Much later, when they lay again in one another’s arms, they un-picked the patchwork of the evening. Mike and Tara had talked about all the orphans the coalition against world terrorism had created. They saw a degree of madness in technological developments that made death for tens of thousands as unthinking a task as pressing the buttons on a dishwasher, and yet turned the creation of life itself into a well-refined laboratory technique.

Judith went on about how she’d acted for forty or fifty women, mostly lesbians, who’d made contracts with gay men in the few years since the successive New Labour administrations had changed the laws on surrogacy. The going rate was between thirty and fifty thousand Euros, plus expenses, and for some lesbian women it had been a way of tapping into the pink economy that had made so many gay men wealthy. Arfona had said something about love being all it takes to make a family, which was probably true but came out like trite drivel. Penri’s preoccupation with designer things, from clothes to garden furniture, left no room in his and Richard’s life for anything except the most chic; he kept interrupting the conversation with exaggerated compliments about their fine dining.

Uwe had liked Nick Bassham from Bodega Bay; he’d enjoyed his stories. He was Californian, and fulfilled all the stereotypes. What other society, Uwe wondered, could produce a sperm-donating gay Episcopalian priest whose beautiful body was adorned with tattoos and piercings? An initial point of contact, Uwe’s love of Hitchcock’s The Birds, filmed at Bodega Bay, had sustained his interest in Nick throughout the dinner. Nick had presented the ethical objections to the recently licensed reproductive technologies as though delivering a three-point sermon. The humanitarian, the aesthetic and the religious were examined, and though Nick said nothing he and Tecwyn hadn’t heard before, Uwe had appreciated his clarity.

Finally, tiring of their whispered conversation under the duvet, Tecwyn nuzzled closer into Uwe’s cradling body and caught the musk of his warmth. It excited him. In time, Uwe sensed the rousing in Tecwyn and beckoned him. Their bodies moved over one another and in their communion Tecwyn knew what possibilities were theirs to be realised. Catrin would be a lovely name for a daughter… but would they spell it with a C or a K?

Between the Devil and the Virgin

Between the Devil and the Virgin