Probe

by Douglas E Roff

  It no longer mattered. She was here alone with Adam and all sense of uncertainty and caution was banished from her mind.

  Adam found the couch and he now invited Noki to mount him when she wished and allow him to connect with her mind. She asked him to go slow and allow her to sample the experience before allowing him to see into her too deeply. The potential for a union of minds was a uniquely tempting experience yet, at the same time, somewhat frightening. Perhaps there were things she didn’t wish to share or for him to know. Would he see those things too? Could she ask him not to delve too deeply?

  It didn’t quite work out the way each had thought, as the small excursion into her mind and body turned out to be a far lengthier journey. When Adam detached from her mind barely minutes later, Noki had already experienced more than she thought she could conceive or could exist between a man and a woman, or between any two people. In the aftermath of what she experienced, she rose, took Adam by the hand and guided him into her bedroom. She had experienced something beyond description, a closeness that two people shouldn’t be able to share. Yet she just had.

  Now she wanted fulfillment of her physical body in the regular way.

  Then she would ask for a second journey to the place she never knew existed and this time stay much longer. It wasn’t sex, it was something vastly more fulfilling, thrilling and safe. In that world, there was no fear, no shame, and no regret. What happened between them simply was; moral and cultural boundaries had no meaning.

  Adam for his part understood that the night was just beginning and what he had briefly experienced with Noki was something brand new, even beyond Alana and Vera. Brand new and unlike anything even he had experienced before, though he recognized a few pieces he had previously sampled.

  Adam hadn’t just gone to her libido; he had met her in a place that was neither his nor hers. He had seen new things; time had compressed backward and forward. They were timeless entities, suspended without form or substance. And yet it was real and sensual, even if not exactly sexual or classically erotic. It was but the prelude to the promise of what was to come.

  They made mad passionate love in the physical world and when they were exhausted, resumed their connective position to delve deeper into their alternate reality.

  This time they remained connected, passionate and rocking gently in unison for over four hours. What they experienced was both thrilling and deeply intimate. There was no fear experienced by either but what they saw and experienced was truly astonishing and more than a little bit scary, even for Adam.

  Adam walked through the connecting door to the Residence during the intermission between mind excursions.

  “We’ll see y’all in the morning,” was all he said. He turned, and walked back in Noki’s apartment, locking the door behind him.

  The ladies, including Misti, were taken by surprise at Adam’s sudden appearance and somewhat curt statement unattached as it was to any forthcoming explanation or invitation to discuss.

  He met Noki in the bedroom again. They alternated between the real-world physical expression of passion and the calming and now intensely erotic and fulfilling gratification of the union of two minds.

  By early morning the experience was complete – for that night. There would, they both now believed, be many more excursions with new, meaningful, and deep connections. Something else had happened and, while Adam believed he understood the phenomena on a visceral level, he was far less certain how to explain it.

  He decided to tell Misti and the girls when they awoke. But this time Noki would be with him. Noki was confused; she was torn between the strong gravitational pull of the rigid morality of her culture and strict upbringing on one extreme and the deep connection and impossible experience she knew to be utterly real on the other.

  On some level, she couldn’t process what had just happened and needed time to fully digest the experience. The emotional component of the journey was exhausting; she had little time to recover from one roller coaster ride, when another, more intense, began.

  For Noki, not feeling completely in control was a challenge. But, on the other hand, neither did she feel out of control. The presence of a second and calming mind, strong and focused, aiding her along a path, was a source of clarity and strength she had never experienced. It was intoxicating, and she was both invigorated by its potency and chastened by its raw intensity.

  She wasn’t completely free, however, from anxiety. Somewhere toward the end of her final excursion, thoughts dripped into her consciousness of the abandonment of her private moral rectitude. The very moral parameters that kept her on the right path, the code she willingly followed in her daily life and a code she wouldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, lightly abandon.

  She had journeyed intimately with a man not her husband. In fact, the husband of another. This was not a part of her code.

  Once concluded and physically present, she would eventually have to face Misti. Noki didn’t fear physical confrontation as much as her own perceived shame at such an intimate and physical connection to a man who was not, conventionally, hers to have. She grappled with her own sense of propriety and that ‘private moral rectitude’ while craving Adam even more.

  She felt herself addicted. But to what? And how?

  What had they done last night? How could any of it be explained rationally?

  She simply didn’t know. Noki’s intense anxiety surfaced as she considered the conflict between her rational mind, with its artificial constructs, and her unbridled passions. She had experienced a deep emotional connection to a man she barely knew while failing to comprehend his ability to connect to her innermost and most profound intimate self.

  It was sex but not just sex. His connection ran to the parts of her core being that were private and unknown to the world.

  He knew everything now; Noki couldn’t prevent him from reaching her most guarded and secretive self. Nor could he prevent her from knowing him. A picture book of intimacy had flung open and been thoroughly examined in minute detail; it had been studied and closed, never needing to return. The essence of their core being had been distilled, the good and the bad in appropriate proportions, and shown, sampled, and tasted by the other.

  Notwithstanding, she was amazingly calm and untroubled by what Adam now knew; he seemed to view her anxiety as a trifle. To Adam, Noki’s preoccupations were transitory and barely warranted while her immense untapped, and unexplored abilities were truly the only matters worthy of note and further pursuit. He had found deep reserves of unexplored, even unknown qualities that he knew needed to be plumbed deeply to understand entirely. They had gone places together, hand in hand, unafraid as if walking through exhibits at a museum at a leisurely pace or strolling casually on a warm Spring day in the park.

  Adam saw the many years of his life and understood them now as refined and pure.

  Adam saw Noki’s recollection of the boy she liked and let touch her breasts when she was thirteen. It barely registered for Adam; but for Noki, she thought not of the pleasure she had experienced that day, or her emerging teenage hormonal desires, but the bitter shame she felt in betraying her family and cultural values. She locked her shame away and repressed the experience as fully as she knew how.

  Adam saw it and drew her closer, assuring her there was no shame then and no shame now. She could release this memory and be troubled by it no longer. It was no longer necessary to repress what could no longer haunt.

  Somehow, she understood, on some primal organic level, that letting it go was healthy. In this state, she was unconstrained by real world constructs and her self-imposed boundaries.

  Adam was confidant that he knew what had happened. He also knew that Misti would deride him and reject the explanation he wanted to give, so he simply decided not to give it. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Either what he now knew was real and the simple passage of time alone would bear him out, or he was floridly delusional as Misti thought. It couldn’t be both and he took
solace in knowing the simple passage of time would resolve the dispute with complete and utter finality.

  Adam suddenly knew things, learned things, and saw things. And, he now knew in minute detail what it meant to be Nocera Debora Lee, from the moment of her conception to the present. Adam had a clear and complete understanding of what he had experienced, remembering Noki’s entire life as if he had been present himself with perfect recall.

  He felt the fear in Noki toward the end of their last joining but couldn’t pinpoint the source or nature of that anxiety.

  But he would and very soon.

  What did Noki know and sense? He couldn’t perceive this part of her. That part of her remained elusive, at least for now.

  ***

  The girls were surprised to find Noki and Adam sitting at the dining room table, having breakfast.

  “Good morning ladies. I trust you all slept well?”

  Misti said, “And the two of you? You seemed to be muy simpatico last night. Must have been quite a ride.”

  Noki smiled at Misti knowing that the ride Misti was imagining wasn’t the ride Noki had taken. It was more of a vacation in her mind and Adam’s mind, plus some other place that didn’t belong to either one of them. She had spent the past several hours just thinking about what she had seen, learned, and experienced the night before. Whether one experience enhanced the other or vice versa did not matter. The sex was phenomenal and the mind excursions were beyond description.

  Then, at the end of the evening, they saw things, with the two of them joined together almost as one. One of those things concerned the pair that very evening. The other concerned an ancestor, perhaps sixty thousand years in the distant past.

  Adam started, “Last night I, we, had the most incredible union of minds I could ever have conceived as possible. Noki and I took full advantage of the experiences we both had while joined in union and while separate. We visited each other’s minds and other places not connected to either of us. We saw and learned many, many things I cannot even begin to describe. Then we witnessed a miracle.

  “We both saw the exact moment of conception of a new soul. That soul, Noki is now carrying within her. That soul belongs to an unborn child.”

  Adam paused, “Our son.”

  Chapter 30

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Misti had expected some ribald tale of her husband’s ability to mind fuck random women; she was totally unprepared to hear that her husband had just knocked up Hannah’s number two. Besides, she thought, what the fuck? He must be joking or insane. It wasn’t even possible to know what he was claiming; even the thought of it was ridiculous.

  The other women were dead silent thinking that Adam might be serious since Noki was looking very sheepish. None believed it. None save Misti spoke a word. This was for Adam and Noki to explain, not to the other three, but to an astounded and disbelieving Misti.

  Misti heard nothing in reply. “Maybe you would like to walk me through what you just said. Or meant to say. Maybe begin at the beginning and tell me exactly what you mean, and slowly. No details or fluff, just a brief explanation.”

  Noki was frozen in place, barely able to meet Misti’s gaze. She knew what Adam had said was true. She had seen and experienced everything he knew and felt. But she was having trouble with the sheer insanity of what Adam would’ve to explain and she too thought, no knew, it was impossible. But it wasn’t, at least she didn’t think so, and she knew she would’ve to gather her courage and say something. Unfortunately, she had no idea what to say much less where to begin.

  Adam smiled and said, “It just gets weirder and weirder, doesn’t it sweetie? But no matter how weird it gets, I still love you the most. Right?”

  Misti laughed at the absurdity of the whole situation, then said “All right stud man, tell me what happened so I can get back to my normally abnormal life.”

  Adam and Noki sat down on a couch with Misti and did their best to relate what had happened the night before and what they had each seen, heard and experienced.

  They withheld a couple of details but mentioned to Misti and the ladies that there would be more they had to discuss as soon as they figured out what it all meant. And, Adam wanted to have a sit down with his Dad on one or two points.

  But what Misti and her entourage wanted to understand was the “Noki’s pregnant” part of the story and why they should believe such a preposterous yarn. Misti, for her part, was beginning to comprehend the implications of this tale and was steeling herself for the conflict over causation she and Adam both knew this tale, if true, would engender.

  Adam spoke first, and quietly. “The date of conception was last night. The date of birth was foretold as April 8 next year. The child will be a boy who will weigh 7 pounds 8 eight ounces at birth. A name and the symbolism were also revealed to us, but we will wait to reveal more about this another day.”

  He stopped, then continued, “You don’t have to believe me or Noki about any of this. Especially you, Misti. But I will say that either what has been revealed is true, and we will know it all soon enough, or it isn’t, in which case we are both delusional about the same details and what we experienced together last night. Joint shared delusion seems somewhat unlikely, but then you never know. Noki and I have not discussed the baby’s name, but I am going to write it down, and so will she. The names then go into envelopes, and you can unseal them later to see if they match. There will also be a birth mark, which we will also write down. Not sure how we fake that or any of these details for that matter.”

  Adam paused, then said, “Now that we have all this settled, who would like to go out and visit the Manor and see what our new digs might look like? This afternoon? Raoul and James can drive us.”

  Dead silence.

  Noki was looking down and Adam could tell she wished to be anywhere other than where she was at that moment. No doubt Noki was having difficulty processing events. Then there was that pesky moral dilemma to deal with.

  Misti was silent, as were all the ladies, now sitting in stunned disbelief.

  “OK then,” said Adam. “I’ll be moving on to our temporary home to collect our things while you gals figure out what you want to do. Then we should discuss the new living arrangements and, of course, this bit of news. Let me know if you need anything.”

  He walked to the door leaving both Noki and Misti staring at one another. “Hannah? Could you ask James if he can take me to the residence?”

  Hannah dialed her cell and moments later James knocked on the door. Adam and James left.

  ***

  Adam went directly to bed when he arrived at the residence. He was exhausted and needed some sleep. Two hours later, Misti and Alana invaded his space and woke him up.

  Misti said, “Not shootin’ blanks I see. Savin’ any of your ammo for me?”

  “And me?” asked Alana. “I want your industrial strength guys too. I mean, who knew you were so fertile? Kinda sexy if you ask me.”

  Adam said, “Careful what you wish for, you know. So, you believe me, do you? Wasn’t expecting that. Not from you anyway, Misti.”

  Misti said, “I believe that you believe it. And all the reasons for it, I’m sure.”

  “But you don’t?”

  “How can I? Not of the same faith as you in that regard. But what I do know is that if you and Noki say you experienced something, which is the part I do believe, then I believe it wholeheartedly too. What happened? I don’t know. Can’t know. What it means? Haven’t a clue. But what we will know is what is going to happen when it happens. If it happens. Then we’ll all either be really freaked out or laughing at you. Either way it’s fucking insane.”

  Misti looked at Alana.

  “And we opened the letters. They matched in every detail. So, unless you two are jerking us around conspiratorially, which I don’t believe, then you scored points today with all us girls. Poor Noki, though. She’s locked herself in her apartment and won’t come out.”


  “Something wrong?”

  “Of course, there is, you dolt,” said Misti. Noki is pregnant, or thinks she is. And she isn’t married. And you are. But not to her. What do you think she’d be worried about, huh? Plus, she’s all alone with no family support, at least not in America.”

  “I see your point.”

  “Well, you and Alana and I are going to go visit her and assure her everything is all right and we are all one big happy family.”

  “We are, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, of course we are. But now she needs to know that. It needs to be said aloud to her. This is going to be very hard for her to deal with and you need to reassure her. So, do I.”

  Misti looked again over at Alana, then back to Adam.

  “Does she know everything that you know, Adam?”

  “No,” was his firm fast reply. “Like?”

  “Why her. Why me. Who our son will be when he is born. Who he will be.

  Silence.

  “And you do?”

  “Yes. That and more. Now, I mean. Not before last night, though. Last night was revelation.”

  “Adam?” Misti wondered what more was there to possibly inform and enlighten.

  “I saw them.”

  “Them who?”

  “The Gens. I saw them. I know what they look like. And I may know much more than I want to.”

  ***

  “Let’s go see Noki and get her settled, then we can see your father tonight for a chat about the other thing. We can all go out to the Manor after we speak to Noki to see the Manor.

  Misti looked at Adam carefully. She detected worry lines where there previously had been none.

  “How are you doing mister? Has it caught up to you yet?”

  “Nope. Just taking it one minute at a time.”

  “What happened to one day at a time?”