The Beginning Of Rain In December (6 page)

“I do not know,” Lebna said in horror. “She kept the experiments from everyone, even I. And then I was taken, there was no word from her, I did not know even when she was killed by them, the ministry. She destroyed everything.”

“Did she have any assistants?”
Lebna shook his head. “I do not think so. Much of her work she performed at Oxford. When she heard that Rain’s mother was pregnant she flew back to Ethiopia and established a small office in the back of our house in the city. That house was decimated. The most I remember is that she had modified a certain mutant gene…she called it the genotype 2978. She said its’ mutations is what leads to sickness, early death. That is all. I spoke not of my research to her and she spoke not of her research to me. We could not. Our jobs were of the most importance, government restricted.”

“What occurred, Enlai?” Song asked.

“She commanded me, in my head, to do things. I had no choice in the matter.”

Rain could feel the tension in Song, his anger. “What did your wife create, Lebna?” He asked in horror.

“She knows not her power,” Enlai interjected. “She is afraid of it. She does not want this, did not want it thrust upon her. She wants to be normal.”

“How would you know this?” Snow asked. “If it is as you state than this is just the beginning. Lebna, you must figure out her power and you cannot delay. If we piece together her DNA maybe we can understand what your wife created.”

“She is not some freak,” Lebna said.

“Yes she is,” Song returned. “I know it is not her fault, I know it is not of her doing, I know she is an innocent in this, but that does not change the facts. Right now we are holding her against her will although she has been cooperative. How long will she continue to be cooperative? Even now she may decide to do things out of desperation that she would not normally.”

“Then we should free her,” Lebna stated. “She is not a prisoner.”
“She will never be safe,” Enlai said. “They will find her and they will kill her.” He stated. “The ministry has no compassion, no human emotion. They are built upon the fact that they will annihilate their enemies and Rain is their enemy as is the United Stated. She stays here.”

“She stays,” Snow said.

Rain removed herself from the conversation, her breathing heavy, she had an explosive headache and was nauseated. She barely managed to throw up in the toilet, feeling horrid, before passing out on the bathroom floor, her last thoughts on Enlai.

“Rain? Rain?” A worried voice stated from above her. She was in the bed, Enlai’s presence next to her, she knew him deep within her. Seen inside of him, knew that he had not spoken a lie that he wanted her, against his better judgment.

“Enlai?” She said quietly. The room was lit by only one small lamp on a desk near the door. “What happened?”

“I found you on the floor, you…your voice called me, you were in pain,” he said.

“I did not mean to, I do not want to be inside your head,” she said. “Not again.”

“I know, Rain.” He said, lying next to her, holding her to him. “What happened?” He asked. “What caused you so much pain?”

She paused, choosing her words carefully. “Enlai, I should not be alive. I remember so much now, when I passed out, every horrid memory. I am a freak of nature. I should have died that day my parents were killed, my village destroyed. The boy who tried to help me escape, he was shot, the bullet pierced through him, and hit me, it was only a brief moment of pain. It pierced my chest, my heart.”

She felt him stiffen next to her. She took his hand, placed it under her shirt, to touch the smooth scar over her left breast. “Here and when I hid away from them, in the trunk of a deadened tree, the bullet it pushed back out of my body. When I was bit and stung by scorpions and spiders, although it hurt, I was never sick, never died even though many of them were poisonous. When the men came and killed the couple that I traveled with in Boston, another bullet hit me, here,” she said, bringing his hand down to her abdomen. “Once again, it was a momentary pain and nothing more.”

“I should have died, Enlai. I am not normal. I am half human and half something else that should not exist. I want to die, Enlai and my body to be burned. I don’t want to live this way.” She admitted in fear. “I don’t want to be experimented on.”

He held her.

There was nothing that he could say to ease her fears, nothing to say that would make right the horrible wrong that had been done to her. Experimented on as a fetus in her mother’s womb by a grandmother, now just a pawn between America and China.

“Would you agree to undergoing tests?” He finally asked, whispering next to her, trying to absorb some of her pain within him.

“What kind of tests?” She asked, still staring at the ceiling above her, little movement as if she moved she would feel pain again. To be still, quiet, frozen was normalcy, was human. A shallow breath, the soft thud of her heartbeat.

“Blood tests, urinalysis, a full body MRI and a bone density scan.” He finally admitted. “No experiments, I promise you, Rain, I will not allow them to experiment on you.” He said.

“How can you stop them?” She asked.

He could not or would not give her an answer. “I will not let them hurt you,” he relented. His hand was still on her flat stomach, the touch of the small scar beneath him. He ached for her, wanted to hide her away from the world, from the unknown and from the future. Yet, he knew this would not be. She would have to face whatever was to come. He did not understand this connection, this hold she had upon him. Enlai has sensed it the moment he saw her, walking just inches from her as she perused the shelves in an antique bookstore just south of downtown Seattle, three weeks before their date. He had wanted to reach out his hand, touch her and had clenched his hand, stilling himself.

He did not know where this empathy came from, this softness. He was a man who had killed and tortured others in the name of his country, to protect the innocent, to show sympathy was to die, yet, with her his thoughts raged, finally settled. He would die for her, he knew his death would come, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Enlai,” she said. “I will do this, just these tests, I want the answers to what I am just as much as others. But any more than this I will not do.”

“I understand, Rain,” he said, once again, wanting that incessant need to bury him in her, forget time and space, pain and anger, death and horror.

“Will you wait for me, here?” She asked. “I need to use the bathroom.”

He nodded and watched as she got out of the bed, her movements graceful. He studied her as she went to the bathroom, closing the door and a moment later the running of the faucet, the splash of water, the opening and closing of a drawer.

“Who bought these items?” She asked, standing in the doorway of the bathroom, the light on behind her, casting her in a soft luminesce glow.

“Lebna has an assistant named Olivia, she is trustworthy, she shopped for you.” He said, watching as she massaged her hand with lotion, the light scent wafting to him, pleasant, seductive.

“I must thank her,” Rain returned, turning off the light and walking back towards the bed, but this time she sat next to Enlai’s hip, he had not moved from his position, but as she sat, he turned towards her, watching her in the darkness, the emerald glow of his eyes astonishing. “Will you tell me the truth about your youth? Your father? Was he a British diplomat? Your mother a prostitute?” She asked.

“My father was British, my mother Chinese. They were both physicists. The ministry kidnapped them. Song and I were hidden with trusted friends. The ministry told them if they tried to escape we would be killed. When their use was up, the ministry executed them but not before my parents asked Lebna to find us and to take us to America, hide us there.”

“Enlai,” she said. “I am sorry for your lost.”

“As I am for yours,” he returned.

She brushed the hair back away from his face, his beard was growing in, making him appear even harder, more masculine but that did not detect from the granite of his jawline, the perfect formation of beautifully formed lips. He was an Adonis, perfection. “I believe in God,” she finally said, touching the side of his face, gently cupping it before tracing the strong formation of his nose, the outline of his lips. “How can I not when He has created one such as you?” She asked before bringing her lips to his.

“I am just a man,” he said, capturing her lips to his.

There were no words to be spoken, she needed this comfort, him, needed to know that she was alive for this moment because tomorrow wasn’t promised to either one of them. She would see herself dead before anything happened to Enlai, this man who had captured her soul so quickly. To have him hurt, to not have him was a thought she dared not contemplate. And although he said he would protect her, it was her mission to protect him. He deserved more than this, more than her, more than a freak of nature. He deserved peace, a beautiful wife and loving children. He deserved peace away from the ministry, from the evils of others. She would see it so.

“I want you,” Enlai said, pulling her on top of him.

She knew it, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. She placed the memories of her past rapes in a locked closet, refusing them anymore, refusing the terror and pain that it had brought her. She had no more past, her entire life had been a lie; she wasn’t promised the future, the only thing she had were the moments before her.

“Will you help me forget, for now? I want to lose myself in you, want to forget everything except you,” she said.

“Trust me, you have to trust me,” he demanded, pulling her beneath him, kissing her, touching her, taking off her clothes one at a time, before removing his own clothes, joining her back in the bed.

“I do,” she finally said, wrapping her arms around his masculine neck, sweeping her hands upon his broad back, his muscular shoulders, arms and chest. She couldn’t get enough of the feel of him, so unused to masculinity such as his, it was frightening and welcoming all at once. “You are so beautiful,” she said, as he kissed her, moaning, settling between her legs.

Laughing, he suckled the soft skin of her neck. “Isn’t that something I should say to you?” He said, going down to the tender skin of her collarbone, the tops of her breast. “You are beautiful, your skin like silk, I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you,” he said, before suckling a nipple, her answering moan and thrust of hips making his smile. “Whenever I see you, I ache to touch you, to bury myself inside of you,” he said, licking down her stomach before opening her legs, smiling again at her gasp of pleasure when he buried his face between her legs.

There were no words to describe the pleasure he gave her, her moans and gasps of pleasure and when she screamed, he brought himself back up, bracing himself on his arms. “Let me inside,” he whispered and she nodded, opening her legs up even more.

He braced himself, pushing himself deep within her, not able to hold back the moans of pleasure as she clenched around him. “I won’t hurt you,” he said, kissing her, suckling her neck, that tender skin where it met her collar bone and she moaned with pleasure from the trusts of his hips, his caresses, his lips.

“I know,” she whispered before they kissed again, moving in unison with each other until she tightened around him, closing her eyes, moaning at the growing passion. “Please, don’t stop, don’t stop,” she cried.

“Just feel,” he gritted, his thrusts harder and faster, his breathing ragged as he watched the emotions flitting across her face. “Let it go,” he whispered, kissing her, bringing his hand down between their bodies to caress her.

She cried out, thrusting her hips raggedly as he took her cries within him and met her, pulling out at the last minute to explode on the bed sheet next to her.

“Enlai,” she whispered, he had pulled her towards him, away from the wetness of their passion. “I’ve never felt anything like that,” she admitted, her limbs were still trembling, her breathing regulating itself.

“Are you alright?” He asked, caressing her hair, her back.

She shook her head, laughing slightly. “No and it feels wonderful. Can we do it again?” She asked, kissing his lips, his cheek, his neck and shoulders as she pushed him onto his back, her hands and lips flying everywhere, as he could do nothing except laugh.

“We can try, but it can take a moment,” he said but that did not still her hands. She did not care, she wanted to taste him everywhere, to find that pleasure with him again.

“Just relax,” she said and began nibbling on his neck, slowly working her way down, by the time she touched him intimately with her mouth he was ready for her once again and did not allow her to spend too long on him, pulling her up. He knelt on his knees, kissing her before pulling her on top of his lap.

“Ride me,” he demanded and she did as he commanded.

They stared at each other, on their sides facing each other in the dim light, Rain’s hands bundled beneath her face. “How long has it been?” He asked.

“Twelve years,” she said softly. “I was raped and I didn’t ever want to be touched again. Until you.”