The Experiment (15 page)

But it wasn’t just me
, she thought.
It’s love. It’s what I feel for you.
But she didn’t say it.

“Try not to worry about it, Doctor.” She turned her face and kissed his chest, opening her lips so she could taste the saltiness of his sweat. “Worrying about it is the worst thing you can do.”

He laughed once, bitterly. “Yes, that’s what they tell you, isn’t it? But they really don’t know what they’re talking about. How can you not worry? It’s like losing your identity, your soul, who you are. It’s like losing your power to do anything.”

“Shhh,” she murmured. “Believe me, Doctor. It’s really not that important. It’s how you feel that matters. That’s what I care about.”

He moved slightly, making himself more comfortable beneath her, shifting her weight to the side so that he could kiss her forehead.

“No. You just don’t know. Women don’t understand what impotence means to a man, how deeply it’s tied up with who we are. Even if you’re celibate, if you don’t engage in any sort of sex, you have to know that you’re still capable. You have to believe that, should the situation present itself, you’d be able to perform as a man. You need to know that for your own self-esteem, for your sense of self-worth. Women just don’t understand that.”

Zoe said nothing. She felt his anguish, even if she couldn’t quite understand it. All that doubt and worry over a little thing like an erection—it just seemed so silly. There were other ways to make love. There were other ways to show what you felt and share pleasure with your lover.

“The urge is still there,” he said. “More than just an urge, the need, the desire for relief, if nothing else. And yet you just can’t. You can’t do anything about it. You don’t know what it’s like, Zoe. A woman just can’t know.”

“And so you started these experiments, looking for something that would do it for you? Something that would arouse you?”

“Yes. Quite honestly, yes. That’s exactly what it was. I’d exhausted every other avenue. I’d tried drugs, therapy, psychoanalysis, even pumps and those mail-order
cures. And you know what’s so ironic? You know why I didn’t dare tell you my name or let you see my face?”

Zoe shook her head, never lifting her cheek from his chest.

“You’d know if you ever went into a health food store or an organic food shop. Doctor Vita’s Organotropic line of herbal sex aids—Horny goat weed, macca root, gingko biloba—all these cures to energize your sex life, for men and women…

“I’m Doctor Vita, Zoe. That’s how I made my fortune. Herbal sexual enhancements. My face is on every jar and bottle I sell. How would it look if word got out that Doctor Vita was impotent?”

He laughed again. Zoe lifted her head and looked at him. Yes, he looked familiar, but he looked familiar to her like a face she’d always known, seen in a kind of déjà vu. It was the face of her idealized lover, the face she’d pictured in the darkness of the experiment room—the classic, Grecian profile, the beard, the sad and noble eyes. Just looking at him made her stomach swim.

She nestled back onto his chest and toyed with his chest hair. She could lie there all night on his chest and listen to him talk. “Tell me about the experiment.”

“I’ve never told anyone,” he said. “You won’t laugh?”

She looked at him, hurt. “I would never laugh.”

He sighed. “The one thing that seemed to show any promise for my condition was, well, voyeurism. My herbal business isn’t all snake oil. My products work. I know because I test them, or I used to. I’d have people come in and we’d run experiments. Not here, of course, but at my lab. We’d have some men take a pill and then have them evaluate their responses, and we did the same for women.

“It was interviewing the women that did it. There was something about the contrived intimacy of the interview process that aroused me.”

He looked down at Zoe to see if she was listening.

“Shall I go on?”

“Yes. Please.”

“We paid our subjects and I suppose that had something to do with it. They wanted to do well, either consciously or unconsciously, and some of the women started getting very graphic in their descriptions. Sometimes they would even act out.”

He raised his head and looked at her. “You know what I mean by ‘act out’?”

Zoe lifted her head and smiled. “No. Tell me.”

He smiled back. He knew what she wanted. “Exaggerate their responses. Touch themselves, open their clothes. That’s when I began to notice my own reactions. I didn’t get fully erect, but at least there was something, some sign of life, some hope.”

He sighed. “From there it was an easy matter to modify those studies and switch them over to my own home, where I could have more control over things and more privacy. I started picking and choosing who I wanted as my subjects, approaching women. I still treated men too, just to convince myself that what I was doing had some scientific validity, but it was the women I was interested in.”

“And what did you find? Did it work?”

“Sometimes. Partially. And having the power to make these women do what I wanted was part of it. It’s terribly arousing to have that kind of power over someone. To say, take off your clothes or do this or do that and have them do it. Even to see the looks on their faces as they struggled with their conscience was worth it. It became very intoxicating. Almost addicting.”

“But all that money!” Zoe said. “You paid them all like you paid me?”

“We negotiated. Some cost me more than you. Most cost less. But the money was the least of it. I’m a very wealthy man, Zoe. I can afford it. It was my one indulgence. Well, that and my paintings.”

Zoe lifted herself up and looked at him. He was such a beautiful man, so strong and virile-looking, like a Greek god. How could he have been brought so low by something so simple, so silly?

“And what happened with me. Tell me how I made you feel, why you chose me.”

A big smile spread over his face until his white teeth gleamed in the darkness.

“You? It was just as I told you. I stopped by your café one day and saw you behind the counter. You just struck me as a very beautiful woman, my type exactly—dark hair, brown eyes, a lovely body. You were obviously intelligent and working at a job way below your capacity. It was fairly easy to find out your name and address and send you an invitation.”

Zoe considered this. The owner of the restaurant was a decent man and wouldn’t give out that information, but his son might. His son had been her real boss and he hated her ever since she’d refused his advances.

“The first night you were here,” he said. “Do you remember it?”

“Yes. How could I forget? It still embarrasses me.”

His arm tightened around her. “You were magnificent. I’d never seen such raw sexuality in a woman. I’d never seen such beauty, such sensuality. I responded immediately. I could feel the spark again. It wasn’t a flame yet. It takes more than physical beauty to do it, but I knew then that you were special.”

She looked at him in the darkness and saw his eyes gleaming at her. She was used to men’s stares, but no one had ever looked at her this way, with such love and pride and excitement. It was the way she’d always dreamed of him looking at her in the dark, but a thousand times more gratifying.

“Go on,” she begged.

He shrugged. “You know the rest. I had you come back. I watched you again and again. I knew that you were the one, that I had to have you, but I was terribly afraid. What if it didn’t work out—the shame, the embarrassment. How would I ever face you again?

“And then you wanted me to arrange that meeting for you at the hotel. I was crushed.”

Zoe winced with shame. “I thought it would be you. I was sure it would be you, otherwise I would never have asked.”

He held her close. “I wanted it to be me too, but I was still afraid. I couldn’t take the chance.”

Zoe lifted herself up and looked down at him, searching his face. “Didn’t you know how I felt then? Couldn’t you tell? I wouldn’t have cared. I wouldn’t have cared if you were a eunuch.”

The Doctor looked back at her and Zoe saw the pain in his eyes, the love and the hurt.

“No. I didn’t know. I couldn’t take that chance, Zoe. I fixed you up with someone else, someone I knew wouldn’t be a rival. Forgive me, Zoe. I didn’t know what else to do.”

She felt tears start in her eyes, remembering her shame.

“No,” she said. “I’m the one who should apologize. I wanted it to be you. I didn’t want anyone else. But I was afraid that if I didn’t… I thought I wouldn’t see you again.”

He pushed her head down against his chest and stroked her hair. “No. You have nothing to apologize for. I was caught in my own web. I should have told you then how I felt. I should have trusted you but I didn’t have the nerve. And then last night—”

“No,” she said, covering his mouth with her fingers. “No. I don’t want to talk about last night. I almost lost you. I almost lost everything.”

He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers, then shook his head. “I wouldn’t have let you get away. I was angry and I acted foolishly, but I would have gotten you back. Whatever it took, I would have gotten you back. You’re my answer, Zoe. You’re my salvation.”

Her heart swelled with such emotion that she thought she might choke and so she inched up, her mouth seeking his, looking to hide in a kiss before he could see her tears, tears of love, tears of relief.

This man had brought her back to life. He had somehow reached out and found her and relit the fires of life and love within her, hauled her back to the land of the living. All the perversions she had undergone, the shameful acts and self-doubts—they were all justified now. His love had redeemed her, just as her love redeemed him and gave him new life. The things she’d done had not been in vain. It had been more than mere sex, more than cheap titillation.

He pulled back from her suddenly, turning his head from her kiss.

Zoe looked at him in confusion. “What, Doctor? What is it?”

“You know what it is, Zoe. I don’t think we should rush things. I’m a bit apprehensive.”

She knew what he meant. It was his fear again, that he wouldn’t be able to perform. It meant so much to him.

Zoe pushed herself up. She didn’t know how she knew, but she was certain she could make it work. Maybe it was only the strength of her own desire she felt, the power of her woman’s sexuality, but she felt it, as certain as she’d felt it before when she’d performed for the Doctor or his “patients”. If anyone could bring him to life, she was the one. She had a talent. He’d told her that.

She didn’t give it any conscious thought, just let her feelings guide her. She climbed off his body, glad that she’d left her shoes and stockings on, her seductress’s clothes. She walked to the window and stood there, legs apart slightly, looking out at the sleeping city and drinking in its beauty, the mystery of the night and feeling his eyes on her naked back.

She knew that he couldn’t see her features. The living room behind her was dark and draped in shadow and her body appeared as a black silhouette against the gleaming lights of the city, darker than the night that framed her.

She turned around slowly, posing for him, unashamed, knowing her body had the power to arouse him and if ever she had the ability to send her desires to someone else, she did it now, feeling her need for him and casting those feelings out like a net.

He pushed himself up and sat on the sofa and though she couldn’t see his eyes, his lap was splashed with enough light for her to see his muscular thighs, the heavy shaft of his cock lying there limply. As she watched she saw it begin to stir, as if with a life of its own.

The sight gave her chills. She couldn’t see his face. It was just as it had been in the experiment room when she did things for him, not being able to see his expression. But now she had a better indicator of what he felt and she played to it shamelessly.

“Zoe…” he said, almost as if in warning, afraid for her to go farther, afraid he’d fail.

She brought her hands up and caressed her breasts, pushing them together and running her red nails around her nipples, playing the wanton for him as she had done so many times before. As always, the precarious height of her heels gave her a feeling of power and the snugness of her stockings coupled with the free air moving against her naked mound made her feel wonderfully wicked and slutty. The lights behind her were like some fairyland canvas against which she worked.

She kept her eyes on his lap and saw his cock twitch again and begin to slowly raise its head, like some torpid cobra sensing food and coming to life, and without conscious thought Zoe began to sway her hips, instinctively imitating the movements of a snake-charmer, enticing and inviting the serpent to join her.

Her right hand left her breast and trailed down her naked body to find a place between her legs and she pressed up against her sex, sighing with pleasure. Her touch felt good, arousing her, but it was the sight of his cock starting to stand up that really filled her with heat. He sat absolutely still on the sofa watching her, his hands at his sides and she could see his shaft moving and growing with every beat of his heart, like some independent animal growing between his thighs.

“I want you to fuck me, Doctor,” she whispered shamelessly. “I want you to shove that big cock inside me again and fuck me hard. Did you like the way I came for you before, baby? Did you like the way you made me come? I couldn’t help it. I don’t come
like that just for anyone. It’s you, Doctor, you just fuck me so good. You drive me crazy.”