T A B L E++T A L K

______C O N F E S S I O N S__O F__A
__ lesbian sperm donor

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BY HANK PELLISSIER | I was shopping for groceries at Safeway when I took a wrong turn and ended up in the baby food aisle. That's where I found my lesbian friend Monica; she was staring wistfully at tiny jars of puréed asparagus.

"What's up with you?" I asked. "Is your clock ticking?"

"Rachel and I want to have babies," she replied. "We want to start a family immediately."

"Both of you? At the same time?" I mused. "Wow! Heteros can't do that."

"No," Monica corrected me, "I'm first, because I'm older. Rachel will wait two years. But we are in the mood. Absolutely."

"Adoption is out?" I asked. "You could get a Chinese girl, like everyone else."

"That's a generous act, but we want to be pregnant."

"Sperm bank?"

"No," she corrected me again, "we want to know exactly what we're getting. Plus we want to tell our children who their father is."

"So some guy-friend will masturbate in an empty mayonnaise jar, Rachel will slurp it up in a turkey baster and squirt it inside you?"

"Precisely."

Monica paused before asking in a soft voice: "Do you know any men who would like to be donors?"

"Some gay guy?" I replied. "Like Bruce, my racquetball partner?"

"No, no, no!" Monica corrected me, for the third time. "We asked our gay friends already -- it's impossible. They're too promiscuous. We don't want to take chances."

"A lesbian nightmare," I gasped. "First time sperm gets inside you, and it's poisonous. Ironic."

"Exactly," she agreed.

"So you want a monogamous Jewish guy."

"Wrong again," she retorted.

"What? You're Jews. Rachel teaches Hebrew, for Chrissakes."

"It's better to mix up the gene pool. There's Tay-Sachs disease, plus tribal neurosis."

"A goy. Wow, this opens it up."

"We also want someone who won't try to get custody or see the child too often. He has to understand that it's our child, not his."

"A deadbeat dad. That should be easy!"

"Not really. You'd be surprised."

"Anything else?"

"He must impregnate both of us, so our children will be half-siblings."

"Fascinating. Of course."

"And then, well, this is embarrassing ..."

"What?"

"It's so 'lookist.'"

"Tell me."

"We want someone tall and skinny to balance out our roundness."

I stared down at her. I'm 6-3 and 159 pounds.

"M-M-Monica," I stammered, "I'm perfect!"

I felt vulnerable and naughty, like I was coming on to her.

"Really?" she gushed. "What about Carol? She'd let you?"

"Maybe. I'll ask her."

"I'll ask Rachel. She likes you. We're ready to move on this."

"I'll start eating pumpkin seeds!"

"I'm ovulating in two weeks!"

"Cool!"

I continued shopping then, super-conscientiously, to butter up my wife, Carol. Later, as I unpacked her favorites (huge seedless grapes, Manhattan clam chowder, pygmy carrots), I casually mentioned the unusual proposition.

"You want to do it?" she exclaimed, visibly startled.

"Maybe," I shrugged. "Seems like a nice thing, you know, to help them out, right?"

Truth is, I desperately wanted to impregnate Monica. The situation seemed perfect: I could breed without financial or emotional cost. My lineage would be reared at a distance, by doting lesbians. Excellent. I began thinking, maybe there's more -- maybe I can get all the lesbians in the world pregnant.

N E X T+P A G E: Complications

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ILLUSTRATION BY CALEF BROWN