Diplomacy (Uruguay, Vanuatu)

Angela tuned back in to the conversation around the snack bar table. She noticed that the three women were listening quietly while the young men were talking. This gave the air of a polygamous society with “sister wives” who were utterly subservient. Of course that was not true here. But the women were from far away and not familiar with what was going on in Semillas, so their lack of comment was not surprising.

During a lull one of them, Ms. LePen, finally spoke up. “I understand the big event is at hand. You must be the most excited.” At least that’s what Angela thought she said. Her French accent was so thick it was hard to understand her.

“That’s right,” Kai-Kai said in his calm voice. “The first lady from Bulgaria. She should be here any minute.”

Angela was surprised. No Bulgarian woman was on the schedule Angela looked at yesterday. There had been a last-minute change, which was unusual. And at that boring convention last month, Professor Cordrescu talked about problems with penetration in that country, as if it was something to be achieved in the future. But obviously the Penetration Committee, the NGO Committee, and the Admission Committee had been busy. Maybe that professor had mentioned these efforts in her presentation but Angela had been too bored to hear it.

As if on cue, today’s I-4 entered the snack bar, Nikolina Penka of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Kai-Kai jumped up to greet her, his penis flopping. She was as heavily clothed as the others, in a long dress with a vest with lots of embroidery, and a kind of spangled apron in front. She smiled nervously, a sheen of sweat on her face, and gave Kai-Kai her hand.

Maybe this Bulgarian surprise shouldn’t have been a surprise. Many things got by Angela these days, so involved was she with administrative matters. It looked like she was about to be present at another impreg. Husbands were always allowed to be present, of course, and in the case of polygamous families, other wives, and anyone else the home country wanted to send at their own expense. But that rarely happened. The Project had agreed to provide travel arrangements for husbands — it could hardly do otherwise — but past that it was up to the country in question, or in the case of “sub rosa” impregs, whatever NGO had arranged it.

A couple of the impregs were notable for the people who were flown in to witness, and the setting they specified. These had to be done by special application, adjudicated by the Effectuation Committee, whose main concern was that the woman’s ascent to orgasm (strictly speaking unnecessary but considered of prime importance) not be inhibited. Thus far there had been about two dozen impregs with non-marital home country witnesses, more like delegations. The first impreg from Uruguay was like that. Held in the conference room in the Humanities Building, with Angela and Dr. Spaatz sitting by the side, as well as the procreator, a Mrs. Anita Villareal, the formally dressed committee of ten men and women, their papers in front of them, bid the naked boy to approach. He stood in front of the table, like a doctoral student defending his thesis, and though the questions were technical, mostly about the intricacies of male reproductive anatomy and his life as the Sire, Kai-Kai answered them completely and truthfully in his relaxed, innocent way. Then at their signal Mrs. Villareal, dressed in a florid, colorful dress, got up on the large table. The naked boy obediently mounted their fully clothed fellow Uruguayan and ejaculated into her as they sat and observed with poker faces. Civilized, formal, clothed adults monitoring that most animalistic act being performed in their midst. “Strange” was the only word for it.

Even stranger was the first impreg from the South Sea country of Vanuatu. It was a Saturday impreg, oddly held on the vast concrete walkway past the library, meant to be a main thoroughfare but due to bad design hardly used, since there were so many shortcuts. The five elders, in Western dress, had arranged cushions for them to sit on in a circle around a soft blanket for the copulating couple. Angela and many others watched from the windows of the neighboring buildings, feeling like voyeurs but it was impossible to turn away. What was made it even stranger was that they expected the Sire to utter their traditional “prayer of conception” at the moment of ejaculation. This was normally done by a chieftain beforehand, but with this non-marital event they wanted a special spiritual “oomph” to ensure conception. The request made the Effectuation Committee shake their heads but they decided to honor it and instructed Kai-Kai on what he had to do. With his usual dedication he memorized the transliterated form of the prayer, which was about twenty syllables. After the woman had had her orgasm and he gave his low moan, he remembered what was required of him and, his head arched upward in the position of prayer, gasped out to the skies the syllables of the prayer between his spasms, his quaking boyish exhortations echoing against the buildings with each shot of his semen into the waiting vagina. Somehow the situation prompted an especially intense and prolonged orgasm from the boy; his screamed and broken words (the language was called Bislama) seemed to resound all over campus and afterwards he spent about two or three minutes on his side recovering, his head in the woman's arms. The Vanuatuans were well satified with his performance and when impregnation was confirmed sent him the gift of a traditional chieftain’s loincloth. When the package was opened, at a party at the Schreiber house, the naked boy held it up and smiled good-humoredly, not allowed to put it on of course. Someone pointed out it wasn’t long enough to cover all of his penis anyway. He gave it to Marikit to playfully tie on over her jeans. It ended up in a glass display next to the Project offices in San Beueno Hall.

Thinking of those impregs, Angela welcomed the relative normalcy of the arrival of Mrs. Penka. In uncertain English the Bulgarian woman, who looked in her late 30’s, took it upon herself to introduce herself. “I didn’t know your country was represented,” Angela said.

“Of course,” Ms. Penka said. She took out her iPhone and passed around a photo of the ceremony before this Sunday’s welcome dinner at the Guest House. Along the second floor roofing were hoisted the flags of every country which had sent a woman for the Sire to impregnate. When a new country was added the woman would be photographed with Kai-Kai, both holding the flag. Such was the photo that was now passed around, the smiling naked boy and Ms. Penka, both with their hands on the Bulgarian flag between them, a red, green and white tricolor. Behind them stood Ms. Canworthy and a crowd of cheering women. When Angela last counted, there were 157 flags up on that crowded roofing. Now there would be 158.