Lorra Laven
The Writing Addiction
There are pleasant ways to die and dreadful ways to die. But dying of insomnia? Now that would suck!
Plagues: The Sequel
FIVE
George replayed the message again, working to convince himself it wasn't a dream. Would a goddess like Deirdre Meyerhoff really call him? Plead for forgiveness? But there it was, the deity herself, mewling an apology.
"George, this is Dr. Meyerhoff," she said in a pitiable, little‑girl voice. "I wanted to apologize for my rudeness at the meeting this morning. I have no excuse for my behavior other than to say it was not intended as a slight toward you, but rather was a defensive reaction to what I misperceived as an attack on The Haydn Project. I over-reacted and responded unprofessionally and rudely to your comments. It's just that I get so nervous around Nimbus. I feel so terrible about speaking harshly to you since . . ." She paused, giggling, embarrassed. "Since I am so very fond of you, George." Her chortle was that of a shy school girl. "I hope I'm not being too forward."
Then came the really amazing part.
"I'd love an opportunity to make it up to you. Is there any chance we could get together? I'd be happy to answer all your questions, share the details of the research you were asking about."
George pumped his fist in the air. The divine Ms. D. was begging his forgiveness. Thank you good Lord. He pressed the receiver tighter to his ear, knowing what was coming next.
"Actually George, I'd really prefer meeting with you after things quiet down around here." Her voice had taken on a throaty, teasing quality. "I've been dying to get to know you better and this seems like the perfect opportunity. Don't you agree?"
George sucked air through his teeth. "O-o-oh yeah."
"Why don't we meet in my office, say 8:30? I've got a great California Chardonnay. We could kick back, relax, mix a little business with pleasure." Even her sigh was charged with sexuality. "I really could use some down time." She drew the word out in a sensuous, suggestive drawl.
Each time he replayed the message, George got progressively harder. The lyrical quality of her voice, her stroking of the word down, her sigh: he wanted to beat off right there in the lab.
He fast forwarded to the end of the message, playing it again.
"Let me know by
The remainder of the day was a bust as far as accomplishing anything in the lab. The thought of sharing a glass of wine, alone, at night with Deirdre Meyerhoff, sent George into paroxysms of hyperventilation. Even though the unimaginable was probably just that, an evening with Deirdre would provide a year's worth of masturbatory stimuli.
With visions of Deirdre splayed naked and wanton on the glistening, black laboratory bench dancing in his head, George clunked around with his Erlenmeyer flasks and graduated cylinders for another hour, finally throwing in the towel and admitting he was done for the day. Stowing petri dishes alive with human embryos back in the incubator, he shut down his computer and headed home for an afternoon of buffing, polishing, flossing and painful hard-ons.
Stepping from a scorchingly‑hot shower, George gargled and flossed, then de‑linted his belly button before dousing himself in limey cologne. Painstakingly, he wove the hairs sprouting above his ears into a concealing mat. Satisfied with his ablutions, he pawed through the sparse recesses of his closet for an outfit that was sure to bedazzle the divine Ms. D.
After trying on and discarding half‑a‑dozen jazzy numbers running the gamut from palm trees to fifties‑madras‑plaid, he settled on a blue‑striped, short-sleeved seersucker shirt and a pair of khaki cargo pants, completing his ensemble with the black, braided‑leather belt he had bought on vacation at an Indian reservation that summer.
Stepping into the bathroom, he closed the lid on the toilet and hopped up to check out his outfit in the medicine cabinet mirror. "Omigod! Almost missed that one," he said, tossing his plastic pocket protector into the sink. Still puzzled, he scanned his ensemble again. Geek alarms were clanging.
Exhorting himself to concentrate, take in the whole picture, he started at his bare feet, working his way up, inch by painful inch, his face contorting with the effort. When he reached his face, he smacked his forehead, stung by the revelation. "It's the glasses, you fool."
Snatching the offending wire-rims from his face, he stowed them in one of five snap‑front pockets trooping down his left pant leg before hopping down to forage beneath the sink for his contacts which he then cleaned and settled, gingerly, on the surface of his eyeballs. A hasty rampage through his sock drawer unearthed the spiffy, yellow argyles his mother had sent him for his birthday. After a quick sniff test, he tugged them on and crammed his feet into freshly polished penny loafers, proud of the shiny dimes that had displaced the pennies. A final check in the bathroom mirror drew an approving whistle.
"George Strauss," he said, winking at the mirror and clucking his tongue as he fired a finger‑gun at his image, "you are quite the suave' guy, if I may say so myself."
He ducked into the corner grocery on his ride back to The Institute, grabbing a bouquet of yellow roses. Carrying the flowers tied up with a satin bow in crisp, yellow tissue paper, George looked quite the dapper fellow as he walked with a jaunty gait to his car.
Arriving at the IRR, he parked next to Deirdre's yellow Porsche so he could walk her to her car after their meeting, fantasizing his chivalry might warrant an invitation to her place for a night cap.
He swiped his security badge on the card reader and entered the research wing, padding through the darkened hallways toward Deirdre's lab. Holding the bouquet behind his back, he rapped just below the nameplate inscribed: Biomedical Engineering: Dr. Deirdre Meyerhoff, PhD, Director. When no one answered, he nudged the door open with his toe, tentatively stepping into the darkened lab, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
Pausing just inside the door, George could feel the thrum of refrigerator compressors through the souls of his shoes. His sense of smell was heightened in the dim light. The familiar lab smells of agar, hydrochloric acid and disinfectant were easily distinguishable from the heady scent of an exotic perfume. With his eyes now fully adjusted, he felt the heat from a bank of walk‑in incubators kept at a toasty, life‑giving 37 degrees centigrade as he meandered past deserted rows of laboratory work benches. Dead‑ending at a wall of glassed-in exhaust hoods, he swiveled on his heels, calling softly, "Dr. Meyerhoff? You there?"
He heard her voice, a husky whisper. "Over here. By my desk."
George's breathing accelerated when he rounded the last row of benches and discovered Deirdre sitting with her back to a gray, metal desk shoved into a corner, the gooseneck lamp casting her in shadow. Replacing the androgynous lab coat she wore during the day was a silky, white, cleavage‑revealing cowl‑neck blouse draped over caramel‑colored, cuffed, silk trousers that accentuated her arrow hips. The vision struck him dumb. He remained rooted to the spot, gawking.
"What's the matter Georgey? Cat got your tongue?" Deirdre cooed. She patted the chair sitting catty-corner to hers. "Come sit. Let me pour you a glass of wine. Maybe we can loosen up that wonderful tongue of yours."
George stepped to the chair robotically, hesitantly perching on its edge, quaffing the proffered glass of chilled wine in three hearty gulps. Suddenly remembering the bouquet, he popped it out from behind his back, proudly thrusting it toward Deirdre.
Deirdre's eyes widened. "For me?" She accepted the bouquet, giving it a quick sniff before chucking it over her shoulder onto her desk, a bridal toss. "George, you are too cute!" she said, giving his arm a love tap as she refilled his glass.
George's power of speech completely failed him.
Amused, Deirdre had to bite down on her lower lip to keep from laughing as she turned to settle the wine bottle in its ice bath, a stainless steel vat normally kept at 37 °C and used for incubating test tubes. "You don't seem too chatty just now. Why don't we get the business portion out of the way? Then we can focus on us."
George croaked a response. "That's fine, Dr. Meyerhoff."
"Oh you dear, sweet man! It's after hours. I insist you call me Deirdre." She lowered her eyelashes, shy little girl that she was.
George took another gulp of wine. "Okay . . . Deirdre."
"Now George darling, before I begin," she said, companionably touching his arm, "I want to make sure you understand that if I tell you everything I know about The Haydn Project, I'll have to kill you. Are you sure you want to know how the Institute overcame the problems with primate cloning?"
George squirmed, struggling to loosen the stranglehold his tighty‑whities had on his impossibly engorged penis, rasping an affirmative Yes.
Deirdre smiled slyly, her practiced eye noting the bulge in his crotch. "Why don't you have another glass of wine? It might help relieve . . . " She glanced pointedly at his crotch. "It might help relieve the pressure."
She waited for his squirming to abate before continuing. "In the meeting this morning, you asked why we have been successful with our human cloning program when every other institution in the world has failed. I didn't want to answer you publicly since we . . . " She paused, shrugging, a little embarrassed. "Yes, I know it's
George nodded. "I understand."
Crossing her legs, Deirdre sipped her wine, studying George, her ankle twitching like a cat's tail as it contemplated its prey. "As you so correctly stated, the major obstacle to cloning primates is the damage that occurs to the spindle apparatus when we remove the DNA from the donor's egg cell."
The spindle apparatus acted as tiny guy wires, attaching to the duplicated chromosomes during the third and fourth phases of mitosis, tugging them into the two new daughter cells, the end‑products of cell division, ensuring both new cells received a full complement of DNA. Uneven distribution of the chromosomes usually resulted in the death of the embryo, or if the fetus made it to term, produced an individual with a chromosomal abnormality inconsistent with life.
"How to tease the spaghetti out of the meatball; that was our first challenge," Deirdre said, handing George a notebook filled with the complex formulae and protocols Adrian had employed to first locate the points of entanglement between the spindle and the chromosomes and then dissolve them. George found it fascinating reading and he would have given his right nut for a copy. It had to be worth a fucking fortune. But something was missing. He stopped reading, looked up at Deirdre. "But wouldn't this process also dissolve the DNA you were trying to clone?"
"Very good, George," Deirdre said, pulling the notebook from his hands and turning to fetch a second one, handing it to him. "That was our next hurdle. After we freed the spindle from the spaghetti‑meatball complex, we had to find a way to neutralize the chemical soup before we put the DNA we were cloning into the enucleated egg."
She paused to refill his glass before leaning over the notebook to reveal a luscious, bobbling cleavage, flipping to a tabbed page halfway through the notebook. "After we figured out how to untangle the spindle apparatus without damaging it, for another extraordinarily long and frustrating year, Dr. Malik and I focused our research on neutralizing the soup. Then, just like that," she snapped her finger, "we hit on a protocol that rendered the soup harmless." She pointed to a series of chemical pathways on the open page. "This explains Phase II."
Hindered by the brain-numbing effects of the Chardonnay and Deirdre's considerable feminine wiles, George struggled to digest the complex equations. "It seems so easy. I'm surprised no one figured it out sooner." He raised his head, looking at Deirdre, his brow deeply furrowed. "But there are still some details missing." He narrowed his eyes, pointing to a chemical equation midway down the second page. "You can't get from this," He flipped the page, skimming his finger two‑thirds of the way down, "to this without an intermediate step."
Deirdre arched one brow, shrugging with upturned hands. "You remember what I promised to do if I told you everything?"
"Absolutely. But if you don't tell me, curiosity will kill me anyway and that sounds like a rather uninspiring way to go compared to feeling your hands on my windpipe."
Deirdre joined George in a hearty guffaw. "Why you dear . . . man." She bit back the word little. "I had no idea you were so funny."
They continued laughing merrily as Deirdre refilled their glasses. Hers had only been a quarter full when George joined her and she had carefully nursed it, making it appear as if she had been keeping pace with him. George had polished off three full glasses and was now working on a fourth.
Deirdre took a sip of the crispy, oakey Chardonnay. "Okay, I'll tell you everything. But don't say I didn't warn you."
She spent the next ten minutes writing out the missing equations on a yellow legal pad. Explaining the protocol, her demeanor had morphed from wanton sex kitten to scholarly professor, a role she relished. Because George was bright and quick, she was actually enjoying his company for the moment.
Completing the lesson, she quickly reverted to brazen seductress, swiveling from side to side, gracing George with an enigmatic smile. "I'll bet you've never been with anyone who looked like me."
"Sure I have. Lots of times," George said, a defensive edge to his voice. Truth be told, the closest George had come to being with a beautiful woman was at a friend's bachelor party where he had stuffed dollar bills into a lap dancer's thong.
Deirdre's voice was now a sexual caress. "Ooh. Maybe I've underestimated you."
To George's everlasting joy, Deirdre slowly uncoiled from her chair and crossed the few feet separating them, straddling his thighs, her erect nipples grazing his chest. George yawned back. His eyes were enormous. His mouth a perfect O. The muscles in his gut convulsed when her hand slithered up his thigh, pausing to caress his turgid dick before traveling downward to cup his balls.
"You saving that for me?" she asked.
George's voice was pitched unnaturally high as if a garrote were cinched around his windpipe. "I guess so."
When Deirdre leaned closer, her tongue sliding sensuously over her lips, the little bit of blood left in George's brain rushed to his groin. Closing his eyes, he threw back his head and moaned.
With George safely locked in a rapturous state, Deirdre slid her hand up his arm, over his right shoulder to the back of the chair, fumbling for the hypodermic she had velcroed there earlier. Finding it, she encircled his neck with her other arm as if to embrace him, deftly popping the safety cap off the needle as she ripped the hypodermic from its Velcro anchor. Then, with one swift motion, she jabbed the needle into the trapezius muscle inches from his spine, driving the plunger home, injecting a lethal dose of curare.
George reached back as if to swat a mosquito, inhaling reflexively at the unexpected pinch. But his hand never made it, dropping limply at his side. Sadly, that intake of breath would prolong his agony.
Holding George in the chair with one hand pressed to his chest, Deirdre leaped to her feet, frantically scrabbling through her desk for the restraints. With his muscles paralyzed, she needed to strap him to the chair to keep him from tumbling, headlong, onto the floor. She threw the first strap around the back of the chair, threading it under his arms and around his chest, cinching it tight. She then fastened a second strap around his thighs to keep him from slithering off the chair during their journey.
Even though he couldn't speak or move so much as a muscle in his body, George was horrifyingly aware of everything that was happening. His heart rate had skyrocketed, hastening the spread of the paralyzing poison to his diaphragm and intercostals, the muscles that controlled his breathing. Still, that extra bolus of air he had sucked in when Deirdre jabbed him with the needle would keep him conscious for at least ten minutes. Minutes that were about to seem like years for poor, curious George.
After checking the restraints to be sure they were secure, Deirdre placed her hands on the chair's armrests, leaning into George's face. Spittle flew from her lips, wetting his face. "You loathsome, little piece of shit. You didn't really think someone like me would be interested in a worm like you, did you? But, admittedly, the evening wasn't a total loss since I do so love sharing my research, even if it is with a loser like you."
She settled back into her chair, savoring the last few sips of her wine. "You realize, don't you George, that all this could have been avoided if you hadn't tried to humiliate me in the meeting this morning? But you had to show everyone how smart you were. Had to ask questions best left unasked. So now you have all the answers, don't you Georgey boy? And now, per our agreement, I will have to kill you. So we're going for a little ride."
George knew Deirdre was wheeling him toward Room 33, but he was unable to gesture, speak or even move his eyes to lodge a protest or call for help.
Deirdre backed through the swinging doors, each marked with a giant number 3, parking George near the door to the crematorium. "Now I want you to stay put!" she said, chuckling as she swung the massive steel door open and punched the red button to eject the table. Then she pulled on a jumpsuit to keep the oily soot off her clothes. Her blouse had cost two‑hundred bucks. Damned if she was going to let a weasel like George ruin it.
"Okay Georgey, Porgy. Upsy daisies. Time to go to nerd heaven or wherever it is assholes like you go when you die."
Sitting on a low‑slung, metal stool, she scooted closer, pressing her knees to George's flaccid legs, carefully loosening the strap securing his thighs. Then, slipping an arm behind him, she released the chest strap. Mimicking the orderlies she had seen transferring unconscious patients, she quickly maneuvered to grab George in a bear hug as he slumped against her like a rag doll. Getting George onto the crematorium table proved more difficult than she had anticipated based on his diminutive physique. She was sweating and breathing hard by the time she had him nicely arranged on the grid.
"Okay you little fuck, I guess you did have the last laugh," she said, looking with disgust at two cracked and broken finger nails. But now it's my turn to laugh." She put her face close to his and smiled. "I know you were hoping for a hot time tonight, and lucky you, Deirdre's going to see that you get it."
Deirdre smacked the green button, wriggling her fingers, a flight attendant's vacuous Ba‑Bye. Then thinking better of it, she punched the red button, ejecting the table again. "Don't want to leave any clues."
After tugging off his belt, she reached into his pants' pocket, searching for his wallet and the squishy, rubber change purse his type always carried. With her fingers lingering near his groin, she leaned close, looking into his unblinking eyes, knowing he could still see her and understand what she was saying. "Now you can tell your friends in geek heaven that a beautiful woman had her hand down your pants. Have a nice sleep George," she said, stepping back and hitting the green button again.
Her smile was malevolent as George rumbled past her into the claustrophobic, soot‑coated tomb. After setting the timer for three hours, she turned on the gas and held in the automatic starter until she heard the Whoosh of the giant gas burners igniting. With breathless excitement, she scurried around to the side and slid the observation window open so she could enjoy the show.
Fully conscious, George watched the ceiling, corrupt with charred human remains, slip past his face, more terrified than he had ever been in his life. Was Deirdre really capable of such an atrocity? Surely she would retract the table, give him the antidote, tell him it was some kind of joke or a warning to shape up. But when the door clanged shut and he heard the burners ignite, he knew it was time to pray. He asked God to forgive his sins, take care of his mother and most important, wreak havoc on the temptress capable of such unspeakable evil.
Iciness gripped his heart as the heat from the gas jets, just inches below his body, seared the back of his legs and torso, causing indescribable pain. He willed himself to scream but, locked in the paralyzing grip of the curare, a mental shriek was all he could manage. His brain howled in agony as his skin bubbled, blackened and sloughed off like a marshmallow held too long in the flame.
Deirdre continued watching George's splendiferous immolation until the heat became too intense. "Ta, Ta, you little fuck," she sneered before slamming the observation window shut.
Mercifully, George lost consciousness before his bodily fluids reached the boiling point and his body was reduced to ash.
