Adams' Apples
Devon Layne
Other Books by Devon Layne
The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins. A five-book series available as eBooks only from devonlayne.com. An aging Jacob is transported from his deathbed into an alternate universe and the body of a fourteen-year-old version of himself. But all is not well. Jacob discovers he has arrived in 2018, not in 1952 as he hoped!
Model Student. A six-book series available in both paperback and eBook. Tony Ames is a depressed art student at an elite Seattle art school where he doesn’t feel he fits. He’s determined to just go home to Nebraska until his secret crush asks him to get on the other side of the easel and be her model.
Strange Art. A three-book series available in both paperback and eBook. Art Étrange is somewhere on the Asperger scale. He functions fine if he doesn’t need to talk. Then the words swell up in his throat like balloons and his only outlet is to paint. His sister can interpret what he’s feeling through the painting and leads him to a romance with her girlfriend.
Living Next Door to Heaven. A ten-book series available only as eBooks. Brian Frost, the smallest geek in school for most of his life is protected by Heaven, the beautiful girl next door, and the cadre of friends she recruits to watch over him. All goes according to plan until the day Brian switches from being the protected to the protector.
Erotic Paranormal Romance Western Adventures. A three-book series available in both eBook and paperback. Sixteen-year-old Cole Bell is interrupted at the least opportune moment when he is jerked from his body by the call of a Redtail Hawk and lands in the body of a similarly engaged cowboy over a hundred years earlier. He and his time-traveling children are courted by the spirit animals Redtail, Blackfeather, and Yelloweye to save Mother Earth from the scorpion’s sting.
And many more!
©2020 Elder Road Books
Lynnwood, WA
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted online to: Elder Road LLC, ElderRoadBooks@outlook.com.
Cover photo by Rachata Sinthopachakul. Licensed from Shutterstock.com, ID: 1174669831. Used by permission.
Design by Nathan Everett
ISBN 978-1-950183-39-5
1
The Maytag Repairman
Introduction
I’M THE ONE who broke the story, so I guess I’m the one who gets to write the book. I’ll call it a perk of being a newspaper man. Heaven knows there aren’t many. Late nights, tight deadlines, hangovers, and the news never cooperates by happening when it’s convenient to get it in the paper. But it’s my life. Or it was.
I wasn’t present for everything that I’ll tell you here, but I’ll tell the story with the authority of having listened carefully to the people who were there and made the news happen. Which is where this story starts.
Byline: I’m Ramsey Smith, reporter. Orlando and the world are my beat.
Time: 15 or 20 Years from Now
IT WAS A LONELY JOB but he supposed someone had to do it. Jack Adams looked at his tiny viewscreen at the world below. He had to admit it was beautiful. Of course, he’d seen the same view of Earth every day. He crossed another one off his digital calendar that told him no matter how many times he saw the sun rise, he’d still only been out for a hundred twenty days according to the calendar.
For the 300,290th time, he started humming the tune to the old Glen Campbell song, “Wichita Lineman.” In thirty minutes, he’d intercept the next satellite that needed maintenance. Oh, NASA, Roscosmos, and CNSA had been so clever in the race to get satellites into space, ever since Sputnik I launched in 1957. (And burned up on re-entry in 1958.) They ran communications, GPS, surveillance, and television. But the big powers had forgotten all about maintenance. The stupid buzzards had figured that when a satellite failed, they’d just ship another one.
Only space flight had become expensive and all the major powers had cut their space programs back to near zero. They hadn’t bothered with maintenance of satellites until cellular communications started to fail and people’s ever-present smartphones started coming up blank. It was obvious someone needed to do something. Jack’s company was ready. RESCUE solicited funds from each of the organizations and with leased rockets from companies who thought they’d be selling tourist trips into space, they launched RESCUE I, the manned space capsule shuttle which could keep satellites flying.
It was pretty simple, really. Giving Jack a toolbox and a space suit with a rocket booster was a lot cheaper than launching new satellites. And the company wasn’t really American, even though Jack was. RESCUE, like most tech support, was based in India. The country’s standard of living was increasing daily at the same rate that the big three were decreasing. Big dreams. NASA was still banking everything on a manned mission to Mars. If they could just find someone stupid enough to go.
Jack was pretty content. He’d never been comfortable around most people. Floating around for four months hadn’t distorted his view on life a bit. Even his sex life wasn’t that different. He talked to Evelyn each time his circuit of the world brought him across Des Moines, Iowa during daylight hours. On Saturdays they had space phone sex.
Collision avoidance alerts suddenly sounded in Jack’s capsule, a kind of mini space shuttle. It wasn’t the first time in four months. There was a surprising amount of space junk floating around at 200 to 1200 miles above Earth. Even the old space station, currently maintained by a crew of three women who continued to carry out various experiments as contracted by different corporations, had encountered and been damaged by junk.
Jack let his automated guidance take over. He could see nothing out his window but radar was definitely showing him closing on something fast. He set the guidance system to maneuver him in close to whatever it was.
As soon as he was above the object, he could see it as it occluded a part of Earth below it. Otherwise he would never have seen the matte black satellite against the depth of outer space. He turned on floodlights to illuminate the bird and called up his charts to search for any satellite that should be in this area. Finding nothing, Jack turned to the graphic database of satellites, finally locating a spec sheet for a black satellite that looked a bit like this one.
The mission guidelines instructed Jack to locate all low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, examine them for damage, and ensure their stability in orbit. Anything deteriorating that he couldn’t stabilize was to be towed to the ISS where a freighter would pick up any junk at the end of Jack’s mission. That was supposed to be at Day 180. He still had two months on duty until he would be retrieved and a replacement sent up. He carefully attached a grappling line to the unusual bird and prepared for EVA so he could examine and assess the satellite.
What he found was the remnants of a military satellite, probably sent up before the turn of the century, not long before launching things into space became prohibitively expensive for nations who had other pressing needs. This unit looked remarkably like the Soviet Polyus satellite which was reported to have failed.
Jack looked the satellite over and opened the hatch to examine the antique circuit boards that kept the satellite in orbit. These satellites were supposed to be marked by a beacon so they could be spotted and avoided by other craft. It had no identifiable weaponry aboard. The original purpose for these satellites was deployment of orbital nuclear arms and other anti-missile defenses, but they were prohibited by the SALT II treaty back in 1979. But the treaty, signed by Carter and Brezhnev, was never ratified by either country. Instead they began working on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties. All subsequent launches of military satellites had been referred to as ‘observation and communications’ platforms. As a result, Jack had no difficulty justifying turning on the beacon and adjusting the orbital thrust of the satellite, including refueling its failing power cell.
Satisfied the bird was in stable orbit once again, Jack returned to his shuttle, logged the repairs with the manufacturer’s serial number, and moved away from the repaired satellite. He turned navigation over to the autopilot to accelerate into a higher orbit to check his next target.
A hundred miles above and a thousand miles beyond the black satellite, Jack watched as the atmosphere was lit up from a hundred locations around the globe. It looked like Jack Adams had started World War III.
2
Breaking News
“RELAX, PEOPLE!” President says, “We’re not at war.”
President Malkin Muffley came on the air early this morning to reassure the American people after the spectacular show of outer space fireworks that the display was neither a hostile act nor an end sign of the world nor an alien invasion.
“I’ve had a lot of calls… a huge number of calls from important people… very important people… some of the most important people in the world… who called me begging me not to push the button that would destroy all our enemies. That would mean a world war and there would be a lot of big explosions… I mean bigger than anything you can imagine… all over the world, including here in the great US of A. Through the miracles of the internet and social media, I sat with these chiefs and smoked a peace pipe of prime Mayan Gold. I’m still a little high… very high… and very peaceful. I tell you all, the great people… very greatest people of the United States… go out and fill your bowls with happiness and have a puff with me. It’s all good.”
I tossed the paper aside shortly after it landed on my desk. I’d been up all night after the spectacular fireworks in the sky and we’d brought out a special edition at ten this morning after the first edition at five-thirty. I’d been tuned in remotely to the President’s address, so I knew what he had said. I was still digging through layers of government bureaucracy trying to find a clerk low enough in the government hierarchy that he’d actually know what was going on. I finally managed to reach Tim Titus—an undersecretary’s assistant’s administrator’s support staff’s flunky—who could tell me what happened.
“Yeah, Ramsey, I can tell you. Did you see it? Pretty spectacular. Anyway, you know there’s a lot of space junk and derelicts up in orbit. One of the old pieces—I’m talking fifty years old, you know?—somehow got its targeting beacon tripped. This was put up there back in the Star Wars era when everybody was throwing some kind of floating trashcan into orbit to compete with everyone else’s space junk. They were all supposed to be defense against each other so when one lit up, all the others out there lit up and had their own little pissing match.”
“So, Tim, you’re telling me an entire world war was fought in space in one night.” This wasn’t going to go over well with my editor.
“That’s pretty much it, Ramsey. A bunch of unmanned tin cans shooting at each other until there were none left standing. End of war. No winners.”
“That’s not much of a story. I need to fill twenty column inches for tomorrow morning’s paper. They expect in-depth reporting. Isn’t there anything else you can give me?” I flipped my pencil around through my fingers. I seldom wrote with it but had figured out how to type while still holding a pencil. It made me feel like a real reporter.
“Geez, Ramsey! You sure you’ve got tickets for the Superbowl for me? Seems like I’m giving a lot away here.”
“On the fifty-yard line. My publisher authorized me to give them to the person who could get me the most information.” The tickets were on the fifty-yard line in row ZZZ. If Tim could give me a little more info I’d toss in a pair of binoculars with the tickets.
“Well, this is all hush-hush, you know?” I grabbed a tablet and started to scratch notes. “But Admiral Thornby is having an affair with Senator Beal’s wife. From what she says, it’s a pretty small torpedo but it has a big explosion. I got that direct from the senator’s daughter who’s dating the guy in the next cubicle over from me. So anyway, Admiral Thornby says there might have been some minor spill-over into the atmosphere but no one was really hurt. It was mostly stray particles. There are probably some cell phones in Africa that aren’t working anymore.”
“Well, no real harm in that. Who are they going to call? Their cousin in Nigeria who’s trying to give away a hundred million dollars from a dead investor’s bank account? Tim, I’m dropping the tickets in a courier envelope to send to you right now. Thanks for being a reliable source.”
“Any time, Ramsey.”
I hung up the phone and started writing.
I filled my twenty inches for the morning edition with ‘reliable sources’ and finally headed home. Over the past few years there’s been a resurgence in the newspaper industry. Print is considered more dependable than electronic bits. As one pundit commented, “I’d believe a wrinkled pamphlet handed to me by a homeless man on a street corner before I’d believe anything I read on the internet.”
Of course, people still used the internet, but it was placed at the same level as supermarket tabloids. A step lower, actually, because the tabloids were real paper and ink.
“Honey, I’m home!” I called as I closed the connecting door from the garage.
“I’m in my office grading papers. Be a dear and bring me a drink before you make dinner?” Don’t go thinking that was a callous response by the wife of a man who’d been up for the past thirty some hours breaking the news of the century to the world. My wife, Dr. Elizabeth Smith, held a far more important and intellectually taxing job than I did. To Elizabeth, the kitchen is the room where ice for our drinks is kept. Me? I love to cook. I’m quite domestic and dinner was in the refrigerator and ready to heat. I’d given away six tickets to the Superbowl from the newspaper’s stock, but the story I wrote earned me an attaboy from Ed and permission to finally go home. I poured a gin and tonic for Elizabeth and made myself a martini.
“How was your day?” I asked when I brought her drink.
“Predictably horrible. You would think that sometime during their twelve years of government funded public education, someone would have taught these nineteen-year-old Neanderthals what a verb was. Now they are here for four more years of government funded public college and I’m starting with their ABCs.” A PhD in English literature had earned Elizabeth the right to teach freshman composition classes at the college.
“We could raise our own,” I suggested, stroking her cheek. I’d always wanted kids. We were just getting stable first.
“Back, Satan!” she laughed, pushing me away. “No little rug rat with a squeaky voice is going to be biting these ankles.” She mixed several metaphors while extending a bare leg from under her desk. I set my drink down and sank to my knees to catch the proffered gam. So beautiful. I could kiss these ankles and feet and calves and… Elizabeth moaned. “It’s a good thing you sing bass and not tenor.” I’d worked my way up to her knee, an especially sensitive spot that always got her motor running. “I’ll give you the rest of the night to stop that,” she sighed. “You know how horny these final exams make me.”
It was only September and I was pretty sure she was months away from finals, but who was I to argue? Then the timer rang in the kitchen.
“Dinner’s ready to come out of the microwave. Want to eat first?”
“What is it?”
“Goulash casserole.”
“Mmm. You really are Satan. I’ll have one helping as long as you promise to take me to the Stadium and help work off the calories afterward.”
Not a problem! She unfolded from the desk and stood. Elizabeth never spent any longer in her school clothes than required. When she got home, she slipped into a robe. I was pretty sure there was nothing under it but my wife, if experience told me anything. The language problem with her freshmen English students was probably the result of them being tongue-tied in front of her.
When I proposed, our senior year in college, she’d answered that since I could compose complete sentences while looking at her, she had no choice but to say yes. I went to work while she finished a master’s and a post-hole digger. Six years later, she was earning twice what I make as a stringer. It was a good choice for both of us.
“Now, where was I, Dr. Smith?” I dragged her robe off and she lay down on the bed, stretching luxuriously. Oh, what an inspiration that body was. We’d splurged on an extremely decadent king size bed from an exclusive manufacturer for our playground. The first time we slipped beneath the covers, we’d christened it ‘Smith Stadium.’ The sporting events were epic.
“Well, Mr. Smith, I think you had just started at my ankles and managed to lick and kiss almost to my knee. I’d hate for you to try to find your exact place and pick up in the middle. Perhaps you should take it from the beginning and make sure no steps have been missed,” she giggled.
“Yes, Doctor. That sounds like the right approach. Will you be grading on the curve?” I kissed my way from her ankle up toward her calf as I continued massaging her feet.
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble following that curve,” Elizabeth panted. “None at all.” I pushed lightly and her legs parted so I could continue my progress. Before I got to the good stuff, I pulled back and started on her left ankle. She moaned.
“This story has parallel plot lines,” I whispered. “I promise to bring them together at the end.” I hit the spot just behind her left knee that was always so sensitive and she jerked slightly, narrowly avoiding kicking me in the face.
“Please, Rams. Please make love to me. I’ll make it so worth your while.”
“Yes, love. I’m here.” I crawled up her body and slipped inside her without guidance. I knew how to push her buttons but she knew mine as well.
“Yes. Right there. Put a baby in my tummy!” As much as Elizabeth said she didn’t want children around under foot, she didn’t mind at all the prospect of making them. It was a major trigger for me.
“I got you!” I crowed in the heat of passion. “You’re sure to be preggers now. God, I love you, Elizabeth. I wish we were really making a baby.”
“I know, love. One day I’ll let you. I’m just not ready yet. I’d want to start earlier in the fall so the worst is over while school is out the next summer. I’m only thirty and I’ll be tenured in two years. Then you can quit your job and take care of the rug rat.”
“Yeah. I can just imagine me as a stay-at-home dad. You know, I have a career, too.”
“Wouldn’t you rather stay at home and write your novel?”
“Well, there is that.” I cuddled behind her. “I love you, Beth. I could get into staying home.”
“We’ll see,” she whispered. Soon we drifted off to sleep, cuddled in the middle of Smith Stadium.
3
Down to Earth
JACK ADAMS GOT BACK TO EARTH after rendezvousing with the freighter at the ISS and switching command of his repair shuttle to Lee Burke.
“You got the easy stuff,” Lee groused. “I’ve loaded guidance for the shuttle from satellite to satellite in the deeper ranges of LEO. Sometimes it will take me three days to get from one to the next.”
“Watch out for those black ones. After I boosted that last one and reset it, all hell broke loose. I went back and it was completely fried. I towed it back for salvage,” Jack said.
“Yeah. We’ve been told now to stay away from military junk unless we get a specific contract from them. They’re spitting about having the Maytag repairman out tinkering with their assets.”
The two men wished each other luck and Jack headed for his debrief in India.
“Six months of solitude doesn’t seem to have affected you too badly,” Indira said at the debrief.
“I could use a shave.”
“Are you sure? It’s nearly Christmas. You could get a temp job as Santa Claus in an American department store. Just bleach it out.”
“Thanks heaps, boss. Are you laying me off?”
“Oh, no. Three months furlough for your round the clock work upstairs. Then you’ll go on the monitoring station in Florida. Maybe you and that pretty miss you’ve been courting can get some one-on-one time.” She laughed at his embarrassment; the blush seen through his heavy beard.
“I think I’d better go marry her first.”
“Good luck, Jack. And good work. You took care of over 200 satellites on this cruise. After a year dirtside, you’ll be eligible to return if you want.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Jack headed out of the office and caught a cab to the airport.
“You’re home!” Evelyn shrieked. She rushed to his arms in the Des Moines airport. He picked her up to swing her around in a circle, causing other arriving passengers to dodge out of their way. “Are you going to keep this beard?” she asked, running her fingers across his face. “I like it.”
“Only enough of it to tickle you in places you like to be tickled,” he laughed.
“Oh yes! Let’s go home and you can start researching how much it takes to get the response you want. I love you, Jack!” He had only his carry-on and allowed Evelyn to lead him out of the terminal to the short-term parking area. “Do you want to drive?”
“Heavens no! I’ve been drivint a shuttle in outer space for six months. I don’t want to drive anywhere. It’s not safe.”
“Then get in. I’ll show you my piloting skills. I can’t believe you ran all around in orbit and can’t drive an Escape.”
“Do you see the tower over there?” Jack asked as he pointed at the control tower a good half mile away. “If I got that close to an object in space my collision avoidance alarms would be ringing in my ears. I’m sure I’ll readjust soon, but for right now, I just want to watch your legs as you work the pedals and your breasts as you breathe.”
“Jack! Just settle down. The sooner we get home, the sooner you’ll be able to get my winter coat off and really be able to see what’s under there.”
It took only half an hour to get to the little bungalow they’d rented while he trained for space. When he had to report to India, Evelyn went along to see him off and then returned to Des Moines where she knew people and had a good job. And once they were home, the clothing was shed at once.
“Mmm. Our little escapades by long distance were nice but seeing you, holding you, touching you… that’s the best,” Jack whispered as he kissed his way down her neck to her breasts.
“It does tickle,” she giggled. “Why did you grow it out?”
“Shaving in the shuttle was more of a challenge than I wanted to endure. There were cut whiskers everywhere. It was easier to just let it grow than turn on the entire recirculation system just to clean the whiskers out of the cabin.”
“It didn’t interfere with your space suit?”
“No. It might have if it were six inches longer, but at this length it was no problem. Now, open these pretty legs a bit so I can taste that heavenly nectar.”
“Yes! Oh, I’ve missed you. Come and make love to me.” Jack took his time tasting her and licking her but her urgency mounted and his own rose to meet it. He pulled himself up between her legs and she guided his missile into her launching tube.
They had a Christmas wedding and Evelyn quit her job so they could move to Florida. It was difficult to leave Iowa, but they had each other and there would be new friends to be made. After all, they’d be near Orlando and what could be better?
“Baby,” Evelyn said. “We played at it for two years before we were married. Don’t you think it’s time we added to the population explosion?”
“You know I’m going to have to go back up there for six months again, right?” Jack was concerned about not being there when his child was born.
“Of course. But you have a year of dirtside duty here first, and you’ll probably be back at the same station after you return. It would be much nicer for me to be raising our junior instead of being alone here. If we start now, he would be born long before you go back up and we’ll talk every day about how he’s doing.”
“You’re convinced we’ll have a boy?”
“Yes. He’ll want to grow up to be a spaceman, just like his father.”
“You know a girl could grow up to be a spacewoman. You don’t have to be a boy to go into space.”
“Are you arguing about the sex of our child or are we going to get busy?”
That was pretty much the end of discussion. Jack and Evelyn started working on the problem that night. Of course, it was a few weeks before the birth control was completely out of her system, but they still had fun working on the strategy.
“How about if I ride on top this time?” Evelyn asked. “You want a dominant girl, right?”
“I have a dominant girl right here in my bed,” Jack growled. “Come up here and ride ’em, cowgirl!” Evelyn rolled on top of Jack and lined herself up.
“Oh, yes!” Evelyn cried. “I’m sure that one took. They say it’s best if the child is conceived when the mommy is orgasming.”
“I guess all of them are conceived when the man orgasms,” Jack chuckled. He looked at his beloved wife as she lay atop him. “Let’s see if we can make twins,” he growled as he rolled her to her back.
“Do it, lover. Make me come again and plant another baby!” They humped together over and over until at last Evelyn peaked again, bringing Jack along with her. He settled to her side and spooned her into his arms as they drifted off to sleep.
Jack was in the control room when Evelyn called. Things weren’t too busy as it was rest period for Lee Burke. The shuttle circled the opposite side of the globe and Jack would get to wake him up when it crested the horizon again. Lee had another month to go and everyone in control was moaning. Lee had no girlfriend on Earth and his circuits were boring.
“Hey, babe. What’s up?” Jack asked his wife.
“It worked!” she shouted.
“Worked? What worked?”
“Jack, we’re pregnant!”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not.”
“You ass. How soon can you get off work? I want to celebrate.”
Jack called a replacement to his station, pleading a stomach upset and need to go home. If Evelyn wanted to celebrate, now was no time to be at work.
4
Testing, Testing
“SAM, JUST GO TO THE CLINIC, jack off in a cup, and let them give you something to increase your virility. There has to be some reason you’re not getting me pregnant. Now would you make the call?” Reba demanded.
The reason might be because she’s a spoiled, entitled, bitching shrew, Sam reasoned to himself. Ever since they (read ‘she’) decided to have children, Reba had been demanding and rushed. It wasn’t bad at first. Having a wife who wanted a baby was fun. She never turned down sex. But as time went by and she still wasn’t pregnant, it had become more of a chore than an exciting fuck. Half the time when she demanded that he enter her, she wasn’t even damp. He was sure that couldn’t be good for conception. He’d done his best to romance her and get her turned on but she was so impatient that all she wanted was to have him to dump a load in her as quickly as possible.
Reba had always had anything she wanted. Daddy had provided cars, jewelry, and even vetted young men. When she’d chosen Sam Watkins to be her husband, there was never a question that she could have him. Sam was a well-paid part owner of a startup software company that had gone public and had then been acquired by a major player. Sam was still at the company as some kind of fellow or something. The important thing was that he continued Daddy’s tradition of giving her anything she wanted. And she wanted a baby.
Things hadn’t been bad until Jocelyn, her best friend and tennis partner, had gotten pregnant. Since then, her society friends had all begun having children. All except her. She’d hesitated a while, afraid of what it would do to her figure. But it soon became apparent that she was losing status with the movers and shakers. She needed a brat.
Finally, Sam consented to go to the fertility clinic. He was pretty sure the problem lay elsewhere. Even with the frequency that Reba demanded he perform, he was producing copious amounts of semen. And he was glad for the frequency he knew would end once she caught. While he was always ready for sex and shot a lot of come, it was almost impossible for him to masturbate. Of course, Reba wouldn’t consider the idea that she was infertile. It was all on him.
Reba hadn’t accompanied him to the clinic. She just shrilly demanded that he get it fixed. So, Sam went alone and was given the obligatory cup and stack of pornographic magazines and movies. None of it did a thing for him. He’d barely gotten hard and ended up napping in the room.
Sam awoke to a delightful sensation. A tall slender blonde was gently stroking and licking him. This had to be a dream, but the sensations brought him fully awake.
“What are you doing? Who are you?” he croaked. There was no denying, however, that he’d become fully erect.
“I’m Sheila. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. You’ll just get good and hard and soon you’ll be filling that old cup with all your good syrup,” she said.
“But why? I never heard of this being part of the clinic,” Sam protested. Still she was pretty attractive and had pushed her T-shirt up over her unfettered boobs. He tentatively reached out to handle one of the full soft globes and moaned.
“That’s it, baby. Feel me up and get it ready to go. You make it so good.” She kept fellating him and he could see the cup lying on his stomach as he felt the urge mounting in his balls.
“I’m going… It’s… Now!” The blonde smoothly replaced her mouth with the cup as she kept stroking. Good strong pulses raced from his cock and spattered in the cup as he moaned under her ministration.
“What a good boy,” she said as she stroked the last drops into the cup. For a moment Sam thought he must be a dog. A very good boy. She capped the cup and handed it to him then saw another drop ooze from his prick. “Mmmine.” She darted her head down and sucked the last drop out. “I wish all my guys had come like you do. It makes my kitty weep. So much! So intense!”
“I don’t get it. I mean thank you. But why?” Sam asked as he pulled up his trousers.
“Oh, the clinic’s been having a lot of this trouble lately. Guys are coming in by the score and most of them are having trouble getting it up while they masturbate. The clinic finally decided to hire a few professionals to help out those who were too tense to get off.” She smiled at him.
“You mean you’re a…?”
“I’m a sex worker. Clean and tested as were you. Frankly, this work is a lot easier than trying to attract johns. The pay is good and your insurance covers it. Ya gotta love good old single payer health insurance. They cover everything!”
“That’s incredible. And so are you.” He took another look at her bare breasts and sighed.
“Sure. Wanna kiss a titty goodbye? I doubt we’ll meet again.” Sheila looked after him as he left the room. There was something about that one. Maybe she could make him a regular.
It took two weeks for the results to come back. Sam was sterile.
“I knew it was your limp dick that was to blame,” Reba screamed. “Well, I want to get pregnant. Either you get that tool fixed or I start hunting a better one.”
Sam shook his head. He remembered vaguely why he married the society girl. Perfect looks. Lots of money. And pressure from her daddy. They had a big house in a California community known for housing the high tech elite. Her father had given it to them as a wedding gift. But Sam wasn’t stupid. He’d kept separate accounts and made sure he was keeping as much money for himself as he gave his wife. He’d seen too many friends nearly bankrupted by the gold diggers of the tech industry.
If it came to splitting things up, which depressed him to think about, he was pretty sure his major assets were safe. Of course, the house would be hers and a sizable bank account. But he wouldn’t be destitute.
Sam’s follow-up meeting with the doctor was not encouraging.
“We have a few treatments available, Sam, but they are mostly designed to increase sperm production. You seem to be producing plenty, but they’re all dead. I don’t know what to say about it. I’d suggest in vitro fertilization from the sperm bank. I don’t think we can give you living sperm,” the doctor said.
“That sucks. I’m going to lose my wife. She’s already said she’s going to look elsewhere.”
“Well, good luck to her. We’re seeing an unprecedented number of men with non-motile sperm. Seems like an epidemic. Don’t know why they’ve all decided to come in at once. We’re scheduling appointments out three or four weeks now.”
“Okay. I guess that’s it then.”
“We could try again.”
“What?”
“It’s always possible the first test was a fluke. Why don’t you take a cup and give us another sample? We’ll test it to see if anything has changed.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” Sam took the cup and went to the designated room. He was surprised to see the blonde already sitting in a chair sleeping. “Oh. Excuse me.” She started awake.
“Oh, hey there. I was just taking a break. You in for another round?”
“Yeah. Doc ordered a second test.”
“Lucky me.”
“Huh?”
“I just happened to pick the room Doc sent you to for my little siesta. No sense wasting the opportunity. Come over here and lie down. Let me see what I can coax out of those big old balls of yours.” She pulled off her top and waggled her tits at him. He started swelling immediately and stripped off his jeans to hop onto the bed.
It wasn’t long before Sam was enjoying the attentions of the professional. And to his surprise, it wasn’t long after that when he sprayed the contents of his balls into the cup.
“I’m getting better,” she said. “It used to take nearly fifteen minutes from start to finish. You’ve been in the room exactly eight minutes and we got a full load. Take it to the desk as usual and maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”
“Um… Maybe I could get your phone number?” Sam suggested. Sheila smiled and gave him a big kiss before she gave him her phone number.
Reba hadn’t waited for the second results. She was determined to have a baby, and prospective fathers were easy to seduce. Sam resigned himself to the loss of his marriage and moved out.
5
Beat the Clock
“RAMSEY, THIS IS DOCTOR SIMPSON. Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Sure, Doc. Am I late for a checkup?” I sat up straight. There’s nothing to get your attention like having your doctor call out of the blue and say, ‘We need to talk.’ It was a slow news day and I couldn’t figure out why Doc Simpson would call me.
“We’ve had some interesting developments over at the hospital. You’re the only person I know with an eye for real news. It has to do with dropping birthrates. I think we’re onto something. Could you stop by the hospital and meet with a couple of other doctors and me?” Dr. Simpson asked.
“No problem, Doc. Let’s see, I should be able to get clear of here before the donuts arrive, so thirty minutes?”
“I’ll alert them. I’d appreciate it if you keep this under your hat until we’ve had a chance to show you what we have.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.” I was already out the door before Ed yelled for me. I turned off my cellphone so the buttinski couldn’t reach me. He had a way of messing with contacts and I wasn’t interested in dealing with the office politics.
Dr. Simpson was waiting in the lobby when I walked in and intercepted me before I could inquire at the front desk.
“We’re using a conference room. This isn’t a doctor visit. Not one that your health insurance will be interested in, anyway,” Simpson said. He led me to a small conference room on the second floor where three other doctors waited for us. “Ramsey Smith, this is Bill Gardner, obstetrics, Sandra Reynolds, maternity and fetal specialist, and Levi Ulman, our hospital administrator.”
“Pleased to meet you, doctors. You’ve really got my curiosity up.” At hospital rates, this meeting was costing around a grand an hour. Something had to be serious.
“I’m going to let Levi start the ball rolling,” Simpson said.
The hospital administrator leaned forward. “We didn’t call anyone right away,” he said breathlessly. “I’m not interested in starting a panic where there’s no cause. At first, I thought someone was giving us a bad time on social media so people just weren’t choosing our hospital for their childbirth center. You know we had that whole addition put on the hospital just for taking care of pregnancy and newborns. It was so popular, mothers began booking their delivery time as soon as they found out they were pregnant. Every room booked and every OB-GYN and maternity specialist crunched for time just to meet with the prospective parents.”
I nodded my head. “I can imagine. Seems like we’ve been having a population boom, not a decline in births.”
“It seemed that way until about three months ago. Bill and Sandra both saw their appointment schedules easing up. John specializes in men’s health and his appointments started heating up.”
“I saw an increase in appointments from guys trying to get their wives pregnant,” Dr. Simpson said. “All perfectly healthy. I was making an unprecedented number of referrals to a fertility clinic. And the answer for every one of them was, ‘No motile sperm’.”
“For the hospital, it was the bookings tailing off that was the giveaway. Look at this.” Levi projected a slide from his computer. “This is a graphic display of our delivery schedules. For twelve months prior to this timeline, we were at a hundred percent capacity or more. You can see that carry through up until two months ago. Over the past two months, the number of births in our center has tapered off.”
I’m pretty good at reading charts and graphs and looking for bullshit. You wouldn’t believe what corporations and the government try to prove with charts. Actually, you probably do believe them.
“This is not just a reduction! This says you’ve gone to zero! No births?” That couldn’t be true. Could it?
“That’s right,” Dr. Gardner said. “I do not have a single pregnant woman coming to my office for routine checks. There isn’t an occupied room in the entire childbirth wing of the hospital.”
“I’ve examined all the births during the past two months and have been coordinating my tests with Dr. Pater, our pediatrician. Every birth seemed normal, right up until the moment there were none. There were no more than the usual number of complications for newborns,” Dr. Reynolds said.
“And I can tell you right off, it isn’t because people aren’t trying. Most patients never bring up infertility unless they’ve been trying rigorously for some time,” Simpson said. “My contact at the fertility clinic called me yesterday. He changed labs doing the sperm counts, changed methods of collecting specimens, had every sterile container shipment randomly checked for foreign substances. Nothing changed. A hundred percent of the men he’s seeing have no viable sperm.”
“Every man? Sterile?” I scribbled on my tablet as fast as I could. “I need to check this with some other hospitals and doctors.”
“We did,” Levi Ulman said. “It’s uniform.”
“Then you must have checked with the CDC. Do we have a new virus outbreak? Is there something in the water?”
“There are scarcely any doctors left at the CDC,” Simpson groused. “All we get are spokespersons. They all deny there is any such outbreak. But they are working on a new drug just in case.”
“We don’t usually do things this way,” Ulman continued, “but we can’t get a response from any officials and our only recourse for getting to the bottom of this is to go public. We need to find a cause and stamp it out. And we need to know how widespread the problem is. If it’s limited to the Orlando area, there might be something in the environment that needs cleaned up.”
“Right. No more contact with large talking mice,” I said. “Okay. Doctors, I can’t just run with this story in the morning edition. I need to do some research. As soon as I have some answers, though, I’ll hit the press with it and open a public investigation. May I have a copy of your charts, Dr. Ulman?”
“Yes. I prepared them so you would have something to work with.”
I left the meeting, writing my own bio in my head—it could be used for either my Pulitzer or my obituary—and went home rather than back to the office. I needed privacy to do this research and I wouldn’t get it in the newsroom. I grabbed a sandwich and went to work. As bad a rap as it gets, information is still available on the internet if you know what to look for. The doctors gave me enough to get started.
When I searched for birthrate and population, the first thing that popped up was the world population clock. There’s always some discrepancy regarding world population according to these counters. They don’t actually count people, but base their numbers on census trends and mostly leave the clock running according to an algorithm. Population growth is estimated at 1.11% per year. So, the counter developers divided that up by country and showed daily growth on their big meters. The clocks were still ticking away as world population approached ten billion. All but one. It seemed to have stalled and as I watched, it started ticking backward. I jotted down the address and searched records for the owner of the website and developer of the population clock.
There were a thousand blog posts speculating everything from a catastrophic die-off to a eugenics plot meant to reduce the number of inferior races on the planet. As far as I could see, none of the posts had anything to do with the reality of a zero birthrate.
I needed to figure out if what the doctors had observed was limited to Orlando, Florida, the US by region, or the world, so I looked up the contact information for Florida birth centers and started making calls.
“Miami Central Hospital Birth Center. How may I help you?” the voice answered his first call.
“Hi. My wife and I just found out we’re going to have a baby. Could you tell me how far out we need to schedule our birthing room?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m just checking different options. How far out do we need to schedule?”
“If this is not a joke, I need you to talk with Dr. Fellows. He’ll want you to come in for an exam in order to confirm pregnancy and expected birth date. In order to do that, I’ll need your name first please.” The receptionist was firm.
I hung up. Pretty stupid of me to have called on my personal cell phone. I keep a new prepaid phone in case I need to call a witness or potential criminal and don’t want a record. I activated the line before I made the next call.
“You have reached Atlanta General Hospital Birth Center. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911. There are currently no staff on duty at the birth center. If you have questions about our services, please leave a message and one of our staff will return your call.” I hung up and dialed the next number.
“Jefferson Memorial Hospital. How may I help you?”
“Hi.” I whined in my best imitation of a teenager. “I’ve got this school project and we’re supposed to find out how Indianapolis compares to the rest of the state in terms of birthrate. Could you tell me how many births there have been at Jefferson Memorial this week?”
“Sure. We’re always happy to help. Usually, I’d kick this over to administration, but we’re having a slow day today. Let me just check my computer for the records.”
“Gee! Thanks. You’re nice.”
“There’s no percentage in being mean when most of the people I talk to each day are already in pain. Here we are. Oh, my! I’ll have to send a message to the maternity ward to update their records. This doesn’t show any births in the past week. The week before there were two. Will that help?”
“Yeah. That’s great. Thank you.” I hung up and made a dozen more calls, working my way across the US. By the time I reached Hawaii, it was evident that no one was having babies this week.
I finally connected with the owner of the one world population clock that was going backward and called the developer.
“Randy Miller here. Are you calling about the flat-screen TV? I’m afraid I’ve already sold it.”
“Randy, no. That’s not what I’m calling about. I’m interested in a website you own called worldpop.io. Did you develop that site?”
“Oh, wow! I almost forgot about that site. I should probably drop its registration, but once you have a domain name, you never can tell what it might be used for in the future. I haven’t looked at it in ages.”
“I’m doing some research and wanted to talk about the algorithms you used for that site. They could be quite valuable.”
“Good luck. I didn’t use algorithms on that site. At least not mostly. It was a college statistics project that I combined with an engineering project,” Randy said. “I won’t say there are no algorithms. The total number on the clock is extrapolated from data feeds. I put together a spider net to collect data from sites that register births and deaths. The algorithm uses that data to project the numbers for areas that don’t have records available. I don’t think you’ll find anything unique there. I used the project to demonstrate how engineering could work with statistics.”
“Uh… Is it possible for you to take a look at it right now?” I asked. I was still watching the clock count backward on my desktop. I could hear Randy tapping on keys over the phone.
“Yeah. Uh… Holy shit! What the hell is happening?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Just tell me you are still getting live data.”
“There isn’t a single number from a contacted site that isn’t stagnant or declining. Who are you, anyway?”
“The name’s Ramsey Smith. I’m a reporter in Florida. I was clued into information by my doctor and local hospital. I’ve made thirty calls across the country this afternoon and they all confirm what we’re seeing. What I haven’t been able to do is confirm that it’s worldwide.”
“I can confirm that. I’m tracking sites from a hundred fifty different countries. They all show no births and gradual decrease in population through normal deaths. What should I do with this?”
“If you could forward the data specs to me, I plan to release the story tomorrow. Prepare for a massive number of hits on your site. And maybe an attempt to take it down,” I said.
“Good luck to them on that. Unlike most companies with a .io website, my servers are actually located in the British Indian Ocean. I’m going to work preparing to protect them. Ramsey, anything you need, let me know. If I can get the data, you’ve got it.”
“That’s great, Randy. I’ll forward the story to you.”
I headed for the office. It was time to stop the presses.
6
News Break
WHY AREN’T YOU PREGNANT?
That’s right, you aren’t pregnant. No one is. Investigations have uncovered what appears to be a global sterilization of human males. No babies are being born and the world population clock is counting backwards.
Of course, you can check with your doctor and even go to a fertility clinic. But they will all show the same. No matter how much semen a man produces in an ejaculation, it will contain no living sperm.
It appears this has affected only the production of spermatozoa. Many sperm banks have run tests and indicate the banked sperm seems not to have been affected by whatever it is that has caused this sterilization. However, they are not currently accepting applications for in vitro fertilization by order of the Department of Health.
“What we are seeing is nothing more than a typical cycle in the system,” said Mary Rand, Communications Director of the Centers for Disease Control. “There is no evidence that this is anything more than a temporary reset. We do not see it spreading any further.”
Dr. Levi Ulman of Orlando General Hospital had this to say about the development.
“We began to see births start trailing off just over two months ago. As births do go in cycles, we were not concerned until the birth rate sharply declined. As of two weeks ago, Orlando General has not had a single birth. We checked with counterparts all over the State of Florida and they have concurred that there are no new births being recorded at this time,” said Dr. Ulman.
Reports began filtering in from around the world that the birthrate had dropped to zero when the world population clock at worldpop.io stopped and began running backward. Secretary of Health Ralph Alexander responded as soon as information filtered out on the internet that world population was decreasing for the first time since the Bubonic Plague.
“We have launched an investigation into the specious allegations brought forward by the owners of worldpop.io and have demanded that they fix their application or take it down. No other counter of human population has reversed itself and we are certain that advanced fertility drugs will soon be made available at a reasonable price,” Alexander said.
“We have good people, the very best people, working on the problem of the retreating world population clock,” President Muffley stated from Merryweather Golf Course in Santa Barbara. “Human technology—isn’t technology great? I probably know more about technology than anyone else and I know that sometimes it fails. Incompetence among scientists and doctors has led to a failure to identify new births. They are a waste of time. An engineer who has a glitch in his programming is causing panic around the world. That is a failure of technology. Very bad. Don’t believe what they are saying. We need more people in technical and trade school who can learn how to put a nut on a bolt and not depend on these college graduate types.”
While denial of the problem seemed to be the most common response in the United States, the story is quite different in other parts of the world. Willy Williamson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was solemn in his pronouncements.
“This is a grave day for the United Kingdom,” said Williamson. “For the first time in our history, a threat to our national security has come from within. We need the people of our country to stand together against this threat once again, as we did against the Germans in World War II. Today, we need more babies to repopulate our country.”
“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States suffer in the grip of infertility and lack of babies, we shall not flag or fail,” the Prime Minister continued in his speech in the House of Commons. “We shall copulate to the end. We shall copulate in France, we shall copulate on the seas and oceans, we shall copulate with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall copulate, whatever the cost may be. We shall copulate on the beaches, we shall copulate on the landing grounds, we shall copulate in the fields and in the streets, we shall copulate in the hills; we shall never give up!”
The Prime Minister’s rousing speech has been greeted with active participation all over Britain.
President Val Pukin of Russia was quick and succinct in his comments. “Europeans are dying out. Don’t you understand that? And same-sex marriages don’t produce children. Do you want to survive by drawing migrants? But society cannot adapt so many migrants. If a woman wants a baby, give her one. It’s better not to argue with a woman.”
When questioned on how he suggested that was possible, his response was simply, “The usual way.”
Much of Asia has breathed a sigh of relief as the possibility of reducing overcrowded populations comes to the fore. No concrete numbers have been released from the Republic of China, but satellite photos reveal seasonal reductions in smog and emission levels throughout the country may be here to stay as the population decreases.
As developments continue to unfold, stories will be reported in this newspaper. Keep informed by visiting our Orlando News website.
I was pretty pleased with my front-page story. I’d made the front page every day this week and I was still collecting new material a week after I broke the original story. Every national leader in the world seemed intent on getting their press release to me first. I was swamped with email and that coveted Pulitzer nomination for Breaking News Reporting was on the horizon.
My latest story documented a run on pregnancy test kits as people began stockpiling them to check every few days, just in case. Pharmacies had also reported a drastic decline in the sale of contraceptive pills and devices, including condoms.
When I broke the story, the internet went into overdrive with preposterous cures and home remedies, all backed up with claims that it had helped a second cousin’s next-door neighbor’s dog conceive. I was scanning the internet when a shadow fell across my desk.
It doesn’t seem to matter where the man stands or which direction light is coming from, my editor, Ed Erebus, always casts a shadow. He’d been near a stroke when I ran into the news room last week, yelling “Stop the presses!” When he saw the story, he hit the red button on his desk and a hundred high end ink jet printers ground to a halt.
I looked up.
“Why?” Ed growled.
“What?” I hoped it was a game of who, what, why, and when. No such luck.
“Why are all men sterile? What caused it? When did it really occur? Who was responsible? How was it transmitted? Where did it originate? We need answers. We’ve already fallen behind New York and Washington in their investigations. What are you doing sitting here on your butt instead of getting the answers?”
“This is how research is done in the twenty-first century, Ed.”
“Don’t give me lip. Give me answers. Act like a reporter and hit the street. And get your next story in before deadline so we don’t have to hold the presses until you get here!” Ed stormed away, the dark shadow following him.
I packed my laptop and left the office.
The reception at home was not encouraging. Elizabeth was lying on the bed weeping. Beside her was a commercial pregnancy stick, the red mark indicating negative.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” I asked as I sat on the edge of the bed and gently rubbed her shoulder. She turned away from me, brushing my hand away.
“I’m not pregnant!” she snapped.
“Um… Aren’t you still on birth control? I thought you didn’t want children,” I cautiously asked.
“That was before. I didn’t say I never wanted children. I threw away my birth control the minute your story broke. We’ve had the best sex of our marriage this past week, and still no baby!” Elizabeth sobbed.
I had to agree the sex had been great. For some reason, since I’d broken the story about the sterilization of men, I’d been constantly horny. It seemed that Elizabeth had been as well. There hadn’t been a time since our honeymoon when we’d made love more often or so satisfyingly.
“It’s not my fault, sweetheart,” I said reasonably. “I’ll go down and get tested, but if what we suspect is true, there aren’t any men who have viable sperm.” Never try to be reasonable with a woman in distress.
“It’s a plot. All you men can just go catting around with no thought for consequences. Built-in safety net. She can’t get pregnant so no one will ever know,” Elizabeth accused.
“I’m not catting around! I love you, babe. I always have and I always will. What could I possibly get from catting around? No matter if there are children or no children, I’m only yours,” I pled. In six years of marriage I’d never been tempted once to step out on my wife. There was nothing I wanted she couldn’t or wouldn’t supply. I tried to pull her back toward the middle of Smith Stadium. She resisted a moment and then rolled toward me.
“Really, Rams? I knew you’d be faithful to me when we were going to have a baby eventually. Are you still going to be faithful now that we can’t?”
“Do you think anyone else could entice me away by wanting to have a baby? I’m not stupid. It’s me. No one is going to give me anything you aren’t giving me.”
“I don’t know why I feel this way, Ramsey. I’ve never been jealous. I’ve never said, ‘Don’t go out for a drink with the guys,’ or anything like that. I’ve always been strong and confident. Now I feel like a sop. Guys are hitting on me and I just assume you must be getting some on the side. There are women out there who will sleep with anyone on the off-chance they might get pregnant.”
“Guys are hitting on you?” I was a caveman. “I need to have a talk with these guys.”
“Oh, I already spotted the ploy, but most of the girls in my classes are gaga over them.”
“Them? What do they have?”
“A card that says ‘Certified Fertile.’ It’s a kind of ID card like a driver’s license. It has their picture and the words ‘Certified Fertile’ on it. I’ve worked a lot of events at the college and check ID often enough that I can spot a fake a mile away. These have a little fine print at the bottom that says ‘For entertainment purposes only. Not an official ID.’ Who would fall for that? Still I see girls all over campus doing just that. Suddenly, the great fear of getting pregnant is now a goal,” Elizabeth confessed.
“I should run a notice about that in the paper. It’s not ethical when we know all men are sterile.”
“Do we really know that, Rams? Do we all have to just give up hope?”
“I don’t know what to say, babe. Sure I want children, but I also want you, now more than ever. No one else is going to try me out.”
“I love you. I’m sorry I’m so pouty. It’s all been such a shock.”
“How many of those sticks did you buy?”
“A dozen. That’s all CVS had left.”
“That’s a year’s worth. No, listen to me. There’s no sense wasting one every week. Each month, we’ll use one to check. By then, stocks will be replenished and we can buy more. But no more tests than once a month. Okay?” I said.
“It’s okay, but we need to practice a lot so there’s something to check for.”
“Whenever you want.”
“Now?”
I kissed my wife and began petting her. It slowly heated up until we were both naked and panting for the main event.
“I’ve never felt you so hard and hot,” Elizabeth said. “You last so long and when you come you flood me. Do that, Ramsey. Flood me.” We built up steam until we were at the breaking point. When Elizabeth started the throes of orgasm, I was borne along with her, spilling copious amounts of semen in her warm vagina.
“I wonder if that’s typical?” I mused as we cuddled together. “Do all men have bigger orgasms now? That was incredible.”
“How are you going to find out?” Beth asked. She was quite satisfied and nearly asleep.
“I guess I’ll have to ask some guys. And Ed wants me to figure out what caused it. Like I’m a scientist. How am I going to figure that out?” I asked.
“Yeah. Better go ask some guys. I’m going to sleep now. See you in the morning.”
I kissed her neck and slipped out of bed to get dressed. She was right. I needed to go ask some guys. And there was no better place to start than Mother’s. I was on my way.
7
Boom!
I LIKED MOTHER’S. It was reminiscent of a prohibition speakeasy and was modeled after the bar in the old Peter Gunn television show. It even had a small stage where a jazz trio played and was often joined by a chanteuse who whispered out sweet songs of seduction. That was like a hundred years ago when newsmen were newsmen. I even have a Homburg hat I wear when I go there. It has a wider brim than a trilby, but no side creases like a fedora.
Other guys in the business like the Red Light, a bar not far from Mother’s. That’s one reason I avoid the Red Light. I want to talk to people, not reporters. And Mother’s has real drinks and not just beer by the bottle. When I go out drinking, I want a good martini. The kind Slocum behind the bar started making when I walked in.