Shit!her mind cried out, the sound inside her head muted from the effects of what she’d eaten. “It’s a sedative.”
For a few moments she wasn’t sure if she’d thought the sentence or spoken it aloud.
Then Rychor turned and walked toward her again. He stood in front of her, eyes moving from the fruit to hers, then back again. “The other females responded positively. I see by your expression that you are as well. You should eat more. It will make you more comfortable for what comes next.”
She held up a hand. She was feeling verygood,like she had consumed a fine wine, and her inhibitions were falling away accordingly. The drug, however, had not affected her curiosity. “Is this a sedative?” she asked. She stretched her legs out and allowed herself to sit comfortably on the chair.
Rychor looked at her with what seemed like benign pleasure. “It reduces inhibitions. Another female compared it to…” He paused, apparently recalling information. “Alcohol. Without the visual disturbances or… overhang.”
Sonya laughed. “Hangover,” she corrected. She waved a hand at him. “It’s not important. I got the gist.” Wow, she was really on a ride. Strangely, though, itdidonly seem to be affecting her inhibitions.
A question shot through the haze clouding her thinking as she remembered Rychor’s description of the fruit’s purpose: to make her comfortable for what comes next.
“Whatcomes next?” she asked, breathless. She looked down to see she was sitting with her hands on the table, completely unashamed now of her own nudity. The realization didn’t change that. She felt like she belonged here now. Like this had always been meant to be.
“The tests.” Rychor gave this answer simply, still swiping at the screens.
“I want more information,” Sonya said, boldly.
Wow, she thought. Someone in the human drug market could make akillingoff this.
Rychor turned to look at her, a new expression on his face. “You wish to know more,” he repeated. He touched a few things on the screens. “Interesting. You are the first. More about what comes next?”
“Yep.”
“The fruit contains a drug that deactivates your psychological inhibitions. We will test you in that state in order to more efficiently arrive at a profile of sexual stimuli suited to your preferences.”
“Why don’t you just ask me?” she asked, boldly.
Rychor paused what he was doing, his efficient, clinical attitude interrupted. In his eyes she again saw a curiosity similar to her own. He turned to face her and approached the table.
“Do you believe that you would be able to articulate the most efficient sexual stimuli for your specific individual?”
Sonya laughed, then scoffed, then gave his question some serious thought. “Uh… maybe.”
Rychor seemed to be thinking. “Humans,” he said, thoughtfully, “so far, have articulated sexual desires that do not match the stimuli they respond to physically for optimality. We therefore have reason to suspect that your psychology interferes with the most efficient processes. Do you have information to the contrary?”
Sonya actually laughed. “Yeah, okay, to be honest, all I can tell you is that speaking about it clinically like that is a definite turn-off.”
“We have arrived at the same conclusion,” Rychor said, and Sonya couldn’t help feeling that he said it smugly. His eyes went to the plate of food. “Are you still hungry?”
The lewd way her mind interpreted the question surprised her and almost made her giggle again. She felt sated by what she’d eaten, yes. The hungry crawling under her stomach had a very different dimension. She blinked her eyes and moved her head, trying to shake the gnawing feeling ofdesire—a bodily, physical curiosity that she knew she should be ashamed of. She should be herself again. The clear-eyed scientist who should be observing and somehow recording all of this for posterity, not salivating inwardly at the opportunity to be sexually “tested” by an alien.
The scientific person inside her felt quite distant, though. Like she didn’t care about those things any more. Sitting there she could think of only one thing, and she thought of it in carnal, sexual form:what comes next?
She took a few deep breaths to try and cool herself and regain some clarity of thought. She looked up at Rychor again with dopey eyes and realized there was no hope. It was like she was high and would have to wait for the effects of whatever she’d eaten to wear off before she was herself again. Somehow she didn’t care about that, either: she didn’t actually feel high. She felt more… stripped down to her most primal self.
She shook her head, like she might be able to get the thoughts to fly free from her head, like water caught in the fur of an animal.
“What do you do here?” she asked him.
He furrowed his brow and his head tipped slightly to one side. “What do wedo? I have explained the process in general—”
“No, like, what do youdo? You know, like, for work and stuff?” She heard her own voice echo in her mind a few seconds after she’d spoken the question. She couldn’t believe how dopey and ditzy she sounded, like she was talking to her schoolgirl crush. She blushed with embarrassment.For work and stuff? Really?They’d traveled millions of miles across the galaxy andthatwas the most interesting question she could come up with? She scrunched her eyes shut. She must be really high.
Her question seemed to be causing Rychor to reassess something. He actually paused, looking uncertain—though how she would have been able to discern uncertainty from another emotion was a question she couldn’t have answered.
“It’s sexually stimulating to me to talk about stuff with a guy first,” she said, both honestly and as a ploy to keep him talking. “Like, foreplay, you know?” She pointed at her head.
