Captured Souls

Notes and Journals of Dr. Miriam Frederick re: Experiment 698

Journal

In examining the human experience, one realizes that perfection appears in many forms for many people. What is perfection for one may not be perfection for another.

Beauty. Brains. Brawn.

Honesty. Loyalty. Intelligence.

Flawless flesh. Physical symmetry. Sexual stamina.

Quick wit. Compassion. Lust.

What are the qualities that define perfection?

Perspective?

In the end, if there were a type of mate one could have, one could choose, perhaps create, that human being would likely encompass enhanced qualities of intelligence, beauty and physical stamina.

Almost any human has a wish list and I think we all have the same one. How we view the potential candidates on our wish lists is somewhat subjective, although intelligence and stamina are measurable. Physical beauty or handsomeness is a more subjective commodity.

Is it even possible to find one human being with enhanced qualities of intelligence, beauty and stamina?

What lengths would I go through to find such a mate?

Would it ever be possible to create one mate out of three or more? Or would it be more preferable to have a polygamous arrangement to satisfy each facet of desire as it arises?

What would I provide in return? After all, there needs to be an exchange to keep the universal laws of equilibrium in balance.

My undying love and loyalty, a home, financial stability and endless nights of ecstasy would be part of their own personal paradise. I think it could be an equal trade if I find the right specimens.

My journals and observations will record the emotional and physical progress of my latest experiments.

This journal will contain my more subjective observations. There is another book filled with my detailed calculations, charts and formulas. The two books remain separate in case of damage or theft.

So my new quest begins.

Experiment Number 698

Specimen 1

When I first spied him across the room, I suspected he would indeed be a worthy candidate for experiment number 698. It was indicated by a punch in my solar plexus. The visuals were perfection, no question. Until I met him, exchanged verbiage with him and interacted with him, I couldn’t quite be certain if he would be as intelligent as I anticipated. There he stood, long and lanky, in the doorframe that connected the party room to the hallway, his shoulders slightly slouched as he drew on a cigarette, blue eyes staring directly at me.

He watched me, hypnotic, glittering eyes observing my every movement. Calculating. Predatory. The idea of it amused me. His youth was intoxicating. The fact that anyone dared to smoke inside at a party anymore was also an indication that this rebel with a pen could be just what the doctor ordered.

The chattering noises and laughter of our mutual academic friends drinking around us faded from my consciousness as I saw only him.

Lion to prey. Tony to Maria. Dr. Frank-N-Furter to his Rocky. Dr. Miriam Frederick to Author Scott Gravenhurst.

I walked towards the honored guest, prim in my three-piece, grey skirt suit and sky-high stilettos, a predatory slink in my gait. He kept his stance in the doorframe as I stepped past him, lightly brushing his chest with my elbow on the way through to the patio.
 

Summer air was warm on my face. A light breeze rippled through the mature trees that lined the gardens of the faculty building.
 

He followed me.

“Dr. Miriam Frederick,” I said as I held out my hand to him. He took it and instead of shaking it, he lightly brushed his lips to it.

“Charmed,” he said and released my hand. “Scott Gravenhurst.”

“Ah, yes. Our visiting guest,” I said, pretending to stare around for someone more important. I waved towards a nobody and turned my attention back towards Specimen 1.

“Yes, I’m here for a few days,” he said. His gaze traveled from my carefully slicked-back bobbed hair, my full red lips and then down my sleek figure.

When his attention returned to my eyes, he stammered. Very slightly. My green contacts were working their ethereal magic.

“Mmm…Ms. Frederick,” he said.

I licked my lips, breathing in the sweetness of the nervous sweat underneath his Jimmy Dean persona.

“Yes, Scott,” I smiled, coyly.

“Isn’t the moonlight lovely tonight?” he led me out farther onto the patio.

“Toronto is beautiful this time of year,” I told him. “We have the most beautiful summers. Can you hear the leaves whisper?”

“Yes, they’re telling me that there are many secrets to be shared.”

He smoked his cigarette as we both stared at the stars and the moon. The murmurs of people farther in the gardens mingled with the light classical soundtrack that filled the ancient halls of the old faculty building.

He began to recite a poem. I joined in and we laughed together.

After several poems, we stopped and the distant murmuring and tinkling of glasses became backdrop ambiance once more.

“I guess another drink is in order,” he said, noting my empty glass.

“Most definitely,” I said and slipped my hand through his as we navigated through the clumps of people. I was as tall as he was, my shoes were so high. The view of people giving me darting glances was easier to see elevated above most.

There were a few raised eyebrows aimed in my direction but I didn’t mind. My nights with various colleagues left different imprints, even years later. I stopped mingling with my cohorts long ago as it became apparent that some people can’t split their alliances to the different compartments of their lives. Complications and emotional drama only waste time that can be better focused on making progress in one’s field.

Even wives can’t seem to forgive me, even though I never wanted their spineless wonders for more than a few hours. But my importance to the university is incalculable, so the disenchanted put up with my idiosyncrasies. If not for me and most of the people in this room, there wouldn’t be grant money for parties, studies, renovations and home laboratories. Behavior Systematic Neurological Studies is in big demand in these times of psychopaths and terrorists. So we all keep our secrets and each other’s.

I smiled at my conquests as I let Specimen 1 order me another glass of wine and we found a nook in the room to stare out at the party. University bigwigs gossiped in little cliques, whispering, no doubt mostly about me, likely seeing the innocent act of Specimen 1 bringing me a glass of wine as me luring him into my lair. Which I am, of course, but it’s not seemly to be gossiping right in front of my face.

“Your peers?” Specimen 1 asked as he caught me frowning.

“Colleagues, perhaps,” I said, drinking deeply from the wine he gave me. “However, most of my friends aren’t from the university. And my colleagues rarely see me. I do the majority of my work in my home laboratory. More convenient.”

“Oh,” he said. “What do you do?”

“I’m a scientist but I love to read, which is why I’m here tonight,” I started to walk so that we weren’t trapped in a corner. “I love to mingle with authors and publishers. I also love to go dancing. Clubs. Parties. Probably not really the run-of-the-mill geek you conjured up in your mind.”

“You’re too beautiful to be a scientist,” he said. His youthful earnestness slipped out for a moment from the too-cool-for-school author pose.

“You’re very kind,” I said.

“I’ve always been intrigued by mature women,” he said.

My dear writer boy did not disappoint. He was indeed the classic womanizer.

My heart raced as he spoke; he had a wonderfully crisp accent that I could have listened to for hours. He was only in town for a few days, a special guest-author speaker at the university as part of a seminar series. We easily bantered about books. His face was lean and he had an air of sadness about him. He writes about dark things, maybe because he’s lived them or maybe now that he’s drawn such ideas in with his fantasies, they haunt his reality. It will be interesting to find out.

I will find out.

The more we drank, the more ideas we seemed to share. I was deliciously warm, lightheaded and fidgeting in hormonal overdrive from Specimen 1’s pheromones.

“Tell me about your next book,” I asked him. “What is it about?”

“I’ve just signed a three-book deal with a major publisher to write about a fictional dark world of psychological madness.”

“How delightful,” I nodded.

“Tell me about your experiments, Doctor,” he whispered, tilting my head up with his fingers tucked under my chin. I stared into his eyes as the warmth of his soft lips lightly brushed mine.

“Come with me and I’ll show you,” I said, taking his hand and leading him out of the party room and down the hallway.

The fluorescent lights buzzed and hummed noisily as my heels clicked along the marble tiles. I passed three doors and stopped at the fourth. I was in luck. The small staff bathroom was open, complete with two comfortable chairs and a table. I pulled him in and locked the door behind us.

I pushed him into one of the leather chairs and straddled him, hiking my tight skirt up as I slid along his long legs.

“My, Doctor.” The words passed his lips when I pressed my mouth against his.

What happened next sealed his fate. Specimen 1 was nicely endowed and we kept pace in frenzied secret lust. When the chair lost its intrigued, I lay on the floor, his breath hot on my neck as he impaled me.

As my hands clutched his back beneath his shirt, his flesh warming me inside and out, I thought about the next phase of my experiment and his place in it.

I came once, twice, three times in that little bathroom. His climax was accompanied by a loud cry and then my name whispered into the crook of my neck.

We lay on the floor for a moment, I savored the delightful smoothness of his young, firm skin. His sweat mingled with mine until at last, he pulled himself out and off of me. He was almost coy as he slid his pants back up. I laughed.

“A most excellent party, Doctor,” he grinned.

“Welcome to Toronto,” I smiled.

We returned to the party and made our rounds. He was whisked away by his hosts to be introduced around the room. I stood alone mostly, dodging glares from spurned suitors.

At one point, I approached the book-club clique of behavioral scientists and tried to shoehorn my way into their conversation. I let them prattle at me, and I them, while I watched as Specimen 1 was led outside and, thus, to the taxi that would send him off to his hotel.

Journal

I continue with my work, struggling to perfect my slippery idea into reality. A complicated, yet surprisingly simple, concept.

It was time to build the family.

There needed to be a way to entice someone to want to be part of a team. My team. But would the team players know about each other?
Should
they know about each other?

Loneliness is a fear for most. Sexual compatibility is something we all crave. With sexual compatibility, there would be no loneliness.

Part of my research involves capturing that moment when everything seems so perfect—two bodies, two hearts beating against each other, flesh warm against flesh. Anything else on earth, one can do for one’s self. But to have someone’s arms around you while they are in you, that needs partnership.

And in that moment of perfection, when everything feels “exactly right”, there must be a way to capture that sensation and relive it again and again.

•Rewire the brain to crave specific things—people, objects, fetishes…

•Electrical impulses. A device to transmit that isn’t obvious. Something simple like a cell phone or an MP3 player, a GPS, a laptop, a hearing aid

•Create an environment to stimulate and placate the primary obsession or creative impulse