The Experiment by Elliot Mabeuse

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.
    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?”
    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