Some of our best friends in the neighborhood are Pete and Mary Sikes. They live about 4 doors up in the little green house on the corner. We've been friends for a few years, ever since we moved into the neighborhood. Pete and Mary stopped by to introduce themselves on the second or third day we were in the house I think. They thoughtfully brought over some pizza and a few beers; I guess it was obvious that we weren't exactly ready to entertain yet. Hell, we'd barely found the silverware.

Over the past couple years we've gotten to know them pretty well. We see each other every couple of months for a movie, or to go bowling, or to rent a video, or just for dinner. We've known they've been trying to have kids for several years. June and I don't want any of the little buggers, but Pete and Mary are just the opposite. They'd make great parents, you can just tell.

It was last Friday when I stepped in it. I mean, I didn't know. I casually asked how "the project" was going. That's how we referred to their attempt to have kids. The four of us had talked about it for many months and they weren't shy about telling us what was going on. They had progressed from making love whenever they felt like it (no pregnancy) to making love on the day when she expected to ovulate (nope) to taking her temperature to know when the egg dropped (nada) to going to a fertility clinic (nothing).

We hadn't talked to them since their appointment last week. And that's when, as I say, I stepped in it. We had Pete and Mary over for cards. The four of us sat in the game room. June was across the table from me; Mary was to my left. "So how goes the project?" I asked. Silence. Suddenly I noticed Mary's eyes welling up, a tear pooling at the pocket at the bottom of each eye socket. She waited for a moment to try to regain her composure, then excused herself and walked into our kitchen.

"Oh shit," Pete said.

"Whad I say?" I asked. "Hell, I'm sorry, I..." Mary was dabbing at her eyes in the next room. June pushed back her chair to get up and help, but Pete motioned her to stay.

"We went to the clinic on Friday. They checked both of us out. It seems, ah, we can't have kids. Ever."

"Oh no," June exclaimed. Her hand fluttered to her mouth. "What did they tell you?"

"Well, she's fine. It's, ah, me. They tell me I'm shooting blanks. A natural born, perfect vasectomy poster boy, that's me. Sperm count, minus 14 or something."

"I don't understand," June said. "You had a vasectomy and you're trying to have children?"

I turned to my wife, who can be a little thick at times. "No, dear, he didn't have a vasectomy. It's just as though he had a vasectomy, but it's natural." I didn't want to say it, but I wasn't sure she understood. "He's sterile." I turned to Pete. "Isn't there anything they can do?"

"Oh sure. For $7000 I can have an operation which has a 10% chance of being successful, and has a 10% chance of leaving me impotent. No thanks. For $15,000 we can get in vitro fertilization, 5 tries. If I have $15,000 lying around somewhere, wop me in the head, OK?" Pete was bitter.

Mary returned to the table. Her eyes were reddened. Now we knew why. "Isn't it terrible?" she said. "No children."

"You could adopt," June said, trying to be helpful.

The tears came back in Mary's eyes. This time she stayed in her seat and dabbed at the moisture with a napkin. "We've talked about that, and we probably will. But we really wanted to have our own. Now we never..." Her voice trailed off.

"How can it cost that much to get some sperm from a sperm bank and, uh, put it in, or, I mean, do whatever they do to, you know,..." I was fumbling my words.

Pete answered me. "It's not the sperm. It's all the fucking doctors, and the tests, and the hospital, and the lab, and the specialists. It's ridiculous. If I had the money, you know, I'd probably do it. But I don't. So now our option is to let her loose on the street and hope she gets lucky."

"Peter," she screamed in mock anger, "Stop that!" She slapped him on the arm, but at least she cracked a little smile on her face. "Anyway, I couldn't just 'do it', you know, with a stranger. I mean what if he had some terrible hereditary disease, or his father was a serial murderer or something. I'd have to know the guy and be comfortable with him. And know his medical history, and all.

"I have my records right upstairs," I said gallantly. Mary blushed a deep red and let out a little yelp. June kicked me under the table. "Hey, hey, it was a joke. For god's sake, take it easy you all. Where's your sense of humor?"

It was Pete who thought about it and spoke up. He said, "You know, Mike, you may have something there." Mary's blush got even a deeper shade, if that was possible. "No, no, listen to me. I don't mean that you, uh, you know, I mean, you could be a sperm donor. You could be the father, sort of. I mean, we do know your medical history and your personality... but we can overlook that... and, well, it sort of makes sense on a lot of levels."

It was my turn to be uncomfortable. June looked at me with that "What the fuck is this?" look in her eyes.

I didn't respond. I didn't say anything. I couldn't. My wife was going to kill me after they left, I just knew.

Mary said, "You know..." and her voice trailed off.

I tried to change the subject, but both Pete and Mary wouldn't allow it. Grasping at straws, I thought. Desperate, I thought. Crazy, I thought. They talked about it for the next hour, back and forth across the table. I sat quietly, only speaking when directly spoken to. June didn't contribute much either. But Pete and Mary were transfixed with the idea, and a short 60 minutes later were practically begging me to help them. June nodded, giving me permission.

The plan was that I would jerk off in a cup, give the sperm to them, and they would, uh, apply it. No doctors, no hospital, no lab tests. Just neighbors helping neighbors. Sort of like the United Way.

A week passed, and June and I went over to their house. This was going to be weird. We socialized, and the subject of our mission for later that evening scarcely came up. We joked about all the things we usually joked about, drank a bunch of wine, and had a good time. About 11:00 Pete announced that it was about time to "get started."

Mary said her goodnights, and went into their bedroom to change. Pete followed her, and returned a moment later in his PJs. He had a plastic cup in his hand. "Here, fella," he said, offering it to me. "The bathroom is just down the hall."

June just smirked at me, as if to say "See what your big mouth has gotten you into." I knew she'd never let me live it down. I walked to the bathroom. I unzipped my pants and let them drop. Pete had thoughtfully provided some pornographic magazines, and I leafed through them as my tool began to enlarge.

Dicks in pussies, dicks in mouths, dicks in assholes. Pretty girls with cum on their face. Girls with two guys fucking them. I turned page after page of porno pictures, getting an erection and stroking myself. But I wasn't here for pleasure, I was here to do a job. And I had practiced for this since I was 12! I came in the little cup, cleaned myself up, and pulled up my pants.

I knocked on their bedroom door. Pete cracked the door open and looked out at me. I offered him the cup. I could see Mary sitting on the bed in a see through nightgown, but I couldn't see all that much in the dim bedroom light. I tried, but I couldn't tell if she had her panties on because the blankets were bunched up in front of her.

"Wow," Pete said, looking at the cup. "Good volume. Good job." He winked at me. I didn't know if he was going to use a turkey baster or what. I didn't want to know.

"I feel like an idiot," I said. "And you're welcome."

June chimed, "We'll see ourselves out. You guys have fun." We left.

A couple of weeks went by, and June called Mary. Nothing yet. We got together the following weekend, and everyone decided it was too soon to tell anything. But as more weeks passed, it became apparent that the experiment had failed.

We repeated it a month later, again on a day when Mary was scheduled to ovulate. With the same results. Now June had relaxed with the idea, and so had I. In fact, the idea of Pete dripping my cum into his wife's cunt was kind of a turn-on for me, although I wouldn't say anything of the sort to my own wife, of course. Mary and I seemed to form a closer bond than just neighbor to neighbor, as well. I suppose it was only natural. Here we were sharing the most intimate of experiences. Sort of. The experiment failed again. And failed again another month after that.

Mary and Pete and June and I were at our house. The Bulls were on TV again, and we had a big screen and they didn't. We all had a few beers as we watched the game. The subject of the experiment came up, of course, and we talked in some detail about it.

"Maybe we're doing something wrong," Pete said. "Maybe you pay for all those specialists for a reason. Maybe there's some special technique, or something..."

"Don't be silly," June said. "People have been making babies for thousands of years. How hard can it be?" I guess she realized the insensitivity of her remark just as the words left her mouth. "Oh. I'm sorry," she said softly. She was talking to a couple for whom it wasn't just difficult, it was impossible.

I tried to backpedal and lighten the conversation. "It's hard," I said, with a leering emphasis on the word "hard." I smiled at no one in particular.

"Oh Mike, you're incorrigible," June said. "Still. Maybe there's something else we should be doing that we're not doing."

Mary spoke softly. Her eyes were cast down, averting contact with anyone else in the room. "There is," she said, almost in a whisper. "I've been thinking about it." She paused. We were all silent. "Maybe we should just try, you know, the old fashioned way. I mean, sort of, well..." The words hung in the air.

It took June a moment to realize what Mary was saying. When she did her eyes got wide, and blinked rapidly. Then she said, "You don't mean... I guess you do mean... I mean..." She was at a total loss.

It was Pete who spoke next. He also looked down as he talked. "Mary and I talked about it. Maybe, you know, maybe it would work... I mean, we would understand if you don't want to. Or if June would object," he added quickly. "Totally understandable. It's just that this is so important to us."

It was so quiet in the room you could have heard a sperm swimming. June broke the silence. "This is bizarre," she said.

Mary spoke quickly. "See, Pete? I knew it. It's too much to ask." Her eyes welled with tears. It was pitiful. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to cry. And I understand. Really." A tear dripped down her cheek.

June must have been deeply touched, because she said "I suppose it could be OK. I mean, only for the experiment. You know. Not for sex." She paused. "I would at least think about it." She thought a moment. She looked into Mary's reddened eyes. Then she said "If it's OK with Mike."

Yahoo! Whoopee! Zowie!

I kept my composure as best I could, and although my voice cracked as I said it, I said "I could do that." I smiled at Mary, who smiled back. I figured we'd set up a "date" and consummate the dirty deed later in the month. I asked, "So how do we set this up? I mean, when, and where, and... uh, you know?" I paused. "When's the time, I mean when's she ready?" I asked Pete. I stumbled over the words. Big surprise.

It was Mary who answered the question. "Actually, today's the day," she said. "But I know that's rushing things, and you guys probably want to talk it over and all. So we can wait Ôtil next month, if you want."

I shrugged. June said, "It's really OK with me. Sort of. Might as well get it over with."

"You mean, tonight?" My mouth dropped open. My dick began to get erect inside my pants.

"Yes, tonight, lover boy," Pete said. "You guys can just, uh, retire somewhere, and June and I will wait here."

"Oh no," June said. "If this experiment is going to happen, I'm going to be part of it. I have a stake here, like not letting my husband get involved with another woman."

I didn't see the logic in it, since she had just given me permission to fuck Mary. But what was I going to say? "What do you mean, hon?" I asked.

"I mean I'm going to be in the room. I want to make sure that it's just for procreation, not for recreation."

"You're what? You're going to be in the room?" You could have knocked me over with a feather. I lost my erection.

"That's right. Or no deal. Deal?" she said.

I looked at Mary, then at Pete. June was driving a hard bargain, so to speak. "It's OK with me if it's OK with you guys." They had no choice. Neither did I.

We all finished our beers and headed for the bedroom. June gave Mary a nightgown that didn't reveal much. She decided that I would wear pajama bottoms.

Mary and I climbed onto the bed. June took one of the two reading chairs at the far end of the room. Pete waited outside. I sat next to Mary and waited for my body to take charge. Nothing happened. I mean nothing. No problem, I figured. I thought of a dirty movie I had just seen. Nothing. I remembered the time I got jerked off by a nurse. Nothing.

After several minutes June called out "What's going on?"

"Nothing." I said. "Nothing."

Mary added, "Boy I'll say."

Thanks. As if I didn't already feel the pressure. I guess that must have been it, that and the fact that my wife was at the foot of the bed, waiting for this to be over. "I need a little help, here," I said. "Do you mind, hon?" It had been long enough that she could see I wasn't lying.

"Go ahead," she said.

I took my flaccid penis out of my pants. Mary stared at it. I reached up and cupped her tit. She had a nice set; they were still round and firm. I felt her nipple become aroused. I wished I could say the same for myself. I said "Maybe if you touched me..."

Mary's hand reached for my tool. She took hold of it as though it was a month old banana. Nothing. She stroked me up and down. Nothing. I reached for her pussy, and her legs parted. Nothing.

"What's going on?" Pete called in through the door.

"Nothing." June shouted back. "Absolutely nothing."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Do you want to tell him?" she asked me. I shook my head. "My wonderful husband who gets horny at the sight of a bagel can't get it up."

"Jesus," I exclaimed. "Give a guy a break."

"Really?" Pete said. "I think I'm insulted."

"You're insulted?" Mary said. "How about me?"

June got up and walked over to handle the situation. Or at least try. She came over to the side of the bed and knelt to get a better view. With one hand she reached up and cupped my balls, keeping her hand away from Mary's, which still held my limp dick. With the other she unbuttoned her blouse. She knows that I love to look down women's blouses, it's one of my biggest turn ons. One of 592 that I've cataloged so far. Nothing.

"Maybe if I helped," she said. She pushed Mary's fingers away from my penis and bent over me. She took me in her mouth and began to suck. Nothing. Really nothing. The stress was just too great.

"Anything?" Pete's voice came through the door.

"Nothing," Mary said.

"Shit," I said. "Would you people stop it? I feel like I'm a blue light special at the Kinsey Institute. What pressure!"

Pete appeared in the doorway. "Can I see?" he said. I thought to myself, "What're you, the fucking doctor? You can't even knock up your own wife." But I stayed silent.