I'd spent an hour, maybe two, just sat on the end of my bed and staring, just staring, at the pill in my hand. It was such a little thing, one half pink and one half white, and I felt like a moron even for holding it as if it could be real. And yet Amber, my best friend, swore by it. She was a biochemist, one of those people who'll surely end up in newspapers for curing some disease you've never heard of, and she'd found her first cure already, so she said -- a cure for my virginity. She called it Kupri. The pill, synthesised at home in her lab that she definitely wasn't meant to have, was supposed to do something to my pheromones. It had, so she said, a near-magical effect on the chances of successfully "getting off" with pretty much anyone by altering the scent I gave off. Impossible to consciously notice but Viagra for the brain. Just about anyone who was near me would, with a bit of prompting, sleep with me. This, Amber said, was "nearly a promise."
And now I held it in my hand. Just staring at it, fresh from Amber's little lab, really wondering if I was going to try it. I was eighteen, brand new in the adult world and somehow even newer in the lesbian one, without a flick of experience. All I knew was that the girls on the Internet did things that the men just couldn't. And now I held something that could get me everything, deep down, I wanted. So Amber said. Was I really prepared to try this?
With a big gulp of water, I swallowed it.
I didn't feel any different. Not at all. But I supposed the difference would be felt by others, not me. If it worked at all. As if she had some strange intuition, my phone pinged with a text from Amber.
"Have you taken it?" she asked. There was no use lying.
"Yeah."
"Omg go try it out then!"
"But what do I even do now???" I felt a bit of panic creeping into me.
"Go find someone you like and ask them to fuck, obviously!" I stared at the screen.
"You can't possibly think I'm capable of that."
"Ah but here's the thing," said her reply "You just took Kupri. So now you ARE capable. Get out there bitch."
"Amber ffs." That's all I sent before I fell backwards onto the bed. My phone went off again and, tentatively, I checked it.
"I recommend you say something all-encompassing at first though," Amber had written. "Just to keep them in your snare. Like 'obey me' or whatever. I know it sounds daft but you want it to touch all bases straight away." I didn't answer. Just dropped my phone on the duvet and stared at the ceiling. Amber didn't text again -- perhaps she knew that I didn't need anymore prompting of my own.
After a while, nervously, I went to my window and glanced down at the busy street. It was some nondescript high street in Birmingham, nothing even remotely interesting about it, populated by betting shops and charity shops and a Subway on the corner. But I watched the people walking by, many of them fellow students, many lucky enough not to live above a twenty-four hour newsagents like me, and tried to imagine myself approaching one of them. And actually trying. Amber had already warned me that the effects only lasted around six hours. I didn't have all day.
Figuring that just going outside couldn't hurt, I went out onto the street, crossed the road, and stood near the bus stop, looking around and trying to see if anyone looked at me in a way that implied the pheromones were working. Look at me saying this science stuff as if it made even the remotest bit of sense. Eventually, I noticed a woman standing beside the bus timetable, dressed in a black leather jacket and jeans. She had her back to me and, just for this moment, was alone, so any floundering attempts on my part might not be totally humiliating. Deciding that I'd just try to see what would happen and, if it all went to shit, I could run away, I approached.
"Hey," I said quickly, and she looked over her shoulder at me -- she had short, cropped brown hair, glasses, a face awash with freckles, and red, made up lips.
"Hi..." she said slowly, regarding me, in an American accent that managed to be bouncy even in this moment of nervous confusion. "Can I help-"
"Obey me."
"Okay." What?! No way. She couldn't have been serious. It was a joke she was playing along with. And yet something about it seemed real. I could have laughed but I was dying from nerves. Seconds passed in silence. This girl just stood there, watching me patiently, and somehow from her eyes I knew that some little spell of the mind was taking root over her. I had to push on. See what happened.
"Tell..." I swallowed. "Tell me your name."
"Cheryl Black," she replied, and I regretting my wording -- surely I could ask instead of order.
"Are you American? I noticed your accent."
"Belgian-American," she replied. "I went to an International School in Brussels before I came here. My mom's from Missouri and my dad's Belgian."
"Okay," I said, quickly, and a cold silence permeated. A bus -- not one for this stop -- rumbled by, and I looked her up and down, unable to hide my shaking, trying to avoid her eyes. They almost looked intrigued.
"So what is it you want?" she asked.
"Sorry?" I was surprised -- somehow I never expected her to initiate anything.
"You said to obey you." She gave me a quizzical look. "How do you want me to obey you?"
"Oh," I said. "Forget that. No, don't, I didn't mean to say that. I don't know if 'obey' is the right word. It's too forceful. I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do."
"If you'd like me to do something then I'd like to do it too," she replied.
"Are you sure about that?" She nodded, smiling -- she had a great smile. "Okay, well, it's just..." She cocked her head. "You're really pretty, is all."
"Aw, thank you," she replied, sounding genuine, grinning brightly -- her eyes crinkled and she laughed. She seemed touched.
"And I'd really like to, you know..."
"Fuck me?" She said it so lightly. My heart pounded.
