swilled down enough wine to giggle away any awkwardness, Lily had set two black hats on the coffeetable, one labeled sperm and one labeled egg. The slip of paper drawn from the sperm hat woulddetermine the sperm donor; the egg hat would reveal the biological mom’s identity. Since Lily andCharlotte’s cycles were in sync, they figured they were equally likely to conceive.
“Who gets to pick?” Charlotte asked.
“Well, one of the boys should get to pick from the sperm hat,” Lily said.
“You do it, Ben. I’m too nervous. I feel like I’m a game-show contestant or something,” Desmondsaid, his amethyst pinkie ring glittering as he poured himself another glass of wine.
“Oh, for god’s sake—” Ben closed his eyes, picked a slip of paper out of the hat, unfolded it, andglanced at it. “It’s you, Dez.”
Dez leaped out of his chair and began dancing around the room, singing, “I get to be the patriarch!
I get to be the patriarch!” The sight was made all the more comical by the fact that Dez’s large body wasclothed in a purple flowered caftan at the time.
“Are you girls sure you want him to be the father?” Ben asked. “I mean, what if the kid turns outto be a boy? Do you really want a son prancing around with Dez’s genetic material?”
“Oh, I want you to listen to her,” Dez said. “Just because she’s got a closetful of Tommy Hilfiger,she thinks she’s the butch one.” He turned to Lily and Charlotte. “Any objections to the kid calling meBig Daddy? It’s what Ben used to call me...once upon a time.”
Ben looked down to hide his red cheeks. “Shut up, Dez. It’s the girls’ turn to draw.”
Lily held out the egg hat, and Charlotte shut her eyes, selected a slip of paper, and glanced at it.
“Omigod! It’s me!” she whooped.
Ben laughed. “The queen and the diesel dyke! What kinda morphodite are you two figuring onmaking?”
Lily smiled. “Fortunately, a normal child was never what we were shooting for.”
“Well, I, for one, am completely comfortable with the idea,” Dez said. “This child will be yetanother fine collaborative effort between Dr. Charlotte Maycomb and Dr. Desmond Reed.”
Colleagues at Atlanta State University, Charlotte and Dez had collaborated on a number ofacademic papers and one book, The Lust That Dared Not Speak Its Name: A History of Nineteenth-Century British Homosexual Scandals.
After another round of wine, Lily, Charlotte, and Dez retreated upstairs while Ben flipped on theTV to catch the financial report on CNN. Once they were upstairs, Lily presented Dez with a glass jar.
“Oh, so now that you’ve wined me and dined me, you want me to put out, is that it?” he said.