EJAX-472: Ch. 09

Gustafson turned his back on the boy and I could tell he was pleased with the results of his interrogation. Craig was lying and he was doing a poor job of it. I saw him look at me, his eyes full of trepidation.

"Your honor," the prosecutor began, "I should now like the court to view a videotape which will refute the testimony of this witness."

"Proceed counselor," the judge said.

Gustafson instructed the attendant to start the video. Once again the lights dimmed and in a few seconds the monitor was alive with moving images.

"I don't know if you were aware of this Mr. Lundquist, but your kindly doctor Swensen was thoughtful enough to have the so-called 'follow-up' test videotaped." He pointed to an image of a naked man lying on a table. "I believe that person is you, is it not?"

It was indeed Craig.

"Oh, fuck!" I said under my breath. "I forgot all about the god-damned video!"

Rebecca moaned. "Jesus Christ! I can't believe the cops got their fucking hands on it!"

Stephan looked anxious. "You make videos of all your experiments?"

"It's standard procedure," Rebecca said.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry Stephan," I replied. "With all the shit we've been through lately it went completely unnoticed."

"The judge, Gustafson, and I had access to all the videos. But I don't remember seeing this. I must have missed something."

His face grew dark, but he said nothing further.

Bonnie and Philip looked tense. However, that did not stop them from shifting their chairs around for a better view of the monitor, which was now displaying a close-up image of Craig's ever-expanding prick. The young man looked on in horror as the image of his stiff penis grew from its normal nine inches to nineteen inches in less than several minutes' time. It was like witnessing the sped up growth of a flower utilizing the photographic technique of time-lapse photography.

The audience reacted with gasps of astonishment. Even my own subjects, including Craig himself, watched the unprecedented transformation with mouths agape. The volume on the video had been turned up so that all the people in the audience could now hear the shocked comments of myself and my colleagues as we beheld the startling transfiguration. The girls from St. Bridget's were completely spellbound by the monstrous, growing cock, giggling and nudging each other, unable to take their eyes off the screen.

And then, played out before the entire audience, was the image of Craig tearing himself free of his restraints, looking every bit like a modern-day Frankenstein as he pushed Jeffrey, Barney, and all the other men aside and ran from them in stark terror. Seeing it now for the first time on video, I had no idea how fast the sequence of events had transpired, and how ineffectually my staff and I had handled the crisis. By the time the video came to the part where Craig was submitting to the involuntary ejaculation response, I had begun to feel a sinking feeling in my heart. Mercifully, the tape was stopped at that point.

The attendant increased the illumination in the room even as Gustafson, with a satisfied grin, turned to Craig.

"Is your penis back to normal size now, Mr. Lundquist?"

Craig looked at the sanctimonious creature standing before him and for the first time I saw actual hatred in his eyes. "Yes."

"And do you suffer from involuntary ejaculation any longer?"

"No."

"Then you must be relieved to say the least. It must have been a terrible ordeal for you to have suffered the effects of another person's incompetence."

"Your honor." Stephan said, rising. "Counsel is expressing an opinion."

"Which he is entitled to do under these circumstances, Mr. Ambrose," the judge said, tersely.

Stephan sat back down with a grunt.

"That kid should have told the truth. What the hell was he thinking?"

"He was trying to protect me," I said, feeling empathy for the kind-hearted boy.

"Well he's only succeeded in making things more difficult for us," he replied with frustration. "Christ! I wish I knew why I'm having so much difficulty remembering that tape!"

The judge dismissed Craig. As he slowly walked down the aisle toward Cheryl, who sat with a pained expression on her face, hundreds of eyes traced his forlorn and arduous journey with a silence that was oppressive. Only the giddy schoolgirls could bring themselves to speak, hurling lewd epithets at him with unabashed audacity as he fell into his seat beside Cheryl looking tired and defeated.

"Shut the fuck up!" Cheryl screamed at the brunette, whom I had earlier heard called 'Bridget.'

The judge immediately intervened. "Another outburst like that and you will be removed young lady. And that goes for the rest of you too!" he said, addressing the schoolgirls.

Bridget fell silent as a general hush came over the entire audience.

"Mr. Ambrose. Call your next witness."

Stephan tapped Philip on the shoulder. "Your honor, I should like to call Philip Olmstead to the stand."

Bonnie laid her hand on Philip's arm and smiled at him as he slowly got up and headed toward the witness chair. Whatever hope he had held out for an easy victory was now dispelled with Craig's fateful decision to lie in my defense, and as such, he began to feel that his own chances of surviving his own trial, only a few months away, were becoming bleak. I was grateful to him for not dragging me into the gaping pit toward which he was now so carelessly headed by reason of his treachery, but I did not want to see him suffer needlessly either. As he sat down before Stephan, his body hunched forward and his eyes full of anxiety, I felt pity for him and hoped that his interrogation would be brief.

"Mr. Olmstead," Stephan began, "you have pleaded guilty to stealing doctor Swensen's fertility drug, EJAX-472. May I ask you why you stole it?"

"What man wouldn't want to have orgasms like that?" Philip replied. "I thought if I could steal a sample of the drug I could then have it replicated at another lab. I'd make a fortune."

"And you had no qualms about stealing from your own sister-in-law?"

"Of course I did. Christiana is one of the finest people I know. But the lure of the drug was overwhelming. When my wife told me what she had seen during the first experiment with the drug, I knew I had to have it."

"Even knowing that your actions could possibly lead to both of your downfalls?"

"Yes, I'm sorry to say."

I could sense the profound regret in Philip's voice and it I found it painful to look at him as his gaze shifted errantly from me to the prosecutor.

"My poor husband," Bonnie said, softly to herself.

"Who performed the theft?" Stephan inquired.

"That man right there," Philip said, pointing to Luis. "I hired him to do it."

"For the benefit of those that don't know," Stephan said, addressing the audience, "the man Mr. Olmstead is referring to is Luis Ramon Hernandez, a convicted drug trafficker who has a long criminal history in this country."

I watched Luis' face grow sullen as his sin was made public, and enjoyed seeing him shift uncomfortably in his chair.

"How was the theft accomplished?"

"By using my political influence, I paid some people to get Hernandez into the Clinic as a patient. Once he was in there, it was a simple matter for him to break into the safe and steal the drug."

"How much of the drug did he steal?"

"I don't know exactly," Philip replied. "Several hundred tablets or so."

"Were all these tablets in the safe?"

"Knowing how fastidious and conscientious my sister-in-law is, they wouldn't be anyplace else."

"Is this what Mr. Hernandez told you?"

"Yes."

"Did you believe him?"

"He had no reason to lie about something like that."

"Once Mr. Hernandez delivered the drug to you, what did you do at that point?"

"I let some of it out of my hands to repay favors, and some I gave away to people just for the hell of it."

"What favors are you referring to?"

"Political favors and such."

"And you also gave some away?"

"At the party. I guess I was drunk."

"In your statement you said that doctor Swensen discovered that you were behind the theft of her drug during your wife's birthday party. Explain that."

"I had no idea what the hell I was dealing with. Before I knew it, I began jerking...I mean, masturbating, like crazy. And all the guys I had given the drug to were masturbating themselves like crazy too. It got to the point where you just couldn't help yourself. So there was really no hiding the fact after that."

"You're referring to the involuntary ejaculation response are you not?"

"That's right."

"When doctor Swensen confronted you and accused you of the theft, what did you do?"

Philip looked at me and then hung his head. "I told her the truth," he said plaintively. "I mean, after all, it was either that or lose my wife."

Bonnie took hold of my hand and squeezed hard.

"She threatened to leave you didn't she?"

"Yes," he said, looking directly at Bonnie. "And I wouldn't have blamed her."

As she watched her husband's head sink onto his chest, Bonnie heaved a great sigh of compassion for the fallen man, the look of sorrow in her eyes reflecting the image of disillusionment sitting astride the witness chair. I felt her grip on my hand grow tighter.

"Mr. Olmstead," Stephan said. "Do you believe that doctor Swensen has acted responsibly in regard to the use of EJAX-472? And that if it were not due to your misuse of political power and the elaborate methods used to confiscate the drug, that this entire incident would never have occurred?"

"Yes," Philip replied, barely getting the word out. "If it weren't for my stupidity and short-sightedness, none of us would be here now."

"Thank you Mr. Olmstead. I have no further questions your honor."

"Does the prosecution care to cross-examine the witness?" the judge asked, turning to Gustafson.

"I do your honor," he replied, as he hastily wrote something on a pad of paper.

Stephan resumed his seat next to me but I could sense that he was uneasy.

"Mr. Olmstead," Gustafson said, rising from his seat. "How did you first come to learn about EJAX-472?"

"My wife Bonnie told me about it years ago when Christiana, doctor Swensen, first came up with the idea."

"Being doctor Swensen's sister, your wife must have had access to much of the research that was being conducted."

"I know Bonnie used to hang around the Clinic from time to time. But I don't think she really understood what was going on. Not in a technical sense anyway."

"Nevertheless, everything you learned about EJAX-472, you learned through her. Correct?"

"Primarily. And once in a while Christiana would talk about it. You know, in casual conversation."

Stephan was drumming his fingers on the table, his gaze intently focused on Gustafson.

"How would you define your relationship to your sister-in-law?"

"I'd say it was a good relationship."

"You mentioned earlier that you found her to be both conscientious and fastidious."

"For the most part, yes."

"Yet she allowed a convicted felon, this Mr. Hernandez, to infiltrate her Clinic and steal her life's work right from under her nose."

"Christiana is not a suspicious person by nature," Philip said quickly. "And I had the benefit of having some very powerful people on my side who managed to pull all the right strings."

"Well, your efforts to conceal the true identity of this hoodlum must have cost you very handsomely Mr. Olmstead because you succeeded in pulling the wool over her eyes and those of her staff most effectively. Could it be that the background checks she carried out on all these subjects were not done as conscientiously as you would have us believe?"

"I don't know how she conducted her background checks," Philip said flatly. "But I do know that if she had perceived any real danger to herself or anyone else, she would have dismissed Luis immediately. She's a very intuitive person."

"Not intuitive enough to recognize a criminal in her midst however. In fact I would go so far as to say that she has shown a great degree of naiveté during the selection of her test subjects." He turned to the judge. "I refer your honor to the case of John Cardelli whose trial is still pending. It was discovered recently that he has a history of flagrant acts of exhibitionism. Yet this disorder was not apparent to doctor Swensen."

Stephan stood up, his fists tightly clenched.

"Your honor," he said, "I would remind the court that the charge of exhibitionism brought against Mr. Cardelli is based upon hearsay and cannot be used as evidence by the prosecution."

"Counselor," the judge said to Gustafson. "You will restrict yourself to the facts."

"Yes, your honor," he replied, giving Stephan a nasty look.

I knew that Gustafson was trying to paint a picture of me as an incompetent person; that was the only tack he could follow. It may have seemed to some that he was grabbing at straws but Stephan knew better than to give the wily man too much ground. Already I could sense that some of the people in the courtroom were beginning to be swayed by his arguments, including the judge.

"Let's get back to Mr. Hernandez," Gustafson continued. "After the altercation at the Clinic in which he was literally thrown out of the building, did doctor Swensen report him to the police?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Does that not seem strange to you?"

"I think she felt pity for him."

"Pity?" he asked. "After he employed physical violence on some of her staff and threatened her with physical harm, you're telling me that she felt pity?"

"Maybe she figured that he had suffered enough. I don't know"

"But we do know what form that suffering took, don't we? The female members of doctor Swensen's staff stripped Mr. Hernandez naked, humiliated him, and forced him to undergo prolonged masturbation while under the influence of the drug. Is that not true?"

"You have the tape, you saw it for yourself."

"And do you think this is the proper way for a conscientious and responsible doctor to behave?"

"I guess not."

"You guess not." Gustafson said, the words falling like a ton of bricks upon my head. "I don't know of any medical professional who would have done what doctor Swensen did to that man, irregardless of the fact that he may have deserved it. But maybe you are right. Maybe she felt that after she had punished him, that he was somehow deserving of her pity. But that was another big mistake on her part. Had she reported him to the police, you would have never been able to enlist his aid in the robbery of the drug from the Clinic. And if the drug had not been stolen, the subsequent problems relating to the side effects of EJAX-472 would have been confined to the test subjects themselves instead of filtering down into the general population."

"Objection your honor," Stephan said. "Counselor is stating a supposition."

"Sustained," the judge said.

Philip shook his head. "That was my fault. You can't blame her."

"But I do blame her. And this is not a supposition on my part Counselor," he said to Stephan, "because I know for a fact that doctor Swensen did indeed ignore warnings raised by at least one member of the Pharmaceutical Association which called into question the safety of EJAX-472." He picked up a document from the table and read from it. "I quote: 'It has been decided by a vote of six to one that the drug known as EJAX-472 has been granted provisional status by the Pharmaceutical Association of Sweden under the laws governing the use of such drug in its application to human testing. The one dissenting vote reflects the need for further research to be conducted in light of the possibility that certain, possibly harmful, anomalies may exist now, or at some future time, within the drug.'" He thrust the document out in front of him at arm's length toward Stephan. "She knew about this warning but she chose to ignore it."

"Your honor," Stephan said. "May I address Counselor's remark?"

"Make it brief."

"That fact that the vote was six to one shows that doctor Swensen had the majority of physicians on her side. The one dissenting vote was cast by some cautious fellow who, I am told, makes it a regular habit to vote nay in almost every application for a pharmaceutical patent. Why he does this is known only to him, but I don't believe that it can be used as an argument against doctor Swensen's decision to use the drug, which she believed was perfectly safe for human consumption."

"Even one vote against should have raised a red flag," Gustafson replied, throwing the paper down on the table. "After all, people's health and safety were at stake here. I say her decision to go ahead and use the drug indicates that she acted irresponsibly and the charge of 'reckless endangerment' should stick."

Despite Gustafson's claim that I had paid little heed to the one dissenting vote, I did in fact contact the doctors at the Association and was given permission to proceed with my experiments as planned. Both the physicians and I felt that the potential benefits of EJAX-472 far outweighed any perceivable risk. I knew full well that every untried drug had its potential dangers, and despite my best efforts I could not hope to protect people from side effects that may or may not be revealed at some later time as a result of its use. Such is the nature of the unknown.

The prosecutor turned to Philip. "Your criminal involvement and doctor Swensen's negligence have caused a great deal of anguish for many people who believed in this drug called EJAX-472. Based upon what you have heard here today, do you still think she is a woman of conscience?"

Philip, who had been holding his head down, now raised it up slowly and cast his gaze over the courtroom as if seeking help from some unknown agency.

"I only know she meant to do right," he said, unable to look at anyone.

"No further questions your honor."

Philip returned to his seat beside Bonnie looking drained.

"Thank you Philip," I said, trying to cheer him. "I know it was very difficult for you."

"Don't thank me yet," he said, failing to meet my eyes.

Bonnie said some consoling words to him, but he paid her little attention. Finally, seeing she was getting nowhere, she left him alone with his thoughts.

Both Stephan and Gustafson examined and cross-examined some of the girls from St. Bridget's, including Ms. Stedman, and the scenario they described made it appear that my drug had unleashed a ferocious sexual beast in the form of John Cardelli. I watched his face register shock and ultimately bitter disappointment at the girls' testimony, none of which could be said to have vindicated him in even the slightest way. Knowing John as I did, I found it nearly impossible to picture him as the wanton, lecherous, madman the girls portrayed, but as their own academic futures were on the line, he was treated no more than as a scapegoat.

It soon became obvious that Bridget Veerhoft and Helga Nelson had been the architects of the sexual soirée, and the most vocal in his condemnation. Though quite beautiful, Bridget came across as cold and calculating, and her ally Helga much the same. Although the girls' testimonies had matched more or less, there were discrepancies that were left unresolved, and I knew this was extremely upsetting to Stephan, who wanted desperately to see John absolved of the crime. It was not difficult to see that the girls had formed a pact and were protecting each other, and, in so doing, had become indifferent to the fate of their once beloved teacher.

After the girls had offered their testimony, Stephan called John to the stand, anxious to get his own version of the events on that fateful day.

"Mr. Cardelli, you have heard the testimony of your students just now. Is it true, as they all claim, that you threatened them with violence unless they complied with your demands to have sex with you?"