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"Max, I want you to father my baby."

It's not every day a guy gets that sort of proposition. Particularly a gay guy. I blinked at the clouded leopard over the rim of my coffee mug, took a sip to show how cool and unfazed I was, and burned my tongue.

"Ow! What - Jess - but - me?"

I've known Jess since we were cubs - well, I was a Cub, she was a Brownie - and she's my best friend, but she'd blindsided me this time. When I accepted her invitation to coffee à deux it didn't occur to me for a moment that there might be other liquids on the table, as it were.

"I mean, I'd love to, but there's a small question of species..."

Jess looked at me with amused affection. The Cat Look, I call it - that "oh, you wacky lesser mortals!" expression that all felines seem to learn in the cradle.

"Not me, you dope! It would be with Cate."

Of course it would. Cate's a wolf. I'm a wolf. In much the same way that a Porsche and a Ford Focus are both cars. One's sexy and dangerous, the other is...well, me. I adore Jess but her girlfriend is just plain terrifying. These days I waited for Jess to get in touch and arrange our meetups because I was too frightened to ring her in case Cate picked up. Not even Jess's mobile, I felt, was entirely safe from predatory she-wolves. That was probably why I hadn't seen Jess for a few weeks, until this coffee-apparently-with-benefits invitation came along.

"Would I have to sleep with her?" I asked, quivering a little at the prospect. Sex with Jess I could envisage - in fact we'd given it a go once, though we were both too drunk to make much progress - but Cate was a whole different proposition. I've never found being scared silly much of a turn-on.

"Is that the first thing you think of?"

Oops. I shook my head frantically, both to deny the thought and dispel the image.

"We're talking about creating life here, you sex-crazed moron. And no, you'd, um," she made a movement with her paw as if shaking a cocktail, "into a pot. I'm not letting you get your greasy mitts on my girlfriend. What if she turned out to like it?"

"Oh, turkey baster, eh? Proper job!" Whenever I'm flustered, something crude pops out of my mouth, and I've seldom been quite so flustered as on this occasion.

"It's a syringe, for your information. You can buy a kit on the internet - syringes, pots, ovulation tests."

"Pots plural? Exactly how much of my love-juice do you need?"

She tapped my nose to make it clear I was misbehaving. "It might take more than one go," she explained. "It might take more than one partner, come to that, if it doesn't seem to work with the first."

"And how many have you got lined up? I trust I'm first in the queue?"

"Of course, Max," she flattered. "You're always Number One with me."

"In that case, mission accepted." I said it without much thought; after all, I had a more or less unlimited supply of the commodity she was after.

"Wait, Max. There are a couple of conditions."

There would be, with Cate around. Did I mention that she's a lawyer?

"Go on."

"Cate doesn't want you to be involved with the baby at all. We're not going to tell him or her who the father is until they're old enough to ask."

I noted that the baby was already a Him or a Her, not an It, in Jess's mind, before it - sorry, he or she - even existed.

"No problem. It's your baby - I'm happy to keep my nose out."

"You might not feel that way when the baby arrives," Jess warned.

Having experienced a baby brother, I was pretty sure that I would. "You said a couple of conditions?"

Jess fidgeted with a claw, pulling at it with her teeth until I could see the sheath and the red quick. I could remember her doing exactly the same when she was picked on to answer a question at school and didn't know the answer.

"Cate thinks we see too much of each other. She wants us to cut it down, and she wants to be around when we do get together. That's why I haven't been in touch for a while - I was trying to get used to the idea."

I felt myself bristle. "That's outrageous! Cate doesn't even like me - she just enjoys making my life difficult. And you're just going to let her walk all over you like that? Are you a cat or a mat?" It was a vicious swipe, but my best friend was being taken away from me and I was going to hold on to her with all my claws, even if it hurt her.

"No, I didn't let her walk all over me. We discussed it like adults, went through all the problems and worries and the things we weren't happy with, and you were at the top of Cate's list."

"Does Cate hate all men, or is it just me? Or is it everyone on the planet except you and her mum?"

"You and I have known each other forever, Max. It's not surprising she feels a bit jealous. I'm sure she'll settle down eventually, but I want her to be happy. And, Max, I want this baby so much. I wouldn't be asking otherwise."

I chewed this over in silence for a while. I was flattered to be asked, and Jess really wasn't asking very much; my contribution would be minuscule. A teaspoonful. But I did wish I was a different species, and not just for my sake.

Jess and Cate don't label themselves "butch" and "femme", but Jess was born to be a mum. When we were little she was always catching spiders and beetles to make pets of. At school she looked out for the smaller kids, hugging them if they hurt themselves or missed their mummies. When her parents announced that she would soon be getting a new baby brother, she was over the moon. (When my parents did that to me, I made a serious attempt to run away from home and was only recaptured because I didn't have the money for my train ticket.) Jess would love her baby when it arrived, regardless of who had actually carried it - she'd love it if it had scales and fins, though I'd be having serious words with my sperm if that happened - but I just knew it would be hard for my friend to miss out on the experience of pregnancy.

Cate, on the other paw, is the one who not only rides a motorcycle but knows how to repair it. Much more suited to oil changes than nappy changes. And another thing - how was she going to manage when her baby bump got too big for her leathers?

"Why Cate and not you?" I asked at last, though I could guess the answer.

"There are no clouded leopards registered with the sperm bank," Jess told me. "Not here or anywhere else in Europe." Her ears dropped a couple of degrees, and I imagined the online enquiries and the gradually fading hope. "There are plenty of wolves, but I wanted...if I can't carry the baby myself, I wanted some sort of personal connection at least."

I ruffled the soft fur on the back of her paw until it unclenched and the claws went away.

I admit I was thinking less about my potential contribution to the gene pool than about Cate's new rule and how it would affect my life. It's not that Jess and I hung out all the time, but I knew she was always there when I needed her. Now our cosy chats over coffee or evenings in the pub whinging about our jobs would be presided over by a brooding and bristling Cate. Even if Jess did talk her round so she stopped seeing me as a threat, they'd both be too busy with the baby to have much time for old Max.

That was selfish, and I knew it. All my concerns were trivial compared to bringing a new life into the world and nurturing it. I had no way of knowing how it felt to be desperate for a baby; it simply wasn't in my biology. But I knew Jess well enough to have a pretty good idea. It was in my power to give my best friend the one thing in the world she wanted most, and if that meant I had to give up the pleasure of her company, so be it.

"Of course I'll father your baby, Jess. I'd give birth to it for you if I could."

The grin across Jess's muzzle was so wide that her whiskers stuck straight up on either side of it. She took both my paws and squeezed them, then got up to rub her cheek against mine.

"Got to go home and tell Cate," she said, swigging down the last of her coffee. "Talk to you soon, OK?" She bounced out of the shop, treading on air.

As I watched her go, knowing both our lives were about to change forever, I felt sad but virtuous. And it must be true that virtue is its own reward, because that was the night I met Simon.