“Isn’t this illegal or something, hon? Drugging someone without their permission?”
“Well, in the wrong hands it could be problematic, but that will never happen… well, any more than Viagra, or any other substance, is misused. Besides, it will be at least a year before we’re ready to go public with this… lots of time to iron out those little wrinkles.”
“But it sounds sort of like that date rape drug, GHB… you know, the one they call ‘Easy Lay.'”
“Absolutely not! Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid knocks a person out; my love potion turns them on… emotionally. Well, physically, too, but the most important part is that the receiving party is attracted temporarily, on an emotional level, lasting anywhere from a few days to several weeks.”
“I just don’t know, Sylvie.”
“Think about it, Blanche… How many times have you and I said that the mating game is based too much on youth and physical appearance… that men and women often overlook the perfect partner? This potion gives that perfect person an opportunity to be with the mate they want, to have that person get to know the real individual. Hopefully, when the potion wears off, the lovin’ feelings will remain.”
“But the ethics of it all! The manipulation!”
“Hah! How is this any more unethical than following the advice of that popular book The Rules? Or wearing a push-up bra? Or seductive perfume? Health food stores are loaded with bottled love aids. Heck, women have been manipulating men, and vice versa, for centuries, ever since Eve gave Adam the apple.”
“I know you’ve worked hard to conquer your shyness, Sylvie, but I still can’t visualize you setting yourself up for the publicity this would engender. You would be the spokesperson for this potion when it hits the market, right?”
“No! Never!” She shivered with distaste at the notion of making a spectacle of herself, not having come that far in her shyness therapy. But she did want credit for her work. She came from a family of overachievers, and it was her turn to get some much-overdue credit. Fame and fortune, without being the deer in the headlights, that was what she wanted.
“Your company might feel differently.”
She shook her head. “I may be working in Terrebonne facilities, but this is my project. All the project data is stored in my safety-deposit box, and the essentials of my everyday work are kept in that locked briefcase,” she said, pointing to the desk, “which I carry home with me every day. I have no interest in being personally associated with this product in the public eye, but I do expect recognition behind the scenes and in the professional scientific community.”
“This is all about your boss, isn’t it, Sylv?” Blanche walked over to the coffeemaker in the corner, the multi-colored bands of purple in her skirt shimmering in the thin stream of sunlight coming through the single window.
“Partly,” Sylvie admitted, taking one of the cups her friend handed to her. Before she continued, she took a sip, savoring as always the pungent scent of the thick, black Creole coffee, with enough caffeine to revive a corpse. In fact, it was one of the secret ingredients in her love potion formula—an idea she’d gotten from the voodoo ritual handbook that had once belonged to her great-grandmother many times removed, Marie Baptiste, the demented antebellum mistress of a sugar plantation out on Bayou Noir. “I mean, I didn’t start this experiment with Charles in mind, but once I saw the implications, I knew that I would volunteer to be one of the dozen female guinea pigs when the human experiments began, and Charles would be one of the dozen male targets. It took a little convincing, but eventually he agreed… for the sake of the company. We’re starting in two weeks.”
“Charles Henderson is a middle-aged dweeb… an executive stick-in-the-mud. Bo-o-o-ring, with a capital B,” Blanche asserted. “You can do ten times better than him. Besides, you’re approaching this whole seduction business wrong. You zap a man with a love potion and it takes all the mystery out of romance. What’s wrong with the old-fashioned way of falling in love?”
“Ah, but that’s why I’ve been thinking that I would be better off with a man like Charles.”