Double Helix Ch. 12

"I'm going to come soon," Norm said hoarsely. His eyes were glazed over as he looked down at me, and sweat soaked the hair above his forehead. I think I managed a nod, but my body was shaking and twitching so badly that I couldn't tell. He grunted loudly as he slammed into me, once, twice, three times. At the last stroke, he sucked in a breath through gritted teeth and groaned. I felt his pleasure rise and he pulsed inside me, the moment that my body had been waiting for. Like a dam suddenly bursting, I came.

My vision went dark and a wavering shriek filled my ears. My hands clenched to fists and shook as the pleasure filled me, more than I could take, and still it came on, still it increased, until I was sure I would lose my mind. I realized that the voice crying out belonged to me, but it felt like nothing I could do would stop it. The sound finally faded away and I managed to clench my teeth as the pleasure surged again, forcing the breath from my lungs. There seemed to be no end to it, and I was only dimly aware of Norm moving off of me as I flexed and relaxed, my mind and body struggling to process what was happening to me.

I remember a few moments where I seemed to fade out completely, suddenly coming to with my head lying in a different position than before. I felt a touch on my arm, and managed to open my eyes long enough to see Norm lying down next to me. His hands cradled my head, and I wanted to tell him something sweet and loving for that gesture, but I still couldn't find my voice.

The tempest that had claimed me finally began to subside and I relaxed, utterly spent. I sighed, but immediately choked out a grunt as yet another wave gripped me, throwing me back into helpless ecstasy for several seconds. After it passed, I waited, but all I felt was calm warmth and happiness suffusing me. I opened my eyes, turned my head and looked to see Norm's somewhat anxious expression. "Wow," I said, and my voice came out a rasp.

"Eleven minutes," Norm said. "Almost twelve. And that's only after I thought to check the time on my watch. That was probably a minute or two after you started."

I stared at him in disbelief. "You timed it?"

"Scientific curiosity. Was that your Donna genes again?"

"I don't really know," I said truthfully. I knew that heightened sexual pleasure was one facet of the hedonic model, but what I had experienced went beyond what I knew about it. "You noticed how we had our orgasms together?"

"How could I miss it?" Norm said playfully.

"I think that was part of it. I could feel that you were building up to your own orgasm, so my body held off, waited until you came so that I would feel yours at the same time as my own. I'm not sure whether I did that consciously, or if it's something in my design, but that's why it was so strong."

"Yeah, I think you passed out a few times, just went completely limp, and then after a few seconds you would moan and start to thrash again. I said your name a dozen times at least, but you didn't seem to hear me, so I stopped trying." He brushed the hair back from my forehead. "How do you feel?"

"Like I can fly," I said, and stretched a hand up toward a white, puffy cloud before letting it fall languidly across my naked body.

We lay together in silence for a few seconds before I spoke again. "On my second birthday, my mother threw me a party and invited all of her close family and a dozen of her colleagues. This was back when Newt Gingrich was in office. Everyone knew he wouldn't make a second term, and most thought that the incoming Democrat, whoever it was, would lift the ban on human genemodding."

I sighed at that. Clinton, during his 1996 election campaign, had promised to work to loosen the restrictions imposed by that particular executive order, but after taking office, he had changed his tune, claiming that caution was called for. The sex scandal that had followed less than a year after his election had caused his own party to abandon him, and human genemodding hadn't even come up during Bill Bradley's campaign, or after his election.

"Anyway, I had developed enough by then to undergo some tests of my pseudo-empathic ability, and had performed better than most had expected. So I was surrounded by friends and family who were delighted by my precocious innocence and perceptiveness, and by genetic engineers and biologists with wild dreams about how mods like me were going to change the world. So everyone was laughing, happy, and optimistic, and I felt all of it. That's kind of like how I feel now."

"Huh," he said. "So I'm just as good as a whole room full of smiling, happy people. Not bad." "Modest, too."

"I learned long ago that modesty in the bedroom doesn't work out so well. Speaking of beds, you know what I think?"

I turned to him. "What?"

"I think that this truck bed is quite possibly the most uncomfortable place that I have ever had the displeasure of lying down in."

I cracked a smile. "Yes, I think my back is probably bruised in a few places, but it was worth it." That one phrase seemed to break his good mood. Norm got up and tossed me my clothes, then he turned from me and began to put on his own without speaking. I stood and shook the dust from my underwear before putting them on. Norm was fastidiously buttoning his shirt, pretending to stare at something in the distance.

I frowned at him, my own good feelings starting to fade in the face of his guilt and fear. I knew this behavior. "Why don't you just tell her?"

"You know why I can't. It would destroy what she and I have."

"How do you know that?"

Norm made a disgusted noise. "Tilly, do you not understand jealousy?"

I felt the strength of his convictions, but they had never made sense to me. "Not really, no."

He stared at me, incredulous, but then I sensed understanding. Finally, with a little shake of his head, he said. "Well, it can be a very ugly thing, and I don't want any of us to experience it firsthand. We should get back. Alice and Jack will start to wonder where we've gone."

I started up the pickup again and we drove to the ranch house. I suggested quick showers, and Alice offered to wash our clothes, so we spent an hour in the living room dressed in a pair of the couple's bathrobes. Norm had warned me not to reveal where we lived and not to talk about our housemates, which seemed a reasonable precaution in spite of the honest intentions I read from them. Once our clothes were ready, we said our goodbyes to the couple and their adopted children, and Norm got into his truck. We agreed that I would drive the Ford out in front so that he could keep an eye on me.

The trip south was uneventful. I used some of the time to ponder Norm's question. Why did jealousy seem to represent such a blind spot for me? Part of it, I thought, was that jealousy wasn't an emotion so much as a cause-and-effect relationship of various emotions. I understood, intellectually, that many people got upset when they feared the loss of another's love and attention, but trying to empathize with that seemed impossible. I wondered if that blind spot was something engineered into my psychology.

We got in just after dark. I had just enough time to step out of the cab before Wendy collided with me, wrapping me in a hug. I stooped to pull her tight against me for a moment before she broke away to tackle Norm.

Nissi was next. I saw a shimmer of wetness in her eyes as she approached and embraced me. "Tilly, we were so worried," she said. "I'm glad you're safe." She then went to Norm and kissed him long and passionately. I watched them, feeling a swell of happiness with them and for them. Norm was right. It was like a blind person trying to understand color. It wasn't in me to want to keep another person to myself.

Stan interrupted my stare by taking my hand and squeezing it. "We were worried about you, girl. Looks like you guys had a rough time."

"We did," I agreed. "And we'll tell everyone what happened once we're inside."

Once he stepped back, Stansy surprised me by pulling me into a fierce hug and sobbing over my shoulder. "Don't you ever make us worry like that again," she said. "We almost lost you once before, you know."

"I know," I said quietly. "And that's behind me now."

Stansy reluctantly disengaged, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, and I got one final hug from Nock. "You'd better have one hell of a good story to tell," he said. "When Norm left to go back north and find you, I really thought we'd never see either of you again."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Nissi said in a warning tone.

"No," Norm said, patting her on the shoulder, "he's right. Things very nearly went badly for both of us. It's dangerous out there, Nissi. You know that."

Nissi nodded, but I felt irritation still prickling her and something like smugness from Nock. Norm, too, was angry with Nock, but he was careful to conceal it from all but me. I had never really understood the dislike that existed between the three of them. The others accepted it, but I knew that they could not sense the same undercurrents I felt. Nock confused me most of all. He seemed to delight in goading Nissi into confrontations, but I could also feel his pangs of wanting when he saw her with Norm.

"Nice truck, by the way." Wendy said, breaking the tension. "And is that our food in the back? None of us have eaten today."

"Sure, you can eat right now if you want to carry it inside," Norm said.

Wendy climbed into the bed and grabbed a handle of one of the bins. She pulled, grunting dramatically, and the bin stayed right where it was. "Norm, you shit!" she yelled, laughing. Norm laughed with her. "Sorry, I couldn't resist. I can barely move them myself. Tilly carried them a few miles, but I think she could use a rest."

"I got it," Stansy said. She put a hand on the side rail and leapt smoothly into the truck bed. With barely a visible effort, she lifted a bin and passed it down to Nock, following up the second with Stan.

"Feels like a lot of calories in here," Stan remarked.

"Enough to get us through the month," I said. "We have other arrangements after that, assuming Catalina and that bank in the Caribbean come through."

"Right," Norm said, "I forgot to mention that before. Tilly negotiated a deal for a food delivery at the end of the month. We just need to get the money before then."

"Tilly," Stan said over his shoulder as a carried one of the bins inside, "you are alright in my book."

Norm and I related our story as Stansy prepared a hot meal. I hadn't gotten a chance to hear Norm's side of things until now.

"We should invite them to come live here," Wendy said, after Norm had described the halfs that the couple had adopted.

Norm's sudden irritation came with a flash of heat on his neck. "Wendy, it's not as if we have a lot of room here," he snapped, "and we don't know how far we can trust them."

"It was just a thought," Wendy said, sounding hurt by his sudden heat.

The meal was the best one that anyone had made at the farm house for weeks, made even better by a mug of the precious coffee. It was really a second dinner for Norm and me, but he hadn't eaten well the last few days and I had not eaten at all. Nonna went to bed early after finishing the meal, muttering to herself in Russian. Norm and Nissi disappeared about an hour later, followed by Wendy.

Stansy and Stan remained, taking seats on the couch so that he could fill me in on what had happened with the VPN. He went to the other room and came back with a sheaf of papers that turned out to be logs. Apparently, SamIAm had continued to test the network's security at regular interval without alerting anyone. Stan had caught him a few times, but other times, he had received a message from the hacker well after the fact. "I need you to look things over," he said. "I've patched up quite a bit of code, but I may have introduced some new bugs. You can wait until tomorrow, of course."

"I need to get better at security so I can help you more," I said. "You've been dividing the work, but I think we'll work better together if each of us understands what the other is trying to do."

"I think I'd like that," he said. "It would be one thing if he was smug, but he's just so damned matter-of-fact about it, like he's expecting to find holes and isn't surprised or delighted when he does." He uncapped a pen and made a mark on the paper he was holding. "And sometimes that cheeky bastard doesn't even bother to tell me when he penetrates it. He got root access to the file system again right here."

"Alright, you two," Stansy said, "you can talk about this some more in the morning. Can't you see she's exhausted?"

Stan looked up from the paper he had marked and over at me in surprise. "Oh, right. Of course." He got up and patted my arm before following close behind Stansy to their room.

"Well, good night, then," Nock said. He stood up and stretched.

"Wait," I said. "There's something I wanted to ask you."

"Me?" he said, his eyes narrowing.

"Yes, you." I wasn't sure how he would react, so I took a deep breath before plunging ahead. "Are you jealous of Norm?"

The jolt of surprise and anger was there and gone in an instant. He cracked a smile, and then laughed. "Me? Jealous of old Normative Norm? He's a good guy. What do I have to be jealous about?"

"I was at Sasha's house the longest," I reminded him. "And my hearing is just as good as yours. I was there the night you told Nissi how you were starting to feel close to her, and how it had made you wonder if it was time to stop pining after your lost fiancé."

The bitterness was like a foul cloud that surrounded him. "Yeah, I remember. It was a month after she first got there. She had propositioned me once already, but I turned her down."

"But then you told her you had changed your mind."

"Right. But she just smiled and let me down in the sweetest way you could imagine. She told me that I had come this far, and that I shouldn't give up hope. She told me that I should wait until after the Agency shipped us out, and then I might have a chance to find out where she was, what had happened to her. She said that I needed to know if that relationship really was doomed before moving on to a new one."

"It seems like you didn't take that response very well," I said.

"I am a practical man, Tilly," he said. "My Esther was the joy in my life for two years, but that was over seven years ago. No woman had stirred me in that way, in all that time, until I met Nissi. She rejected me, and it hurt far more than I thought it would."

I nodded. "I see."

He started for the den and the computer, but stopped and turned back to face me. "And since you decided to bring my love life out in the open, you should realize that I know what you and Norm did in the truck on our way down here."

"Norm already told me," I said.

"So you and he, have you had sex again?"

"No," I said evenly. The lie made me feel a bit queasy, but I said it anyway. Nock had finally helped me to understand. I never wanted to see in Nissi what he had just shown me.

"Nock?" I said, before he started away again. He lifted a questioning eyebrow at me. "I don't think Nissi meant to hurt you. You and she got along just fine back in those days. Things might have been different if you had just talked to her, if you had explained it the way you just told me."

He gave me a wry smile. "Too late for that, isn't it? She hates my guts now, and most of the time I can't stand to be around her either. It's actually a good thing we never got together. We were a bad fit."

"Then why can't you let her go?"

Nock flashed his teeth and chuckled. "You know what? Fuck you. Go stick her claws in someone else's brain. I'm done talking to you."

I watched him go, feeling the pull of my nature making me want to follow him, but knowing that there was nothing I could do to help. With a shake of my head, I turned and headed for bed.