The Women in Blue Ch. 06

If Connor picked up on what she was virtually certain now that he would, she would have a major decision to make. Connor would have already outstripped her capability for evaluating and guiding him, and she would have to bring in someone else. Someone with huge potential, but also with great risk, someone who had never before been part of their grand plan and might not want to be part of it now. Might in fact want to thwart it. But even telling him about it would change the course of history, as far as Irene was concerned. He could take Connor to new heights, but he could also crash the entire enterprise. The audience reaction to tonight's three plays would tell the first chapter of a tale she was almost afraid to hear.

Irene could tell that Polly's remarks had made the audience properly apprehensive about the emotions the plays would subject them to. They had all been here to watch plays before, but these were different. They were more targeted, more personal, and more taxing, especially on the people that they were intended to speak specifically to. Irene and Polly were even more apprehensive than the young ones, because they knew what was at stake.

Connor spoke politely to all the girls at his table, but he only felt truly connected to the two. For Astrella, the tall dark haired beauty, he felt an almost anti-resonance, a discordant note of caution. For Pamela, whom he couldn't help thinking of as "Porker" he felt a note of harmony and unexplained fascination.

They all finished their dinners, barely noticing the food, and then made their way to the viewing rooms. Connor was stunned when he read the seating placards on the doors. He was to view the plays with both Astrella and Pamela! When they entered the viewing room, there were three of the chaise lounges, situated parallel to each other, only inches apart and facing the glass that separated their room from the stage. Connor took the middle one without hesitation. Astrella looked dismissively at Pamela and sat confidently to his right. Porker felt truly porky, ugly, and ill at ease, and slumped into the other couch and tried to disappear into the upholstery. Connor felt the tension in the room.

The lights went down, the electrochromic glass cleared, and they beheld four of the women in red, all of whom Connor recognized from their backstage work on other shows but they were onstage now and dressed in identical Catholic schoolgirl outfits! One girl had something wrong with her face, some sort of theatrical mask applied that distorted her features and made them asymmetrical and ugly. Her hair looked frumpy and oily too, and even her officially identical outfit looked ill fitted and unkempt, and she slouched in obviously bad posture. The other three had perfectly applied makeup, shiny nicely styled hair, and confident postures. They paraded around proudly while the fourth girl tried to hide her shame behind them. The moved away from her to the sides so the audience could see her, and they pointed at her and laughed. A spotlight shone on her, clearly reflecting the tears in her eyes.

Connor's hand moved of its own volition, across the tiny gap between their couches and clasped Pamela Parker's hand in his. He felt a wave pass through them both when their hands touched. She tried to pull away, but he held her hand fast in his. Irene Shapiro watched on the monitors and held her breath.

Several men in black tuxedos began to walk across the stage, looking with exaggerated interest at the three attractive girls and pointedly avoiding the ugly one. One by one, men offered each girl an arm and she took it, moving to the edge of the stage with the man, until the ugly girl stood alone and forlorn in the now brighter spotlight. She looked on sadly and the men began to kiss and fondle the other girls, slowly disrobing them.

The audience's attention was focused on the progress the men were making in exposing the girl's bodies to their view. Another man walked across the stage and began to talk to the ugly girl. The attractive girls were almost unclothed now, and the men moved closer, hovering over them with anticipation. One girl's skirt was pulled off, exposing a shapely leg, and a sigh was heard. Another suitor pulled down a blouse exposing a beautiful breast, and a murmur of pleasure. The third's nakedness revealed horrid welts and bruises on her back as if she had been flogged, and her suitor withdrew. The ugly girl, still fully clothed, was content with a hug from her interested man, but she began to hold herself more gracefully.

Then, one of the attractive girl's blouses was thrown away, and her suitor recoiled as he realized one breast had been scarred horribly and partially amputated. Only reason told the audience it was stagecraft -- it looked awful and real. Another girls' skirt was tossed away to reveal one leg withered and burned as if by acid, and her suitor recoiled too.

But the fourth, the ugly girl and her suitor concentrated on each other, remaining in the spotlight as the other girls and their suitors exited the stage in despair. A series of kisses and caresses followed, and soon the "ugly" girl was also disrobed, revealing a lovely figure and flawless skin under her school uniform, now tossed on the floor. Her suitor swept her up in his arms and twirled her around in delight. When the spinning stopped, the audience realized her distorted facial mask was gone, and she looked glowingly beautiful and was obviously with child. The couple took a bow, and the lights went down, and the glass in front of them became opaque.

When the lights in their viewing room came up, Pamela tried to pull her hand away from Connor, but he held on, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it instead. Astrella had covered her eyes and was sobbing loudly on her couch, shaking from the emotions the play had engendered. On the door leading out of the viewing room, there was an envelope addressed to each of them, in what looked like Polly's measured handwriting. Astrella tore hers open, read it, tossed it on the floor, and ran crying from the room. Connor could see it said "Pride goeth before a fall." Pamela broke the seal on hers and then hesitated. Connor opened his to see only the words "Love the one you're with." Pamela's said the same thing.

Polly entered the room. "Do as your notes say. For the next two weeks you two are to spend your Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights here, together, learning everything you can about each other, and how to please and comfort yourselves. Each Sunday night after dinner I will join you and instruct you further."

Connor felt another wave pass through them. Pamela felt it too, and she felt fear and hope in equal measures at the same time. She would just have to trust Polly. That had always worked out okay before. Astrella did not return, so Connor and Pamela were alone for the next act, but the play was clearly intended to instruct them, as in it, a couple kept secrets from each other and came to regret it deeply.

They were still holding hands for the final act, which was a totally platonic tale full of warm hearths, cute puppies, and hugs. They held hands all the way through. When the lights came up, Polly entered and gave then a hug. "I had all your things moved to Connor's room, Pamela. Open yourself to him, in every possible way."

.....

Polly and Irene Shapiro looked on in anticipation as Connor and Pamela walked toward Connor's room. The initial connection was there, and Connor had reacted perfectly. Pamela was terrified, that was plain. She had been hurt so much before. One more heartbreak might ruin her. But she had the courage to follow Polly's directives, and Connor could heal her, and let her reach her full potential. If she did, they would be the first and foremost of the teams The Families intended to deploy. Few people knew it, but the stealthy battle for humanity's future was just about to begin.

.....

Irene Shapiro had shared her fears about involving Walter Karrer in the Grand Plan with Polly and the Admiral. He was perhaps the most qualified person who had ever lived to help them move Connor forward, and they both thought the risk was worth it. Irene had a history with Walter. She knew things about him that he had never revealed to anyone else. But unlike Irene, he had been unable to accept his own fundamental nature, and he ran from it and his relationship with Irene in complete denial. He had buried himself in his work, producing brilliant results, but never facing his personal unhappiness. Irene must now convince him that quantum field theory, neurochemistry, his emotions, and The Families Grand Plan would all come together to fulfill him and change the world forever. Either synchronicity or abject failure awaited.

Irene Shapiro and Walter Karrer had met in graduate school at the University of Chicago. They were in totally different disciplines, or at least so they thought at the time, but had similar schedules and their paths crossed often. They were thrown together by their opposing political views, of all things, as they met in one of those campus debates sponsored by a national student group. Walter was the arch conservative hard scientist, dripping with obvious disdain for "a squishy so called science like psychology", especially social psychology, which he said was based primarily on "questionable correlations produce by statistical slights of hand" rather than true experimental evidence. Irene was studying social psychology, but unlike most others in the field, she had the same kind of mathematical talent that Walter did, and the same ability to see things in a statistically realistic way. He could not overcome any of her arguments through reason, and he began to respect her greatly. She admitted lots of published papers in the field were on shaky ground but used the great body of evidence on IQ testing to show him unmistakable conclusions he could not dismiss.

She also respected him because unlike most campus debaters, he refused to use argument ad hominem, nor its ugly cousin, argument from authority, but always clearly stated his hypothesis, cited specific evidence, and invited his opponents to refute his conclusion. Few even tried. She also had to admit she liked Walter's looks. He was tall, thin, and distinguished looking, and looked every bit the part of the polymath scientist he was to become. Irene was noticeably short, dark and obviously Sephardic, and sensitive about her looks. She was energized when she overheard Walter tell someone that his debate opponent was little like Dr. Ruth, but sexy.

One night after their final debate, they both joined a group at a Hyde Park watering hole and were talked into drinking tequila for the first time. Irene became emboldened and asked Walter if they weren't going to debate any more, what should they talk about. Walter, with uncharacteristically uninhibited enthusiasm, said "I want to bone you." Irene looked him right in the eye and said, "Maybe after our sixth date."

Walter could count to six, and he was a perfect gentlemen until then. Irene then made it clear that in private, she did not want him to be a gentlemen anymore and she was also delighted to discover that Walter could be alternately gentle and very ungentle in bed. So could she. But as it turned out, she was much more uninhibited, adventurous, and unconventional than Walter was comfortable with. That led to a noisy and extremely uncomfortable breakup. They hadn't spoken in twenty years.

.....

Irene and Polly had each recognized Pamela Parker's gifts separately and wanted her included in The Grand Plan despite Admiral Patrick's desire to keep her out of it. She was the Admiral's second cousin and his only surviving relative and he wanted to protect her from all risk, but her genetic profile and prodigious talents could not be ignored. Irene spent a good deal of time explaining Pamela's psyche to Polly. Like many profoundly gifted people, she sought control over her life much earlier than her parents were prepared to let her. She understood things very well, but her eye hand coordination at age three was not good.

She would take control whenever she could. It took a long time for her parents to understand how little sleep she needed, for example. Four hours was plenty. She was not hyperactive, but she did have lots of energy and drive, and her high horsepower brain just processed and stored the day's events faster and more efficiently than a 'normal' kid would have. When she did sleep, she spent much more time in "REM sleep" than normal too. When her parents put her down at 8 PM or so, they thought she was drifting off to a restful sleep. She was doing anything but. She had two flashlights scavenged from the garage, and some batteries in reserve, and she knew where every book her parents owned was, and where it was in relation to the others on the shelf.

Her favorite thing when she was an infant was to sit in mom or dad's lap and "read a book". They thought they were reading it to her, and the first time she saw a book, they were. But the second and subsequent times they read one of her 'favorites' she was busy pattern matching and teaching herself to read. Her mom sang 'the alphabet song' to her every day, and Pamela matched the sounds to the letters very quickly. They also gave her an old "Speak and Spell" purchased at a garage sale and she nearly wore the thing out. She used an old transistor radio found in the attic, that took the same batteries as the flashlights, to listen to NPR, and talk shows, in addition to memorizing every pop song played. By the time she was four, she was reading at a middle school level. First grade would prove a behavioral challenge.

The other thing she could control was food. From her vantage point on the floor, she had memorized every cabinet, shelf, and storage spot in their house. She became an accomplished food sneak, able to pilfer, deflect, and disguise like a master thief. Her parents just thought she had 'big bones'. Years later, x-rays would reveal she had a thin, tall frame that was just loaded with flesh. Her weight functioned partially as a defense mechanism, in fact, because her appetites for food were a harbinger of her developing sexual appetites, which appeared early but were sorely inhibited by her social status as a fat victim of bullies and target of scorn.

She knew intellectually that lots of sex was better for her than lots of food, but still couldn't close the deal. She was too far out on the BMI scale, and any sexual thoughts she may have entertained were thwarted, made no less difficult by her being moved up a few grade levels in school multiple times. She finished high school at age eleven, and although she had offers to go to a few colleges with programs for profoundly gifted kids, her parents would not let her out of their home until she was a teenager. She devoured the curriculum at the local junior college, taking every science course they offered. Her intellect also got her in trouble there.

She asked all the teachers questions no one had ever brought up before, usually things they could not answer, or that no one knew the answer to. One professor taught introductory biology classes and was a beekeeping enthusiast. As he droned on about the benefits of local honey exposing and desensitizing people who might develop allergies to a wide variety of pollen, she remarked out loud to the class that "You could get the same benefits from practicing rhinotillexomania!" The professor did not react until he looked it up, and then wrote her up in a disciplinary complaint. Fortunately, she had multiple laudatory letters of recommendation from other teachers and had no trouble getting into a university when she was 13 and her parents let her go away to school.

One of her parent's lasting influences on her was successfully making her promise not to have sex with anyone until she was 18. She was not sure how it was arranged, but just after her graduation from college with two degrees, and just before her 18^th birthday, she was whisked off to Seattle for an internship that her mother described as "a marvelous opportunity arranged by your cousin Parker". She was at the same time horrified and stimulated when she met Parker and his wife Polly. Polly took her aside and talked the straight talk, the kind that Pamela seldom heard. "This summer you are going to lose 50 pounds and learn a lot about trees and sex." Pamela appreciated her honesty and committed to the program. It was by far the best summer of her life so far. She got in much better shape and learned all about sex, with men and women, repairing her body image and reducing her feelings of inadequacy. It also resulted in a very lucrative job offer from a venture backed biochem startup, where her knack for chemistry and asking big difficult questions was highly valued. She was surprised to learn that she had also been authorized by her new employer to take "summer sabbaticals" to "continue her education", which is why she could be here this summer.

Now she was back for another summer of training, which Polly had described as "emotional training just as rigorous as last summer, and with even more sex". She supposed it started with this Connor guy, who she had not yet figured out. But she intended to.

Polly was seizing on her Pamela's sexual appetites to get her to finally shed all her extra weight and get into the kind of shape the Admiral and Dana had specified for the field teams. Connor was in shape already, smart enough to keep up with Pamela, and intuitive enough to understand her needs and bond with her as a teammate. She and Irene were planning for a delicate balance in the budding relationship, trust, spiritual intimacy, and sexual satisfaction without permanent long term bonding. Their initial assessment was that Connor was much more likely to form a permanent bond, and that Pamela's sexual needs would grow even more prodigious when she reached peak physical condition. They had a plan for their training, and in the end, it would be much more painful for Connor than Pamela, but they should both emerge most capable and happy, but not a permanent couple.

.....

A thousand questions went through Connor's mind as he walked Pamela back to his room. She still looked a little bit of a Porker to him, but there was something about her that fascinated him, and gave her that "can't look away' quality. He also realized that Polly had charged him to do everything he could to please and comfort Pamela. Connor did not take that lightly. He realized that he had never really had that kind of relationship with anyone. Polly was trainer to his novitiate, and while he truly loved Polly, comforting and pleasing her was not his primary responsibility. He had done his best to please her sexually, and she certainly had done it for him, but he knew the admiral was her primary source of comfort and support, plus everyone else here seemed to love her too. Pamela was different. He would have to develop a deep connection with her and earn her emotional trust. Sex would be part of it, but there was more to think about. Even with his steady girlfriend in high school, a real trust relationship had never happened, as witnessed by her surprising withdrawal from him and immediate departure for another city. Even in his intimacy with Sherry and Dick, he was in an ancillary, not a primary role. He was a little trepidatious about it, but he trusted Polly. He would be as open and loving to Pamela as he could be. It should be a most interesting two weeks.