the paperwork, but he wasn’t convinced there wasn’t some sort of monitoring going on. He might not know a lot about how psych department experiments worked, but he was going to assume he was being recorded until proved otherwise. “Very important.”

      The next question, though, made him laugh. “If you meet a woman with an excellent sense of humor and obvious intelligence, but her physical appearance isn’t up to your standards, would you ask her out anyway?”

      No. Might as well be honest for the sake of the experiment, right? Didn’t want to skew the results.

      “If you end up going out with a woman, for example on a blind date, who exhibits all the traits you’re looking for in a mate, but again her physical appearance isn’t to your standards, do you have sex with her if the opportunity arises?”

      Yes. He hesitated on that one, thinking of the old “chew your arm off in the morning” jokes, but the fact was, Matt had slept with ugly chicks in the past because the desire to get laid overrode any sort of other need. Had he done it lately, even in the past few years? No. But he had, and he was going to guess he would again, if the situation were right.

      It took him forty-five minutes to answer all the questions, and by the end of it, his hand had cramped. They’d explained to him already what the experiment entailed, reassuring him over and over again that he wouldn’t have to sleep with anyone if he didn’t want to. That he wasn’t being paid to have sex. That he’d have to spend five nights in a row with this random chick, chosen as his partner based on what he’d filled out. He wanted to make sure he gave them all the information necessary to hook him up with someone just right.

      Less than twenty-four hours later, in the shower as he got ready for the evening out with the “bros,” Matt froze with his fingers knuckle-deep in lather on his skull. He was about to get set up on what could be the worse or best blind date, ever.

      He was still thinking about it when he got to the bar where Damian had said they’d all be. And there they were, a bunch of his fraternity brothers, most of them younger and all of them horny. On their way to piss drunk, too, by the looks of them. They’d cornered a similar group of mostly pretty sorority girls in tiny tops and with lots of shiny teeth.

      “Bro,” Damian greeted him solemnly. “Glad you could finally fucking make it out. All work, no play, right?”

      “Yeah, right,” Matt said, and took one of the bottles of beer from the bucket on the table. “How about I buy the next bucket?”

      And that’s how it started. How it ended, though, was something else. Damian had fixed his sights on this sweet little blonde with huge tits and not a lot going on between the ears. Matt had found himself a reluctant wingman, left to entertain the hottie’s plain-Jane pal.

      At least she didn’t seem interested in him. They shared a couple of beers from another of the buckets and watched some lame reality show while Damian set to making out with the still-nameless chick. They were both drunk, and normally Matt wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except that it seemed pretty lame to just stick your tongue down someone else’s throat within twenty minutes of meeting them.