James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“Guys!” Bob Wier laughed and glanced nervously over his shoulder. “We’re in a public place. Do we have to—?”

The Colonel leaned over the table. “It’s your genes talking, Paul.”

Paul was trying to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t help but notice Stony swaying in their direction carrying a tray crowded with plates of food. High over her left breast, over her collarbone, she had pinned a bright yellow button, but at this distance Paul couldn’t read it. She stopped at a tableful of guys and distributed the plates, while the men’s faces swiveled towards her like sunflowers towards the morning sun.

“You know what I mean, Professor,” the Colonel was saying. “Deep in your mitochondrial DNA, you see a perfect mother for your offspring: a young, healthy, strapping woman with a strong, shapely pelvis for giving birth, and firm, full breasts for giving suck.”

J.J. smirked. “Giving what?”

“Oh, God.” Bob Wier put his face in his hands.

“Did you say suck?” said J.J.

“Young J.J.’s mind is in the gutter, Professor, but then his mind is supposed to be in the gutter. He’s supposed to be thinking about spreading his genes to every young woman in this room, thus maximizing his genetic legacy. It’s certainly not love. It’s not even lust. It’s the selfish gene guaranteeing its own survival, like salmon swimming upstream to spawn, mindless and shrewd, all at once.”

“You know,” said Paul at last, lowering his beer, “a little Discovery channel is a dangerous thing.” It was like being trapped in hell with E. O. Wilson.

The Colonel manufactured a hearty laugh and rocked back from the table. “Very droll,” he said.

Stony arrived and squared her shoulders. “How ’bout it, guys? What’s your pleasure?”

The men fell silent in the presence of tawny Stony. Paul found himself wondering what to do with his eyes and his hands, and at last he folded his fingers together on the cool tabletop and glanced sidelong at the fulsome curve of her breasts. Then he lifted his eyes to the yellow button at her shoulder, which read ASK ME ABOUT OUR TENDER CHICKEN STRIPS!

“I’ll have the chicken strips,” said Paul.

“I believe I’ll have them, too,” said the Colonel.

“So,” said J.J., leaning in, “is that breast meat?”

“It’s not just breast meat, hon,” said Stony, a little more cannily than was attractive. “It’s tender, juicy breast meat.”

“Sounds fingers-lickin’ good,” said J.J., leaning closer.

“Oh, they are! Especially if you dip them in our own special dippin’ sauce!”

“Wow, dippin’ sauce.” J.J. was hanging off his stool. “What’s in that?”

Bob Wier hyperventilated speechlessly, his eyes wide as coffee cups.

“He’ll have the same, my dear,” said the Colonel. “Chicken strips all round.”

“Outstanding!” Stony reached along the table again to collect their menus; J.J. settled back on his stool and theatrically fanned himself. She swung away, and all four men sagged a little in their seats, unaware until that moment that they’d all been sitting a little straighter.

“No doubt you’ve noted Stony’s professional detachment,” the Colonel said, watching Paul. “She smiles and thrusts her bosom at us, but she keeps that certain distance.”

“Fucking cocktease,” muttered J.J., half turned around on his stool.

“A professional necessity,” Paul heard himself say, “in a place like this.” Paul knew he shouldn’t argue with this blowhard, but it was such a relief to be asked his opinion on something and to have his opinion listened to. After all, didn’t he have eight years of graduate school training in talking about gender? “It’s what this place is engineered for, isn’t it?” Paul went on. “The tease. The slap and tickle.”

“No fucking shit. They’re all fucking teases.” J.J.’s restless gaze bounced from one waitress to another. “None of these bitches would give a guy like me the time of day.”

“That’s one way to put it, my hormonal young friend,” said the Colonel over his beer. “But look at it from her point of view. Hers is a finely calibrated performance, and I don’t just mean her professional restauranteur’s hospitality. It’s her genes speaking.” He sipped and smacked his lips. “Young Stony wants to attract a robust fellow like you, or the professor here or even an old buck like myself, but she’s prepared to make us work for it. While it’s in the male’s interest to spread his seed as widely as possible, it’s in Stony’s interest to find a potent, yet reliable fellow who will participate in the raising of her offspring. Given the investment of time involved, Stony can only yield to a man who she can be certain will feed and protect her offspring. To oversimplify, young J.J. here is interested in the quantity of partners, while the discriminating Stony is interested in the quality of one partner.”

“What’s he saying?” J.J. narrowed his gaze at Paul.

“That you’d like to fuck them all,” Paul said.

“Fucking A.” J.J. sat up straight and took a manful drink of beer. “Fucking bitches.”

Propped against the window, desperately watching the traffic outside, miserable Bob Wier was repeating scripture to himself under his breath.

“Do you think I’m wrong, Professor?” said the Colonel.

Paul hesitated. Did he really want to argue the construction of gender with this jerk? His ex-wife Elizabeth, the theorist of gender, would have handed this loser his genitalia about twenty minutes ago. But then Lizzie wouldn’t have been sitting in a Headlights to begin with, would she? She wouldn’t know what it was like to be a man surrounded by other men, waited upon by half-dressed young women, sitting here half aroused, with his hormones singing in his blood. She couldn’t possibly get what it was like to stew in your own humidity, heat prickling the backs of your eyeballs, sweat coming out on the palms of your hands. Dear God, he thought, what if the Colonel is right?

“Do you know what ‘essentialism’ means?” Paul heard the condescension in his own voice.

“No,” laughed the Colonel, “but I can guess. All your fancy literary jargon doesn’t hold any water any longer, Professor. I’m talking science, son, science . Philosophy is over. There is no more philosophy.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Paul.

“The world’s turned upside down, Paul,” said the Colonel fiercely, leaning across the table. “Suddenly they don’t need men any more. Single mothers. Lesbian mothers. Or they forgo motherhood altogether and compete directly with us in the marketplace. Why maximize their genetic legacy, why pick a mate, why have children at all, when they can take our jobs . Look at all the childless women in our office: Olivia, Renee, Nolene.”

Paul remembered the three child-safety seats in the back of Nolene’s van. “I think Nolene has kids,” he said.

“She might as well not have them,” spat the Colonel. “Is she home with them? Ensuring their safety and survival? Hell no, she’s at work, raising them by proxy. It’s not natural , Paul. Don’t you get it?” He clasped Paul’s forearm in a painful grip.

“Easy,” Paul said, but he couldn’t pull free.

“Look across the length and breadth of our office, Paul. What do you see? Cube after cube of women working at jobs that men used to have. Cube after cube of women not raising children.”

There was a breathless silence at the table. Even Bob Wier stopped praying and turned away from the window. J.J. gripped his beer with both hands and shifted his gaze from the Colonel to Paul and back again. Paul tensed his arm under the Colonel’s grip. The Colonel fixed Paul with a furious, penetrating gaze.