thoughts about coming to the island. Gort Swensen had been hospitable enough, but it was an imposition, despite the hospitality extended to him. He was there because good people wouldn’t allow a vagrant to sleep in the church, pure and simple. Additionally, there was a young girl home for the weekend in the bedroom beside him. She was probably the only young single woman anywhere near his age, and she was right next door. His mind whirled with different images and random thoughts, preventing him from resting. He lay staring at the ceiling, wondering how things got so messed up in his life. The one peaceful thought he had was remembering Kelly. Someday, if it wasn’t too late, he would explain things to her. Would she still care about him when the time came?
The storm had gained intensity. Wind and rain buffeted the window in his room. The old house wasn’t well insulated, and the wood stove down stairs didn’t provide enough heat to compensate for the cold air leaking around the window sash. He pulled the comforter up to his ear and rolled onto his side. He was warm enough, and, sometime later, he fell asleep. Wind noise acted as a kind of sedative. In the morning, he would know if Gort was serious about giving him work. He had eaten with the family and had a drink with Gort afterward. He’d never had lobster casadia, but guessed it was normal fare at the Swensen home. They’d been most gracious, but his circumstances were certainly raising questions. He didn’t believe his own lie, so how could he convince them?
He was sleeping soundly, dreaming about sleeping with Kelly. She was warm next to him as they cuddled together. They slept closely in his single bed. Her delicate dark hair tickled his nose. He could smell her freshness after an evening shower. It gave him peace. On impulse, he wrapped his arm across her naked waist and nestled his lips against her forehead. Then something elevated his consciousness. Kelly’s proportions had changed. Instead of the tall thin girl of his dream, she seemed shorter with more curves. He stroked her breast and could feel a fullness that he’d never recognized before. Slowly, his consciousness rose further as she leaned into his face, parting her lips and inserting her tongue. His excitement grew, but something was wrong. Mary!
She giggled and nestled against his body, touching from lips to toe. He pushed back. “What … are you crazy? Gort will kill us; he’ll kill me!”
She smiled and pushed into him at the edge of the mattress. “Then keep your voice down, and let’s enjoy this.”
He was becoming aroused as primal urges overcame logic, “Wait … no … this is wrong. You shouldn’t be here.” He was trying to muffle his voice, fearful that, at any moment, Gort would burst into the room with a shotgun.
“You want to know something?” She whispered. “I’m not wearing a thing.” She reached for his hand. “Wanna feel what I mean.” He recoiled, and she reached into his crotch. “See, I knew you wanted me.”
He couldn’t help being aroused but fought the urge. “Mary, no! You gotta get out of here. I’m a guest and I made your dad a promise.”
Her smile was barely detectable in the darkness as she continued stroking him. The wind and rain noise obscured the commotion in the bed. He tried to pull her off, but she gripped even harder. “Come on, John, I brought you here. Nobody’s awake now, no one will hear.”
Finally, he fell off the edge and stood up, embarrassed by his erection, now protruding from his whitey-tighties. He bent forward, trying to conceal himself, and also to increase vital distance from her groping hands. She sat up on her knees without speaking, saying nothing and just staring at him. The dim light from some unseen outside source refracted in the rain piercing the shadows with a thousand shards of light and he felt himself losing control of the situation. Here, inches away, was a young girl, completely uninhibited, completely naked – wanting him.
He pleaded, “Mary, Mary, you’re truly a beautiful girl, and I would like nothing more than to do this, but not tonight, not now. Please…another time.”
At last, she also recognized the jeopardizing situation she’d created for the mysterious houseguest. She’d always been impetuous and knew that her parents also knew it. They might lie awake all night expecting exactly this circumstance to unfold. She pouted, “You promise? Tomorrow night?”
“Look, no, I can’t promise when, just let’s see what happens tomorrow.” He stepped closer to her to rub her hair reassuringly. It was a mistake as she grabbed him again and dove down with her mouth. “Stop! Stop! I think I hear your father.”
Finally, she sat up, slid off the bed and re-covered herself with an oversized tee-shirt she’d dropped nearby. “Okay, I get it, I’ll leave.” She backed away and stood for a moment before turning to the door. “But, I’ll be back.”
John didn’t sleep the rest of the night, fearing her return. All he could think about was how any normal red-blooded boy would fantasize about the chance he had just had, a chance he’d wasted!
John and Kelly
They began dating casually enough; just two co-workers spending a day at Rehoboth Beach on a hot August day. John had been working as a lab assistant at GHI for a year, fresh out of the University of Maryland, Annapolis, with his new BS degree in biology. It was a good place to start for someone with a science undergrad degree, working in his field, which was rare without a couple graduate degrees. His position wasn’t necessarily high level by GHI standards, but exceptional at his academic level. He’d graduated Summa Cum Laude, which got the attention of the GHI Personnel Director when they needed an entry-level Lab Technician. Also, John had served in the Navy for four years as a corpsman which gave him a maturity edge over other candidates. He’d felt lucky, but never so much so as when Kelly was hired.
John had made female friends in the military and again in college but in both cases; he wanted to get started toward a career before committing to anyone seriously. He’d always liked the life sciences in school, and his father was an engineer, so technical subjects were natural. The corpsman rating in the Navy was appealing and a good stepping stone into medicine at a higher level when he went back to college on the GI Bill. After training at a Navy hospital at Great Lakes, Illinois, he soon learned that Navy corpsmen didn’t always work in a clinical setting or on ships and found himself training and then backpacking with Marines, carrying a weapon in Afghanistan. He gained experience treating wounds that helped crystalize his thoughts about medicine and he saved ample money for college through tax-free combat pay with no significant expenses when deployed. After his second overseas tour, his enlistment ended, and he was accepted into every college applied for. He chose the University of Maryland, Annapolis, with its local naval heritage. He could have gone back to California, but his parents had both passed away and there was nothing else tying him to the state. If anything, his best memories were from his early years in New England; his saddest memories were from the west coast.
Kelly caught his eye on her first day at GHI. She attracted everyone’s attention, although he was the only single guy close to her age. Others admired her academic qualifications, which John understood, but she was appealing to him on a more basic level. She wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense, but her mannerisms, quick smile, and intellect had a magical effect on him. She was pretty in a plain sort of way, slender, with simple long brown hair and green eyes. Her hair changed to boyishly short within a few weeks.
Physically attractive men alone didn’t work with her. She was smart and wasn’t interested in men of lesser intellect. In that respect, John was a mixed commodity. He was smart and well mannered, even if not employed as a scientist. He was more grounded than other men his age. He had all the right personality characteristics for her. On top of that, he was good looking and kept in great shape compared to the men she’d been around for years. The men she’d known while training focused on science and tended to let everything else go; certainly physically, but most also had poorly developed social skills. They just didn’t care about those things. As a result, she had never connected with anyone
that she could get serious about. In some ways, she lacked the same social skills.
They worked in different labs. He supported Lorne and Jules in BSL-4B. He couldn’t work inside the chambers, directly with the germs, but performed secondary analysis of the results, just as Fred Cooper did for Kelly in BSL-4A. She was higher up the totem pole, but it didn’t bother him. He was still exploring career options and hadn’t given up on medical school. At GHI, finally out of college, if only temporarily, he had some freedom to pursue other aspects of life. Kelly stood out like a bright star in the night. She intrigued him, although she barely acknowledged him at first. She wasn’t a prima donna; she just hadn’t ever formed personal relationships.
Joining GHI, for Kelly, was a new experience … her first professional job. She was twenty-six years old, starting a career. It was exciting but also frightening as a journey into the new world outside of school. She had numerous academic friends, but none she’d ever considered as a boyfriend.
Kelly