Giant Floating Head Kevin

After my parents and I got and ate breakfast from the 'mess hall' corner of the room, he came over.

"Mr. and Mrs. Kooper, Kevin. We have some medical tests scheduled for today for all of you, and we do apologize but my direct orders were, 'find out everything there is to know about that boy' because any info about what makes you special makes the world safer, I think."

We all nodded.

Mom asked when we'd be living in a more normal bedroom, and he nodded like that'd been addressed, "Handled. When you're ready, after this, we'll be putting you in a BOQ apartment, bachelor's officers' quarters, only it's really like a one-bedroom apartment. Two apartments, near each other but not right next door. The LT will set you up. Reach out to me if you have requests, but they should be able to handle most everything for you."

That was it. He was done, nodded at us, said 'Carry on' to the person named (ranked, actually, lieutenant) LT, and went back to work.

We were shown out the door, with a full set of Marines in combat gear waiting to walk around us.

You have not _really_ been properly freaked out until you've been freaked out by being escorted, walking in the center of 12 full-combat-equipped Marines.

We walked outside and down the block, around a corner, and into an old looking building, and then downstairs to the basement. The room I was led to was pretty nice inside like a normal hotel room except it had concrete walls and no windows. My parents were in a room down the hall, we nodded to each other as we went in.

Once we got our bags dumped there, a doctor and nurse showed up to my room, and started taking a health history. I was getting used to telling the same stuff to multiple people, though it got to be hard to remember what I'd told one person and what I'd told another.

He took blood again (they'd taken four vials of it the night before), had me pee into a cup in the bathroom (while the nurse stood in the corner, kind of awkward), and even wanted a stool sample, which I didn't have but they left me a 'collection kit'. That kit was a bedpan that I was assured would nest under the toilet seat nicely.

Oddball stuff.

Mostly done with my exam, they went and did the same stuff for my parents (I heard them in the hallway) and I sat down to watch TV. Egads, there's nothing to watch in the mornings on a weekday, nevermind that they kept cutting in with news broadcasts on the big networks, and the independent channel just showed reruns of Gomer Pyle and other crap no one watches.

Right after lunch (a bunch of to-go containers from nearby restaurants), I had nothing to do but clean up and put the containers in the fridge.

An hour later or so, there was a knock on the door.

The day's awkward oddity came when a pair of women in their 20's, wearing Navy sweats, came in my door, courtesy of having printed orders they showed to the guards outside.

After they were already in, one of them asked (too late), "Can we come in?"

"Sure?"

They shut the door and we relocated to the center of the 'living room' area. Both were pretty, in their mid-20's maybe, one blonde and one with hair that was a cross between dark brown and red. They had light jackets on, but took them off as they came in and I backed up to be in the 'living room' area. One of them said her name was Beth and we shook hands, and Sandi was the other and we shook, too.

Beth was in charge.

"So...." she said, kind of cagey, "Uh, this is going to be an awkward conversation."

"Okay?"

She sighed, deeply, pursed her lips, and looked worried, "So we ... volunteered. Very definitely, I volunteered. This isn't something they can order a person to do."

I waited, she was working up to something.

"We got called in, like 30 of us, from all over the base, randomly I think, this morning. Clean up sharp, best look like for a photo shoot, come to the BX, the store. We get there, get fitted out with new kit, like, nice clothes? Free, they said. Then, to this room, behind the BX."

Sandy was nodding, but she was more laid back, leaning against the wall, waiting for the story to come out.

"A female doctor, nearly the highest ranking doc on the base, has us all lined up there, like 30 of us. Says, 'I have been ordered by the Secretary of the Navy to acquire a set of medical specimens from Kevin Kooper. Specifically, sperm samples. He is an 18 year old male, as normal as any other high school kid. No diseases or conditions, healthy, everything should be working fine. So, we need to collect these samples. But, we need to ensure the samples are handled correctly, rapidly put into liquid nitrogen storage, and transported back to CDC in Atlanta on the Ready Alert jet. A plane is literally waiting for them, on the tarmac, now."

"We all were laughing sort-of, quietly, at the way this was coming out. I mean, it was funny, but it wasn't funny, so we were ... holding back."

I nodded, I got that, and smiled with her.

She continued, "So, she said, 'We need at least two people, might be two from your group, to volunteer for this job. You'd need to be totally, utterly healthy, have not had any sexual contact in the last month, had a recent physical exam that came up clean, and have had some sexual experience that would help with the collection of this specimen."

Her face showed that she could tell she was nervous about telling me this, so I nodded and said, "Yeah, okay, keep going."

"So then she told the group of us that we had to decide together who it would be, and it had to be unanimous, or nobody, and they'd try with a different group... Well, we got the go-ahead, and we all chatted, and we settled on our randomize-method being who had the lowest last two digits of the zip code where we grew up. It was Sandi and myself."

She waited, trying to see what I would say.

I asked, "Uh, you're here, kinda, to... have sex with me, or... at least, do whatever, so I cum, and you catch it somewhere and that's that?"

They both nodded.

I thought about this, and wanted to go to a window, but there were no windows. I looked at the bad art on the wall for a minute. The idea that my life was now being controlled by very powerful people, even more than it had been before, it kind of got to me.

Thinking out loud, I said, turning around to face them, and then to pace as I talked, "Something is wrong with this. This situation. It's ... Not you, for sure, you're... wow, beautiful, pretty, sexy, all that. But... I ... I'm not ... I expected a chance to have a ... normal life about this stuff. I wanted to ... discover? I mean..."

While I thought about it, they sat down on the couch. I turned a kitchen chair so I was sitting backwards, so I could lean and prop my chin up on the back as I thought.

I narrated my thought process. "It's like, how can I turn this around to see what it really is, from outside myself? I kinda thought last night, if I pretend I'm a teenage girl and not a teenage guy, how does this change? Would the President of the USA ask me for some sexual thing, if I was a teen girl? No, of course not, it'd be too much like exploitation, or rape or something? So..."

She was confused. "So, is it okay that we help you, or do you want to be alone, and we'll take it after you're done, or ...what?"

I clarified, "I think, if I let the military run my life, they'll keep taking and taking and I'll end up subservient and have no options. So, no, I think I want to... to have a normal life, at least a little, and have my 'fun', my first time... Yes, I'm a virgin.... My first time, I want to be with a girl I know, and who I like, and ... after that, then, Wow, I'd like to have you be a part of it, but..."

They nodded, and were smiling like mad, like this suddenly had gotten a lot less uncomfortable.

In reality, it had. They had just switched roles from being unwelcome, or maybe coerced in some way into a sexual situation, to helping out someone who wanted normal things.

Beth spoke up, "You want to have, ahhh, well, 'help', from someone you know, then?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay. You can't figure that the first person you ask is gonna say yes, though, right? Kinda high pressure for her, too."

"Definitely. I've never been that lucky, and yeah, it's gotta be rough to be asked, like blatantly. You're right."

Beth got up and walked back and forth for a minute and told us to be quiet for a moment while she thought.

She seemed pretty smart so I waited - we waited - until she got done.

Continuing, Beth said, "A list. You need a list - of best candidates. Then, you call everyone on the list, tell them they're on it, but not where on the list, just that they're on it. Be totally up front. A girl doesn't want to feel cheated and manipulated later, so truth is the best option. You tell them, hey, I thought of you, I'm calling you and some other people, if you say yes, someone will choose from the list in a random order, so in case everyone says yes, you all feel good, no one is obligated, it's all good."

She was smiling, and I did see the advantage.

We set about it. It took about an hour to write up what I was going to say, to pare it down to be way shorter, and another hour to get calls set up with each of the girls I'd thought about.

Picking up the phone, she called the supervising doctor lady and explained, and got the okay, so we went forward with the process.

Around the kitchen table, we had a tape recorder and a speakerphone, and I set to calling people. Cindi disappeared for a little while, but came back with a list of phone numbers for the people we were going to call.

I had it scripted out, so I could talk fast.

Ring. Ring. "Hello?"

"I'd like to speak with Shelly, please."

Shuffling noises. "Shelly here."

"This is Kevin Kooper."

"Oh my God! Kevin! Why are you ... wow... Why are you calling me?"

"Yeah. So, first off, there's at least 3 people listening in on this phone call - me, and two nurses that are helping me, and a tape recorder, and probably the line is bugged, so watch what you say, okay?"

"Okay?"

"Here goes. I've written this down, so I say it the same way. Starting. The President of the United States told the Joint Chiefs of Staff, specifically the Secretary of the Navy, that his orders were, he should start an R&D project to learn everything there is to know about the genetics and medical information about Kevin Kooper, me."

"In turn, the Secretary of the Navy repeated that order - we're two steps from the President, now - to the chief doctor on this Navy base. That doctor called in a bunch of Navy women, and asked if any of them would be willing to help me, Kevin, collect a sperm sample. Actually, a set of samples, because they're going to need lots of samples. Makes sense so far, you can say yes or no?"

"Yes?"

"Good. So, two women volunteers came to my room this morning. It's a nice enough apartment on base here, and they told me what was needed. They offered to help. But, I said no."

I paused for a moment and said, "They asked why, trying to be helpful, and I had to think for a moment. The problem was, and is, I'm a virgin, so I told them that. I said, I want my first few times to be with a girl I know, who is nice, and fun and who I can ... be myself with? Not some random person, however beautiful. I want to ... find someone I know? Who do I have even the smallest connection with already?"

I'd inserted strategic pauses in this, where it felt right.

"So. These women, they're great, they helped me out. They said, get a list together of the 20 or 30 girls, maybe, that I know the best, in all the school, or from my life. On that list, decide who I know already, who I want to know, even if I don't know them well yet. Sure, pay attention to how attractive they are, but mostly, focus on the fun aspect, the interesting and fun to be with part."

"So, I did. Then, they said, we'll mix them up, no priority with any specific one, because if you rank them, no one wants to be down the list. So, they said, you'll call ALL the girls on the list, invite them over for dinner, and find out who you like and want to hang around with, and they can hang out with you, and decide for themselves, too. Then, it's equal."

"So, I did that, and they got your number, and so I'm calling you, and inviting you to come over. Now, we all know, this is gotta be a huge oh-my-god thing, and you may be a virgin, too, or not, I don't care, mostly I think it might be fun if you came over, for dinner one night in the next two weeks or so. Then, in the context of a dinner and just being two normal people, if you want to help the donation thing, you can, you don't ever have to, whatever. You can go home anytime, or stay all night, no pressure, no worries, free food, and there's guards at the door so I can't possibly misbehave because they're way bigger than me."

If you understand me, this idea, you can say, 'I understand?'"

"I understand."

"Then, the plan was, whoever says yes, willing to try out this idea, a U.S. Navy doctor, a woman doctor, visits their house and gets a medical exam and blood samples or something, and then when they're cleared to come over. Sorry about that, their rules. Anyway, after that, you'd be randomly scheduled to come in, by not-me, no playing favorites, and we can have fun with no pressure or worry about disease or stuff like that, and it's relaxed and probably fun and everybody's happy."

I'd usually pause there, to give them a second.

"So, I guess I'm asking you, as a person who I think is kind of cool and interesting, and also who's pretty and beautiful, if you want to come over and maybe just have a meal, and maybe stay the night but only if both of us like that idea. Will you? Help out?"

Every one of them said yes except Varisha, a girl I knew from both Band and Track, who was Indian and I'm pretty sure her parents were telling her to say no.

It took a couple of hours to call all of them, mostly because my script was long, I think. I did shorten it up a little near the end, and spoke faster, maybe, but I hoped it wasn't seeming too abrupt and therefore rude.

At the time, it seemed like maybe someone had pre-called their families, maybe, to make sure they'd be there to take the call, because I got through on the first try for everyone, and I figured the chances of that were low.

Enough was going on behind the scenes at that point that it would have been exactly on point for the doc to have done that pre-arrange bit.

I would have to wait a day at least for the first one, because of the health checks, we figured.

My parents were just down the hallway, so I invited them to come over and we chatted.

I had to tell them.

Really, the most embarrassing thing about this was telling my mother. Dad, he just nodded about everything, but Mom was more of a busybody. She wanted to read the script I'd written, and then when she was done, she got up and hugged me. She said she was proud of how I'd handled it, that it was obvious that I respected the girls and they knew they'd be safe.

I wasn't sure if I knew what was safe!

Watching TV, the networks kept breaking in with news of this or that thing happening. Nearly all the ships in the Navy and Coast Guard had set sail at the same time. Most of them, the White House said, were starting enforcement of international law about fishing in international waters, in the Arctic ocean, the Southern (Antarctic) ocean, Indian, all of them.

Congress had started to debate how to fund research on thorium nuclear power, PV panel improvements, wind turbines, etc. Lots of money was coming available, like more money than I'd ever heard discussed around a single bill.

I think that was the first time in my life, Ever, that I heard the words, 'a trillion dollars' used about something real.

We had dinner together, and we kind of settled in.

The two women that had been with me stuck around long enough for Mom and Dad to meet them, but then the Doctor assigned them to 'live' in two new rooms down the hall from us, and I saw a bunch of guys carting stuff into their rooms.

Going to sleep that night, I wondered if I should jerk off or not, since I was seriously horny and I usually did it a couple of times a week. Instead, though, I just rolled over and soon enough I was out cold.

The middle of the night, I woke up, and couldn't go back to sleep. All I could think about was whether I'd made a fool of myself by calling those girls, people I knew and who knew me, like really well, since early elementary school.

As much as I could decide I was okay and it hadn't been embarrassing, it still kind of was. I mean, it's not a thing most guys do, to admit they're a virgin. Or, to ask if a girl wants to come on a date that might explicitly include sex, or not, and how could any of them say yes?

Were they just humoring me because I was so massively unlucky to be singled out like that?

It finally got to be morning, and I was sleeping off and on.

There was a knock on the door about 7:30 am, which is late since I had to be at school most days by 6:30. But, with the stress, I'd slept in.

I went to the door and opened it.

Hello, Jodi?

Jodi French was standing there. Next to her (facing away from me) was the door guard guy, and next to him was a lady in uniform holding one of those metal hard-case clipboard things like the dishwasher repair guy carried.

It was a strange thing to focus on so briefly, so I shook my head and looked back at Jodi.

Everyone was dressed - except for me. I just was standing there, bleary eyed, wearing a light blue t-shirt with 'Navy' on it, and light cotton shorts like gym shorts that said, "USS Spruance". I didn't know what ship that was, but they'd given me a hodgepodge of clothes to start with.

Jodi had a backpack and had a small rolling suitcase behind her, like pilots have in airports. She had on jeans and a sweatshirt that said, "Northwestern" (for the University) and gym shoes. She looked nervous.

I was confused. Was this supposed to start ... so soon? Still, I kind of rubbed my eyes and said, "Wow! Jodi! Uh... Please, come in? Wow. Uh, yeah, come in."

I stepped way back and she came in, and I noticed the backpack was stuffed really full, compared to a school-day's backpack. The lady with the clipboard nodded at me and we shut the door. She had been escorting, and that was that.

Frankly, I was immensely glad she didn't have to come into the room with us!

Waving at the dining room area, I said, "You can drop your pack anywhere, my God, I'm ... huh. I guess I'm a sucky host, I'm not even showered and shaved and stuff..."

"Oh, no! Not at all! I'm sooo sorry, did I wake you up?"

She had, but really I'd sort of been half-asleep anyway, so I said so, but then I said, "Doesn't matter where I was. Of everything that's happened in the last few days, your being here is probably the best changeup possible."

Her face screwed up a little, like this was confusing, so I clarified and she figured out it was a big compliment, a reverse from so many ways in which my freedom and autonomy had been cut out, but for once I got a chance to make a decision, and it was to have her there, and that she could be something not-controlled by the Navy.

She nodded like that was a good thing, but after a few seconds, she confessed, "I'm ... not here, like that, Kevin. I'm ... I am being controlled, sort-of, by the Navy, too."

We went over and sat down, her on the couch, me on the big lounger chair next to her.

I felt odd, not being that dressed, but she didn't seem to mind, and it felt good to just talk with someone normal and not a way-adult Navy person.

Settled in the chair, she tried to explain.

"So, yesterday morning, we got this knock on the front door. We're all locked down, stay at home, our whole families, we're all supposed to just stay there, Army guards in front and behind the house? Only, the knock is this pair of women, like FBI types, in suits."