"You're not angry with me then?" Sarah asked.

"If you aren't angry with me," Jason answered.

"No. Not at all. I know that you are older. You are used to girls who go farther. I just get angry at that 'You do or you don't' business. We've had two dates. Maybe our relationship will deepen, or maybe we'll end up as friends. I wouldn't mind that. I don't have any friends with your experience and understanding. I like you. I respect you. I'd be a fake to say that I love you. You'd be a fake to say it, as well."

"I just got carried away."

"I understand," she said.

"You'll come to the play tomorrow?"

"Maybe you'd be smarter to take me out for a movie and a burger."

"That's not fair," he said. "I don't take you out to hit on you. I like to see the way you respond to fine things."

"Then I'll be glad to come to the play. Sorry I can't invite you in to the residence."

"You wouldn't be willing to dine at my place again? As a sign of forgiveness?"

"As a sign of acceptance of where we are now. On both our parts."

"You are sweet. Six at the residence?"

"Fine," she said. He paid the bill and took her arm out to the street. There, they parted with an arm squeeze and an air kiss.

Jason had another appointment with another woman, considerably older than Sarah.

"It sounds like magic," he said. "I've heard that there aren't any real aphrodisiacs."

"It isn't anywhere near magic. I could drink a vial and you wouldn't get a kiss from me. This is a mixture. The man who made it works where the materials are reasonably available. It increases suggestibility, lowers the moral resistance threshold, and increases the female libido. Except for the last, you can get stronger drugs to do any of these things. The hard part is getting all of them to work on the same time scale and not interfere with one another.

"The mixture, though, transforms a date."

"And I need twenty vials?" he asked.

"I don't know how many you'll need. I personally don't think that the drugs have any cumulative effect. If you have twenty hot dates with the same girl over ten weeks, she knows what a date with you entails, and she enjoys it, or has enjoyed it. You might do it in ten dates or five. Or you can have twenty hot dates with twenty different women.

"If you establish a regular relationship with one woman with five vials, you have the other vials. If you keep them sealed, they will last for years. Who you give the mixture to is your business, except it should be adult women. Men or little girls might get hurt. You understand that nobody has really conducted scientific trials on this."

"Five thousand dollars is a lot of money."

"Five hundred a week. You are a prosperous man. I bet that you spend that amount on dating already. This gives you twice the satisfaction for twice the money.

"I'll admit that I want to sell to you," she continued, "since each person that I approach is a risk. On the other hand, there won't be many more sets like this, so I'm not going to lower the price. My partner who makes the stuff gets half, and I get half because he doesn't want to take the risk of approaching people. He knows I am absolutely safe, but every time he gets more nervous. If you don't want it, tell me and I'll look for another man with money and reasonable presence who has no active relationship."

"Thank's for the vote of confidence."

"This won't seduce a nun. It won't make a woman want someone she finds repulsive. It lowers thresholds."

"And you will let me try one sample?" he asked.

"If you agree to the price. Five thousand for the remaining nineteen if the first one works."

"How do I know that you won't switch materials?"

"Did you bring the large envelope as I asked? I'll put all the vials on the table. You take one from the table, whichever you wish. You put the others in the envelope. You seal it and write what you want over the flaps. The envelope costs you five thousand dollars, cash, if the first one works."

"I have pressed the envelope with an old-fashioned notary seal," he said. "You won't be able to switch it."

"If I don't get the money, I have the vials. That's all that I care about."

Sarah came out the door of the YWCA residence at 6:02. Jason appreciated some of her old-fashioned virtues as much as he deprecated others.

They had a light meal at a restaurant, and Jason was able to pour his vial into her wine glass. She drank it all down.

There was no visible effect at the restaurant nor in the cab later. During the play, however, she began to laugh harder than the rest of the audience and to hug his arm more.

Afterward, he served her a fine cold meal and another glass of wine. This disappeared faster than the first one had. He knew that she was a one-glass girl; she was stretching her rules by having a second at a second meal. He did, however, offer her another.

"Well, I'm certainly not driving, since I haven't had a car since I came to the city. I drank that one too fast, but it tastes so good. Don't let me have a third, though."

"Here you go."

"The whole evening has been so fine," she said. "The play was funnier than I expected, and this food! You certainly put an effort to entertain a girl who said 'no' to you."

"Partially in apology."

She sipped the wine, leaving a little at the end of the meal. She was obviously finding him funnier than she had in the past, as well.

When they got up, she kissed him in thanks. He extended the kiss and deepened it. She made no objection to his hand on her derriere. She had allowed his petting of her covered breasts before. It was the attempt to unbutton her blouse, and then the unwillingness to stop, that had caused their quarrel.