“I have a suggestion,” Susan chimed in. “We can all agree on some general areas that are okay to explore, but I’ll give Alexandra my proxy to approve specific tests. That way I won’t know what exactly is supposed to happen.”
“That could work,” nodded Alexandra.
“I suppose I should start keeping a journal,” Susan mused. “That might make it easier to see if anything is happening, too.” I mumbled something approving.
“Excellent!” Alexandra smiled, and loosened up enough to attempt a small joke. “Where shall we start first? I swear, Susan, if you had worn that top again, I would have asked Lloyd to make you take it off — Yelena can wear what she likes, but I think it made you look cheap.” All of us smiled, and Alexandra, ignorant of the real joke, looked pleased at her success.
We spent the rest of the morning debating strategy and blocking out the high level steps we’d pursue next. All of us exerted a significant amount of intellectual effort and I found the session surprisingly engaging. We were reluctant to break up at lunchtime, but agreed Alexandra and I would meet privately the next day to plan our first experiment. It was disconcerting to feel the unexpected freedom of my penis when I stood up and recalled how the morning had started.
I was far from satisfied, but decided it made a lot of sense to stick largely to the plan we’d devised together until I knew more. A misstep would be embarrassing at best, and possibly far worse. Besides, I was in it for the long haul, not just a short-term fling.
It was about that point I realized, somewhat to my surprise, that I wanted Alexandra and intended to get her — even if I had to cheat. Sure, she was drop-dead gorgeous, but looks weren’t everything and she had that ice queen personality going on. Somewhere in the last month she’d kind of snuck up on me and I realized there was a first-class mind beneath those blonde locks, and an engaging personality if you got past her defenses.
Normally, the fact she was engaged to a guy who, judging by her ring, was a heck of a lot richer than I’d ever be would be considered an insurmountable obstacle. I told myself that women had changed their minds before, even without the sort of help I intended to provide. The trick would be to not screw up a good thing with a stupid mistake.
If there was anything to our guesses and it came to light, I could see myself locked up in some government lab for the rest of my life. If Alexandra realized anything like what I planned was happening, she’d leave and I’d be out of luck. Bumbling might leave me with a compliant body, bereft of the mind I admired. I could see already this wouldn’t just be science; it would be art, too. My cock lengthened in anticipation.
Dr. Reynolds was all smiles Friday morning after Alexandra told him, in suitably vague terms, that she was following some promising leads. I said little but tried different approaches to convey disinterest in Alexandra’s project; I didn’t want any more oversight if I could help it.
After our meeting was over, the two of us bundled up and trudged around the quad to the new annex, and then downstairs to the basement. “You live in a cave,” Alexandra commented when I showed her into my office and turned on the light.
“Yes, but it’s a warm cave,” I rejoined, hanging my coat and jacket on the rack appropriated from an office upstairs. The ceiling was a little low and there were no windows, but it was a little larger than her office and I didn’t have to share it with anybody. “I like it.” Brushing off my manners, I helped Alexandra remove her coat and hung it up, too. As usual, she was tastefully, if conservatively, dressed.
“Well, it might be more comfortable to work here during the winter,” admitted Alexandra, “but you conducted all the surveys in the Evans Building, right? I don’t want to introduce any more variables, at least at first.”
I nodded agreement. Alexandra’s original study was focused on basically emotional response — “do you like this more or less than that?” — and we strongly suspected I’d been able to affect those responses. What we didn’t know, and wanted to find out, was whether that was the limit of my alleged capabilities or not.
Consequently, we’d decided to try a sequence of trials to test my capability for emotional influence, intellectual influence, and physical influence. Susan wouldn’t know the specific tests, which Alexandra and I were about to discuss, or even the order in which I’d try them. When we met this afternoon, I’d try each for 10 minutes or until it was clear something had happened.
“Well, easy stuff first,” I said. “Write a word on a piece of paper, show it to me, and put it in your purse. I’ll try to communicate it to Susan.”
Alexandra grinned. “Easy?”
“Well, easy to think about and confirm,” I countered.
She produced a small address book, thought a moment, wrote something, and tore out the page to hand to me.
“Cyan?” I asked, returning it to her.
“It’s short and abstract,” said Alexandra, as she folded the paper and slipped it back into the address book. “You can’t cheat by sending a mental image of an object, and if you manage to project the color, Susan’s as likely to say ‘teal’ or ‘turquoise’ — which would tell us something, too.”
I was impressed again, and said so. “Do you have any equally clever suggestions for the other tests?”
“Of course,” she replied. I had enough familiarity now to recognize her extremely dry and understated sense of humor, rather than confusing it for self-superiority. “I thought we’d go out to Nino’s again tonight — Jonathan wants to meet my school friends.”
I’m sure I looked blank as I processed the non-sequitur, my apparent promotion to “friend,” and Alexandra’s unconscious assumption that of course we’d be free on a Friday night. Not that she wasn’t right, at least in my case, but it was a little annoying.
“You remember the fry conversation from last time?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I answered, smiling now. Susan had been mock-horrified when Alexandra and I had “tainted” our fries by putting ketchup on them. She’d steadfastly refused to put anything on hers, insisting that ketchup was solely for burgers and meatloaf.
“Well, try to convince her she likes ketchup on French fries, and we’ll see what happens.”
I matched her wicked grin. “And Susan agreed to this?”
“In principle. It’s harmless — she likes fries, and she likes ketchup; just not together. Besides, she won’t be expecting it then, and it will be interesting to see both if she puts any ketchup on them in the first place, and what she does if she eats one.”
There was no question Alexandra had a twisty mind, and I reminded myself to tread extremely carefully before trying anything with her. “Won’t Susan be expecting something this afternoon?”
“I brought in some new lipsticks. I’ll ask her which one she likes best. It doesn’t matter which one she picks; just look disappointed and tell her it didn’t work. We can tell her about the real test after dinner.”
“I can do that,” I agreed. “You’re going to try them on, right?”
“Well, of course. How else would anybody know what the color really looks like?”
“Excuse me, I’m a guy.” I smiled. “How about if you have Susan try them on too, and I’ll see if I can make her hand jerk while she’s applying one? That should be easy to spot, and easy to clean up, too.”
“Great thought, Lloyd!” Alexandra flashed a brief smile that would have warmed me even if we’d been in her office rather than mine. “Now we just have to choose an order.”
“No problem,” I assured her, and fished a penny out of my pocket. “Heads, we do the lipstick first; tails, we try the word first.” I flipped it and it came up tails. “Anything else?”
“Just that it will be really important for you to note anything you can think of about what you try or any sensations you have.”
I nodded again. “Certainly. I think I’ll start keeping a journal, too.”
“We’ll see you about 4:00, then.” Alexandra rose and pulled on her coat before I could get there to help, and exited without any further conversation.
I know I did useful things that day, and even attended a lecture, but nothing stuck in my mind. All I could think of was my afternoon appointment.
Exactly on time, I strolled into their office and hung up my coat. Both of the girls looked a little nervous, but I couldn’t blame them because I felt the same way, too. “Hey, calm down, ladies. I think I’m the one on trial here.”
“Right,” Alexandra said, and settled herself in her chair.
Susan followed suit. She was looking good in another cardigan, more form-fitting than others I remembered but not tight. What, if anything, might be beneath it I couldn’t tell.
“If you’re ready, Lloyd?”
I pulled a composition book and pen out of my briefcase, and leaned back in my chair. I was tenser than I’d expected, and took a deep breath to try and calm myself. “Go ahead.”
Alexandra briefly consulted the notes in front of her. I saw the folded page torn from her address book sitting on the tabletop, but she didn’t refer to it or glance at it. “Okay, Susan, we’re going to start now.”
That was the last thing any of us said for ten minutes. We all looked at each other, occasionally scribbling a brief note, while I thought “CYAN” as hard as I could and stared at Susan.
“Time,” Alexandra spoke softly into the silence. I had a bit of a headache from concentrating so hard, but nothing seemed to have happened. Susan opened her mouth, but Alexandra cut her off, saying, “Afterwards.”
I rocked back and forth in my chair a few times, and cracked my knuckles, then nodded.
“This should be a little more entertaining,” Alexandra smiled. “I have a few new shades of lipstick, and I thought we might try them on.” She leaned back to her desk and grabbed first a box of tissues, and then several tubes. A compact mirror came out of a drawer.
Susan started by looking at the color chips on the ends of the tubes and writing a few notes. She and Alexandra then began alternating, each girl wiping off her current color and applying a new one while the other watched.
I focused on Susan, dutifully concentrating on how great fries with ketchup tasted while Alexandra was applying lipstick, and trying to make Susan’s hand bounce when she was doing her own lips. I generally ignored the lipstick, until they came to a deep vivid red. It was the sort of thing a girl might wear to a party, vibrant and eye-catching, and too flashy for regular clothes. It made me think of sex.
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