The Experiment (4 page)

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
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
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.

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?”

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?”

“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.

“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.”

“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.