The sound of the door shutting behind them echoed in the room as Richard hit the light switch illuminating the surroundings. One of his closest friends, Matt, stood next to him and he whistled as the light from the overhead fixtures revealed something far different than the "Man Cave" Matt had expected.
"Wow, this is some mad scientist shit right here," said Matt as his eyes took in the interior.
"Yeah, I guess I like to bring my work home with me," laughed Richard.
Richard Collie was a research scientist who specialized in the study of human physiology, his claim to fame had been discovering a new dietary supplement a decade earlier that had taken the market by storm and made him a wealthy man. He and Matt were now standing in his private home lab where he sometimes worked on his own when he wasn't doing the government funded stuff at the local university. A lab table dominated the center of the room looking like a kids chemistry set gone wild, with beakers, test tubes and other lab paraphernalia scattered everywhere across the surface and notebooks filled with Richard's almost illegible handwriting sitting in the middle of it all.
Matt walked around the room looking at the shelves of books and electronic equipment, "What are you working on, anything exciting?"
Richard wondered at how much he should say, his new work was not exactly top secret, but it was the kind of thing that some folks would probably frown on if they found out. Still, Matt was an old friend, they had gone to college together twenty years earlier, and he had never kept secrets from him before and didn't want to start now.
Matt turned waiting for an answer, his almond shaped eyes squinting as he smiled, his looks favored his mother, who was Asian, though he was built more tall and slender like his Caucasian father. The more athletic of the two, Matt carried himself with an easy grace, his lean six-foot frame showing very little fat since he was a vegetarian who ran marathons for fun. He had recently returned from running in a triathlon in California, and his skin was darkened even more than its usual light brown color.
"Well, if you can keep a secret, it's actually a project for the prison system, a way to...How to put this delicately...Reduce the problem of sex drive in inmates," answered Richard.
"What, like chemically castrate the poor bastards?" said Matt.
"Oh God nothing like that at all!" said Richard as he crossed his arms, taping one foot on the carpet absently.
"This is more along the lines of temporary behavior modification, tricking the brain into forgetting about sex, suppressing the urge as it were," elaborated Richard.
Matt walked along the edge of the lab table finally stopping at a row of test tubes each containing a grainy looking supply of white crystals like table salt or maybe sugar.
"Is this the stuff?" he asked, leaning down to get a better look.
"Those are the latest test batches, separated by degree of potency, I have to bring in some rats for the testing," explained Richard.
"Looks harmless," said Matt.
"The idea is that it would be slipped into existing condiments and baking ingredients like salt or sugar, the inmates would never know they were being drugged," said Richard.
"Is that why you have the sugar bowl here?" asked Matt pointing to the porcelain receptacle sitting near the test tubes.
Matt lifted the lid revealing what appeared to be sugar contained inside, but Richard quickly stepped forward pushing the cover back down with his fingers.
"Actually that is the one batch I did a test on, I ran out of glass lab containers, so I had to make do, got an old sugar bowl from the kitchen. I need to destroy that one, it was unsuitable," said Richard with a frown.
"Oh really, why is that?" questioned Matt.
"Not sure were the mix went wrong, but it caused exactly the opposite reaction, turned a cage of my testing mice into a sex-crazed mob, they were going at it so hard it was almost scary to watch," answered Richard.
"Well the prisons might not go for it, but I bet you could find a market," said Matt laughing.
"Don't be ridiculous, if it did that to a rat who knows how a human would react," said Richard though he did chuckle a little at Matt's suggestion.
The ringing of the doorbell downstairs forestalled future conversation, and Richard led Matt out of the room shutting the door behind them and locking it with a silver key. They continued down a long hallway that gave way to an open area that connected to a grand staircase leading down to the first floor and the foyer. Matt and Richard stopped at the top of the stairs as the group of people now clustered near the front door raised their eyes to look up at them.
"Well, let the festivities begin," whispered Matt under his breath.
Richard just smiled as he looked down at the faces of his house guests. This weekend his oldest daughter, Chelsea, was getting married to her longtime boyfriend and in honor of the occasion, Richard had invited his closest friends to stay at the house while they attended the wedding. He had known most of these people for many years, since college as a matter of fact.
Richard's wife, Kelly, who had answered the door was still standing near it hugging a short, ash blond. Kelly was at least a head taller than the woman she was embracing, her dark brunette hair a contrast to the other ladies, as they pulled away from each other Richard recognized the face of Kelly's closest friend Sabrina. Kelly and Sabrina had been inseparable in college though Richard had wished it weren't the case. He had never appreciated the influence that Sabrina had over Kelly back then, Sabrina was very much a party girl, and she often pulled Kelly into her messy social life. The two women couldn't have been more different in terms of both looks and general temperament. Kelly was tall and slender with wavy hair that fell across her shoulders and the elegant looks of a young Natalie Wood, and she was a serious and calm woman with a head for numbers which had led her to a career in finance. When she got around Sabrina though her better judgment sometimes eluded her, Richard had been forced to pick up Kelly from more than one party where she had imbibed too much and couldn't make it back to her dorm.
Sabrina was a different breed of cat from Kelly, much shorter, barely reaching five-foot-two inches she was arguably a beautiful woman with the kind of sultry looks that turned heads when she entered a room. Her face was tanned as was the rest of her from many trips to the beach, and she had strikingly dark green eyes and a head of curly ash blond hair that surrounded her like a halo. As her eyes darted around the room and settled on Richard, she favored him with a smile revealing rows of perfect white teeth, her soft, full lips shining with dark red lipstick. Stepping away from Kelly had exposed Sabrina's outfit, as usual, she was wearing a shirt at least a size too small that accentuated her very large, round breasts and shorts that looked as if they were painted on.
Richard did his best to return the smile, but the man who was standing just behind Sabrina reminded him all too well of her limitations as a person. Sabrina had dated a seemingly endless parade of young frat boys in college, and that approach hadn't appreciably changed even as she grew older. The gentleman with her was her latest flavor of the month. A tall, strapping fellow looking as if he just stepped out of a surfer magazine, his name was Chad, and according to Kelly he worked at a local dive bar called "Slammers," right now he was brushing his longish blond hair out of his tanned face and appeared bored.
At the foot of the stairs with a pair of bulky suitcases was a much more welcome sight, Richard's close friend Toby, and Richard moved to shake his hand.
