Brave New Worlds

Hub and its surrounding reefs? Schizoid, Stephen tells them. Split. The Boston that battled slavery and stoked the fires beneath the American melting pot was the same Boston that massacred the Pequots and sent witchfinders to Salem. But here, now, which side of the city is emergent? the bright one, Stephen decides, picturing the hundreds of Heaven-bound souls who each day exit Boston's innumerable wombs, flowing forth like the bubbles that so recently streamed from Madeleine Dunfey's lips.
    Blessing the Virgin's name, he descends the concrete stairs to the copulatorium. A hundred votive candles pierce the darkness. The briny scent of incipient immortality suffuses the air. In the far corner, a CD player screeches out the Apostolic Succession doing their famous rendition of "Ave Maria. "
    The Sacrament of Extramarital Intercourse has always reminded Stephen of a junior high prom. Girls strung along one side of the room, boys along the other, gyrating couples in the center. He takes his place in the line of males, removes his jacket, shirt, trousers, and underclothes, and hangs them on the nearest pegs. He stares through the gloom, locking eyes with Roger's old kindergarten teacher, Valerie Gallogher, a robust thirtyish woman whose incandescent red hair spills all the way to her hips. Grimly they saunter toward each other, following the pathway formed by the mattresses, until they meet amid the morass of writhing soulmakers.
    "You're Roger Mulcanny's stepfather, aren't you?" asks the ovulating teacher.
    "Father, quite possibly. Stephen O'Rourke. And you're Miss Gallogher, right?"
    "Call me Valerie. "
    "Stephen. "
    He glances around, noting to his infinite relief that he recognizes no one. Sooner or later, he knows, a familiar young face will appear at the copulatorium, a notion that never fails to make him wince. How could he possibly explicate the Boston Massacre to a boy who'd recently beheld him in the procreative act? How could he render the Battle of Lexington lucid to a girl whose egg he'd attempted to quicken on the previous night?
    For ten minutes he and Valerie make small talk, most of it issuing from Stephen, as was proper. Should the coming sacrament prove fruitful, the resultant child will want to know about the handful of men with whom his mother connected during the relevant ovulation. (Beatrice, Claude, Tommy, Laura, Yolanda, Willy, and the others were forever grilling Kate for facts about their possible progenitors. ) Stephen tells Valerie about the time his students gave him a surprise birthday party. He describes his rock collection. He mentions his skill at trapping the singularly elusive species of rat that inhabits Charlestown Parish.
    "I have a talent too," says Valerie, inserting a coppery braid into her mouth. Her areolas seem to be staring at him.
    "Roger thought you were a terrific teacher. "
    "No—something else. " Valerie tugs absently on her ovulation gauge. "A person twitches his lips a certain way, and I know what he's feeling. He darts his eyes in an odd manner—I sense the drift of his thoughts. " She lowers her voice. "I watched you during the baptism this morning. Your reaction would've angered the archbishop—am I right?"
    Stephen looks at his bare toes. Odd that a copulatorium partner should be demanding such intimacy of him.
    "Am I?" Valerie persists, sliding her index finger along her large, concave bellybutton.
    Fear rushes through Stephen. Does this woman work for the Immortality Corps? If his answer smacks of heresy, will she arrest him on the spot?
    "Well, Stephen? Would the archbishop have been angry?"
    "Perhaps," he confesses. In his mind he sees Madeleine Dunfey's submerged mouth, bubble following bubble like beads strung along a rosary.
    "There's no microphone in my navel," Valerie asserts, alluding to a common Immortality Corps ploy. "I'm not a spy. "
    "Never said you were. "
    "You were thinking it. I could tell by the cant of your eyebrows. " She kisses him on the mouth, deeply, wetly. "Did Roger ever learn to hold his pencil correctly?"
    "'Fraid not. "
    "Too bad. "
    At last the mattress to Stephen's left becomes free, and they climb on top and begin reifying the Doctrine of Affirmative Fertility. The candle flames look like spear points. Stephen closes his eyes, but the effect is merely to intensify the fact that he's here. The liquid squeal of flesh against flesh grows louder, the odor of hot paraffin and warm semen more pungent. For a few seconds he manages to