The Lab Bunny Experiment

I'd like to say that it all started with a big bang but it didn't. It started with a little ding-dong.

Usually when someone rings, Will Lee opens the lab door because his desk is the closest. You'd figure that it'd drive him crazy, having to stop work a couple of times an hour all day long because another grad student forgot his badge or a visitor was looking for Professor Gomplik or some undergraduate student was desperate to find his TA out of office hours. But it didn't seem to bug Will. He was a tolerant guy.

Most likely he welcomed the opportunity to get away from his keyboard for a minute. He was supposed to be working on a network management project that Gomplik had assigned to him but nothing much was happening. It was the most tedious research project ever conceived in the mind of man.

Will should have been more on the ball last fall and proposed a decent research project of his own.

That fateful day, though, Will was away from his desk -- probably giving Gomplik one of his biweekly updates: "So far, no progress." -- so it was left to me to open the door.

A woman was standing in the corridor. Not just any woman, but a red hot piece. She was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty by my uneducated estimate -- older than most of us graduate students by a couple of years but not nearly old enough to blunt our interest. Not when she looked as good as she did. All we saw was long waves of red hair, big green eyes, and curves to die for.

She ensured that men appreciated her assets by wearing a purple miniskirt that rode high on her thigh and a pink blouse that was unbuttoned half-way to her navel.

And she wore makeup. Eye shadow and lipstick and the like. You never saw female computer science students wearing makeup around here.

She wouldn't have been more alien to us if she had green skin, a chrome dome, and had beamed down from a flying saucer.

I took one look at her and was tempted to fall to my knees and offer a prayer of thanks to God. Never mind that I've been an atheist since ninth grade.

Instead of doing anything, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open, drooling testosterone. I was too surprised to say a word.

"Can I come in?" she said.

Her voice was as sweet as an angel's.

Too bad I didn't believe in angels, either. I believe in reality, and, realistically, I figured that she was lost. She was probably looking for the French Department and had stumbled into the wrong building. Some graduate students in French Lit are nice to look at.

"Who are you looking for?" I asked. My voice croaked like a frog's but I was happy to be able to say anything.

"This is the Network Architecture Laboratory, isn't it? That's what it says on the door."

"Professor Gomplik isn't here. He's probably in his office." My voice was practically breaking under the strain of talking to this celestial being.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"He's the supervisor of this lab. This is his lab. His and Professor Ramaveda's. But Ramaveda's on sabbatical until August."

"That's all right," she said. "I don't need to talk to him especially. I just want to talk to some computer scientists. There are computer scientists in here, aren't there?"

"Sure. Well, graduate students, anyway. A half dozen of us." If this gorgeous creature wanted a computer scientist, then I wanted to be one in the worst way. I was a doctoral candidate. I had my master's already so I figured that made me a computer scientist.

"That's good enough," she said. "You're all men, right?"

"Right." A lot of the labs had female grad students, but not the Network Architecture Lab. Our work was too boring to interest women. Women preferred the more interesting subjects like human interface design.

"And you know all about how email works, right?"

"Sure," I said. "But you're probably looking for the IT help desk. That's in the IT Services Building on the other side of campus. They can get your email working for you. That's their job."

"That's not quite what I need. You're the people that I want to talk to. I'm sure about that. Can I come in?"

I couldn't see why not. If she was certain that this was the lab that she was looking for, then I more than ready to make her welcome.

I stepped aside and said, "Come on in."

Her pink heels were high, making her hips sway in the most entrancing way as she walked into the lab.

Every head in the place turned to watch her, eyes following every movement the way cobras follow the sway of a snake charmer. An apt analogy, it would turn out.

When she reached the center of the room, she said, "Let me explain why I'm here. Come close so I don't have to shout."

That made me think that she was probably a saleswoman who had made the mistake of thinking that graduate students had some say in the way our professors' grant money was spent. I thought that she couldn't be more wrong.

In fact, it was me who couldn't have been more wrong.

"You're a fine-looking group of men," she said when we were all standing in front of her. "I've come here to offer you a proposition."

The room was so quiet that you could hear the whine of motors from the robotics lab across the hall.

"Do you know anything about motorcycle gangs?" she asked.

We looked at each other with arched eyebrows and shook our heads.

"Motorcycle gangs, the outlaw ones, have mamas. A mama is a woman who hangs around the clubhouse and has sex with any member of the club any time they want it. What do you think about that?"

We looked at each other again but had nothing to say. We presumed that this was a rhetorical question.

"Well, I think that's not fair. Outlaw motorcycle gangs don't contribute anything to society. They sell drugs, abuse women, and fight with each other. I think a laboratory like this one does more good for society in a year than all the outlaw motorcycle gangs in the world have done since creation. That's what I think. So, you know what I think?"

We shook our heads mutely, not daring to believe where this woman was going.

"I think that every productive scientific laboratory deserves a mama. I'm going to put my ass where my mouth is. I've come here to volunteer for service in this lab. I'm going to give you boys a lot of sex. What do you think about that?"

The whine of the robots across the hall grew louder. Someone's computer received an email and pinged softly. We all jumped in surprise.

Finally Ernesto said, "Are you crazy?"

The woman smiled. "Maybe. But not as crazy as a woman who walks into a Hell's Angels' clubhouse."

"You aren't serious," Yit'gien said.

"Yes," she said. "I mean what I say."

"Why are you doing this?" Ahmed asked.

"For fun," she said. "Really, it's more than fun. I'm not smart enough to invent the Internet or whatever it is that you guys are doing this year. But I'm sure that you're doing something important and I can help by giving you all the encouragement that I can. In my own way, I'm going to contribute by helping reward you guys for making the world a better place." She looked around at us. "You are doing important things that will make the world a better place, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes; sure; of course," we all said together.

She smiled. "I'm sure that you are. Now, there's going to be a few rules. This isn't going to be a free-for-all, okay?"

"Okay," we said, each phrasing that sentiment in our own way.

"First, I'm only doing one of you at a time. I'm not into orgies, okay?"

"Okay."

"Second, everything has to be consensual. I'm not going to get raped. If I say no, I mean it and you better stop whatever you're trying to do. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Third..." She paused. "I don't know what's third. I'm sure that I'm going to think of something else as we get into it, but, for now, the most important thing is that we're only going to do things that we both agree on. Right?"

"Right."

She looked around. "Now, is there some part of this lab that will give us a little privacy?"

"There's a back room where we store some equipment," I said, pointing to a door on the other side of the room.

"Is it big enough to put a twin mattress on the floor?" she asked.

"Sure," I said. "We might have to move some stuff around, but that won't be a problem." I'd do anything that I had to do to make room for a bed in there, even if that meant throwing fifty thousand dollars worth of servers and routers into the trash.

A man has his priorities. And any red-blooded man, even a computer science grad student, will give a willing woman a higher priority than a computer.

"Okay," she said. "We're not going to do anything today. We'll get serious about this tomorrow. Today, I just need a couple of you to come down to my car and help me with the mattress. Any volunteers?"

We all volunteered.

She looked at us and smiled. "Tell you what," she said. "Let me give you a show of good faith. A little preview of what you're going to be getting tomorrow."

She slowly unbuttoned her blouse and then shrugged it from her shoulders, revealing a black, lacy bra.

Maybe her breasts were average sized or maybe not, but I know that they looked enormous to my eyes. Especially when she thrust them forward to reach behind her back and unhook her bra strap.

When the lace cups fell away and exposed her perfect cherry blossom pink nipples, I almost lost it.

She let her bra and blouse trail across the carpet as she walked up to me, pressed her naked breasts against my shirt, turned her face up, and kissed me long and soft, letting her lips part and her breath caress my face. "I can hardly wait until tomorrow," she whispered.

She went to each of the students in turn and gave each the same treatment.

Ernesto grabbed her and kissed her back.

"Gently," she whispered to him.

Ahmed just stood with his arms at his sides, his liquid brown eyes filling with tears of joy.

Yit'gien caressed her face and said, "You're beautiful."

"Thank you," she said.

Marco, mindful of the admonishment she gave to Ernesto, let his fingers trail tentatively across her breast.

She took his hand and pressed his palm against her nipple. Her gesture brought a look of ecstasy to his face.

After she replaced her bra and blouse, she said, "How about a couple of you come down to my car with me and get that mattress.

We all came.

The mattress was tied to the roof of her Volvo. She left it in our hands, along with a bag containing a fitted sheet and a pillow.

The last thing that she said before she got into her car was, "I'll be around at about ten tomorrow morning."

We watched her car pull out of the lot. Then Marco said to me, "It looks like we got ourselves a mama."

We high-fived each other in all possible pair-wise combinations. Computer scientists are compulsive that way.

* * *

For the first time in the history of the lab, all six of the graduate students were at their desks by nine-thirty.

I expected that I would feel tired, being that I normally don't get out of bed until eleven and don't arrive at the university until noon, but I was wide awake. My whole body was vibrating with excitement.

As soon as I arrived, I checked the storage room one last time. The six of us had been working back there until ten the previous night, re-arranging equipment, moving racks of shelving, even vacuuming the floor and dusting off the old equipment.

The place practically sparkled.

The centerpiece of the ersatz boudoir was, of course, the bed. The woman had given us a new mattress. The do-not-remove tags had not been removed and the spotless ticking was as taut as a drumhead.

While we cleaned, we'd spent considerable time arguing about whether we should remove the tag or not. In the end, we'd decided that it was the woman's mattress so it should be her decision.

We didn't want to take liberties.

When the doorbell rang at ten sharp, we were all sitting at our desks, staring blankly at our screens.

Not a single line of code had been written all morning. Even my fingertips were sweaty so I didn't want to touch my keyboard and befoul it.

Will Lee opened the door and the woman entered, as she had promised.

Today she was wearing white heels and a white, knit, knee-length dress that hugged every curve like a fitted glove.

She was wearing no bra and, when she walked passed me, I could see no visible panty line.

She looked like she was ready for sex.

If I believed in heaven, I would have believed that this was how angels dressed because, in that instant, she made our lab a heaven on earth.

My hands were shaking and sweat was dripping down my ribs.

"I probably won't get to all of you today. Some of you will have to be patient. Is that all right?"

We all nodded happily. We had been waiting for our entire adult lives for something like this to happen. Waiting one more day, or even two, was an endurable hardship.

"Who's the most senior scientist here?" she asked.

All eyes turned toward me.

"Stan is in his third year of his doctoral program," Will Lee volunteered.

"Then Stan's my man," she said with a happy smile and offered her hand to me.

I could barely stand. My ears burned with red heat.

She took my hand and said, "Lead on, McStan."

I trudged back to the storage room, trailing her behind me, clinging to my sweaty palm.

When she closed the door, she looked around at the racks of routers and servers and said, "This looks like a real laboratory."

I didn't want to tell her that it was too clean to be a real laboratory because that might destroy the romantic mood. I simply didn't say anything.

"Does the door lock?"

I turned the latch on the knob.

She threw her purse on the floor by the mattress, then stepped close enough that her white-clad breasts were brushing against me, took my head in her hands, turned her face up toward mine and began kissing me. Long, slow, dry kisses. Gently brushing her soft lips against mine.

I could feel every contour of her lips with exquisite precision. I understood why the lips on Penfield's homunculus were huge.

She sighed tenderly and all thoughts of science fled from my brain.

When I felt her body press fully against mine, I automatically wrapped my arms around her back. Her breasts, naked under the thin double-knit, felt hot and full against my chest.

When I looked down at her, her eyes were closed like she was concentrating all her attention on the feeling of my mouth and body against hers.

When her lips parted and her tongue brushed against my mouth, I parted my lips and met her with the tip of my tongue.

Never before had I tasted anything so sweet.

I wasn't a virgin but I'd never had a real, full-time girlfriend, either. The two short-term relationships that I'd survived had left me woefully short on experience with the opposite sex. Neither of those young women had known much more about romance than me.

This woman, chronologically three or four years older was decades ahead in maturity. She clearly had expertise that I lacked. Expertise that I desperately wanted to acquire.

After a period of kissing and holding, she parted some few inches from me and said, "How do you want to do this?"

I didn't know that there were options. What was on the menu?

"What do you recommend?" I asked.

"You're sweet," she said. "I'm guessing that you don't have much experience with women."

"No." I didn't know if it was a good idea to admit that or not but I've always believed that honesty is the best policy when you can't think of a believable lie.

"The most important thing that you have to know is that I'm going to come back and offer myself to you again, tomorrow and the day after that and for many days to come. This means that, on one hand, you can do whatever you want within reason today. But, on the other hand, you don't have to do anything at all if you don't want to. This isn't a test. You don't have to worry about passing or failing today because I'll be here tomorrow no matter what you do. So, I recommend one of two things. First, we can go slowly. Just explore each other a little at a time. Enjoy being with each other. Try a little of this and that but not worry about going all the way today or maybe not even tomorrow. Or, we can do the opposite. We can get right down to it, right now, and get it over with. Just fuck as quickly and efficiently as possible. Then, in the days to come, we can do the exploring and learning about each other without having to worry about when we're going to do it because we'll have already done it."

She looked at me, staring deep into my eyes like she was trying to read my mind. "Does one of those options sound better than the other or do you have a third option to suggest?"

Those green eyes bewitched my tongue. I couldn't speak a single word.

She laughed lightly. "While you're thinking about it, why don't you take off my dress?" She raised her arms over her head. "It slips off over my head. Take your time. Enjoy what you see."

I pulled the dress up at her hips, bunching it at her waist, slowly uncovering her thighs.

Her legs were long and smooth and tanned.

When I got to her crotch, the rising hem revealed a white lace thong, then a flat belly punctuated by a lovely little navel.

I kept working the dress upward until I uncovered the perfect round breasts with the cherry blossom pink nipples that I remembered from the day before.

Men have died for less reason than those breasts.

Men have killed for less.

I paused to watch them roll a little with every slow, deep breath that she took.

I was on the edge of hyperventilation but her breathing was as calm and controlled as a yoga master's.

She was smiling agreeably when her face was covered by the dress and still smiling as I pulled it past her crown. Her hair was caught up and then, when the garment was high enough, fell free again in great auburn cascades.

Everything about her was perfect and I knew that I had to have her.

But not today.

She slipped out of her heels.

I said, "Let's leave your thong in place for now."

"I want you to caress me," she said. She pulled me gently to the bed.

She lay on her back and I began at her hairline and felt down across her face, trailed my fingers down her neck, and then slowly and gently massaged her breasts.

They felt wonderful.

My hands tingled with joy.

"That feels nice," she said.

I massaged her more.

"Gentle is nice."

I moved down to her belly.

"I like the feel of your hands stroking me there."

I felt the bones beneath the skin at each side of her upper hips.

"Mmmm."

I worked my way down to the big muscles in the front of her thighs.

"Press harder. Don't dig in with your fingertips but work deeper into the muscle with your whole hands. Right. Great. That feels really great. Do the same with my calves."

She rolled over and let me work my way up the backs of her legs, working each muscle group in turn. I loved working on her butt and spent a long time there before moving above the thong.

My hands were getting tired but I didn't care.

"Scratch my back. Just lightly. Just enough for me to feel it."

I obliged. She let me drag my nails across her skin for a long time.

"Now it's your turn. Take your shirt off and lay down so that I can scratch your back."

Again, I obliged.

Her long, painted nails skated over the skin and muscle of my back, leaving a long, continuous trail of satisfaction.

Then she leaned over me and let her nipples rub across my back, following the track of her nails.

I was in heaven.

"Roll over."

She gave my chest the same treatment that she had given my back, then bent close, pressed her breasts into my stomach, and kissed my nipples, sucking at them with her lips and flicking them with her tongue.

Her mouth had answered the age-old question, "Why do men have nipples?"