Use Somebody

by Megan Hart

  The drawback? PSYCH DEPARTMENT EXPERIMENT in big, red letters. That could mean anything. Melissa had once participated in an experiment in which she’d been hooked up to a lie detector machine and forced to watch porn while she answered questions about whether or not she was turned on. That had only paid a couple hundred bucks and had been an easy enough few hours. Another time she’d agree to be in the control group for a new allergy medicine that had turned out to give her hives – that had been a profitable but seriously itchy couple of days. On the other hand, she’d also been paid less than a hundred bucks to test out the efficacy of underarm deodorant on people diagnosed with hyperactive sweat glands, and that had been disgusting.

  Overall, though, Melissa had earned quite a number of paychecks from the Psych Department over the past four years here in grad school at Winchester University and never had a truly bad experience. On the other hand, she’d never been paid more than three hundred bucks for whatever she’d agreed to do.

  They were now offering a thousand.

  The number, a nice, sleek ONE with three fat zeroes behind it, kept calling to her. She was going to be late to class if she kept this up, and Professor Spane was notorious about his lack of patience with students who arrived late. He might not dock her grade for it – but then again, he might.

  Melissa grabbed one of the tabs with the number on and tucked it into her pocket. For a thousand bucks, she’d be willing to do most anything.

  Anything at all.

  Chapter 2

  Matt Ingram looked again at the ATM receipt in his fist. Dammit. How could he have insufficient funds? Surely he hadn’t spent that much over the past two weeks, which is how long it had been since the last time he’d checked the balance. The machine couldn’t tell him what had gone wrong, of course, just that the forty bucks he was trying to withdraw so he could go grab a couple of beers with some friends didn’t exist. Not in this world, anyway. Maybe in some alternate universe where Matt wasn’t broke.

  “Shit,” he muttered, stomach sinking.

  No night out with the guys, no beer and wings. He might as well go home and study, and by this point Matt thought if he had to face another evening hunched over the books, he might just jump off a bridge, instead.

  “Hey, buddy.” Damian had come up behind him to clap Matt on the shoulder. “You coming out with us tonight? Spend some time with the bros?”

  Joining Sig Epsilon had seemed like such a great idea back in his undergrad days, and Matt had to admit there was still something nice about being able to head over to the frat house for parties when he felt like it. But he’d sort of outgrown the whole “brothers” thing a long time ago, while dudes like Damian had totally embraced it, even eight years after their freshman pledge class had first bonded over cleaning disgusting toilets and other pledge chores.

  Matt closed his fingers over the slip of paper in his hand. Damian had a trust fund or some shit like that, money from mommy and daddy, not to mention summer and holiday jobs in daddy’s company to pad the bank account. Damian would probably even spot him a pitcher and a platter, he’d done it before. But Matt didn’t want to be beholden to the guy any more than he already was, even if they were “bros.”

  “Can’t, man. Got a major test coming up.” Matt didn’t have to fake the look of disappointment. He really had been looking forward to just hanging out tonight, maybe watching the game, just…chilling.

  “Dude. You can’t work all the fucking time, you know?” Damian clapped him on the shoulder again. “Seriously. I know it’s grad school and all, but really.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Matt wasn’t happy about it, but he’d rather tell the other guy he couldn’t come out because he had to work rather than tell him the truth – he was flat broke.

  “Shit.” Damian looked vaguely concerned. “But you’re on for Cancun, right? Spring Break, man. Your last one.”

  Matt had never actually gone on a Spring Break trip, not to Cancun or any place else. He’d spent every Spring Break for the past eight years working his ass off on the loading dock at the same factory job he’d had since high school. He was going to grad school just so he didn’t have to work there the rest of his life. “I’d like, to, but…”

  “Dude. Don’t bail. We got a totally sweet deal on a condo. Eight hundred bucks each, including airfare, and the place is all-inclusive. You know what that means, right? All the food and booze you can eat and drink. And the babes, dude. The babes.”

  Damian’s expression clearly showed what he thought of that. It was something akin to the look a religious man might have upon seeing the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast. His hands shaped a female figure in the air, out then in, then out again. A girl with tits and ass that curvaceous would be so top heavy she’d probably be unable to walk, Matt thought, though he totally got the appeal.

  “Yeah, I know I said I wanted in, but that was before the holidays, and I thought I’d be picking up more hours.” In fact, Matt had spent most of the holiday break on his parents’ couch watching TV, the hours simply not to be had at the factory. Times were tough.

  “Dude, we’re holding your place. Need your money by the end of the month, or we’ll have to give it to someone else. And trust me, man, you don’t want to miss this. Can I count on you?” Another clap on the shoulder, this time with a squeeze of fingers. Damian looked serious.

  “Yeah.” Matt nodded, thinking of sand and sun and booze and babes. Of one last Spring Break blowout, the last before he’d graduate and hit what he kept thinking of as “the real world” even though the one he’d been living in had seemed pretty fucking real. “Don’t worry, man. I’ll get it to you.”

  Somehow.

  Chapter 3

  “Melissa, it’s good to see you!” Ada beamed as Melissa came into the tiny classroom where the interviews were being conducted. “C’mon in. Randy’ll be here in a couple minutes. What can I get you to drink?”

  “Is this part of the experiment?” Melissa asked with a grin.

  Ada laughed. “Oh, gosh, no. Don’t worry, we’re not studying the effects of caffeine addiction on stress management or anything like that. Not this time, anyway.”

  Melissa settled into the uncomfortable, hard-backed chair. “In that case, I’ll take a Coke on the Pysch Department’s dime.”

  “No problem.” Ada looked up as her partner Randy came in. “Can you grab Melissa a soda?”

  “Sure thing.” Randy nodded at her and returned a moment later with a can of store-brand cola. “Good to see you, Melissa, how’s it going?”

  They got through the small talk quickly enough. Randy and Ada were stereotypical research nerds, albeit with slightly better social skills, but they weren’t really interested in chit-chat. They were all business as they handed Melissa the paperwork she was accustomed to filling out to take part in the experiments. Health history, release forms, information on how she wanted to be paid. And then…

  “Wow,” Melissa said, looking over the questionnaire. It was by far the most extensive they’d ever asked her to fill out, at least ten pages long compared to the more standard two or three. And by far the most…intimate.

  “You didn’t know what you were signing up for?” Randy asked.

  Melissa shrugged. “When I called to make the appointment, they didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. I just figured I know you guys. And I need the money.”

  Randy and Ada gave each other a look, and Ada shifted in her chair. She looked serious. “The reason we chose you as one of the participants, and believe me, Melissa, there were a lot more applications than we’re used to getting, was because we’ve worked with you before.”

  Melissa nodded, glancing again at the information they were requesting. Number of sexual partners, frequency of sexual activity, current birth control methods, a more extensive health history including STD testing release forms. “Yeah, I figured that, but…this is…”

  Randy cleared his throat. “This isn’t quite the same as the time we tested you on the porn stu
ff, though it is going toward our overall thesis materials. This time, Ada and I are interested in studying sexual attraction and reactions. Is the desire to have sex with someone based on something purely physical, mental, spiritual or a combination?”

  Melissa didn’t really care what the purpose of the tests were. She just wanted the money. But looking over the information on the questionnaire, unease tip-toed through her. “You want to know what sort of man attracts me? All these physical characteristics, personality traits, stuff like that? My attitude toward casual sex?”

  She paused. “Is there more to this experiment than this questionnaire?”

  Ada nodded. “Well…yes.”

  Melissa blinked. No wonder the pay rate was so much higher this time. “You want me to have sex with someone for this test?”

  Randy smiled. “We’ve set up an increasingly intimate series of encounters in which we’d like you and the additional research participant to engage. You’ll be provided the space in which to engage in these activities, as well as the time frame, along with specific instructions on how to report on your experiences.”

  Melissa’s brows raised. “You want me to have sex with someone!”

  “What we’re trying to determine,” Ada said, eyes bright and cheeks pink, “is the effect of predetermined qualities or anticipation on sexual attraction and response.”

  “In other words,” Randy said excitedly, “we’re going to pair you up with someone based on all of your information, and we’re going to see how long it takes you to want to fuck!”

  Melissa started laughing. Hard. Randy and Ada looked at each other, back and forth, smiling but looking quizzical.

  “Are you serious?” Melissa asked.

  They were totally serious. Her laughter faded as she stared at them, expecting one or the other to announce this was it, she’d passed the first phase of the experiment, whatever it was. But as Randy and Ada merely looked at her without even taking a single note, Melissa realized they meant every word they’d said.

  “You’re going to pay me a thousand bucks to introduce me to someone you want me to sleep with.” She said this carefully, making sure she got everything straight.

  “The choice, ultimately, is yours,” Ada said. “We obviously can’t pay you to have sex with someone. That would be illegal. We’re just paying you to agree to…erm…well, to engage in specific activities within a certain time frame, designed to encourage the sexual response.”

  “And if I meet the guy and don’t want to have sex with him, what then?” Melissa wasn’t entirely put off by the notion of sex with a hot stranger, chosen to meet her every specification. Hell, she’d had more than a few dates that had been with guys who were little better than trolls, and during her longest dry spells she’d actually considering sleeping with one or two of them.

  “We’ll ask you to record your feelings and emotions relating to the decision to have sex or not to have sex, and everything will be taken into consideration. On his end, too,” Randy explained. “I mean, maybe he won’t want to sleep with you.”

  Melissa blinked again. Randy wasn’t exactly the most subtle shade of pink in the spectrum, so she couldn’t really take offense, even though it had been her experience that most men would sleep with just about anything. And she was far from just anything. Maybe she wouldn’t win a beauty pageant, but then she’d never be the sort to enter one, either.

  “And how long is this experiment?”

  “Five nights. You begin a week from Monday, that will give you enough time to fill out the paperwork and get all your health records updated. Every night from six to ten p.m., here at the lab.” Ada tapped her pen against the paper. “Once you’ve signed up, in order to get your payment you’ll have to complete the sessions for all five nights and record your impressions of the experience. You’ll drop off the reports every day before noon. Of course what, exactly, you do during the experiment is up to you. I mean, we really can’t make you umm….”

  “We just want to find out how long it takes you guys to decide if you’d like to bang like a screen door in a hurricane,” Randy put in.

  Melissa quickly looked over the list. Five sessions, with increasing levels of “intimacy.” She’d once slept with a man she’d known for two hours – what would she want to do with one after twenty?

  “What if, at the end of it, we don’t have sex?” Melissa asked, shrewdly, she thought, because there was no way she was going to agree to all this if there was any chance at all she might be stiffed out of the cash at the end because she refused to allow a strange guy to put his penis inside her.

  “As long as you complete every session through until the end and fill out all the accompanying reports, you’ll be paid.”

  “And if he bails?” Melissa asked, wanting to be just that much extra sure.

  “You’ll still be paid as long as you complete the requirements,” Randy assured her.

  Melissa looked down at the papers in front of her. She thought of her bank account, and of a thousand bucks that would go a long way toward making her life all that much more comfortable. And for what – the possibility she might have to get hit on by some guy she could ultimately turn down if she really wanted to? She picked up her pen and started writing.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Chapter 4

  Hair: Blonde. Eyes: blue. Bra size? Matt paused at that one. Did he want to be honest and admit he was a total dick, say 34 DD? Or did he want to pretend something like that didn’t matter. Hell. He scribbled 34 D, dropping the extra D just to keep himself from being a complete douchebag. Height, weight, hobbies. This was a lot like those two geeks in Weird Science, pulling pictures from magazines and creating the perfect woman, but why not, right? If they were asking him what he wanted, he might as well ask for it all.

  “How important is a sense of humor?” He thought about that one, tapping his pen against his lips. Randy and Ada had left him alone to fill out the paperwork, but he wasn’t convinced there wasn’t some sort of monitoring going on. He might not know a lot about how psych department experiments worked, but he was going to assume he was being recorded until proven otherwise. “Very important.”

  The next question, though, made him laugh. “If you meet a woman with an excellent sense of humor and obvious intelligence, but her physical appearance isn’t up to your standards, would you ask her out anyway?”

  No. Might as well be honest for the sake of the experiment, right? Didn’t want to skew the results.

  “If you end up going out with a woman, for example on a blind date, who exhibits all the traits you’re looking for in a mate, but again her physical appearance isn’t to your standards, do you have sex with her if the opportunity arises?”

  Yes. He hesitated on that one, thinking of the old “chew your arm off in the morning” jokes, but the fact was, Matt had slept with ugly chicks in the past because the desire to get laid overrode any sort of other need. Had he done it lately, even in the past few years? No. But he had, and he was going to guess he would again, if the situation were right.

  It took him forty-five minutes to answer all the questions, and by the end of it, his hand had cramped. They’d explained to him already what the experiment entailed, reassuring him over and over again that he wouldn’t have to sleep with anyone if he didn’t want to. That he wasn’t being paid to have sex. That he’d have to spend five nights in a row with this random chick, chosen as his partner based on what he’d filled out. He wanted to make sure he gave them all the information necessary to hook him up with someone just right.

  Less than twenty-four hours later, in the shower as he got ready for the evening out with the “bros,” Matt froze with his fingers knuckle-deep in lather on his skull. He was about to get set up on what could be the worse or best blind date, ever.

  He was still thinking about it when he got to the bar where Damian had said they’d all be. And there they were, a bunch of his fraternity brothers, most of them younger and all of them horny. On their
way to piss drunk, too, by the looks of them. They’d cornered a similar group of mostly pretty sorority girls in tiny tops and with lots of shiny teeth.

  “Bro.” Damian greeted him solemnly. “Glad you could finally fucking make it out. All work, no play, right?”

  “Yeah, right,” Matt said and took one of the bottles of beer from the bucket on the table. “How about I buy the next bucket?”

  And that’s how it started. How it ended, though, was something else. Damian had fixed his sites on this sweet little blondie with huge tits and not a lot going on between the ears. Matt had found himself a reluctant wingman, left to entertain the hottie’s plain Jane pal.

  At least she didn’t seem interested in him. They shared a couple of beers from another of the buckets and watched some lame reality show while Damian set to making out with the still-nameless chick. They were both drunk, and normally Matt wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except that it seemed pretty lame to just stick your tongue down someone else’s throat within twenty minutes of meeting them.

  Then again, what had he just signed up to do?

  He thought about making conversation with the woman beside him at the bar, but she might think he was trying to hit on her, which he wasn’t, so he just drank beer and ate some nachos and watched his friend feel up a stranger.

  “Ten bucks says they go home together,” the woman beside him said, watching her friend rub her crotch against Damian’s. “And that’s a sucker bet.”

  He grinned at her, but she was already shaking her head and putting some money on the bar. She gave him a slight smile as she passed by him, but that was it. He watched her say something to her friend, who pretty much ignored her, and then she left the bar.