The table wasn't really about her testing the drug; rather, how far this woman was willing to go for the old man Edwin made nice with. If anyone remembers, but Abel later offers Sophia to Edwin, and obviously Chuck has his blessing for his roundabout foreplay with her. I see the way Abel freely offers his head researcher to associates as a form of self-exaltation. He's showing off, basically.
In hindsight, I think that gets lost on the initial viewing because the reader only sees her standing next to Abel like once and assumed she was a house girl (if they recognized her at all), but I still like the combination punch of showing a yet-to-be-revealed powerful woman's depraved side before she has even been properly introduced.
I mean... you're not wrong. It's a porn game, bro.
Everything starts from the premise of do I find this hot? From there, it's working backwards to see if it can be cogently framed to fit the scenario and characters. It's a balance between doing what your penis tells you to do and tempering it so it doesn't veer off track from your brain parts.
Now, is casually playing a board game on a prostitute's ass both a juvenile and porn-brained concept of "excess and power"? Hell yeah, it is. That's Pale Carnations in a nutshell.