Sixteen Past Nine and Forty Six Seconds

My first time in the First Time category. There's a sentence you don't hear every day. I don't really know what readers expect in this category, but I'll still wager this story will be different from most of them. It's an experiment in writing and one I hope you like. Then again, it might be that I have completely missed the mark. Either way, don't forget to vote and comment on your way out.

A shout of thanks to my editor, shygirlwhore, and my beta reader, KatieTay.

All characters engaging in sexual acts are above the age of 18.

"Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

- Dylan Thomas

* *

PROLOGUE: Worst. Date. Ever.

May, 2022

Newark, New Jersey

Nine.

Ten past nine.

Fifteen past nine.

Sixteen past nine.

Sixteen past nine and thirty seconds.

Sixteen past nine and forty seconds.

Sixteen past nine and forty five seconds.

Sixteen past nine and forty six seconds.

Gladys Slocum checked her watch for the umpteenth time. Surely, the time wouldn't change faster if she checked it often enough.

"Calm down," she told herself. "He's just running late. That's all. His last meeting of the day is always the longest."

Try as she might, it did not calm her at all. She took another sip from the wine glass before her and drummed her fingers on the expensive silverware.

She looked up. The waiter was making another pass of the table. She saw the sympathy in his eyes as his gaze flitted to the empty seat across from her, but he only nodded, said a quick, desultory apology, and returned to his station.

Gladys knew there was one way to soothe herself. To placate her nerves.

"But I promised I wouldn't."

It took five more minutes of indecision before she finally bit the bullet and pulled out the tracking app on her phone. As hard as she had tried to resist the temptation, she had installed it on his phone without him knowing.

"It's for the best."

The app swirled to life on her screen while she tapped it impatiently. The map view showed Gladys something very very wrong.

The pin for Andrew's phone location was not at his office, or even remotely near his office. No. It was in an apartment building on Sanford Avenue.

A sickening feeling took root in her stomach. Familiar feelings of insecurity and anger reared up inside her even as she made the fateful call.

"Hey, babe!"

"Hey, just wondering why you aren't here for date night? This is our big day, you know?"

He swore at the other end of the call.

"Fuck! That was tonight. Our deadline for the new marketing campaign got pushed up so I'll be at the office all night long. I legit lost track of time."

"So you're at the office right now?" Gladys asked, forcing her tone straight.

"Yes and buried under a pile of work. I'm so sorry, G. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

Gladys clutched her phone unnaturally hard. Lies came thick and fast on her receiver, all while the damning proof of his actual location was on her screen.

"It's okay, Andrew. I get it. I'll talk later."

The call dropped. Something about how glib the lies had been broke the dam of suppressed rage inside her. She screamed loudly enough for all the patrons at the restaurant to look her way.

"That lying sack of shit! He'll pay. They'll all pay."

"Excuse me, miss," said the polite waiter from before. "I'm afraid we are going to have to ask you to leave. We will refund your reservation charges."

The waiter was about to beckon the security guard over when Gladys got up. She walked through a haze, feeling the judging eyeballs of all present.

"No wonder she got stood up. Just look at her."

"She needs a map to the gym."

"She's definitely more orca than woman."

Whether these were whispers she overheard or products of her imagination, she could not tell. She felt violated and betrayed.

"Andrew's laughing with his floozy on how they tricked poor, ugly Gladys. They probably think it's hilarious."

Almost on auto-pilot, Gladys drove herself back home. She had gone to great lengths to set up the place for when she took him home with her after the date. She had dreamt and fantasized about that night ever since she had first met Andrew.

Gladys clenched her eyes shut.

The feeling of inadequacy and rejection stabbed at her like a burning poker. It was Jesse Bradley all over again. It was Kyle Taylor. Edward Clements. Jacob Rush, her date for senior prom who had led her to a shower of animal waste in her prom dress while everyone else laughed and filmed the event for posterity on their phones.

Every time she tried, the man let her down. Sometimes kinder than others.

"Not any more."

She quickly changed into her lab coat and got into her car. Purpose was evident in every stride she took towards her workplace.

In retrospect, the security guard really should have paid more attention to her demeanour. As should her co-worker, who she bumped into and whose coffee she almost spilt in her rush.

"One of her fucking mood swings again. Just Gladys being Gladys."

She swiped her Volker Pharmaceuticals ID card at the entrance to her lab and went in. This was the very lab her company had vehemently denied existed in front of Congress a few months ago. A lab where diseases were created artificially to profit from marketing their cure. No one outside a handful of people knew what the lab did.

Unfortunately, recent victim of infidelity Gladys Slocum was one of them.

With the not-entirely-legal gene splicing technology at her disposal and her prowess in microbiology, she had what she wanted in a matter of a few hours.

"Men are the problem. I am the cure."

She would repeat her statement over and over again at her trial. In all fairness, even she could not have foreseen how quickly her virus would spread all over the world, annihilating the human male population.

She admitted to slipping the clear solution to Andrew on their next make up dinner. She almost hadn't had the courage to do it, but seeing him laugh and smirk and peddle the same lie about being at work finally pushed her over the edge.

The virus took about a month to kill an adult male. For the first week or so, they would only feel the symptoms of a mild cold. Occasional sneezing and coughing which they would very likely ignore, not realising they were spreading the lethally contagious virus to all around them.

Andrew took a flight the next day to a conference in Louisville. With that small action, the virus entered the airline network. Once in the network, it could go wherever it wanted -- London, Prague, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, Sydney.

What Gladys also did not quite foresee was the effect it would have on women... and on any male children they hoped to give birth to.

* *

Within one generation, the population of males had dropped from around fifty percent to just about ten percent. While there were still labs around the world working furiously to reverse the trend, their efforts yielded little fruit. Gladys had taken great care to not have any notes on her side-project which would help.

The minority of men who were immune to the disease, or at least asymptomatic, didn't take the news too badly. Asked out by multiple women at a time at bars? Having all the pussy they could dream of? It was every red-blooded man's wet dream. Even as news of more male stillbirths and dire projections from all around the world poured in, they were only too busy having a female tongue in every possibly erogenous part of their body at the same time.

It was only a generation later, when the percentage of men dropped to less than one percent, that the horrifying implications of Gladys Slocum's bad date were fully understood.

* *

April, 2175

Washington, DC

Miriam Blakely did not appreciate the stares and looks of judgement she saw aimed at herself as she walked into the legislative chamber. She knew exactly why each of those inquisitional glances were aimed her way.

The multitude of accusing glares bored into her like lasers as she made her way to her padded seat on the Senate Committee panel. Every other woman on the panel turned to look at her.

"Senator Blakely. Have you reviewed the contents of the bill in front of you?"

She sighed deeply and began.

"I have, Madam Speaker. I see no difference between this bill and the bill presented before me last month to which I said no. Why should I change my mind now?"

A deep murmur went through the room. The animated rustling crested and died down slowly.

The Speaker rose to her feet.

"Senator. I am going to have to request you to reconsider."

"I fully plan to reconsider, once you have shown me a more humane alternative to the document before me. You want to force all men into government medical facilities to have sperm harvested from them. I will not sign off on that."

The murmurs in the hall heightened to a continuous buzzing. Poorly hushed angry whispers could be heard from all corners. A woman on the panel raised her hand.

"Would the Senator from Georgia like to make a statement?"

The woman two places to the right of Miriam drew herself up to her full standing height.

"Miriam, may I call you that? I've known you for longer than anyone else in this room. You and I go way back from our time at Sarah Lawrence."

Miriam nodded politely.

"In my home city of Atlanta, there are fewer than fifty men left," she let the statistic hang in the air for some time before repeating it for emphasis. "Fewer. Than. Fifty. Ten of them are above ninety years old. Nationwide, we have dropped to fewer than ten thousand men."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Sorry will not solve our problems. Have you read the report by the Future of Humanity Institute last month? There might only be one more generation of human beings. Just one more generation. It's a matter of whether we as a species survive or not."

"I understand that, but I cannot believe the answer lies in semen harvesting concentration camps."

"Don't call them concentration camps, Miriam. Trust me, the very last thing anyone wants is to harm or kill the men. They will be cared for."

".. and hooked up to machines and probed with electrodes into ejaculating into tubes. I've seen these centres."

"You're making it out to be worse than it is."

"There have to be alternatives."

"We've tried all the alternatives, Miriam," the Senator said plainly. "Voluntary sperm donations? Incentives for men to admit themselves to harvesting centres? Cloning men? Even artificially trying to create sperm. No matter how many scientists claim to have a breakthrough, the end product is never stable enough to be viable. We are out of options."

"Does everyone in this hall agree with her?" asked Miriam. "Does no one want to stand up for what is right?"

The whispers and murmuring from before was replaced by a profound silence. Miriam looked at the women sitting in rows upon rows of padded seats and saw only withering contempt in their eyes.

"If only your grandmother could see you now, Senator Blakely. She would be ashamed."

"I'm sorry to disappoint," the Senator replied heavily, "But I'm not going along with this."

The Senator from Delaware wished to be heard.

"Senator Blakely, you are aware this is going to happen with or without your approval. You are the lone holdout to this bill on the panel. We will simply reconvene next session and re-elect the panel. Trust me, no one else here will have any problem doing what is needed. All you are doing is delaying the passage of the bill by a few days. A few days which would mean our last ditch attempt to save the human race starts late."

"My answer remains the same, Senator Aldrich. I can't possibly sign this in good conscience."

"Senator Blakely," said the Speaker sadly. "I'm afraid that conscience is a luxury we can no longer afford."

* *

The rest of the session was as chaotic as Miriam had expected. Even as she left the building, she felt the disapproving avoidance of everyone. She either had leprosy or had hastened the extinction of the human race.

Thankfully, her craft was waiting right outside. Her aide quickly ushered her in and got in after her.

"What's wrong, Penny?" she asked, seeing the ashen face beside her.

"I just got word that the Swiss ambassador would like to set up a meeting with you tomorrow."

"What does she want?"

"Some bad news," came the choked response from her aide. "The last man in Switzerland just died."

"When?" asked Miriam.

"Twenty minutes ago."

The craft had risen above the skyline now. Silence hung in the air between Miriam and Penny.

"Tell her to meet me at my Manhattan office. Have they reached out to any other country?"

"They reached out to Germany, France, Britain and Spain earlier. No luck. Not even when they offered upwards of a billion euros per man."

"A billion euros," Miriam chuckled. "Is that the going rate for a man nowadays?"

"They're even more desperate now. I expect the Swiss Chancellor will want to join the Eastern and Central European Union. As much as she despises them, the Serbians and Croats still have one man for every ten thousand women. A better ratio than we have."

"I'm just thinking of what I'll tell her tomorrow."

Her aide looked like she had seen a ghost.

"Surely, you're not even going to suggest shipping any of our men over?" she blurted out.

"Penny, even if I wanted to, I don't have enough friends or political capital left in the Senate to actually get it done."

"But you're thinking about it?"

"I just think it's sad that a whole people -- with their art, culture and way of life might not survive."

"You do not approve?" Miriam asked and raised her eyebrow. Penny looked perplexed and desperately wanted to take her words back.

"It's all right. You know you can speak freely when you're alone with me."

"You rejected the Aldrich Bill again today, didn't you?"

"You know I did."

"Even as our population touches yet another record low. Even as your home state of New York might cease to exist in one generation."

"Yes," she sighed heavily. "Believe me, I know the predictions."

Miriam looked out of the window on her side and saw clusters of lights below them. She called Penny over to show it to her as well.

"See that? One hundred years ago, we were running out of power sources. People claimed that we would not live another twenty years. We made cold fusion possible. Pollution and climate change were also predicted to wipe humanity off the Earth. We've turned that around too. We humans as a species are more resilient than we give ourselves credit for."

"It's a pity then how we fixed all the problems and are about to go extinct anyway."

Miriam smirked at Penny's comment. She didn't hold her aide's views against her. In truth, she had long stopped trying to change the minds of those who disagreed with her.

"You're from Sarah Lawrence too," said Penny. "I minored in history there. I read entire books on how men treated women before the Gladys Slocum incident. Do you know until a few centuries ago we couldn't work or vote or be financially independent? While they were around, men almost always treated women like shit. If the tables were turned... if they were in our place, do you really think they would not have done what we want to do? Do you think they would not have rounded up women and imprisoned them in breeding centres from way before things got to where they are now?"

Miriam's gaze remained directed outside the window as she saw the Manhattan skyline rush towards them.

"I," she said, pausing to take a breath. "I... would like to think that if the genders were reversed in this scenario, there would at least be one man who would fight to do the right thing, against all odds. I am merely that man in this world."

* *

Manhattan, New York

Miriam dropped her aide off at her apartment before she took a pause to decide what she would do next. There was always the prospect of her large, empty mansion in Cold Spring. There was no real work she had that could not wait until the next day.

"What is your next destination?" the craft interface helpfully asked.

"Back entrance of Red Velvet."

Even as the craft rose in the air and made its way towards the Red Velvet, Miriam reconsidered her impulse. Despite everything, she was still a sitting Senator from an influential family.

"Who cares about reputations any more?" she thought. "We're all going to die tomorrow."

Nevertheless, she called ahead to her contact at the club and told them to expect her at the secret entrance. The world was ending so most women did not care if they were caught entering or leaving places like Red Velvet. Even so, Miriam needed the discretion.

It took a few short minutes of flying time before she reached the entrance. Her contact was waiting.

"Long day, Senator?"

"You have no idea," she replied and kissed her friend on the cheek. "Who have you got for me?"

"We have the latest masculine androids. The range is especially popular now. John Wayne? Leonardo diCaprio? Tom Holland? Remember those names from the pre incident movies? We have recreated them down to the last detail."

"No thanks," Miriam said. "I'd rather have a real person than a hapless facsimile of someone who's long been dead and buried."

Her friend excused herself for a moment to look at other options.

"Lucky for you Alana is here tonight. She was supposed to meet another client, but I can change her schedule."

"Alana sounds delightful. I assume you still charge the usual?"

A few taps and the requisite funds were transferred.

"Please, follow me."

The décor was different from the strobing lights in the main club. It was a darker, sombre red. A slow quartet melody serenaded Miriam as she followed the hostess through a corridor. The occasional door gave off loud moans.

"Business is good, I see."

"It's end of the times," smirked her friend. "Quite literally."

They reached a door. The room on the other side was lined with plush, velvet seating going all the way around. A beaded curtain shimmered on the opposite wall of the room.

"Alana will be along shortly. Would you like a drink?"

"Something strong would be nice."

A selection of drinks appeared in front of Miriam. She lazily scrolled down the list until she found what she was looking for.

"Your taste is impeccable as always, Miriam."

The drinks arrived and Miriam poured herself a generous helping. The bitter truth of how everyone viewed her would take a few sips to dull.

"Miri..."

An angelic voice snapped Miriam out of her trance. She watched expectantly as the beaded curtain bulged towards her. The red light glinted off the parted beads revealing a tall form. Alana's face was partly obscured by shadow. Her tall frame culminated in silky tresses of hair coming down both sides of her head. Her lips could not quite be considered to be smiling, yet showed that desperately earnest longing that would beg the one in front of her to try to make her smile.

"It's been too long, Miri."

The melody was soft now, a mere whisper. Alana stepped out of the beads and stood with her hands on her hips. Miriam surveyed her naked form over the rim of her glass.

"What would you like, Senator Blakely?"

She did a brief pirouette before her skin was inches from the Senator.

"What is your fantasy today? Do you want a girlfriend? Do you want a damsel in distress? Do you want to save me from this life, Senator?"

"How about you sit beside me for a start?" Miriam said, patting the seating area beside. Alana dutifully curled up and poured herself a glass of Miriam's drink.