Pavlov's Bitch
By The Fissure King
Part I: The Subject
"I'm very sorry," said Dr. Howard, and he sounded like he meant it. "You've been a great
subject, but I'm afraid I'm finished with the experimental side of things for the summer. I'm
going to spend the rest of it working on the analysis. Perhaps one of the other professors
is running an experiment you'd be interested in? Or one of the grad students?"
"No," said Andrea, sounding disappointed, "I've talked to them all. They've all got all the
subjects they need. It's okay though… I don't really need the work."
Indeed, Andrea didn't need the work. Her parents paid her tuition and her rent, and gave
her enough money for food. But they weren't well off, and couldn't give her enough to fuel
her entertainment budget. So she WANTED the work. Because she didn't have any major
expenses, just the occasional night out, she didn't need a real job, even a part time one
(and, truth be told, she was too lazy to bother getting one). Volunteering for psychological
experiments was the perfect solution; they paid well if you considered how long they took
to complete (usually about 25$ for an hour-long experiment), usually required very little
effort (most simply involved reading something or watching a video, and then filling out a
questionnaire), and best of all, Andrea was fascinated by them. A couple of months ago,
she had completed her third year of her undergraduate psychology program at McGill Uni-
versity in Montreal. The field called to her; she longed to understand the intricacies of the
human mind. She could hardly wait to get to grad school and conduct some real research
of her own, but in the meantime, she was content to settle for being a subject and seeing
the way experiments were conducted from that end of things.
Dr. Howard was still talking to her. "You could try looking in the classifieds… occasionally
some company or private psychologist conducts an experiment and needs some volun-
teers."
Andrea didn't think that seemed incredibly promising, but she thanked Dr. Howard anyway
and wandered out the psychology building's front doors and onto campus. She studied the
faces of the few summer students who were bustling about here and there, but failed to
find anyone she recognized. She stood and watched them go by for a short while, thinking
about how odd it was that each of these faces had a mind behind it, a mind which was
completely separate from hers, perceiving the Universe in an entirely different way. More
than ever, she wanted to understand the human mind, to understand people. She wanted
to be able to see the minds behind the faces. Without understanding the way people think,
she reasoned, their actions would seem to be completely random. Because a person's life
is mostly governed by their own actions and the actions of the people around them, un-
derstanding a person's mind, and therefore the motivation for their actions leads to an un-
derstanding of one's own life, a useful piece of knowledge to be sure. Andrea wasn't quite
at that stage yet, and so she found life mysterious and uncertain. For some reason, that
bothered her more than it seemed to bother others.
Her basement apartment was a short walk away from campus, and ten minutes later she
was standing at her door, turning the key in the lock, the profound thoughts she'd had on
her walk home already lost from her mind. She subscribed to the Montreal Gazette, and a
copy of it was resting by her door; she scooped it up, opened the door and walked in. The
apartment was a modest 2 ½, with low ceilings, but a hardwood floor. Andrea headed im-
mediately for the fridge to get herself a beer, tossing the Gazette onto the kitchen table on
her way. It was early July, and today was the hottest day of the year so far. Even the short
walk home had caused her to work up a sweat.
In Andrea's family, nudity was never considered a big deal, and so she was more comfort-
able the less she was wearing, especially on days like this. Taking a quick swig from her
beer bottle, she set it down on the table and proceeded to pull off her tank top, kicking the
door to her apartment closed as she did so. She wiped her forehead with the tank top and
tossed it to the side, removing her shoes, socks, pants and her bra. Now clad only in her
panties, she grabbed her beer and went into her bedroom.
She flopped herself down on her futon bed, and held the bottom of the beer bottle against
her forehead, which had already begun to drip with sweat again. Idly wishing she was
back at her parents' air-conditioned home in Toronto, she struggled back up to a sitting
position and took another sip of her beer before setting it down on the floor next to her
calf.
She looked at herself in the full length mirror she had hanging on the wall by her bed and
she wondered, not for the first time, if she was attractive. She certainly wasn't unattractive;
she was short, but in good shape, 5'3", 100 lbs. She had her flaws, sure; she didn't like the
slight upward turn to her nose, and she wished her teeth were a bit straighter and her lips
a bit fuller, but none of these problems was glaring; in fact, Andrea was probably the only
one who conciously noticed them. She liked her breasts though, perfect C-cups with nip-
ples like pencil erasers. And her long red hair and green eyes gave her a certain distinct-
iveness that earned her a certain amount of attention. Holding one leg out straight in front
of her, she turned slightly from side to side to study it. She was tempted to think that her
thighs were fat, but during her three years of psychology, she'd learned that most women
think that, that such notions were an unfortunate consequence of modern day social psy-
chology and usually had little basis in reality. Andrea didn't like vain people, and resisted
the urge to study herself further. Remembering what her prof had said about the possibility
of psych experiments being advertised in the classifieds, she got up and retrieved the
newspaper from the kitchen, then returned to her room.
Tossing the newspaper down on the futon, she flopped down on her chest beside it.
Grabbing her beer, she flipped the newspaper open to the classifieds with her free hand.
She began to skim them disinterestedly, sipping her beer now and then. Failing to have
something leap out at her, she sighed quietly and returned to the beginning of the classi-
fieds to actually examine them one by one.
By the end of the first column, Andrea was beginning to get bored. By the middle of the
second, she was finding her attention waning. Rolling onto her side, she put down her
beer and slipped her hand into her panties, half-heartedly masturbating as she often did
when bored at home. It was rarely a very sexual thing; it was just something that felt nice
and helped keep her focussed on what she was doing. The fingers of her left hand gently
stroked her inner labia while those of her right slid down the page, moving from ad to ad,
keeping her place as she read. Fairly soon, though, her left hand's activities had an effect
precisely the opposite of that which was intended; she was surprised to find herself getting
quite turned on, which made it harder to concentrate, rather than easier.
Andrea had broken up with her last boyfriend several months earlier. For a few weeks af-
ter the breakup, she had found herself in a state of near-continual sexual frustration, and
had been forced to pleasure herself several times a day just to keep herself from feeling
like she was losing her mind. She had eventually adapted to the lack of sex in her life, and
had all but lost interest in it. For some reason, though, she found herself to be quite horny.
A determined girl, Andrea decided that if she didn't read the classifieds now, she never
would, so she withdrew her hand and sat up, going back to reading and trying to fix all her
attention on the tiny black words on the page. She grabbed her beer again and after tak-
ing a swig held it between her thighs while picking up the newspaper with both hands.
The condensation on the bottle and the sweat on her thighs made her hold on the bottle
tenuous at best. It soon slipped down the indendation her weight was making in the futon,
and the base of the bottle game to rest against the crotch of her panties. She could feel
the icy cold of the bottle through the fabric of her panties, and it felt quite good. Really
good, in fact.
"Fuck it," she muttered out loud and tossed the newspaper down. Lifting her hips and slip-
ping her panties off, she lay back down and went back to stroking herself, the cold beer
bottle resting against her thigh.
After a few seconds she stopped and opened her eyes, glancing at the beer bottle. She
hesitated, glancing around the room as if she expected someone to be there watching her.
She chewed on her lower lip for a few seconds, contemplating, but then grabbed the beer
bottle and slid her hips up to the edge of the futon.
Looking up, she made eye contact with herself in the mirror. "Andrea," she said to herself,
"what's gotten into you? You've never had the urge to do something like THIS before."
Laughing a bit at herself, she looked back down at her crotch and, biting her lip again, slid
the neck of the bottle into herself. She gasped at the feeling of the cold glass in her pussy,
a feeling she'd never experienced before. It wasn't really good or bad, just weird. Before
she could decide if she liked it or not, the glass had warmed up to her body temperature.
Experimentally, she slid the neck of the bottle in and out a few times. It felt good, so she
kept doing it. Eventually, she began to pick up the pace, pushing it in and pulling it out
more quickly and roughly. Pretty soon, she was lying back on the bed, fucking herself with
the bottle she held in one hand and frantically rubbing her clit with the other. She eventu-
ally built herself up to a climax, and gave herself the best self-induced orgasm she'd ever
had.
Pressing the bottom of the beer bottle against her forehead again to cool herself off, she
shot a sidelong glance at the newspaper. And there, before her eyes, was:
"Experimental subjects wanted for psychological experiment. Experiment duration 1 hr.,
pays 25$. Call 484-9346 between 1 and 4 PM."
She looked over at her digital clock. The red numbers glowed 4:37. Deciding that she
would call at 1 o'clock the next day, Andrea lay in her self-created afterglow for a few min-
utes before hauling herself to her feet to start cooking dinner for herself.
