The room fell silent as this information was digested.
“I still disagree,” Major Luckner objected, but with none of his former forcefulness.
“Then by all means, test the reality in open court. In such a case your daughter may have to take the witness stand and if the facts surrounding the gentleman’s explanation,” here he glanced at me, “are proven to be true, then you risk public ridicule as well as a counter-claim for damages.
I think we have gone as far today as is possible and I urge both parties to think carefully on their future courses of action. Unless there is a further matter, the meeting is closed.”
Major Luckner interposed a further objection, “Now that my daughter is probably pregnant, who do I look to for redress?”
The judge glanced at me. I responded, “Sir, that is not possible. For pregnancy to occur a Stud’s testicles must descend outside the body. Any medical exam will show that this has not happened. Your daughter has not been fertilised, at least by me.”
Both Luckners decided that this was a good time to leave further questioning lest it lead to new discoveries and further embarrassment. Mrs Luckner marvelled at how little she really knew of her daughter’s life and motivations—no doubt as parents everywhere have done.
It was a sobering wake-up call for me. There are apparently some women who can say one thing but mean quite another, for reasons known only to themselves. But it behoved me to be on guard in the future for such manipulations lest I fall prey to a fortune seeker with a more criminal intent.
Major Luckner after consultation with his wife and daughter agreed to let the matter rest, claiming that he was dissatisfied with the outcome, but it was better than dragging the family name through the gossip columns and in this regard he gave a hard stare to his daughter and advised that from here on, she was recommended to give up any actions which could be construed as ‘teasing boys’—or wear the consequences herself.”
For her part Lucy pouted sullenly and claimed to be the one taking the blame for everyone else’s shortcomings. Nevertheless it was noticed that Lucy trod a more discreet path thereafter.
Chapter 6
The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.
I had just turned nineteen when I realised I had two short years of freedom before having to start work. Unless they are studying for one of the professions, most boys start work by eighteen or even earlier, so I was better off than most, although the prospect of twenty years in the service of the state doing the same thing every day seemed daunting. Still, meet that when it comes.
Unlike my earlier teenage years I found myself becoming increasingly popular with teenage girls. Thomas asked me, “You have a girlfriend yet?”
I shook my head. “It’s not likely to happen. I enjoy their company and friendship. That’s as far as it goes.”
“But why? I know that Wendy is keen on you.”
“It would hardly be fair, would it? Let’s assume I marry Wendy. Would she be pleased at the prospect after a romantic honeymoon that I had to begin work fertilising a dozen or so women a day?”
Thomas looked disconcerted. “You have a point,” he admitted. “Do Studs ever marry?”
“Oh some do, but not all Studs enter the service. Some choose to reject the role—it’s not actually compulsory—the compulsion comes from within because after all that’s how we were designed. But like everything in life the compulsion to follow this path varies from individual to individual. Some find they aren’t cut out for it but as far as I know, every Stud in active service remains single.”
“Bit sobering. Where do you get this information?”
“Eugenics Ministry. I have to register with them next year and there are periodic training courses in preparation for starting work. In the meantime I am free to practise a bit of free-lance loving. I think you might be mistaking the interest that girls have been taking in me. For most of them, I’m a curiosity. Admittedly a few are keen to invite me home, but it’s their mothers who take more of an interest thereafter.”
“What a sinecure,” Thomas sighed. “Here am I struggling to find a girl with similar views on life to my own—without success I might add—whereas young housewives are falling over themselves to invite you into their bedroom.”
“Not quite,” I cautioned. Studs do occupy a special place in society but a husband returning unexpectedly to discover his wife hard at it with an unregistered stud would not necessarily be happy. Discretion is needed.”
“Who was the first one?”
I decided not to mention mother and especially not my sister. I had started mating with her from the time I turned fourteen, an activity we both found very agreeable. But after the fiasco with a certain Lucy, I became a lot more cautious. “Well the first housewife, I met at the school social. I was sixteen at the time. Naturally I can’t tell you her name, but I’ll refer to her as Sally. Sally was a vivacious young lady of red hair and green eyes equipped with all the usual feminine curves and also possessed of a strong determination to achieve any goal she set out to reach. It soon became apparent even to one as innocent as me, that her present goal was to try me out as it were. She knew about Studs and for some reason the concept intrigued her. At her invitation I visited her home one afternoon when the family were away.”
It was all very casual and social for a start. Sally made me a cup of coffee and chatted about various things. I was only sixteen but I was socially at ease with older women. I also had the very great advantage of an acute sense of smell. Words can say I’m not interested sexually. Gestures and body language can say I’m not interested sexually. But smell is almost infallible. When a female is on heat she gives off a detectable aroma. It’s harder to pick if she’s wearing perfume, but it’s still there. Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean that because she’s on heat, she will give into that impulse. But it does give a Stud, and a dog for that matter, a pretty clear indication that her body is ready and waiting. It remains to be seen if her mind follows suit.
Sally was clearly on heat. But at the moment she was disguising it with a conversational curiosity. She said, “I’ve never met a Stud before and I wonder just how many there are in this city?”
I thought. “At present I think about one in a thousand births is a Stud. So in a city of our size.” I thought for a moment, “about a million people there should be roughly a thousand.”
“Wow!” she exclaimed. I had no idea there were so many!”
“Well,” I responded wryly, “If you knew everyone in the city you’d have one chance in a thousand of meeting one and you’ve already done that. But of those thousand, only perhaps 400 or fewer are active. Reason being, according to Dr Fox, that many are not interested in spending the best years of their life doing nothing more than impregnating women. There are others who are genetically weak. Since our origins the original purity of our breeding has been steadily eroded so some are simply not suitable.”
Sally looked at me with a curiously unreadable expression. “How about you? Do you intend to enter the service?”
Well I’d been asked that one before. Many times. I smiled, “It’s too early to say. By the time I reach twenty I’ll know more definitely, or so I’ve been told. It’s something inside you: either you are driven to this life or you aren’t, and according to present records there are more who don’t than who do.” Then as another thought occurred to me, “I also have to pass the genetic profile test. That means any offspring must have the best chance of being free from diseases, defects and with a bit of luck, be a better than average child.”