Can two gays and two lesbians make one baby? It all comes down to who will survive “the battle of the sex.”
Bradley and his lover Duke are ready to raise their own child. Their good friend Quasar (and her lover Lily) have agreed to surrogacy. The stage is set for this new extended family to begin, as soon as Bradley and Quasar conceive the child during a pre-arranged sexual encounter.
But when the big night arrives, the two couples get more than they bargained for when jealousies, hijinks and political correctness get in the way.
Can two gays and two lesbians make one baby? It all comes down to who will survive “the battle of the sex” on Ovulation Night.
Ovulation Night: A Short Story
by Randy Boyd
Revised from a previous version that appeared in the 1998 Sister Vision Press anthology, Ma-Ka Diasporic Juks: Contemporary Writing by Queers of African Descent.
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Excerpt from Ovulation Night:
“Saw her in the hotel bookstore masturbating to a magazine,” sang Bradley, dancing his way across the bedroom to Prince jamming about Darling Nikki on the boombox on the bed. As usual, he flubbed the lyrics, getting a laugh out of Duke, who was sitting atop the oak dresser at the foot of the bed. Egged on, Bradley danced some more, gyrating with the music, grabbing the pack of condoms on the nightstand, dancing his way over to the bed and the boombox … just in time to kill the music as a thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Ironic,” he said, tossing the condoms aside as if they were useless. “For once in the 90s, I’ll actually be able to feel real, live sex against my throbbing black dick, or cock, as you white boys are fond of calling it.”
“Well, don’t feel this real, live sex too much,” said Duke, suddenly unamused by the sight of this lover packing an overnight bag. “This whole thing might spark up some deeply-hidden urge to become hetero. Or memory of sex with your babysitter when you were a kid, sex buried in your psyche until tonight—when you realize you liked and now want more sex with more women. You could turn into one of those apes at the gym, sniffing around for every girl in the joint.”
“There’s only one scent I’m interested in and it belongs to you,” said Bradley, packing rather nonchalantly. “Besides, I don’t think I had sex with my babysitter. Her fine ass sister on the other hand—”
“This is serious,” said Duke, feigning interest in the sun setting outside their bedroom window. “Yes, this is for—us—but you do realize: this is the first time we aren’t being … monogamous.”
“Naturally. Obviously,” said Bradley, looking at his lover of five years looking out the window. For the last week, Duke had made various variations of the Monogamy Declaration as if to define the past more than tonight. “The first and the last time,” added Bradley, fussing with his bag and summoning the non-judgemental tone he used with his clients at the clinic. “Provided, of course, little Bradley or Duke, Junior, finds his date and sticks to Quasar’s uterine wall.”
Randy Boyd author 