wanted to meet you beforehand.”
“Wonderful! When are we going? How long?”
“Oh, it’s a day trip, departing either Friday or Saturday morning, depending on the weather. Currently we’re expecting to leave early Friday.”
We talked more about the trip. She gave me a list of reading materials, with a few highlighted, saying she’d like to make use of my science expertise. I muttered something about being better than the last trip.
She broke into laughter. “You made quite the impression on Mad Max, you know.”
I gave her a questioning look.
“Maxine Putnam -- curator at Bath. I was speaking to her on other matters yesterday when she mentioned visitors. She was truly astonished to learn she’d hosted one of the Sacred Seven, and quite apologetic of the way you were put to work.”
I managed a smile. “She didn’t seem so apologetic at the time. It was somewhat of a different learning experience than I’d expected.”
She laughed again. “Oh, so I understand! She is quite appreciative of the effort the two of you put in.”
I looked at my hands, still scratched. “It will be something I remember for a while.”
She held one of my hands. “I promise you, this will be a far easier trip. If you can review the references I’ve marked, and assist in answering questions, I’d appreciate it.”
We spoke more as we ate; the particular references dealt with the uses of the site as a calendar. I hoped she’d included some references suitable for a nonspecialist such as myself, and she pointed those out.
We also chatted about college life; she’d been at Oxford about fifteen years, and was surprised to learn I’d been here over twenty. I told her I’d started very young. We talked about the differences among the colleges which made up Oxford, and especially differences in food. She thought my dining hall excelled in some areas, but one or two of the other faculty halls had their good points as well. I was welcome to join her on “the other side” whenever I liked.
Walking back to my residence, my head was high and I was smiling, in spite of the weather. It had been quite an enjoyable lunch. Then “Sacred Seven” popped into the forefront, another puzzle piece to play with.
No sign of Rose and Deev, and I didn’t think calling would do any good. I read through the general references on Stonehenge and some of the specialized ones before tutorials.
Partway through my last tutorial of the afternoon, I saw an electric cart coming up the path. It was full of Matrons in their gray habits.
“Please excuse me,” I told my students. I tried not to rush to the door.
Deev and another young Matron helped Rose from the cart. She looked pale, and Deev was definitely holding her up. “We’ll help her upstairs and to bed,” Deev told me.
I recognized the other Matron as one of the medical people. I guess I was giving her questioning looks; she motioned me outside the door. I partially closed it behind me.
“Well?” I asked. “She doesn’t look very good.”
The Matron sighed and shook her head. “This one was rough. The good news is that she produced a dozen gorgeous eggs, her usual is seven or eight. But the retrieval was long and involved. We finally gave her a general anesthetic. She’s still a bit groggy, and will probably be sore and cramped for three or four days, during which time you should leave her alone.”
I nodded. “I understand. What should we watch for?”
She smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “She knows, as does Sister Deev, but excessive cramping or pain, excessive bleeding -- some will be present for the next 48 hours or so. She’s been medicated and has additional oral medication to help her through the difficult period. She should remain in bed for 48 hours at least. No lifting, no exertion. I’ll be available if needed, and will drop by tomorrow morning to check on her. Any other questions?”
“Does she go through this every month?”
Her smile disappeared. “No, and we’ve recommended she not go through another cycle such as this for at least six months. From what I understand however, she may need some convincing.”
I nodded. “I think we can be persuasive.”
“I certainly hope so, for her sake.”
I heard the door opening behind us. The younger Matron came out.
“You can see her,” she told me.
“Thank you, thank you both,” I told them, and rushed in the house and up the stairs.
Deev was sitting next to her on the bed. I sat on the other side and touched her forehead.
“She’s out of it,” Deev told me, “but she’s recovering. She’ll be fine. I’ll sit with her.”
I nodded, then leaned down and kissed Rose on the forehead. She moved a little in bed. I gave Deev a hug and thanked her, then headed back downstairs.
I had four students in this tutorial, older students. They gave me wise, knowing, feminine smiles. I sighed and jumped back into our subject matter.
I was wondering what to do after closing the door behind them when Deev came down the stairs.
“She’s resting comfortably,” she told me in answer to my unasked question. “And don’t worry -- if anything happens, we’ll know. She has the same monitoring equipment you do.”
I touched my chest, where I’d been told part of the monitoring package was installed.
“Yes,” Deev said, “all clears do, at least the ones in your category.”
Ah, the Sacred Seven again. “What should we do?”
Deev frowned. “Don’t know about you, but I’ve got work to do.” She smiled and moved closer, hugging me. My arms went around her. “Don’t worry, Alan -- she’ll be fine.”
I let my eyes close as I rested in her embrace. But my mind was still whirring. “You’ve seen this before?”
She sighed. “Let’s sit down.”
We moved to the study. The couch was still warm from my students.
“You heard she shouldn’t do this again for at least six months?”
I nodded. “Yes. What’s involved, anyway?”
Deev shook her head. “I’ve watched her go through this for years, and from what I’m told, she’s been doing it for years longer. I don’t know what’s driving her, and I don’t think she does, either! Alan, they pump her full of hormones to get multiple eggs to ripen at once. For the first few days after that, her skin and her attitude go to hell. Then she’s merely irritable, okay until ovulation and harvesting, and then she’s a wreck for a week, recovering.”
“And she wants to start over again?”
Deev nodded. “I guess when she was a teen, she did it every month for years, producing a prodigious number of eggs. She’s been doing alternating months for a while. Alan, she needs to stop. Will you help me?”
“Of course.”
Deev sighed. “You think she’d understand, if anyone would. I mean, that’s what...” She turned a little pale and shut up.
“What? Tell me,” I asked.
She nodded, sighing again. “She goes through terrible emotional swings, a quite predictable result of the hormones. Even she admits that. With others, they ... they medicate them, trying to control the mood swings. But that doesn’t always work.”
I looked at her. The tutor part of me felt this wasn’t the end of the story, there was more to be told. “And?” I said, looking in her eyes.
“One of your daughters, one of the early ones, took her own life. They ... were using her as a damn egg-producing machine, not caring about the rest of her, drugging her to mask the problems they were causing, not realizing the drugs only made it worse. Rose and others are still trying to convince them that some of the drugs they use cause problems, severe problems.”
“Like what they used on me?”
She nodded. “If I say yes now I’m not being a very good researcher, but from what I’ve seen so far, and what we learned last night, it certainly looks like it.”
“Was she 317?” I asked, trying to fit puzzle pieces together.
“Oh, the girl? Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s her. I did the meta-analysis and helped Rose with the report. The idiots in Geneva, sorry, our elders, tried to ignore it, but we managed to get enough information disseminated to the field through Kalansky that those particular drugs are no longer used, and much more careful monitoring is going on.”
“Not good to kill off the Golden Goose,” I muttered.
“Indeed,” she agreed. “Want to hear the epilogue? It isn’t pretty, even if it is just desserts.”
I sat back. “Please.”
“As a female clear, Class 1 no less, the poor girl was closely monitored. Hell, she was locked up, cloistered. Glad I’ve got a few snips; I can have children if I want, but I’m no prize. She killed herself -- drowned herself in a bathtub, so now you know why you only have a shower. They got to her quick, put her on life support, a heart-lung machine I think Rose told me, keeping blood circulating. Brain gone but body still going. They transplanted her ovaries into two ‘volunteers,’ trying to keep her genetic line going. Guess what happened?”
I shook my head, frowning. “Not a clue.”
She grinned, a nasty grin. “Think about it -- you should know. Tissue transplant. What does that mean?”
“Oh my,” I said, as things clicked into place. “They were on immunosuppressives -- and either carried the Plague, or were exposed -- the Plague got them. Why didn’t they use two from the same, what do you call it, cohort? Her sisters? Immunosuppressives wouldn’t be needed.”
She nodded. “They were in too much of a bloody hurry, I guess, but as to the outcome, you’re right; one of each. The first one was exposed after seven or eight months. You know what happened. Those ghouls managed to take her through one more egg cycle before she died. They isolated the second one and started pumping her full of drugs when they found out she was a latent carrier. They thought psychotropics would do it, but the virus reactivated. They won’t even admit the possibility, but a lot of us are convinced reactivation was directly caused by the stress induced by the hormone treatments to produce multiple eggs.”
“Did they find more ‘volunteers’ and try to move the ovaries once more?”
She shook her head. “By that time they were saturated with Plague virus.”
“End of story.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Wish I was sure. The Order now have a site that’s staffed entirely by genetic immunes. I think it’s above the Arctic Circle, Sweden or Norway.”
“How did you figure that out?”
She smiled again. “Oh, I use a lot of meta-analysis tools, and because of my position I’ve got very wide access, at least for statistical queries. It was actually an accident that popped up while I was testing new tools.”
I shook my head. “Whose interest do they have at heart?”
She held my hand. “Not their own, I’m sure of that.”
“And not necessarily mine, or Rose’s either.”
She squeezed my hand, looking me in the eye. “Not if they conflict with saving the race.”
“...Saving the race according to their plan,” I added.
She nodded.
I asked about other cheery subjects, such as IQ differences by gender. Deev brought up some of her analyses, explaining to me that it was far uglier than it looked when you factored in the increased resource drain involved in their care.
She moved to showing me more uplifting, positive information, explaining why many of them thought we’d turned the corner a few years ago, as far as the genetic aspects of species survival were concerned.
But something bugged me.
“What is it, Alan?” Deev asked.
“Flip back a few -- let me look.” I looked at the data, flipped through some more.
I looked at Deev. “Male birthrates are deliberately kept low.” It wasn’t a question.
She nodded, raising her eyebrows a bit. “A closely guarded secret, or some think it is.”
I thought for a moment more. “They don’t want to return to a male-dominated world.”
She kept nodding. “Unstated, but I’d have to call that a fundamental assumption.”
We sat silently for a few minutes.
A knock on the door -- Deev blanked the computer screen. I went to the door.
Alex was there. “How is she?”
“Come in,” I replied. “She’s recovering, but it was evidently an ordeal.”
Alex nodded. “I can sit with her while you go eat.”
My stomach growled. I’d not paid attention to the time. “Thank you, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” she told me.
I heard and sensed motion behind me. “Have you met? Sister Deev? Alex?”
Alex said, “Yes, we’ve met.”
Deev nodded. “You’re going to watch her?”
Alex nodded. “You should bring back some soup.”
“We will.”
We went upstairs to check on Rose. She moved a bit when I kissed her forehead. I told her we were going, but would be back, and Alex was going to sit with her. Don’t know if she heard me or not.
Dinner was somber. We were hungry, though. We brought back soup.
“How is she?” I asked Alex when she came downstairs.
“I helped her to the bathroom. She’ll be ready for soup and more pills in a while.”
Deev and Alex brought her down about half an hour later. She insisted on sitting at the kitchen table and eating soup. Of course we sat with her.
When she asked how my day had gone, I replied, “Oh shit -- what about Stonehenge on Friday? You won’t be up to going.”
Rose shook her head. “No, I won’t. You and Alex will go, though.”
I thought for a moment. “Won’t your Order be pissed if they’re not represented? If I’m allowed to travel alone?”
To which Rose replied, “Oh yes, but they won’t find out until afterwards.”
I squeezed her other hand. Her color had improved markedly.
“It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Deev reminded us.
Deev and I helped Rose upstairs. I was wondering how I was going to get to sleep, at least until Deev ambushed me. After taking me on an incredible ride, I went to sleep with her partially on top of me.
Rose was better the next morning, orchestrating Deev and I, and managing to get us out of bed and off for exercise.
I think Rose could have gone Friday if she’d wanted. But she and Deev stayed behind. Alex and I were up early, meeting for a group breakfast before boarding a creaky old bus.
The trip was interesting, if something of an anticlimax. Some were surprised to learn that I was a professor, and even more surprised to learn that I was that professor...
Andrea was very good. The group was divided into younger, senior, and graduate students. The graduate students, and I was included in that class, were expected to be up on a particular aspect of things Stonehenge. I held up my part of the bargain, working in more of the history of science. I may have even drummed up some interest for that course and our college.
After some spirited discussion and some wild impractical ideas, Andrea put me on the spot, asking how I would place stones on top of each other -- using only tools available at the time. I suggested burying the upright stones in earth, making a long ramp to the top, dragging the top stone up, and then unearthing the uprights. Seemed pretty obvious to me. We had a good, plain meal at a pub on the way back, and arrived home just before ten.
Both ladies were in bed. I did my routine and climbed in between them. Deev was on her side, facing away from me. As I settled in, Rose whispered, “Please hold me.” I moved closer to her, pulling her head to my shoulder. “No,” she whispered, pushing me lower. I moved down, winding myself around her, so warm and soft. She held me to a nipple and she whispered and rocked me to sleep in her arms.
I think something might have gone on while I was away Friday... When I woke Saturday morning, the three of us snuggled together. We talked softly; they quizzed me on the trip, and I wanted to know how Rose was feeling, if she’d had a good day.
She sighed, smiled, and reached around behind me to do something to Deev. I heard Deev sigh, and felt her relax.
“Get on her other side,” Rose whispered to me as we moved Deev to her back.
I moved over. Rose leaned close to Deev’s ear and started whispering. I recognized the look on Deev’s face, not from having seen it, but from knowing what it felt like -- I’d been there, often, in deep trance.
Glancing at Deev, I saw her nipples tightening. And as they did, I got so hungry for her. I couldn’t help it -- I latched on. My eyes closed as a hand found the back of my head. I glanced up to see Rose taking Deev’s other nipple in her mouth.
And when she did, Deev moaned and squeezed both of us. I was incredibly hungry for her again. Deev thrashed and shook under us, moaning, squeezing us. Eventually with a moaning cry, she went limp.
Whispering in my ear, hands on me -- I was sitting up between Deev’s legs, her legs squeezing me as I pounded into her, coming as she did, then collapsing once more, drifting off to a soft voice and soft hands.
“My God, that was amazing!”
Deev squeezed me to her, smothering me to her breasts. When she let go, I rested, panting, an ear on her chest, listening to her heart beat.
We managed to sit up. I could hear the shower going. I gave Deev a kiss, pushing her to her back again. “I guess you had an interesting day as well,” I told her, bracing myself up on my arms.
She smiled, sighing. “Oh yes... And we even got some work done!”
I laughed. “I’ll believe you...”
When Rose got out of the shower, Deev and I went to take it over, after “helping” Rose dry off.
“If you two don’t hurry up,” she objected, “I’m going to breakfast without you!”
I gave her a hug. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
This time as we walked to the dining hall, I walked between Rose and Deev.
“Like to tell me about this morning?” I asked Rose.
She smiled. “Oh, just my way of thanking you for taking such good care of me.”
Walking back after a good breakfast I told Rose, “I’m glad you’ve recovered.”
“It will be Monday or so before I’m ready; I hope you don’t mind,” she told me.
Deev gave me a squeeze. “I can help...”
“Oh, you certainly can,” I told Deev, to laughter from both of them.
More seriously, I gave Rose a squeeze. “One of the doctors told me you shouldn’t repeat that for at least six months.”
She sighed. “I know, but it’s part of my Service. I’ll be ready after a month off. I’ve done this for a while, you know.”
I’d thought about it for a few days, talked to people. I stopped and turned her to me. Deev stepped to our sides.
I looked in Rose’s eyes. When we look at each other, we smile; it’s automatic, something that comes from inside. “Let me put it this way. You won’t do it again for at least six months if you’re living with me.”
The smile vanished from her face as the implication of my statement sunk in.
“People told me what you put yourself through. I verified with our medical school -- they consider it excessive, and not healthy. Darling, I want you with me for a long, long time, and I want you healthy.”
Her eyes were filling and her chin was wobbling. I hugged her, and Deev held us both.
“You mean too much to me,” I whispered to Rose. “You’ve told me -- you know as well as do I -- they’ll take all they can from us and only ask for more; we have to save something for ourselves, for each other. If you won’t listen to the doctors, or to us, listen to yourself.”
She buried her head on my shoulder and cried. Deev and I held her.
We made it back to my residence. Before we went in, I looked at Rose and asked her, “Do we have an agreement?”
Her chin wobbled, and she didn’t say anything, but she did nod her head, then smiled a little. I hugged her, then kissed the tears from her face.
She and Deev went upstairs. I let them be, going to my desk.
A while later Rose came down, handi-phone in her hand, a frown on her face. “My handi doesn’t want to work. Any ideas?”
I thought for a moment. I hadn’t had one since I left Las Cruces. Strange, that. I frowned, for more than one reason. “Try it outside, but come back in.”
She gave me a funny look, but stepped outside. I saw her from the window. She tried it, and it must have worked. She stepped back in the house and closed the door.
She stepped into the study with a puzzled look on her face.
“Let me guess -- it died when you stepped back inside,” I suggested.
She nodded.
I frowned. “I bet this damn place is shielded -- for my protection, of course.”
“Of course,” Deev agreed, stepping into the room.
Rose sighed and sat on the couch. I moved next to her. “What do you need?” I asked.
She looked at me, touched my face. “I really need to make a call, a personal call. I don’t want to stand outside and do it, though.”
I nodded and glanced to Deev. “Is the line here secure enough?”
Rose nodded.
“Why don’t Deev and I take a walk, then. Meet you for lunch in about two hours at the hall?”
Rose hugged me. “Thank you.”
Deev and I put our coats on again.
I glanced to Deev as we stepped away from the door. “Any ideas?” I asked, taking her arm in mine.
“Talking to her analyst, I’d guess.”
“She has one? I thought she was one.”
“Oh, she is, but she has an analyst she talks to; it’s part of their training.” She sighed and gave my arm a squeeze. “You brought things to a head, making her decide like that.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what else to say.
Except that the sky was about to open up -- I felt a few large drops. “We might make it to the library before we drown.”
Running, we made it with seconds to spare, the door unlocking for me when I waved my hand over the plate.
“Where are we?” Deev asked.
“Undergrad stacks; should be deserted on a weekend.”
Deev chuckled.
We walked through the library and had a seat overlooking one end of the courtyard, currently being drenched. We draped our coats over another chair.
“Alan, do you love her?” Deev asked.
I sighed and shook my head before I looked up. “I don’t know. I don’t know what that means.”
We held hands.
“You’re always so warm,” she said softly.
I shook my head again. “I know my feelings for her are strong, but I don’t know if that’s because we’ve been together for what, two weeks now. That’s something that hasn’t happened to me -- since I’ve been here.”
Deev nodded. “It’s the same for her, you know.”
“How about residence halls and the like?”
She shook her head. “I’d guess you had the same experience, rooms by yourself.”
“Yes, I can see that. A little too weird for a normal roommate.”
“Where do you go from here?”
I looked at the rain pouring down. “Don’t know. One day at a time. I still get scared...”
“Of what?”
I held her hands tighter. “Of that morning I wake up alone again...”
Deev looked at me intently. “Alan, she’s just as scared of that.”
I sighed again. “Let’s change the subject.”
She grinned. “Okay, what is it about you and breasts?”
I sat back and laughed out loud.
“Do you know?” she asked when I’d settled down,
“A bunch of things,” I told her softly, intently. “I need to be held -- I need that a lot. And I need to hold someone as well. The two are part different and part the same, I don’t know.”
“What is it when you’re sucking on me? What goes through your mind?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. Remembering? “How can you remember nothing...”
Thinking about this morning -- “What was it this morning?” I reached over and put a hand on a breast.
Her eyes closed partway and she held my hand in place. “Ohhh... That was very nice. I’m pretty sure she prepped me yesterday.” She opened her eyes a little more. “Did you like that? You’re a lot like my Nikki back home -- I’ll bet you’d like nothing better than to spend a day curled up with me, sucking...”
I held both her breasts, and she held my hands to her. “That would be heaven,” I said softly. “In front of a fireplace, somewhere warm and dry, away from this damned dampness.” I broke off, surprised at how I sounded.
But she nodded, massaging her breasts with my hands. “That would be nice -- a pile of soft pillows, a crackling fire, snuggled up close...”
I moved to my knees and between her legs. My arms went around her waist and she held me. We talked about many things; what we wanted, what we feared, what we’d been through. I got the feeling she knew more about parts of my life than I did.
Eventually we got up and made our way to the dining hall. I was pretty sure I knew a route which should bring us in the back of the building, minimizing the amount of rain we caught. “I hate the weather here -- damp, cold, gray,” I complained bitterly. But we made it, popping through a side door into the hall. One of the staff gave me a stern look. I returned a raised eyebrow and considered us even.
We were surprised; Rose was already sitting down. I gave her a questioning look as we approached; she stood and hugged us both.
“Thank you,” she told us as we sat down. “I have more calls to make, but things will work out.”
We ate more or less silently. It was pouring rain as we left for my residence. Deev held the large umbrella Rose had brought; we huddled near her. The ladies’ cloaks and outer garments seemed well waterproofed. My coat was as well, but it only went to about my knees. Below there, I was soaked by the time we arrived.
I was also disgusted, fed up with the cold, the damp, the gray.
I was unlacing my wet shoes when I heard Rose chuckle, a chuckle that was quickly cut off. I guess I looked up at Rose and Deev with not too pleasant an expression.
Deev sighed and shook her head. “I know what you need. Get out of those wet pants and let’s go upstairs.”
Some times I don’t catch on too quickly. I stomped around, taking my time in the bathroom, finally returning to the bedroom. Deev was already in bed.
“Care to join me?”
I took off my remaining clothes and crawled in.
Oh, soft, warm skin! She held me, nestling me. She whispered, holding me, telling me about holding Nikki, holding her like this for hours. In her embrace the rain beating against the windows didn’t sound as cold. In her embrace the wind became more like sighs of contentment. I held her, at peace. She rolled partially on top of me, and I was where I wanted to be.
Rose managed to get us up without getting dragged into bed with us; I’m not sure how she managed that.
We trudged to dinner in light rain; I tried not to let it bother me. Dinner was good, and the rain paused for our evening retreat, cutting loose again once we were indoors.
We sat in the study with our evening tea, listening to the rain pound the windows.
“You’re smiling -- what is it?” Rose asked.
I shook my head. “Remembering the first year I was here, the first room I had -- the wind drove rain around the leaky windows; I had to pack them with towels, and it got so bloody cold! Margaret saw that, and I had a new room; newer, actually, that part of the school still goes back a few hundred years.”
“You’re doing better though,” she suggested.
I took another sip of tea. “I guess.” I looked to Deev. “This afternoon was very nice.”
She smiled. “I agree.”
“Could I visit Sakai at Battavia?” I asked the ceiling.
“Where’s that?” Rose asked.
“Oh, outside Chicago, in the States -- particle physics research.”
Rose sighed. “That would be hard... Not sure we could do that.”
I sat up a bit. “Why? I detect a story.”
Deev harrumphed, “At least one.”
Rose nodded with a sad look. “Alan, you didn’t leave the States on a scheduled flight...”
“So? I’m not entirely sure how voluntary my departure was.”
That seemed to shock her. “Oh God, don’t even think that!”
I moved closer to her, pulling her to me on the couch. “Why?”
As Rose shook her head, Deev started talking. “You really should study the history of those times, the Buckeye Scandal, your departure, the Eugenics Acts.”
“Give me a summary?” I asked.
Rose nodded, settling back. “Alan, I’m not sure you understand just how rare you are...”
“One of the Sacred Seven?” I suggested.
“Where did you hear that?” Rose asked, sitting up quickly.
“More like six if you ask me,” added Deev.
“Someone here at Oxford let that slip. Only seven? Why do you say six?” I asked Deev.
“The Brazilian shouldn’t count,” she answered, sipping her tea.
Rose relaxed back a bit. “There are three more,” she suggested.
Deev still wasn’t impressed. “Yeah -- one is four, the eight-year-old is already psychotic, and I can’t find any data on the twelve year old in the last eight, ten months.”
That troubled Rose. “How do you know that?”
“We keep looking,” she said obliquely.
Rose shook her head. “Alan, of the current active group, you’re number two or number three; a lot of people think you’re the most stable.”
“So?”
“Oh Alan, those times were such a mess -- and in some ways we haven’t progressed very far. You know about the Eugenics Acts in the States?”
“I’ve read that they were among the last countries to implement them, even China succumbed before they did, and there was a lot of disagreement over their adoption.”
She managed a slight smile. “An understatement, that. It came down to an ultimatum -- if the United States wanted to continue participating in the global economy, it had to enact and implement the Acts -- mandatory screening, abortion, sterilization.”
“But selection as well -- identification of clears, right?”
“What do you think happens to those who are identified as clear?” she asked.
“Not something I want to think about -- are you suggesting I got the good part of the deal?”
“Oh yes, Alan -- we both did. We’re able to walk around, look outside. In the States, they revised the old Selective Service System, with what they called the ‘Special Skills Draft,’ to gather up clears.”
“Before or after I left?”
Rose smiled, moving closer. “Just after. Talk to Margaret -- she was afraid, your parents were afraid, that the government would grab you and you’d never be seen again. That’s why you were whisked off and made a ward of the United Nations. In a sense, you were the test case.”
“So some people think I was kidnapped?”
“Oh yeah,” said Deev. “Still.”
“For the record, I don’t agree. But I gather it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to set foot in the U.S. again?”
Rose shrugged her shoulders. “Hard to say now, but is it worth the risk?”
I sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Would life be much different?”
I looked to Rose and pulled her closer. “I’m sorry -- I need you. Thank you for all you’ve done. Please keep me.”
We snuggled silently for a while.
“I think the twelve-year-old is another Buckeye,” Deev suggested to the room.
Rose popped up quickly. “You’re nuts! You really think they’re connected?”
I asked, “What?”
Deev nodded. “Oh yeah! The more I look, the more the pattern sticks out. Buckeye, a plane crash, lots of accidents -- and a while later, years with Buckeye, we learn the same thing.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Do you know the Buckeye story?” Rose asked.
I shook my head. “Just that it was something nasty.”
She frowned. “About six months after you, ah, departed, the United States acceded to the Acts, and started implementation. Well, started official implementation of all phases -- they’d been scouring the country for clears already, and sterilization of individuals thought to be genetically unsound has a long sordid history in the U.S. Their program identified a young man in Ohio -- the Buckeye State -- as very promising. The Order already had him tagged and was watching him. The U.S. programme was still in its early stages, still learning things The Order learned a decade earlier. Two Chinese agents caught the Buckeye, evidently trying to get him out of the country. They made their escape attempt in an old internal-combustion vehicle. It was winter, they got caught in a snowstorm, and they pulled into a barn to wait things out.”
“So?”
“They left the engine running to keep warm -- they didn’t realize those engines release carbon monoxide, which is poisonous in very small quantities. They weren’t found for weeks. When they were found, they were found with all sorts of notes and covert communications equipment. Very embarrassing for both Chinese and United States Governments.”
“And damn lucky, too,” Deev added.
“Why?”
Deev shook her head, smiling a little. “The Order had some samples. A few years later, when they’d discovered additional markers for certain genetic problems, an automated search brought up the Buckeye. Analysis showed he carried traits which were unrecognized at the time, but would have been devastating if he’d been put into high-volume use. We dodged a bullet.”
Curious and confusing! “And there’s a pattern? There are more of these cases?”
Deev nodded, ticking them off on her fingers. “Chilean -- plane went down mysteriously -- Alzheimer’s and aggressive age-related dementias. Japan -- car over an embankment -- cancer, autoimmune problems. Belgium -- accidental electrocution -- heart defects. There are more, failures of cryopreservation systems, bacterial contamination, stuff like that. No recent biometric data on the twelve year old, and the eight year old has all but been written off by the psychosis.”
“So, you’re postulating the existence of a body or organization that’s making sure we’re only sowing good seed, so to speak?”
Deev shrugged. “I’m not postulating squat. But if you look at the data, I don’t think that such a conclusion is out of the question.”
Rose was sitting up, frowning. “Oh, and what about the Durbin fiasco?”
Deev looked at her empty teacup. “Served ‘em right. Brought that to a grinding halt, didn’t it?”
“Tell me?” I said to Rose, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“A group of, well, racial supremacists in South Africa started their own rebuilding program. Some aspects were wildly successful -- they developed mass-fertilization techniques that were years ahead of what The Order had.”
“Chinese imports,” Deev interjected.
“Unproven, but quite probable. Certainly those techniques went into widespread use afterwards.”
“But?”
“Indeed,” Rose nodded. “The problems started to appear as the first cohort hit puberty. They tried to keep their difficulties under wraps -- none of them allowed to travel -- but eventually information, and genetic samples, leaked out. Analysis showed the results to be colossally bad. A tremendous waste.”
“A lot of good came out of it, in a weird way,” Deev added. “That’s what got the Chinese to finally agree to genetic screening in international travel, to stop the spread of those genetic flaws. A lot of what had been National databases were opened up to sharing.”
Something in Deev’s presentation still bugged me. “Back up -- you’re not only postulating the existence of a group doing quality control. If I understand you correctly, they’re doing it on the basis of genetic flaws we don’t understand? They have superior knowledge? Sounds like paranoia or some weird conspiracy hypothesis.”
Deev smiled. “That’s your problem, sport.”
Rose made a face. “That’s one of the things that makes that scheme so unlikely -- if someone with such superior knowledge is present and manipulating things, why aren’t they helping us more?”
“Maybe they are,” I suggested.
Deev chortled and nodded. “There’s unbridled optimism for you!”
Rose still bore a sour look. “I wonder if there’s a genetic predisposition towards conspiracy theories?”
Deev looked entirely unrepentant. “Not my theories, dear -- I just present the data.”
“So where does that leave us?” I asked.
“In need of a snuggle?” Rose suggested.
I smiled, pulling her closer to me on the couch.
“One on each side?” suggested Deev. Rose and I chuckled.
Deev stood up and moved closer, taking off her top but leaving her bra on. She wiggled in, forcing herself between Rose and I on the couch, pulling us both to her.
“I’ll give you something to think about,” she told us. I closed my eyes and relaxed against her.
She chuckled. “No, really,” she said.
I sat up.
“This is for you to figure, Siggy,” she said. “When Nikki holds me, her hands are like this.” She held up her hands, fingers relaxed and curving in to her palms. “But when he holds me,” nodding to me, “his hands start out like this,” she extended her fingers, “and only after a while, when he’s really relaxed, they go like this, like Nikki,” she held her fingers relaxed and curved again.
Rose furrowed her brow, smiling. “Did Nikki start out the same way?”
Deev answered, “Don’t remember.”
Rose smiled. “This needs careful observation!”
I stood up, pulling them with me. “Observe all you want,” I told her.
I don’t know how much observation she did. When I crawled into bed, I snuggled up to Deev, and stopped thinking when she pulled me to her.
I woke in the morning prior to the alarm going off. I managed to get out of bed so I could pee. As I returned to bed, Rose got up, making it easier for me to get back in.
Oh that sensation of skin against warm skin! Deev and I held each other.
I was drifting in her embrace when things changed. I could hear her voice from far away, feel her as she held me to her, and feel a hand on me, getting me so aroused. She gets me to come with an incredible intensity, and melts me into her again so quickly.
But we had to get up. Back to the routine -- exercise, teaching, research.
“What did you find?” I asked Deev as we walked to dinner. She seemed really excited.
“Not sure yet -- but I just got access to a lot of physiological data. I started a hack looking for correlates to some of your states. We’ll see what it turns up.”
She filled us in a little more. I was familiar with Kalman filtering of course, but not so familiar with neural nets. She’d identified what she called a training sample, and was having her hack look for correlates in the physiological data. The second phase was to look for similar events in the physiological data, and see if they correlated with other events not in the training set. Or at least that’s what I think she was going to do.
She went right back to it after we returned from dinner. Her computer was set up in one corner of the kitchen, on our little kitchen table; that’s why we’d been eating all our meals at the hall. Rose and I waved to her when we went to bed. We recognized the state Deev was in, and knew better than to interrupt or interfere.
“Besides,” Rose whispered to me as we went upstairs, “That leaves you all to me tonight.”
I held and kissed her at the top of the stairs. “You’re better?”
“Only one way to find out,” she whispered hotly in my ear.
We made love on a cloud, with her atop me. I remember falling into her eyes with her riding me, but coming to her touch. I held her afterward. Some time during the night Deev joined us. I remember molding myself to cool skin, finding a nipple, and being filled with joy at the sounds Deev made.
As we got ready for exercise in the morning I noticed some blood stains on the bedding. “Are you okay?” I asked Rose, holding her.
She nodded. “I cramped up, so you didn’t finish inside me. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” I told her. “I love holding you.”
“I really needed that,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder.
At lunch, Deev was animated, but not letting me in on what was happening. She and Rose were at it all afternoon in the kitchen. For a while I thought I was going to dinner by myself, but they relented. They went back at it when we returned.
They joined me in the study at about nine. Both looked quite involved still.
“You’re right,” Rose said to Deev. “We need verification, and more data.”
“Told you so,” said Deev. She took off her top and bra as she stepped around the desk to me.
As I turned, she put a hand behind my head and pulled me to a breast. In an instant, I was hers.
I went through some dark and lonely places before coming out the other side. But the other side was filled with warmth, softness, and passion.
The rest of the week was strange. They worked hard. Sometimes they argued. We had “more data” a few times, with Deev grabbing me. One evening we sat together and reviewed entries in detail. We’d go to bed, snuggling. I’d only wake partially in the morning, to one of them holding me, getting me aroused, milking me, and carrying me back to peace for a while.
Rose and Deev seemed much more relaxed as we went to dinner Friday night.
“We have answers?” I asked them.
I was walking between them; Deev gave me a squeeze.
“We’ve got a set of interesting hypotheses, and some fascinating models. Helen agrees.”
“Helen?” I asked.
“Kalansky,” Rose answered.
“I didn’t think she was part of The Order.”
“Oh, she’s not,” Rose said.
“But she has access to far more computational resources, and many of the databases are stored local to her, so it’s easier and more productive for us to ship the models to her and run them on the data over there,” Deev explained.
I nodded. I was catching on. “Especially if someone decides these models need ‘further study’ before any conclusions can be drawn, let alone recommendations made based on them.”
“I told you he was bright,” Rose said.
“Warm and cuddly, too,” Deev added.
And at dinner, Deev received larger portions!
“What happened?” I asked in astonishment.
Deev smiled. “The good people running the exercise regime made it clear to certain busybodies that I’m in fine physical condition, thank you, and in fact their dietary restrictions were causing me harm! Oh, and their data on you, Alan, has been the icing on the cake!”
I raised an eyebrow
“Their records clearly show a drop in your performance coincident with the introduction of the medication six years ago, and an increase following its discontinuance. The drop was so dramatic that they made formal inquiry at the time, which was of course waved off.”
“That shoots ‘minimal secondary effects’ all to hell, I’d say.”
“Helen is sure she can get a number of countries to either significantly restrict or outright ban the use of a number of agents based on our analysis,” Rose added with a smile.
“If we can save someone from that dark path, it’s worth it,” I told them.
Walking back, I had the feeling something was going on. I was feeling frisky -- and I hoped one of them was as well!
An encouraging start when we got back -- rather than dive into the kitchen and the computers, we gathered in the study for some serious snogging on the couch. We moved to the bedroom, shedding clothes and doing our evening rituals.
We’d resumed naked on the bed, and were progressing well when Deev disengaged. “Be right back,” she told us, “carry on...” Well, she did make the suggestion!
I thought I heard a hissing sound, then felt something like a cool mist on me. It smelled nice, perfumy, with a little tang to it. Rose moved a little. I opened my eyes and saw Deev standing at the side of the bed, holding a mask to her face, and a sprayer out over us. I started to say something, but the world went soft.
Soft, and very nice. We hugged and kissed more. Deev and I kissed and adored Rose, enticing wonderful noises from her.
I was sitting up, with Rose impaled on me, moving slowly as we kissed. A hand on my back, strong and warm, moving to my neck, interrupting our kiss. We were drawn to Deev’s breasts, delicious and fulfilling. Someone had been having fun with me as well -- when I filled myself with Deev’s breast, I tasted rich chocolate and cherries, the deep chocolate of her skin and the red cherries of her nipple. She held us, and her voice moved within us, setting us on fire, taking us to the edge, and crashing us over the other side, eventually separating, only to be drawn back to her again, nestling in to sleep.
Rose and I repaid Deev Saturday afternoon. I’d been working at my desk and noticed it was awfully quiet. Then Rose walked in, naked, and with a very nice pink blush from head to heaven. I managed to save my work before she took me. I remember Deev making a lot of noise. We all enjoyed it. We declared a truce Sunday, but spent the afternoon in bed together.
Monday lunch, both ladies bore interesting looks; they’d been at The Order’s offices most of the morning. “What is it?” I asked as I spread my napkin in my lap.
They looked at each other in amusement. Deev sputtered a bit, and Rose told me, “We’ll tell you after lunch.”
Fine. Lunch was what you’d consider nominal.
Back in my abode, they both had that amused look. We sat on the couch together.
“Alan,” Rose started out, “would you say you’ve gotten used to The Order’s, ah, techniques?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I suppose so. No complaints, mind you, at least not currently.”
Deev sputtered in amusement.
Rose nodded, a look of serious amusement. “Would it surprise you to know that the volume of fluid you produce for a standard sample is quite predictable?”
I shrugged. “Some variation based on how busy I’ve been, recovery, that kind of thing.”
Deev looked about ready to burst into laughter. Rose gave her a poisonous look.
“Yes,” Rose continued, “but even with that, quite predictable.”
“Okay,” I agreed, “And the point is?”
Rose shook her head, still smiling. Deev started chuckling.
“Except when she does it,” Rose pointed at Deev, “you produce twelve to fifteen percent more!”
I started laughing as well, bewildered. “What? How? Why?”
Rose sat back. “That’s what we’d like to know!” she said, looking at Deev accusingly. Then both of them looked at me.
“What? You expect me to have answers?”
“Yes,” Rose told me, her face now a model of seriousness, her eyebrows almost knit together. “Is there a difference in feeling? Does it feel different when she does it?”
I sighed, letting go to remember, letting my eyes drift closed. “Hold me, please... Yes, there is. With you, Margaret, Sherry, it’s relaxing, smooth, I don’t know. With Deev -- she takes me to a different place. Deeper, more turbulent, more intense, so hungry for her...”
I looked at them both, holding Rose, reaching for Deev. “Does that help?”
Rose nodded, and looked to Deev. Deev gave us a wistful, “Who, me?” look.
Rose smiled. “I think more research is in order.”
Deev licked her chops.
I sighed. They laughed. I wasn’t going to get to sleep early, that was for sure!
End of Part 4
Rev 2006/10/05
A Life of Service
By silli_artie@hotmail.com
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/artie/www
© Copyright 2004, 2006 by silli_artie@hotmail.com