“Watch closely,” she whispered, licking her fingers again. “See this here? The clitoris. Look: very soft touches, not directly on, around. The hood—you see? And. Then. Hmmm.”

Her eyes stayed closed. Now you could almost think she was asleep, looking at her face, except when tremors would run over it. Your dick had never been this hard. You needed to get it wet.

“All right,” she said. “Now. Enter me.”

You pushed your cock into her. She was tight and her muscles rippled and you were coming, coming, coming.

You groaned, and then you rested your head on her shoulder.

She chuckled in your ear and whispered, “Not very good, Gary. I did not get to enjoy it very long. Or to come.” She stroked your back, long smooth strokes. “But you are lovely. And you will get better. Much better.”

The Program was three weeks—four days a week, mornings and evenings, at the clinic before and after work, plus three weekend training seminars. Waking up alone that first morning, you let yourself hope it would involve a lot of screwing Sophie. Maybe even Sophie hanging around afterward, sleeping over, making you breakfast. It wasn’t like that, though.

In fact, you had to be celibate for the three weeks.

The hours you spent in the lab were strange. At first there were CAT scans, blood tests, running on a treadmill with wires taped to your head and this metal cap. Then, after the first few days, there was the chair.

The chair was like a cross between a dentist chair and Captain Kirk’s chair on Star Trek. Your head wired up, and earphones and goggles on, and an IV in your arm. They’d leave you there for an hour or three, the chair tipped back, in a room with one wall that was a mirror they could see through from the other side.

Sometimes the goggles and headphones played movies—porn movies, or scenes from romantic chick flicks, or detailed instructional movies about sex. Sometimes there were just flickering cascades of images, too quick for you to make them out. Sometimes there were recorded instructions.

They set out Vaseline and warm, wet towels when they wanted you to masturbate. The recorded voice told you what to do. That was weird at first. You didn’t know who might be watching. But you got used to it.

Once you asked one of the docs, a bald old guy, what all the gear did. The IV drip had something to do with enhanced memory formation, and the metal cap was actually sending electrical impulses into your brain for “subexperiential behavioral reinforcement.” Whatever that was.