Journey of Ric Heiden

The Journey of Rick Heiden

All Rights Reserved © 2018, Rick Haydn Horst

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER SIX

The next morning came too early, but we had time for the first fuck of the day. He came from the bathroom to find me standing next to the bed, leaning over.

"You want more?" he said.

"I had to release the others; I want one to start the day off right."

He stood behind me. His growing erection rubbing against my hole. "Well, I wouldn't want your engine to stall," he said. "So, I can't leave you to walk around with an empty tank." He proceeded to shove his cock into my hole. "There, doesn't that feel better?"

"Oh, yes. Fuck me." He began ramming my hole, and I slammed back onto him.

"Oh, you like it hard, don't you? You want to walk around today, knowing your mate serviced your hole this morning the way you like it, is that it?"

"Oh, fuck yes."

I loved it rough, and he reamed my hole hard and unrelenting. He gave me the kind of fuck I wanted, needed even, daily, and I knew David would take care of it. He began to speed up. Just before he reached orgasm, a knock came upon the door. His ramming my prostate caused a spontaneous orgasm, and I came all over the floor. My squeezing his cock caused him to cum, and he hammered me three final times and stopped holding his dick deep inside me.

We heard another knock.

"Bloody hell," he said.

"Do we expect anyone?"

"We expect breakfast." He gently pulled out of me and quickly donned his white cotton robe. The front bulged as he still had an erection. He answered the door while I cleaned up my mess. I still felt a little sleepy when I woke up, but after a vigorous waking from David, we enjoyed a well-earned breakfast.

That day I dressed in my navy two-piece suit and yellow tie with white polka dots. David wore an ill-fitting two-piece suit similar in color. The fit served to inform me how much he needed someone to see to such things.

David called Ms. Newton requesting to see her at her office, but that morning, she had a meeting at the Minister's Cabinet Office at Whitehall. I wished to join him, but as an official visit, he considered it inappropriate. With that understanding, I agreed to wait elsewhere.

I had never gone to the cabinet office at Whitehall, and I must say it made me nervous. We passed through the security checkpoint at Downing Street and parked behind the building reserved for deliveries. Amanda wouldn't have an office at Whitehall, so she borrowed one to use before her meeting. I sat in the outer office where the member's assistant had his desk. David had gone there many times and showed no sign of nervousness. He followed Amanda inside the borrowed office and held a small cardboard box filled with the surveillance equipment from the penthouse, to which he added the one from the Jaguar found using the device provided by Aiden.

I heard their muffled voices inside. As a matter of priority, I suspected David would first relieve Amanda's mind over her daughter. Telling her the dead man had endangered her, and due to his demise, she had nothing to fear. Then it came to the surveillance equipment, and by their muted tone, I assumed that David had not allowed Amanda to palm the responsibility for the surveillance onto the Americans, as he told me. I then heard a few minutes of low talking and a sudden thud against the wall. I couldn't imagine what was happening at that point. The voices disappeared into silence, and within a minute, a red-faced David emerged rubbing his mouth with his handkerchief. I noted the lipstick on the cloth. In agitation, he informed me he wished to leave at once. I decided not to press the issue and kept my mouth shut until we had returned to the car.

When we climbed inside, David flipped the visor down, checking his appearance in the mirror. He wiped away the lipstick remnants and mumbled to himself.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

With his face crimson to his ears, he said, "Yes, of course," in a blatant attempt to sound as amiable as possible.

"Will you tell me what happened? I would like to know."

I had already surmised most of it by the time we got back to the car. I tried to smile pleasantly and not laugh. The circumstance explained a great deal, holding his arm like a vice at the party, the caress of his cheek before exiting the vehicle. I wasn't so naive that I couldn't recognize her feelings for him--fond of him indeed. He remained flush for a good ten minutes, and he had trouble even looking at me.

"I went in," he said, "and I told her that she no longer had to fear for her daughter's safety, and she seemed grateful."

"So, she kissed you."

"Do not interrupt the flow of my narrative, please." His face continued to redden. "I laid the box in front of her and told her we found them. She did what I figured she would do and blamed the Americans. It may come as a surprise, but I decided to let her think I accepted her explanation just in case the British government did do it. Then things went wrong." He then paused to look me in the face. "I must confess to you, and it concerns me that it might make you upset. I wouldn't want you to think I've manipulated you in any way, at least not intentionally."

"Okay, let's hear it," I said.

"Have you heard of pheromones?"

"I've read an article about them once. I understood that humans don't produce those."

"Well, that's not quite true. Some humans still produce them under certain conditions, but the small quantity remains largely undetectable with modern equipment, and that leaves scientists much to debate as to what they detect. However, humans still carry the genes for them, but nature and time have either genetically switched ours off or epigenetically turned them down. The Foundational Enhancement has certain effects. I suspect a purpose by its designers, but it activates those genes that produce pheromones, and now sometimes, I appear to practically percolate with them."

"Has this caused me to feel about you as I do?"

"Maybe," he said as if I'd caught him cheating, "but evolutionarily speaking, it just does what it does."

"I'll have to think how I feel about that," I said, "but please, continue your narrative."

"It's just that not everyone responds to everyone's pheromones," he said. "Amanda has a natural response to mine. It's sort of how I got my job."

"You used this to get your job."

"Well, not willfully! One doesn't think about these things, and until now, Amanda's reaction has remained subtle. Once I realized they were affecting her, it had gone too far, and this job has provided the perfect opportunity to make a positive difference here, which I can say I accomplished for nine years. However, Amanda and I don't have the same situation as I do with you. You and I have had sex. We have physiologically coupled, and although I still produce lots of pheromones, between us, they get mitigated by hormones intended to make us feel love for one another."

I sat there, with a little smile, listening to him continue as I studied his red face. I noted the look in his eyes, the curve of his jaw, the way his mouth moved as I heard every word he said, and although I hadn't known what to think of it all, it made me want to kiss him anyway. Should I care if my attraction to David had come from chemical manipulation? We knew emotions came from chemicals created by our brains, making us feel things through receptors in our cells. Far less mystery existed there than humans liked to pretend, and love felt great, so the cause shouldn't matter. It wouldn't have to stay mysterious; we should seek to understand its complexity. But not to worry, we have always lived in the illusion of free agency, our minds couldn't have done otherwise.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Your surprises keep getting better and better. So, what made the difference with Amanda today?" I noticed she had grabbed him by his crooked tie.

"This has never happened before. Amanda and I have never had anything sexual between us. She's just had an unspoken attraction to me, and it created a feeling of trust in me, which I admit having used on occasion, but I've never abused. I remained abstinent till I met you, so I'm uncertain, but I suspect it's because I showered last night before bed. Since then, you and I have had sex several times, the last of which happened a few hours ago."

"Do you mean that, chemically, you smell like sex on legs?" I asked.

"I wouldn't put it that way."

"I think it's pretty fitting. You could take morning showers, you know." I could no longer resist adjusting his tie's knot. "Will you continue to have this problem, you think?"

He grasped my hand that straightened his tie and looked me in the eye. "I trust that I may rely on you in the future to help keep others off me if I do."

"Oh, you can count on it."

On the way to Facility3 in East London, I made a phone call to my parents, as I had neglected to contact them the previous weekend. They sounded pleased to hear from me. As they told me, they had "ran into a few bumps in the road," but hadn't wanted to worry me. The company that my father worked for went bankrupt, and he wouldn't receive his pension after working for them for decades. They also received a letter that week informing my mother that her supplemental insurance would not cover several of her essential medications because of their cost and forced her to switch to cheaper generics of other medicines that hadn't worked previously. My older sister was divorcing her husband, and the younger one had fallen in with the wrong crowd. My father suspected she was abusing prescription drugs. Everything seemed like the typical humdrum of American life.

They also told me that things continued to decline for the LGBT community, so I still could not return home. At that point, I told them about David, that I had chosen to make my home with him, and that I could not go backward. Until I had said that I hadn't quite realized just how accurate that felt. I had not stayed the same person who left the United States or the same person who had yet to promise himself to David Saturday night. I couldn't go backward by returning to the U.S. any more than I could revert to the man who stood with Maggie at the subway entrance at nine o'clock on Saturday morning. I told them I loved them, and that no matter what, I was fine. When the call ended, it had a finality to it.

In that moment of so much change and uncertainty, I needed to know a part of my life seemed stable and sure. "Do you love me, David?"

He looked at me with his ardent amber eyes. He squinted and asked me, "Do you seek reassurance or honesty?"

"Both," I said.

He spoke to me in a tone of seriousness and unembellished sincerity, "I love you more deeply than words can convey, but that you may know, I will devote millennia endeavoring to show you."

For a lesser man, his outrageous-sounding statement would amount to nothing more than an idle promise, but I knew David meant it.

I turned the conversation toward pressing matters. "So, will we make our move today? I've worried about Amaré."

"Perhaps," he said, "this came as our first real opportunity. We didn't know the location of the body until last night, and we couldn't get into the facility until this morning. Going in during the day is bold, but that could work to our advantage. We'll have to see. As for Amaré, don't worry. He has more discipline and patience than any man I've seen. I don't know what we'll face at the facility after this weekend. Amanda palmed the surveillance off on the Americans. So, if the British Government did it --and not Katheryn-- if they think we accepted their explanation, they should treat us the same."

"If they know we want Cadmar's body," I said, "how can we expect them to leave it available for us to take?"

"I have a Plan B for just such circumstances. We're nearing the facility, so if you wish to call Maggie one last time before we go in, you should do it now."

I shook my head. "She has class right now; besides, we already said our goodbyes. She has a key to my flat. I told her I didn't know when we would leave, but if I hadn't returned, she could have everything there. If she wanted to sell my possessions to help her grandmother, I gave her my blessing."

"That's kind of you," he said, handing me his phone. "If we have no other calls, we should turn these mobiles off. We wouldn't want anyone using the GPS against us."

When we reached the cul-de-sac of Facility3, the empty block of flats once again came into view to the left of us. We paused at the garage door of the brick building on the right to allow the transponder on the car to signal the door to open. Once inside, we pulled alongside the other six government-owned black Jaguars and a couple of civilian vehicles.

"Now, before we get out," said David, "I should tell you that this may not be the day. It all depends on what we find when we go in, so follow my lead."

We heard the quiet tapping echo of our footsteps in the garage. The air, slightly damp from the previous day's rain, accompanied the smell of internal combustion engines. I had a growing awareness of my heartbeat when David opened the wooden door at the far end of the room. Charles, the guard, sat at his desk in the posture he took when anyone entered. Feigning any level of calm at that point only served to heighten my anxiety, knowing the result of failing that first hurdle. Had anything changed? Would the invitation by the queen be enough? I had only those thoughts running through my mind.

"Good morning, Charles." David showed his security pass. "Are there any letters for me in the morning post?"

"Not today. Will your one in tow stay for tea?"

"Here it is," I thought.

"Yes, he has an invitation from the queen."

Next came a pause that lasted too long for my nerves, then once again, the familiar buzzer sounded, followed by a loud unlocking click of the door to allow entry. I had enormous trouble stifling a sigh of relief as I hadn't realized I was holding my breath. Once through the door, and it snapped closed behind us, David pulled me into the alcove containing the coffee and tea stand.

"Are you okay?" He held me close to him. "Your face has gone white. Breathe. Take slow deep breaths. You're okay."

My presence at Facility3 that day was many irrevocable steps outside my comfort zone, and that resulted in the first of the panic attacks I began having. David's arms felt good. We stood like that for a minute or two. It stunned me how quickly it passed, and given the earlier conversation about pheromones, I wondered later if David had induced my calmness somehow.

We made our way down the hallway, and I noted more people inside the offices that morning than Saturday. Some of them greeted us with a

good morning

, and the darkened conference room lay empty.

We stopped at the lavatories near the lift so David and I could make use of them. I saw no sense in going into it with a full bladder. Afterward, I glanced into the mirror above the white pedestal sink as I washed my hands and cooled my face with water. What I saw in the light shocked me. I lost much of my hair years ago, yet the very top of my head had a thick dark mat of five o'clock shadow. It completely covered my pate, uninterrupted back to front and side to side. I thought perhaps the lighting had played a trick on me. I quickly dried my face and hands and placed them on my head to feel it. Although I felt no more than an equivalent to a day's growth of my beard, I had not imagined it. My hair was growing.

"Oh shit. How did that happen?" I asked myself aloud. Then it struck me; David did it. What had he done to me? I met him in the hallway, at which point I grabbed him by both lapels and dragged him into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"What the hell have you done to me?" I asked in excitement, pointing to my head.

"My goodness, has your hair begun growing back? I hadn't quite realized that would happen so soon."

"What did you do? And don't tell me we'll have to talk about this later," I said in an agitated whisper, "because I will not go anywhere until you tell me."

"It's nothing bad, I promise you. Now you see the reason I've remained celibate since I came here. Having sex passes onto my partner, namely you, the enhancement that I received that maintains my body and allows me to live on Jiyū. It won't harm you; it's the complete opposite." He smiled and rubbed my stubbled hair. "I should think your hair growing back would please you."

"I have a reason to feel upset." I swiped his hand from my head. "Why didn't you tell me? I don't enjoy this kind of surprise. So, what else can I expect, having to shave twice a day?" I stood there for a moment and took a deep breath. "Okay...now that you've told me about it," I said, trying to relax, "I suppose I would have to receive that enhancement anyway. I just wish you had said something to prepare me."

"Yes, we would need to treat you once we arrived on Jiyū, but now you have a couple of days jump on it. I can't wait to see you with hair." David smiled. "But in all seriousness, I apologize for not having told you about it. I promise, no more surprises."

I then had a scary thought. "Could someone extract that from Cadmar's body?" I asked.

"I don't believe so," he said. "It's made up of billions of very tiny machines, once they get inside their host, they won't work inside anyone else, and we programmed them to die when the host body dies."

"What about the ones you gave me?"

"That's different; our mates need those. You have modified versions of mine. It would pass along the Foundational Enhancement, as in your case, and they help bond us to one another. However, they don't force anyone to do anything they don't want to do."

"How does it bond us?" I asked.

"They guarantee that you will affect me, the way I affect you."

"Oh, you mean that I'll produce pheromones that will affect you. I like this more by the second," I said, smiling.

"I thought you'd like that."

"So, we can presume that those in Cadmar's body will not cause us difficulty," I said, sounding less convinced after having said it. "Wait, do you mean that I have nano-machines in my body?"

"Are you familiar with nano-robotics?" he asked.

"I read science magazines," I said, "but Earth has nothing as advanced as this. Thinking about it, people would misuse it if they got that technology here."

"Oh look, you're thinking like one of us already," he said, gesturing toward the door. "Shall we?"

The lift to the underground had a smooth ride down to the maze beneath the building. The doors slid open to find Aiden Park standing right against the doors, front and center, waiting for the lift.

"Oh, you're here," he said, "I was going up to fetch more tea bags." He then whispered, "Did you come to see the body?"

David put his hand between the doors to prevent them from closing. "Indeed, provided we can exit the lift."

"Oh, sorry," Aiden said, backing away, "I just got here myself. The tea can wait. Would you like me to take you there?"

"No, I know the location, but thank you anyway." David pressed his hand into my back so I would know he meant to proceed without Aiden's assistance.

We traversed the myriad of groin-vaulted rooms, which served as junctions for barrel-vaulted corridors. There we found the occasional door and console tables that held potted plants. And despite how confusing it all seemed, we would pass people who seemed to know where they were going, so I had to ask. "This all looks the same. I see nothing labeled. How do you know where you're going?"