113c: Allowance

Jervis was totally wired that next morning, so he threw on some boxers and went down to his lab. He was too keyed up to work on his experiment so, while he keyed up some of the videos one one computer, he pulled up his ‘Esoteric Scientists’ chat window on the other.

 

JustinSherriff: Hey, Jerve, you up early this morning.

Jervis: Morning Justin. Yeah, had a great day yesterday.

JustinSherriff: Cool. A good experiment.

Jervis laughed to himself.

Jervis: No. Girl stuff. I got some.

JustinSherriff: What? A nerd like you? Bet you had to pay for it!

Jervis: No, seriously, this hot girl came on to me!

JustinSherriff: I didn’t know you wrote fiction, Jerve.

Jervis: I was as surprised as anyone, believe me. And she made me nervous, too, as my folks were home the first time, and then she would insist on running around the house naked, yesterday.

JustinSherriff: OK, enough of the wet dream. How is your experiment coming?

Jervis couldn’t quite figure out if Justin was just giving him a hard time, or what. Of course, if Justin had told him that he had spent yesterday running around naked with a hot girl, or even a kind of chunky girl, he wouldn’t’ have believed it either.

Jervis: I haven’t done much on it since I finished my big run. I’ve got a lot of details to work through.

JustinSherriff: Well, let a friend help, send me some files and I’ll scope them for you, and write up a summary. Got any good pics?

Jervis: Yeah, a few, bathroom shots. And there was this one girl who ran around naked. But she was not so hot. But I’m not sure I’m ready to let my original data out of house.

JustinSherriff: Paranoid! Well, I guess it comes with the territory. But, seriously, did the directionality stay steady?

Jervis: Yeah. That seems really locked. Every once in a while it seemed that there was a bit of reverse flow, but in general the right/left dichotomy stayed pretty steady.

JustinSherriff: Did you deliberately put the female on the right side, or was that just Freudian.

Jervis: Freudian, I guess. Or, rather, because I wanted to focus on her universe. She was hot. ‘Is’ hot, I suppose I should say.

JustinSherriff: I see. So the right brain controls the universe creation.

Jervis: Yeah. That came automatically. Nothing I could do about it.

JustinSherriff: Fascinating. How long did the dream last?

Jervis: About an hour, an hour and a half at the longest.

JustinSherriff: So it didn’t take the same time for everyone?

Jervis: No, the connections sometimes take a long time to develop. On my first try, a few weeks ago, it took me three hours to set it up, and I hardly got any. I refined my technique, though, and it’s gotten easier. Especially on repeat subjects.

JS: Oh. So you are you going to try to repeat with that ‘hot girl’ again?

JV: I hadn’t thought about it. You think I should? I haven’t even looked at all my data, yet.

JS:Sure. Life is short. And besides, you’ll be going back to college soon, no, and will have less time to run experiments, but plenty of time to go over data.

JV: I guess so. What do you think I should do…?

—

 

 

 

“Jervis,” Father called from downstairs, “I want to see you in my study.”

Jervis, who had been sitting in his room reading sci-fi, went down to his father’s study, incredibly nervous. He could still remember, almost physically, that time when his father had called him down, with almost the exact same tone of voice, when he had found out about that little girl. Coldly, calmly, he had had him drop his pants and bend over, and the resulting beating had left Jervis on the floor. If only that little girl had had the sense to refuse, he thought to himself. Or if I had only not been stupid enough to post the pictures on the web for all my friends to see.

Had father found out about his experiments? That was impossible. This must be about Jennifer. But Mom had given no hint that she would complain to father about that…

“Close the door and come in,” Father said, and Jervis quickly obeyed, coming and standing before his father’s desk. He was almost taller than his father, now, but it didn’t help any. His father was a powerful man, both physically and politically, as evidence by the way that he had covered up that incident, paying the girls parents off, and not even hesitating at giving his own son a beating.

“I hear that you’ve been sleeping with Jennifer Marshall,” Father said, and Jervis almost wet himself. Suzy must have talked! How could she! She didn’t do that! Not since she was in diapers. She snooped, she found out, she blackmailed him from time to time, little stuff, but she never, ever told! Neither of them did.

“Yes, Sir,” Jervis said. You might hide stuff from Father, in fact you always hid stuff from Father, but you never, ever, lied.

There was a moments silence, and then his father said, “Your mother told me, by the way. She found two wet towels on the floor of our bathroom, and then went into your room. You were not very discreet. If you don’t wish to get found out with something like that you need to put something on the bed that you can wash, a towel, perhaps.”

“Yes, sir.”

Father got up, and Jervis’s heart quailed, but Father was not walking over to him, but pacing, going to the window, and looking out. “You should have told me, first,” Father said. “But I suppose that would have been hard, and perhaps you didn’t have time.”

He turned back. “I am pleased, actually. Both because I think you need this kind of outlet and because of who you chose. She’s rather ugly, rather fat, so it couldn’t have been for her beauty. And if you just wanted to get it done, your allowance is sufficient for an occasional foray. But James Marshall’s daughter. And I saw the way she looked at you, so I know it wasn’t unwilling. That dress she had on.” He shook his head.

“Anyway, I am pleased, and I will stay pleased as long as you are careful. I don’t care how long this lasts, but I want it to end well, do you understand?”

Jervis, who didn’t, nodded anyway.

“To that end, I am raising your allowance a hundred dollars a week, but I want you to spend it all on her, do you hear?”

“Yes, Sir!” Jervis said.

“Dinner, roses, whatever she likes. She probably won’t be excited by shopping, being as how her own father is so rich.”

“What does he do, Sir?”

“Actually, he has a job up your alley. His company does investments in ‘groundbreaking research’ of all types. I don’t understand most of it, any more than I understand what you do. But he works with genius types like you, all social misfits so you might get along with some of them. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of them during your fling Jennifer. That might be interesting to you, and even profitable.”

“All in all this is a good relationship, as long as you are careful.” He paused. “You can go now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jervis left the office, closing the door carefully behind him, and turned toward the stairs, where he saw his sister, white faced, staring at him. At his look her face changed and she frantically motioned him up, and down to her room. “What happened?”

“Mom figured it out, and told Dad.”

“Was he upset? He didn’t sound upset. He didn’t beat you?”

“No. No, he wasn’t upset at all. I guess he figures this is a good business move, somehow. He raised my allowance by a hundred, which I have to spend on her.”

Jenny nodded. They both were used to having their allowances raised for a specific purpose. And Dad wouldn’t watch to carefully, but you didn’t dare make a mistake on your spending. Suzy, too, knew the power of her dad’s belt altho, as a girl, she came in for it less, and hardly at all the last couple of years.

“So… you’re in good?”

“Good but careful. He told me I had to ‘end it well’ when it ended. What does that mean?”

“It means you need to not be a jerk and start dating someone else while you are still sleeping with her. You two were sleeping together, right? Not just playing games?”

“No, yeah,” he muttered. “You’ve gotta help me Suz. I don’t know how to do this.”

“You seem to be doing pretty well so far!” Suzy said. “You spend one dinner party with her and then, the next day, you invite her over to your bed? Pretty hot stuff, if you ask me.”

“It wasn’t like that. She did it all.” He supposed that most boys would have problems sharing stuff like this with their sisters, but when you have both been lined up and beaten, back and forth, by your father, side by side, and had your sibling watch you cry your face out… and when you’ld had to watch out for each other, and keep the others secrets for years, sharing became second nature. “She did it. Last night, and then today. She started stuff last night, and she called me today. She even somehow got her number on my phone, and got my phone number.”

“That was probably pretty easy,” Suzy said.

“How? We were with each other pretty much the whole time last night.”

“Oh? Did you go to the bathroom with her?’

“Well, no, of course not.”

“And did you check your phone when she went?”

“Oh,” Jervis said and, in his minds eye, saw the whole thing. The girl ‘having to go’ and then sitting there on the toilet with the lid down, calling her phone from his to get the number, and then programming in her number and those roses. In fact, she probably had to buy that image from somewhere. He pulled out his phone to check, but Suzy stopped him.

“Leave off with the tech stuff, bro. What were you two doing in the basement, anyway? Pretty creepy place to hang around naked, not that that has ever stopped you. But she wanted to go down there?”

“I was showing her the house, and she wanted to explore. And then she wanted to know all about what I did there.”

“Oh, right, what a come on. She was just leading you by the nose, trying to get you to think you were this macho stud scientist type.”

“Hey, she really seemed interested!”

“I doubt it, bro. But, hey, if you’re happy, and Dad’s happy, I’m happy. I guess even Mom is happy.”

“She wanted me to call her, yesterday.”

“Well, good then. Another crisis passed. For now, anyway.”

Jervis looked at his phone, “Hey, I need to get down to the lab…” he started, but just then the phone lit up with Roses.

“Hi, Jervy, I’m just dying to talk to you…”

His sister’s eyes following him, Jervis went back to his room… and stayed there.

—

Wow! Jennifer was so cool. And she was actually interested in his work, no matter what Suzy said. She didn’t understand it very well, but she was trying. He went out into the hallway. Everyone was asleep, so he went down to the lab very quietly. He didn’t want his mom getting on his case, not tonight. Tonight he was going to run another experiment. Just a little one…