"And I'm thirty-five and not 'spose to!"
"Thirty-five and eighty-nine days! How well I know! The toast!"
She scooted off his lap and ran into the kitchen. How she managed to burn toast in an electronic toaster beat him. By sending it down twice, he suspected.
He picked up the paper by his plate and unfolded it. The first page, as usual, was devoted to the Propagandists. Headlines proclaimed: "375 died this weekend doing you know what." The second line asked: "Will you be next?"
It made a good story because only three hundred deaths had been predicted. The bottom half of the page was filled with pictures of the victims and the spouses who "lead them on, knowing at the time that over forty percent of the heart attacks in men and women over thirty-five are brought on by sexual relations."
Sally was leaning over him, serving his plate with scrambled eggs and ham, but he tried to ignore her and turned to the next page. Here was an editorial by the Department of Health. He scanned it. Same old thing. Sex to be avoided like poison by all persons, male and female, over thirty-five years.
Chuck forked a piece of soya bread, and swabbed the last of ham grease and egg from his plate. He sat drinking his soya hot chocolate, and wanting a cigarette.
Sally finished eating, stretched, and the nylon threatened to rip. She went and got his suit coat and hat. At the door he tried to kiss her goodbye in his best "big brother" manner. But she clinched in close, and suddenly he didn't feel like a brother.
She whispered in his ear, "Come on back. I'll call and tell them you caught a virus!"
He almost took off his hat. Then he said, "You know it would show up in my weekly S-Count!" He shuddered just saying the words. God! how he hated that! He continued, "And if I slip once or twice on that, you know what they do."