0                     The Perfect Profession
                             NOTE 18+
***NOTE:this story came about after a few words in chat and an e-mail
conversation got me to thinking about jobs for the select few of us***

     At four in the morning of April 22, 1979, Dr.Richard MacNulty made
the discovery of two, three, even four lifetimes.  Surrounded by test
tubes and papers, Richard grasped in his hand that which so many had
and would forever after dream of: the cure for the common cold. Grinning
mischievously, he realized what good it might do the world... and then
reminded himself what harm it would do him and others of his kind. 
Lives of the two different parts of the world hung carefully in the
balance, depending upon the actions of Richard, one man with a
discovery and an intense interest in sneezing.  Without giving it another
thought, Richard, poured out the vile, rinsed it, destroyed it.  He burned
his notes, every scrap of paper leading to the finding, threw away every
important chemical, every trace of its existence.  Then he sighed, sat
down on a lab stool, and propped his feet up on the table.  He'd done a
service to an elite and secretive group of society- and he was none the
worse for it as he thought of a beautiful woman struck down with a
terrible cold, engaged in a helpless fit of sneezing...

     It was two in the afternoon of January 15, 1998.  Richard stood
beside his colleagues, mixing chemicals, preparing syringes, pretending
just the way he had been for years.
     Mary J, a blond 20-year-old biology major, was curled up on a cot
with a handkerchief in her hand and several electrodes attached to her
head and chest.  Mary had what they considered a class C cold, one with
aches and fatigue, one with a sore throat but no fever, one where there
was a relatively equal amount of coughing and sneezing. The monitor
charting her heart sped up, all three scientists watching closely as she
lifted the handkerchief to her mouth and coughed hard into it.  The
coughs were moist, coming so fast she nearly had no time to breathe.  The
coughs had her for five minutes, and at the end she cleared her throat
and looked over at the doctors.  Dr.Simon Werehouser walked to her and
took her handkerchief from her.  He gave her a fresh one with the
instruction, "Please blow your nose."  She did so several times and
handed that handkerchief to him, as well.  He supplied her with yet
another, then patted her on the head like an owner does a dog.  Then he
returned to run tests on the newly-acquired germs.

     Todd H, a dark-haired 24-year-old history major, jogged on a
treadmill with electrodes stuck to him in twenty different spots.  He had
a class A cold, one where sneezing was practically the only symptom. 
He'd been on the treadmill only three minutes when he felt the familiar
tickle in his nose and called attention to it.  Announcing in a stuffy
voice, "I think... I think I'm going to..." he inhaled with a deep and
drawn-out gasp, "Huhhhh..." he slowed his pace on the machine and
covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief just in time to sneeze
twice, two loud, powerful sneezes taking complete control of him for
three seconds.  "HUHCHOO! HHUUHHHCHHOOOO!" Richard felt his heart
soar and his body tense up with pleasure; it was sneezes like those
which made him glad to have destroyed the cure.  Dr.Werehouser
collected the man's handkerchief and told him he could sit down for a
while if he liked. Todd was out of breath and eager to do just that, so he
sat down, sniffing incessantly and rubbing a finger under his nose.  He
froze a moment, as the quiet beeps of the monitors beside him speeding
up.  Suddenly he lifted his handkerchief to his face and with a twitch of
his nostrils and a shudder of his body, he sneezed.  "HuhhCHOOO!" He
bent forward at the waist, eyes watered a little, a miserable, helpless
expression across his face.  He sniffed and rubbed his nose again.  "How
much longer do I need to be.. to be... to-HuhCHOO! *sniff* to be here?"
     Dr.Mike Smith smiled and put some water over the bunsen burner
to his left.  "A couple more hours only.  I'll make you some hot tea to
drink and you can take a short rest if you'd like."
     'Mike with the kind heart,' Richard thought, remembering Mike's
reason for starting the research so many years before.
     When the tea was ready, Mike poured it into one of the few mugs
they kept at hand for the patients and for their coffee breaks, then
handed it to Todd.  "Don't forget, you are being paid for this.  Your
suffering now may mean you'll allow us to find a way to prevent
everyone in he world from catching a miserable cold again."
     Todd smirked and sniffed feeling another sneeze coming on. It was
just a light tickle, barely noticeable in the back of his nose. Todd
swallowed his drink and replied as fast as he could before the tickle
grew any stronger.  "That may be all and well, Dr.Smith, but I'd rather...
I'd rath... rath..." he stopped to hold the handkerchief up to his nose as
his breathing sped up.  The sides of his mouth went back as it opened,
his eyebrows narrowed, helping to form the typical facial expression of a
sneezer- helplessness crossed with the desire to sneeze and rid himself
of the playful tickling.  "Huuuhhhh... Hhhuuuhhh..." it began as he
breathed in, preparing.  "HHHUUUUUUHHHH-" and nothing; he just
froze, hoping it would come.  After half a minute he sighed and sniffed,
rubbing his tickley nose that wouldn't let him sneeze.  He relaxed and
opened his eyes.  "I was saying that I'd rather have-" he brought the
hanky up just in time for an explosive and spraying, "HHUUHHH-
CCCHHHHHOOO!"  Todd wiped his nose and sniffed.  "That's a bit better. 
I was saying that I'd much rather just have this cold go away now. In
fact... I can still feel... one... huhh... hhuuuhhhh..."  The sneeze was
nearly upon him, and he sat forward a bit, his breaths shallow, his eyes
closed in concentration as he tried to hold it back. But it was too strong
to be held in, Todd found, as his mouth opened, nostrils flared wildly,
head went back, and out came a mighty- sigh.  "Damn, I hate it when
those stick like th... thaaa... thhhhuuuuhhhh-" again it stayed in, the
tickle still playing with him, making him start to sneeze and then stop. 
Start and then stop.  Start and then stop.  Start...  "I f-feel... feel it
agaaaa... agaaaaahuhhhuuuhhhh-CHOOOOOO!" he sneezed, nose relaxing
for but a moment as he felt the urge again, strong this time, compelling
him to sneeze five times straight without stopping for a second. 
"HHUUHH-CCHHOOOO!" came the first, forceful but free, the sneeze
seeming to tickle his male nose enough to cause another.  "HUHCHOO!"
shorter but nonetheless strong.  "HUHCHOOOOOO!" long as he bent
forward further at the release.  The fourth and fifth were identical and
typically wonderful-sounding, "HUHHHHCHOOO!  HUHHHHCHOOO!"  He
opened his eyes cautiously, feeling still slight tickle and unsure if the
series had passed yet.  He sniffed twice and his stuffy nose was
rewarded not with less runs but another sneeze, the biggest yet in both
intake and output, his nostrils growing into wide circles, lines at his
eyes showing up even more as he squeezed his dark brown eyes tightly
shut.  "HUHHH-HHHUHHHH-HHHUUUUHHHHHH-CCCCHHHHHOOOOOOOO!" 
With a slight groan and blew his nose in the handkerchief a dozen times
until Todd could almost breathe again.
     Mike patted him on the back.  "We'll do our part to try to find a
cure as long as you just keep those patches on so we can monitor you
and keep sneezing like that.  It was a good help, that."
     'Yes, please keep sneezing like that; you are very, very good,'
Richard thought to himself with a grin, remembering why HE started
conducting the research. The wonderful way he felt to hear a sneeze, to
see one form and be sneezed right in front of him. It was too beautiful,
too stimulating... and it was too dreadful for him to think that these two
scientists might have prevented such from happening if it had not been
for his intervention.


     The door to the lab opened and in came a plain but strikingly
pleasant-looking woman.  "I um, was told to come in here?"
     Mike started to stand but Richard beat him to it, walking briskly
over to her. "I'm Dr.MacNulty and we're studying the common cold in
hopes of discovering a cure.  Are you here as a test subject, Miss..."
     She sniffed and offered her hand to shake.  When he hesitated to
do so, she realized the used tissue she held in the hand and quickly held
her other hand to him with an apology.  "Excuse me.  I'm Alexa Partri-"
     "Alexa P. is all we need, thank you. Now, I will be asking you a few
questions to make sure you're a qualifying test candidate, alright? 
Would you care to take a seat over here, please?" he asked, showing her
to a free cot on the other side of the room. He sat in a chair beside her
with his note pad and a pen.  "Now, how long have you had a cold?"
     She sniffed.  "Since early this morning. I woke up with a stuffy
nose."
     He nodded, scribbling the information down.  "What are your
symptoms?"
     She thought a moment.  "So far, just sneezing a whole lot, and a
stuffy, runny nose.  I have a tiny headache, too."
     "Um hum," Richard muttered, trying to seem calm as his heart leapt
into his throat; he wrote down 'Class A' happily on his paper.  "Your age
and current profession, please, Alexa."
     She nodded.  "23 and I'm a... a... " she stopped as her jaw dropped,
face went slack, eyes closing.  Her chest heaved as she took in deep
breaths, her nose turned up slightly as her nostrils grew large to take
in one especially deep, silent breath.  All at once, the sneeze came out,
sending her forward then back in her seat as she bled it off "Uh-
CHHHhhh!"
     Richard, used to seeing and hearing hundreds of sneezes in a
week, still got a start out of each, and hers were no exception. He was
tingling, warm all over, but better than he'd been twenty years ago at
hiding the fact. He shifted his position in his seat and replayed the
sneeze in his mind, the wet and long sound of it echoing throughout his
whole body, giving it the thrill he had not truly felt in hours.
     "Excuse me," she said out of obligation.  She sniffed and finished
what she was saying.  "I'm a grad student in phys... phy... oh gosh here
it comes again... hold... on..." her slow breaths became more frequent,
growing faster, faster, faster as the sneeze built up bigger and bigger
and bigger until "Uh-CHHHhh!" she sneezed with her head bobbing back,
then forward, then back again as she let the release die away naturally. 
Sniffling, she finally finished, "Excuse me.  Physics."
     Richard nodded, excited and needing to be excused, himself.
"Alright. Let's get you hooked up so that we can monitor your pulse,
brain activity, that sort of thing." He brought over a cart and began the
task he loved, because he was able to get so close to the subject,
touching them, and there was always the chance of being sneezed upon. 
     This time, he was nearly done before she felt the need to sneeze,
and he knew for she told him so between gasps, warning him to step back
a little. Richard did, knowing it would look suspicious if he did tried
purposely to be sneezed on. He watched her gasp for air, then hold her
hand flat up in front of her nose as she took a deep breath, squeezed her
eyes shut in recognition of the force compelling her to sneeze, and let
out a strong, "UHH-CHHHHhhhhh!" holding her hand over her mouth and
nose when she was finished.  "Cad I have a tissue, pease?" she asked
through a stuffy nose.  Before she could be handed one, even before
Richard could reply that yes she could, she'd sneezed again, not quite as
powerful but quite as messy; she asked again out of desperation.
     Richard handed her one from the box on the cart, knowing it was
coated in germs from ten different cold viruses he had observed, all the
ones causing the most sneezing, of course. The more germs she could be
subjected to, the more confusing her case would be to determine, and the
more would Simon and Mike be puzzled as to the cure.  He already had
them looking in exactly the wrong places, measuring and studying
everything that they did not need to; Richard was doing an excellent job
at hiding the cure from them so that it would never be found at all.
     "Thanks," she snuffled, her nose running. "Now what am I
supposed to be doing?"
     Richard patted her lightly on the back.  "For now, just be, Alexa.
We need to monitor you regularly, then we'll see how it is for an
increased heart rate, and we'll go from there."  Secretly he knew what
had to be done but he wanted to wait a few moments to watch and listen
to her first.
     Simon came up behind Richard, a smile on his face.  "Hello, Miss
Alexa.  Nice to see you here, though I wish on better circumstances.  How
are you feeling?"
     Richard looked from one to the other with disappointment building
in his heart.  "You two know each other?"
     Alexa giggled, forgetting Richard existed and turning all attention
toward Simon.  "I'd kiss you, honey, but I don't want you to catch my
cold.  It's a dozy."
     Simon chuckled, sitting beside her on the cot.  "Any price is worth
a kiss from you, Alexa. If I were to catch cold, well, then I'd be able to
test myself, anyway."
     They leaned together and brushed lips for a moment in front of a
jealously on-looking Richard.  Suddenly Richard saw Alexa's nose twitch
and her beautiful teal-colored eyes open wide with realization of the
sneeze she felt coming.  She sneezed without even so much as leaning
back out of the kiss, spraying Simon's face and blushing with
embarrassment as she covered her runny nose with her hand.  "I'b so
sorry, Sibod!" she cried, her voice so congested the words were barely
distinguishable.
     Simon chuckled and took a tissue to wipe his face off.  "It's alright,
honey.  It's not your fault.  No damage done, no cause to be sorry."  He
looked over at Richard.  "I'll handle this one myself, Rich."
     Richard nodded, leaving with a sigh as he turned back to see Simon
holding a tissue up for her as "the look" spread across her face,
tightening in assurance that she was about to sneeze.  Her head went
back and bobbed forward to sneeze an especially loud and powerfully
wet one.  Hot and disappointed, Richard crossed his fingers that another
beautiful woman would come walking in the door at any moment.  After
all, he'd been the one twenty years before to keep the discovery from
them all, to keep the cold viruses alive, to assure that the common cold
would be able to run rampant in unsuspecting noses forever after.
~tarotgal