The subway was particularly crowded, and I pushed deeper into the crowd in order to give some room to an older fellow with a seeing-eye dog. The twenty minute ride from Porter Square, where I live, to Park Street in downtown Boston where I work was easier than the long commutes my friends at work suffered through. Still, on days like this the tight quarters made me long for their situation instead. I took a deep breath, and scanned the crowd of commuters, looking for the blond yoga woman, that was my nickname for her, who often got on this time of day in Harvard Square. She mustn't work, I thought to myself, if she can afford the luxury of yoga at 7 in the morning. I didn't see her, but my mind still conjured up her slim thighs, strong core, and revealing curves under her yoga stretch tights and top.
My mind was daydreaming about peeling up her yoga shirt when I noticed the advertisement. It was posted among the others, at eye-level, above the windows on the subway.
"Seeking volunteers for study of human sexual behavior. If you are a healthy adult between ages 30 and 50, you could earn $100 plus transportation by participating in a study at Massachusetts General Hospital in association with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."
It gave a phone number and email address to contact the study administrator.
I was curious. I wondered what they meant by "study of human sexual behavior." I had seen ads encouraging people to volunteer for studies at the hospital involving weight problems, post-traumatic stress disorder, and hair loss. But never sexual behavior.
I quickly jotted the email address on my palm, just for larks. And quickly, my mind returned to yoga lady, my job, and the errands I had to remember to do after work. By the time I got to the office, I had completely forgotten about the advertisement.
My day went smoothly, and I was in the bathroom when I noticed the email address on my palm while washing my hands. I decided I would inquire. I went back to my desk and sent a short email asking for more information about the study and whether they were still looking for volunteers.
Later that evening, after my commute home, errands, and dinner, an email reply arrived. They had two more openings, and if I were willing to come in for a brief screening interview the next day they would probably be able to include me in the study. They gave some further contact information and link to a website describing the study in more detail.
I replied that was interested and that I could spare an hour the next day to do the interview. I then clicked on the link and read about the study. It sounded like they wanted to survey people about their sexual habits, fantasies, and behaviors as part of some nationwide study on American sexuality. That seemed like something I could do, and, besides, what guy isn't interested in adding to their array of sexual outlets? Maybe a survey would be interesting, and I might learn something in the process, just from the questions they asked or from the data that came back. I didn't really need the $100, but it would buy a nice dinner out with a date so what the hell.
As before, I sort of forgot about it until the next day when an email arrived and suggested 4:30 pm for the interview at the hospital. I arrived a few minutes early, and sat in a waiting room for 15 or 20 minutes. An attractive woman, a few years older than me, came out, and walked past me. She must have been the previous interviewee, I thought. My eyes tracked her as she passed me, and I watched her hips sway in a pretty skirt as she walked down the hall towards the elevators.
At that same moment, a woman's voice surprised me.
"Jonathan Clemson?" she asked.
I spun my head around, my face reddening after being caught watching the woman leave. "Yes," I said, and stood up abruptly.
"Dr. Harnkess," she said, and put out her hand. A partial smirk formed on the edges of her mouth -- she had noticed me and she was letting me know it.
We shook hands, and I re-introduced myself, awkwardly. She nodded, motioned for me to enter a smaller interview room nearby, and followed me in.
I hadn't missed, in the short introduction, how attractive she was. Shorter than me, but in good shape. About my age. With sparkling blue eyes, pretty lashes, and slightly pouty lips. Her teeth were bright, and her dark hair was cropped at neck level. She was not wearing the lab coat of other doctors at the hospital, but dressed more like a lawyer in a wool suit, with a colorful red lightweight scarf high up on her neckline. Her lips drew my attention again, and the tone of her voice was that amazing blend of sensuous and businesslike.
"Hard job to be a sex researcher AND be sexy," I said in my mind to myself. It was true -- she had to talk to people about sex all day long, and it must drive everyone crazy that she was so attractive. I watched her legs as we walked, and noticed her narrow waist.
She motioned me to a chair. The room was a bit stark, like every hospital room I have ever seen. Definitely not sexy, if that is what you are thinking. I sat on a slightly uncomfortable small chair, and she sat behind a somewhat industrial looking desk on a swivel chair. There was a short bookcase with medical journals stacked on the shelves. The room clearly wasn't used much -- it felt stuffy, and a thin layer of dust was on the floor beyond the natural zones where people would walk to get to the chairs and door. The lighting buzzed above us.
"The interview doesn't take long," she said. "But we do want to meet people before beginning the study. The goal of the study is to get a broad baseline of people's sexuality, and our hope is to publish sometime in September."
I nodded, not knowing what else to say or do, my eye catching the line of her blouse as it crossed her chest.
She continued, "Basically, we need you to sign a consent form, fill out some simple paperwork, and agree to provide us with as accurate an account of your sexual history as well as behaviors and attitudes. We then ask you to carry a small pad that serves as a sexual journal. We will teach you to use the journal to quickly make notes and mark down information relevant to the study. We don't want to use up much of your time, but it is important that you have a way to record your activity and behavior as close to real-time as possible, otherwise we find people tend to forget what happened or make up statistics. Does that make sense? Some people have a lot of trouble being honest about their sexuality, and recording this information. Do you think this is something you can do?"
Halfway through her little monologue she had crossed her legs and I could just make out her skin on her knee and thigh from above her higher leg. My eyes darted back to hers, and I listened to what she was saying.
"I am happy to join the survey," I said. "I think it will be interesting, and I have never done anything like this before, so it is a learning experience for me. It might be hard for me to be honest as you say, but I will promise to be as direct and honest in answering the questions and keeping the journal as possible. If I don't think I can proceed, I will tell you so rather than bias your results. Is that fair?"
"Perfectly," she replied, shifting the scarf onto her shoulders, and jotting some notes on a pad she held. "Let's start with a short interview of facts here, then I will get you the survey as well as the journal. A graduate assistant will walk you through the journal tool -- it takes some getting used to how to fill it in and demarcate the various information, but once she has talked you through it I am sure you will find it easy enough."
I nodded again. But a part of me did want to stand up, walk out, and be left to blond yoga woman fantasies on my own. This was a little more challenging than I had imagined. But I stuck to my seat, smiled a little.
Dr. Harkness pulled out a file, snapped her ball point pen, jotted down my name on a form, and thus began the intake interview. She started easy. 37 years old. Grew up in Bethesda. Parents were middle class; Dad worked for a small architecture firm. Mom was trained as a high school teacher, but spent most of her time as a lobbyist in D.C. Went to Berkeley for college, moved to Boston 5 years ago to work at a small materials science research lab. Divorced, no kids.
After about fifteen minutes of these questions, we moved onto the more, shall I say, intimate ones. Heterosexual. No girlfriend presently. As these questions progressed, I couldn't help but feel a little nervous. And it didn't help that Dr. Harkness was really stunningly attractive, and she carried herself in a way that exuded confidence and energy. I noticed she had the habit of popping the pen in her mouth, like it was a cigar or cigarette, and twirling it. I couldn't help but imagine what her lips would feel like as she did this. That pen got quite the workout, as she would click the point in and out between questions, as a way of focusing. But I tried to remain completely clinical, and to keep my mind focused on the survey.
"How often do you masturbate, roughly?" she said, adding that she asks because one thing they were studying was the difference between what people said they did and what they actually did by comparing the questions now with the hard facts from the daily journal.
I closed my eyes and pondered. "Once per day approximately," I replied, my face flushing a bit. I thought that kind of question would be harder, but she made it so clinical that I didn't really seem worried about it.
The questions never really got that hard, thank goodness. How often do you have sex when you have a partner? How many women have you been with sexually? When did you have your first orgasm? This went on briefly, but in all there were only twenty or thirty questions.
Whew, I was getting off easy, I told myself. She told me to wait for the graduate student to help me with the daily diary, and that she was done with the intake survey.
"Welcome to our study," she said, shaking my hand as she walked out.
I turned to watch her go again. I couldn't help myself. And that is when I noticed that I had formed a solid erection during the interview. And I could feel wetness on my tip, inside my jeans. My eyes absorbed her walk, until the door swung shut with a thump behind her. I rolled my eyes, bit my lower lip, and patted my hands on my thighs. Relax buddy I told myself.
The graduate student looked remarkably like blond yoga woman, sans the stretch tights and five years younger. She wore instead a traditional white medical garment, stitched with the name of the hospital, and with a stethoscope hanging around her neck.
"Are you a medical student?" I asked her.
