Vanishing Manhood: Part 4

Becoming a seducer, dabbling with love, then gigolo duties.

Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

Would you rather take shelter under a prison roof or stand outdoors in the uncertain storm?

"That's the best part about living here," Kuiko grinned. "We'll be patient."

That fairy tale collided with Fatima, Carrie and Ambrosia showing up at my door while Kuiko was back at her place changing and gathering a few things for a group effort at dinner. I almost triggered the 'unlock' without looking, almost. Being afraid for so long had its benefits. I seriously thought about not answering.

It was still too bright outside for my interior lights to come on. It wasn't like I had any means of transportation to suggest I was in the area.

"Hello, Ladies," I gulped over the intercom. "I'm a bit busy right now. What's up?"

"Hey Israel, can we come in? You weren't at the station this morning, or on the return trip, so we wanted to make sure you hadn't vanished," Fatima spoke up.

I was wondering what was the best way to say 'I'd rather have my bones ground to dust than open the door' when the dilemma was solved for me. A furious Angel came storming up the stairs and into the scope of my door's security screen.

"Get the fuck out of my way," she snarled at the three then she pounded on the door with her fist.

"Open the God damn door, you Idiot," she yelled at me or the door. Oh, I knew that wasn't a good sign. I barely noted a second woman coming up behind Angel appearing to be terribly concerned.

"Who the hell are you?" Ambrosia snapped at Angel.

"Metropolitan Police," the second woman waved her badge around. "Please stand back."

"Israel!" Angel was almost frothing at the mouth. I opened the door against my better judgment and all common sense. Angel stomped her way into my apartment, and right past me toward the bedroom.

I didn't think she wanted sex. She was burning off some serious frustration, my place was small and the greatest stretch of walkway ran from the front door into my bedroom. The second woman came in at a more cautious pace.

"Good-bye ladies," she said to the three at the door. "Remember, if you are out here when we get back, I'll arrest you for loitering."

"Detective Seneca Poole," she introduced herself but didn't offer to shake or look even marginally pleased to see me. Angel came tearing past us, turned, snarled at me, then about faced and headed back. "I don't know what you did but I've never seen her so pissed in the three years we've been partnered."

That brought Angel back around, still horribly frightening and unhappy.

"You want to know what he did?" Angel seethed. "You want to know? This bastard agreed to go to Isobel Diaz's party tomorrow night!" I didn't understand that complaint because she had known about that for hours. Seneca looked my way, clearly as confused as me.

"You thought I wouldn't find out?" Angel stabbed me in the chest with her forefinger. "Do you think I'm stupid? Did you forget I'm a God-damn detective?" I was stumbling back and starting to shiver. "Argh!" she screamed, barely holding herself back.

"Okay, you've scared the fuck out of him," Seneca griped. "Why don't you finally tell me what is going on?"

"I'm under investigation," Angel kept glaring at me. "I'm under investigation for having an inappropriate liaison with a material male witness."

"Did this asshole turn you in?" Seneca scanned from me to Angel.

"No," Angel spat at me. "He buckled under to Isobel Diaz so they would drop the investigation against me, you moron." I was the moron in question.

"How did you find out?" I muttered. I didn't want to have this conversation because I couldn't make sense of any part of what I'd done. I certainly couldn't explain it.

"Somerset told me," Angel was slowly cooling down. "She laughed at me as she told my how you had folded up like a good little boy after the threat."

"Wait," Seneca stammered. "He stood up for you?" I took from that question that Detective Seneca Poole had a rather low opinion of me, if not all males. That I would leave myself vulnerable for Angel was clearly an impossibility in her mind.

"Yes he did, Seneca," Angel glared at me.

"Fuck you, Israel. I can take care of myself, a hell of a lot better than you can," she sizzled. "You, you, you didn't have to do that."

"The Mayor threatened me, Angel. What was I going to do?" I sighed.

"For starters, you don't make decisions for me," she snarled.

"Yet, it is okay for you to make decisions for me?" I pointed out.

"Yes, because you are a 21 year old fresh out of college who has been in the city six days," Angel snorted in frustration. "I am thirty, I have three years in as a patrolwoman and five as a detective and this city is and always has been my home. I think I know what's going on here better than you do."

When she put it like that, she was almost totally right. If you get discriminated against for so long, you start assuming you will always be discriminated against. Angel had just slapped me upside my sensibilities with a logical, if passionate, argument. The only thing was, she was 'almost' right.

"If you think Isobel Diaz won't squash you like a bug, you are so mistaken," I addressed Angel. "She's not your garden variety misanthrope. She's a monster, she's evil and with one phone call, she had you under a federal investigation."

"That's not important," Angel snapped back.

"The mental state you are going to be in Sunday morning is," Angel pointed out.

"Angel, we've been down this road before, top of my class, remember?" I said.

"You sure are a mouthy bastard," Seneca mocked me but then, "Top of your class? What community college did you go to?"

"Seneca, he's not mouthy, he's opinionated," Angel sniped, at me. I noted Kuiko approach the door and activated the lock for her. She strolled on in.

"Hey everybody. Hey stranger," Kuiko waved. She has a small sack of something.

"Whoever you are, this is a police matter," Seneca commanded. "Beat it."

"I'm his friend," Kuiko bristled. "Who the hell are you?"

"She's my partner," Angel informed her. "This is Kuiko. I'll explain later."

"A cop? Whoops, sorry about the whole 'who the hell' thing," Kuiko gulped.

"Back to the matter at hand," I grumbled.

"Detective Poole, I went to Bowden. I was the first male Valedictorian in sixty years. Blow it out your ass, Bitch," I glared at her. There I was, busting my head pointlessly against a wall again for no reason I could accept.

"Bowden? Bowden is a real college," Seneca queried.

I shouldn't have been surprised or angry. Even before the Plague, more women were seeking higher education than men. The Plague was a scholastic killing field for male education. Not only did most of our intellectual elite die, in the chaos after the dying began, it made more sense to admit women over men since odds were that most of your guys would be in a grave by graduation.

After the tenth year, even after the mass die-offs stopped, society took few chances. A whole generation of men went under-educated out of fear they would perish as well. Men had been struggling up the educational ladder ever since, but we were massively under-represented in most professional callings, things like lawyers, engineers and doctors.

Two consequences of being under-educated were our lack of political awareness and the disparity of economic power. We were paid less on average than women and we owned less of the economy than our population would have warranted. This, in turn, reinforced in men that the best way to get ahead financially was to marry well.

This worked out fine if you were a woman in the top 10%; not so much if you were in the bottom 90%. A man graduating well and trying to make his own way in the world didn't fit into that mold and ours wasn't a culture that put a high premium on male independence.

"Yes, it is. I read, studied and made really good grades," I reasoned.

"When I graduated, they gave me a pat on the head, a dog biscuit and a diploma," I added sarcastically. "In retrospect, I should have treasured the pat on the head and kept the dog biscuit for emergency rations because it turns out my diploma isn't fit to wipe my ass."

"Wow, you're bitter," Seneca noted.

"Bitter?" I countered. "Give me your security code. I'm going to go to your house, stomp around the place like an elephant, raid your refrigerator, and leave a used glass and plate on the counter so you wonder what the fuck happened to your sanctuary while you were out."

"Let me rephrase; you are bitter and angry," Seneca corrected herself.

"And this is going to be the wing-nut that is going to Isobel Diaz's party," Angel groaned.

"Oh, I see the difficulty," Seneca nodded. "You are never going to see him again. That could be a problem considering your current assignment."

"What! We are going to lose him?" Kuiko squawked. "No way, no how!"

"Kuiko, do you like me?" I muttered.

"Yes, but,” she got out before I held up my hand.

"Not showing up for the party isn't an option," I explained. "I told the Mayor I would go. I have to work in that building, with those people. I'm vulnerable. Going or not going won't change that, but I have to try."

"God, I want to beat you into the hospital," Angel barked. I didn't want to believe she meant that but that didn't stop me from shivering, my eyes opening wide and stumbling back. Even as the last words tumbled out of her mouth, Angel sensed her mistake. "I'm sorry, Israel," she pleaded. "I just, I'm worried about you and I'm not used to feeling so powerless."

"I need to go to my room," I whispered, turned and fled.

"Oh shit," Angel sighed behind me. A few minutes later, she knocked on my door. "I'm sorry, Israel. I truly am. I have to go back to work now, but, do you want me to come here when I get off?"

I had been thinking about that. I kept trying to convince myself that she hadn't meant that threat of physical violence. Acting combatively was her way of dealing with stress. I found myself trapped between my past mistakes and my dim hope for the future.

"I'd like that," I responded to the voice beyond the door.

(Saturday)

Three things were obvious to me as I woke up. Detective Angel Kristi was a light sleeper. There was no worry about me waking her and her accidently lashing out, I'd done that for years. Angel was wearing a dark pink panty or bra combo. Last night she had muttered an excuse about being backed up on laundry. I chose to believe her.

Finally, I had to do something about our relationship, if that is what we had. Her outburst yesterday had scared the crap out of me, but it had gripped her in an emotional paralysis. Despair had abandoned me for greener pastures. I'd go to the party, take drugs and become lost in the sexuality. I would recover, hate myself a little bit more and go back to work.

A few days later, maybe a week, two if I was lucky, I'd repeat the process. I would either fail spectacularly and Isobel would ring out what little happiness existed in my life or someone I didn't know yet would collect me and become the most important thing in my life. As long as I kept performing up to a certain level, I'd be fine but every time they would become a little less human in my eyes and I'd try a little less hard.

Eventually I would fail and be cast out. It wouldn't matter. Israel Jensen would have been washed away with all the other detritus of our society. I'd become a contributor, a sperm donor with a desk, a paycheck and a punch card for my social calendar. I wasn't there yet, so I had to keep struggling to find a way out.

In a strange way, I'd invested so much of my week in resisting, it was more logical to keep at it than to turn back now. I certainly wasn't going to lose any slower if I backed down at this juncture.

"Good morning," I greeted Angel as I rolled onto my side, facing her.

She was on her stomach, arms crossed over her head, under her pillow. Her grey eyes were in their normal, soul-piercing gaze.

"Hello, Israel," she responded. We remained silent for a few seconds.

"I'm going to kiss you," I told her. If I had asked, that would have passed the decision from me to her. I knew what I wanted. I doubted she could come to grips with her desires.

"Is that really a good idea?" she inquired.

"I don't know, but I know I'm going to kiss you if you stay," I said.

"Israel," she started to protest. I leaned in to kiss her. Angel tilted her head up so our lips could meet. I swept past her lips, brushed her hair to her far shoulder then kissed her behind her right ear.

"Israel?" she questioned. I ignored her, instead kissing to the base of her ear then up to the top. I kept her hair pushed back with gentle strokes of my hand. "Israel?" she tried again, more softly this time. When that didn't work, she lowered her head back to the pillow and started to relax. After reaching the top of the ear-base, I kissed the top of her ear rim.

I carefully made my way down to the earlobe, which I sucked on and bit.

"Israel?" she murmured. I imagined that she felt in her role as guardian, she had to offer some sort of resistance. I moved my lips to her jawline. She tried to kiss me again, but I went in the other direction to the back of her neck.

Her bra was unhooked before she even knew what was going on. Angel bit back a comment, another cautionary note. She knew we were past that now. I was dedicated to one course of action and she was going to make her last stand right before the moment of copulation. My secret weapon was timing, or more accurately, the fact that I was drawing out this seduction.

For three years I'd starved myself, devoting my barren sex life to the women's pleasure then my own quick release. I didn't allow myself to enjoy the act of intercourse with the freedom I had enjoyed with Bethany. On weekends we would have sex for hours. Not actual penetration, but the art of touching, smelling and tasting your lover the way sex was meant to be, unrushed and done with total devotion to your partner.

After the sorority I couldn't hold off the demons long enough. Besides, the desire had evaporated in me. I didn't want to remember anything about the women I was with so getting to know them was a passionate dead end. I did the best I could for my own sake, because I knew I could and it was a gift that I could give up, but they couldn't take that away.

By the time I reached for her panties, Angel was sweating extensively. It had little to do with the room temperature. I had ran my hands over every inch of her from the top of her head, all along her back and sides. I'd rolled her a quarter way over on each side so that I would be less contorted as I concentrated on her scent and taste.

I worked her underwear down. She pushed up with her knees until I reached there, then with her toes until I got the clothing all the way down. Angel started to roll over but I placed a hand with slight pressure down on her hip to keep her in place. I kissed her on the tailbone, migrated to each cheek while I started to caress her folds from behind.

"Israel, I'm close," Angel warned me with quickening breath.

"Go with it," I cooed. "This is about you. We don't have anywhere to be until noon."

"Oh, oh, okay," she moaned. Two minutes later she hit her euphoria. My lips weren't even down to the back of her knees yet.

It was nearly midday when Roni rang the doorbell. I buzzed her in. Angel was coming out of the bathroom, dressed in pool attire and using a towel to dry her hair. I was coming out of the bedroom, a towel still around my waist. I was on my way to my dryer for my shorts. I normally don't wear any so I had to wash the 'storage musk' out of them.

"Hey you two," Roni called out. "Angel," she hesitated, "your hair is wet."

"Yes," Angel grumbled.

"And Israel has a towel around his waist and his hair is damp too," Roni grinned wickedly.

"That would be because we took a shower," Angel glared.

"Screw this," Roni chuckled. "Israel, get over here." I was clearly uncomfortable. "Please," Roni added. Reluctantly I stepped her way and presented my wrist.

"Hold on," Angel growled. She stomped back to the bedroom, retrieved her phone and scanned my wrist once more. "Don't make me punch your lights out," she challenged Roni.

Roni scanned me then took a step back.

"Oh, Fucking, God!" she exclaimed. I was pretty sure Angel was about to deck her.

"Don't make a big deal about it," Angel threatened Roni.

"Big Deal?" Roni gasped. "I'm stunned you can still walk."

"I'm going to get dressed," I muttered. I didn't want to hear that conversation. I didn't want to be any part of it. I had done what I had done and I wasn't going to be ashamed about it, I promised myself that. I gathered up my clothes, retreated to my bedroom and quickly got dressed. The two ladies had resolved something by the time I came out.

"You look nice, Israel," Roni tried not to grin too broadly. I hadn't worn these clothes in three years. I was uncertain why I had kept them. It was a tribute to the North American Federation's physical regimen policies that I could fit into them as if I'd purchased them yesterday.

"Bethany Fremont bought them for me," I replied. I would have thought that would be a conversation killer.

These were nice clothes. There was no way I could have afforded them on my own. Without a scholarship I couldn't have swung the tuition at a college as nice as Bowden.

"Why didn't you get rid of them?" Angel asked.

"I put all her stuff in boxes, I put the boxes in my closet and I didn't look at them for three years," I informed her.

"I tried to act like they weren't even there. I couldn't touch them. The closest they came to the dumpster was when I was loading my rental for the drive here," I related. "I thought that time of my life was behind me and I needed the clothes, so I kept them. Now, after confessing all this, I feel like a total retard."

"Don't," Angel insisted. "You have to work with her for now so keeping your clothes doesn't matter."

"Besides, she didn't wear those clothes," Roni added. "They should remind you of you, not of her. We have to get to the party. Olga is bringing Jean Paul and if he's the sole guy there, she's going to be pissed."

"Olga?" I queried. If a woman could get pissed with you, a man need to know what she could bring to bear.

"Public Utilities Department," Angel explained. Power, sewer, communications, oh joy. Since she lived in this complex, she most likely worked in the field as opposed to an office.

The trip to the complex's pool set my nerves on edge. At the office, I could pretend to hide in my cubicle. At press conferences, I had my college training to keep my fears in check. On the metro, I could create a veil around myself to ignore all but the most intrusive female. Here, I was going to have to interact with women coming at me from all directions.

"I've got you," Angel whispered into my ear. She must have sensed me starting to shiver. Whatever courage I could work out from that promise was set aside as a blur came charging at me.

"You came!" Kuiko squealed. "I was afraid you would be overcome with a rare bout of common sense."

Panic was overwhelmed by the phrase 'rare bout of common sense.’ I snickered nervously.

"Hug?" Kuiko vibrated. The complication wasn't hugging Kuiko; it was having to hug every other woman at the party. I assumed that Jean Paul would go without. I opened my arms and Kuiko cautiously flowed into my embrace.

The tender moment was destroyed when Kuiko took her first deep breath of my aroma. She really was a total spaz.

"You've had sex!" she squealed even louder. Oh shit! I was sure that the Deli three blocks down heard that.

"I outta shoot you," Angel hissed at Kuiko.

"Really, that's so cool," Venus hopped up. "It didn't even take you 28 fucking days either."

As the girls started closing in, Kuiko realized the enormity of her mistake.

"Oh my God," Roni gasped in real, fearful understand. "This is what your life is like."

Yeah, it was different for Roni when the sexual liaison that the guy was trying to keep quiet about was with her best friend.

"Bracelet," Samantha demanded. There was nothing I could do; it was the damn law. She scanned my shackle, blinked then looked up at me.

"Really?" she turned to Angel. Detective Kristi was stone-faced. "Four times?" I had started out intending to have one long, sensuous erotic session with Angel. I took my time. I really took my time. For an hour and a half we took comfort in each other's bodies and energy. When we finally finished, we were exhausted and Angel Kristi had a new definition for love-making.

We rested for a bit then mutually decided to take a shower. Half way through the process, I suddenly found her staring at me excitedly. That was round two, brutal, raw and feverishly carnal. We cleaned up, went back to the bedroom, trying to figure out what had just happened, the thing in the shower. We seemed to have a positive consensus concerning our first encounter.

She turned to me, our hands touched. We couldn't find the words so we filled the void with a kiss. Thus began round three. Angel was more dominant that time around because that was her nature and I had been willing to submit somewhat without losing my sense of self. Angel was so enraptured and grateful for the experience, that it made it all worthwhile.

We agreed we needed a shower once more. We agreed we could do it together without worrying about having intercourse again. We were doing okay until Angel was washing her hair. She put the shampoo bottle in the holder but as she did so, she tilted her hips back and her buttocks pressed against my slumber prick. Thus began round four.

Next thing I knew, I was powerfully aroused, I had her pressed face-first against the shower wall and I was slowly engaging her while she pushed back with every stroke. We were lucky we didn't turn into prunes after all the water that ran over our bodies. Angel and I were still trying to put some sense or reason to the morning when Roni showed up.

"Angel, you cured him," Venus declared.

"No, I didn't," Angel countered.

"Who did then?" Samantha pressed.

"He's not cured," Roni stepped up.

"But he had sex four times in the last five hours," a different women said after looking over Samantha's shoulder. "He has to be cured."

"No!" Kuiko shouted. "He's in love." That was not a concept I was willing to face. Love had been so terribly cruel to me.

"Calm the fuck down," Angel commanded. "Israel and I are not,” she stopped. "Israel, are you in love with me?" she touched my arm and inquired in disbelief. See, me being in love with her would make the entire past two days of our lives make sense, so we both denied it. With my life lessons in mind, I did the only thing I could. I turned and walked rapidly back toward my condo.

"Israel?" six different female voices called out. No one seemed to get the message that walking away was a clear signal I wasn't going to have this discussion. I picked up my pace. I made it inside my place, but was at a loss how to continue further. My domicile wasn't safe. No place in the city was safe for that matter.

I was staggering around the living room, trying to reason out if the bathroom was safer than the bedroom when the doorbell rang.

"Israel, we need to talk," Angel requested. I found it remarkable that there was this confidence within me that if I told Angel to leave me alone, she would.

I flicked the lock and she came in. We had this détente for several minutes before Angel gave up on attempting to bring order out of the chaos we were immersed in.

"Israel, if you, if you like, no, if you care, I mean, if you, have feelings, no damn it, if you love me, I, I wouldn't mind, no, I mean, I would like that," she stammered.

"You realize this makes our lives worse, not better?" I reminded her. Being in love meant there was something else that could be taken away from us. Love was an intoxicating fantasy. In reality, love, loyalty and devotion were counter-productive to what men were supposed to do. Women could hold the desire to fall in love, but to wish a man to fall in love with you was selfish.

"Worse?" Angel groaned sarcastically. "Telling my superiors I've fallen for they guy I'm supposed to be watching over is going to go over like an ember on a glacier." It took me a second to realize that was Angel's way of saying she loved me without using those exact words. "What are we going to do if I am transferred?"

"You move in with me, I guess," I replied.

"Israel, you wouldn't let me in your condo when we first met. We were shouting at each other yesterday," Angel made excuses. I didn't know if that was to give me an out or convince her not to make the commitment.

"Any relationship with me is going to be far from perfect," I told her. "I'll give you everything I can. I can't promise more than that."

"If I wake you up in the middle of the night wanting sex, what will you do?" she sighed.

"Scream," I answered honestly.

"Oh," she snickered ruefully. "This is nuts. We are so wrong for each other, but, if my boss blows up and I don't move in, Kuiko will camp out on your doorstep in a misguided attempt to protect you."

"I've never been more worried about someone I think honestly cares about me doing me harm by accident," I related to Angel my feelings toward Kuiko.

"I, um, see where you are coming from," Angel nodded. "If she stays over for the night, she sleeps on the sofa. I find her less irritating as I get to know her, but I don't trust her."

"Okay Angel, being referred to as a possession makes me uncomfortable," I explained.

"Fine, I'll put in an Attachment Request on Monday," Angel decided.

"Please refer to my last statement," I expressed my concern.

"You don't want to become attached?" she worried.

"I don't know what that would mean to you," I reposed. "If you think it means you can better protect me, I have to say 'no.’ If you want to do it so we can hang out together then I'm okay with it."

"You are giving me conditions? Do you think you are the only man I can get with?" Angel grumbled.

"I don't care, Angel," I held my ground. "You aren't a contest to me. I'm not measuring you against anyone."

"If you must know, I can get with a woman who is richer, can protect me better and make my life easier. I don't think I can find someone who can care for me more than you do though," I explained. "I certainly don't want you because you are a cop. I want you because you scream and yell at me, but then you apologize and mean it."

"There is no way you are going to let me be in charge, is there?" Angel stared at me intently.

"I sincerely doubt it," I confessed. "It's not just you. I don't know if I will ever release all control to a woman again."

"I swear to God, Bethany Fremont and I are not finished," Angel pledged. I didn't want Angel to harbor a grudge against Bethany, but I wasn't about to become combative with Angel over the matter either.

"What do we do now?" Angel muttered.

"We go back to the party," I sighed. "I couldn't forgive myself if I left Jean Paul alone."

"You don't even know him," Angel questioned.

"On the off chance he is anything like me, I can't leave him alone," I told Angel. With that, we returned to the party and the flaming Perdition that was feminine civility and need.

(Saturday Night)

For the life of me I couldn't figure out how I ended up with six women in my tiny condominium. Even the delusion that I could control my own household was collapsing around me. I put my dresser against the bedroom door before changing for Isobel's meat market affair. The absurdity of it made me giggle nervously, I was barricaded in my bedroom so I wouldn't get molested as I dressed for an outing where I knew I would get molested.

Outside of my bedroom, I was the victim of the whole 'coterie' mentality among women. Angel and Kuiko made perfect sense and natural allies in creating a protective or possessive bond around me. Expanding upon my growing feminine network, Aniqua and Roni were organic additions, being friends and roommates of the first two.

Venus and Samantha had been included out of necessity. The first four couldn't keep an extended cordon around me to stop the other complex mates from crowding in. If those four closed in too much, it defeated the purpose of trying to limit my proximity anxiety. By some arcane process, Venus and Samantha had been the ones who migrated from the intruder side of the equation to the containment side.

Once dressed, I moved my dresser and returned to my crowded living room. I was confronted again by my fundamental ignorance of female communications. Angel and Kuiko could (almost) freely approach me. Roni and Aniqua had thrown a certain level of compassion and respect my way. My comfort level with them was established. Samantha and Venus were on the other side of the emotional dividing line, their desire for sexual contact was their first priority.

In no way I could fathom, the first four had decide on how much contact Venus and Samantha could have. I wasn't consulted. Hell, I wasn't aware of the actual conversation where that had been decided, but it clearly had. Venus and Samantha staying within those invisible guidelines, if they had strayed, I assumed the others would intervene, was more understandable.

If any woman broke the rules, the other five would expel them from my presence. My opinion was not sought out and I wasn't overly offended by my circumstance or insulted by the way I was being treated. In society, women naturally protected their interest in men. At least I had the choice of my 'shot-callers', Angel and Kuiko aka the Odd Couple and the by-rules of this little group included not pressing me for sex.

I may have fallen in love with Angel, but it was Kuiko who opened my eyes. Sure, I was still primarily a cock and balls show. As my odd little Asian friend had showed me though, I could contribute a great deal to the peace with hugs, a smile and interactive conversation. I had the impression this was a totally new approach to most of the women with me, everyone but Kuiko.

Promptly at 8:15 pm the doorbell rang. The security system showed me a trim, strongly built woman with black hair and a crisp, coal-grey pant suit and white shirt at the door.

"Hello?" I greeted her cautiously from the other side of locked door.

"Mr. Jensen, I am your ride to the function tonight," she said. At least she didn't sound haughty.

"Israel, open the door, stand to the side," Angel ordered as she stepped out of the kitchen. I did as directed because I hadn't a clue what she was up to and it was too late to argue.

"Hey there,” the woman got out.

"I'm Detective Angel Kristi of the Metropolitan PD," Angel brandished her badge in her left hand.

I noticed Angel's right hand was behind her back.

"Show me some identification please," Angel directed.

"That is hardly necessary in this situation," the women smiled calmly.

"Let me rephrase," Angel glared as she whipped out her pistol from behind her back and pointed at the strange woman's head.

"Show me some God-damned I D right now or I'm going to paint the door across the hall with your skull and grey matter," Angel menaced convincingly.

"Whoa now," the woman raised her hands. "You've,”

"Wrong answer, Asshole," Angel's trigger finger tightened.

"Wait, I'm a cop!" the woman blurted out. When Angel didn't fire, she continued. "I'm pulling out my badge with my left hand, okay?"

"Nice and slow," Angel cautioned. "Hand it to Israel." The woman produced the badge as promised. I read the identification out loud, it was bad news.

"Sergeant Eliza DeMosa, Metropolitan Police Force. Executive Protection Detail," I read.

"See, I'm a fellow cop," Sergeant DeMosa started breathing again. "You can put the gun away now."

"Hardly a fellow, you fucking pimp," Angel snapped. I handed the Sergeant her badge back.

"What is your problem?" DeMosa shot back.

"You are dragging a man against his will to a whore fest, like you didn't know," Angel sneered.

"What?" the woman looked to me.

"It was this nightmare or a 72 hour psychiatric watch," I told her. "You don't need to put me in restraints, but please don't pretend I have a choice in this matter."

"Um, okay," Eliza replied. "We need to go now." I guess she had her orders.

"Sergeant, I want you to know that if Israel comes back fucked up, or doesn't come back at all, I'm looking you up," Angel promised. "No one else, just you."

"Detective, you need to have your hormone levels checked," DeMosa responded.

"Sergeant, you are about to run off with a twenty-one year old male," Angel snarled as she stepped forward and pressed the barrel of her pistol against Eliza's forehead. "If he gets damaged or vanishes, no one you are working for now will save you from the federal investigation that is going to land like the space station on your head."

"They are going to be more than happy to let me at you in an interrogation room where I am going to shove a cattle prod so far up your ass your teeth glow," Angel grew deathly calm. "If something happens to him, come at me guns blazing, flee to Amazonia, or swallow your piece because you will find no mercy from me. Clear?"

"As crystal, Detective," DeMosa answered. Angel stepped back and lowered her gun.

"Israel, be careful and keep your hopes alive," Angel said. As I made to leave, Kuiko ran up and hugged me, burying her head in my underarm.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she repeated. "Sorry to crowd you, but please take care."

"It is okay," I sighed. "I have friends now." I didn't believe that would help me. In my experience, you are always alone in the dark. It was what Kuiko wanted to hear, so I said it as I petted her hair. I had to push her away before I could make my way out the door. Eliza and I walked in silence until her car pulled away from the front of my place.

"That is quite a little fan club," she noted jokingly. She had a gun pressed to her head a minute ago and I doubt she had sweated at all. "Phone," she directed me to hand mine over.

"Are you going to cause Detective Kristi problems?" I gave her my phone but deviated from the question.

"She put a gun to my head," she snorted. "Yeah, what she did was insane." With one hand, the latest cop in my life flipped my phone open and popped out the battery & GPS. She dumped the chip in a box then closed the lid.

"If you do, I'll claim you tried to kidnap me and she acted in my defense," I reasoned.

"What? No one cares what you say," Eliza shook her head. "The security system will have recorded it all."

"Nope," I chuckled dryly. "After all, then some important people would have to tell a Grand Jury exactly what you were doing at my door this evening."

"I was taking you to a party," Sgt. DeMosa said.

"What party? At what address? Why did you feel it necessary to take my phone away from me and deactivate my GPS?" I countered. "Who was at this party and who told you to come get me? After all, if this was official police business, why wouldn't the appropriate authorities have alerted Detective Kristi, my assigned watcher or guardian, that another police officer was coming over?"

"Damn," she actually sounded impressed. "I guess she's off the hook then." It was the never-ending saga of women assuming men were one step above illiterate subhuman savages. "I like you, by the way."

"Like me? We don't know each other," I worried.

"At the press conferences this week. Unlike everyone else, you sound like you know something and aren't afraid to tell people the truth," she related. "I did a stint in White Collar Crimes before moving over to EPD (executive protective detail). Trust me, suits lie all the damn time about everything, big or small."

"Why are you doing this, tonight?" I inquired.

"I want to make captain one day," she told me. "That means kissing some political ass."

"I'll let you know how it tastes," I muttered. There was nothing else to say. This was the benign indifference that pervaded this culture.

She knew something bad 'might' happen to me but since she didn't have to witness it, she'd let events take their course. She had her life to live and I was a man. The comfortable assumption to make was that I was doing what I need to do to get by as well. Eliza didn't seem to be a bad person. She didn't have to be. All she had to do was not get involved and she was doing that admirably.

Sergeant DeMosa dropped me off in front of one of those high security towers I would never, ever be able to afford to live in. It was designed to withstand hurricanes (if one ever came this far inland), earthquakes and the collapse of civilization. You would need an armored battalion to break into this place, or an elite team of Special Forces.

Two women detached themselves from the structure, it had a one-way mirrored face, and rounded me up without actually touching me. No one said anything. We had nothing to talk about. I sensed a greater deal of menace than I received from normal cops so I made the guess that they were ex-military.

As I entered the channel into the structure, I was bombarded with every ray and particle of the electromagnetic spectrum to confirm the most insidious thing on me were the crowns on two of my teeth. I had swallowed the pills in my mouth right before entering. See, if you took too many anti-nausea pills at one time, it made you vomit.

I was counting on that, but the clock was now ticking before this overdose kicked in. I had to throw up in the narrow window between being fed my aphrodisiacs and the time it took them to dissolve in my stomach and get into my bloodstream. The only weapon I had was my wits and I wasn't going to surrender that without a fight.

"Hold up!" a male voice called out before the doors shut. One of my two minders hit the 'door open' button and a well-tailored man with frosted blonde hair slid in gracefully. I've been told I'm good looking by a fair number of women, but this guy was freaking gorgeous. On second glance, I realized he wasn't handsome, he was pretty, sculpted so.

"Hi, I'm Gil," he offered his manicured and pampered hand. I looked and gave a weary smile, but did not shake his hand.

"I'm Israel," I replied.

"I know," he smiled with his perfect teeth. "I've seen you on TV. You are weird."

"Thanks," I shrugged.

"It wasn't really a compliment, Israel," he smirked.

"I'll get over it," I shook my head. "You come to these often?"

"All the time," he gleamed knowingly. "I often get special requests."

"Nice," I said non-committedly. "Where do you work?"

"Parks and Recreations," he grinned.

"Live near here?" I persisted. Hell, the legitimate head of P & R couldn't live in this neighborhood.

"Yep; five blocks down. Drove my car here too," Gil bragged. He drove his car, five blocks.

"Nice ear rings," I pointed out. Diamond studs.

"Yes. They were a gift," he touched them fondly. I wondered how many facials that cost him.

"Nose stud?" I looked him over. He nodded.

"I see you have a piercing for a nose ring," I continued. "Going to put it in later?"

"Yes," he responded with far less enthusiasm.

"Prince Albert? Cock stud?" I inquired. "Does the cock ring go on later too?"

"What are you getting at?" Gil was becoming decidedly less friendly.

"You have more cock-jewelry than a pole dancer, you have your face cut to look like a much younger boy yet you're in, what, your late twenties or early thirties?" I continued. "You wear the crumbs off their tables like freaking prize possessions and you dare call yourself a man. I'm sure Washington, Hathcock, Gordon and Shugart would be proud."

I was pretty sure Gil barely had a clue who the first man was. He was at a total loss as to who the other three were. They hadn't even been famous in their time. Those three did share two things though; they were all very dead and all had adopted peculiar vocation for dealing with their enemies.

"It is your first time," Gil countered vindictively. "You'll learn."

"No, I won't. Ask anyone who knows me knows, I refuse to learn anything," I snarled. "I do know this; in a few weeks, maybe a year or two, you are going to tumble down. Women farther down the hierarchy who settle for cast-offs and hand-me-downs will take you in for a short while."

"Then you will tumble again, farther and farther down until you find a middle class women who doesn't mind that you are a washed up whore. Because, you will always be a whore," I glared at him. Gil pushed me and I stumbled back. My minders did nothing. Gill assumed something that might have been a fighting stance.

"I've been trained to defend myself, Jerk," he smirked. He had instruction alright, but I doubted it was really effective. His female trainer would be far more interested in pumping up his testosterone levels than any actual training.

"You are a dancer, not a fighter, Numb-nuts," I snapped back.

I whipped out my belt, folded it in two and got ready to wail into the bastard, but when I hauled back for the first swing, one of my female minders reached out and grabbed my forearm.

"Oh, now you show some initiative," I bitterly remarked.

"Not the face," she instructed. I nodded then kicked Gil in the nuts.

Whomever had taught Gil how to fight had failed to drill in any combative reflexes. I was on the mark. Gil's eyes bugged out, he whimpered then toppled over like a rotten tree in the forest. I was slammed into the elevator wall by my first minder.

"You said nothing about the balls!" I screamed, trying to stave off the beating I felt coming my way.

"Kick his ass," Gil rasped through the pain from the carpeted floor of the lift.

"We don't work for you," my second minder mocked Gil as she yanked him back to a standing position.

"If I let you go, are you going to stop acting stupid?" minder one asked.

There were no words I would dare let out of my mouth considering the multiple poor choices I'd been making so I nodded instead. She let me up. She pointed to the belt I'd dropped when she slammed me. I knelt down, picked it up and offered it to her. She shook her head so I stood and put it back on.

Gil looked at me with hate-filled eyes. There was something else there too. He'd convinced himself that selling his body made him part of the powerful women's little club. He had just learned he was little more than a hood ornament on last year's model. He wasn't even a person in their servant's eyes. My return stare told Gil I was laughing at him on the inside.

My options were either derision or pity, and I was all out of pity for parasites like Gil. He was the stereotype that women accessed whenever they wanted to reduce male humanity to trophies in their minds. Men would give up our sexual beings for trinkets. Once the sperm left our bodies, we ceased caring what happened. We were all off to the next bauble.

To that way of thinking, male whores were the 'honest' ones. The rest of the male population simply hid it better, or refused to admit what we were really all about. Men like Gil made it that much harder for the majority of males who were nothing like him. Worse, Gil's lifestyle rarely worked out well in the end. He wasn't even helping himself.

Gil wobbled out of the elevator first. My minders had to push me, I was so scared. I would have administered cunnilingus on both of them if I thought that would let me take the elevator back down. A woman in a tuxedo waiting close by. She let Gil pass but approached me.

"Mr. Jensen," she smiled pleasantly. "Please come this way and welcome to the party."

"I'm Tia and I'll help you through all the things you need to know before the party starts," she rambled on. "The patrons will know you are a little nervous, and a little tired," she winked, "so try to relax and enjoy yourself." Wondering what drugs she might be on took a back seat to the wink and the 'little tired' remark.

The four of us went around one of the turns in the corridor then through a door into a dressing room. Several guys were in various stages of undress and by the suspicious looks I received, Gil had already blathered about me. She handed me a wrapped tuxedo.

"Here," she kept with that warm, friendly smile, "put this on. I don't need to ask you if you've showered, but do you have any cologne or perfume?"

"No," I muttered. This was getting bad. "Where do I change?"

"Just do it here," she instructed.

"Can't I have some privacy?" I all but begged. With friends around me, I'd still barricaded myself in my bedroom to change a few hours ago.

"It's not like it is anything we haven't seen before," she giggled.

"I don't know you and I doubt you've seen me naked before so could I please have a secluded spot?" I repeated. Tia laughed at me.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she stifled that laugh with her hand. "No private rooms though. I apologize."

"No cologne or perfume," I repeated. I put the suit bag on a hook, zipped it open and began sorting through the costume I was supposed to wear. It was a nice tuxedo, most likely silk or some sort of silk blend. Their choice of underwear was, economic on materials used, I was beginning to hyperventilate and the room was starting to spin.

"Problems?" Tai asked nicely. I shook my head. She pulled out a small pill box from inside her vest and popped out a pill. "Take this, it will help," she proffered up something to me.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It helps with anxiety," she informed me.

"No thank you," I mumbled.

"It really will help," Tai insisted in her pleasant tone. "It won't affect your ability to perform; don't worry about that."

"Please," I begged.

"Listen Israel," Tai became harsher, "you can take this or they can make you take it. I don't want that and neither do you." She was smiling again. No choices.

"You haven't identified yourself as an EMT or physician," I stared at her. "So, I decline your attempt to peddle your crap on me. Beat me up if that makes you feel better. You are nothing but animals anyway and we should all stop pretending you are not."

Tai shrugged.

"Hold him," she told my minders. My resistance was feeble and I obediently opened my mouth when they twisted my head in position. A cop would have known better but neither the two women restraining me, or Tai, were cops.

When Tai presented the pill, I extended my tongue. She was still giving me that pleasant, kind smile as I took the pill in.

"Let me see inside your mouth," Tai commanded. I showed her, she looked around to see that I had indeed swallowed the poison. The clock was ticking.

"Your continued resistance makes no sense, Israel," Tai scolded me patiently. Something inside me cracked.

"When you are reduced to a skin-bag of meat impaled on a metal rod for days, you'll understand what it is to not give in to putrid wastes of humanity like yourself, Tai," I grinned angrily.

"Until then, you don't get to question what makes me keep fighting. You are simply too ignorant to understand and I don't have the time to torture you enough so that you get it," I added.

"They are going to love your passion," she snickered. She motioned the guards to let me go.

The rest of the dressing process was quick and quiet. I could feel my stomach twisting and lurching, seeking release. Most of the men had evacuated the room by the time I was done. My first stop upon leaving was meeting Isobel.

"You've already been a pain in the ass and you've barely been here ten minutes," she regarded me thoughtfully.

I had no reply. I need to speed things along.

"You look nice," Isobel looked me over. "It is nice to see your eyes so alert after your marathon sex session with Detective Kristi. After seeing that many of the ladies have expressed an interest in you." I couldn't keep the humiliation and sense of violation from my face.

"You had no right," I whispered.

"Israel, I promised to destroy you and I am, one piece at a time," Isobel glowed vindictively. "Consider this your first installment." They had hacked my security system illegally and showed it around Isobel's clientele to up my value at the upcoming flesh auction.

How could I have possibly believed that my private, sensual moments with Angel would remain so? Isobel knew about the sorority sex tape and this was a clear imitation of that degrading experience. I refused to become submerged to this latest assault against my identity.

"Here you go, Israel," Isobel offered me a pill and a glass of champagne.

I took the pill and a long pull on the glass.

"Will this make me forget?" I whispered vacantly.

"Oh no," Isobel. "This lets you remember everything. This wouldn't be any fun if it didn't."

"At the end of this, I really think I'm going to be dead, Isobel," I muttered, "but you will still be the monstrous, twisted evil sow you are right now."

Isobel's left hand lashed out, her hand gripping my throat and started to strangle me.

"I like it when they fight back," she snarled in a darkly passionate outburst. She must have held me there for thirty seconds before Tai cleared her throat. Isobel let me go. "Get him out of here."

As Tai, my two minders and I approached the last door to the 'reception' room, one of my minders held me back.

"Where did you hear about those names?" she asked. I had to assume she was referring to my little talk with Gil in the elevator.

"Civics 3 0 4, my junior year at Bowden: Studies in Character," I responded. "The study of the last two led me to history of other Congressional Medal of Honor winners as well as men of that profession. It isn't like I could ever be in the armed services, but it is still my history."

"Did you ever learn any other names?" she asked. Her partner and Tai looked irritated.

"Do you mean like Walker?" I questioned. She nodded. "Where did you learn the names?"

"It was in the graduation hall where I went to school," she regarded me. At least not all male history was being swept away, I thought. It also told me the woman was trained as a Special Forces sniper.

Tai took me through the final door and introduced me to the room. At first glance, there appeared to be twenty men and twelve women as 'participants' and around fifty party guests. This way the guests had to 'compete' for the party favors. Not that we would appreciate that largesse, Isobel would.

"Ladies, this is Israel Jensen," Tai announced. "Don't be too rough on him. It is his first time, though not his first time today." She turned to me and quietly added, "Israel, I hope you have a good time tonight."

"Tai," I whispered back, "I hope your car battery explodes and burns you to death."

She giggled, patted my ass and began to circulate the room. Me? I spotted what I needed and made a bee-line for it. I was almost at the balcony when a woman came out of one of the many padded chairs in the room and grabbed my arm.

"Hello there, I'm Magdalena but everyone calls me Maggy," she smiled.

She was somewhat short, heavy but curvaceous, voluptuous, I supposed. She was maybe in her mid-thirties with short, wavy black hair, expensive jewelry and wearing a backless, silver gown with deep cleavage and breasts that clearly needed support.

"Nice to meet you," I mumbled. "I gotta go." If I didn't I was going to spew all over her.

I broke free and ran for what I was praying was a balcony. I stepped into the city's cool night air, found what I was looking for, a planter, and vomited into it. Whatever male had spread this recipe for avoiding being drugged failed to mention the sheer pain of having your stomach attempting to exit your esophagus. I was back in my dorm room in the aftermath of Bethany's sorority function all over again.

I was still bent over with both hands resting on the sides of the planter when a voice spoke up from right behind me.

"If you are finished, you can have my drink," she offered. I nearly vaulted the planter. Only the height of the shrub kept me from trying.

I spun around to face a woman of indeterminate age with blonde hair and blue eyes. She had an odd, lopsided quirk to her lips, a daring, floor-length red dress and a gold and diamond choker. Her features were hauntingly familiar but I was too scared and physically discombobulated to figure out how. She was extending a long stem glass of something my way.

I gingerly took it and walked over to the railing. It was as high as my ribcage so jumping over wasn't going to be easy. I wasn't so disillusioned with my life or my chances here to embrace the seventy story fall anyway. After taking a deep swig of the alcohol, I swirled it around my mouth, spit it back into the glass and throw the whole deal off into the night.

"Wine not up to your standards?" the lady in red mused.

"It is probably pointless, but thank you. I'm Israel Jensen," I responded. "I don't take anything I'm going to put into my body from a woman I don't know. Your kind has the annoying habit of dropping the dope of your convenience into things coming my way."

"Delilah," she tipped her head in greeting. "Delilah Fremont."

"Any relation to Bethany Fremont?" I requested.

"She's one of my daughters," she replied. "I understand you two aren't getting along right now."

"Kind of in the way that Boadicea didn't get along with the Romans," I stated. Considering that the Celtic British Queen had started her rebellion after being raped, this was somewhat apt.

"Ah, rumor has it you were irreverent," Delilah mulled over. "Have I done anything to earn your ire?" That was a bit of an odd thing to say and definitely far cleverer than anything Bethany would have come up with.

"Beyond living long enough to breed, nothing I can think of," I shrugged.

"Oh, very well, I can understand that impulsive reaction," Delilah allowed. "Don't you believe that men should still try to replenish the Human Race, despite personal tragedy?"

"No." That word pretty much summoned everything else I might have said.

"That is an awfully bleak epitaph for our species," Delilah didn't sound angry or offended.

"Quite frankly, I haven't seen a damn thing this entire week that would make me lift a finger to save any of you," I started back at her. "The few women I have found worthwhile can't be saved by me and won't be saved by you. My only regret is that the worst of you won't die in the bone-wracking agony you so richly deserve."

"This doesn't qualify as participating in the party, Israel," Isobel murmured threateningly. She'd snuck up on me as well. "Monday is starting to look very complicated." She had Tia and my two minders with her.

"Wait," I gulped. "She's a guest, Delilah, I mean."

"Mr. Jensen and I were discussion funerary rights as well as future mortality projections," Delilah intervened urbanely.

"Dr. Fremont, I wasn't referring to Israel's dubious ability at conversation but at the fact that he seems to have purged his medication," Isobel clarified. The ever-present surveillance system had boned me again.

"I concur with that," Fremont nodded. "He's not sweating, his pupils aren't dilated and his breathing is steady. It was probably some sort of IG medication, probably an anti-nausea drug."

Isobel glared over her shoulder at my minders.

"We didn't see him take anything," minder one stated.

"Isobel, those kind of drugs take ten to fifteen minutes to work. He may have done it before he entered the building," Delilah suggested.

"Israel, all your little ploy earned you was a stomach cramp. Tai, dose him," Isobel commanded. What the fuck was I going to do? I edged down the railing but there was no visible egress from this place.

"Why?" the woman who I had shrugged off earlier asked. I was too fearful to try and figure out where she'd come from.

"Standard policy," Isobel answered icily. "He needs the 'pick me up' and his mood is a bit unstable." Isobel was explaining herself?

"Previously submitted evidence suggest Israel has no problem performing," Maggy grinned. "Standing up to you is hardly a reason to dope him. Besides, a spirited man really screws you up inside, or it used to Isobel."

That was far more than I ever wanted to know. Usually you fight back to scare off your attacker. What the hell was a man supposed to do when it excited the aggressor instead?

"That's enough," Isobel seethed after she turned on Maggy. "We need to talk."

"Until you come back, I'll keep an eye on Mr. Jensen," Delilah spoke up.

"There is no need to drug him," Delilah stated.

"I concur," Maggy added.

"Fine," Isobel conceded poorly. In a few seconds I was left alone with Delilah again.

"Some men would make a gesture of gratitude," Delilah studied me, "or be curious about what happened."

"I wouldn't be here if you didn't feel entitled to hold functions like this, so thanking you would be disingenuous," I answered. "As for the rest. I don't want to know any of you. I don't want to know anything about you. That you are stewards of our dying culture is wish fulfillment, or karmic justice."

"Do you really think that, or are you lashing out because of your own personal injustices?" Delilah argued. "My parents were both medical researchers when the plague hit. My father died in year four, working right up until the end. The day after he died, my mother went back to work. I've followed in their footsteps, looking for a cure."

"How is that working out for you?" I remarked.

"Ever heard of a drug called Carabolix 37?" she countered. Something tickled at the back of my brain but I couldn't figure out the what, why, or where of that memory.

"No," I lied.

"It was the last anti-viral to be cleared for live trials," she informed me. Live trials meant men being experimented on. "It was tested twenty years ago. I worked on it. Of the eighteen men in the trial, nine died from massive organ failure, eight developed a highly aggressive form of testicular cancer and had to be castrated to save their lives."

"The last subject died of massive testosterone toxicity. We couldn't suppress his testosterone production fast enough to save his life," she related.

"Okay, beyond being a very depressing story, why are you telling me this?" I worried.

"Forty doses of Carabolix 37 were saved for what we would hope would be future research," she started.

"Twenty doses were stored at our research facility close by," she gave a sliver of a smile. "The other twenty were left at the research hospital where the trial was performed, St. Jerome's." That made no damn sense. When I was rescued by the police from the Aurora Slasher, they took me to St. Jerome's, because it was the closest hospital.

Still, I couldn't imagine the doctors and staff using it on me. That made less than no sense.

"Very recently we went looking for both stockpiles. The one at our facility is safe but the one at St. Jerome's is missing," she was prodding me along. I didn't know where.

"What do you think happened to it?" I muttered.

"I think someone who mistook it for a fertility drug stole it," she regarded me slyly.

"How many doses did each test subject take?" I whispered.

"One," she was starting to smile.

"Why am I still alive?" I mouthed. The breath to power the words wouldn't come.

"Now that would be the intriguing question, wouldn't it?" Delilah looked at me in a startling motherly way. I fell down. My knees turned to water and I folded like an accordion. I was in that basement, she was talking to me as she bathed my body. She wanted me clean. She took a vial out of the small refrigerator down there, filled the syringe and came at me.

We were going to make a baby, she promised. We were going to make many baby boys. She shot me up, it hurt like hell, like my whole crotch had been set on fire. It hurt for days. I begged her to stop but she kept injecting me. The pain got worse and worse and worse until one day it simply vanished.

When the law came for the Aurora Slasher, they didn't even know I was alive. Only after the stampede was over did one officer get assigned to search the basement for evidence. When she saw me, she first thought I was a corpse. Only when she flashed her light in my eyes did I blink and turn away. There was a lot of yelling after that.

My first question to the EMT's was if 'she' was still alive, she was. I then asked about our baby. I wanted to know if our baby was okay. They had no response for that, so I feared the worse, she'd miscarried during the fight. It wasn't until the Federal investigators talked to me the next day did I learn that the Aurora Slasher could never get pregnant. There was no baby. There would never have been a baby and all I'd been through had been utterly without purpose.

It had taken eighteen months to submerge all of those painful memories yet here they were, back again.

"Israel," Delilah called out to me quietly. "Israel?" Using every tool at my disposal, I jury-rigged my psyche back together and forced my way to my feet.

"So you do remember," she mused triumphantly.

"If making me remember any of that was supposed to inspire me to give a crap about any of you, you were sorely mistaken," I growled. “No, you are a top medical doctor who experiments on men, as though they were mice, and expects the patient to adore you afterward.” I chided sarcastically; “Hippocrates would be so proud of you.”

"If you want to see your children, I can help with that," Delilah offered. "In turn, you could help me help all of us."

I wanted to scream at her. I wanted her to realize how fucking sleazy and evil she was for using my offspring as a lure to carve off another piece of soul by helping any of them.

"I need to think about it," I mumbled.

"Very well," she agreed compassionately.

She wasn't even putting any time pressures on me. It didn't make her one of the good ones. It made her one smart predator. Bethany had inherited some of that subtlety but was too over-privileged to appreciate it.

"What do you do?" I asked. Doctors and researchers were well paid but not paid enough to end up here, or so I believed.

"I'm majority stockholder in Augsburg Pharmaceuticals," she informed me. God, I'd been dosed with a variety of her concoctions multiple times in my life. AP was also famous for the creation of 'aggression suppression' drugs, things they used on male prisoners to keep them in check so they could be used for breeding. That shit was so nasty you had to have your civil rights voided by the courts first.

I was struggling to keep my breathing under control. I'd given up on my heart rate.

"If you have an anti-viral that works, why aren't you doing something?" I blathered.

"I don't know why it works, for one," she explained calmly, "and if this was to become public knowledge before we had manufactured an appropriate supply, the governments of the world would void my patents and create their own batches."

I couldn't tell her, but that was the best impetus I'd ever heard for me committing suicide and I'd literally been through hell. Killing myself was a pointless surrender. Stopping Dr. Delilah Fremont from leveraging my horrific fortune into an economic windfall was worth it, almost. I simply didn't know if a seventy story fall would render my testicles beyond recovery.

"Have you ever wondered that it was someone just like you, trying to play God, who started the Gender Plague in the first place?" I inquired somewhat hopelessly.

"Oh, I'm sure of it," Dr. Fremont responded instantly. "It really is a masterpiece of genetic engineering," she grinned happily.

"It is specific in its targeting, it mutates randomly and it grows in potency with each hundred or so permutations," she added. She admired the damn thing. I was sorting through that when the words impacted me.

"It's getting tougher?" I gasped.

"Yes. It is damaging male spermatozoa, increasing the likelihood of female births. Successful male inseminations suffer from a higher rates of fetal mutations and miscarriages," she informed me.

"Why tell me this?" I wondered. "I'm hardly a fan."

"You are a compassionate survivalist, Israel," she profiled me. "You are angry now, but you seem to get over it and let your compassionate nature shine through. How many boys will die in their first year if you do nothing? You may hate me and Bethany, but you don't hate your daughters. You don't want them to grow up never knowing the loving touch of a male lover."

To be continued

By FinalStand for Literotica