"I don't know," he said, looking around the room. "Isn't it ... I don't know, a little over the top? I mean, look, the damned bed's round! It looks like something out of a Playboy shoot from the 1970's."

"You were too young to read Playboy in the 1970's," she replied, with a smirk. "Look! Complimentary champagne!"

"I just think it's kind of ridiculous. I mean, it's more likely to hurt than help. And I'm still kind of pissed you told Frida we were having ... trouble."

"I know, you never have liked her." She managed to get the cork off, and giggled as almost as much champagne splashed onto the table as went into the glass. "Am I pouring you some?"

"It's not that, it's just none of her business. And it's a dumb idea. I don't think a silly bed and mood lighting and champagne is going to help. I mean, the problem isn't with wanting to ..."

"I know, sweetie," she said, moving over to him and putting an arm around him. She gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead. The poor thing. He really wasn't dealing with this very well. Nearly a year without sex wasn't the greatest thing in the world, she had to admit, but she was willing to be patient about it, whereas he seemed to get more desperate or angry about it--she couldn't always tell which--every day, and she figured the more he fretted about it, the less likely it was that he'd be able to get past the problem.

She handed him the champagne glass. She wanted to make sure he had at least a few sips in him before the next part. She went to pour a second glass for herself, and when she turned back to him, he'd emptied the one she handed him. That seemed like a good sign. "That's why," she said carefully, "the room is only half of the plan."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you up to?"

She set down her glass and dug in her purse, fishing out the two syringes, prefilled, full of a cloudy gray liquid.

"You're not actually thinking of injecting that," he said. "What is it? Your plan is to get us wasted?"

"You know Frida's working with all those nanochemicals now," she replied. "She said this will definitely put us in condition to have sex. A lot of sex. Like, all weekend sex."

"And you believe her?"

"Well, I don't think she'd try to poison me. And it's been tested."

He stared at the two syringes dubiously. In the light, as she held them up, the gray goo almost took on a silvery look.

"Come on," she said. "It can't hurt to try." She started undressing, and he realized that he really couldn't argue with that. He shucked off his clothes.

"You know what you're doing?" he said, watching as she unsnapped one of the sterile caps, revealing the bare needle. He'd never been good with needles even under the best of circumstances.

"I may not have finished nursing school but I can still find a vein," she said, prepping an alcohol swab. "Make a fist, would you?"

- - - - - - - - - -

"Well, I don't feel anything happening in the important bits," he said.

They had each taken their injection and had been lying on the bed, side by side, staring at the ceiling, for twenty minutes.

"Me neither," she admitted. "Maybe it takes a while to kick in."

"Maybe Frida was full of--" He broke off.

"What?"

He'd brought up his hand to scratch his head, and was staring at it. "Does my skin look strange to you?"

She rolled onto her side to study him. "Yeah. Actually. Kind of ... shiny? Are you sweating?" He shook his head. She looked down at her own body. "Huh, I'm doing it too. That's weird. And I feel ... I don't know. Something's strange, but I can't figure out what ..." She looked back at him and shrieked, then began to giggle.

"What?"

"Oh my god, your hair! What's mine doing? I have to go see." She stood up from the bed, having some trouble. "Ooh. I think I figured out what's strange. My joints aren't doing right."

"They hurt?"

"No, they don't hurt, they're just ... hard to move. Stiff." She waddled over to the mirror, slowly, and laughed. "I have plastic hair! This is great!"

"You're awfully amused," he said, standing up carefully. "What if this isn't reversible? You ... oh shit, really? Really?"

She turned to him. He was looking down at his chest. "I have tits!"

"Huge ones," she said, with a giggle.

"And I have the same stupid hair as you! This drug is giving us the same form!"

"Not completely the same," she said, still giggling. "Are you still not feeling anything in the good bits?"

"Why--oh." He looked down at his stiffly erect cock. "No! I'm not feeling anything at all. It's just hard." He put a hand on it. "Uh, really hard."

She rubbed one of her now-very-obviously-plastic hands along his arm. "Are you not feeling anything?"

He shivered. "No, I definitely, uh, I felt that."

"Let's see what else you feel."

They began running their hands along each other's bodies, tentatively, then urgently. Sensation was very different; it was hard to say that any touches were coming from any one specific place, yet, as if to make up for that, every touch was felt all over, across all of their skin. Each caress, each brush of a fingertip, rippled and multiplied all over their bodies.

She realized, while they were still in the frenzy of exploring with their fingers, that something else felt wrong, something new. Her head ... "Ah y feeln fuhy?" she asked.

"Uh?" he replied.

"Ah seh, ah y feeln fuhy? ... Waz ih hah t tak?"

She turned to the mirror again. Oh, that was why they were having trouble talking, she thought, watching the huge, flexible red plastic tongue as it continued to grow and extend far out of her mouth. She was also having trouble closing her mouth, and not just because of all the space her new tongue was taking up. She turned back to look at him. The sight of his gaping red mouth and tongue made her want to ...

They threw their mouths together, tongues twisting and slipping around each other. But her head ... she broke off again. He looked at her, confused as to why she'd stopped. She tried to explain. Something was wrong with her brain! But now she couldn't make any sounds at all. She needed to explain! Maybe she could write it down! Maybe she could signal what she meant, somehow. Maybe--

Maybe she could throw him onto the bed and wriggle against him and slide her plastic body against his, forever and ever. She couldn't think of anything else. A lot of sex, she recalled suddenly. All-weekend sex.

She was about to put her hands on his shoulders and drag him over to the bed when the door to the hotel room opened.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Hang on, y'all," Frida told the others. "I need to explain to them while they can still understand it."

She moved into the room, studying the two pink plastic figures standing watching them. Their eyes were totally unreadable by now, of course, and with the mouths in that conformation it was difficult to tell whether they were smiling or angry ... "I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth," Frida told the one with the pussy, "but we really needed more test subjects, and it's so hard to get authorization the official way these days. Don't worry, no one will know! We have even more reason to keep it secret than you do."

No reaction. No visible anger, which was good, but nothing else either.

"By now they probably can't think about anything but contact anyway," one of the lab techs said behind Frida.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Frida replied. "OK, everybody, come in, and last one in make sure the door is locked and has the Do Not Disturb sign out."

Five other people filed into the room, the last taking care of the door.

"All right, people, we've got the whole weekend, and we may not get another test for a while," Frida told them, unbuttoning her blouse. "So make this one thorough."

The two dolls watched her undress. Frida thought they looked eager, almost hungry.

But maybe that was just her imagination.