Desert Chemistry

~~~

Sometimes you see the big moments in your life coming - new jobs, weddings, children, that sort of thing. Most of the time, though, they just hit you, out of the blue. I woke up on the fifth of December expecting it to be a normal day, just like any other. Instead, it turned into the most important day of my life.

David drove to work that morning - it was his turn - and we stopped at Starbucks for a latte for him and a chai for me. He was in the office for about ten minutes before he had to leave for his morning class. I went out into the lab to start the day's experiment. Most of the prep work was already done; it was just a matter of running the reactions and analyzing the results. I filled each of the ninety six little vials with water, a little sulfuric acid to get the right pH, the numbered combination of our synthetic catalysts, and a sample of isolated lignin. I set them all into the agitator to get things mixing, switched it on, and went back to the office.

David got back from class right when the timer went off, and I went out into the lab to start processing the results. I took each vial out of the agitator, gave a quick glance at the cloudy solution, and set it down on the table. When I got to number thirty three, my heart jumped into my throat. It was a little warmer than the rest, and the solution was totally clear. That meant one of two things - either I had screwed up in preparing it, or the catalysts had worked as expected. Much better than expected, actually.

I unscrewed the cap and took a little sniff. It was faint, but it was there - I could detect the alcohols that should be there. It had worked. I jumped up and down a little.

"David!" I screamed. "I need you out here. Now!"

He dashed out of the office with a worried look on his face. I held the vial up for him to inspect.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "I think so."

His mouth dropped open.

"Can you put it in the mass spec?" I asked. "I'm jittery enough that I might drop it."

We were both on pins and needles while the mass spec did its thing. It finally spit out a result, and David and I both stared at the screen in awe for a few seconds. It was exactly what it should have been - alcohols, sugars and short chain hydrocarbons, along with over ninety percent of the catalysts we put in. We had done it - we had come up with a process that could break down lignin.

"Yes!" I screamed, as giddy as the day I beat Tommy Johnson at tetherball in the second grade. I had been working toward this moment since I arrived in Tempe, over two years ago. In some ways, I had been working toward it my whole life. What came next, though, was completely unexpected.

David blinked at the screen a few times, and he turned toward me when I screamed. And then he kissed me. He leaned down, wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pressed his lips against mine, and gave me the most passionate kiss of my life.

Just as suddenly, he let me go, backed away, and looked down at floor. "Oh, god, Allison," he said. "I am so sorry. That was totally inappropriate. Unprofessional. It'll never happen again. I'm such a fucking idiot! You have every right to ..."

His face was beet red, and his fists were clenching and unclenching.

"No," I heard myself saying. "It's okay. It's really okay."

And I meant it. I was as shocked as he was, but I really meant it. To show him, I kissed him back. I leaned into him, wrapped my arms around his waist, pressed my lips to his, and kissed him for all I was worth. I felt his lips part, just a little, and my tongue slid between them. His tongue circled mine, and then I felt it slide between my lips. The display screen faded away, and all the lab equipment, even the lab itself. For that wonderful moment, the entire world was just David and me.

I don't know how long the kiss lasted, but eventually we both let go of each other. I opened my eyes a split second before he did, and I'll never forget the wonder I saw in his face.

"Are you . . . I mean, is it . . . that really was okay?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied. "That was more than okay."

"I thought you were . . . I mean . . . I don't know," he said. "Does this mean you might be ... interested in me? As more than just a friend." His voice was amazed and tender, but there was a deep well of need underneath it.

"Yeah, I think maybe," I replied. "It's going to take me a little while to figure it out."

He pulled me to him and held me. His chest was broad and firm, and leaning into him felt like the most natural thing in the world. He kissed the top of my head.

"How long?" I asked. "How long have you been in love with me?"

"Since that first day, when you laughed at Leo's awful anti-rabbit joke," he replied. "But I was with Melanie then, and pretty soon I found out you weren't interested in men. So I did what I could to shut it off, and I tried to be the best research partner and friend I could. If that's all I ever get, it's still more than enough."

I didn't say anything. There was nothing I could say. I just held him tighter. I had no idea what the hell I was going to do. I was gay, but David had fallen hopelessly in love with me, and I might have fallen in love with him too. I had no idea how that was going to work.

"We should probably, ah, recheck the result," I said. "Just to make sure."

"Yeah," he replied. "And then we need to tell Leo..."

Neither of us said anything else about the personal moment we had together for the rest of the day. I had a lot of conflicting feelings to work out, and David gave me the space to do that. After the big moment, the rest of the day felt kind of like a dream, like I was watching a scene play out, but I wasn't really in it.

We walked back to the office, saved and rechecked the results from the mass spec. Satisfied everything was recorded, and that we weren't hallucinating the whole thing, David and I walked over to Leo's office and dragged him back to show him. He was, if possible, even more excited than we were. He took us to dinner at a shockingly expensive steakhouse, the kind of place I never imagined I would ever go.

Lying in bed that night, I thought back to another big life moment. It was back in college, the same time of year. Anne and I had been up late studying, and I rubbed her shoulders to ease the tension before bed. In that moment, I realized she was in love with me, and, even more surprising, I was in love with her. I had always assumed I was straight before that, vaguely attracted to guys but completely inexperienced. I hadn't even considered that I might be gay.

If I could deal with that unexpected surprise and Anne and I could have those three wonderful years together, I could do it again. David was the most wonderful, kind soul I had encountered in my life, and I knew I could love him as completely as he loved me. When I kissed him, it felt right, and that was all I needed to know. The body parts would work themselves out in time.

I fell asleep with that thought in my head and a smile on my face.

~~~

I found David sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter the next morning, eating a bagel. He had put another one out for me, lightly toasted, spread with peanut butter, just the way I liked it. I walked over to him, gave him a big hug, and kissed him on the cheek.

"Don't," he said, face hard as granite. "Don't do that unless you mean it."

I held him tighter and kissed him again.

"I do mean it," I said. "I want to give us a try. I can't promise it'll work out, or that I'll be any good at it, but I'll do everything I can."

"That's all I needed to hear," he said. His expression melted and he beamed at me. He looked like a little kid at Christmas. The warmth and happiness in his face filled the room, and I couldn't help but smile back. He kissed me lightly on the lips.

"So what do we do now?" I asked. "We're already living together, and we spend most of our time together."

"Dunno," he replied. "We'll figure it out, I guess. Just take it slow and see what happens."

I gave him another squeeze, wolfed down my bagel, and grabbed my bag to go. Neither one of us could wait to get into work. It was my turn to drive, and we hit every single red light. When we walked into the office together, we found Maggie waiting for us.

"You two, Leo, and I have a lot to talk about," she said. "Your little discovery is going to be very, very big, and I've been assigned to help you manage it."

I knew Maggie worked in the university's technology transfer office, but I had no idea what she did. I was about to find out. She started walking and we followed.

Leo's office is in a newer wing of the building, and it's actually kind of nice for an academic office. It's in an strangely shaped part of the building, and it's a little bigger than the surrounding offices. Leo had them take out all the standard-issue furniture. He has a big, comfy armchair in place of a desk. He does all his computer work on a laptop, so he doesn't really need a desk. There's a round table and chairs in the center of the room, perfect for meetings like the one we were having. The oddly-angled corners are piled high with cardboard filing boxes topped with ball-and-stick models of molecules, and the walls are covered in photos, award plaques, and various other artifacts from a long, distinguished academic career.

Maggie and Leo did most of the talking, laying out what was going to happen next. There would be a paper, of course. Academics don't do anything without writing a paper. When Maggie suggested we should submit to Nature when we were ready, the enormity of the thing hit me. I had published half a dozen papers, four of them with Leo's group, but they were all in specialist journals nobody outside the field had ever heard of. Nature is the most visible scientific journal there is. When the paper was ready for pre-pub, there would be a press release from the university, and that would start a few weeks of media interest.

Then Maggie started talking about patents. Her face lit up, and she got really intense. This was what she had gone to law school to do. We would have to have the applications ready to go the day the press release came out, just to avoid any potential problems. We'd be spending two hours with her Thursday and one more Friday going over everything we could think of to get the patent process started. The synthetic catalysts were definitely patentable. Maggie thought some of our processes might be as well, although David and I doubted it.

"Then there's the question of what to do next," she said. "We could license it straight away, to get the university, and all of you, an immediate return." David and Leo both shook their heads no, Leo quite emphatically.

I hadn't even considered that I would be making any money out of all of this. When I was in grad school, I was listed on a patent that came out of my dissertation research. The university licensed it to a chemical company for a modest sum. I got a plaque. Well, that and a world-class education. I'm certainly not complaining.

"Better, then," Maggie continued, "to start a new company and take the research from the initial paper to commercial viability."

"Definitely," Leo said. "One of the oil majors will snap up the patent and bury it if we're not careful. We need control for a few years, at least until the first industrial-scale tests. Once we get there, it'll do some real good for the world, and it'll be worth a hell of a lot more."

My head was spinning. Everything was happening so fast. Just the day before, I had been a lowly post-doc working on an interesting research project. Sitting there in that office, though, I felt like the whole world was shifting around me. And what did it all mean for David and me, professionally and personally?

"I'll start working on it, then," Maggie said. "Just a rough outline for now. The patents are more urgent."

"Great," Leo said. "This is too important to let anything get screwed up."

Maggie got up to leave and flashed me an encouraging smile. "Congratulations again, guys," she said. "I'm really happy for all of you."

"I know it all seems crazy right now," Leo said with a friendly grin, "but you guys will work it all out. I have faith in you. Now get back to work!"

~~~

My head was still spinning when we got home that night. David cooked dinner - some sort of Asian stew with spices I didn't recognize. It was delicious and very spicy. The beer we had with it cooled the heat just enough to be bearable.

"You okay?" he asked after we finished eating. "You look kinda dazed."

"Yeah, I'm okay, I think," I said. "It's all so overwhelming."

David took my hand and listened to me. "I mean, I thought maybe we'd contribute something useful to the field," I said. "Publish a few papers. And then it would be the end of the academic year, and I'd be off to another job, if I could find one."

"That," David said, "is definitely not going to happen. Our research is going to have a big impact, and it doesn't work without you."

I drained the last of my beer.

"And what about us?" I asked. "I know you're in love with me, and I think I'm in love with you. I don't want the crazy whirlwind of patents and venture capital and all the other stuff to sweep away any chance we have together."

"It won't," David said. "It'll be good for us. For one thing, you won't have to move away to find another job."

I nodded. That was something, at least.

"We'll still be working together," he said, "researching the same thing, even if the circumstances change. That's the most important thing. We can figure out the rest."

He seemed so calm that my panic over our professional future started to subside. I was still worried, though, about being with him. He was sweet and wonderful, and I could easily imagine spending my life with him. What I couldn't imagine was sleeping with him. Love doesn't work without sex, and I didn't know if I could make him happy, or be happy myself in bed with him. We needed to find out, preferably soon enough to break things off and stay friends if it didn't work out.

"I need you to take me to bed," I said, just like that, before I could stop myself. My heart was in my throat, and I felt like I was asking him to strap me into a rocket and shoot me off into space.

David just looked at me for a bit, unable to respond. "Um, okay," he finally said. "Allison, honey, you don't have to do this. I can wait until you're ready."

"That's the problem," I said, fighting the panic building inside me. "I don't know if I'll ever be ready. We need to figure this out, David. I'm really scared of disappointing you, and I'd rather find out now if that's going to happen. Let's just get it over with."

My face was getting hotter and hotter, and tears formed in the corners of my eyes. It wasn't the most romantic proposal in the world, but it was the best I could do.

"Okay," David said, hesitating. "If that's what you really want. We'll need to go out to get some protection."

I hadn't thought about that. The heat drained away from my face, and I'm sure the color did as well.

"I got tested after ... well, after the unpleasantness," he said, "so you don't have to worry about getting an STD from me. But I really don't think you want to get pregnant right now."

"Oh, god," I said. "That never even occurred to me. One of the nice things about being a lesbian, I guess."

"It's okay," he said with a tender smile. "I just don't want to do anything to hurt you."

"Could we wait?" I asked, my voice squeaking. "I could get on the pill. I've had enough silicone and latex inside me. With you, I want the real thing."

"That's fine," he replied gently. "I'd be happier too. I've waited a long time, and I don't mind waiting a little longer."

I was so grateful. I was trying to rush into sex in a stupid panic. David gave me an out, some time to get used to the idea. And even if the waiting was hard for him, I'm sure it would be better than trying to bed the stressed, out of control freak that I was that night.

I washed the dishes and then wandered out to the living room. David was on the couch watching The Sound of Music, and I snuggled up next to him. We watched together for a while, until Maria got to the house and met the children, and then I sat up, looked David in the eye, and kissed him. He kissed me back quite happily, the movie immediately forgotten. It was soft and sweet, nothing like the fiery kisses we shared in the lab the day before. We sat on the couch together, kissing and nuzzling, for a long while, lost in each other. I finally had to move, so I sat up straight and stretched my arms.

"Sorry," I said. "We missed a lot of the movie."

"That's okay," he replied, smiling. "This is better."

I snuggled myself back into him and we finished the movie. He turned off the TV, stood, kissed the top of my head, and walked to his bedroom, with Lucie padding behind. "Goodnight, Allison," he said.

"Night, David" I replied. I got up and went to my own room, looking forward to the night we'd be together with an unidentifiable combination of longing, excitement, and fear.

~~~

The next morning, I found a gynecologist that would take my insurance and scheduled an appointment for the afternoon. I filled out the requisite paperwork, refusing to feel guilty about not having an annual checkup in years. There was nothing wrong with me, and there's no medical evidence that annual checkups are beneficial for healthy women anyway. The one question I didn't answer was "Are you sexually active?" Yes or no didn't seem sufficient.

The exam was about as unpleasant as expected, but the nurse practitioner was quite nice, and mercifully I escaped without a lecture. She did ask about my sexual activity, because of that blank spot on the form, and when I explained she smiled sympathetically. Mindful of David's comment and Cate's history, I asked to be tested for STDs in addition to the normal stuff. The risk for lesbians is quite low, but it's not zero.

I got a call the next afternoon with my test results, all normal, and they sent a prescription for birth control pills to a pharmacy just off campus. I picked them up on the way home from work, and marked a Saturday at the end of January in my calendar. That was when, barring any complications, the pills would have done their job, and sex with David would be safe. I told David over dinner, and he marked the date in his calendar as well.

~~~

David got very busy with teaching as the year wound down into finals and then the holidays. We still had a lot of experimental work to do before we could start on the paper, so that's what I did. I managed to wrap everything up two days before I left for Boston for Christmas. I hadn't seen my family for a year, and I was dying to get home.

Dad picked me up at the airport in a very snazzy red BMW. I raised an eyebrow when he opened the trunk for my bag.

"Business is good, but it's not that good," he said in response. "Some idiot claims adjuster wrote it off as totaled. The body was banged up pretty good, but the frame and the engine were fine. I picked it up for next to nothing and rebuilt it."

"I'm impressed," I said. "I couldn't tell it was wreck by looking at it, and I'm still pretty good with cars. I bet it really sticks out in the neighborhood."

"I keep the garage door closed," he said darkly. "No reason to invite trouble."

My parents' house was in a working class neighborhood that had been pleasant and peaceful when I grew up, but it hadn't done very well after the financial crisis. My father's expression told me it wasn't getting any better.

"You want to come in to work for a few days, mija?" he asked, brightening. "Business is always good over the holidays."

"I'd love to," I replied. "I'm still amazed you convinced Alberto to sell you the garage. I always thought he'd hang onto it until the end of time."