He'll be fine. Party on

Once the doctor straightened Cliff's nose and slapped his face a few times (whether to revive his consciousness or just because he was an asshole and needed to be slapped, Rick couldn't tell), she announced he would be fine.

Rick made a unilateral decision that the boxing demonstrations were over for the night and asked the other bodybuilders who'd been waiting their turn to drop Cliff off in is Richardson apartment. Then, while Usha continued to pull Kat together, he announced free sample massages in ten minutes, made sure there was plenty of wine, and cranked up the music again.

A few minutes later, the dancing was going full steam with women aged from about eighteen to sixty pulling up their dresses to show long legs (some but not all in fantastic shape but even those whose legs might be considered pudgy were having a good time) and jiggling everything they had in the boob department.

Usha's friends cornered anyone getting a wine refill and tried to get them to sign up for the gym, and Rick retreated into his massage room.

One of the many problems with bio-DNA was that he couldn't control how his heightened senses reacted. The pounding music was painful and his stomach was still churning from what he'd thought would be injuries and possibly rape of his friend.

A few minutes later, he heard a soft knock on the open door to his room.

"It's open."

"Yeah, I know."

He manufactured a smile from somewhere and turned toward the door. "Oh," he said. "It's you."