Chapter 2

Eventually, the long night was over. I went home, gave Sue a wake-up kiss and a coffee, and made breakfast. She came into the kitchen, looking mussed and sleepy.

"Good morning, my love", I chirped.

"Why are you sounding so cheerful?" she grumbled.

"Because the sun's out and the birds are singing, my darling wife."

"Nothing to do with last night, then?"

"Partly, I suppose. I've taken the first steps on the road to a Nobel Prize. Probably a knighthood as well. That's enough to make anyone cheerful, surely?"

"I didn't mean that, you bastard! As you know!"

"Why? Did something else happen last night? Oh, yes, that's right. I had some of the finest sex a man could wish for, and I've been promised another dose for this morning and again tonight. Isn't life grand!"

"It is for some people, I suppose." Sue poured herself another coffee and slumped back into her chair. "You're up for it, then? Working all night didn't leave you too tired?"

"I'll manage. For you, no sacrifice is too great." I ducked to avoid the toast which was suddenly frisbeed across the room at eye-level.

We went back upstairs. This time, there was no pressure, so I could treat Sue's ass a little more gently. She lay face-down on the bed, a resigned expression on her face. Using the KY that I'd bought on the way home, I penetrated her as softly as I could, gradually working up to speed and depth. Not wonderful, but when a man fresh out of the desert is offered a glass of water, he doesn't complain too much about the taste, does he? It was a fuck, pure and simple. A week ago, I'd have called it marvellous. It only seemed flat compared with the session on the couch the previous night.

We showered together - not for romantic reasons, but because we couldn't agree on who was to go first. Still, I managed to fool around a bit, and her mood improved.

Before we made our separate ways to work, Sue made me promise to keep my mobile with me and switched on at all times.

"Why?", I asked.

"In case I need you in a hurry, that's why! My college is five minutes from your lab. Four if you hurry. So, if I call, you drop whatever you're doing - and I mean WHATEVER - and start heading my way. If I'm up to it, I'll be driving your way, so watch out for me. If I feel myself going, I'll pull over and wait for you. In the back seat. Right? Got it?"

"Uh, yes. You should be ok, though. Forty hours at least, everybody says."

"If I didn't believe that, there's no way I'd let you out of my sight. This is just a backup plan. In case what 'everybody says' turns out to be wrong."

"Fair enough," I said. "I haven't made out in the back of a car for a long time now, but I suppose it'll come back to me."

"It will. I guarantee it."

At the laboratories, I checked on my little machines, made a few more notes and set them ticking away on some new problems. I'd managed to catch some of my semen as it dripped out of Sue's ass. The sperm looked pretty dead, but I set some of the machines to analyse them anyway.

Over in the medical section, things were happening. Another research team, from University College Hospital, had figured out how the plague transmitted itself. They'd found airborne spores, which attached themselves to mucous membranes. If they were well inside the cunt or ass, they turned into pink cells and multiplied, eventually turning purple. If they were in the mouth, they tended to attach to the tongue, where they looked very much like taste buds. None had been found anywhere else in the mouth, or in the throat, the lungs, or the nasal passages. They remained pink, never turning purple and never producing the irritants. What they did produce was more of the spores, thousands of them, which the victim breathed out to keep the infection going.

Everybody was excited about this. If we could only get all women, everywhere, to wear face masks, then they wouldn't breathe the spores out where other women could get infected. And if they weren't infected, they wouldn't catch it. Not the mouth-borne variety, anyway. Trouble was, we'd found this out too late. The spores were everywhere. With what we knew now, we could slow the transmission, but there was no way we could stop it.

I gave Hilary an edited version of our overnight visit, told her a little of what I was working on, and quizzed her on the latest state of play in her lab. She was fairly forthcoming, but was obviously holding a few things back. This was one cure that every scientist wanted to find, and to hell with scientific co-operation! Oh, we'd talk to each other, sharing some of the information, but we all kept our best theories to ourselves.

"So, Hilary. How are your bull-semen experiments going?"

"Oh. You read about that idea, then. No, it doesn't seem to work. Sperm that's been frozen and then thawed just doesn't do the job."

"Why not? It works fine on cows, surely?"

"It's not lively enough. The walls of the purple cells are quite a bit tougher than egg cells, and it takes a fresh, strong sperm to work its way through."

"So can you use fresh sperm?"

"It has to be very fresh. Straight from the producer, in fact. In a matter of seconds, no matter how carefully we handle it, it's weakened to the point where it's useless."

"So, you'd need a room full of women with their legs apart, waiting. And the bull next door. As soon as he's done his business, an army of nurses pick up their syringes, load up and charge into action!"

"I might have known you'd think it was funny," said Hilary. "Repeat after me. This is NOT a laughing matter!"

"Sorry, Hilary. I know it isn't. Seeing Sue in agony last night convinced me of that. It was pretty frightening. Have you seen it?"

"Seen it, Jack? I've BEEN it, for god's sake. Right here in this lab, last week. Mike helped me out."

I thought, fast. Hilary was a lesbian, in a committed relationship. Her partner worked upstairs, in administration.

"Um, what did Jackie think of that? Or haven't you told her?"

"Of course I told her. I could hardly keep it a secret - for one thing, there were a dozen people watching! Plus, I knew I'd have to repeat the medicine just about every day. Mike doesn't have a girl at the moment, so he agreed to take on the job. To make things easier, he's moved in with us for the duration, and helps us both out."

"What? Jackie's got it as well?"

"Yes, but she's better off than me. She only has the vaginal form - I've got it both ways. Mike's being very good about it, and he's managing to keep up with both of us. But I think he's praying that Jackie doesn't start needing it up the ass as well - that would put him over the edge."

"I think I know how he feels, and I only have one woman to see to. Three times in less than ten hours has left me feeling... um... drained is the word, I suppose."

I decided to point out an anomaly to Hilary.

"How long did you say it was before the pink cells go to purple?"

"About a half-hour, normally."

"And they stay purple until they're inseminated again?", I asked.

"That's right."

"That's what I thought. Well, the cells I took from Sue's ass were purple, right enough. It was about an hour after we'd... well, anyway, the point is that during the night they went back to pink again."

"What? Without sperm? Are you sure?"

"Unless somebody sneaked into the lab while I was dozing and added some, yes."

"This needs looking into - we may be on to something!", she said, charging down the corridor with me trailing in her wake. I caught up with her just inside my lab, and showed her the cells.

"Hmmm. Just as you said. Can I have some of these?"

"Sure - they're multiplying beautifully. Take all you need."

She fizzed out with her precious cargo. I was glad she'd gone. Just watching her at speed made me realise how tired I was. I carried on with my work for an hour, then a stranger walked in.

"Hi - are you Dr. Harper? Hilary sent me to beg some cells from you."

"And you are? Oh, yes, I know you. But I'm afraid I've forgotten your name. From University College labs, with the details about the spore transmission?"

"Richards. That's right. Hilary showed me your pink-only cells. They look very interesting."

"So she said. And yes, you can have some."

I'd been expecting requests like this, and had made up several jars of warm nutrient, with a few dozen cells in each. "Will a couple of these do? You only have to wait a while, and you'll have more. They're dividing pretty fast."

"Yes, they do. At least, in the third phase they do."

"Third phase?"

"First phase, pink. Second phase, purple. Third phase, purple with irritant secretions. If you've got dividing pink cells, you may have found a fourth phase. Or are these just wrong-coloured third phase cells?"

"No. There's no irritant being made. I added a little bromothymol to the nutrient, because I wanted to test them again while they were producing it. The dangerous chemicals are slightly acidic, so the bromothymol would have gone yellow if there was any about. But there's no yellow, so no irritant. They seem quite harmless, and have for - I looked at the clock - fifteen hours now."

"Then they might still produce irritant after forty, like the purple ones. But why are they still pink? And how are they dividing without producing irritant? Well, I'll get to work on it. Thank you very much. Obviously, we'll share any results with you."

"Obviously," I said with a smile. He smiled back, knowing that he was as anxious as any of us to be 'first with the news', and knowing that I knew it.

"You'd better hurry, though," I said. "Hilary's been working on them for a half-hour now. And she's good."

"She is, isn't she. Looks more like a movie star than a scientist, but she has an impressive brain."

"But as you say, that's not what looks impressive at first glance!"

"Yes", said Richards. "A real cap-turner, that girl! Er - you don't mind me saying that?"

"Cap-turner?"

"Where have you been lately? Haven't you seen the baseball caps?"

"No. Well, I might have done, but I really don't know what you mean."

"Baseball caps with a logo on the front," he said, patiently. "The logo reads 'S2S'. Still no clue?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Stands for 'Spunk to Spare'. When a girl feels an urgent need, she looks around for guys wearing the cap, and picks one she likes. After he's solved her little problem for her, he turns the cap around. And when he starts feeling the urge again, like when he sees a really... um... fuckable woman, he turns it to display 'S2S' again. I'll bet Hilary sees caps turning in her direction all down the street." He smiled. "It's quite good fun being a man at the moment, isn't it?"

I found myself irritated by his tone. "I suppose it is," I snapped. "More fun than being a woman, anyway. And a LOT more fun than being a lesbian."

"Lesbian? Hilary? Oh, dear. What a waste."