Zainab

Sex is something most of us want to have. Or rather want to want to have. I am in the latter category but very much want to be in the first. I want to lust after someone, to see a hot body and feel my mouth watering, to have to purchase my batteries in Costco multi-packs because my vibrator gets so much action.

To get distracted at work by lascivious daydreams.

Instead I sit glaring at the chemical formula attached to my office bulletin board at Catalyst Labs:

A pyrazolo [4,3-d] pyrimidin-7-one having a methyl substituent at the 1-position, a propyl substituent at the 3-position, and a 2-ethoxy-5-[(4-methylpiperazin-1-yl) sulfonyl] phenyl group at the 5-position.

It’s the formula for Viagra, the drug developed to address men’s #1 sexual concern: getting it up.

Viagra is enormously successful, and it is everywhere… Super Bowl ads, late-night comedy references, print ads, doctor’s office posters. Men know what Viagra is and how to get it. 

Now consider drugs developed to address women’s #1 sexual concern: wanting to have sex in the first place. Any drug names pop immediately to mind?

Let’s just say pharmaceutical companies’ enthusiasm for solving that problem has been flaccid in comparison. And with modest results at best and so little advertising that most women don’t even know they exist.

That’s just wrong on so many levels, so when I was invited to join Catalyst, an elite research lab searching for the right combination of chemicals to help women get, reliably and consistently, hot, bothered, and satisfied, I jumped at the chance. 

Also, I’m a chemist and the pay was great.

Also, my last boyfriend dumped me for being, in his words, “a cold fish.”

Which is what explains why, since I got this job, I’ve turned into a mad scientist more familiar with test tubes than other phallic-shaped objects. I’ve become sort of obsessed. Scratch that, both because it’s bad writing (according to my high school English teacher, Dr. Caldwell, you can’t be sort of obsessed) and because in my case there’s no “sort of” about it. I am obsessed, full stop. I am determined to level the scales of erotic justice, and nothing will stop me.

Truth be told, I’m also a little desperate. Let’s just say it’s been a long time since I had an orgasm. A really, really long time. (Okay, chill, Dr. Caldwell. An eternity.)

Getting my undergrad degree was hard. Getting my graduate degree, even harder. My doctorate? Forget about it. Somewhere between the late nights and rushed meals and assholery that can be academia, I became too tired to think about sex. Then, when I did start thinking about it, it was as if sex was some distant place I had once visited but didn’t know how to get back to again.

My sex therapist sister, Farah, says I should talk to her about it, but I’m too embarrassed. She’s the free one, I’m the uptight one, something my ex would also point out. Jerk.

My boss pokes her head in my door. “How’s it going tonight, Zainab?”

I push back from my computer. “I didn’t expect to see you until next week. Actually, really good. Fantastic, I mean. We got some great data from the last trial. I wasn’t going to write up anything formal until we do the follow-up trial tomorrow, but I’m hopeful, Shawna. Finally.”

I shift so she can see my screen while I talk her through the data. Shawna keeps her hand in. She may deal more with the business side of things these days, but her science is solid. She’s up to speed in a few minutes.

“Is this the latest formula?” She gestures to a row of six stoppered test tubes in the rack on my desk, each containing about an inch of golden liquid.

“Those have the placebo. I wanted a pic to go with the data. It’s essentially honey with a little lemon and a hint of lavender. Same flavor we’re going for with the real thing.”

“Mmm, sounds good. Like something you should pour in your tea.”

“I think we could see some powerful results tomorrow. After the last trial, Ari had an idea, a good one too, about how we might strengthen the human reaction. He’s been spending the whole day getting the next batch ready.”

“Smart and diligent. Quite an assistant you have there. Plus, he’s a total snack.”

“Shawna! Don’t talk that way at work. It’s inappropriate. Actually, don’t talk that way about people in general.”

She winces. “You’re right. Never mind that men do it all the time.”

“But anyway… Ari?” I tilt my head. “You think he’s attractive?”

Shawna looks at me as if I’ve dissed Marie Curie. “Seriously? Gotta admit I’d enjoy getting a little work-inappropriate with that one. Shoot, I did it again. What is up with me? Let’s get back to the data.” 

Shawna departs a little later after I promise updates on the next trial. For several minutes, I sit by the window watching the sun sink below the tree line across the parking lot. Is Ari really that good-looking? Not that it matters. He’s my assistant, and it’s best I don’t think of him that way, but how could I not even notice?

I pour water from the kettle into my hotpot, add a teabag, and let it steep. Then I take Shawna’s suggestion and add a test tube of placebo. No point in letting the lemony lavender mixture go to waste. 

So have I done it again? Become so absorbed in my work I’m blind to everything around me? Come to think of it, when’s the last time I met my girlfriends for a drink? Or took a weekend off to visit my sister? Or even seen a movie?

The sun has melted away, the sky sparkles with stars, and my teacup stands empty before I start to realize I’m not feeling quite right. My heart beats a bit too fast. The clothes whispering across my skin raise goosebumps. A gnawing ache grows in my lower body. Am I hungry? 

No. I must be getting sick. Well, I’ll have to get over it because no way am I missing this next trial.

Someone knocks hard and fast on my open door. “Dr. Patel?”

I spin my chair to face Ari, and… Oh. My. God. Wow. Who is this person, and how have I never noticed him before? Never noticed this broad frame enclosed by lean muscles wrapped in low-slung cargo pants topped by a thin tee outlining rippling ridge after ridge? Where’s Ari’s lab coat? Doesn’t he usually wear a lab coat?

It takes everything I’ve got to pull my gaze up to his face, but then my newfound observation skills reveal that Ari’s sculpted jaw is roughened by black stubble, while Ari’s eyes are surrounded by long, lush lashes, and Ari’s lips… ahh, the word fruit comes to mind, as does succulent, as does suck. Again, oh my God.

Ari’s expression, though. He seems… alarmed?

“Dr. Patel, where are those placebo samples?” he says in a rush. “I’ve made a mistake.”

I grip the arms of my swivel chair to keep myself from mauling my assistant. His suckable lips keep moving but I can’t focus on his words.

Ari is a person, and a good one. He’s brilliant, he clearly cares about women or he wouldn’t be working on this project, and he talks on his phone with his mother frequently and with heartfelt affection. A person, not a snack, although geez, the thought of licking him, biting him, eating him… What has gotten into me? It would be wrong. He could sue me. He should sue me if I did something like that. 

“It would be wrong,” I say out loud.

Ari shakes his head. “It’s not wrong. It’s a mistake, and completely mine. Instead of the placebo, I brought you a batch of the new formula, the one with the enhancer we discussed. Dana, she’s left for the night or I’d ask her to come in and tell you herself, she somehow gave me the wrong label. Still, it’s not her fault. It’s my job to check, and I realized it just now. The consistency is a little different from the placebo. Let me grab the five samples I brought before—”

His gaze lands on the test tubes. His eyes widen. Meanwhile, I feel as if the room’s temperature has gone up twenty degrees. I’m sweating, for God’s sake. Sweating and shaking and yearning. Have I ever yearned before? I don’t think so. At least not like this.

“Dr. Patel?” Ari whispers. “What happened to the fifth sample?”

“I put it in my tea.” It’s hard to speak through my gritted teeth.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

The expressions transforming Ari’s face one after another confuse me. He seems horrified, remorseful, embarrassed… and maybe a little intrigued? “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I’m not sure what to do. How do you, uh, how do you feel?”

“Ari, is anyone else still here?”

“Like I said, Dana went home. It’s just us. Do you want me to call someone?”

“No!” My gaze darts around the room. I have never been so desperate to masturbate in all my life. Where’s a vibrator when you need one? Although I guess they’re not standard chem lab equipment. “You need to leave. Please.”

“I can’t. We haven’t tested this batch. You might have a reaction.”

I sit on my hands so I won’t start using them. Was he always this gorgeous? He’s my assistant, not ice cream, not chocolate or chips or cheese. “I am having a reaction,” I whisper.

“You are? What kind of reaction? Do you mean it’s…” He swallows. Hard. “Is it working?”

“It’s working, Ari,” I say. Oh. My. God. Again. “You’re my assistant. You work for me. I respect you. I really respect you. Esteem you. I would never want to make you uncomfortable, but…”

Comprehension spreads across Ari’s face. He glances over his shoulder even though he’s just told me no one else is around. He swallows hard again. Who knew Adam’s apples could be sexy? Apples. Smooth-skinned and taut, red mottled with golden streaks. Teeth breaking the skin, cool juice teasing my lips, clean and wild and wet. 

Someone help me.

Ari takes one single step closer. “You’re turned on?” he asks in a brittle voice that has me squeezing my legs together.

“Turned on doesn’t quite cover it.” My bra brushing against my aching nipples is unbearable. Between my legs there’s an awareness of how empty I am… now and always. It, also, is unbearable. “You need to leave. Please. Please! You need to leave. Ari, I’m begging you. Or I’m going to make a fool of myself.”

He drums his fingers against his chin. Golden fingers, like honey-drizzled pastries, warm, slow, and maybe a little sticky? I’m going to die. “How?” he says.

“It’s too strong, Ari, this formula. It was a good idea you had, but this is too much. I’m not just turned on, I’m fucking losing my mind. If you don’t leave—”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m going to… I’m going to…”

“Get a little work-inappropriate with me?”

Heat floods my cheeks. “You heard us. You heard Shawna.”

“I did. I was passing by your door. I don’t fantasize every night about Shawna, though.”

“She didn’t mean anything by it, please don’t be insulted. She wasn’t trying to harass you or anything, she’s happily married, she was only…” I risk looking at him again. “You don’t what?”

“I don’t fantasize every night about Shawna. I fantasize about you. I respect you, too. How could I not? My mom thinks you’re amazing for what you’re doing, by the way. So does my sister. And I’ve realized I’ve brought up fantasizing and my mom and sister at almost the same time, which is weird, don’t make anything of it, maybe feel better, though, that I’m making a fool of myself. The point is, I want you too.”

A total snack is an understatement. Ari is mouthwatering. My mouth is literally watering. At last. In fact, it’s a miracle I’m not drooling. “Really?” I say.

“Really.” But then Ari steps back. “Still, you were right before. It would be wrong.”

“What? Why?” I almost wail.

“You’re compromised. Drugged. I could never take advantage of you that way.”

“Ari. Please. You wouldn’t be. You have my permission.”

He looks so pained, and because I’m scanning him up and down, I’m guessing he is pained. His cargo pants are tented by an impressive erection, and his breathing is short and rapid. “You can’t give permission now,” he says. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m telling you what you can do. But we can’t know if it’s the drug or if it's real.”

How would that erection feel driving up inside of me? Oh God! My hands begin inching up my skirt.

Ari backs up even more, banging into the door frame. “I’m going back to my office,” he says. “All the way down the hall. I won’t leave, in case…” He gulps. “In case you get sick. And maybe later, tomorrow, when it wears off, if you want, we could, uh, we could…” He flushes. “Dr. Patel?”

My right hand is stroking my inner thigh now. I am going to come or die trying. “Yes?”

“You have my permission, okay? To think about me. Anything you want.”

Ari bolts, disappearing from the room, but behind my now closed eyes, he reappears, a hot and hungry vision. 

Vision Ari grabs the hem of his T-shirt and pulls it over his head, tousling his dark hair and confronting me with the most chiseled torso I’ve ever been honored to see in person. Honeycomb hard. Each ridge precise. Just begging to be nibbled.

His pants hit the floor next, revealing little indentations at his hip bones like the dips in a perfectly kneaded loaf, warm, sculpted, and waiting to rise beneath my touch. He leans over, grips the chair arms on either side of me, and smiles a smile so wicked just looking at him makes me feel in need of a confessional. My sister Farah’s going to love this.

“Snack on any part of me you want,” he says. “Only I’d like to do something first.”

“What’s that?”

His eyes flash. “Devour you like a peach cobbler.”

My breath hisses out.

“Please, Dr. Patel,” he says. “For all women everywhere, but mostly for you. I’m begging you now. Let me.”

Peach cobbler. The way vision Ari says this makes the air feel heavy. Moist. My long-lost orgasm is at last glimmering on the horizon. It’s either my fingers or his mouth.

No contest.

I nod and sit motionless, my pulse thudding, while he kneels at my feet. His hands caress my knees before sliding up, up, up beneath my skirt. The rasp of my undies as he slides them down my legs makes me whimper. The cool air that tingles my pussy as he pushes my skirt up makes me quake.

He nudges my thighs apart and studies what he’s uncovered. “Luscious,” he says. “Like peaches. Glistening. Swollen with sweetness. How will they slide against my tongue?”

Vision Ari lowers his mouth slowly. Lets it hover. I clench my fists to keep from pulling his head closer. My pussy twitches, and I can just see the corner of his lips curve up.

He presses them down. My juices drip immediately, and he follows them with his tongue, moaning like he loves the mess. He licks deeper, chasing my warm center where the fruit is softest, richest. Nibbling at the skin. 

Each taste is unhurried but eager, tongue moving in a steady rhythm, gathering more, always more.

Lick, taste, swallow.

The rhythm settles into my body, steady and relentless, making me squirm. “Ari.”

He adds a finger. Rough, blunt, and warm, it feels huge, nudging into my tight channel, but magical too. My muscles clamp down, and he murmurs approval, his mouth and hands working together now to consume me.

“Ari!”

For a moment he looks up, lips rosy. “So good,” he whispers. He holds up slick fingers, sucks them into his mouth, and moans some more. When he returns them to my body, I can no longer stop myself. I grind up into his face. 

My inner muscles squeeze and release.

Squeeze and release.

Squeeze and release.

I grab his hair and twist.

“Ari, more. Suck harder. Your finger. There, yes, there!”

Vision Ari makes filthy, wet, smacking sounds.

I am molten.

“Yes!”

His tongue strums my clit.

I am melting.

“Yes, yes, yes!”

Ah, and, ah, and, ah… and at last.

I dissolve into a puddle of scalding, liquid light.

Lascivious light. 

Again, vision Ari, again. Let’s do it again.

Hours later, after coming who knows how many more times, I come back to myself, alone, limp and wet on the floor of my office, hands sticky, my shirt and bra gone, and my skirt around my waist. A lab coat is spread across my body like a sheet. 

Outside my window, the sky is just beginning to lighten. On my walls, the shadows shorten and fade. I feel better than I have in years. Cold fish, my ass. 

I straighten my clothes, buttoning and smoothing. I make use of the wet wipes and hand sanitizer in my desk drawer. Then I press a button on my desk phone.

Ari’s voice over the speaker is soft, tentative. “Dr. Patel? Are you okay?”

I’m not nervous at all. God, the sheer, positive power of an orgasm. They should put that in a bottle. My laughter bubbles over. We should. And now we can. 

After much, much more testing, of course. And after adding warning labels. Women need to know what to expect and who they’re with before taking that stuff. 

“Dr. Patel? Dr. Patel?”

“Yes. I’m here. I’m okay. Better than okay. But call Shawna. We need to push back the trial.”

“Of course. Right away. Absolutely.” He exhales. “I’ve been checking. After you, uh, after it, got quiet. I covered you up. I kept my eyes closed. I took your pulse.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“There’s just this one thing. After you call Shawna. I’m hungry.”

Silence. Then, “Still?”

I grin. “For breakfast, Ari.”

“Oh.” He pauses. “Just breakfast?”

“Yes. Just breakfast. At least until we've had a little conversation with HR.” I lick my lips and eye the five full test tubes still on my desk. “After that? Well. I have some delicious ideas.”