By the end of the month, Charles and Vince had determined the chemical structure of the compound at last. It had been a difficult journey, especially because they had a difficult time working on it. Rather than working, Charles was playing with his test subjects, taking a lot of time away from the lab.
They sat at the white board, discussing what they had with Claudia.
"I think that that protein there is specifically how it interacts with women and not men," she said, pointing to the structure. "It seems to connect and then cause the body to dramatically increase its secretion of dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, oxytocin, and estrogen. I think if I can, maybe, use this protein instead," she said, indicating another part of the molecule, "that I can get it to affect males. If I'm able to affect only the new protein and leave the old one intact, it should be able to affect both males and females."
"Do we even need to worry about affecting males?" Vince asked. "I mean, I'm pretty happy with what we have."
"Think of it this way... that's only fifty percent of our potential clientele," Claudia said. "We can make twice as much money if we can make a diverse product."
Vince nodded, understanding. With their pricing estimates being thousands of dollars just for a dropper bottle full, they had the potential of making a ton of money. They knew people would pay for it. They still needed to figure out how to replicate it, then they could figure out how to attract clients and sell it.
"I think you two should continue working on the production side of things, and I'll work on the sex modifications," she said. "Sound good?"
"Yeah, that sounds good," Charles said, standing and moving towards his work area in the lab. "But... uh... I need to leave at 7:00 tonight..."
"Seven?" Claudia asked. "Then you'll only be working on it for two hours before you have to leave. What's so important that you have to leave?"
Charles swallowed, embarrassed. He was going to meet up with Elizabeth again and wanted to have plenty of time available. It seemed like she was constantly wanting to be with him lately and he couldn't tell her no. "I... uh... have a meeting," he said.
"A meeting?" Claudia looked at him in disbelief. She didn't know what to do with him any more. He seemed to be spending more and more time away from his work and this research. Time that they needed if they were going to figure this out. "A meeting with whom?"
"Uh..." Charles mumbled. "It's just a stupid meeting."
"With Elizabeth, right?" Claudia asked. "You have to leave here to go fuck Elizabeth. You're going to leave us when we're so close to getting this finished... to go use the drug on some fuck buddy."
"And how is that any different than your fuck buddy... Lauren?" he yelled back.
Claudia sat stunned. She had no idea that he even knew about Lauren.
"Yeah... just as I thought," Charles said. "You fuck who you want and I'll fuck who I want."
Claudia stood, fuming, and moved to her work area. She didn't want to admit it, but what she was complaining to Charles about was exactly the same thing she was doing. At least she had her liaisons during the day and left her night available for work. But that wasn't much of an argument since she was sacrificing some of her college class time.
She put on her safety glasses and gloves and grabbed a bright-red vial off the desk. Carefully, she put a drop of the fluid onto a slide, added a drop of another solvent, then slid the slide under a microscope to determine the results. She nodded and took a few notes, knowing that this was the direction she could go to make the necessary protein modifications.
*****
Three weeks later, Charles and Vince gave each other a high-five as their tests determined they had found a method to create the chemical compound. They needed to run a few more tests, but it was looking extremely promising. And they were able to create a dropper-bottle-full every twelve hours.
During the same time period, Claudia had found a way to modify the attaching proteins to cause the compound to attach to women, men, or either.
They created several bottles of each and determined that they needed to bring back the male and new female subjects to run human-trial tests again on the newly created compounds.
*****
Claudia walked down the hall with a blue bottle of the compound in her pocket and a clipboard in her hand. Anthony, a twenty-two-year-old graduate student, with long brunette hair, and a wiry frame walked beside her. She wasn't too attracted to him, with his thick glasses and spotty facial hair, but that wouldn't stop her testing. She had interviewed him previously, with the original compound that had no affect. Charles had no desire to test the men this time around, leaving it to her. She was curious how the men would react.
"We're right in here," she said, opening the door and holding it for him. He walked in and noticed the table and chairs nearby. "Have a seat," she said. "Yeah, that one's ok," she continued as Anthony selected the closer one. She sat in the other chair, across the table from him.
"Ok, as you know, this is a double-blind test for a new chemical compound we're testing. I do not know if the bottle contains the compound or a placebo," she lied. "As before, I'm going to put a drop of the liquid on your wrist and then ask you some questions about it. Is that ok?"
"Yeah, sure."
Claudia smiled and took the vial from her pocket and set it on the table. "A blue bottle this time," Anthony said.
"Yes... I'm not sure if the color means anything or not," she smiled, lying again. "Ok," she said, opening the bottle and putting some of the liquid in the dropper. "I'm just going to put one, little drop, right on your wrist," she said, holding his upturned hand as she carefully put one drop on his skin.
They waited a second, then she started asking the questions.
"How do you feel?"
