Have you ever moved on to a better part of your life, but mourned a bit because your past life is over? That's what happens to David here in Chapter 13. David's situation isn't exactly like ours, but is it easy to understand his feelings?
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I had to decide what to do with the rest of my life.
It was difficult to see this as a good thing, As an opportunity. For my entire adult life, my only goal was to be a research scientist. Giving up that goal required something akin to mourning. My old life was gone. Dead. It was hard to imagine a new life.
But, slowly, my imagination improved. The outline of a new life gradually emerged. Although I could never tell anyone about the sonic stimulator, there was no reason I couldn't use it as often as I wished. I'd resolved to never use it to harm anyone, but it had been surprisingly easy to find women who wanted my company and could also benefit from my help. It had been that way for Mary, Krista, Mariana, and Esta. It could be like that for others. I confess that I was also thinking about the fact that I could have a wonderful, rewarding love life with many wonderful women, but I was genuinely committed to being a positive force in every life I touched.
And I wanted to touch a lot. The world is full of people who need help, and I was uniquely qualified to help as many as I could. I knew I didn't need to make love to everyone I helped. But I would enjoy sleeping with women who needed and wanted me.
This thought process went on for a while. I had a lot of interesting ideas, rejecting most of them. We'll skip straight to the idea I finally decided to try.
I decided to create a charitable foundation. For obvious reasons, I would have no trouble convincing corporations and rich individuals to contribute. I would focus our efforts on women. It's a man's world. Women were constantly struggling to overcome arbitrary obstacles placed in their paths. Consider Esta. Mariana. Victoria. A tiny amount of help had dramatically improved their lives.
Besides, no foundation can help everyone. I like women, and not just as lovers. As a man, I feel a biological need to protect and defend women. It's what we do. My efforts would be most effective if I concentrated on finding women who needed a little help, then giving them whatever they needed. It didn't matter if they needed housing, medical care, therapy, addiction services, help raising children, or financial skills. My foundation would meet their needs.
I imagine you can understand that this plan took a lot longer to conceive than it did for me to explain it just now.
I'll skip the technical details. A local law firm arranged for The Gaia Foundation to become a non-profit charity so donors could get tax deductions from donating. Gaia is a Greek goddess considered to be a primordial mother. Lots of things are named after her, including a particularly cool spacecraft. Look her up on Google. Very interesting. I liked the name for my foundation.
Fundraising was almost effortless. You can imagine how the presentations went.
"This is a charity worthy of your support."
"Worthy."
"You want to help us help needy women in our community."
"I want to help."
"You'd like to donate $25,000 for this first round of fundraising, then consider giving more in the future."
"I want to donate."
Yada yada yada. It was a big job. Overwhelming if I thought about it. But it's like that old joke:
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
I hired a consultant for advice on acquiring staff. I needed individuals capable of finding people who need help. I needed clerical staff. More than anything else, I needed a chief executive, because there was no way in hell that I could run the Gaia Foundation day-to-day. My job needed to be using the sonic stimulator like a magic wand, destroying obstacles and providing opportunities.
I worked to close down my lab. There would be awkward questions from the National Institutes of Health if I just resigned suddenly. They expected results. It didn't matter what - I needed to give them something. I combed through my data and found some minor results that were worthy of publication, but my report said nothing about what I'd actually discovered.
I packed up, submitted my resignation, and wondered what to do with my dogs. It's not too hard finding people anxious to own purebred standard beagles, but I wanted to keep them together. They'd lived their entire lives as a band of brothers, and I didn't want to split them up.
I mentioned it to Victoria, who claimed she had the answer.
"My parents will take them," she said.
"You've described your parents in terms that make me wonder why you think they'd be good dog owners," I said.
"My parents treat people like crap, especially people of the female persuasion, but they love animals. Love love love them." Victoria came up with a scheme that made me admire her ability to understand human nature. She planned to take the dogs to her parents farm "just for a few weeks" while I looked for a permanent home. That would give them plenty of time to fall in love and ask if they could adopt them. If it didn't seem like a good idea, we could retrieve the dogs at any time.
It worked great. The dogs and their new masters loved each other. Victoria's parents owned goats, and the dogs loved those goats. They got more fresh air and sunshine than ever. Problem solved.
I was talking about this with Victoria when I recognized that there was some other kind of problem. I asked what was bothering her, and of course she lied. "It's nothing," she said.
"It is definitely something," I said.
"No, really. It's nothing."
I was offended. After all we'd been through together, I considered Victoria a good friend. I had deep respect and affection for her, and she had to know that. I was gratified I'd been able to help her when it appeared she would have to drop out of college. I felt I'd earned her trust.
I got out my cell phone, turned on the sound file, and started the interrogation. "Tell me what's bothering you, Victoria," I said.
"I'm so embarrassed. I hate that I feel this way," she said.
"Unpack that for me," I said.
As you know, when I gave Victoria the help she needed to pay tuition and move into student housing, it allowed her to quit the crappy jobs that sapped her energy and prevented her from being the best student possible. It also allowed her to have a social life. She began going out with other girls, and that reminded Victoria that there was something missing in her life.
"Most of the other girls have boyfriends, and I am jealous when I see them together," she said. "I wish I had someone to hold me. I want to touch and be touched. Hold and be held. Love and be loved. Oh God, I am so silly," she said.
"This doesn't sound silly at all," I said. "You are a wonderful young woman who deserves to be happy. You don't want anything you aren't entitled to."
She was quiet for a moment. "I'm embarrassed to admit this," she said.
There was a long pause. "Well? Admit what?" I said.
Another long pause. "In my room, I share a wall with a girl who has a very nice boyfriend. They are both very nice people. At night, I can hear them make love. I hear them through the wall. They sound so in love."
At that moment Victoria erupted into tears. "Last night I realized I hated them. Hated them for being happy. Hated nice people for having something I want so much. I must be some kind of monster," she said.
Wow. That did not sound like "nothing" to me. My heart broke for Victoria. She was such an admirable person for so many reasons. She'd overcome a lot. And, of course, she got the seal of approval from the most qualified judges: my dogs.
The front of my shirt was wet from Victoria's tears. "You must think I'm a stupid little girl," she said.
"We've known each other for a long time, Victoria," I said. "You must know I could never feel like that. You must know I hold you in very high regard."
She said nothing, but she shook her head to show she knew I was telling the truth.
"It's tempting for me to say you are a wonderful woman who is sure to find love one of these days. And that's completely true. But it doesn't really provide any comfort, does it? Your feelings are your feelings. Knowing things will change eventually does nothing about the way you feel at this moment."
She cried so hard she trembled as I held her beneath my arm. We said nothing for a long time. Like many women, Victoria had spent so many years overcoming unreasonable barriers that it had damaged her. I'd become much more aware of situations like this since I'd invented the sonic stimulator. It seemed to be part of the human condition for women. Perhaps I'd become more sensitive to the challenging parts of women's lives since I'd acquired a way to do something about it.
At some point I began asking if Victoria had ever had a boyfriend. She had not. It went against her parents' religion, and she didn't have time for a boyfriend after she started college and had to devote all her energy to staying there. I asked if she'd ever thought about having a boyfriend. That's when it happened.
