A Gift in Disguise Ch. 06

It took several minutes before my own body could find the strength and coordination to move. Finally I arose and stood looking down at Lorraine's beautiful sleeping nakedness. Even now and not looking through the lens of lust, I could see the bodily changes Lorraine had mentioned. I marveled that a 50-year-old woman could look and act so youthful while still possessing the maturity only years can deliver. Yet as my mind cleared further, I still wondered how she and Kim could be so positive that the rejuvenation of their youth could even remotely be attributed to what they still called my "gift." I realized that no matter how much I stared at Lorraine, the answer would not come -- at least not today. I carefully covered her from the shoulders down with the bed sheet. She didn't stir.

The video was continuing, so I picked up the remote, hit the stop button, then ejected the DVD and put it in its case. Finally I turned off both the DVD player and the television. Though my body was less than half Lorraine's age, her strength and force during fucking had taxed my own muscles, and I found that it took me much longer than usual to dress. She slept quietly now, at peace and relaxed.

After locking the doors connecting her bedroom and kitchen to her patio, I walked slowly through the door connecting her home to her office, then out through the front office door, locking it behind me. Once in my car I glanced at the dashboard clock: 5:30 p.m. The two and one-half hours I had been with her seemed much longer. Perhaps still distracted by the pleasurable time I'd had with Lorraine, I entered the interstate to go home. Almost immediately I realized I had made a serious error. Traffic was completely stopped. Normally, even here, rush hour traffic on the freeway is not even stop-and-go.

I flipped on the car radio to the local all-news station to get "traffic reports on the eights". "Traffic is at a standstill on the interstate between exits 122 and 123 due to a jackknifed big-rig just east of the exit 123 off-ramp. State police expect to have one lane of traffic open by 5:45 p.m." That told me I was going to be sitting still for several more minutes and would be doing the creepy-crawly for some time after that.

With nothing else to do I decided to use my cell phone to call Jamie and tell her about Lorraine's comments on her experiences today. I had inadvertently left my cell phone on "mute", and the display showed that I had received two calls while at Lorraine's. The first was from Jamie at 3:38 p.m., and the second was from Kim at 4:07 p.m.

"Hey Jamie. It's Tom Connors returning your call," I said when she answered. I went on to explain about my leaving the phone on mute and how I was taking my "freeway therapy" time to return calls.

"It's okay, Tom. I was just calling to let you know that Kim had called. She has a patient who she said is 'going bad,' so we're going to have to postpone her phallus test for a few days."

"Okay. That's not necessarily a setback, though," I responded. I explained about Lorraine's physical and mental fatigue and how she had experienced some unusual arousals and sensations today. Jamie jumped in the instant I mentioned Lorraine's feeling an explicit penile erection sensation each time she viewed the DVD.

"Wait a second, Tom. Did I hear you correctly? Did you say that each time she watched her masturbation DVD today, she felt like she was still wearing the phallus and experienced the feeling of an erection?"

"That's exactly what she said. She said the feelings were so real that she automatically reached down to touch herself. Of course, she had returned the phallus to you the day before, so..."

"That's really significant, Tom!" Jamie interrupted with a tone of urgency I'd seldom heard her use before. "When a person suffers an amputation, say an arm or leg, it is very common for them to experience exactly the same sensations they had before the lost part was amputated. They're called 'phantom sensations' because the victim still feels a lifetime of sensations he or she had experienced with the missing part. We believe the victim's brain has become so imprinted with those lifetime sensations that even when the part is no longer there to respond to external stimuli, the brain draws on its historical imprint and tries to fill in what it thinks the person ought to be feeling based on all surrounding circumstances.

But in Lorraine's case, she had only worn the phallus since last Friday, and then only sporadically throughout the weekend and Monday. That's hardly a lifetime of experience with it as part of her body. So with only a few days exposure to the sensations from the phallus, what caused her brain to memorize enough information to cause her to experience a phantom penile erection?

I'm concerned now, Tom, that our phallus may be sending more and stronger information to the wearer's brain than we first thought."

"I hadn't thought it through that far, Jamie, but based on Lorraine's mental and physical fatigue, do you think we might want to rethink the phallus design and the methodology of Kim's upcoming test?"

"Absolutely! In fact, I think Lorraine, Amanda, Marta, Kim, you, and I need to have a meeting as soon as possible to make sure we understand exactly what Lorraine experienced with the phantom erections.

As far as redesigning the phallus, the answer may be something as simple as attenuating the signal levels from the phallus to the wearer. And it may also just be that we need to slow down the pace of the testing -- let Kim proceed at her own pace. I probably pushed Lorraine too hard to make too many detailed observations while she was masturbating. It may be that she's so intelligent, I simply overloaded her for information. Or it could be some combination of these or even things we haven't yet identified. Regardless, I don't want to jeopardize Kim's health and the validity of our tests by trying to go too far, too fast. I know we had originally excluded Kim until after her own phallus test, but I think now we need to include her."

"So are you going to contact Lorraine, Marta, Amanda, and Kim to set up a mutually convenient time and place for the meeting?" I asked.

"Yeah, I can do that," Jamie responded. "I'd like to have the meeting this coming weekend if we can all make it. And if Kim's patient is still critical at the hospital, it might make it easier for her if the meeting was at Amanda's laboratory since it's just a block from the hospital. Would that work for you, Tom?"

"Sure, anytime this weekend would be fine if it works for everyone else."

"I'll get going on it then. Anything else, Tom?" Jamie asked.

"You sound a lot better today. Is your annual cold getting better?"

"That's really weird, Tom. Like I told you the other day, I usually am contagious and feel really crappy for three or four days. But I got up this morning and had no symptoms at all. It was such an odd deviation from years past that I dropped in on Amanda and had her check me out. She did a quick mouth swab and confirmed that I still have the cold and I'm still mildly contagious, but she was baffled by the complete disappearance of my symptoms. She suggested that I avoid public contact today and tomorrow. She wants me to pop back into her office on Thursday morning and she'll check me again."

I had a thought but didn't say anything.

"Tom? Are you still there?" she asked.

"Yeah, I was just thinking..."

"What?"

"Well, you and I had sex. Remember that Lorraine's atrial fibrillation began to disappear right after she and I first had sex? Do you suppose there's a connection?"

Now it was Jamie's turn to invoke silence at the other end of the phone line.

"Normally I might laugh that off, Tom, but at this point and with the effects your 'gift' seems to have on your sex partners' brains, I think I'd like to mention that to Amanda when she checks me on Thursday. Would you mind?"

"No, not at all. I'm still wondering about the dimensions of my supposed 'gift,' so I'd hate to dismiss something as irrelevant that may turn out to be an important component of it."

"Spoken like a true engineer," she laughed. "But thank you -- I think. I'll let you know what she says. And I'll let you know if and when and where we'll all be meeting to discuss Lorraine's phantom erections."

"Okay. Well, I've got a voicemail from Kim that she left shortly after you left yours. I'll give her a call now."

Jamie and I disconnected and I called Kim back.

When she answered I briefly explained why I had missed her first call and was now returning her call. I didn't mention that I had already talked with Jamie.

"Tom, I'm afraid we're going to have to postpone getting together on Thursday. I have a critically ill patient that desperately needs a procedure to restore his normal heart rhythm. We're trying to stabilize him enough to enable him to at least have a chance of surviving the procedure. We're hoping to do the procedure on Thursday; Friday at the latest. If we go beyond Friday, well..."

"It's okay, Kim. I understand completely."

"After this is over, Tom, I would like to introduce you to the cardiologist who will actually be doing the procedure. I'll be assisting him. You may have heard one of your master's committee mention his name. It's David Klein. He went to college with your thesis committee chairman Dr. Keller. They were close friends there, they resumed that when Dr. Klein came here to practice. Anyway, Dr. Klein would like to talk with you about your graduate research in nanotechnology sensors. He sees some application in neurosurgery of the kind we'll be doing on our patient hopefully on Thursday."

"Sure. I'd be very interested in talking with him. So, how did your week's visit with your daughter go?"

"It was actually very pleasant. She's more comfortable running the businesses now, and she seems to be relaxing a little bit. Now she only works 23-1/2 hours each day," Kim said laughingly. "No, she's finally loosening up a bit. She still needs to get laid, though! Are you interested?"

I was less than sure Kim was completely joking with the last question even though she punctuated it with another laugh. Still, I decided to play along.

"So how would that work? I'm assuming you haven't told her that her mother is having sex with a younger man whose age is closer to her daughter's?"

There was a rather unexpected pause before Kim continued. I was hearing unspoken discomfort in the pause.

"Actually, Tom, she sort of does know about you. I had to make my hospital rounds one day and Sarah decided to play a DVD she brought with her. When she turned on my DVD player and TV in my bedroom to warm them up, she got an eyeful of you in one of your masturbation sessions Lorraine had recorded in her office. I had been reviewing it at home and had inadvertently left it in the player."

"Reviewing it? Or enjoying yourself?" I asked.

"Guilty as charged," she answered with more an air of unashamed defiance than any guilt at being caught. Then she continued, "When I got home, Sarah was pretty clever. Instead of telling me she had watched your DVD, she started asking me about my own love life after Walter died. She had noticed some of the age-reversing changes in my body since she last saw me. She put two and two together, and when she saw the DVD of you, she came up with four. Finally she told me she watched your DVD."

"And you said...?"

"I told her the truth. Sort of. I told her you were a patient and that I couldn't discuss anything about your case."

I started laughing. "What did she say to that?" I asked between laughs.

"She just looked at me, smiled, and said, 'Well, Mom, if you're not fucking him, you damn well ought to be.' I think she might even have been a little envious. And, I might add, she would have good reason to be. You know, Tom, Sarah noticed my more youthful appearance. She even complimented me on it. She even suggested that I should let my try letting my hair go back to its normal color. God, just thinking about feeling that hard young body of yours on top of me with my legs wrapped around you is really making me wet."

She paused briefly, apparently to compose herself.

"Seriously, Tom, I really apologize for leaving your DVD in my player at home. It never occurred to me that she would go in my bedroom to watch a DVD. Still, I should have been much more careful with confidential patient information. I'm very sorry."

I sensed that her error had upset Kim far more than it had me.

"Kim, don't worry about it. From what you've told me about the businesses your husband ran and that Sarah's running now, she's seen guys jerking off more times than she can count. But if you're really concerned, I'll be more than happy to let you make it up to me next time we get together. In fact, maybe you and I ought to make our own private DVD for you to give to her," I said, fully intending it to be a joke.

"Hmmm, you know, that's not a bad idea...," Then she abruptly changed her tone. "Oh! I've got a call waiting from Dr. Klein, probably about our patient. Bye!" She disconnected before I could respond.

Traffic on the freeway was beginning to move, stop-and-go, but it was at least moving. I had just set my cell phone down on the seat when it rang. Willing to risk a collision at glacial speed, I picked it up and answered.

"Hello, Tom. It's Amanda Wallace. I just got off the phone with Jamie. She said you were stuck in traffic. Are you moving yet or can you safely talk for a minute?"

"The cops must have one lane open, because we are moving, but it's really slow. Did Jamie talk with you about a group meeting to discuss how to proceed with Kim's tests?"

"She did. I suggested we tentatively set it for Sunday afternoon. Saturday would be fine for me, too. I think it will be determined by the condition of Kim's patient, though. To make it easier for her, I told Jamie I'd be willing to arrange to use one of the small meeting rooms at the hospital. That would make it more convenient for Kim, and the rooms are hardly ever used on weekends anyway."

"Good idea. And Saturday or Sunday will be fine with me, too. I had thought about going home this weekend, but that was just because I didn't really have any other plans to keep me here."

"Actually, I had another reason for calling, Tom. I'm trying to figure out the best way to consider Lorraine's suggestion that the phallus include either a catch reservoir or a discharge tube for the wearer's ejaculate. Normally I'd meet with Jamie to discuss the design and engineering concerns, but since she's still contagious I wondered if you might be available, maybe Thursday afternoon, to come to the lab and discuss it?"

"Sure. What time's good for you?" I asked recalling that Kim intended to see Amanda on Thursday morning.

"How about three? I've got a couple other things to discuss with you, too."

"Okay, Amanda. I'll see you at three on Thursday afternoon. Traffic's starting to move again, so I should go."

Even with the traffic beginning to flow more smoothly, it took another half hour for me to get back to my apartment. I wasn't really hungry yet, so I sat down in front of my computer to check my emails. There were two.

The first was from my thesis chairman, Dr. Keller, asking me to stop by his office before my first class tomorrow, Wednesday. Odd. Dr. Keller rarely emailed me; he usually left notes in my grad student cubicle. I clicked on "reply," then emailed that I would be at his office at 7:45 a.m.

The second email was from ShaMad -- Sharon Madison, my mother's close friend. Mom would undoubtedly croak if she knew what Sharon and I had done at the private resort the preceding Saturday night. Sharon's email message was brief: "Pls call my cell Weds @ 4:15 p.m." I didn't reply to her email, but only out of concern my reply might be found by her husband.

Figuring that dressing up a bit for a meeting with my master's thesis chairman might not be a bad idea, I put on a pair of dark slacks with a freshly-pressed blue long-sleeve dress shirt on Wednesday. Promptly at 7:44 a.m. I knocked on his office door. Rather that receiving the usual verbal "come in" shouted from across his desk, I was surprised that he opened the door himself and greeted me like a long-lost son.

"Tom, come in, come in. There's someone here I want you to meet," he said warmly as he ushered me in. "Tom Connors, this is Dr. David Klein. Dr. Klein is a neurocardiological surgeon at the hospital."

I extended my hand. "How do you do, Dr. Klein? I'm very happy to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Connors. I hope you'll excuse me for getting to the point, but I have a patient in some distress at the hospital so my time is limited." Without waiting for me to answer (as if I would have insisted he waste time on social niceties) he went on, "Peter here has discussed with your double-E master's thesis research on nanotechnology sensors and applications.

I wonder if you've ever considered the applications of your research in the neurosciences?

Perhaps I should be a little more specific. The patient I am concerned about is experiencing a deterioration of the neurological path that allows his brain to communicate with his heart. During our lifetime most of us will experience some level of neurological deterioration. Because of the miraculous healing power of our own bodies, most of those will be healed or the body will simply self-bypass the deteriorating area. Only as the deterioration worsens does medical intervention become necessary. In some cases, like the patient another neurocardiologist and I are treating now, the deterioration has reached the point where we must expose a particular nerve bundle and microscopically examine the deterioration, then hopefully be able to correct the deterioration -- if it can be corrected. Frankly, from what my associate and I have been able to determine, our patient has less than a ten percent chance of surviving more than a few days. We have been able to stabilize him enough to the point that we hope to be able to open him up on Thursday, Friday at the latest, to more conclusively examine the damage and determine a course of treatment, if one exists.

You're no doubt wondering where I'm going with this, Mr. Connors. To be exceedingly brief, what Peter has shown me in your research suggests that the advances in nanotechnology sensors and transmission media is perhaps at the point where that technology could be used to make a replacement segment for a nerve bundle. In crude terms, I wonder if it would be feasible to remove a deteriorated segment of a nerve bundle and replace it with a man-made bundle?"

He stopped, apparently waiting for me to answer. I stifled the urge to say, "Not by Thursday," but chose instead to seriously consider what he had said.

"Well, Dr. Klein," I began. "Before I could give you any kind of a satisfactory answer, I'd need to know a great deal more about neuroscience than I do. Right off the top of my head, I'd say that I'd need to understand the physical properties of how neural signals are transmitted from the brain to the various parts of the body. My sense is that a nanotransducer would be needed at both ends of the artificial segment to translate the brain's and organ's neural signal into some form, maybe electrical or optical, that could be successfully carried by some electrical or optical conductor. We'd also have to know how much insertion loss and distortion of the original signal would be tolerable. How much could the brain's original signal be changed and still deliver the critical information to the organ? The neurotransducer patch cord would have to simultaneously, or nearly so, transmit and receive data in both directions. Then, I..."

I was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. He held up an index finger, indicating I should stop talking while he took the call.