Author's note: this story is set in a UK university science department and uses UK spelling and UK date conventions.
Janice Hill crossed her fingers as she waited for the beep that would indicate the computer had finished processing the test results. This was the second variant of the fourteenth compound her lab was trialling in an attempt to find the first clinically proven aphrodisiac. Compound 14/02, such a portentous label for this batch, especially given that today was Valentine's Day. That just had to be a good omen, didn't it?
Bleep!
She forced herself to look at the screen. No! The
in vitro
tissue samples hadn't responded at all. Not one hint of the improved response to pheromones that her team had hoped for.
She leaned back on her lab stool, stretching her arms out behind her to relieve the ache in her shoulders then running her hands through her long wavy red hair. Letting out the breath she didn't even realise she'd been holding, she called out to David, her doctoral student.
"David, take the glassware for test 14/02 and wash it up, please. Then you can take that early lunch you wanted."
"Yes, Dr Hill," the younger blond-haired man replied, stacking the Petri dishes onto a tray and carrying them over to the laboratory sink.
"Didn't it pan out, then?" he ventured. He could tell from her voice that she was disappointed. Disappointed and tired.
"No, David, it didn't," Dr Hill answered. "But we've still got six more variants we can try."
* * * * *
Janice was sitting in the staff tea room, reading the newspaper after having had her lunch, when David stomped in.
"You're back early," she commented, then paused when she saw his scowl. "What's up?" she asked.
"Denise's dumped me," he replied, bitterly. "I took a bunch of roses round to her office, for Valentine's Day, and she... she said things weren't working out. In front of all her colleagues. And on Valentine's Day too!"
Janice felt a surge of pity for her student, who stood in the middle of the tea room forlornly clutching the bunch of red roses.
"They're such lovely roses too," she added. "It would be a shame to let them go to waste. Let's put them in some water."
She stood up and went over to David, putting a hand lightly on his shoulder and guiding him to a chair. Then she took the roses from him and set them on the worktop beside the sink.
What to put them in, she wondered. The only thing handy she could think of was the laboratory glassware, so she nipped through to the lab and fetched a clean beaker from where they sat draining.
Back in the tea room, she filled the beaker with cold water and placed the roses in it. The small vessel was far too short to hold the blooms upright, so she leaned them against the edge of the window. Then she stepped back to admire them. Yes, they were lovely, and they brightened the rather plain tea room up no end as well.
She took a deep sniff, the superb, rich, sweet scent filling her nostrils.
"So David," she said, sitting down beside him, "Denise finally dumped you, eh?"
She eased her arm around David to comfort him. This close, she could see the flush of anger and shame on his cheeks and she felt drawn to brush her finger along his cheek bone. Then she kissed where her finger had touched.
"Dr Hill!" David responded, turning to her. "What're you..." he started to ask, but she silenced him with a kiss.
His lips were full and strong, and responded almost automatically to her kiss. She slid her hand up to run through his brown hair, holding his face firmly against hers as her tongue sought entry to his mouth.
Then suddenly she realised what she was doing and pulled away, blinking and flushing with embarrassment.
"I... I'm sorry, David, I didn't mean..."
He seemed startled, but there was also a glimmer of lust in his eyes. Janice's cheeks flushed deeper and began to prickle. She felt her blush spread down her throat and over the slopes of her breasts in what was, for her, a sure sign of arousal.
What's happening?
she asked herself frantically.
I'm behaving like a lust-crazed teenager!
Yes, it had been almost a year since she'd last been with a man, and sometimes she did feel very frustrated, but surely that wasn't any reason to be losing control suddenly like this.
She found herself reaching for the buttons of David's shirt but snatched her hand back at the last moment, jumping up off the seat to remove herself from temptation. She ended up by the sink and the scent of the roses drew her in. She took a deep sniff and suddenly her flush spread all the way down her belly to her sex as she felt herself moistening.
Could it be?
she wondered, and took another sniff. A jolt of lust surged through her sex and her buttocks clenched.
"David," she began, "did you wash out the beakers and dishes properly? And sterilise them too?"
"Er, no, Dr Hill," he answered, shamed now. "I was in such a rush. Wanted to get away and buy the roses for Denise..." He trailed off. "Why?"
"I'm not sure," Janice said. OK, it was a white lie, but she didn't want to scare him off. "Take a sniff," she continued, holding out the roses to him.
Confused, but seeing no reason to deny her request, he got up and walked over to her. Without his lab coat on, Janice could see his shirt tighten across his chest as he stood up, and another stab of lust surged through her.
He took a deep sniff of the flowers and suddenly flushed as deeply as her -- a strange reddening that was more like a rash than a normal blush. He stood there, looking confused as it spread down his neck. Then he reached out for her.
Janice pushed him back.
"No, David," she said, the scientist in her vying for control against her lust. "I want to explore how this works."
Her eyes trailed down his torso, imagining the progression of the flush downwards, and just when she thought it must be reaching his crotch she noticed him harden -- and harden impressively, his erection pressing against his trousers.
"It's the trial compound," she told him. "14/02. There must be traces in the beaker and somehow the roses have taken that up. Transformed it into something that we can absorb through the nasal membranes."
"I wonder if it would have the same effect taken more directly," she added, and licked her finger with an exaggerated sensuality before dipping it into one of the rose blossoms.