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Okay, so the most potent one at this moment: it's a publishing-*unrelated fantasy.
To have someone whose opinion I respect sit down, and read through all of my short stories and tell me which ones are any good.
I know. Beggarly. But there it is. The stuff of my dreams.
Since it's Thursday, and I don't know what to do with you, here, have a little
(You do know this will be bad, right?
And what if I tell you it's a complete rip-off, which is how all my tributes to things end up?
It no longer has even that recommendation. It is now only less bad. And much less than 2000 words.
Sorry, snoozers.
PS: this is not real fan-fiction. It is an example of how much I canNOT do fan-fiction. Because I have rename people and rework set-ups, and borrow lightly to expand in strange directions.
Gene used a knuckle to touch the tickle on his nose, since his hands were grimy. It was amazing how a little itch could demand relief over the groaning, tingling pain through his body.
“Heated butter knives would be so much more useful,” his assistant said from below. “They'd sell like hotcakes.”
“Or end up on the infomercial channel, free with a toaster oven.” She laughed. He looked down on her from the ladder, and appreciated the pomegranate-stain color of the inside of her mouth. For the first time in the months they had worked together he felt a real desire lick up. “Got that tubing ready? I still vote for chairs with pre-warmed cushions. Gramps like me would appreciate not feeling the circulation blues on certain extremities.”
Not that he was really having that problem. Especially not in this inferno of AC failure in the computer annex. He stretched up on the second-to-last rung of the ladder, and finished unfastening the old part.
“Of course, hot chairs aren't only good for dotage,” he said, meeting her eyes square since she was well aware he was not in his dotage, “and thermal components aren't only for the housewife market. I can think of seven dirtier applications at this very moment.”
She held up the flexible tubing for the vent, her uncute, long hands cupping it with a splayed grace that matched light freckled texture on them. Her body was so subtle under the protective coat she wore, and he felt his mind change.
When she had first come to work for him, he had been sure he wouldn't have to worry about bothering her. The brilliant mind she was revealed to have wasn't a turn-on by itself. His teasing advances had been ignored. The consistency assured him it wasn't that she didn't notice, and if she was trying to hide that she found him attractive, she didn't do a good enough job. He expected that by now.
He took the tubing and let their hands glide along each other.
“Why are we talking of thermal tech in a room as hot as those toaster ovens?” she asked.
“I don't know—we must hate life.”
This was as untrue as claiming to have circulation woes. Men hadn't come back from the war, when hit by the worst biowarfare, because they were suicidal. The ability to hear anything for miles and chronic pain had done that later to a few, but not many. Gene Byron was not the only one who had decided to drown that in pleasure and other chemical reactions. Being rich and still attractive just made it easier.
Constant low-level pain (at best), alcohol dependency, and frequent flashbacks do not a great boss make, however. It had been the lowest point of his career as a research scientist to resort to an intern, until he could find a professional assistant not run off by rumor.
The intern, however, had lasted so far. Gene even looked forward to seeing her most days. Starting with the fact that they usually arrived half-way through the first half of his day, assistants often seemed to be more interruption than help. If he was constantly ill from the mutations that made him capable of dodging bullets in ways that were impossible, he also had need for very little sleep.
Since he was at work by four a.m. at the latest, she arrived when he took his first break at eleven. She stayed until eight, when he left to have his social life. He did not know if she had one, since she brushed off all his questions—it was part of the game where she pretended not to notice his flirting.
And until today's sweltering work to save the databanks, that had been fine by Gene.
“Do you need anything else, Mr. Byron?”
“Is it time I took those pills?”
As far as he could tell, they worked only as well as the last kind, for more money.
“I'll get us both some water, and your pills. Don't climb down until I'm back.”
“If the old man falls, are you going to catch him?”
“Maybe steer you clear of breaking your neck on the desks here, but no. I'm planning to call 911. The likelihood of you falling without having a stroke first seem slim.”
The only thing that really worked to kill the long ache were moments he was too absorbed in something else to notice himself. It was getting harder to do that. At least for any period of time. Who was he kidding? It had never lasted long.
She walked off, still as over-carefully dressed as the first day she walked in, and Gene didn't know what had happened. The crooked half of her teeth looked like part of a wild happy look, instead of bothering him. So he chased her all day, with gentle contacts of eye, body, laughter. No one of these was unusual, but she couldn't miss the change. At the end of the day, she let him help her off with her lab-coat.
She smiled up at him, then her eyes dropped to the shoe-coverings she still had to remove.
“Shall we go out for coffee?” he asked.
“No, Mr. Byron.”
“When did a college student ever turn down a treat? Do you have plans?”
“No.” She smiled up at him again, but there was something in it he had missed last time. “From you, Mr. Byron, the invitation is meant to lead to other things. I must say no.”
“I won't force anything on you. It would be shabby for a man to go on ignoring a girl who admires him once he returns the feelings, though, right? I'm not blind.”
“Exactly. That's why.”
She stripped the covers off her shoes in a sudden attack, the way she took samples and mixed acids.
“You want to be the one who got away, eh?” He didn't like that he almost sounded disappointed. “I have been rejected before, you know. You won't get to be the first.”
“If I like you, I won't reject you to be 'the one who got away'.”
The sweat under her eyes reminded him how hard they had been working. It also drew out the serious look on her face.
“I give up for now, then. Don't make me kiss you good night by being sassy, though. Or would you like that?”
“I would like that very much,” she said, without smiling. “I won't let you, though. What I want to be is a woman you still respect tomorrow morning.”
She left, while he laughed.
She must have returned while he was out at the bar. He walked into the lab the next morning to find she had documented everything she was mid-process on, leaving print-outs at the respective stations. All loose ends were tied up. There was even a note. Gene let amusement invade his face as he opened it.
It was not a good-bye. It was the formal recommendation of a prominent young professor she thought extraordinarily suited to the job, especially in personality. It was dated weeks ago.
Years later, Gene Byron got an invitation to her wedding.
It was not his first contact with Marissa Clyde since she had left his employ. He heard about her, more and more often in his scientific circles, and always enjoyed it. The rarer times he met her, they got caught up talking about the field, and their own projects, painless time slipping by. She was the only woman to come to mind as someone he could talk to, when his first and last honest attempt at a long-term relationship finally failed. He did not call her.
He did go to the wedding. He approved of her husband—a sharp older man, who did the impossible and admired Marissa more than she admired him. He was not a cranky GMO'd vet, either. Gene's biggest compliment of respect that evening was not allowing her little sister to go anywhere with him after the wedding reception. It almost embarrassed him.
When he arrived home, the same man she'd recommended to replace her was still at work in the den, tinkering with code for a new data analysis program.
“Now you owe that wonderful woman your job and an apology,” he remarked to Gregor.
“I owe nothing to a girl who would sleep with you, then throw it in my face by leaving me her job when she ran off.” Gregor was his antithesis in many ways, but his ability to nurse this heat for so long was always surprising to Gene. It appeared they had done a major research project together in college. “Particularly not to go to her wedding.”
Marissa may be the woman Gene would still respect tomorrow morning, but he had his pride. He did not tell Gregor that for all he knew Marissa was a virgin bride. He instead smiled and walked to his bedroom.
“She was too smart to be lured by either of us,” he said to himself. “Men who wanted her only after isolation together had done its trick.”
By all accounts, her husband had met her at a benefit even, and was dazzled. He was an eminent professor of sociology and had little reason to spend time in a lab with her except for genuine attraction.
It was not just that he could respect her—she was one of the few things left in the world he had to smile about. She refused to spoil his memories of her, so they still had power to take him out of himself. Maybe someday she'd also invent a painkiller that worked.
*just had an odd moment where the world "publishing" felt the same to me as it did before I got so inured to hearing it all the time, seeing it in everything I read. Funny.
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Date: 2009-05-28 10:28 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-28 10:39 pm (UTC)From:Why are *you* saying it, though?
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Date: 2009-05-28 10:46 pm (UTC)From:It's just a frussssstrating story to read. They don't get together, even though she likes him. Were they to get together, obviously he would be no good for her and it wouldn't last. BLEH! I don't like the stories where the girl goes off with the guy she doesn't love for the sake of "sensibility".
Personal preference, however.
Maybe I've read too much Mervyn Peake, but how about more description? I kind of had the cheatsheet from when we talked on Facebook, but otherwise there's really no way to tell what time period (80's? Modern? Far-flung future?). I am addicted to adjectives, though, so I'll stop twitching like a heroin addict on your street corner.
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Date: 2009-05-28 11:03 pm (UTC)From:I need to fix that you had the impression she didn't love her husband. It's supposed to be later--and she is in love with him. I may be just a tad reactionary to all the manga with BAAAAD relationships (i.e.: abusive, or completely problematic), so quite a few stories I've been working with have this theme of not going with the forceful one.
I think this needs to be less short, and with description, I'd also add more of his own "Rake" cynicism of the world. (Heyer reactionism, too?) It's supposed to be genuinely happy for him. If not pleasurable.
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Date: 2009-05-28 11:28 pm (UTC)From:Also moar rake plz. I like the weird feeling of it being a happy conclusion for him...like she's the one who schooled the schooler.
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Date: 2009-05-28 11:43 pm (UTC)From:*curses, I was just going to laugh at this thing and run...*
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Date: 2009-05-28 11:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 12:30 am (UTC)From:...I'm complaining that I thought I'd get away with this.
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Date: 2009-05-29 03:31 am (UTC)From:Not sure how much more rake is in it, or spice, but by golly it's now a story that looks like mine. Be that good or bad.
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Date: 2009-05-29 04:34 am (UTC)From:I can think of seven dirtier applications at this very moment.
Is "dirty" the right word? Maybe "much more interesting"? For someone with his, ah, hobbies, he's probably not going to think of these inventive TC applications as especially dirty.
Wait wait one more nitpicking -- would her leaving be more convincing if they had a little more chemistry? If she actually had second thoughts for a moment? Even Pepper Potts--however briefly--has moments of "Damn, I want thatttttttttttt". Maybe it's there already and I'm missing it.
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Date: 2009-05-29 12:17 pm (UTC)From:You're right about the chemistry thing, though. I didn't really establish anything. It ends before it begins, and it's not from her point of view, so that's tough. I'll think on it...maybe at the part where he talks about liking to have her come I can fit something in.
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Date: 2009-05-28 10:35 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-28 10:40 pm (UTC)From:It's a take on the Ironman concept. I think posting it is a mistake, though...
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Date: 2009-05-28 10:45 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-28 11:09 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 12:17 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-28 11:45 pm (UTC)From:Though I had to read this line a couple times in order to actually understand what he was saying:
“I owe nothing to a girl who would sleep with you, though she knew I loved her, and then offer me the perfect job by running away from him.”
Maybe re-word or something?
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Date: 2009-05-29 12:30 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 12:31 am (UTC)From:So definitely fixing is on the horizon.
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Date: 2009-05-29 12:18 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 06:05 pm (UTC)From:I read it backwards, of course, because the ending is much more interesting than the beginning, but I don't think I lost much for comprehension that way.
I loved: “She was too smart to be lured by either of us ... Men who wanted her only after isolation together had done its trick.”
That feels very real and understandable to me. Though it's slightly alarming that a guy makes the conclusion, I'm glad it's in there.
Dude, I so wish I could relate to a heroine going through life being perfectly chaste but leaving a string of embittered lovers in her wake. *^_^*
no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 08:59 pm (UTC)From:We write our fantasies, huh? Though I doubt Marissa would see it that way, since the one didn't mind much, and the other probably never manned up to asking her right out...that is, however, immaterial.
I think it's in character for Gene to make the observation--he's not very shy about his motives, as far as I can see. But if it's startling in a good way, I'm happy.