Chapter 16 Phenotypic Sex #2
He blinked, surprised. “Me?”
“Yeah. After my father’s funeral, I never saw you again, not until you showed up outside my department building. Tell me, what was your life like? Did you go to college? Or what was high school—or secondary school—like for you? Where did you live?”
He looked at me for a long time before responding, “This information about me is available on my Wikipedia page, I believe. Are you saying you never looked me up?”
I dodged the question, because of course I’d looked him up. But just once. “I want to hear about it from you. Will you tell me?”
He met my eyes, inspecting me. Eventually, he nodded, serious and open.
“As I said, I will tell you anything,” he said. “You only need ask.”
* * *
On Monday morning, I’d showered at home, washed my hair, shaved, exfoliated, and then—on a lark—put on a swipe of eyeliner and a hint of mascara.
I even did the thing where you blow-dry while holding your head upside down, so my hair actually had some volume.
By the time I’d eaten breakfast with Andreas, laced up my shoes, and stepped outside into the cold December rain, I decided that Mondays were underrated.
This feeling persisted, even as I badged into the biology building and took the stairs instead of the elevator up to my floor.
Exiting the locker room still feeling fantastic, I did not walk; I sashayed, twirling the chain of my necklace as I walked, the engagement ring strung on it clinking against my sternum with a very faint, satisfying thwack.
I hummed as I made my way down the gray cinder-block hallway to my cubicle, and the tune wasn’t even from the radio or my phone, just a musical outburst from unknown origins.
A postdoc in the hallway looked up, startled, as I chirped, “Good morning!”
She blinked twice, then replied with, “Good morning. And congratulations!”
I did a double take but kept walking, only faltering for a half step. “Thank you?” I called over my shoulder, because I had no idea what she was talking about. Maybe it was a general congratulation, like, “Good job, you showered!”
As I approached the grad student bullpen, I passed two more people in the corridor, both of whom gave me the exact same look. A bright smile, eyes up and down my body, then a nod and a “Congratulations!” One of them even tacked on, “That’s so exciting!” before turning into a copy room.
Now, I was really confused. Had I won some kind of grant lottery?
Was there a rumor that I’d been awarded a Nobel?
(Haha, as if.) Was there a secret plot among my colleagues to haze me with relentless praise?
Or had someone uncovered my supersecret weekend activities, and this was the department’s passive-aggressive way of expressing their jealousy?
Thinking about the weekend made me blush.
Not just a little, but all over. In point of fact, the weekend was the single greatest forty-eight hours of my adult life.
Saturday and Sunday mornings had started with mind-blowing and multiple orgasms. On Sunday, we’d transitioned into a few hours of nearly naked cuddling and eating breakfast foods in bed while we watched cartoons or random old chess matches on YouTube.
Andreas did disappear for an hour or two to do, presumably, chess grand master things, and then came back to the apartment.
On Sunday night, he’d convinced me to try strip chess, which turned out to be less a contest and more a rapid-fire exercise in undressing me with maximum efficiency.
I was naked after less than five minutes, but I didn’t mind.
In fact, I’m not sure I’d ever been so thoroughly, blissfully owned in my life.
He did not go easy on me. Not on the board, and definitely not off it.
But for reasons beyond my comprehension, he was obsessed with making me come as many times as possible.
The only thing that bothered me was that he barely let me reciprocate; any time I tried to make it about him, he’d just flip us over and start again.
The man had stamina. I, meanwhile, walked around the apartment Sunday night on legs that felt like very tired Twizzlers.
But I’d lost count of how many cold showers he’d taken.
I didn’t want to push him to do more than he felt ready for.
And yet—perhaps for the first time ever—I couldn’t wait to make a man orgasm.
I thought about it, making him come apart like he’d done to me over and over, all the time.
Andreas, his body, and especially the parts of himself he withheld, felt like they were starting to become an obsession.
Maybe I need a hobby. I should learn to knit.
I was still a little sore when I reached the open office. Three people glanced up from their monitors as I entered. One raised a coffee cup in salute. Another said “Good morning!” and the third nodded and muttered, “Morning, Samantha.” These were people who usually only offered a faint nod.
Confused, I made my way to my desk. Except—someone was already sitting there. Dmitry.
He slowly spun in my chair to face me, elbows on the armrests, fingers steepled, giving him an air of Bond villain meets mafia consigliere. “Good morning, Samantha. I have been waiting for you.”
“Good morning, Goldfinger,” I replied, lifting an eyebrow at his theatrics, and dropped my backpack at the foot of my desk. “Do you know why everyone is offering me congratulations this morning?”
Dmitry stood, tilting his head slightly to the left then right as though considering my question.
“Hmm. Well, it could be one of two things as far as I’m aware, unless you also won the lottery.
It could be—” Before he could finish, a shadow loomed over the cubicle divider.
James Nieminen. He looked as though someone had rung him out like a wet sock.
“Congratulations, Sam,” he said, voice so clipped it could have doubled as a surgical instrument.
I stared at him for a beat, eventually saying, “Thank you,” and doing my best to sound pleasant and unbothered, which seemed to infuriate him.
He made a sound like he was going to spit, but held it in.
“Since I’m no longer your PI, I’ll need you to hand over all the projects you’ve been working on by the end of the day.
You can just leave anything that’s hard copy with my secretary and everything else can be emailed directly to me.
” He waited a second, for what purpose I had no idea.
I nodded, saying nothing, because I didn’t know what he was talking about. Since when had he ceased to be my PI? My nonresponse seemed to disappoint him. He turned on his heel and stalked off, the back of his white coat flapping behind him.
I watched him depart for a full three seconds before looking at Dmitry, who was blinking at me with a mixture of compassion and high-quality-gossip hunger.
“What is he talking about?” I asked.
Dmitry shrugged, not quite meeting my eyes.
“So, that’s the first thing. It’s all over the department.
Dr. Hauser’s funding was restored and her accounts were unfrozen over the weekend.
You’re now her number one researcher and teaching assistant extraordinaire again.
She’s not in town today, so she asked Carter with the administrative pool to tell you when you arrived.
But Carter’s such a gossip, he told everyone he saw on his way here and asked me to fill you in when you got to work. ”
It took a second for this to sink in. When it did, I lost all semblance of chill. “What? You’re kidding. That can’t be—that’s—oh my god, that’s—”
I hugged Dmitry. I literally leaped into his arms. He didn’t reciprocate, but stood stiff as a post and offered a tepid “Yay.”
I didn’t care. I did a little dance in place, hugged myself, then threw my arms around Dmitry again. “Yay!” I squealed, unable to contain my exuberance.
He let me hug him but offered no further reaction, just looked vaguely to the side, as if waiting for me to finish.
I did, eventually. “Sorry, sorry. I got carried away.” Folding my hands under my chin, I grinned at him. “Thank you for letting me celebrate. Now, what’s on your mind? You seem preoccupied.”
He squinted at me, as if weighing whether to ask what he wanted. After a second, he grabbed my upper arm and pulled me a half step closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial hush. “I thought you would never ask. Is it true that you are engaged to Andreas Kristiansen?”
I flinched back, nearly upsetting a mug of pens and pencils. “Who told you that?”
“James Nieminen,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “He’s been circling around your desk for the last hour like a pickpocket.
And when Carter came by to tell me about the funding restoration with Dr. Hauser, Dr. Nieminen snidely told us that the reason Dr. Hauser’s funding was restored was probably because you, Sam, are engaged to the youngest son of the Kristiansen family, billionaire endowment supporters and controlling shareholders of Genetix.
Is this true? Please tell me it’s true. Even if it’s not true, tell me it’s true.
But prepare yourself. Because Carter is definitely going to tell everyone that too. ”
I groaned and rubbed my forehead. “It’s very complicated. Let’s just say I understand why James believes that. But I have no idea why Dr. Hauser’s funding was restored, and I certainly didn’t have anything to do with it.”
He nodded sagely. “But what about the other part? About you being engaged to Andreas Kristiansen. Is that true?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could, Dmitry grabbed my hand with both of his and locked eyes with me, wild and intense.
“I am a huge fan. I have followed Andreas’s chess career since I was in middle school.
Do not judge me for my parasocial relationship desires, but I have always wanted to be his best friend.
If you are engaged to marry him, then you have to set us up so we can become best friends and I can live out my childhood fantasy of playing chess with Andreas while we sip martinis and him telling me I’m not a terrible player just before he beats me resoundingly.
Can you do this for me? Will you make my dreams come true? ”
I held back the urge to laugh admirably.
Truly, I deserved a metal. With my free hand, I patted his.
“I do know Andreas, and I will introduce the two of you. He is picking me up today after work, so you can meet him as early as today if you want. But whether or not you become best friends is entirely up to your sparkling personality.”
Dmitry made a face I couldn’t interpret, but I was a little worried it was his O face. Then he said, tone as flat as a pancake, “This is the happiest moment of my life.”
I covered my mouth, again trying not to laugh, and he must have noticed because his grip on me tightened for a second before he let go and composed himself. “Thank you. I am so glad I never talked bad about you behind your back.”
This time, I did laugh.