Read Online Come Out Tonight by Bonnie Rozanski - Free Book Online

asked.   I hardly remembered it.
    “Unbelievable!”   She paused a second then said, “But it kind of worries me that you’d have that strong a reaction to the Somnolux.   All it should have done was put you to sleep.”
    I vaguely remembered popping that little pill into my mouth.   “You think it was the Somnolux?” I asked.   “You don’t think it was me?”
    Sherry laughed, and kissed my cheek.   “I’m a scientist.   Let’s see if we can replicate the findings.   Tonight.”
    And, yeah, we did.   Over and over.   Sometimes Sherry took the Somnolux, too, but she never seemed to get the buzz.   All she did was fall asleep.   As for me, I never quite hit the same peak.   I must have adapted to it, because after another month of taking it, I started taking it to actually fall asleep.
    I don’t know.   Maybe the mood changed; we just didn’t have sex as much.   Sherry was pissed off a lot more.   When I mentioned it, she said it wasn’t me.    It was work. But it came to the same thing: we weren’t connecting the way we used to.
    I got bits and pieces about what was going on, but she never said much.   She was pissed off because Somnolux was doing terrific.   It had captured a major part of the market share for sleeping medications, and here she was, not making a cent. The Institute, meanwhile, which had kept the rights, had spun off a small arms-length company created just to manufacture it.   Then this spin-off set up a marketing and distribution division, which, as Somnolux got bigger and bigger, split into separate Marketing and Distribution divisions.   This was big business from what was supposed to be a research-for-research’s sake organization.   So, the holier-than-thou-not-for-profit Vandenberg Institute somehow was raking in major profits.   Sherry had a lot to be pissed off about.  
    There were these occasional phone calls from Ryan, most of which I couldn’t piece together since all I could hear was the occasional snippet of Sherry’s conversation and none of Ryan’s.   Then I found him in her apartment, as I said before.   It looked like they were in a clinch, but Sherry said it was all about work.   And, yeah, they looked so intense , I guess it could have been an argument. Or not.
    By then I could tell Sherry was worried about something.   She wouldn’t tell me what exactly, just that the Institute was on her case not to talk about something.  
    “Bastards,” she said.   “Not only did they make me give up my rights to Somnolux, but now they’re taking away my rights to speak out about it.”
    “Speak out about what?”   I asked.
    I was sorry I asked.   Sherry went on for about twenty minutes about how the brain is a machine which works to keep order, and to keep chaos at bay.   How the brain’s evolved to limit its own stable states to waking, sleeping and dreaming.   That there are more possible states: states into which the brain doesn’t naturally fall, but could....
    Why the Institute would stop her from talking about this I couldn’t figure, but Sherry would get pumped up like this sometimes.   I figured either she’d get it out of her system, or it would eventually make sense to me.   Neither one happened this time.   Eventually, I got a word in.
    “I don’t get it, Sherry.   What are you talking about?”
    “I’ve been hearing these strange cases of people kind of running amok.”
    “Amok?” I laughed.
    Sherry took a deep breath.   “I think Somnolux may be causing side-effects, but the Institute won’t acknowledge it.”
    “What side-effects?” I asked, no longer laughing.
    “Automatisms.   Parasomnias....But I wouldn’t be surprised if this weren’t just the tip of the iceberg.”   She was still on a tear, thinking faster than she could talk.
    “What the hell’s automatism?” I demanded.
    “It’s where the body does some complex action without consciousness.”
    “Without consciousness.   You mean...like