I feel Travis tighten his grip on me. “I need you to trust me. I’ve got you, okay?” he whispers so only I can hear, repeating his words from last night. “You’ve got to calm down. I know you’re scared, but I’ll be here with you. I won’t leave you.” I feel ice filtering through my veins as I think of all the gall this man has. He thinks his very presence is going to make everything I’m going through all hunky-dory? Being as I’m held here against my will and forced to expose my body to drugs and strangers, he must be on some type of drug himself!
I scream impulsively, “You arrogant prick! My, don’t you think so highly of yourself?” I fight to buck him off me, but he’s just too strong. “Get off me!”
“Sorry, no can do. You don’t play nice,” Travis says with a calmness that does nothing to cool my raging fury. “But while we’re laying here all cozy and such, we can get a few Q and As out of the way.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I quit struggling and give in for a moment, closing my eyes. This is so messed-up. Why hasn’t my father found me yet? I feel as if I am slowly breaking in two, and I wonder if these men are going to fracture both my body and soul to the point where it can’t be repaired. I take a deep breath of resolve, preparing myself to face reality.
“Okay, Jared.” Simmering disdain oozes from my voice as I glare at him. “Tell me—what are you drugging my body with?”
Jared settles on a small, round chair with wheels and no back. He sits with perfect posture and confidence, and I get the urge to bean him in the head with something, knocking him off his makeshift pedestal.
“First, there are several known drugs to increase libido.” He begins ticking off on his fingers as he speaks. “Cabergoline, Bromocriptine, Deprenyl, and LSD. Believe it or not, all of them carry cognitive and physical health benefits.”
I’m wide-eyed with shock, seeing how the only thing I understood out of that garble was LSD. “You’re drugging me with LSD?” I ask incredulously. No wonder I feel like I’m tripping out and drooling all over Travis.
“Well, we don’t use cocaine, which is only one of the three dopamine agonists we don’t use,” Jared spits out and eyes me defensively.
“Ah, well then, that makes it all okay, doesn’t it?” Pure sarcasm drips from my voice.
He ignores me and pushes on. “The other two forms are LibiGel and Flibanserin, and they are both aspiring to win the FDA’s approval.” He shifts in his chair and pushes his glasses further up on his nose. “Then you have the psychoactive substances, which consist of things such as cannabis. Those types of drugs have their own sets of problems. I believe Shakespeare said it best in his famed statement, ‘It provokes desire, but it takes away from the performance.’ So in essence, the psychoactive drugs increase the sexual want, but they reduce the quality of the sex itself, and the ability to even have intercourse in some circumstances.”
I feel like my eyes are crossing with his babbling. “Is there a main point to this?” I ask with growing irritation, and I hear Travis quietly chuckle.
“No matter, I’m sure this is all too boring to you anyway. It must be as if I’m speaking in a foreign language to you. I won’t bother you with the rest of the details; I just get overly-excited sometimes about my life’s work. It’s revolutionary, really—“
“Jared,” Travis drawls out his name, interrupting him.
“Yes, okay. As I was saying, there are many other herbs and drugs such as methamphetamines, testosterone, phenylethylamines and the like.” He takes a breath, remembering he’s inundating me with technical terms. “The bottom line here is despite decades of testing pills, patches, gels, nasal sprays, and vaginal rings, there is still no approved drug, meaning there is still nothing on the market offering any true efficacy for low libido. There will always be drug interactions, but with years of research, I have been able to combine many of these drugs with minimal interactions or negative side effects. I’ve been able to accomplish two delivery methods thus far. One is a time-released capsule, and the other, an injectable.”
He looks at me like I’m supposed to understand everything he just said. “Are you for real? I mean, you do realize not everyone has a degree in microbiology, physics, and scientific experimentations, right?” I ask.
“Okay, perhaps I’ll tell you what the desired results from using the drug are; that should be easier for you to understand. The drugs I created are slightly mind-altering, allowing us to “brainwash”, so to speak, our subjects in a more humane way—“
I interrupt him, “You mean to tell me there’s a humane way to brainwash people into performing behaviors against their will?” I ask with fake delight. “How nice of you!”