Sex and the High Command by John Boyd Read Free Book Online Page B

cumber.”
    Even though Captain Hansen was braced against improbabilities, Amos Culpepper almost delivered the coup de grâce . Behind a huge and completely bare desk, Culpepper’s pink face formed a perfect circle, and his black hair was brushed straight back without a part. Any man concerned with his appearance would have broken the circle by fluffing the hair, but Culpepper had added a pair of pince-nez spectacles as thick as the bottoms of beer bottles and of such magnifying power that they turned his eyes into two pale-blue circles floating out from the center of the larger circle.
    “Gentlemen, you wish to know why you are here. First, I would like to ask a question: Are you Christians?”
    “Yes, sir,” the chief answered.
    “Good. It isn’t so hard for Christians to accept what is happening because we have accepted the Virgin Birth of Our Blessed Savior. Technically, this miracle is called parthenogenesis. Artificial parthenogenesis has long been practiced in biology labs on tadpoles. Natural parthenogenesis in human beings is not unknown. In 1924, in Lincolnshire, England, Mary X, a virgin with a nun’s cap 1.8 millimeters thick, was delivered of a fully formed girl child, stillborn but completely developed.”
    Annoyed by Culpepper’s pedantry and the pacing of his words, Hansen interrupted. “Tm under the impression that we’re here to stop a feminine peace movement,” he said.
    “Under that guise it is practiced,” Culpepper said slowly, “but females must always give themselves an excuse for their lewdness and sensuality, be that excuse sentiment, duty, or drunkenness. As a man, I can speak bluntly. The subject for this cabinet meeting is self-induced childbirth arising from autoeroticism in the female.”
    “You mean they’re playing pocket pool?” the chief gasped.
    “There’s been no information of this nature published in Navy bulletins,” the captain said testily.
    “You can readily understand, gentlemen,” Culpepper said, “that these incidents occur in a very sensitive area. Women are not willing to advertise their practice, and men are reluctant to publicize the fact that they have been rejected for a vaginal douche. As for your question. Captain,” he turned to McCormick, “carnal release is not achieved through self-manipulation. Rather it arises through a chemical agency known by the trade name of Vita-Lerp but popularly referred to as jazz pills, vaginal bombs, or California jumping beans.”
    “Well, I’ll be a bald-headed woodpecker,” the chief ejaculated. “When that little doozy was telling me I was better than a V-bomb, she was comparing me to a douche!”
    “Why, Captain, this amazes me.” Culpepper was equally surprised. “You’ve had relations with a woman after she’s been bombed?”
    “I’m the chief, but I did.”
    “Tell me, how did you manage it?”
    “Mr. Culpepper,” the captain intervened, “the chief’s lecture takes over an hour. You tell us. How did this thing get started?”
    “Two years ago,” Culpepper began, “a cell biologist named Martin, in Van Nuys, California, discovered the product and marketed it as a rejuvenating facial creme called Vita-Lerp because the chief ingredient was oil of eucalyptus plus alkaloids. It actually has a rejuvenating effect, though temporary.” Here, the pace of Culpepper’s words faltered. “My wife used it on her face, first… Dr. Henrietta Carey, a gynecologist then working at UCLA, met Martin at a cocktail party. He explained the action of Vita-Lerp to her in technical terms, and she recognized it as a possible breakthrough in DNA chemistry. Not even she suspected to what extent, until she used it to give tone and resiliency to the tissues of a female patient who was barren because flaccid vaginal tissues blocked her Fallopian tubes. Dr. Carey inserted a capsule into her patient while her patient’s husband waited in an anteroom to be called. When the capsule melted, it became obvious that the