This story began at the Genetics Lab’s impromptu birthday party. There were just about everybody, that is, about two dozen young and promising scientists, drinking, dancing, playing video games, and engaging in drunken chitchat.

“C-consider sexual behavior dimorphism...” Charles did his best to make his point. “Our s-species males show persistent motivation but only episodic cap-pacity, while the capacity of fem-males is virtually unlimited, and the reluc ... hic ... tance is w-widely observed...”

Nick laughed. “Charles, you are a genius! To wrap the adage ‘men always want but not always can, women always can but not always want’ in such a charming scholarese...”

“Thanks!” Charles grinned. “W-working on my thesis is r-really paying off! S-So what I’m saying is ... What if w-we manage to ad-just the behavior for m-maximum performance for both s-sexes?”

“Sounds promising!” Selah, who had been listening to them for a while, nodded sharply. “So, translating back to the ordinary humanese...”

“ ... what if we make everyone equally horny and able to fuck non-stop?” Nick finished. “That would be perfect!”

Selah giggled. “Can’t agree more! What a nice fantasy!”

“T-this isn’t just a fantasy!” Charles said solemnly. “I c-can do this!”

Nick blinked. “No, you can’t! You’re a smart guy, Charlie, but the task is too much even for you!”

“You s-say that?” Charles grinned and took out his laptop, which he never parted with. “Challenge acc ... hic ... cepted! Hold my beer...”

And he started tapping on the buttons.

“Oh, yeah! Are we making bets here? Then let’s set the stakes!” Nick slapped a bill on the table. “My twenty bucks says you can’t make it!”

Without turning away from the laptop, Charles slapped another one next to it. “My hundred bucks s-says I’ll do it in two m-months! Hic.”

“Only two months? I could raise it to ten thousand, you fool! But let it be equal. Hundred dollars for you won’t be done in two months.”

The rest of the group gathered around them, curious. When they heard the subject of the bet, they all burst out laughing.

“Wow! Cool! I’m with Charles! This is stupid! I’m against!”

Still laughing, they emptied two jars of the remaining cookies, labeled them H0 and H1, and voted with their hundred dollar bills. They were almost evenly split, with ten votes for Charles and thirteen against.

“All bets are off!” Nick exclaimed. “Let’s get back to the game in two months!”

Charles returned to his keyboard. Of course, he couldn’t finish the concept right away, and he was soon interrupted by Selah and Tessa, who said they could be quite horny without any alterations...

But the next day, over a soda, he reread his notes, grinned, and set up his personal side research project.

Less than two months later, at another birthday party, Charles waited for everyone to relax and get woozy, then called for attention, placed a small box on the table, and opened it. Inside were two dozen 2ml disposable syringes, already prefilled with a liquid.

“Tadammm!” he said thriumphantly.

“Is that...” Peter looked closer, curious.

Charles nodded proudly. “Yes. My creation.”

“It’s not victory yet!” Nick objected. “We need the tests!”

“Of course.”

Charles lowered his pants, sterilized the spot on his gluteus maximus with a whiskey, took a syringe, and performed a quick, professional injection. Then he looked around at the crowd.

“Well? Who dares to join in?”

A silence fell. It had been a nice subject for some silly jokes, but now it had suddenly become all too serious.

“What exactly is it supposed to do?” Selah inquired cautiously.

“Almost unlimited sexual stamina, very short refractory periods, easily triggered arousal, and an overall high sex drive. Basically, all the benefits of hypersexuality without the drawbacks.” Charles shrugged. “What else? Retrovirus delivered, should take effect in three weeks and wear off in about three months.”

Another long silence followed. Charles had a reputation as a near genius ... on the edge of a mad scientist. When he said it would work, it should work, but then...

Nick scratched his chin thoughtfully and reached for the syringe. “I started this wager, so I should be the second test subject.” And he did the same professional self-injection.

That broke the ice, and people moved to the box.

“Wait!” Tessa yelled. “We should do the proper test, with the placebo syringes mixed in with the real ones!”

Everyone laughed.

“We don’t have enough subjects for the reliable statistics anyway,” Olivia pointed out. “So we’ll do without the control group ... Or, more accurately, everyone else out of the lab will be the control group.”

And so everyone got their shots.

It kicked in right in about three weeks, give or take a day. Nick was among the first. He carefully put aside his test tube and looked around.

“I hate to admit it, but I’m really horny. I tried to wait it out, but it just keeps getting worse. Um, ladies ... Does anyone else feel the same way?”

Olivia looked up from her microscope, blushing slightly.

“I thought it was just me, but the symptoms are the same...” She bit her lip. “Nick ... are you suggesting what I think?”

He just nodded.

“Well...”

And they walked behind a partition in the corner of the room, from which immediately came the sound of kissing, sighs, and increasingly loud rhythmic moans. Everyone exchanged glances and grinned nervously.

“This is impossible!” Tessa began to unbutton her shirt. “I could bear it when everything was quiet, but these sounds ... Guys, who wants to join me?”

And soon there were two couples behind the partition. Then three. Then four. Then only two again...

Nick found Charles in the next room and bowed to him.

“My apologies. I did not believe it, but you won our wager.”

“I told you so!” Charles smiled broadly and took both the H0 and H1 jars off the shelf. “Hey, everybody! We’re having a party tonight, my treat!”

Needless to say, it was one heck of a sex party.

They recorded their observations, they were scientists after all. Everything was as Charles had promised. They could all fuck practically nonstop, men and women alike. They were easily aroused by the slightest hint (so much so that they had to devote a separate soundproof room to fucking, otherwise they could not get any work done). Sexual tension built up in an hour, became almost unbearable in two hours, and almost painful in three hours, with the mind focused exclusively on sex.

Masturbation relieved it only briefly, only good strong penetration fuck with close body contact did it for good ... for the next hour or two. Sleeping was easier, but they still had to wake up once a night for a quickie (in addition to the intense evening and morning sex).

They were afraid it would soon become too exhausting and tedious, but it just got more and more exciting and enjoyable.

Some of the lab members were married, engaged, or at least had boyfriends or girlfriends. It was a little awkward ... but they decided together that what happened in the lab stayed in the lab, and stopped wearing anything under their lab coats.

They called it AHSS, Acquired Hypersexuality Syndrome. In everyday use, everyone pronounced it “Aaaahhss!” Dozens of times a day, to be exact.

They enjoyed it quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) for a month. Then one day, upon arrival at the lab, Selah went to Charles.

“Charly, my dear ... What virus did you use to transport AHSS?”

He looked at her in surprise.

“One of our newer strains, T9Y-33. Why?”

She facepalmed.

“Charlie, you moron ... How many times do I have to tell you not to stack one new project on top of another? T9Y-33 has failed its tests! It spontaneously regains virulence and does not self-destruct in time! T9Y-33, oh God...”

Suddenly the lab was silent, broken only by muffled groans from the sex room.

“Ouch. I’m sorry ... But what damage has been done?”

“Charlie ... How to say this ... My boyfriend got AHSS. From me, I guess. And as it turns out, he wasn’t completely exclusive, so now we have his three mistresses with AHSS as well. At least.”

Charles frowned.

“Okay ... We’ll isolate the virus. We’ll develop the counterstrain ... It’s easy! Selah, we’ll fix it! Don’t worry! Nothing will happen!”

She hugged him tightly.

“Charlie ... It’s too late. Consider the three week incubation period and the high level of contagion. We have hundreds of infected people by now, if not thousands.”

They held each other for a while longer, trying to figure out what to do next.

Nick moved closer and patted his friend’s shoulder.

“They’ll probably lynch you, buddy. Or give you the Nobel Prize. Or both, in any order.”

“Very funny, Nick...”

“Well, joking aside ... I’d say we should cover our ass before we start working on the cure.”

Since it was Charles’ private project, it turned out to be foolishly easy to adjust the records a bit. So now the lab was heroically fighting a new kind of wild virus. One that they had, by pure chance, managed to identify at the beginning of the pandemic.

Fortunately, all of them (as, by now, probably most of other AHSS-infected people) lived on the same university campus. With a few inquiries and requests, they were able to move into the same dormitory building. Unprepared people would find this building quite unusual...

Paul came home and immediately undressed in the hallway locker. One of the striking differences: everyone in the building preferred to be naked. Not as innocent naturists, but in a very sexual way.

He went to the kitchen to get a snack and to see if any of the lab members or their family groups were home. He was lucky, there was Kimber, Paul’s fifteen year old niece, in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading a book. They exchanged nods, smiled at each other, kissed, and had passionate sex on the spot.

“Thank you...” she whispered, they kissed, and she returned to the book. They both had an hour or two for other things.

Paul left the kitchen, took a shower, went to check his mailbox, and ran into Olivia, Selah, and Tessa coming out of the gym. They greeted him warmly and had a quick foursome right there in the hall (the girls were sweaty from exercising, and Paul liked them that way).

Then they spent the rest of the afternoon (with Jim and Rick soon joining them) talking about their lab work, exchanging new ideas, and occasionally jumping on each other, fucking, and going back to discussing science.