Phase Zero Clinical Trial: Response To Hypnozamine In The Human Female
by B Pascal
Chapter 11
I drove home and walked in the door, dropping the bag on the floor. I looked at the bed and thought, maybe I should lie down for ten minutes. When I awoke again it was late afternoon. I forgave myself, I probably needed the rest.
When I finally did awake, I read a little, I made a frozen pizza for dinner, and I called my mother, who was thrilled to find out that I’d gone out with one woman more than twice and started picking at the thread, trying to find out more.
It was just a bit inappropriate and possessive, like a helicopter mom, and I was almost tempted to tell her Sara was into threesomes, but then I’d probably have to call 911 and make sure she got to a hospital.
Not much happened for the next few days. I ran into Liz in the cafeteria, we talked, and she gave me another sheaf of her work to read when I had time. Apparently she was back into working on her novel with a vengeance, as she had included a couple of new chapters for me to look at.
The dynamic in the lab had changed since last week’s announcement by Clark, and people were hovering in small groups scratching out ideas on scraps of paper and sounding, not excited perhaps, but enthusiastic, with some creative ideas about approaches to the research.
And interestingly, Dr. Clark was looking remarkably relaxed, almost benevolent, a first since I had arrived at RBP. At one point I thought I detected a small smile on his face, but it could have been a facial tic.
On Wednesday, when I went to the cafeteria for my afternoon snack, Liz plopped a tray down on my table and sat, for the first time without asking permission. We exchanged greetings, then I said, “Liz, I’m not done with reading your latest stuff yet, I’ll need another day so I can think about my comments.” She said there was no hurry.
“Liz, may I ask you something? I’m really flattered that you’d trust me to give you my comments about your writing, and I’m happy to continue doing that for as long as you want me to. But, the thing is, I’m not a writer. I don’t know how it’s done, I don’t know much about structure and plotting and character development, I just know what I know.
“Why is it that you’re not involved with a local writer’s group? Those are the people who are going through the same process you are, having the same kinds of problems. Why aren’t you discussing your work there, getting their insight?”
She sipped her tea and looked at the table for a minute. Then she said, “When I first started doing this with some intent, acting like I wanted to be a writer, I did just that. I found a writer’s group, people like me with day jobs who had to create these stories, write them down so people could read them. And most of them were nice folks.
“But I later realized, like most self-help groups, there’s always one or two who are there not to get assistance and honest criticism of their work, but rather to criticize everyone else’s work so they could demonstrate their superiority as writers. So I got a lot of that, mostly from men who were convinced that they were genetically better authors, but also from a couple of women. Nothing we did was ever good enough. It got to be a little toxic, so I dropped out. And the amusing thing I took away from it? None of those critical people ever had anything published, that I saw anyway.”
“Oh,” I said, as intelligently as I could.
“So I just kept writing on my own. In fact, you’re the first person I’ve let look at my writing since I left those groups. Yours was the kind of criticism I was looking for, and I wish I had had it earlier, it would have saved a lot of time and... angst. So thanks.”
“Liz, I’m not being ingratiating here, but don’t give up on this. You’re really good. Keep at it and I know your break will come along.”
Damn. Her smile was amazing, it was like the sun had just come out from behind a cloud.
“You’ve helped a lot, Sam, so the thanks are sincere. And now the specter of Harold Schwartz summons, and I must return to work. Look forward to your next set of comments.”
And she left. Her departure was always a high point of my day, for as long as I was able to watch her butt recede.
That night I called Sara to ask her if she had heard more from Carol, and she hadn’t. She may have been still away on her work shift. I asked her if now, with a few days to process it, she had any regrets about the threesome.
“No..., not really. There were a couple of awkward moments I could have done without, but I think that was mostly Carol trying to make this more about her pleasure. And as a first try, it could have been a lot worse, so it was mostly positive.
“I still haven’t made up my mind how I felt about watching you and another woman doing it, maybe a turn-on in some ways, and being reduced to a kind of spectator in others. Again, I think that was more Carol excluding me when she wanted to play. It probably would have been different if it had been someone else, someone I liked more, so the three of us could take part.”
“Yeah, I definitely see that. It was like we were toys that she played with for as long as she wanted, and she’d drop one and pick up another, and if she didn’t want to play with either one then the two toys would be allowed to play together.”
“That image actually works pretty well, Sam. Toys. Okay, so maybe no more Carol. I expect she’s got her own circles she can join whenever she’s in the mood, anyway.”
“Is it something you’re thinking of trying again?” I asked. “With someone else, I mean.”
“I wouldn’t rule it out, but it’d have to be the right person. I’ll think about it.”
She said that she was taking Friday off and that she’d be out of town this weekend visiting her family, but would be in touch when she returned.
So that left me on my own for the weekend. Maybe I’d be able to recover some of my lost energies.
Next morning, in the lab when I arrived, Frank and Art and Ted were huddled together, talking intently. Frank saw me and waved me over. “Listen to this, Sam, Art’s had a pretty interesting insight, maybe worth following up.”
So Art backpedaled and told again what he’d just told the others. He’d compared some results from his experiments with some facts that Ted’s experiments had shown and thought that by tweaking the molecules we’d been playing with they could get them to hook more tightly into the opiate receptors with which opiates interfaced, effectively blocking them and rendering them ineffective.
That, of course, was what Clark had been trying to do all along, and what a lot of addiction treatment drugs did already, but the advantage to this modified method, in theory, was that it looked to be longer lasting, cutting the numbers of times addicts had to turn up for treatment significantly. That was a major selling point. If it worked.
But the facts were tantalizing, and certainly worth an experiment or two. We sketched out what this new molecule would look like and how to synthesize it. Art and Ted went off to work out the details. Frank sat there looking pumped. He glanced at me and said, “We’d never have been able to follow up on this just two weeks ago. Look at us now.”
I hoped something came of this. These guys needed a win before they lost their enthusiasm.
By Friday they were running their experiments which they hoped would produce the results which proved their hypothesis. They’d have something to be able to bring to Clark in a relatively short time.
I passed on going out to lunch with the rest of them and brought a sandwich and a salad back from the cafeteria while I dutifully caught up on some reports and emailed them. By 2:00 I was feeling like a deserved a break, and was hoping to catch Liz anyway, so I went to the cafeteria for a delayed dessert and coffee.
I was going to get fruit salad, but there was fresh carrot cake which I could not pass up. So I took it to a table and admired it for a moment before I attacked it.
“One step forward, two steps back,” said the voice, and I almost detected an underlying ’Tsk, tsk’.
“I don’t care what you think. I like carrot cake.”
“Well, actually, so do I, I just have to be careful not to overdo it. May I?”
Liz pointed at the plate with an outstretched spoon, and I couldn’t refuse her. She took a small piece and put it in her mouth, and I thought for a moment that I saw a breach in the defenses. The look on her face, eyes half closed, was almost decadent.
Today must have been Casual Friday in the executive suites, because she had on a loose skirt that showed off her legs, and a blouse that did very little to hide an impressive chest. It took all my self-discipline to keep from staring.
“I wish self-discipline wasn’t so difficult. That’s really good.”
I thought for a moment that she was referring to my self-discipline.
“Perhaps that’s my next project,” I said. “A pill that blocks absorption of all calories above the recommended daily requirement. Then you could have carrot cake for breakfast and lunch, if you wanted.”
“You do that, Sam, and you’ll own this company, and a bunch of others, too. And you’ll have people all over the world writing you fan mail.”
I pulled out the package of her last submission from a folder and put it on the table. “I’ll make a mental note to take care of that next week,” I said. “Listen, while we have time, here’s your most recent stuff back, and let me summarize my thoughts.”
I took off the top sheet and started going over my impressions, which were mostly positive. I liked her short stories, I thought that was what she did best. Novels were harder, I believed, because it was easier to get lost in more complex plots, characters and backgrounds got muddled and hazy, and authors were more likely to get bogged down.
With that I mind, I poked at a few things I thought were fuzzy in her novel, places where I thought the plot was shaky, and one place where I asked why a character had acted the way she did.
She was not as enthusiastic about my comments as she had been previously. I may have been a bit disappointed and it showed on my face, because she was quick to say, “I really do appreciate this, Sam, it’s just... well, the things you brought up, I wasn’t a hundred percent on them either, and I was kind of hoping that you’d say you loved them, so I wouldn’t have to go back and fix them again. But deep down I knew I was avoiding it. I don’t mind the first few rewrites, really, but damn, by the fifth or sixth time it gets really tedious.”
“If I were to pick up this book in a store,” I said, “and start reading it, I’d see the same problems, but I’d think of them as minor blemishes because the rest of the book read so well.
“And the truth is I’ve bought—and liked—published books in stores that weren’t nearly as well written as this. But I think those minor flaws, if changed, would be the difference between really good writing and great. Maybe that’s what makes authors so tortured, they see the flaws in their own writing and they have a hard time correcting them and it frustrates them.
“Are you a tortured writer, Liz?” I was teasing her a little now.
She looked me right in the eye and said, “You have no idea. Now I know why so many authors are drunks and addicts. Anyway, I appreciate the vote of confidence, and I’ll keep plugging away at it. Your thoughts really do help, you know. I have to get back. Thanks for the comments and the carrot cake. Have a nice weekend.”
I watched her as she dropped off her bowl at the dish-washing station. I almost choked on my last bite of carrot cake as she bent over to drop the paper cup in the recycling bin, and I caught a glimpse of her chest in profile. Deep breaths. Think soothing thoughts.
In the lab, everyone was finishing up for the weekend. Art and Ted were still huddled, working out some detail of their experiment. I took the final readings for mine, and extracted a sample to examine under a microscope. It didn’t really show enough detail and I made a note in the log to schedule time on the electron microscope so I could get a closer look at the molecular structure. Next week would be soon enough.
Frank asked who wanted to go out for dinner. Ted begged off, family commitment, but Art and I shrugged and said sure, why not. Neither of us, apparently had anything pressing on the schedule tonight. We had a short discussion about where to go and no one had a preference, so we settled on TGIF. We often ate lunch there, but never dinner. Perhaps we were hoping for a miraculous transformation in the food or decor that kicked in at four o’clock.
We were disappointed to find neither of those had happened. Same place, same food, just louder and more people. We had to wait for a booth, but it wasn’t overly long, so we sat, got menus thrown at us, and asked what we wanted to drink.
It was burgers all around, and I ordered a beer. The other two got mixed drinks, something with fruit juice. Art and I teamed up and gently needled Frank about Eden Mallory. It seemed the two of them had been spending a considerable amount of time together on the weekends discussing recent developments in the field of biochemistry. At least, that was what he would have us believe.
We mostly needled him because it was fun to watch him change color. The pink moved up from his neck above his collar until it reached his face. I think Sara had been correct: It would just be a short time before they moved in together.
Frank finally said goodnight and left us, looking a little relieved. I still had part of my drink left, as did Art, so we chatted about work and vacation plans while we finished.
Around us the energy level was picking up, which surprised me, until I noticed the sign by the bar: “Friday Night Trivia Contest, cash prizes!” It looked like there were groups who were seriously into this, to the point of wearing matching tee-shirts.
A table near us held several young women who were looking frustrated. I heard one of them yell, “Where is she?” while another frantically dialed a cell phone and got voice mail. One of them, looking desperate, started looking around the bar, until her eye fell on us. She said something to her friends, and then jumped up and came over to us.
“Excuse me, are you on a team already?”
“A team for what,” asked Art, who hadn’t seen the sign.
“Trivia. Are you already on a trivia team?”
I said, “We just came for dinner, not trivia, but no, we’re not on a team.”
“Are you smart?” she asked, which I thought was a little personal.
“Smarter than the average bear,” said Art, which got a smile from me, but no recognition at all from the woman.
“Look, one of our team members is a no-show, and three people isn’t enough to play this game and have a chance at the prizes. You need at least four. You guys want to play on our team?”
Art thought about it and said that he’d probably pass, trivia wasn’t his thing, but thanks for asking. She turned to me.
“C’mon, how about it? A chance at some bucks, you get to hang out with hot women and show off your knowledge.”
“It’s a compelling argument,” I said, “but I don’t have much practice at this.”
“Look, you either know something or you don’t, and if you don’t maybe someone else on the team will. Having a fourth just ups our odds. Please?”
She said this last with a look that reminded me of my teenage sister when she was begging to be allowed to go to a concert she knew my parents didn’t approve of.
With the proviso that I’d have to leave no later than ten, I agreed, and she actually jumped up and down and clapped her hands. She grabbed my hand and pulled me back to her table. I just had time to grab my glass and say goodbye to Art.
“Okay,” she shouted over the bar roar, “I found us a substitute. This is... what is your name, anyway?”
“I’m Sam.” I got introduced around the table, and hoped I pick up the names later. Apparently this was a regular thing for them. They’d won a couple of times, but the competition had gotten tougher. They all worked in the same office building not far away, doing some kind of clerical tasks, and Fridays were their chance to cut loose and show off their knowledge.
I checked with them on the rules and there didn’t seem to be many. First team with a correct answer got points. A wrong answer got points taken off. The leader after a certain number of questions won the round and some cash. There was a final round where the winners, if there was more than one, got to face off for the biggest cash prize.
It was fascinating to watch the girls. There were wound as tight as could be, and I was pretty sure it was due to excitement and not alcohol. The MC stepped up with a microphone, and an assistant was there to keep tabs on points.
He made a few introductory remarks (“Don’t forget to tip the wait staff!") into a too-loud mic and the first round was underway.
“What is the least likely color to find in a bag of M&M’s?”
Oh, I know this, it’s brown. But too late, because some other team had already shouted out the answer.
I checked in with the team on the proper way to do this, and the consensus was, if you were sure you knew the answer, shout it out. If you weren’t a hundred percent sure, you could ask your team, and they’d agree or disagree and hope no one jumped in to answer before you.
The MC asked, “Which African country was formerly known as Abyssinia?”
I knew this. “Ethiopia,” I shouted.
Point to us. “What’s the name of your team?” I asked.
“The Know-It-Alls,” Martha, the one who kidnapped me, confided. I thought, “Of course you are.”
The MC again: “Who wrote the ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ books?”
My favorites as a kid. “A. A. Milne!” I shouted. Point. Fist pumps and back slaps from the table.
By this time I thought I had sorted the name problem. Martha was the one who came up to our table. She was twenty-something, pretty in the way that young women often are until they start to age, with blondish hair that looked like it needed a color touchup. Maybe a bit shallow for me. She sat directly across from me.
To my left was Sandy, also in her twenties, brunette, with some intelligence in her eyes. She had a wry way of commenting on people, at work or here in the bar, and was amusing. She had a loose-fitting blazer on over her shirt.
On my right was Maria, who had a kind of intensity and focus that made me believe she’d be good at whatever she did. She had really dark hair, almost black, and remarkable almond-shaped blue eyes. Because of the lighting, I couldn’t get a good look at any of their bodies, but they all seemed to be trim, and Maria, when she moved in her seat, made me think she had large-cup boobs.
But no more time for speculation because the MC was shouting, “How many ribs are in a human body?”
I knew this, because I’d had to take an undergrad anatomy course. “Twenty four!” I called out. Point. Now they were excited, because the Know-It-Alls had the point lead.
“Can I pick ’em, or what!” called out Martha. To my right, Maria put her hand on my arm and said, “How would you know that? That’s kind of weird information to have buried in your brain.”
The MC shouted, “What is the smallest country in the world?”
No freakin’ idea. But Maria jumped up and hollered, “Vatican City!”
“Who was it asking about weird information inside heads,” I asked, looking at her. She just smiled and said, “I know things.”
Mister MC pulled another card, and asked “Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?”
I knew this, too. “Marie Curie!” Point.
Maria looked at me again. “Why would you know that?” she asked.
“It’s kind of related to what I do. More to the point, how come none of you knew that? Important women in science. Good stuff to know, because, like, you’re women.”
She looked at me seriously, then stuck out her tongue at me.
Last question for this round, the MC announced. “What did the Crocodile swallow in the book ’Peter Pan’?”
Oops, I couldn’t remember. I looked at them and shrugged. But Maria was on her feet with “an alarm clock!", just beating another team which hadn’t been as fast with an answer.
And that gave the round to us. They jumped up and hugged each other, and I got arm pats. So much for the hot women bribe. Still, that mean they had won a few bucks each, maybe enough to make a dent in their bar tab. The waitress came by and I ordered another beer, and the girls got refills on their drinks.
I looked around the room and was surprised by the intensity I saw at the tables. They took their trivia seriously. No quarter asked or given.
Round two had slightly more difficult questions, I thought. We got our share, but another team took the lead and the round, and the Know-It-Alls were not happy. Martha said, to no one in particular, “C’mon, people, get your shit together.”
And that dashed my naive belief that we were all gathered here to be with friendly people and have fun. The Know-It-Alls were just as serious about this as everyone else in the room.
Round Three opened more fortuitously. The MC called, “The Statue of Liberty was given to the US by which country?” Sandy was on her feet before the question finished. “France,” she shouted. Point to us, and high fives from the others.
“What substance are fingernails made out of?” shouted the MC.
Easy-peasy. “Keratin!” I hollered. The table looked at me like I had spoken Ukrainian.
“Are you like a robot from another planet come to take over Earth?” asked Sandy. “That’s not even a question I ever knew the answer to.”
I couldn’t respond to her because the MC was tossing out the next question. “What color jersey is worn by the winners of each stage of the Tour De France?”
This I didn’t know, but Martha did. “Yellow! Yellow!” No extra points for answering it twice. Nice try, though.
And on it went. We took round three, and the winners of round two looked really pissed. They made up for it in round four, where they whipped us by two points.
And before I knew it we were in the final round. I still had my second beer in front of me, mostly gone, but the rest of them, I realized, had been refreshing their drinks much more rapidly than I. How could they answer questions if their brains were fuzzy with alcohol?
We were about to find out. They were wired and ready, they reached out to each other and grabbed hands and arms and squeezed for encouragement, and I got it, too.
First question, and I could see that the MC had saved the hardest questions for the final round.
“On which ship did Charles Darwin make his famous expedition, which led to his theory of evolution?”
I knew this from a botany course. “The Beagle,” I called. Point.
The MC said, “Which NFL team has competed in the most Super Bowls?”
Football, not my thing. But Maria made it to her feet before the other team and shouted, “The Patriots!”
I said, “I’m impressed.” She said, “Sorry, can’t help it, football fan.”
The MC said, “What year was Albert Einstein’s ’wunderjahr’?”
I knew this. “1905!” I shouted. I got stares from my table and the other table, too. Point.
“I don’t even know what a wunderjahr is, much less when it happened,” said Maria. “Impressive, but weird.“
MC: “What is the first element on the Periodic Table?”
It’s like he was selecting these questions just for me. “Hydrogen,” I called.
The round continued, with the previous winner getting almost as many right answers as us. We were within a point or two of each other, and getting close to the end.
From what I could see the other team led by a point, and there were only a couple of questions left.
The MC intoned, “Where is the uvula located?”
Blank looks at our table. The other winners were consulting with one another intently. “In the throat,” I said loudly. Point, giddy fist shakes from our side, and glares from the other table. We were tied, I think.
“Last question,” said the MC, “and the teams are tied. For the round, what are microscopic spheres of 60 atoms of pure carbon in a spherelike structure that resembles a geodosic dome?”
I had underestimated the level of blankness which both tables were capable of. This was more like shell-shock, not even an idea of how to answer. “I got this,” I said to the table, and stood up. “Buckyballs,” I answered.
The MC said, “For the point and the round. Congratulations to The Know-It-Alls.”
I was surprised at how much noise these three could make. They were jumping up and down, which I was enjoying because of the jiggling involved, and hugging each other. They turned to me and Martha said, “We won because I can recognize genius.” She kissed me on the cheek.
Sandy threw her arms around me tight, then kissed me quick on the lips. “You are a genius. How do you know all that stuff?”
Maria smiled and grabbed my upper arm. She said, “You done good. Thanks, Sam.” She reached up and gave me a kiss, too, but this one was a little longer and friendlier, I thought. And now that she was standing, I could see my assessment of her wasn’t far off. Definitely C or D cup.
Martha shouted, “Another drink? Who wants to join me? Sam?”
I shook my head, “No, I might go for some coffee.”
Sandy was up for another, but Maria declined.
“Okay, I’m gonna go collect our loot. Wait here for your share. We’ll order drinks after.” She trotted off, looking triumphant.
Maria looked at me and said, “You have an... eclectic store of information, Sam. Mostly people know stuff from their own areas of interest. You seem to be more widely read.”
“I like stuff that holds my interest. I like science and history, current events, like that. Not so much into sports or popular music.”
“Well, it balanced us well, so thanks. I just realized I’m getting a little hoarse from shouting over the crowd.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to carry on a conversation.”
Martha came back with a fistful of money. “Okay, it was two rounds at $50 each, and the final round and that was $100, for a total of $200. So that gives us each $50. She handed me my share and solemnly said, “Don’t spend this all in one place, Sam.”
“You have my word. At least half of it will go to loose women. The rest I will fritter away.”
That got a laugh and a pat on the arm.
Sandy and Martha went to get drinks. I smiled at Maria and said, “If there were a quieter corner in here, I’d suggest we move over there, but it seems to be chaos and noise everywhere. I think I’m a little hoarse, too.”
“Actually, coffee doesn’t sound like a bad idea. I’ve got to drive, and maybe I’ve got too little blood in my alcohol stream.” She didn’t look that drunk to me, but she knew herself better than I.
“Wasn’t there a diner or coffee shop down the street? That’s bound to be less noisy. Want to join me?”
So the deal was done. She waited till the other two got back and said that it was too noisy and we were going out for coffee. I had learned enough of how women communicate to realize that the words carried a different message, that she had laid claim, and was taking me off somewhere.
The other two said, “Oh, we wish you’d stay, we could gloat over our victory.” But the actual unspoken message was ”Talk to you tomorrow, and you’d better give us all the details.“
It was really only a short walk to the diner, one of those “we’re-open-24-7” Greek places. It was easier than driving there, and we found a corner booth away from the surprisingly large number of people eating a late dinner/snack/breakfast.
“Well, this is an improvement, noise-wise” she said. “And now that I’m here, I’m realizing I’m hungry.”
So she ordered a BLT with her coffee, and I a piece of chocolate cake with mine, and we traded backgrounds.
She was a document analyst for an insurance company, making sure claims were substantiated with evidence like photos, police reports, interviews, doctor’s statements and the like. Not her life’s work, but she needed a job right out of college to pay off her student loans.
In the brighter lighting of the diner I found her even more attractive. Her background, she said, was Latina, and close up I could see it now. She was smart with an easy wit, and asked good questions. She was surprised to find out I was a scientist, and she confessed, a little embarrassed, that she held a stereotype of scientists, glasses, bald (or balding), pocket protector, minimal social skills.
I told her we weren’t all like that, but I’d known my share, so she was forgiven for the broad brush. She talked a bit about her trivia excursions, and for her it turned out to be an escape from some bad evenings out trying to meet people (i.e., men) in meat market bars that were a little too intense and single-minded for her tastes. So she joined up with some friends from work to go out as a group to a quieter place and see if she could do better.
“And has it worked?” I asked.
“Early days. We’ll see how it turns out.” She looked at me when she said it, and I had to smile inwardly. I hadn’t been wrong; she was taking me home to try me out, to put it a little crudely.
So I likely wouldn’t need the hypnozamine, other than possibly as an aid to prepping her for some orgasms. The other thing was that I really wanted to find out what turned her on, and I got the sense from talking to her that she was a little shy, a little coy, to being open about her preferences. So the ’truth serum’ or honesty aspect of the drug was a bonus.
I tossed those around in my head while we talked and ate. She had a nice smile and a great laugh, and I found I was making an effort to be funny because I liked to hear it.
The waitress came by with coffee refills and dropped off the check as well. If only for the truth aspect of the drug effects, I thought it would be useful to try the hypnozamine, so I gave some thought to how I might administer it surreptitiously.
My cloth napkin was in my lap and I eased the aerosol out and into my palm, and placed my hand under the napkin. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and as I stood up I sprayed the mist diagonally onto the table as I dropped the napkin.
I stepped out and walked to the rest room at the other end of the diner. I actually did need to pee, from the beer and the coffee, then washed my hands and returned to where Maria was sitting.
Her hands were in her lap and she was staring at the blank wall behind me, looking empty.
“Maria, are you okay? Are the drinks hitting you?”
“No, I don’t think so. I just got a little spacey all of a sudden, kind of daydreaming.”
“And what were you daydreaming about?” I asked, hoping for a certain answer.
“That it was a nice evening. That we won the contest. That I got the guy and not Sandy.”
“Do you mean me?” I wondered aloud.
“Yes. It was rock-paper-scissors and I won.”
What? I was the prize in rock-paper-scissors? Well, that’s a let-down. So much for my inherent charm and savoir faire. Now I was a little annoyed.
“Do you always compete to see who gets to go home with a guy?”
“Not always. Sometimes if a guy is definitely interested in just one of us, we won’t. But you didn’t show a preference, so we did rock-paper-scissors when you weren’t looking and I won.”
I was half-tempted to just say goodnight and walk out, and let her explain that to the others tomorrow. But she was hot, and I kind of wanted to see those boobs, too.
“Well, Maria, I’m glad you won, because I think you’re really hot, and I’m imagining us being together and what you’d feel like. It’s making my skin tingle a bit now. Can you feel your skin tingle?”
“Now that you mention it, I do. It’s like the hairs on my arm are standing up.”
“Yes, like that. In fact, my skin feels like it’s almost electric, and if we were to touch now it would be like a shock, but it would be a burst of erotic pleasure, not electricity. See?”
I reached out and touched her wrist, and she jumped.
“Oh, my God! That’s amazing. I’ve never felt that before.”
“I think we have a chemistry, Maria, that makes us really sensitive. If we were to kiss, for example, and you were thinking about my hands on your body, you’d feel your nipples getting really hard, and your pussy getting wet. In fact, your pussy is a little damp now, isn’t it?”
She paused, thinking. “Yes, it is, I hadn’t realized.”
“You’re really turned on now, Maria, thinking about it. You know that if I were to suck your nipples or lick your asshole or rub your pussy, it would bring you so close to cumming, making you feel better and better, and even more aroused. You know this, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“When I lick your clit or stick my fingers in your pussy, you’ll cum, a series of delightful, small orgasms that will leave you feeling so relaxed and happy. When I stick a finger or a dildo into your ass, it will give you a wonderful, warm orgasm that spreads from your ass all through your body, leaving you feeling a little slutty but really satisfied.
“And when I finally fuck you, Maria, my dick in your cunt or in your ass will make you crazy with anticipation, feeling better and better, bringing you right to the edge of cumming, but you won’t cum, Maria, not until you hear me say the words ’cum for me’. What are those words, Maria?”
“You’ll say ’cum for me’.”
“That’s right, Maria. And then you’ll cum with a powerful release that will leave you breathless, feeling wonderful, delighted and happy and complete, deeply satisfied. You won’t remember me saying that phrase but you’ll remember what will happen when I say it.
“And when we’re making love, it’s going to make you really happy to find the things that I like to do and to have done to me. It will make you feel quite joyful to know that you’ve done that for me.”
“One more thing, Maria. When I say the word ’keratin’ to you, you will block out all the sensations and stimuli around you, and will hear my voice alone, nothing else. And you will want to do what I tell you because it makes perfect sense. And when I clap my hands, you will awake again and remember nothing of what we said, but you will still do the things I asked, as if you thought of them yourself. Can you do that, Maria? What’s the word you’ll be listening for?”
“Keratin. It’s keratin.”
She was still a bit faraway, I thought, staying under a bit longer than the others, though I hadn’t timed it exactly. So a few more questions, while I could.
“Maria, are you anticipating what might happen later, when we leave here? What do you think will happen?”
“I think we’re going to go back to my place and make love.”
“Are you looking forward to that?”
“Yes. I’m really horny now. It’s been a couple of weeks since the last guy.”
“Tell me the things that turn you on. What do you like to have done to you? What gets you really excited?”
“I like when guys spank me and push me around. I like when they tell me what to do. I like when I’m tied up and they do whatever they feel like.”
Ouch. Not really my thing, and kind of a shame. She was too pretty and smart to have guys beating on her to get their jollies.
“Why do you like those things, Maria?”
“Because then I don’t have to decide what I’m supposed to do.”
“Do you not have preferences? Don’t some things feel better than others?”
“Yes. But I don’t like asking for what I want.”
“Tell me the things that make you feel good.”
“I like sucking dick, I think I’m good at it, and I like feeling it in my throat. I like getting my ass fucked. I like when I’m bent over and helpless and getting fucked, especially when I’m tied up.”
She looked like she was starting to come out of it now, her eyes getting more active, so I finished up.
“Do you live alone, Maria?”
“I have a roommate. She’s away till Tuesday.”
“When we get through here, would you like to invite me back to your place? Would that please you?”
“Yes. That was what I was going to do.”
I thought I had stretched this out as far as I could, so I started talking about Dr. Clark and how we all dislike him, while she came back to earth.
It was interesting to watch, as her eyes became more normal, and she realized that I was talking, and trying to remember what I had been saying before she lost focus. She gave her head a little shake, and said, “Oh, sorry, I must have wandered off for a moment. What were you saying?”
“Not important. I was talking about my boss and what a jerk he is. Not worth repeating. Are you about done? Something else?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Thanks for the sandwich.” She started to collect her things. I left a tip and picked up the bill and my wallet and went to pay the check.
She met me at the door. On the steps of the diner she said, “Sam, I feel bad about zoning out. You want to come back to my place for awhile and finish your story? Your boss sounds like a real piece of work. I’d like to compare him with mine.”
“That’d be nice,” I answered. We headed back to where our cars were parked, and when we reached hers she gave me her address and said she’d wait for me out front.