David swallowed hard and felt the sweat start to wet his collar. He was doing his homework, he said to himself. He closed his eyes. He rubbed them with his fingertips then rubbed his mouth and jaw. He stoked his beard. He undid the top button of his work shirt and loosened his tie. Then he rubbed his neck then the back of his neck. He had to open his eyes again at some point. Now. He'd open them now.
What he saw through the crack in the doorway was normal. It was just a girl taking a shower. A woman. It was a young woman taking her usual, late-night shower. She got off work late in the evening and so took showers in the middle of the night when all was quiet. This had happened multiple times a week for as long as she had been a bartender. His daughter, Winona was taking a shower like normal. He looked down at his feet. He looked at the matted, dark green carpeting in the hallway. My oldest child, he thought, is becoming a woman, which is only right. She is a woman, he thought. He stared at the carpet. He wondered who picked this color. He shook his head and forced himself to look up. His homework assignment was just to watch her tonight. It was just to watch her through the dappled glass tonight. He'd put this off long enough. Watch! He thought to himself. Just watch her and then you can go to your room. He wanted to accomplish his homework assignment. Then he would get into bed with his unconscious wife and lie awake all night attempting sleep.
Dr. Fairough had been giving him these little assignments every week. Most of them were simple. Just watch her. She doesn't have to be involved yet. She doesn't have to know. This was the first step. This step is just for you. Just think about her. Think about her when your mind wanders. Let your thoughts alight on her. Be as gentle with her image as you need. Let your thoughts just probe. Let your brain wander over her body and touch what it happens to touch. Think of her naked. How does that feel? Ok? Think of her touching just her own forearms for now. How does that feel? Ok. Think of her touching her shoulders. How is that? Ok. When she touches her shoulders do her breasts touch? Do you like seeing it?
He was looking at her now. Looking at her warm and wet, naked breasts, distorted through the warped glass. When she washed her shoulders he wondered if he had been right when he talked to Dr. Fairough. He wondered if they were rubbing together right now. They had to be. His daughter's breasts were...Winona. Winona's breasts were very prominent. When the doctor asked him to let his mind wander over her body he always stopped at her breasts. He wondered what they looked like. He had seen them a few times, but only fleetingly. He hadn't let himself stare at them. Even though he'd agreed to participate in this science experiment, he'd instinctively built a figurative wall that he wouldn't climb. Tonight his mind kept saying, you can look but you can't think of her in a bed, can't think of her on all fours, can't think of touching her. If he did think of touching her the most scandalous place he could stomach was the skin between her shoulder blades. He could touch her there. He wasn't ready to touch her lower back yet. His mind flicked through all the images he wasn't ready to imagine. They delighted him and sickened him. His wall went up solid and impenetrable. He looked down at the green carpet. If he was eventually going to empty his pulsing scrotum into her unprotected womb he would need to tear that wall down. Dr. Fairough had suggested brick by brick. So far it wasn't working too well.
When the family had agreed to participate in the study, David was almost certain it would be cancelled. It seemed like such an insane and desperately risky hypothesis to test. Because of some unknown environmental change for the last 30 years almost all the babies born on planet earth had been women. The decline had possibly been going on longer. David's high school class was about one third male students whereas Winona's class had no boys in it at all. He had heard that the closest male under 30 was two counties away. But it was all speculation. Most people who had a boy would keep him well away from prying eyes. There had been rampant abductions and so most male children were schooled at home and very rarely let out.
David was approached by a friend of his from school to participate in a fertility study. Originally David thought it was just going to be studies in a test tube. He thought, my friend needs a favor, I have three daughters, all they need is for us to come in and have some blood drawn, no big deal. Apparently there had been papers and papers written about the rate of male births in incestuous relationships. It was big news in the science world but David had never heard of it.
At their first meeting Dr. Annette Fairough, the research coordinator, had explained to him that they had fairly lofty goals for the study. There was an element, she explained, a potential element in this study that could be seen as incest. She stressed again and again that no one would be made to do anything they didn't agree to. But she also explained that this study's continued existence hinged on the participants' ability to put aside what society deemed acceptable and for them to see the study as their fight for the survival of all humankind. David had thought she'd laid it on pretty thick. Her words had rung in his ears for days afterward.
As he exited the hospital he texted his friend, the one who's favor he was doing. He asked if they could get a drink ASAP. His friend was free that afternoon. Dr. Patrick Barnes, his friend from college was gay and childless and one of the only people David could trust and rely on. In a world that day by day was looking more and more alien, he would do almost anything for Patrick. He asked him what Dr. Fairough had meant when she said there would be "potential elements in this study that could be seen as incest." Patrick had taken a drink of his beer and looked him sheepishly in the eyes.
"We just don't know yet, David." He said. He looked back down at the beer in his glass, then at the foam on top, then at the spaces on the surface that you could see right through, through the beer, through the glass to the table underneath. He cleared his throat.
"What does that mean, Pat? I need more information than that."
"We are all going to have to start rethinking what society has decided is right and what it has decided is wrong and whether we can afford to continue to think that way." He said, still staring at the table under his drink.
David couldn't bring himself to ask the question that came into his mind at that moment. Are you asking me to fuck my own daughters? Is it going to come to that? Did you ask me to do this study because all of my daughters are of age? He somehow found the courage the next time he spoke to Dr. Fairough.
"We hope to be getting a sizeable grant in the next few months that will allow us to implement some IVF treatments. But nothing is certain yet. We have been writing a lot of grants and haven't received any money yet. We will continue to keep you updated on our plans." She made some notes with a pen in her notebook.
"What should I tell my daughter Winona if she asks me?"
"You can tell her about possible IVF treatments. Or you could simply suggest she asks me at her next appointment." She began to write what David assumed were more notes. And then she stopped and said, "Do you feel comfortable continuing participation in this study? We can only accept your participation if it is entirely voluntary." Then she looked David deep in the eyes. David felt like she had tilted the interrogation light up into his face and was studying him for any sign of weakness.
"I'm comfortable." David said returning her gaze. "And Winona? How does she feel being in this study?"
"Have you asked her about it?"
