If either lovemaking session was an indication of things to come, I was a convert, fallen hard, singing out my lungs, marching my way to the Tabernacle.

When I called my internist and told him I was going to write a story about ED drugs and wanted all the free samples as he could muster so that I could test them out, I’m not sure he believed me.

Would you?

What’s next? That I had developed a sudden case of glaucoma and I needed three lids of marijuana for the weekend?

Dr. Champion paused for a second, assessing my request, and then came through in spades. “Will three or four boxes of each be enough?” he asked.

Free drugs followed by sex. What more could a guy ask for?

♦◊♦

“I’ll leave the drugs with Marlene at the reception desk,” Dr. Champion said in a reassuring Marcus Welby kind of way.

“Could you put them in a brown paper bag?” I asked. Not everyone needed to know my humble home was about to turn into the Love Shack.

When I picked up the cache of love drugs, Marlene was beaming. “These are for you,” she said with a Carmen Electra purr, her lips pouting like Angela Jolie’s.

Had Dr. Champion given Marlene a heads-up? Had Marlene peaked inside? Had she scribbled her phone number on the back of the Cialis booklet, the one with the scene of the man and woman in bathtubs on the beach?

I charged home energized. The next day my wife and I were going on a Caribbean vacation. If having sex morning, noon, and night was wrong, I didn’t want to be right.

That first afternoon, my wife and I, hand in hand, took a walk on the hot sand, marveling at how sexual the ebbing tides were—in and out, back and forth, frothy, powerful, fluid. At least, I was marveling. Alas, just as we were about to scamper back to our hotel room, I stubbed my big toe on an ugly piece of jagged driftwood. In 15 minutes, though, the pain had subsided as fast as it had come on. An hour later, as we cracked open lobsters, washed down with a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio, all I could think of were the delights to come: To the Moon, baby!

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As soon as we got back to our room, I popped a 25 mg. tablet of Viagra, the smallest dose (it also comes in 50 mg. and 100 mg. doses). Then we waited.

We lounged on our deck and talked about warm breezes, how wrong the concept of snow was, how we needed to quit our jobs and open up a combination bookstore/wine bar when our Powerball numbers hit.

Then the most miraculous thing happened. During all this talk with my wonderful wife of 17 years, my dick had transformed into a dong ready to ding. We proceeded into the bedroom and got down to my journalistic mission.

♦◊♦

Two, three, six (who’s counting?) hours later, the sex that night had been the best in many, many moons. It was slow and languorous at first, then fast and furious, all along the way punctuated by laugher, silly jokes, talk of our teenage son, his learning to drive, his new girlfriend, some of the silly people back home, how we know each other so well, and the remarkable arch in the small of my wife’s back that still slays me every time I look at it. My wife’s reaction to the lovemaking was the same. Was it the Viagra, the anticipation, being away from home and the job—or a combination of all of those things? We were on vacation, after all, when you’re supposed to fuck like rabbits.

My wife fell into a deep, contented sleep. As I lay next to her, thinking about the stars, the silvery moon, our bookstore-cum–wine bar, and the amazing sex we just had, something began to gnaw at me—or more precisely, at my big toe.

The toe that I had walloped on the driftwood six hours earlier all of a sudden began to throb. Actually, it began to pulsate. I’m not making this up. It was a bizarre sensation, like someone had suddenly taken a claw hammer and was whacking away at my toe.

And then my podiatric malady all made sense: Viagra dilates blood vessels, and not just the arteries to your penis. Men who take it say their noses and ears often flush crimson. So, why not another extremity: my toe?

The pounding in my big toe went on for another hour. I no longer had an erection, so I looked to see whether my big toe had gotten bigger or stiffer (it hadn’t). By morning, the toe was back to normal.

♦◊♦

Two nights later, my wife and I took another stroll on the beach, and when we returned to our room and kicked off our sandals, I tried a low-range 5 mg. pill of Levitra—the drug comes in 2.5 mg., 5 mg., 10 mg., and 20 mg. doses. Although Levitra says that men may feel the effects in as little as 10 minutes, it took close to an hour for me. And again, the sex was great.

No toe-throbbing this time, but I developed a slight headache and my ears felt like they were on fire (the result of blood coursing to them), and I felt slightly faint when I got up to pee an hour later. How did Viagra and Levitra compare? Hard to say. If either lovemaking session was an indication of things to come, I was a convert, fallen hard, singing out my lungs, marching my way to the Tabernacle.

Which brings up Cialis, the Weekend Drug. Frankly I had had so much success with Viagra and Levitra, I didn’t want to push things. For the rest of the vacation, my wife and I continued with our love mission, alternating between Viagra and Levitra. Why switch? I’ve stayed with the same women for 17 years; change is intoxicating, but it can be dangerous.

For those reasons, I waited till I returned home for the 36-hour Cialispalooza. Touted by Tony, my neighbor, as “a gift from God,” I was half-intrigued, half-scared by the wild frenzy that awaited me.

So, last night, after I finished the accompanying story, I popped a 20-mg. pill, the maximum available (Cialis comes in 5 mg., 10 mg., and 20 mg. doses). If you’re going to town, go all the way.

♦◊♦

And guess what? Not much happened. And even now, 12 hours after I took the 36-hour King Konger, I haven’t had a second rise in my trunks. My wife and I followed the same drill, but the effect was at best negligible. Inquiring minds want to know: the sex was fine, but stupendous, out of body? No way.

Maybe it’s because I had spent the whole day researching and writing about penises, erections, and male orgasms. That’ll chill any heterosexual man’s ardor. Maybe it’s because the other two drugs had set the bar so high (and hard). Maybe it’s because I took Viagra and Levitra while on vacation, and waited until we got back to the salt mines to pop the Cialis tab.

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I know that my reaction is not typical. When I told my neighbor Tony what had happened, he couldn’t believe it. Tony worships Cialis. He looks as Cialis as a combination of Ricky Williams and Selma Hayek. “No way that’s possible,” Tony said, shocked. Tony took what had happened personally. I was like the guy who test drives a friend’s Porsche, and then says the car did nothing for him.

In despair, I went to the gym to work out, today’s version of a cold shower. I happened to position myself in front of a class of women in soaked Spandex thongs, grunting and groaning, doing body pump exercises. Several of these women were knockouts with long legs and very tight buns.

That’s when I looked down, and that’s when I noticed. I wonder if they did.

—Photo diluvi/Flickr

Test Driving the Little Blue Pills