Coming of Age: Volume 2: Endless Conflict by Thomas T. Thomas Page B

rebuilding the telomeres, effectively making them younger. The doctors did that with your more recent regenerative treatments. But back when you got your new heart, we didn’t understand the importance of those little bits of DNA. And early researchers into cellular regeneration were getting mixed signals from the cancer crowd, suggesting that telomerase—the enzyme that adds back those fragments—might cause the cells to become cancerous. We’ve learned a whole lot more now and can handle the enzyme without creating monsters.”
    “But this heart?” he asked.
    “Is aging naturally, along with the rest of your body. I can run some tests, but I think they’ll just show you’re getting the normal deterioration—muscle thickening, arterial dissection, plaque buildup—that comes with growing old.”
    Praxis could hear angel wings fluttering in her voice, soft as clods of earth falling on his coffin lid. “Is there anything you can do?”
    “Oh, sure! Grow a new heart—a better model this time—then crack you open and pop it in.”
    “And how long will this new heart last?”
    “Oh, years and years. It really will be a young heart now.”
    “To go along with my gracefully aging body?”
    Dr. Mills grinned. “Take care of yourself and you could go on for—oh, I don’t know—” She beamed at him without saying more.
    “Indefinitely?” he suggested.
    “Something like that.”
    * * *
    After his third date with Penny—real dates, not just business discussions as an excuse to have lunch: dinner and a movie, dinner and a dance club where the bouncer recognized her, Sunday brunch and a stroll in Golden Gate Park—Brandon Praxis knew it was time to make a declaration.
    “You know, Penny—”
    “What do you suppose that is?” she asked. They were walking through the Museum of Modern Art on Third Street. When he looked up, Penny was pointing at a pile of polished wooden blocks, oak or maple or some other light-colored wood, about three feet high on the black-tile floor ahead of them.
    “I don’t know. There’s a card on the wall behind it.”
    “Would it tell me anything I don’t already know?”
    “The artist’s intentions, maybe,” he said, squinting at it.
    “You take a guess,” she insisted, “without looking.”
    “Well … children’s blocks? Something about interrupted childhood?”
    “A really cool construction?” she offered. “A castle or a cathedral. And somebody just knocked it down?”
    “A really cool piece of art—a big ceramic, maybe—that the blocks were holding up. And somebody just stole it?”
    She turned to look at him. “Not bad, sir. Not bad at all.”
    “Penny, look. Uh … You know I like you.”
    “Whups!” she said. “Here it comes.”
    “What?” He was confused.
    “The dump speech.”
    “No, not at all.”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    She took his hand and led him over to a bench, sat down herself, and pulled him down beside her. “You like me? Sure. And you’ve shown it how? Kind of a shoulder squeeze, once, after we cracked open that lying piece of shit software your uncle installed. One tentative good-night kiss—a nice kiss, but no follow-up—on our second date. And one hug in the daylight, the sort you’d give when you’re sending Aunt Maude off to Des Moines. … Brandon, are you gay?”
    “No! Oh no! It’s just—what I’m feeling—it’s not just about sex.”
    “Well, that’s good, because it hasn’t been about sex, has it?”
    “I was raised—that is, we go slower … Do you want sex?”
    “You can’t ask me that! How do I know? Make your move.”
    There was only one answer to that. He wrapped his arms around her, low below her elbows, pulled her closer, and kissed her. Hard. Then he released one hand, passed it under her thighs, lifted her onto his lap for a better angle, and kissed her again.
    “Ahem!” The sound came from some distance away. “Ahem!”
    Brandon and Penny both turned their heads, breaking the kiss, and looked up. One