"Isn't that illegal? What if someone told the authorities or even a newspaper about it? Couldn't CE be shut down?"
Meredith's laugh had an unpleasant edge. "Not likely, since the FDA is basically partners with the largest pharmaceutical companies - CE probably their most influential partner. I'm sure you've noticed that many top executives in the FDA, including the current commissioner, are slated for private industry jobs. Ditto for the RSA."
"Yeah. I have noticed those revolving doors."
"Not to say CE would be happy if this became public," said Meredith. "Which your Jiu-Jitsu-journalist girlfriend would've been happy to accomplish. Assuming her employer didn't quash it."
"I would think that would be way too big of a story to quash."
"You might be surprised."
"Could you give me an example?"
Merry thought about that for a moment and smiled. "I could, but I think it's easier to sleep without nightmares."
My smile was uneasy. "I think I already have some material for nightmares. Did you see the woman with the mask and golden horns?"
"I did, unfortunately. Martha Eberhart couldn't have picked a more revealing mask."
"Wait..." Emotions I couldn't quite identify tore through me. "You're saying that was Dr. Eberhart?"
"Yes. No doubt about it."
"So she's, like, into Satanic worship or something?"
"She's into self-worship...so, yes."
I laughed a little with her. It was nice to have someone else condemn a person you didn't like, but I couldn't feel a lot of humor when it came to Dr. Eberhart or what was happening here. Meeting Josh Brightman was cool, though. I just had to get through two more days.
How hard could that be?
Chapter 29
THE NEXT MORNING AT the lodge breakfast, something – that is, someone – was notably missing. It took me a few seconds to realize that the only men in the room were waiters and busboys. The only people sitting at the tables were women.
Meredith and I joined Chrissie Hayashi, her partner, the Goldman-Sachs' redhead, and my friend from Mondari, Allison Bern, and three others. I was pretty sure Allison had been the one who'd grabbed Josh last night. Now her hair was carefully coiffed and her lean body neatly enclosed in a long dress, but I thought I could superimpose the wild-haired and eyed vixen from the cabin on her. She noted my stare and averted her eyes to her coffee.
"Interesting evening," said Chrissie Hayashi, drawing a half-smile from Elise.
"Understatement of the century," Allison murmured.
"Was it real?" asked Roberta, the redheaded Goldman-Sachs executive.
"Unless someone sprayed hallucinogens in the air," said Chrissie. "And we shared a common hallucination."
"Speaking as someone looking in from the outside," said Meredith, "I can assure you it was real."
"Then they actually pulled it off." Chrissie shook her head in wonder. I thought I glimpsed fear in her glistening almond eyes. "This will revolutionize the world."
"Assuming the men are still alive," Merry grumbled.
"You didn't join in?" Allison gave her a knowing smile. "Oh, yes, why would you? You have that gorgeous hyper basketball player."
"Ragnar's quite the sensation in Taiwan," said Chrissie. "Someone even erected a statue of him in one of our parks. I've even heard rumors of a religious sect that worships him."
She was smiling but I wasn't sure she was joking. I could see someone forming a modern Dionysian cult around him.
"I don't know about you, my friends," an older blond lady I didn't know spoke up with what I guessed was a Scandinavian accent, "but after last night I am going in heavy as you might say."
"And all investors will have guaranteed first priority access," said Allison. She pumped a fist which drew tolerant smiles from the others. "Yay!"
"Think of what we could do with our men," the blond possible Scandinavian said with dreamy blue eyes. "We would never go without again!"
"Has anyone checked on the men?" Meredith asked.
The women exchanged nervous looks. Chrissie cleared her throat with a delicate cough.
"They appear to be just sleeping it off," she said. "Predictable, considering that many of them are older. The strain on their bodies, unaccustomed to that much sex..." She lifted her elegant, bare shoulders.
"Max has his personal physician here," said Allison. "But he was, um, active last night, too, so he's probably conked out."
"I saw you dragging our boy here away last night," said Elise. "That wasn't very sharing of you."
"No sharing involved," Meredith snapped. I watched her rein herself in with an effort. "I don't suppose it matters to you that he's only sixteen years old."
The main emotion I saw – or thought I saw – on the other women's faces was surprise, which I found surprising. It was as if a moral objection wouldn't even have occurred to them.
"I'll be seventeen in less than three months," I offered.
Chrissie patted me on the arm. "Don't be in any rush to grow up, sweetie. You'll have plenty of time to be a 'mature adult,' believe me."
"As if you'd know anything about that," Elise sniggered.
While the women laughed, I noticed Martha Eberhart staring at me with her usual warmth over a cup of coffee at a table across the room. She was alone at her table, unless her laptop and a newspaper counted as company.
I stuffed myself with a T-bone steak, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and a bowl of fruit from the breakfast buffet set up along one wall while the women dined on salads and bowls of cereal as if by some unwritten code.
After breakfast, I turned down Merry's suggestion to try some of the offered tours, and she headed off with the other women. I enjoyed Meredith's company, but she could be a bit of a ball and chain, and spending a lot of time hanging out with her didn't feel quite right.
I got Josh's cabin number from the Ellsworth Retreat manager's office in the Lodge, but when he opened the door – just when I was turning away after three rings and one minute of waiting – he was hunched over and squinting up at me like an old man.
"Aid...en...?"
"Are you okay?"
"If you count okay as my worst hangover squared..."
"Can I do something?"
"Nah. Go enjoy the day, man." He gripped the top of his head and grimaced. "I'm fine – just gonna lay low. I'll catch you later."
"Okay. I hope you feel better."
I felt relieved. I was in the mood to get away by myself. I stuffed some water bottles, beer, and sandwiches into my backpack and jogged back toward Secret Lake. I had the perhaps foolhardy plan of swimming, so I added my swim trunks and a towel to the mix. The water would be freezing, but it was early May and the sun was strong and maybe my hyper-warm body could tolerate it okay. I'd noticed that cold weather didn't bother me much anymore.
I jogged the two miles to the lake, getting a little extra workout from my backpack. The beach was deserted – except for one lone silver-blond figure in a aqua-blue one-piece swimsuit under the sprawling tent canopy, unpacking a bag near the propane fireplace. I was hoping it was the Scandinavian at our table, who had seemed nice, but no such luck. Of course it would be Ms. Untouchable. Though she looked damn touchable in her swimsuit.
At that moment, Dr. Martha Eberhart looked up at me. Maybe she'd glimpsed my movement on the crest? Not that it mattered. Neither of us acknowledged each other, and I ran on. By the time I'd settled in a sunny cove a half-mile from her end of the lake, Dr. Eberhart was paddling out in the water in one of the kayaks the resort had set out on the south shore. I thought I might grab one myself after my swim – or after my attempt at swimming failed.
I changed into my swim trunks and waded out into the lake. The water was cold enough to make me question my mortality, if not my sanity. As I waded out, the lake seemed to suck the life out of my feet, legs, and lower body in painful succession. At the same time, I was reassured by the strong, steady beat of my heart and a sense of radiant energy in my ches
t that fought back to reclaim my body. I could do this.
Dr. Eberhart had reached the center of the lake and was maybe sixty or seventy meters dead ahead as I slipped into the water and broke into a vigorous breaststroke. My appearance seemed to startle her – or maybe it was just a coincidence – but she made a jerking move with her paddle and in one eye-blink her kayak was wrong side up and she was gone. I knew pretty much nothing about kayaks, but surely she'd be able to right herself? Still, the water was really cold and maybe she'd become disoriented?
I shifted to a front crawl, keeping my head up and my eyes on the kayak and picking up my speed. One, two, three, four, five seconds. Ripples fanned out from the boat. She was struggling underwater. After ten seconds and no Dr. Eberhart, I launched into a full freestyle sprint. Swimming had been the only physical thing I'd been good at before my transition and I could really generate some speed now. The water no longer felt cold as I revved up, closing the last twenty meters in maybe a half-minute – a half-minute that felt like an hour.
I dived just before I reached the boat. In the near-crystalline water I could see her still seated, arms dangling, her eyes half-open but unseeing. I guessed she'd been submerged around two minutes. The cold water should've triggered a strong vasoconstriction reflex – something I'd read about somewhere – shunting oxygen-rich blood to her brain. If I could free her from the kayak's seat and get her to shore I should be able to save her.
She was wearing a seatbelt-like strap around her waist which might've prevented her from escaping. Seemed like a bad idea, but no time to wonder why. I undid it without much trouble. As she drifted free, I snaked an arm around her chin and hauled her to the surface. On the way up I decided to use my momentum and shoved the kayak's edge hard with my free hand. The boat obediently righted itself. I shifted my grip to one of her arms, and holding her head above water, crawled over and into the seat. Now it was matter of leverages and logic. And the paddle, floating a few feet away.
I quickly discovered I couldn't drag her into my lap as I'd planned without tipping over the boat. Crap. Time – and maybe her life – was ticking away. Don't panic, Aiden. Think.
I had an insight, or what I hoped was one. Switching my grip to both her wrists, I leaned away from her. As expected, the kayak tipped over and dropped me back into the icy water. Keeping my hold on her wrists, I leaned back and braced my feet on the side of the kayak. I pulled. Her armpits snagged the edges of the seat and began turning the boat upright. Yes.
With the kayak upright and her head and armpits just clearing the seat – arms dangling in the water – the rest of her body counterbalanced my weight enough for me to clamber onto the boat. A couple of strokes and I reached the floating paddle.
It was a long seventy or eighty meters to shore. Fortunately, Dr. Eberhart started coughing up water and reviving as I paddled. By the time I reached the rocky beach she was conscious and mumbling what sounded like curses. I hopped off the boat in the shallows and towed her in. I laid out a towel on the beach and lifted her mostly limp body awkwardly off the boat onto the towel. She blinked up at me, wide-eyed, her mouth opened as if in a silent plea. Her usual alabaster skin was a shade paler with a tinge of blue. I racked my memory for proper treatment techniques. The only obvious thing was to get her warm, which the intense high altitude sun should accomplish.
She started to shiver. A quivering that grew in seconds to a jaw-clacking, limb-jerking crescendo. I kneeled beside her.
"Try to relax," I said. "Let the sun soak in."
Her brow compressed with concentration and her breathing slowed. The shivers slowly subsided, returning with small aftershocks. A hint of color invaded her cheeks. I let myself relax a little. Now I just had to get her back to the resort. I assumed after some rest she'd be able to make that two-mile walk. If not, well, I guessed I could manage to carry her. I smiled.
"You find...this...amusing," she spoke through chattering teeth.
"Now that you're okay, maybe a little."
"You could've let me drown."
"Why would I do that?"
"You hate me...don't you?"
"No." I had a weird sense of suddenly seeing things through her eyes. It wasn't a pretty picture. The idea that I might dislike her enough to watch her die was inconceivable to me. But not to her, obviously. "How are you feeling?"
"It seems...I'll live."
"Do you think you can walk?"
Dr. Eberhart rolled sluggishly on her side, but slumped back when she tried to push herself up.
"That's okay." I helped her back down. "I have an energy bar in my pack. Maybe you could eat it?"
She nodded. I partly unwrapped the bar and handed it to her. She bit off a tiny corner.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you for saving my life."
"You're welcome."
She nibbled on the bar, at first studying me, but then her stare rose to the near-cloudless blue sky. I had the impression she was seeing something important given the intensity of her gaze. Ironically, the normal chill was missing from her face and eyes, as if the lake had bled that out of her. Lying there with her features shining in the sun and stripped of subterfuge, she looked like a college girl. It was the first time I'd clearly seen how beautiful her face truly was. I felt myself stirring and I thought I saw a reflection of that when our eyes met. I hastily turned away and sat down beside her, facing Secret Lake.
"One moment I was just trying to turn the kayak around, the next it rolled over," she said quietly. "I couldn't get out of the seat because I'd strapped myself in. I felt so incredibly stupid. That was my last thought – until I woke up flopped on top of the boat."
"Yeah. Maybe they should give instructions on paddling the kayaks. They're awfully easy to capsize."
"I'm amazed you were able to get me up on the boat. I'm amazed you could swim through that water. It can't be more than the mid-fifties."
I gave a small start as she reached up and place a hand on my back.
"You're so warm," she said.
"I, uh, tend to be. My normal temperature's about 101 now."
"A constant fever. That's how Research described it in one of their reports."
I wondered what else they'd described. I wasn't sure I wanted to know.
"You're quite the physical specimen," she said. "Muscles on top of muscles. Is that your natural state, or do you work out?"
"I work out. Pretty much all the time. It kind of keeps me distracted."
Her fingernails raked lightly down the center of my back. That accomplished what several minutes in ice water didn't: I shivered.
"I'm sorry for the way I treated you." Her voice had gone soft and low – a purr. "You're a good person. You don't deserve the way this world works."
"I think..." My sentence was interrupted by a short gasp as her fingers slipped around to my abs. "I think you're saying this...feeling this way...because of my pheromones. The water washed off the Andrydox I was wearing."
Her fingers eased downward into my swim trunks, pausing there. I held my breath. I suspected my temperature was now closer to the classic 103.
"I know," she said. "I can feel it. Like nothing I've ever felt before."
"Not even last night?" I couldn't stop myself from smiling. "You definitely look better without the horns."
"You recognized me? How?"
"Your eyes."
"How much did you see?"
"Just you standing there. Then my 'chaperone' dragged me away."
"Meredith Baxter."
"Yes."
"To use you herself."
"No." I couldn't help silently adding: unfortunately. "It's not like that with us. Besides, she has a boyfriend."
"Right." She wrinkled her nose. "The Viking basketball player."
I wasn't sure where this left us. The tips of her fingers remained lodged in my swim trunk's waistband. Though our conversation had taken a definite turn for the buzz-kill, the bulge in my shorts was unmoved.
"Anyway," I said. "M
aybe we shouldn't..." I couldn't quite make myself finish the sentence or tug her hand away.
"Oh, we absolutely should."
Her fingers snaked deeper into my shorts. They didn't have to travel far to make critical contact. I turned to her. She looked so incredibly vulnerable lying there with her lips parted and her eyes glistening with an unspoken sadness. The buzz was back in full bloom.
"From what I'm feeling now," she said, "I'm sure that if you hadn't been wearing 'protection' in our office meetings I couldn't have taken the tack I did. I admit that. But then perhaps it's freeing me to be who I really am."
Her fingers finally closed in around me. I shut my eyes.
"Are you ready to save me again?" she whispered.
I leaned down and kissed her parted lips, which were now warm and intoxicatingly soft.
"Do me a favor?" she murmured.
"What?"
"Make love to me. Slowly, tenderly. As if you cared. I've never experienced that before."
"I'll...try."
It was strange to realize as I helped her wriggle out of her swimsuit and then made myself enter her in one slow, torturous yet exquisite motion – my mouth exploring hers at a leisurely gentleman's pace – that I'd never taken my time before, never truly made love in the sense she'd requested. It had always been an act of pure, unrestrained, savage passion. Of all the people I would have ever doing this with, Dr. Eberhart would've never made the list.
"SO HOW did your day go?"
I cracked open one eye. Merry stood staring down at me on the couch where I'd taken an unplanned but needed nap, looking delectable and adorable in her bikini cover up. For once, after saving Martha's butt and then savoring it repeatedly – plus carrying her piggyback much of the way back to the cabins – I was sated enough to be mostly invulnerable to her appeal.
"Got in a lot of exercise exploring the area," I said.
"Must've been quite a workout. You actually look halfway tired."
"How was your day?"
"Fun. When I wasn't worried about you." She frowned a little. "And the sort of weird way the women were acting all day."
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