Late Stories

by Stephen Dixon

  The Liar

  This was a while ago. Their daughters were five and eight. He told her he’d like to have another child. How does she feel about it? That when they were first married they talked about having three kids. She said she’d like to, the girls have been great and she’d love to please him with a new baby, but she wouldn’t have the strength to take care of it. And with all the medications she’s taking, and there’s no way she could get off them, she probably couldn’t breast-feed the baby either. “You don’t have to,” he said. “And for the rest of it, leave it to me. My teaching schedule’s flexible. Both kids are now in school. I’ll do most of the work from day one, even the cooking.” “No, and for all we know, just getting pregnant could make my condition worse. I don’t want to chance it. It’s progressing fast enough on its own. Two children are enough, and I hope you’ll come to think so too. You’ve been wonderful about taking on more than your share of the work with them. I couldn’t ask you to do more.” “I really want a third one,” he said, “but we’ll do what’s good for you. So okay, whatever you say.”

  He already knew what he’d do if she said she didn’t want another child. By this time, because she was having trouble using her hands, he was putting in the diaphragm for her. Most of the times when she was ovulating and they were going to make love, she told him to be extra careful in inserting the diaphragm, and he said he would or “I know,” but intentionally put it in loose. “It doesn’t quite feel secure,” she sometimes said. “Are you sure it’s in right?” “It’s in perfectly, just the way you taught me,” he always said, or something like it, “but I’ll double-check if you want me to,” and put his hand in her vagina, knew the diaphragm wasn’t in straight, took his hand out and said “As I said, a perfect fit. Now what do you say?” and she nodded and he got on the bed next to her and they made love. He came and hoped some of his semen got through the opening and made it to the egg. Hoped the egg was receptive to one of the sperm.

  Several other times he said when they were about to make love during her most fertile period “What do you say; this time, no diaphragm or messy cream? I’ll pull out when I’m about to come. Don’t worry. I’ll be very careful.” “It won’t be as exciting for you, though it could be a bit more so for me. But the good thing is you won’t have to deal with the diaphragm and cream. But pull out long before you come. Ten seconds at least. You’ll know when that is. Maybe more than ten seconds, if you don’t think you can hold it back till then, just to make sure not a drop goes in me.” He ejaculated a little inside her those times—sort of let it dribble out—but made no sounds or gave any physical sign he was coming. Then he said “I’m coming,” or said it a couple of times, and pulled out and pretended to groan a few seconds while he did the rest of it on her stomach, if that was the position they were making love in, or, if he was behind her, in a handkerchief or on the bottom sheet or a towel. “You didn’t come in me,” she usually said, “—even a small amount, did you? Because then I want to get up and clean it out fast.” “No, I told you. I planned to go on your belly, and that’s where it went.” Or “on the towel” or “in my handkerchief” or “I came on the sheet. Unfortunately, now we’ll have to change it.” “It’s worth the effort,” she said. “Though next time, if we do it like this again without a diaphragm, spread out a thick towel under us first. Then, after you do what you do on it, just toss it into the washer.”

  It must have worked the last time they didn’t use a diaphragm. Because from that time on, or when she first decided she was pregnant, she always insisted she have one in, even during the so-called safe days. Anyway, about a month later, she said “I have some distressing news,” and told him. “You sure?” and she said “I’d say almost positive. Yes, I’m positive.” “Damn, I’m so sorry. I know it’s the last thing you wanted to happen. I must’ve inserted the diaphragm incorrectly for the first time or it slipped while it was in you. Can that happen?” and she said “Not if it’s put in right. And I would have felt it. I think I’m still able to feel things like that in there. It’s my hands and feet where I’ve lost most of my feeling.” “Then maybe there’s something wrong with it. A tear or puncture, somehow, or just being stretched too far from all its use. Did we ever check it?” and she said “There was nothing wrong with it. Whenever I clean it and put it back in its case, I always inspect it. I’m no lazy fool.” “I know; I’m not saying. And I’m sure you’re right about being pregnant. You knew, with Freya and Miriam, a month after they were conceived. Well, you know us. The Fecund Twins. I think with both girls we hit it right the first time we tried. But that was when you wanted it. So what are we going to do? If you are right.” “I’m right. Abort, of course, and sooner the better, after it’s been confirmed by the doctor. I already passed the urine test.” “You did? Without me? It was so much fun, watching the doughnut grow. But can’t we even discuss it?” and she said “No.” “Come on,” he said. “Surely we can discuss it a little. It might be the perfect time for us to have a third child, and maybe that was the last time you’ll be able to conceive. And I swear. I’ll take care of the baby twice as much as I did the first two, and I did a lot then, you know it. So I’ve done it. I’ll know what to do. An experienced pop. I’ll work my ass off and love every minute doing it. It won’t be a chore for you at all. If we have to, we’ll get some help for a while, and the kids will pitch in too. And your folks. They’ll love our having another child. My mother too. But your folks more so, their losing their whole families in Europe.” “Please, don’t go any further,” she said. “It’s a blatantly bogus argument. Sham, insincere, you don’t mean a word of it. You just want to change my mind by fucking with it. It’s not going to work. So it’s final. No more talk. It’s making me very angry and driving me crazy, and that isn’t good for my condition either.” “Then I apologize and I’ll shut up. I’m disappointed, that’s obvious, but nothing I can do about it, and I respect what you say.” “Oh, you’re too much sometimes,” she said, “but I’m glad I’ve heard the last of it.” “I’m sorry you feel that way about me, but okay.”

  She had the abortion. They continued to make love three to four times a week and he always put the diaphragm in for her. He put it in loose a few times in the next two years or so, made love to her from behind those times because she once said, when they were planning to have their first child, that that was the best position, if he went in deep and stayed there for a couple of minutes after he came, to get her pregnant. One time she said to him, while they were lying in bed after having made love, “I’ve been thinking. Correct me if I’m wrong, and don’t think that what I’m about to say is in any way critical of you. But that last time I got pregnant and had an abortion, you didn’t, when you said you’d be extra careful to pull out in time after you had convinced me not to use a diaphragm, intentionally ejaculate in me to make me pregnant? You could tell me now. Enough time has gone by, so I’m not going to get upset. And you wanted a third child so much, I can almost understand why you would have resorted to such a desperate deception.” “Are you being serious?” he said. “Yes. I’m asking because it’s puzzled me since then how I got pregnant, and I thought that was the most likely way. And that after you pulled out, you feigned an orgasm while you were still behind me, when you actually might have got rid of some if not most or even all your seed slowly and imperceptibly while you were inside me.” “Seed,” he said. “I love that word for it.” “Don’t change the direction of the conversation. Did you?” “First of all, as for feigning an orgasm, I never did in my life. If I don’t have one, I don’t pretend I do. If I have one, then I make sounds, soft to whatever’s natural, nothing fake, though the volume, of course, influenced if there’s someone else in the house. If one of the kids is home, then absolute silence, I hope from both of us.” “You’re not answering my question.” “I’ll answer it, or do my best to, by saying I didn’t do what you think there’s a possibility I did.” “All right. I just wanted to know.” “But do you believe me?” and sh
e said “I believe you, or think I do.” “Believe me,” he said. “I wouldn’t lie to you on this. I wouldn’t lie anytime to you. Now, if some of my seed happened to leak into you while we were making love without a diaphragm and that made you pregnant, then I didn’t know. I always thought I was in control of it then, but there could have been a time or two I wasn’t. When you were using a diaphragm I didn’t think of it and just went for maximum release in you.” “That answers my question. It must have happened that way. I won’t bring it up again.” “But you do believe me.” “More than I did when I first asked the question.” “That’s good enough,” he said.

  A couple of years later she said her gynecologist said she’s stopped ovulating, so it’s all right for them to make love from now on without any kind of protection. “What a relief,” he said. “It’ll make our lovemaking much freer. Now we can hop straight to it without a lot of fussing around and making sure the thing’s in right and washing and drying my hands and giving them some time to get warm again before touching you.” “Was it that bad? We always, you know, could have inserted it hours before,” and he said “I think we thought that would have entailed getting you on and off the bed before I got you on the bed again to make love, so we never did it, or not after the first time.” “Anyway, I’m glad of the way you accepted the medical report,” she said. “I thought you’d be disappointed, even a bit depressed, that I wasn’t able to conceive anymore, which I know for the last few years you secretly wanted.” “Who, me? Not on your life. You didn’t want another child, then that was perfectly understandable and fine with me. And the two we have are wonderful. Never a handful, so I thought another wouldn’t have been rough on us either. But two’s enough, as you’ve said; really. I’m not making this up. So what do you say? When do you think’s the first time we can take advantage of this windfall? Without any appliances or anything to stop the momentum, so to speak. We haven’t been able to do that for years.” “Tonight, if you like,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll be in the mood.” “How about now? I’m good for it. No, that must seem so stupid for me to say.” “You have to pick up the kids in half an hour,” she said. “Ah, but I suppose we have time if we do it relatively quickly, or you do, and we can now omit the tiresome routine with the diaphragm, which will give us a few more minutes.” He wheels her into the bedroom, helps her undress. “I don’t have to take everything off, do I?” and he said “You can leave on the socks. We’ll still have time to get everything back on.” He lifted her out of the wheelchair onto the bed. “That was so good,” he said, after. “I don’t know if it was because of what we didn’t have to do, but really nothing stopping us.” “You did seem to make a little more noise than usual.” “You too,” he said. “I thought you were going to make it this time. I tried my hardest for you to. Your pleasure comes first with me.” “Oh, please.” “No, I mean that.” “Then thank you,” she said. “Though I doubt I’ll ever be able to achieve what you do every time. It makes me sad. It’s not that it isn’t fun without it—don’t think that—but it’d be so much better with.” “You’ll have it. It’s got to happen again. We’ll work on it together. And once we’ve mastered the trick to it, or whatever will do it, there’ll be other times too.” “I hope so,” she said. “I’m certainly not blaming you. It’s my wretched condition. Now, help me get dressed. If you’re late, give me my bathrobe and I’ll pretend to them I’m still in my robe after a shower.”