I've always been a bit of a nerd, though the label doesn't bother me.
When I was younger, the other kids would be off exploring the woods on hot summer days, having the sorts of wild adventures that they'd talk about for weeks afterwards, their faces beaming with the memories.
Whereas I'd be in the garage, either taking something apart or putting something back together.
At Christmas, amongst the lego, barbie and hotwheels toys being opened by siblings, I'd be unwrapping circuit boards, soldering irons and transistors.
Long wave radio became a bit of a passion and there was a poetic irony in the fact that my closest childhood friends were literally thousands of miles away. We had to plan our conversations in advance, factoring in all the distractions that threatened to get in the way of us spending time together, as well as negotiating transatlantic time-zones.
As I grew older and technology advanced, I got into computers and coding. But my love of radio, and audio signals more broadly, never went away. I began volunteering at a local observatory that was supporting the SETI programme, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.
Most people think that the key to finding life amongst the stars is in 'looking', when in fact it's 'listening'. So as well as listening to the background radiation of the universe and seeking out the rhythmic pulses that are the telltale distress call of Quasars, I was delighted to be invited to contribute to a new project involving the study of the semantic content of whale songs. The intention was to see if we could glean any insights that we might apply to the cosmic signals we intercepted and whether it might infer they came from another intelligent species.
This in turn, saw me getting increasingly involved with the study of all manner of animal sounds, which eventually led to me becoming somewhat of an expert in the field. I was disappointed to have to eventually leave outer-space and the whale song behind; but unfortunately the demand for expertise on a more grounded, planetary level far outweighed what the universe could offer.
So this is what my career became. I was an expert forensic audiologist. Not only did I have a specialty in the tonal resonance of animal sounds, but I knew the exact range of hearing of pretty much every mammal on planet Earth, and what the upper and lower frequency thresholds were.
And as dull as it sounds, it made me independently wealthy. My services were much sought after from a whole raft of private, public and governmental agencies.
My big break came after publishing a research paper into canine behavioural techniques. You'll no doubt be familiar with the dog whistle. This emits a high-pitched sound that can be heard by dogs but is completely indiscernible by human ears. Well, after compiling a huge mountain of evidence of how dogs react to each other based on the pitch and tone of each other's growls, it was quickly apparent that just as with the whistle, much of what a dog 'communicated' went unheard by the human ear. In amongst the wooofing and snarling was a whole pattern of other sounds, hidden in the other audio signals. And it was these hidden sounds that triggered reciptors in the dog's brains that played a key role in establishing hierarchy and confirming the associated dominant and submissive roles within the group. Those dogs whose barks and growls contained more of these hidden signals were more likely to become the alphas.
Using this knowledge, I created a series of synthesised recordings that mimicked the pitch and tone of the most assertive noises we'd logged. I then mapped them to a handheld keypad that was linked to a small bluetooth speaker attached to the test dog's collar.
The results were immediate. Combining strict verbal commands with the use of the high-frequency sounds led to instant compliance. I wasted no time in patenting the keypad and collar and though I came away with a small fortune, the majority of the profits were syphoned off by the private equity fund that had sponsored the research.
After that, things got really interesting.
With the money I'd made, I opened my own laboratory. I hoped my future findings would be just as lucrative and I wanted to be sure that I kept hold of any earnings.
I'd taken on a small number of staff; two research assistants, Erica and Joel, who could look after the more mundane aspects of the experiments as well as progress separate projects of their own. There was an office manager, Casey, who could take care of admin and logistics in and around the lab. And finally an Executive Assistant, Naomi, for managing my diary and email.
We were a small but perfectly formed team. At 32, I was the senior figure and it was often a little too evident for my liking that I'd hired kids that were still closer to being college students than they were to their 30th birthdays.
Naomi was 24 and by virtue of her April birthday, she was the next oldest in the group. Joel was also 24, but he was a July baby, making him Naomi's junior by a few months. Erica was 19, though she was very mature with it, and Casey was fresh from celebrating her 18th birthday only a few weeks before accepting the office manager's role.
Casey hadn't had to fight too hard for the job. She'd been a volunteer at one of the SETI projects back in the day and we'd done some work together. She was only a kid back then, young but enthusiastic and quick to learn. She'd written an essay on me as a homework assignment following some of my early successes with my dog training technology. I'd been invited to a couple of events by her parents who'd been grateful for my good influence on her. It turns out that since getting involved in the sciences, she'd really knuckled down at school and was projecting much better grades than her parents had originally been anticipating.
Over the next couple of years I did some further mentoring for Casey and became good friends with the whole family. In fact, I'd become much too friendly with Casey's mom, Liv. I'd been a bit too naive originally, mistaking her flirting and forwardness for simple friendliness. She'd obviously seen my lack of a rebuttal of her advances as a clear sign to make a move. Which she did one night after a long day of barbecue and beer in their backyard. The guest list had thinned out a little, the kids had gone in the house to play Xbox and I was sitting at the edge of their pool, with my feet in the water and my back to the house.
I'd seen the silhouette of someone else climbing stealthily into the pool but it wasn't until she surfaced between my legs that I realised it was Liv, in a one-piece swimsuit that was straining to contain her overflowing cleavage. She didn't say anything. She just smiled and looked over my left shoulder (I realised afterwards, to make sure that I was blocking her from anyone else's line of sight).
Liv could have stepped onto any of the 'Real Housewives' sets and felt right at home. She was gearing up to celebrate her 50th birthday, though she'd spent a small fortune making sure her face could never betray her real age. She'd had just the right amount of other work done too, so that her body wouldn't give the game away either.
Over the years I'd seen her in all manner of outfits, from body-hugging gowns to skin-tight gym wear, and she was always a knock-out. She wasn't particularly curvy, but her breast augmentation surgery made sure she was always the focus of admiring glances, which she courted, covetously.
She liked to bleach her hair blonde, though the water of the pool had dulled it a couple of shades as she rested her hands on my thighs for support.
Without so much as a word, she winked at me, before pulling the waistband of my shorts down to reveal my flaccid cock.
I was hugely embarrassed and it was all I could do to stop myself from yelling at her. But I didn't want to cause a scene and in truth, I was more embarrassed at the sight of my own, naked manhood in its mediocre, unaroused state. Sitting hunched forward like I was, did nothing to enhance the situation. I instinctively shunted my shoulders backwards, raising my crotch a little and bringing it forward. And though this posture did improve the size perspective as I'd intended, it also gave Liv the leverage she needed to pull my shorts further down, and eventually off completely.
She was in no way perturbed at the lack of inches initially on show and after another quick glance toward the house and the barbecue, she took me fully into her mouth without a moment's hesitation. Within just a few seconds, the feel of her warm lips around my shaft had the desired effect and my cock hardened impressively inside her mouth.
I'd always loved oral sex and it was as though Liv knew this was the route to my soul. She took my full length into her throat, making a 'glug' 'glug' noise that only heightened my arousal. Within moments, I'd gone from startled protest to whimpering submission as she sucked every shred of defiance from me, directly at the source.
Looking fully into my eyes, she released me from her mouth before turning her attention to my aching balls. She had to sink a couple of inches to achieve this and as she sucked each of them into her mouth in turn, wanking me firmly with her right hand, I had to wonder how she wasn't drowning.
Up she came again in short order, returning to the expert blowjob she'd started just a few minutes earlier. She slowed her pace, once again taking me all the way into her throat, this time ensuring that I felt each individual millimetre as she made her way to the hilt of my shaft. As she silently gagged, she worked her tits free from her swimsuit and brought my toes to her chest. Gesturing with her hands on my feet, I followed her instructions, grinding her tits with the soles of my feet and flicking her nipples with my toes.
I suddenly heard the voices in the garden grow louder, though my brain was incapable of discerning words. Eventually, through the haze of my increasingly orgasmic thoughts I heard my name.
