Super Born: Seduction of Being Read Free Page A

Night My Life Changed
Forever
    My name is Logan. This journal documents a
quest that has transformed me from the disbeliever that I was to
all that I’ve become.…Okay, still working on the “all I’ve become”
part, but you get the idea.
    Even now, just thinking of her absorbs every
feeling and thought in my head and hardens my…resolve. There was
the way the sun glistened in the various shades of blond of her
hair, the way the moonlight shimmered off her lips before that kiss
on the rooftop, the way her whole face smiled before she laughed,
her sarcastic humor that always left me guessing, and the way her
skin glowed wherever I touched her as we flew over the city that
night. Yes, mine was the ol’ boy meets superwoman, boy loses
superwoman, boy spends rest of his life (and money) searching for
superwoman story. I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times
before…no? Well then, this is your lucky day.
    I should forewarn you. If you are
the lucky one who finds this journal, just sit back, get a drink
and a snack, and prepare to enjoy a stimulating tale of romance,
adventure, and wild, unbridled sex. You can read about all those
things after you
finish my journal. It’s not that long.
    My tale begins on the cold, cloudy
evening last January. I had contacted a
budding young PhD professor and researcher in psychology from Pennsylvania State University, Rashid Patel
Jones. Dr. Jones was the son of learned immigrants, his father a
renowned environmental engineer, his mother a brilliant
psychologist at Penn State, often seen on Oprah.
    Dr. Jones was hungry to eclipse the brilliance
of his parents. I could sense that hunger in his energy on the
phone, and in his determination to convince me of his theory. After
years of effort, he had created a startling theory that encompassed
cutting-edge research from both his father and his mother’s fields,
and now he was trying—no, I should say was consumed by the need—to
prove his theory to the world.
    Personally, I rated him a jack-off, but I
thought there was a paycheck in his story. Boy, was that an
understatement…the paycheck part, I mean…well, maybe the jack-off
part too.
    After briefly flirting with success writing for
magazines in New York after college, my career had dropped to
writing for small newspapers and then to freelance articles to pay
the bills. I wasn’t a lousy writer, just an unmotivated
one.
    I sold the editor at the Times on the idea that
Jones’s story had local appeal , and Jones
granted me an immediate interview. Even after he found out I was
only a freelance, rarely published writer and part-time bartender,
he still honored the interview. Damn, he
must be desperate , I thought. I know now
that my not being born in Scranton allowed Jones to use me as Super
Born Bait, but at that point I chalked it up to my magnetic
personality, dynamic prose, keen intellect, and dazzling
charm.
    Rather than spend hours on scientific mumbo
jumbo that would probably shoot right over my aching head, Dr.
Jones insisted that it would be much easier to demonstrate his
theory in the field. He suggested that we meet at nine o’clock at a
beat-up, fifty-year-old house converted into a bar and grill called
O’Malley’s in the nearby city of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
    Scranton had once been the fourth-largest city
in Pennsylvania, but had been struggling through decades of
economic and population decline. Jones had developed a radical
theory to explain the downturn; Scranton was the center of his
research, and had become his home away from home. On the phone
Jones spoke of Scranton the way a man would speak of the woman he
loved—or at least a good, inexpensive mistress.
    When I finally arrived at run-down O’Malley’s,
I had to circle the block to find a parking space on the street. I
slammed my car door, case in my hand and lap top over my shoulder,
the consummate professional writer. (Is that what one looks like? I
didn’t know, because the articles I wrote tended to