Up for Grabs: Exploring the Worlds of Gender
by Lauren P. Burka
Published by Circlet Press, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Circlet Press, Inc.
Cover art © 2007 by Sandy Viktor Nys
The art of Sandy Viktor Nys may be viewed at www.hybryds.com.
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Table of Contents
Introduction by Lauren P. Burka
Only For Myself: Japan, 2043 by Zachary Jernigan
Fair Play by David D. Levine
Transplant by Ellen Tevault
Passage by Anya Levin
The Ontological Engine, or,The Modern Leda by Vinnie Tesla
Contributors
Introduction
I've always wondered why it seems so important to know the sex of a person immediately upon meeting him (note the English pronoun convention). Is the issue that my native language, English, requires me to choose the proper pronoun to address people politely, or to write of them in any manner other than a sort of uncomfortable masculinity?
Yet Cecilia Tan once told me that modern brain imaging research has disproved this notion. Even people whose first languages have non-gendered pronouns show activity in the part of the brain that decides sex from visual cues. Knowing whether someone is a he or a she is almost as important to us as knowing his species, and whether he is friendly or dangerous. I don't know about you, but my brain gets terribly confused when my eyes have decided that a person is female but then he informs me that he prefers male pronouns.
And consider--sexual ambiguity can be hot. If you're reading this, I'm willing to bet that you'd jump at the chance to choose your own sex, to try on a different one for the weekend or for the rest of your life. And how would you feel if you didn't have to pick just one?
My contributors have given me stories where the main characters alter their sexes in the name of pleasure, healing, and profound and celebrated ritual. One contributor gave me story of a woman who is a new and different sex--one that is complete within itself and does not invite a partner. Another contributor introduced me to a celibate researcher who powers his Ontological Engine with the Vital Fluids collected from his human subjects by means of birch bundles and a patented Electrick Vibratorium.
Please join me in a world where all the possibilities of sex and gender are up for grabs.
Lauren P. Burka
Cambridge, MA
Only For Myself: Japan, 2043
Zachary Jernigan
Masa forced me face first onto the bed, pinned me down with a hand on my lower back. He gripped my thighs roughly below the ass and spread the tight skin around my anus with his thumbs. For a moment, I felt only his hot breath between my legs—my every nerve hyperaware, aching for contact—and then he thrust his tongue into me. I bucked against his face, gasping at the scrape of his chin stubble against my labia. He put a hand on my back once more, kept me from moving, from pushing back against his face. I wanted him deeper, but he wouldn't allow it. Not yet. Instead, I felt the nails of his other hand, now, five filed points tensing, threatening to break the skin of my left butt cheek, and his tongue's slow exploration of my anal canal, its rigid motion in and out. I wanted to reposition myself, to grind my hips into the cool silk sheets, to play some active role, but it was better this way; on my own I'd come too soon, burn out in my over-eagerness.
Even now I felt ready, and could have succumbed, but Masa, who always knew when I was close, who felt and heard my breathing change—who sensed what I wanted, and that I wanted it too soon—stopped and stood. For a moment, our bodies were separated by mere inches of heated, pheromoned air. My muscles twitched in arousal, in anticipation, and then, the soft stroke of his penis against the inside of my right thigh, moving slowly toward the center of my spread legs—and still, he held my hips in a vice. I groaned as his swollen head pressed firmly, questingly against my saliva-slick anus but didn't enter. Instead, he slid his head down my perineum, purposefully toward my vagina. At my opening, again, a moment of anticipation; and then slowly, so slowly, he entered me; an un-rushed, smooth and fluid, liquid thrust of his immense girth and length. I released and tightened rhythmically, and he filled me entire...
* * * *
I couldn't hold it any longer. I tapped the inside of my left wrist twice, and the brightness of the world exploded in my head, erupted deep inside—synapse-fire discharging into my stomach, firing ecstatically along my spine. I groaned aloud, breathing quickly, shallowly through my nose. Flexing and releasing inside, I responded to the phantom-thrusts of my lover. My back arched out of the chair and the tendons tensed painfully in my neck. I felt cramps forming in my thighs and buttocks as I sought to hold onto the wave of climax. After nearly a minute of slow spasms, it wound down, and the bunched muscles in my legs loosened, stretched out before me as I collapsed back into the chair.
My heart thudded in my chest; slowed. My breath came out as a long, whistling exhalation, while Masa and I—fucker and fuckee—melded into my mind once again. The pressure of his fingertips was the last part of the somatic dream to slip away, and did so slowly I never knew when the contact actually ended. The pulsing crystals in the corner of my eyes softened as the hallucinogenic haze lifted, burnt out of my system by orgasm, and the deep pulse of meditato music came back into the forefront of my mind. Already, my warmth was beginning to fade, but I still had a long night ahead of me.
I curled up comfortably in the chair, and reached into my medicine pouch for the packet of partitabs the onsen bitch had handed me when I entered; I had no intention of staying at the damn faculty party when Masa was waiting for me, just a couple million drugged brain cells away.
"Excuse me?" a voice asked, interrupting my plans for another seduction.
Reluctantly, I cautiously lifted an eyelid—strobing lights, fast, headache-inducing colors—and quickly snapped it shut again without seeing who had spoken. I thought, hoped, maybe if I stayed silent, whomever it was would give up and go away. I hadn't RSVP'd for the conversation; just drugs.
"Juza-shi? Excuse me, but you're Masa Juza, right?" the voice spoke again.
I sighed; "Juza-shi? Masami. Whoever you are, call me Masami," and kept my eyes shut. I heard the creak of pleather as whoever it was decided to sit. Shit.
"Okay, I guess. Masami it is, then." The voice was youthful—English-native, probably, not that it mattered—and fashionably androgynous. "My name is Katsumi."
And? I opened my eyes, resigned to the fact the person wanted to talk. Sitting across from me was a young woman—to all appearances, anyway, but the name did suggest female—dressed in a gown of constantly rearranging metallic leaves that hid very little. She had unnaturally bright blonde hair and vaguely Korean features. She looked too fashionable, too now—eighteen or nineteen years old: an undergraduate, obviously. No one I wanted to talk to.
She leaned forward. "Juza-shi—uh, Masami. I'm a huge fan. I've read all your stuff."
I closed my eyes again, exhaling loudly through my nose. "Really? No kidding." I closed my eyes again, still hoping she'd get the point and wander off. When had Kyoto U professors started inviting students to their parties? Some days, the whole world seemed to be falling apart. What use was a reputation as a standoffish author if kids who knew nothing thought they could, by dint of their rosy complexions, bring you out of your shell?
"All of it," the girl repeated. "I love your stuff."
God. I opened my eyes, this time resigned to keeping them open. "You've read every one of them, huh?" I knew the girl was exaggerating; most of my works had very low completion statistics.
She nodded eagerly. "Yes. My favorite is Burusera."
I raised my eyebrows at her gall. "That was released five days ago." Last time I'd checked, about three hours previously, the stats showed that only five people had completed the book. And I was relatively sure who those five people were. "You finished it?"
"Well," she said, glancing to the side, "no, I haven't finished it yet, but it's really wonderful so far."
Wonderful? I doubted she'd gotten past the introduction. "How far into it are you?"
"Um," she said, looking toward the ceiling, appearing to think about it. "Pretty far." She reached into the panda bag at her feet, rummaged around for a moment, and pulled out a fluorescent baggy of tabs.
I furrowed my brow; perhaps I didn't want her to leave, after all. Young kids always have the best drugs—they use their parents' money instead of mooching like old, washed-up authors.
She dropped the baggy on the coffee table and met my eyes. "You've got nineteen left, right?"
I looked down at the pills. What? "What are you talking about?"
"Orgasms, Juza-san," she explained. "You just had one, right before I came over. I saw you." She tapped two fingers against her wrist. "It was quite a sight. You looked like you were really having sex with someone. Assuming that was your first one today—it is only twenty past midnight—then you've got nineteen left, right?"
"Why... yes. That's true," I responded, realizing I'd misjudged her: she'd gotten past the introduction. Still—I stared at the baggy of tabs on the table—"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I'm allowed thirteen a day. They tell me my heart won't handle more than that—that is, if I piled them on top of one another. I didn't know you'd been rewired, too, until I read Burusera."
"Okay," I said, unsurprised; it wasn't like it was common knowledge. Most of the people who knew were gathered at the party, were colleagues. "I'm still wondering what your point is."
She picked up the baggy and shook it. "I got these for us."
"For us?"
"Yeah." She nodded, her face split by a grin. I supposed many people found her quite attractive. "I knew you'd be here, so I showed up."
Confused but mildly intrigued, I held my hand out. She dropped the baggy into it. I held it up to the strobing lights. There were no markings on the dark blue tabs. "What are they?"
"It's called modiCUM," she answered, "and it's a quantum increase from those." She pointed to the geisha at the door, with her tray of free drugs. "Latest biotech. It amplifies our pheromonal sensitivity or something. I don't understand it, but it will make us feel like we're together for it."
Together? It sounded dangerous to me. "For what?"
In response, she closed her eyes and tapped her fingers against her left wrist again—a dramatic, rapturous look on her face. The metallic leaves of her dress retreated to reveal her full, small-nippled breasts, and the tight, bare cleft of her vagina.
I dropped the baggy as if it were a live current in my hand. "Why would I want to do that?" I searched for words. "Did... Did you even get past the first chapter of my book?"