Chapter 6

I managed to get home from work on time, but found the house empty, so I caught up on my laptop notes, and got lost in them.

Eventually Sue arrived. I looked at my watch, and was startled to see that it was just after 7pm.

"What's this?", she demanded. "You know the rules - first one home cooks. Where is it?"

I'd forgotten. A husband in this position has to think fast. He either admits his fault and trusts to his wife's mercy, or lies through his teeth. No choice, really. I lied.

"I thought we'd go out to eat, love. Since we're having a night off from sex, let's do something different."

"That's a lovely idea, Jack. Where have you booked us?"

"I waited for you. I didn't know whether you fancied Chinese, Italian, Indian, Korean, fish and chips in a bag, or expensive. Anything you like."

"How about expensive. Considering what I've been doing for you lately, you can pay."

"I've been acting on your orders. You pay."

"You've enjoyed every minute of it. You pay."

"Not every minute. There's been a few times I've been scared stiff that I couldn't manage another one for you. Make that scared limp. And now you've cut off my supply, without any discussion at all. You pay."

"I didn't want to. It's for your science buddies. And, talking of which, how was Hilary this afternoon? Do I have anything to be jealous about?"

"All right, I give in. I'll pay. And in answer to your question, I was a perfect gentleman."

"Not good enough, Buster! I want details before I'll agree that you were a gentleman."

"I'm a man. I was gentle. Do you really want to know more than that?"

"Ok, not just now. Maybe later. Meanwhile, having sorted out who's picking up the tab, where are we going?"

"Money no object. What do you fancy?"

Sue considered. "Thai food, I think. Not too heavy, but plenty of it."

Thai, to both of us, meant The Mango Tree, behind Buckingham Palace. I telephoned, and our luck was in. They'd just put the phone down on a cancellation. I booked a cab, then headed upstairs to change. Sue was trying to decide which 'posh frock' suited her mood best. I pointed to the lime green, so out of sheer contrariness she put on the long black one, with the slashed sides and low back. Since that's the one I'd wanted her to wear, I mentally claimed a point in the ever-ongoing battle of the sexes.

By the time the cab arrived, we were ready, and had already got outside of the first drink of the evening. I noticed that the cabbie was wearing an S2S cap, pointing forwards. I asked him about it.

"All part of the service, as it were, sir. Three times this week I've been hailed by ladies in distress asking to be taken 'somewhere quiet'. They know about the cap, so it saves a bit of time. Less embarrassment all round, you might say."

Sue had heard of the cap, and agreed with him. "Quite right, too, Tom." (How the hell did she know his name? Oh yes, it was on his ID hanging in the front. Trust an English professor to read everything around her, even somebody else's badge!) "It must be dreadful to pick the wrong man. One who can't or won't. At least with the cap, she knows he's available. And I know from experience that you don't really have time to make a second choice."

"You've been there then, miss. You poor duck. I dunno what it feels like, o'course, but if it's half as bad as it looks, I wouldn't never want to go through it. One of my ladies was really hurting. She told me afterwards she was never so pleased in her life as when she saw my badge coming down the street towards her."

"I hope she gave you a good tip", I said.

"Just the fare on the meter, guv," he replied stiffly. "I'm not one to profit from other people's misfortunes."

We went into the restaurant, and it looked mercifully normal. No screaming women being led into linen cupboards. I'd certainly have volunteered if any of the waitresses had asked me. They seemed to have an endless supply of beautiful Thai girls, all with happy smiles on their faces. At least, I'd have volunteered if Sue hadn't been with me.

At the table, we looked over the menu for an appetiser. We both agreed on the Kor Moo Yang, 'grilled seasoned pork neck served with Thai chilli sauce'. No discussion was needed about the drinks - I ordered a couple of mango champagne cocktails, our idea of the perfect celebration drink. For the main course, we decided on Pad Thai Goong Lai Yai - stir-fried rice with tiger prawns, chives and beansprouts in spicy sauce - and Nuer Yang - grilled sirloin steak with Tahi chilli sauce. I asked the waitress to help me with the pronunciation, and both Sue and the girl chuckled until I finally got it more-or-less right.

"You didn't have to do that," Sue said. "You could have ordered by number, or used the English, like we usually do."

"I know. But we've been shedding a lot of inhibitions lately, right? So I asked myself why they put the Thai names to everything unless they wanted us to use them, and decided to give it a try. Why not?"

"Well, you certainly cheered up the waitress. I don't know if she was smiling because you were paying her the compliment of using her language, or trying not to laugh at the way you were mangling it!"

"Hmph! Well, at least I tried. Incidentally, talking about being uninhibited, was that really my formerly strait-laced, buttoned-up wife discussing sex with the taxi driver?"

"That wasn't sex we were talking about."

"Sounded like it to me. A few months ago, what would you have done if a taxi driver had told you he'd had three total strangers that week, on the seat you were sitting on?"

"I'd have got out and hailed another cab. And probably reported him. But that was then, and this is now. The Fuck Plague has changed a lot of things. He sounded like a good man, trying his best to help. Like I said earlier, one of my students described it as not really sex, more like emergency first-aid."

"A fair bit more fun than tying a tourniquet or immobilising a broken leg, though."

"So? Somebody's hurting, they need help. If the first-aider gets some pleasure out of it, so much the better, surely."

"You've been talking to your students, then."

"Oh, yes. I wanted to know what was happening, and what they thought about it all. I wanted feelings, opinions; so I abandoned the lecture I was supposed to be giving, and just let them talk it out. It was quite an experience."

"Conclusion?"

"They're taking it very well. The boys seem to be behaving much more like gentlemen than I would have expected. That's not just their opinion - it's what the girls are saying."

Our drinks and appetisers arrived, and we slurped and munched in silence for a while.

"The caps are a good idea," I said. "I hope whoever thought of it has made a lot of money - though they probably haven't."

"They are a very good idea. As one of the boys said, nobody has to go up to anybody cold. The boy signals that he's available, and the girl can choose a guy she likes the look of. In an emergency, it's any port in a storm, of course. But it does give a bit of power back to the girl. She can't choose not to have sex, but she does get to choose who. Nobody seems to know where the idea started. Apparently, first of all it was a signal with any baseball cap. Forwards, available. Backwards, not. But not everybody knew the code, and there were a few mixups. So boys began putting the logo on the front. Then a few companies started to make them with the logo in place, and now they're selling them as fast as they can make them."

"Sounds like a neat solution to a tricky problem."

"Teenagers are good that way. They're constantly reinventing the language - I have to work pretty hard to keep up with them on that - and given a problem, they'll try to find an answer that works for everybody."

"Any other answers, apart from the caps?", I asked.

"Yes - some of the boys have taken to wearing the logo on their chest. It means they're available for a long-term relationship. Any girl, after she's had her first attack of the ants, decides she never wants to go through it again. So, they need a fuck a day. An 'insurance fuck', they call it. Or, if they've got it both ways, two fucks a day. So, she's got to keep going out and finding guys. Or else she finds one to service her regularly. The chest logo - over the heart - means a bit of negotiation. She sees a boy wearing it, and asks if he wants to take her on. If he does, it's just a matter of organising the time and place."

"Could you do that? Just go up and ask a man to fuck you on a regular basis?"

Our main dishes arrived while Sue was considering her answer.

"I think that's what they call 'in the nick of time'," I said. We busied ourselves with the heaped plates for a few moments, swapping delicacies between us. After a few mouthfuls, and a couple of appreciative mmm's, she was ready to answer.

"I'm not sure if I could just go up to someone like that. But it would certainly be easier than asking two different men each day. And at least he's signalled that he's available, which helps. They don't do it with words. She catches his eye, and puts her hand on her heart. He either repeats the gesture and they get together, or he doesn't. Time it right, and they can do it in the middle of a crowd without anyone else even noticing that the question's been put. So, a 'no' doesn't hurt quite so much. The boy gets a choice - it's not like the cap."

"So, the cap means..."

"It means 'I'm available for sex with anybody'. Any guy wearing the cap is making a commitment. If he then turns the lady down, even if she's fat and fifty, he might get a slap from her and he'll certainly get a ribbing from his mates. The implication is that he can't manage it, rather than he doesn't fancy her. And boys are sensitive about that sort of thing."

"So, he could find himself with some real dogs, then," I said.

"Maybe. But like I said, the kids see it as first-aid. If somebody was bleeding to death in the street, you wouldn't pass them by because they weren't pretty, would you?"

"I thought the plague was going to be a paradise for ugly men. You know, the fatties, the wimps, the nerds, all the ones that the girls aren't interested in. But it sounds like they're going to be left high and dry when all the girls have permanent mates."

"Not all the girls WANT permanent mates. We could be seeing a social revolution at least as big as the sixties here."

"Oh?", I queried. "How so?"

"For years, women had to find a man to support them. There weren't jobs for women, and the social and economic pressures to get married were huge. Then came the pill, and the workplace opened up, and suddenly women didn't need men at all. Except for sex, and who needs that?"

"Grrr... I do!"

"And I do, now. Even if I don't, if you know what I mean. And so do most of the young women in my class. And what they talked about was quite an eye-opener. They were so candid, it was clear that they'd talked it out amongst themselves for days. Most of them had tried sex before, but they'd done it to please the boy, not themselves. Not that the boys were too interested in pleasing them. Now that they've no choice in the matter - they have to have it every day - they've decided to try it out properly. And they're finding that they can actually enjoy it."

"Oh, come on! They've all been just laying back and thinking of shopping?"

"It's a matter of inhibitions. Don't give yourself away too cheaply. Easy lay. Slut. Most girls are brought up with all this stuff in their heads. I know I was, and Jill. If their parents don't give it to them, their schoolmates will, and every book and TV programme they come across. What it amounts to is nice girls don't. Well, suddenly the inhibitions are gone. Nice girls DO! They have no choice. So nobody can point the finger. So what if some girls pick one boy to give her all her insurance fucks, while another goes for two different ones a day?"

"I see... I think."

"At first, the girls were ashamed, some even feeling suicidal, about it."

"I think I met one like that today. Jackie, Hilary's partner."

"Yes, it must be pretty bad for committed lesbians. I wonder what they're doing in convents, and female prisons?"

"Nuns are probably ok," I said, eager to show off my research knowledge. "Virgins seem to be immune. Nobody knows why yet."

"What makes you think that nuns are virgins, Jack?"

"I don't know. I just assumed that nuns didn't do that sort of thing. Isn't that the point?"

"I don't mean naughty priests - though I'm sure that goes on. But a large percentage of nuns take to it late in life. They've already had boyfriends and a job."

"Hmm. Then they're still probably all right. It's beginning to look as though most of the infections are in women with reasonably-active sex lives. The spores don't just float inside, they're pushed in."

"So how about lesbians?"

"It doesn't have to be a prick. Finger, tongue, dildo - I don't know. Why ask me?"

"Because I want to know about you and Hilary, of course. Why else?"

"Well, I suppose you deserve to know. But not here, please. I can't sit in the middle of a crowded restaurant, telling my wife what sex was like with another woman. I'm sorry, but I can't. Let's get back to your ashamed, suicidal students."

"They aren't any more. They formed the Sisterhood."

"Some sort of secret society?"

"Not secret, no. And not exclusive. It's all the women on the campus, students, teaching staff, support staff. They said to themselves 'We've all got the same problem. Let's find a solution.' They watch out for each other, and if they see a girl suffering, they talk to her until she realises that what she's doing isn't sinful, but a necessity. They talk it through with each other. And they're doing pretty well at it."

"And they were willing to tell you about it? With all the boys listening in?"

"I told you, there's nothing secret about it. That was first point: they needed the boys. Had to have them, no matter what. And that scared them. If they're reduced to begging for sex, the men have the upper hand like they've never had it before. And some of them were hard enough to deal with in the old days. The Sisterhood was looking at a really degrading form of sex slavery. They'd have to do anything they were told, or they'd be screaming in agony. The boys wouldn't have to lay a finger on them. Just by refusing sex, they could put a girl through the worst torment imaginable."