Cohn smiled and walked back to seat himself in his chair. “I’m glad you and I think alike. You see, Henry, you and I are here today to be of service. Or rather, I’m here to put you in a position to be of service. If all goes as planned, you and I will start a revolution in fertility treatments, not to mention the evolutionary process itself!” Cohn’s hands had spread wider over the desk with each word. “And you and Calvin and any other pre-IPO employees will be fabulously wealthy!” “Not to mention yourself, I’m sure. We have an investor coming in tonight and you haven’t even told me what I’m doing here. How is that going to look to a VC--” “Henry.” Cohn had given him the Hand. “The guest tonight isn’t a venture capitalist. She’s a client.” Henry was silent for a moment. “That leads me to another question: where’s the lab? I took a walk around this place and I thought a fertility clinic would have lots of fancy machinery, guys in white coats--” “Henry.” Now both of Cohn’s hands were held in the air between them. He lowered them to the desk. “You are the fertility clinic.” “I’m still not getting it.” “Not to be rude, Henry, but I imagined that a guy with a fourteen-ninety SAT would have figured it out by now.” Cohn leaned forward and lowered his voice for his next sentence. “The New Mexico study found a correlation between the symmetry of a man’s physical attributes and his partner’s probability of orgasm. And a female’s orgasm, of course, increases her chances of becoming pregnant.” Henry looked at the flowing fountain that was now painfully brilliant in the light of a sun hanging just above the roof of the “clinic.” “You want me to become a male prostitute?” Cohn let out a chuckle as he reached for the pack of cigarettes sitting on a corner of his desk. “Hardly a prostitute, Henry. Think of yourself as a ‘fertility specialist.’” Henry was out of his chair so quickly that he knocked it backward onto the glass coffee table behind. Both men stood, Cohn holding an unlit cigarette in his hand, and both stared at the glass cracked by the heavy wood of the chair. |