GEORGE OF EARTH
by michael dare

     George is a librarian, a well-read, good-natured schmuck who can’t get laid under any circumstances. Try though he might (and he is mighty trying), there is no member of the female sex willing to consummate her relationship with George. He is embarrassed and frustrated. It’s not that he’s bad looking, but somehow bars, and even classifieds, don’t work for him. When his girl friend Millie throws herself at him, he doesn’t know what to do.      One day while working in the vaults, an enormous radioactive solar flare causes every man on earth to become sterile except for George. Something about the protection of all that paper.
     When the word gets out, he becomes the most pursued man on the planet.
     The Pentagon sees this as a chance to conduct the world’s most conclusive genetic experiment, so they go after him. After all, mankind’s entire genetic pool is in his crotch.
     The monetary offers from sperm banks are staggering. He can make a million a pop, but he has an aversion to sex with bottles.
     Most of all, women want him. Young women, old women, happy women, scared women, he has his pick. But all he really wants is Millie. He has to choose between true love and saving the planet through unlimited intercourse with different women.
     When he is finally captured by the authorities, he threatens to do himself in unless they capitulate to his particular plans for his future sex life. Since the future of mankind depends on George’s sperm count, the scientists agree to his demands.      He invents a sexual hierarchy, wherein a certain amount of women are paraded in front of him at the start of each day. He chooses one or two to join him in procreation until he comes in each of them, which is usually by noon. He is fed, then he naps.
     After a Jacuzzi, another group of females is paraded in front of him, and he chooses one or two to spend the rest of the day with. They are under strict orders to leave when he falls asleep, for he is to be woken up the next morning by yet another parade of uteri, eager for implantation.
 He eagerly fulfills every sexual fantasy he has ever read about in Penthouse. All of Hollywood is at his beck and call, so all his most elaborate daydreams come magically true.
 Once in a while, one of the girls may long to linger, but rules are rules. He cannot see them again until their turn comes up again, and the list is long. The purpose of the system is quantity, not quality, and after several weeks, George once again finds himself lonely. He has fulfilled every sexual fantasy known to man, but he hasn’t been able to sustain a relationship for more than a day. He just wants to be left alone. He tries to find Millie, but she has disappeared.      Nine months later, children start coming into the world. The legions of George. He meets them all. Years later, as the original population of the earth starts dying, he gives rise to a whole new nation of offspring. He is Adam to thousands of Eves.
     He dies, and his ghost rises above his body. Unable to communicate with the living world, he watches as tribute is paid to him across the planet. Thousands attend his funeral.
     He’s standing on the corner watching his own funeral go by when up pulls a striped racing jalopy full of teenagers who look like they’re from outer space. They ask him to join them. He does. They are indeed from outer space. The jalopy flies into the sky, circles the moon, then zips around the earth again, settling somewhere near the Alps. The teenagers Jazzbo, Oogie, and Clive, can’t stop laughing as they cruise around the planet and the universe, while having a chat.  “Wow, man, that was great.”
 “You were great, it was just perfect, it couldn’t have been any better. What a fantasy.”
 “You guys talking about me?”
 “We’re talking about your life, man, there were parts that were just amazing.”
 “What do you mean? You watched my whole life?”
 “Of course not, man. Just the best parts. We don’t pay the strict attention to our creations that you humans like to imagine. We leave you alone once in a while, like a doctor going from room to room in a maternity ward, trying to figure out who’s the next to be wheeled into the delivery room.”
 “You can pray up a storm and it’ll do you no good, dude. When we’re outa town, we’re outa town. We ain’t got no beepers.”
 “Are you Gods?”
 “I guess you could call us that. I mean to you we are. I guess anyone who can do something that you can’t is a God. But there are lots of other Gods above us who can do all kinds of shit that we can’t even dream of. They’re Gods, I mean sheesh, you don’t wanna deal with them. But to you, to George of Earth, to you, yeah, we’re Gods.”
 “Why are you in this car?”
 “We can be in anything we want, why not something cool.”
 “What are you doing here?”
 “Getting blasted, George. Getting blasted on George of Earth.”
 “What do you mean?”
 “I understand. You’re confused. Look, here’s what we can do. We’re Gods, right? We can join beings on earth, we can experience things from their point of view without disturbing them at all.”
 “We actually communicate through the pineal gland, if you must know. It’s as though you were broadcasting your lives out to space, and we can tune in on you like a radio station, any time, anywhere. And it’s better than a movie because we get all your senses, the whole zeitgeist.”
 “Every time I’m in this neck of the woods, I like to tune in on John Kennedy in the White House with Marilyn Monroe, you know what I mean? It makes the trip worth all the bother.”
 “What trip?”
 “I can’t tell you about that, but I can tell you one thing. We normally don’t do this, but the council wants to thank you.”
 “For what?”
 “While you were having your global summit, we were having a summit of our own, and Jazzbo here came up with an idea that somehow appealed to the majority.”
 “Majority rules in heaven?”
 “No, the minority does, but that’s a little hard to explain. Anyway, I said wouldn’t it be great to fuck a whole planet? I mean to somehow join in on a great coupling of an entire species. Then I came up with the idea of the one fertile man. It was great, huh?”
 “And using earth again. Wow, what a brainstorm.”
 “He reminded us about how much we had enjoyed his broadcast of all the simultaneous orgasms in New York City during the blackout...”
 “...and the council allowed us to do what we just did, to alter reality a little for their entertainment. We picked you, you lucky bastard, and we broadcast the highlights of your life to every God in the universe. Our ratings are outrageous. You’re a big success.”
 “My God, you’re intergalactic pornographers!”
 “We prefer to think of ourselves as pleasure seekers willing to share our discoveries.”
 “Yeah? So now what? Now that you’ve fucked up my life, I get to spend eternity with you?”
 “Uh hunh, you wish big guy.”
 “Actually, George, it’s up to you. We can put you back just where you were, or we can put you back to the beginning of the broadcast, and you can experience the last year all over again. I think we owe that to you.”
 “Or if you’ve had enough of this lifestyle, we can put you back to the beginning and forget the whole sterilization of man bit.”
 “I can’t believe you fell for that.”
 “Whatayuh mean? It could have happened.”
 “I got one word for you, George. Cloning. Nobody needed to suck you off to perpetuate the species. That was all Jazzbo’s idea.”
 “And we’ve got the whole thing in memory, right? We can see it again whenever we want.”
 “You can put me back to when I was still a virgin?”
 “Yeah, but just imagine what you can do with what you know.”
 “You mean you’re not going to erase my memory? I won’t forget all this?”
 “You don’t believe that science fiction bullshit, do you? Forget Star Trek, your memory can’t just be erased. There are procedures. You don’t wanna know.”
 “You’re going to remember all of this, and you get to decide for yourself whether to tell anyone. I recommend keeping your mouth shut if you don’t want everyone to think you’re insane.”
  “Okay, George, so what’ll it be?”
 “I want to go back to the day it all happened, and I don’t want it to happen.”
 “I knew it, a romantic.”
 “A well-rehearsed romantic.”
 “Thanks for the fantasy.”
 “Will I ever get to see it again?”
 “We’ll broadcast it to you every once in a while.”
 “Yeah, you’re on our mailing list.”  George awakens to find himself alone with Millie. This time he knows what to do.