posted 05-13-2002 10:38 AM

Unless his father is rich, a graduate student in computer science will most likely end up supporting himself by working on university research projects or, if he doesn't speak English, by teaching undergraduates. These students make less than a freelance can recycler. A few students work part-time at a useful craft or trade that supports them in comfort. I decided that I would practice
such a trade: Professional sperm donation, the jack of all trades.
During my first visit to the sperm bank, I was taken to the office of the doctor in charge. His walls were covered by medical degrees and citations for his achievements in sperm preservation. One of the citations said "Honorable Discharge," which I thought was a bit grandiose.

"It is of the utmost importance that semen samples remain sterile," the doctor explained.

"Sterile semen?" I oxymoroned.

"Thus, samples must be produced by unassisted direct manual stimulation of the genital protuberance."

"Huh?"

"Choke the purple-helmeted love nazi."

"Oh."

"Furthermore, before the production of each sample, there must be three days of abstinence."

"Three days? 4320 minutes! Is that really a good idea?" I had visions of being rushed to the emergency room to have my scrotum lanced and drained as it expanded like a Jiffy Pop bag. "I'm no doctor, but I think an hour of abstinence is enough. I mean, we're not aging a fine wine, are we?..."

I was scheduled for a donor room, where I would have to deliver samples, piping hot, in 30 minutes or less. I didn't know if I could become aroused under such conditions. I was of an impressionable age when I first saw Racquel Welch in "Fantastic Voyage," and afterward I could only be aroused by women who wore rubber diving suits and were covered by foot-long antibodies. (These days, having your partner in a rubber suit covered with large antibodies is not a bad idea.) I've since grown out of this habit. Although now I can only become aroused by a woman if she turns the letters on my "Wheel of Fortune" board game. I decided to get some men's magazines for immoral support.

As a teenager I found Penthouse to be highly stimulating. (As a teenager I found everything to be highly stimulating. I had to take up tennis just to explain my tennis elbow.) However, Penthouse photographs are often rendered in a diffused soft focus, which is why you go blind. Eyestrain is the reason you often see men crying when they read the magazine.

Once, when I was fourteen, my father wondered if he should get a subscription to Penthouse. "Great idea!" I panted. "It offers an insightful editorial posture and interviews with personalities of topical interest."

He shrugged indifferently.

"You have to get it! You absolutely have to! It offers guides to fashion and accessories, goddammit!" I shrieked before passing out. Now I've started to actually read those articles. I used to put magazines under my mattress so they wouldn't be found; now they're there for lower back support.

I thought that, if I'm going to be a professional in a medical facility, I should forget the over-the-counter products like Penthouse and look for more potent prescription remedies in the shops of the
red light district.

These magazines did not have interviews with personalities of topical interest. Their titles generally were the names of female body parts. One was called "Female Body Parts." The magazines might serve a medical professional as references of female anatomy and its many diseases, but they were too much for me. I settled for this month's issue of "NBC Anchorwomen in Chains."

As it turned out, I was able to wield Excalibur without anxiety in the clinic's donor room, and I looked forward to returning there on my twice-weekly visits. I didn't appreciate it at first, but I eventually realized what a terrific room it was. It had a wicked, shameless chair, a voluptuous, come-hither lamp and a coy, pouting paper towel dispenser. However, the room was small, or perhaps it only seemed so because when there I was usually homo erectus, so I was constantly upsetting lamps and clearing shelves. Okay, maybe not.

I produced so many test specimens that the doctor could have built an infant from scratch and avoided conception altogether. But after several weeks, the testing was over and I was sent back to the doctor's office.

He said that I had been accepted into the program: my sperm count was five times higher than average.

There it was. In seconds, I had become an awesome engine of fertility, a sexual force to be feared. Condoms and diaphragms could be shredded by my Zulu sperm cells as their superior numbers overwhelmed the British outpost of the ovum. My minions could overcome any female contraceptive resistance and commit countless acts of microscopic date rape. My ego was further engorged by the fact I'd finally met someone who wanted me just for my body. I was a sex object, meat on the hoof. The doctor obliged by talking about me in the cold quantities of sperm counts
and motilities, reciting my "tale of the tape" as us pro athletes call it. He also referred to donor candidates by number instead of name to preserve anonymity. To the doctor I was The Man With No Name, a hired gun.

"A hun'rd and ten million! That's pretty good shootin', stranger. What'd you say your name was again?"

"I didn't say...."

From now on, I would be paid. My one-armed bandit had consistently hit the jackpot, and now I was going to cash in. Some guys think their penis has a mind of its own. Mine had a career of its own.

It was during my next visit, as I approached the main desk, that I first saw her: Candy the candystriper.

.... end, part 1

... start, part 2

I had never been particular about my women. Two X chromosomes sufficed. But Candy was different. Perhaps it was the three days of fluid backing up into my brain that made her look like an angel floating toward me. Perhaps it was her helium breast implants. All I knew was that I wanted to suckle that bosom till I talked like Donald Duck.

She noticed my groin, which bulged handsomely due to the bag of ice I put in my pants to keep down the swelling.

She gave me a specimen cup and I went into the donor room, where I was great. A minute later I returned.

My headache was gone. I sauntered over to Candy's desk and turned on the charm, which I can do pretty much at will.

"Sorry, but my cup runneth over with love."

She smiled the dazzling smile that is the gift of a woman with braces. She said, "You might want to zip up your fly."

"Why, you eagle-eyed minx," I teased. "You've been watching my fly, haven't you, like a photographer waiting for a glimpse of the Loch Ness monster."

She giggled. "So, what do you do?"

"Here? Um, I do what all the other guys do. But better."

"I mean, what do you do for a living?"

I hung my head. "I'm a computer science graduate student."

"Really? Can you say something in computerese?"

"Awk grep sed lex yacc?"

She squealed with delight, and her sudden increase in body heat caused her implants to expand. I had it made.

On our first date, I learned all about her. A woman of compassion, she had bought a water bed because it made the fleet feel more at home. She had also bought a high-tech, no-mess vibrator, only to learn it was an electric orange juicer.

I thought it would be responsible of me to inquire about her medical history. Her gynecologist had said that, though she needed retreads, she didn't have any social diseases. This was a relief because it meant the president wouldn't have to order a stand down of all naval operations. Her neurologist had said that her brain was still a virgin, its fragile tissues untouched by knowledge.

Her favorite literary work was Kafka's "Metamorphosis." She hadn't read it, but she had seen an ad for the promo of the music video. She could empathize with a human mind that finds itself trapped inside the body of an insect, because she suffered the opposite problem.

She was the girl of my dreams.

Toward the end of the evening, I made my move. "Pound bang slash bin slash cush semi ell ess minus ell splat."

She fell against me, nearly swooning. Should I strike while the iron is hot? The sperm bank had already scheduled to within 4 minutes every ejaculation I would have in the next year. But how often does a man find true love? I decided I would service both Candy and the sperm bank, spreading myself thin, so to speak.

"Candy, would you like to go to my place and view my itchings? We could practice CPR. I'll check you for tumors. Maybe a lower GI series?"

We got to my apartment and with a flourish I opened the door to my my lair of lust. "Welcome to my Altar of Ecstasy, my Boudoir of Bliss."

"Gee, it looks just like a sperm donor room."

We wasted no time. She was so hot her bust deployed like a Chrysler air bag. All night it was twiddle twiddle twiddle pipe mount socket pound bang pound bang splat return. Consummate, consummate, consummate.

In the morning I staggered to the sperm bank. The vigor of youth had abandoned me. I needed a heavy styling mousse to achieve the hardness needed to raise my flag over Iwo Jima and produce a specimen. The cup would've held more microbes if it was filled with Jersey tapwater.

Unfortunately, the doctor chose that day for a spot check of my handiwork. He looked at my specimen under a microscope, but couldn't find anything. He continued hunting for Red October and finally found a sperm. It tried to swim, but then it grabbed its chest and rolled over.

So, my career ended as soon as it started. But my romance has flourished. Candy has proven to be a challenging libidinal dynamo, but nothing me and some new vacuum cleaner attachments can't handle.

He Got The Girl In This, So, How Much Of An "Imitation" Was It, Really?