Ann Marie's Asylum (Master and Apprentice Book 1) by Christopher Rankin

Author:Christopher Rankin [Rankin, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2013-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

...

That evening, while Ann Marie and Dade prepared for his trip in the tank, he told her about his strange encounter with Ivy. Right away his manner seemed grave. “I can’t be sure...” he said. “But I think I saw her teleport right in front of me.”

“That couldn’t be,” said Ann Marie. “It must have just looked like that from where you were standing.” She added, somewhat delicately, “Maybe these experiments affect you more than you know. Maybe you were seeing things.”

“That’s not what it was,” Dade said. “There was something wrong with her. I could feel it.”

“What do you mean by, wrong with her? Human beings do try to talk to each other on occasion. Maybe she liked you.”

Dade crumpled up his face as if he had just caught a whiff of rotten eggs. “It’s a revolting thought,” he said. “Humans are worse than chimps when it comes to sex. I don’t think that’s what it was though. She knew things about me.”

“The internet is full of information and crazy rumors about you, thanks to those conspiracy wackjobs and religious nuts.”

“She knew things about my mother. She also knew that I’m asexual.” He thought back to the incident and added, “She seemed to delight in disgusting me.”

“What did she say exactly?”

“She asked me if I’ve ever fornicated. Well, she didn’t use those words exactly. She asked like she already knew the answer.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her of course not. There was no reason to lie.”

Ann Marie was shocked by his disclosure but did her best to hide her reaction. Dade didn’t seem perturbed in the least by the discussion. He was more focused on attaching the electrodes to his skin with sufficient pressure so they wouldn’t detach and float away in the tank. “You’re unique, Dr. Harkenrider.” She told him. “That’s for sure. I admire it, actually.”

“What’s to admire?”

“All that self control,” she said, “all that focus in your life.”

“I don’t think you understand,” he told her. “For me, it’s not a matter of self control. I’m just not that kind of being. It’s a language that I’ll just never speak. The thoughts and urges that normally torture men and women for most of their lives...I’ve never known them. I’ve never known that cruel joke. Thank goodness.”

“How can that be?”

Dade considered the question carefully. The look on his face suggested that the answer was troublingly unclear. “It’s something Bernard did to me when I was young,” he said. “It’s the one thing he gave me that I’m grateful for.”

“I’m a virgin too,” Ann Marie said to him. “Never even been close.”

“Good for you,” said Dade. Most of his attention was centered on attaching a sensor pad to the side of his neck and he acted as though her admission was trivial.

“Boys have liked me, I guess,” she went on. “But when they’re around me a lot, it seems to change. I don’t know what it is.”

For the first time in the conversation, Dade looked at her attentively. Then he laughed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.