I squirted some lubricant on the tip of the cucumber and then I pressed it into her pussy. She reached out and started to fondle my limp cock while I pumped her. It was fun, but not nearly as fun as a proper fuck. I would have liked to get my cock inside of her, just to feel that warm tightness of her wet walls. But her hand managed to do the job. As soon as I felt my orgasm coming, I quickly repositioned myself, so that my limp cock was pointed down on her face. And then I watched as globs of cum drooled down onto her lips and cheeks and forehead. She licked some of it up, swallowing it, and then I finished her off with the cucumber.
I never heard back from her. Either she didn’t believe me that the limp dick was just a temporary side effect, or our chemistry just wasn’t what I thought it was.
Regardless, I was happy with my drug trial rep came to my door and told me that I was done with that trial, and he now had a new one for tinnitus. “It’s worked in about thirty percent of patients so far,” he said. And then he made his big smile. “There are some strange side effects, though we can’t be sure they’re because of the drug. I won’t tell you what they are, because they may influence your experience.”
I signed for the trial and took my first pill right away. I was excited. There was a thirty percent chance that I was going to feel relief for the first time in my life.
CHAPTER II
I didn’t get a lot of sleep that night. I never got a lot of sleep the first night of a drug trial. It was always a combination of excitement and terror, wondering if the drug would do what it was supposed to do, or if it would kill me at any given moment. I was waiting for the side effects to kick in, waiting to find out why my drug rep decided to keep the possible effects secret.
I finally fell asleep feeling no different than usual. When I woke up, I immediately pulled back the sheets to look at my body. I don’t know why, but I had the strangest anxious feeling that my cock was gone, or shrivelled up—but it was there. And for the first time in a number of weeks, it was big and erect. A wave of relief washed over me and I sat up on the edge of my bed. I looked towards my closet mirror. I looked normal. My skin was a healthy colour, and none of my hair had fallen out.
And that’s when I noticed the silence. My bedroom was completely silent. At first I was worried I’d lost my hearing, so I clapped my hands together. But I could hear my clap just fine. I reached up and felt my ears, and then I realized my tinnitus was gone. For the first time in nearly a decade, there wasn’t a horrible ringing in my ears!
I jumped up to my feet, tempted to scream out in joy. The drug worked! It took away the terrible high-pitched sound and there weren’t any side effects. Was I still dreaming? Would I wake up at any moment with a terrible sound buzzing in my ears? I pinched my arm and felt that glorious pain of reality. The drug was real and my tinnitus was gone.
I had a big smile on my face for the rest of the day. No matter how hard I tried, that smile just wouldn’t go away. Even my co-workers came up to me and said, “What’s with the big smile?” I just turned to them and said, “Am I smiling?” And still, I couldn’t put that smile away.
The world sounded so much more pleasant, so much cleaner, and so much happier. I could hear every little creak and groan of my co-workers’ office chairs. I could hear the cars buzzing by on the streets, thirty floors below. And from time to time, I could hear my heart pounding with excitement. I wondered if my co-workers could hear it too.
I wanted to call my drug rep to tell him the good news, but I didn’t have his number. I only ever talked to him when he randomly showed up at my door. In fact, I didn’t even know his name. He just showed up and disappeared at random, so I was going to have to wait to share the good news. I thought about telling my friends, but I knew they probably wouldn’t care. I thought about telling my parents, but I didn’t want them knowing that I’d been testing drugs for some big pharmaceutical company. So I kept the good news to myself.
I ended up staying up until 3:00 AM, staring at my ceiling, admiring the sounds of my apartment building: the subtle sound of the fighting couple above me, the careful clinking of my alcoholic neighbour’s glass, the quiet roar of race car engines: my other neighbour’s NASCAR recordings. But the sounds weren’t annoying like they should have been. They were freeing. I never knew my apartment building was so loud and vibrant. It was no wonder people were always coming by my apartment to tell me to turn my fucking music down.
I only got about four hours of sleep that night before my alarm went off in the morning. But I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day: ready to hear the world as it’s supposed to sound, the way I heard it many years ago, before I damaged my hearing for what I thought would be a lifetime.
I took a shower, got dressed, and then started towards work. I was ahead of schedule, so I decided to walk instead of cramming my body into a tiny bus with one hundred other people. It was a March morning and the air was still cold from the winter, but I didn’t mind. The occasional patch of morning sunlight between tall buildings was enough to keep my bones thawed and my spirits high. I was still high from the amazingly crisp sounds of the morning traffic.
I ended up stopped at a particularly long red light. A woman walked up next to me. Her beautifully floral perfume caught my attention. Then I noticed her long legs, which were as smooth as fresh butter, and her short black skirt, which looked to be brand new, without a little crease to be seen. Her feet looked perfect in her little black heels. Those heels were perfect: open toed, with lots of little straps and little gold buckles. Her toenails were painted a sexy red colour, which added the perfect colour contrast to her feet. But those nails could have been painted any colour and they would have looked good in those heels. I just couldn’t look away from those heels.
“Can I help you?” she said. I looked up and saw that she was looking into my eyes. Had I been staring?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just really like your shoes.”
And then that’s when I noticed she had a big rack. She was showing off lots of cleavage. And she had a sexy face, complete with lip injections and obviously fake eyelashes. Her eyes were a stunning shade of green—but those heels. I just couldn’t stop thinking about those heels. I found myself staring at them again.
“Do you do drag?” she asked.
The question almost knocked me off balance. “What did you just say?” I asked.
“I have a friend who does drag. He always stares at my shoes like that. Sorry—is that rude? I didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought…” She looked forward and saw that the light was green. “I need to get to work,” she said with red cheeks, and then she scurried off, leaving me with a strange feeling churning in my gut. Did she just ask me if I did drag—as in, was I a drag queen? It took a moment for me to shake off the disgusting thought of myself in women’s clothing, completely with a five o’clock shadow. I kept walking towards work. But for some strange reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about those heels.
I was only at work for an hour when I noticed the heels of Martha, the girl who worked in the cubicle next to me. They weren’t much different than the heels the girl on the street was wearing: with straps and buckles. But Martha’s heels weren’t open-toed. I much preferred the open-toed version. And Martha wore black pantyhose, which covered her whole legs. The heels would have looked better on bare legs as far as I was concerned.
I went to the bathroom and I stared at myself in the mirror. Then I slapped myself hard on the cheek. “What the hell is the matter with you, man?” I said to my reflection. Why the hell was I so distracted by women’s shoes? Since when did I care at all about women’s shoes? I ran the water cold and then I splashed a bit onto my face. And it worked. I didn’t think about heels again that day, though there was still a strange sensation lingering in my gut, reminding me that the thought of high heels had plagued my mind for the better half of that morning.
I quickly found myself impressed and distracted again by my crystal clear hearing. I even heard my buddy, Tony
, walking up behind me. I turned around before he could tap me on the shoulder. “What’s up?” I asked.
He looked a bit surprised, but not enough to comment. “I’m leaving work early to get a drink. Want to come along?” he asked. So I packed up my things and I went down to the bar with him. There was a couple sitting at our usual table in the far corner of the establishment. “Sorry,” he said. “We’ll have to sit closer to the bar.”
“That’s fine,” I said. Usually it would have been an issue. It was a loud bar; between the ringing in my ears, the music, and the sound of the many televisions, straining to hear was a chore. But now, with the ringing gone, I could hear everything just fine. “I have my tinnitus under control,” I said. “At least for now. I’m on this new drug.”
“That’s great news,” he said, but he clearly didn’t care that much, as I expected. “Did you hear they’re going to be laying guys off? Head office wants to shrink our department by twenty percent before the end of the first quarter. But they only want to get rid of men, so that they can get their gender diversity numbers up—whatever that means.”
I’d heard the rumour, though I thought it was just a silly rumour started by one of the managers to get everyone working a bit harder, to get our first quarter numbers up. “Is it true?” I asked.
“I don’t know if it’s true. But did you notice Larry today?” asked Tony.
“Larry? I don’t think I noticed him.”
“He wasn’t in. That picture of the cat that he keeps on his desk—it’s not on his desk anymore. I think they cleared out his space before anyone came in this morning.”
An anxious nausea swirled in my gut. I hadn’t noticed the empty desk. But it was possible it was just a coincidence. Larry had been a terrible employee—it was just a matter of time before they laid him off. “Well my numbers are good,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll be firing me.”
“Well, right now, our department has twelve girls and thirteen guys—that’s about half and half. If they’re going to be getting rid of thirty percent of our department, that’s about sixty percent of the guys—probably seven or eight of us. Think about it. Do you think that you’re one of the top five guys on our floor?” His hands were trembling slightly, as if he was legitimately concerned. And was this an issue to be legitimately concerned about?
He drank his beer quickly and then he started on another, which he’d ordered before he was even finished his first. He was drinking like a man on a mission—like a man who really believed the end was nigh. I tried not to think about it, though I had to wonder: would I make the cut if cuts were really coming? Was I one of the better men in the department? And why were they only getting rid of men? Why did the company care whether it was men doing the work or women? Who were they trying to appease?
Tony went off to use the bathroom after squirming for ten minutes with his full bladder, leaving me alone at our table near the bar. I found myself listening to all of the different sounds, free from the high-pitched ringing of tinnitus I no longer had. It was such a glorious sensation—free from that horrible sound. Even the sound of the old man coughing at the bar was strangely appealing.
I could hear two women talking at a nearby table. They were chatting about a recent shopping spree. “I still can’t believe you got all of that makeup at the sale price,” said one woman to the other.
“Well when I realized they were willing to price match, I knew I couldn’t miss the opportunity. Besides, I really needed a new liquid eyeliner. Don’t these lines just look so perfect? Like—I could be on the cover of a magazine, not to brag or anything.”
“Those really are perfect lines. Is that the Stila? I need to get myself one of those. You just look so cute with those little flicks, by the way.”
And she really did look cute. She had dark flicks next to her eyes, giving her a sort of cat-eye look. The eyeliner made her eyes look big and flashy. I could see the blue in her eyes from two tables down. And then I noticed her looking at me. “Hi,” she said with an awkward wave. It took me a moment to realize she was waving at me.
I shook out from my daze. “Hi,” I said back, looking away suddenly. It was unlike me to stare at women. I was usually very shy, afraid of giving girls the wrong impression. But I wasn’t looking at this girl with lust or desire. I was admiring her makeup. And now, as I stared at the table, I couldn’t stop thinking about those cute flicks of eyeliner next to her eyes. I started thinking of all the different ways a woman can wear her eyeliner. I’d never thought of it before, but there really were so many different possibilities. Martha, at the office, always wore her eyeliner just on the far halves of her eyes. The lines got thicker as they moved outwards, and then they stopped at a point, just a few millimeters from the edge of her eye. It was a subtle effect, but it must have taken a lot of tedious effort in the morning. And then there was the girl who almost always rode on the same bus home as me: she wore her eyeliner on the tops and bottoms of her eyes, nice and thick, giving her a sort of grungy look—but the contrast made her eyes look so stunning.
“Earth to Seth,” said Tony. I looked up and saw that he was sitting across from me, staring into my eyes with one brow raised. “Tinnitus back or something?” he asked.
I forced a smile and shook my head. “No, I’m fine,” I said. And I could see those girls through my peripheral vision. I had to strain to keep my gaze away from them. But I had the strangest urge to look over at them and admire their makeup. I suddenly found it so interesting, how such small, tedious details could make such tremendous changes to a person’s appearance.
Our plate of appetizers came to the table: chicken wings, nachos, and poutine. The poutine tasted a bit weird, but I still felt the need to eat all of it because I paid for it.
Then I turned my attention to a TV above the bar. There was a woman reading off sports news. She had a cute look: minimalist, but every little detail was important. She had a small amount of red blush on her cheek bones, and a little bit of highlight down the middle of her nose, giving her nose a smaller, cuter sort of look. I loved how plump her lips looked, even though it was just an illusion created by the pink gloss—
“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Tony. “Did I freak you out with the whole layoffs thing?”
I cleared my throat and forced my attention away from the TV screen. “Yeah, maybe,” I said, lying. To be honest, I’d forgotten all about the potential layoffs. “I should probably get home before rush hour traffic gets too bad.”
“Me too,” he said. So we finished our drinks, paid our tabs, and took off for the night. But I didn’t have an easy time relaxing once I was home. I could still feel that strange dread lingering inside of my gut—that dread that hadn’t fully gone away since I found myself staring at that woman’s shoes on the street corner. Maybe that dread was just a side effect from the new drug trial. I was still waiting for the strange side effects to kick in—maybe this was one of them. But then how could I explain the strange interest in women’s shoes and makeup?
CHAPTER III
I woke up the next morning with a nausea that brought me to my bathroom. I threw myself over the toilet bowl and emptied out the contents of my stomach. Finally, I was sure that I’d found the first side effect of the drug trial. I spent the next hour throwing up while trying to get myself ready for work. But at the end of that hour, I decided that there was no way I would be able to get to work.
So I just stayed in my bathroom for the rest of the morning, throwing up until there was nothing left to throw up. Then I was finally able to stand on my feet for more than five minutes. I found myself wondering what was worse: constant vomiting or ear-piercing tinnitus. I threw up again, and then I figured it might be a good idea to see a doctor before I end up puking my intensities out, or something gross.
I was pleasantly surprised when my doctor told me I had a bug. “Probably food poisoning.” It didn’t take me long to remember the poutine. I called up Tony and discovered that he was also ill with food poiso
ning. I felt a bit guilty, seeing as I was the one who ordered the French fry dish, but I was relieved to know that the illness wasn’t a side effect of the drug trial. I was still tinnitus free without any consequences.
The sickness started to dissipate by mid-afternoon. I got my appetite back and ended up eating two sandwiches, a bowl of soup, and three granola bars—and then I was still hungry for dinner. Once I finished dinner, I was still hungry. I started to wonder if the hunger was just because I’d missed breakfast and lunch, or if that was one of the strange side effects that my drug rep had alluded to. I could handle constant hunger any day over tinnitus. I went down to the pie shop on the street corner and I ate two pieces of key lime pie, and then I finally felt satisfied.
I slept like a heavy rock, my belly filled with food.
And then, once again, I woke up feeling great. It was Saturday morning and I had no issues, not even a teasing bout of tinnitus. The drug really was a miracle, with seemingly no side effects.
I tried to think of all of the things I could do with my new crisp hearing. I thought about going for a hike, so I could hear the pleasant sounds of nature: the rustling trees and singing birds. Then I thought about going for a drive down the countryside, so I could hear the whispering wind and lively livestock. But as fun as those ideas seemed in my head—I really needed a new pair of pants, as my old pair had holes in them.
So I got dressed and went off to the mall. I figured it would be relatively quiet there, since it was still the morning, but I was wrong. Apparently every store in the mall was having a big sale as part of some anniversary event, so it took ten minutes just to find a parking spot, and then it took twenty minutes to find a store that wasn’t packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people.
It was just like most of the other stores in the mall, with men’s clothing on one wall and women’s clothing on the other. All of the tables in-between were covered in women’s clothing and apparel, because the store wasn’t stupid and knew that women tend to buy more clothes than men. Near the back of the store, I found a selection of pants. I grabbed one pair off of the shelf in my size, and then I went into one of the little changing rooms at the back of the shop.
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