“Like with anything new, there’s still a few bugs have to be gotten out,” “Fig” admitted. Along with the others he resumed watching the TV screen as the Joneses picket up where they had left off. Once again the sounds the made were relayed to the observation room.
“Ow!” Mrs. Jones reacted.
“Oof!” Mr. Jones grunted.
“Yi-eee!”
“Ugh-agh-ugh!”
“Ahh!”
“Yeah!”
“Ahh! Ahh!”
“Yeah! Yeah!”
“Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!”
“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”
There was frenetic action followed by the sounds of heavy breathing as they struggled to catch their breath. Then—-
“Are you through already?” Mrs. Jones asked.
“Yeah.” Mr. Jones yawned.
“Just like home!” Her voice was accusing.
“Why should it be any different?”
“You might make a little extra effort. It’s for the movies after all.”
“Movies or no movies, I’m tired,” Mr. Jones told her. “Put on your clothes and let’s go home. We hurry, we can still catch ‘To Tell The Truth.’ ”
Professor Woocheck spoke a few formal words into the tape recorder to the effect that the first experiment of Phase Two of the research program had been completed. Then he and the others retired to his office where they discussed the scheduling of subsequent experiments. A program was worked out and finalized. Two days later it was put into effect. It continued apace during the ensuing weeks.
Certain patterns which seemed to be peculiar to the abilities and habits of married couples began to emerge as the program progressed. In a general way, the staff began to draw some unofficial conclusions. Admittedly there was still insufficient evidence to work out statistical likelihoods, but they would have been less than human had they failed to note to themselves that certain behavior seemed constant among the married subject population. Then one day something happened which threw their calculations into a cocked hat.
The Professor, Dr. Peerloin, “Fig” and Mercy had just run the film of the latest “experiment.” When the lights came up in the screening room, they looked at each other with dazed eyes and startled expressions.
“What do you make of that?” Dr. Peerloin was the first to pose the question in all their minds.
“I have all the initial interview material here,” Mercy said, indicating the manila folder in her lap. “I just went over it this morning. There’s nothing there to indicate any reasons for what we’ve just seen.”
“Yet all the instruments bear it out,” “Fig” said. “And the over-all computer rating surpasses anything we’ve ever seen before.”
“When you first fed the interview and other background data into the computer,” Dr. Peerloin wondered, “was there anything to indicate we’d get results like this?”
“Negative,” “Fig” told her.
“Well then,” Professor Woocheck mused, “either our whole concept of erotic cause and effect is out of line, or the subjects lied to us initially.”
The others nodded agreement.
“On a one-to-one-hundred scale,” “Fig” reflected, “this couple’s sexuality would rate ninety-three-point-six. Our average married subjects rate thirty-point-two. And the highest rating scored among the prostitute population was in the sixties. There’s certainly something fluky somewhere.”
“Then they certainly must have lied in the initial interview,” Dr. Peerloin concluded. “The only thing to do is to confront the couple with the evidence and try to get them to tell us the truth.”
“That lies directly in your area of concern, Doctor,” Professor Woocheck pointed out. “Will you handle it?”
“Of course.”
So it was that later that afternoon Dr. Margaret Peerloin met with the couple in question. She explained to them quite frankly about the discrepancies in their performance as compared to other subjects’. At first they assumed an air of innocence and disclaimed knowledge of any possible reasons for the discrepancy. Dr. Peerloin was gentle, but firm. She hammered away at them with all the sociological techniques she had perfected in Peru and other places where she had done studies. Finally they stopped protesting and agreed to level with her. It was the man who told her the story.
“It started about six months ago,” he told Dr. Peerloin, “the first time we went to Dr. Farndheit’s office.”
“That was the doctor who recommended you to the project?” Dr. Peerloin quickly checked the case history folder.
“Yes, ma’am. It was after his office hours that night, but he was still in his office checking bills. I could see the light. That’s how come we went in.”
“You were patients of Dr. Farndheit’s prior to this visit?”
“No. He never seen us before. So when we came in, he tells us right away his office hours is over. But I say like this is an emergency and finally he sort of sighs and says all right, we should sit down. We do, and he wants to know what’s the trouble. I guess I sort of hemmed and hawed a little. And Marsha here—-” He indicated his silent subject partner to Dr. Peerloin. “—she turned brick red. Well, Dr. Farndheit takes a shot in the dark and says lots of people have sex problems and there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, he’s a doctor. It’s a relief to have him come out with it like that. But then he goes off on a wrong track, like telling Marsha she shouldn’t be ashamed of anything we do, and while I’m telling him that isn’t it, he’s off again on maybe there’s a physical problem and he’ll examine her and by the time I tell him no, that ain’t it either, he’s talking about marriage adjustments and a whole lot of things like that. Well, finally he runs down and I get it across to him that he’s all wet. So then, natch, he wants to know what the hell is the problem. I tell him like it’s awful hard to put into words. He gets a little miffed-—I couldn’t blame him—and says how can he help if I won’t tell him what’s bothering us. So I tell him how he can help.”
“You explained your problem,” Dr. Peerloin surmised.
“Not exactly. What I explained was how since we couldn’t quite put it into words, maybe if he’d let us use his examining room and watch while we did it, he could see for himself what the problem was.”
“And he agreed to this?” In spite of herself, Dr. Peerloin’s eyebrows shot up.
“Not at first. When I suggested it the first time, he gave us a lot of talk about ethics and the state medical board and all that jazz. But I pleaded, and Marsha rinsed her eyeballs a little, and after a while I managed to talk him into it. So Marsha and me go into the examining room and we get out of our clothes. Then we call him in and we have a go while he watches. After which he tells us to get dressed, he’ll speak to us in his office. Well, we do, and he does. He tells us like he doesn’t see anything wrong, that he thinks we do just fine. I say maybe it looks that way but appearances can be deceiving. I tell him I can see how it might be hard for him to see it the first time out maybe we can come back next week same time. Again it takes a little talking, but finally he agrees. Then I pay him and we leave.”
“Did you come back the following week? Dr. Peerloin prompted.
“You betcha. And the week after that. And the week after that too. We keep coming back every week for three-four months, Marsha and me. And each time we’d— you know—while the Doc watched us. Then one night, after 'we’re through, we get dressed like usual and go into his office. Only this night he lights into us. He’s had enough, he says. There ain’t nothing wrong with our lovemaking, he says. We got it better than nine-tenths of the other married couples he knows, he says. He wishes he, himself, and his ever-loving had it so good, he says. Twenty years of marriage, he never made it so good with his wife as Marsha and I make it every time he watches us, he says. Even when he was a young man full of ginger, fresh out of med school and making it with the nurses, he never had it so good, he says. So now — and he’s having trouble not shouting—the Doc wants to know what the hell this is all about. Why do we come to him anyway?”