One Twenty-Third

Fiction: A man goes to extremes in pursuit of fatherhood.

John is behind the wheel of his car, parked just beyond the streetlight now glinting with rain. He watches the door at the top of the stoop, across the street. A red door receding into the face of a two-story Edwardian.

The street is silent except the plink of rain, and the video playing on John’s phone in the passenger seat. He pulls the clock down over the two women in the video. 12:30 am. Any minute now, he thinks. John takes the 9mm from his coat. He checks the chamber and magazine a third time. His hands are clumsy. The video continues to play.

“I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” says the blonde woman in the video, “but I was ready to give up.” The woman is Demi Seché, a 32-year-old actress. “But then I found Dr. Graser!”

“Yes, and MDP!” says the brunette morning show host. They both laugh.

John had first seen Demi Seché in Arch Man II. It was love at first sight. They were both 20 at the time.

“Tell our audience about MDP!” prompts the morning show host. 

“Multiparty designer pregnancies,” says Seché, her hands gesturing excitedly. 

“So, let’s get into this,” says the morning show host, leaning in. “Where do babies come from?” Both laugh. 

“ Normally,” says Seché, “a mommy and a daddy each contribute 50 percent of the genes to make a new baby. But really sex gametes, the sperm or the egg, are composed of 23 chromosomes each. And while normally the baby gets 23 from the mother and 23 from the father, there’s no reason the 23 chromosomes delivered by the sperm or egg necessarily have to come from just two people.”

“So what you’re telling us is it’s now possible for three people to have a baby?”

“More than three!” laughs Seché. “We’re doing 23 and me. 23 chromosomes from my ovum with 23 fathers contributing one chromosome each. But my understanding is this technology allows for potentially many more contributors.” 

John was ecstatic when he’d first heard. He’d never dreamed of the possibility: potentially having a child with Demi Seché. But miraculously a path had appeared. 

“Okay,” says the morning show host. “I know a lot of our viewers are screaming at their screens: WHY?”

“Well, I’ve always wanted to be a mother… And I—I always thought the right guy would come along and it would happen. But it didn’t. So, while the technology was originally developed to splice out heritable diseases, it can also be used to allow me to draw genes from a pool of 23 fathers, and you know, mix and match. That’s the designer part! And I also wanted to bring attention to this technology. Because a lot of people that want to have children have been increasingly unable to afford it.”

“Yes, this is what they’re calling Fractional Fatherhood, right?”

“That’s right, Savannah. Lots of men have been priced out of starting families and they’re finally going to be able to afford one. And I want to emphasize that this is great for women too. Because multiple men contributing multiple incomes is going to better support your child than one man contributing one income.”

The morning show host nods her head, glasses in the corner of her mouth. “You know the phrase, ‘It takes a village?’”

“Exactly,” says Seché. “Besides being a smart, affordable alternative to traditional families, MDPs help to fulfill our nation’s democratic values. It’s a way to give more people than ever the American Dream.”

“Yes,” says the morning show host. “A new type of beautiful, modern family.”

John restarts the video. 

“I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” says Demi Seché. This time John joins her. “…But I was ready to give up.”

An email notification appears on the screen. It’s the same thing they’ve been sending for weeks. They need the rest of the payment or else he’ll lose his spot. He’d already sold his house for the down payment. Congress was discussing a bill to subsidize MDP, to encourage family formation. But that would be years away if it happened—and not for someone like John, he suspected. 

John’s buddy, Dan, said it was really all just a plan to make the country communist. Redistribute wealth by formally financializing reproduction and then manipulate a market in child support futures, or something. John couldn’t follow. Dan cited some statistics about stepfathers being more likely to abuse children they’re not genetically related to. Then he asserted that Demi Seché was being paid off to, “psyop normie women into thinking this shit is high status.” But John didn’t care about any of that. 

The rain has stopped. A car with a Lyft sign arrives. A fat man steps out. He’s drunk. The fat man is a crypto YouTuber. John pulls the clock down over the video. He’s late. 

The fat man stumbles to his door as the Lyft drives away. John pockets his gun then opens the car door.

Dan was relentless when John had told him he’d applied. “You’re paying to be a sperm donor?! Part of a sperm donor?! It’s probably even worse. Most of our chromosomes are 99 percent the same! You and any other guy. She’s probably just gonna take the standard parts from you. The part that says the kid has two legs, two arms. It could have been the same from any other guy! Even women!”

John opens the red door. He pulls off tape holding back the door bolt, pockets it. The foyer and hall are also a shade of red. He hears the fat man upstairs. John goes down the hall, up the stairs. He gulps.

“And you won’t have any, like, rights?” asked Dan. John told him Fractional Fathers are entitled to whatever they negotiate. That usually seemed to be some kind of visitation, but Seché’s contract barred contributors from contacting her or the child until the child is 18, at which point the child could initiate contact if they wished. 

Through an ajar door, John sees the fat man in his room, changing, struggling. John draws the gun and creeps closer.

Dan was in disbelief when he heard John’s initial bid. “Bro… I knew you did alright but… she’s going to be one of the richest women in America!” He laughed.

John was well-off, but the bidding process was cutthroat. It quickly spiraled out of control. John was too embarrassed to say what his winning bid had been. “Hey, more power to her,” said Dan, laughing. “Next level OnlyFans. If I could auction off my jizz to the highest bidder I’d do it too.”

But it wasn’t just being the highest bidder, thought John. It couldn’t have been. There was the bid, yes, but there was also an intense screening process of applicants worldwide, and he had made it. She had accepted him. There was only one issue left to resolve.

John pushes the gun into the back of the fat man’s head. The man is in his underwear, kneeling on the ground, crying. “The seed phrase!” John demands again. “Give me the wallet seed phrase and I’ll leave!”

John remembers staring into Demi’s eyes, in the picture on his phone, as he ejaculated into the cup. Even if the mechanics were different, ultimately the result would be the same.

The payment transfer receives three confirmations. John pulls the trigger. Blood splatters onto the wall. John retrieves tissues from the bathroom. All he needs now is time.

The prison guard takes John from his cell to the public terminal at the end of the block. John logs in, then reads the email. He falls to his knees, tears flooding his eyes. In mumbled tones, now drawing the eyes of the block, John thanks God. He looks up to read it again: The child is born. John is a father.

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Syd Winarchist is a pseudonymous poster and man of the arts. For more work like this, consider subscribing to Futurist Letters.