Oryx and Crake: Novel

flicks out a spider

he winds his dirty bedsheet around

After brushing off the twigs and bark

no scales and tails

taking care not to knock off any scabs

It causes a jolt of terror

Had Oryx loved him, had she loved him not, did Crake know about them, how much did he know, when did he know it, was he spying on them all along? Did he set up the grand finale as an assisted suicide, had he intended to have Jimmy shoot him because he knew what would happen next and he didn’t deign to stick around to watch the results of what he’d done?

So basically you’re going to sterilize people without them knowing it under the guise of giving them the ultra in orgies?”

These three capabilities would be the selling points, said Crake; but there would be a fourth, which would not be advertised. The BlyssPluss Pill would also act as a sure-fire one-time-does-it-all birth-control pill, for male and female alike, thus automatically lowering the population level. This effect could be made reversible, though not in individual subjects, by altering the components of the pill as needed, i.e., if the populations of any one area got too low.

Which had led to the concept of BlyssPluss. The aim was to produce a single pill, that, at one and the same time:
a) would protect the user against all known sexually transmitted diseases, fatal, inconvenient, or merely unsightly;
b) would provide an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess, coupled with a generalized sense of energy and well-being, thus reducing the frustration and blocked testosterone that led to jealousy and violence, and eliminating feelings of low self-worth;
c) would prolong youth.