It was a strange advert really and he’d turned the page quickly without giving it much thought. Later, he went back and read it again, several times and was persuaded. It was the last sentence you see; it appealed to the altruistic side of his slightly erotic personality.
‘Wanted: Healthy males to assist future New Zealanders. Only people of good-standing in the community should apply. For an interview, please reply by hand giving your present occupation, a brief reason to support your application, and send to…’…and an address to a post box in the city was given.
I’m just exactly what they require, he thought, and with goodness oozing out of every pore gave it some serious consideration. His letter was in the post the following day, come what may.
Ainsley Trowton was a dapper little man, all five foot four and a half inches of him, the kind you’d find behind the desk of a bank, which as chance would have it was where he worked. Formal and unapproachable (unless you presented well), with good references and a disposition that would guarantee the bank a favourable return, Mr Trowton was now in his ninth year of employment at the bank.
To some he appeared shy; others labelled him aloof. It is true he kept to himself, and his colleagues knew little about his life outside the doors of the bank, but that was the way he preferred it; something to do with having been bullied at school and the reason why he liked the small part he played behind his desk. On occasions, figures from his past that’d made his life hell could not understand why he seemed so pleased to see them. Still thicker in head and arm, they lacked the sense to realize he was repaying them in currency he knew something about; and who could blame him for that?
He obtained leave for the day of his mystery interview, his ego given a lift as tongues wagged and colleagues smiled or gave him puzzled looks, as off he went to a small building close to the main maternity hospital in the city. After informal questions about his ordinary life from a white coated young woman, there came the awkward ones about his private and intimate life, which took him a little by surprise, but he answered truthfully enough. She learned that he lived with his parents, with nothing untoward in his single man pastimes to cause concern. You could search his room from top to bottom and find nothing bordering on the arty or sordid at all. His mind however, was a different matter. Being his only male confidant, I wouldn’t invite you to rummage around on the subject in there; stuff that would leave sutras and karmas way down in temperature.
How do I know? Sorry, I’m not at liberty to disclose that kind of information; the Privacy Act, you understand.
The innocent looking young woman who interviewed Ashley, was in fact a qualified psychologist, well able to sift unseemly from the seemly. She learned of the small statue he’d won at a fair as a youth - a copy of Cleopatra’s Needle. Up till then the story had been known only to him and the pages of the journal he kept beneath the loose floorboard under the fender of the fireplace where a fire never burnt. He’d surprised himself by hitting the bull’s eye at the rifle stall; even though the sights on all the rifles had been skewed out of line by the stall-holder.
Cleopatra’s Needle looked fine on his chest of drawers, despite the top being damaged slightly when he’d received it. The small table lamp placed where it was on his dressing table changed the whole perspective of Cleo’s thingy; as he lay in bed, his mind discerned the shadow it threw on the wall as being very similar to the male appendage in full bloom; his shooting had given him satisfaction ever since.
The woman at the interview assured him that everything was fine, he met their criteria and that he would been welcomed as a member of their donating pool. Ah ha!
There had been some embarrassment when it came to his first donation. He was shown into a small room where some magazines were marked; ‘Not to be removed from this establishment!’ One glance and you’d have understood why. There was also a chair and a small table on which stood a box of tissues and a small plastic bottle with a screw top. A label on the outside gave his name, date and a code number. I could go into some detail of how Ainsley came to surprise himself, but again, the Privacy Act prevents… Enough to say he was most relieved when he managed to rise to the occasion.
I have it on good authority that he visits several times a year and has maintained a consistently high sperm count; good things can come in small packages, can’t they?
Anyone interested in applying, should…check their local papers.
Dennis Crompton © 1998
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)
No comments:
Post a Comment