Dynamics of a Human Heart Ch. 04

"Deal, now will you please stop obsessing?"

"I'll try."

"Here, let me help, Miri," Samantha leaned in, took her lover's face in her hands and kissed her mouth; parting her lips and sliding her tongue past the other girl's teeth. Miranda moaned at the sweet taste of Sam's tongue as the fair-haired girl wrapped her arms around her slender frame.

As they savored one another, Samantha's hand reached up to caress Miranda's breast. Miranda sighed with pleasure placed her hand over Sam's and squeezed. Sam began to rub her thumb against her nipple, teasing it through Miranda's shirt until it became rock hard.

Sam pulled away suddenly, causing Miranda to whimper in protest, and rested her forehead against her lover's brow, reaching up with her free hand to stroke the other girl's short, dark, hair.

"So, are you going to get all worked up about Grey or are you going to take me back to bed?" Sam asked innocently.

"Bed, definitely bed," Miranda replied.

"First intelligent thing you've said all morning." Sam laughed as Miranda stood up, scooped up the other girl in her arms and dashed into the bedroom, her lover's arms wrapped firmly around her neck.

The girls spent the rest of the day having, what Sam called, "Quality naked time." They made love, cooked, and generally lounged about without a single stitch on. It was, at times, intensely erotic: to have an exposed breast to caress or a creamy thigh to kiss all within easy reach. Other times, it was simply cozy; being able to be naked and exposed and still completely comfortable.

Finally, it was time to head out to see Luke and Isabel. The sun was going down and the weather had been oddly cool for California, but Samantha persevered and wore a pair of jeans cut up to the thigh and tight enough to accentuate every last curve of everything from the waist down. Miranda wore a pair of considerably looser jeans and a man's work shirt. They grabbed their cell phones and headed out the door.

As they walked down the street, Miranda took in a deep breath and closed her eyes: Pasadena wasn't exactly close to the sea, but tonight she could taste saltwater on the tip of her tongue and she loved it.

"Just digging this night air, huh Miri?" Sam asked looking up at her from her chair.

"Feels like forever since we just...relaxed. Taken a break from the crazy."

"I know," Samantha grinned, "boring as fuck, isn't it?"

"Sometimes boring can be nice," Miranda countered.

"Oh...pbbbbt," Sam stuck out her tongue, "Forward palanquin slave! Bear me hence to my destination with all haste."

"Yes, milady."

"Just enjoy it while you can, Miri," Sam warned, "Because you never know when things are about to go to Hell."

Grey was a man on a mission as he strode down the street, cupping his hand around cigarette as he lit it and tossed the match. He was heading back to the house from last night and was not leaving until he had either gotten his money or he had inflicted a comparable amount of pain and suffering on those responsible for the theft.

He never saw it coming; one moment he was walking, the next he was on his hands and knees, his shades on the ground, his stick out of reach and a torrent of blood and glass pouring out of his head. He gasped at the pain as he felt sharp glass slide into his palms.

A steel-toed boot came down hard on the glasses, shattering them as a familiar voice called out, "It's my favorite fucking cocksucker."

Grey smirked and looked up.

"Hello Billy, now, how did you know I was thinking about your mum?"

The kick to the face sent Grey reeling backwards as Billy and five other youths advanced on the prone man, picking him up and dragging him into a nearby alley.

Grey recognized most of them from the poker game, "You lot own me four hundred even," he accused, "hand it over, give me a very sincerely apology, and I'll consider not kicking your arses."

One of the youths kicked Grey hard in the ribs causing him to cough.

"Thank you for bringing all your sorority sisters, Billy," Grey jeered, "I'm trying to figure out which one's the prettiest. And by 'prettiest', I mean whichever one is stuck polishing your sorry-ass knob night after night."

Billy held up Grey's stick, "Lose something, asshole?"

"Nope, know right where that is," Grey gestured, "Some filthy ponce has it...for the moment."

Billy brought the stick down hard across Grey's chest, causing him to lurch and cough harder.

"That the best you got?" I've seen little girls hit pinata's harder."

Another blow, once to his stomach, the next to his head.

"No no no, Billy," Grey admonished, "Haven't you ever tortured someone before? Save the head for last or else the bloke you're knocking about may wind up just clocking out."

"Get him on his feet and hold him!"

Two of the youths grabbed Grey up from under his armpits and hoisted him up roughly.

"Stretch him!"

Each man took one of Grey's arms and stretched it out taunt, leaving him completely exposed.

"What next then, Billy? Time for the nails and the hammer?"

Billy struck him over and over across his stomach, chest, and abdomen, occasionally lashing out to his head or between his legs.

"That's right Billy, get it out!" Grey was unable to flinch, curl up, or protect himself in any way and so he simply took it as the young man beat him again....

...and again...

...and again.

Finally Billy dropped the stick, Grey's face was a mass of blood and swollen tissue, tears in his clothing from where the stick had gotten stuck on a button or a stitch and been torn free.

"Oh, look at you go, Billy," Grey rasped wetly, his mouth drooling a river of blood, "All done then?"

Billy gestured and the two guys holding Grey up threw him to the ground. Grey repressed a moan of agony, instead taking a moment to look up at Billy.

"I'm just getting started," Billy retorted, "And when I'm done with you, I'm going to go find that crippled little bitch and gook friend and fuck them so hard they bleed!"

Muscles in Grey's back tightened imperceptibly as he began to crawl on hands and knees towards Billy; fortune favored Grey then; the tissue around his eyes were so swollen, it kept the lethal gleam in his eye from showing and concealing any hint in regards to the kind of hell he was about to unleash.

Grey brought his hand up and discretely slid a sliver of glass out of his palm, his other hand covering his mouth during a coughing fit and covering the movement as he crawled, doing his best to look pitiful.

"Billy, I'm sorry lad, but you're going to have to speak up," Grey wiped a bloody hand across his head, "I'm afraid you've rung my bell right proper."

Billy bent over and got eye-to-eye with the wounded man,

"I said I'm going to fuck your little friends to death. We'll see how many cocks they can take at one time before they start begging for mercy," Billy accentuated this point by hawking a glob of phlegm into Grey's face.

Grey didn't bother wiping it away, but he nodded, "Oh, okay, I heard you," he coughed hard, he felt things inside him breaking loose but he kept coughing as hard as he could, the convulsions concealing the glass shard, now firmly between two fingers, "But I don't think it's going to work out."

"Why the fuck would that be?"

"Because..."Grey's hand shot out, quicker than a snake, and grabbed a hold of the other man's testicles in a death grip, "...you're going to be too busy getting your bollocks unscrambled you fucking wimp!"

He twisted and yanked Billy's crotch towards him, throwing the other man off balance and giving Grey the perfect angle to ram the glass shard up deep into Billy's scrotum. He twisted the shard, causing the makeshift shiv to snap off inside Billy's genitalia. Billy began to scream, clutching at the shredded ruins of his genitals. His jeans were rapidly flooding red and he couldn't form words. Instead he just pointed at Grey, who was now flat on his back and giving him the two-finger salute.

"Who's bleeding now you mewling quim?!"

Billy's friends came at him then and Grey welcomed their abuse them with a gleeful smile caked in blood.

"Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," he coughed, "Come and have a go then, if you think you're hard enough!"

And on they came. And all become blood and darkness.

"What level of Dante's concentric Inferno did you find these things?" Luke asked as he scrutinized the books the girls had brought them and the equations contained within.

"Would you believe a crazy, homeless, guy?" Miranda chimed in.

"Hey be fair," Samantha chimed in, "We don't actually know that he's homeless."

Luke looked up, "I sense a story."

"Mind your own business, sweetie," Isabel admonished gently as she bent over to place a kiss on her lover's cheek.

Luke and Isabel couldn't appear more different on the outside: Luke was on the shorter side, just shy of five-ten, but solidly built. Red hair and blue eyes rounded a very unique appearance that lay to waste the stereotypical tweed-clad physics geek.

Isabel, on the other hand, was tall, easily over six feet tall and statuesque with a dusky complexion and eyes "that one could drown in", according to Samantha. One of the most difficult vows Sam had made was the promise that, if Isabel would serve as her advisor and tutor she would not do everything in her power to get her in bed. It was a pledge she regretted daily.

Isabel had one other thing going for her; an injury to her leg had left her with a slight limp. She was very self-conscious of it. Everyone else in the room thought it gave her a tremendously sexy swagger that made her already gorgeous ass look positively delectable.

She was as smart and perceptive as she was sexy, which is how she caught everyone else in the room checking her out.

"Can I help you three?" she asked coyly.

"Yeah," Sam replied, "Get naked."

"Uh-uh," Luke chimed in. "Age before beauty."

"Yeah? Which are you?"

"I'm the one that gets to see her naked."

Isabel and Miranda cackled as Sam fumed.

"I loathe you," the blonde girl growled.

"Jealousy is an ugly thing," Luke observed.

"Speaking of jealousy," Sam adjusted her verbal crosshairs from Luke to Miranda, "You should hear the words coming out of your little protégé's mouth when she saw these."

"Years of research and study..." Miranda began to mutter.

Luke sighed and exchanged a look with his wife. It was one of "those" looks, the kind happily-married people commonly share that tends to exist somewhere between "Aren't they cute?" and "God, were we ever this young and dumb?"

"Ms. Inoue," Luke began. Miranda groaned, she knew she was in trouble when her mentor got formal. Sam and Isabel knew it too, and they watched the unfolding drama with great amusement, "What have we said about your gifted mind and intellect?"

"That my sense of self-worth, should not be tied to my scholastic achievements."

"And?"

Another sigh, "And, there is more to life than equations and formulas and to respect and appreciate other people's contributions as well as my own."

"In other words?"

Miranda gritted her teeth, "Someone else's gain is not necessarily my loss."

"Very good, grasshopper," Lucas put the books down, "Go out, you know? Go to a party. Get laid."

"Ha!" both girls echoed.

"What?"

"The last time we went to a party, there was almost a fatality," Sam informed Luke.

Luke turned to his wife, "Honey, how come I don't get invited to the cool parties?"

"Because you're a tremendous geek," Isabel replied sweetly.

"Hey!"

Isabel kissed the top of her husband's head and wrapped her arms around him.

"But you're my tremendous geek."

"Okay, I can live with that."

"Good," she kissed him again before picking up one of the books and frowning at it, "Got to tell you girls, whoever came up with these had to be either a certified genius or a full-out wacko."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

Isabel favored her with a condescending smile, "My dear Sammy, have I taught you nothing? Or are you just too busy staring at my butt?"

"Not true!" Sam replied, "Sometimes, I'm staring at your tits."

Isabel giggled as Miranda turned an angry look at Sam, "So how come she gets to call you 'Sammy'?"

"Sweetie, with a package like that she can call me whatever the hell she wants."

"You know," Luke chimed in, "I'm sitting right here as you drool over my wife."

"Thought you'd be used to that by now," Sam replied.

"Back to the matter at hand," Miranda interjected.

"You'll have to forgive Miri," Sam explained, "She's allergic to fun."

"This stuff," Isabel elaborated, "It's brilliant, but it's all over the place. It's like a crack addicted hamster that's also a member of Mensa," she beckoned at Luke, "You see what I'm talking about, right hon?"

"Yeah, absolutely," he replied. Then he took another look and frowned, "Not, not at all, no."

"Men."

"Hey, if you're considering batting for the other team," Samantha patted her lap, "You can just sit yourself down over here and I'll show you all the ropes."

Miranda frowned at Sam, "Since when are you into ropes?"

Isabel just laughed at the blonde girl's remarks, "And so the student would become the master? Thank you, but no Sam, I'm quite happy with my 'team.'"

"Seconded," Luke chimed in.

"Grumble, grumble, discontent, grumble," Sam frowned.

Miranda took the opportunity to pick up one of the books, "You were saying, Isabella?"

"Here, take a look at his," the mathematician began drawing on a clear board, "In the books that dealt with mathematics, rather than expressing the equation through math as everyone else does, he turned it into a physics formula.

Luke frowned at the board, "He's using Euler's equation," he began to thumb through the book, "Why the hell would he do that?"

"I've no idea. It's like the entire thing is backwards."

"What do you mean?" Miranda asked.

Isabel began drawing on the board again, "Mathematics is considered a vital tool in the expression and understanding of physics."

"It's sort of our thing," Luke added, "They make for a very good pair," he sent his wife an adoring look, "much like a poor, geeky, physicist and an ebony-skinned Amazonian math goddess."

"That should be on a t-shirt," Sam interjected.

Isabel chuckled and blew him a kiss before continuing.

"Okay, so, like I said, mathematics; calculus, trig., etc..., are used to simplify any given equation," she gestured at the board, "whoever did this didn't bother with any of that, they took the equation as is and solved it without bothering to use any math, of any kind."

Luke's brow furrowed in concentration, "Solving stuff like this without using math is a lot like pushing your car to work rather than driving it," he turned his attention to the books, "why the hell would he do that?"

"Because he could."

Three pairs of eyes lifted to regard Miranda.

"For all of us, we've used hard work, years of study, discipline, to achieve what it takes to do stuff like that," she gestured at the board, "For us, it's a science. For him, it's an art. He can just do it, no effort or discipline required," Miranda suddenly looked very tired, "He wanted us to know that."

"Know that he can do it?" Samantha asked.

"Know that you can do everything by the book, obey the rules, study hard, go to bed early, sacrifice your social life," she glared at the board, "And still wind up coming up short in the end."

Sam took another look at the board, "Yeah, that sounds about right: Ha-ha, you made yourself miserable for nothing."

"It might just be a little less cynical than that," Luke commented as Isabel came to stand next him.

"Do tell," Miranda muttered.

Luke gathered up his wife in his arms and gave her a long hug before turning his attention to the board.

"You don't need to sacrifice joy in order to be successful in life."

Sam let out a short laugh, "Well, if you met Grey, you'd be dead certain that the man did not practice what he preached."

Luke and Isabel exchanged a quick look.

"What?"

Luke shook his head, "It's nothing, just something from way back when."

"What do you mean?" Miranda asked.

"There was a guy a while back, real knack for this stuff; pretty much the Hunter Thompson of physicists; real gonzo science. He had a lot of wild theories and ideas. A lot of them turned out to be true."

"So, what happened to him?"

"He died a while back, fifteen years ago or so, no one really knows the details."

"I remember reading about that," Isabella added, "I was considering using him as my thesis subject."

"And the guy died?" Miranda pressed.

"Think so. All through the eighties and nineties the guy could do no wrong. Although if I remember correctly, a lot of his stuff pissed off a great deal of more, conservative minds," Isabella smirked, "Which is why he was never actually recognized or awarded for any of his work: wasn't willing to play by the big-boy rules."

"I like him already," Samantha spoke up.

Miranda sent her lover an affectionate smile before turning her attention back to the older woman, "So what happened then?"

Isabella shrugged, "And then, nothing. After 1998, no papers, no lectures, no books or coursework, he simply vanished. And then the rumor mill said he had died suddenly and that his work was lost for good."

"Damn shame," Luke frowned.

"Agreed, but anyhow," Isabella gestured to the board, "do we want to tackle the rest of this?"

Miranda shrugged, "Might as well, I certainly have nothing better to do."

"Hey!" Sam exclaimed.

"Besides you, of course."

"That's more like it."

Several hours later, Luke closed the book in front of him and tossed it onto the desk.

"Okay, I am done," he announced as he rubbed his eyes, "This stuff is impossible."

"It's not impossible," Isabella corrected him, "It's just wildly inconsistent: I can see half a dozen different formulas and schools of thought in both physics and math: Parseval, Friedmann, and a whole lot of Boltzman's Entropy Theory."

"It's like trying to do equations via stream of thought," Sam added as she gestured to the now-cluttered clearboard, "There's no rhyme or reason to it: problems are presented, solved, and then discarded only to show up later in a completely different set of algorithms. "

"Well, however it is done, it's scrawl, but its brilliant scrawl."

"So now what?" Miranda asked.

Her mentor shrugged, "I don't know, find him, bring him in to explain all this and I'll see to it personally that you'll get whatever academic or science post you're looking for out in the world."

"Count me in, as well," Isabella said.

Miranda smiled broadly, a chance at academic advancement was too good to pass up.

"I'll see what I can do."

"Wait a second," Sam glowered, "When we were talking about me being able to walk again, you were all 'we don't really need him'," she jabbed a finger into the other girl's ribs, "But suddenly this can help your career and now you're all about him? You're being kinda shallow there sweetie."

Miranda looked up guiltily as all the eyes in the room regarded her in the same fashion.

"Sorry," she apologized, "I just...really don't like the guy," she pointed at the board, "but if he, for some bizarre reason, can contribute to our field of study, it's worth pursuing," she focused on Sam, "And that there will be no more comments about getting rid of him until after he's helped you. Deal, lover?"

"It's a start," Sam replied as she grabbed Miranda by the shirt and caught her mouth in a long kiss.

Moments stretched on until someone cleared their throat, causing the girls to part.

"Sorry," Sam and Miranda both mumbled. Luke and Isabella just smirked.

"Too cute," the mathematician stated, "So, do you know where to find this guy?"