Mike & Karen Ch. 18

"What, he's sulking?" Karen asked, giving them a wry look. "That seems unlike him."

"I can't say as I blame him, Kar," Lisa answered. "This has got to be a big blow for him. And no, before you ask, I'm not blaming you. I mean, not directly, anyway. Okay, yes, maybe directly, but... I mean... yes, this is all your doing, directly, but... well... I mean, we all agree you were justified with what you did, but... I know he..."

"Jesus, girl, how do you ever plan to be a social worker?" Mona interrupted, giving Lisa a wry look. The redhead blushed. "What mushmouth here meant, Kar, was that we're all kinda concerned for DeBourne on a personal level. I admit, I don't know him that well, but he always helps me without even blinking, and he's always the first to defend a woman from a threat. He's done it for me."

"And he scares me to death, but he's saved me too," Lisa admitted sheepishly.

"And I miss that giant dick like you can't imagine," Janet sighed. "I knocked on his door the other day and got no answer. All I could hear was that depressing Pink Floyd music he listens to on the other side of the door. He's in there, but he ain't coming out."

Karen sighed. "And you all feel like he's collateral damage in my crusade to make the Sciences department behave itself, yes?"

They all shrugged but said nothing. She knew their answer.

"I'm not putting everything on his shoulders, ladies, I promise. But if I might ask for a mild change in perspective... where was he during all this nonsense? Everyone in the department has been aware of the complaints, and my personal efforts to get recognition of the issue. If he is indeed a great force of moral balance, how did we never hear him trumpeting in outrage over the problem?"

None of her three said anything.

"Remember when we all heard Gergo laughing a few months ago about Theoretical being the natural ruler of the disciplines and deserving all the funding by default? Granted, he might have been blustering, and he certainly didn't know we could hear him, but that exact attitude is endemic to Theoretical, from senior professors, to the lowliest first-years."

They all knew she was right. They'd all heard words to that effect, and not just as related by her. Apparently there was an assumed hierarchy, and Theoretical was feeling very entitled about it.

"D'you think Mike believes that?" Mona asked, looking at her friend.

"I am not inclined to believe he would, but the evidence is that he either ignored this state of affairs, or is blissfully ignorant of it as he wanders the aether looking for proof of Calabi-Yau Manifolds," Karen answered simply. "Either way, he wasn't there when the other disciplines needed them, if he feels any sense of justice beyond mere virtue signalling."

"I'm inclined to believe he's a little deeper than that, but I can't refute your statement either," Mona sighed. "He's taking this really hard."

"And I am sorry about that," replied the bronze-haired beauty. "But it's not a grief unfamiliar to the rest of us by any stretch. My field is doing fantastic work this year, and our submission about the applications of quantum cryptography are quite revolutionary. And yet, Theoretical could submit a half-assed supposition done in crayon on construction paper, and they would still get the top spot. I am not terribly concerned about the personal fairness at this point."

"Well, my grandma would be the first one in your corner on this," Mona sighed. "She marched with Dr. King in Alabama, and her life wasn't easy. You make good points, Kar. I guess we all just wish he wasn't involved."

"Maybe we're in this place because he wasn't involved," Karen pointed out.

To that statement, her friends had no answer.

***

"A cloud of eiderdown

Draws around me

Softening a sound,

Sleepy time, when I lie

With my love by my side

And she's breathing low

And the candle dies,

When night comes down, you lock the door

The book falls to the floor..."

Lisa and Karen stood outside the room, listening as the music reached them through the door. It was all they could hear. Lisa looked at her companion, shrugged and mouthed the word 'See?' Karen frowned and stared at the door, not exactly sure what to do.

She reached up and knocked three times, causing Lisa to squeak and tense up slightly. Karen could identify, she felt an unwelcome chill of dread crawl up her spine as she lowered her hand.

What did she have to be nervous about?

"As darkness falls, the waves roll by

The seasons change, the wind is warm

Now wakes the owl, now sleeps the swan

Behold a dream, the dream is gone..."

She looked at Lisa and tilted her head at the door. Lisa swallowed and then took a deep breath before knocking.

"Mike? Mike? It's Lisa, you in there?"

No response, just the slow, languorous tune from the 'Meddle' album.

Karen could feel her heart thumping in her chest. Why? Why was she so anxious about this?

Because that man terrified her, and she didn't know why. Nobody, anywhere, terrified Ekaterina Leda Gloriana Gordon. Except him.

Lisa hung her head slightly and shook it, her eyes closed. She turned and walked away, while Karen followed a moment later. They walked quietly together, until they were out of the men's dorm.

"Well, he's alive, anyway," Lisa sighed. "That's a different album than the last one I heard, and he only has this tiny cassette deck that holds one tape at a time. Or maybe it's 8-track, I dunno. I've just seen it, and it's pretty primitive."

"You've been inside his room?" Karen asked, looking at her roommate, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, went and got Remington from there one day back in late fall," the redhead replied. "She asked me to drop by at a certain time to help her, since she was pretty certain her legs wouldn't be able to hold her up when she was done."

"That girl..." Karen muttered, shaking her head. "Well, clearly there's nothing terrifying in there."

"Not a bit," Lisa said, thinking back. "Just a giant futon, a giant freaking desk, piles of books, some pictures on the walls, and nerdy plastic models spread around, planes and robots and stuff. Pretty harmless nerd décor, really. I was just afraid to jostle a book pile and die in an avalanche, y'know?"

"Not really," Karen admitted. "We've invented this nifty thing called shelves, you might have heard of them."

"Tell that to DeBourne, if we ever see him again..." Lisa snickered, despite herself.

***

Blackwell Manor, the present...

They were leaning against one of the walls in the boudoir, bodies pressed close, and holding each other's cheeks while they kissed lovingly. Freja, her back to the wall, moaned into Alexa's mouth, her tongue wetly swirling around with the blonde's.

They moved slowly against one another, neither wearing a bra, and their breasts squashed together, nipples kissing through the material of their shirts. Freja's fingers flexed gently against Alexa's jaw, the Danish girl's mind swirling with glowing colours. She loved her friend and soulmate so much.

The kiss ended and they both sighed. Freja smirked and gave Alexa's nose a poke. "You are mean, making me say that word."

"Could y'be a bit more specific, Fre?" Alexa teased, winking. "I mean, there's so many English words that give you PTSD to choose from."

"Kusse," Freja whispered, making the blonde giggle. They were much too in love to ever remain mad at one another, especially over something as insignificant as teasing. "You said you were bringing me up here to help you move things around in here. But all we have done is to make out. Not that I am complaining, of course."

"I know, but what I really wanted was to get your opinion on something while the others weren't around, especially Alex," Alexa admitted, taking her friend by the hand and kissing it. "I dragged you in here kinda quickly, so you probs didn't get a chance to see it..."

She led Freja out into the massive bedroom and pointed at the wall directly over the bed. What Freja saw gave her pause- there was a huge, elegantly framed photograph, showing Alex and Alexa at the university Christmas concert. It was displaying the exact moment she had leaped into his arms, and they were almost nose to nose, looking into one another's eyes. It was a perfect moment, captured for eternity.

"Alex saw the larger picture before anyone else did, and asked the photographer to put it aside," Alexa explained, still holding Freja's hand while she gestured at the image. "He had it cropped and centered on the two of us, and especially our faces. Fre, it's... the most wonderful thing I've ever seen."

"It is for me as well, my love," Freja replied in a slightly trembling voice, wiping with a finger at a tear in her eye. "It is so beautiful. And I have never seen you looking more beautiful. This picture, it shows that you have found your Heaven on Earth."

Alexa sniffled now too, moved by her best friend's words. She loved Freja so much. "You're right, Fre, I have. And I... I'm kinda wondering what to do about it."

"How so?" Freja asked, sniffling as she pulled her finger away from her eye and looked at her soulmate.

"How do I... match that?" Alexa asked, gesturing again at the picture. "What on earth could I possibly do or get for him that comes even close to that?"

Freja turned her head and stared at the picture for some time, pondering. Eventually she smiled. "You cannot."

"Oh," Alexa said, sounding slightly disappointed. "No point in even trying?"

"You are misunderstanding me," Freja said, turning and looking at her beloved friend, who, for many years, had been the most important person in her life. She began speaking in Danish, so that the words came easily to her. Her English may have been laboured, but Alexa's Danish was flawless. "My love, you're not meant to match it by finding something else. And he wasn't trying to find something you couldn't match."

Alexa just listened quietly. She heard the honesty in Fre's voice, and she trusted this woman as much as she trusted Alex, or her older sister, or even herself. They were that close.

"You silly bitch, Alex doesn't need any matching gift from you," Freja explained, feeling much lighter and even funny now that she'd reverted to her native tongue. "For whatever fucked-up reason, you are the gift that matches his amazing picture."

A certain dawning happened in Alexa's eyes as she considered. Freja kept talking.

"Y'wanna match his gift? Never stop being the girl in the picture," Freja declared. "Not even for one waking moment. That's what you give back to him. That's the reason you're here, my love."

Alexa was lost in thought, only vaguely aware of the gentle pressure of Freja's fingers caressing hers. Alex had outdone himself, and certainly outdone her, with this present. He'd more or less unintentionally kicked her ass. What could she do about it?

Be the girl he had captured in the picture, all day, every day. If that was what Alex needed and wanted, she would never let him down. Ever.

The girls turned and looked at the picture again, once again holding hands, gazing at the picture.

"Think I can do it?" Alexa asked, lapsing into Danish. Danish, French, and Russian came as naturally to her as English did.

Freja smirked. "You're the only one who can, slut. And I will be very pissed if you don't live up to it, because Alex deserves the very best."

"Got that right," Alexa sighed, nodding. "Kinda reminds me of what my big sissy goes through with Mike. She may never say it out loud, but I think she doesn't mind having her ass handed to her by him once in a while. It makes her universe feel... right."

"I've heard her say that DeBourne men can have that effect on a woman, and I gotta agree with her," Freja quipped before they both dissolved into giggles. It took nearly thirty seconds before the pair composed themselves, and then looked up at the giant portrait again, their arms around one another's shoulders. "Y'said it's a modified version of another pic the photographer took that night?"

The blonde nodded. "Yeah, it's a landscape pic, showing most of the stage. It's centered on Alex and myself, but you and Jeanie are in the pic, rushing out behind me, and Kar and Mike are there too. It's a big family pic, you could say, and it's gonna go up somewhere prominent, to celebrate our family."

Freja sighed contentedly, gazing at the picture dreamily. "I am liking the sound of that," she said, lapsing back into the dreaded English. "Like I am part of this family."

"You are, Fre," Alexa said firmly, turning and pulling her friend in close and kissing her lovingly, even as she kept speaking. Freja moaned in pleasure as she returned the kisses. "You are so very much a part of this family... you an' Jeanie both... Kar an' Mike think so... Alex thinks so... we all love you, and you're family..."

Freja was crying gently as she crushed her friend to herself, kissing her fiercely.

***

Jeanie leaned against the wall, rolling her eyes and chewing on her gum before blowing a bubble. It popped and glued itself to her lips. She licked it off and popped it back dextrously into her mouth with her tongue, but neither of the men in the room took notice. They were too busy gushing like schoolgirls over their new toys.

"It's gonna be awesome when we get this up and running," Alex said as he fixed motherboards into place inside the housing of the new databank that dominated one wall of the room, destined to be Ari's office. The other young man, Ari, was plugging keyboards in to various hardpoints while several high-tech monitors booted up on the long, convex desk in front of him. "We're so way beyond mere gigs of RAM to play with here."

"I mean, I'm glad your parents hired me and all, but why would they if you're so good at this stuff?" Ari asked, testing the sensitivity of a trackball mouse sitting on the desk.

"Because I'm going to school for other things, and they wanted a certified pro looking after this stuff," Alex answered, closing the panel. "They weren't gonna just exploit me on the cheap to run a system that ties into universities around the world, not to mention Blackwell Industries."

"And the security system, it's real secure, right?" the young Jewish man queried.

"That's one of the reasons they hired you, is to make sure it's always working at peak," Alex said, nodding. "Once in a while, mom, dad or I will try to sneak into the system, and you get to try and keep us out."

"That actually sounds really fun, even if I don't see any of the stuff on the other side of the wall," Ari said, grinning. He was a handsome young man, with tan features, and dark hair he wore in a wavy fringe. His brown eyes glinted with a keen intelligence. "I take it y'wont make it easy."

Alex shook his head. "Mom and dad both know their way around programming, mainframing, and security. You'll have your work cut out for you, but they're not jerks about it, either. They won't mind if they beat you fair and square, because that's a learning experience. They'd just be pissed if you were slacking."

"You're not gonna keep him cooped up in this sardine can all day and night, are you?" Jeanie interjected, trying to sound offended on Ari's part.

"No worries, Mrs. LeTourneau," Ari chuckled, shaking his head and a patting a solid suitcase beside his knee. "They've giving me a frightening laptop to help run things from remotely, and a palmtop as well. I'll be plenty mobile."

"Hm," she mused, looking at all the stuff now arranged around the room. "Still, in your off-time, you've got sweet rigs to play video games on."

"No games on these systems, too many back doors," he replied. "They gave me a different laptop for that."

"Well... what about porn?" she queried, making a wry face. "High-def tits on these screens must be awesome."

Ari smiled at her. "To be honest, tits aren't exactly my thing, if you know what I mean."

Jeanie blinked. "You're gay?"

He nodded. "Yeah, aren't you? I thought you and that other girl Freja were married."

"We are, but we both identify as bi," Jeanie said, seemingly slightly distressed at his answer. "So you're like, gay-gay?"

He nodded.

"Not even bi?"

Ari shook his head.

Without a word, Jeanie pulled up her T-shirt until it sat on her collarbone, exposing her full, round breasts. Of course, she was not wearing a bra. She stood there, exposing herself to Ari, who looked at her chest with a friendly smile.

Alex, meanwhile, was staring dumbly, as she was used to him doing. Men...

"Very nice," Ari said finally. "And I like boobs as much as any other gay man can, but I'm not gonna be sprouting wood for them any time soon. Sorry."

"Well, they were bound to fail me sooner or later," Jeanie sighed, lowering her shirt back into place. "Sorry if you feel harassed, I'm not very good with impulse control."

"Not at all," he said pleasantly, waving it off. "Not like I have a boyfriend at the moment who can get jealous of me seeing your wares in any event."

"Well that's good, because he'd go into a frothing rage of jealousy if he saw Alex's dick," Jeanie quipped as she turned and walked out of the room, flashing the peace sign as she left. Silence hung in the air for several seconds between the two men before Ari turned his head to look at Alex.

"I'm still missing a lot about my new employment situation, aren't I?" he finally asked.

"It's probably the real reason my parents are paying you so much..." Alex sighed, shaking his head.

***

1987...

"Well, look at you," Mona said, smirking as she walked up to her friend. "I thought you quit."

Janet started slightly at the sound, but relaxed when she realized it was Mona. She leaned back against the park bench and took another drag on her cigarette before exhaling rather loudly, as if to sigh while blowing out a cloud of acrid grey smoke.

"I did," she replied, gazing off into the distance. "But every once in a while, when I'm stressed, I bum one off somebody and take a few drags, just to calm my nerves."

"Wouldn't it just be easier to keep a pack handy?" asked the black girl as she moved up beside Janet and leaned back.

"Yeah, I don't dare, I'd totally fall off the wagon in a heartbeat, and then Princess would have me assassinated," Janet pointed out. "This keeps it real minimal."

"That's fair," Mona almost snickered, knowing the truth of what her friend had said. If Karen caught Janet smoking, there'd be Hell to pay. Doubtless, that was why Janet was here, in a park well away from campus while she committed this mortal sin. Here, she was somewhat less likely to get caught. Mona had only run into her randomly, on her way back from an art exhibit. "When was the last time you did?"

"Honestly? Like, back in late October, I think," Janet admitted. She took another small drag and blew out the smoke, ignoring the chilly January wind. "I think Princess was responsible for that episode too."

"It's okay if she's responsible for most of them," Mona assured her. "To be fair, she's usually also the answer to our problems, mind."

She held her hand out, indicating that Janet should pass over her contraband. Janet raised an eyebrow and handed the cigarette to her friend. "Since when do you smoke?"

"I don't, but I gotta admit, my nerves are a little frayed these days too, and I'm willing to give it a shot," Mona sighed before bringing it to her lips and taking a drag. She winced suddenly and began coughing, smoke gouting from her mouth and nose like a spastic dragon. Janet watched in amusement as her friend almost doubled over, her lungs rebelling against this treatment.