Cheryl shook her head in disbelief. "I'm so spastic I'd lose my balance fucking on a bed, let alone on a high wire!"
"Oh, you'd be surprised at some of the places Philip and I have done it," Bonnie said with a snicker.
We were then treated to a series of several short vignettes featuring clowns, midgets, giants, and an assortment of odd-looking creatures who provided us with some much-needed comic relief. I especially liked one rather tall clown who managed to pull birds, flowers, and various other objects out of thin air. When one of the women shouted her appreciation of these magic tricks, the clown presented her with a newly produced bouquet.
I caught a glimpse of the clown in the polka dot costume again. He was riding a tricycle in circles around the stage and held a whip in his right hand, lashing out at any of his unfortunate associates who happened to be in his way. I saw him look in my direction several times and could have sworn that at one point he actually mouthed the words "fuck you" at me as he grinned evilly. He rode the bike out onto the lawn and made as if he was going to head straight toward me. I held my pocketbook up high ready to strike the little bastard as he rode by, but he veered away before approaching our section. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but I couldn't figure out what it was.
"Pretty impressive orgasms on those guys, wouldn't you say?" Rebecca said suddenly.
"I was thinking the same thing," I replied. "The lion man, too."
"What are you two talking about?" Bonnie inquired.
"We're discussing the amount of sperm we've seen here tonight," I said. "Either these guys are exceptionally talented, or they're being helped along via some artificial means."
"Such as?"
"Such as some kind of fertility drug." I replied.
"What fertility drug?"
I didn't mean to but I shot her an accusatory look.
"Oh, no," she said, interpreting my intent. "Are you insinuating that I had something to do with it?"
"I don't know. Did you?"
"Of course not!" she replied offended. "You gave me two tablets...
two
, that's all. And you know where both of them went so don't even dare to accuse me."
"And don't look at me Christiana," Rebecca quickly added. "The only thing I take blame for is the videotape, nothing more."
"Am I the only one who thinks these cumshots are outrageous?" I said unconvinced.
"Nope," Michelle said, "I think they're outrageous too."
Alice popped her head in between Rebecca and me. "There's only one guy I know of who can cum that much and his name is Peter something or other and he's a porno star."
"Yeah, he shoots buckets," Patti Ann noted between sips of her beer.
I looked at Bonnie trying to discern any vulnerability behind her seemingly placid expression. "Doesn't it seem strange to you that these guys are all capable of such fantastic orgasms?"
"I haven't seen anything here tonight that can even come close to what your subjects produced during your experiment, so you can kiss that theory goodbye sis."
"They may not have shot as much sperm that's true," Michelle chimed in, "but it's just not possible for a normal man to cum like that."
"Not unless he's like that guy Peter," Alice said.
"Oh, will you shut up about him!" Patti Ann replied.
"No, you shut up you shit-faced little bitch!"
Bonnie turned to face them. "Please! You're screaming right in my ears!"
I thought Alice was going to make a retort, but she went back to munching on her popcorn while Patti Ann took another swig of beer, both refusing to look at one another.
"Okay, Christiana," Michelle began, "let's say this guy Peter that Alice keeps talking about can shoot really huge loads. He's got to be one man among millions—a freak. The probability of there being three men who can perform such a stunt and be in the same place at the same time is extremely unlikely. I'm not accusing anyone here, but my guess is that these guys got a hold of your drug somehow."
"That's not possible, "I said defensively. "There were only two tablets that went out of the Clinic and I gave them both to Bonnie. The remainder of the drug is safely locked away."
Michelle frowned. "Have you ever considered that you may have a disgruntled person in your employ? Someone who has it in for you?"
"Oh, come on Michelle," I replied with some agitation. "There are many people who don't see eye to eye with my way of doing things. But that doesn't mean they're ripping me off."
"It's not beyond possibility, Christiana," she replied, frankly. "Present company excluded, of course."
Bonnie shot both Michelle and I a disconcerting look. "You know what I think? I think you two are ruining my birthday with all this talk about EJAX-472. Can you both just let it go for today? Please? For my sake?"
She issued her request with such earnestness that both Michelle and I were reduced to silence. Yet again I had managed to spread discord in the face of what should have been a happy event—and once again EJAX-472 was at the center of it.
But Michelle got me to thinking. What if there was a traitor in the ranks? What if someone had managed to pilfer some of the drug without my knowledge? Rebecca, Maria, and Cheryl were not only my assistants; they were my friends. And Rebecca's recent admission of her guilt regarding her giving Bonnie a copy of the videotape, although a minor infraction, proved to me that her conscience would not allow her to condescend to petty larceny. I had to include Maria in this category as well. Cheryl, being a relatively new addition to my staff, could still be considered outside the boundaries of trust I had long ago established between Rebecca, Maria, and me. However, I believed I knew the girl well enough not to entertain any doubts as to her loyalty. Besides, as Rebecca and I were the only two people who had access to the drug, she, as well as Maria had to be held unaccountable. Of course, the other and more reasonable explanation was that the feats of non-stop sperm production were genuinely intrinsic to the men themselves, and that all my suspicions were groundless. As difficult as this was for me to accept, I had to admit to myself that it was a more plausible theory and one that I chose to entertain rather than think ill of my friends. After mulling these thoughts around for some time, I decided to wait and see what other surprises might befall us as the show progressed before deciding what action, if any, to take.
"What the fuck?" Bonnie said suddenly.
The music had abruptly stopped and I was startled from my reverie by the absence of any human beings on the stage with the exception of one small-sized man who approached the center of the ring with a slow, deliberate gait.
"Holy shit!" Alice exclaimed. "Look at this guy!"
Everyone in the audience gasped.
The man, completely naked, with the exception of an Australian bushman's hat, which he wore on one side of his head, stood about four feet in height and was smoking a cigar. As he walked his legs seemed to wobble slightly, so that he teetered from side to side as he made his way upstage. As he drew nearer I could hear a persistent scratching sound like that of a broom being dragged along the floor. Swish, swish, came the funny rubbing noise with each step the little man took. He seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time traversing the length of the area, and looking between his legs I realized the reason for his impeded movement. There, trailing behind him, and in all its resplendent glory, was a massive testicular sac containing what could only be described as a huge pair of ripe casaba melons—two wonderfully freakish specimens of elephantiasis of the scrotum.
No one knew what to make of it. I had seen pictures of freaks in medical books that dealt with the subject, but elephantiasis was an abnormality commonly associated with the brain and its surrounding tissue, not the reproductive system. Yet, here he was, standing not more than twenty feet away from us, a living testimony to the non-selective process of the disease at work—a case for the medical books.
"How ya doin'?" he said addressing the crowd. "I'm Joey Balls."
The line was delivered with all the inflection and intent of a Mafioso boss, but the accent was unmistakably Australian. Suddenly, the entire audience erupted with laughter and wild applause.
"Who is this man?" I asked Bonnie.
"I have no fucking idea," she replied awestruck. "He must be an acquaintance of Philip's. I don't know!"
Everyone stood up to get a better look at his gargantuan testicles that sat like two silent sentinels on the floor between his short, stubby legs.
"Jesus Christ!" Maria shouted over the din, "Look at his balls! Look at them!"
Flashbulbs were going off like crazy as the women in the audience tried to get a picture of Joey, some even standing on chairs to snap a shot and some even falling into the laps of their friends as they tried to do so.
I noticed that his penis looked fairly normal, that is, of course, in comparison to a normal-sized scrotum. But the balls themselves were completely out of proportion to the rest of him. It seemed as though the sheer size of his scrotum acted like a counterweight to his rather large head, serving to keep him balanced and upright when he might have otherwise toppled over. I figured him to be a man in his mid to late thirties, clean-shaven with short brown hair, and attractive in a somewhat inexplicable way. I wondered if he had been born with the disease, and if not, how long it took to develop. From a medical standpoint, I knew a little about elephantiasis and its causes, but seeing the mutation up close made me curious as to its pathology.
"All right, all right," Joey said, "settle down, settle down."
It took several more minutes before the crowd's excitement was quelled. He took a long puff on his cigar and waited until everyone was quiet. Seeing that all the women were now patiently awaiting him to speak, he addressed us.
"Thank you ladies, thank you," he began. "That was the nicest reception I ever had."
