A/N: Thanks again to the Harmy Board for letting Harm and Mac stay at the Manly Arms this weekend. I am thrilled that my little brain dribblings are making some of you happy. We all need more joy in our lives, given the way the world is today (but that’s a rant for another board). Think the only technical note is that a “black diamond slope” is an expert level downhill skiing slope. Tricky, dangerous but in the right hands can be a blast.

This is NOT a tutorial on advanced physics, it’s just the code that Harm and Mac started in Part 2 that is continuing. You don’t have to be able to do more than count to ten to understand this.

CAUTION: This part starts out much more seriously than the preceding parts. But Mac has some heavy baggage and both she and Harm needed to look at it. Trust me, it gets much lighter at the end. And the next part (yes, there will be one) will be back to the lightness of the rest of the series. OK?

Usual disclaimers apply, blah, blah, blah. I know we need to do this for legal purposes but it seems rather silly to me. If Bellasarious Productions and Paramount didn’t own them and I did, do you think we’d be wondering what to do on Friday nights? But seriously folks, no money changes hands, only love and laughter.



Birthday Series Part 9

Thermodynamics vs. Relativity for Dummies


Manly Arms B&B
Harm & Mac’s room
Sunday, Oct. 26, 2003
1630 Local

As Harm opens the door to our room and steps in, I find myself getting suddenly shy.

Boy, I don’t know who this 6-year-old girl is that has turned up in my psyche the last 26 hours, but I really need to get her under control. Bouncing on the couch when I find out Harm really (yes, really really) wants to have sex with me. Saying “I love you a whole bunch!” (how sophisticated is that?). Now, just when I’m planning on putting my own Mac whammy on Harm (let’s see how you handle my full throttle sexual persona flyboy), I’m feeling shy?

What is this?

I wander into the room, not really seeing it at all. Maybe just another dose of Harmy medicine will do the trick. Harm, the all-purpose antidepressant, anti-anxiety sleep aide. No hangover and minimal side effects (a few patients in clinical trials have reported ‘whammies’ but it’s rare and usually only lasts a few years).
“Hey Mac, is something wrong?”

He’s looming over me. No, he’s standing near me, with his hands on my shoulders looking at me with concern. He loves me. He is so tuned into me that he can almost read my mind. No secrets here. Not anymore.

“Well, I’m not sure. I think I need to talk to you a bit.” I’m asking for permission? He’s handed me his heart on a platter and asked me to marry him and I’m asking permission to talk? Oh, this REALLY needs to be said or it’ll drive me crazy.

“Sure Mac. We can always talk. About anything. Well, we can’t talk about cases when we’re opposing counsel. We can’t talk if we are underwater scuba diving. We can’t talk when we’re asleep, although I’m not sure if we don’t meet in our dreams...I felt like that happened a couple of times, did you?”

I know he’s trying to lighten my mood, reassure me. Oh I’m scared. There’s that 6-year-old. I think she needs to meet Harm. And Harm needs to meet her.

We sit down on the charming little love seat that’s under the window overlooking the boardwalk. This is a nice room, I think, still a bit too frilly for me to live with but fine for a day or two. I look at Harm perched on the love seat. Well, that’s just not the right picture. A man his size needs manly sized furniture. Our house is gonna have nothing but furniture that fits him. We may need to get a custom-made bed. No, check that, I like having him sleep really close to me.

Woah. I sat down wanting to tell Harm about a 6-year-old that’s invaded my psyche and ended up planning furniture purchases for our house (‘our house’?) before I even said a word to him.

No wonder he’s looking at me uncertainly.

I take a deep breath. “Harm,” leaning toward him I pick up both his hands and draw them to my chest. “I really want to make love with you.” I pause, waiting for his response.

Clearly he’s a taken a little off balance by my declaration. Hesitently he says“Well, gee Mac, that’s great. I really want to make love with you too.” I know I’ve thrown him a major curve ball with this, but I can see he can handle it. Oh, please Harm handle it. I need you to handle it.

I see him gathering himself. With a quiet intensity he asks me, “Mac, in fact, we have, remember? And we both liked it...a lot. So much that we did it again. Several times. So we know how to do it. We can do it again anytime. Maybe even real soon.”

Fred Astaire and the riverboat gambler have left the stadium. This is the little boy mixed with the hormone-driven teenager tempered by the loving, mature man.

Have I said how much fun I think we’re gonna have over the next 50 years?
“So since I had, as you put it ‘so primly propositioned’ you, I planned to show you just how sexually voracious I can be. I planned to overwhelm you with my sexual appetite. I was imagining devouring you, leaving you a whimpering mass of protoplasm.”

He blinks a few times. Hey, there’s another look I’ve never seen before. Not exactly sure how to interpret this one but it reminds me of one I saw on a kid getting ready to ski down his first black diamond slope. Thrilled but scared nearly senseless.

He clears his throat. “Mac, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me.” He’s wondering where to go with this, I can tell. “Ah, what stopped you?”

There it is! The ace JAG investigator shows up to save the day despite the little boy, hormonaly-driven teenager and concerned mature lover kind of all standing between me and my weird thoughts. He shows up and asks the quintessential question. The question that is the key to the plot. (It was Col. Mustard in the library with the knife, skips through my head for no reason I can think of other than the 6-year-old likes to play ‘Clue’).

“A 6-year-old showed up, and I got shy.” Although I know I’m baring my soul, my deepest fears, I look directly into his eyes. He’s gonna get this, I know he is.

“A 6-year-old” he repeats slowly, looking as directly at me as I am at him.

“She reminded me that although Newton’s law is still true that every action has a reaction, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can not be created or destroyed, only changed in form.”

I watch Harm process this. I have an inkling of what his flight training was like, the kind of engineering and physics classes he had to take. He’s no doubt as familiar with the Laws of Thermodynamics as he is with the UCMJ, but he knows this is our code.

“So, the energy that you had, or was forced into you, as a 6-year-old, you still have today?” His voice is so quite, so gentle. How can a man his size, his strength, with his accomplishments still hold my heart as tenderly as a newborn baby? How can I keep falling deeper in love with him when I thought I had gone as far as I could go?

I nod silently.

“And when you planned to overwhelm me with your sexual appetite, not that I think that is a bad idea for the future Mac, but for right now, where we are, the 6-year-old recognized that was a wall. A piece of energy that couldn’t be created or destroyed but needs to change form. So she got you shy.”

Jeez, this man is a genius. I could have spent years with Dr. McCool before we got to this place.
“And you were brave enough to talk to me about it. Oh, Mac, god, I love you so much!” He pulls me into his lap and buries his face into my hair. He’s crying. I’m crying. This feels so good.

We rest that way for, well, exactly 7 minutes and 39 seconds. You know sometimes I wish I didn’t have this internal clock thing.

“You know Mac, I really wasn’t top in my class at advanced physics, but I think we’ve really hit on something here.”

I’m sensing a major change in pace. “Really?”

“Yeah. First it was the whole Einstein Theory of Relativity thing, hey remind me not to teach that to any of our daughters.”

Our daughters???

“Then Newton’s Every Action Has a Reaction. Now, we need to teach that to all our kids, it applies to everything from basketball to telling a lie.”

All our kids??? We’re having several? Guess I didn’t know about that part yet. Well, now I do.

“Now we’ve got the great 2nd Law of Thermodynamics looped in. I think we need to request an extended leave.”

He’s pulled me away from his chest enough that I can see his face. It’s lit up like a Christmas tree. Delight never looked this good.

I gulp again. Damn, I do think this gulping thing is getting habitual. “Extended leave?”

“Sure Mac. We’ll need it to work out our theory. Then of course we’ll need to meet with other eminent theoreticians to discuss it. MIT, Harvard, Stanford not to mention the military panels.”

He doesn’t quite dump me off his lap, but it comes close. He’s on his feet now, pacing in front of me.

“Don’t you see? We might have made the next big breakthrough in our understanding of the universe!”

I’m beginning to get reminded of the Professor in the “Back to the Future” movies. Minus the wild hair.

“Of course, we’ll have to do tests to prove our theory.” He stops pacing and beams a most intense stare at me. I’m a butterfly pinned to a display board, I can’t say no.

“Well, naturally, Harm. All theories need to be tested.” I’m wondering if we cut back on the sex just a little maybe his brain might return to normal function. But wait, didn’t I think him a genius only 14 minutes and 39 seconds ago? Have I turned him into ‘Rain Man’?

With two long strides he’s kneeling in front of me, grasping my hands.

“You’ll be beautiful in those tests, Mac.”

OK, I’ll bite, what kind of tests is he envisioning? “You think so Harm?” I’m talking softly, sweetly, they way you would to quiet a stallion.

“Oh of course. At first it may seem a little strange, but we’ll get used to it.” He’s so confident.

“Used to what, Harm?”

“The electrodes, the wires, the probes, the audience.”

I must admit, I’m getting seriously nervous now. Where’d that man I’m gonna love more deeply every day go? The one who wants to have a family with me? The one I think is a gentle genius?

“When would that be Harm?”

“Why, isn’t it obvious? Every time we make love!” He jumps up pulling me up with him. Hugging me closely he breathes into my ear. “Because every time we make love, the universe changes for me, Mac.”

Now I get it. Boy, was I not holding up my end of our code thing here. But I’ve got it now.

“I only want you. If some times you want to overwhelm me, overwhelm me. But to be honest, you do that without trying. If you need to be the 6-year-old, I’m always here to talk to her. Not as her daddy, but as a friend she can trust. I love the Marine, even when she’s whipping my squid butt. And I cherish the woman. All parts of her. OK.”

“Harm, I don’t want to do a symposium at MIT on this.”

“Well, it’s a great loss to the world, but I’m with you.” He releases me just enough to start unbuttoning my blouse. “Now, how ‘bout that bubble bath?”

fini for a while, I think there’s more coming