Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 22:21:20 -0500
From: fireflywatcher ford <fireflywatcher@gmail.com>
Subject: Winning by the Numbers, Chapter 7, End of part 1

WINNING BY THE NUMBERS7
	Date: June 3, 2006
	From: fireflywatcher fireflywatcher@gmail.com
	Subject: Winning by the Numbers, Chapter 7 :  Falling into
Place

	Warning:
	This story contains scenes of a sexual nature involving two
men. If reading or possessing such material violates the law in your
jurisdiction or you are under the age of 18, please leave this site
and read no further.
	The author retains all rights to this original story. Please do
not publish or reproduce it without my explicit authorization.

	Disclaimer: This story is entirely a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental.
	Any comments are greatly appreciated.

	Winning by the Numbers, Chapter 7 : Falling into Place

	Dex gladly accepted a glass of Weller, with as they say in
Texas " branch water' while we drank ours over ice. The only
difference is temperature, really. Where I grew up, branch water
might have the appearance of pinto bean juice though, rather than
the thin clear liquid, water from the tap held. He was overjoyed to
see Dan again. That first semester in the dorm, Dan and I shared a
suite with him and three other guys. We remained friends until we
went separate ways. He did have one major character flaw. He
enjoyed making obscene phone calls to other guys listed in the
university directory, late at night. If you overheard him, you'd
think he was gay, for sure. He mostly called guys with Arabic,
Indian, or Iranian surnames he said would be 'distracted' for days
by his call, because they were dateless and desperate. I put myself
in their position and felt sorry for them but laughed hysterically
hearing his end of the conversation quite a few times. He was
totally straight, I tried. Even drunk, he wouldn't play.
	He borrowed my guitar and played some Spanish love
songs directed at Wanda until she made it clear she wasn't buying
and Dan praised his improved skills on the guitar. "Thanks for the
drinks and thanks for the referral. I was getting tired of designing
boring shit and this job will be stimulating." I never explained we
were on the board, although Dan's title now was CFO, Chief
Financial Officer, and not a board member and we all wished him
a good evening as he left.
	I fixed Dan one of his favorite suppers after Wanda left,
then he asked my help unpacking at the mansion. I swear the place
was haunted, it creaked so much, but the empty space must have
multiplied sounds beyond normal. I helped him unpack, but it was
just his clothes and some pictures to hang. The kitchen had
everything you'd need and I tried to get him to go grocery
shopping with me but he just cried "you know I can't cook
anything Dave', so I relented and told him to come to my place for
supper every night he wanted.
	If I stayed any longer I knew we would both end up sticky
and needing a shower, so I headed back home. My dreams were
just as bad and I woke up sticky needing a shower anyway. The
real thing would have been more fun and I could have made
amends for any hurt I'd caused Dan in the past. I wasn't ready for
that.
	Reed announced the next morning that he'd contracted to
have a lot of our work done, all over the country in clinics and
hospitals. We would receive pictures, histories, measurements
including the critical one, and a vial of blood for tests on each
candidate, plus a generous supply of baby batter. At this change in
procedure, egg donation would dramatically slow in pace relative
to sperm donation. Eggs had to be fertilized before freezing and a
limited time window existed between harvesting and fertilization.
Matches had to be selected in advance. He began to seek
candidates in the military and among the general public by placing
ads in various magazines and newspapers. He advertised in gay
publications as much as possible. Within a month our sperm
;library had over 200,000 donors listed. It wasn't a bank, but a
library because we held full DNA profiles, IQ. family histories,
names, pictures, and measurements. It was almost complete
enough to know a donors favorite color or what kind of food he
preferred.
	Wanda and I were continually running DNA testing. Reed
solicited the computer science department to create a program that
could sort out our desired markers from photographs of the DNA
tests. At $100 a pop to sperm donors, we were going through
money quickly. Dan was increasing our trust fund rapidly, but not
enough to meet Reed's spending. Reed hit the road for a month
seeking more funds and giving lectures, which drew in potential
benefactors. He utilized those contacts he'd already established to
meet other benefactors. In that month he brought back $300
million from 475 contributors and we were double what we had
previously, but the library was up to one million sperm donors and
growing.
	I was sure he was fucking or sucking a lot to get all that
money. His power of persuasion just wasn't that great, but he had
reeled Wanda and I into his plans, so what can I say. We both got
our degrees in May, and Charlie and James were there to watch us
walk down the aisle. Wanda would start medical school in the fall,
sponsored by Reed, as would Loraine, our psychologist co-board
member. We moved into the apartments in the mansion on Swiss
Avenue days later when the work was complete. Mine had three
bedrooms, one occupied by James and I, one for Charlie, and Dan
took the third rather than having his own. Wanda and Loraine
shared as well. Reed took the chairman's apartment on the main
floor and there was a lot of beautifully decorated space left over.
Two apartments on the second floor, two in the attic and in the
carriage house attic, three smaller ones in the mansion basement,
Reeds and the foundation residence comprised the whole. All
together we used three apartments. My courses for my doctorate
started a week later and I got a raise to $1260 a month at the lab.
Wanda's raise was to $1800 and she thought that was big time, but
it would end when she left to start medical school. Charlie was
hired at $550 a month as our lab tech and courier and could work
around his class schedule in the fall.
	People would ask Charlie what he did and he'd say "I pick
up sperm at the airport and carry it to the freezer" and he'd giggle.
I told him to study the want ads in the Sunday paper before he
chose a major. Pretty diplomas don't pay the rent.
	We spent time at the pool over the summer and went to
Queens Point on Lake Dallas for an all over tan. Work never
slowed down. Then in August they started having trouble finding
guys who met the qualifications, they no longer measured up. Two
million donors filled the liquid nitrogen tanks in the labs behind
the mansion and it would take a year or more to finish DNA testing
and processing them all. The library was declared full, for the
moment. A friend of Wanda's took her position in the lab and her
girlfriend took the job as chef for the foundation. She cooked
evening meals for all of us, did grocery shopping, and prepared
meals for foundation functions Reed held at the mansion. She'd
gone to the New England Culinary Institute and her skills were
incredible. Having prepared meals takes the 'responding to your
cravings' aspect out of eating, but the smells quickly got you in the
mood for whatever was offered. They took an apartment on the
third floor.
	Maybe we got boring, but I prefer to think we were all just
too busy for a while. Reed continued to bring in more money and
Dan multiplied it as fast as he could. Very little was going out. In
May of '79, I got my doctorate, again in immunotherapy using
viruses. James finished his first year at SMU Law School, Wanda
her first year of medical school, and Charlie his first year of
college at a local community college. We began to hear stories of a
rare pneumonia among gay men usually only seen in cancer
patients. It didn't respond to treatment and they died very quickly.
Time passed on by and most of our efforts were in egg harvesting
and fertilization. We began getting some requests for embryos.
	James finished law school in 'May of '79, Charlie and
Wanda finished in May of '81, Charlie with a business degree
which he continued on his MBA to help Dan. Then in February of
'82 Reed went into the hospital suddenly and died in three days
time. They had a name for it by then, AIDS. It was the pneumonia
and he didn't have a clue he was ill. His last request was for me to
assume the chairmanship and to stop all sperm and egg donations
until the disease was gone from the world. Dan took my seat on the
board as I took Reed's. We had nearly a billion dollars in the trust
and all we could do was wait for the pandemic to pass and let the
money grow. By our charter, not one dime could go to any other
purpose but reproduction.
	Not one institution wanted any of our skills, even for free,
or the use of our labs. We were doing quite well as a sperm bank
however because all our specimens were collected before the
disease spread. The morality of disclosure went out the window.
They wanted what we had to offer and we began providing it,
complete with all the collected information, but they lacked the
skills to know what the genetics meant. James and I have gay
sons born to surrogate mothers, and one daughter, all college graduates and
athletic. It's been twenty four years
now and the embryo bank is empty, but the sperm library has many
more potential children held in the liquid nitrogen tanks in the
carriage house. I give James a big kiss as Dan sits nearby and say
"we may win by the numbers yet."
	THE END