CHAPTER 11. LOVE COMES UNEXPECTEDLY

She collected his samples, fed him, and he drifted back into sleep. Then it happened again. She came and toyed with him a little, without explaining anything. After taking another sample of biological material next time, she finally announced it was a genetic chimerism test.

By the time she returned to toy again, he already knew that, beyond the usual meaning of an impossible idea, the word “chimera” also had a biological meaning—the heterogeneity of the genetic code. He asked her about it.

“It’s a very interesting phenomenon,” she confirmed. “Someone else’s cells freed you from leukemia. Now all the blood inside you carries different DNA. And blood is blood—it circulates everywhere. Therefore, the new cells in your organs might inherit different genetics. I chose one organ and am going to please it again to monitor the changes.”

She ran her tongue over her lips, pursed them into a bow, approached, and leaned in. He thought that this analysis was better than a blood test. Then his mind wandered to why there was only one ball in soccer—to prolong the pleasure.

After she left, he googled “gene changes in semen from bone marrow transplants” and found material dated 2019 about the almost complete genetic replacement in an American police officer just four months after the operation.

He felt better and better. His fallen hair began to grow back, and every day he pulled out a single strand, marked it with the date, and collected it in a matchbox for future scientific research.