Brett Halliday: Last Seen Hitchhiking

He wanted her to comment. She still wasn’t making the usual connections. She didn’t know what he was talking about, or how it applied to her.

The best she could do was repeat, “Volunteers?”

“Masters and Johnson, the high priests, used a research population of a few hundred, and that was strictly a volunteer army. They were all sure they could produce under the lights, and if they failed, or if they didn’t get that little extra charge that makes some kinds of sex more interesting than others, they didn’t get invited back. I hope you’re beginning to see where I’m trying to take you. These were picked people, remarkable people. Most of the women could reach orgasm if one of the doctors snapped his fingers. And not just one orgasm, but dozens. Some of these virtuosi kept coming, time and again, for hours, until they fell asleep from pure physical exhaustion. And the machines took it all down, the heart rates and the myotonia, the blood pressure changes, the contractions. Some of those graphs ought to be X-rated. But how much of all that was sexual response, is the question. As opposed to response to the peculiar setting, to the demands of their audience, to the desire to excel, to earn a fee?”

He stopped to put down some more beer.

“So Bruno decided,” he said, shifting to the third person, “to work out an experimental design in which the purely physical response can be separated from all those others. For this he couldn’t post a notice on a bulletin board. The subjects must be unwilling, frightened, hostile. You’ve been abducted from the highway, anesthetized, stripped, humiliated. You are about to be ravished —if his drooping lily can be persuaded to cooperate — by a madman. A repulsive madman! You won’t be trying to produce, you’ll be trying hard not to. You’ll be thinking of what comes next. Because,” he explained with a sharp look, “Bruno is not completely off his rocker. He has a sane streak. He’s not that far to the left of others in sex research. If he ever stands trial, which naturally he’s hoping won’t come to pass, the defense attorneys will have to admit that he is capable of understanding the charges against him. He is well aware that these experiments are very much against the law. You would make a damaging witness for the prosecution. So you know what has to happen when Bruno is finished. Look at the thing from his point of view.”

“You killed the others—”

He spoke with his first trace of irritation. “What happens to any laboratory animal at the end of an experimental series? It doesn’t live out its normal life span on Social Security. It is sacrificed! That’s the word we use. The only thing Bruno will promise is that he’ll do it humanely. He has enrolled himself in the assault on Victorianism, and he may turn out in the end to be a martyr to the cause of sexual enlightenment. He wants to help others! Think of those millions of people tortured by sexual hangups, simply because the most fundamental physical facts remain undiscovered.” He licked the taste of beer off his lower lip. “Do you agree with me, or what? Give me an argument. Maybe you can talk me out of it.”

“What do you hope—” She swallowed; her throat seemed to be on fire. She tried to do something about the dangerous numbness that affected her brain. “Those millions of people. What possible use—”

It went spinning away.

“Do you realize how little is scientifically known on the subject of rape?”

Again he seemed to expect an answer. She moved her head slightly.

“There’s a vast body of legislation on the subject, but zero knowledge. Old wives’ tales, folklore, superstition. ‘If you know you’re going to be raped, relax and enjoy it.’ My preliminary data indicate that this is impossible. Forcible sexual entry is a kind of symbolic murder, and no one enjoys being murdered. But if the body responds sexually, against its will, so to speak, if the blood reverses its flow and the nipples erect and Bartolin’s glands contribute the usual lubrication — and I won’t tell you whether this happens or not, because I don’t want to prejudice you — well, I can’t exaggerate the importance of such a finding. It will explode a few delusions. Far-reaching legal effects, possibly.”

She made another attempt. “But people who like to be hurt—”

“The masochist effect,” he said promptly. “Right. I think I’ve worked out a way to compensate for it. On the sadomasochist teeter-totter, Bruno finds himself perched at the sadistic end. He takes some pleasure from the sight of a helpless nude, in straps, open to penetration by any suitably shaped object. There. At the thought, Bruno’s instrument is beginning to rise.”

He pulled the gown over his head. “Naked, I know I’m disgusting looking?”

The answer was so obvious that he didn’t want to listen to it. “I have a passion for rich desserts. How I love deep-fried potatoes. And of course all that shows. All Bruno’s life, he’s been preparing for these moments. If there is anybody a girl like you would hate to be raped by, it’s Bruno. Those rolls of fat. The absence of muscle tone. Indeed, the absence of muscles. Flesh the color of long-dead flounder. Now a few preparations. They won’t hurt.”

He busied himself about the machines. He dabbed petroleum jelly on her temples and affixed electrodes. Another electrode went over her heart. He did something at the sink, and came back with a razor and a can of shaving foam.

“Standard procedure in obstetrics. But you’ve never given birth, have you? Too bad, because now you never will.”

He shaved her pubic hair and attached more electrodes. Her eyes were tightly closed and her body was as rigid as metal.

“I’d tell you more about what we’re trying to get,” he said, “but I don’t want you to be too interested. You’re supposed to think what a horrible experience. It can’t be happening to you. You’re Meri Gillespie. You won gold medals. You lie in the sun at the edge of a pool. Picasso’s painting really turns you on. You have nice lean friends. Fatties disgust you. So little willpower.”

He took off his glasses. “Ready. Set.”

The machines had begun to hum. Humming himself, he moved about adjusting the controls.

“Music? I think so.”

He turned on a radio and found a station with rock music.

“Now open your eyes and I’ll give you a big surprise. Bruno is rampant! If you hold yourself stiff like that it’s going to hurt more, but of course it’s entirely up to you.”

The weightlessness was back, and Meri felt herself floating, attached to reality only by the wires that snaked out from her body to disappear inside the machines. She was breathing shallowly and quickly; one of the revolving drums counted the breaths and recorded their quickness and depth. Whenever he touched her, a shiver or twitch of revulsion altered the surface of her skin, and the reaction was picked up by another machine.

He worked on her now as a lover. She blanked out briefly when she felt the touch of his tongue. He perceived the change instantly, and pinched her thigh to bring her out of it.

He peered at her nearsightedly. “I want you to stay in the same room with Bruno. Don’t run away. Does that hurt much? Does that?”

Throwing her head from side to side, she strained upward against the straps. They were both sweating heavily. And as she pulled and twisted, she made a surprising discovery. The cuff on her right wrist slipped partway down her hand. Her breath came out in a gasp. His glance jumped to the moving drum and noted the change in the line. It interested him. She was sure her heart was beating more rapidly, but there was nothing she could do to slow it down. He checked the cardiograph, smiling.