Whispers From The Edge

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

Border Translations

The aftermath of my tirade stayed with me for three days. My mood remained black and word spread at work to stay well clear of me. When I did emerge briefly from my lab a few people did say hello, but that was all. Fine with me. I’d been working on a hard to crack text and I wasn’t in the mood for idle chit-chat. The only words I was interested in were the ones that lay before me under the glass.

On the surface the pictographs resembled early Egyptian, but unlike most writings that were on stone from that epoch, these were on papyrus and possessed a consonant-vowel arrangement that was anything but consistent. Excitement had run high when they were delivered at the Ancient Studies Institute, but as the months passed and, without any breakthroughs on the translations, one by one my fellow researchers had been directed to other projects. The Institute was privately funded and it wasn’t cost effective to keep so many on a dead end, but I had fought to stay. Now, I spent most of my time alone. That was going to change today.

I ignored the lab door swinging open. Usually it was just an intern dropping off the mail or some other administrative flunky checking up on my “progress”. Either way it wasn’t worth the effort of turning around from my lab table. But the heavy step and long stride told me that, whoever it was, didn’t just stop at my desk.

“Excuse me. I’m looking for Roberta Harper.”

The hackles rose on the back of my neck. It was bad enough getting interrupted, but to hear that name...

“It’s R.J., you i***t. Or can’t you read what’s on the door? Maybe I should call you - ”

As I straightened up whatever snappy insult forming on my lips died in stunned silence, and not just because I was face-to-face with...a living god! Forget his velvet brown eyes, sandy-blonde hair or his rugged, lined face. A sense of already knowing whom he was swept through me, an unshakeable premonition that my life, my real life, was just beginning.

“Uh, ahh, I mean, I’m sorry." The words finally lurched out of me. “Have me met before?" Way to go, Harper. What an original line.

The man indulgently smiled. Given his looks he’d probably heard it a thousand times, what was one more? He let me off the hook.

“No, can’t honestly say that we have,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’ve heard a few things about you though, the Bulldog, the One-Who-Doesn’t-Quit, Translator Extraordinaire. I didn’t know about the ‘R.J.’ part." He smiled and the sun came out.

This wasn’t fair! I felt like a stumbling schoolgirl experiencing her first crush. “Sorry about that. It’s just...I hate my first name.”

“Really? That’s too bad. I like it." He extended his hand. “Ben Washburn.”

His hand felt calloused, not the usual type one would find in a soft ivory tower. Nor did this man’s physique come from weight lifting machines. He leaned down at the papyrus.

“Interesting. You don’t work off a copy?”

“I prefer the real thing.”

He gave me a curious, intense look. “So do I. I noticed your coat over there in the corner. So, you appreciate leather?”

I glanced over at my long, leather coat. It was an old friend, it kept me warm and reminded me of my ongoing master search. “I like the feel of it, yes.”

“Hmm. Maybe we can discuss...details...later.”

What was this? Was he scene? Before I could figure it out, he turned back to the papyrus. “Those characters match the ones on a tablet I dug up outside Ankara last year.”

My intellect took over from my libido. “You’ve seen this writing before?”

He nodded. “It’s why I’m here. When I saw these papyrus’s on your website I flew here right away. I haven’t even finished checking in at personnel yet. How are you doing on the translation?”

“Not very good,” I replied. I hated to admit failure, especially now. I recounted several different methods I’d used. Some appeared promising at first, but ultimately they all resulted in gibberish. “It’s as if the people who wrote this not only possessed a unique language, but also a different type of logic.”

He grimaced. “All cultures have common characteristics, descending from a common source.”

“You’re a diffusionist too?" A hint of leather and intellectual compatibility? My heart almost skipped a beat.

Ben straightened up. “Was I that obvious? A single source for all the widespread, ancient cultures with these common myths and writings is the most logical explanation. I was hoping this might shed some light on it.”

“I don’t think we have a Rosetta Stone here.”

“If we can get it translated, we’ll know.”

“We?”

For the first time he appeared confused. “Yes, of course,” Ben said. “I’m not leaving until this thing is completely understood. Don’t you want the help?”

My jaw dropped. “Are you kidding? Yes, yes!" I jumped off my stool and gripped both his arms. I would’ve kissed him too, but as it happened, Dena from personnel came barging in.

“Oh, there you are! I thought you were lost." She sidled up to Ben, wrapping an arm possessively around his. Dena was obviously smitten with Ben too. “We’ve got to get your file set up.”

Ben coughed in embarrassment at Dena’s fawning over him, yet he still maintained a certain grace. “Dena found me wandering the halls. She kindly gave me an informal tour on the way to her office.”

“Come along now,” Dena said, with a claw like grip on Ben’s arm. “You’ve got a lot of paperwork to fill out. I’ll help you with it all.”

Ben acted like he was being marched off to the gallows. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said over his shoulder.

“In a few days, you mean,” I called back.

Dena threw me a nasty look. She knew what I was referring to; she’d draw out Ben’s orientation process as long as possible. It wouldn’t take days, of course, but she’d work at getting her hooks into him even further. Dena had pulled the trick before on other new male hires, but they always escaped her. She was a nice looking woman, but among the Institute’s staff she was known as Desperate Dena. If only she would get a nice, relaxed glow perhaps men would find her desirable. Maybe what she needed was a good whipping and f*****g, but I wasn’t about to suggest the club to her. My job was too important to me. It was no one else’s business what I did away from the lab and I refused to let my social life jeopardize my career.

The same attitude extended to my work habits as well. I kept my own hours, sometimes working past five and catching a late train to my apartment in the northwest section of Chicago. I enjoyed staring at the city lights reflected in Lake Michigan, even if the sight didn’t last too long. They helped soothe me, allow my thoughts to drift. More than once I’d come up with the solution to a problem, work related or personal, on the way home.

Not lately though. These inscriptions were driving me nuts. Unlike my colleagues who’d moved on to greener pastures, I dug in my heels and refused to give up. “Bulldog” was right. The more elusive my goal the harder I fought to attain it. Like with the text that lay before me. Like with my master search.

Spencer had deserted me, but now this handsome stranger named Ben Washburn comes waltzing into my life with a tease of...what? He’d already hinted of knowing something about my hidden life. I should’ve cut him off right then, as I would’ve other people, yet he didn’t exhibit any of the low-life aspects I’d expect from a blackmailer, but there was something else. Was it my feeling that we already knew each other?

I snorted and pushed myself away from the papyrus. Why did things have to be so difficult? And how did I wind up in this bare place all alone with a monster headache coming on at...eight pm?!

That was it, just one too many days without any success, not only with the text but also for everything else. I threw off my lab coat, not caring if it landed on the desk or floor, and grabbed my leather one and purse. Through the long halls I marched, past the janitors, my pace nearly a match for my last night at the club.

The club. I considered going there. All my conscious criteria were in place for it; frustration at my failure for translating the text again, another late night and my need, need, NEED for a strong hand. But Spencer was a bridge I had burned. No going back to him now and there wasn’t anyone else, unless I sweet-talked Spencer into hooking me up with that dom he mentioned. Yeah, right, sure. Nothing had happened to change my opinion of the doms in the scene, whether I’d met them all or not. As I hit the lobby doors I knew I was going straight home, try to relax in a hot bath, and cap it all off with a quiet, solitary m**********n. s**t. That’s what it had come down to – making love to myself. Fine. If that’s the best offer I can get tonight –

I turned a corner. My hands inside my leather coat’s pockets formed into fists. My eyes lasered on the faded blue floor tiles passing under my feet, leaving a thin pair of smoking lines behind me. Damn, damn, damn!

Only an immovable object could stop me.

The “object” shot out of an office without looking and turned right into me. My head collided with his chest.

“Hey! Why don’t you watch – “

The immovable object had a face I had gotten tongue-tied in front of before. The same thing happened again.

“Oh, uh, sorry. I didn’t see...I mean, I should have...”

“Are you alright?” said Ben Washburn.

“Fine? Uh, yeah, sure. I’m fine. Just fine. Uh, how’re you?”

I winced. Great. More scintillating wit from yours truly. Then it struck me as odd I found him here at this hour. “Did you just escape Dena’s clutches?”

He laughed, a quiet one to match his low voice. “No, we finished right at five. I had some other things to go over. What about you? Just knocking off?" He smiled.

No, my legs didn’t go out from under me when he flashed those pearly whites, but they sure were nice to look at, like the rest of him. He kept on smiling, waiting. Waiting? Oh, right, waiting for an answer. Wake up, wake up!

“The translation,” I said. “Time just got away from me.”

Now it was his turn to pause. “Didn’t you even stop for lunch?”

“I had some coffee and a...a sandwich." s**t, why did I feel like a student hauled up in front of the principal?

“No dinner though?” he said. “Stay here, I’ll get my coat." He patted his own flat stomach. “I need to eat too.”

“No, it’s alright. I just want to- ”

“I said, stay here.”

I had heard that tone before, although rarely. Confident, assured. Dominant. Now I did have to lock my knees in place.

He was back in a moment, a hand firmly on my elbow, steering me out the door, onto the hectic sidewalk.

“I’m unfamiliar with Chicago,” Ben said. “Where’s good to eat?”

“There’s a pizzeria about two blocks away, but I don’t know if they’re still - ”

“Chicago style pizza, huh? Let’s walk. After all that sitting you need to stretch those legs.”

We didn’t say anything the rest of the way, myself slightly in front but he always close to my side, his hand lightly grasping my arm. At the still busy restaurant he took over, asking for a table in a quiet corner. We ordered quickly, myself first but after he gave me a slight nod to do so. The waiter retreated and those brown eyes fixed on me.

“Do you always work this hard?” he asked.

“I have no social life,” I said, determined to keep the conversation light. My response was sort of true; after my tirade at the club I had gone home to an empty apartment night after night. Hmmmph. Sort of true? More like dead bang.

Again a long silence. I rushed to fill it. “You’re a fine one to talk. Don’t tell me the Institute is your whole life too?”

Sheepishness was not something I expected to see in this man. I rather liked it though, until my head started to hurt again. I rubbed my temples while he bit his lip.

“The Institute isn’t what I’d call my life,” he said. “More like my family’s.”

“Your family’s?" I shook out a couple of painkillers from my purse and got ready for a history of how his mother and father met in Africa or Asia and how he was following in their archaeological footsteps. Just what I needed. Pound, pound. God, what a headache. I popped the pills followed by a water chaser.