DAY 0 -- 10:00 PM
"It just looks like...chocolate," I said, looking down at the pair of cubes on the silver wrapper.
"It probably
is
chocolate," Corrie said. "The delivery medium, anyway. The active ingredient will be mixed inside." She tossed her slacks over the chair and scooped a pair of comfy gray sweatpants from her suitcase.
"It's just not how I thought I'd be taking experimental medication," I explained. "I figured we'd be getting, I don't know, glowing pink pills or something."
Corrie shrugged and hopped onto the bed with me, making the mattress bounce. She's a head shorter than I am, but she's rounder and heavier. I snatched the flying cubes out of the air before we could lose them on the floor of the hotel room, brought one to my nose, and sniffed.
Yep. Chocolate.
Corrie scooted up next to me and smiled. Aside from the old sweatpants, she was wearing a black T-shirt from some band we'd gone to see together back in the day, cozy and threadbare and just a little too tight on her now. She'd filled out some, but other than that she could have been the same girl I'd met way back in undergrad.
"Remember when you asked me out?" I said. "We were at that thing—"
"And I saw you across the room," Corrie agreed, "and right away, I said, hey!
She
looks like a dyke."
I punched her in the shoulder.
"Excuse me, your line is, 'She looks like
Audrey Hepburn!'
"
"That's when I'm telling the story to other people, dear," Corrie said in her Professor Correct voice. "And technically, both are accurate."
I
do
look a little like Hepburn, if she was a shade tanner and had a much bigger nose. Corrie doesn't look like any Hollywood celebrity I can think of, because Hollywood is full of idiots who couldn't tell gorgeous if they were staring right into into its perfect amber eyes. She's short and dark, with a round face and beautiful, bushy, natural hair. Her name is Corona, and she deserves it.
My name's Elaine. It's kind of pretty, but kind of ordinary. So I guess I have the name I deserve too.
"You know, Ains," Corrie said—'Ains' was her solution when I told her I hated 'Ellie' and 'Lainey'—"we don't have to take these if you're not comfortable with it."
"No, I want to," I said. "Anyway, we signed all that stuff. And they're paying for the whole trip!"
"You're always allowed to change your mind about participating, though, at any time. Even if they've paid you. That's basic experimental ethics."
"No, I know."
"Well, I'm just saying. It's possible these could make us really sick. We don't get a lot of time away together as it is. If you'd rather, we could always just cuddle and cue up
Hercules Vs. The Moon Men.
"
I shook my head. Sure, that sounded great. I loved just being wrapped around Corrie, feeling her warm softness, hearing her throaty laugh in my ear. But it had been so long since we really made love. I wanted to be
passionate
for her. And this Aphrodite stuff was supposed to send our physical appetites off the charts—or at least that's what the people who were paying us to test it said. I figured it was mostly exaggeration, but if it could just grease my libido a
little
bit, that would be enough.
"This
is
what I want," I said. I picked up one of the cubes. "To new adventures!"
"Well then—to new adventures!" Corrie agreed, picking up the other cube and tapping it against mine. "
And
to my wife, and to the five wonderful years we've already had together."
"And to
my
wife, and to five more!" I paused. "Uh, and then more after that. A bunch more sets of five. Like, at least, uh—"
"Ains."
"—like maybe fourteen sets of five? I know statistically that's unlikely but neither of us are smokers anymore—"
"Ains, honey, eat your sex chocolate."
I popped it into my mouth. Corrie did the same. It just tasted like ordinary chocolate.
"So how long does this stuff take to kick—"
It kicked in.
DAY 1 - 7:45 AM
It's hard to describe what it was like being on Aphrodite. "High" or "stoned" come close, but they make it sound like we were just sitting around giggling in a haze. We knew where we were and what we were doing, and our actions were under our control, they just—weren't the actions we might otherwise have taken.
To start off with, if the question we were testing was 'does Aphrodite make you want to have sex', then we might as well have stopped after the first dose, because holy shit, did it ever. We did it in the bed, in the bath, even on the balcony a couple of times. We didn't need any toys or accessories or anything. We were like magnets, like binary suns crashing into each other, mashed together by titanic gravitational forces. Every little brush of her hand against my skin made me feel like a sponge saturated with pleasure and love.
We were still holding each other in the morning when we started coming down. And 'coming down' is probably the wrong word. We didn't feel sick or depressed or hungover or anything. We weren't even tired, despite having been awake all night. It was like we were waking up from a lovely dream, but a dream we could remember.
We just lay there, holding hands and drinking in every bit of each other we could.
"I love you," Corrie whispered.
"I know," I said. "You told me about a million times last night."
"Yes, but that was Freaky Love Goddess Corrie. I just want you to know that regular Corrie agrees with her."
"Regular Elaine and Freaky Love Goddess Elaine love both Corries, too."
Corrie grinned. "Nice to have that cleared up."
We lay another moment in silence. Then Corrie rolled over onto her back.
"So, funny question," she said. "Is it me, or did we get a lot of room service last night?"
"I...think we did."
"Like. A
lot
."
"I'm pretty sure you're right. The last cart is still here."
"Yes." Corrie kicked it. "And that's. You know. The
last
cart."
"Uh-huh."
"As in we ordered more than one entire cart full of food. And ate it. All of it."
"I remember that happening."
"I remember it too. I just thought maybe I imagined that particular part."
"I don't think we imagined it."
"Neither do I."
"Because I feel very, very full."
"So do I." Corrie belched. "Except here's the thing. I look at the number of empty plates piled on that cart, and I don't think we should feel very, very full. I think we should feel very, very exploded. And that's. You know.
One
cart."
"I guess Aphrodite makes you crazy hungry?" I suggested.
"I don't think it does," Corrie said. "I don't remember being
hungry
at all. I don't remember being horny, either. Like, it wasn't a lack or a need I was filling with you. It was a positive thing. Sex just felt so wonderful, who wouldn't want to have it constantly? And it was the same with the food. It was just all so amazingly, mind-blowing good, and I kept finding room, so I kept going."
I nodded. That was pretty much how I remembered it. It was like one of those dreams where you're in a bank that's also your house, and an old girlfriend is there, but she has a duck body. Afterwards, you can't explain why it made sense to you, but in the dream, it did. I'd just made the decision, perfectly logical and rational at the time, to get one of everything from room service and try them all.
"Well, I can corroborate your experience," I said. "Do you feel okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Do you want to go for a walk or something? We've got a couple hours until we're supposed to talk the next pill."
"Sure."
We went down to the hotel lobby and watched fish swimming around in the ornamental pond, then strolled around the neighborhood. It was a warm, sunny day, and the area was very pedestrian-friendly. We browsed some of the boutiques along the street. I picked up a really nice set of candles. There was an adorable Japanese crepe shop, but we were both stuffed to the gills, so maybe another day, we decided. This way and that, we killed time until it was ten A.M. and time for our second dose of Aphrodite.
We lay down in bed next to each other. I held my cube up, turning it. It still just looked like ordinary chocolate—but now I knew what it could do. My heart sped up. I turned to Corrie, and found her looking back at me. She smiled eagerly.
