Brave New Worlds

there's more where that came from. "
    Everyone laughs and the boy rubs his tears from his cheeks, and grins, and everyone is at ease again; everyone but me.
    The priest asks how many of us have married before, and most of the men raise their hands.
    "Yours is a sacred trust," the priest tells us. "there are two kinds of people in the world, those to whom society is given, and those who have the sacred duty to give to society, to perpetuate it. You have been called to that latter. It is a holy trust, a gift from our heavenly father, who spilled his seed in the primal ocean and brought forth all the manner of life. "
    This is the standard speech, words, except for the calling, that we've heard all our lives. It is meant to be calming, we were taught, but I feel a rising surge of panic.
    "Earlier this morning," the priest continues, "the women entrusted with their half of this sacred duty came down from their quarter. They entered the main chamber of the temple a short while ago, and even now immerse themselves in the pool. In just a moment it will be your turn to enter. Look to the older men who have been here before and do what comes naturally to you. "
    Some nervous laughter follows this.
    The priest looks at the boy who spilled himself, who is already excited again, and says "Hold on to that a little longer, friend. "
    Now a madness is upon me; this fire burning within me is hell itself. I look at the doors, seeking a way to extinguish the flame of my desire.
    The priest checks the door. "Hurry now, it is time," he says, and the men press forward, somehow scooping me up so that I, the most reluctant of them, am at the head of the phalanx.
    The doors swing open.
    One group of acolytes stand there with towels as we enter, while a second set waits to collect the results of our labor. A door identical to ours, but opposite, clicks shut as the last of the women leave. A womb-shaped pool of bodywarm water fills the center of the circular room. The women have ejaculated their eggs into it already—however they do that, I do not know. But they float in a few tiny gellatinous clumps on the surface.
    "Hurry now," the priest in the white coat says. "Timing is important. "
    An acolyte reaches out his white gloved hand to help me down the steps and into the pool. The other bachelors crowd the water's edge.
    There are two kinds of people in the world: homosexuals and hydrosexuals. But I am neither.
    I lunge across the room, dodging the outstretched hands and shocked eyes of the panicked acolytes. My hand falls on the latch of the door into the women's anteroom. I will run through there searching for Ali, and if I don't find her, out into the streets, and through the women's quarter until I do. Ai! Ali, my all, my everything, the eye of the only hurricane whose deluge can drown the unnamed flame of sin that burns within me.

From Homogenous To Honey
    by Neil Gaiman & Bryan Talbot

    Neil Gaiman's most recent novel, the international bestseller The Graveyard Book , won the prestigious Newbery Medal, given to great works of children's literature. Other novels include American Gods , Coraline , Neverwhere , and Anansi Boys , among many others. In addition to his novel-writing, Gaiman is also the writer of the popular Sandman comic book series. Most of Gaiman's short work has been collected in the volumes Smoke and Mirrors , Fragile Things , and M is for Magic . His latest book is a hardcover edition of his poem, Instructions , illustrated by Charles Vess.

    Bryan Talbot is a comics writer and artist. He is the creator of the comic The Adventures of Luther Arkwright , and he's worked as an artist on books such as Hellblazer , Sandman , Fables , and Batman . Other writing credits include the graphic novels Alice in Sunderland and Grandville .

    Our next piece isn't just words on a page—it's a sequential art story, the short fiction love child of a comic strip and a graphic novel. It originally appeared in 1988, in the comic anthology A. A. R. G. H. , edited by Alan Moore, and was recently reprinted in the GLBT anthology, The Future is Queer edited by Richard Labonte and Lawrence Schimel. the story is a response to a piece British legislation that had a decidedly anti-homosexual flavor.

    This story uses scathing sarcasm to present a future without homosexual influences. No art, no plays, no books, no cultural referents to anything gay, lesbian, transsexual or remotely queer. For the story's masked narrator, it's a perfect world. But