The Rise and Fall of Jordan M.

Prologue:

Twenty-six years and more than five thousand cases of erectile dysfunction, and I have never had a more interesting and exciting patient than Jordan Marshall. His treatment will challenge all my pharmaceutical, physiological and psychological skills.

Before Jordan came to my office and told me his incredible story, I was seriously considering early retirement. My practice, which specializes in erectile dysfunction, was getting boring. It was becoming increasingly rare that I had a patient with a new problem worth telling my wife about. Jordan changed that. It has taken me a long time to establish exactly what happened to Jordan, but I enjoyed every minute I spent on his case. My wife and I spent many hours at the dinner table and in bed talking about Jordan, his penis, the rhino horn, his incredible sex-life, the murder and Jordan's role in solving it.

Erectile dysfunction affects the sex lives of 20 to 30 million American men. Obviously, I only see a very small fraction of these men. Most of the ones I see have an inability to get an erection when they want one, and these patients tend to be over sixty. Some of the men have priapism, a painful and long-lasting erection that is not caused by sexual arousal. It sounds like an amusing disorder, but it is not. Others have Peyronie's disease, which results in the curvature of the penis when it is erect. During the Clinton/Levinsky scandal some members of the press suggested that Monica would be able to pick out the president's member in a penile line-up. President Clinton reportedly had a distinctive kink, caused by Peyronie's disease, in his erection. I never found out if there was any truth to the rumor.

Since this is a story about murder and erections, I will have to give you some background information on erections. There is a tube called the urethra that runs down the length of the penis, it carries the urine and semen through the penis. Two cylindrical, sponge like structures run parallel to the urethra. The amount of blood in these cylinders increases to about seven times the normal amount when a man is sexually excited. The sponge like structures are expanded by the additional blood arriving in the penis and produce an erection by straightening and stiffening the penis. After ejaculation, or when sexual arousal is diminished, the excess blood drains out of the spongy tissue, and the penis returns to its flaccid state.

Erectile dysfunction most commonly has psychological and physiological causes. Physical causes such as men sticking their penises in places they should not, like in bottles, animals that bite, food or anything with an opening, are less common. Some men, but luckily not too many, have the desire to stick things down their urethra. This is not a good idea. In the past I have removed pencil leads, flower stems, crushed Viagra pills, toothpicks, and would you believe it, a small porcupine quill from infected and painful urethras.

There are five common ways of treating erectile dysfunction. The simplest and most common method is the use of medication. The Food and Drug Administration approved the use of Viagra in 1998, it was the first oral medication for erectile dysfunction. Alprostadil is an alternative to Viagra. It is either injected into the base of the penis with an incredibly thin needle or a disposable applicator can be used to insert a tiny suppository, about half the size of a grain of rice, 2 inches down the urethra, where it is absorbed by erectile tissue, increasing the blood flow to the penis that causes an erection.

When Mother Nature refuses to increase the blood flow into the penis even when pharmaceutically prodded, an external vacuum pump can be used to suck blood up into the appendage. Once an adequate erection is obtained a tension ring, or elastic band, is placed around the base of the penis to keep all the blood in the spongy tissue and maintain its turgidity. Using a pump is not a very satisfactory solution, but in some cases it is the only solution.

Surgery is usually reserved for men whose blood flow to the penis has been blocked by an injury to the penis or pelvic area.

Inflatable devices or semi rigid rods made from silicone or polyurethane can be implanted into the penis.

Finally, psychologists or psychiatrists treat ten to fifteen percent of erectile dysfunction cases.

None of these methods would be the appropriate treatment for Jordan Marshall. His problem was a little more complicated and more interesting than any one of the problems mentioned above. One could say that Jordan's erectile problems stem from the way he ate an ice cream, meringue and raspberry dessert. However, that would be a gross of oversimplification.

This is Jordan's story.

Part I

Jordan's Story

Chapter 1 Friday, April 8 1 day to erectile malfunction

When Jordan's problems started he was a month away from completing his MBA, and his future looked bright. He was a bit under six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. There was nothing remarkable about him. Most people who saw him would not be able to say much about him, other than the fact that he looked like a friendly guy. He had a big smile, large nose and black hair.

For his twenty fifth birthday his parents, rich and ever indulgent, gave him a gas gobbling golden Lexus 4x4. With a life like this you might not expect Jordan to have erectile problems. Admittedly, his mother was a little pushy, but that is not really relevant, since she wasn't the cause of his erectile dysfunction.

Jordan had no penile problems before Friday, April 8th. His life preserver inflated on demand, his ice cream hadn't fallen off the stick yet. In fact he had a feisty red haired fiancée, Barbara Steward, who was a regular witness and benefactor of his well-functioning manhood.

A few freckles, red hair, a ready smile, small waist, succulent peachy buns and a wicked sense of humor were the first things men noticed when they met Barbara. A pity because there was so much more to her than that. Barbara was an MD/PhD student. Her work was top secret. Jordan wasn't quite sure what her research was all about, but he had managed to determine that the ultimate goal of the research was to use biomolecular methods to establish whether someone was lying or not, to find a more reliable lie detector. The Office of Naval Research paid her tuition and even a small salary. Genes, enzymes and proteins were not Jordan's cup of tea, he far preferred dollars, profits and IPO's. Perhaps I should also mention that Barbara was feisty, she wasn't about to let anyone bully or abuse her.

That's enough of an introduction to Jordan and Barbara; let's get to the root of Jordan's problem. April 8 was the day Jordan's redwood would start its eventual metamorphosis into a weeping willow. The Journal of Molecular Biology had just accepted Barbara's first article for publication with minor revisions. She had invited Dylan, her co-author, and his girl-friend Jackie for a celebratory dinner. It was the first time Jordan had met either of them. Barbara enjoyed cooking and had spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen. For appetizers she had prepared curried calamari tubes, mildly spiced with lemon mayonnaise. The main course was to be a succulent, slowly roasted shoulder of lamb served with mashed potatoes and vegetables.

Dylan and Jackie arrived a little late. After exchanging greetings Dylan immediately apologized for being late. They had gotten stuck at a local bar. It didn't take Jordan long before he could tell that he was a couple of giggles and stumbles behind the guests in alcohol consumption. He didn't mind there was plenty of time to catch up. Drinking was something he was good at.

Dylan didn't look like a typical science geek. Long dark hair framed by two intense blue eyes. Thin and muscular, he could use some fat on his frame. He probably spent too much time in the lab, Jordan thought to himself. There was no way this guy could relax at the pool or anywhere but in the lab. Even though he was inebriated you could see that his brain was all wound up, ready to pounce, dissect and analyze.

Jackie was his opposite. While Dylan was a piece of beef jerky with a spring coiled up inside, Jackie was a soft, sweet, white chocolate mousse. It was not difficult to imagine her relaxing at the beach, nursing an exotic cocktail and soaking up serenity. Large green languid eyes, red lips and a soft body that was a quite a few pounds heavier than the standard Cosmopolitan model.

After the introductions were made Jordan offered the visitors drinks. They clearly didn't need them, he thought to himself, but what the hell, maybe Dylan would mellow out a bit more, and anyway he liked the security of a glass in his hand when talking to new people. Dylan had a Sam Adams and Jackie had a gin and tonic. Barbara wasn't having anything to drink; she was saving herself for the champagne she had bought to celebrate the upcoming publication of their manuscript. They all sat down around the coffee table. The stop at the bar had made the guests happily talkative. Dylan took an active part in the discussions, but he couldn't sit still for long. Soon he was up pacing around the room, reading book titles and flipping through magazines. Jackie, on the other hand, looked very relaxed. The emptier her gin and tonic became the lower she slumped down the couch. Her whole body gradually migrated down her chair while her dress stayed where it was, exposing a healthy expanse of thigh. Jordan appreciated the view; it brought back memories of mouth-watering cakes and pastries in European Café's. Soft delicious, creamy and rich tortes.

While Barbara got up to fetch some snacks Jordan idlily wondered if he should fill up Jackie's gin and tonic. Perhaps it would it help relax her even deeper into the chair, maybe even affording him a glimpse of her panties. Jordon was captivated by Jackie's flawless white thighs, soft pillowy flesh molded by the sofa beneath them.

Barbara returned with some Indian samosas. As she leant forward to place the samosas on the table and Jordan's eyes were drawn to her derriere. A firm, well rounded ass, exquisitely different to the squishy wobbly promise of the buttocks on the couch opposite him. The pressure against Jordan's jeans increased from a comforting reminder of his manliness to a twinge of desire. He loved the way Barbara's eyes sparkled, how she smiled and ran her hand through her red hair. At the same time his eyes were involuntarily drawn to Jackie's legs. Every time she laughed her legs opened a couple of inches and then slowly closed. Despite thinking about how lucky he was to have a fiancé as feisty, intelligent and as desirable as Barbara, Jordan was hypnotized. He could feel Jackie's soft warm thighs closing around his ears softly clamping his face within tonguing distance of her moist womanhood.

"Jordan, Wake up, you're day dreaming! We're about to open the bottle of Champagne."

Blushing furiously, Jordan got up to get the champagne glasses. His poor heart didn't know what was happening. Despite its best efforts to send blood and oxygen all over his body it was all concentrating in two parts. Jordan's face was as red as an overripe, genetically modified tomato and his penis was rampantly engorged with blood. Light headed from the lack of blood and oxygen circulating in his brain, he stood there amazed that no one had noticed the space shuttle Endeavor on the launching pad, ready to breakout of his custom fitted Levis. A few minutes later Jordan was no longer blushing and his brain was reirrigated with freshly oxygenated blood rising from his face. His lower control center was not that efficient and it took quite a while before lift-off was suspended and the Endeavor was pushed back into its hangar. Luckily, the countdown to Jordan's unplanned and unwanted launch went unnoticed, and they all drank to the first of many publications that Barbara and Dylan would co-author. The champagne was refreshingly dry and went down surprisingly well with the baby calamari rings. Jordan was telling Dylan and Jackie about their plans to move to New York City after graduation. Jordan was going to get a job and Barbara wanted to do her postdoctoral studies at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute. Jackie and Dylan had only been going out for less than a month and had no common plans. Jackie was a student at the Berklee College of Music. Her ambition was to write TV and film scores. Dylan's PhD work was nearly done and he had a job offer from Pfizer, a large pharmaceutical company that manufactured Viagra. Neither Jordan nor Dylan had tried Viagra and they were both very intrigued by the idea of trying it. Barbara had heard that Viagra improved the female orgasm and said that she was more than willing to experiment with it. Before Jordan could find out what Jackie's thoughts about Viagra were, Dylan started telling them about how the erection inducing properties of Viagra were first discovered.

"Viagra was initially designed as a drug for cardiac problems. It passed all the safety tests and was distributed to physicians throughout Britain for limited field trails. After the course of pills was complete or the patient stopped taking the pills the physicians were required to return the unused pills to Pfizer. The return rate for Viagra was significantly lower than the company had ever had with any of their other drugs. So much lower that they decided to investigate. During a typical field trial a fair percentage of patients stop using their medication midway through the course. Exit interviews and questionnaires showed that a typical number of trial participants prematurely stopped taking Viagra for heart problems, but that an inordinately high number did not return their pills. It didn't take long before Pfizer found out that the patients kept on taking the pills, not for their prescribed effect, but because they had a very interesting side effect. They restored and invigorated wilting penises back to their original magnificence. Even men whose members hadn't shown much rigidity for many years were reporting that their penises were functioning again. After going back to the lab researchers at Pfizer found out that Viagra works by enhancing the effects of nitric oxide, a chemical that relaxes smooth muscles in the penis thereby allowing for an increased blood flow to the penis. Recognizing the market potential of Viagra, Pfizer quickly started to go through the procedures required to get it approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. They had to prove that the drug had no harmful side effects, and that Viagra was actually doing what it was supposed to, namely giving old men boners they had not had in many years. This proved a lot harder than anticipated, as there was no protocol or method to quantify the rigidity of male erections. To make things even harder men lied about their erections and sexual performance. They tended to exaggerate their newfound sexual prowess and downplayed their pre-Viagraian erectile dysfunctions. As a consequence, the wives of the reawakened research subjects were interviewed and given questionnaires to evaluate the effectiveness of Viagra. It worked and the FDA approved the drug. Now the profits from Viagra are going to pay my salary at Pfizer."

"Wow, that's quite a story. But what does your research have to do with erections? What are you going to be doing at Pfizer?" asked Jackie.

Dylan clearly loved taking about his research. He sipped some more champagne, while Jordan and Barbara removed the starters from the table and brought in the lamb together with a bottle of South African red wine.

" We're trying to find a new, more reliable lie detector. Pfizer is not really interested in the research Barbara and I are doing. They have hundreds of scientists with PhD's trying to develop and test new drugs, they are more interested in the techniques I use in the lab and the way I have learnt to approach scientific problems," replied Dylan.

Seeing that Dylan had quite a bit to drink and seemed in a talkative mood, Jordan asked him for more information about their lie detector work.

"Barbara told me that your lie detector is a biochemical one. That's all I know about it. Can you explain it to Jackie and me?"

" Well, there are over a billion cells in your body and every cell has all the information to make a complete copy of you. That information is stored in the DNA, which is like a huge cookbook. The genes can be compared to the recipes in the cookbook. When a cell needs to make a certain protein it finds the correct recipe or gene and then makes the protein. Since there is no index for the DNA it's not that easy to find the location of the entire gene. That's what the human genome project is all about. Prof. Brody, our advisor, has found the location for the gene that makes a protein that is only produced when you lie; he called it the LIE gene. Barbara and I are trying to find a way in which one can detect when the LIE gene has been activated, which means someone is lying."

Jackie seemed enthralled by the explanation. Jordan was pretty happy too; despite mentally traversing the contours of Jackie's opulent figure he understood what Dylan had said and that made him feel less like a science neophyte than he normally did.

"Dylan, how will you find out when the LIE gene has been activated?" Jordan asked feeling quite proud of his question.

" Well, we're trying a variety of methods, but I'm afraid our Office of Naval Research grant prevents us from discussing them at this point," Dylan responded, sounding like a stuck-up ass. Normally Jordan would have been upset by Dylan's uppity answer. However, his mind had gone wondering again. Visions of Jackie's thighs had reappeared in his brain thanks to the delicious smooth and creamy mashed potatoes that were dissolving in his mouth. They were fluffy with a touch of garlic and some bacon pieces. A sip of Simonsig Merlot and his mind was off on an erotic journey over the valleys and dells of his unsuspecting guest. He wasn't even sure if the residual taste in his mouth came from the Merlot or from an imaginary sojourn his tongue had taken past her red lips. Was this a baby carrot cooked in honey or was it Jackie's toe that was popping into his mouth?

This behavior was not typical for Jordan, perhaps he had a slight fever. It couldn't be the alcohol; he knew how to handle that. Just as his thoughts were venturing from deliciously erotic to X-rated pornographic images, the insistent ringtone of the phone derailed Jordan's journey and his rapidly returning hard-on. Barbara negotiated the dining room furniture and answered her cell in their bedroom. Soon little shrieks of joy could be heard coming from the room, not unlike the squeaks she made when his tongue found her clit in the very same bedroom.

"Dylan, come here! Talk to Ishmael. Our experiment has worked!" Barbara yelled exuberantly from the neighboring room before coming back to tell Jackie and Jordan the good news. Ishmael, a lab tech, had been completing an experiment that Barbara and Dylan had started in the morning. The results looked very promising. In fact, if they came to the lab immediately and they could see the LIE gene expression. Dylan returned from the phone more wound up and energized than he had been all night. He wanted to leave straight away.

"Let's first finish the lamb before going back to the laboratory. I worked hard to make it and if we go now we'll be hungry before midnight," Barbara said.

"Sounds okay to me, " said Dylan, although his mind and tastebuds had already left for the laboratory.

"Why not stay and have some dessert, vanilla ice cream over a meringue covered with a raspberry sauce and whipped cream, and then leave?"

"Sorry Jordan, we really do have to go soon. Ishmael is waiting for us. Jackie do you want us to drop you off at your apartment or would you rather stay and have dessert? I am sure Jordan would be happy to walk you home afterwards," Barbara said.