Wild (13 page)

It’s not the senses themselves, it’s what the mouse does with them.
Those were my own words. Maybe there was more truth in them than I believed. In the last thirty years I had learned how to control myself in most situations and only transformed when the situation warranted it. Somehow my body knew when danger was real. So, what if I could tell my body that passion didn’t warrant a transformation?

Could I switch off the trigger, like I had switched off my aging gene? And if I could, would it mean she would never have to find out?

“I didn’t think you’d cave in that quickly,” she interrupted my thoughts.

Without turning away from the microscope I answered her. “Who says I caved in?”

I could feel how she held her breath.

“Maybe I was planning this all along?” I continued, but it was time to turn around to see her expression. I could tell she didn’t know whether I was joking or not since my voice had sounded serious.

Once she got a glimpse of my face though, she shot back. “No. I could tell by your kiss. You just caved.”

“What about my kiss?”

“It was too, too …” She was looking for the right word. “It had too much pent up hunger to be planned.”

I was surprised at her analysis. I myself had compared it to being drunk, but hunger was a good analogy too. “You didn’t exactly hold back either.”

“Oh, would you prefer me to play shy?”

With a couple of strides I was at her chair and pulled her up without letting her feet touch the ground. I looked into her eyes.

“I don’t want you to play anything. I want you the way you are.” I was serious.

“Vince?”

“Hmh?”

What is it, my angel?

“What’s going to happen when my leg is better?”

I wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at. “You won’t need any pain killers anymore, I guess, and you’ll walk on your own. Why?”

“I mean, will you still want me
here
?”

“Maybe not in the lab,” I joked. “But perhaps upstairs.”

She blushed and didn’t know what to say. Had she understood my sexual innuendo?

“Of course, I still want you here,” I whispered to her. “I don’t want to let you go, can’t you feel that?” I could feel her arms wrapping themselves around my neck as she put her head next to mine, cheek to cheek.

“I don’t want to leave.”

No, you don’t right now. But there’ll come a time when you will.

I didn’t want this time to ever come.

9. Annette’s Secrets

Vince’s work in the lab was soon done and he suggested spending the afternoon in Golden Gate Park. Thinking of my leg, I wasn’t quite sure how it would work.

“You’re not expecting me to walk around in that.” I pointed at the Zimmer frame.

He laughed. “Of course not - I’ll get you a wheelchair.”

“I’m going to look like an invalid!” I protested. I didn’t know what was worse, a wheelchair or a Zimmer frame.

“Nothing wrong with that.” He grinned. “Make yourself comfortable and I’ll go borrow a wheelchair.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Hospitals are open every day of the week. I’ll be back in less than an hour.”

He rushed downstairs before I could protest. I didn’t want to sit in a wheelchair. However, the idea of spending an afternoon in the park was quite appealing. I could see through the skylight that it was sunny outside and days like these had to be taken advantage of.

I could tell he made every effort to make me feel comfortable. When I had gotten up in the morning, I had noticed he had unpacked my suitcases and made some space in his closet for me, where he had neatly hung my clothes.

He had also made some space on the bathroom counter for me where he had placed all toiletries he had found in my suitcase. Vince had also laid out fresh towels for me. I had been surprised at how thoughtful he was.

Most men his age or younger could only think of themselves and showed others no consideration. It had always been a contentious point between me and any of the guys I had been dating.

Most of them had been under thirty and completely self-absorbed. It had never lasted very long. I had been dumped just as often as I had dumped guys, but it most cases it had always been just a matter of time. If they hadn’t dumped me, I was sure I would have dumped them in short order.

My aunt had always thought my morals were too loose, because I had gone from one guy to the next, but I didn’t see it this way. Why stay with somebody, when you realized after a few weeks that he was a jerk?

My aunt hadn’t understood it and had been glad when I had decided to leave Des Moines. She had given me the obligatory
please stay
speech, but I could tell it had been half-hearted.

I was pretty sure she was glad I was gone. Since I liked to see her shocked face when she would see me standing at the door again, I hadn’t bothered informing her of my planned return. Now I was glad I hadn’t. It saved me from having to call her and explain to her I was staying in San Francisco after all.

It was better she didn’t know what was going on. She would be just shocked if she heard I had woken up in a stranger’s bed, injured and practically incapacitated, and without the slightest intention of wanting to leave.

I suddenly remembered what Vince had answered me when I had asked him when he had last kissed a woman. His answer had been a little cryptic. I figured he had wanted to disguise the fact that it had been a while. It was May, and he had said it was in July of the year he had turned thirty-two.

I calculated. If he was thirty-three now, then it had been almost a year. It didn’t look like he dated much. Was that why he seemed so reluctant about getting physical with me? Would he be shocked if he found out how many guys I had dated? Maybe it was best I kept that little fact to myself. There wasn’t much of a chance of him finding out anyway, so why tell?

I remembered he had seen Ben. Ben hadn’t exactly been one of my brightest choices, and I had felt almost relieved when he had stopped calling. It saved me from dumping him. That he had started seeing Carmela behind my back had completely escaped me, and despite the fact that I didn’t care about him, I had been a little miffed about their secrecy.

I put my thoughts away when I heard Vince return. He packed me into the car and drove us to Golden Gate Park, parking on one of the side streets north of the park.

I waited while he took out the collapsible wheelchair from the trunk. Being able to borrow a wheelchair from the hospital was probably one of the perks of being a doctor.

“Your chariot awaits, Madam,” Vince announced as he helped me from the car into the wheelchair.

Golden Gate Park stretched from the ocean to Haight Ashbury and occupied more than a thousand acres of land. It housed many attractions like the Conservatory of Flowers, the Buffalo Paddock, Botanical Gardens, Polo Fields and lots more. It was the City’s residents’ first and foremost garden, a place where everybody came to on the weekends.

The park was packed as usual on a sunny day. On Sundays some of the streets leading through the park were closed to traffic, so people could freely walk, run, bike and roller skate without having to watch out for cars.

Vince pushed my wheelchair, passing by the new De Young Museum and around the concourse, before he headed toward one of the many meadows where people would lie on the grass and read, sun themselves or just relax.

Vince told me about the earthquake which had damaged the old De Young Museum several years ago, and how long it had taken to finally start rebuilding.

We stopped at a small meadow which was still relatively empty.

“Would you like to stay here for a little while?”

I nodded. He took a blanket which had been stuffed into the back pocket of my wheelchair and laid it out toward one side of the meadow. He came back to lift me into his arms and carry me to the spot he had selected for us.

I used the opportunity to look into his eyes. He lowered us onto the blanket and stayed close to my side. I was pleased he didn’t want to immediately put some space between us.

I rested my head on his arm, as he turned his body toward me.

“I could get used to this,” I said.

“You mean the wheelchair?” he teased me.

“You know I don’t mean the wheelchair.”

I ran my hand through his hair. He didn’t stop me.

“This is a family place,” he warned me with a smile. “So you’d better not be planning anything else.”

He pulled my hand out of his hair and put it toward his lips, kissing my palm.

“This is a family place,” I repeated.

“Don’t worry, this is PG-13,” he claimed between kisses to my hand. “Annette, may I ask you something?”

“Sure.” I was wondering what was on his mind.

“When you woke up in my bed that first morning, why were you not scared?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to answer him, because I didn’t know myself.

“I wish I could say, but when I looked at you, I had no reason to be scared. You weren’t there to hurt me.”

“But you didn’t know that then.”

“I guess I must have had a gut feeling.” I shrugged my shoulders. I suddenly had an awful thought. “I hope you don’t think I’m making it a habit to wake up in strangers’ beds.”

“Well, now that you’re pointing it out …”

He didn’t get any further. I started pounding my hands into his chest, but he just laughed until he finally clutched my wrists without any effort and held them tight.

“Cute,” he said and kissed my fists quickly. “Peace?” He released my wrists and then wrapped his arms around me. “Am I forgiven?”

“Only if you kiss me.” I decided to take advantage of the situation.

“As I said, this is a family place, and the way you kiss is rated R if not X-rated.”

“You’re exaggerating. It’s barely PG-13, and it’s not even called X-rated. They call it NC-17. How long have you not been to a movie?”

“Anyway, don’t change the subject. You don’t kiss PG-13. I guess, I’m going to have to take you to a few movies to show you the difference, unless they rate things differently in Des Moines,” he added jokingly.

He lowered himself back into the grass keeping me in his arms. He obviously had decided it was safe to touch me, but not safe enough to kiss me. For now, it was good enough. I leaned my head against his chest and soaked in his smell.

There was something primal about him. Maybe he emitted a lot more of those pheromones I had read about in a trashy magazine. They were supposed to attract women. I wondered what had attracted him to me. Did women emit pheromones too?

“Vince.”

“Hm?” His eyes were closed.

“Why did you not bring me to a hospital?”

I could tell how he suddenly held his breath. He seemed to think long and hard about his answer. He opened his eyes and turned to look at my face, before he answered.

“I don’t know, Annette. It was a split-second decision. I knew I had all the medical training and all the medications at home to take care of you.” He stopped. “But I don’t know what made me take you home. I just couldn’t bring myself to drop you off at the hospital. I know it was wrong.” He looked apologetic.

“Do you regret it?”

“I can’t regret something that brought so much joy into my life.”

I smiled at him. He changed the subject, and I guessed it was because he felt just like I did that we wanted to kiss.

He sat up and looked up into the trees which surrounded the meadow.

“Have you ever listened to the sounds of the park?” he asked.

“What sounds?” I sat up next to him.

“The sound of the animals and plants.”

“Plants? You’re joking again.”

“No, I’m not. Plants make sounds too. Not by themselves, of course, but when the wind hits them. You can hear the crackling of the trees when the wind blows through them.”

“Oh, that. I’ve never really listened to it, though. I don’t like to be outside when the weather is bad,” I explained.

“Can you hear the birds up there?” He pointed toward the top of the tree.

I looked up but couldn’t see anything, so I just turned my ear toward the tree, but looked straight ahead instead, while he looked up at the tree as if he could see the tiny birds.

I looked at a couple pushing a stroller with a small child in front of them. The woman looked oddly out of place being completely dolled up. She wore high heels and a far too elegant dress for a stroll in the park. Her makeup was obvious even from the distance. It was beyond me why some women had to cake their faces with makeup. She seemed to be in her thirties and I wondered whether she needed all that makeup. My eyes went to her companion and I froze – I immediately recognized the man with the grey hair. He was the researcher whose clinical trial I had participated in.

“Can you hear them?” Vince asked again.

“Now I can,” I lied without looking away from the man. Suddenly his head turned and he looked in my direction. I looked away immediately, and when I glanced back a few seconds later I saw how he shuffled his wife and child into a different direction, away from the meadow.

Vince hadn’t seen him since he was still looking up into the trees. I wondered for a second whether I should tell Vince who I had seen, but was worried he would run after him and make a scene, so I decided to keep the information to myself. Nothing good would come out of it anyway.

 “Your hearing is pretty good,” he said and looked at me.

“So is yours,” I deflected trying not to let him know that something was wrong.

He looked past me. “Oh, damn!”

Had he seen Dr. Entwhistle too?

“The fog is rolling in. I think it’s time to leave.” I was relieved when he pointed toward the end of the meadow. It was quite eerie to see the fog enter. It reminded me of a horror movie.

I could feel immediately how it had already gotten colder. Vince picked me up and carried me back to the wheelchair, then placed the blanket over my legs when he saw I shivered.

“We’ll be back in the car in a few minutes.” As always he only thought of my wellbeing. He pushed the wheelchair as fast as the uneven path allowed. I marveled at his strength. Pushing me in the wheelchair couldn’t be easy, but he didn’t even break out in a sweat.