Kinetic

We hugged and kissed for a while, both of us feeling very sleepy. Both of us realized we wanted to take a nap with each other. Melanie cooed and cuddled in my arms, drifting off to sleep. "Maybe being finger-fucked in my butt," she muttered, "is a dim shadow of how nice it is when you mount me for real..." She sighed deeply and then was still. I cupped her breast and stroked her as she slept.

Chapter 24.

Time: Saturday, August 12, 2006 8:44 AM

I woke up a couple of minutes before Melanie. I turned over slowly to her and could feel the warmth of her naked body against mine. She sighed and stirred but did not awake. I watched her as she slept and thought about the past week.

Our work lives have really taken off. Melanie somehow became a key person in Biotherapeutics' most critical and visible project, and they've been pressuring her for all her available time. Melanie negotiated a compromise of working very long hours weekdays but keeping her weekends free. I'm so glad to have her for the next few days! She needs time to unwind, and we also have our first counseling session this afternoon.

She's so cute! Melanie will come to bed naked if she just wants to be cuddled to sleep, and dressed in pajamas if she's sexually interested. She knows how much I enjoy undressing her. This whole week though, I hadn't seen much of her after our early morning run. She comes home after 9 PM very tired. I have a light dinner prepared. We eat and chat for a bit, and then she takes a shower and then collapses into sleep.

"Hi Sweetie!" smiled Melanie, as she brushed my hair.

"Good Morning Pumpkin! You look ravishable!"

Melanie laughed as we kissed. "Ravishable huh? What a week! I think I'd like to be ravished today! Let's definitely set aside some time for petting."

"Sounds good to me..." I reached across and hugged her. It's a pleasure to watch her wake up. Her eyes are so bright and alive, and in the morning so full of curiosity and playfulness.

"Eric, your kinetics! How are you doing?"

"I'm right on the edge of invisibility. Want to see?"

Melanie backed up a bit. "This is so scary to look at, but go ahead. AH!" She couldn't stop herself. She was suddenly lying next to an extremely faint blood-red shadow of a ghost. "Eric, you're so dim, I can't make out your features clearly! You're just a super faint reddish-black shadow. Otherwise I see right through you."

I nodded. "The red band of visible color is from 610 to 750 nanometers. I'm locking everything shorter than 745 nanometers. I'm right at the edge. By lunchtime I should be completely invisible."

"Would you mind shutting down? I'm still uneasy seeing you like this." We were cuddling a moment later. Melanie sighed. "What a week! My life is filled with business deadlines and my husband is learning how to become invisible! Have you done much thinking, about where all this might be heading?"

"Oh yeah! Lots of thoughts..."

A long moment of silence passed. "Tell me?"

"Well, I've noticed you haven't called me your god-in-training lately. Melanie, the powers are growing exponentially! When would you consider I've achieved my Bachelor's of god-dom?"

"Yeah, pretty soon. An awesome responsibility Eric, to have a Bachelor's of god-dom."

"Exactly! I worry about the Superman syndrome. How did Superman ever find the time to chat with Lois Lane? With so much injustice in the world, shouldn't he be on call 24/7 saving people. Is that what I should be doing? My sense sphere right now is 1327 meters. I could patrol it with my mind; make it a crime-free, drug-free zone."

"Eric, you can't be responsible for the universe! That's God's job, the real God! You don't have to use your power, do you?"

"No, it's completely voluntary. It's just as easy not to scan as to scan. It's my choice."

Melanie considered. "So, isn't Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #242 appropriate here? More is good... all is better." Melanie smiled at me. "There's no downside to more power if you don't have to use it. It just give you more options, more degrees of freedom. How can that be bad?"

She lightly caressed my thigh under the covers as I thought. I finally answered, "Well, not bad maybe, but different. I think the principle involved here is: Influence Changes Perspective."

"Ah..." Melanie nodded thoughtfully. "Go on."

"Think of diabetes. A hundred years ago no one could influence the course of that disease. It was a death sentence. People would say, there's nothing we can do. It's God's will."

I shrugged and continued. "But now it's treatable. What's changed? Has God's will changed, or has our own influence changed, which then changes our perspective of the world and what God's will is?"

"I see your point Eric. With the new powers, you have to decide what to hold yourself accountable for... What an awesome job... If I may make a suggestion, perhaps don't try to solve the world's problems. We can just use your abilities to lead a wonderful but private life..."

"Yeah, well... That sounds like Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #261, A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience."

Melanie looked troubled. "True, it does... But Eric, how will you decide what to be responsible for?"

I sighed. "I still don't know. I've got a lot of thinking to do... How about you pumpkin? What do you spend your time thinking about?"

Melanie blinked and then lay back down, resting her head on her pillow. I came and pressed lightly against her side. My hand came up and held her breast.

"Me?" she said at last. "I've been doing a lot of thinking about Patty."

"Ah..."

"Eric, can I ask you something really personal, if I promise absolutely not to be offended by anything you say?"

"Of course, shoot."

"Why do you like Patty? She tried to destroy our marriage, and did not apologize for that! And yet... you accepted her offer for friendship."

"Yes... that's true..."

"Do you think her body is super hot?"

"Huh?" I looked at Melanie closely.

"Be super honest sweetie. I trust you so much now, I will completely accept any fantasies you might have about doing it with her, as long as they remain fantasies."

"Oh no. Seriously pumpkin, I don't fantasize about Patricia. I guess it's a dim boost to my male ego, to have another female... well... But I don't dream of Patricia. I really don't."

"So you like her... why?"

I thought for a long moment. "Let me ask you a question. If you had your M.D. degree and were practicing medicine, and had a choice to be spending your next hour effectively treating a sick child, or doing clinical research that would lead to a cure for a disease, or spending a hour replacing a rotor brush on a generator that was powering your clinic, what would be your least preference?"

Melanie laughed. "That's a no-brainer! I'd much rather be caring for a child or doing science, compared to mucking around with a greasy generator!"

"Yes! And I'm pretty sure Patricia would pick just the opposite. And as for me, all three sound interesting. I like working with materials, woodworking or re-building engines. Patricia does too. She'd like to learn woodworking. That's what we chatted about mostly while we were cleaning the bilge pumps. We started talking about woodworking, and then she started telling me about the hopes in her life."

I smiled as I thought of the memories. "Patricia has a rough exterior, especially where you're concerned, but there is also a sweetness within her, a sweetness within her heart pumpkin, and she lowered her defenses enough for me to see it."

"Patty being sweet? That's hard to believe."

"You should have seen her pumpkin, when she asked me to be her friend. There was a childlike innocence about it, a childlike directness..."

"Wow... Okay Eric, I believe you. And I love you." She kissed me.

"Melanie... Our conversations were enjoyable to both of us... But I don't want to get sexy with her! Trust me! I think she's physically attractive, but my loyalty and my desires are only for you." I smiled playfully. "You can check the brand on my rump if you want to be sure."

Melanie surprised me by turning me over and examining me. I felt her lips kissing me, starting on my ass and then dropping to my thighs. I sighed in the pleasure. Melanie's hands came between my legs, caressing my inner thighs at first and then fondling my testes. I started to shiver as her lips joined her fingers and gently brushed against the sensitive scrotal skin.

Gripping the testes within my scrotum to hold me absolutely still, her teeth came to my branding spot and she nailed me with a brief sharp nip.

"Yikes!"

"Yep! I see my brand! You are forever a True Melanie bull!" Melanie released my scrotum and patted my rump affectionately where she nipped me. I heard her sigh. "And I get your point about Patty. I'm glad in a way. I don't want to have a war with Patty either. And you keep calling her Patricia. Why?"

"Because she likes it."

"What? I've never noticed. She does?"

"Yes. I saw it in her eyes. I did it once or twice by accident, and then I noticed her eyes brighten and she smiled when I did. I think she sees it as a sign of respect, and I think she's starving for it Melanie. Except for her parents, I don't think Patricia has many friends. She's bright and social and locked in a cage that she doesn't even see is there."

"Oh... And by being friends, you're going to hand her the key to the cage?"

"Well, nothing that grandiose. But she reached out to me Melanie. The sexual part of that reach was all wrong, but the desire for a relationship, for friendship, well..."

"Yes, I get it. That desire is both appropriate and touching. Thanks Eric! You were completely honest, and now I understand..." We kissed for a few moments, and then got up to start a very busy day.

Time: Saturday, November 25, 2006 8 AM

Melanie and I drove down to Exeter PA to be with my dad and step-mom for Thanksgiving. Early Saturday morning we came down early to prepare breakfast for everybody while my parents were still sleeping upstairs. There weren't quite enough eggs for the soufflés Melanie wanted to make. She looked at me and smiled sweetly.

My kinetic powers have been growing steadily since August. My mass creation rate was up to 29 grams per second. I quietly created five large eggs for Melanie in ten seconds.

I've been working hard to develop my powers. It's not just the raw ability, but the control. After simple hydro-carbons and sugars, albumen was one of the first edible organic liquids I mastered for creation.

The trickiest part in creating food is the DNA, such long strands of non-periodic crystals, they took me days to master. Some of my early failures were quite smelly...

My skills now have gotten to a point where Melanie and I don't go food shopping anymore. An occasional restaurant is still nice though...

"Oh, look at this," Melanie commented, as she looked at the morning paper. "Remember the series of robbery-murders that the parents were talking about on Thursday?"

"What?!" For some reason, Melanie's words were filling me with dread.

My wife didn't notice my concern. "Well, it seems very early yesterday morning, about 3 AM Friday, a man broke into a woman's apartment in Reading. The woman woke up when she heard his body hit the floor by the side of her bed. He was carrying a large carving knife. The police think he died just as he were about to stab her. Autopsy showed the man died of a massive cerebral aneurysm. Isn't that the most... Eric, what?"

"Oh, hell Melanie! That was me!"

"What?!" she whispered.

I had a dream yesterday morning. I was drifting over Reading... I went back to my old school, and then I drifted west to Reading... I was gazing at the city from the air, and... I saw something funny... something funny in the dream. There was a man dressed in black going through a window..."

"My gosh Eric..."

"It felt so much like a dream! I was sleeping... I followed the man... My God, it was all real... He really was about to kill the woman... I lashed out at him! It was so easy, just a touch of force along a large artery. It was so easy to tear."

Melanie came up and hugged me. "Eric... Are you sure?"

I was silent for a moment. "Oh yeah, I'm sure. I'm back over the city now... I'm sensing the room now. It's empty. Oh hell... I can see the police tape... It's so easy... less than seven kilometers from here, half my sense-radius..."

"You can see the room now?" Melanie whispered.

"I'm moving outside... It's near the corner of Buttonwood and Church..."

I felt Melanie shiver as she hugged me. "Yeah, that's what the newspaper said..."

"Oh hell Melanie! I thought it was just a weird dream! I remember everything! He was positioning himself to grab her hair. I think he was going to jerk her head and cut her throat before she could even wake up! I'm sure of it!"

Melanie nodded and released me and then gave me a kind smile. "So are you sorry you acted?"

"... No. Of course not... Still..."

We heard my parents, our parents, stirring upstairs. My wife gave me one last hug and kiss and then walked over to the new eggs. "Yeah... still... Sweetie, we'll be leaving for home after lunch. Let's talk about this in the car." She started to sing as she turned on the stove.

I nodded and walked over, giving her a brief kiss on her neck and a pat on her rump as she sang. A moment later I was setting up the breakfast table.

Chapter 25.

Time: Friday, March 23, 2007 4:23 AM

!!! I woke up with a start. "Melanie, wake up!"

"Hmmm? What? Huh?" Melanie reluctantly opened her eyes. "What?"

"I just hit a pothole!"

"Huh? Oh!" My wife sat up in bed and turned on the light. She yawned as she stared at the clock. "Well, we'd be getting up in another hour anyway. How do you feel?"

"Okay, I guess...." I tested for a few moments. "Everything seems to be still here. I haven't lost anything."

"Well, that's good. Come! You can think us up some breakfast!"

Melanie and I chatted as we ate. By 5 AM, it was obvious what had happened. All my kinetic abilities had stopped growing again. I booted up my laptop and started doing a few calculations. After a few minutes Melanie came and put her hands on my shoulders.

"Disappointed?"

"Hmmm? Oh, you mean about stopping? No. I haven't learned to use what I've got yet. This is actually a relief."

"Ah... Yah, you're pretty impressive now. Think this might be the last curtain call?"

I shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe not... Take a look at this timeline chart. We're still in my fourth rotation. The first six periods were zero growth on everything, then the next seven periods were full growth on everything, and the fourteenth period started at 4:23 this morning, and I'm back to zero growth."

"Oh, I see... So you think the last six periods in the rotation might also be zero growth?"

"Yeah, I think... There's a certain symmetry to it... 31 days, 19 hours, 56 minutes per period... The fourth rotation will end in half a year, on Sunday, September 30'th, at 4:07 AM. We'll just have to see what happens then."

Melanie nodded. We wound up getting an early jump on the day, watched the sunrise at the end of our morning run at the track, and then we headed off to our different schools. As I headed to M.I.T., I started thinking about the last few months. So much has happened since Thanksgiving.

My kinetic abilities have been growing full throttle. At the end of my current growth spurt, my sense-sphere radius is now 169.79 kilometers, and I can lock extremely long wavelength photons (3.56 meters, 0.35 micro-eV). That's down to most of the FM and television broadcast bands. I'm still an order of magnitude from locking short-wave radio, and a factor of a hundred from locking AM radio.

My maximum force limit is 2.12e18 Newtons, and my power limit is 1.16e20 Watts. That's the ability to push or pull 1293 kg per second to or from oblivion. Before we split up this morning, Melanie awarded me with a kiss my Masters of god-dom degree. And the power is awesome...

On other fronts, life is evolving pleasantly. Melanie's parents, sans Patricia, arrived for a five-day visit during Christmas. They stayed with us in our condo's second bedroom. The visit was okay, they're both interesting to talk to, and we spent a lot of time showing them all the cultural and historic sites of Boston. Both parents commented at different times that they are surprised that Melanie and I are still such lovebirds with each other, but it's true. We are as overjoyed with each other as we were on our wedding day.

And the parents were a bit nosey too, asking about odd details in our lives. Nothing in particular to worry about, but Melanie and I both breathed a sigh of relief when they left.

My Masters thesis is effectively finished. I just need to work on the write-up a bit. My days as an M.I.T. are coming to a close. I've done a bit of interviewing in the Cambridge area, not as much as most graduating students, but with my Masters of god-dom in hand it's hard to worry about that.

Melanie and I have experimented a bit with having sex at lower gravity. No gravity at all was a comic disaster. Melanie and I have a private codeword for anything ridiculously funny, ZGS, which stands for zero-gravity sex. Seriously, trying to thrust into a female without something to anchor her down is absolute buffoonery. I highly don't recommend it if you have any desire to orgasm. Melanie and I sometimes joke about trying it again, when we want to be totally silly.

But sex at reduced gravity is really nice. Melanie and I have talked about our preferences, and she rates as her all-time favorite position for pure physical pleasure as something she calls point eight cowgirl. I lie flat on my back and Melanie sits on my groin facing me and rides me while I keep the effective gravity around us at 80% of standard. It gives her enough weight to hammer down into me on a down stroke, but still is enough of a change to give the feeling of floating in our lovemaking. And I love to watch her ride, she's so beautiful...

My own favorite position is point six missionary. I lie on top of Melanie and thrust her while she relaxes in the gentle gravity, her athletic legs are so beautiful held up in the air. I love watching her toes curling as she approaches orgasm...

Friday evening I got back home first. We haven't cooked in months. It's just so much easier for me to create a couple of gourmet dinners instantly. The refrigerator and cabinets just have some snack foods for Melanie if she's here without me.

I walked around the condo for a while, thinking about my kinetic abilities. What could I do that was monumental? I felt like playing, and challenging myself. I thought for a while. I remembered chatting with Melanie months ago about global warming and getting rid of some of the excess CO2...

I reached out and sensed the great dome around me. With a sense radius of 105.5 miles, I can create, destroy, and manipulate things just outside Earth's atmosphere now. I sensed and locked all the outdoor CO2 in the sphere. I hefted the weight of all the carbon atoms in my power... just over 89 million metric tons... CO2 concentration was 350 ppm...

Could I bring it down? Yes. Should I? Maybe a little, just to test. Why not? How?

I thought about just pushing the carbon atoms into oblivion. Destroy 1292.66 kg of carbon atoms a second... let's see... It would take me over two years to convert all the CO2 molecules in my sense sphere to oxygen molecules... New ones would diffuse in of course... Any faster way? Sure, just pull off the carbon atoms, don't destroy them... But where to put them... Hmmm...

One hour later...

Melanie stared at me incredulously. "You did WHAT?!"

I suddenly felt very sheepish. "It wasn't that much, just a 0.0034% decrease. Really, it was nothing..."