Ilove my wife. I love my wife. I love my wife.
That was the only good explanation as to why my trousers were on the other side of the room, my boxer briefs were shoved to my knees, and two fingers were exploring my ass like they were Lewis and Clark and I was the fucking Oregon Trail.
I love my wife. I love my wife. I love my wife.
"Try to relax," I heard over my shoulder. "Just a little pressure."
There was a time when I enjoyed ass play. There was no mistaking the taboo nature of it all, but for me, it was the least intimate option on the menu. No eye contact, no kissing, no more than a lifted skirt and panties edged to the side, definitely no repeats. That time was also marked by my exceptional ability to be an unrepentant dick.
Given that I was the one bent over the table now while cold lube trickled down, down,downand two surprisingly long, thick fingers moved inside me, I was feeling more than a little violated. The urge to take out a full-page apology ad in bothThe Boston GlobeandThe Heraldwas great, although Shannon would beat the snot out of me if I pulled that stunt.
Also, my wife wouldn't be thrilled, and this was all for her.
There was only one problem with riding on that logic: my wife didn't know I was here.
This was a full-on breach of our total honesty agreement, but since losing the baby, my words were all wrong. I wanted Tiel to know that we didn't have to dive back into any robust baby-making activities until she was ready, that my only concern was her, but nothing sounded right. Nothing made it better.
The academic year was winding down, and Tiel had thrown herself into work. It was fully apparent that she loathed this professorship, but it wasn't something she was ready to discuss. Each time I'd ventured into that territory, she'd shut it down with an insistence that her schedule would lighten up when she gained tenure, or it would be easier when she was on top of her research and publication schedule.
She didn't want to go there, and I had a good idea as to why. It was the same reason I didn't want to tell her I was here today.
"Everything looks good," the doctor said as she crossed the exam room. She snapped off her gloves and folded them over each other until they formed a tiny blue ball. If I wasn't slathered in lube and on the tail end of a thorough inspection of my belowdecks, I'd offer a wise comment about the number of blue balls a urologist encountered in the regular course of business.
Instead, I hiked up my boxers and thanked the deities for allowing me to survive that ordeal without an accidental erection. Penises were moody creatures. I couldn't be expected to know how mine would react to this experience, and wouldn't that add some flavor to the indignity of all this?
"Good," I repeated. I sat on the exam table and cringed at the sensation of lube on my backside. "Then—"
She dropped onto the rolling stool beside the table and consulted her tablet. "How long have you been trying to conceive?"
There were several answers to that. Technically, we'd been intentional about having sex during certain times since our wedding five months ago. In actuality, Tiel started keeping track of her cycles in November, around the time we got engaged. But, truly, we stopped all forms of birth control last summer.
"Six months," I said.
The doctor nodded and tapped her screen. "How old is your partner?"
"Thirty," I said.
She nodded again. "Six months at thirty isn't cause for concern yet," she said, gesturing toward me with a frown. "But since you're here and there's a history of miscarriage, I want to do a sperm count and semen analysis, and run a hormone panel. There are some early studies that suggest type 1 diabetes negatively impacts the quality of the DNA in the sperm's nuclei—"
Of course.
Of fucking course.
I know I'm the problem in this equation. Yeah. This isallme.
"—but they're limited in scope, and I'm not sold on them yet. We'll run some tests, get some data, and see what we're working with." She started typing. "Can you visit my lab today and leave a sample? If you have time, we can get answers by the end of the week."
Medical professionals were outstanding at keeping me alive. They'd been doing it since my first breath, plus all the moments when I'd treated my body like a punching bag, and for that I was thankful.
But I hated them so much that I had to talk myself out of full-on, slobbering panic attacks every time I found myself playing the patient. I hated that I was weak, that I wasn't in control, that no matter how much I sorted out my life, I'd always be fucked up.
And now I was jerking off into a cup and offering another pint of my blood for analysis.
I love my wife. I love my wife. I love my wife.
"Yes," I said, mentally flipping through my afternoon appointments. Riley could handle them all on his own. "I've got all day."
A nurse led me to a narrow room that was exactly as unpleasant as you'd imagine. The flat white walls were bordered with a (badly) hand-stenciled strip of mallards and rowboats. I think they were intended to be masculine, but I didn't feel that vibe from ducks. A pile of magazines was fanned out across the wicker coffee table, and a woven basket beside the television was stuffed with porn—VHSandDVD. The furniture was straight out of the Newly Divorced Men's Catalog, circa 1991, and I didn't think it was possible for me to touch anything without requiring a decontamination bath afterward. It wasn't more than two meters from the grandmotherly receptionist's desk, which meant echoes of every conversation traveled through the hollow-core door and left me with the sense I was masturbating in the yarn aisle of a craft store.
