Taming Val

by Trevion Burns

  Val followed as she sat on a crispy white daybed that faced the New York skyline. He took in the glorious view, hands still shoved in his pockets, before taking a seat next to her.

  A close seat.

  Closer than she imagined he’d sit. The last time she’d been this close to him was when she’d fallen asleep in his arms the night before he moved into the college dorms at Cornell. He’d held her every night until he, literally, couldn’t anymore. Every night, until he’d been forced to move 200 miles away.

  Why? She needed answers. She was tired of being confused. Curious. Drawn-in by him, and then shoved right back. She was tired of it all.

  “I’ve never seen you like that before,” she said. “The way you were in the bathroom.”

  Val continued to look off, unresponsive.

  “Why were you crying?” she asked.

  No response, but his eyes fell. He watched his fingers as they played together.

  “What made you come up here with me… if you didn’t want to talk about it?”

  Finally, he looked at her. But he still didn’t speak.

  She was still back in freshman year, recalling the tight curl of his arm around her, not in a violent way, but a solid way, a way that wouldn’t allow her to pretend she didn’t want his embrace. She had wanted it, and she would have pretended, if he’d given her room to. But he never had. He’d always pull her body to his with a long arm that spanned the length of her chest, just above her breasts, all the way to his hand where he softly cupped her shoulder. He would hold her against him until the urge to pretend was gone, and she’d find the courage to turn into him, to press her wet cheeks into his chest… his neck…

  She could still smell his scent. As she took a deep breath, she was shaken to her core to realize she wasn’t recalling his scent, but smelling him now. He still smelled exactly the same. It sent her spiraling back to those quiet nights in her bedroom with such intensity that she found herself thanking god for finding the courage to get him up here.

  He’d known not to let her pretend back then.

  So she wasn’t going to let him pretend now. “You can talk to me, Val. You can just vent, and I promise I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to.” And it would stay between them. She would never breathe a word of what he told her, if he didn’t want her to. She had the urge to tell him that, but she felt it might push him away more. That was the last thing she wanted to do.

  “I always knew,” his voice suddenly rang out.

  Zoey almost jumped out of her skin, sure she was going to have to spend more time dragging this out of him. She quickly collected herself for fear of scaring him off. She tucked her legs behind her, and leaned on her back arm with the other slung across her lap. Her eyes fell to her fingers. One flick of her pointer finger and she’d be touching him.

  “I always knew I wanted to have kids,” he finished. “Maybe one or two. Way down the line.”

  She nodded, having so much to say, but too afraid to say anything for fear that he’d stop opening up to her.

  “I knew I wanted them, but I had no idea I needed them,” he said, his breathing growing short. “I need to have kids, Zo. I need it like I need food and water, air to breathe. It’s one of my biggest dreams, outside of Novsky. Maybe even bigger. And now I’ve got this doctor telling me that I can’t have them… or I can, but the odds are a joke. She said by the time I hit thirty, it’s a wrap. No chance what-so-ever.”

  She nodded, trying to level with him. As always, the blind need to have a million babies that seemed to infect every walking human being baffled her, but hearing Val saying these words was even more surprising. She had no idea he’d wanted kids. He was a documented man whore, a notorious ladies man. The word commitment always sent a sour-straw worthy cringe shooting across his face. Kids was surely the last thing a man like him thought about.

  He went on. “I mean, it’s in the Bible, it’s in every religious text. It’s my most basic truth as a human being, my most important duty as a man.” He covered his heart with both hands, trying to hold it together. “And they’re telling me I might not be able to do that? That, by thirty, I’ll never be able to do it? It’s like they’re telling me I’m no longer allowed to walk this Earth as a man.” The hands covering his heart turned to fists. He banged them softly against his chest. “In the most basic form. What the fuck am I doing here, Zo, if I can’t make kids? Why am I here?”

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “I’m going to stop you, because I can’t sit here for another second and allow you to be this hard on yourself.”

  He craned his head in her direction, but didn’t look at her. “I thought you said you would let me vent without saying anything?”

  “I lied. Just because you’ve hit this huge wall in your life doesn’t make you any less of a man, Val. How many walls have leapt up in front of you, blocking your path, since we were kids? How many of them have you given the finger before knocking them the fuck down? Val, you came from nothing. What I admire most about you is your amazing ability to stand up when life knocks you clear on your ass—and it has knocked you clear on your ass—on many occasions. Your resilience is something that I’m extremely jealous of, because I don’t have that. I’ve taken some hits in life that I’m still stumbling backwards from, but you don’t let anything stop you. And I know you won’t let this stop you, either.”

  His eyes had grown so intense in hers that she had the urge to look away, just because she wasn’t sure she could take the warm feeling that it caused to sweep across her body, making her forget her own name.

  “You’re not stumbling backwards,” he whispered, his voice full of meaning.

  “Okay. Forward. Stumbling forward. The point is that I’m stumbling, way more than I should be, but you aren’t, and you have about a million more reasons to be stumbling than I will ever have in my lifetime, but you just don’t. You’re so strong, Val.” She could tell he appreciated her pep talk, but still wasn’t buying it. “Besides, you’re acting like the jig is up. The doctor said your chances would be gone at thirty, right? Last time I checked, you were only twenty-eight.”

  “Yeah, and the one woman in my life who’s best suited to be the mother of my child is probably climbing to the top of a stripper pole right as we speak.”

  She smiled. “I doubt that’s true.”

  “It is.”

  “You must know some nice girls.”

  “I don’t.”

  She made a face.

  Val made one back. The truth was, Val had met a lot of nice girls, and then he’d proceeded to sleep with those nice girls. It was only a matter of time before those nice girls learned what he was about, and ran screaming for their lives. That was how nice girls saw Val. As the guy who would inevitably shred them to pieces, the guy who would destroy their lives with one flick of his skilled fingers, the guy who would almost certainly be their next worst mistake. The smart ones made themselves scarce quickly, and the dumb ones stuck around long enough to learn hard way. Val was a nice girl repellant. For twenty-eight years, he’d liked it that way.

  “What about adoption?”

  “No, I know it’s selfish as hell… but I’d want the kid to be mine.”

  “I get that.”

  “I was thinking about just paying someone to carry the kid. There are women who make a living carrying other people’s children. They charge six figures, but that’s nothing.”

  She snickered. Only Val could say that sentence with a straight face. Six figures was far from nothing, but in his world, it really was. “You don’t want someone you don’t know having your kid.”

  “Maybe I could pay someone I do know.”

  “Who? The stripper?”

  “She’s hot. Why not? The kid would be cute.”

  She held a hand up. “Let me stop you right there. If you chose one of the random girls you sleep with to have your child, it could get messy. She could carry it for nine months, fall in love with it while it’s growing inside her, and c
hange her mind once she holds that baby in her arms. It happens all the time--”

  “I would make her sign something…”

  “You wouldn’t tear a mother away from her child, if you knew that wasn’t what she wanted, Val. I know you, and that’s not who you are. You would let that woman keep her child. Then you’d end up paying child support, or marrying her out of guilt, or something equally tragic. Then you’d wake up twenty years later, realizing you hate your wife for stealing your life, and are resentful of your child for being the catalyst in it all.”

  Val hung his head, shaking it softly. “You always knew how to paint a picture…”

  She thought for a long while, waiting until he looked back at her, curious about the silence, before saying, softly, “Use me.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “Hear me out. I’m the perfect candidate. I loathe kids so passionately, there’s no way I would fall in love with the little devil while it rolled around in my gut for nine months. If anything, I’d grow to hate it so much for ruining my body, and making my life a living hell, that I’d be all too happy to hand it over to you once I finally realized the miracle of popping it out. Plus, if I ever found myself middle-aged, lonely, on the verge of menopause, and somehow regretting never having kids, I could just borrow ours until I got sick of it. It would be the perfect way to remind myself why I never wanted them in the first place.”

  He chortled, but held her eyes. He didn’t look away, holding her, waiting…

  For what? Zoey wasn’t sure. “It’s actually… pretty brilliant, Val,” she said. “And I can’t even imagine how heartbroken Bette will be if you don’t give her a grandchild. You know she’s expecting at least three kids from each of her sons.”

  “Why would you help me?”

  She thought about those nights in her bed, and wondered if Val had any idea how much he’d actually done for her.

  “Why not?” she countered.

  “You say the stripper would be messy, but that’s nothing compared to how messy it could get between you and I.”

  “How could you and I be messy?”

  He searched her eyes, but didn’t answer.

  She began ticking off on her fingers. “I would never dream of charging you child support. The kid would be yours. At most, we’d let it call me aunt…” She thought about the fact that Val wouldn’t even call her sister, and her eyes narrowed. “Or not…”

  A small smile touched his face. “He could call you aunt.”

  “That sounds like a yes.”

  He looked away from her, running his hand along his chin. Then his eyes fell closed.

  He was on the fence, probably in a million different ways. She took in the torn expression on his face, and placed a hand on his back. “And it would be a her, Val, not a he. No way in hell I would ever allow a boy to take up space in my belly. We’ve already got five boys in this family. Let’s give the ladies a fighting chance, shall we? I’m tired of being outnumbered.”

  “If it’s not a boy, then that child is yours.”

  “Excuse me!”

  “I can’t raise a little girl on my own. It has to be a boy.”

  “You realize this isn’t like picking out a convertible, right? You don’t get to zoom down some imaginary list of requirements before you decide whether or not to put up your down payment. You get what you get.”

  “A girl?” He said the word like Zoey had just asked him to explain the meaning of life. Like the possibility of being responsible for a vagina was simply, well, impossible.

  “You wouldn’t be on your own. You’re never on your own. If it’s a girl, and she starts having girl problems in her teenage years, you could always bring her to me, or your mom, or Gary.”

  His face came alive with laughter, not realizing she was going to take it to Gary.

  “Not necessarily in that order,” she added, chortling when his laughter rose to twice the volume. Gary was the most emotional, sensitive man she’d ever met, and she had no doubt in her mind that he’d raise a more well-rounded girl than anybody in that family ever could.

  “Will you let me help you Val?”

  He looked at her, and for the first time he seemed to be honestly considering it. As if it was just on the tip of his tongue. Yes.

  “Just say yes.”

  He opened his mouth. “No.” He suddenly said, covering his face with his hands. “No, Zo, we can’t. We can’t have sex.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Who in the world said anything about having sex? There are a million other ways to get a woman pregnant, you know. Other ways that are expensive as hell, yes, but when has money ever been an object for you? Hell, just a minute ago you used the words ‘six figures’ and ‘nothing’ in the same sentence.”

  Val was shaking his head his he thought back to the pamphlets the doctor had given him. “No… In Vitro… it’s invasive, Zo. It’s painful. You’d be put on medication with ridiculous side effects. The potential health risks you’d be facing would be extensive… astronomical. You’d be spending months at a time in hospital rooms, letting them invade your body for something that may not even work the first, second, or third time. I can’t put you through that…” He took a deep breath. “Besides, I’ve never had unprotected sex. My doctor says that, even though my sperm count is so low, I may still have a small shot at conceiving a child the natural way and not even know it, because I always wear a condom.” He looked back at her, and his cheeks reddened. “I hate talking to you about this.”

  “So, then we’ll just do that.”

  “Do what?” he demanded, raising an eyebrow.

  “We’ll do it the natural way, if that’s what it’ll take.”

  “Zo. What are you saying? Listen to the words that you’re saying.” His eyes went big and when she went to speak, he stopped her. “Gary would, literally, cut my dick off. Then Roman would throw me out of a moving car, dickless, while Leo stood off in the distance, laughing and enjoying the show. They would fucking end me, Zo.”

  “Who says they have to know?” She raised her own eyebrow. “We’ll tell them that we did some test tube thing, or some freezer thing, or whatever crazy technique the medical kids these days have concocted to get a woman knocked up.”

  “It’s out of the question. I can’t have sex with you.”

  “Okay. You know what, hold on for a second.” She put her head in her hands. “Because this is all coming at me kind of fast, I don’t think my head has caught up, yet. Let me make sure I have this completely straight,” she said, with a small laugh. “Your doctor told you that you have a low sperm count and won’t be able to have kids once you hit your 30s, and then that same doctor told you to go ahead and keep trying it the natural way, just in case?”

  “Yeah, that’s what she said.”

  “And she said that artificial insemination is…”

  “Painful, invasive.”

  Zoey laughed out loud. “Oh, Val. I hate to break this to you, but your doctor is a hack.”

  “No way. I’ve been seeing her for years. She’s not a hack.”

  “She?” Zoey reiterated, before muttering, “Of course.”

  “Of course what?”

  “Of course she would insist you do it the natural way, she was probably hoping that she would be your first choice!”

  “No way, Zo. Dr. Matthews is a complete professional.”

  “Is Dr. Matthews married?”

  “No.”

  “Young?”

  “A few years older than me maybe…”

  “She wants your cock.”

  Val’s eyebrows shot up. He fought a smile as he looked at her.

  “She can’t be trusted, Val.”

  “Are you one of those women who hate other women? Because you know that’s completely out of fashion, right? This is the age of the feminist.”

  “I love women, Val. Okay? I’m a woman. My mother was a woman. My best friend is a woman. Speaking of Angie… you know what?” Zoey pulled her cell phone out o
f her pocket, dialing a number, and putting it on speaker. “My best friend, Angie, is a genius,” Zoey explained, as the sound of the phone ringing blared through the speakerphone. “She knows every random fact about every stupid random thing you could possibly think up.”

  Val smiled just as a voice rang through Zoey’s phone.

  “Hello?” Angie Colt answered, sounding preoccupied.

  Zoey was sure that she’d just interrupted her best friend in the middle of reading one of the million books she always had her nose stuck in. “Hey beautiful!” Zoey beamed at the sound of Angie’s voice. “It’s Zoey.”

  “I know.” Angie laughed. “What’s up?”

  “Hey, I just had a few quick questions for you about infertility in men.”

  A long silence passed, and Zoey held a hand up to Val when he shot her a look. “Relax,” she mouthed. “I won’t tell her it’s about you.”

  Angie finally responded with a slow, confused, “Why?…”

  “Why ask why?” Zoey insisted. “What’s the point of being a genius, who knows all kinds of random shit, if you can’t use it to hold your best friend’s hand through all of life’s trials and tribulations?”

  “Okay, I’ll answer any question you have, as long as you promise to stop saying words,” Angie grumbled.

  Zoey and Val smiled at each other. She liked this. She liked being on nice terms with him. “Okay,” Zoey started. “So, say a man in his twenties has a really low sperm count, what’s the most viable route he should be taking if he’s trying to get a woman pregnant before his man juice is totally depleted?”

  “Man juice?” Val mouthed, shaking his head.

  “Artificial insemination,” Angie immediately answered. “IUI, ITI, IVF.”

  “Uh huh, yeah. That just sounds like a lot of abbreviations, Ang. I have no idea what any of that means.” Zoey’s eyes widened.

  “They’re three of the more popular artificial insemination procedures available for couples that can’t get pregnant on their own,” Angie said, her voice laced with a hint of impatience. “Why are you asking me this?”