"I have a question for you," Clare told Aaron once he had sat on the couch together side-by-side.
"What's your question?" Aaron asked.
"Why tell me your greatest secret?" Clare asked.
"Think about it and the answer will become obvious to you," Aaron told her. "Remember, I mentioned that every immortal has a mate and you said soulmate as if clarifying the word mate for yourself."
"So I did," Clare said shaking her head at her obtuseness. "I suppose I can understand why you told me then."
"Don't beat yourself up, just because you asked me that question that you already knew that answer to, as I know I've given you a lot of information and I wouldn't be surprised, if your brain isn't exactly operating at full capacity at the moment, as you have a lot to absorb," Aaron said.
"I do," Clare agreed. "So that means you want to make our relationship permanent, to get married."
"Yes, I do, but I won't push you into anything," Aaron said. "If you need time to solidify your feelings for me then I'll give you that time. I know in the grand scheme of things six months really isn't all that much. When I saw you on that tour bus it was like being struck by lightning in the heart. I was shocked to my core when I spotted you and caught a glimpse of your face. You had turned your head a little so I saw your profile, but that was enough. I stared at you for quite awhile until Dave brought me back to myself by asking what was wrong."
"So is Dave..." Clare begin to ask then trailed of.
"Yes, he is and we've been friends for a long time," Aaron told Clare knowing exactly what she hadn't quite asked.
Clare took that long time to mean centuries in this case.
"I have so many questions," Clare said.
"I'll be happy to answer them, though not necessarily today as you have enough to absorb," Aaron said. "I'm sure you'll be thinking of a lot of questions you want to ask me over the next few weeks."
"Probably true," Clare agreed. "You know I'll die someday, right?" Clare said obviously having been thinking about what Aaron had told her. "I'm mortal and mortals don't live forever."
"There's a way to change that," Aaron said simply, "to make you immortal like I am. You'll be alive and healthy 500 years from now so long as you don't meet a specific set of circumstances where you end up permanently dead. You have to agree to it though, as I won't force you as that would go against my ethics."
"So that means you can die, so you really aren't immortal after all," Clare observed her emotions feeling rather blunted.
"I'm as immortal, as it's possible to be honey," Aaron answered calmly. "We can die, but only in certain ways, as we do basically live forever otherwise. We basically look 30 for the rest of our lives once grown no matter how long that might be," Aaron said.
"So it's only after you reach thirty that a born immortal stops aging," Clare said.
"That's right, though an immortal can look older if they were changed into one after passing their third decade," Aaron said. "As for me I was born immortal so I, of course, look only 30 instead of a few years older."
"So how do you change someone into an immortal? I would think that would be impossible," Clare asked next.
"It has to do with DNA," Aaron explained. "If a male is trying to turn a female immortal they simply have sex with them enough that they absorb the immortal's seed, which takes several months. As for the females if their mate is mortal taking several syringes of blood and injecting it into the vein always works and is also much faster than the other method, but it's not as pleasant. Of course, if you wanted to do it the way that females of our kind have to then it would work just as well and certainly be faster."
"I do love you, but I'm not sure I want to live forever," Clare said. "You know my friends would eventually die and so would my brother. I also can't maintain the same job for the next few centuries."
"No, you can't, but you could always take other jobs after you've had time to disappear from the computer systems," Aaron said. "You also can't reveal that immortals are real, though I'm sure you know that already."
"Nobody would believe me. I mean I didn't even believe you at first and we had been dating for six months," Clare said.
"It's possible that someone would though, if one of your friends talked about it in a public place like a bar. There are some unscrupulous people in the world that if they believed what they were hearing would want immortality for themselves for all the wrong reasons. Those type of people would commit all kinds of depraved acts in order to supposedly get immortality for themselves. They could kidnap someone we care about as an example in order to supposedly get us to cooperate. They could kidnap one of our children if we happened to have any at that time and threaten to kill them if we didn't cooperate, while that wouldn't be permanent unless they were killed in a certain way it would still be very traumatic for that child. They could even kidnap you in order to get you or me to give them immortality, so they can continue to commit all kinds of crimes for centuries. If they were caught and went to prison well, they still wouldn't die and it wouldn't take long before the humans found out that that criminal was immortal. All some people would have to do once that was discovered was apply a little logic to the situation to realize that if that criminal couldn't die that there had to be others out there that were the same. That kind of scenario would spiral out of control very quickly and soon everyone in the world would know."
Clare shivered at the scene that Aaron was painting, which she knew very well could happen. She was over 30 so it was impossible to be so naïve that she didn't realize Aaron was right in what could happen.
"Immortals would then very likely be hunted and humans would just end up killing a bunch of their own as other immortals would stay out of it. They would move to some other country or even off planet for the duration. While the chaos would die down eventually immortals would then become known and our kind would never have peace again," Aaron continued with the scenario.
"I won't say anything," Clare swore. "I'm not so naïve I can't see that happening if the world did find out that immortals existed. While I'm not entirely sure I want to live forever that doesn't mean I'm going to spread your secret all over the place."
"Good, thank you for that," Aaron said letting out a relieved breath.
"No thanks necessary, as I wouldn't want to be the cause of the scenario you just described. You're right, that kind of situation would quickly cascade out-of-control," Clare said. "As for the turning me immortal I'm gonna have to think about it seriously."
"That's fine with me," Aaron assured her. "This has to be gone into with your eyes open. My personal ethics won't allow me to force you to do what I want and also trying that tactic is forbidden."
"Forbidden by who?" Clare asked curiously.
"Immortals believe in a goddess, the one who supposedly created our race," Aaron explained. "Immortals have their own laws and to not obey those laws is to risk displeasing the goddess to where we might very well lose our immortality."
"I never believed in religion," Clare said.
"I don't expect you too," Aaron assured her. "Just know that at least most immortals do, as most of us know very well that we can't just be a mutation of human genes. Immortals have been around for thousands of years and there wasn't the technology back then to create something like immortality. Hell! There isn't the technology now to create a whole race of beings, even if they started out as human. While I can see the government perhaps experimenting on some people to create some kind of super solider, there is no way that they could've created something as close to an immortal as it's possible to be and still be human."
"That's a very good point," Clare admitted. "While we have made some gigantic leaps in science and technology I don't see us ever having the technology to create humans that were basically immortal. I suppose it could've been some very advanced alien race, but if that was the case how would anybody ever know?"
"I don't think that is a possibility that at least most immortals don't consider at some point in their lives," Aaron said. "We have made amazing progress when it comes to space travel and are even now exploring outside our solar system. Back when I was born that would have seemed like magic instead of the technology it is. Humans may one day discover a race with such a advanced technology that they turned some humans basically immortal. We can talk more later as I know I've given you a lot of information to absorb. There's no point of overloading your brain."
"Stay for dinner?" Clare asked him.
"I'll be happy too," Aaron said pleased at the offer. At least Clare wasn't throwing him out like he had half expected her to, as he had fed her a fantastic, but true story.
The two of them simply continued to talk about more mundane subjects until it was time for dinner.
~~~Aaron and Clare~~~
Clare and Aaron had talked a lot over the last few months and while Clare still wasn't ready to commit to being turned immortal that didn't mean that they still weren't close or that they still weren't dating.
Aaron was staying in Texas to be closer to Clare, though he still paid the rent on his apartment that was in New York.
As for Ricky, he was basically forgotten about though Aaron was always on the lookout for trouble. Clare certainly seemed happier without her brother's constant bringing up of his friend, or under as much stress.
Clare was out running errands while Aaron was not with her but close by running his own. Suddenly Clare was coming out of the grocery store when someone grabbed her from behind. At first Clare was frightened, but when she heard that hated voice she became furious instead of scared.
"Why couldn't you have accepted dating me," came Ricky's voice.
"I never would have dated you even if you were the last man in the world Ricky," Clare said trying to be calm even with Ricky's arm around her throat, pushing hard into her windpipe. He could easily crush her throat if he wasn't careful. At least you could still talk.
"Why not? I've liked you for a long time," Ricky asked.
"You really want to know why Ricky?" Clare asked trying to be calm. "This is exactly why I don't like you, as you pull this kind of crap. I mean really, you have your arm around my throat and that is not how you go about telling someone you like them.
"You've always creeped me out and I've never liked you in the way you want me to. Accept that and move on. I'm sure you remember how I avoided you whenever you came over to see my brother when we were kids. I would say, this proves my instincts at the time were correct, because if you can do what you're doing now then you're obviously not right in the head."
Clare then elbowed Ricky in the stomach and stomped on his foot, though it wasn't as effective as it could've been, because she was only wearing tennis shoes not high heels or shoes with harder soles. A lot of tennis shoes had rubber soles, which wasn't as hard as some substances that made up the soles of shoes. Still, it was effective enough and Ricky released her clutching his stomach obviously in pain from where Clare had elbowed him hard in the gut.
"I don't know how you found me unless you finally wiggled the city and area I lived in, in Texas out of Chad. Texas after all it's a big state."
Clare took out her link and called the police while keeping an eye on Ricky. Ricky simply lay on the ground still clutching his stomach. He finally looked up.
"Don't move Ricky Martin or I'll do worse," Clare warned him her tone pissed, as she was watching him closely. "I've taken a few martial arts classes and now I'm glad I did and you're exactly the kind of creep I took them for so I could defend myself."
"There was no reason to call the police," Ricky told Clare finally getting his breath back. He tried to get to his feet but Clare glared at him and pushed him back down with her shod foot.
"Of course, you don't think so because you don't want to go to prison for assaulting me," Clare told him contemporaneously, trying to contain her reaction from the confrontation. "Just as I finally got my brother to leave me alone about dating you and was able to relax you show up back in my life like a bad seed. Why couldn't you just have stayed in Denver? I moved here to Dallas to mainly get away from you."
Clare was tempted to kick Ricky in the side and she barely stopped herself from doing so as the urge was very strong.
"I really, really like you," Ricky told her, "and yet you continuously turned me down. I just had to come and try to get you to see reason."
"You might really like me Ricky, but I can't stand you," Clare told him bluntly. "That you thought holding me prisoner with your arm around my neck were you could have easily crushed my windpipe, as I've already told you, wasn't the way to convince me to date you. No, it just tells me you're not very smart at least not where females are concerned. I mean, seriously Ricky, you aren't normally so stupid, as to do what you did. I'm going to have bruises around my neck for weeks until they heal because of what you did.
"You did the worst possible thing you could do. Your actions just showed me that there's no way you would ever treat me as an equal or even a human being. I would be an object to you.
"I'm dating a real man that knows how to treat a woman Ricky and I am likely going to marry him. You had absolutely no chance with me and never did, as you were never in the running in the first place."
Ricky looked devastated for a few seconds before rage overtook him and he started to again get to his feet. It was only fear of what Clare would do that had kept him on the ground and not trying to get away before the police showed up. Clare packed a punch as his ribs were still aching from her elbow. Unfortunately for him, the police arrived and soon had Ricky in handcuffs before he could even think about running away or attacking Clare.
Clare gave her statement to one of the officers and then called Aaron.
Aaron showed up within 10 minutes as he'd been close by.
"Are you OK honey?" asked Clare.
"I will be," Clare promised Aaron kissing his cheek her voice hoarse from where Ricky had nearly strangled her.
Ricky glared at the pair with a deep malice, but neither Aaron or Clare paid him any mind.
"Yes, I see the bruises forming on your neck," Aaron said, as he gently ran a finger over them feeling rage come over him at Clare's injuries. He was gentle as he touched the injured skin of her neck, as he didn't want to hurt her further.
"Ricky could easily have crushed my windpipe he held me so tightly, dug his fingers into the bare portion of my shoulder and he did this, just because I ignored him when he had my brother keep reminding me that he was available to date. I never could stand the little weasel and now I know my instincts were correct. Who does this to someone they supposedly like, just because they refused to date them," Clare said softly feeling as if she had a frog in her throat pointing at her bruised neck.
"Well, I did warn you that something like this could happen," Aaron said. "I'm only glad you're OK though. I'm sorry I wasn't here to prevent your injuries."
"You had your own errands to run I understand that," Clare said. "I understand that you didn't want to go to the grocery store with me and usually, I'm perfectly capable of shopping for essentials for my pantry on my own. I never imagined that Ricky would actually do what he did. I doubt Chad will ever speak to him again after this. Ricky probably just threw away over 20 years of friendship and for what?
"I mean they've known each other since they were seven years old and Chad is nearly 30. If Chad remains Ricky's friend after this I'll be very surprised, because despite how annoying he can be we still love each other. I would very much like to know how he found out the city and the area I live in unless Chad told him," Clare said.
"Remember, I told you it's possible he would snoop in your brother's things to find out the city you lived in and also the area if Chad happened to have it written down your address in a memo book or something," Aaron said.
"I would hate to have to move again to yet another city just avoid Ricky Martin," Clare said after trying to clear her throat a few times because she was still very hoarse and would be for a few days. She'd glared at Ricky again, just as he got into the back of a police car with his hands handcuffed in front of him with two cops helping him.
"Hopefully, he'll leave you alone after this," Aaron said, as he observed Ricky to memorize his face.
"Somehow that's doubtful, as you didn't see the look of rage on his face a few minutes ago when I told him I was dating you and that you treated me properly. I told him he would treat me as a possession, not as a person and for that reason alone I would never date him, much less marry him" Clare told him her voice hoarse because of what Ricky had done. "We need to talk but not here."
"Your place is fine, if it needs to be private," Aaron said
"Yeah, it does," Clare agreed hoarsely, as the two continued to talk softly until Ricky was finally taken away.
"Don't strain your throat for the next day or two by trying to talk too much," Aaron advised her gently. "We can save that talk for when you're not so hoarse and your throat is not so sore from Ricky trying to strangle you."
"Probably a good idea," Clare agreed with Aaron hoarsely. "I guess we can save that talk until my throat feels better."
~~~Aaron and Clare~~~
