The Experiment (9 page)

Amy’s lack of curiosity baffled Zoe. She couldn’t imagine how Amy could be a part of this sexual carnival and yet have so little personal involvement in what was going on. She might have been making an appointment for Zoe to get her teeth cleaned.

She was fairly certain now that her conversation with Amy hadn’t been as one-sided as she’d believed, that while Zoe had been pumping Amy for information on the Doctor, Amy had been probing her too, to test her feelings and to report back on what she found. She didn’t blame Amy for this, but she didn’t entirely trust her either.

The sudden notice of the session meant she had to use one of her sick days to get out of work and she allowed herself the luxury of sleeping a little later than usual. She dressed carefully, wanting to look just right, and appeared at the Doctor’s penthouse ten minutes early.

Amy greeted her at the door with effusive warmth, actually embracing Zoe as she led her into the penthouse and looking at her fondly.

“Did you learn anything?” Zoe asked her in a whisper.

Amy looked at her curiously. “About what?” she asked.

“About what’s going to happen today.”

Amy still looked as if she didn’t know what Zoe was talking about.

“Of course not,” Amy said. “That’s part of the experiment. I’m not involved in the experimental work.”

Once again Zoe wondered at Amy’s strange non-involvement and lack of curiosity. She could have at least warned Zoe if there was a man inside waiting for her, but instead she said, “I’m to bring you straight in,” and she led Zoe into the now familiar experiment room.

The Doctor was already there when she took her seat under the cone of light. Again, he was in the darkness and she found it more disconcerting than ever. Maybe not disconcerting, annoying and unnecessary was more like it. She felt closer to him today—she’d made her desires known, put them into his hands—and it seemed silly for him to still be hiding his identity in the darkness.

She was sure Amy must have told him about their discussion and she wondered whether he would mention it.

“How are you today, Zoe?” he asked.

“Fine, thank you, Doctor. And you?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

She waited for him to bring up Amy, but she couldn’t wait long. She had to get it out in the open.

“I’ve been talking with Ms. Liu, you know,” she said to the darkness.

“Yes. About the cameras. What did you decide?”

His response caught her by surprise. She’d forgotten about the cameras. “I don’t know. That’s a very bizarre request, Doctor. Just what do you expect to see?”

“I’m not sure. What should I expect?”

Zoe smiled. His pattern of questions and responses were becoming familiar to her now.

“Nothing, really. I’m afraid you’ll be quite disappointed.”

“Then you’ve no objection to the cameras?”

Zoe peered at his shadow in the darkness. “Doctor, I don’t know who you think I am, but I live alone and I don’t have many visitors. I don’t walk around doing a striptease and I don’t lie on my bed and masturbate. If you want to look at me watching television in return for paying my rent, then be my guest. You’ll keep all this strictly confidential?”

“By all means.”

There was a silence during which Zoe could almost hear her own mind working.

“But why?” she blurted out. “What’s so damned fascinating about watching me sleep and do my nails?”

In the darkness she saw him lift his hands and press his fingertips together. It was rare that his hands ever left the light.

“It’s the next step, Zoe. That’s all I can say. The results so far are very encouraging.”

“What results? Encouraging how?” She spread her hands in frustration. “Maybe if you told me what you were trying to do, I could help.”

His shadow didn’t move and for the first time Zoe felt like he really couldn’t tell her, that he wanted to explain but just couldn’t. For the first time she felt something like sympathy for him, sitting in his shadows, living vicariously through her.

“We talked about more than just the cameras, Amy and me,” she said levelly, purposely trying to goad him.

“About the experiment, no doubt.”

“Yes. And about you.”

The hands returned to the light. “I’m afraid you didn’t learn much then, did you, Zoe? Amy can’t tell what she doesn’t know.”

That was it? No anger? No surprise? He didn’t seem to care very much at all. Of course, Amy must have told him everything. Still, she would have liked to get some sort of reaction out of him. He did this to her intentionally—just played with her, figured out what she’d do and then acted in the opposite way. It was obvious now, she should have expected it.

She resettled herself in her seat and changed the subject. “I believe we had an agreement about today,” she said.

“About the session? Yes, we did. Or rather, you had a request,” he said carefully. “You wanted me to find you a man, a sex partner. Yes, I’ve taken care of it, made all the arrangements. Of course, it won’t happen here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Zoe, I can’t very well use this place for random assignations. That would be rather unseemly, as well as illegal. Despite what you may think, this is not a bawdy house of some kind and I do not arrange ‘dates’ between my subjects. What I’m doing in your case is allowing you to deviate slightly from the pre-designed experimental
protocol. This will still be part of the experiment though and I’ll still expect it to generate data. You understand?”

He was already weaseling out, turning things to his own advantage. “In other words, you want me to tell you what happens,” she said.

“Crudely put, yes.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

“And of course there will be no compensation for this session. You are doing this of your own free will.”

“Okay.”

“Very well,” he said. “Here is what I’ve done. You’re familiar with the McCormack Museum of Art?”

“Yes, of course. It’s right downtown, only a few blocks from here.”

“One of my other subjects in this experiment is a suitable male. He’s polite, intelligent, sensitive, disease-free and apparently quite attractive, though I’m hardly a judge of that. I think you’ll find him suitable. I’ve spoken to him and he’s amenable to your request. He is waiting for you at the McCormack as we speak. You are to find him and, if you find him to your liking, have sex with him.”

This wasn’t right. She’d expected the Doctor to volunteer to be the one to have sex with her, but somehow she wasn’t surprised.

“In the museum?” she asked.

The Doctor laughed. “No I wouldn’t advise that. No. I’ve arranged for a room at the Carleton at my expense. I thought it best to keep it on neutral ground.”

“And he’s expecting to meet me at the museum?”

“He’s expecting someone. He doesn’t know your name of course, nor does he know what you look like. All he knows is that a woman eager to have sex with him will be looking for him at the museum.”

“And how will I know him?” she asked.

“That’s up to you.”

“I’m sorry?” she asked.

“As I say, he knows a woman will be in the art museum looking for him, or for a man like him. At the same time he is looking for a woman. Neither of you knows what the other looks like. It’s your job to find each other.”

She thought about this for a moment, trying to understand.

“So what you want me to do is go to the museum and pick up some man I’ve never seen before and have sex with him?”

“That’s one way of looking at it, yes,” he said. “But after all, it was your request. You asked me to arrange a sexual session with a man and that’s what I’ve done. Another way of looking at it is that you are going to meet a lover you simply haven’t met before. Someone who’s looking for exactly the same thing you are. How difficult could that be?”

Despite herself she had to laugh at his craftiness. He had taken her simple request and turned it into another game. She had a vision of herself wandering around the museum propositioning men.

“But how will I know if I’ve got the right man? All sorts of people go there. Lovers meet there, students, artists, all sorts of people.”

“Well,” the Doctor said, “I suppose anyone you meet would be the right man, considering what your purpose is, wouldn’t he? Assuming you find him acceptable?”

“So I could just wind up picking up some stranger, couldn’t I? Just picking up some guy who’s there on a lunch break and taking him to bed.”

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose that’s possible.”

Yes, it was possible. In fact that was the whole point, she was sure of it. He was setting her up for this. She wondered if he had even talked to any of his subjects about this. There was a good chance that he hadn’t even sent anyone over there, that there was no man waiting for her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I have to think about this. You say he’s there now?”

“Yes. That was the arrangement.”

Why was meeting someone that the Doctor had selected for her to have sex with so different from picking up some man on her own? She knew she would have no trouble finding a man to take her to bed. Did she need the Doctor’s seal of approval on the man? Did she need to know there’d be no entanglements?

“What if I don’t go?” she asked.

“I suppose he’ll be very disappointed and you’ll have made a liar out of me.”

He sounded sincere enough, but still she was unsure.

She’d wanted it to be him. She wanted him to come out from behind his cone of light and take her by the hand, show himself to her and lead her to bed where he’d explain everything and then make love to her and quench this hunger she had for human contact. But he’d outfoxed her, sidestepping as she’d charged and leading her into a situation where she was faced with the prospect of whoring herself out. And how would he feel about her then?

There was still a possibility though. The Doctor was a crafty man. Perhaps he would be the one. Perhaps he would slip out after her and meet her at the museum. Would she recognize him? She was certain she would, and it would be just like him.

Taking her silence for agreement, the Doctor asked, “Any other questions?”

Zoe was quiet.

“Then why don’t we meet again tomorrow night and you can tell me about it. About seven?”

“How will you know if I do it or not?” she asked slyly. “Maybe I’ll just lie to you.”

Despite the darkness, she could almost sense him smiling. “I’ll know,” he said. “Anything else?”

“I can’t do it,” she said. “Not like this. It’s no more than picking up a stranger. I’d might as well go out to some bar.”

“If you’d rather,” he said. Then, “You can always back out. He doesn’t know who you are. Why don’t you just go down there? All sorts of people go to the McCormack on their lunch hour. Just go down there and look around.”

Zoe had nothing further to say. She heard the scrape of his chair as he stood up and Zoe imagined there was some hurry to his movements now. He seemed to be eager to get to the door.

“Why do you have to make things so complicated?” she asked him.

He just laughed. The door opened and he was gone.

* * * * *

Zoe still had not given up on her idea that it would actually be the Doctor whom she would meet at the McCormack. He’d have enough time to change and get to the museum shortly after her, then he’d just have to station himself someplace where she was sure to run into him and that would be it. But did he really think she wouldn’t recognize him? Would he be so juvenile as to try and disguise his voice and mannerisms enough to fool her? Or would he just admit it?

She walked to the McCormack in a heady blend of apprehension, dread and growing sexual arousal. It was rather scary to think that somewhere in this building a man was waiting for her, and yet the idea of shopping for a man had a strange kind of lewd appeal. As she walked up the steps she was already looking at the people around her, evaluating, categorizing, mentally accepting or rejecting.

The McCormack attracted a broad mix of people. Aside from the students and art lovers, at this time of day it was a popular place for office workers to take their lunch break. The McCormack also had a reputation as a place where lovers met before they sought out the privacy of one of the nearby hotel rooms downtown. There was a kind of ritualized formality to the procession of people strolling through the galleries with their slow, hesitant walk.

It was a drizzly cool day and some of the visitors carried umbrellas. Many of them had their coats on as well, though it was warm enough in the museum. Zoe kept her raincoat with her too, more as a prop to hide behind than for the warmth. She rejected the idea of putting on her sunglasses. They’d give her cover as she spied on people, but she’d look a little pretentious wearing dark glasses in an art museum.

She’d dressed in a dark skirt and pale blue blouse with light jacket over it. Her clothes and shoes were new, bought with her money from the experiment and the statement they made was that she was a serious woman with a sense of style, but suitably feminine too. Her underthings were also new, the best and most attractive she could find and purchased with the Doctor’s eyes in mind. Aside from her fidgety nervousness, she fit right in with the majority of the crowd.