Chapter 10: The Power Surge and the Proposal

Roughly four months had passed since Riley and I were released from behind the glass at the one-hundred-twenty-hour mark. Spring had given way to the full bloom of early summer at UC San Diego, with warm La Jolla sunlight filtering through the eucalyptus groves and the Pacific breeze carrying the faint scent of salt and blooming jacaranda trees across the mesas. Campus life had settled into a comfortable rhythm, but the two glass coffins in the educational wing of the Behavioral Sciences building remained a constant draw. Behind their protective glass wall, they stood as silent monuments, lids raised, plaques updated with our full story, and a new section added about the support role Riley and I now played for future volunteers.

The first new pair had climbed into the enclosures two weeks earlier: Lily Ball and Melissa Sutton, both twenty-one-year-old psychology majors who had followed our study with obsessive fascination. They were bound exactly as we had been naked, restrained flat with legs slightly parted, nasogastric feeding tubes, dual catheters, IV lines, monitoring patches, and the same double vibrators locked deep inside them. The climate unit was programmed for the same merciless swings between near-freezing and scorching heat. The only key difference they had demanded during the final IRB review was two-way communication throughout the study. No silent isolation. They wanted to hear real-time encouragement, questions, and even banter from the control station and to be able to respond through the internal microphones whenever they chose.

Riley and I had agreed to help run the controls alongside Taylor and Brooke. We spent long shifts at the station in the Price Center plaza, our bodies still preferring minimal clothing when possible, though we dressed lightly for public duties. The love between Riley and me had only deepened in those four months. We were rarely more than a few feet apart, often touching hands, linked, shoulders brushing, or curled together naked at home in our bungalow. The glass had forged something unbreakable; every shared memory of freezing shivers, scorching sweat, and locked eye contact made our bond feel sacred.

It was approaching 25 hours and 15 minutes into Lily and Melissa’s study on a warm Thursday evening. The plaza had its usual evening foot traffic, students heading to late lectures or beach bonfires, a few dedicated observers lingering near the platform with the public dashboard glowing beside it. Lily and Melissa were deep in a scorching cycle, the interior temperature holding at one hundred and six degrees. Sweat poured off their naked bodies, visible through the transparent glass. The double vibrators pulsed at medium intensity, drawing soft, muffled sounds from both women through the open two-way comms. Lily, with her short dark hair and lean runner’s build, gasped occasionally; Melissa, curvier with long auburn hair, breathed heavily but kept her voice steady as she responded to our occasional check-ins.