On the last day of the experiment, Lacey swiped the list of names from her researcher, Morris’, lab. It was dead easy to do, since he seemed to have no concept of security - not surprising in this case, since all there was to protect was unintelligible pheromone data and a lot of smelly T-shirts. So it was beyond simple for Lacey to leave her jacket behind in the exam room, and then remember to go back and get it once Morris had escorted her to the lobby.
“Oh, no – I forgot my jacket! I’ll be right back!” was all she had to say, before turning quickly and jogging back down the hall at a bright pace. Morris started to say, “I’ll go…” and then stopped, and turned to follow her. Lacey just had time to open the door to the lab, fold his laptop carefully closed, grab the jacket from the back of her chair, and hang it over her arm, concealing the computer.
“Got it!” she said brightly to Morris, as he turned the corner of the hallway and walked toward her. “It’s not cold, but I always carry it with me in case I walk into some building that’s got the A/C set to ‘freeze’,” she continued, walking in long strides so Morris had to amble a little faster to keep up. “It feels fine in here, but I swear, some restaurants I go into these days would be more bearable if they just shut the A/C off and let people be, instead of trying to turn them into ice cubes.” She turned and smiled at Morris. “You know what I mean?”
They had reached the lobby, and were approaching the door. Lacey stopped and turned to look inquiringly at Morris, clearly waiting for an answer.
“Oh, yes…” he said, and paused, then added brightly, “It’s better to be prepared, than Frigidaire’d.”
Lacey had to think about that for a second – then she burst out laughing. “Oh! Ha-ha-ha, that's right! You are too good, Morris! Well, adios then. My work here is done.” She put out her hand for him to shake. Morris was smiling; he shook her hand and nodded his head. He watched her go out the door, through the short entryway, and out into the sunlit afternoon, jacket over her arm.
As soon as she had walked past the building, Lacey picked up her pace, turned the corner, and headed straight for a coffee shop in the middle of the next block. She was practically jogging as she pulled the laptop out from under her jacket, rested it on a bent arm, and checked the screen to make sure the data she needed hadn’t disappeared yet...it hadn’t. She let out the breath she’d been holding. There it was, her own page of preferences, staring back at her. She tapped the spacebar to renew the timer and keep the screen alive, then gently closed the lid, slowed her pace, and turned into the coffee shop.
Once inside, Lacey picked out a chair, placed the laptop on the table in front of her and opened it. She looked for a long time at number 7, which she had scored the highest on a scale from one to ten. As she looked, she felt the sensation she’d had in the lab, when she tested that box, come back to her:
...inhaling through the hole, she felt an immediate, cascading warmth & tingliness fall from the top of her head to her shoulders, followed instantly by the same sensation just below her navel, descending down her thighs. It took only a second, but was so alarmingly pronounced that Lacey had to sit and gather herself before she sniffed again, this time concentrating on the odor rather than her body’s reaction.
The main difference between the scent of this shirt and the others, she thought, was that it wasn’t at all spicy or sharp. It smelled more like damp earth, or…she sniffed again – damp sand, like at the beach…with lots of microscopic life underneath, giving it highly a stimulating and complex aroma. Lacey inhaled again, deeply, and vaguely felt the two-part cascade slide down her body again as she took the odor through nose and mouth, and into her mind…it is salty and delicious, she thought. It smelled like the sea.
Lacey smiled a most contented smile. "Ten,” she had said to the waiting Morris...
So now here she was in the coffee shop, trying to find out who #7 was. She was hurrying. Fortunately, Morris kept very neat, logical & well-labeled records. She clicked out of the folder marked ‘Female Subjects’, and into the one marked ‘Male Subjects.’ The male subjects didn’t have any scores or other data to confuse the search – the experiment was only testing how women rated males’ smells, not vice versa. So just like that, she found the name and contact information of subject #7:
Martin Westerbrand
1452 Pacifica Blvd.
New York, NY 10128
Phone: 221-320-0235
Lacey’s heartbeat - which had been going like mad already - ticked up a notch. She took out her phone and entered his name and number. After a moment’s hesitation, she entered his address, too. Then she clicked back to the Female Subjects folder, opened today’s results to where she’d begun, clicked the laptop shut and tucked it into her elbow as she rose. Pocketing her phone, she draped her jacket over the laptop and headed for the door. The search had taken just minutes, but already she felt the chill of the A/C on her nervously sweating flesh. Lacey was glad to step out into the sun.
She jogged back to the building.
Approaching carefully, Lacey peeked through the entryway’s two glass doors – no Morris. She came through the doors and stepped into the waiting room.
She approached the female subject seated nearest the door. “Would you give this back to Morris?” Lacey asked, smiling, handing over the laptop. “I picked it up by accident with my jacket.”
Then she slipped back out the door.
* * *
Two days later, on a Friday, Martin Westerbrand answered a call.
“ ‘Lo," he said, as he usually did.
“Who?”
“Oh!...Well, nice to meet ya, Lacey.”
“Well, there wasn’t much to it, was there – I sleep in a t-shirt every night, anyway,” he chuckled.
“Well now yes, I do like seafood. In fact, my family is in the shrimping business right off Long Island...sure, sure – got my own boat and everything. Dad let me take over as captain after I lost my left eye in a fishing accident. Said I can probably see better with my one young eye than he can with the pair of his old ‘uns,” he chuckled.
“Oh – you would, would you?...Well, no, I don’t mind a bit…It’s not every day I get asked out to dinner by a gal that likes the way I smell,” he chuckled.
“Well, no, not very often – but after losing the eye, you might say all my dates have been at least half blind,” he chuckled some more.
“Oh, sure thing. I always recommend The Crow’s Nest, on the corner of Lexington and 95th. I’ll introduced you to my pet shrimp, Hercules,” he chuckled.
“Okay. Eight’ll do fine…say, what’s your last name, Lacey?” (pause)
“Not really….” (pause)
“Now girl, you are pullin’ my leg…”
He smiled. “See? You can’t fool me, girl! ‘Underwear’…ha! ‘Miller’ I’ll believe,” he said, chuckling.
“What?”
“Okay…yep…orange shirt, got it…right, I’ll be the one in the eye patch. Actually, there’s a few of us patchies lurking around that place; I’ll be the one in the eyepatch next to the fishtank, how’s that?”
“All right.”
“See ya later, Lacey girl. Bye, now.”
* * *
(enter Hercules the Mantis Shrimp. Order: Stomatopoda - Suborder: Unipeltata)
stomatopod monologue:
creep backward…creep forward…
“wat iz diz? eet iz shiny and oraange…round and multitudinous!…i am dazzled by ze sparkling oraange orbs… …mi dios, ze sparkles, ze color! eet does zometing to me…. (shiver) ooh!...i feel ze tingle in my tail!…zat iz new…i will move closer…"
creep forward...creep backward...
"it sees me! oh, but itz eyez are so duulll, like muud...but oh, wat iz dees dangling tings? oh, dey are de feelers...they look so fuulll and feaytheryy...ooh! (shiver)... ...enough of diz shiver bizness! she iz mine! i go plan...."
creep backward...creep forward...
"wait, wait wait, wat iz diz? oh, no no No No NO NO! eevil, one-eye loozer man wid de tappytappy fingers will NOT be being wiz my woman! NO! never mind! i take care of you, my big blind friend..."
creep forward...creep upward...
* * *
Lacey came early and sat patiently, nervously, by the fish tank. She stared at the door, then told herself to stop staring at it. She looked at the fish tank, but there did not seem to be anything in it but rocks and coral; she didn't see any fish or shrimp at all.
She looked back at the door.
It opened, and in came Martin.
Lacey smiled, and waved, but inwardly she thought, 'Ew. I do not like that eyepatch.'
Martin came over and leaned down to kiss her cheek. Lacey held her breath, but then remembered at the last second to take a sniff. Inwardly she thought, 'Ew! What IS that? Old Spice?'
He sat down, smiling broadly. "Hi there, Lacey girl! Wow - couldn'tve missed that shirt if I'd been blind in both eyes!" he chuckled.
Lacey smiled, inwardly thinking, 'One is enough.'
"Don't you like orange sequins?" she asked.
"In moderation, maybe!" He chuckled again. "Have you met Hercules yet?" he asked, gesturing to the aquarium to his right. Martin peered into the tank. "Nothin' stirring...let's see if we can tap 'im out." He tapped on the glass a few times. "Come on out, Herc! Show yer scaly self!" he chuckled.
"I didn't think there was anything in there," Lacey said, inwardly thinking, 'Only jackasses tap on fishtanks.'
"Oh, he's in there all right. He just hides in the nooks and crannies until a fish gets thrown in with him, then he comes out and eats it...look, there he is - he's hanging on the side of the filter, right over here!"
Lacey leaned toward Martin, 'til she could see the handsome, colorful 4-in. shrimp hanging onto the filter there near the tank lid - motionless, save little eye stalks waving.
"Ooh, he is SO cute!" Lacey exclaimed, smiling. Inwardly she thought, 'Ooh, he is so cute!'
"Yep, but dangerous - he can stun a fish just by smacking it and then drag it into his hole in about two seconds - I seen him do it," Martin said, looking at Hercules.
Then he looked back at Lacey, who was still leaning in, looking at the shrimp. "Say, I do like them earrings, though," Martin said. "Spotted feathers - they look real soft..." he reached out his right hand and gently took a feather between thumb and forefinger.
CRACK!
Hercules punched open the swinging black plastic lid of the fishtank, crawled over the edge and jumped to Martin's shoulder; Martin looked at his shoulder in shock...
SNAP!
The mad stomatopod cracked Martin in his right eye, turned, ran down his arm and jumped onto Lacey's shoulder; Lacey looked at the shrimp in surprise...
SMACK!
The smitten stomatopod struck a swift, salty kiss onto Lacey's lips, then sat back satisfied on her shoulder, his feelers caressing her feather earring...
The shrimp shebang had taken just seconds; Lacey sat stunned. Another second, and her body remembered the vital function of breathing, just as Martin's remembered the vital function of screaming.
Her face still turned toward Hercules standing possessively on her shoulder, Lacey inhaled. Her eyes closed, as the now-familiar cascade washed over her. He smelled salty and delicious.
And very strongly, of the sea.
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