"So that's it? I put this grain of rice in my ear, and my wife magically gets twice the pleasure from boning?" I asked, skeptical.
"It isn't magic, John - just science," Dr. Hargrove rolled his eyes. And it certainly isn't a grain of rice. It's a two-way remote neurotransmitter/receptor for sympathetic brainwaves. And the culmination of six years of research," replied he sternly.
"But it will make boning better?"
Dr. Hargrove, my esteemed coworker at our health products research center, stared long and hard in response to the word "boning". "It uses neural inductance to, in a sense, "read" your pleasurable sensations, then transmits them to the corresponding receptor. In this case, your wife's."
"The magic grain of rice she puts in her ear?" I asked, helpfully.
Hargrove was learning to simply plow through and pretend I didn't exist. "Her brain will then be stimulated sympathetically, in a sense making her feel the same sensations you're experiencing." He scratched his beard, looking off into the distance with pride. "As with all science, we're starting simple. One-dimensional. Pleasure." his eye twitched "a very simple, yet identifiable sensation. Yet, if trials go well, there's no telling what we can accomplish. We can expand to artificially stimulating the brain to feel any sensation, stimulus, emotion... imagine giving paraplegic feeling in their limbs again, or curing depression forever, or creating -"
"But for now, it'll be for boning." I said, helpfully.
The doctor acted as if he were going to speak for a moment, seemed to reconsider, then turned to his computer. Next to it was a blue illuminated vial, connected to the console with a cord. "Because this is a new case, and a baseline trial, and as a precaution, I'll be dialing the transmitter to a low amplitude." In a text editor line of code, he typed edited a value to 0.002.
%%Transmitter Amplitude coefficient (unitless)
float transamp ;
transamp = 0.02;
"If the whole point of this thing is to make my wife feel the pleasure I'm feeling," I began, "why not crank it up? Why not make her feel, like, twice as much as I do? Wouldn't it be even better?"
The doctor shook his head quickly. "You marketing guys are all the same. But no, from a medical standpoint, that is the equivalent of saying if a little country music is good, it'd be even better played at the volume of an atomic bomb." He raised his index finger in warning, "particularly with pleasurable sensations, there can be adverse affects at high amplitudes. A little is positive, releases endorphins, and lowers stress. A very high, sudden hit, however, can damage your receptors, causing them to be unresponsive to the same amplitude stimulus that was previously enjoyable. A subject that's experienced an unsafe spike in endorphins and dopamine then needs higher and higher stimulus to feel normal, developing a tolerance along the way. It is the very basis of addiction, and not one I intend to introduce into this study. No, this variable only exists to account for the variation in sensitivities from person to person, nothing more."
"Sure, sure." I agreed.
Dr. Hargrove stared at me, unsmiling. "You're familiar with the trail, have been briefed on its use, and have only some paperwork to sign before you're free to go." He moused around at his computer to some documents, hit ctrl+P and enter in quick succession, then turned to go. "I'll be just a moment. Please, make yourself comfortable in the meantime." At halfway through the door, he barked back "and don't touch anything."
"Sure, sure. Sure sure sure." I agreed. The moment the coast was clear, I went to Hargrove's computer. The file editor was still open. I clicked and scrolled.
%%Transmitter Amplitude coefficient (unitless)
float transamp ;
transamp = 0.02;
"Hmm..." I said, looking over my shoulder. I backspaced once and hit a key.
