Pornucopia (5 page)

Tantamount tapped Prior on the shoulder. "Come with me," she murmured. She was excited. One look at her heaving, hair-bound bosom was all the persuasion he required. He had had a couple of emissions recently, but his suffering penis pointed the way. He could come again—with her.

She brought him to her laboratory, to his disappointment, not to her bedroom. "The ejaculate is normal," she said, "but the smegma is extraordinary! I tried the sample on two VD cultures, and it destroyed them both. Mr. Gross, I believe you have the specific antidote to all venereal disease!"

"In my cheese?" he asked, astounded.

"Please don't be uncouth. Your smegma is phenomenal, if that tiny sample is typical. I shall have to set up a foundation to study it, to isolate the active elements, to make confirmatory analysis, to distribute worldwide—"

"My cheese?!" he repeated.

"Your smegma. This is a great moment for civilization! My name will be known wherever venereal disease abounds."

Her animation was contagious. "That's great! And I guess it explains why the cures were irregular. When I washed my penis—"

"Precisely. No penis should be washed too often, but yours especially must remain in its natural state. So I'm sure you'll want to cooperate. The last great barrier to completely satisfactory sexual intercourse shall come down, thanks to your contribution."

"Sure," he agreed, not certain what she meant. "But I can only produce so much ch—er, smegma. I can't keep trotting in here to—" Though if, by any chance,
she
were part of the deal....

"Oh, I'll analyze it and duplicate the essential ingredients in the lab and patent the formula," she said confidently. "All I need is a sufficient initial sample. Half a pound or so should do it."

"Half a pound! That would take me years!"

"Perhaps less time, if you are properly stimulated," she said. "Shall we begin?" She shrugged out of her microskirt and began to unbind her marvelous hair.

Prior could hardly believe his fortune. "You mean sexual activity speeds it up?"

"Not exactly. But what I have in mind should accomplish a similar objective." Her two fine, vibrant, heaving breasts emerged like torpedoes from the liquidly swirling green hair. "Sign here, please."

Dazed by the living splendors before him, Prior scribbled his name on the form she presented. He would have signed a pact with the devil, at this moment of dazzlement. Presumably doctors had certain formalities to honor before letting go. Had to do with the doctor-patient relationship, no doubt. Who was he to quibble? He had never before had access to such beauty, and her compliments about his unmutilated, world-saving penis didn't detract significantly from his ardor either. How could he even have desired the succubus, who was only a demonic facsimile of what was real in Tantamount?

She cleared retorts and burners and slide specimens off a laboratory table, found a thin air mattress, inflated it from a pressure cylinder no bigger than his erect member, and settled it aboard the table. "Lie down, please," she said.

"Me?"

"You, of course."

He had somehow supposed she would do the lying. Ah, well. He climbed onto the elevated mattress. It seemed more reasonable when he saw her gaze concentrate on his midsection. She probably wanted to play with it first. Anyway, it was impossible to say no to a shape like hers.

Tantamount put her hand on his standing penis and caressed it fondly. "You are going to make my fortune," she said, and it was almost as though she were addressing the member instead of the man. "You little beauty! Trim rather than fleshy, tidy rather than ponderous. Far more efficient than some of these elephantine slabs of meat some men display." Her touch sent fabulous ripples of pleasure through him, as did her words.

"But small," he said modestly, loving it.

"Petite, but no less masculine. Good things often come in small packages, as this handsome member demonstrates." She circled the head of it with thumb and forefinger and began a gentle up and down motion. "You are just perfect, you darling! You are certainly more noteworthy than the partial members hanging from so many men." Her eyes fixed on it as though hypnotized.

"Uncircumcised," Prior agreed. He was not inclined to argue.

"Who?" she asked as though startled to find Prior still present. "Oh, yes, of course." She stroked the penis again, and it practically purred.

After a while she put her face down and lipped the tip. "Oh, I love you!" she breathed around it. Had Prior not been tapped so recently, he would have spouted right then. As it was, he felt a slow, delicious upsurge of pleasure.

"Delightful smegma," Tantamount said, running her tongue caressingly between glans and foreskin. The warm enjoyment extended down through the entire shaft and spread outward into his body. The world was tongue and penis and rapture.

She eased off before an orgasm became unavoidable, and Prior knew that she was fully aware of his state and had it under control. Doctors had some impressive talents! Then she climbed onto the table herself and bestrode him, her resilient rounded breasts hanging near his face, her parted thighs embracing his hips. But she did not settle her luscious cleft on his ready member as he anticipated. She leapfrogged gracefully up over his stomach and chest until her dainty vagina hovered over his face. It was as appealing as the rest of her. Her labia were cleanly shaved, and looked as smooth and innocent as the genitals of a gradeschool girl. Her vulva smelled of disinfectant.

"That device of yours, on the chair," she began sternly.

Uh-oh! "I can explain," he said, speaking almost into the sanitary crack. He could see her cute clitoris wiggle as his breath brushed it, and he was most anxious to have no misunderstanding develop at this point. "I was testing this machine of mine, that—well, it—I just set it on the chair after the vampire—it's called the tamponer."

"Interesting," she said coolly. "You may retrieve your tampon now."

He saw the small string of the tampon dangling like a firecracker fuse from her crevice, and was unreasonably jealous to think that it had penetrated her body before he could. He brought one hand up to grasp the cord.

She balked him with a twitch of one thigh, the play of muscles shifting one buttock and making her inner labia slide against each other momentarily. "No hands."

Oh. Well, it was a fun game. Prior hoisted his head and reached up with his teeth to clamp on the fuse. His nose nudged her clitoris and it jumped, and moisture appeared along the entire channel from clit to vulva. He finally got hold of the string and pulled down. The tampon slid out smoothly, moist but not bloody. It fell across his chin, a damp length of pseudo-cotton.

"Consume it," she said firmly. He knew she meant it because her tight little anus puckered as she spoke.

So this was her revenge for that mishap. If he wanted to get into it with more than just cotton, he would have to oblige. And he did want in—desperately. His penis would only stand for so much, before firing a warning salvo. So he tongued the soggy, half-collapsed cylinder into his mouth and began to chew. Actually, it had a certain flavor, as though mentholated.

Tantamount nodded affirmatively, then slid down his torso to lie against him, her stomach crushing his penis flat against his own belly, her luxuriant breasts pressing down warmly.

"I have been certain for years that smegma has been calamitously maligned," she said, her breath tickling his shoulder. "Nature never produces a secretion aimlessly. Like the tonsils, like the appendix, every part of the body either has or has had its function, perhaps before civilization removed us from our divine intimacy with nature."

Prior grunted amenably, his mouth still full of the sodden mass. The tampon was infernally chewy, and this discussion did not mean much to him at the moment. Not with his poor penis wedged between his breathing body and hers, on the very verge of lubricating both tummies with wriggling sperm.

"The practice of circumcision is an abomination," she continued, squirming around just enough to keep his member at tortuously rigid attention despite its confinement. "Truly, it has been defined as 'the unkindest cut'! It was conceived as a ritual mutilation, from the notion that the young man must suffer before being admitted to adult society and status. He had to pay a price in pain and blood, before indulging in the lascivious joys of fornication. Punishment before the crime! Often the same was true of the young woman—her clitoris would be amputated at puberty, in an attempt to ensure that she never received any pleasure from the reproductive act. In Judeo-Christian times the pagan ritual was continued with the claim that 'God' had decreed the act, and finally it was suggested that it was even beneficial to human health."

Prior crammed the cotton into one cheek so that he could speak. "I've heard that, but—"

She slid up, almost milking his penis by the motion, and jammed a classic pink nipple into his mouth so that he was silenced again. "True—circumcised men do have a lower incidence of cancer of the penis. But by the same token women with their breasts amputated have less cancer of the breast. You could eliminate cancer of the brain by amputating the head of every citizen."

"Mmmph!" he agreed as she thrust her breast against his face by way of emphasis.

"And some claim—falsely—that the wives of uncircumcised men have a higher incidence of cancer of the cervix, and the smegma produced by the prepuce has been charged with the crime. The fact is, it is the frequency and nature of sexual intercourse that affects the cervix-cancer rate, not the circumcision. But even were the charge true, amputation of the foreskin would be no more valid a solution than complete castration would be to prevent unwanted pregnancies. If you attempt to solve all problems by butchery, it would be reasonable to abolish all human illness and evil by decimating the species. Genocide would certainly solve—"

"Okay, okay," Prior muttered around the delightful but slightly suffocating flesh. "I'm an unmutilated male, remember. I'm on your side, and I'd like to be inside your—"

"But now I have the key to set the record straight," she continued, giving him a firm turn at the other breast and pressing down so that it was all he could do to breathe, let alone talk. "I shall prove that smegma—and therefore the foreskin that secretes it—has an important and continuing purpose, quite apart from olfactory stimulation. No wonder venereal disease is rampant today, when so many males are either circumcised or unconscionably clean! This will go down in the medical annals! A specific cure for the malady of our times, virtually unknown in prehistoric societies before soap and the knife rendered man's innate defense impotent."

"But how do you know," Prior gasped, almost gagging on her turgid nipple, "if VD was prehistoric, or wasn't? Maybe lots of men had it and didn't talk about it. And what about all the other unwashed uncircumcised men that have—"

She slid back down and planted a smothering kiss on him. Then, putting her hand over his mouth and stirring up the cotton inside with one finger, she said: "The twin fetishes of cleanliness and mutilation over the centuries have eliminated smegma as a viable venereal disease prevention and made its effective properties irrelevant to survival, just as modern man's propensity for shaving his face has eliminated the beard as a survival aid. Any human capability that goes unused too many generations becomes obviated. Thus it is hardly surprising that few penises retain their ancient defenses. Yours may be a unique throwback; that's why it's invaluable."

"It's valuable to
me
!" he mumbled between her fingers. Doctors had some very frustrating propensities! When was she ever going to quit talking and get down to business? He was, oddly, becoming sleepy.

Tantamount jockeyed about until her satiny cleft caressed his much-discussed foreskin, sending more waves of titillation rippling out. "And of course we have yet to come to the primary purpose of the prepuce itself. Sensitivity! The greatest concentration of nerve endings is there."

Amen! he thought, as those same nerves deluged his brain with thrust-and-spurt messages. Ready or not, here he came—any moment now. She was teasing his poor member as it had never been teased before. No wonder she was called Tantamount!

"That is why so many conservative prudes favor circumcision," she said. "Their
real
reason, not their spurious meanderings and maunderings about health and esthetics and religion and manhood. Imagine proclaiming official manhood by
un
manning the masculine member! Circumcision cuts down on the sheer, rightful pleasure of the sexual act. It—"

It seemed to him she was beginning to repeat herself. "Speaking of which—" he gasped, spitting out the masticated tampon as his member went into its climactic effort despite the strange lassitude of the rest of his body.

"Oh very well," she snapped crossly. "
Have
your sinful pleasure. You men are all alike."

She positioned her crotch above his own and used her hand to angle his organ in, barely in time. The first spurt smashed into the hot chamber like water from a sluice opened at flood-stage.

Prior fought to remain awake, but somehow, frustratingly, his consciousness departed along with his seminal fluid. One impulse, two, three... it was a countdown to oblivion. "Instead of coming, I went!" he thought with despair.

And thought no more.

He woke in his own apartment, his penis itching furiously. He reached down automatically to rub it, trying to remember how the past evening had finished—and found a bandage.

A bandage! Had he come down with VD after all?

He sat up groggily, yanking at the dressing. It came away with a flash of gruesome pain. For a moment he stared at his crotch uncomprehendingly.

He did not have VD. The reality was much worse.

His penis was gone—all 3.97 inches erect.

It had been amputated.

Dazed, he sat on the bed. How could such a thing have happened? He still had his testicles—but what good were they without the delivery system?

He thought back to the party. He had seen the satyr making out with the succubus. Then Tantamount had summoned him, and—

"Why, that thieving bitch!" he exclaimed, and the effort made his nonexistent penis hurt again. She hadn't been attracted to him at all, but to his penis! So she had drugged him somehow and stolen his masculine member. For the smegma she so worshipped. She had talked so long before coming to the point in order to distract him and keep him quiet until the drug put him down; only when she had been assured she had him, had she allowed him to have her.

But he had taken no drug—not since the werewolf elixir, and that was not exactly a sleeping potion. He had put nothing in his mouth except Tantamount's lovely nipples....

No! He had chewed on that tampon!

He saw it now, with an awful, betrayed clarity. She had removed the tampon after his machine had raped her with it. She must have dosed it with something, then reinserted it. That was why it had a menthol flavor. What fiendish female cunning! He had supposed it was a ritual punishment, but it had been far more sinister.

And the paper he had signed during his bemusement as she bobbled her fine breasts, her matched and matchless breasts under his nose—that document was surely a release for his penis. He must have unwittingly—but legally—donated it to the cause of venereal research. Brother!

And what was he going to do now? Storm back to Tantamount's house and cry "Look here, Miss Emdee, I demand my penis back!"? And she would show him the signed release and that would be that. When someone donated a kidney for transplant, he could not storm back after the surgery and demand it back. How could it be otherwise with a penis?

But was he to go through the rest of his life with an effeminate hole where his meat should be? What would
that
do to his love-life? He was no succubus, to convert that hole to an impressive mansized member at will!

Prior dressed and drove to Tantamount's house. He didn't know what he was going to do, and knew it wouldn't work, but he had to try.

She opened the door promptly. "Why hello there, Mr. Gross! So nice to see you again."

This set him back. She was absolutely ravishing despite the mundane dress and conventionally bound hair. Now her tresses were ordinary brown—had the color been a trick of the night lighting?—and her bosom was demurely de-emphasized under a laboratory smock, and her fair face was innocent of any sign of any thought touching on anatomical matters between the shoulders and the knees. Yet he felt his absent penis stiffening, hoist by its own imagination, and he could think of nothing appropriate to say.

"Do come in," she said, as though he were an old friend. And when he was in: "Are you in pain? Let me check the dressing."

She kneeled before him, opened his fly and ran her slender fingers over his smarting crotch. "Oh, you removed the bandage. That won't do. This will heal nicely, but it has to be protected for the first few days. The operation was a success."

Sure, he thought laconically. The operation was a success, but the penis died. "I—"

"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.