Love in the Age of Chemicals Ch. 06

Finally, with a prolonged exhale, she groaned, "Ohhhhhh God!" Then propping herself up a bit, she squinted at me through the long black hair that hung in disarray over her face, and said, "I did not expect that at the end. You stinker. Just couldn't wait, huh?"

"You mean my sudden entry?" I asked. "I think that was coincidence. I didn't intend that either."

"Well," she said, flopping her head onto my chest, "it worked out just fine, anyway. So I'll let you get away with that lame excuse. But if that had derailed my O-train, I would have been seriously pissed."

"Your O-train?" I inquired.

"My orgasm, Puppy. It's like a train that hits you. Or maybe it's like a train you're riding to get somewhere... somewhere awesome."

I thought about that term a moment, then said, "I really like riding the O-train."

Miranda laughed, the sound reminding me why I needed to try to learn how to joke better. "Well, Deke," she said, lightly slapping my chest, "you're gonna have to give me a couple minutes to recover my strength. But then I'll ride you while you chase the O-train, OK?"

"You'll be riding me..." I said thoughtfully, picturing her legs straddling me, "like a cowgirl rides a horse. I get it now. But adding in the train metaphor just... mixes all the imagery up for me."

Miranda laughed through her closed lips while running her fingers through my chest hair. "Then let's keep it in terms you have no trouble with," she suggested. "When I'm ready, I'll bounce up and down on you while my boobies are in your face."

"Yee-haw," I replied, eliciting still more laughter, which had the added effect of causing Miranda's tunnel to clench tightly around me. Still more reason to develop my sense of humor.

*******

"Is it weird if we have a conversation like this?" Miranda asked, still resting on my chest. She had been silent for almost a minute, though she had been very gently massaging my member with her vagina.

"I have no other frame of reference," I answered. "Everything we do is what I end up considering normal regarding sex."

"So you don't mind just talking for a few minutes while I regroup?"

"May I still touch you?"

"No, Deke," she said, looking at me, her voice stern. "You can keep your penis inside me while we talk, but touching is totally off limits."

"Really?"

Miranda sighed and dropped her head back onto me. "No, Deke, that was sarcasm. I can't help using it now and then, even if it's a foreign language to you."

"Right," I said, feeling like I should have picked up on it anyway.

"So I was wondering," she started. "With this whole Katerina thing... you haven't seemed to be upset at her."

"I guess I'm not. Not really."

"Why not?" she asked. "I mean, the girl tried to destroy you. If it weren't for her blabbing to her roommate, and if the roommate hadn't been a decent human being, then she probably would've gotten you fired. Or worse." Lifting up her head to look me in the eyes, she said with conviction, "Hell, Deke, as it is, I'm about ready to rearrange her face if I see her again. If she had hurt you even the slightest bit, I would have–"

"I suppose I would have been angry if she had succeeded," I interjected. "But the fact is, she didn't succeed. And I can appreciate the effort she made to pursue her goal."

"See, that's what I don't get. Why aren't you saying she was being irrational? Isn't that one of your hot buttons?" As she talked, Miranda slid back and forth a few times, squeezing me as she did so to ensure I stayed hard inside her. Convinced she had been successful, she again lay still on top of me.

"Irrationality is a problem when chosen over rationality," I explained. "But when all rational options have been exhausted, sometimes one's only recourse is the irrational."

"Come again?"

"No, that's your job," I replied quickly.

Miranda looked up at my face, startled. Then seeing my smile, she laughed loud and long, squeezing her walls tight around me. "I mean," she said as she regained her composure, "that it sounds very unlike you to be endorsing 'irrational options.'"

"Actually, it was that very thing that was the turning point in my scientific career," I told her.

"What very thing?"

"Pursuing irrational options."

"This I gotta hear," she smiled, propping her chin up in her hands, her elbows resting on the bed on either side of my rib cage. "And hey, aren't you supposed to be touching me?"

As I began to run my hands along her back and bottom, I explained. "After my... incident... with the young lady and the disgruntled young men... my research in grad school became focused on how we can target and eliminate certain memories. I made a great deal of progress, but I was running up against a wall. By my second year, I could not get around a certain problem, and I had systematically eliminated every conceivable solution. When I vented my frustration to an acquaintance, he joked that I should try the inconceivable solutions. He laughed, but it started me on a new track of thinking. I began trying things that made no sense, things that I knew couldn't possibly have the effect I wanted. Random things, odd things."

"And one of them worked?" Miranda guessed, fascinated.

"No. Not at all. However, one of them had an interesting effect on my data. I pursued it out of curiosity and ended up developing a drug that restores memories, now being tested for use in treating patients with Alzheimer's. It wasn't what I was shooting for – the exact opposite, in fact – but it was significant. And all because I pursued irrational options. So you can see why–"

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa," Miranda stopped me, sitting upright and wiggling her hips to help me regain some of the firmness I had lost in telling the story. "Back up a second. Are you telling me you were on the team that allegedly cured Alzheimer's? I heard about that years ago!"

I snorted with contempt. "There was no team. There was me. But when my dissertation adviser learned what I was onto, he got his name attached to it. As did the head of the department and a few other senior faculty members who were owed favors. They all piled on, but if you had asked any one of them to explain the science..."

"You let them do that?" she asked, surprised. She was still slowly working her hips, and I felt my erection reaching full strength again.

"I didn't have much power to refuse. Plus, I didn't really care. They weren't stealing my work or anything, just taking credit for it. I receive sufficient financial benefits to keep me content." Miranda didn't know about my finances. Perhaps it would help explain why I never worried about charging rent.

"Wow, Puppy, I had no idea," she said, her body starting to move in earnest on top of me. "I'm married to the man who cured Alzheimer's"

"I didn't cure it," I corrected her. "I developed a treatment that arrests the process of–"

"Shut up, Baby," she demanded, moving her face towards mine. "You're a genius, and I think it's hot." Then she lifted my head towards hers and kissed me with enough force to take my breath away. Suddenly releasing my head back to the pillow, she arched her back, jutting out her chest. "Ready to claim your reward?" she smiled, shaking her breasts in front of me. They jiggled around until I reached up and stilled them with my hands. Miranda closed her eyes and moved harder up and down my member, beaming in pride and pleasure.

"Aaaalllll yours, Puppy. They're allll yours," she said softly as I kissed each nipple and licked around her aureolas. After a while, I laid my head back to rest it on the pillow. My attention was drawn to Miranda's belly, which wiggled as she slid forward and back, grinding herself against me. I hadn't seen it from this angle before, and my hands quickly began to explore.

"Noooo," Miranda whined. "Don't look at me there. I feel silly."

I looked at her face in disbelief. "What do you mean you feel silly?"

"My belly. Don't look there, Baby. Look up at these," she said, pressing her breasts together with her arms, "or at my face. You think my face is pretty, right?"

"I think your face is beautiful, but I also love to see and touch you here," I said, rubbing the soft flesh around her middle.

"Let me lose about ten pounds first," she suggested, "then you can look there." To emphasize her point, Miranda leaned over, effectively hiding her belly from my view.

"Miranda," I sighed sadly. Her insecurity hurt me in a strange way.

"Hey," she said lightly, "I promised boobies in your face, and dammit, I'm gonna put boobies in your face."

I chose not to press the issue at that moment, partly because I was very interested in returning my lips to her breasts. She whimpered as I did so, speeding up her motions.

"Do you think you'll be able to cum in this position, Puppy?" she asked softly, searching my eyes for signs of pleasure.

"Definitely," I assured her, reaching up to kiss her neck. She smiled and stretched her head back, tightening the skin around her throat as I kissed it carefully. "But I think I can wait until you... uh... have another chance."

Smiling, she lowered her head and touched my lips with hers. "That's sweet, Babe, but don't worry about me. I think I'm done for the night. This is all about you, now."

"You're sure?" I asked.

Miranda nodded and moaned softly, her eyes closed. "Just tell me what you want me to do," she whispered.

"Just keep... being you, I guess," I told her.

She sighed a happy sigh, then took my wrists and guided them to her waist. "This might help," she breathed. "You can control my motions."

I started thrusting up into her, and my hands on her waist ensured that her body always moved right where I wanted it to be, right when I wanted it to be there. I groaned appreciatively. The element of control and the ability to use her body effectively took me from the plateau I had been on and moved me towards release. I panted and grunted as I pulled her hips down to meet my quickening thrusts. Just as I reached the bursting point, I released Miranda's hips and wrapped one arm around her waist to keep her in place. My other hand pulled her upper back closer so that my mouth could grab a breast to suck.

I noisily took a whole mouthful of her flesh as my hips drove up one final time into her receptive channel. I felt her intentionally tighten around me as I pulsed, and I could hear her moaning happily as she milked me. "So warm," she whispered above me as I covered her core with spray after spray of my essence.

My need for breath forced me to let her breast fall from my mouth. As my lungs strained to get the air I needed, I clenched Miranda's body, my excitement enhanced by every little area of her skin in contact with my own. She returned the embrace, her arms cradling my head to her chest, like a mother comforting her child. Indeed, orgasm seemed to me both wonderful and terrifying, and the presence of comforting arms was welcome. My ear pressed to her chest felt and heard her rapid heartbeat, a soothing cadence to accompany my descent.

When I had finished filling her, I leaned back, and Miranda uncurled her arms and released me to the bed. She leaned over and whispered, "I'll be right back," then tiptoed quickly to the bathroom. A minute or two later, she was lying next to me again, still naked.

Without a word between us, she curled up beside me, interlacing arms and legs into a comfortable position. I stared at the ceiling, my arm supporting her head, my hand spread across the center of her back. Though we would wake up in the morning sprawled out and spread over the generous area of the bed, it was in that tenderly affectionate position that we drifted off to sleep.

*******

I awoke first the next morning. Returning from the bathroom, I paused to observe Miranda spread out on the bed. The sheet (she used no blanket, claiming our house was too warm for her tastes), clung tightly to her form, and I could follow the curves of her breasts, her hips, and her shapely legs with my eyes. I felt desire stirring and wondered if we would have time to enjoy a quick union. But a glance at the clock warned me that we would undoubtedly make ourselves late if we got distracted. With each of us starting our Monday classes at 8 a.m., there wasn't much wiggle room in our schedule.

I smiled and considered what word play Miranda might engage in over the possible meanings of the phrase "wiggle room" in this context. Then I gently shook her bare shoulder to ensure she was awake before I went to make coffee. She sleepily reached for my arm and tried to cling to it, but her grip was too weak and my hand slipped through hers as I left for the kitchen.

We moved quickly but without hurrying, sliding effortlessly around one another as we prepared to start our new semester. Given our schedules for Mondays (and for Wednesdays and Fridays), it seemed to make sense for us to share a ride. We would start and finish at the same time on those days, with Miranda filling in the gaps in her schedule with time studying in the library. The atrocious parking situation on campus made the decision to car pool all the more obvious. Faculty had less to worry about, but students might need to circle lot after lot for thirty minutes trying to find an empty space on campus.

That first Monday, after we had arrived and were walking away from the car, Miranda said, "So I'll just swing by your office around 5, OK?"

"That would work best," I agreed.

Then she stepped close and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "See ya!" she said, and turned to leave. I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back.

"That's not how a wife kisses her husband goodbye, is it?" I asked. Then without warning, I pulled her closer, kissing her softly on the lips until she leaned in and returned the gesture. After a few seconds, she rolled back onto her heels and looked at me in confusion. But she was quickly startled by Ray DiNardo's booming voice from about fifty yards behind her. Walking through the parking lot, he bellowed, "Get a room!", then laughed amiably.

Her confused expression gave way to a knowing nod as she turned again to leave. "You saw him coming," she explained, almost to herself.

I hadn't.

*******

The day passed uneventfully. As did the rest of the week. Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Miranda had class until late, so I would often not see her at all those days. Some mornings I would wake up alone. Other mornings my leg would bump into hers as I stretched to greet the day. On evenings when we were both home, she would make dinner and we would casually converse as we ate and cleaned up. My mother called Miranda on Friday, then spoke to me briefly. Saturday afternoon, we read on the couch and cleaned around the house. Sunday I relaxed with a movie and a book, and then a new week began. It was all very simple, very plain, very comfortable. I relished the thought that this could be our routine for the remaining year and a half that Miranda would be with me.

With the fuller schedule of a new semester, compared to the extra leisure time afforded by the winter break, Miranda and I saw each other much less often. And with our attentions turned towards our classes and research, I did not think much about sex. My mind was again filled with thoughts of science, experiments, publishing my findings and pursuing the funding that would propel my research to the next phase. Miranda, too, seemed less interested in sex. I knew that eventually one of us would turn to the other to help ease the distraction our hormones provided, but for now, there was no threat to our ability to work and study.

Another week passed, and then another. I was pleased with our routine and with the quiet presence of Miranda in my life. Though her entry into my world had been disruptive, and though we had needed to make many adjustments, we were now reaching stasis. And stasis, in my world, was a very good thing.

*******

But, as is too often the case, stasis did not last long.

The disruption began with a letter on my office desk one Tuesday at the end of January. The thick manila envelope contained sizable sheaf of papers, but the gist was clear from the first page: the answer was no. My grant request had been turned down. The funding I had been confidently counting on was refused.

I was sure at first that it was an error. There was, after all, no mistaking the significance of what I was unraveling. What had begun as an effort to suppress, intercept, or eliminate targeted emotional responses in the brain had jumped track when I had been able to achieve the exact opposite: I would soon be able to stimulate and control emotional response. It was still in the very early stages, to be sure, but to consider the possibilities of a world of people not at the mercy of their passions! Domestic strife, violent behavior, even war could become things of the past. A world ruled by reason! It was no longer just a dream. The power of neurochemistry could make it possible.

At the time, vanity blinded me to the validity of their critique. They were kind enough, at least, to specify specific concerns rather than just give me a flat-out rejection. Why, they asked, had I not addressed potential ethical objections to my work? Why had I not specified parameters to ensure the emotional and psychological well-being of potential test-subjects? They even went so far as to challenge of the the most basic tenants of my work, namely, that human emotions are a liability and lack social utility. And so, it was all shut down.

I was (ironically, as I now note) furious. There was no option of appealing or arguing. There was no one working with me whom I could blame for messing things up. And so, desperately seeking an object, my anger channeled towards the one thing in my life that had changed. There was only one reason why a promising project had failed to receive its due: my situation with Miranda.

*******

I wasn't upset with Miranda herself. But the situation she had drawn me into (and I at least had the clarity of thought to acknowledge my own complicity in going along with things) was the cause of my being so distracted of late. The whole process of summarizing, editing, and preparing my research into proposal form was done in the midst of sexual frustration, the beginning of sexual activity, and the disruption of the routines that had so effectively structured my life for years past.

I had been distracted with dinner parties, and conversations, and dragging up the past, moving furniture around, and – for Pete's sake, I couldn't even take a simple shower alone anymore! Suddenly, from this newfound perspective my world looked chaotic, and it was patently obvious that my research had failed to gain the acceptance it so clearly deserved because my work lacked discipline, and my work lacked discipline because my life lacked discipline.

And that would have to change. For the sake of my sanity, for the sake of my research, for the sake of science itself, that would have to change. Starting immediately.

I resolved to return – as much as possible – to my former, more disciplined, mode of living. I would need to do my own reading and research, and leave Miranda out of the equation. I would need to run new experiments. I would design tests and protocols to satisfy the safety standards of any board of inquiry. I would identify the ethical objections and soundly refute them.

And I would stop acting like a married man.

Miranda could stay at my house. A deal is a deal. She could have me sign her papers or whatever. But she would not share my bed. And she would not get into my head. And she would not have any claim on my time. She would finish her year and a half, and she would be gone. My first and only priority would be the work occurring in my lab. And it would remain that way until the project was done. As far as the school was concerned, I was months ahead of schedule anyway, so there was no problem continuing the work I was doing.