When I entered the dining room, Gloria and Jackie were laughing uproariously about something.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
Still chuckling, Gloria said, "I was telling Jackie about that patient of mine, and what Karen had said about screwing him until her nose bled."
Both of them started laughing uncontrollably again. Karen finally joined us. Before sitting down she gave my hand a squeeze and mouthed 'I'm sorry.'
I weakly smiled back at her, and nodded my head; silently telling her all was forgiven again, at least for now.
I heard Karen ask the other two women something when the full effects of the elixir finally hit me. It started as a slight tingling at the back of my head that extended down the back of my neck. This was followed by a very brief fainting sensation, as if I were experiencing a head rush from standing up too quickly. For some reason I momentarily lost my peripheral vision, which augmented my feeling of lightheadedness. I tried to listen to what the women were saying, and vaguely heard Gloria ask Karen what took her so long in the kitchen, but my mind and eyes couldn't focus on anything in particular. Then the sensation was over.
The whole episode lasted for only a few seconds, hardly noticeable, and afterwards I felt physically normal. To the unaware, the whole process would have been perceived as a temporary bout of wooziness brought on by too little, or even too much food and drink, and nothing more. My emotions, however, were being flooded with an overwhelming sense of eroticism, the likes of which I've rarely experienced. All my senses were sharpened, and everything I looked at, smelled, or touched triggered one salacious thought after the other, and had my member bursting hard against my pant seams. Even a passing look at the condiment dish containing the few remaining green olives stuffed with their crimson pimento was garnering extreme erotic thoughts.
However, there was another feeling that invaded my consciousness. One that felt more focused and pervasive than my heightened sense of eroticism, and it was growing stronger in my psyche with each passing moment. It can only be described as a feeling of total invulnerability, or of supreme self-assuredness. In my mind, I knew I could say and do anything without consequence, because I felt that those around me would do whatever I suggested without hesitation, and those who didn't would not dare interfere. I suspect that only those long steeped in wielding power over others, such as a Roman emperor or a feudal lord would come close to feeling as I did that moment. It was an emotion I had never felt before; exhilarating, but at the same time frightening. What would happen if ever I were to lose control of myself, or somehow believed what I was feeling was real and not caused by a drug? I could now understand how someone would overindulge in the elixir, for the false sense of power it granted was intoxicating and potentially addictive.
I came out of my thoughts to hear Karen and Jackie arguing about...sex; imagine that.
"...Oh, Jackie, the way you talk you'd think you took out a patent on the wild life," I heard Karen say.
Jackie laughed sarcastically, and said, "Compared to you and Will, I do, and that thing you call the wild life is just letting your hair down and having some fun. I can imagine what a risqué time in the Henry household would consist of; it's probably putting in a DVD of 'Weekend at Bernie's' and falling asleep on the couch."
I watched Karen and Jackie argue back and forth. Each throwing insults at the other and driving themselves into fits of anger, which were quickly followed by tears, and then pleas for forgiveness. I could not even guess what started it, but it was a scene not unlike I observed between Gloria and Karen a week ago, and as I watched to two women banter back and forth, and felt my own moods changing, I was starting to understand the affects of the elixir on the human psyche.
The fluctuation in mood, from anger to tears to laughter and back to anger, was not due to the mingling of alcohol with the elixir as I previously thought, but represented unchanneled sexual aggression. The elixir was increasing the libido gradually, but continually. This was manifest by the women's unconscious sensual touching of themselves coupled with their increasing raunchy banter, and which became more overt as the minutes passed. The elixir was causing them to push their behavior passed their usual comfort zones that were bounded by their normal precepts of societal mores and decorum, what Beetlesmith had termed his metaphorical walls. However, because of their precepts, they could not, as yet anyway, actualize this sexual aggression. Instead, it was channeled into other avenues of escape, such as the subconscious touching, the sexual banter, or the sudden conscious lapses into sexual daydreams. Unfortunately, these avenues were not enough to quiet the increasingly erotic feelings and needs. They wanted to act on their sexual aggression, but some of their walls were still in place and inhibiting them. This remnant inhibition subsequently frustrating them, and their frustration inevitably gave rise to anger. The women were only waiting for a catalyst to develop that would, in essence, condone their sexual behavior and to give it direction. I suppose as the instigator of the situation that I was the catalyst and it was my task to give it direction.
By this time Gloria had jumped into the argument with both feet and was castigating Jackie about some perceived slight, "...Karen's right, you are a freaking bitch, and an ignorant one as well. You don't have the slightest clue about anyone, let alone Will and..."
"Oh, what's to know? It's not like Will and Karen are the last of the red-hot swingers," came Jackie's sarcastic reply, cutting Gloria off before she could finish.
Gloria was visibly irked by Jackie's flippant attitude, and was about to pounce on her when I broke in, "Jackie I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of Karen and I. I know by your standards we live too quiet a life, maybe even a boring life, but we have a good marriage, and occasionally we have our fun, although some of us have been having more than others, right dear?"
Karen shot me a quick look of derision.
"What does that mean?" asked Jackie with interest.
"Nothing really," I said offhandedly, "Except that you make the mistake of confusing a braggadocios nature with actual experience. Just because some people don't kiss and tell doesn't mean they haven't been kissed at all."
"I still don't get it," said Jackie slightly irritated.
"Well, for example, we know that you're very open about your sexual exploits and the not too subtle and humiliating way you've treated your husbands in the past, but as far as the rest of us know, it's all been talk," I turned to Karen and asked, "Have you ever seen your cousin exhibit this wild sexual nature she brags about, outside of the way she dresses, of course?"
Karen just shook her head slowly, unsure of where I was going with this line of questioning. I heard Gloria giggle at my verbal tweaking of Jackie's nose.
"You think I'm a tease?" Jackie asked with some irritation.
"I don't know," I said, as I got up and moved around behind my wife's chair. I wrapped my arms around her neck and kissed her cheek, "That's the trouble with boasting, particularly on attitudes and attributes that can't be readily proven. You have to expect some might not believe you, and some may even call your bluff. But I do know that some in this room, some that you would consider prudish, have expressed certain desires that even you might find...How should I say it...Exotic."
