Justin Caas - The Third Sex

“Sometimes,” I admitted, “but it’s not a situation that happens to us often. Actually, I can’t remember it ever happening in the Ministry service—at least to me.”

“Seems a pity to waste it,” Zoë mused pointedly.

Zoë was looking at me speculatively.

“I could get fired for this.” I ventured uncertainly.

“You risk a serious health problem if you don’t. Naturally I’d testify to that effect.”

I had to laugh at her earnestness. “Okay, you want it, you’ve got it.” We were hard at it for the next thirty minutes which seemed to suit Zoë down to the tips of her toes.

We stopped only because I was getting hungry. “You know of a good place for lunch?”

Zoë reluctantly untangled herself. “Sure. Say you’re pretty good—better than the last Stud we should do this again!”

I suspected that was coming. But first lunch.

Contrary to her self-putdown Zoë turned out to be a very good conversationalist and was entertaining and humorous as well with a wry view on life and people.

“When’s the next appointment?”

“At two o’clock.” Zoë looked at her watch. “Let’s do it again, there’s plenty of time.”

“You might wear it out,” I protested.

“What!” Zoë gave a shriek of laughter. “You said on one busy occasion you were doing sixteen women a day and it lasted a week. That’s 112 and…”

“Plus the ones I did for recreation, don’t forget those,” I admonished.

We both laughed. But I had to admit that Zoë was an exceptionally good ride and as there was not much else to do I succumbed once again to her charms.

The remaining two bookings were fairly routine. Zoë insisted on being discreetly present at both of them, claiming that watching me got her going and there was enough time inbetween bookings to have a quick one. I strongly suspected the Zoë purposely arranged bookings so that there was always time in between to suit her purposes. But she was good company and I didn’t object too much.

The following day there were another three bookings and Zoë had arranged them one after another from 9:00 am. When I queried her on this she explained that it gave us the rest of the day for relaxation. “You mean for fucking, don’t you?”

“Well yes, there is that,” she admitted. In the event another surprise visitor turned up and asked for the 11:00 slot which annoyed Zoë but nothing she could do about it. The client turned out to be a woman aged 26, a pleasant manner and she referred to herself as nicely plump. Zoë hissed in my ear, “She means she’s fat but won’t admit it.” I signalled Zoë to shut up.

Ms Annie Arbury announced that she already had one lovely little boy and was looking forward to having another. The Stud she used the last time said the chances were she’d have a boy and that’s the way it turned out and do you think it’ll be a boy this time?”

“Providing fertilisation takes place as close as possible to ovulation and with deep penetration, the chances are pretty good,” I agreed. Whereupon Ms Arbury confided with no trace of embarrassment that she’d enjoyed getting it good and deep like the last Stud did and was hoping for the same technique on this occasion.

With a straight face I said, “Madam, our standard technique is the deep one, in fact we specialise in quite deep ones.”

“Oh good,” Ms Arbury enthused. “It’s such a nice sensation isn’t it?”

Zoë regarded her sourly, cut further praise short by preparing her for her impregnation and leading her through sanitation to the consulting room.

After Ms Arbury had departed Zoë said reproachfully, “You gave her quite a bit of extra, didn’t you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked innocently.

“All that slipping it in then out again so she could see how big it had grown. That was disgusting.”

“Not at all. It’s in Ministry Rule 43, section (c) ‘If a client requires visual stimulation to assist with a more comfortable experience then the Stud shall not deny this request providing at all times that it is not used to unduly delay the culmination of impregnation.’”

Zoë eyed me narrowly. “You just made that up, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

We both laughed.

“Come on,” she tugged at my arm, “I’m needing it badly after that bleak performance.”

“Madam,” I said with dignity, “I don’t do badly. I do only excellent!”

“Well hurry up and do it excellently to me then, I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms already.”

The six weeks slipped by all too quickly. I would sadly miss Zoë, her bright personality, engaging manner and at times an almost child-like innocence made her a great companion.

It was more than a year before I completed the circuit and returned to my home town, met up with my parents and with Alf and Kate. There was a lot to catch up. Alf had grown more distant from the family, now worked for a high profile company of surveyors and as surveying, for the younger ones at least, required a lot of field work, Alf was destined to travel the world. We had never been really close but I was sad that he now seemed more distant than ever.

Both parents were welcoming but wrapped up in their own small world which was now so alien to my own. With Kate at least we quickly renewed our former closeness. She was living at home and with our mother’s connections had found a niche in computer programming which she said she enjoyed. But not as much, she admitted with a coy look, as the stuff we used to do together.

“So I suppose that’s all changed now that you’re… that it’s a job for you?”

“Don’t see why it should?” But it felt strange. We had both changed and been changed by our occupations in the intervening year, perhaps me more so because of the sort of work I did.

“What’s it like? Doing it all the time…with other women?”

“It’s hard to describe. But like most jobs, it has its good moments and its bad times. It’s really all about people and the way you get on with them. I’ve had to learn to bend my reactions and preferences to the requirements of other people and at times that has been far from easy.”

“When I think of intercourse,” Kate said, a little jealously, “I think of intimacy and closeness, the special thing we shared. How can you just do it with someone you’ve just met, someone you don’t even love?”

“Kate, you are thinking of this from your own perspective, as a woman and also a normal human. I am not normal. I was made , engineered , to perform the role that has been chosen for me. I can perform because it is instinctive. When you smell a flower, the fragrance floods through your senses. You don’t actually choose to experience the fragrance, it happens naturally. The only choice you have is whether or not you elect to smell the flower.”

“I sort of see what you’re saying,” Kate responded slowly. “It just seems sort of alien to me. But I suppose we are what we are. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No. Although if we’d spent longer together than my tour of duty and I was no longer bound to the Ministry, I could easily fall for a nurse at one of the clinics.”

“Who was she?”

“Her name was Zoë. She was a lot of fun. She was also a lot like you which is perhaps why I took to her so well in the first place.”

Kate smiled. “Still the same smooth talker I see.” But she was secretly pleased.

“I have to start work on Monday. If you’re free today, let’s go for a picnic.”

Kate considered it, “Why not?”

We packed a hamper and set off for our favourite spot. It wasn’t too far away. A secluded hideaway surrounded by a tangle of low shrubs and vegetation on three sides with tall trees forming a bower overhead. The open side looked out to sea above a steep cliff. As far as we knew, nobody else had discovered it, at least the little markers we had left from our last visit were unmoved. It was quiet, anonymous, our own space.