by Gabi Moore
Chapter Four
“Now, if you like a bit more heft to the thing, if you want a meatier feel, then I’d say go for this one…”
I wanted to get out of there, like, five minutes ago. A badly overweight guy in an ironic band t-shirt was showing my sweet, lovely wife an orange silicone penis, turning it over in his hands to demonstrate how it was weighted inside to make it more “realistic”.
Tanya isn’t the type to be blasé about sex, or chat about intimate details with strangers… but here she was, nodding and smiling, her deeper need for a good bargain trumping all, I suppose.
When I was younger, sex shops had always seemed so thrilling. I only saw one for the first time we came to London and we had all laughed at the blow up dolls and dirty old men behind the glass. This time round, it didn’t seem quite so much fun. Oh God, I thought with horror, was I the dirty old man behind the glass now?
“Love, can’t we just do this online?” I said to her ear, carefully trying to avoid meeting the fat guy’s gaze.
She looked at me, little hands wrapped around the bobbly shaft of… I don’t know actually.
“I mean, we could, but I wanted to come here in person, it’s fun. Plus, I get to see the things up close, you don’t want to buy junk, you know.”
She smiled at me, adding, “and I don’t want to accidentally get something too big. You know I’m a bad judge of these things.”
She was right; she did have terrible visuo-spatial skills.
The fat guy was nodding along. Yep, he had seen it all, this guy. He had that strange sort of immunity that gay men have around women. Change the context a little and he’d be a sex pest, but here he was, instructing my wife on the pros and cons of girthy toys versus longer ones, and everyone thought it was just fucking dandy.
“Love, look around and see what you like – you pick one thing, I pick one thing, remember? We agreed,” she said.
Not only had we agreed, we had pinky promised, so I harrumphed and went off into the rest of the shop, steering well clear of the butt stuff. It was walls and walls of pink, desperate body parts, some DVDs, a rack of sequined skirts. Diamantes? I had no idea. There had to be a more efficient way to do this. I whipped out my phone.
“Hey love, I’ve decided on my thing,” she came and cooed in my ear.
“Oh?”
She took a purple box she had been hiding behind her back and showed me excitedly.
“They’re special balls see, on a string. You put them in, you put them both in, then they come out again…”
“Then you put them in again?” I asked.
“And then they come out again” she said.
I snatched the box from her and examined it.
“What? Why don’t they put some sort of stopper here so they don’t fall out all the time?” I teased.
She playfully flicked my arm. “Over-analytical engineer” was one of our oldest and most cherished games.
“Don’t worry, I’m just ribbing you. For your pleasure, you know.” I jiggled my eyebrows at her and she erupted into happy giggles.
“You big idiot! Go on then, what did you choose?”
“This,” I said, and showed her a screen on my phone.
“Wait, what’s that?”
She grabbed the phone from my hands and looked closely at the screen. A simple, black leather dog collar with a single large, intimidating steel ring clasp as its front. I love well-made hardware.
“Ooh, that’s nice… is it in the shop though?’ she said looking dubiously at me.
“Yup. But it’s £4 cheaper on Amazon. So.”
“But love! Why did we come out here if you can just sit at home and get Amazon to deliver everything?” she whined.
“What, and miss the opportunity to hear Romeo over there talking about meaty dildos? Never.”
She tried to conceal a smile.
“Fine. We’ll just have to play with my toy first, then.”
We left the shop.
I like a good Gantt chart as much as the next man, and one of the things I love most about Tanya is her relentless, painfully efficient, list-making, color-coordinating, everything-must-be-right streak. All the same, I had a sneaky suspicion we were just throwing tools at the problem.
Surely normal sex is just as good at making babies as kinky sex? Anyway, couldn’t we just build a baby slow cooker or something? Couldn’t we adopt one from China? I felt a sense of dread descending as we arrived home that Saturday afternoon. We had never had sex on schedule before. Yet there it was hanging over us now, like overdue laundry. It felt all wrong. And contrived. I felt a small part of myself rebelling.
Chapter Five
Sweat was pouring from my forehead; every vein on my skull felt like it was about to explode. She wanted a baby, I’d give her a fucking baby all right.
I had her pinned against the bed, her legs nearly behind her ears, and was buried far up into her, both our bodies red and clenched from the effort.
My mind flashed back to a hot summer day on the beach, when Tanya and I had snuck into the little wooden beach huts and she sucked me off while a line of kids waited outside to change out of their wet swimsuits. Just as I was sure somebody could make us out through the thin gaps between the slats of wood, she had pulled my dick into her throat and swallowed once, hard, sending me easily over the edge. She smiled naughtily up at me as I tried to be silent, thumping a fist against the cramped wooden walls.
“Is there somebody in there?” someone had said, and she went in again to suck out the last pump of cum. God she was beautiful then. She could make me explode just by looking at me sideways. In our early twenties, my life’s mission was to hold on long enough to squeeze those sweet, sweet orgasms out of her; I never anticipated a future where I’d be struggling to eke out any orgasm at all.
Today was the last day of the “fertile window”, measly day 5, and she was pissy with me even though she said she wasn’t, and I was pissy right back, even though I said I wasn’t. I was being a little rough now, sure, but fine. If she wanted me to be some stupid breeding stud pony, well, then she could shut up and take it.
We had used toys, we had watched movies, we had nearly broken our necks sharing a shower. Our sex had taken on that weird, stubborn vibe of a long distance marathon just before things start to get ugly. We were going to procreate, dammit, come hell or high water.
I made a few more angry thrusts then released a load into her, aware that I was probably pulling some rather unflattering faces. I flopped down beside her, knackered.
She did not look happy. I couldn’t believe it. I had huffed and puffed myself nearly to a coronary and she was lying there still, as irritated as we when we started. What did she want?
She cleared her throat.
“I’ve booked an appointment with the fertility specialist,” she said to the ceiling.
“What, why?” It seemed like a stupid question once I had said it.
“It’s been more than 6 months now. Something should have happened by now. I’m not that old. Something’s wrong. We need to take the next step now.”
I listened quietly.
“Are you sure you’re not just jumping the gun? Maybe this was the lucky time, eh...?” I said, reaching for her. She shot a dry look at me.
“But pudding, come on, this is part of the problem. You’re so stressed. And you’re stressing me out. Can’t we just go with it? Enjoy ourselves? It’ll happen.”
“But it isn’t happening now!” she snapped.
Oh shit. I was going to make her cry.
“Love, just calm down. We need a break or something, you and me both. We should go somewhere…”
I scooched up closer to her and propped myself up on my arm, looking at her imploringly. “Let’s go on a holiday, you and me, and we’ll forget about work and ovulation and whatever for a while and just enjoy each other again. People always get pregnant when they just relax a little.”
“I’m done relaxing,” she said, with a spite i
n her voice that was unusual for her. Almost instantly, she melted again and hugged me, her tangled hair tumbling onto my chest.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” she said, “I don’t mean to be like this. I’m just …I want a baby Alan. I’m ready for it. Now.”
We sat like this for a few moments, nothing but the sound of the neighbour’s telly to break the silence.
“Love, don’t worry. We will have a baby. Book an appointment. The doctor will probably say everything’s just fine… will you go on a holiday with me then?”
I gave her a cheesy grin, trying to cheer her up.
“Ok,” she said and nestled into my chest.
Chapter Six
I’ve worked on some pretty complex machines in my life, honestly, but nothing compares to girl bits, and that’s the god’s honest truth. Tubes, frilly open pieces, what looks like a one-way valve but totally isn’t--
“Look at me,” I said, “I’m Ovaria, and I’ve come to fetch your soul, mortal.”
I was brandishing a plastic uterus model as a face mask, each fallopian tube making fabulous impromptu feelers. The middle bit made a pretty hilarious nose, if I did say so myself.
“Jesus, you’re such a two-year-old Alan, can you put that down?” she said.
“Negative! I will shoot you with my mucous lasers instead. Pew pew!”
Ovaria, queen of the vaginas, waggled menacingly at her. The doctor walked in just then, because of course he fucking did. He laughed.
“Well, you’ll have to get used to dealing with two year olds at some point or other,” he said as I hurriedly put the plastic model back on the table.
I couldn’t believe we had reached this point, to be honest, and everything still felt so unreal to me. Was this really necessary? Wasn’t this for people very much older and sicker than we were? I could still remember my thirtieth birthday, and the XKCD birthday cake Tanya had made for me. We had spent almost a decade furiously avoiding impregnation – how come it was so difficult all of a sudden?
“A lot of my job is actually to put people’s minds at ease. To be frank that’s really the bulk of what I do. We all like to work with these rules, you know, if you aren’t pregnant after 6 months or a year or whatever, then something’s wrong. Of course, nature doesn’t always work like that.”
It had the ring of a well-practiced speech. Tanya was hanging onto every word he said, though. Oh sure, she listens when he says it. Doctor Melville had kind, tired eyes and was squaring up the edges of a prescription pad on his desk before he continued.
“Your cycle is a little irregular, but it’s not anything we’re concerned about yet. We don’t see any irregularities with you, Alan, so it’s thankfully not a question of sperm quality.”
The last few months had felt like one long, arduous exam and here was my report card: we have examined your balls etc. and have found them sufficiently lacking in irregularities. Why thank you.
“So…” Tanya was leaning forward now, a little too dressed up you’d think, for a time like this.
“So, what that means going forward is that you’re not a candidate for any of the options we discussed at our last appointment, as least not for a long time yet,” he said.
I watched a small, wire like vein twitch in her neck.
“The good news is that it’s quite likely nothing to be concerned with at the moment.”
We both sat and waited for the bad news. Ovaria, queen of the vaginas, watched with bated breath as well.
“The bad news is that it’s not always possible to pinpoint the exact cause of why you haven’t conceived yet. But in my experience, it’s almost always the little things, you know. We spoke about lifestyle issues the last time, but it bears repeating. Sleep. Good food. Plenty of rest. That kind of thing.”
“She really isn’t resting much,” I blurted, feeling like a tattle tale.
“Yes, well, that’s a problem now, isn’t it? Maybe you could both try a little holiday somewhere or something, sometimes that kind of thing can help.”
I sent her over the best I-told-you-so face I could muster.
We finished the rest of the appointment, me entertaining myself by calculating how much we had paid this man per each minute of his time, and calculating how many fannies he’d seen in his career, given his advanced age and all.
I was feeling chipper, glad it was over and glad to be told, like I had said, that there was nothing wrong after all. It was a relief. I playfully poked her in the belly as we stood waiting for the lift.
“See? Didn’t I say?” I said, and leaned in for a kiss.
She pursed her lips and looked irritated. Oh God …what now?
I was getting angry.
The one thing the doctor was telling her to do was the one thing she simply refused to do. I had the completely unreasonable but steadily growing suspicion that she’d get pregnant if she just calmed down a bit and stopped being so uptight about the whole thing. I already felt like a performing monkey in some twisted circus, and she had long stopped seeing sex as something pleasurable. In fact, I thought angrily, we probably hadn’t had normal sex since the day she mentioned having a baby at all. Surely we’d have enough time for angst and stress later, when the thing was actually born?
I drew back, fuming a little.
“The doctor said it wasn’t my sperm, you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing… just that there isn’t a problem. We just need to relax and--”
“Jesus Christ, if one more person tells me to relax I swear I’ll scream,” she snapped.
We walked down to the car in silence. I just wanted things to go back to the way they were. We were good together. We had our house. We were meant to live in it together. None of this worked without her. Life would be all wrong. There were way too many rooms in that house, for a start.
“I don’t want to fight,” I said lamely, starting the car.
“So then, don’t,” she said with a sneer.
I didn’t like this nasty side of her. Not at all.
We drove on in silence for a while, both feeling a little tender. I was always better at pretending fights weren’t going on than actually fighting them, so I relaxed a little as the car drove on, and we found a long, easy back road that would take us most of the way home.
I love driving. I love the simplicity of being in a vehicle, any vehicle really. I love just going, just the movement of it. Tanya and I had had some of our steamiest moments in cars. That reminded me.
“Hey, love! I forgot to say, I found the perfect thing for us, actually, a narrow boat cruise – we could maybe rent the whole thing pretty cheaply and then we sleep on it and everything, and we go up and down the river and we can have it self catering or not, it depends, and--”
“We’re not going on a holiday,” she interrupted.
Oh shit. She was still angry. From before. This was beginning to get exhausting.
“Look, what is your problem? Have I done something wrong?”
These words seemed to be the last straw for her, and she all at once and violently shook her wild hair and banged her hands against the car door.
“Just stop! Stop the fucking car! I want to get out.”
“What?”
“Stop the car!”
I slammed my foot on the break and tried to carefully guide us onto the roadside before turning off the engine.
“Tanya, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, all I said was--”
“But why do you have to say anything at all? Can’t you just leave me alone about it? Christ…”
“What are you talking about? You’re crazy.”
A look of pure fire flashed over her face.
“Yes, yes, I know. Crazy. And stupid, right? Don’t bother telling me, I know. Sorry not all of us are so perfectly fucking rational. And now I can’t even have a baby, it’s fantastic.”
Her chest was heaving in her thin cotton dress. She seemed flushed, only moments away from bursting into tears.
“Hey… hey, I don’t think you’re stupid,” I said softly.
She looked at me, nostrils flaring.
“Why is this so hard?” she said eventually.
We sat there for a bit, both silently wondering if the other was blaming them for this weird mess we had gotten ourselves into. Her eyes were strange and unnervingly fluid. She had only had this particular look on her face once before, once many years ago, during a fight we had that I try not to think about anymore. They were melting eyes, eyes full of blame and accusation, and they tore at my heart to see them like that, and it hurt me so badly I couldn’t stand looking at her.
She popped open the car door and stepped out suddenly.
“Hey, where are you going?” I said, but she was gone.
She was wearing one of her cotton sundresses again, except this particular afternoon wasn’t quite the right weather for it. Hot and dry wind blew at the skirt and started to lift it up, tossing some of her loose hair as well. I got out and stood looking at her over the roof of the car.
What I loved about Tanya was precisely that she was so rational. That she never asked me to play weird guessing games with her emotions, or mocked me for being a bit slow on the uptake when it came to subtle social cues. Yet here she was, a moody wife that couldn’t be placated. I had no idea what to do.
“Will you get back in the car?” I said.
“Will you stop telling me what to do?” she replied.
The wind was tearing at her dress, occasionally lifting it right up and giving a brief, full glimpse of her thighs underneath. Even now, even like this, she was the hottest thing I had ever laid eyes on.
“Ok,” I said, “Just tell me what you want me to do. Anything. Tell me how I can make this better.”
Her gaze softened. She walked over to my side of the car.
“Just hold me,” she said, and I was more than happy to oblige. She flung urgent arms round my middle and held me tight, and I kissed the top of her head, her hair whipping in the wind around me. She mumbled something to my chest and then did something strange; pulling in closer to me, she made that familiar, almost kitten-like, hungry little push against my crotch, curling her pelvis softly into mine like she did when she wanted me.