The Arcturus Man (5 page)

“Over there is the laundry. Feel free to use it. And, that’s the door to the cellar.”
“It is a fabulous house, Jared.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“I’m going to take that shower you offered.”
“Good. I’ll start fixing some dinner,” he said as she walked out of the room.
She walked up the stairs.
Lights were coming on ahead of her.

getting used to how unique this house was.
But it was really super cool.
It was difficult
She could still

hear the Mozart.
She walked into the large bathroom and found the bath robes he mentioned.
There were four white terry cloth robes.
They all had a Bellagio monogram on
the front breast pocket. “
Interesting
,” she thought. Jenny locked the door. She stripped
off her blouse, pulled down her cut offs and panties, and took off her socks.
She sat on
the commode and pulled off some toilet paper, when suddenly there was a mounting
sucking sound and a bright purple light came on that shined out of the bowl.

The toilet had some kind of vacuum machine in it and the bowl did indeed have a
purple light in it.
“Thanks for the warning, Jared,” she said loudly. “
I guess THAT’S the surprise
.”
She finished peeing as quickly as she could. She peered nervously to make sure
that no other contraptions were about to go off.
Those thoughts having come to mind,
she stood up, holding the bath robe tightly in front of her. She walked around the shower
room surveying the ceiling and mirrors to see if there were any more tricks—“
like TV
cameras
.”
She couldn’t see any and admitted to herself that she didn’t think that Jared would
do that sort of thing. She walked over to the glass-enclosed shower. She heard a strange
sound and turned. The top lid to the commode dropped down and the toilet flushed and
made some other gurgling sounds. It startled her again. This was spooky. “
Thank Goodness the purple light went off
,” she thought.
She assumed that it was an ultraviolet light
that sanitized the toilet. She didn’t want to be sanitized too.
She peeked into the shower stall. It was the size of her kitchen at home. She hung
up the robe and pulled a large towel closer to the shower.
She opened the glass door.
There were no handles. Trying to remember what he said, she spoke the word, “shower.”
Suddenly, three or four jets of water came from every corner—cold water.
“Too cold.”
That didn’t do anything.
“75 degrees.”

That didn’t help either. “
Gosh, he said centigrade. Let’s see you subtract 32…no
you add 32…Oh, the heck with it
.”
“Talk to me.”
The bathroom immediately answered. “May I be of assistance, Jenny?”
The voice surprised her. It was a calm feminine voice. It wasn’t a typical monotone computerized voice. Rather, the voice had life and personality.
“
How did it know her name?”
“Yes, please,” said Jenny.
“Warm the water to 75 degrees—Fahrenheit, that is.”
Since she never actually measured shower water temperature at home, she still wasn’t
sure if that would be too cold or too warm. It seemed to be a reasonable guess.
“Jenny, may I suggest 88 degrees?” said the house.
He had programmed Jenny
into the system. “
That’s quick
,” she thought.
“Yes, please make it so.” “
Do I have to be polite to a computer?”
She hesitated a few minutes and felt the water with her hand. It was perfect. She
stepped in. It was marvelous. Absolutely marvelous! She soaped herself from top to bottom. The blue clay created a colorful stream going into the drain. She found shampoo on
the shelf in the shower. That was lucky since she forgot to buy any. It was a big shower.
He even had a chair in there.
I guess you could shower sitting down. She sat down and
washed her hair. She thought about Jared and what she should do if he came on to her if
the evening went that way.
“
I don’t even know the guy
,” she said to herself. “
He is definitely an Alpha male,
so it is bound to come up sooner or later
.”
It was something she had started to think about when he first asked her to stay.
She normally wouldn’t have considered going off with a stranger, which is what he still
was. He was interesting, however. Was worth the risk? “
Was there a risk?
” She didn’t
think so. She wondered if she hadn’t been dreading the Memorial Day traffic on 95 and
missing her scheduled computer time if she still would have accepted his offer.
She stepped out and began to towel her hair dry.
The floor was warm.
Very
warm!
Some kind of air jet was blowing across the mirror above the granite sink.
The
mirror wasn’t fogged. “
This is incredible
,” she thought. “
Everything is incredible
.” She
opened another door out of curiosity.
“Well, that’s cozy.”
There was a sauna.
It was
sort of an octagonal room completely lined in spruce.
Jenny knew her wood.
“
That
might be nice, later.
”
She didn’t have a change of clothes so she rinsed out her underwear and socks
with the help of a little hand soap. She left her shorts and blouse on a chair. She remembered that there was a laundry next to the kitchen but she wasn’t about to start a laundry
cycle for shorts, skimpy thong panties, and a pair of white socks.
There was a towel dryer to the left of the sink.
She hung them on the hot pipes.
She had seen towel dryers in Canada, but never in the States.
She opened the Wal-Mart bag and laid out the personal items she bought.
She
combed out her hair the best she could. She put on just a little makeup—just a touch of
lipstick.
She brushed her teeth and rinsed out with mouth wash.
She put on the plush
bath robe and closed it with a double knot.
“
I guess I go to dinner au natural
,” she whispered to herself decorously.
She found a pair of wool knitted slippers next to the bath robes and put them on.
They looked new. She glanced at herself in the mirror one more time. Jenny picked up
the magic button thing Jared gave her and put it in her pocket.
She left the bathroom and walked downstairs. She found Jared in the kitchen. He
had two live lobsters scurrying on the counter. She avoided walking near the lobsters. As
a marine biologist, she didn’t want to show that they made her uncomfortable. The claws
weren’t held shut by rubber bands.
“Lobster? Is this what you call scrounging a dinner?” asked Jenny.
“I always have a few in the tank in the shed. You look squeaky clean.
I’ll take a
shower now. Maybe you can help with the salad. Everything you need is in the vegetable crisper. By the way, I hope you don’t mind leftovers. I have some mashed parsnips. I
think they’re pretty good.
“No problem! I’ve never had mashed parsnips. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever tasted parsnips of any kind. Sounds interesting!”
“I won’t be long,” said Jared.
“Wait. What about these guys?” asked Jenny, pointing to the lobsters?
“Put them in the sink for now.”
He looked at her closely—perhaps really for the first time--as she turned away to
go to the frig. She was beautiful. She had that warm after-shower radiance. Her wet hair
was very sexy. He truly liked damp girls. He was conscious of hormones rushing through
his system—and hers.
“
It is a good thing some times
.
The language of chemistry
.”
She
was rife with pheromones. That was where the radiance was coming from.
“Wait,” she said. He paused again.
Jenny thought for a moment. She wanted to think of some excuse to run upstairs
and hide her underwear, but then thought better of it.
It was silly.
They’re just clothes.
People wear underwear. Still, it was an intimacy that she wasn’t ready to share yet. Panties are very personal, especially thongs.
What would he think about a girl that wore a
thong? She didn’t like panty lines, besides, they were really comfortable.
She let it go. “
If he sees them, he will have to deal with it.”
She opened the refrigerator.
“Never mind,” said Jenny.
“I like salads.
Take your time.” He was looking at her but didn’t seem to be listening. “I guess you didn’t see the hair dryer. I’ll bring it down.”
“Don’t bother. My hair dries quickly. I just need to brush it out.”
“OK.” He left.
She glanced at the stove. It was almost 8 and the sun was about to set.
Lights
were coming on in the house—on their own. More Mozart could be heard although she
didn’t recognize the piece that was playing now.
She took out lettuce, tomatoes, green
and red peppers, and radishes.
She loved raw onions in her salad, but this time she was
going to skip the onions—just in case!
She checked around to see where the wandering
lobsters were. She gingerly used a cutting board to push them into the sink. The tub was
deep. It didn’t look like they could crawl out. Minutes later, she discovered that she was
wrong about that.
She put the cutting board over the disposal side of the sink.
Looking out of the
window she spotted a skunk go under a shed where there was a crawl space. Jenny made
a mental note of not going near the shed. She spotted his Cuisinart on the counter but decided to use a knife. She found a perfect knife. It was razor sharp. She ripped apart the
Iceberg lettuce and tossed in a few leaves of Romaine. There was a large wooden salad
bowl next to the coffee maker.
She drizzled some olive oil into the bowl and seasoned the wood.
She julienned
the peppers, sliced the tomatoes, chopped a few radishes and tossed everything into the
salad bowl. She wasn’t much of a cook, but this was slicing, not cooking. That she could
do.
She looked in the frig and saw fresh chanterelle mushrooms and sharp cheddar
cheese. She opened the pantry and found some large black olives. “
This was going to be
a salad to kill for
,” she thought.
She sliced up the remaining ingredients and tossed the
salad with her hands.
“Oh No, please don’t do that Mr. Skunk,” she pleaded as she whiffed the air.
“
There are definite downsides to living in the woods
,” she thought.

“Fan on,” she said, testing the house.
The ceiling fan came on.
That helped a
little. The Jenn-Air exhaust fan came on. The oven fan came on. There were fans everywhere. Every fan in the area was coming on.

Miffed, she said, “You’re not as smart as I thought you were…house.”
“I didn’t understand that, Jenny!”
That was eerily human like. “
Spooky
!”
“No. No. Just talking to myself, house. Fans off. I’m trying to get rid of the skunk

smell. Can you help?” Jenny was not a timid person.
No answer. “
This is creepy
,” she thought.
The fans shut off. Then the ceiling fan came on again.
“
Creepy
.”
She was her own person and tried hard to not let other people dictate how she

lived her life. It wasn’t always easy to recognize when you are being influenced, or even
manipulated, by others.
The house was irritating.
An Eleanor Wiley poem surfaced in
her memory. It was one of her favorites.

“Avoid the steaming herd,” she mouthed softly, “shun the polluted flock. Be like
the stoic bird, the eagle on the rock.”
“
Interesting coincidence
” she thought.
She was
spending the night on Eagle’s Head Island. And…she found an eagle.

Jared came into the kitchen. He looked good. His hair was dry. She thought that
there was something feminine about a guy using a hair dryer, but there was nothing feminine about Jared. He was wearing the same kind of Bellagio white robe she had on.
He
had a flesh colored butterfly bandage on his forehead.
It added to the rugged look. “
I
guess the cut wasn’t as bad as it looked at first
,” she thought.

“Let’s move everything into the veranda. We have a lot of skunks around here.”
“It’s really not that bad,” she said. But, it was.
He took some plates and silverware out of a closet and set two places on the large

glass table in the Florida room.
He pulled two wine glasses from the overhead rack and
set them on the table. He lifted the lid to a large enamel pot on the stove. The gas was on
high and it was boiling violently. He turned the heat down.

The pot had a bad drawing of a lobster on it.
“Was that just decoration or did
people really need the visual aid?
There are a lot of moles in this world,”
she thought.
She brought the salad bowl over.

Jared grabbed the lobsters one at a time and dropped them in the boiling water.
Jenny turned her head. She didn’t want to see that.
She couldn’t get the Elinor Wylie
poem out of her mind,
The Eagle and the Mole
. It just fit so naturally with everything that
had happened today. It was cycling through her head for the past few hours.

“
I’m on Eagle’s Head Island. And, I am with a bona fide eagle
,” thought Jenny.
“Avoid the reeking herd; shun the polluted flock, live like that stoic bird, the eagle
of the rock,” she said out loud. Jenny was self-conscious now. She learned through adolescence how to not be a nerd with friends, but her nerdiness would slip through now and
then anyway. She glanced over to Jared and searched his face for a reaction.
“Yes, I love Wylie. I love her poetry.”
“Do you write poetry?” asked Jenny.
“Of course, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, but I’m not very good.”
“Let me see some of your poems some time,” said Jared.
Jenny glowed. She would never let him read any of her poems, but that he asked
was wonderful. It was really wonderful.
“Can I read one of your poems?” asked Jenny.
“I don’t have any written down.”
“Then recite one.”
He did.
When it is cold again, which will be soon, I will
remember that it was warm, but not how it felt.
That I was warm a day ago won't console me

Jenny didn’t know what to say. It was a strange poem. She couldn’t be dishonest
and say it was beautiful. It was intriguing however. She wondered what it meant.
“What is it called?”
“That was the last stanza. The poem is called
A Warm Winter Day
.”
“I would like to hear all of it some time,” said Jenny.
“Let’s get back to preparing our extraordinary repast,” said Jared.
“Where’s the bread?” asked Jenny.
“There is some French bread in the drawer.
Do you prefer to slice it or shall we
rip it apart with our hands?”
“Hands, for sure.” She feigned a Maine accent.
“Anything you do will be as lovely as you are, Ms. Nilsson.”
Jenny blushed. She turned and attended to her duties as quickly as she could. She
couldn’t think of what to say. Nerds weren’t good at handling compliments.
Jared couldn’t keep Jenny off his mind. “
She’s so close,”
he thought again and
again.
The lobster pot was steaming. Since this was an island, she was surprised that he
had gas.
“Must be LPG,”
she guessed
.
She lifted the lid and looked inside.
The lobsters
were deep red.
“What’s this?” she asked, peering into the pot.
“This is sea water and sea weed on top of the steaming tray.
Old man Sevigny
taught me the proper Down East way to make lobsta. Scrumptious eatin’. Scrumptious
eatin’,” he said in a true Maine accent that was much, much better than her phony attempt.
This is the first time he had said anything light, let alone funny.
She liked it.
It
bothered her a little that he didn’t smile very often but at least she now knew that he had
a sense of humor.
He dropped several ears of corn into the lobster pot.
“Who’s Sevigny?”
“He is the old lobsterman who used to own this island.
He died last month. His
son now owns the restaurant we almost met at.
Ashley is sort of a partner and waitress.
You know…the place where I was climbing the roof while you were inside buying a
sandwich,” he said smiling. It was a broad, exaggerated grin.
She chuckled. “Oh, that one.” Yes, he had a sense of humor. What a relief.
“I heard you talking to Ginger,” said Jared.
She turned suddenly. “What? Who?”
“Ginger is what I named the house.”
He paused.
“Well, that’s not exactly true.
Ginger is the name of the computer program that runs the house.
I think of her as the
house but the house really has no name. Should it?”
“Well, boats are named after women, so why not houses, I suppose?”
“Good evening, Jared,” said Ginger. “Please visualize me.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Ginger. Be quiet,” said Jared.
Jenny frowned. “What did that mean?”
“It’s just a joke. She says a lot of funny things. Ginger is the digitized personification of the house as a woman. She can appear on any monitor in the house when she is
visualized.”
“Can I see her?” asked Jenny.
“I’d rather not. Not right now.”
Jenny pursed her lips, but said nothing.
“I don’t know how much you know about computers, or want to, but I used a lot
of fuzzy logic and AI in the programming?
“AI? Oh yes, artificial intelligence.”
“Yes. The house is pretty smart,” said Jared.
“Can the house actually think?” she asked.
“Not as you understand it, but I suppose it depends on how you understand thinking.”
“Cool. You don’t have any male characters lurking around, do you?”
He smiled.
“No, I guess I’ll have to work on that. Perhaps you can give me the
specs later.”
She smiled back. “OK, I’ll think about that. By the way, speaking of technology,
your toilet is very strange. What is all that stuff that goes on?
“Oh that.
I enhanced the basic commode. A company makes them now for upscale spenders.
Really pricey! I don’t want to be too graphic right before dinner but I’m
rather proud of that toilet.
It uses high pressure water, vacuum,
carbon nanotubes,
activated charcoal, ultraviolet light, and titanium dioxide to keep it odor free and sanitary all
of the time. It never requires cleaning.”
“Wow! Imagine that.”
“TI02 is an exceptional photocatalyst and it is
hydrophilic. When it sees sunlight,
it breaks down organic material without consuming itself—as I said, it is a catalyst—and
it makes water sheet. The water goes under contaminants and lifts them…hence, perfect
flushing.
It destroys microbes by breaking down its DNA through oxidation and combined with organic adsorption, it cleans and sanitizes.
“Fascinating, but I think my butt glows in the dark now.”
Jenny thought that was funny, but he wasn’t laughing.
She just made fun of his
invention. Not cool!
“Did you say adsorption or absorption?” she asked, eager to change the subject.
“Adsorption!
It is the adhesion of molecules to a solid surface. Absorption is
something entirely different. This is boring, isn’t it,” asked Jared.
“
Did he mean he was boring her or was he bored explaining it to her
,” she wondered.
“No, it is very interesting.
comes
up
in
marine
biology,
I DO KNOW what adsorption is,” said Jenny. “It
such
as
with
undersea
hydrothermal
vents…you
know…black smokers. These vents are often thousands of feet below the euphotic region
and organisms like the Chemautotrophic bacteria depend on the chemical soup around the
vents to survive. And…the chemical soup is supported by the adsorption of chemicals on
organic and inorganic substances around the vents.”
Jenny was pleased with herself.
She wanted to show off…just a bit.
Jared was
pleased too. He liked intelligent, beautiful women.
He put a large Teflon
^®
pan on the Jenn-Air and dropped a half a stick of butter
into the pan.
As soon as the butter was melted, he began to sprinkle a handful of bread
crumbs into the pan as he mixed.
He cooked fast.
He put snow peas pods into another
steamer and turned up the heat.
A few minutes later he poured the pods into the frying
pan and turned the mixture over several times.
He put a full stick of butter into another
small pan. He salted the butter slightly and added a few drops of Tabasco.
“This is for the lobster,” he said as he turned toward Jenny.
“And, that’s for the
snow peas.”
“It looks great. I guess we can forget about bad cholesterol tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Jenny. I don’t pay attention to that, but we don’t have to have the butter.”
“No that’s fine. I assume it won’t kill me immediately.”
He was saying “Jenny” often now, she noticed. It was the beginning of familiarity. She liked it.
He pulled out the lobsters.
They were a fiery red.
Steam was coming off the
shells. He put them on a serving tray and carried them into the veranda.
Jenny brought
over the snow peas and the corn on the cob.
“Do you like Franken wine? It’s hard to find in America.”
“I don’t believe that I’ve ever tried it. Franken wine?”
“Yes, named after the river, as are all of the German wines—as you know,” he
added as an afterthought. “This is a Spätlese trocken. I hope you don’t mind German
wines. Most people think they’re too sweet, but Franken wine is a little dryer than most
other German wines.”
“’Sound good.”
“
As if I know what that is
,” she thought.
He poured the wine.
He lit some candles.
“Do you like New Age?”
He didn’t
wait for Jenny’s answer.
“Ginger, play
Northern Lights
.” The music changed instantly.
The lighting dimmed.
“
Oh Oh
,” she thought.
They began to dine.
“Is this your favorite wine?” asked Jenny.
“I like Franken wine, but my favorite without question is
saké
.”
“I didn’t think
saké
was a wine.”
“Of course it is. It is rice wine. It is far more complex than grape wine. This is, as
you can see from the label, from the Gekkeikan brewery.
It is a
daiginho-shu saké,
meaning that the rice has been polished by at least 50%. It is unpasteurized so it is a
namazake
type. I think it is wonderful. I think pasteurization ruins both
saké
and beer.”
“You speak Japanese too?”
“Yes.”
Her cell phone played a few notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.
“Wouldn’t you know it! Just as we are about to eat,” said Jenny.
She glanced at the caller ID. It was Krissy.
“Hi Krissy.”
“Good! Can you talk? I guess your cell like works on the island afterall,” said
Krissy.
“Jared and I were just starting dinner. I’ll call you later. Did you call Mom?”
“Yes, and you better call her. What’s he like?”
“I will, I will, and I’ll talk to you later.”
Krissy realized she wasn’t going to chat. “Bye.”
"Wait!
Can we have lunch on Thursday at Mary Chung's? Around Noon? I am
going to really miss you. Your going back on Friday aren't you?” asked Jenny.
"OK, Mary Chung's for lunch. Bye."
Jenny pushed the phone away from her. Jared seemed to be smiling.
“I am really surprised that there is an active cell out here.”
“I had to put one on the island. The phone company wasn’t about to do it.”
“Tell me something about you,” asked Jared, changing the subject.
“There isn’t that much to tell.
As you probably surmised, I am studying marine
biology. I am a doctoral candidate. MIT picks up some of my tuition if I spend my summers doing field work for the Sea Grant program.
I live in Cambridge most of the year.
I’m up to my
(she almost said ass)
butt, in debt.
I have one brother and one sister, both
younger. My Dad was an electrical engineer. He passed. My Mom was a civil engineer.
She retired a few years ago. I’ve been mostly on my own since I was eighteen.
What
else?
I play the recorder, but I’m not very good. I like all sports. I read a lot. I love the
sea…and…”
She affected a very feminine stilted voice and continued, “I love slow
walks on the beach, moonlight, and puppies, and I hunger for world peace,” and she
threw open her arms to the heavens, laughing. He didn’t.
He noticed that she was exceptionally adept at dismembering a lobster.
“
I guess
that comes with being a marine biologist
,” he thought.
“How about you? I’m dying to know what its like to graduate from MIT at nine.”
He noticeably tensed up. “Hmmmm. It’s nothing that I would recommend to anyone.”
“I guess it is pretty tough being a kid at a large university and getting people to
treat you like a kid. You must have missed your childhood.”
“Not really,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What about you? Who are you, Jared?”
“I was born in Latvia.
My father was an engineer.
My mother was my mother.
There were hard times. I have no brothers or sisters.
They sent me to the United States
when I was six. I don’t think that it was their idea.
Latvia was still under Soviet rule in
1987. They had a special exchange program for special children.
My parents stayed in
Latvia. They died, first my father and then my mother.”
“Is Jared a Latvian name? I’ve met some Jareds before.”
“No.
My birth name is Jorens Ziemelis. Somebody must have thought that it
sounded like Jared, so Jared stuck. It doesn’t sound anything like Jorens, but it’s not very
important. It is just a name.”
“The snow peas were wicked delicious, “she said.
The browned bread crumbs
gave the pea pods a nutty taste.
“Wicked? You are sounding like a Mainer. Must be cause yore eatin lobsta,” he
said in his Maine accent.
“What was your major?” asked Jenny. She was truly fascinated.
“Physics—at least at first.
After that I kind of drifted around into anything that
interested me, especially Quantum Theory. I guess I was what you would call a geek.”
“Not me by me.
Not from one geek to another.”
“
That seemed to please him
,”
she thought.
She wanted to ask if he was ever married or was seeing anyone seriously, but
didn’t know how to pose the question.
“I’ve never been married and don’t socialize much.”
“Wow. He keeps doing that,”
she thought.
He changed the subject--again. “The Latvian language is sort of interesting. Latvian and Lithuanian are the oldest spoken languages in the Western world. Their closest
antecedent is Sanskrit.
These are tiny populations which are why it is amazing that, except for the Stalin era, the language and culture have not changed much for thousands of
years. The gene pool is remarkably old. Ancient might be a more apt word. As a biologist, you know that an unchanging gene pool has pluses and minuses.”
There was a long pause after which he spoke again.
“When Pliny the Elder accompanied Roman soldiers to the Baltic in search of
amber for the emperor, the Latvians—actually, Letts, Livs, and others, which is much
more than you probably want to know—had already been there for thousands of years, or
so anthropologists think.”
“Interesting,” she said sincerely.
“There are clusters of people around the world that no one knows very much
about, like the Ainu in Japan, the Basques in Spain, and others. Latvians are another such
group. Balts are extraordinary people…unique in so many ways.”
“You speak Latvian, then?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What did you do after you left MIT?
I guess you picked up some advanced degrees?”
“No, I stopped at the bachelors.
Various faculty members in my department
farmed me out to different faculty homes until I was nineteen. I lived with Professor
Cunningham the longest. After that, I left to be on my own. I was encouraged to go for
my doctorate and they even offered to let me jump over the masters, but I didn’t like the
regimentation they planned for me.”
He smiled, but it was weak.
“That is much too much about me. Let me hear more about you,” said Jared.
“Compared to you, I am probably the most boring person on this planet.
What
did you do after you left MIT? You are very interesting, Jared.”
He frowned slightly as she said, “
interesting
.”
He didn’t want to be interesting.
He wanted to be ordinary.
She was hunched over on the table. Her cleavage was disarming. The contrast between the white robe and her tan was dramatic.
He went on.
“I looked older than nineteen so it wasn’t too difficult to sneak into the casinos in
Atlantic City from time to time.
Playing blackjack was almost like stealing, even when
they used several decks. I was pretty good with numbers. A dealer I got to know told me
that if I kept winning they would eventually ban me. I could be spotted as either a counter
or a cheater. I made it a point after that to keep my winnings in low figures and to move
around the different casinos every night. Evidently you aren’t allowed to win in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
They only allow losers to play.
She was also my first flirtation.
I
didn’t know much about women up until then. I think she was about forty. She became a
dealer when she couldn’t be a show girl any longer. I named my computer animation after her.”