A Gift in Disguise Ch. 06

As a man, your orgasms are brief but intense single events that are complete unto themselves. When you've ejaculated, you're done for some length of time, several minutes or longer, until your body and particularly your brain are ready and able to become aroused again. Normally as a man ages, his recovery time becomes longer.

Jamie's orgasms -- like many women she is fully capable of multiple orgasms -- are more gentle and of longer duration. Except when she's having sex with you. Because your 'gift' apparently enables you to prolong or withhold your orgasm until your partner somehow signals she's ready for you to cum, you tend to cause your partner to experience what to her feels like a single superorgasm that compresses the time interval between her multiple orgasms. That results in your partner experiencing a hyperintensive, longer duration orgasm that overloads some of our brains' centers. That's undoubtedly why we're unable to remain awake after having sex with you. But don't be concerned -- none of us that have had sex with you are ever going to complain!

You're probably wondering what all that has to do with the purpose of our test today -- to determine if a man, or Jamie in her rare case, experiences secondary sexual pleasure when his ejaculate flows through his cock.

The tests on both you and Jamie produced evidence of very diminished secondary sexual pleasure during ejaculate flow, but the results show its pleasure effect is completely overwhelmed by the persistent pleasurable effects of the brain's orgasmic response."

"So I guess that all means we don't need to add nanosensors and associated circuitry to the prosthetic phallus, right?"

"That's my take on it, Tom. We have no evidence from the CT scans or from the tests today that the wearer would feel any additional pleasure. Of course, I can only rely on what Lorraine and Jamie told me during and after the tests, but still..."

"Amanda," I interrupted, "Why haven't you asked Jamie to make a prosthetic phallus for you?"

I had expected my question to catch her off guard, but it didn't.

"Well, Tom, we know that Kim has secretly wanted to feel what it would be like to have sex as a man, but I haven't. Neither has Lorraine, so..."

Once again I interrupted. "Lorraine told me after her test of the version 2 phallus that she is changing her mind on that. It's true. She said the version 2 phallus sensations were causing her to rethink that."

Amanda started to speak, but I kept on talking. "It seems to me that given your education, training, and experience in both urology and in obstetrics and gynecology, you may be even better prepared to objectively assess the effects, good and bad, of the prosthetic phallus."

"Tom, that's exactly what Jamie said. I must admit that it does make sense, but..."

"But what?"

Amanda paused for quite a long time, then said with an air of resignation, "I guess there really are compelling reasons for me to experience the sensations that Lorraine has experienced and Kim will. First-hand experience and all that..."

"Bad pun, Amanda," I added with a grin.

"It wasn't intended to be," the serious Amanda countered. Then she deftly shifted the subject, saying, "I hope that not having evidence to support adding the flow sensors doesn't disappoint you and Jamie too much..."

"I'm not, and I doubt that Jamie was either. The more technology we put in, the more chances there are for failures and unforeseen interactions. Generally, the simpler the better. That's especially true in prototypes. Start simple and add on features as needed or warranted."

Amanda smiled her approval.

"How do you feel, Tom? Well enough to drive home?"

"Yeah, I feel fine."

"I've been watching you carefully while we talked. You're physically and mentally alert, but on your way home if you start feeling funny, pull off and call me. I think you'll sleep very soundly tonight, too. Remember that any temporary impotence will pass in a few hours. If you experience it at all and if it hasn't gone away by this time tomorrow, please give me a call. But let me reassure you, that most of the time when that happens, it's in men much older than you who also have underlying health issues.

Incidentally, if it's still convenient for you to meet with Kim, Lorraine, Jamie, Marta, Emily, and me on Saturday to discuss Lorraine's phallus test responses, we're going to meet at 9 a.m. in room G-214 at the hospital. It's a doctor's meeting room right next to the hospital cafeteria."

"G-214, 9 a.m., Saturday. I'll be there," I responded. With that I thanked Amanda and left her office. I decided that since traffic was a bit heavy and I would be going slowly, I could safely call Jamie and convey the results of my afternoon.

"Hi, Tom!" she answered, sounding much more like her chipper self.

"Hey, Jamie. How are you feeling? You sound much better today."

"Yeah, I'm fine. I went by Amanda's this morning. She checked me out, and my annual cold has mysteriously run its course without any real symptoms. It is strange, but I'm not complaining at all. Experiencing no symptoms kept me alert and able to work, and since I was contagious, it gave me a good excuse to stay holed up in my office and get caught up on all my work. I'm even a little ahead on some of my DoD projects.

Amanda said you were coming in this afternoon to talk with her about what Lorraine told you about her prosthetic phallus test. She also said you might take the same ejaculate flow test I did."

"Yes to both," I responded. "I think the big thing we learned this afternoon is that we probably don't need to add any flow sensors to the phallus. Amanda said that your test and mine confirmed that while we might be able to feel the flow, the added sensation would be minimal and still obscured by the overarching orgasm. We also concluded that the sensation of flow through the penis would not be missed by its absence either."

"I agree completely, Tom. No point in complicating the project until we have conclusive evidence supporting it.

And speaking of conclusive evidence, I'll talk about this to the group Saturday morning at the hospital, but I've been working on a simple way for the user to control the level of sensations without removing the phallus from his or her body. We had already designed attenuation in you'll recall, but we had to remove the phallus and plug it into the computer. I've worked out a way to remotely access the phallus's internal chip and adjust the sensitivity. I think that will help the wearer achieve maximum pleasure without overloading his or her brain with potentially adverse and unintended consequences.

So what are you up to for the rest of today?"

"I'm on my way home from Amanda's now. I've got two classes tomorrow that need some careful preparation, and according to Amanda, I won't likely be experiencing any mental sexual distractions for a while.

By the way, Jamie, did Amanda tell you that Kim and the other doctor did not do their surgery today? They're going to do it tomorrow morning early. It sounds brutal, maybe as long as fifteen hours."

"No, but I was at her office early, and she might not have known about the change yet. I hope it goes well so Kim can relax and get some rest before our meeting on Saturday. I guess she might not even be there if she needs to stay with her patient, though. Or maybe she'll just pop in briefly."

I concluded the conversation by telling Jamie about my meeting with Dr. Keller, my thesis chairman, and Dr. Klein.

"Wow, Tom! That's wonderful," she practically yelled into the phone. She sounded genuinely more excited about the proposal than I was. "Do you have any idea what a feather in your cap it will be to conduct and deliver some very practical research, not just theory but research with immediate real-world value? What an incredible opportunity!" Then she paused. "You are going to go forward into the doctoral program, aren't you?" She sounded sincerely concerned.

"I haven't given it much thought really," I answered honestly.

"Tom, this one is a no-brainer. Remember what Lorraine told you a long time ago? Remember when she said that sometimes thinking too much can cause bad results? Well, don't think too much about this one, Tom. You have a real opportunity to do original research that will reach not only into electrical engineering but into medicine as well."

"All right, all right," I responded good-naturedly. "I'll seriously consider it, but it's still very early in the process. Dr. Keller wants me to meet with him and Dr. Klein and Dr. Klein's associate to discuss the details of the research proposal."

"Who's the associate?" Jamie asked. I knew she would.

"It's another neurocardiologist, a Dr. Kim Geiler-Callaghan. Ever heard of her?"

I could imagine the expression forming on Jamie's face, and I was enjoying every second of her pause.

"Holy shit, Tom! You and Kim will be working together on a project. Wow!" Her enthusiasm was unrestrained.

"Yeah, if I jump through all the right hoops," I answered.

"Anything I can do to encourage your hoop-jumping with Kim? I wouldn't mind being there to see that!" she asked. Normally the way she asked that question, her vocal inflection, would have caused my cock to rocket upward, but apparently Amanda's limp-dick warning had been prescient.

"Probably not today or tonight," I answered honestly.

"Oh. Yeah. Me too. But when the effects of our session with Amanda have worn off, I think we need to get together and celebrate."

We finished our conversation. The rest of my drive home was spent trying unsuccessfully to overcome Amanda's warning. After talking to Jamie, I wanted to jerk off in the worst way, but it wasn't to be.

My Friday classes were productive but otherwise uneventful. I spent Friday evening preparing as best I could for the Saturday meeting at the hospital. Even though Jamie would be guiding the discussion, I owed it to her to be as prepared as possible.

I awakened Saturday morning with a raging hard-on. It was reassuring that Amanda's curse, as I had come to think of it, had passed. Still, I suppressed the urge to jack off.

The hospital parking lot was nowhere near as full as it usually was during the week, so I was able to park surprisingly close to the entry door. Since it was 8:50 and the meeting was at 9, I figured I'd go by the cafeteria and pick up a bottle of juice. When I walked in, apparently Jamie, Marta, and Emily had the same thought. We all chatted while we paid for our respective beverages, then walked the short distance to the "Reserved for Doctors" meeting room just off the cafeteria. We were all dressed "Saturday casual" -- publicly presentable, but just barely.

The meeting room was small, seating was set up for eight people, and it had blinds for privacy. Even though the outdoor weather was hot and muggy, the room was comfortably cool.

Jamie found the light switch and turned on the overhead lights. We had no sooner sat down than Amanda walked in. Unlike us, she was dressed as if she had to work -- nice slacks, conservative blouse. We could tell she was eager to say something.

"Kim will be here in a few minutes," Amanda announced. "Before she gets here, let me tell you -- the hospital staff is really buzzing about her surgery yesterday. In fact, she and Dr. Klein are in a closed-door meeting with the hospital board right now. They have been since about eight this morning."

Ever the protective lawyer, Marta jumped in. "Did something go wrong in the surgery yesterday?"

"Yes, but in a good way. Maybe we should let Kim tell us when she gets here. Jamie, would you mind if she took a few minutes to fill us all in?"

"No, I wouldn't mind at all. I'm sure we'd all like to hear what's got you so excited."

"Thank you, Jamie. I can give you a quick overview..."

Amanda was interrupted by the door opening and Kim walking in. Kim was wearing almost the identical outfit she had been wearing when Lorraine introduced her to me nearly a year earlier. It was a simple gray blazer over a white blouse and with a fashionably short but still professionally appropriate skirt. The medium-high heels on her dress shoes gave her inviting legs an enticing turn. When we first met she had not been wearing stockings or pantyhose, but today she was. Added to that, her hair seemed different -- slightly red -- and it gave her already youthful-looking face a framed glow. Kim's stockings and hair and overall professional attire were making me rock hard. Fortunately, I had scooted my chair to the table, so she could not see. That gave me license to fantasize about what it would be like to undress her, fast or slow, rough or gentle. Her choice. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I could tell she somehow sensed what I was thinking.

"Hi, everybody. Sorry to keep you waiting," she said simply but sincerely.

Jamie immediately spoke to encourage Kim to tell us about the surgery. "Kim, Amanda said the surgery yesterday had some problems that prompted your meeting with the board today. What's up?"

"Relax. Everything's fine, but I would like to bring you up to date on my patient. In an odd way, it's related to Tom's 'gift' and Jamie's reason for calling us together this morning.

The man is 57 years old and quite fit. I know, that sounds strange, because he was within hours of dying as a result of the neural deterioration associated with his heart. What I mean is that his other organs and systems were actually fairly strong, strong enough to allow the surgery. Still, his chances of surviving the surgery were not particularly good. For that reason, prior to the surgery, our entire team met early yesterday morning with the hospital's CEO, the chief medical officer, the chief nursing officer, the hospital's medical ethicist, and its attorney to make sure everyone understood that this was still going to be a very, very high-risk procedure. Dr. Klein and I explained to them in great detail why this procedure was the patient's best chance -- actually, his only chance -- of survival. Once they concurred with proceeding, we prepped the patient and then began the surgery. At our request and because this was a high-risk surgery, we had asked the hospital to audio and video record everything once the patient had been brought into surgery.

To really oversimplify what we were dealing with, there are bundles of nerves that move the signals that keep the heart beating in rhythm and make sure everything associated with the heartbeat is synchronized. Visualize an electric wire that runs from one of your home appliances to an outlet. That wire is actually several individual copper wires twisted together in a strand, and that is then covered with an insulating sheath. If enough of those strands of wire hidden inside the sheath break or corrode, enough electricity can't flow to the appliance. At first the appliance slows down or operates erratically, but at some point there isn't enough wire left to carry the needed electricity, and the appliance stops running.

That's kind of what was happening with our patient. The neural bundle carrying particular operating signals to his heart was deteriorating. We could tell that from various tests, but we really couldn't precisely measure the extent of deterioration without opening the sheath and microscopically examining the neural components that loosely correspond to the wire in an appliance cord.

For this particular type of damage, the most effective treatment is to apply a protein-based compound that literally causes the deteriorated material to grow back together. Again, keep in mind that we're talking about microscopic deterioration -- microns of distance. But even then, the regrowth takes hours. Our pre-surgical external diagnosis told us that we were probably looking at a surgical procedure that could take as long as 18 to 22 hours. By the way, that's not unusual.

Once we exposed the bundle and microscopically assessed the deterioration, we found it was even worse than expected. Essentially, the lengths of neural material that would have to be regrown were much greater than expected. In short, it was the team's unanimous opinion that the regrowth would not occur before the patient died on the table."

"Rather than relying on regrowth, couldn't you somehow graft in replacement nerve tissue. Kind of like transplanting it from a donor like you do other organs?" Emily asked.

"Great question, Emily. We wish we could, but neural material is unique, and thus far, we haven't been able to replicate it successfully. Neither is there any kind of artificial splice that we could simply put in place to replace the deteriorated material." Kim looked directly at me, then said, "Some day there may be."

"So what happened?" Jamie asked.

Kim paused, not for any dramatic effect but more because she seemed to be composing her thoughts to explain what had happened.

"A few weeks ago Jamie and Tom and I were talking about the phallus project, specifically about some of the materials that were used in it," she began. "At some point one of them... ," she nodded toward Jamie and me, "... said something about how when coatings like paints are sprayed on metals, the bond between them can be strengthened if an electrical charge is applied to the metal and an opposite charge is applied to the coating as it is applied. The opposing charges attract, and nearly all of the coating is attracted to the metal and the bond between them is even stronger as well.

For some reason I can't begin to explain, that flashed through my mind when we had concluded our patient was going to die on the table and there was nothing we could do about it.

Keep in mind that we do use microelectric probes for various purposes during surgeries, so we had them available. Literally out of the blue, I asked Dr. Klein if we could use a microprobe to apply an extremely small electrical charge to one end of the deteriorating neural fiber while applying an opposing charge to the protein regrowth material. I briefly explained it to him pretty much the same way I just explained it to you.

My idea was literally a shot in the dark, not even worthy of being called an 'experimental procedure.' Fortunately, both the chief medical officer and the ethicist had taken an interest in this surgery and had scrubbed and gowned up and were in the surgery. Dr. Klein and I discussed it with them, and after quickly reviewing the patient's chemistry and vital signs which confirmed he was failing quickly, they concurred. The basis for their approval was that the patient's death was imminent and irreversible with any approved available medical procedure.

To cut to the chase, we jerry-rigged the microelectronics. Dr. Klein wanted me to perform the procedure. I would view and operate through one set of eyepieces or from the image projected on the screen, and he would monitor through the other set of eyepieces or from watching the screen.

Once the pulsed microcurrent was turned on, I applied the regrowth material to the other end of the deteriorated material. What happened next was astonishing. We had hoped to see slightly faster regrowth in maybe five or ten minutes across the first length of deteriorated neural material. Instead, the regrowth flowed like water through an invisible tube in a matter of just a few seconds. Visualize the way an icicle forms from water or a stalactite forms in an underground cavern -- only this was much faster. We removed the microelectric probes and examined the new material and the unions where it joined the healthy material. They were indistinguishable.

I applied the microprobes to the next deteriorated length, and the results were the same.

I was oblivious to time by then, so I moved from damaged segment to damaged segment, all with the same results.

At some point the anesthesiologist interrupted to stop me. He said that the patient's chemistry and vital signs were responding so positively to the successful technique that he was having some difficulty maintaining successful anesthesia. Basically, he was saying that the procedure was almost working too well and that the patient's heart was recovering and responding too rapidly for him to keep the patient properly anesthetized!