Back Cover Description:

Subject/victim: Griffin Reed
Theory: Sensual pleasure makes people stupid. Stupid people don’t get promotions. Therefore must have sex with Griffin to keep competitive edge ‘

Procedure: Lots of satisfaction for Griffin. Contain self in order to keep brainpower optimal.

Macy Thomaston has just learned the most important scientific discovery ever — intense sexual pleasure leads to a temporary dip in IQ. Surely there’s a way to leverage this against Griffin Reed, her palm-sweatingly hot coworker ‘ and the thorn in her professional side.

Macy just needs to blow Griffin’s mind — literally — and get her promotion without a single teeny release for herself. And she’s really hoping Griffin is lousy in bed. ‘ Otherwise this whole experiment could completely backfire!

Excerpt:

“MY STUDY proves it sex makes us dumb.”

Macy Thomaston leaned in close to make sure her friend could hear her over the noise in the downtown San Francisco bar. “You needed to spend the past three years of your life researching to figure that out?”

Lauren Parish shook her head. “Not dumb like you’re thinking. What I mean is, we literally lose IQ points every time we have an orgasm.”

Macy stared at her friend, a sense of outrage rising in her chest. “When you became a medical researcher, I thought you were going to discover cures for serious illnesses, not ruin my sex life.”

Lauren, who, up until a few seconds ago, had been one of Macy’s favorite people in the world, dismissed her concern with a shrug. “Knowledge is power.”

Macy glanced around the Irish pub at the disappointing selection of single men. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with all the men I’ve dated lately. Too much sex.”

“Seriously,” Lauren said. “It’s all about biochemistry.” She pushed some papers across the table. “Read the concluding paragraph.”

Macy flipped through the pages of the study Lauren had just finished drafting until she came to the end. And there it was, laid out in medical jargon, soon to be published in the Journal of American Medicine that biochemicals released during orgasm have a temporary dumbing-down effect on the human brain. Weakened recall skills, sluggish thought processes, even a brief drop in IQ had been noted among the research subjects.

“I can’t believe you’ve proven this,” Macy said as a waitress brushed past, dropping a green flyer of the bar’s weekly events on the table.

“So what do you think?”

“I think you’re going to piss off the world,” Macy said, her mind whirring with the possibilities.

“Of course, but what do you really think? Does it freak you out a little? Make you want to change your behavior at all?”

“I don’t know. I’m just stunned.”

Lauren sipped her beer. “I, for one, will be a lot more careful about the timing of my sexual encounters. I mean, think about it”

“You’ve got a big job interview or an important meeting Monday morning, so that means no hot sex Saturday night,” Macy said, her bewilderment growing.

Would this mean the end of casual sex as she knew it? “Exactly. And since the effects last up to four days, any important mental challenge in the early part of the work week could ruin entire weekends of potential sex.”

“Unless it’s bad sex, right?”

Lauren laughed. “That seems to be the case. The stronger the orgasm, the more noticeable the effects. And study subjects who had no orgasm at all experienced no negative reactions.”

Around them, blue-collar regulars at the bar mixed with the growing crowd of yuppies who’d recently discovered O’Shaunnessy’s and declared it authentic and therefore a cool place to be seen. Authentic was certainly one way to describe the grungy hardwood floors, the slightly sticky tables and the malt scent that filled the air. The bartenders had Irish accents, and the waitresses wore skin-tight jeans.

Macy, still in her pale yellow wool summer suit, and Lauren, in her standard black pants and black top, with her long brown hair gleaming in the dim light, were guilty of being from the searching-for-authenticity side of the crowd.