Chapter 6

The Old Man Project has been going on for 14 months. That's right. Five months longer than the human gestation period. At last count, there were 146 of my decendants. I'd met a few and was glad for my part in ensuring the survival of mankind but they didn't seem like my children. I'd known each of their mothers for a maximum of 6 hours, 20 minutes or so of which was spent having sex.

These days I had something else on my mind. Butterfly wasn't doing a whole lot of flitting about these days. She happened to be exceedingly fat with children in her belly. Yes, children. The planet's first set of triplets in over 2500 years. She was thrilled. It hurt your eyes to be in her presence she was beaming so much. She insisted from the beginning that she did not want to know what sex her babies were going to be. She tried to go on as if nothing was different but she needed help to get out of bed, get out of a chair, get out of the bathtub, get out of just about anything but work.

Doctor and Nurse had practically moved in. You'd think they'd never seen a pregnant woman before on this planet. Of course, they hadn't seen any in this town. They were all shipped out to other places. It was determined before the towns were even set up that the breeding town would be totally separate from the birthing towns. Except for me and mine.

After the project had been going on for a couple of months it was evident that the pregnancy rates were way more than what had been hoped for. 25% was considered more than acceptable. 50% would have been fantastic. We were still at 97%. And pregnancies resulting in live, healthy births were 100%. If I knocked 'em up, they stayed knocked up.

The Planetary Council was happy with the way the project was going. The decision was made that whatever made me happy, I got. I could have had half the fucking planet if I wanted it.

There was another success that nobody had anticipated. I was known as the new father of mankind. Anybody could have anticipated that if we had 10% of the results we ended up with. But nobody took Butterfly into account. For the past nine months, she had befriended every woman I serviced. She would meet the women, we would go off and then we would all get back together. No "he's my man and don't you forget it" crap or anything like that. The thing that had drawn me to her in the first place was her ability to instantly love anybody. I don't mean screw. I mean love. When you were in her presence, you felt safe, secure, loved. Like a child at his mother's tit. I may have been the father, but she was Mother Earth.

Doctor continued to interview every woman after we spent time together. They still appreciated the love and affection they got from me. But they appreciated Butterfly allowing them to help more than that. They all considered it an honor to help since she couldn't do the whole job herself. And they considered themselves custodians of her children. That's right. They carried the children, would birth, feed and raise them, but they belonged to Butterfly and me. If either of us wanted to raise any of the babies after Butterfly came on the scene the real mother would have felt privileged to give the child up.

As soon as it became known we were expecting triplets, women from all over started petitioning their town councils for strollers, cribs, blankets, you name it for our children. It got to be a competition to see who could get the babies the best gift. Most of the stuff had ended up in a warehouse because we didn't have room for it.

Word got out about that and it was decided that one workman from each or the 15 towns would be sent to our town to build our new house. Not 2, 3 or 4 bedrooms. No, they decided to set us up for triplets for the next 3 years, with a room for each child and one for us. A 10 bedroom house with 5 bathrooms and 2 kitchens. They'd been here for almost three months. We got to move into the house last week. As did five women who weren't too far along in their pregnancies. Not called maids or nannies, but that's what they were there for. They were going to be rotated from the various towns so the same five couldn't monopolize serving Mother Earth. A couple of six bedroom "nurses quarters" were being built on our property so women with children could also be part of the rotating corps of "helpers". Another "office" was in the works so I could be with my women on the property. Not that Butterfly would have had any problem giving up the marital bed a couple of hours a day if I wished it. We just felt it was better if we had a place to ourselves when I was making babies. The mothers deserved it.

The thing I liked best about our new house was it's location. We were on a hill, overlooking the lake we went to the day we met. I could look across the lake and see where we had our first meal together and conceived our children from our living room and the terrace off our master bedroom suite.

When we found out that she was going to have triplets, I told Doctor I was going to stop working when she reached 8 months. We'd see how it went, but I was going to take at least one month after the birth off. I had two reasons. I knew I wasn't going to be any good as a lover during that time period. And I didn't want her to feel she needed to be with any of the women during the same time. She insisted she'd be fine. I think this is the first time since we'd met that I didn't let her have her way. It took some work, but I finally convinced her I wasn't going to change my mind.

Today was 9 months. If things went perfect, I'd have three new children by tonight. But when did things ever go perfect? I was scared shitless. I should be telling Butterfly everything would be alright. Instead I was lying on the couch, my head on her lap as she stroked my hair to calm me down. She was singing a song about children and unicorns and fairies and old men that she insisted she hadn't made up when I felt her body tense up. She still had her hand on my head but stopped stroking. I rolled over on my back so I could see her face.

She had a look of concentration and was biting her lower lip. Her left eye had a tear in the corner. I reached up and took her hand in mine. The fear and nervousness blew. "It's OK, Babe. We're going to be parents!"