+J.M.J.+
Flesh of My Flesh
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
This chapter was a bit challenging to write, for the not so simple reason that I knew it was the last chapter of this story, and also because it was hard to keep the romance from exploding too soon. Jerome (Eugene) and Minerva have been very, very good about it so far, Jerome especially because he pretends to be a non-romantic, which only heightens the tension all the more. (Not being in a relationship, I have to admit, I was a bit envious of them, especially Minerva, heh, heh, heh).
Disclaimer:
See Chapter I
V: Genomed
I should have seen it coming: it was going all too well…
In the months that followed the reining in of my friendship with Minerva, I kept myself busy. I started strength-training my legs, just enough to continue rebuilding the muscles. I'm built slight so my frame can't take a lot of muscle; besides, women don't go for the heavily muscled types.
I wasn't looking for anyone, mind you. I had my work teaching the kids at the Y, and I still had my own training, which kept me busy.
The summer program ended, but Gerd kept me on, teaching adult classes in the evenings, which left me the mornings free to continue my own work. I was almost too busy to notice I wasn't seeing much of Minerva.
Summer passed into fall, which melted into winter's intermittent rain. My thirty-fourth birthday came around with little fanfare, except for a card and a cheque from my parents. Eckart sent an Arab girl dancer up to my apartment that night. I pretended I wasn't at home, but he picked the lock and sent her in. I did the right thing and called security; Eckart disappeared before they arrived, which left me to explain to the guards the presence of the houri who kept trying to drape herself over my shoulder.
I had one perk though: Gerd had gone out of town for a couple of weeks without Minerva. A bit of the mice playing while the cat was away: I rang her the afternoon of New Year's Eve to see if she wanted to go out.
"I was just about to call you," she said. "Are you doing anything tonight?"
"No, I was going to ask you that, otherwise I'd just go out to get out of the flat. Did you have anything planned?"
"Yes, a bunch of my friends and I are going caroling tonight. Would you want to join us?"
"I'm game."
"Good, I'll see around six?"
"Sure, sure."
At six someone leaned on the buzzer at my apartment door. I opened it.
Minerva stood just outside, a small group of young folk behind her. One young wag with tousled dark blond hair stuck the lens of a video camera practically in my face. "Is this him? Is this the English patient?" he asked.
"Yep, this is him," Minerva said, stepping aside.
"Get the bloody camera out of my fayce," I snarled, deliberately exaggerating my accent.
She quickly introduced me to the group: Matt, the wiseacre with the camera; Cheryl, Minerva's college roommate, and her husband Whiteman; Matt's roommate Hamilton, known simply as "Ham" because he was an actor; Ayanna, an African foreign exchange student who had decided to stay on in the States, amongst others.
"Can you sing, Jerome?" Whiteman asked as we set out.
"Of course he can sing! His folks probably ordered opera singer vocal cords for 'um," Ham twitted.
"Can it, Ham," Cheryl retorted.
"I can sing well enough," I said, shrugging. "I was a choir boy when I was younger."
"Then you're perfect for us," Cheryl said.
"Yeah, let him sing, we'll try to keep up," Matt said.
We trouped through the residential sections of town, singing as we went. What our chorusing lacked in accuracy we made up for with gusto, which even I found infectious.
A few people didn't receive us well. One guy came to the door wearing nothing but a towel, while another person requested "The Zither Carol", which only Minerva knew.
"Of course you'd know the odd stuff, seeing you're entranced with arcane things," I said, nudging her.
But most of the reactions were good. One burly older gent came to the door with an accordion and joined in, singing in a lusty bass, while at another house, a grandmotherly-looking woman brought out a tray of fresh gingerbread.
Finally, a little hoarse, but still ready for more fun, we piled into the back of Cheryl and Whiteman's pick-up truck (with a cap on the back). Minerva tried to perch on a toolbox, above where I sat on the floor, but we hit a bump in the road and she pitched off, right into my lap.
"Oof!" I grunted.
"Hey, get yer dirty Valid paws off her!" Matt teased. "And you, Miss InValid, go fish of the InValid pier, especially with your man out of town!"
"Oh, hush!" she retorted, getting out of my lap. "Did I hurt you?"
"No, but it let me know I'm cured," I said.
We ended up in the yard of Cheryl and Whiteman's house for the post-caroling festivities around a bonfire, sitting on upturned pails and tree stumps, roasting weenies and marshmallows. Matt tried roasting a potato skewered on the end of his stick, but he kept dropping it into the fire. The gang spent the time chatting and teasing each other with crazy stories of things they had done and had lived to regret. Someone prevailed on Minerva to sing the "Zither Carol", which she encored with a ridiculous ditty called "Dominic the Donkey".
I could have listened to her voice all night; she had the proverbial voice of an angel. For "the Donkey" she dropped her voice half an octave; and suddenly I recognized that voice, the voice of the unknown female vocalist I'd heard on Drexel's MP3 player the day of my surgery.
They pested me into singing next. I tried to demur, but they wouldn't hear of it. I regaled them with a comic song my aunt used to sing, called "The Drunk Lady's Christmas", which basically consists of a litany of cocktails sung to the tune of "12 Days of Christmas"; I couldn't remember half the words, so I ad-libbed it (It's supposed to be ad-libbed anyway.), which turned it into—according to Ham—"The Drunk Valid's Christmas" (And yes, Matt was getting this all down on tape!).
"You have a good voice, Jerome," Minerva told me.
"Yeah, if you like creaking doors," Matt twitted.
"Creak for yourself," I said.
"No, really, you have a great voice," she said, ignoring Matt. "Kind of like a cross between David Bowie's and Placido Domingo's."
"Is that good or bad?" I ventured.
She held her stick between her knees as she sandwiched her molten marshmallow between two graham crackers. "In my not-so-humble opinion, that's a very good thing."
"At least you admit it," I said.
At five minutes to midnight, Whiteman came out of the house with a battery radio he set on a stump, tuning it to a station that carried a broadcast of the festivities in Times Square. I noticed a few of the group going in and out of the kitchen door, coming out with pots and pans and kitchen things. I expected Minerva to go in with them, but she stayed put, listening with rapt concentration on the last twenty seconds of the year 2082.
As the radio blared "Auld Lang Syne", the gang started yelling and banging on their pots and pans and things. I turned to Minerva as she turned to me, her hand on my coat sleeve.
"Happy New Year, Jerome," she said, with a smile, her face tilted up to mine.
"Happy New Year to you, too, Minerva," I said. I leaned down to her slightly, drawing her closer.
I expected her to turn her head away at the last second, but she didn't. She drew me closer. Our lips met in the middle, lightly.
"Hey, lookit this!" Ham yelled. "Jerome and Minerva, up in a tree; K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
We broke apart. Minerva blushed bright pink. Matt had trained his wretched camera on us both; I turned and faced it, giving it—and him—the coldest look of disdain I had in me until he took the camera away in search of a less hostile target.
The pots and pans band took their racket to the streets, forming a procession. A few people came out of their houses, joining in with their own noisemakers. Under cover of the racket, Minerva took me aside.
"Does that racket bother your ears?" I asked her.
"Yeah, its just the way my hearing is wired," she admitted.
"I'm a little tired myself," I said. "But thanks for having me along."
"You looked like you were enjoying yourself."
"For the first time in a long time, I was," I said.
She drove me back to my apartment. Before I got out, I asked her what I hoped would only be a quick question:
"Did I really feel what I felt when you kissed me, or was I just imagining that?"
She dropped her gazer. "I can't say…If I answer the way I really felt, it might be misconstrued."
"By whom, me? Gerd?"
"By the both of you."
"You told me one that to follow your dreams involves a choice. I think there's a choice you have to make as well."
She put her hand on mine and looked at me. "I know. And I'd better make it soon."
"In that case, I'd better let you decide it," I said, pushing open the door and getting out. "Good night, Minerva."
"Good night, Jerome."
I closed the door and stepped up onto the kerb. She pulled away into the night.
As I walked to my door, I heard footsteps nearby. I looked around as I keyed the lock. Something moved, dashing across and opening of light between the shadows of the buildings in the complex. I couldn't make out what it could be.
A few days later, Gerd came back to the Y. He seemed a little cooler than usual, but it could have been my imagination.
But then, one evening, as I was heading out after a long day, Bill the gadfly came up behind me and poked me in the back.
"The boss-man wants to see you in his office," he said.
"Regarding?" I asked.
"I dunno, but he seems mad."
I found Gerd in his office, standing by the window looking out at the rain splatting the pane, his back to the door.
"Close the door," he ordered, without turning around.
I reached back and pushed the door shut. He turned to me slowly without looking at me.
"I've heard about how you and Minerva have been carrying on," he said.
"She asked me to join her and a group of her friends for New Year's Eve. We went caroling, then we went to her friend Cheryl's house for a cookout."
"Is that all?"
"I kissed her for luck at midnight, but it was more of a friendship kiss than anything else," I said.
"Anything else?"
"She drove me home. We said good night. And I went into my apartment as she drove away."
He nodded slowly. "That's all I wanted to know. You can go."
I went out. The cold rain falling couldn't have chilled me more than Gerd's words.
Around the fourteenth of February, I sent a single white rose to Minerva, to help aide her decision. I think if I had second sight, I might have done otherwise.
I spent the night of Valentine's Day alone, which was no longer so lonely as it had been. I had my memories to keep me company, but I couldn't help wondering what Minerva was telling Gerd. I pictured them having dinner together in an alcove of a hotel dining room, he presenting her with a ring as he popped the question; her telling him no, she couldn't, admitting she loved another man.
Who? he'd ask.
A very good friend of mine, man who's life I saved and who saved my life.
No, no, not Morrow, he'd say, desperate. Not that smug first-class.
Yes, he.
But I also saw her smiling, saying yes, letting him slip the ring onto her finger.
It didn't surprise me that Gerd didn't show up next morning. The kids all had their theories, the most common being, "Wow, Minerva must REEEALLY have a hold on the man!", but quite a few others were contending, "Man, she must've dumped him hard."
"Whaddya think, Jerry: she took him or she dumped him?" Bill the gadfly asked me in the locker room.
"I think that's between Gerd and Minerva," I said, buttoning up my shirt.
"Ohhh, so y' DO like her! Idn't she yer shrink?"
"That's privileged information," I said.
"Guess that's the Brit way of takin' the Fifth."
"It's not for you to know."
"Yeah, riiiiggghhht," Bill grinned, darting away before I could poke him.
When Gerd didn't show up for work the next day, we all started to wonder what was going on. I had an appointment with Minerva that morning, which let us all know where Gerd wasn't.
But then late in the afternoon, Gerd showed up. He avoided me in the hallway and he didn't spot me during one of my training sessions.
However, as I headed out that evening, he suddenly stepped out of his office, his face grim.
"Morrow: in my office. Now," he ordered, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
I followed him into the office. He turned, reached over my shoulder and slammed the door shut. He faced me, looking me in the eye.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"What am I doing about what?" I asked.
"You know what I mean: what are you doing to Minerva?"
"I've done nothing to her except teach her to swim."
"You're getting around her, aren't you? You're screwing with her head, trying to take her away from me. Aren't there enough Valid women out there for you?"
"Minerva once told me she wasn't sure about marrying you because you wanted to have her kids Validated."
"I told her that I'd changed my mind about that, that I'd let our kids be conceived the old-fashioned way. But she still said no. What did you do to her?"
"I've done nothing to her."
He was deadly silent for a second, his eyes blazing. "I can't fire you. But I suggest that you find yourself another trainer."
He opened the door with a cold look that clearly said 'Get out.' I went.
One cloud gets lonely in the sky…
As I walked to my door later that evening, I heard a car approach behind me, tires screaming. I dove into the shadows.
A small man in black leaned out of the car window, armed with a small rifle. He aimed in my direction and fired three shots.
I hit the ground and rolled out of the way. I expected to hear bullets hit the wall. Instead, small white darts dropped around me. I lay still, pretending I'd been hit, as the car sped away.
I sat up and took my handkerchief from my pocket. I picked up one of the darts and examined it. It looked like the kind of darts used in tranquilizer guns.
I laid it down carefully and went in to call the police.
"So did you catch the license plate of the car?" the detective asked me, as the other officers and investigators combed the area for anything else.
"No, it was too dark and I was trying to dodge the shots," I said. "I think it was a late model Saturn, dark blue maybe black. There were two men in it, as far as I could tell, one smaller than the driver.
"We'll canvas the area, see if anyone got a better look at it," he said.
"But can you tell me what was in those darts?"
"It's too soon to tell; we'll have to have a lab analyze them. Right now, they look like standard tranquilizer darts, the kind veterinarians and forest rangers use. Do you know of anyone who might want to injure you?"
I meant to say no, but I replied, "There is one man, Gerhard Koestelbaum over at the YPCA."
"We'll be in touch in case we get any other leads. For now, if you have a regular routine, you might want to vary it a little, just so it won't be easy for the suspects to track you."
"And make it harder for them to try and plug me again."
"You got it."
I ran my laps inside the apartment the next morning. I walked a more circuitous route to work and went home by yet another route entirely.
A few days later, the detective on the case called me back.
"We just got the results on those darts: you should consider yourself very lucky, Mr. Morrow."
"Why, what was in them? Poison?"
"It may as well have been: they're what are known as ladder-smashers. They're full of reprogrammed viruses loaded with faulty gene sequences."
My blood ran cold at the sound of that. "Why kind of genetics?"
"One line would case premature balding, another would cause glaucoma, the third contained the obesity gene."
My stomach tightened at that. "What sick son of a b---h would do this?"
"Someone who obviously hates Valids. Of course the symptoms wouldn't show up immediately. But genetic contamination is irreversible."
"So I really lucked out."
"Don't think this means you can let down your guard. We haven't made any arrests yet."
"I heard the news," Minerva said, a day later after her swimming lesson. "Have they found out who did it?"
"No, they've questioned a couple labs that have been known to produce reprogrammed viruses for research purposes, but no one's talking yet. So the FBI is supposed to step in to put a little pressure on them," I said.
"I know your next appointment isn't for another week, but I think I have an opening on Tuesday afternoon, at three, in case you think you need it."
"I certainly could use it," I said. "Might I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Do you know anything about Gerd, why he's acting so strangely of late? He's been extremely cold toward me."
She dropped her gaze to the surface of the water. "The night of St. Valentine's Day, he asked me to marry him…I told him it wouldn't work, that it wasn't him. He needs someone else."
"Is that your only reason?" I asked.
She gave me that mysterious smile of hers that meant there was more going on in her head than she cared to say at that moment. "No. But I can't tell you here."
I knew better than to press her for more information
I found another trainer, a man named Malloran Whittaker, better known as "Wit", who turned out to be no one less than the gent with the accordion who'd sung with Minerva and her gang on New Year's Eve. He was a slave driver as a trainer, but he was just what I needed.
Gerd avoided me for the most part, or if he had to speak to me, he discharged it in the most perfunctory manner. Maybe I'd gone paranoid since the shooting, but I wondered if there was more to his iciness than mere coldness.
I hadn't seen Eckart in months. I'd wondered if someone's husband had shot him, since I hadn't heard anything from him, and I doubt he'd given up the racket. Or maybe he'd been picked up selling ladders, like German, his mentor, who'd hooked me up with Vincent.
I spent the first half of my next session with Minerva talking about the shooting and the subsequent investigation, telling her about the close shave with contamination I'd had. I could tell she listened partly as a friend, but mostly as a therapist.
"You're really lucky that you weren't harmed. Have you heard anything more from the detectives?" she asked.
"No, they're supposed to contact me as soon as they make an arrest.
"But this isn't the only problem I've had lately," I said, tentatively. I paused, searching for the right words. "I'm in love."
"Well, good for you! Tell me about her."
"She's a very smart young woman, she's beautiful, gifted…and she's an InValid."
"And that bothers you?"
"No, not at all," I said. "I'm just afraid she won't be interested in me…because I'm a Valid."
"If she really seems like the right woman to pursue a relationship with, there's only one way to find that out. I think you know what that is."
"Test the waters."
"Yes."
"But that's just it: she's that kind of girl who doesn't show her emotions on the surface."
She licked her lips. "I think you'll know how she feels about you and when she shows it. she just might need the right man to bring her out."
"I just hope that I'm that right man for her."
"You're afraid of making a mistake."
I nodded, too chastened to speak.
"You have nothing to lose by asking her. If you don't ask, you won't know."
"I'll ask her."
I wanted to call Minerva that very night. I kept reaching for the phone, but my hand stopped just before it touched the receiver. I tried to avoid the phone by going on the Internet, but that didn't keep my eye form roving back to the phone.
It got late. I cursed my nerves and went to bed. Maybe things would have gone differently…but maybe not…
In the middle of the night, something crashed through a window somewhere nearby, awakening me from a sound sleep. I figured it was next door and started to go back to sleep. But then I smelled something burning. The smoke alarm in the hallway wailed like a banshee.
I threw back the covers and bolted for the back entrance. I kicked the door open and bolted out into the cold.
The other inhabitants of the unit had already evacuated, just as the fire brigade arrived. My weak leg gave out and I fell to the ground. Two medics ran up to examine me.
"Are you all right? Do you feel pain anywhere?" one of them asked.
"I'm al right, my leg just gave out," I said, rising. They examined me to be in the safe side. Another crewmember brought a blanket—I was wearing only my shorts. I insisted on walking to the shelter of one of the emergency vehicles.
A crowd of people from the rest of the complex had gathered at the edge of the scene, watching, their faces eerily lit by the flickering light from the windows, their cries of consternation rising over the roar of the flames.
The crowd parted. Minerva ran up, a coat thrown on over her bathrobe, and her feet stuffed into her shoes.
"Let me through! I'm a psychologist: one of my patients is there!" she cried. The police who tried to bar her way let her through.
She came to the van where I sat, huddled inside the blanket. I pulled it closer around myself as she came near.
"Jerome, are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm alive, I'm unharmed," I said.
She put her arms around me; I couldn't quite tell, but there was more than just a motherly or a friendly concern there.
The Red Cross put the survivors up in a motel for the night and gave each of us a change of clothes in case we'd lost everything to the flames.
Next day, Minerva cane around to take me back to what had been my apartment to see what we could salvage. There'd been no serious structural damage to the building, so the fire marshal was allowing the former inhabitants to salvage whatever belongings they could. They suspected foul play: they'd found a broken glass bottle that might have been a Molotov cocktail.
The furniture had been badly scorched and charred. Most of my first editions were unsalvageable. I found the case that contained my silver medal: the leather on the case was blackened from the heat, but unscathed.
But when I opened the case itself, I found the medal itself had melted.
I sank down on the cinders that littered the floor, feeling tears at the corners of my eyes. Minerva came up behind me, looking over my shoulder. "What's that?" she asked.
"It…was my silver medal," I said.
"Oh, Jerome…I'm so sorry."
"The old Jerome would be glad to see this," I said. "But he's long gone."
"Let it out…let that pain out."
I think I cried for a few moments, but I pulled myself together to finish the work.
"So where are you going to go?" Minerva asked, as we sat on the kerb beside the few boxes containing my things later that afternoon.
"I'm trying to find another apartment within walking distance from the Y, but there isn't anything available," I said.
"Well…I've got a couple rooms in my house that I was going to put up for rent," she offered.
"How much did you want for renting them?"
"100 a week."
"I can afford that," I said.
I moved in that day. She drove my few surviving belongings to her house, an antique wood frame house built somewhat like a New England saltbox. She told me that an eccentric millionaire from Massachusetts had had the house moved cross-country back in the 1970s so his wife wouldn't feel too displaced when they left Boston to live here.
"Someone like me couldn't possibly live in a normal house, could she?" she said, twitting herself.
Inside was as comfortably lived in as her office, lightly cluttered with books and magazines. She led me upstairs to the two empty rooms she had set aside.
"The only trouble is there's only one bathroom and it's on the ground floor," she said.
"I can handle the stairs," I said.
"But we'll be colliding," I said. "Unless we assign hours."
"Good idea: I'm usually up at seven."
"I'll take the six o'clock slot then," I said. "You'll never know I was here."
"I imagine I won't," she said. "But I'd better warn you about that bathroom: The latch on the door doesn't work sometimes. And you'd better be careful when you take a bath; if someone is running hot water in the kitchen, the hot water cuts out in the bathroom."
"In that case I'll just take care not to take a bath when you're doing dishes.
"But there's just one other thing," I added.
"What?"
"What is Gerd going to think of this?"
"I don't think he cares."
Despite Minerva's warning, I went to take a bath after supper, to get the smoke and cinders out of my hair and my pores. I let the water run while I went for my robe upstairs. When I came back, I shut the bathroom door before I peeled, but I neglected to check to see if the latch had engaged. When I stuck my foot into the three or four inches of water in the bath, I let out a roar of shock: it was ice-cold (And mind you, this was my left foot, the one that's not always awake.).
I jumped back and since the latch wasn't engaged, the door popped open from my exertions. Naturally Minerva was right there, passing by with some of her laundry. And there I was, as genetic engineering had made me.
She looked away, blushing absolutely bright pink as she pulled and I pushed the door shut.
"And like the arrogant Valid that I am, I ignored your warning about the bathroom," I said, coming out later, my robe wrapped close about me.
"It's all right," she said. "Everyone has trouble with it, even I do sometimes and I've lived here since I was qualified." Somehow, I could tell from the look in her eye that she wasn't disappointed with what she'd seen of me, but she was too modest to let on.
Next day, I called my parents to tell them what had happened.
"So where are you staying now?" Mum asked.
"I'm renting a couple of rooms from a friend of mine."
"Do you have anything left?"
"I've got a few sticks of furniture, and the Red Cross provided a few odds and ends
"We'll be over as soon as we can. I'll make the flight arrangements as soon as I get off."
"Mum, no, don't go to that trouble. I just called to tell you I'm all right."
"You've had a terrible experience. We'll have to help you replace what you lost."
"All things considered, I'm doing well."
We went back and forth like this for several minutes. In the end, my mother won out.
I hung up the phone and leaned back in the chair of Minerva's telephone table, kneading my forehead with my knuckles.
"Trouble with your mother?" Minerva asked.
"Yes," I admitted. "They're coming over as soon as they can."
She patted my shoulder. "We'll manage."
Next morning, my parents arrived at Minerva's door after she'd left for work. They insisted on taking me out shopping right away. I had to divulge what I'd lost in the fire; my father insisted on helping me buy a complete new wardrobe, while my mother grilled me for the titles of the books I'd lost.
My father pelted me with questions: why hadn't I finished my education? Was I ever going to find a wife? Was I working? I answered him as best as I could: I was training again for the next Olympics; I was just starting a relationship with a doctor; and I was working as a swimming instructor at the local Y.
They took me out to lunch. Afterward, we went home, just as Minerva had come back from her office.
She met us at the door and let us in. My father took one look at her and his face went as cold as a stone in winter. He turned to me.
"So you fell in love with your therapist," he said, icy-toned.
"She offered me the rooms," I said. "I didn't have much to choose from."
"Mr. Morrow, you're gravely mistaken," she said.
"And now you're cohabiting with this…this DeGenerate?" my father spluttered.
"I'm only sharing the house," I said.
"But why this female? Why not come home to live with us?" Mum wheedled. "We've kept your rooms free."
"I'm going to marry this highly intelligent young woman," I said before I knew the words were out of my mouth.
My father's face went purple. "Very well, have your InValid. But don't expect to see a penny of your inheritance," he snapped. "Estelle, come along."
With that, they went out. I let out a sigh of relief, but I turned to Minerva.
She'd sunk down on the couch, her head down and her shoulders trembling. I sat down next to her, slipping my hand behind her back.
"Here, it's all right now: they're gone," I said.
"I know, but the things they said about me…I should be used to it by now."
I stroked her face. "No, nobody could get used to that. Don't listen to them: listen to me."
She slowly lifted her face to mine. "I heard what you said to them…is it true?"
"I said it to drive them off…but I mean it. You mean as much to me as life itself."
She smiled at me through her tears. "You mean as much to me as life itself and the world we live in."
"All the way to Saturn and back," I countered.
"All the way to the event horizon of the universe and back."
I had to have the final word. "All the way to the mind of God…and back down to the DNA in our cells."
"Do you love me?" she asked.
"Yes…you knew already."
She smiled and nodded, "That InValid girl you told me about."
"I don't have to tell you, but you'll want to hear it…that was you."
I had two bracelets made up from the silver of my medal: one for her, one for me, both engraved with her motto: "There is no gene for the human spirit," my first present for my future wife.
I quickly settled into being the man of the house, checking the locks before we retired for the night—in separate rooms, Minerva wanted to wait for the ring. The idea irked me at first, but I quickly adjusted to it.
It was good that I rook up this duty, as I later found out.
One night, as I was securing the front door, I heard something fumbling with the back door. I ran to the kitchen and found the back door opening, a small dark shadow slipping in.
I threw on the light and grabbed the intruder by the throat, shoving him up against a wall.
"You little sneak, what are you doing?" I snarled, looking down into Eckart's skull-face, already grinning nervously as the sweat broke out in beads on his forehead.
"It was you, wasn't it?" I demanded.
"What was me?" he asked, his voice gone smooth with innocence.
"You were the one spying on me." I stomped on his foot, which stopped him from worming out of my grasp. "And you fired that ladder buster at me."
At this moment, Minerva came into the room. She walked out just as quickly. I heard her dialing the phone.
"That her?" he asked.
"Who?"
"Your shrink. God, she's a looker! She must feel good under you…for an InValid."
"None of your damned business," I said, icy-voiced.
"I take that as a yes," he purred, licking his chops. "Never had InValid before—"
I squeezed the back of his neck as he tried to break away again. "I just live here. And I might not be living here if you hadn't set my flat on fire."
"So I helped you get the girl," he said with a grin. "Isn't that what you wanted, or do you really have something for that other InValid?"
"If you mean Vincent, I only have respect and admiration for him."
Sirens wailed in the near distance, coming closer. Eckart tensed in my grasp and tried to fight me again. In theory, I probably could have crushed him to death, but I did not want to do that.
"You sadist!" Eckart snarled. "You destroy everything you love. Even me. You loved what I did for you, didn't you? But you never thanked anyone for anything. German, my boss, got you a way to give your dreary little life a purpose, and you never gave him a word of thanks. I helped you find the love of your life and you insult me. You did it, you coward! You used me… the way you use every InValid you meet."
"No, Eckart," I said, calmly, though to be honest the old Jerome wanted to bash his head in. "You used me. You played on my imperfections and you used them to your advantage.
"Who had you watching me?"
"A guy named Gerd."
I was afraid of that. "And shooting those darts at me, whose idea was that?"
"Not mine."
"Then whose?"
A long pause. "His…Gerd's."
Now that was a twist on the jealous rival shooting at the man courting his girl. "And the Molotov cocktail through the window?"
He said nothing, just gave me an odd smile, and I knew then he'd done that out of pure malice, to finish off the job even though Gerd had relinquished it.
I released my grip on him. He moved tentatively. I let him go and stepped back. He looked up at me warily.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Letting you go."
"Why?"
"Because it's the right thing to do."
"So at the last minute, we turn into a saint. The cops 'll drag me off and you'll go back to slam-banging that InValid girl. You love screwing with us, don't you?"
He lunged at me, screeching an expletive and reached for my throat. I could have roundhouse punched the little broken ladder. But I fended him off with a glancing blow on his cheekbone, pulling the punch.
He fell over backwards, sprawling at my feet. He looked up at me, clutching his face.
"You enjoyed that, you smug Valid prick," he snarled.
"Not as much as you enjoyed trying to kill me," I said. I stepped across his prone form just as the police appeared on the back steps, two officers, one older than the other. "He's right here, officers." I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. "I had to subdue him."
"Well, hello, Phil," the senior officer said with mock joviality as Eckart scrambled to his feet. "Don't tell me: break in and entry."
"I was only dropping in to see a friend," Eckart said.
"You have an interesting MO for dropping in," the officer said, as his partner slapped the cuffs on Eckart. "Oh, and this isn't the only reason we're taking you downtown: we've found a link between you and some other 'favors' you've done for this gentleman."
They dragged Eckart out into the night. I pushed the door shut. My gimpy leg started wobbling, and I had to sit down on one of the kitchen chairs.
Minerva came in, clad in her bathrobe. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "I just purged myself of my worst demon…after the old Jerome, of course."
"Eckart?"
"He picked the lock. He can't bother us any more."
"Now you can start a new life," she said, putting her arms about me, consolingly. I drew her to me.
And start a new life I have…
Now she lies asleep next to me while I finish jotting this, her slender form curled contentedly against me. She sighs softly in her sleep and I wonder if she dreams.
To give it the nineteenth century explanation: Dear reader, I married her.
The critics said it wouldn't last. They said I'd go looking for a woman of my own class within six months. Well, six months have passed, and we are still very much together. We had to find a priest who would marry us without a license, but we're married in the eyes of God even if society frowns upon our marriage. Damn mankind's stupid laws! Damn his quest for the wrong kinds of perfection. Look at what it did to me!
She was flesh of my flesh, nerve of my nerves for two years. Now where there were two of us of very different classes, we are one in heart, one in soul, one in spirit. I'd even say one in mind, I swear she knows what I'm thinking. She was perfect where I was imperfect, and this has perfected me.
We had a simple wedding on the beach where Minerva and I had had our first unofficial date. Cheryl prepared a clambake for Minerva's gang of friends, who'd quickly become mine as well. We told everyone we'd be spending the wedding night at the Ritz-Carlton in town. But after dark, Minerva and I snuck back to the beach. By the light of the full moon, and with Saturn rising in the east, we swam together in the calm waters of the lagoon. Later, we made love for the very first time, at the water line, the soft waves washing over and around us. I wonder if Adam and Eve had it so well on the first honeymoon the world ever saw. I'd been a little concerned that I might not be able to do my best for Minerva, but I surprised us both. We slept on the sand dune on a bed of sweet-salt smelling grasses, Minerva nestled against my heart; but I woke to find I'd let her go in the night. This bothered me at first, especially because I had turned over on my stomach, away from her. But I found she'd pillowed her head on the middle of my back, her hand under her cheek, covering my surgical scar…
She turns to me and opens her eyes, then looks at the notebook I'm jotting in. "Whatcha got there?" she asks.
"Just my journal," I say. "Jotting down a few things for Vincent."
"When's he coming back?" she asks.
"Seven more months from now."
She takes my hand in hers. "Right about the same time our son will arrive."
The notebook drops from my hand. I turn to her. "Our…son? Are you sure?"
She nods. "There's a way to find out even this early. I'd like to name him Vincent."
"Eugene Vincent," I correct her. I reach out and cover her belly with my free hand.
Perfection, imperfection; male, female…I refuse to put my children through the living hell their grandfather put me through. We may have to hide our offspring under the bed or in the closet…but maybe, like Moses, our son will bring freedom to his kind.
The End…
Afterword:
A sequel to this is in the works, which looks like it's going to be from Vincent/Jerome's POV, so keep an eye on this category!
Literary Easter Eggs:
Christmas songs—with the exception of "The Zither Carol", I heard all these songs on the local "Golden Oldies" station at Christmas.
Jerome's trouble with the bathtub and door—Art imitates life: I had the cold water craziness happen to me as I was drafting this chapter, but I had no trouble with indecent latches.