Chapter 9

My leisurely bath, followed by the breakfast conference, had made me late. It was after 10:30 when I strolled into Med section.

"How are the ants, Hilary?"

She looked up from a pile of papers. "Still not biting, Jack. Thanks. Looks like I'm in the clear."

"I'm here to tell you that Sue's off the research team. You can take her place."

"Oh? Why so?"

"Well, mainly because she's got used to having regular doses of sperm shot inside her, and doesn't want to miss out any more."

Hilary smiled. "I am glad to hear that. For your sake, anyway. And it turns out that it doesn't matter too much. We're getting reports all over of women showing pink cells. That means two things - plenty of research material, and there's other men like you out there."

"How many? A lot?", I asked, eagerly.

"Why so interested, Jack? This sounds personal?"

I explained some of the circumstances of my new family. Leaving out the identical-twin aspect, of course. Then told her about the sexual treadmill that they were planning to put me on. "If there are enough beanstalks about," I said, "it could leave me in the clear - or at least, under a lot less pressure than I was expecting."

"Beanstalks?"

I explained about the beans. She chuckled.

"Well, in absolute terms there could be quite a lot of curers. First estimates indicate that there might be as many as ten thousand men in the country with the right sperm. Beans, that is! Of course, there's a big margin of error there, until we have some more figures in."

"Uh-oh!", I said. "Ten thousand men to service twenty MILLION women. Two thousand each. At eighteen per week, over two years!"

Hilary asked how I'd arrived at the eighteen-a-week figure. I explained that my ever-loving 'wives' had decided that I could manage three a day, and I'd begged for, and been granted, Sundays off. She seemed amused.

"Your calculations are way wrong though," she said. "I'd have expected better from a scientist of your stature."

I used the calculator. 2,000 divided by 18 per week, divided by 52 weeks in a year, was 2.137 years. She took the calculator off me, and hit X, 2, =. Result, 4.274.

"Come on!", I protested. "Why double the problem? My figures were right, weren't they?"

She grinned. "You forgot the asses, Jack. Two holes, two fucks. You can only cure nine women a week, not eighteen."

I slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand in disgust. "That's two days in a row that I've been out-thunk by a woman. If this goes on, I'll have to turn in my chauvinist badge."

"Proves what we've been saying all these years - you men have your brains in your testicles. We've been keeping yours dried up, and you're starting to lose it!"

"Maybe you're right. But I hope not, because this is where the research moves down the corridor to my lab."

Hilary thought about that for a moment. "I think I see, but you'd better spell it out. I'm only a dumb woman, after all."

"You look in your microscopes, and you see a lot of little wrigglers. You can't see any difference between one man's sperm and another. Unless they're physically abnormal. You can't even be sure it's a man's, rather than a whale, or a hippo, or an orang-utan. We need to find out why my sperm works, and for instance Mike's, doesn't. It's somewhere inside, in all the twisty little molecules that my machinery can take apart."

"The genes, you mean?"

"That's what everybody thinks of when they think 'sperm'," I agreed. "But there's a lot more than that. Mitochondrial DNA. RNA. Enzymes. And so on. I've analysed my own sperm, so now I need some comparisons. More sperm from other curers, and some from non-curers. Just a couple of sperm will do in each case. Label them carefully - we don't want to rush up any blind alleys, or block off the main road."

"How long's it going to take?"

"It depends on what the answer is. It might be something simple and obvious, or it might be buried deep. But we've got some of the best molecular analysis kit in the world, right here in this building. You should know - you helped to pay for it with that steriliser fluid you developed."

"So, we could find it first?"

"Ahead of Richards and the chasing pack? I wouldn't be surprised. But let's try to collect the samples ourselves, or some of our competitors might try to nobble us."

She caught on. "Put peas in with the beans, or the other way around? They wouldn't... uh, they would, wouldn't they?"

"They would. And call it an innocent mix-up. Meanwhile, we'd be looking for common factors or differences, and finding none. So, go out and find me some sperm to analyse. Beans and peas, both. Glory awaits, madam!"

Hilary blurred into action, as usual. I sauntered down the corridor, taking my time. My work would start later, once they'd found me something to analyse.

Suddenly, Jackie stood in front of me.

"You! You tricked me!"

"Not me, girl. I was out of there, just like you saw."

"But you came back!", she spat.

"After your girlfriend had made sure you were safely asleep. Her choice, not mine."

"How could you? How could you do that to me?"

"Lady, I didn't even see you. Anything I did, I did to Hilary. With her full consent. And in case you didn't know, it seems to have worked."

"Yes, I know. Perhaps some good has come of it, but I've still been betrayed."

"Why? You knew Hilary was fucking men. She had to. No choice in the matter. So she did it once with me, and now she doesn't have to, ever again. Where's the betrayal there?"

"You're trying to confuse me!"

"No, Jackie. I'm trying to avoid you." I walked past her, and carried on down the corridor. She quickly ran to block my path.

"But Mike's still with us, so you haven't helped at all."

"Mike's a nice lad. He's still there because you've still got a problem. He's staying for you, not Hilary - she's cured. Or would you rather send him away and wait for the red-hot knives? They're not pleasant, as I assume you know."

"And how would you know what they're like," she sneered.

"I don't. Not really. But I saw my wife in the middle of an attack, and I never want to see one again. That's why I'm working to put an end to it."

"And how long will this so-called cure take to find?"

"I have absolutely no idea. In your line of work, it's easy. You can look at some data, and work out pretty well exactly how long it'll take to enter it into a spreadsheet. Science doesn't work like that."

"Weeks? Months? Years?"

"Months, I'd say."

"So Hilary and I will have to put up with Mike, while you're dragging your heels."

"I'll be working as fast as I can. So will Hilary. So will a lot of other people, all round the world."

She hung her head. "Cure me!", she said, quietly.

"What?"

"You heard. Do it to me. I can't bear the thought of Mike pawing me - and pawing Hilary, too - for another day, let alone months."

"Can you give me one good reason, or even a bad reason, why I should?"

"I... I..."

"There are almost a hundred women working in this building. Every last one of them is nicer to me than you are. You treat me like shit, and then come demanding favours?"

"It's nothing personal."

"No? Well, maybe not. You treat all men the same, don't you? I know, I know. A man treated you badly, so all men are rapists. Well, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I'm not a rapist. The sight of you doesn't fill me with the urge to rip off your clothes and have my wicked way with you. In fact, the sight of you makes me want to get right away from you, before you come up with some more sexist abuse. Now go away and leave me alone, you foul-minded creature!"

I'm not sure what I expected. Perhaps that she'd burst into tears and rush away, or that she'd march away with her head high, looking down her nose at the male world in general, or me in particular. I certainly didn't think she'd suddenly come at me shrieking like a banshee, with her fingers clawed like talons and her fingernails trying to rip chunks out of my face.

I stepped smartly to one side and behind, and wrapped my arms around her body, pinning her hands to her sides. Picking her up, I carried her into an open elevator, dropped her, pushed the '5' button, and exited smartly before the doors closed. Whew!

Back in my own lab, I started clearing the machines and setting them up ready to receive the new data. Hilary arrived with the first of the specimens. Since these were all 'non-magic', I assume that she'd taken them, by force or otherwise, from various male employees. I wondered how she'd managed the trick. Most men were now reluctant to part with sperm for experiments, since they'd found much better uses for it.

"Easy!", she grinned. "We have three curtained-off cubicles in Med section. And there's quite often a queue these days. So, I charged them rent. Just a little droplet. You know, the last one, the one that usually drips on to the sheet, or into your pants."

I set my machines ticking, then turned to her.

"Heard from Jackie lately?"

"Yes. She phoned down from her office. I'm sorry about that, Jack. She shouldn't have done it. But why did you have to turn her down? And so brutally, too. It's not like you."

"Maybe not, but Jackie gets under my skin. She accuses me of being something I'm not, and I hate that. I'm not a monster, I'm not a rapist. I'm not even a sexist. I like women, and accept that they can do most jobs as well as a man, or maybe a little better."

"Most jobs, Jack?"

"Yup. Some work, men have an inborn advantage."

"Such as?"

"Well, watering the garden with a hosepipe, for instance. We're just naturally good at directing the jet where it needs to go. Years of practice! But just about anything else, I'd agree with you. A woman's as good as a man. So when Jackie came up to me, threw filthy abuse all over me, then asked for a favour, I said no. Surprised?"

"Put like that, no. But why did you attack her?"

I got riled again. "No, lady. I won't have that. She attacked me. All I did was pick her up and sent her back to her office."

"That's not what she says."

I headed out of the lab. "Come on," I called to her.

She caught me up easily, and stayed with me as we took a lift to the basement. I used my pass-code on a locked door, and we went into a small room full of electronics.

"Ever been in here?", I asked.

"Never," said Hilary. "What is it?"

"Security centre. Well, not the computers and storage themselves - they're somewhere below our feet, under a lot of sheet steel. But we can access them from here."

Sitting at a terminal, I logged on. "From here, we can track just about anybody, in any part of the building. We don't monitor the labs - there's a slight risk that someone could tap in to the storage and get an inside track on our research. Just the corridors and public areas." I entered a code. "Look."

And there we were, in high-quality sound and colour. Jackie and I, arguing in the corridor. Hilary watched and listened in silence, until she saw the lift doors closing on their pathetic burden.

"I'm sorry, Jack."

"Don't be. She didn't hurt me, and I tried hard not to hurt her. But there's no way that I could help her, though. Not the way she asked."

"No? Not even for me?"

"I'd like to. You know that. But my dick shrivels at the sight of her. And she's so unstable towards me that I can't be sure that she wouldn't take the cure, and then stick a knife in my guts. Maybe you can find another 'beanstalk' to sort her out."

"Maybe. But you're looking to be pretty thin on the ground at the moment, and every one we find is going to be busy and popular. You're our best hope, Jack."

"Talk to her. See if you can find out what this is all about, and why she objects to me so strongly. And if you can get her to ask me nicely, maybe I'll believe she means it."

"I'll try."

"And tell her to lose the disguise."

"What?"

"You know what I mean. We both know there's no reason for her to go around looking like a reject from the Addams family. And as long as she does, I'm going to have a lot of trouble keeping my dick from getting limp. Which is the whole point, isn't it?"

We went back to the real world, to find that things had become a little unreal. The word had spread about the 'cure', and my Magic Sperm. And everyone wanted to know more. So far, we were only being besieged electronically. All the normal telephone lines were jammed. We could make and receive calls on our mobiles, but it was probably only a matter of time before those numbers got into the hands of the press as well. And the TV crews were heading our way.