Gibbon's Decline and Fall

by Sheri S. Tepper

  She looked. She couldn’t find heels anywhere, just flats and low pumps. “And they’re not depressed?”

  “Do they look depressed to you?”

  “Not much.”

  “It isn’t depression we’re after, Ophy. It’s something else.”

  “Sex,” said the shotgun around a mouthful of shrimp and pork, his voice slightly surprised. “I thought the two of you had it figured when we went to Frederick’s. It’s sex.”

  “What about sex?” Simon asked.

  “It isn’t people are depressed, so they don’t have sex. It’s people don’t feel sexy, so some of ’em get depressed. You got it backward.”

  “Some of them get depressed?” Ophy asked. “Because …”

  “Oh, some guy because that’s all he really liked doing. Or because his wife wants a kid, or because … You know, any old because. Mostly men. Doin’ sex is all some men have to brag about, you know. Got no brains, got no ambition, got no skills, but they can fuck like a bunny. Or used to could. And some of ’em, they think God is punishin’ ’em, so they get together in some prayer group or other, whippin’ themselves, endin’ up killin’ themselves or maybe blamin’ women, so they go out bopping dames, end up killin’ some. Like the guys in the black hoods; that’s their problem.”

  Ophy breathed slowly in and out, knowing what he said was true but still unwilling to buy it. So simple. Too simple. “I had one case, his wife said he wasn’t that upset.…”

  “How’d she know?” he asked reasonably. “You take some little shrimpy guy can hardly keep it up half a minute, inside himself, maybe he’s King Kong.”

  “What’s your name again?” Simon asked the shotgun.

  “Name’s Emil Fustig. My friends call me Fusty.”

  “You’re not depressed?”

  “Hell, no. There was always too much screwin’ around. Even when you didn’t do it, you said you did. You know, you’ve got to pretend, otherwise yóu’d start doubting your manhood, right? If we didn’t have sex and football, what would we talk about?”

  “Well, what have you been talking about lately?”

  “Sort of interestin’. Driver I know, Max Benevidez—always usta talk about his last lay or his last bar fight or how he’d rather die of AIDS than do without—he’s been talkin’ about how he used to play trumpet. He thinks it might be fun to start a little mariachi group. Joe Zanger—last winter he was told off for sex-harrassing the dispatchers—he’s been doin’ crossword puzzles. Won himself a hundred dollars last week in a crossword contest. Funny, I’da swore he didn’t know more than fifty words total. Me, I don’t notice much different. Not much interested in football anymore. You noticed how the game’s gone downhill? But I always was a reader. Now instead of the beer and the game, I’ll stretch out with a book.”

  “You married, Fusty?”

  “Me? Sure. Me ’n’ Francis been married twenty-six years. She’s a real good old girl. Always did like her a lot.”

  “Children?”

  “Two of ’em. Boy and girl. Good kids. Francy’s got her mind set on grandkids, too. That’s the only thing worries me.”

  “Worries …”

  “I been scared to ask. What if the young ones don’t care about sex anymore, either?”

  Later that night Ophy and Simon lay close, side by side, skin against skin. He felt wonderful, Ophy thought. All the warm, wiry length of him, bony toes, like hers, mostly hairless except the line down his belly. Quite wonderful. Like a baby. You always wanted to stroke babies, their skin was so nice and soft. Warm and sleek and familial. She felt like an otter, curled up in a burrow, joyous with life.

  “I’ve been going crazy,” said Simon, his lips close to her ear. “I used to stay away from you purposely, did you realize that? I’d extend a trip, from a week to ten days, from ten days to two weeks, teasing myself with the thought of you here. I’d put it off, like a kid saving candy. I’d look at women in bars, teasing myself with them, thinking they were just an echo of you. I’d wait until I was on fire to come home to you.

  “The last time, that’s what I was doing. I thought if I stayed away long enough, old habit would come to the rescue. It didn’t work. I wanted you. I loved you. But the fire was out. No—banked. Warm, not hot.” He laughed, and the tears spilled. “I couldn’t make myself horny!”

  “I never knew that,” she said, amazed. She hadn’t. She’d looked forward to his return, she’d learned to count on those skyrocket reunions, but she’d never known he’d planned them, stored them up. How long had it been? Six months, almost. Half a year!

  “Tomorrow,” Simon laughed, dabbing at his face. “Tomorrow I’m going to talk to car dealerships.”

  “We should talk to pedophiles,” murmured Ophy. “Prisoners.”

  “They’re all tanked. I can’t talk to them.”

  “Maybe some awaiting trial? Some they haven’t tanked yet.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Sexual attraction is genetic. Hetero, homo, pedo, whatever. This thing that’s happening, is it happening to them, too? Gays? Or only to heteros? Is it happening to pedophiles? Do they still want to molest children?”

  “Rapists?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Do they still want to?”

  “Pornographers don’t, according to that guy.…”

  She shook her head, nuzzling into his neck, mumbling, “I knew this was it, Simon. Sort of subconsciously, I knew it all the time. I told Dr. Lotte to look at the child-abuse rates, at wife battering. I’ll bet you anything they’re down.”

  “If sex is down, violence is down, you mean?”

  “For anybody over puberty. We should look at playgrounds, kids’ games. G.I. Joe and Barbie.”

  “What about Barbie?”

  “She’s been immortal, and I hate her. Talk about role models! Barbie the bulimic! Barbie the anorexic. Bettiann wanted to be like Barbie—damn near starved herself to death trying.”

  “Maybe Barbie’s no longer immortal. Maybe somebody just brought her down in flames.”

  “St. Barbie, burned at the stake.” She yawned around a giggle.

  He held her closer. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. It was the feeling they had always had after they made love, this quiet closeness, this warm tenderness. No sadness in it at all. No regret.

  “What if Fusty’s worry is true?”

  “I don’t know, Simon. Honest to God, I don’t know. Hormonal therapy, I suppose, for anyone wanting a child.”

  “Testes kept alive in tanks? Ovaries ditto? Artificial wombs?”

  “It probably wouldn’t come to that. We don’t really know.…”

  She was right. Nobody really knew. Not yet.

  MONDAY MORNING EARLY, OPHY CALLED the chiefs office and said she was on her way to see him. He was on the phone when she got there, talking to Lotte Epstein, or, rather, grunting replies to questions or information coming from the other end. He hung up with a frown.

  “She says they’ve got a new directive from the White House. Federal marshals are being sent to every media outlet: papers, TV, radio. No one is to even hint that there’s anything going around. The President has declared a secret national emergency, if that makes sense. She says to tell you domestic violence is down. She says way down. What’s that about?”

  Ophy laughed, a high-pitched, almost hysterical, giggle. “It’s sex, chief.”

  “Sex what?”

  “Sex. It isn’t depression. Or it isn’t depression as a cause. It’s sex as a cause. Loss of interest in same. Which results in depression in some cases, which results in suicide in some cases. Or did.”

  “What the hell?”

  “Just listen.” She sat down opposite him and gave him a terse account of Simon’s investigation. “So when the shotgun says sex, we both realize, right, it’s sex. I mean, I feel like the stupidest ass in the world! God, I should have seen it. Wouldn’t you think somebody would have? Only excuse I can offer is most of us who were looking for reasons aren’t all that y
oung anymore, and people don’t always talk about their own sexuality, you know? Not truthfully, at least.”

  “But, Ophy, what could’ve happened? What does it mean?”

  “I’m not a prophet. How should I know?”

  “You say sex? What about you and Simon?”

  “What about us? We’re not immune. What about you?”

  “Since Joy died, I haven’t … I guess I hadn’t noticed.…”

  “See, that’s what I mean! You hadn’t noticed! Simon said it’s like your nose—if it doesn’t itch, you don’t know it’s there.” She giggled again, almost hysterically. “I had kind of a notion, right after the meeting we had here, way before Simon and I started looking. I called Lotte, asked her to check rates of domestic violence.…”

  “So what does it mean, domestic violence is down?”

  “Testosterone, chief. Sex and dominance, lust and violence, all implemented by the same hormonal stew! If sex is down, logically dominance and violence should also be down. I don’t know about serotonin. Nobody’s looked, but I’m betting it’s up. Rape went up for a while: Men were feeling insecure and they blamed women; but now people should be feeling pretty good about themselves. If I’m right, assaults and murders will be down, gang wars over turf will be down. People should have lost interest in violent team sports—soccer, football, hockey. Simon thinks maybe not baseball, maybe not tennis or golf or skiing, though I’m not so sure. We’ll have to wait and see. And the bottom’s going to fall out of the birth rate.”

  “When?”

  “Nine months from right now. From this last few weeks, as a matter of fact. This effect has been building slowly for a long time, years, two or three at least. Just recently it reached the total saturation point.”

  “What am I going to tell the staff! I mean, what am I allowed to tell the staff?”

  She left him there, staring at the wall, and went to her own office to call Jessamine. As far as she was concerned, the no-talk order didn’t include family, and the DFC was family. It was two hours earlier in Utah, so she got Jess out of bed.

  “Jess? It’s Ophy. You awake? You want me to hang up, call you back in an hour?”

  “Ophy? Ophy! What’s wrong?”

  “Do I only call you when something’s wrong? Right! I only call you when something’s wrong. Listen, Jess, the weirdest thing …” She explained briefly, concisely.

  “I be swoggled,” muttered Jessamine when Ophy’s voice trailed off. “What in hell?”

  “That’s what my boss wants to know. That’s what the CDC people want to know. Where has this come from?”

  “Out of Africa,” muttered Jessamine. “Like AIDS? Of course, there’ve been rumors of biological warfare, maybe something Saddam used a decade ago, during the war, or something the Serbs got from the Russians. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  “You think it’s a disease?”

  “If it cuts off all sexual desire, it’d be a self-limiting disease. Can’t get far that way. Explains a lot, though.”

  “Like?”

  “Like what’s the matter with Patrick. He’s left me, or is in the process of leaving—I’m not sure which since he keeps coming back to get things. Maybe he’s just confused. Don’t say you’re sorry to hear he’s going.”

  “All right,” Ophy answered soberly. “If you’re not sorry, I’m not sorry.”

  Jessamine laughed, not amused. “Are you scared? You sound a little scared.”

  “Damn it, Jessy. Of course I’m scared, in a sort of relaxed way. I keep stoking myself into a panic, then in five minutes I’m all relaxed again. Whatever it is, maybe it short-circuits the adrenals or something. When I look around, most people are sort of going along, not bothered very much.”

  “There used to be a researcher here at the labs talked about this happening.”

  “This? This what?”

  “This—no more human beings. He believed in Gaia. He said we’d go too far, populate too much, destroy too much, and the planet would strike back at us.”

  “Is he still around?”

  “He moved to Australia, oh, a year or so ago. He was serious, though. He really meant it.” She took a deep breath. “Are you going to call the others? Carolyn? Aggie?”

  “Carolyn, probably. Are you going to help her with the trial, Jess?”

  “Our meeting’s scheduled concurrent with the trial. I told her I’d take some extra time, just to be available. Are you?”

  “I’m planning on it. If you haven’t read her account of her interview with the girl, the rape scene, read it. In the light of this whole business, it’s very revealing.”

  Ophy called Carolyn, got no answer, tried the other number she had for Carolyn, and this time the phone was picked up.

  “Have you heard about the epidemic?” she asked.

  “What epidemic, Ophy?”

  “The libido-loss epidemic. There is one.” She explained, words tumbling over one another.

  “So that’s what’s going on,” said Carolyn, thinking of Stace and Luce. “I couldn’t figure out …” She’d have to call Stace right away.

  “Do you suppose some biological-warfare experiment got loose or something?” Ophy wondered.

  “God knows,” said Carolyn. “Maybe Sophy’s story was real and Elder Sister decided it was time to put sex back in the medicine bag.” She laughed rackingly.

  After a painful silence Ophy said, “All her stories were real, Carolyn. That’s why they hurt so much. What happened to her? I ask myself a hundred times a week, what happened to her?”

  “Oh, God, Ophy. So do I.”

  A thousand miles away Ophy took a sobbing breath. “Carolyn, do you ever have the feeling she’s back?”

  Long silence; then, “Do you?”

  “All the time. She’s suddenly there, just behind me. I talk to her over my shoulder. Time goes away. Then I wake up, ten minutes, half an hour later, and I’m somewhere else, doing something else.”

  Carolyn made a sound, halfway between a moan and a chuckle. “With me it’s when I go down to feed the sheep. I feel this body bumping me, very softly. Or I feel soft lips nibbling the palm of my hand. Nothing’s there, but something was. Or, at night, I have the feeling there’s someone in the room.…”

  “Do you suppose … the others?” Ophy sniffled and gulped. Why was she crying?

  “I’ll ask Faye. You ask Jessamine.”

  Faye was touchy on the subject. “All right, all right, Carolyn. Don’t push! Yes, damn it! I did a full-size sculpture of Sophy right after she disappeared—that is, after we knew she’d disappeared. Kind of a frenzy I went through, trying to sublimate grief, I guess. I had it cast, and now it’s here, in the studio. Lately it’s been up to tricks. Vanishing. Talking to me. Dressing itself up when I’m not looking.”

  “Is it a nude statue?” Carolyn asked after a thoughtful pause. “Remember how she always used to insist that you not make her recognizable. And remember that whole thing about being lusted after. Sophy wouldn’t have liked being a nude, not if it looked like her.”

  Silence at the other end, then, “Damn. You’re right. Of course she wouldn’t.”

  “Something else, Faye.…” Carolyn told her about the libido epidemic.

  “So that’s it,” muttered Faye. “Good lord, Carolyn!”

  “You knew something was wrong, Faye? You’ve lost interest in girls?”

  “Carolyn, I don’t need you dissin’ my private life, but, yes, I suppose I have lost the impulse, sort of, but that’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking about this little girl model I’ve been using. Curvy little thing, juicy as a bunch of grapes. She has a real macho boyfriend, handsome little Lah-tino—you know how they look when they’re young, all that whippy muscle, all that fire and sizzle before they go to guts and guzzle the way they do. Well, lately she’s been crying on my shoulder he doesn’t take her to bed anymore. Doesn’t knock her around, either, which is probably more surprising. I couldn’t figure what happened to him, but th
is sure explains it. My lord, girl. What in the name of heaven is going on?”

  “Jessamine thinks it may be Gaia. My first thought was Sophy’s story about Elder Sister, remember?”

  “Oh, I sure do. You think maybe that’s it? After all these generations she finished the medicine bag and bottled us up?”

  “What’ll this do to Bettiann?”

  “You think she’ll put on mourning for her dead clit?”

  “Faye!”

  “Well, hey, sister. You want me to go all reverent or something? You know damn well sex was mostly torture for Bettiann. Bettiann won’t mind. Wish I could say that much for William.”

  “You’re right. Bettiann won’t mind nearly as much as William. I don’t want to tell Aggie at all, but she’ll probably know about it by the time we all get together. The government can’t keep the lid on forever.”

  “This’ll be a meeting to end all meetings!”

  Finally, resolved not to mention the epidemic, Carolyn called Bettiann. Did she ever feel Sophy was, somehow, still with them?

  “Oh, Carolyn … yes,” said Bettiann with a low laugh, almost of relief. “She’s here in this house most of the time. Like in the next room. Or just coming up the walk. I write things down without knowing what I’m doing, and when I read it, it sounds like her. Not her words, but her ideas in my words, you know.”

  “Have you kept it?”

  “Kept? You mean the writing?”

  “Have you kept it, them?”

  “Yes, I have. I’ve kept them all.”

  “Bring them, with you, Bettiann. Bring them to the meeting. For show-and-tell.”

  The final score, when Ophy and Carolyn talked again, was that five of them had seen or heard or experienced Sophy.

  “Maybe all six,” said Ophy. “We haven’t asked Agnes.”

  “She’s been so touchy.”

  “She’s thinking of resigning. I’ve heard it in her voice.”

  “Has she declined and fallen?”

  “She doesn’t think so. Maybe she thinks the rest of us have. Did you tell Faye about the epidemic?”

  “Yes. I didn’t tell Bettiann, though.”