The first scattered news reports barely made a splash. It was a statistical blip and nobody but the bean counters cared.
Birthrates were decreasing worldwide. A barely perceptible trend at first, when it did get noticed, it was greeted with hope by some, despair by some, and a shrugging "meh" by most of the world. As the trend gradually accelerated, public concern grew only slowly, and even then only because a few outlets chose to go the scaremongering route.
It didn't make front page news until it was discovered that the cause was a virus that crippled sperm cells, that everyone tested, male and female, had it, and that nobody had the slightest idea how to go about finding a cure, a vaccine, or so much as a treatment.
Not getting someone pregnant is the kind of symptom that goes unnoticed in most people for a long time. For those not actively trying to, it isn't even a symptom, it's an unrecognized lucky break. For those who are trying, it takes a lot of failed attempts before they even begin to think there might be a problem. By the time the medical world made the connection, it was too late. It became a global panic when the global birthrate dropped off a cliff, seemingly all at once.
Several million babies were suddenly not being born. It was the same number, give or take a rounding error, that would be expected to be born every year. In other words, the world's birth rate had dropped to a number statistically indistinguishable from zero.
It wasn't in fact zero. In the US, it was a few dozen on the year, down from over three million the year prior. The rest of the world faced similar, absolutely catastrophic numbers. Governments pulled out all the stops to counter or at least mitigate the problem, to shore up their future tax bases, and, incidentally, to save the human race from extinction.
In addition to virtually all research money spent on anything suddenly going into researching what to do medically, countries, especially western countries, turned on a dime with regard to puritanical laws. Countries with less freedom began giant breeding programs. Countries with more freedom resorted to incentives and soft encouragement.
Those incentives meant that the literally one in a million men who's sperm were not crippled by the virus had won the lottery. Women who had a baby would be set for life. The men who had fathered them would get a chunk of change big enough to live on for months, or, in many cases, go on a months long bender. Those lucky few who could reliably and repeatedly make babies would never need to work again.
Unfortunately for the future of the world, only a little under 4000 such men had been identified worldwide so far, 163 of them in the US, where 98% of men had been tested.
Obviously, normal patterns of mating and reproduction could not continue. Birth control was banned worldwide. Every law meant to discourage careless and frequent sex was either repealed, or replaced with a complimentary law designed to encourage it. Media of all sorts were paid to propagandize for unsafe sex. Depictions of graphic sex in media went from illegal or at least taboo to legal and the very height of patriotism and social consciousness. Public nudity and so called 'lewd' acts were not only legalized, but highlighted in news reports, documentaries, and public service announcements.
The exceptions were sexual acts that by their very nature could not lead to conception. Oral and anal sex, masturbation, and pulling out became, if not outright banned, things considered so outrageous, obscene, and depraved that anyone caught doing them would be a pariah. Porn sites across the board pulled any videos featuring facials, or any visible cum shot, and banned users who tried to submit them.
In the first year of this new world order, the birthrate climbed to 5 times the newly expected statistical rate in some countries. This still left humanity rushing toward a catastrophe unknown in recorded history, but it gave some hope that the human race could get through it, even if only as a mere shadow of it's previous numbers.
===
Brian Abernathy was not the kind of guy who won anything, and especially not lotteries. Going into his sophomore year at Jacobson University, one of the more prestigious universities in his family's price range, he'd all but given up on ever losing his virginity.
Being a physics major put him a notch above most students, but that was his only distinction. He was an average student within that program. He had the kind of looks that were entirely forgettable. People looked right past him or even right through him. He was not even ugly enough to be remarkable.
He was starting to prefer it that way. He hated having attention on him. He would have been happy to get through college life without ever being noticed. He held out some vague hope that somehow, probably by accident or due to some poor girl losing a bet, he'd get laid before he graduated. He had no idea how or why that might happen, but he was starting to see the bright side of never having to try.
He could have no way of knowing that in crumpled tissues in his wastebasket, messy socks in his laundry hamper, and bits of white goo in the shower drain, his little guys swam valiantly on, and on, until the medium they were swimming in became too crusty to support life.
He didn't bother going for the test until the University medical service identified him as one of only a handful of students who had not yet been tested and began pestering him mercilessly. Everyone involved knew it was a futile exercise, not least of all Brian. But it was a numbers game, and the state was bound and determined to crunch each and every number it could get its hands on.
The University Health Service clinic had an air of futility and drab routine. The staff carried blank, bored expressions and performed their duties mechanically. The waiting room was empty, with almost no-one left to test. He filled out the paperwork and was immediately brought into a small cubicle.
The nurse took him in, a woman who looked to be in her late twenties. Blonde, medium build and attractive in a plain and simple kind of way. She said nothing beyond the minimum, and barely even looked at him. That was fine with Brian. What he was about to do was embarrassing enough. He didn't need small talk to multiply the awkwardness.
He thought the process would mean simply rubbing one out into a beaker and handing it to her outside the cubicle. It was a procedure he was deeply familiar with, aside from the beaker, and handing it to someone afterward.
It turned out to be more complicated than that. Given the problem, that affected sperm couldn't swim and began degrading as soon as it left the body, it couldn't be stored for any length of time. Even relatively healthy sperm didn't last long enough to be stored for testing, or to carry out an artificial insemination program at any scale at all.
For the test, it had to be deposited directly into something capable of analyzing it on the spot. A long receptacle, resembling a fat flashlight, went where he had expected his hand to be. This receptacle was connected by a short hose to a machine about the size of a very large microwave oven. The nurse explained that his sample would be sucked through the hose and sent to a testing chamber. He flushed with both embarrassment and expectation when she said "sucked".
The receptacle wasn't just a fitted plastic tube. It would do all the work required. The nurse explained this as she asked him to drop his pants and sit in a reclining chair lined with a sterile paper cover. She explained that she would have to fit the receptacle, start the machine and monitor the process. She began by lubricating his penis with a gloved hand, using a gel from a small dispenser next to the machine. This left his cock fully ready to be inserted into the waiting semen receptacle.
He had a moment to wonder about the abject misery her job must be. She spent all day getting guys off with a machine after rubbing lubricant all over their dicks. It was impersonal, indirect stimulation - not to mention surely futile given the odds - and she couldn't even talk to her patients. Even having a bedside manner would lead to all kinds of awkwardness and misunderstanding. But she seemed able to compartmentalize it. He hoped for her sake she didn't have nightmares about it, and that it didn't ruin the whole idea of interacting with a penis for her.
She inserted him into the receptacle. "Please delay your ejaculation until the process begins." she said, pointing to a light on a panel facing him. It was good and necessary advice. As soon as the device surrounded him, it felt amazing. Just the light friction of sliding into it was almost too much for him. He'd never felt anything like it, though that was a very low bar, given that he'd never so much as kissed a girl. It was still a big deal to him.
He gritted his teeth, and waited for that green light to go on. She flicked a switch, and the machine began to whir in a steadily rising pitch. He felt the suction begin, lightly at first, then ramping up. Then the vibrating massage kicked in, and he lost it the instant the green light went on to indicate the machine was ready.
It manipulated him for another thirty seconds, making him shudder and thrust his hips over and over again, making her have to ride it out with him, making sure the receptacle remained firmly in place through his thrashing orgasm.
Throughout it all, she acted as if she didn't even know he was there, as if he was just an inanimate extension of the machine. She didn't have a good impression of him, she didn't have a bad impression of him. She had no impression of him at all.
He was used to it, except that this was someone who, in a sense, had just given him a hand job.
===
By morning, he'd pretty much forgotten about the test, though during his 'morning constitutional', a furtive and rushed effort that had to be completed while his dorm mate Ivan was in the shower, he remembered how great the machine felt, and imagined a real girl's mouth in place of a hard plastic tube as he replayed the sensations in his mind.
He'd checked his University Health Service account before heading to his first class. They'd told him last night that they would be posted to his private page within twelve hours, and probably less. It was just a formality. Once he saw the inevitable result, he could get on with his normal life and forget all about it. He had no doubts, no hopes, but it felt like a nagging unfinished task that he wanted out of the way.
There were no results yet.
He left early after showering, shaving, and brushing his teeth. The first class of the day was differential equations, his hardest class. He liked to get there early. It gave him time to do most of his homework and reading since he could keep working on it right up to the minute the professor began the class.
The campus was mostly empty at this early hour, with just a few stragglers here and there. There was a chill in the air, not enough to be cold, but enough to justify a thick button down shirt over his t-shirt and jeans. It would warm up later, and the over shirt would give him options later.
The physics hall was a quarter mile a way, beyond a large open grassy expanse behind his dorm. He turned the corner to pass through the gangway between his building and the next, and saw a woman leaning against the wall about midway through the narrow passage.
