Pleasuria

by John J. Jessop

  Jason, who had been planning to tell her about his decision to quit the government, died a little inside. He wasn’t even thinking about the fact that the photos of him were already out there in the internet-o-sphere and would always remain there throughout eternity. He was more concerned about how he was going to tell his wife that PI Longfellow was who he wanted to be.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jim and Mary Hutchinson were seventy-five-year-old retirees living in Raleigh. They looked like an average elderly couple, white hair, wrinkles, and ravaged by age, gravity and overeating. He stood only five-six due to poor posture and a bad back, and she was an inch shorter, and her once-pretty face and shapely body now looked like an overstuffed version of her younger self. Jim had retired as a professor in the English Department at North Carolina State University, and Mary was a high school history teacher at the Raleigh Charter School. They were longtime North Carolina residents and were very happy with their lives. Despite being in their mid-seventies, they were both still relatively healthy and self-sufficient. Jim spent his time hanging out with friends at the club or watching TV, while Mary played bridge, attended her book club where they drank copious amounts of wine, and enjoyed gardening in the backyard of their suburban home.

  One evening in July, they went to bed after the late evening news, as usual. After forty-eight years of marriage, they still slept together in a king-size bed, although in the past couple of years Mary had taken to placing a long pillow in between them to mark her territory. As they settled in for the night, Jim said, “Dear, I don’t think you’ll need your pillow wall tonight. I’m exhausted. I doubt I’ll move once I’m asleep. We stuffed way too much into a single day. I didn’t mind the marathon grocery shopping; we bought enough food for a month, you and those damned coupons. But when we got home from the store and put away the food, did we really have to weed your garden? We were already tired, and the heat and humidity were too much. We’re not spring chickens anymore.”

  “Yes, dear, but I’m not taking any chances. You thrash around in your sleep like a fish out of water, and you’ve already pushed me out of bed three times in the past year, always in the middle of the night. That last time I just gave up and slept on the floor. It’s either the pillow barrier, or we’re gonna have to go to separate beds.”

  Jim frowned. “I remember a time when you used to like to go to bed; you were a passionate woman. Now, there’s a pillow wall, and you’re talking about separate beds. Are we really that old? How’d that happen?” They were both asleep by the time he finished his last sentence.

  Around two thirty, Jim was awakened by the sound of his wife’s voice. He heard her say, “Oh my! That feels good. I haven’t felt anything like that for a long time. What are you doing, you naughty boy?”

  Jim, groggy from being woken in the middle of the night, said, “Mary, who the hell are you talking to? What are you doing? It’s the middle of the goddamned night.”

  She didn’t respond. Instead, he heard her say, “Oh yes. That’s so good. Right there. Don’t stop. It’s been so long; I forgot what it’s like. Oh God! Oh God!”

  At this point, Jim was baffled. It sounded like his wife was having sex with someone, and it was apparently not him. They hadn’t had any intimate contact for years. He reached out to the nightstand, turned on the dim lamp, looked in her direction, and saw his wife in her pajamas, covered from the waist down by the sheet, massaging her breasts through her pajama top and moaning with pleasure.

  “Honey, what are you doing? There better not be anyone over there with you. Damn it! I can’t see a thing without my glasses. You can’t do that without me. It’s not fair.”

  He fetched his glasses off of the nightstand but still didn’t see anyone else, and from what he could remember of sex, his wife was approaching an orgasm. She moaned, “Oh God, yes. Let it come. It’s been so long. Just let it come. Oh yes, yeeesss!” With that, her entire body shuddered, she arched her back and screamed with ecstasy.

  Jim was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what to do, and he was kind of jealous. He said, “Mary, what the hell’s going on? You haven’t let me touch you in years. I’m right here, and would be happy to help.”

  Jim had seen a movie recently where the ghost of a woman’s dead husband had returned and made love to her, and he wondered if maybe this wasn’t something like that.

  “Mary, are you having sex with a ghost? Who is it? I’ll kill him.”

  She was somewhere else, somewhere that he wouldn’t mind visiting. He wanted to move to her side of the bed and participate, be a part of this thing, whatever it was. But the other side of the pillow wall was taboo, and she had such a large smile on her face and such a look of contentment that he didn’t have the heart to interrupt. He was actually beginning to feel happy for her.

  Mary climaxed and when she calmed down Jim said, “Darling, I know it’s been a while since we had sex, but I seem to remember that you need to touch certain parts for a woman to climax. I’m watching, and I don’t see any touching. Is this something that you learned about on Oprah? If so, I want to see that episode.”

  He was beginning to relax, comforted by the thought that maybe she was in a deep sleep and had just had one hell of an erotic dream. Then, she started up again. She said, much louder this time, “Oh God. That’s unbelievable. Yes, do that. Right there. Don’t stop doing that. Ooooh! I’m going to come again. Yes, oh yes, oh yes!” Her entire body shuddered again, her back arched and she appeared to experience another, even stronger orgasm. She screamed, much louder this time, and her eyes appeared to roll back in her head.

  Again, Jim looked around the room, trying to figure out who or what was doing this to her. Her hands were nowhere near her orgasmic region; this time they weren’t even on her breasts. Her hands were just waving randomly over her head, almost like she was dancing, kind of like jazz hands. Deciding this must be some type of erotic dream, Jim said, “Mary, wake up! This is your husband, and I want in on this action. What are you dreaming? It sounds like wild sex, but your hands look you are dancing. You can’t do this without me. You’re in your mid-seventies, you’re getting too agitated, and I don’t think this is good for your heart. Mary, snap out of it! I’m afraid you’re going to stroke out.”

  He really got concerned when, for the third time in the span of no more than five minutes, he heard her say, “Oh God. Yes. Again. And again. And again. Do it to me. Right there. Yes, touch me right there. Yes, harder, faster, deeper. Please, don’t stop. Please, take me there, again, and again, and again. It’s been so long, and it feels so good!” And for the third time, she screamed, her body shuddered, her back arched and she had what looked like the grandmother of all orgasms. Her face was contorted with pleasure.

  “Goddammit, woman, I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to share. You can’t keep doing this without me. It’s just not fair.” He was becoming downright indignant until he noticed that she had stopped moving

  “Oh shit,” he said. “Mary, are you okay? Talk to me!” She was suddenly quiet and still. He courageously crossed the pillow wall and tried shaking her, but still no response. He felt for a pulse, but it was very faint and her breathing was very shallow. “Thank God, still alive.”

  Jim dialed 911 and heard, “What’s your emergency?” Jim realized that he hadn’t thought this through. What to say? How to explain what had just happened?

  After a lengthy pause, he said, “This is Jim Hutchinson. My wife Mary is here in bed beside me, she’s barely breathing and her pulse is very weak.” He paused again for a few seconds before continuing, “She just had some kind of fit, a seizure, or something.”

  The 911 operator asked, “How old is she and what was she doing before this seizure?”

  Jim’s mind was frantically trying to sort it all out and do his best to explain the situation. “My wife is seventy-five, and I woke up to find her sexually aroused. She was moaning, talking out loud, in her sleep I think. Then she, well, she seems to have had three consecutiv
e orgasms, apparently really good ones . . . without me.”

  “You mean at seventy-five, you and your wife were having sex, and she had three orgasms? What did you do, call 911 to brag? I don’t know whether to be outraged or really impressed. This service is reserved for emergencies, sir, not fairy tales.”

  He could tell that she was about to hang up on him, so he blurted out, “No. We weren’t having sex. We haven’t had sex in years. I don’t know what the hell was going on. She appeared to be talking to someone else, but there was no one but me in the room. She kept making noises like she used to make when we were in our twenties, and we would . . . well . . . you know. I think the kids today call it hooking up. But I was on my side of the bed, busy not touching her, and she was having climax after climax, without me, I counted three in all. I was really getting pissed that I wasn’t included, but then her breathing got really shallow and her eyes went up into her head.”

  “I still don’t understand. Do you mean that your wife was masturbating and got carried away? Did she hurt herself? A girl’s got to be careful with some of those battery-operated things. Do you need an ambulance?”

  “No, she wasn’t touching herself. She was waving her hands around in the air. It was like she was dancing, on her back. Anyhow, no one touched her, including her; there was no masturbating, and I’m sorry to say that I was also left out of the equation. I am trying to tell you that I don’t know what happened, but we need an ambulance. She’s unconscious, barely breathing, and her pulse is almost nonexistent. Please send help. Hurry!”

  The operator heard the desperation in Jim’s voice. “Don’t worry, sir, I’ll dispatch an ambulance immediately. If you like, I can stay on the line with you until they arrive.”

  Jim said, “Thank you. There’s not much you can do. I’ll make a cold compress from a wash rag and put it on her forehead. For all I know, she could just be overheated.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The following Monday, Jason saw a notice on a bulletin board at work announcing the upcoming appearance of Dr. Lance Harden, SVP, CureStuff Pharmaceuticals, at an FDA conference to speak about CureStuff’s research program related to antidepressant drugs. Jason called him and invited him to dinner while he was in town, and Harden accepted. To Jason’s surprise, Dr. Harden was dressed in suit and tie like everyone else. His presentation appeared to be purposefully vague with respect to his research program. The symposium ended at six and Jason drove Harden to a nearby Wendy’s. Jason intended to question Harden further about his research, but he had to be careful not to let on to Harden that one of his own lab techs had ratted him out on the “humping” side effects of Pleasuria. Jason didn’t want to get her fired; it could prove handy to have someone on the inside.

  When Jason pulled into the Wendy’s drive-through, Harden looked confused. He said, “Dr. Longfellow, when you asked me out to dinner, I assumed we would be eating somewhere with plates.”

  “I’m a little low on cash right now. I work for the government, I’m trying to start my own PI business on the side, and I only have one client at the moment. No one’s going to reimburse me for this meal, and it’s not ethical for you to pay since I also work for the FDA. So, Wendy’s it is, unless you’d prefer McDonald’s, just up the road. Besides, I thought we would have more privacy if we ate in the car. If you insist on a plate and silverware, we could go inside, if a paper plate and a spork would do.”

  Harden responded indignantly. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake. This is fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

  Once they received their orders, Jason parked the 4Runner and handed Harden his bag of food. Jason asked, “So, Dr. Harden, when I visited CureStuff, I heard from a number of people that it was your research that led to the discovery of the company’s new potential blockbuster drug to treat depression. You must be very proud of your staff. I hear that the drug’s supposed to be worth hundreds of millions. Is that true?”

  “Well, it depends on the how the clinical studies go in the next few months. I must confess, I am hopeful. As you know, the data can’t be unblinded until the study is finished, but I’ve been hearing some good things from the clinical researchers.”

  In order to make Harden as uncomfortable as possible, Jason left the windows up in the car. Temperatures were in the 80s. Then, as a further distraction, Jason cleverly dropped a greasy french fry on Harden’s pant leg. “Shit, that’ll make a mark.” He said, “Let me get that for you,” as he smeared french-fry grease into Harden’s pants, trying to wipe it off with a paper napkin.

  Harden slapped Jason’s hand away, took the napkin from him, and started wiping himself. “Please, let’s finish eating and you can take me back to my hotel where there’s a wonderful air conditioner and no you.”

  Jason didn’t take offense. He saw that his plan was working; Harden was starting to sweat through his business suit. While he had Harden distracted and miserable, he changed the subject abruptly. He didn’t expect Harden to confess that the new drug was just a quick makeover of Pleasuria or that ubiquitous humping had been seen in the earlier animal studies. Jason was more interested in finding out who might have a motive for harming Joanne Shipley. He was new to the PI game, and he needed to be subtle enough to keep Harden from becoming suspicious.

  “I hope you’re enjoying your meal. By the way, I met Dr. Dick Littlething during my visit to CureStuff. I heard from some of the employees that he was quite the ladies’ man. Is it true that he tried to date Wendy Thompkins at one point and she shut him down? Same for Joanne Shipley? And what about Tanya Grayson? Did he try to hit on her too? Do you think Littlething is capable of trying to kill these women because they rejected him? Do you think he’s a murderer? Do you know who tried to murder them? What about you? Did you try to kill Joanne Shipley and Wendy Thompkins?”

  Jason thought, I need to work on my interrogation technique. Subtlety is not one of my strengths.

  Harden looked surprised. He had expected questions about his research, and he was prepared to be vague about that. But he hadn’t expected questions about a murder or accusations that he was a killer. He also had french-fry grease on his dress pants and was about to pass out from the heat.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Longfellow. It seems that you’ve switched from your role as FDA reviewer and put on your Sherlock Holmes hat. I wasn’t expecting you to grill me about the alleged attempt on Wendy Thompkins life, or that of Joanne Shipley. Do you really think I had anything to do with those attempted murders, if that’s what they were? Also, as a government employee, I don’t think you’re allowed to torture someone you’re interrogating. And if you are, can we please go back to the hotel, and you can waterboard me? I’m pretty sure I’d prefer that to Wendy’s food, french-fry grease and being cooked alive in your car.”

  “Sorry. I’m just curious about Dr. Littlething. When I spoke with him at CureStuff, he seemed to be a legend in his own mind when it came to the ladies. He told me that he had had sex with all of them, Thompkins, Shipley, and Grayson, and they were happy to oblige. But when I spoke to those women, they all laughed at my questions about their relationships with Littlething, and to a one, each of them made fun of him as a balding, pathetic little man. One comment was something like ‘little man, little hands, little thing.’ You can see how this might provide Littlething with a motive for harming these women. As for you, sorry about that. I got kind of carried away. I’m new to this PI thing. I don’t think you are the killer, but just in case I thought I’d try to catch you off guard.”

  Harden, eyes crossed and gasping for breath, said, “No worries. Happy to answer your questions. Could you please open the windows a crack? I can assure you I had nothing to do with whatever happened to Joanne and Wendy. As for Dick Littlething, I’m not one to take much stock in gossip. But, to your point, I have heard rumors that Dick tried to hit on Joanne and Wendy, and I also heard that they both refused his advances. As for Tanya Grayson, my experience is that she continually makes fun of Dick, both behind his back and to his face,
but I don’t believe that he has ever tried to approach her. I don’t think he likes her very much. In fact, I think he’s afraid of her. Tanya can be nice, but she can also be, well, a bitch. Dick is arrogant and self-absorbed, but I still felt sorry for him the couple of times I saw her put him in his place. Now, for God’s sake, please open a window!”

  “Thank you for the insight into Littlething’s possible motive. I’ll be happy to open the windows and drive you back to your hotel now.”

  • • •

  After dinner, Jason dropped Harden off and then went back to the hotel near the FDA offices, where he was staying during the conference to avoid his normal commute. He watched the late-evening news before going to bed and caught a story about a suspicious small private-plane crash in North Carolina. The news report got Jason’s attention when he heard an air traffic controller say, “I knew the pilot, Captain Harold Jennings, and was in constant contact with him during takeoff. When he leveled off, he left his headset on, and I heard him talking to someone in the cockpit. He described her as a gorgeous blonde, and I heard him say she was undressing, then moaning sounds like they were going at it in the cockpit. He said they were trying to set some sort of mile-high record. I thought he was just pulling my leg because Harold was always a joker and the flight manifest listed the pilot as the only passenger. But it became clear he was no longer focused on me, or even aware I was listening. I was afraid he’d lost his mind and taken an escort on the plane with him. Odd thing is, I never heard anyone else’s voice but his. I really started to worry when the plane veered off course, and then started to plummet straight for the ground. After the crash, I heard that the FAA only found one body in the wreckage—Harold’s. I don’t know what really happened, but it’s a shame. Harold was a good guy, and to tell the truth, I was kind of jealous at what I was hearing through my headset, right up until Harold kissed the ground.”