Pleasuria

by John J. Jessop

  “Yikes. You wouldn’t destroy a perfectly good motorcycle just because I took off for a couple of months, would you?”

  “It’s not the motorcycle you should be worried about, Jason. It’s needing to remove the front bumper of my Expedition from your spleen that should concern you.” With that, she smiled and headed upstairs for a bath, thinking, Ah, a blissful soak in a tub filled with hot water and sweet-smelling bubbles, guaranteed to relieve the stress of living with a crazy person. I’ll have a glass of wine with that.

  Jason was eating toast with a bowl of his favorite cereal, Cheerios. When she left him alone in the kitchen, he started counting the Os swimming in the sweetened milk. He mumbled, “One, two, three, she won’t run over me. Four, five, six, my life I need to fix. Seven, eight, nine . . . oh screw it. I need to do something exciting, change things up, maybe get the hell out of Dodge for a while. I long for the good old days, just me and Chelse, still in school, small apartment, no kids, wild and free. I’m going crazy. I need to have some fun, shake things up.”

  • • •

  Nothing ever seemed to come easy for Jason, and building a family was no exception. While they were still in school, Chelsea had agreed to put off having children until Jason had finished his doctorate and established himself at the FDA. He actually hoped for a much longer reprieve from parenting, but when they were in their early thirties, Chelsea’s biological alarm had sounded and they’d begun trying. Jason enjoyed the trying, a lot, but she just wasn’t getting pregnant.

  “We should see a doctor,” she had told Jason one Saturday morning, after several months of negative pregnancy tests. “I want a baby, and this isn’t working. We need to get checked out to see if our plumbing is okay.”

  “So when’s our appointment?” he asked, knowing that when she said should, the appointment was already made. “I doubt there’s anything wrong. I’ve heard people at work say it can take up to six months to get pregnant, sometimes longer depending on your age.”

  “We have an appointment with Dr. Gleason at the clinic near my office, Monday morning at nine. Dr. Gleason told me on the phone that they’ll need a sperm sample. Can you handle that?”

  “Sure. Happy to oblige. How many samples do they need? Maybe I should buy porno for the occasion. Or maybe you could do that striptease routine you did on our honeymoon.”

  Chelsea was not amused. “If you bring any porn into this house, you’d better be ready to have it surgically removed from where the sun don’t shine. You are much man, and I’m sure you can use your imagination for some bizarre fantasy to get you going.”

  “It’s not going to be easy now that you’ve placed that delightful surgical image in my head. But I’ll manage somehow. We men are quite clever. I always hold back a fantasy or two for such occasions.”

  Monday morning rolled around, and Jason found himself at the clinic being poked and prodded by Dr. Gleason, who, to Jason’s embarrassment, turned out to be a lovely young female fertility specialist. Jason thought, careful not to mumble out loud, Here I am, with an attractive young woman handling my junk, and I’m not even enjoying it.

  After his examination, Dr. Gleason said, “Okay, Jason. Everything’s where it should be.”

  He said, nervously, “Well, that’s good to hear. I was worried that something might have fallen off.”

  She chuckled. She knew how embarrassing this was for most men, and she enjoyed watching them squirm. “Now that we know you’re intact, go on up the hall and give us a sperm sample while I examine your wife. There are special magazines in the rooms if you need help getting started. In my experience, most men are well practiced.”

  “No problem, Doc. How much sperm do you need? A pint? A quart?”

  She laughed. “Gee, like I’ve never heard that one before. No need for you to wear things out. You need to save as much as possible to get your wife pregnant. Just a small sample will do.”

  He found several magazines with fold-out pages. He settled on a Hawaiian model with long, flowing, straight black hair and bronze skin. Might as well go exotic, he thought. When he had finished, he said to the sperm sample, “I just know that there are plenty of you guys and you are Olympic swimmers. The problem can’t be with us. We are manly men.” The sperm didn’t answer, which Jason thought was probably a good thing.

  When he came out of the room to deliver the sample to Dr. Gleason, Chelsea was waiting. “The doctor had to move on to her next patient. She said that you set the record for longest time in the sample room. I think she plans to give you a trophy on our next visit. I’d ask what took you so long, but I’m not sure I want to know. Give the sample to the nurse at the desk, and let’s get out of here. And I see that magazine sticking out of your back pocket. Please leave it on the table. Jesus, I can’t take you anywhere.”

  • • •

  They met with Dr. Gleason again the following week, after all the test results were in. Sitting in the doctor’s office with Chelsea, Jason said to Dr. Gleason, “So, I’m guessing it’s not my guys. I’m confident my sperm count is high and my guys swam the race in record time. So what’s the problem, Doc?”

  Chelsea gave him the death stare out of the corner of her eye. “Forgive my husband. He can be an idiot sometimes . . . actually, frequently. So, what is the problem? Why can’t we get pregnant?”

  Dr. Gleason gave them a sad look, and said, “The good news is that Chelsea is fine.”

  Chelsea, smiling tentatively, said, “And there is bad news?”

  Jason grimaced, and felt a little dizzy. Not me. Not me. Please, not me.

  Dr. Gleason sighed, and said, “Jason, your sperm count is low, and the little guys are slow swimmers. In fact, I’m not sure they know how to swim at all.”

  He frowned, and said weakly, “Don’t sugarcoat it, Doc. How bad is it? If my guys were sea creatures, would they be more like sea bass or dolphins?”

  She answered, a note of sympathy in her voice, “Jason, if we’re using a sea creature analogy, I’m sorry to say it would be more like coral.”

  “But coral don’t swim. They just hang around on the bottom of the ocean.”

  The doctor gave a weak smile, shrugged. “Exactly. I’m sorry to say that it is unlikely the two of you will be able to have children of your own.”

  Jason, still in denial, said, “That’s not possible. I work out every day. I’m healthy as a horse. I’m a manly man. I figured my sperm would be world champions. This can’t be right. Do the test again. I’ll go home, work out, get plenty of sleep tonight, and give you more sperm tomorrow. Maybe I just didn’t get enough sleep, and the little guys were tired. Is there anything I can do? What if I start eating raw meat, raw steak, would that help? What about oysters? Tabasco sauce? I could eat lots of tacos with tabasco sauce and hot chili peppers. Maybe that would get the guys going.” He put his face in his hands. “Oh God. It can’t be me.”

  “Calm down, Jason. It’s okay,” the doctor said. “This is not uncommon. Normally, when a man has this problem, there are ways he can change his diet that might help. But, in your case, your guys are—how can I say this—dead on arrival. If anything, they appear to be swimming backwards, like they’re running away from something. No amount of raw meat, oysters, tabasco sauce, or chili peppers is going to help. Studies have shown that when a man’s sperm are DOA, it’s not likely that his wife will get pregnant. However, there are other alternatives to having children naturally, one of which is adoption. There is also surrogacy, or we could try in vitro fertilization, although that’s quite expensive and can take several tries, with no guarantees.”

  • • •

  Jason left the doctor’s office mortified and drove home in silence. Something felt dead inside. Something was dead inside. He knew Chelsea was hurting, her biological clock on constant alarm, and he did what he could to console her, signaling a willingness to explore options. They both went back to work, and he kept very busy to avoid thinking about the bad news. However, Chelsea was not someone to sit
on her hands and brood.

  After meeting with Dr. Gleason, Chelsea thought, I REALLY want a family. It’s time. We talked about adoption, but I’m afraid Jason might not be ready yet. Maybe I should check it out first, and then bring him my research when I’m done. I don’t want to upset him. So, she researched the adoption process on her own, using her annual leave to meet with an adoption lawyer in Vienna, Virginia, with connections to Central and South America.

  On a Saturday morning, three weeks after their traumatic doctor visit, Chelsea got up bright and early and fixed Jason a nice big breakfast with all his favorites—bacon, fried eggs over easy, biscuits, hash browns, pancakes, and black coffee. They usually slept in on the weekend and breakfast was limited to coffee and toast. This morning his wife actually made pancakes, from scratch.

  As Jason sipped coffee and shrugged off the haze of a foggy brain, he poured syrup on his plate.

  “Jason, I need to tell you something,” his wife blurted excitedly. “I met with an adoption lawyer, and there is a baby girl in El Salvador waiting for us to come pick her up. If you are okay with this, I have to leave Monday morning, because there are two other couples that are also interested in her. According to the lawyer, we’re next in line, but we need to act immediately. I’ve already bought the airline ticket and made the hotel reservations, and I can go alone since you don’t have time to take leave from work. According to our lawyer, I can do this by myself, and all you have to do is sign the papers when I get back with the baby, and the thirty-thousand- dollar check to cover the lawyer, airline tickets, hotel, and all the in-country legal and adoption fees. I hope you are good with this. I wanted to surprise you. So, surprise!”

  Jason had just shoved a fork full of pancakes into his mouth and was washing it down with hot coffee when she hit him with her news flash. He started choking and hot coffee spewed from his nose. He took a drink of water, which helped with the choking but did nothing to bring down his blood pressure, which had just gone off the charts.

  “Say what? Adopt a baby? El Salvador? Monday morning?” He was vigorously shaking his head back and forth in disbelief at what he had just heard, his mind having difficulty processing his wife’s words, trying desperately to make it go away. “When . . . what have you done? We haven’t discussed this lately . . . new baby? I have to be at work on Monday.”

  “Jason, I really want this. I need it. It’s time for us to start our family, and this opportunity came up as soon as I reached out to someone about adoption. I didn’t tell you about it at first, because I was terrified that you weren’t ready, and I just couldn’t deal with that possibility. So there it is. Are you with me? I checked, and my passport is valid. I’ll go get our first child, a baby girl.”

  She asked, “What do you think?” But Jason knew there really wasn’t anything to discuss. This was a done deal.

  On Monday morning he drove his wife to the airport and watched her board an old passenger jet with the name TACA AIRLINES painted on the side along with a giant picture of a colorful parrot.

  “What can go wrong?” he mumbled to himself, hearing the fear in his own voice as he watched the large parrot ascend into the sky. “She’s flying to Central America on an obsolete passenger jet to adopt a baby from a war-torn country. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.”

  Much to his surprise, two days later, Jason got a call from Chelsea. “They already gave me the baby. She’s beautiful and I’ve been caring for her in my room at the Hilton San Salvador. It’s crazy. Be home in a couple days.”

  • • •

  Upon baby Lizzy’s arrival, Jason returned to his job at the FDA and Chelsea had taken a month off for maternity leave. They hired a nanny when Chelsea started working again, and life for Jason seemed to be leveling out. Caring for the baby at night was tough, but he liked seeing his wife happy. I can handle one kid, he thought. Not Chelsea. Her biological clock alarm was still blaring.

  Two months after the trip to Central America, early on a Saturday morning after a long night of baby screaming, Jason was in the nursery trying to rock Lizzy to sleep. He was exhausted, and he thought he might be hallucinating when he smelled fresh coffee, frying bacon, eggs, potatoes, and toast. He was hungry, and at first he smiled. Then it hit him, and he thought, Oh no. Not another big breakfast.

  “Good morning, dear. What have you done?”

  Chelsea waited until he had his first cup of coffee before she said, “Honey, I’ve been thinking.”

  “That’s never a good thing.”

  She let the sarcasm slide. “I heard on the news that studies have shown that single children often grow up unable to cope with life. So last week I placed our name on an adoption list at an agency in Washington, DC. I thought we’d do a US adoption this time. One of their adoption counselors told me that it would be five to seven years—at the earliest—before we would be able to adopt a child from the US. Lizzy will have to wait a while for a sibling to play with. Foreign adoptions are a lot quicker but also much more expensive.”

  He sighed and thought, Whew, that’s not so bad. Five to seven years is a long time. I guess I dodged a bullet. I’ll just enjoy this bountiful breakfast, and then catch a nap.

  “That’s fine, Chelse. I’m glad you did it. Five to seven years is just about right. By then we should be pretty good at this parenting thing, and that’ll give us plenty of time to get the house ready for another baby. Just for the record, I read somewhere that studies have shown that in families with more than two children, there’s a 75 percent chance that at least one of the parents will go skydiving without a parachute. So, I vote that we stop with two.”

  • • •

  Over the next year and a half they did begin to get the hang of the parenting thing. Chelsea was back at work, Lizzy was sleeping through the night and giggling through the days, and peace and happiness prevailed. So when Jason came home from work on a Friday and caught a whiff of steak and macaroni and cheese, his guard was down. His first thought was that this was a nice surprise, and he was hungry. Chelsea met him in the kitchen, gave him a big hug.

  “Welcome home, dear. I hope you had a good day. I have a nice dinner waiting for my man after a hard day at the office.” When he heard this, along with the smell of that delicious food, all kinds of alarms sounded, followed by a huge anxiety attack.

  Chelsea led him into the dining room, and there was a veritable feast laid out on the table; steak, loaded baked potato, blue cheese wedge salad, homemade macaroni and cheese, biscuits, the works, and an ice-cold Molson Golden ale. He knew he was in trouble, because in their entire marriage she had never cooked on a Friday night. They both worked, and by Friday night they were barely able to answer the door when the pizza arrived. When he saw the table, he said, “Woman, what did you do now? You even made biscuits, from scratch. You never make biscuits. I hope you have a lot of that beer, ’cause I’m guessing I’m gonna need it.”

  Chelsea just laughed, gave him another big hug and kiss.

  “Oh, Jason, I have some wonderful news! The adoption agency called today, and told me that they have a baby for us. We are to pick her up first thing Monday morning!”

  Jason had just started chugging the remainder of his beer when she began talking. When he heard the words coming out of her mouth, the ice cold Molson’s came out of his nose. He began to sputter, “Baby . . . Monday morning . . . two-day pregnancy? . . . What happened to five to seven years? Are you kidding me? Please tell me you’re kidding.” With that, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he slid slowly off of the chair and onto the floor, momentarily unconscious.

  When he came to and got off the floor, he said, “Sorry, honey, I must be really tired. I seem to have taken a brief nap. I’m not sure that we’re ready for another baby. Lizzy’s only eighteen months old. We finally have a satisfactory daycare thing set up for her, and I don’t know how a new baby will fit in. We don’t have a nursery anymore, and you are working again. Is this really the right time?”

  She re
sponded, her words well-rehearsed. “Jason, I have things under control. I’ve already called all our friends, and four couples are showing up bright and early tomorrow morning to help out. They’re bringing baby blankets, diapers, formula, bottles, and all the trimmings. We kept Lizzy’s crib, and we just need to get it down from the attic. This is a four-bedroom house, and we can set up the room next to our master bedroom as the nursery. With our friends’ help, we’ll easily be ready for the new baby by Monday morning.”

  Monday morning, after a breakfast of toast and coffee, a totally exhausted Jason and Chelsea drove to downtown Washington, where they picked up Lilly Beth Longfellow. On the way home in the car, Jason said, “Chelsea, honey, we’re thirty-four, we agreed on two children, and Lilly makes two. The first involved a flight to Central America on a giant parrot, and this one came to us via a two-day pregnancy. If we survive this, can I please get you to agree that we have completed our family?”

  Chelsea’s response surprised Jason. “Yes, dear. If you want, when we get home you can write it down and I’ll sign the agreement.”

  • • •

  Once again, they settled into a nice, comfortable routine. Chelsea stayed home with baby Lilly for three months, at which time they managed to find a new daycare provider, Connie Harper, willing to commit to both Lizzy and Lilly. She was expensive, but worth it. Jason did his best to spend as much time with the children as possible, and it was his job to read to Lizzy and then to give Lilly her last bottle of the night before tucking her into her crib. As they grew older, the kids seemed well adjusted and Chelsea appeared to be happy.

  When Lizzy was eight and Lilly was six, Jason and Chelsea took the family on a two-week vacation. They rented a house on a large lake in North Carolina that came with a twenty-two-foot ski boat. The girls had a great time swimming, tubing, and learning to water ski; they had special wooden beginner’s skis, call Snoopy skis, that were tied together and so buoyant that Lilly, the smaller of the two girls, could stand on top of the water. On their final weekend, they ran out of food, so Jason went to the grocery store. When he got back to the house, he found the girls crying hysterically, and Chelsea trying to calm them.