Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 20:44:37 -0000
From: Beverly Taff <bevanhulse@totalise.co.uk>
Subject: Two by Two   Chapter 2

Two by Two.
Chapter 2

     Victoria, or as everybody called her, Vicky, was
overjoyed at her appointment to the vetinary chair.    It
meant complete independence financially but much more
importantly; she would never again have to suffer the
constant unwanted advances and attentions that had
plagued her life.
     Vicky was confused and angered by men.     She had
been raped in high school and the scars still burned.
Sex with men was forever after, associated with pain and
terror.   Vicky had never indulged in it again.
     She had tried sex with women but that had also
sickened her.  Despite her wounds, Victoria Williams was
utterly heterosexual.       She liked men, she liked
their powerful shoulders and slender hips, and she liked
their chiselled features.   She appreciated their bodies
like a sculptor or an artist would.    She just couldn't
bear being touched by one.
     For the first couple of weeks her life had been one
hectic whirl of moving apartments across the country.
>From her last university in San Francisco to her new post
on the East coast.   She had travelled the distance twice
by road and several times by air as she restructured her
life and untangled the countless strands of her life only
to reweave them on the east coast.    It was not until
after the inaugural ceremonies that she finally got
settled into the university and eventually discovered
that she shared the same laboratory block as the big
scruffy doctor.   She was walking down the corridor with
a bundle of files when he emerged from his lab and
collided with her for the second time in as many days.
     The second time however, he had the sense to help
her gather the papers- and apologise belatedly but with
the characteristic lack of grace.
     "Uh Sorry Miss Uuhm?"
     "Professor!   Professor Victoria Williams!"
Snapped Vicky, angered that he had shown such
patronisation.   "Don't you remember?    We met at the
inaugural ceremony.   I was the one you sat next to, the
one who you bumped into!"
     Steve's eyes flickered for the briefest instant but
never dropped to the compressed cleavage behind the
dishevelled files now bundled untidily in her arms.
Instead, his eyes slid ever so slightly sideways to stare
over her shoulder as he finally responded.
     "Oh!   Yes!   I uuhm remember now.   Well- sorry.
Sorry about the cakes, sorry about the files.   Must
dash.  Byee!"
     Vicky watched him almost run down the corridor and
wagged her head patronisingly.
     "What a pratt!"  She thought.    "What an utter
weirdo.      And was that fear I saw in those cold grey
eyes Professor Steven Morgan?"  She asked her self in the
now empty corridor.


     Then she remembered that throughout the recovery of
her files, when she was bent down and stooped forward
revealing all her charms.     Their heads had even
touched momentarily, but his eyes had never once
lingered.  His gaze had never once stabbed were they
would not have been welcome, - between her ripe breasts.
     'Yes,' she told herself, 'a really rare bird, if
still an odd one.'
     She stopped herself as she realised her opinion of
him had changed from weird to odd.    Then she realised
something even more important.    Even down there, in the
gloom of the lonely empty corridor, she had not once felt
threatened by him.   The big scruffy doctor was one of
the first men she had not felt uncomfortable with.
     'Yes,' she surmised to herself as she fiddled to fit
her key into the laboratory door.    'Perhaps I was wrong
there.    Weird implied something unsavoury, something
threatening.    Odd however, just hinted at farce or
comedy.   The man may have been sad and dysfunctional but
not dangerous.'
     Victoria Williams did not realise it but her
reaction had been exactly that of the intelligent high
school girls during Steve's teen years.
     Thus were they thrown together in their work.
     Both Professors had been appointed to develop new
ideas in organ donation.    Steve was in charge of
developing organ tissue that was more acceptable for
transplanting into humans whilst Vicky department was
working on developing animals with suitable tissue for
donation.    Their labs had been deliberately placed next
to each other because of the close association of their
research.
     Eventually, both professors had advanced to the
point of testing their theories on live animals.
     Steve, ever the innovator, wanted to make the
unorthodox step of creating animals with DNA compatible
with man.    To this end, he had bred some dogs in the
labs whose embryos had been inoculated with human DNA
shortly after their conception.   The dogs were pure-bred
Alsatians because they wanted as little scope for
unexpected deviation as possible and Steve, always a
stickler for probity and fair play, had inoculated the
puppy embryos with volunteer DNA from his staff.   He of
course was the first to donate his DNA tissue.
     The puppies grew in the labs and eventually, in the
privacy of his late night research Steve tried grafting a
tiny sliver of the puppy's fur onto his own body.   The
experiment worked and from that day he had a tiny
reminder of the dog's fur located deep down in his pubic
hair were it remained un-noticed.
     Once the experiments were completed, the puppies
were disposed of.   As the dogs found homes, each was
neutered to avoid any complications.     Steve however,
found that he could not bear to part with the dog that
contained his own DNA.    He took ownership of the dog
himself and it grew to be a loyal and obedient pet.   The
dog remained entire for Steve was alert to any possible
problems that may arise.       A dog with human DNA might
be used for all sorts of perverted research if it fell
into the wrong hands.
     He called the dog Zac and it became a favourite
around the campus.