IllicitImpulse (7 page)

He stopped without sending the message and stared at the
screen until it faded to black. If he was right, he could just tell her to make
a couple of changes to her routine with Tal and then wait to hear how it went.
Or he could tell her to make a couple of changes to her routine and
watch
to see how it went.

She’d invited him to join them, right? No, she’d dared him
to join them. They probably never thought he’d take them up on their little
dare, much less have ideas about how to heighten the effectiveness of the
pills.

He pressed the center button again to reawaken the screen
and then deleted the text he’d started. Then before he could start thinking
again, he typed,
Think I know why pills were slow but need to be sure. Up
for in-person observation as we discussed. You pick time and place.

He pressed the button to send the message and hung on to the
BlackBerry long enough for the screen to go dark again. After a few minutes of
staring at it in his hand as if it were about to break into song, he put it
back on the nightstand.

What was he doing?

You’re experimenting.

He dropped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling
again. He’d have to wait until morning. No way she’d be looking at her phone at
this hour.

So what were they doing—

The BlackBerry interrupted the spiral of his thoughts with a
quiet beep. From the bed, he watched the little red light blinking in the dark.
Already? Maybe she had been looking at her phone.

He reached for the handheld and called up his message.

It’s on. Meet u at Tal’s Friday nite. Txt u 2moro with
time.

He returned the BlackBerry to its place on the nightstand.
This was crazy. Maybe the craziest thing he’d ever done.

But when he lay down again, he closed his eyes with a smile
on his face.

John leaned back to search for the street number over Tal’s
doorway. At least he thought it was Tal’s. Across the street, a building whose
coat of mustard-yellow paint did little to hide its industrial appearance
proclaimed itself 98 in garish red. That made this 99, he supposed, but nothing
on his side of the street confirmed that this was his destination.

Damn stupid way to run a business.

He peered through the window into the darkness inside and
made out angular shapes. It looked like a welder’s shop.

More like a chop shop. A legitimate business has a street
number over the door.

For a moment, he contemplated banging on the metal door with
his open palm. Then he saw the little button centered in a metal faceplate next
to the door. All it needed was a little hand-lettered sign.
Deliveries At
Rear Entrance Only.

John pressed the button. The buzzer that echoed inside
seemed loud even on this side of the bomb-shelter-style door. He smiled to
himself. The notion that less was more had evidently never occurred to Tal.

He shifted the strap of his messenger bag on his shoulder.
Distant voices rose in laughter from the dark across the street. The strip of
restaurants he’d passed earlier sounded much farther away than just a couple of
blocks.

The giant door slid open with a noise like a subway train.
Grace stood grinning on the other side, her hair tied down with a pink bandana.
“Hey there. Come on in.”

He entered the cavernous space and checked the place out
while Grace shut the door behind them. Two treadmills faced the enormous
windows. Nothing else in the jungle of metal bars and burgundy leather demanded
electricity. Like a boxer’s gymnasium, Tal’s place was stocked with iron plates
and barbells. Ceiling fans stirred the air, keeping the steamy heat from
turning oppressive. A smooth smell that reminded him of his mechanic’s waiting
room mingled with the fragrance of cinnamon.

“Are you baking?” he asked.

“No. That’s a candle.” She chuckled. “I just like to set the
mood a little when I’m here. This isn’t the most feminine place in the world.”

He turned his face up into the warm breeze coming from the
ceiling fans. “Quite a setup he has here.”

“Isn’t it? He built this up from nothing.” She ran her
fingertips over one end of a bar suspended over one of the benches, and he
imagined Tal spotting her here, standing behind her and counting as she lifted.
“All this was just empty warehouse when he started.”

John whistled, impressed. Maybe pharmaceutical research was
the wrong line of work.

“Yeah. Come on, let’s go upstairs. Tal’s on the phone.” She
led him on a winding path among the machines toward the back, where a spiral
staircase rose to the loft. Next to it, light from a partially open door caught
John’s eye. Beyond the doorway, he made out some of the office he’d seen so
often in his mind. John craned to see what else was back there, maybe catch a
glimpse of Tal, but Grace tugged at his sleeve. “Come on. No sightseeing.”

Cool sweat slid down the back of his neck in spite of the
heat. Was he really going through with this? He wasn’t even sure of what
this
was yet.

Then Grace took his hand and led him up the stairs, and if
the die had not been cast before, it was now.

“So I didn’t take the pill yet,” she said, preceding him
into the loft, a far less utilitarian space than the one they’d just left.
“Just like you texted.”

“Oh good.” John paused at the top of the steps, next to the
foot of the bed. Tal lived in a typical bachelor pad, where he and whatever
guests he entertained would encounter the bed immediately upon arrival. John
followed Grace into a small dining area—not that his own was any bigger—with a
table just large enough for a game of cards or dinner for two. At the edge of
the loft was a leather sectional, just the sort of thing he’d expected Tal to
have, in front of a TV the size of a movie screen.

“Did you bring replacements or something?” She opened Tal’s
refrigerator and surveyed its contents.

“No, the pills are fine. I just have a theory.”

“A theory, huh?” She turned to him. “Want a drink?”

He did. Badly. He imagined Tal kept imported beer in the
fridge, but what he really wanted was probably in one of those cabinets.

“I know you’re on duty,” Grace said. “Just a little drink?”

“No, that’s okay.” The thought of Tal finding him upstairs,
drinking his liquor in his kitchen when they hadn’t yet been introduced, bugged
him a little. Besides, he wasn’t settling in for a show. He was gathering data,
which meant he had to be as lucid as possible.

His gut twisted into an icy knot. Lucidity felt far, far
away and they weren’t really doing anything yet. Unable to settle on something
to do with his hands, he pushed his glasses up.

Grace reached for his messenger bag. “At least you can take
your coat off.” She carried his bag to one of the dining chairs while he took
off his coat.

They sat across the table from each other and spent a few
moments not making eye contact before he looked around the loft’s compact
space. He hoped to find something to make small talk about, but before he could
ask how on earth Tal managed to keep such an enormous building this warm, she
broke the silence.

“Are you still okay with this?”

He searched her expression for hope or hesitation but found
only curiosity.

“Yeah.”
Hell of a time to ask.
“Yeah, of course.”

“Because I can tell him your job called.”

That made more sense. Apparently he hadn’t been expected to
rise to the challenge, and now that he had, it was time to start protecting his
delicate sensitivities. “I’m fine,” he said. “Are
you
okay with this?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the stairs before she
answered. “Sure, I’m fine.”

He waited for her to turn back to him. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She offered him the broad grin he was used to
seeing. “It’s all right.”

He nodded and returned her smile, hoping to reassure her
without seeming too eager.

“So why did you want me to hold off on taking the pill?” she
asked.

“I told you, I have a theory.”

“You don’t want to share?” Her teasing eased the tension in
his shoulders. Everything really would be fine now, wouldn’t it?

“I can’t, really. Your knowing about it might skew the
results.” He sat back in the chair. “You’ll see once it happens.”

“A secret?”

Her voice transformed his prudent experimental decision into
something scandalous. Maybe even seductive. The familiar pinch of need—the
desire for more limbic chaos in his all too orderly life—gave way to something
that felt dark and dangerous, the edge of an abyss that might go on for miles.

He swallowed and rested his chin on one hand. “A secret.
Don’t I get to have a secret?”

“Just seems a little…I don’t know.” She bit her lip and he
watched greedily as she searched for the right word, waiting when ordinarily he
would happily have supplied it for her. “Risky.”

He rested his hand on hers. “Grace.” She met his gaze and he
removed his glasses. “I’d never let anything happen to you. Don’t you know
that?”

She was quiet for a moment, watching him. Without his
glasses, he couldn’t determine whether she was blushing, but her hand shifted
beneath his, and warm, strong fingers tightened around his.

“Mighty quiet up there. Y’all start without me?”

“There he is.” Grace rose to greet Tal as he emerged from
the stairs. “Now how could we start without you?”

When he stood and put his glasses back on, John realized
that, clichéd though it might have been, he’d thought Tal would be bigger.

In fairness, Grace had said he was built like a football
player. The man who was now sizing him up was simply not that big, but he did
look like someone who worked out for a living. He had on a pair of those nylon
pants that basketball players wore and a t-shirt with the barely legible words
“Virginia Baseball” stretched across his chest.

Tal extended a tanned hand and introduced himself. “Tal
Crusoe.”

“John March.” John shook hands with him, half-expecting Tal
to crush him in the typical jock’s show of dominance. Instead he got the
greeting Tal might have offered a client or a vendor, two firm pumps before
release.

“Good to meet you finally.” Tal’s arm slid around Grace’s
shoulders. “You have any trouble finding the place?”

He considered mentioning the absence of street numbers.
“Nope. I was telling Grace what an impressive place you have.”

Tal grinned. “Thanks.” He let go of Grace and headed past
John into the kitchen. “Want a beer or something?”

“No, thanks. Some water would be nice.”

“Just water?”

“Yeah. Lots of ice.” John followed Grace as she went back to
the bed but could not bring himself to sit on it with her. Instead he paced
awkwardly near the footboard and watched his host at work in the kitchen.

From behind the freezer door, Tal asked, “So is it true that
men can’t use these pills?”

Grace snickered quietly and shook her head.

“It’s not like they’ll hurt you,” John said. “I just wonder
how much good they’re going to do for you. Guys don’t really need anything to
suppress oxytocin.”

Grace glanced conspiratorially at John. “I told him all this
already.”

Tal let the freezer door fall closed and spared them a
glance as he cracked ice into two tall glasses. “I just want to hear that for
myself.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say.”

John tucked his hands into his pockets. “Actually, Tal, the
latest research shows that oxytocin in men improves sexual performance.”

Tal regarded John with wide eyes. “Really?” He leaned
against the sink and grinned. “Any word on an…oxytocin booster?”

John returned his smile. “If this works out, I imagine we’ll
start looking into a booster for men next.”

Tal chuckled as he filled the glasses from the tap. “How’d
you come up with the idea for this stuff anyway?” He brought one to John before
he pulled out a dining chair for himself.

“Tal, he didn’t come here to explain all that.” Grace
sounded like a parent whose child was going through the Why Phase.

Tal raised a placating hand, and his voice went firm, as if
he were consciously marking the turn to something more business and less
personal. “I know. I know what he came here for.” He leaned back in the chair
and crossed his legs, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. “I just like to
know a little something about what I’m doing before I start doing it.”

John rested his hip against the footboard. “Well, the long
story goes like this. Impulse is the by-product of another one of our products,
an oxytocin suppressant that prevents premature labor contractions. While the
R&D team was trying to perfect that, they ran across this by accident. They
were just going to let it go.”

“That where you come in?” Tal raised an eyebrow, more
interested than skeptical, before drinking some of the ice water.

“Yeah. I know men can have sex for the pure recreational
pleasure of it. I know women have a harder time keeping their emotions out of
it. It all comes from this one difference.” John straightened. “I don’t think
it’s fair. Now it’s preventable.” He shrugged. “That’s all. It’s nothing
complicated.”

He met Tal’s gaze, playing chicken in the silence long
enough for the radiators to come back on.

“You ever do anything like this before?” Tal might have been
asking about a new restaurant or an especially difficult hole on a golf course.

John shook his head slowly. “No.”

Tal swirled the ice and water together in his glass, still
watching John. “And you just want to watch. Right?”

He made it sound…dirty. John had less of a problem with that
than he’d expected.

“That’s right,” he answered.

Tal put his glass on the table before he stood. “Okay. Let’s
get started.”

Something icy and viscous churned in John’s gut. His fingers
tightened around the glass of water as if just touching it would settle his
nerves.

Grace whispered his name. “Should I take it now?”

He stared at her for a moment before making the connection.
“Not yet. I’ll let you know when.” His stomach came to rest and he smiled.
“Don’t worry.”

“Bed’s okay?” Tal took his glass from the table and emptied
it into the sink before refilling his ice tray.

“Sure.” As if he knew the place well enough to choose
another spot.

Tal put the ice tray back into the freezer. “Because we can
be somewhere else if you want.” The little grin on his face said either that he
thought John would back down any second or that he was looking forward to
putting on a good show. John couldn’t decide which it was.

Grace glared at Tal as if he were a willful child. John
leaned over and patted her shoulder. “Bed’s fine.”

“What about you?” Tal asked.

“How about the table?” Grace suggested. “There’s space for
you to take notes over there.”

John went back to the dining table and sat. He did have
enough room to spread out and the bed didn’t seem too far away. Tal sat next to
Grace on the bed and waved. “How’s that?” he asked.

John waved back. “This seems fine.”

“Okay. I’m going to get you a lamp so we can keep the lights
off.” Tal got up and went back to the stairs. “We need anything else?”

John and Grace looked at each other. “Don’t think so,” she
said.

When Tal had disappeared down the stairs, John asked, “How
are you?”

She looked up at him with a smile, as if they were about to
embark on something far more commonplace. “I’m fine.”

“Are you? Really?”

She nodded. “Really.” But then her mouth drew up into a
thoughtful pout. “I guess I might be a little nervous.”