Promise Me Eternity Read Online Free

she yelled at him, the lines
around her mouth became even more pronounced, as if she wanted to
use her jaw muscles to underscore her resentment. Nevertheless, he
still found her very beautiful.
    Helen worked at a beauty salon called Sophia,
in downtown Medford. She was an excellent stylist and her customers
kept coming back to her. She especially liked the wealthy ones, who
boasted about their luxurious lifestyle, but this of course only
made her more bitter and resentful toward Simon, who when they were
young had promised to give her all sorts of wonderful things.
    Simon had become accustomed to ignoring her
constant complaining. Over the years he learned to shut her out and
let his thoughts take him somewhere else. Why isn’t Dorothy
feeling well? What could I have done wrong? He decided to
review all his notes one more time. I must have slipped up
somewhere. Unless this is a reaction?
    “Are you even listening to me?”
    He pushed his empty plate away and stood up
from the table. “I have to go. My work is waiting for me.”
    “You’re not having more?”
    “No. No, thanks.”
    And in a flash, he darted off to the
laboratory.
     
    As he looked through his notes, he kept
glancing at the rabbit. She sat there peacefully, twitching her
long ears. The carrot lay in front of her, untouched.
    He could feel himself succumbing to
depression, and he knew this was a mistake. He should not let
himself get attached to the animals he used for experiments. He
shouldn’t even have given them names. But he had been sure the
vaccine would work this time.
    Previously, he had always done his
experiments on rats, which eventually died. Some of them lived only
a few days, others a month or so, but none of them had lived longer
than three months. When he gave them the previous version of the
vaccine, he thought they seemed much livelier, and the initial data
indicated that the aging process had stopped. He waited three
months and decided it was time to try the vaccine on Dorothy. The
idea was that he would give her eternal life.
    He stared at his notebook for three hours,
making endless calculations. He wanted to be sure there were no
mistakes in his figures. The percentages of the individual
components were crucial, and it was here that there could be a
slip-up.
    He then picked up a large needle and opened
the metal cage. “There, there,” he told her, “this is going to hurt
only a little.”
    Using a biopsy needle with a diameter of more
than a millimeter, he took a sample of muscle tissue. He placed it
on a small rectangular piece of clear glass and pressed another
piece of glass on top of it.
    “Hmm. … Now, that’s strange. Not very
encouraging.” He didn’t like what he saw. He looked at the rabbit
sadly and hoped everything would be alright. Then, stretching his
arms, he decided it was time for bed.
     
     
     
     

Chapter 5
    _______________________
     
     
     
    Jerry Duncan spent more than an hour prepping
and cooking supper. He then went into the bedroom and took off his
T-shirt and pants and placed them in the closet. He glanced in the
mirror on the closet door, checking the fat around his waist.
Concerned about his looks, Jerry tried to run the track at a nearby
sports field at least twice a week. He saw a slim young man with a
strong build and he smiled with satisfaction.
    Grabbing a fresh pair of underwear and a
towel, he slipped into the bathroom to take a shower. He had just
lathered up when he heard the front door closing. He quickly rinsed
the soap off and patted himself down with the towel.
    “Hi there, baby,” he said, meeting Anita in
the kitchen, and planted a wet kiss on her lips. He had wrapped the
cotton towel around his waist, and a few drops of water still
glistened on his back.
    “Hi,” she replied as she lifted the lids off
the pots. “What did you fix us tonight?”
    “Veal with rice and veggies.”
    She sniffed the steam whirling in the air and
nodded in satisfaction. “Smells good. I’m