Bride Wanted

by Eva Luxe

  All of a sudden, shots rang out and I could hear the pings against the metal of the helicopter followed by the flashing red light and alarm going off.

  “We’ve been hit! We’ve been hit!” someone yelled out. I remembered the panic in the eyes of the SEALs sitting in the helicopter with me as we stood waiting for the eventuality of our situation that we expected to result in our deaths.

  As the helicopter went down, right before the moment of impact, I sent up a quick prayer that it would all be over quickly. I felt every bit in the impact, and then extreme heat as a fire exploded around us. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable.

  Then, I could feel myself beginning to float. I thought that my soul was leaving my body until I realized that I was being pulled from the rubble of the downed helicopter. I could feel the fire burning my skin. I felt like I was melting.

  It turns out I hadn’t died. I had just passed out. Ramsey Bradford had pulled me out and threw me on the ground right next to his brother, Harlow, who had been badly burned and injured, too.

  I remembered our eyes meeting and wondering if his would be the last face that I would see before I died. It would seem fitting, since my fellow members of the Navy SEALs had become like my family, my very life. We had trained together, fought together, gotten into some tough situations together. And right now, we might be dying together.

  A few moments later, the helicopter exploded with some men still trapped inside. Some medics finally arrived and hauled me off for medical treatment.

  As I was laying there in the stretcher, I couldn’t believe my life had just replayed itself in my mind as if it was going to be over, yet I was still alive. I had a glimmer of hope. I felt like I was one of the lucky ones. I had survived. I was going to be okay.

  But, now that I was remembering all of this, I realized that “hope” was a strong word and reality had not lived up to what I had envisioned. When I considered how everything had gone after that. The way that everything changed. The way that women would gasp and take steps back when I approached. The way that no one ever looked me in the face. The way that the people who I cared about went out of their way to avoid me, I realized that I would never be truly “okay” again.

  Dr. Davis had told me that the telltale signs of the injury would fade and soon I would look almost like normal again. But he was obviously a liar and a fraud, so what he said didn’t count. A couple other doctors had expressed similar things to me but it was probably just to fill my head with hope.

  I felt certain that everything about my life was doomed for good. And now, laying on my bed with my limp dick in my hand, I knew that that probably included me not ever being okay sexually again.

  I couldn’t help but to feel sorry for myself. Sometimes I think it would have been better if I had died on that helicopter. A man with an ugly face and a limp dick has nothing left to live for. Despite all my attempts to push forward with life as I knew it post helicopter crash, I always seemed to be reminded of my limitations. The fact that I was here thinking about it all over again was Harlow Bradford’s fault. I should have ignored his call and thrown my cell phone into the snow so that he couldn’t reach me again.

  I had abandoned myself to a life of isolation— and I should have known that would have to include no cell service. If it wasn’t for having to keep in touch with my doctors and housekeeper who also cooked food for me, I would have thrown away the damn technology a long time ago.

  It was a good thing I hadn’t tossed it into the woods, since I needed it, but I’d learned a valuable lesson. I should avoid all calls from Harlow. And any non-necessary calls at all, for that matter.

  I had nothing against Harlow, personally. I knew he felt guilty because he had introduced me to Dr. Davis. Dr. Davis promised to restore the physical appearance and ability of veterans injured at war with his break-through technology that combined plastic surgery, skin grafting and physical therapy. He paraded Harlow all over the country as his example of someone he could fix. He had Harlow sign up other veterans left and right for his revolutionary treatment.

  Then, it was found out that Dr. Davis was a fraud, who was using Harlow for his own financial benefit. He was exaggerating how bad off Harlow was when he had first started working with him, and taking credit for Harlow’s own natural abilities in recovering. Therefore, he was over promising and under delivering, and it was schmucks like me who got the bum end of the deal, because we thought we were getting good treatment when it was all just a sham.

  That wasn’t Harlow’s fault, though. He was a nice guy who wanted the best for everyone in our unit. I shouldn’t have yelled at him but he couldn’t seem to realize that his way of dealing with things was not the only way. Perhaps I would call him up and apologize to him. But not yet.

  The more pressing issue was that I hoped I could get into a better mood soon, and not wallow away in depression. I was determined to continue being a survivor rather than a victim. And when I wasn’t feeling the part, I was used to faking it until making it. This time, though, I just wasn’t sure how long I could keep the act up.

  Chapter 2 – Hope

  “Wake up!” My mother’s shrill voice broke into my sleep. I had never been a morning person and I didn’t foresee that changing any time in the near future. No matter what my mother had to say about it.

  “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” she shouted louder, shaking my bed.

  Rolling over to face her, I groaned, “I’m up, Mom. I’m up.”

  Sighing with relief, my mother leaned over my bed, physically exhausted from her mini fit. I perked up a little more and noticed how sickly she was looking this morning.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  “No, honey, I’m not so good today.”

  Not so good today.

  My mother was as tough as nails. This was the woman who had checked out of the hospital with walking pneumonia and went straight to working a double shift, so for her to say that she wasn’t feeling well was a big deal.

  “I need you to go do Mr. King for me today.”

  Her choice of words made me want to giggle at the thought of me “doing” him, but of course I didn’t say anything to my mom. She would scold me for such silliness. At my age— nineteen— Mom was already married and pregnant, yet working hard every day. Therefore, she thought I should act more mature than I did.

  My mom took her work very seriously. My father had died in a car crash when I was very young and he didn’t have insurance. My mother had little support, and only unskilled labor as work experience, but she had three young children to take care of.

  At first, she struggled to take care of us. It wasn’t until she had picked up a few regular cleaning jobs that we started seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

  Then, mom got sick. It was a mysterious autoimmune disease, causing symptoms ranging from arthritis to stomach pain. The doctors had no answer for her, other than to tell her that she should retire and live out the rest of her days on a beach. Of course, that just wasn’t possible so it couldn’t be her reality. It almost seemed cruel for the doctors to suggest to a woman who was used to working multiple jobs just to be able to make ends meet.

  In the months that followed, I saw her, worn out and tired, becoming a shell of her former self, slowly dying in front of my eyes. And my heart began to break. Losing my dad had been hard enough, something that I will never get over.

  My dad had been my best friend and my hero. He was so fun, always joking and laughing, doing silly things that would make my mother scold him, but a smile always played at the corner of her mouth while she was doing it.

  That was back then. Now, I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d seen her laugh.

  I started helping her out with her jobs. I figured that because I was younger than she was, yet still old enough compared to my younger siblings, I could help lighten her load.

  When I first offered to help her, my mom flat out refused, saying that it was her responsibility to care for the family a
nd that she wanted me to focus on my own life. She wouldn’t even listen as I explained that my family was my life and that I would do everything in my power to make sure that everyone was okay.

  Eventually, though, she acquiesced. She had to, because it was too much work for her to be able to do on her own. And once she started to see me as a worker bee, she started giving me lessons in how to grow up and earn my own keep like she had always had to do.

  Despite her stern, serious lessons, I didn’t mind the work. I would throw on my iPod and rock out while cleaning. Time would always fly by. Even my mom was surprised at how well things were going at her jobs when I worked them. I told her that I’d learned from the best.

  I had helped with all of her jobs, except for Mr. King. She told me that he was very particular and he made certain parts of the house off limits. She didn’t want to risk anything going wrong. We had been struggling just to pay bills for so long that once she started working for Mr. King, she saw that she finally had a chance to change things for us. That was because he paid more than anyone that she’d ever worked for. She cleaned his house once a week and then cooked his meals for the entire upcoming week.

  “Sure, Mom, I can do Mr. King. I’ll get dressed and head over now.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” she said, putting her hands up to stop me in my tracks. “We need to go over the rules of being at his house.”

  We had been over it so many times, just in case I ever had to step in and help out at his house when she couldn’t, but I didn’t say anything to remind her of that just now. I knew that going over every detail again would help her feel reassured. I just nodded my head and listened as she recited her same speech.

  “Now, Mr. King is very different. You can tell that just by looking at him. That is, if ever you get the chance to lay eyes on him. If you do see him, look at the floor, look at the ceiling, look at the wall. Look anywhere but directly into his face. If you need to tell him anything, write everything down on a note and leave it on the refrigerator. You never walk up to him directly. And there’s absolutely no walking into a room where he is if he hasn’t invited you. He spends most of his time in the west wing of the house, so most of those rooms are off limits. You get in, you get out. You clean and you leave. Got it?”

  “Of course, Mom,” I smiled at her sweetly, hoping that that would reassure her. “I got it. I can handle it. Don’t worry.”

  She looked me over skeptically, then sighed, her shoulders lowering like all the energy had been drained from her. She kissed my cheek and shuffled out of my room and back to bed.

  She wasn’t going to listen to me. She was going to worry. But, there wasn’t much I could do about that.

  I got up, showered, and ran out the door. I was eager to finally see the mysterious Mr. King’s house. Mom had told me that it was a cabin, but also a mansion. The biggest, most modern cabin she could even imagine.

  Pulling up to the front gate, I was blown away by the sheer size of the building and I realized that Mom had not been exaggerating. I’d never seen anything like it, either.

  I couldn’t rightfully call that enormous building a house or even a cabin, even though it did look like a log cabin. In my mind, it couldn’t be called anything but a building, because it looked like there was room enough for an entire company of people to live or work in.

  I entered the code that my mother had given me and the gates swung open so majestically that I thought that I was about to walk into a castle. Walking through the giant oak doors, I had to catch my breath as I looked around at all the luxurious beauty that laid before me. I had never seen more gold and crystal in all my life.

  I had to drive for a long time before I arrived, and looking out the expansive windows, all I could see were beautiful mountain views. The backyard was so wooded it looked like a forest. There were no other houses in sight.

  The outside of the house had the wooden logs and cozy look of a cabin, and inside was no different. It featured a wood burning fireplace and comfortable nooks and crannies where one could curl up with a good book.

  It was a gorgeous house. And it was amazing to think that only one person lived here. There weren’t very many other people to enjoy all the beauty this home had to offer, and from what Mom said, Mr. King didn’t have visitors over.

  What did he do with all this space? And what did he do with all the other rooms? He could only really sleep in one. I couldn’t help but think of how my younger siblings had to share a room in our own small house.

  I willed myself to stay focused on the task at hand. My mother had entrusted me with a huge amount of responsibility and I had to stay focused on that.

  I could see why my mother had been so careful about how she dealt with Mr. King. But, the more I walked through the house, the less concerned I had become about following the rules that she’d drummed in my head.

  I was curious and I wanted to explore the house. I was glad to be helping Mom out with this job, because it was a lot more exciting than anything else I would be doing today.

  I’ll just walk around and get an idea of what my work day is going to look like, I justified to myself.

  I set off to look around, not quite sure what I would find. But I had a feeling that today had a lot in store for me. And that meeting Mr. King was going to be very interesting indeed.

  Chapter 3 – Darren

  “What seems to be the problem?”

  Dr. Milton was using his hallmark question for what seemed like the millionth time since I was young. He had been our family doctor since before I was born, so it just made sense that I would keep seeing him now.

  I had gone to see him shortly after the helicopter crash. He didn’t say much. He just hemmed and hawed, looking at me from over from the top of his glasses, his lips pursed as he evaluated me.

  I had just been glad he didn’t recoil in disgust or respond in some other way that made me feel uncomfortable, like every other person in my life. Well, almost every other person. My maid, Eve, never made me feel like the monster that I knew myself to look like, either.

  So, I kept my regular appointments with Dr. Milton and would even call him, like I was doing now, if I ever had a concern.

  “There have been some… uh… developments,” I said, my voice trailing off.

  Even though Dr. Milton had been very understanding of my situation, what I called to talk to him about was not the easiest discussion to have with anyone.

  “Developments?” he asked softly.

  “Yes… I… uh… it seems that I am having trouble performing sexually.”

  I said the last part in a voice so low it was nearly a fucking whisper.

  “Oh, okay. I think I understand. This is not uncommon given your condition. Are you able to have an erection?”

  I couldn’t believe that I was talking to the man who had given me a lollipop after my kindergarten shots about the functioning of my penis. Or, rather, the dysfunction of it.

  "Yes. But, well, honestly, Doc, I don’t really get them that often, but it seems as though they don’t last very long and I can’t quite… finish.”

  “Yes, that seems to be pretty straightforward. Of course, we should run further tests to be sure, though.”

  “To be sure of what?”

  “The accident probably has had more of an effect on you than you realize. It may have affected your testosterone level and sperm count. And, if that’s the case, then it’s very possible that your possibility of having children would be drastically lowered.”

  “Really?” I said.

  I was annoyed. Annoyed by the situation and, in that moment, by Dr. Milton.

  “How can you say that without having run any tests?” I demanded. “I mean, um, is that just your best guess or a certain diagnosis?”

  I backed off my initial anger, because it wasn’t Dr. Milton’s fault I was in this mess. I knew he was just trying to help.

  “Oh, trust me, we will definitely have to run some tests just to make sure,” he answered, not
seeming to be bothered by my testiness. I was sure he was used to all kinds of push back from patients. “But, I was actually afraid of this from the very beginning, due to where you have sustained injury. The tests will confirm it, but based on what you’re telling me and the results of the preliminary testing, due to the burns you suffered while in the helicopter, your sperm count is likely declining.”

  “Don’t mince words with me, Doc,” I demanded, suddenly not caring about my tone. “Exactly what does that mean?”

  “Well, it means that if you still have the capability of producing children, then, every passing day, the odds go down. The longer you wait, the odds are slim to none. It means if you would ever like to try, the time is now.”

  There it was: the death sentence that no man ever wanted to hear. For various reasons, I wasn’t as concerned about the fact that I couldn’t make a baby right now, but not having the option to choose in the future was devastating. So was the fact that my dick was limp and it seemed that wasn’t going to improve, either.

  “So, what about sexual performance?” I asked Dr. Milton. “I’ll be just as frank with you as you’re being with me, because I appreciate that. At this point, I can hardly see how I’m supposed to work on making a baby when I can’t even get it up. Or at least, I can’t keep it up.”

  I wanted to tell him how it starts off good: I would think about someone sexy, or the thought of sex in general, and get hard. But then after a while, it all collapsed, literally as well as figuratively. But, as I struggled to find the right words, Dr. Milton cleared his throat to answer my question, and I realized he knew more about what I meant than I thought he did.

  “Have you had sexual contact with a woman?” he asked. “Or are we just talking about one on one, on your own?”

  “That one,” I answered, feeling rather embarrassed about how long it had been since I’d been with a woman. “The on my own thing.”