An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication
www.ellorascave.com
The Experiment ISBN # 1-4199-0612-7 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The Experiment Copyright© 2006 Elliot Mabeuse Edited by Shannon Combs. Cover art by Syneca. Electronic book Publication: April 2006
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 443103502. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.
Warning: The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This book has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers. Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (Erotic), and X (X-treme). S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination. E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature. X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.
THE EXPERIMENT
Elliot Mabeuse
Trademarks Acknowledgement The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Plexiglas: Rohm and Haas Company
The Experiment
Chapter One The room she stood in was quiet and dim, and the windows running from floor to ceiling on two sides gave her a magnificent view of the city spread out before her, insulating her from the din of the streets below. From here on the fortieth floor she thought she could even make out her own building, not far, but for all the connection she felt with it now it had might as well be on the moon. This is what the world looks like when you’re rich, she thought. Like a big, shiny toy, wound up and running just for you. As large as it was, the room gave off a muted sense of wealth and refinement that enclosed her like a cocoon in air-conditioned serenity. It tastefully exuded wealth—old, established money—comfortable with itself. The colors and fabrics were expensive but unobtrusive. The furniture seemed too good to use and the art on the walls complemented the mood perfectly, evoking just the right level of interest and appreciation from her as she strolled about, trying to appear at home, as if this kind of wealth were nothing new to her. The signatures on the paintings were all recognizable to her and she was no expert. Whoever lived here had impeccable taste and the wealth to indulge it. “Ms. Alexander?” The voice, as soft and pleasing as the room itself, belonged to a stunning Asian girl who entered from a large door at the far end, mid- to late-twenties perhaps, with the form and the grace of a professional model yet without the studied artificiality. Her dark hair was done up in a businesslike way and she wore an exquisitely cut suit of a subtle yet striking sapphire blue. In her hand she carried a leather folder. She maintained her expression of polite but professional geniality as she silently crossed the vast expanse of thick-pile carpet to Zoe’s side, her hand extended. 5
Elliot Mabeuse
“How do you do,” she said, taking Zoe’s hand. “I’m Ms. Liu, the Doctor’s personal assistant. It’s so good of you to come.” “Thank you, Ms. Liu,” Zoe said. “I couldn’t very well stay away.” Ms. Liu gave her a sly smile of understanding and guided her to a leather sofa. “Please, sit. Can I get you anything? Tea, a soft drink, alcohol, anything at all?” “Thank you, no, I’m fine.” “As you wish, but if you change your mind at any time, please feel free.” Ms. Liu sat down on a matching sofa to Zoe’s right, her folder on her lap. “Now why don’t we dispense with first things first. You have the money fragments and the invitation?” “Yes,” Zoe said. “Right here.” She reached into her purse and withdrew the creamcolored envelope and handed it to Ms. Liu, who bowed slightly in acknowledgement. Zoe had received the envelope two days before. Ms. Liu opened the envelope and glanced at the invitation, then reached inside and withdrew the seven fifty-dollar bills. Or rather, the seven fragments of fifty-dollar bills, for each bill had been cut neatly in two so as to be worthless without its missing half. She now produced these missing portions from the leather folder, spreading them out on the table and arranged them so that each half met its match. “There,” she said. “Three hundred and fifty dollars. Would you like to check the serial numbers?” Zoe looked at her warily and then shook her head. She could tell the halves matched. The girl gave a subtle bow of acknowledgement. “Just be certain that you join each with its proper half when you tape them back together and they’ll be as good as new, I assure you.” Zoe collected the bills without a word and put them back into the envelope. Ms. Liu watched her as she returned the envelope to her purse.
6
The Experiment
“Now,” Ms. Liu said, “I imagine you would like to know what this is all about, and why someone has paid you three hundred and fifty dollars just for stopping by.” “Yes,” Zoe said. “Very much.” Ms. Liu allowed herself a small laugh of delight. “Forgive me,” she said. “I am not laughing at you. This is part of my job, telling people why they have been invited here and it is always so interesting. People are always so different in their reactions.” Zoe nodded and smiled uneasily in return. “Really, it is very simple and very complex. My employer, whom I shall refer to only as ‘The Doctor’, is a very wealthy man, as you have perhaps observed.” Ms. Liu made a gesture with her hand indicating their immediate surroundings and Zoe nodded. “He is also a serious and dedicated student of psychology and human nature and having made his fortune many times over, he now spends much of his time on research in these areas. More specifically, he is interested in motivation, in why people do what they do, and in sexuality, why they desire what they desire. His wealth has allowed him to do much original research in these areas, yet it is a never-ending task, an inexhaustible field of study.” Zoe’s ears pricked up when she heard the word “sexuality” and she felt the stirring of those familiar suspicions that had nagged her since she had first received the strange invitation. “Quite briefly, the Doctor would be interesting in using you as a subject for a study he is doing on sexual values.” Here she stopped and looked at Zoe, obviously waiting for a reaction. “Yes?” Zoe asked politely. “What sort of study?” “The Doctor would have to explain that,” Ms. Liu said. “I’m not a party to that information. My role is simply to secure your willing cooperation.”
7
Elliot Mabeuse
“Would I be answering questions or taking tests? Things like that?” Zoe asked. Ms. Liu gave a sad little shrug. “I’m sorry, Ms. Alexander, but I really have no idea. But I can tell you this, you would not be required to do anything you didn’t want to do. And you may quit the study whenever you like, at any time. Your participation will be kept in the strictest confidence at all times, during and after the experiment. In fact, the results of the study will never be published. They are for the Doctor’s eyes only. “I can also tell you that a number of subjects have already been recruited and that the study has been underway for some time. Furthermore, you will be compensated for your time on a per session basis and paid quite handsomely. What you have received so far is merely a token of good faith, a very small token compared to what you stand to earn for a few evenings of your time.” Three hundred and fifty dollars was not a token as far as Zoe was concerned. It was an appreciable amount of cash, especially for something as trivial as coming up to one of the best addresses in town and hearing Ms. Liu’s pitch. The Doctor must be truly loaded to toss around cash like that. But still, Zoe was no fool. Money like that does not come free. She had no doubt that she would be required to earn it in some way and it appeared that Ms. Liu was not going to tell her how. “Tell me, Ms. Liu,” she said, deciding on a different approach. “Just why was I chosen to participate in this study? How did you come by my name?” Ms. Liu nodded. “I cannot say for certain. As I said, I’m not a party to the protocols of this experiment. But the Doctor chooses his subjects himself.” “I see. But I don’t know him, I’m sure.” Zoe was going to add that she didn’t know anyone who could throw this kind of money around, but she held her tongue. “No, I’m sure you don’t,” Ms. Liu said. “The Doctor’s friends and acquaintances are strictly ineligible to participate in the study, so if you did know him, you would not be here now. All participants must be strangers.”
8
The Experiment
Seeing that this didn’t quite satisfy Zoe, she added, “It is most likely that the Doctor noticed you someplace, perhaps where you work, perhaps as a friend of a friend of a friend. You would certainly not be the first to have been selected in such a way. What’s important is that you be a stranger to him and to the other participants. No identities are ever revealed, I can assure you.” Zoe sat back in the wonderfully comfortable sofa and looked at Ms. Liu with a level gaze. “Do you mean he’d find out who I was? Where I lived? Things like that?” Ms. Liu tipped her head in sympathy. “Nothing that isn’t a matter of public record. The Doctor is not a stalker and he’s nothing if not absolutely discreet and confidential.” Zoe considered this and Ms. Liu added, “In any case, that’s the way the Doctor has always recruited for his experiments. If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have your money now.” The mention of the money brought Zoe’s attention back to the three hundred and fifty dollars in her purse. She could hardly complain about being given an opportunity to be that much richer. The two women sat together and Zoe opened her mouth as if she were about to speak several times before saying, “I’m sorry, Ms. Liu. I really don’t understand what’s going on here, but I can’t help but wonder how much of this ‘experiment’ is concerned with sex and I’d really have to know more of what’s expected of me before I could give you any sort of answer on participating.” She looked at Ms. Liu for reaction. There was none. “Forgive my frankness,” Zoe said. “But where I live, no one pays another person money without getting something in return, no matter how rich that person is. So you’ll pardon me for being a bit suspicious.” Ms. Liu smiled gently. “Of course,” she said. “I understand that this is a very remarkable offer.” “At the same time,” Zoe said, “I won’t pretend I couldn’t use the money.”
9
Elliot Mabeuse
Ms. Liu watched her calmly. Her look told Zoe nothing, but Zoe noticed that Ms. Liu was not as old as she had originally thought. The girl appeared to be in her early twenties. She wore her perfectly applied makeup a bit diffidently, like a mask. She really didn’t need it. “Of course you understand, Ms. Alexander, that this meeting is just a preliminary screening to assess your interest in participating. You would still have to be screened by the Doctor himself. So all I need from you is a statement of interest in continuing.” “And I could quit the experiment at any time?” Zoe asked. “Anytime,” Ms. Liu confirmed. “If you ever decide you want to stop, you’re free to just walk out. Or you may call us and say you won’t be back. There is no penalty for terminating, but it will be final. Once you quit, there’s no going back. Of course, you get to keep whatever you’ve been paid up until that time.” Zoe wished now she had taken Ms. Liu up on the offer of tea. It would have given her something to do while she tried to think this out. “Have many people quit?” Zoe asked. “I’m afraid that’s confidential as well,” Ms. Liu replied. “But I would say no. Not to my knowledge.” The entire thing sounded preposterous, yet here she was, sitting in this luxurious penthouse with three hundred and fifty dollars in her purse. “May I think it over?” Zoe asked. “For twenty-four hours,” Ms. Liu said. “No more, I’m afraid. If you’re unable to participate, there are other subjects to interview.” Zoe nodded. Ms. Liu waited an appropriate time, then, sensing that Zoe had nothing more to ask, she stood up and Zoe did likewise. “You have the number on your invitation,” Ms. Liu said with a warm smile. “You may call us with your answer, anytime between now and tomorrow night. If we don’t
10
The Experiment
hear from you by this time tomorrow night, we’ll presume you’re not interested and the offer will be withdrawn.” As she said this she subtly guided Zoe to the enormous foyer. Zoe stopped and turned to her. “If I do accept, what happens next? Can you tell me?” “Yes, certainly. That’s something I do know. The Doctor will schedule an initial interview with you himself where I assume he will tell you about the nature of the experiment and your role in it.” “There are no contracts or legal agreements?” Ms. Liu smiled. “There is a nondisclosure agreement to assure confidentiality and a liability agreement, but that’s all. The Doctor is a very honorable man and prefers to keep lawyers and legality out of it. He likes things as simple as possible.” Zoe nodded thoughtfully. “Any last questions?” Ms. Liu asked as they stood by the open door. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to take any questions over the phone, only a yes or a no.” Zoe thought for a moment. She had thousands of questions but she knew that the chances of getting Ms. Liu to answer them to her satisfaction were remote. She shrugged. “No. Not that I can think of right now.” Ms. Liu took her hand and shook it politely. “Then thank you again for your time, Ms. Alexander, and have a very pleasant evening. We’ll look forward to hearing from you.”
***** The interview room, as Ms. Liu had called it, was not as large as the living room, but seemed vast and very dark and strangely empty. Ms. Liu, dressed in a creamcolored suit tonight, led her across the deep-pile carpet to a chair of chrome and white leather sitting under a single overhead spotlight, very simple and like everything else in
11
Elliot Mabeuse
the penthouse, expensive and elegant. “The Doctor will be with you shortly,” she said, and she left. Zoe heard the door whisper closed behind her. It was very quiet. The noise from the evening traffic below was soft and muted, almost drowned out by the soft hum of the ventilation. Next to her chair was a matching table and on the table was a pitcher of water and a glass, a box of tissues and an ashtray, unused. Some distance away from Zoe, perhaps twenty feet or so, was a simple teak desk, deep in shadow. She assumed that would be where the Doctor sat and she realized that the light, what there was of it, was arranged so that she shouldn’t be able to see him very clearly. She wasn’t especially nervous, but neither was she entirely calm. The room, she decided, felt like a cathedral, like a place of profound silence and empty space. A door she had not noticed before opened behind the desk and a figure entered. A man, but that’s all she could say for sure, it was so dark. And now she tensed with uncertain fear. “Good evening. You are Ms. Zoe Alexander?” he asked. The voice was deep and cultured. Zoe cleared her throat. “Yes. That’s right.” “Very good. They call me ‘the Doctor’, and I apologize but it is important that I remain in shadows for the time being. Does that bother you too much?” “No,” Zoe said. Then, “Well, yes. Actually. It does.” “I’m so sorry. It is only temporary though. I must keep my identity hidden for now and I feel that shadows are much less threatening than if I were to wear a mask, or speak to you over an intercom. You understand?” His voice was polite, educated, but not exceptional in any regard. He might be anywhere from thirty to sixty, Zoe guessed. He did not whisper or attempt any affectation. There was no discernible accent.
12
The Experiment
She could just make him out as he moved from the door and sat down at the desk. He turned on a desk lamp which spilled a bright cone of light on his hands only, folded above a clean, green blotter. A man’s hands, nothing exceptional there either. He was wearing a gray shirt buttoned at the sleeves. No jacket. He had a manila folder which he opened on the desk and seemed to be perusing. “Now, you’ve accepted our offer to participate in our study?” he asked. “Yes. So far, I mean. I’ve agreed to this interview.” “And you’ve signed the confidentiality agreement?” “Yes. Ms. Liu gave it to me.” “Fine,” he said. “Well. Do you have any questions before we start?” Zoe just blinked in the darkness. “Start?” “Yes.” “The experiment?” “Yes.” Zoe stuttered for a moment. “But I thought this was just a preliminary interview. I thought you were going to explain the study to me.” He was quiet, but for some reason Zoe thought he was smiling. “That’s really not necessary. You’ll pick it up as we go along.” As he said this he reached into a desk drawer and pulled out another folder, a more substantial one. He reached into the drawer again and pulled out a stack of bills— money, still in the bank wrappers. He placed this on the desk to his side, in the shadows. Zoe was confused. “I just want to be sure,” she said. “I just want to be sure that I understand this. I’m to be paid for my time?” “That’s right,” he said. “Including my time here tonight? I’ll be paid for this interview?” “Correct. You’ll be paid for every session.” 13
Elliot Mabeuse
“And I can quit anytime I like?” “Right again.” “I can just get up and walk out whenever I want? And the money is mine to keep?” “Exactly.” She thought this over once more although she’d already gone over it in her mind a thousand times, looking for some loophole, some scam. Unless he was simply lying to her outright, she could find no way she might be conned. “Why can’t you tell me about the experiment? Why won’t you tell me what it’s about?” The Doctor folded his hands patiently. “I understand your concern, Ms. Alexander,” he said, “But very often in psychological studies, it’s important that the subject not know the purpose of the experiment. That might bias the result. Indeed, the literature is full of psychological experiments that were hopelessly ruined precisely because the subject guessed or inferred the purpose, even falsely. In this case I’m afraid your ignorance is critical to the success of this work. I do hope you understand.” Zoe thought about this. She knew it was reasonable, but even so, sitting there in the darkness with the spotlight on her, it was hard not to be suspicious. She looked at his hands—calm, strong, patient. She believed him. She believed his hands. “Okay,” she said. “I understand.” “Then you’re ready to begin?” “Yes.” The hands seemed to relax. “Very good,” he said. “Now— I’ll give you four hundred dollars to take off your clothes.” She was surprised that his words didn’t shock her. She’d perhaps been expecting something like this. 14
The Experiment
“I’m sorry?” she asked. His hands didn’t move. “If you’ll take off your clothes, Ms. Alexander, I’ll give you four hundred dollars. Right now. Cash.” “You’re joking.” “No,” he said. “I’m not.” Zoe laughed once, harshly. “So that’s what this experiment is about? To see people’s reaction when you ask them to take off their clothes for money? That’s it?” “Not entirely, no.” “Not entirely,” she repeated knowingly. She waited for him to say something further, but he didn’t. She was not surprised at his offer, but she was disappointed. She had expected something more sophisticated from a man of his wealth and intelligence. Zoe sighed and picked up her purse. “No, thank you,” she said, standing up. “I think I understand it now and I’m not interested.” He didn’t seem surprised. “First impressions may be very misleading, Ms. Alexander. If you should leave now, that will immediately terminate your participation in the study. There will no be coming back. So I would consider it carefully were I you.” Zoe looked into the darkness where he sat, weighing his words. It was just as she’d feared, he was nothing but a wealthy old pervert looking for entertainment. She knew the type. She saw them all the time at her waitressing job, some of them joking but some of them serious and always the same—they just wanted to watch. No touching. Entirely honorable. Still, she’d expected something better from a man of his wealth and breeding. Suddenly she was tired of all this, all this pretense and manufactured seriousness. She knew when she was being played with and it made her angry. “With all due respect,” she said sweetly, “fuck you and your experiment.” 15
Elliot Mabeuse
She turned and headed for the door, which was invisible in the darkness. “Five hundred,” he said. She stopped, shocked at his effrontery. “I beg your pardon?” “Five hundred dollars if you’ll take off your clothes.” Five hundred dollars was a considerable amount of money for Zoe. Tips had been bad lately and her rent was overdue. She stopped and looked back at him, or rather, at the cone of light where his hands still appeared. “And if I do ‘take off my clothes’,” she asked, “what happens next? As if I have to ask.” “I’m not going to have sex with you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “As to what happens next, well, if you won’t accept my offer, I suppose we’ll never know.” Zoe stood on the deep-pile carpet in that warm and dark and expensive place and weighed her self-respect against his offer of cash. She had nothing against taking off her clothes per se. It was the idea of being paid for it that insulted her. “One thousand dollars,” she said, pulling a figure from the air. Again, she could feel him smiling in the darkness. “Six hundred,” he said. “I’m afraid that’s as high as I go.” “Eight hundred dollars,” Zoe said. “Or nothing.” “Seven.” Now Zoe had to smile. “Seven fifty.” She watched his hands as he thought about it, then felt a sudden thrill as he reached for the stack of bills. He picked it up and she heard the drawer open as he put the money away. To her own chagrin she realized the deal was off, she’d gone too high. “The standard pay for a session is two hundred and fifty dollars,” he said. “Ms. Liu will pay you as you exit.”
16
The Experiment
Zoe stood there staring into the darkness at his shadow, her heart hammering in her chest. She was being dismissed. It was over. She turned uncertainly, looking for the exit in the absolute darkness. “Very well,” he said softly. “Seven hundred and fifty dollars.” Excitement surged through her again, as if someone had licked the back of her neck. “To just take off my clothes and just sit here?” she asked. “That’s right.” She walked back to her chair and sat down. “Where’s the money?” The drawer opened again and he pulled out the stack of bills. Zoe watched as he counted out fifteen fifty-dollar bills. The bills made a dry crisp sound as he counted them out. He fanned them like playing cards and laid them on the green blotter under the desk lamp. Zoe looked at where he should be, seeing nothing but shadow. He didn’t lean forward, he didn’t move. She looked down at the money on the desk. Money that was waiting for her. She put down her purse and sat up straight in her chair. She had worn a simple blue blouse and black skirt for this interview, businesslike, but one that showed off her figure as well. She’d wanted to look nice and it was the best thing she owned. She kept her eyes on the money as she unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it from her skirt. She was aware of her body now, of the feel of her clothes against her skin, how thin and insubstantial her blouse was. She unbuttoned the cuffs, then sat forward and removed the blouse, pulling it down her arms, still staring at where he should be. She folded the blouse carefully and put in on the table beside the chair, taking her time. She thought perhaps he’d tell her to stop, that the point of the experiment had just been to determine her price, but he made no move to stop her and said nothing. The
17
Elliot Mabeuse
fact that she’d been wrong about him again angered her. His hands didn’t move on the desk. She’d worn her best bra too, a slick, seamless thing of powder blue that was perhaps just a trifle too small for her. She was aware of the way her breasts swelled over the cups. Zoe was not ashamed of her body. Though she often found fault with it, she knew that she was nice to look at. She stood up as casually as she could and stepped out of her shoes, then unfastened her skirt, her fingers working at the side zipper with a bit of anger and impatience, wanting to get it over with. She got the zipper down and let it fall down her legs. She picked up the skirt and folded it too, then laid it neatly on top of her blouse. He’s paying you to do this, she told herself. It’s not like you care what he thinks. It’s just a job. She was wearing pantyhose she’d bought that very evening, with white panties beneath it. She stole a glance at him sitting in the shadows, but all she saw were his hands, folded patiently before him. Even though he didn’t speak, didn’t move, she got the message. She hooked her fingers into the waist of the pantyhose and stripped them down her legs, dropping the useless garment to the ground. She stood up unnaturally straight to face him and adjusted the straps on her bra, determined to show no self-consciousness. But standing so straight made her feel as if she were thrusting her breasts out, so she tried to relax slightly. She couldn’t quite find the proper balance though. It was as if she suddenly didn’t know how to stand. She faced him wearing only the bra and panties. She was not about to let him make her feel embarrassed or self-consciousness, so she tried to appear as natural as she could, willing herself to be calm. The air in the room was warm and comfortable and she did not feel the least bit cold. But she felt her nipples begin to stiffen inside her bra and goose bumps ran down her back. He said nothing. He didn’t move. 18
The Experiment
Zoe stood there with her face composed into an unreadable mask. Even though she couldn’t see him she could feel his gaze upon her near-naked body. She waited for him to say something or give some sign, then felt a thrill in the pit of her stomach when she realized that she wasn’t done. “All of your clothes, Ms. Alexander,” he said softly. “Your underthings as well.” She was not surprised. She already knew what he wanted. Without a moment’s hesitation she reached behind her, unhooked her bra and let it slide down her arms, catching it before it hit the floor. Her ample breasts tumbled free and she felt the warm air on them. She smelled a sudden burst of her perfume from where she always daubed it on the warmth of her breasts. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties, stared at him boldly, as if she could see him and pulled them down, bending over to get them over the fullness of her thighs. She let them drop down her legs, then bent down, keeping her knees carefully together and retrieved the wispy garment, folded it, and laid it atop the pile of her clothes. Her nakedness felt like some sort of moral victory and she straightened up again, purposely thrusting her breasts forward and spreading her legs slightly to make sure he saw everything. She had been naked with men many times, but she realized now that she had never displayed herself to anyone like this before—never stood totally unclothed before another person’s critical gaze and the emotions it set off were complex and confusing. She was both embarrassed and strangely proud. And she was not without some tricks of her own. When she grew uneasy just standing there, she raised her hands and combed them through her hair, which raised her breasts invitingly, then shook her head to make her hair fall free, and in so doing, made her lush breasts shake enticingly on her chest. If he was going to play with her, she would show him that she could play right back. Let him eat his heart out.
19
Elliot Mabeuse
She stood proudly in front of him, letting him see that she wasn’t afraid, wasn’t ashamed. She stared boldly and defiantly into the darkness over the desk and said, “Would you like me to turn around? Would you like to see my ass too?” “As you wish,” he said softly. Zoe turned around and let him see her high, round ass, which was one of her points of particular pride, invitingly firm and tempting. She looked back at him over her shoulder. “Well? Am I worth it?” she asked. “Do you like what you see? Are you getting your rocks off looking at the naked lady?” He didn’t say anything for a while and Zoe wondered if he were masturbating or playing with himself. But she saw that his hands were still on the desk. “You’re a very beautiful woman, Ms. Alexander,” he said finally. “Very beautiful. I mean that quite sincerely.” She knew very well that she was beautiful, she’d been told so many times. But the honest appreciation in his voice, devoid of any hint of salacious lust or desire, moved her somehow and she almost felt bad for mocking him. Poor, old, rich man. Maybe she was teasing him too much. “Thank you,” she said softly. He sighed deeply. “The money’s yours.” She realized that to go and take the money off the desk now would make her look cheap, as if she didn’t trust him. Worse, it would make it seem that she had taken her clothes off only for the money, that she really was some sort of whore. That might be true, but she didn’t want to call attention to the fact. She saw now how the money that changed everything. Zoe sat down in the chair, as naturally as she could while keeping her knees discreetly together. The leather was warm and very supple against her skin, almost like
20
The Experiment
another body. She felt very vulnerable sitting naked like this and her vulnerability was strangely arousing to her. She cleared a strand of hair from her eyes and said, “You know, if you’d just approached me as a regular person, as a man, and asked me out or shown some respect… Well, you might have gotten your peek for free. Or at least a lot less money.” Now she heard him laugh, a warm and open laugh. “Oh? You think so?” he asked. Zoe shrugged. “I’m not ashamed of my body. I enjoy being looked at, actually. I just don’t like being told what to do. I don’t like being made to feel like a whore, like I can be bought and sold.” “I see.” She remembered now there had been a time when what she had just said had been true, that she had liked to show her body. She had enjoyed it when men looked at her, desired her. She had known just how to use clothes and accessories to show what she wanted to show, to keep them looking. But all that had changed after her breakup, when she had decided that her beauty was a liability, attracting the wrong kind of men and frightening off the good ones. Now, without any clothes on, she was a bit nonplussed. She didn’t quite know what to do with herself, how to sit, what to do with her hands. One thing was certain, she was determined that she wouldn’t appear to be the least bit self-conscious or embarrassed, no matter how she might actually feel. She crossed her legs, one knee over the other and sat up straight, showing her breasts, and it occurred to her that being naked and defenseless like this gave her a certain moral advantage. After all, she was merely unclothed. Unclothed, but natural, while he was the one stricken by salacious urges and lusts. He was the one who was paying her. “Is that all?” she asked. “May I get dressed now?”
21
Elliot Mabeuse
There was a pause in which she knew that he was looking at her. “As you wish,” he said. She felt bad for him suddenly. Now that it was done, it hadn’t been so hard. She felt like she had cheated him. She left her clothes where they were. “Why don’t you put the lights on?” she asked. “Are you so very bad-looking that you have to pay women to undress in front of you? Is there something wrong with you?” “No, I think, on both counts,” he said. “Then why don’t you show yourself? I’d like to have a look at you. I mean, fair’s fair. I’ve certainly shown you enough.” He said nothing for a time, but she could feel him sitting in the shadows looking at her and she began to grow uneasy. “Do you just like looking? Is that it?” Again there was no answer. She could see his hands still on the desk, relaxed, unmoving. Her fan of fifties was still there too. “I mean,” she said, “I know some men are into that. Just looking, not wanting to touch. Is that it?” Silence. He didn’t move. She couldn’t imagine what he was up to, sitting stock-still like that. He seemed to be waiting for something. “Maybe you’d like to see more?” she asked. He didn’t answer and she added, “Free of charge?” It was a joke, but he didn’t laugh. The silence was truly unnerving now. She could feel his eyes upon her naked body, but she didn’t know what he was doing. She sensed that he wasn’t looking at her with lust or desire, the way men usually looked at her. He seemed to be looking at some part of her that she herself was unfamiliar with, seeing something she didn’t know existed. It made her very uneasy. “Here,” she said. “Is this what you want?”
22
The Experiment
She opened her knees slightly and slouched down in her seat, giving him a perfect view of what she’d been hiding. “Do you want to see my pussy? It won’t bite.” She put her hands down in her crotch and pulled her labia open for him to see. A thrill of dangerous pleasure shot through her as she exposed herself so lewdly. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this—he’d said no sex—but she didn’t know what else to do and he seemed to be waiting for her to do something. “Do you want to touch?” she asked the darkness. She began to stroke herself, running her fingers lightly up and down her slit, curling the hair around her fingers, watching the shadows. The hands on the desk didn’t move. “I don’t mind if you want to touch me,” she said. “I like to be touched.” At last he spoke. “Touch yourself,” he said. His voice was thick. She was getting to him. It was such a relief to finally get a response, to have him break his oppressive silence, that she almost smiled. She understood him now. She began to stroke herself harder, the way she did in private, pleased to be on familiar ground, ground she understood. He was a man, after all, and men were such predictable creatures. She knew what he wanted to see. “Mmm,” she sighed, closing her eyes. She made no attempt to hide her pleasure, knowing that this was what he wanted and feeling she owed him at least this much. And in fact, her fingers did feel unusually good on her flesh. She was surprisingly aroused. “Do you touch yourself like this often?” he asked softly, afraid to break her spell. “Yes,” she sighed. “Sometimes. It just feels so good.” Feeling suddenly defensive, she looked at him. “Everyone does it,” she said. “Not just men. Women do it too. Everyone does it. “You do it too,” she challenged. “Don’t you?” He didn’t answer.
23
Elliot Mabeuse
She didn’t like him ignoring her. She didn’t like the way he was playing with her, making her feel like she was the perverted one while he was the one who was enjoying it. She didn’t like the way he hid in the shadows, pretending he wasn’t there. But she could play with him as well. She would get to him, she would show him. If he wanted to see smut, she would show him smut. She raised her left leg and hung it over the arm of the chair, opening herself up wider. She was no longer stroking herself softly. She was aroused now and she wanted more stimulation. The movement of her hand was more impatient, insistent, harder. Her fingers vibrated against her clitoris and her other hand moved up to her chest where she took her breast in her hand and began to stroke it. She wanted to show him how she played with herself, how she gave herself private pleasure. Let the pervert look. Let him get green with envy. “You like watching me do this, don’t you?” she asked, a smoky look in her eyes. “You like watching me rub myself. You’re sitting there hard, getting off on me, aren’t you? You can’t keep your eyes off my pussy, can you, you son of a bitch? Are you beating off now? Are you pulling your dick? You sick bastard. You pervert! Can’t you talk? Can’t you say anything?” “Yes,” he said softly. “Ohhh!” the cry of pleasure burst unexpectedly from her mouth as a sudden thrill sparked inside her, a lewd and dirty thrill that came from being watched like this, watched as she exposed not only her body, but her secret desires. “Oh yes! Watch me! Watch me, you bastard! Your big cock is going to come too, isn’t it? You’d love to shove it into me, wouldn’t you? Fuck my little pussy, fuck me with your big cock!” Her hand was moving faster now, sending spears of irresistible pleasure through her. Her body heaved in the chair as she panted loudly, her hips rocking up against her fingers. She had been exaggerating what she felt for his amusement, but she had fooled herself too, and now her excitement was real and running out of control. 24
The Experiment
Occasionally, an especially keen bolt of pleasure would make her body jerk and bring a cry from her lips and she would have to leave off masturbating for a second until it passed. Sometimes she would stop and spank her clit with a sharp little blow, as if it were a naughty little pet that had nipped at her. Her other hand stroked rhythmically at her breast, sliding around the ripe hardness to her nipple, which she took between her fingers and twisted. She pinched her tender flesh with her long red nails, seasoning her pleasure with sharp stabs of delicious pain. Her eyes were closed, her hips and thighs trembling as she brought herself to the peak of pleasure. She opened her eyes and stared up at the bright spotlight above her. There was no sound in the room but the sounds of her fingers working wetly against her flesh and her own labored panting. “Oh God!” she moaned. “You bastard! I’m going to come! I’m going to come! Please let me come! Please tell me I can come!” “Come then,” he said softly. “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh! Ohhhh!” Her voice ran from a breathless whine to a full-throated shriek as she convulsed in orgasm, twitching and thrashing in the chair. She shoved two fingers into her vagina and felt her empty sheath spasm hungrily around them as her eyes rolled up into her head in a delicious, full-body orgasm that hit her with jolt after jolt of shattering release. The intensity of her climax took her completely by surprise and her convulsions were so intense that she felt her juices flood out around her fingers and run down her hand as the nails of her other hand made deep marks in her flushed breast. All she could think of was her own nakedness and the man sitting there, calmly and intently watching her make a shameless slut out of herself. The image filled her with lewd and bitter pleasure. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh fuck yes!” she whined, feeling the throbbing ecstasy fade with each dwindling spasm of her body. Slowly all her wire-taut
25
Elliot Mabeuse
muscles relaxed. Her limbs began trembling as she continued to reverberate like a great bell with the fading echoes of her orgasm. Slowly she returned to reality. This strange reality. She saw her clothes folded on the table, the desk, the cone of light, the hands lying calmly in the lamplight. “Are you all right now?” he asked softly. She could tell from his tone that he had not orgasmed. Whatever she had thought he was doing, he hadn’t shared her climax—she had come alone with him watching her. Zoe was still gasping for breath. “Yes,” she said, deeply ashamed and confused. “I’ll have Ms. Liu bring you a warm towel,” he said. “No. No, that’s all right. I’m fine,” she said, awkwardly trying to move her legs. “As you wish,” he said. He said nothing more for a minute, then she heard him stand up and go to the same door by which he’d come in. He stopped. “That was excellent, Ms. Alexander. An excellent first session. I’ll look for you in three days, same time?” Before she could say anything she saw the door open and he stood there for a moment in the wedge of light, in silhouette, a shadow regarding her. “Don’t forget your money,” he said, and was gone.
26
The Experiment
Chapter Two All the next day, images from the night before came back to her, as from a dimly remembered but disturbing dream. The Doctor’s shadow in the dark, the feel of the leather chair on her naked skin, the money lying on the desk, her orgasm—shameful, yet tinged with a strange sort of perverse pride. She went through her day in a state of distraction. She could not forget what happened last night, she could not understand it. Her initial feelings of embarrassment changed as the day wore on and she slowly convinced herself that she’d been manipulated into doing what she’d done and she was, therefore, not entirely responsible for her behavior. The only way she could explain it to herself was that it hadn’t really been her, the strange circumstances and unusual surroundings had so disoriented her that she was no longer herself. But at the same time she was aware of a lingering thrill at what she’d done. She was pleased to discover that she could still surprise herself with her own behavior, that there might still be sides to her and potentials that she didn’t yet know. What disturbed her most was the realization that the Doctor hadn’t really forced or talked her into doing what she’d done. Masturbation hadn’t been part of the deal. He had offered her money to disrobe and that was all. But somehow in her nervousness she had worked herself into masturbating in front of him and masturbating to a powerful yet humiliating sexual climax, because that’s what she thought he’d wanted. But was that really it? Zoe was not the kind of girl to let go like that. Not now anyway. Maybe before her breakup, but since Jack had ended it she had changed totally. Everything had changed since their breakup, slowly and painfully. She was no longer the person Jack had molded her into being, no longer the party girl his friends envied him for, the leggy young thing with a girl’s face on a woman’s body. After he broke it off she’d had to take
27
Elliot Mabeuse
a long look at her attitudes toward everything—toward herself, toward men, toward sex—and she’d found that she’d had none. Everything she had thought and everything she had been was for Jack and when she left—or, more accurately, when he threw her out—she had discovered that she really had no attitudes of her own at all. She was no one. It had been a terrible, desperate and despairing time after the split, dragging on for over a year, and she had lost everything. Her lover, her home, her friends, her confidence and her idea of whom and what she was. And the worst part of it was the discovery of how shallow his feelings for her had been all along and how shallow he himself was. She saw now that he had never loved her, not as she understood the word, not as she had loved him. She had been his toy, his trophy, someone he liked to show off and use to enhance his own status. She remembered how at parties he would show her off, have his friends go up and feel her breasts just to show them that they were real, or pinch her ass to show them how tight it was. She had gone along with it despite her embarrassment. She had even felt a twinge of pride that he was so proud of her. And he had betrayed her. Not once but many times, with women she had called friends. He had used her, had actually gone so far as to promise her to some of his friends in exchange for their women, all without ever telling her. And when she’d refused this final indignity, he’d thrown her out, literally, leaving her things in the hallway while he went off with someone else. So for now she was still living with a survivor’s mentality, living alone and seeing to her own needs, keeping things as simple as possible as she slowly reassembled a life. She was living far below her abilities—a nowhere job, a third-rate apartment—and she knew it, but for now it was enough. She had some friends. She could probably find lovers if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to. She had decided that sex was just too dangerous, a luxury she simply could not afford right now. Maybe when she felt more
28
The Experiment
healed, but not now. She never wanted to love anyone again like she had loved Jack. She never wanted to give so much. It just wasn’t worth it. She had always been attractive, beautiful when she wanted to be, but her beauty was just another thing that she had no interest in anymore—something from her past life. It seemed to her that her looks had always served her badly, had always led to her getting involved with the wrong type of people, people who put a great value on physical appearance and nothing else, and so the hell with them. She didn’t disguise her beauty, she just ignored it, piling her long brown hair up under her waitress’s cap, putting on a little eyeliner—that was good enough. Really, she didn’t care. She looked back on the girl she had been with the perfect makeup, the exquisite body, the expensive clothes, and all she could think was fool. At night, sitting in the turret window of her third-floor walk-up with her cat and her glass of wine, she would look down on the streets and think about her life and what had happened to her. This was where she’d sat those many days and weeks after the breakup, slowly and painfully trying to put herself together. It seemed to her now that she had perhaps put some new pieces in and left some others out, so that she was no longer certain of just who she was anymore. She felt as if she might finally be ready to find that out. In the end, there was no doubt but that she’d go back. She’d never be satisfied unless she went at least one more time, one more session. It wasn’t just the money, though the money was certainly welcome. It wasn’t the mystery, though the purpose of the experiment and how he’d come by her name nagged at her. It was what had happened to her that she wanted to know more about. Who was she now, and what had he done to make her act that way? And why, despite the shame, did she feel so good about it, almost proud? On the appointed day, she showered, put on her best things, slid one of the Doctor’s fifties into her purse and called a cab.
29
Elliot Mabeuse
Again, Ms. Liu met her in the foyer and led her directly to the darkened interview room, opened the door for her and bid her enter. Zoe looked suspiciously at the chair she had sat in three nights ago, as if expecting to see a stain or some evidence of her orgasm, but there was nothing. “The Doctor will be with you shortly,” Ms. Liu said. “Please have a seat.” She left and the door closed softly but firmly behind her. Zoe was determined this time to get some answers from the Doctor. She knew very well that he had arranged things—her chair, the lights, the shadows—purposely to intimidate her, and she was determined not to be intimidated. She sat and waited. By her watch it was eight-fifteen p.m. when the door opened and the Doctor came in, hidden in shadows again. He said nothing until he sat at his desk and picked up her folder. Again, nothing was visible but his hands in the pool of lamplight beneath the green glass shade. “And how are you this evening, Ms. Alexander?” he asked from the concealing darkness. “I’m very well, thank you. But I’d really like some answers, if you don’t mind.” “Certainly you do,” he said patiently. “But first, please allow me to compensate you for tonight’s session.” His hands disappeared from beneath the desk light and when they reemerged he was holding five new fifty-dollar bills which he placed on the edge of the desk. Zoe looked down at the bills dubiously. The money seemed to taint everything. It changed the mood in the room and made him seem sinister. Zoe called herself back to the things she wanted to ask. She refused to be distracted. “Now,” he said, “you had some questions?” She drew herself up and took a breath. “Yes, if you don’t mind. First of all, I’d like to know what this ‘experiment’ is about. What is it you’re trying to study?”
30
The Experiment
He was silent for only a moment and then said, “You know I can’t tell you that. It could compromise the work.” “You’re trying to find out how much people are willing to do for money. That’s it, isn’t it?” “Ms. Alexander, please…” His fingers spread, warning her off. “All right,” she said, abandoning that line of questioning. “Why was I chosen to participate?” He sighed. “I’d noticed you at work in the restaurant some months ago and you seemed to be a good candidate. You’re young, attractive, unattached and sexually active. This last item I must say that I assumed, but I think I am not mistaken.” “That’s really none of your business,” she said coldly. “No, it isn’t. However, it’s important for the purposes of the experiment, so I had to make that assumption. “I assure you though, I have done nothing to confirm or deny this. I haven’t dug into your background, if that’s what worries you. I do know that you were recently involved in the breakup of a long-standing relationship and that it was very difficult and emotional for you, but other than that I really have no interest in the details of your personal life.” “Who told you about that?” “It seems that everyone who knows you knows about your breakup. Does that surprise you? Would you rather I not mention it again?” She knew he was right. There was hardly anyone who knew Zoe that didn’t know about what she’d been through. She still had the slightly brittle air of a convalescent, of someone living with a deep personal wound. “No,” she said. “I don’t care. That’s all over now. But how’d you get my name and number?”
31
Elliot Mabeuse
“I found out your name, then I looked you up in the book,” he said. “You are in the book, you know. There’s really nothing sinister about it.” His answers seemed so reasonable and his voice so calm that Zoe began to wonder if perhaps she hadn’t been making more out of this than she should. Everything seemed so logical and innocent. She couldn’t think of anything else to be angry about. “Am I the only person involved in this study?” “No,” he said. “There are others.” She felt a twinge of disappointment at this answer. She was chagrined to find that she was jealous. “How many?” she asked. “I’m afraid I can’t say exactly even if I wanted to. The status of some is not clear at the moment.” “And are we all treated the same way? I mean, subjected to the same conditions.” “I can’t really comment on that either, I’m afraid. It would compromise the experiment.” He said nothing for a while and then Zoe heard him laugh softly. “I believe that what you really want to ask is whether all the subjects are required to take their clothes off for the first session.” Zoe looked into the darkness and didn’t smile. “Are they?” Now he laughed aloud. It was a rich and easy laugh. “I probably shouldn’t tell you, should I? The fact is, some are, some are not. It depends on the individual and their place in the experimental design. But perhaps you’d feel better if I told you that some are required to go much farther than you were, Ms. Alexander. Much farther.” “Much farther which way?” she asked suspiciously. “Any of several ways,” he answered softly. This game was getting tedious. She sat looking into the darkness, imagining him sitting there smiling, pleased with his own cleverness. 32
The Experiment
“No,” she said suddenly. “No, I don’t like this. I just don’t like this.” “What don’t you like, Ms. Alexander?” “You’re playing with me. Manipulating me. I don’t trust you or your experiment at all. I think you’re just some rich creep who gets off on seeing women strip or do whatever else they do for you. This whole thing’s bogus.” He let her talk, then said, “And what if I do ‘get off on this’, Ms. Alexander? Does that make a difference?” “Yes, it makes a difference. If you just want to watch, then have the nerve to just come out and say it. Don’t try and pass it off as some noble experiment. Like it’s science or something.” “What if it’s both?” he said from the darkness. “What if I enjoy it while it has scientific value? Does that change anything? Would you prefer it if you weren’t observed? Would that make it easier for you?” She felt herself flush, annoyed by her own confusion. This was getting her nowhere. She had an impulse to just get up and leave. “And what’s on the agenda for today?” she asked, holding her anger in. “You want me to screw someone? Screw you, maybe? Something like that?” “No,” he said. She saw his hand lift the corner of her folder and he apparently looked at some papers. “Actually, today I want you to engage in simultaneous masturbation. I want you to masturbate while you’re observed by a male who is also masturbating.” She felt the heat rise to her face. The Doctor waited for her to say something but she didn’t, so he went on. “The only contact between the two of you will be visual,” he said, as if that made it all right. “There will be no physical contact at all, I assure you. And your face will remain hidden.”
33
Elliot Mabeuse
“You’re sick,” she said coldly. “You’re disgusting. I should just go to the police right now. This is soliciting. This is…” “One thousand dollars,” he said. Zoe’s anger caught in her throat and she stopped. She swallowed down her rage, hating the taste. A thousand dollars for coming here this evening and giving him his fun. She stared into the darkness, trying to keep a grip on her emotions, trying to keep her disgust and hatred from showing. “What is this, an encore? Didn’t you already see me do that the other night?” She laughed bitterly, her shame making her even angrier. He sighed. “I know you find this difficult to understand, Ms. Alexander, but I am not your run-of-the-mill voyeur. If I were, there are more efficient—and less expensive—ways of satisfying that desire. “This is really nothing,” he said. “You will be observed by a man who does not know you and will never know you, who cannot see your face and who is separated from you by a secure barrier. He is going to observe you only, as you will be able to observe him. “Now,” he went on in the same steady voice, “let’s not argue. One thousand dollars for a few minutes’ work, if one is even correct in referring to it as work. Surely that’s fair enough?” She crossed her legs, feeling the nylon stockings slide against one another. Her skirt slipped up a couple of inches and she left it there in defiance. She wished now that she’d worn the oldest panties and grubbiest stretched-out bra she owned. He was sure to notice now what she’d worn and know why she’d worn it. “Who is this man?” she asked, keeping her voice steady. The light over her chair suddenly clicked off and a light clicked on to her right. She looked over and her heart leaped into her throat. About ten feet from her was a thick glass or plastic wall, and on the other side of the wall a man sat in a chair just like hers. He was totally naked except for a cheap rubber devil mask that covered his head and 34
The Experiment
hid his features. He was thin but not skinny, his body masculinely hairy. He sat with his hands folded patiently in his naked lap, his penis lolling on his thigh. “He cannot see you with the lights like this,” the Doctor said. “And he did not see you when you came in. He can’t hear us either, nor can you hear him. He is totally isolated from you. He knows there is a woman over here and he knows what is to happen, but that is all he knows. He is, as you probably suspect, another subject of the experiment, and one whose integrity and discretion I can fully vouch for. He is not a maniac. He is not a pervert. He is a man, just as you are a woman.” Zoe heard what the Doctor was saying but she could not take her eyes from the man. The devil’s mask was a grotesque touch, but still it gave him a strange erotic attraction, surreal and perverse, and she felt it in the pit of her stomach. With the wall between them, it was almost as if she were watching him in a zoo. “The mask, of course, is to protect his identity. I would suggest you wear a mask as well,” the Doctor said. “There is one under your chair. It might make you feel more relaxed.” Zoe looked under her chair and found a plain, white, featureless mask that would slip over her face. There were holes for her eyes, a place for her nose, and a slit for her mouth. The mask was expressionless. It looked horrible to her, ghostly and macabre. “You’re insane,” Zoe whispered. “What you are really to do is provide visual stimulation for his masturbation,” the Doctor resumed in his calm and reasonable voice. “Your masturbation is not actually required per se. All you have to do is excite him sufficiently so that he reaches orgasm and the money is yours.” Zoe looked at the Doctor’s shadow. “You mean if he doesn’t… Then I don’t get anything?” “If he doesn’t ejaculate in ten minutes you still get your standard session fee, but, no, you do not get the thousand dollars. Nor does he get his money. But ten minutes is more than enough time, I would think. He’s a healthy young man.” 35
Elliot Mabeuse
He waited for Zoe to say something, but she was speechless. The light over the man snapped off, leaving the entire room in darkness except for the Doctor’s green-shaded desk lamp. “Now, I’ll leave you to your task. When you’re ready to start, just say ‘ready’ and the lights will be switched on so that you can both see one another. I’ll start your ten minutes from there and when he completes his orgasm, he’ll signal me. I really don’t think you’ll have any problem.” She saw the shadow of the Doctor as he stood up in the darkness. “Wait!” she called out nervously. “I can still quit anytime, right? Just get up and leave?” “The door is behind you, Ms. Alexander, and is open for you to leave at anytime, as always.” He stood waiting for a moment as Zoe seemed about to say something more. “Is there anything else?” the Doctor asked. Receiving no answer, he said, “Then I’ll leave you now.” The side door opened, allowing a shaft of dim red light to enter the room, as from a darkroom. The Doctor stepped into it and she saw him again, briefly, in silhouette, then the door closed with a soft but firm click, leaving her in darkness again. She knew he was still watching. He had to be watching. This little show was costing him over a thousand dollars. He was probably videotaping it. She didn’t know if she could do it. She didn’t know whether she could make a sexual spectacle of herself for a stranger, and she didn’t know how much visual stimulation a man needed to become erect enough to masturbate. From all she knew it wasn’t much. It was probably doable. The question was, could she do it? She wanted the money. More than that, she wanted to be able to do this. Men had watched her before. Men had groaned and whistled and grabbed their crotches when she had walked by in a bathing suit, and Jack had often told her how she made men
36
The Experiment
hard just by the way she walked. But of course that had all been done in play, hadn’t it? Could she make a man hard just by showing herself? Could she make him ejaculate? She started opening her blouse, and then stopped. Men liked to see women undress, she should save it for when he was watching. Her heart began to hammer in her chest and her mouth went dry. She was very frightened and she didn’t know of what. She hated being frightened. It made her angry. She put the mask over her face and tightened it. Her fingers were trembling slightly as she adjusted the straps behind her head. She took three deep, slow breaths and willed herself to relax. She thought of the door behind her. She knew she should leave. “Ready,” she said. The lights over her chair and over his chair snapped on at the same time and the two of them sat there staring at each other across the blackness. They were in this together now, partners in crime. They both needed each other if they were to get their money—a strange and bizarre kind of partnership. He seemed rather tense sitting in his chair, though his body was relaxed. Or was it just her projection of her feelings? She of course could not see the expression on his face, but his attitude told her that he was not in the least embarrassed at being in this outrageous situation. His cock was big and semi-erect. He spread his legs slightly so that she could see him better, see his testicles hanging heavily between his thighs, his big tool lolling like a thick club against his muscular leg. He was showing off to her, showing her what he had. He was also telling her that he wasn’t fully hard yet. He was waiting for her to start, waiting for her to do something. Zoe stood up and walked toward the Plexiglas wall, letting him see her as she undid the buttons on her blouse. It wasn’t her sexiest skirt, but she knew her behind looked good in it, especially since she was wearing her highest heels. She turned her back to him and let him see her ass and her long legs as she continued unfastening the buttons.
37
Elliot Mabeuse
She turned to face him again as she unbuttoned her sleeves. He was slowly pumping his hand up and down on his cock as he watched her, his hand moving slowly on that big, muscular pole. Already he was noticeably bigger and harder, and the sight of his hardening cock thrilled her to a degree she hadn’t expected. She couldn’t take her eyes from his hand as she pulled her blouse out of her skirt and let it slide off her shoulders. Her bra was the flimsiest scrap of lace, a demi-bra that just supported her breasts without covering them. She looked at him to gauge his reaction. The devil mask was ludicrous, it gave him the look of an idiotic satyr, but she knew that the blank expressionless look on the mask she wore was no better. She could tell by the attitude of his body that he was watching her very closely. He had a very large penis and he worked it with lazy sensuality as he gazed directly at her so intently that she finally had to turn away. She knew he had a ways to go before he reached the urgent stage of masturbation. Right now he just seemed to be warming up. She unfastened her skirt and slid it down over her hips, stepped out of it, and kicked it aside. Her stockings were charcoal gray. Her bra, panties and garter belt were snow white. Feeling slightly dizzy now, she bent and unhooked her stockings from the garter belt and let the belt fall. She looked up at him and saw he was still staring straight at her. His cock was even bigger now, the purplish head clearly visible above his slowly moving fist. She imagined it entering her, imagined it stretching her pussy as it sunk into her. It had been a long, long time since she’d been fucked. She hadn’t even thought of sex in months, not until her last session here and now the pent-up hunger was reasserting itself with unexpected unusual force. She realized that he was gesturing to her, making a circle with his index finger, telling her to go on, but she couldn’t take her eyes from his crotch, from his big balls rolling gently in his sac as he stroked himself. His cock was enormous now and her pussy ached with longing for it.
38
The Experiment
If she changed her focus, she could see her ghostly reflection in the Plexiglas and she was surprised at how good she looked, despite the bizarre mask. The curve of her hips was very sexy, her breasts ripe and full. The lines of her legs in the dark stockings were long and sensuous. She still thought of herself as a girl, but she looked at her reflection and saw a full-grown, fully developed woman. For once she didn’t see all her little imperfections, didn’t see her own face frowning back at her. She saw herself as men must see her and she liked what she saw. Her reflection turned her on. She could shift her focus then and see him, how lean and hard his body was, how angular. She felt as though she might suddenly giggle and she knew it wouldn’t be from joy. She was frightened that she might be losing control of herself again. Her nerves felt as taut as bowstrings. She reached behind to unfasten her bra, pushing her chest forward and her sensitive nipples, semi-erect, popped over the lip of the bra like two juicy cherries. She saw him start, then sit up taller and she had to repress a laugh of delight. Men were so simple—silly, really. She let the garment slide from her shoulders and stood with her arms crossed coyly over her chest for a moment before dropping them and exposing her breasts, staring boldly at the man across the way, waiting for his reaction. He was pumping himself faster now, the movement of his hand focused and intense, but still without the desperation that would tell her when he was close. She knew he was looking at her breasts and she felt her nipples stiffen as he stared at her. His chest was rising and falling faster now and she wished she could hear him breathing, but there was only the soft hum of the air conditioner. Her panties would be next and as she slid her hands down to the low waistband, she found that she was rocking her hips back and forth unconsciously, making the sheer crotch chafe softly against her labia. She was hot. She was getting very aroused. The insane smirk on the devil mask never changed expression as his hand began to pick up the pace. Zoe knew that seeing her entirely naked would not do it for him. He
39
Elliot Mabeuse
would need more, he was still too far away from climax. But her own nakedness and seeing her effect on him was getting her terribly excited. She realized then that he was making as much a show of masturbating as she was of undressing. He was showing his cock to her, showing her how big and hard she was making him, displaying himself to her. They were locked together in this voyeuristic pantomime almost as lovers were locked together in their physical lovemaking. They were like two caricatures, two puppets acting out their desire for each other. The realization made her actually groan in frustration and heat. You’re losing it, Zoe! she told herself. Just like the other night. But she didn’t care, because really it felt like she wasn’t losing herself at all. If anything, she was rediscovering herself. She remembered these feelings. She felt hot, desirable, sensual and wonderfully dangerous. She had forgotten the feeling of teasing someone, the sexy ache, the nervous excitement and giddy sense of power. She had forgotten how good it had felt, how powerful and intoxicating. Perhaps the Doctor was watching her through some camera or peephole, she didn’t care. She loved the way that the man opposite responded to everything she did with a nod of his head or an increase in his rhythm. She saw a glisten of pre-cum at the head of his cock and she saw him slowly fucking his hips up into his hand now in time to his pumping, just as he would pump his thick, hard cock into her pussy if he only could. Now the anonymity of her own mask began to work on her. She was safe behind the mask, he didn’t know who she was. She was just a body, a symbol. She turned to face him and boldly took one hand from her panties and began to stroke herself between her legs, tracing the puffy seam of her labia and rocking her hips up lewdly to meet her fingers, fucking her hand for him, showing him what she wanted. In response the man let his head roll back on his shoulders as if it were too much for him to stand. She knew he was groaning in frustration, even if she couldn’t hear him. He started to seriously jack his big cock now, moving the loose skin up and back as he watched her, squeezing the viscous lubricant from his glans. 40
The Experiment
Yeah, baby, she thought. Yeah, watch me and get your rocks off. You’d like to get in this pussy, wouldn’t you? You’d love to cram that big thing inside me and stretch me all out, wouldn’t you, you hot son of a bitch! Her breath was coming hot and fast now, she smelled the plastic scent of the mask and her own perfume. Her hand at her pussy felt good and she loved what it made him do to his cock as he watched her touch herself. One of his hands slid quickly up and down his hard stalk while the other cupped and tickled his balls, his hips reaching off the chair as he fucked up into his hand. She could see his chest rise and fall with his excited breathing and she felt the wetness seeping between her legs. Her reflection showed a demented she-demon, hips cocked forward, her stomach clenching as she fucked her hand, her body topped by that grotesque, featureless mask. It made her look sick and perverse and that only excited her more. Zoe impatiently pulled her panties down and kicked them away. She turned around and showed him her ass, opening her legs slightly and swaying from side to side, looking at him over her shoulder. Her high heels made her legs look longer and her ass even higher and tighter than normal and she knew it. She knew she looked good and she wanted him to see it too. As she slowly teased him with her hips, she whispered, “Do you like that ass, Mr. Devil? It’s a pretty one, isn’t it? Yes. And it’s a hot one too. Nice and tight. And wouldn’t you love to stick your big cock in there?” She had done that too, though never with a dick the size of the one in the other room, and never willingly. It had been one more thing she had given to Jack. But now her ass was hers again, hers to show off to whomever she pleased and the thought of taking his enormous pole inside her made her clench her buttocks in sympathy as she imagined him filling her. She could imagine him standing behind her trying to get his prick up into her, his hands on her tits, his breath on the back of her neck. She knew he could see the little tuft of her pubic hair showing beneath her pussy as he looked through her legs and probably her swollen pussy lips as well as she swayed
41
Elliot Mabeuse
her ass from side to side. She knew she was wet and she hoped she was wet enough that her pubes would sparkle with drops of her own moisture, dripping with honeydew. She turned suddenly, sat down in the chair and opened her thighs wide as she played with herself, but that was no good. She wanted him. She wanted him to fuck her with his big cock. She wanted to feel that big shaft shoving into her and spreading her wide, filling her, fucking her, his weight pressing her down on her body and her aching breasts as his hips slammed into the open saddle of her thighs, driving deep, reaming a way into her belly. She masturbated directly at him now, daring him to do something, playing in her pussy and rubbing her clit, spreading herself open, showing him how hot she was as he stared at her with an intensity she could feel like heat upon her skin. She got out of the chair, went to the Plexiglas barrier and pressed her chest against it, mashing her breasts flat as she worked desperately at her pussy, thinking only of his cock, of his big hard cock. And he met her there. He got out of his chair and walked up to the barrier too, holding his enormous hard-on in his hand. He leaned against the barrier with his hand, placing it right over her breast, as if he could squeeze her through the Plexiglas while his other hand pumped his huge cock up and down, pre-cum now drooling from the tip, his balls swinging back and forth. He was big and thick and hard and so terribly close and she could imagine the feel of the knobby veins as it sunk into her hot and hard and rubbed against the smooth yielding walls of her cunt, feel those big, heavy balls bang against her anus, tickling her below as he fed his steel-hard cock into her cunt. Touch me! Touch me! she screamed in her mind as she humped against the barrier, her fingers vibrating in her pussy. They were so close that they could hear each other’s moans, muffled through the Plexiglas barrier.
42
The Experiment
He cried out and pushed his hips toward her as his hand became almost a blur on his cock. “Oh fuck!” he cried, and Zoe heard him and knew from his voice that he was coming. She almost tried to climb the barrier in her excitement. She pressed herself hard against the thick plastic, mashing her breasts and crushing her nipples flat. She stuck her tongue out through the mask and licked at the wall, rubbed her tits against it, making wet, squeaking sounds as her flesh slid along it. He cried out again and she watched in wonder as his hips jerked forward and a huge gob of semen burst from his shaft and splashed against the plastic, pearly white and viscous. Without thinking Zoe fell to her knees and pressed her mouth to the plastic barrier, trying to feel the force of his ejaculation as he erupted again and again, each jet making a starburst splash of cream before slowly and reluctantly oozing down in milky trails. “Oh! Oh!” Zoe cried as she tried to imagine the semen hitting her own face. What a waste! What a waste! she thought, she wanted it so badly. The man lurched a few times more, the last of his ejaculate drooled from his cock and hung in long streams which stretched and then snapped and fell to the carpet below. He staggered back, found the chair and collapsed onto it, his chest heaving. Then the lights went out. Blackness.
Zoe was left on her knees on the thick carpet of the Doctor’s interview room, her hands pressed against the plastic barrier, naked except for her stockings and shoes. Her pussy was wet and aching, unsatisfied. She felt weak and trembly in a way she knew only a lover’s embrace could cure. A great sadness came over her. She needed someone so badly. Not just for sex, not just to fuck her and quench this terrible need, but just to hold her, to keep her together. She needed a man’s arms around her to stop the trembling. But she had no one. No one here, no one anywhere. 43
Elliot Mabeuse
Suddenly and unexpectedly she began to cry. It was partly from sheer sexual frustration, but it was more than that. She was still aware enough to know that the Doctor had planned this whole thing just to bring her to this level of arousal, and she was certain she knew what would come next. That was fine with her. If he was ready to come in and fuck her now, she was ready too. If this is what the whole thing had been about, then it had worked brilliantly. She was ready for him. She was ready for anyone. So she waited. She stopped crying. She stood up and took off the mask, sat in the chair and wiped her eyes. Slowly she calmed down. But the Doctor didn’t show. She sat there in the darkness, her pussy aching as her heart slowed and her breathing returned to normal. Nothing happened. No one came in. After some minutes she saw a shaft of light spill into the room on the other side of the barricade and her phantom lover exited without so much as a glance back at her. She felt despondent. Finally the door opened and Ms. Liu came in and asked her if she was all right. Zoe was so emotionally drained that she felt no embarrassment at the other woman seeing her naked, nor did Ms. Liu show surprise at seeing Zoe sitting in the chair dressed only in stockings and shoes. She discreetly lowered her eyes. “I’ll give you some time to collect yourself,” Ms. Liu said gently. “The lights will be on in a moment.” “Is that all?” Zoe asked, “Is it over?” “For tonight, yes,” Ms. Liu replied. “Your money is on the desk. Shall I bring you a warm towel?” “Please,” Zoe said. “That would be nice.” “Certainly.” She looked at Zoe for a moment and then asked, “Would you like me to call you a cab?”
44
The Experiment
Zoe shook her head and looked away. The thought of climbing into a cab alone and going back to her lonely flat was more than she could bear. She was about to cry again. No Doctor. No relief. Ms. Liu brought her two hot towels and a stack of soft, dry ones and Zoe wiped herself off and dressed. She wondered about the devil-man and bid him goodnight in her mind. She went to the desk and picked up her money, threw it into her purse and walked out, leaving the towels in her chair. She masturbated when she got home, holding a large pillow between her thighs and pretending it was a man, a man whose face she never saw, but the relief was fleeting. Before she could get to sleep the need was back and she knew that it could not be satisfied by masturbation, no matter how many times she tried. She got out of bed and put a robe on, poured herself a glass of wine and lit a joint from her meager stash. She sat in the front turret window of her flat looking down at the street and smoking, watching the lights. This was where she had sat for weeks after her breakup, watching the days come and go, seeing the nights drag by, doing nothing but hurting and hating herself. She was so much better now, she thought. So much better. She had been so sure the Doctor would appear to take advantage of her need and she couldn’t understand why he hadn’t. If he’d come into the room after the session she would have given herself to him totally, without any hesitation or recrimination. She didn’t understand. Wasn’t that what this was all about? He was seducing her, she was sure of it. The alternative, that this really was about science, with no regard for what he was doing to her, was too painful to contemplate, too cruel. In the big apartment building across the way the lights were winking out. Men and women going to bed. Maybe for sex, maybe just to be next to each other during the night. She wouldn’t cry. She hadn’t cried for months before tonight and she wouldn’t let herself fall back into that raw sea of tears. Summoning the toughness that she’d developed sitting in this very spot month after month, she forced the tears back down,
45
Elliot Mabeuse
closed the lid on them and pushed them down into that part of her where there weren’t any feelings at all.
46
The Experiment
Chapter Three “How are you this evening, Ms. Alexander?” The voice came out of the velvety dark. As usual, only his hands were visible, calmly folded under the cone of light from the desk lamp. Zoe smoothed her skirt and sat down under a spotlight of her own, facing the desk. “I’m very well, thank you, Doctor. And how are you?” “I’m well, thank you,” he answered. “May I say that you’re looking especially lovely tonight?” “Thank you.” Zoe smiled and shifted in the white leather chair. She thought so too, but still it was good to hear it confirmed. She was wearing a new skirt and blouse she’d bought with the money from her last session, money that had also paid for her new hairstyle and manicure. The salon had been very good—expensive, but she felt no guilt about it. She had earned the money and she had spent it as she wished. Even if it had been earned by her dubious and perhaps even shameful performance in this very room, she refused to feel bad about it. She felt very attractive and it felt good. She felt formidable. “Let me give you your compensation for tonight so we can get that out of the way,” the Doctor said, placing five fifty-dollar bills on the edge of the desk. The money. She glanced at the bills but she made no move to retrieve them. She had much she wanted to discuss, but now that she was here the words seemed to leave her. She had done a lot of thinking about her past two sessions, the last one especially, where she had joined a man in mutual masturbation, a man she could see but not hear or touch. It had been a strange and emotional experience and had haunted her ever since. It had changed her ideas about the experiment and the purpose behind it, and she no longer thought that the Doctor was just some wealthy pervert indulging 47
Elliot Mabeuse
his voyeuristic whims. He was doing something to her and she had to believe it was intentional. She didn’t know what it was yet, but she had the distinct impression that he was on her side. “Doctor, I…” she began. “That man at the last session…” “Yes?” She didn’t know how to broach the subject. It was so personal, and she wasn’t used to discussing her personal life. “I’ve been thinking about it all week. What happened, I mean. I just can’t seem to get it out of my mind.” He was silent, but she knew he was listening. She looked into the darkness for some encouragement, but saw nothing but his hands folded together neatly beneath the desk light. “Is it all right if I talk?” she asked. “I don’t want to upset the experiment.” “No,” he said calmly. “It’s quite all right. Please do.” She sighed. “I guess it was just a very emotional experience for me. I know you can’t really discuss it with me, can you?” He paused a moment before saying, “Well, that depends. Just what is it you want to discuss?” She opened her mouth, but she realized now, sitting here in the darkness with the light upon her, that he wouldn’t tell her who the man was or what the stranger’s reaction to her had been. Instead she said, “I was wondering whether we could repeat that last session.” She knew he’d refuse, so before he could speak she added, “I mean, you were right when you said that I was sexually active. At least I used to be. I’m not anymore, not since my breakup. In fact, I haven’t done anything for months now, haven’t even had the desire.” She looked up uncertainly. “But after the last session, once I thought about it, I don’t know. It did something to me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s like it brought all this stuff to the surface, things I’ve been denying.”
48
The Experiment
He said nothing and she peered at his shadow in the darkness. He wasn’t making this easy. “It felt good,” she said softly. “It just felt so good to feel like that again.” His hands didn’t move. “Feel like what, Ms. Alexander?” She took a deep breath. “Sexy,” she said. “Maybe ‘sexual’ is a better word.” She looked down for a moment. “You have to understand, Doctor, I have no one else I can talk to about this. I don’t really have any friends anymore, not close ones. No one knows I’m coming here or what’s happening, so…” Her voice trailed off uncertainly. “But it was just so exciting to feel that way again. To feel desirable and sexy. To have that effect on a man.” She waited now for him to respond. She was determined not to go on until he responded. “That’s very interesting,” he said at last. “I’m happy for you.” “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.”
49
Elliot Mabeuse
“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.
50
The Experiment
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.
51
Elliot Mabeuse
“—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.
52
The Experiment
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.
53
Elliot Mabeuse
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 selfconsciousness. 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
54
The Experiment
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 selfconscious 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 55
Elliot Mabeuse
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. “As I said, Amy often has trouble reaching climax,” the Doctor said softly from across the room. “It may take her some while.” Zoe looked in his direction, hating him fiercely. To put people through this kind of thing for any reason was unconscionable. To make a mockery of need and human love and reduce it to this—a poor girl shivering in anguish before his eyes—was close to sadism. Whatever response he expected to get from Amy and her, it couldn’t be worth it, and in that instant Zoe realized that he was using them both, they were in this together.
56
The Experiment
She suddenly couldn’t stand it any longer. The tension in the room was too much and she got up and went to Amy, knelt down beside her chair and put one arm around the girl’s shoulders. Amy responded at once to Zoe’s touch, groaning deeply and letting her head fall back onto Zoe’s shoulder, but other than that, she hardly seemed to notice, so intent was she on her masturbation. Zoe stroked Amy’s long black hair and comforted her. “Shhh, baby,” she cooed. “It’s okay. Can’t you make it?” Ms. Liu gasped and stiffened and Zoe could feel the tension in her small body. “Oh I’m so close!” she whispered, a shudder in her voice. “So close!” Zoe was horrified at the way Amy’s hands were now punishing herself, plunging the buzzing dildo into her pussy with her left hand while the right pushed and rubbed against her clitoris. She put her hand over Amy’s right and gently pushed her fingers away, and for the first time since college, she touched another woman’s sex, softly, tentatively. Amy groaned deeply and used her free hand to pull Zoe to her. Zoe felt the girl’s whole body tremble with need. “Please! Just touch me! I’m so close!” Amy breathed, and Zoe began to softly rub her clit, teasing her, barely making contact. Amy was so incredibly soft, her flesh so vulnerable, but Zoe’s touch was like fire to Amy’s needy body. She gasped and spread her legs wide. “Yes! Oh! Oh!” She was beyond words, but Zoe knew just what she was feeling, trapped on that knife-edge between sensory overload and relief. She had been there often enough herself and she ached with understanding. She pressed Amy’s head back against her shoulder and held her like a child, and the feel of that warm and trembling body in her arms was just sweet and so much what she needed. It touched something deep inside her, just being close to another human being, and her fingers played over Amy’s vulva, arousing her, comforting her, making her tremble.
57
Elliot Mabeuse
“Just let it happen,” she whispered into Amy’s ear. “Don’t try so hard. Just relax. I’ve got you. Just feel me touching you. Relax, baby. Relax.” But Amy’s whole body was shaking with erotic tension. Zoe had never felt a woman so aroused and when Amy turned her blind face to her, Zoe couldn’t resist. Her heart overflowing, her own excitement at a fever pitch, she instinctively kissed the girl’s swollen lips and Amy kissed her back, hungrily, urgently. Zoe could tell the girl was falling into orgasm from the uncontrolled passion of her kiss, could tell Amy was losing it on her hand and she increased her pressure, pushing her, demanding that she yield. “Oh God!” Amy cried, pulling her mouth away. “Oh God!” Amy’s eyes were clenched shut, her mouth open and slack. Zoe tapped lightly on Amy’s swollen little clit and the Asian girl screamed harshly, then bucked as her orgasm surged through her body, sobbing and moaning as her body was racked by spasms of delicious release. Zoe felt a totally unexpected, sympathetic orgasm ripple through her as she clung to the climaxing girl, and their gasps and their sobs mingled inseparably, just as their shared pleasures merged them into one. Amy’s mouth spread into a broad smile as she felt Zoe shaking in the throes of her own release. They were not just two women now. They were two lovers, their sex immaterial and Zoe clung to her and rode the deep plunge into pleasure with her until Amy’s body lost all strength and collapsed weakly into the chair, the vibrator falling buzzing to the floor. Zoe slowly untangled herself, found the vibe and shut it off. She sat naked on the floor, her head against Amy’s thigh, panting and pushing her long dark hair back from her face. She looked up, and under the desk light she saw the Doctor’s hands count out a stack of fifty-dollar bills. She knew that there would be ten of them there, just as he’d said. She heard him stand up and he said, “Shall I have Delores bring some towels?” Amy composed herself enough to shake her head. 58
The Experiment
“Ms. Alexander?” the Doctor asked. Zoe shook her head as well. She looked into the darkness where he must be, wanting him to feel her hatred. “Then I shall bid you good night, ladies. Amy, you’ll tidy up and lock up? Good. Then, until next time…” Zoe saw the door open and the Doctor’s form silhouetted there against the red light, and for a moment he looked like the devil going back to hell. Then the door closed and he was gone. Amy immediately dissolved into tears, heavy sobs that made her whole body shake. Zoe turned to her. “Amy. What is it? What’s wrong?” The girl turned her face to the side. “I’m sorry. I’m so ashamed.” “Don’t be silly. Why should you be ashamed?” Amy only shook her head, keeping her face down to hide the tears. “Don’t worry about it,” Zoe said. “It doesn’t mean anything, it was my fault. I just couldn’t stand seeing you like that.” Amy closed her eyes and tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’ve never…” “Don’t let it worry you, Amy, really. It’s no big deal. Women do that all the time. It’s him I worry about.” “The Doctor?” “Yes. How long have you been involved in his fun and games?” Amy sat up. “I’ve helped him before. But this is the first time I…I got so carried away. I’m not like this. I mean, with another girl.” Zoe took her panties from the pile of clothes and slipped them on. “Come on, Amy. Get dressed and let’s get out of here. I want to talk to you.”
***** 59
Elliot Mabeuse
They sat toward the back of a nondescript coffee shop down the block from the Doctor’s apartment, drinking coffee and talking like two conspirators. Out of her business attire and away from the Doctor’s penthouse, Amy turned out to be a lively and very lonely girl and once she stopped worrying about what they had done in the experiment room, Zoe liked her very much. She was surprised, though, at Amy’s naïveté, which she first took to be an attempt to avoid her questions. But as they talked, it became obvious that Amy was just very innocent and not very curious about the Doctor, as well as fiercely loyal. She would answer Zoe’s questions as best she could, but on some things she was sworn to secrecy. She was quite protective of his identity, for example, and refused to give Zoe his name. She’d been working for him for about four months, ever since she got out of college, through some tenuous family friend connection. The Doctor paid her a salary, paid for an apartment of her own in his building—a not inconsiderable expense—and was even paying her way through law school. All Amy had to do was help him with some correspondence and minor secretarial work—and with the experiment. She had no idea what the work was ultimately about, but she knew it was real. She’d seen binders full of data and spreadsheets on his computer as he worked on them. She’d never tried to read them—it was clearly not her business—but she knew they existed. The experiment was real. It was not a scam. With innocence and open candor she destroyed Zoe’s theories one by one. No, he was not deformed or scarred or hideously ugly. He was a perfectly normal human male of perhaps fifty—quite handsome really, distinguished, even dashing. He had what she took to be a normal social life for someone in his position, though he didn’t seem to have any special female friends. As far as she knew he wasn’t gay. The suggestion made her blush. As to how many other participants were in the study, Amy guessed about a dozen. She had known several to leave, though she was never told the reason, and had seen three new ones recruited, Zoe being the third. Amy scheduled the sessions at the
60
The Experiment
Doctor’s request, greeted the participants and handed out the initial payments. What went on in the interview room after her initial interview, she couldn’t say. Amy had participated in three experiment sessions besides the one tonight. In the first, about two months ago, the Doctor had her undress completely, just as Zoe had done in her first session. In the second session she had masturbated in front of the Doctor, though she thought there might have been someone else in the room that she couldn’t see. And in the third she had taken off her clothes while a young man sat watching her and masturbating some distance away, similar to what Zoe had done last time. Strangely, tonight was the only session in which the Doctor sat in shadow, so obviously he was trying to conceal his identity from Zoe. Since Amy saw him often, there was no point in hiding from her. She received no money for these performances. She assumed they were part of her job, though the Doctor had never made that plain. In any case, that’s how Amy understood them and she had no intention of complaining. She was extremely grateful to the Doctor and she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their relationship. “And now there’s something I have to ask you,” Amy said when Zoe had run out of questions. “He wanted me to ask you, I mean. I’m asking for him, for the experiment.” Zoe sat up straight, as if in class. “Go ahead.” “He wants to pay your rent, the rent on your apartment. But in return you have to do something for him. I know it sounds strange…” “What? Tell me.” “You have to put cameras in your apartment. Little tiny ones, just for him. For the experiment.” “What? That’s insane!” “He’ll pay your entire rent if you’ll put cameras in your living room and bedroom. Like web cams. He’ll have them installed and no one will know. No one will see the
61
Elliot Mabeuse
pictures but him. He needs to observe you outside the experiment room. He wants to devote more work to you.” “Devote more work to me? Amy, that’s crazy! Don’t you think it’s crazy?” The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. I have them and they don’t bother me. In some ways, it’s good to know he’s watching, don’t you think? It’s good to know someone cares.”
***** They parted outside the restaurant, an uncertain moment made awkward by the intimacy they’d shared during the experiment and by Zoe’s shock and confusion about the cameras, certainly the strangest twist yet. The experiment was spilling out of the darkened room and into the world where she lived her life and Zoe didn’t know what to make of it. She decided to walk home. Walking helped her think and it was only a mile or so from the coffee shop to her own neighborhood. The autumn night was cool and crisp, the streets well-lit and there were people around. Could she even do it? Could she live her life knowing she was being observed? And if she took money for it, what did that make her? What did he hope to see? Once again she had to wonder at the legitimacy of the experiment. Once again she had to wonder why she was still involved. She thought of Amy, how she’d held her and kissed her, the way she’d trembled so helplessly, like a child. She remembered how her heart had gone out to her when Amy was in such need, and how Zoe had known instinctively that what Amy had needed was the feel of a person holding her. She remembered too the feeling of Amy’s lips, the sweet hunger of that kiss and her own sympathetic orgasm when Amy had climaxed. It had been the first shared sexual experience Zoe had had since her breakup.
62
The Experiment
Amy had been such an imposing person when Zoe had first met her. How different she’d been in the throes of sexual need, how vulnerable. Had Zoe herself trembled like that when Jack had brought her to orgasm? Had she looked so terribly needy? What an amazing thing sex was to do such things to a human being, she thought. What a terrible and wonderful thing.
***** There was a message waiting for her on her machine when she walked into her apartment, an event so rare these days that Zoe looked at the flashing light suspiciously for a moment, then put her things away and fed the cat before she hit the play button. It was Ben Abernathy, a fringe member of Jack’s circle. He was in the neighborhood and wondered whether he could stop by and say hi. He left his cell number. The call was only an hour old. Ben had been something of a joke with Jack’s crowd, strictly C-list, never quite accepted, never quite cool enough, teased for his infamous “look”—an affectation he used, a special way he tilted his head to make his hair fall over his eyes in what he thought was a seductive, bad-boy pout. In truth, Zoe had always found him awkward and buffoonish though harmless enough, the kind of man who believed the articles he read in men’s magazine would bring him sexual success. Zoe had taken pity on him back then and he’d misinterpreted that as interest. Now that Jack was out of the picture, Ben called regularly, trying to set something up. She knew he wanted to sleep with her, if only so he could say he’d bedded Jack’s ex and she’d even thought about it, but she never would have invited him up if she hadn’t been so suddenly desperate for company after this latest session at the Doctor’s. Her body and mind were buzzing and if nothing else, she needed to talk to someone, anyone, just to restore her sense of reality.
63
Elliot Mabeuse
She called him back and told him sure, it would be great to see him. She showered and put on clean jeans and a blue turtleneck and was just putting in her earrings when he rang the bell. He’d brought wine and they drank it sitting in the living room with the stereo on. It quickly became apparent that Ben thought he could use his knowledge of what Jack was up to as a lure to get what he wanted, but the more he talked, the more she discovered that she really didn’t care anymore. The realization left her with a strange hollow, almost panicked feeling, as if her flame had gone out. The things Ben talked about seemed to have happened to someone else in a place far away and she just didn’t care. The wound she’d been nursing all these months was gone. There was no more hurt, just a dead spot inside into which Ben’s words fell without a splash. She tried to turn the conversation around, tried to find some way to tell him about the Doctor and the strange things she was involved in now, but she realized that there was simply no way to broach the subject. Ben himself was set only to broadcast. He didn’t receive. He missed all her cues, all her tentative openings. He was talking to the girl she’d been all those months ago almost as if he were working from a script. He refused to see what she was now. With nothing to discuss, there was only one reason for Ben to be there and Zoe saw now that it would never work. It had been a mistake to have invited him over. He had nothing she wanted, not even sex, and the hints he dropped about Jack’s new girlfriend made her vaguely ill. “Ben, I hate to do this, but I suddenly don’t feel well. Would you mind very much…?” He looked irritated. “What’s wrong, Zoe? You sick? Anything old doctor Ben can help you with?” He was coming back from the kitchen and he stopped and gave her the “look”. He was hopeless. “No, it’s this bug I’ve been fighting off. I thought I was over it, but I guess not. I’m terribly sorry.” 64
The Experiment
Ben shook his head sadly. “You know, Zoe, I’m worried about you. No one sees you anymore, you don’t return any calls… Don’t you get lonely? Isn’t there something old Benny can do?” The look again and Zoe had to turn away to hide her distaste. What had she been thinking to invite this nobody up to her place? How could she tell him about this new life that had opened up for her, about the Doctor and Amy and the things she’d done, things she didn’t even understand herself. Ben sat down on the sofa and patted the place next to him. “Now come on, Zoe. You invited me over for a reason. Now why don’t you get comfortable and tell me about it?” The look again. The memory of Jack’s crowd—the easy sex, the laughter and drugs, the way the girls were passed around like hash pipes. She wasn’t that way anymore. She had strength now, a strength she felt but didn’t yet understand. Her work with the Doctor had done something to her and she realized she didn’t have to sit here and suffer anymore. The strength emerged now. It emerged like it had when she’d first masturbated for the Doctor, or when she had used her body to make the man in the devil mask come. It emerged the way it had as she’d watched Amy trying to orgasm, taken her in her arms and led her to climax. It emerged as it had emerged then, as a feeling of her desirability, her own sexual power. What had the Doctor said? She had a talent. She had the strange certainty now that she was stronger than Ben. She was possibly stronger than Jack. The things the Doctor had made her do had somehow given her strength, and she felt it well up in her now, a sense of her own sexual power. She walked over to the sofa and stood in front of him and saw the gratifying look of surprise on his face. “You want to sleep with me, don’t you, Ben? Well, it’s not going to happen. I’m sorry I invited you up here, but you’ve got nothing I want.” The look again. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Why don’t you try me, Zoe?”
65
Elliot Mabeuse
She looked at him for a long moment, waiting until he squirmed. She took hold of her sweater and pulled it up over her head and dropped it in his lap. She was wearing one of her new bras, a nice one and she knew she looked great in it. She ran her thumbs up under the straps and let them snap into place. “I’ve got news for you,” she said. “And for Jack. And for the rest of the gang. I’ve got some new friends now. They don’t screw around like you guys do. These people play for real. You think you’re up for that?” She walked into the middle of the room, in front of the television set. She remembered the man in the devil mask, what she’d done with him, the size of his cock. She remembered the Doctor’s hands under the cone of light. She kept her eyes on Ben and unbuttoned her jeans, took hold of the zipper and pulled it down. “Jesus, Zoe! What’s with you? You were never like this.” Her body was a weapon. She could feel the energy in it. Ben was already hard and awkwardly trying to hide it and Zoe walked across the room so he could get a look at her, a body he could never hope to master. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. You strip for me. Get me hot, and if you do a good job, I’ll strip for you. What do you say?” “Strip?” He tried to laugh. “Are you crazy?” “No. I want you to get me hot. I don’t just roll over for anyone, Benny. You want some of this, you’ve got to prove you’re worthy.” He laughed again, a quick, incredulous bark, then pulled a throw pillow into his lap. “You’re nuts, Zoe! You’ve gone ‘round the bend!” She came over and pulled the pillow away from him. His erection showed clearly through his pants, tenting the fabric. It was just as she thought. She was a weapon, a force of nature. She couldn’t believe she’d never known it before. She threw a leg over his and straddled him, kneeling on the sofa. She took his hair in her hands and lowered her mouth to his.
66
The Experiment
He was the Doctor, the man in the mask and Amy’s loneliness all rolled into one. Zoe devoured his mouth, biting his lips and licking them even as she knew he was none of these things, then she kissed him again out of hatred and revenge. “Jesus, Zoe! Let’s go in the bedroom, huh?” “No,” she said. “Right here.” “Whatever you say, Zoe. You’re the boss.” You’re goddamned right, she thought. She got off him, half disgusted with herself now. He was so easy, so transparent. She swiped her sweater up from the couch and put it on. She was done with him. “Afraid not, Benny. Show’s over. Time to go home.” He looked at her incredulously. “Why, you bitch…” Zoe poked her head through the sweater, her jaw set. “You’re a nice enough guy, Ben, but you’re not for me and I’m not the same lost little girl I used to be. I grew up. You wouldn’t even want me now. I’m done being a victim.” “Bitch! You invited me up here, lead me on and then throw me out?” Something snapped in Zoe then. The power flooded her. “You want to get off? Just for old time’s sake? Something to remember me by. Okay. Wait here.” She walked into the bathroom and got a jar of hand cream and a box of tissues. She came back, put the tissues on the table and opened the hand cream. “Open your pants,” she said. Ben smiled. “All right! How about you take off your sweater again and I rub some on your tits?” Zoe glowered at him. “You don’t touch me, understand? You so much as lay a finger on me and I’m done. You can take your hard-on outside and beat off in your car. I’m doing this because I made a mistake, that’s all. Because I should never have invited you over. This is your sympathy sex, Ben, because I feel bad for you.” 67
Elliot Mabeuse
That didn’t seem to bother him. He opened his belt and fly and pushed his pants down around his knees. “Hey, whatever,” he said. It was an eerie thrill. It was like the man in the devil mask, only now she was in control. Ben put his hands behind his head and leaned back and Zoe set to work, gripping his hard shaft and running her greasy fist up and down, making him jump and groan. She played him like a violin, feeling a delicious sense of control unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It was a sense of control, of using herself in order to use someone else. And all the while he sat there, his fingers digging into the sofa, his breath ragged in his throat, his hips jerking puppetlike in response to her ministrations. She gripped him hard and slowly pumped his big cock, imitating the devil-man, and when she had him almost to the point of tears, she started pumping him fast, squeezing hard. She studied his face, his helplessness. She thought of Jack, how afraid she’d been of him and his masculine potency. She thought of the Doctor’s hands folded under his cone of light as he made her do things—all the sex, all the desire and need, as if the world were filled with it, as if it was the only thing that existed. “Ahh! God! Oh Fuck! Oh! Oh!” Ben’s hips jerked off the sofa, once, twice, and Zoe felt his cock throb like an animal squirming in a trap as a big bolt of white semen erupted from the tip, arced into the air and splattered back down onto his stomach, followed by another, and another again, until the cum was streaming from his shriveling prick, sliding over her knuckles and into his matted pubic hair.
***** She sat in her heartbreak window, smoking a joint and drinking a glass of wine. Her cat sat with her, his paws tucked demurely against his chest with a calm known only to the neutered. She gazed across the rooftops at the Doctor’s building and wondered if he were up, perhaps talking to Amy, perhaps talking about her.
68
The Experiment
She would take him up on his offer of free rent. She knew just where she’d put the cameras, so that the next time she had someone like Ben over, he’d be able to see everything. He intended to devote more time to her, did he? That was fine with her, because she was certain now that he was doing something to her. All the things he had her do in the experiment room were done for a purpose. He was teaching her about her own sexual power. He was healing her. She didn’t know why or what she’d done to deserve this, but she had no doubt as to what the effect of the work had been on her so far. She felt invigorated, sexual, desirable and—most of all—powerful. She wet her fingertips and pinched out the end of the joint, then threw the roach into the little dope tin and covered it. She lifted her hand, the hand she’d used on Ben, the same one she’d used on Amy, and she looked at it—pretty fingers, nice nails for a waitress, nothing unusual about it at all. Yes, she’d let him put his cameras up. She’d let herself be watched. In fact, she liked the idea. And in a week she’d go see him and have sex with a man according to their new understanding. She was quite sure she knew who it would be and she could hardly wait.
69
Elliot Mabeuse
Chapter Four When Zoe told the Doctor she wanted him to fix her up with a man, she was fairly certain he’d choose himself and though she’d never admit it, she had absolutely no objection. In the weeks since the experiment had begun, her feelings for him had swung between adoration and hatred, but her depth of involvement had only increased. He’d become almost a mythic figure to her, controlling her emotions, determining her sensations, reaching in and actually altering the course of her life, and it was no wonder that she dreamed of him, even though she’d never seen his face. She wasn’t surprised then when it took him less time to set things up than he’d said. Three days later, on a Thursday, Amy called Zoe and asked her if she could be at the Doctor’s the next day at eleven in the morning. When Zoe asked why, Amy said she didn’t know. The Doctor had just told her to call Zoe and arrange an eleven o’clock appointment because he had “made the arrangements as per her request”. “He made me write it down and told me to say just that,” Amy said. “Arrangements as per your request.” “You know what this is about, don’t you?” Zoe asked her. Then, realizing Amy probably didn’t know, she added, “I told him I wanted a man. I told him I wanted to get laid.” “Oh?” Amy said. She hadn’t known and, strangely, she didn’t seem especially interested. “Well, I suppose that’s what he was talking about then.” She laughed and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Good luck!” 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.
70
The Experiment
She was fairly certain now that her conversation with Amy hadn’t been as onesided 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.
71
Elliot Mabeuse
“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.”
72
The Experiment
“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
73
Elliot Mabeuse
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. 74
The Experiment
“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.
75
Elliot Mabeuse
“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.”
76
The Experiment
“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.
77
Elliot Mabeuse
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. There were men in the lobby, at the coat check, coming and going into the gift shop, men everywhere, it seemed. She mentally rejected any men that were in groups or with women and any who looked too old or too young. Still there were so many to deal with. Several seemed to be looking her over and that gave her a tense, fluttery feeling. If she just found a place to sit down and wait would he approach her? Should she wear a sign, “Looking for a man who’s looking to get laid”? The Doctor had said that he would be waiting for her in the museum, this was just the lobby. The museum itself began up those stairs where the galleries started. There was an admission charge, no doubt it would be less crowded inside. She climbed the stairs, paid her admission and entered the museum proper. A few steps into the museum and it was like another world. The rooms were dim, the paintings illuminated by spotlights in the ceiling or frame lights. Gallery led to gallery like a hall of mirrors and she could almost see from one end of the museum to the other, see people moving like ghosts from room to room, silently, wrapped in their own thoughts. The noise of the street faded away quickly and was replaced by the curious, reverential silence unique to museums, in which the sound of her steps sounded unusually loud.
78
The Experiment
She saw men. They looked at her and she looked at them, but never at the same time and there was nothing about them that made her think they might be the one she was looking for. There were women there too and Zoe wondered whether any of them were on a mission like hers, searching for a lover, or perhaps just looking to be picked up. She knew that wasn’t likely, but in the stately procession from gallery to gallery, the idea took on a reality of its own, so that it soon seemed everyone was engaged in a very slow, stylized mating ritual—men discreetly appraising women, women putting themselves on display and subtly checking out men. The pictures on the wall were just a way to avoid eye contact as the two sexes passed each other by, turned to watch someone or glanced over their shoulders to see if anyone were watching them. It became a compelling game and Zoe was fascinated by this new way of looking at people, especially the women, whose behavior was much more subtle then the men’s. She recognized many of the tricks they used—the pose, the sweep of the hair, the finger against the cheek as they stared thoughtfully at a painting. She saw the way their eyes swept a gallery when they first came in, looking first at the people in it, then at the paintings. The men were less subtle, they didn’t pose. They glanced at the women, lowered their faces and darted their eyes to the side, watched them as they walked away, or just simply looked at them when their backs were turned. She had to sit down on a bench and collect herself. She was being silly. Some of these people might be looking for love, but certainly not all of them. No doubt most of them were there to see the paintings. She was reading too much into it. She was obsessed. Meanwhile she had worked herself into a low but steady state of arousal. She was aware of her body, and several times she caught herself idly caressing her own arm or playing with her hair as she observed some man. By one o’clock the crowd had diminished, but Zoe was still aware of the people playing a kind of cat and mouse game through the maze of galleries. She watched a tall, sandy-haired man who seemed to be following a girl in a poncho who Zoe took to be a
79
Elliot Mabeuse
student, and a stout, angry-faced businessman who seemed to with an overdressed blonde woman. Or were they? She couldn’t tell whether they were talking or not, but they did seem to run into each other quite a bit. She lost them in a twentieth-century gallery when she found herself being watched by a young man in a blue turtleneck sweater and black coat. She’d seen him before, but he’d been in the company of another man. They both seemed young to her, college age probably, so she hadn’t paid them much attention. But now the man in the sweater was alone and he had his eyes on her. The butterflies in her stomach jumped as she strolled among the abstract paintings, not even seeing them, watching him out of the corner of her eye. She stopped in front of a Klee and he came up beside her. He smelled strongly of some cologne, not unpleasant, but too strong. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” he asked her casually. She quickly looked him over, darting her eyes up and down as he politely gazed at the painting. He appeared to be very young, possibly still in college, and there was something pasty or immature about his face. His voice was deeper and more adult than she’d expected. “Yes,” she said cautiously. “I suppose so.” He smiled at her. It was a bit too forced. “My name’s Byron,” he said. “This is quite a place. It’s my first time here.” She raised her eyebrows, as if that were interesting. She didn’t feel like giving him her name just yet. “Do you know the Doctor?” she asked him. “Doctor?” he asked, smiling still. “I know lots of doctors.” She nodded and smiled with relief. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you were someone else. I’m meeting someone here, you see. Please excuse me.”
80
The Experiment
She walked out of the gallery leaving Byron standing there, glad he wasn’t the one. Her stomach surged with apprehension and she found to her surprise that her legs were trembling slightly. She found a bench beneath a giant Calder mobile in a brightly lit room and sat down, and for the first time it occurred to her that it didn’t matter who she found here. Men were always horny, always looking for an instant roll in the hay. She could very probably pick up almost any man here and he would be happy to take her to bed. There was nothing special about the man the Doctor had sent out to meet her here. Perhaps he hadn’t sent anyone. And where was the Doctor? She’d been certain that he’d be somewhere, observing her, or rather, she’d hoped he would be. But she’d really seen no one who matched the few things she knew about his appearance. Had he sent anyone? Or was this just a new phase of the experiment, to have her pick up a stranger and have sex with him? Up until now the Doctor had never lied to her. Would he lie to her for the sake of the experiment? She had to find out. She was motivated now not just be her desire for sex, but by curiosity and her desire to outwit him. She walked back into the gallery section, determined to either find the man or know that he was not there. She went quickly through the rooms making a survey, marking each man either as a likely candidate or not, keeping count on her fingers. It was bewildering. There always seemed to be someone just leaving the room she entered, or coming in after her. Men, men with other men, the confusing variable of the women, muddying her calculations and complicating her equations. She took to unconsciously counting the men on her fingers and giving them names, all the while watching in that nervous, flickering kind of way, then resting her eyes on the paintings, a dubious kind of rest as the paintings only asked her more questions, as if they were looking for people too.
81
Elliot Mabeuse
There were just three of them finally. There was a good-looking man in a tie and a long raincoat with delicate hands whom she took to be an artist. There was a powerfullooking man in a turtleneck who strolled through the galleries as if he owned them and who watched her with straightforward boldness when he wasn’t lost in examining a painting. And there was a tall young man with dark glasses, very short hair and more earrings than she would have liked. He was dressed all in black and moved through the galleries with the silence of a ghost, stopping to glare at a painting with an intensity that made Zoe wonder about his sanity. Together the four of them played a strange and nerve-racking game of hide and seek on the second floor, meeting and parting, encountering one another in various combinations as Zoe got more and more impatient and frustrated. Occasionally another single woman would walk through and Zoe watched their reactions as carefully as she could, trying to discern some clue. Despite herself and her darkening mood she could not control her imagination, seeing each of them as a lover. She could see herself in the arms of the blond man, her blouse opened as he held her and kissed her breasts, while his artistic fingers did wonderful things at her pussy. She could feel the passion of the man in the turtleneck as he placed his powerful body between her legs and pushed himself into her. Or she could picture herself straddling the hips of the man with the short hair in some dirty room, his long cock sunk into her as he grunted in pleasure while she frantically writhed on top of him. It was exhausting and very unsettling playing cat and mouse like this, and she thought several times of just taking herself home and the hell with the Doctor and his games. Dealing with the echoing silence, the sudden surges of adrenaline, trying to see without being seen, just the effort of maintaining her sexual radar on high alert quickly tired her out. Before long she had to sit down on a bench again in one of the Modern galleries and make herself relax.
82
The Experiment
Down at the end was a young man she hadn’t seen before, with longish hair in soft curls, black slacks and a leather jacket. He was dark, and handsome in a magazinepicture kind of way. His face wore a look of expectant intensity as he gazed at a large abstract hung on the wall. He seemed boyish, but not in an unpleasant way. Zoe knew immediately that it was him. That was the man. With her heart in her throat she watched him slowly turn his eyes to her, then he smiled slightly and he nodded. She looked away for a moment. She was suddenly very tired, she didn’t know if she wanted this. Then she looked back at him and she nodded too. He took his time moving along the gallery, pausing before each painting as if paying his respects. He must be nervous too, Zoe thought, and the idea pleased her. She liked the way he moved, the way he looked at the paintings. He seemed to know what he was looking at and he seemed to be giving her time to look at him, not in a vain way, but out of respect for the awkwardness of the situation. Finally he walked over to her. “Excuse me,” he said. “Would you mind if I sat?” She shook her head and slid over to give him room. He sat down and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. Close up she saw that he was young, younger than she, and he moved with a studied grace, as if he were used to being looked at. He was perhaps a little bit more taken with himself than she would have liked, but she supposed that was inevitable in one so good-looking. “Every time I see that painting,” he said, indicating the large abstract on the wall opposite, “I wonder whether they didn’t hang it upside down.” Zoe glanced at the painting, then back at him. “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “How could you possibly tell?” He shrugged and smiled. “It’s just a feeling.”
83
Elliot Mabeuse
He looked at her and her stomach did something strange in her body. She felt the look of polite diffidence fade from her face. He might be young, but there was something old and knowing in his eyes. This was the man. She was certain this was him. His gaze slid over her face and he said, “Sometimes you just have to go with your feelings.” A chill washed over her and she bit her lip and nodded absently. Yes, he was just what she’d expect—young, handsome but with little character in his face. He hadn’t been hurt yet, possibly hadn’t even been in love yet. He would think that meeting a stranger for sex was very romantic. She felt herself slipping away, retreating into herself. “This is pretty awkward,” he said with a laugh. “You’re from the Doctor?” she asked. He nodded and she felt her stomach sink. An unaccountable anger grew in her, a sense of irritation. Perhaps it was for making her go through all these shenanigans, as if he’d been playing hard to get, or maybe it was his age. Or maybe it was because he wasn’t the Doctor. All the questions she had planned to ask about the experiment just evaporated, and all she could think about was that she was sitting next to a man who had come to this place to find her for just one reason. A nervous excitement grabbed her that made it impossible for her to think of anything except what they both knew. It was pointless to talk about anything else. “Do you want to go?” she asked him. Just then two women came into the gallery. Zoe prayed that they would leave quickly, before she came to her senses. The women looked about quickly, consulted their guidebooks, whispered something, and walked out. She could still back out. She could just say no and go back to the Doctor and say she’d changed her mind, everything he’d arranged for her hadn’t worked out. More 84
The Experiment
than that, she could just never go back. Just sever all ties with the Doctor and the experiment and get on with her life. After all, how would she feel about herself picking up a stranger in the museum and taking him to a hotel and fucking him? She wasn’t a whore, no matter what the Doctor might think. Zoe stood up. “All right. Let’s go.” They walked out of the gallery without a word. Several times he tried to draw her out, but she didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to say anything. It was drizzling and cold, so they moved quickly and when they got to the hotel they went right past the desk and directly to the elevators. He’d already checked in, that’s why he’d been late. He noticed her attitude as she stood in front of the elevators with her eyes locked stubbornly on the floor indicator. He said, “You know, you don’t have to do this. If you don’t want to, we can just forget the whole thing. I’m not going to force you.” She murmured something apologetic about being nervous and she tried to relax, but she wouldn’t let go of her anger—at him, at the Doctor, at herself—at all of them together. She didn’t really care. The anger felt right. The room was very nice, even luxurious, clean and expectant, quiet and unspoiled. He closed the door and in the silence Zoe walked over to the window and looked down at the rainy street below, the traffic inching along. Without turning around, she took off her coat and threw it on a chair. There was no need to talk. There was nothing to say. She turned to him but he hadn’t moved. He stood there with his coat still on, his eyes suddenly nervous. “Well?” she asked. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m a little nervous. I really haven’t done this much.” “I haven’t either. But I know how it’s done.” Zoe straightened her back, bringing her breasts up. She’d never known a man to refuse and now she was ready to be taken. If she was going to be a whore for this boy, she felt ready, but he would have to take her. She wasn’t going to make the first move.
85
Elliot Mabeuse
He smiled weakly. “No, you see, I… Well, I think I might be gay.” Zoe looked at him. He suddenly seemed very young and uncertain, almost small. “I’m sorry?” she asked. “What did you say?” “I thought you knew. I think I might be homosexual. Isn’t that why we met up?” Zoe felt her shoulders sag. She was being played with again. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. No one told me.” He took a step forward, concerned. “The Doctor didn’t tell you? I thought that’s what this was all about. I assumed you knew. He’s helping me clarify my sexual feelings. He told me he’d chosen you especially because you’d be good for me. He said you were good at this sort of thing.” “Good at what sort of thing?” she asked. “What else did he tell you?” The boy shrugged. “He said you’d meet me at the museum. He didn’t tell me what you’d look like. He said I had to pick you out. It was part of my training, to recognize when a woman was interested in me.” Zoe thought back to what the Doctor had said about her having “talent”, and she didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered. Anger flared in her, but then, seeing the look of alarm on his face, it just as quickly faded. She’d been afraid that the man the Doctor chose for her would be the usual type of male animal—aggressive, prideful, selfish. She’d expected someone like Jack or Ben. She hadn’t expected anything like this. Once again the Doctor had taken her expectations and twisted them around to meet his own needs. She had to admit it was a masterful stroke. She sat down in a chair. Despite herself, she laughed. The boy’s nervousness and uncertainty, her fear and lust—suddenly they were all just too funny. She had asked for this. She had asked that he set her up with a man, and he’d agreed, saying it would still have to be part of the experiment, and that’s what this was, another step in the process. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I screw up? Did I do something wrong?”
86
The Experiment
“No,” she said. “No, it’s not your fault. I was the one who misunderstood. I thought this was going to be something quick and painless, something I needed. I never imagined I’d be part of your therapy. How long have you been part of the experiment?” “About three months now. I thought you were a regular, someone who worked for him. A sexual surrogate. You’re not though, are you? You don’t look like that.” Zoe’s heart went out to him. He looked so young and nervous, so eager to please. “No,” she said. “You’re right. I’m something like that. How many times have you seen him?” “Only three times. He told me not to talk about them though. He said I wasn’t to ask you about your experiences either. He made me promise. Said that any violation and I’d be dropped.” “That’s all right,” she said. “I won’t ask.” She looked at him and asked, “So you’ve never even been with a woman before?” “No, I have. A couple of times, but nothing like this. Nothing so clinical. Maybe we should just forget it?” “What’s your name? Come on, you can tell me. I’m Chloe.” He smiled. “I’m Jeffrey.” He laughed. “But I don’t know. I’m kind of nervous. I didn’t think I’d be so nervous. I don’t know if I can do it. You know, I don’t know if I can get it up. The Doctor said that you were an expert at this though.” “Expert at what?” He shrugged. “At getting people aroused. Turning them on.” Despite herself, Zoe felt a strange surge of pride. “Oh, he’s right. I’m one of the best. He was right about that.” It wasn’t real then. It wasn’t sex, it was therapy, and Jeffrey, sweet and nervous and eager to please, wasn’t a lover, he was a patient. Looking at it that way, Zoe suddenly had no trouble going to him and taking off his jacket.
87
Elliot Mabeuse
“Sit down,” she said, indicating the small loveseat. “Just sit down and let’s see how this feels.” He was a beautiful boy and her heart went out to him. She had him sit back and close his eyes and she slid her hand up under his sweater. His chest was well-muscled but rather hairless. She put her arm around his shoulders, ran her fingers over his chest and saw his cock spring instantly to life in his trousers. “Wow!” he said, “Maybe I’m not as gay as I thought.” Despite herself, Zoe felt a surge of pride. The whole thing was almost like a private joke between her and the Doctor. He’d said she had “talent”, that she was doing exceptionally well in the experiment. Apparently she was doing so well that he could entrust his patients to her, confident that Zoe’s sexuality would heal them. She smiled. She wasn’t a whore. She was a therapist. It was in that spirit that she ran her nails over the huge lump in Jeffrey’s trousers and felt it lurch to life. She was aroused, but it was her own sexual power that aroused her now, the way she seemed to be able to work her will on this boy. “And what’s so bad about being gay?” she asked him as she helped him off with his sweater. “Nothing, I guess. Except I’d miss out on this. I’ve never been with anyone like you, Chloe. The other girls were so…blah.” Maybe they were, but not Zoe. It was terribly gratifying to see his reactions and responsiveness. Jeffrey lay back against the sofa, his eyes closed as Zoe planted kisses across his muscled chest. She was excited too, almost as excited as he was and when she finally opened his zipper and freed his cock, they both stared at it with admiration and surprise. “Take off your clothes,” she said as she got up to do the same. “I’ll show you how a woman makes love.” She wouldn’t let him do anything. That would ruin the illusion of therapy. Nor would she kiss his mouth, though she had nothing against teasing the palms of his 88
The Experiment
hands with her tongue and teeth as she played with his cock. She made him lie on his back on the bed and she showed him how to caress her breasts. She showed him how to lick her nipples as she pressed first one breast then the other against his lips. She got on her knees and took his hand and put it between her legs, and his touch, full of sudden wonder, set her on fire. She bent over and began to kiss and nibble his chest, took hold of his wrist and pressed his hand harder against her sex. Maybe she was a whore, she thought. This was sex without love, but wasn’t that what the Doctor was teaching her? And what did it matter? If she and Jeffrey would never see each other again, what did it matter how she acted? In any case, it was academic, because by the time she was straddling him with his cock in her hand she needed him as much as she’d ever needed anyone. “Wait,” he said. “I’ve got protection. I was just tested, but I don’t want you to worry.” Zoe didn’t object. He got up and got the condom from his pants pocket. If nothing else, it would make him last longer. She made him lie back down on his back as she unrolled it on to his erection. He was a very big boy and her stomach was already jumping with nervousness. She leaned forward so that her nipples grazed his chest, steadying herself with one hand on the headboard, and she maneuvered him so the head just split her lips. “Oh God!” Jeffrey moaned, his body starting upwards, instinctively trying to penetrate her. Zoe wouldn’t be rushed. It was her first man in months and she was unusually tight. That just made his entry more painful and satisfying, more sexual and obscene as she bit her lip and eased her weight down, letting his prick force its way inside. Jeffrey reached for her breasts, already showing that familiar need a man feels for a woman’s softness and promise. He kneaded them as Zoe gasped at the familiar yet always new feeling of being filled.
89
Elliot Mabeuse
Once he was inside her, and once her ass rested against his hard thighs, her hands flat against his chest, she let the feeling of womanly pride rush through her. She had done it, conquered them both and now it was time for her reward. Jeffrey stared up at her and groaned, closing his eyes when the sight of her naked eroticism was too much. Zoe was very good with her hips, better than even she remembered, but then she couldn’t remember when a man had felt so good inside her. She couldn’t remember when a man had been so passive and available to her, or so appreciative of her every move. Jeffrey groaned, he shuddered. He was hers to use and command, and he responded to everything she did in a most gratifying way. Zoe concentrated on making it good for him at first, doing those tricks that Jack had always enjoyed, but soon she was doing it for her own selfish pleasure, using him as much as she’d ever been used and the surprising thing was, the more she used him, the more he liked it. Zoe had never had a man like this, wholly in her power, entirely for her to use as she wanted, like having her own special cock, just for her. She had long thighs, with long, smooth muscles that stood out as she swung her hips over him, sending his big, hard piston slithering into her pussy again and again as she whimpered and furrowed her eyebrows in delicious concentration. The boy dug his fingers into her legs and felt her muscles working, felt that deep, female, biological need, her shameless hunger for him. Zoe tried to remain neutral but he felt too good and a grimace of pure sexual rapture kept on breaking through her polite and rather forced smile. She couldn’t pretend anymore. This boy’s manlike cock was absolutely delicious, hard for her and swollen with desire, and she finally had to give up all pretense of being his teacher or therapist. She leaned forward and grasped his arms, planted her knees on the bed and started to fuck him hard. “Oh!” she groaned as she bounced on top of him, his pubic bone smashing against her and grinding into her distended clit. “Oh yes! Oh fuck! Fuck me! Yes! Fuck me!”
90
The Experiment
Jeffrey groaned. He opened his eyes and his lids fluttered shut. All the strength seemed to leave his body and gather in his cock and Zoe could tell what was coming. She could tell what was coming and it drove her wild, wild to have him, wild to fuck him and make him come, wild to play the whore for him. She put her head down and began to sprint for the finish, her hair hanging in her face. “Oh God!” he cried. “You’re gonna make me come! Oh God, Chloe! Yes! I’m gonna come, I’m gonn…” “Give it to me, Jeffrey!” Zoe snarled, her hips moving like a machine’s. “Give me that hot cum! Give it to me, baby! I want it!” His eyes rolled up. His mouth opened. He thrust up into her and arched his back, lifting them off the bed so that only his heels and the back of his head still made contact with the mattress and Zoe felt that hard male shaft throb inside her. She felt it jerk and twitch and felt him shudder as he shot into the rubber condom. She was almost there, almost there… No. She couldn’t make it. That would be too much to ask, but still she thrilled to see him convulse in powerful orgasm between her slaving thighs. She felt each jolt of release as he let her have it and shuddered vicariously along with him as his cries grew softer, his thrusts less insistent and finally he collapsed back onto the bed. Zoe fell on top of him, her heart hammering, her breath roaring in her chest. She could feel his heart too, beating like a wild thing and she willed him to calm down, willed them both back to quietness. She felt his shrinking, diminishing and finally felt him slide drunkenly from her pussy. She waited until their breath had returned to normal, then she climbed off him and stood up. She went into the bathroom and wiped herself off, came out and started to dress. Jeffrey heaved himself up on his elbows. “God. That was incredible.” He watched her dress for a while and then asked, “But where are you going. Are you all done?”
91
Elliot Mabeuse
Zoe dressed quickly. She didn’t want to stay. She knew that anything more would lead to feelings of affection and she didn’t want that. She was already smitten with someone else. “I’d say there’s nothing wrong with you when it comes to women,” she said as she buttoned up her blouse. “I think we’re done here.” “But… What about again? I want to, you know, make love. Like you’re supposed to.” Zoe pulled on her shoes and quickly tucked in her shirt. “Jeffrey,” she said. “Trust me. There is no ‘supposed to’.” She grabbed her jacket and made it to the door. She hated to walk out on him, but she was entirely finished and she knew it. “You were wonderful, Jeffrey. Tell the Doctor there’s nothing wrong with you sexually. Tell him Chloe said so.” She stopped at the door and looked back. “And tell him I’m on to him now. I know exactly what his little experiment is all about. Do that for me, okay?”
92
The Experiment
Chapter Five “Good evening, Doctor,” Zoe said, taking her accustomed place under the soft, white spotlight. She put her purse down at her side and crossed her legs, giving him a good look at her smooth legs in their dark stockings. She felt unusually poised tonight, calm and in control. “Good evening, Zoe. I must say you’re looking very attractive this evening.” As always, the voice came from the darkness. Only his hands were visible under the cone of light from the green desk lamp. “You’ve had your hair cut?” She smiled. “You noticed. I’m impressed, Doctor.” “Oh yes. It’s quite becoming. But there’s something else too. A kind of glow. Things went well at the museum?” There was more warmth in his voice than she’d ever heard before. It gave her courage. “Yes and no,” she said. “Oh?” Zoe leaned back in her chair. She had something he wanted now—information— which gave her a bit of the upper hand. “I’m afraid it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be,” she said. “You used me, didn’t you? You had me take care of a bit of your business with that young man.” “I gave you what you wanted, Zoe. That’s what I said I’d do.” “Was it fun?” she asked. “Did you enjoy making us hunt through the museum looking for each other? What sort of data did that generate for you, Doctor? Or did the idea of having me walk through the gallery trolling for love appeal to you?” “It was a test,” he said. “You passed it admirably.”
93
Elliot Mabeuse
Zoe didn’t reply, and so he went on. “I was trying to show you something, Zoe. I was trying to show you what kind of power you have. I was trying to show you that in this world of men and women looking for each other, you’re a very powerful player.” His words took her aback. He’d never so much as hinted at his purposes in all the things he’d made her do to this point, and now to be told that he did it for her benefit shocked her. She didn’t believe him. “And what did he say?” she asked. “What was his reaction?” “Who?” “Don’t toy with me, Doctor. That man I met. He must have reported back to you by now.” The Doctor cleared his throat and sat up. “That’s confidential, Zoe. Just as anything you tell me is confidential. All I can tell you is that, for your part, you succeeded admirably in everything I’d hoped you would do. You’re an amazing subject, Zoe.” Despite herself, his words brought forth an unexpected flush of pride from within her. Maybe he was using her as a whore, as some sort of sexual bait, but she was a good one and he was right, she did have some sort of sexual power. There was some perverse pride to be had from that. “You weren’t satisfied?” he asked. She had nothing to hide anymore. She had picked up a stranger in the art museum and taken him to a hotel room and fucked him, just because the Doctor had told her to. She was entirely exposed now and she was tired of playing games and talking to shadows. “I thought it would be you,” she said levelly. “When I asked you to set this up, I thought you’d be the one.” For the first time he was silent. He folded his hands under the light, but Zoe had become adept at reading him from the tiny, insignificant motions of his hands and she
94
The Experiment
could tell he was nervous. For the first time since she’d been coming here, he seemed unsure. “Why would it have been me?” he asked. Zoe drew herself up in her chair but she didn’t hesitate. “Because I wanted it to be. And because I think you wanted it to be too, didn’t you?” He was silent. His hands didn’t move. “Am I wrong?” she asked. Zoe felt the silence gathering like a shadow. She knew he wouldn’t answer her and so she plunged ahead, unable to stop herself now. “You’ve been using me, Doctor. You’ve been using me from the start. I don’t know why, but since I’ve been coming here you’ve been using me to turn other people on, to arouse them. I’ve been some sort of sexual surrogate for you, some sort of bait. The experiment isn’t about me at all, is it? It’s about them. It’s about what I do to them.” His silence was complete. She felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes, but she didn’t know why. “The first time,” she went on. “When I first came here, you had me undress, but that was just to see if I was willing, how far I’d go. That must have been gratifying, wasn’t it? Do you remember? I ended up masturbating for you, Doctor, even though you hadn’t said anything about that. The second time you had me arouse that man in the chair, turn him on and make him masturbate and I was good at that too, wasn’t I? I was very good at that. That must have been when you decided you had a live one on your hands, a girl who’d do anything. “And then it was Amy. You wanted to see if I could get her off too, if I could arouse a woman and feel arousal in return, and I did. “And now, this last time, you put me with a man who didn’t know if he could even perform with a woman. He thought he was gay and you wanted to see if I could get him off too, didn’t you? And I did. As you said, I have a talent. I’m good at this. But
95
Elliot Mabeuse
now I want to know why. Why are you doing this to me? Because I have feelings too, Doctor. I’m more than just a subject in your precious experiment. I’m a person too, and I want to know why you’re doing this to me, damn it!” She felt herself losing it. Her stomach was tied in a knot and she felt the hot streak of tears down her cheeks. It was all coming out now, all the frustration and confusion and the tangled welter of feelings, all the shame and the doubt she’d felt, the repressed anger and rage. “While you were using me, you were doing things to me too,” she said. “You were bringing something to life inside me, some part of me I thought was dead. You were arousing me as well, with all those things you were making me do. You were making me need it again, Doctor, people and love and all the feelings that go with it, all that mess I’d thought I was done with. You must have known that would happen. You must have known I’d be affected too. You’re the clever one. You must have known I’d develop feelings for you.” She saw the hands reach for the chain on the lamp. “You’re overwrought, Zoe, I suggest we postpone tonight’s session…” “No!” Zoe jumped to her feet. “No! You can’t just get rid of me this way! I want to see you. At least give me that! I can’t stand this darkness anymore, this not knowing…” His fingers grasped the chain and he pulled it and his end of the room went dark, leaving Zoe sitting alone in her little cone of white light. “That’s enough, Zoe,” he said. She saw his shadow as he stood up, and finally she couldn’t stand it any longer. She pushed herself out of the chair and strode the few steps to the desk, bumped into it with her thighs in the darkness. She fumbled around on the desk and gasped as she accidentally found the warmth of his hand. She felt for the lamp, found the chain and turned it on. He hadn’t moved. He stood right behind his chair as if waiting, and Zoe spun the shade upward so the light was right in his face. 96
The Experiment
And there he was. He looked just like she had imagined—a handsome man, mature, in the prime of life—intelligent, capable, yet with an unexpected sadness in his eyes, a sadness that now made her regret her actions. He looked so exposed. She tried to push the shade down to get the light out of his eyes but he stopped her, grabbing her hand. “You might as well see,” he said. “Do I look as you’d imagined?” She couldn’t speak. She had broken the protocol and violated his trust and now she had gained the sight of him, but lost everything else. Even as she stared at him, unable to move her eyes, she felt him slipping away from her like a receding tide, taking all the magic with him—the darkness, the mysteries, the possibilities. She hadn’t expected this. The Doctor let her look, then he turned and went to the wall and hit a switch. The room filled with light, and for the first time Zoe was able to see where she’d sat for all those sessions of the experiment—a large room and rather shabby, partitioned down the middle with the Plexiglas barrier, the raw drywall at its base only partially finished. There was his desk and behind it some stacks of cardboard boxes and paint cans, as if the room were also used for storage. There was her chair and the table next to it holding her glass of water and box of tissues, his desk and chair with a wastepaper basket beside it. The carpet was new, the walls only partially painted. It was a room still under construction. It all looked so commonplace and almost sordid. All the magic was gone, all the mystery and secrecy. Zoe looked at him in horror at what she’d done and he looked back at her with an indulgent sadness that made her heart sink—no accusation or anger, just a weary sadness. “This is yours,” he said, pushing the five fifty-dollar bills at her. “Just for coming tonight, as per our agreement. I think that’s enough for tonight, Zoe. I think that’s more than enough.” “I don’t want the money,” she said. “It’s never been about the money.”
97
Elliot Mabeuse
He looked at her and she saw the feeling of betrayal in his eyes. She was suddenly conscious of standing next to a man, a man who had seen her body, seen her desire and vulnerability and all her naked need, and now, in the simple act of turning on a light, she had betrayed him and betrayed the relationship they’d had together. “I know that,” he said. “But still, it’s yours.” He turned and stepped toward the door, the door he always disappeared through. Zoe saw now that it led into a room painted Chinese red, a snug, masculine room lined with books and sculpture, some sort of private office or library, part of his home where she’s never be allowed to go. “I think our work is finished here. Zoe, I’m sorry.” Before Zoe could react, he stepped into the room and closed the door. “Wait!” she cried. “You can’t just leave like this! Doctor?” She rushed to the door but it was locked. She pressed her ear against it and heard other doors closing. He was slipping away from her, retreating in his house. He was gone. She went back to her chair, as if resuming her place would cause him to reappear, and sat down, bewildered, shocked at what she’d done. After some minutes, the door behind her—the door she always used—opened, and Amy came in. Amy was of little help and it quickly became apparent that she’d been told to hustle Zoe out as expeditiously as possible. She paid polite attention to Zoe’s story of what had happened, how she’d turned on the light, just to see what he looked like, just for a moment, but she offered little sympathy, smiling with a politeness that Zoe wanted to throw in her face. She’d seen Amy naked, for God’s sake. She’d brought the girl to orgasm with her hand, had kissed her like a lover. Didn’t that mean anything? Apparently not. As always when she served as the Doctor’s assistant for these sessions, Amy remained quite uninvolved. Her job was to see Zoe to the door, and the iciness of her treatment just underscored the gravity of Zoe’s transgression. Amy was sorry for her, but could offer little sympathy. 98
The Experiment
Zoe tried to explain that she hadn’t meant to do it. She’d been emotionally upset and overwrought. Even the Doctor had said so. Amy got her coat and saw her to the door and at the last minute, just before she crowded Zoe into the hall, pressed the folded bills into Zoe’s hand. The look on her face as she pushed the door closed told Zoe there was no use in arguing. It wasn’t until she was out in the elevator that she realized she was being dismissed, that for her, the experiment was over.
***** She felt lost now as she hadn’t felt in months, and wandered the streets back to her apartment in a fog of recrimination and confusion. This was how she had felt after the final breakup with Jack—numb, disbelieving, and purposeless. It was silly, she knew. Her relationship with the Doctor was nothing like what she’d had with Jack. The experiment was contrived, artificial, the person she’d been in the experiment room was not who she really was and the things she’d been manipulated into doing were so unlike her that she could scarcely believe she’d even done them. Already the whole affair had the feeling of a dream or a film she’d been watching and now she had the same feeling of disorientation she had when she walked out of the theater after seeing some emotionally draining movie. The world was drab and ugly in a tedious kind of way, commonplace. But there was a difference now. There was none of the exhaustion she’d felt after breaking up with Jack, none of the personal hurt and feeling of being deeply wounded. Instead there was a hunger and anxiety that forced her to stop at every corner and try and catch a glimpse of the Doctor’s building, as if she’d see some sign that he wanted her back. She couldn’t believe it was over. Not that quickly, not that easily. There was the slick feel of the new bills in her pocket and as she held these in her hand she remembered the cameras back in her apartment. They’d been installed the previous day, while she’d been at work, and she assumed they were operational. Communications hadn’t been severed. She still had a way of talking to him. She knew 99
Elliot Mabeuse
he’d be watching. He had to be. She hurried home, opened her front door and ran up the stairs with a growing sense of excitement. The place was quiet and neat, just as she’d left it. Since the experiment had started, Zoe had come out of her depression and had started taking care of the place again, and once she’d agreed to having the cameras installed, she’d spent all day cleaning up, washing floors and walls, vacuuming her rugs, even buying throws to cover her rundown sofa. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being spied on, but she was sure she didn’t want to give a bad impression. So far she had responded to the presence of the cameras by pretending they weren’t there. She knew where they were, of course—one in the corner of the living room looking down at the sofa, one in her bedroom looking down at the bed—but so far she had tried to ignore them and on the previous night they hadn’t had much to see, Zoe having a glass of wine while watching television and then going to sleep in her oversized T-shirt. But now things had changed. Now the little black boxes were her one remaining link to the Doctor and she looked up at the living room camera warily as she hung up her coat, as if worried it might not be there. She walked into the living room nervously smoothing down her skirt and sat down self-consciously on the sofa, gathering her nerve. “Are you there, Doctor?” she asked the empty room. “I hope you’re there. I hope you can hear me. I owe you an apology.” She looked up at the unblinking lens and fought down the feeling of embarrassment and despair that perhaps he wasn’t there at all. Perhaps she was just talking to herself. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said, looking up at the silent black box. “Really, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I overreacted, I know that now. I was upset, and I misunderstood the whole situation. I should never have turned on that light.”
100
The Experiment
Her cat jumped up on the sofa next to her, thinking she was talking to him, and Zoe reached out to caress him. The cat had learned over long months that Zoe would pet him when she was upset and the fact that he saw her in need of comfort now alarmed her. Things weren’t that bad yet. She still had a chance. She realized how silly she must look. For all she knew, the Doctor wasn’t even watching her on the other end. Or maybe he was. Maybe he and Amy were watching her and laughing. She didn’t care. “I was wrong too when I said I knew what the experiment was about. Really, I was just guessing. I don’t know what you’re trying to do and I shouldn’t have guessed. Anyhow, that’s not important. What’s important is that I violated your trust and that I’m very sorry. I don’t want it to be over, Doctor. Please.” There. She was begging. What else could she do? Talking to the silent black box was like talking to the Doctor himself as he sat in the shadows, saying nothing, giving her no human feedback, waiting to see how far she’d go. In one sense the experiment had been a demeaning and almost shameful experience. She’d taken money for acts of sex, and despite her rationales and protestations, she knew what that made her. And yet it had been more than that too. She’d discovered something within herself, something she though had been killed off long ago—the excitement of sex, the thrill of desire, the sheer animal joy of seeing the effect she had on men and women both. Whatever else the Doctor had been doing to her, whatever else his purposes had been, he’d been giving her that as well, breathing life into her, fanning those fading embers into flame. He’d reached into her life and changed her, changed her world and turned her into someone who mattered again and now she was losing that. “I want to come back,” she said, dropping her eyes, afraid to let him see her face. “Please give me another chance. I’ll do whatever you want, I don’t care. You can keep the money. Just let me come back.” 101
Elliot Mabeuse
She looked up at the tiny black box, featureless, unmoving. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes and her lips readying to form the word “love”. She was on the verge of telling him how she really felt, and then she pulled back. No. She couldn’t say that. She couldn’t tell him that. She might feel many things for him—curiosity and interest and a kind of daughterly affection—but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him she loved him. He’d think her insane for sure. The cat jumped in her lap again, knowing she was upset, and the way he sought her affection caused her throat to swell with loneliness and despair. She picked him up and pushed her face against his fur, heard him purring with foolish feline satisfaction and rushed from the room. She sought out the bathroom, the point in her apartment farthest from the cameras. She closed the door, hugged the cat to her and allowed the tears to fall.
***** The morning brought no relief. If anything, her sense of despair and abandonment only increased. She phoned Amy from work, but her calls went unanswered. No one picked up the phone, no recorded voice told her to leave a message after the beep. When she got home she stared off at his apartment building from her window, looking over the flat roofs and weed-grown empty lots, but there was nothing to see. The thought that he might be seeing someone else up there—finding a new subject for his experiments—filled her with terrible anguish and she toyed with the idea of just going over there and trying to force her way in. She knew it would be useless, though. What she wanted from him couldn’t be taken. It had to be given. And why should she need someone in her life again? She’d learned to live by herself. It had been her major accomplishment over the last year, but now she saw how fragile it all was. She needed someone in her life, as surely as she needed air to breathe. She wanted to be looked at the way she was looked at when she was with him. Even before she’d seen his face, she could feel the way he looked at her, the sexual tension in the air, the desire. She wanted him. 102
The Experiment
She sat down on her sofa and composed herself to make another silent appeal to the living room camera, but the idea that he might not be watching, that she might be baring her soul to the empty air with no one to see was just too depressing and she gave up. She made herself some scrambled eggs and picked at them, then showered, and she was just going through her closet when she noticed some of the new outfits she’d purchased, things she’d intended to wear to the Doctor’s and now wouldn’t be able to. The thought hit her then and she didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it before. She dressed quickly—black nylons and garter belt, no panties, no bra. Black pencil skirt, dark crepe blouse. She knew how he liked her to dress—neat, a bit subdued, but entirely feminine. His taste in art might be quite sophisticated, but she knew from his subtle hints that his taste in women’s clothes was stereotypically and endearingly male. She slipped into a pair of wicked heels that buckled around her ankles, then walked into the living room, paused, and went into the kitchen. She walked from room to room, her heels rapping on the bare wooden floors. She wanted to attract his attention if he was watching, and she thought the best way to do that would be to present a moving target, so she walked, letting the feel of her clothes exert their subtle effect on her, arousing her. The cat eyed her curiously, making her smile. When she simply couldn’t parade around any longer, Zoe came back to the living room, sat on the sofa and crossed her legs. There was no way to tell whether he was watching or not, but she had to believe that he was, and it wasn’t hard to do. It was almost as if she were back there in the experiment room, with him sitting hidden in shadows and Zoe felt the same illicit thrill as she unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall open, showing the inner slope of her breasts. She brought her hands up and caressed herself, staring at the camera, daring him to look. But no, it wouldn’t do. The thought of him watching her was arousing in that familiar kind of way, but now it was the feel of her own hands on her body that affected her. Strangely, it was something she hadn’t paid much attention to before. Before it had 103
Elliot Mabeuse
always been for him, touching herself to arouse him, but now, alone in her apartment, she seemed to notice for the first time the feel of her nails against the soft skin of her breasts, the smooth warmth of her skin under her fingers. She looked aside as she concentrated on these new sensations, keeping her eyes on the floor so as not to interrupt her concentration. Her fingers found her nipples and she pinched them, rolling them softly until they peaked and grew tight and expectant. Zoe rewarded their eagerness by grasping them and pinching, sending a spear of pain knifing into her sex so delicious that she hissed with pleasure. Truly, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d masturbated on her own, without the Doctor watching, and now she took a selfish joy in manipulating her own body. She didn’t know if he was watching or not, but ultimately it didn’t matter. She lifted her bottom off the sofa and worked the snug skirt up over her knees and thighs, higher, over the tops of her stockings, up around her waist. She bunched the skirt up and felt the cool leather of the sofa against her bare bottom. Her hands left her breasts and she caressed the soft and delicate flesh at the top of her thighs where the stockings ended. He’d told her she had a special talent, a talent to arouse people, and now Zoe found that talent turned on herself. Her body, who she was, was a sensual machine, a body made for sex and sensation. Her nerves seemed to come alive under her own touch and she forced herself to part her knees, to expose herself to the camera. She felt the illicit thrill, the shameful excitement that always gripped her in his presence. She was a whore for him, wanting his arousal more than she wanted her own self-respect. She lifted her feet to the sofa, planted her heels on the cushions and spread her thighs. “Are you watching, Doctor?” she asked the camera. “Do you like what you see?” One hand slipped down to her sex where she toyed in the little crown of hair, and she felt herself begin to swell and flower under her own touch. She felt lewd and deliciously obscene, sexual in a way that she always felt when performing under the Doctor’s direction, because she knew his eyes were on her body—his eyes and 104
The Experiment
everything else, for no matter what he might have said to her or the way he sent her away, Zoe knew he wanted her. He wanted her just as she wanted him, needed him, to end this fruitless teasing, this futile experiment. It was sex. Whatever else it was about, the experiment’s focus was sex, the physical intimacy between two people, as close as they could get. He’d taken her and brought her to life, brought her to life and this state of intense need and then abandoned her— cut her off. But she knew he wasn’t done with her. She knew it just as she felt the rising excitement and need for him. She needed him with her, needed his hands on her, his flesh inside her, his weight on top of her. “Oh! Fuck!” Zoe cried out as she slid one finger inside herself and felt her own wetness, her readiness for him and her acceptance. He had to feel it too. How could he not feel her need for him after all he’d put her through? This need she felt couldn’t be so one-sided. It simply couldn’t be, not with her feeling like this, and if ever desire could pass from one person to another, radiating like an invisible wave through the air, her need must communicate with him. She knew it. “Look what I’m doing for you,” she whispered, her eyes set on the camera, one hand between her legs, the other kneaded the rich globe of her breast. “Look what I am for you. A whore, a slut, without pride or shame, Doctor. All for you. You made me like this. Now you have to finish it. You have to take me, Doctor. You have to.” Her speech trailed off into a long groan of frustrated need as she closed her thighs on her hand, trapping her fingers inside. Her thumb slid against that nub of pleasure, forcing her hips to start moving with a hunger of their own, lifting her bottom entirely off the couch. Her other hand pulled and tormented her swollen nipple, imagining his hands on her, his mouth, his teeth. “I’m going to come for you, Doctor. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want your whore to come for you, don’t you? Oh God! That’s what you want, I know it, damn you!”
105
Elliot Mabeuse
Her shame rose up and mixed with her overwhelming excitement but she no longer cared. Maybe he was watching, maybe her image was being beamed at that moment across the internet, she no longer cared. She would have her satisfaction. She would be his slut, anything he wanted her to be. She shoved her fingers into herself and pressed hard against her clitoris. The ringing of the phone cut like a banshee shriek through the silence of the apartment. It was like a slap across her face. “Hello?” She could smell her female arousal on the hand that held the phone. She worked to still the shaking in her hand and control her rapid breathing. “Zoe?” It was him. She knew it. It was him. “Yes?” “It’s the Doctor. I… I need to see you.” His voice was strangely uncertain, something she’d never heard from him before. It sounded as though he’d been drinking. “I’ve been watching you. I… I’m sending a cab. Will you come? Just as you are?” “Yes. Yes, I’ll come. I’ll be downstairs in a minute.” She felt the edge of hysteria trying to cut into her words so she dared not say more. “Just as you are. I’ll be waiting. Please, hurry.”
***** He’d told her to come just as she was, but of course he couldn’t have meant with her blouse open and skirt up around her waist. She arranged her clothes and refreshed her makeup with a trembling hand, her nerves still on edge from her frustrated climax. By the time she got downstairs, the cab was already waiting. Zoe watched the lights of the city speed by the window. He’d heard her, just as she knew he would. He’d felt her through the distance that separated them. He’d been watching her, spying on her in her apartment and perhaps she should have been offended, but instead she felt thrilled. The little cameras, so unobtrusive it was like they 106
The Experiment
weren’t there at all. It was as if she’d reached out to him with her mind and he’d heard her. It was something magical. The elevator seemed to take forever, the hallway to his door had never been longer. The big door was ajar and Zoe felt a stab of sudden fear. What if he’d done something rash? She stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her. “Zoe?” The entire apartment was dark. She’d never seen it so dark, but then she saw the soft glow of yellow light coming from the living room, the place where she’d first sat and talked to Amy Liu when this all had started only weeks ago. The voice came from there. “Yes,” she said. She made her way cautiously, afraid to trip over something and found him standing in the living room, illuminated by the dim recessed lights that illuminated the framed art on the walls. The curtains were open, the lights of the city spread out behind him like a skein of jewels. Despite the dimness, she could see him now though his face was still in shadows, noble, but haunted with tragic shadows. Her heart lifted into her throat and her impulse was to go to him, but something held her back. He was, after all, still the Doctor. The authority he held over her still applied. “I’m not good with words, Zoe,” he said. “Forgive me if I don’t explain now. But I need something from you. I need you to do something for me, Zoe. I can’t wait any longer. Tell me you will.” She stepped closer to him and she had little doubt now that he’d been drinking. He wasn’t drunk, but she could feel his anguish and it broke her heart. He seemed beside himself with worry. “Of course, Doctor. What is it? Just tell me.” He took a step forward then thought better of it. He stood with his hand on a chair, as if for support.
107
Elliot Mabeuse
“Just once more. Just this once, and then I’ll know, and I won’t trouble you again. I need you to do what you were doing in your apartment. Just now, when I called you. Here, on the sofa. Just that.” Zoe wasn’t surprised. Despite what she’d told him, she knew now what this was all about—the secrecy, the sex, the money, the entire experiment. She knew he’d ask her for this. She’d have been disappointed if he hadn’t. She threw her coat onto the sofa and the Doctor sank down in a chair opposite the sofa, his nervousness apparent. Zoe stood in the dim light and began to undo her skirt and the Doctor stood and quickly redirected one of the ceiling lights so that it was shining right down on her like her own personal spotlight. He sat back down, his hands gripping the armrests, his eyes fixed on her. Yes, she had a talent. She had a talent for arousing people, men and women both, perhaps even those who couldn’t get aroused any other way and she worked now to arouse the Doctor. She sat down on the sofa with her knees demurely together and fixed her dark eyes on him and was immediately lost in the intimacy of his gaze. How many times before had she looked into the darkness seeking his eyes, only to find darkness, but now the connection was too strong, his expectation and vulnerability more than she could stand. She closed her eyes and concentrated on herself, on her own body, imagining herself as she’d always been before, virtually alone with herself. She knew that’s where her power lay, not in performing for him, but in letting him see her performing for herself. In the presence of her lover, she only had to remind him. Zoe sighed deeply, trying to calm herself. She brought her hands up and slid them over her smooth, crepe-covered breasts, teasing them, concentrating on the sensation of her flesh under her own hands. She tried to put the Doctor out of her mind, but it was impossible with him sitting on the other side of the coffee table, not six feet away. She could hear his breathing, hear the thud of his heart as it made his breath catch in his throat.
108
The Experiment
Despite herself, she felt her nipples stiffen and swell as she ran her nails around her areolas and teased them into prominence. She gasped softly, not at her own touch, but at the knowledge that her body was eager to perform so wantonly. She had given up her shame to him long before and now she had nothing to hide. She was prepared to play the whore for him. She was prepared to be whatever he wanted her to be. She showed him how she wanted to be touched and her own touch was exquisite. Her lips parted sensually, her eyelids lowered in erotic surrender and her actions were rewarded when she heard him murmur low, a sound between a moan and a growl, male and excitingly predatory. “Do you know how long it’s been?” he whispered. In the stillness of his dark apartment it sounded as if he were speaking right against her ear. “Six years. Six years, Zoe, since I’ve been able to perform as a man. And you know what? The urge never goes away. The need never stops, like an itch that never leaves you alone, but that’s impossible to scratch. I’ve tried everything, seen everyone you can see. It’s only you, Zoe. You’re the only thing that works.” Zoe felt his words spread like warm honey through her veins. She gushed with wetness, as if something inside her was melting under a fierce heat. Her stomach was rising and falling faster now, her sex ached for her touch. She opened her eyes and looked at him and saw the crotch of his pants stretched tight across his burgeoning erection and she bit back a cry of impatient hunger and triumph. She could do this. She only had to show him what she was willing to be for him and that was no problem at all. She slowly unbuttoned her blouse and exposed the slope of her naked breasts. She sank lower on the sofa until her bottom was at the edge of the cushions, assuming the position of a woman ready for sex. Her hands slid down to the juncture of her thighs and she pressed upward, sighing with desire. “God, yes,” he breathed, and Zoe looked at him from beneath her lashes and saw him kneading himself through his trousers. She felt as though she’d burst with happiness and excitement, with fierce feminine pride.
109
Elliot Mabeuse
“Say what you said before, in your apartment. Say it again.” His voice was low and urgent. Zoe spread her blouse out over her nipples and ran the palms of her hands over her stiff little buds. “It’s for you, Doctor. It’s all for you. I’ll be your whore, your slut. I’ll be whatever you want. You know I’ve wanted you from the start. From the very first day.” “Yes, Zoe! Yes. Say it! Show me!” Her shoes were planted firmly on the floor. She coaxed her knees apart—the ultimate, most shameful gesture—exposing herself to him. “It’s all for you, Doctor. You’re the one who’s done this to me. You’re the one who’s made me this way.” She wanted to tell him that he hadn’t been the only one who hadn’t been able to perform, that before he’d found her she’d been impotent too and her impotence had been even worse, a frigidity of her soul, an inability to even feel desire. He had changed all that. He had made her what she was and now she owed it all to him. “Do you know how I want you, Doctor? I want you to fuck me. I want to feel you deep inside. I want to feel you spill yourself inside me. That’s what I want. Nothing else matters.” He was out of his chair in an instant, almost tripping over the coffee table, ripping at his clothes, opening his pants and pushing his shorts down to his knees. Zoe had already slid herself lower on the sofa so that her naked bottom hung off the edge, supported only by her long legs in those wicked shoes, her knees spread wide in lewd invitation. His cock was big and hard now and he held it in his hand like a treasure, looking first at her and then at his swollen flesh. He threw off his jacket but had no time for his tie and shirt. He got down on his knees and tried to enter her but in his terrible excitement he couldn’t find the way, not until Zoe pushed his hand aside and showed him. Then he pushed into her with a cry of anguished relief that was even sweeter to 110
The Experiment
her than the feel of his flesh filling her up, spreading her open and finding a home within her. “Oh God, I’m in you! I’m in you at last!” “Yes, baby, it’s good! It’s so fucking, unbelievably good! Now fuck me. Fuck me like your whore! Make me take it!” He dug his hands into the soft globes of her ass and battered away at her like a man possessed, his voice alternating between choked moans of pleasure and cries of savage victory. He fucked her hard, brutally, but to Zoe it was heaven. She would take all he had to give, all he had to give and more, and turn his anguished need into something beautiful. “Oh Christ, it’s been so long, Zoe! It’s been so damned long. I don’t remember it ever being this good!” “Yes, baby, yes. Do it to me! Fuck me!” She couldn’t tell him how good it felt either, after the year of abstinence and weeks of arousal, after the lonely nights of masturbation and the boy’s clumsy fumbling in the hotel, to have the Doctor inside her, touching her body and her soul with his cock and his feverish emotion. He was on his knees, the edge of his tie tickling her pussy as he fucked her. Zoe had been entirely willing to fake an orgasm for him, to show him that he still was a man, but now she found the strength of his passion made faking it unnecessary. She’d never felt someone enjoy her body so much, with such savage intensity, as if he could make up with his strength for what he felt he lacked in virility. She was totally helpless in his grasp, unable to stop him or slow him down, just able to tilt her hips enough to put him where she wanted him and when she had him there, she just abandoned all control and concentrated on the feel of him moving inside her, his insatiable lust for her. And suddenly he stopped. He stopped and leaned over her and took her face in his hands, turned her to look at him and Zoe gazed up into the eyes of the man who was fucking her. There was so much there she could barely stand to look—love and need 111
Elliot Mabeuse
and gratitude. But what really stirred her soul and sent a little orgasm burning through her body was that look of angry male pride, that look that said she’d never get away from him, that she was his now. “Oh God! Doctor! Doctor!” She reached up and slid her fingers into his steel gray hair, looked into his eyes and saw him losing it, sliding into his orgasm. His jaw was set, his face dark with masculine rage. He closed his hands on her jiggling breasts, squeezed her nipples and punched his cock into her hard and Zoe felt herself explode into a shattering orgasm, her pussy spasming on his plunging rod in a biological reflex of female need. “Oh Zoe! Zoe! I’m going to… I’m going to…” “Do it!” she screamed. “Give it to me! All of it! Come in me, baby! Please! I’m coming too!” “Oh Christ!” he groaned, and she felt him push deep into her, deeper than he’d been, his hands clawing at her ass and pulling her tight against him. She felt him throb inside her, felt him jerk with orgasmic force and then the hot flood of his release gushed inside her, all his pent-up desire and frustration, his male anguish, pouring into her as he shuddered and sobbed. She felt him coming and closed her eyes, riding her own orgasm to a delicious release that spread from her pussy to the very hairs on her head—chills, shudders, explosions of light that left her trembling with sobs as he collapsed on top of her, completely spent. But still she wouldn’t let him go. She wrapped her arms around him and then her legs, kept her satisfied pussy around his shrinking cock, squeezing out every drop he had to give, afraid to ever let him go.
112
The Experiment
Chapter Six The waning moon hung low in the sky over the sleeping city. Midnight had come and gone long before and yet Zoe still lay half-naked upon the Doctor’s warm body, both of them on his living room sofa. She still wore her stockings and shoes, her tools of seduction, too satisfied and comfortable to bother with removing them now. She had her ear pressed against his chest so she could feel, as well as hear his words as he talked. Had she been a cat, she would have been purring. Doctor Spencer Grant—she knew his name now. She knew his body too and his scent and the taste of his skin, the feel of his muscles as they moved beneath his skin and the sound he made when he climaxed, the way he gripped her shoulders and crushed her to him, his open mouth pressed against her cheek. She knew his name, but to her he was still the Doctor, the man who had changed her, shocked her and saved her from the pit of apathy and depression that had become her life. She knew she should be careful. One round of sex didn’t mean anything, no matter how passionate it was, but she could hardly control her emotions. All the tension and confusion of the past weeks, the shame and uncertainty, they’d all come to a head and she was just overflowing with feeling. She knew she was falling, but she couldn’t help it. “You’re still worried.” She spoke softly, as if half asleep, though it wasn’t sleep that tugged at her, more like a deep, satisfied peace, a feeling of completeness. The sound of his heartbeat in her ears was wonderfully comforting, the warm sweep of his hand as he lazily caressed her back soothed her and made her feel wonderfully small and safe. “Of course I’m worried,” he said. “We’re not done yet, Zoe. One swallow does not a summer make and you’ll forgive me if I just find it hard to believe that one girl is able to accomplish what six years of doctors and medicines and therapies weren’t able to do.”
113
Elliot Mabeuse
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 114
The Experiment
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?”
115
Elliot Mabeuse
“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?
116
The Experiment
“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.”
117
Elliot Mabeuse
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.
118
The Experiment
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. 119
Elliot Mabeuse
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 snakecharmer, 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
120
The Experiment
like that just for anyone. It’s you, Doctor, you just fuck me so good. You drive me crazy.” Her fingers were pressing against her clit now, revolving in tight, hungry circles as she spread her legs and cocked her hips up at him. Her left hand continued to caress her breast, pulling at her turgid nipple, sending little spears of pain through her body. Her eyes never left his tool, and as she watched she saw it lift the final fraction of inch and stand tall and proud. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured, his voice full of astonishment and Zoe felt a rush of power and potent sexuality such as she’d never felt in her life. His shaft was standing straight up, throbbing with each beat of his heart and below it his balls looked full and heavy and potent. She remembered the man in the mask, how virile his cock had looked when she’d made him hard and how it had seemed to reach for her through the Plexiglas divide that separated them. The Doctor’s shaft looked like that now, reaching for her with a thrilling male urgency. It made her tingle all over to know that he wanted her so much. She walked over to him, shoulders back to keep her naked breasts on display. She put her hands on his knees and knelt down before him like a slave before a sacred idol. Between them his cock stood straight up in all its rampant glory. “What did you say about taking it slow?” Zoe asked him. “Something about being careful?” He slouched lower on the sofa so that his eyes were in the light and opened his knees. It was a gesture of male pride and exhibitionism, but the look of astonishment and disbelief in his eyes, that gleam of cautious excitement, made all the difference. She was the doctor now, the magician who could treat him and Zoe felt her heart swell with love. Just as he had brought her back to life from the pain of her breakup, now she would return the favor and give him life where there’d been none before. That this life was something as simple as sex made no difference, because she knew what this meant to him and so it meant just as much to her. 121
Elliot Mabeuse
Their eyes locked and she saw the pleasure there, and the fear. He still didn’t trust his own powers, though Zoe herself had no doubts whatsoever anymore. She knew it was love that was doing it, love that was giving them this gift. She got up on her knees and brought her lips down on the straining dome of his cock. The Doctor cried out and his shaft jerked like a spitting snake, but Zoe didn’t retreat. She softly took it in her hand and gently pumped him twice, making him groan again. He was hard, as hard as was humanly possible. She’d had her share of cocks in her life, but never one that felt so thrillingly alive and potent, never one that felt so personal, as if she owned it. She pumped him again, feeling the soft, velvety skin move over the rigid muscular core, pumped him again and saw a drop of moisture appear at the tip, gleaming in the subdued light. “So beautiful,” she whispered. “You’re so incredibly beautiful.” The Doctor groaned. She felt his body tense as she took him lovingly into her mouth. His fingers dug into the cushions of the sofa and the muscles of his thighs went rigid beneath her hands. Zoe hadn’t realized before how strong he was, how powerfully built, but with his hardness in her mouth she could feel the strength in his body, so erotically masculine compared to her own soft, female warmth. She felt small and weak, a humble slave pleasuring her master and the image made her gush with wetness. Her arousal shocked her. It went against everything she believed in to act like a man’s slave and yet this was different. Just like her sexuality was his creation, this erection was hers. She owned it, she’d given it life. She opened her mouth and impaled herself on it, wanting to feel his hardness all the way down into her throat. “Oh God, Zoe! It’s too much! I’m not used to it!” But she ignored him. If he wanted to ejaculate into her mouth she would take it all gladly and swallow it down, but she didn’t think he would. She seemed to have some telepathic rapport with him, some special bond in which she could tell exactly how much he could take, almost as if she could feel the very things he was feeling. 122
The Experiment
She swirled her tongue around him and sucked, gave herself over to the pleasure of his stiff manhood sliding across her tongue. She’d done this before, of course. Jack had demanded it of her on a regular basis and she’d done it voluntarily, but never because she herself wanted it. It was always for the man, for his pleasure. But now it was different and the feel of his cock in her mouth thrilled her beyond words, it was as if his pleasure had become hers as well and his moans and sudden sharp gasps drove her wild with desire. She grabbed his shaft and ran her hand up and down its saliva-slick length as she bobbed her head above him, urging him to let go and take his pleasure in her mouth. “No,” he gasped, pulling her off his shaft. “No! Not like that! It’s too good to waste, Zoe. Please!” He lifted her up with his strong arms and pulled her over him so that she lay draped across his body, her breasts pressed against his chest. His kiss was wild and full of passion, relief and gratitude, but Zoe didn’t want that. It was his desire she wanted now, to feel him claim her as his own. She wanted to feel those strong arms around her, that hard cock plunging into her body, his lips at her ear gasping out his love, telling her he’d never let her go. She ended up sitting in his lap, just as if he were a Christmas Santa, a position so charming and adolescent that she would have laughed had she not been so on fire for him, for the taste of his mouth, the feel of his body against her. As it was, she felt like an adolescent herself and when his hand found its way between her legs, she opened her thighs to him like a schoolgirl in the backseat of her boyfriend’s car. His finger teased along her slit and the soft petals of her sex, making Zoe’s head swim. For all her experience and jaded sophistication, there was nothing like being touched by the man she loved and she happily lost herself in his kiss, her hands tangling in his hair and caressing his face, moaning her surrender and invitation into his mouth. She had done her part now. She had played the temptress, the vamp and had aroused him and brought him to aching manhood, now she basked in the wild,
123
Elliot Mabeuse
possessive lust that was her reward. His finger plunged into her sex, his thumb sliding over her turgid little clit until she thought she’d faint from pleasure. She reached down and took the thick, hard shaft of his cock in her hand and began to stroke him encouragingly. Her movements were clumsy—the angle was wrong—but the effect on him was electric and she realized that he was still taking tremendous pleasure just from being hard and potent again. “Yes! Fuck me! Fuck me, Doctor!” she moaned as he pulled her back down on the sofa. But no, he didn’t want the sofa. He knelt on the floor and pulled her down after him, then pushed her back on the thick Persian rug. Zoe didn’t care. Whatever he wanted to do was fine with her. She was here to be used now, used however he wanted. His pleasure was her pleasure. He crawled over her, his mouth finding hers, his hand on her breast, squeezing. Zoe squirmed around, trying to get flat on her back and open her legs. He was already on his knees, his cock standing up like an iron bar. He leaned down over her, catching himself on his arms to keep his weight off her. He was so close to her that Zoe could feel his heat on the lips of her sex. She raised her knees and planted her shoes on the carpet, the high heels causing her to tilt her pelvis up to him. She felt herself opening and throbbing for him, getting ready, waiting for that first glorious thrust. The tip of his shaft touched her flesh. She shoved up automatically as he pushed into her and in an instant he was in her to the hilt. This was different than the first time. Then it had been sheer animal attraction and need. Now it was something more, something consciously done. The previous act had something of the miraculous about it, an act of desperation. This was a man and woman coming together by conscious choice, deliberately, in full knowledge of what they were doing. It was a moment to be savored and Zoe luxuriated in the feel of his hard cock inside her, filling her up and possessing her. She threw her arms around his back and pulled him down on top of her, wanting to feel his weight crushing her body against the floor.
124
The Experiment
She felt the strength in his hips as he drove his cock deeper, deeper, mashing her labia flat and stretching her with the thick base. She felt bliss, only a short reach away. “Forgive me, Zoe,” he gasped in her ear. “I’m not going to last. It’s been too long, and you just feel too good. I can’t help myself!” She wanted to speak. She wanted to tell him it didn’t matter, that she was already dying from the ecstasy of having him inside her. She wanted to tell him she lived only to be used by him, only to give him pleasure and be his relief, but she could barely speak. All she could say was, “Yes, darling, yes! Do it! Come for me! All of it!” The Doctor drew his hips back and plunged into her again, drilling her deep. With no mattress below her to cushion the blow, she felt every ounce of his savage strength, all of his maddening need. He fucked her again and Zoe cried out, then again, and she felt him swell inside her. His hands went to her naked ass, grabbed her buttocks and pulled her tight against her. “Oh God, Zoe, darling, here it is! Here it is!” His voice trailed off into a feral growl, a snarl of male triumph and completion, and she felt his cock jump and lurch inside her as he ejaculated into her depths, his fingers digging into her ass, his lips pressed helplessly against her cheek. Zoe gasped and cried out. It wasn’t an orgasm such as she usually knew, the sharp, almost painful spear of sensual overload, rather it was a rush of total fulfillment, a joy of giving and receiving that made her feel entirely whole, as if she was coming with her soul as well as her body and she felt the beauty of the night enter her and fill her with ecstasy just as she felt her lover’s seed splash inside her, washing away all her loneliness, all her fear.
125
About the Author Elliot Mabeuse is an award-winning author, critic, and porn theorist whose erotic explorations combine depth and insight with a singularly passionate intensity. His interest in the emotional and transformative power of sex gives his writing a unique flavor, and results in works of literate erotica that are sensual, humane, and deeply satisfying. Retired from the chemical laboratory now, Doctor Mabeuse lives in Chicago where he pursues his interests in the transcendent powers of sexuality, religion, and the riddles of biochemistry. He can be reached at
[email protected]
Elliot welcomes mail from readers. You can write to him c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at 1056 Home Avenue, Akron, OH 44310-3502.
Also by Elliot Mabeuse Helene Blackmailed Overcoming Abigail
Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.
www.ellorascave.com