“Can you believe how hot these people are?” Addie cackled. “It’s way better than the dancers at Funky Bananas. These guys even have all their teeth.”
The cocktails flowed. Many,manycocktails flowed. Therewere many whoops and hollers. And as the night wore on, my companions only got rowdier and more ridiculous.
I, on the other hand, had a difficult time with my surroundings.
Between sets, several projectors played semi-pornographic videos erratically spliced together to music against the gossamer curtains. They reminded me of Hudson.
Hell, everything reminded me of Hudson. I considered asking Leelah to let me look at my brain scan, to see what areas lit up on the EEG just bythinkingabout him, but I tried to discipline my thoughts.
I needed to think about random hotties. Not Hudson. It was for science, dammit. How the hell could I be expected to know if I loved him or not without a clean brain scan?
A losing battle. I needed a breather. I rose from my overstuffed silver chair.
“I’m going to run to the restroom.”
“Try to find a single fun bone in your body while you’re there,” teased Leelah, scanning the menu for her next martini selection.
Then, noticing the particularly impressive package on the dancer taking the stage, Addie cackled. “Or you could just borrow his!”
Ignoring them both, I beat out a hasty retreat.
In the privacy of the black-and-gold, low-lit bathroom, I wrangled my breathing.
It felt wrong to be here without Hudson. When he’d texted me about meeting up tonight, I’d told him I had “work stuff” and left it at that. But now, in an evening surrounded by nude people with the express intent of testing my brain’s sexual responses, I couldn’t help but feel dirty.
I knew that I wasn’t. Looking at other people wasn’t cheating, and even if it was, Hudson and I were not dating. We’d never promised exclusivity.
But that was the problem with opening your heart to someoneelse. You start to carve out bigger and bigger places for them to fit. And when they’re not there, even for a few hours, their absence hollows you.
The worst part was, I couldn’t even talk to him about it. If I rang him up and tried, I’d have to tell him about my experiment. About my scientific pursuit of the truth regarding our love.
No. Too embarrassing. I’d just have to bear the weight of this academic pursuit myself. I stared myself down in the mirror, put on a fresh coat of lipstick, and steeled myself for what was to come.
I would make myself horny at this strip club. Then I would find Hudson, check my neural activity, figure out if the data suggested I love him, then fuck his brains out and/or declare my feelings.
You know. Normal relationship stuff.
What wasnotnormal? Returning to my party on the floor to find Leelah and Addie practically bouncing in their seats. We’d fully reached folie à deux territory with these two, them feeding off each other’s boundless energies. The empty shot glasses—ordered, consumed, and abandoned all in the span of my absence—only confirmed that diagnosis.
“Guess what?” Addie spluttered.
“What?”
“We bought you a private dance!”
As it turned out, Leelah was a giggly drunk. Any compunctions she’d had about this experiment of ours dissolved in the bubbles of her champagne, heightening her already bright personality.
“Clarabought you a dance,” Addie amended through rum hiccups. “We just came up with the idea. Unfortunately, this club hasnotactivated your horny brain. The scans aren’t giving usanything. You need a more targeted approach if we want the EEG to register your sexual arousal.”
Scientific principle pretty firmly holds the possibility forinfinite parallel realities, each slightly different than this one. In any other version of myself and this moment, I would have run screaming (and possibly crying) from the threat of a stripper thrusting their crotch in my face.
Living in this universe, though, I sat my ass down in the chair and waited for my dance.
I needed to know the truth about what was going on in my brain—the irrefutable, data-confirmed truth. This was the best way I knew how to uncover it.
“What, Scout?” Leelah asked after my pause. “You’re going to turn us down?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just preparing.”
