Fook (4 page)

Not really noticing that Officer Sanchez's
younger partner was of Asian descent until he threw out the
descriptive term about Oliver's biological father, Bill quickly
turned back to the officer scribbling in the notepad as if to
confirm that the use of the term Asian was still socially
acceptable. The officer's eyes remained focused on his pen as he
added the new information to the page before him, apparently
undeterred by the term or just not willing to show his discomfort
with the word.

"The father wasn't involved at all in the
process," Jennifer took over answering the officer's questions. "As
far as we know, Tiffany's family and the adoption agency were never
able to determine who the kid was. As far as anyone knows, he isn't
even aware that Oliver exists."

"Alright, fair enough. Well, I don't think
that there's much else we can do here, so—“

“—You're not even going to go out and look
for the guy?" Bill interjected.

"Mr. Nesbit," the entire department has been
notified to keep an eye out for anyone in the area dressed in black
jeans and a black hoodie but we really don't have much else to go
by here, unless you've got some more information for us that we
haven't yet heard.”

Thinking for a moment, searching his brain
for any additional details from the brief encounter.

"Listen, I'm going to make sure that a car
comes through this neighborhood at least once an hour for the next
few days. In the meantime, if you think of anything else, please
give me a call."

Officer Sanchez removed a business card from
his pocket and handed it to Bill.

"I suggest you get an alarm company out here
first thing tomorrow morning and get this place secured. I know it
can be expensive but the peace of mind is worth it. If we find
anything else out, we'll be in touch."

And with that, Officer Sanchez and his
partner exited the room.

"Do you think he'll come back?" Jennifer
asked worriedly, as if it was the first time the thought had
occurred to her.

“Who, the officer?”

“No. The guy.”

"I don't know. I'll get ADT out here in the
morning and I know you don't like them, but I'm getting a gun.”

FOUR

Out of Order

The Sharpie sign, taped to the elevator
doors, was the perfect conclusion to a night Jason wanted nothing
more than to forget.

The walk back to his dorm, though relatively
short, seemed to take forever; thanks to the debacle that had been
his date playing over and over in his overactive mind. By the time
he had reached the ten story building he'd called home for the past
four years, he'd wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and
sleep away the remainder of the disappointing evening. Instead,
staring at the broken elevator, he now realized that he had nine
flights of stairs to continue his obsessive examination of his
relationship failings, past and present.

He could forget about tonight. Sure, it hurt
to find out that he was apparently too...whatever he was that made
it so horrible to even complete a casual dinner. It would take some
time to put it behind him but eventually he would. After all, it
wasn't the worst thing that had been done to him by the fairer of
the sexes. The memory of Jenna Bishop on the other hand; that was
one that still lingered and probably would for the remainder of his
days.

Jenna Bishop. The very thought of the name
made Jason want to run and hide in shame. Even though no one in
Boston, besides his longtime friend and now roommate Derek, knew
about the incident, he couldn't help but think that, at times,
people were still whispering the embarrassing little details to one
another whenever they saw him. Looking back on the incident he
couldn't believe how gullible he'd been, but it had been Senior
year of high school and Jenna had been the aggressor, approaching
him for a date, so for that reason alone he understood his puberty
driven mistake.

The entire school had been in shock to find
out that he and Jenna, a cheerleader, were going out. He'd
overheard people ask her what she was thinking going out with
someone like him, as if he carried the plague or something, but he
didn't care. Jenna was beautiful and for some reason she wanted to
be with him or at least that's what he'd been led to believe.

Only a week into the budding romance, they'd
gone to a movie, they'd had dinner at her house with her parents
and obnoxious little brother, who also seemed to question what in
the hell their daughter and sister were doing with the frail, nerdy
kid from school.

By the end of the weeklong relationship he'd
felt on top of the world. Everything was going to change for him.
He'd expected high school to be an unpleasant necessity in life. A
sentence of abuse at the hands of kids more popular than he but
now, having catapulted his way into the social elite with his
romantic connection, everything was looking up, which was probably
why he hadn't found it odd when Tyler Bidwell had invited him to a
party that weekend.

The night had started great. His arrival had
been marked by dozens of excited peers welcoming him to the party
and offering him drinks, which he'd politely declined. He’d enjoyed
the flirtatious advancements of numerous girls, which oddly Jenna
hadn't taken offense to and by nine o' clock, he'd found himself in
an upstairs bedroom with Jenna straddling his chest and his hands
bound to the bedposts. The very thought of what was occurring
should have been more than enough for him to finish right then and
there given his lack of experience but amazingly he'd managed to
contain his hormonal excitement.

Everything after that was a bit fuzzy.
Likely, it was his brain’s way of trying to protect him from the
devastatingly embarrassing spectacle that had followed. All he
could remember clearly was Jenna excusing herself for a moment and
then, the next thing he knew, the room was full of people pointing
and laughing at the half naked kid tied to the bed. There were
jokes and names coming from all directions as he’d struggled to
free himself from the silk scarves holding him prisoner. The flash
of what seemed like dozens of cameras had been blinding, making it
that much harder to undo the well tied knots. To make matters
worse, there was a giant purple dildo laying on his chest. It had
probably been a normal sized dildo, but no dildo is normal sized
when you’re tied to a bed with your pants around your ankles in a
room full of your peers.

Thankfully, he’d managed to free himself,
return his pants to his waist and with his head down, scurry to
freedom. Needless to say, he hadn't even bothered talking to
another girl until sophomore year of college when Derek had finally
convinced him to go out on a date with Samantha Fishorn, a girl
from his physics class. Samantha had been nice, but nothing had
come of the brief romance so his solo existence had continued,
occasionally interrupted by a date or two over the last three
years.

IX

The crooked Roman numerals on the cold metal
door were a welcomed interruption to his mind's once again,
unwelcomed wandering. Pulling the door open, Jason exited the dim,
concrete stairwell into the only slightly better lit, carpeted
hallway that led to his increasingly desired dorm room, and within
it, his bed.

It was nights like this that he wondered why
he even bothered to go out in the first place. Nothing good had
ever come from his attempts at social interaction. Just as he had
done right after that incident with Jenna so many years ago, he
needed to focus on what was truly important. He needed to dedicate
all of his attention to the one thing that mattered most. He and
Derek were on the verge of a major breakthrough. They were about to
make science fiction a reality. That breakthrough was what mattered
most and the night's failure was just the push he needed to bring
this thing across the finish line. He just hoped that Derek was
close on his end, as he'd been claiming to be for the last month
and a half.

Slipping his key into the lock, a renewed
energy had taken over and Jason couldn't wait to find out if his
roommate was home. He couldn't wait to find out the status of the
machine and the last component needed to test his theory. He turned
the handle and pushed the door inward, the questions impatiently
waiting on the tip of his tongue, fighting to be the first one
uttered.

"So, did—?“ Jason began to ask as he slipped
into the room, closing the door behind him.

“—Where have you been?" an unfamiliar,
female voice interrupted the winning question, causing all of the
others to retreat back into Jason's throat.

Jason turned to see a topless blonde sitting
in Derek's bed, her lower half likely equally as bare if not for
the white sheets strategically positioned to show no more than an
exposed upper thigh.

"Oh my god!" The girl's demeanor quickly
changed from seductively playful to bashfully horrified at the
sight of the unfamiliar company as she struggled to utilize more of
the sheet’s concealing surface.

Shocked and embarrassed as well, Jason
quickly threw his left hand up over his eyes.

"Jason, right?” the girl, recovering from
her initial shock and now fully covered, nervously questioned the
stranger.

"Uh huh," Jason responded, continuing to
hold his hand over his face, not sure if he should enter further
into the room or just turn and run from his own home. He shouldn't
have been surprised. This was classic Derek. Just as
he
was
incapable
of interaction with the opposite sex, Derek
couldn't keep them away. "Is Derek in the bathroom?” he questioned,
knowing that he probably looked like an idiot standing in the short
hall beside the bathroom door carrying on a conversation while self
blindfolded.

"No, he said something about an electron
multiplier and darted out of the room about twenty minutes ago. I
thought it was some kind of toy or something he wanted to use."

Jason couldn’t believe the unclothed girl’s
lack of embarrassment and sexual honesty. He could feel his face
turning red. "Electron multiplier?"

"Yeah, I thought it might be a vibrator or
something."

“Oh my god," he thought. "I'm going to go
find him," Jason excused himself as he slowly backed up, reaching
for the doorknob behind him with his eyes still covered.

The distracting presence of the naked girl
on the other side of the room combined with the excitement that
Derek might have finally solved the problem, which had halted their
progress for the past couple of months, must have been enough to
silence the opening of the bathroom door because it wasn't until he
felt something warm and soft against his right hand that he
realized that someone else was standing behind him.

"What game is thi—?” the second girl began
to playfully question before realizing that she too had mistaken
Jason for his roommate.

Jason dropped his hand from his eyes to
reveal a second, completely nude coed; this one a beautiful
brunette who was standing between him and the door. They both just
stared for a moment, apparently both in shock as he realized that,
instead of finding the doorknob, his hand was resting against the
girls upper thigh, in the crease between her hip and her more
intimate of areas.

The girl screamed. Jason quickly withdrew
his hand and doing everything he could to avoid further contact,
slipped around the girl and out of the room.

*****

“Thanks to you, I’m probably going to prison,” Jason
announced as he entered the lab, ensuring that the door locked
behind him.

“Huh?” Derek responded, the binocular like
glasses remaining fixed on the small electronic device before
him.

“Your company. I had a nice...brief...but
nice little conversation with one of them. But I think I might have
sexually assaulted the one in the bathroom.”

“That’s good,” Derek mumbled, obviously
completely engrossed in his work as a small puff of white smoke
billowed up from the tiny soldering gun in his hand.

“Yeah, I thought so. Then, the strangest
thing happened.”

Derek remained silently focused on the small
metal component before him.

“As I was banging the blonde one,” Jason
continued, now standing across the counter from his roommate, “and
believe me, she was loving every minute of it, who would you
imagine suddenly jumped out of the closet to join in?” Jason
paused, looking for a reaction. “Your mother.”

“How was my mother? I never heard a
complaint from my dad,” Derek replied, looking up with a grin.

“You son of bitch,” Jason laughed. “You were
listening the entire time, weren’t you?”

“What?”

“Funny.”

Derek, still smiling, went back to his
work.

“Seriously though. You are aware that there
are two naked girls in our room right now?”

“What happened to the third one?”

Based on the serious tone of the question
and the very possibility of such a situation that involved Derek
being true, Jason wasn’t sure if his roommate was joking or
not.

“I guess I lost track of time,” Derek looked
up at the clock on the wall then back down at the soldering gun as
he lightly touched it to the metal, funnel like object again.
“There.”

“There, what?”

“It’s done.”

“You’ll have to forgive me. I’m only a month
away from graduating with a bachelors in astrophysics and molecular
biology but that in no way has made me qualified to understand what
that thing is,” Jason motioned to the tiny silver funnel and
wires.

“It’s an electron multiplier,” Derek
answered, as if common knowledge, while holding up the small
electronic device.

“The name’s fairly self explanatory. What
is—?”

“—This is the answer,” Derek interjected,
getting up from his chair, making his way toward a tall cabinet in
the corner of the room.