Let’s see….. When we last left Andrew, he was in room 118, flat on his back on the carpet, with Joey kind of on top of his chest.
I think I mentioned that midbrains, while absolutely essential to survival of the species…..well, they aren’t exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, if you get my drift. One of the huge advantages that cerebrums have over midbrains is that they have most of the individual as opposed to racial memories. Cerebrums are able, for example, to call up past memories and compare them against the current situation to assess the situation and to come up with potential strategies for dealing with it, and that’s what Drew’s cerebrum was up to right now.
Drew’s cerebrum was recalling that he’d been in similar situations only twice previously in his life….but by comparison, this wasn’t all that bad.
The first time had been a little over a year ago in his sixth game on the freshman football team. He’d been tailback, and the ball had come to him on a delayed handoff. It was a delay so one of the lineman in front of him could work a trap block. This involves the offensive lineman ignoring the guy he usually blocks, and going after the guy next to him. The surprised defensive player comes rushing in, fat dumb and happy, thinking he has a free shot into the backfield. He doesn’t. That’s because the offensive lineman next to him has ignored the guy he normally blocks, and now comes out of nowhere and shoves the defensive lineman out of the way. The defensive lineman that he was supposed to block is similarly surprised at his apparent good fortune. As his opposing linemen appears to miss the block, he slides off in the other direction, expecting a free shot into the backfield. He meets the halfback, who is serving as lead blocker for the tailback….that was Drew…., who delayed long enough to allow all those blocks to start to open a seam for him to get through the line. Drew had watched all these blocks work flawlessly, and had moved in to the seam, also fat dumb and happy, expecting that he now had a free shot into the backfield. Have you ever heard of a linebacker? These are guys who usually hang out behind the line. They watch for short passes, or for guys like Drew who succeed in getting past the line, to try to tackle them before they make too much yardage. Usually. Usually. that is, when the coach doesn’t call for a linebacker blitz. When the coach does, and on this play he had, they storm full speed between their own defensive linemen, hoping everybody will be tied up and they’ll get a free shot into the backfield.
Anyway, Andrew, fat dumb and happy, had entered the seam and been hit stomach high by the helmet of the linebacker going in the other direction at full steam and wound up flat on his back looking up at a hot, sweaty, smelly linebacker sitting on his chest. And he had been hit so hard that he was almost knocked out of his football cleats. That, his cerebrum thought, had been much worse than this.
The second time he’d had something like this happen,….well that’d been Joey. He’d awakened in the pod chamber with Joey asleep on his chest. That actually hadn’t been the least bit unpleasant, particularly after he’d found out his arms were working again. He had known her….been fantasizing about her for years, but it became quickly obvious that he’d never REALLY known her. And while the whole not-of-this-Earth part of it had been kind of a surprise, it had actually been….well, great.
Andrew’s cerebrum, at this point, was starting to feel pretty good about the situation, due in large part to its naiveté about the female of the species in general and the midbrain of the female of the species in particular. A more experienced male cerebrum would have realized it was in deep, deep trouble.
But Andrew’s cerebrum was saying…hey, this is Joey. She was his soulmate. They’d bonded in a hundred walks on the beach. They’d connected dozens of times…shared her dream as well. Not only that, but he outweighed her by a good 50 pounds, was six inches taller, and was in pretty good shape himself. All he really had to do was keep her in the room until her folks got there. While he had some ethical qualms about ‘taking advantage of her’ while she was in an impaired state, it wasn’t like he hadn’t done a little fondling of this and that when she hadn’t been impaired, and he knew that she hadn’t minded much…had in fact been pretty damn enthusiastic. I mean, they were engaged for crying out loud.
So his cerebrum had now convinced itself that maybe he could just hold on to her, calm her down, use his superior weight and strength and the like to keep her from going too far. Like I said, his cerebrum was kind of naïve about women. And his OWN midbrain too, for that matter.
Joey’s midbrain was making a similar sort of mistake.
Now before we go any further, I want to correct any misperception you have about what I’ve said about midbrains in general and Joey’s midbrain in particular. I alluded to the fact that midbrains weren’t particularly bright, and that unfortunately is true. I did not mean to imply, however, that Joey’s midbrain was savage, brutish, or insensitive. Now there were indeed midbrains that were like that.
Take the midbrain of the black widow spider, for instance. I mentioned that midbrains took care of reproduction and digestion..? Well no sooner does the female black widow spider get done with mating than her midbrain turns from making whoopee to making lunch…the father of her upcoming offspring being the blue plate special of the day. And it gets worse.
Some species of
praying mantis only wait until the male has gotten started mating before ripping off his head and chowing down, knowing that the body will finish mating eventually even without the head. When it does…well, the rest will be dessert.
Joey’s midbrain was far more advanced than these, and it really cared for Drew….it really did. Besides, it had future plans for him. Joey’s midbrain was pretty much monogamous….some are you know, and it had no real assurance, given the vagaries of the human female reproduction cycle, that the first time was going to…..well….take. It kind of wanted to keep him around….in case today was just kind of the wrong day of the cycle. And more than that, it wanted to keep him around long term.
Joey was a mammal (readily identifiable by the modified sweat glands visible peeking out around the edges of her bra) and therefore was designed to care for young, not just lay a bunch of eggs someplace and wave bye-bye.
While males tended to be kind of all thumbs caring for young, they were better than nothing. And since Joey really wasn’t equipped to nurse more than one or two offspring at a time, Joey’s midbrain really needed to keep Andrew around for the long haul ….years and years…..if it REALLY wanted to propagate the species……and believe me, it did.
So, far from being some brutish thing that was going to gnaw Drew’s head off, Joey’s midbrain really did care about Drew.
Oh, it might cause her to bite his ears or his nipples or something, but they wouldn’t be deep bites. She wasn’t looking for nourishment…hell, that was only….well…foreplay.
And she might put a few scratches in his lower back and/or buttocks during the mating itself….just out of enthusiasm and trying to kind of act like a cheerleader, but again that wouldn’t be out of any malicious intent. Heck, it’d even happen in years to come when her own cerebrum WAS working. Cerebrum’s weren’t unalterably opposed to midbrains making whoopee, in fact, under the right circumstances, they kind of enjoyed the heck out of it themselves.
So please don’t take anything I’ve said as being anti-midbrain, because I’m not. Midbrains are hard working and do a very necessary job. They just aren’t terribly bright.
In keeping with this, Joey’s midbrain really didn’t think it’d have much of a problem with Andrew.
Heck, they’d been bonding for months, a certain amount of foreplay had already been accomplished, the shared dream had obviously affected his midbrain as deeply as it had affected hers. This shouldn’t be a problem. A little nibbling, a few caresses, release a few pheromones from the sweat glands……hell, her midbrain figured to have his midbrain doing just what she wanted in a matter of seconds. Then it’d be up to HIS midbrain to handle his pesky cerebrum. This shouldn’t be any problem at all.
In addition to not being terribly bright, on this occasion, it was also being naïve. But even so, it wasn’t a brute. It is important that you understand that it really cared about Andrew, cared as deeply as it could….although in truth ‘deep’ wasn’t particularly a midbrain trait.
Anyway…..where were we? Oh yes, Andrew flat on his back on the floor clad in boxers, a shirt with only three buttons left that hadn’t been turned to dust, a T-shirt and sweat socks, with Joey straddling his chest, wearing panties and a bra.
And at this point Andrew’s cerebrum really figured it had the upper hand. All it really had to do to control the situation was to grasp her to him, talk slowly and calmingly, and maybe speak reassuringly until she calmed down, taking advantage of Andrew’s superior weight and muscle mass to control her. And it really thought that would likely work and that what’s more, it’s own midbrain would be supportive of this plan……..It should be obvious to everyone that for all it’s vaunted ‘higher functions,’ Drew’s cerebrum was pretty damn naïve.
Midbrains aren’t much for verbal communication. They are no match whatsoever for the specialized cells in the auditory cortex of the cerebrum. Their verbal vocabulary is really limited, mostly stuff like moans, groans, the occasional snarl,….that sort of thing.
But their olfactory communication skills….that is, their ability to communicate by smell…..that was really pretty good. The midbrain runs the autonomic (or involuntary) nervous system and it is directly connected to the olfactory nerves to relay smell from the nose.
Midbrains, particularly those that want to make whoopee, communicate by releasing pheromones at each other.
Joey’s midbrain had been using a pheromone on Andrew for almost 20 minutes already, starting way back at the party as soon as the champagne had disconnected her own cerebrum. It had started with a low potency but long range pheromone. This substance was actually isolated by scientists in the 1990s, and it’s chemistry determined. It was actually a low molecular weight and fairly volatile aldehyde compound, and it’s full structure had been determined and it had been given a scientific name by IUPAC* nomenclature. But no one can remember the long scientific name, and even if some people could, midbrains wouldn’t, because they aren’t all that bright.
Midbrains just call that pheromone, ‘
Come hither,’ and Joey had been pouring it out for quite awhile now. The other two pheromones at her body’s disposal are a heavier molecular weight organic ester and a similar compound with an attached ethyl ether subgroup. Neither has had their formulas worked out, but because they are less volatile, they only work at close range. Sitting on your chest is close enough.
The first close range pheromone also has a long scientific name, but the midbrains just call it ‘
Going my way…,sailor?’
Now the midbrain code…..well, more of a guideline really, …well it says that this one should be employed at close range, and if…and only if…. the male comes back with a corresponding pheromone, the third pheromone, ‘
You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,’ can then be employed.
In a slight breach of protocol, Joey’s midbrain employed both immediately as soon as she was within range. In fairness, it really was more of a guideline than a code.
And to be completely fair, Joey’s midbrain didn’t really think it had done anything wrong, and I can probably tell you why, but first we have to have a short digression into the millennia old conflict between human midbrains and human cerebrums.
As with most age-old controversies, there’s some truth to each sides opinion. I personally don’t have a dog in that fight, so I can probably explain the politics of the situation to you without a lot of bias.
Midbrains have a bias that they got along fine without cerebrums, and that cerebrums (who are mainly inhibitory to the midbrain) are kind of…well... overly straight and uptight stuffed shirts.
Cerebrums on the other hand, tend to think that midbrains are uncouth louts. And there is an element of truth to all of that. The more fair minded midbrains will admit that some of the technology…agriculture, refrigeration, and the like,..is real handy. It isn’t all feast and famine like it was in the old days, when everybody would gorge themselves after they got a mammoth or something and go hungry for weeks between times.
And midbrains have the ‘fight or flight’ reflex, and there’s no question that after the cerebrum’s came up with those spears,…well hell, the saber tooth tigers were extinct in a few millennia.
But midbrains still think that cerebrums are slackers, particularly in the early years when they can’t even form long term memories. And it takes the cerebrums over a year to even get toilet trained.
Midbrains, on the other hand, start their job before birth, regulating heart rate and blood pressure. As soon as the umbilical cord is clamped, they are totally responsible for breathing…..for life.
And the fact of the matter is that midbrains can live without cerebrums, not particularly well, but they can live. Conversely, cerebrums can’t live without midbrains. If the truth be known, most midbrains think of cerebrums as kind of…slackers, particularly in the first few years.
Cerebrums, on the other hand, defend not doing much during pregnancy and the first couple years as just normal development. Moreover, they argue, nobody would really want to know those memories.
Why would anyone want to remember being in the womb, they ask? BORING.
And birth….??? EWWWW!
Maria’s labor for Joey had been fairly easy…six hours of Maria pushing hard. Why would Joey want to remember that? It would probably traumatize the girl. She’d never be able to squeeze toothpaste out of the tube for the rest of her life.
For Drew it was even worse. Remember Barbara had the bifid uterus? Didn’t contract right? Like being in a mixmaster for 12 hours, then the damn thing tore. They had to do an emergency C-section. Some guy you don’t even know cuts a hole in your mom and pulls you out. You
really want that memory? I don’t think so.
And even in the early days outside of the womb……? Drew had been circumcised the next day……now was
THAT a memory any guy wanted to carry for the rest of his life? Not me!
Anyway, we aren’t going to settle the controversy here….just thought you ought to have the background. Now where were we?
Oh yes. Joey in her undies was clinging to Drew exuding great quantities of pheromones from her sweat glands, particularly in the armpits and pubic area. I didn’t make that up….that’s just fact. As I said above, you don’t like it, you tell Him. I am too old to dictate to a Diety about how I think human bodies ought to be constructed.
Anyway, the other reason that Joey’s midbrain thought it was being reasonable was…well it had been waiting a long, long time.
The midbrain owns something called the pituitary gland that does a lot of things. After almost ten years of working hard to keep Joey’s body breathing, digesting, blood pressure regulated, heart beating properly, and other stuff like that, the midbrain started thinking about making whoopee. It had the pituitary gland start secreting hormones to prepare her for that. It waited almost another year until everything was ready, and had now been testing the system every 28 days for the last five years. That was 65 practice cycles. If the damn thing wasn’t going to work now, it never would.
And historically, only a couple hundred years previously, Joey would have been mated in her early teens. It was only recently in history that cerebrums had gotten so damn inhibitory. In the 1700s, Joey would have been considered well on her way to spinsterhood.
Now you may not agree with this rationale, that’s up to you. As Eddie Izzard said,
“..just a difference….”
So where were we? Oh yes….Joey in her underwear was cuddled up on Drew’s chest, him in little more than his underwear, and he thought that his midbrain was going to continue to agree with his cerebrum and restrain Joey from making whoopee. Man was he naïve.
So there they are, the pheromones are thick in the room, both lying there on the rug.
Andrew begins to notice that his heart rate is going up…..significantly. Now while his own cerebrum pretty well controls the regular part of his nervous system, the midbrain controls the autonomic nervous system.
This controls functions that his consciousness really couldn’t. As his heart rate goes up, his respiratory rate also goes up……suddenly he even feels…other things going up. Now at this point, we really need to digress a little bit.
Have you ever heard the expression “
the fifth column”? This expression relates originally to the 1936 Spanish Revolution when the rebels were attacking Madrid. While they attacked in four columns, the way they REALLY were able to enter the city was through the efforts of supporters already within the city boundaries. Since that time, any group of secret sympathizers or supporters of an enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within defense lines or national borders has been called a “fifth column.”
Well, as Andrew looked down at his boxers suddenly tenting up, he began to realize that his midbrain had already defected to the opposition, and certain parts of his anatomy within his boxers were redefining the nature of a “
fifth column.”
* IUPAC=International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
