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Sergio eased his top-of-the-line Saturn through the artificially curved streets of his four-year-old middle-class housing development, and pulled into his driveway. He killed the motor, sat behind the wheel, holding it as if still driving, and stared at his split-level ranch-style house. He really liked his neighborhood and the house he lived in. It wasn’t love, more of a passionate like. And at least his house didn’t look exactly like his neighbors, like so many other developments. Only every fifth neighbor! He laughed out loud as he soaked in his newly painted wood and brick house, lush tropical shrubbery and dense grass. It was comfortable, clean, and neat, like the lab. Maybe they were all just part of an experiment.
He got out of the car, pulled his two suitcases from the back seat and glanced up. The sky was in the throes of another glorious multi-colored, light-streaked sunset.All Part of the experiment, he thought, smiling to himself.
He stopped at the front door, a suitcase in each hand, and wondered why on earth he thought he needed a vacation so badly. He practically begged to go away for this three day, sleepless sojourn. Even if everything went smoothly, which it did, not counting the unexpected discovery that had turned his daytime thoughts inconclusive and his dreams to nightmares, there would have been no time for anything other than work.
Just what was he hiding from himself, he thought. He loved his wife and couldn’t wait to rush into the house and ravish her from tongue-to-toe. No complaints about his job, in fact, it was everything he ever wanted, thanks to Kevin Watanabe’s chance reading of his unpublished paper on Cryonics: Extended Tissue And Organ Life, which Kevin had discovered on the Internet one lucky day.
Of course, he would discuss it with Sophie, because no one knew him better, probably, not even himself. But, she had told him very early in their relationship, that psychologists, which she was studying to be, should never ply their trade on friends or relatives, not because they can’t be charged an hourly fee, but because emotional connections muddy the waters of scientific analysis.
Sergio Carerra trusted his wife implicitly. Although she had two brothers and a sister, she was separate and alone in the world, like him. It was she, who had stopped his headlong assault into the world neutralizing his trumped-up ambitions and phony sanguineness. She did it with silence. By not saying a word, just looking at him with her dark doe eyes set on a chiseled nose that floating above a mouth so succulent, it was surely stolen from an ancient Greek statue and injected with the hue of life. That mouth, static in silence, held alliance with her eyes.
Her mouth called to him with that silence, demanding he give up pretense and collusion with some inner cloak holding him back from really interacting with the world. That mouth demanded trust, and her eyes confirmed she would return it.
He spent four hours talking, she listened. To this day, he has no idea exactly what he told her or in what manner. It could have been a laundry list of his life’s events or a chronicled history told in the narrative. The point was, she did listen. And when he was through, stopped only by the fact that there was nothing more to say, they sat in silence for several minutes, staring over their half-eaten pizza.
She blinked twice, looked at her watch hanging limply on her wrist like a bracelet, and stood up. She pulled some money out of her jeans pocket, as she carried no purse, and tossed it on the table. She did it like a man would have, but the act was immersed in femininity and incredibly sexy. Suddenly, in his heart of hearts, Sergio knew the only time he would see this incredible girl again, was at a distance across the campus. He looked at her hard, hoping to burn her image into his mind so he would have something stimulating to visit, now and again.
She smiled down on him. “I want to see you again,� she said, and walked out the door.
When he finally got up the nerve to actually go see her again a week later, he did, and from that day onwards they saw each other every day until they got married, a year later, one day after graduating.
Sophia was more reserved than most, but could cut to the quick if accosted with contrivances. She had a ready smile for those she liked, but not a glance to others. Laughter was hard for her, but when it came, it was deep and throaty, full of life and mirth. It always seemed so sexy. She had class and style without striving for it. Casually walking down a city street would create fictions in men’s minds. She was unaware of her attractiveness to men. Sergio wasn’t. In the beginning, this intimidated him. As it became obvious her intentions toward him were honest and from the heart, and he came to know that was where she operated from always, those dangerousdevilish thoughts dissipated never to return.
Sergio, the husband, the lover of Sophia, smiled at himself in the tiny red wood-framed Fung Shui mirror hanging on his front door as he entered his dark home.
A shadowy shape scurried across the floor to greet him. He dropped his bags, patted both his hands on his chest and his huge, affectionate, perfectly self-groomed, Rag Doll cat leapt into his arms.
"Hi there, Ming Ching. How's my little darling," he purred back at the cat as they rubbed their faces together. "You haven't by chance seen my big darling around, have you?"
He heard a creaking sound, and stopped, frozen to the spot, and stared up the stairs in front of him. Sophia was standing midway up the darkened staircase. All he could see in the obscure light filtering in from the street lamps through the open front door, were her legs, her long beautiful legs. He knew the rest of her was just as beautiful.
"I heard the doctor was out in the cold playing with icy things," she cooed coquettishly. "It's time to come in now and warm up."
He let the cat spring from his arms and gave the door a backward kick as he started toward the stairs.
"Does the nurse have someplace warm in mind? " came his devilishly childlike response.
When he got to the first step, he bounded up the rest of the way to her. She squealed laughter as he grabbed her and her beautiful legs disappeared up the stairs.
"Yeow, doctor! Your hands are freezing!"
Candlelight, placed subtly, but strategically, gave a warm subdued cast to the Asian-styled bedroom, elegantly austere with rice paper screens, large natural hardwood bed and furniture, and the soft, subtle mixture of organic-shaped artworks in painting and sculpture.
An iridescent glow seemed to radiate from the dew covering their entwined, tightly pressed bodies. Their passion still hung heavy in the air, their lovemaking ended from exhaustion.
Across the room, Ming Ching was content dozing on the Nineteenth Century, hand-carved and stuffed, Louie XIV chair, which happened to fit with eclectic perfection within this, otherwise, all Asian motif.
"Mmmm, Ser-g-io..." Sophie sighed dreamily, totally unable to move a muscle.
"Mmmm..."
"Wasn't I terrific?"
Silence.
"Why you...," she raised an arm to sock him.
He suddenly grabbed her and laughing, they wrestled across the bed, tickling and grabbing parts both accessible and not, until they reached the side of the mattress where they promptly rolled off. A moment later, Sophie, fingers digging into bed sheets, scrambled back onto the bed with Serge in enthusiastic pursuit.
"Not fast-," he panted, tackling her and climbing up her body, planting sloppy, salty-tasting kisses along the way, "enough."
She wriggled around within his slippery arms to face him and wrapped her legs, in a death grip, around his hips.
"Ready to go for another ride, already?" she smiled weakly, trying to catch her breath.
With new energy brought in from somewhere in the universe and a hearty feminine grunt, she rolled him over so she was on top.
"You should go away more often," she said as she leaned forward brushing her breasts teasingly against his face. He cupped the sides of her breasts in his hands and gently pushed them against his cheeks, moving his face slowly to feel their satin softness. A minute passed and feeling herself starting to cool, Sophie went to move to a new position. Serge suddenly tightened his grip, holding her there.
"Wait."
She stayed, perfectly content to enjoy any moment of lovemaking with her husband, whether high passion, or low.
Serge stopped moving altogether. Another minute passed.
"Are we falling asleep?"
"I have to tell you something," his barely audible, muffled voice said.
"What? I can’t understand you with 34B’s covering your face."
He gently pushed her back up. His mood had definitely changed. This was something new and she didn’t like it. Something about that first imperceptible moment, when, subconsciously, you make choices. This was primordial, something very basic. Gleaned from the flicker of an expression, but an imprint which matched something so deep in the human psyche, that the only natural response would be uncontrollable terror. Her heart started racing.
He looked around the room, then back into her face. He saw his own hidden fear already forming her hesitant expression. Of course, she would see this. She was his mirror, his right hand, his echo.
"Well, what?"
"I have to tell you something," he said very carefully.
Always to the point, but still cautiously, "Is this bad news?"
He went to scoot up to the head of the bed and she climbed off his body, but stayed next to him.
"No honey, not exactly. It's about the Frozen Man."
Unfounded relief released the floodgates of fear and apprehension and they slipped away into temporary oblivion, replaced with incredulous irritation.
"You want to talk to me about work?! Now?!"
"This is different, Sophie. This is- This could be-,� He hesitated, not only because he found it very difficult to say what he wanted, but he really didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say. He looked into her eyes, not for a sign, but for the grounding he always got from letting his soul pass through hers. Looking into each other’s eyes, they could do it for an hour and come away truly refreshed. Maybe this was just New Age crap, some hokey Yogi meditation, and he, as a scientist, shouldn’t be wasting his time. But, he’d been doing this since they met in college and he would renounce science before he would give up Sophie’s eyes.
But now, he only needed a second.
“This could be something big. Really big," he said, and a flicker of pain showed momentarily in his face. "And it scares me."
That sudden pain which Sophie saw in Sergio’s face before he even said the actual words about being scared, were what summoned the twin demons of fear and apprehension back from their temporary exile.
Her mouth was as dry as a stone and her voice came out edgy. "It scares you? What is it, Serge?"
Two mouths, dry, sand dry, trying to talk, licking their lips with dry tongues.
"I don't know how rational this is. I don't know why I feel like this, like a sort of creepy déja vu. I haven't told anyone about it, not even Kevin.
"You're starting to scare me, now," she said, after a long silence, not sure how to take whatever it was he was saying or how she might answer.
He looked at her deeply, another quick grounding, then he just blurted, "The damn guy is alive. He's two-fucking-hundred years old and he's alive!"
For Sophia, all sense of life and movement paused. Not what she expected to hear. She had no idea what she actually expected to hear. Now, suppressed fears were popping into her head: By some malfunction, the Frozen Guy had thawed out on the trip back and got ruined; the specimen was just another worthless piece of dead meat and now Serge’s job was on the line; a life-threatening germ had been released from the Frozen Guy’s tissue, like from the mummy excavations, and everyone who had contact with it is going to die. Her thoughts cascaded into a murky confusion.
"What do you mean?�
“He’s alive.� Serge dropped his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “You’re alive. He’s alive. Same, same.�
“He's alive. You're talking to him?"
He snapped his head back to look at her. He scowled.
"No, of course not! Nothing like that. He's still in the ice.� He felt the knot in his brow and relaxed. “But, his organs are working. His metabolic rate is slow, extremely slow but it’s definitely there."
Sophie continued to stare at him in disbelief.
"Jesus, this is incredible, Serge! What can you do? Why haven't you told Kevin?"
"I don't know exactly-,� He put his hands over his face, then rubbed his palms against his forehead. “There's more. I still have to run more tests, but there's something about his cells, their structure, and his blood-," He stopped again, not sure how to continue, or even afraid to. He brought his hands down so he could see Sophie’s face. "They're not what one might consider altogether human."
"What?!� Sophie sprang from the bed, her trainload of apprehensions brought on by each new revelation that escaped like steam from Serge’s lips, suddenly derailed, crashing into ephemeral shards. She only made two steps before she turned back around. But, somehow, new thoughts took their place. Two steps back to the bed.
“Are we talking frozen spaceman, here?" she almost shrieked, throwing her arms about herself.
Serge cocked his head like the old Victrola dog listening for his master’s voice.
"Mmmm, that's strange," he mused for a moment, "I never considered that. But, I doubt it. He's wearing furs,not a space suit."
Sophie plopped back down on the bed and fell back over Serge's legs. "This is just too weird."
"There's more,� he said as he absentmindedly stroked her hair. “He's about eight feet tall."
"Eight feet-"
"And his face seems to be covered in scars. Crudely stitched scars," he continued, deeply serious.
Sophie's expression suddenly changed to a wry smile and she jerked herself back to a sitting position where she began pummeling him hard! Playfully, but definitely hard. Ming Ching's head and ears popped up.
"You asshole! How could you scare me like that!"
She jammed her fists on her hips and mimicked him.
"Oh baby, I found this frozen half-human creature, eight feet tall with sutures holding his parts together."
She resumed her punching, which started alternating with painful tickles, while Serge, laughing slightly, nervously, tried to fend her off and stay serious.
"Sophie! Sophie! Stop! It's true! It's true, damn it!"
Sophie, now completely divested of any primal, sub-conscious or conscious terrors, filled her being with the gaiety deserved.
"Right, Senor Doctor Sergio Esteben Villalobos Carerra! You've discovered Frankenstein's monster!"
She bounded from the bed again and began a naked stiff-legged walk around the bedroom imitating Boris Karlof in the movie, her arms reaching spastically out in front of her.
"AAAARRRGGGG...," she roared.
Ming Ching flew out of the chair and out of the room.
"Sophie, stop. Come on. I haven't discovered any monsters, but what I'm telling you is true," he said, voice wavering with uncertain laughter.
She stopped, dropping her arms.
He pulled his legs up, letting his head fall against his knees, then crossing his arms over the top.
"I don't know what's wrong with me." His voice cracked. "I just feel so strange. This is more than frozen kidneys were talking about here."
Sophie came back to the bed and climbed on. For some reason, the unwelcome multitude of demons didn’t return even though she knew all he said was the truth.
"God, Serge. You’re serious."
"Yes," he said weakly.
For a moment, her look became hard, then she got excited again. Her trainload of jumbled thoughts was suddenly back on track.
"Serge, he isn't alive, alive, is he? I mean, he couldn't be revived, could he?"
A shiver ran deeply through him, so deep, his breath and heart paused briefly at the same instant. This was the constant thought that plagued him since his initial discovery that the tissue was alive. This is the thought that he didn’t allow himself to think. The thought that laid just beneath the surface, like a Houdini trapped under the ice trying to find the shattered hole through which he had fallen.
Now, all the ice was shattered and every way was the way out. The thought could be thought.
"I don't know. I don't think so," he said, frustrated, confused. "I don't know."
"Well, are you going to try?� Sophie was now the conductor on The Little Engine That Could. “You are going to try, aren't you?"
"I don't know!� He looked up from his fortress of folded arms and legs. He needed her support, her energy. Her manna. All in her eyes.
“Yes, yes, I suppose- I don't know! I'm scared, for some reason I'm scared shitless." His voice trailed off almost in a whisper.
"Scared of what? I've never known you to be scared of anything."
"This is different," he said pausing, a distant recollection flitting, unclaimable. "It seems personal. I feel connected, in some way responsible."
"Well, of course you do because you discovered he’s alive."
He took her by the shoulders, looked her straight in the eyes, hoping she’d see what he didn’t yet know himself.
"Something's going to happen, Sophie. Things are going to change and it scares me. I have a strange feeling about this Frozen Man."
“Maybe it's just the weight of responsibility for your discovery. You’re internalizing... feeling," she soothed. She snuggled down into his chest. "I mean, this is all really new stuff. It’s incomprehensible"
"I suppose, maybe," he hesitantly agreed. "But, it all feels so familiar.�
end of chapter four
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