WINNING BY THE NUMBERS7
Date: June 3, 2006
From: fireflywatcher fireflywatcher@gmail.com
Subject: Winning by the Numbers, Chapter 7 : Falling into Place
Warning:
This story contains scenes of a sexual nature involving two men. If reading or possessing such material violates the law in your jurisdiction or you are under the age of 18, please leave this site and read no further.
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Disclaimer: This story is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental.
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Winning by the Numbers, Chapter 7 : Falling into Place
Dex gladly accepted a glass of Weller, with as they say in Texas " branch water' while we drank ours over ice. The only difference is temperature, really. Where I grew up, branch water might have the appearance of pinto bean juice though, rather than the thin clear liquid, water from the tap held. He was overjoyed to see Dan again. That first semester in the dorm, Dan and I shared a suite with him and three other guys. We remained friends until we went separate ways. He did have one major character flaw. He enjoyed making obscene phone calls to other guys listed in the university directory, late at night. If you overheard him, you'd think he was gay, for sure. He mostly called guys with Arabic, Indian, or Iranian surnames he said would be 'distracted' for days by his call, because they were dateless and desperate. I put myself in their position and felt sorry for them but laughed hysterically hearing his end of the conversation quite a few times. He was totally straight, I tried. Even drunk, he wouldn't play.
He borrowed my guitar and played some Spanish love songs directed at Wanda until she made it clear she wasn't buying and Dan praised his improved skills on the guitar. "Thanks for the drinks and thanks for the referral. I was getting tired of designing boring shit and this job will be stimulating." I never explained we were on the board, although Dan's title now was CFO, Chief Financial Officer, and not a board member and we all wished him a good evening as he left.
I fixed Dan one of his favorite suppers after Wanda left, then he asked my help unpacking at the mansion. I swear the place was haunted, it creaked so much, but the empty space must have multiplied sounds beyond normal. I helped him unpack, but it was just his clothes and some pictures to hang. The kitchen had everything you'd need and I tried to get him to go grocery shopping with me but he just cried "you know I can't cook anything Dave', so I relented and told him to come to my place for supper every night he wanted.
If I stayed any longer I knew we would both end up sticky and needing a shower, so I headed back home. My dreams were just as bad and I woke up sticky needing a shower anyway. The real thing would have been more fun and I could have made amends for any hurt I'd caused Dan in the past. I wasn't ready for that.
Reed announced the next morning that he'd contracted to have a lot of our work done, all over the country in clinics and hospitals. We would receive pictures, histories, measurements including the critical one, and a vial of blood for tests on each candidate, plus a generous supply of baby batter. At this change in procedure, egg donation would dramatically slow in pace relative to sperm donation. Eggs had to be fertilized before freezing and a limited time window existed between harvesting and fertilization. Matches had to be selected in advance. He began to seek candidates in the military and among the general public by placing ads in various magazines and newspapers. He advertised in gay publications as much as possible. Within a month our sperm ;library had over 200,000 donors listed. It wasn't a bank, but a library because we held full DNA profiles, IQ. family histories, names, pictures, and measurements. It was almost complete enough to know a donors favorite color or what kind of food he preferred.
Wanda and I were continually running DNA testing. Reed solicited the computer science department to create a program that could sort out our desired markers from photographs of the DNA tests. At $100 a pop to sperm donors, we were going through money quickly. Dan was increasing our trust fund rapidly, but not enough to meet Reed's spending. Reed hit the road for a month seeking more funds and giving lectures, which drew in potential benefactors. He utilized those contacts he'd already established to meet other benefactors. In that month he brought back $300 million from 475 contributors and we were double what we had previously, but the library was up to one million sperm donors and growing.
I was sure he was fucking or sucking a lot to get all that money. His power of persuasion just wasn't that great, but he had reeled Wanda and I into his plans, so what can I say. We both got our degrees in May, and Charlie and James were there to watch us walk down the aisle. Wanda would start medical school in the fall, sponsored by Reed, as would Loraine, our psychologist co-board member. We moved into the apartments in the mansion on Swiss Avenue days later when the work was complete. Mine had three bedrooms, one occupied by James and I, one for Charlie, and Dan took the third rather than having his own. Wanda and Loraine shared as well. Reed took the chairman's apartment on the main floor and there was a lot of beautifully decorated space left over. Two apartments on the second floor, two in the attic and in the carriage house attic, three smaller ones in the mansion basement, Reeds and the foundation residence comprised the whole. All together we used three apartments. My courses for my doctorate started a week later and I got a raise to $1260 a month at the lab. Wanda's raise was to $1800 and she thought that was big time, but it would end when she left to start medical school. Charlie was hired at $550 a month as our lab tech and courier and could work around his class schedule in the fall.
People would ask Charlie what he did and he'd say "I pick up sperm at the airport and carry it to the freezer" and he'd giggle. I told him to study the want ads in the Sunday paper before he chose a major. Pretty diplomas don't pay the rent.
We spent time at the pool over the summer and went to Queens Point on Lake Dallas for an all over tan. Work never slowed down. Then in August they started having trouble finding guys who met the qualifications, they no longer measured up. Two million donors filled the liquid nitrogen tanks in the labs behind the mansion and it would take a year or more to finish DNA testing and processing them all. The library was declared full, for the moment. A friend of Wanda's took her position in the lab and her girlfriend took the job as chef for the foundation. She cooked evening meals for all of us, did grocery shopping, and prepared meals for foundation functions Reed held at the mansion. She'd gone to the New England Culinary Institute and her skills were incredible. Having prepared meals takes the 'responding to your cravings' aspect out of eating, but the smells quickly got you in the mood for whatever was offered. They took an apartment on the third floor.
Maybe we got boring, but I prefer to think we were all just too busy for a while. Reed continued to bring in more money and Dan multiplied it as fast as he could. Very little was going out. In May of '79, I got my doctorate, again in immunotherapy using viruses. James finished his first year at SMU Law School, Wanda her first year of medical school, and Charlie his first year of college at a local community college. We began to hear stories of a rare pneumonia among gay men usually only seen in cancer patients. It didn't respond to treatment and they died very quickly. Time passed on by and most of our efforts were in egg harvesting and fertilization. We began getting some requests for embryos.
James finished law school in 'May of '79, Charlie and Wanda finished in May of '81, Charlie with a business degree which he continued on his MBA to help Dan. Then in February of '82 Reed went into the hospital suddenly and died in three days time. They had a name for it by then, AIDS. It was the pneumonia and he didn't have a clue he was ill. His last request was for me to assume the chairmanship and to stop all sperm and egg donations until the disease was gone from the world. Dan took my seat on the board as I took Reed's. We had nearly a billion dollars in the trust and all we could do was wait for the pandemic to pass and let the money grow. By our charter, not one dime could go to any other purpose but reproduction.
Not one institution wanted any of our skills, even for free, or the use of our labs. We were doing quite well as a sperm bank however because all our specimens were collected before the disease spread. The morality of disclosure went out the window. They wanted what we had to offer and we began providing it, complete with all the collected information, but they lacked the skills to know what the genetics meant. James and I have gay sons born to surrogate mothers, and one daughter, all college graduates and athletic. It's been twenty four years now and the embryo bank is empty, but the sperm library has many more potential children held in the liquid nitrogen tanks in the carriage house. I give James a big kiss as Dan sits nearby and say "we may win by the numbers yet."
THE END