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  “You were so generous, contributing to science and health this way. Let me show you."

  She took him to a small office where she rebandaged him, leaving a pipette for urination, then led him back to the laboratory.

  His penis was ensconced within a maze of glass tubing. Colored fluids traveled to its base, and there was the steady hum of a pump. A plaque set in the base of the display said: DONATED IN THE INTEREST OF THE WELFARE OF MAN—PRIAPUS GROSS.

  Good god! What kind of a monster would he seem if he took it back now? Yet—

  “You see, we have it transplanted into a compatible environment. Other organs have been kept living and functioning for years in the laboratory, such as chicken hearts, but this must be the first time it has been done with a penis. Isn't it a beauty?"

  “But it's my—"

  “And this way it will produce smegma under controlled conditions. We shall surely unlock the secret of its chemistry. Venereal disease will become a hobgoblin of the past. Between this and the Pill, there will be a new era of sexual freedom.” She paused, then added with less enthusiasm: “For those who really want that sort of thing. To me it is more of a technological challenge."

  Remembering the night past, he appreciated her limited candor. She was much stronger on clinical sex and lecturing than on actual man-woman performance with human feeling. She probably would not have played up to him at all if she had not wanted his penis so badly.

  “But what about me?” Prior cried at last. “I need it too. And not just for the cheese!"

  This time she didn't even flinch at his use of the vernacular. “Oh, didn't I tell you? My sister Oubliette specializes in the practical aspect. She's a bit liberal for my taste, but quite competent. She will provide you with a prosthetic free of charge, because of your service to Science. You will be very well off, by your definitions—her members are world-famous. In fact,” she added with a frown, “you will be able to perform as never before."

  “I perform perfectly well with my own prick, when not drugged!” he protested.

  “Here is her address. She'll be expecting you.” Tantamount presented him with a card.

  “But I don't want a fake pe—"

  He was already outside again, and the door was closing. She had managed him as readily as if he were a rebellious child. Perhaps he was, compared with her cynical subtlety.

  But her sister Oubliette was too liberal for her taste.

  Well, why not? He could stop over this evening, after work.

  Prior looked at the card. The address was about two thousand miles away.

  Part 2: Prosthesis

  Chapter 10—Oubliette

  Oubliette Emdee was, if anything, even more physically attractive than her sister. She knew the hair-halter trick, too, and filled her tinted tresses just as generously. She welcomed him warmly with a delicious kiss on the mouth. “We'll do the exploratory surgery this afternoon,” she said cheerfully.

  The kiss palled. “Exploratory surgery! All I came for was a fake—"

  “After all, we can't very well stick it on with glue,” she pointed out, taking his hand and using it to comb through her hair where it stretched across her fine cleavage. “We have to match cell types to be sure there is no problem of tissue rejection, and we have to phase in the nerves and conduits. Otherwise sensation will be imperfect."

  “Sensation!” he exclaimed, in his surprise grabbing hold of her left nipple and getting a nice dose of sensation himself. “On a prosthesis?"

  “Certainly. Ours are very special members. Every aspect must conform precisely to the original so that no one can tell that the organ is not genuine. Didn't Tantamount tell you?"

  “She's more conservative about such details. I thought it would be, er, a dead stick. Like a peg-leg or imitation arm. I—uh, does that include anti-VD smegma?"

  “That no, unfortunately. We can't duplicate chemical secretions from the organ itself. But everything else, yes. And you yourself should not be able to tell the prosthetic from your original while it is actually in use."

  Prior pondered that. As far back as he could remember, he had been called “Dinky” or “Pinky” or “No Show” or some such, and he was of average height. Girls had turned him down, not because the size of his member bothered them, but because the ridicule associated with it did. Three point nine-seven inches erect, and less when flaccid—it might as well have been an albatross tied around his neck. “Does it have to be identical?"

  “It doesn't have to be. But normally—"

  “Could it be ... larger?"

  “It can be elephantine, if that's what you really want. Or minuscule. Or pretzel-shaped. One man had the measurements of his horse duplicated for—"

  “And will it still work just like the real one?"

  “Better than a real one, because stronger and more durable."

  This was beginning to sound quite promising. “I'm not sure exactly what kind I'd like. Do you have samples?"

  “Right this way.” She removed his hand from her tress-formed décolletage and shook that breast back into place.

  Prior followed her, admiring the flounce of her hips as she walked. His two-thousand mile journey seemed worth it already.

  She had a trophy room full of mounted penises. Long, short, thick, thin, human, animal, erect, flaccid—every imaginable variant. Prior was frankly amazed. “I can't choose between them. I'd like to have a big, strong one—but that seems like being unfaithful to my original."

  “That's why most people duplicate their originals,” she pointed out.

  “But I don't like my original. That is, I like it fine, but it could use a couple more inches. I've heard of brides running screaming from the honeymoon suite on their wedding night; with me, she'd be laughing. Or crying."

  “Some women prefer a compact organ."

  “They may prefer it, but they don't respect it. Just once, I'd like to have a woman gasp and cringe when she saw what was coming. Instead of asking me when I expect to reach puberty. But aside from that, I'd be most comfortable with my own."

  “Hm,” she said, considering. “Tantamount informs me that you donated your original member voluntarily in a splendid act of magnanimity for the welfare of mankind. I presume that means she drugged you and snatched it on a technicality."

  “You understand her pretty well,” he said ruefully.

  “Yes. So I'm inclined to do a bit more for you than I ordinarily undertake. It's a matter of family pride.” She considered some more. “This is more complicated, but I could install a standardized socket. With that you could alternate members at will. Maintenance would be more critical, and you'd be in danger of short-circuit if you used it under water—"

  “Short circuit! I want a penis, not a soldering iron!"

  “Oh, it's not electrical—though some men do seem to want soldering irons, for what reason I hesitate to imagine. But neural connections—you could find yourself with a urine-stimulus in mid-orgasm, or vice versa. Could be awkward."

  “Guess I'll stay away from underwater intercourse, then, unless she's a whore.” But Prior felt a bit uneasy.

  Oubliette smiled. “All women are to some extent—"

  “You're saying I could plug in a big penis one time, and a small one next time? And they'd both work? And the doll wouldn't know?"

  “I wouldn't recommend using different units on the same girl, if you really wish to keep the matter private. Women are not completely obtuse about such matters."

  “Uh, yeah,” he said, remembering that he was talking to one. “Sounds worth a try, I guess."

  “There will be a wait of several days after the initial operation,” she said as though the issue had never been in doubt. “There may be some discomfort. You'll need diversion, and erotic play won't be feasible right at that time. Do you read?"

  “Last book I read was Huck Finn, in high school, and I didn't understand it."

  She frowned, and the expression reminded him so much of Tantamount that he felt nervous a
gain. Then her mouth quirked.

  “Well, English teachers don't understand the introductory note on that one, either. Like sex, it is not supposed to be understood, but to be enjoyed.” She made a little shrug of polite implied apology. “I have other patients, so you can't stay here the whole time, particularly if you have nothing to occupy you. I don't think it would be wise for you to go into town, either, during your convalescence. Sometimes there are complications—bleeding, spontaneous emissions, that sort of thing."

  “I'll just have to suffer through,” he said bravely, thinking of a rigid six-inch member projecting from his trousers in proud display. He wouldn't mind suffering some of that embarrassment! But he felt an ugly twinge in his crotch. There was many a slip twixt the cock and the strip.

  “Maybe you can visit the Egglayers,” she said. He didn't ask what she meant; it sounded like a chicken outfit.

  Chapter 11—Socket

  Prior went under the knife on schedule. Oubliette laid him out on an operating table, strapped him down, focused a spotlight on his groin, and swabbed him off. Then she stripped to her working clothes: sandals and that hair-halter. Prior developed a splendid nonexistent erection.

  “I don't like being encumbered when I operate on a man,” she explained. “The scalpel might slip, and right now I have no assistant to mop up."

  He eyed her magnificent torso and agreed that this was a hazard to be avoided. He wondered why she had no assistant. Was it because a male helper would be too distracted by the doctor's uniform to take proper care of the patient, while a female would be too skittish about the specific anatomy being handled? Or were Oubliette's methods too proprietary to permit possible competition? Or did she just like to do things her own way...

  She put a mask over his face.

  Prior dreamed he was a satyr with a permanent thirteen-inch erection. He was looking for a woman to spread out for an innocent hour of febrile fornication, but something was wrong with each candidate. The first was so fat that he couldn't find the hole; it was lost amidst the folds of flab. “Fuck it, you eunuch!” she kept screaming. “You have three minutes! Two minutes! One minute! Thirty seconds! VIOLATION! Serves you right, slow-poke!” The second was shapely but small; she screamed when only three inches got inside, and when he rammed in six she split open like a smashed melon and lay on the bed in two bloody halves. The third was very good; but when he sank in eight inches there was a loud CLICK and something started to whir inside her pubic cavity. His member began to hurt as though being hacked apart, or perhaps being peeled like an onion, but it penetrated another inch, and another. Then he realized: she was a pencil-sharpener, and she was grinding his pencil down to the nub. He tried to pull out, but he was locked in. It was worse than Korea, Viet Nam, and the following similar wars: the more he strained, the more he lost.

  When he woke, there was indeed pain. He felt as though a curling iron had been rammed into his gut and left at low heat. For the first time in his life he regretted being male. Surely this was a hell of a lot of trouble for a little tube of erectile tissue. Then Oubliette entered the recovery room, still garbed in her working clothes, and he decided that it was after all worth it. Oh to have a member to penetrate that tantalizing cleft! The sooner the better. The bigger the better.

  “I have a heavy schedule,” she announced. “Two emergency cases just got in—a harem Sultan had his organ stepped on by an irate camel, and a homosexual just discovered that his natural penis is allergic to both saliva and fecal matter. So—"

  “How could a camel step on—"

  “Some are more sensitive about bestiality than others,” she said. “I warned him about that last year. Stick to horses, Sulty, I told him, and female ones, because they're less ornery. But he wouldn't listen. Had to find out the hard way. Now I'm sending you off to visit the Egglayers for a few days. When you come back, you'll have healed over and I'll have matched the tissue cultures and we'll be ready for the next stage."

  “Uh, sure,” he agreed dubiously.

  Chapter 12—Statues

  So it was that Prior Gross, bearing a plaster cast at his crotch with an embarrassing spigot for urination, departed for a land he had never known existed. Behind Oubliette's spacious modern house was a pathway leading into a tangle of virgin scrub. Along this anemic scenic highway were unusual objects of art—statues of people, animals, and things. At the end of it, she had assured him hurriedly as she swabbed a local anesthetic on the Sultan's mangled meat, were the Egglayers.

  “What do I want with a bunch of chickens?” he demanded, disgruntled. But she only smiled enigmatically and eased a plastic catheter up the Sultan's urethra. The bloody urine was just beginning to squirt as Prior got out of there.

  He rode on an adapted golf-cart. The trail was too narrow for his car, and his cast prevented him from walking any distance without severe chafing, so this awkward compromise was best. He puttered along at ten miles an hour. It was an electric cart, but still it puttered.

  The first statue was a nude woman. She was, of course, statuesque in outline. Oubliette herself could have been the model: the breasts were round and full and bursting with the milk of human sex-appeal; the waist was tiny, and the hips swelled with exactly the right planes and rondures. The breasts had realistic nipples, the tummy had a navel, and between the legs there was even a cleft complete with clitoris and vagina, the last as deep as his finger could probe. He had verified this purely as a matter of scientific curiosity, of course.

  Why should such a finely-wrought piece of art be erected at this deserted outpost? The trail was virtually unused; grass grew tall between the weathered concrete sections and flowers peeped from chinks. Yet this nude was good enough to take to bed, stone though her hole might be.

  Prior shook his head and drove on. The world was full of pieces of art that should have been pieces of ass.

  A mile along he discovered a similar edifice, this one supporting a male. Handsome, muscular—very much in the classic Greek discus-thrower mode, except that this one's hand cupped not a discus but his ponderous turgid penis and full scrotum. Though the member was enviably large, it was also well-shaped and not disproportionate to the physique of the statue. It was an embodiment of the ideal in just the fashion the rest of the man was. And, Prior noted with satisfaction, it was uncircumcised.

  All penises were beautiful, he thought, before the knife practiced its mutilation and left ugly scar tissue choking an obscenely naked glans bereft of the body's most sensitive nerve endings. Tantamount had been right about that. No wonder the penis was now the most concealed part of the human body. Women's breasts were beautiful, their genitals inviting, because they represented completely natural secondary and primary sexual characteristics. But the average person, male or female, averted his/her eyes in unvoiced disgust at the sight of penis and bag of testicles. Was this merely a natural aversion to overt disfigurement?

  And what about the emotional disfigurement that seemed to follow in the wake of the physical? How much more readily a man with an ugly penis projected that ugliness to sex itself! Was it not true that beauty was in the penis of the beholder?

  The next statue was of a sheep—a fine curly specimen good for at least three bags of wool for master, dame and boy down the lane. The fourth one was a dog, a tremendous Great Dane sitting on his haunches and reaching around to lick off his partially-extruded penis. Dogs, Prior remembered, really did have a bone in their members. How many human beings wished for the same! Then on along to spy a horse, and an eagle, and then a griffin. Followed by a combination: man and sheep.

  Prior stopped to inspect that one more closely. He had been right the first time: a male man and a female sheep, and the connection was more intimate than one normally observed on the farm. The ewe stood upon a platform so that her woolly posterior came up level with the man's crotch. He stood behind her, his hardened member half-buried in her ovine pudendum and still thrusting. She looked tolerant and contented. Prior remembered that there was a story abo
ut interfertility of man and sheep, a crossbreed between the two ... but he doubted the validity of that. “Ba-a-a-a!” he commented.

  Next were a male dog and a female human in much the same situation. She was on hands and knees, he mounted behind, tongue hanging out in his enthusiasm. Her breasts drooped toward the ground, almost tubular in this position. It was so realistic that it was hard to believe that it was all stone. Stone it was, though. Those swinging mammaries were cold and hard to his touch; the furry flank quite stiff. Even the projecting tongue was dry and inflexible, and there was absolutely no warmth or give to the plunging prick.

  Then there was a male pony having at a female eagle. At first glance this seemed a mismatch—but Prior soon saw that the pony had no real leverage, so that his member could penetrate only as far as the bird desired. There seemed to be plenty of desire amid the feathers, however.

  And a trio: man, woman, griffin. The griffin was in the center, spreading its huge wings, beak open as if to caw exuberantly. It appeared to be hermaphroditic, for its leonine penis was entering the woman who clasped it in front, while the man drove at its womb from behind. Its long tiger tail curled around the man's buttocks, holding them steady.

  It occurred to Prior that he had not seen a single portrayal of a really unnatural activity along this trail. Always a normal male conjugated with a normal female in the normal manner. No homosexual efforts, no perversions. Of course the species were shuffled—but the acts depicted by the statues were so obviously right and pleasurable that he could hardly fault them on a technicality like that. Sex between consenting adults was perfectly legitimate. Wasn't it?

  Then he spied a representation of a man with his baby. The man's penis was flaccid; but even more remarkable, he had a well-developed bosom, and the baby was nursing.