The Experiment (7 page)

“Is that all you can say, Doctor?”

He laughed softly. “What else would you have me say?”

At that, her anger welled inside her. It had been a mistake to expect any sort of sympathy or understanding from him. Whatever this was, she was just playing into his game. She’d been a fool for having raised this subject at all.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said. “Never mind. I’m sorry I brought it up. Apparently what I feel is not a part of your precious experiment, is it? So why don’t we just drop it. What’s on the schedule for today?”

For a long moment he didn’t move, letting Zoe stew in her own embarrassment. He made a show of looking at her file, opening the cover and picking up one of the pages. She couldn’t see it very clearly from where she was sitting, but she doubted that there was anything there that he really had to refer to.

“Today,” he said, “you are to masturbate to climax.”

“You do seem to have an unusual interest in seeing me masturbate,” she said dryly. “I would think you might have seen enough of that by now.”

“Yes,” he said. “But that’s what’s on the schedule. Masturbate to orgasm. The rate is four hundred dollars.”

The price had gone down, she realized. But why not? She was no longer shocked. She no longer had anything she needed to hide. Strangely, she was disappointed. She’d expected he’d have her do something more extreme.

“All right,” she said. “I can do that.”

“Fine. Ms. Liu will bring in some sexual aids if you desire to use them. She will also be joining you in your masturbation, somewhat as that man joined you last time.”

Zoe bristled. “Wait a minute. What do you mean?”

“As you’ll recall, the last time you were here you and that man served as visual stimuli for each other. Your task now is to provide stimulus again for Ms. Liu, who will also be masturbating. You need not touch her, you need not speak to her, or even look at her, but she must achieve orgasm. You both must achieve orgasm. You have some objection, Ms. Alexander?”

“Yes, I have an objection. You didn’t say anything about her being here before. Why does she have to be here?”

“Because it’s in the experimental design.”

Zoe was about to throw his experimental design back in his face, but she knew how futile that would be.

A week ago, she would have turned and stalked out of the place, but her experiences since then had taught her that she shouldn’t make snap judgments. She didn’t know herself as well as she’d thought. She’d already surprised herself twice, and so now she hesitated and tried to examine her feelings.

Did he expect some sort of lesbian peep show? Zoe was not exactly inexperienced in that area, though it had only been in the spirit of fun, back in her college days.
There’d been no real feeling behind it, just Zoe and a couple of friends seeing if they could shock each other. There had been that time with Jack too, with the girlfriend of one of his buddies. Jack had encouraged her and she’d felt an attraction, but she’d really only done it for Jack.

She’d done everything for Jack and with that bitter thought came the anger that made up her mind.

But first she remembered something she wanted for herself. She had a demand of her own to make.

“If I do this, there’s something I want in return,” she said.

“Oh?”

“I assume that somewhere in your ‘experimental design’ you’re going to want me to have sex with someone,” she said, staring at where his eyes should be. “Intercourse. Would I be wrong?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“All right. Fine. You can’t tell me. But I know it’s coming. And what I want is, I just want to get to that part now. I don’t want to fool around anymore. If you want me to screw someone, let’s get to it and cut out all this masturbation and voyeur stuff.”

She looked into the darkness, her jaw set.

“Plus,” she added. “I want six hundred dollars for tonight.”

This last item was pure impulse, born of her anger and his silence pleased her tremendously. For the first time since she’d been coming here, she’d got a response from him, even if it was only silence. She felt as though she’d finally done something right.

“Five hundred dollars,” he said. “As for the other part, I can’t guarantee anything. The experimental protocol—”

“Fuck your experimental protocol!” she snapped.

“—demands a certain…” His voice trailed off. His fingers drummed on the blotter. He cleared his throat. “I’ll have to think about it. I’d need at least a week to arrange things in any case.”

“All right,” Zoe said, standing up, excited by her victory. “All right. Five hundred and one week. Now let’s get on with it.”

She began unbuttoning her blouse and pulling it out of her skirt before he could change his mind. The undressing was starting to seem routine to her. She felt like she was changing into her working clothes.

Before she had her blouse off, Ms. Liu came in carrying a wicker basket, and Zoe was surprised to see that she was wearing gym clothes and rather sloppy ones at that—shorts, athletic shoes, and a T-shirt. It was disconcerting to see her dressed this way and Zoe felt embarrassed for her. Without her suit and with her hair pinned up in a haphazard mass in her head, she looked much less intimidating and very young. Zoe was struck by the fact that she was, after all, only a girl, probably just out of college.

Ms. Liu looked at her with the same polite, noncommittal expression she wore in her role as the Doctor’s assistant, but Zoe could see something else in her eyes—nervous excitement and a trace of embarrassment, even fear. It struck her quite suddenly that Ms. Liu was more than just the Doctor’s executive secretary. The revelation surprised her.

“Ms. Zoe Alexander, Ms. Amy Liu,” the Doctor said. “I believe you’ve already met. I hope we can be on a first-name basis, if you’ve no objections?”

Ms. Liu gave Zoe a polite nod and Zoe returned it in an offhanded way.

“Whatever,” she said. She unzipped her skirt and removed it, folded it neatly and placed it on the table, then finished removing her blouse. Ms. Liu set the basket between them on the floor and Zoe glanced at it, saw that it contained a variety of sex toys—dildos and vibrators, lubricants and batteries—all new and still in their packages, resting on a neat bed of fluffy white towels.

Ms. Liu disappeared into the darkness and brought over a chair similar to Zoe’s, but lighter and easier to manage. Zoe wondered that she hadn’t noticed it before, but then, sitting under her spotlight she could see very little of what was around her in the darkness. She felt a silly pang of jealousy at Ms. Liu’s knowledge of the room.

Zoe straightened her bra strap and noticed that the Doctor hadn’t moved. “You’re staying?” she asked.

“As an observer.”

“For the sake of science?”

One of the Doctor’s hands left the cone of light and in the darkness she could see him rub his forehead, as if tired.

“This session is not entirely objective,” he said. “There’s a therapeutic purpose as well, I confess. Amy has trouble achieving orgasm. I thought being with you might help.”

Zoe looked at his shadow in the darkness. “I’m sorry? Did I hear you correctly?”

“You have certain talents, Ms. Alexander. Don’t underestimate yourself. That’s all I can say.”

Ms. Liu gave her a rueful smile, as if to let Zoe know that she wasn’t happy about being here either but that there was nothing they could do about it, then she reached into the basket and took out a box, opened it, and showed a slim vibrator to Zoe.

“If you don’t mind, this one works well for me,” she said.

Zoe shrugged with indifference and finished folding her blouse, keeping her bra and panties on. She had no intention of getting naked unless Amy did, and she wasn’t interested in the vibrators. She would use her fingers.

Ms. Liu opened a fresh package of batteries, loaded the vibrator and turned it on. The soft hum filled the room and Zoe tried not to watch as the girl rubbed it slowly across her face, then down and across her breasts and finally down to her own crotch.

Zoe was shocked, not so much by what Amy did as by the girl’s total obliviousness to her surroundings. As soon as she switched the vibrator on, it was as though she were alone in the room and she closed her eyes and swayed slightly as she ran the vibrator over her body, down across her lower stomach and finally between her legs. Zoe glanced up at the Doctor’s hands, again folded primly beneath his green-shaded lamp.

Zoe stood by uncertainly in her underthings as Ms. Liu slipped off her shorts and panties in one motion and sat down in her chair without the least bit of self-consciousness. She put her feet up on the seat and spread the lips of her sex open with one hand, while with the other she ran the vibrator up and down her exposed flesh, humming with pleasure. Her behavior was so openly wanton and unexpected that Zoe didn’t even think to hide her astonishment. She stared openly as Ms. Liu got down to the serious business of masturbating as if she were alone in her own bedroom, totally oblivious to both Zoe and the Doctor’s presence. Zoe suddenly felt very embarrassed, self-conscious enough for the both of them.

But of course, Zoe thought, she must help him with all his experiments all the time! She’s probably done this many times before and it must be almost routine for her. They’re some sort of bizarre team.

Yet looking at Amy that was hard to believe. She was just a girl, and her reactions to the plastic phallus as it buzzed over her flesh were too open and ingenuous to be the posings of a professional sex worker. She showed no embarrassment whatsoever, and from the look of rapture on her face, she was blissfully lost in her private world of sensation. She tentatively slipped the tip of the instrument into her opening and her hums of pleasure were punctuated by sharp gasps of delight whenever she found an especially sensitive spot.

In a matter of minutes Amy had herself very aroused and was breathing heavily, emitting little moans of pleasure, working the vibrator into herself and humping her hips lewdly. She gasped and sighed in uninhibited lust as the vibrator hummed against her and Zoe couldn’t take her eyes off the masturbating girl. She was beautiful, but
what so transfixed her now was the Asian girl’s hot and fervid sexuality, totally unexpected, totally heartfelt. She’d gone from being the businesslike and almost cold personal assistant Zoe knew to a wanton sensualist so quickly that Zoe could scarcely believe it was the same person.

The vibrator worked its obscene magic and now the girl was showing some embarrassment as the device began to sting her with sharp, unexpected little bursts of pleasure, bursts that made her gasp with sudden excitement and then look around apologetically, as if to beg their pardon.

“Oh yesss!” Ms. Liu gasped, then bit her lower lip to stifle her sighs. The expression on her face alternated between deep, sensual pleasure and sudden bouts of self-conscious embarrassment as the sensations overcame her.

Zoe glanced back at the Doctor’s desk, looking for some sign or explanation, but there was nothing to see. Just the hands sitting folded in the cone of light. The situation was so bizarre that she felt chills.

Ms. Liu’s slim hips began to revolve in tight, hungry circles as she played the vibe against her vagina. She stopped only to quickly skin off her T-shirt and Zoe saw her neat, round breasts with their small nipples already erect. Amy’s free hand caressed her breasts as she returned the vibrator to her sex and she took a nipple between her fingers and pinched it, gasping at the sudden sensations.

Zoe stood there dumbly. Obviously she was expected to do something. She could sense the Doctor’s eyes on her, waiting for her to act, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do. Amy certainly didn’t seem to need anybody’s help to get aroused.

Zoe cleared her throat nervously. “I’m not doing any lesbian stuff, if that’s what you’re waiting for.” She spoke to the Doctor, but she kept her eyes on Ms. Liu. Of course there was no reply from either. The Doctor was silent as always, and Amy Liu was now quite lost in her own world of self-stimulation, oblivious to them both.

Despite Zoe’s unease, Amy’s tensed, hungry search for satisfaction was arousing her and she felt pangs of sympathetic pleasure and longing race through her own body
as Amy masturbated. Zoe could almost feel the vibrations as the instrument pumped slowly between her slim thighs, emerging shiny with her oils. Zoe was no stranger to vibrators and artificial cocks and she knew exactly what Amy was feeling, that urgent and almost unbearably intense pleasure.

Zoe found herself tightening her muscles in vicarious response to Amy’s masturbation, as if she herself were the object of the girl’s affection. The sight of Amy’s increasing desperation and urgency excited her, but it also elicited a tender sympathy for the girl, whose need for release was now making her tremble and moan as she approached the crest of sensual overload.

Zoe remembered that she was there for business. She was supposed to be performing for the Doctor too, so she tore her eyes reluctantly from Ms. Liu. She looked in the Doctor’s direction and asked, “Can I begin now?”

“As you wish.”

Zoe shrugged out of her bra and slipped off her panties and sat down in her chair, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible. Amy was just to her right—her excited moans and the buzzing vibrator could not be ignored. Zoe looked away and tried to think of something sexy as she rubbed softly at her crotch, but she could feel Amy’s desperate excitement like an intolerable presence in the room, a mass of tension that would neither break nor subside.