(Juan)
"You will not be able to have sexual intercourse from the beginning of this ovulation treatment until the pregnancy is confirmed." Our lawyer told Shelby.
I couldn't help it, at that moment I took a good look at Shelby's disgusted face, and I wanted to burst out laughing. Elementary my dear watson! Since we would be using the artificial insemination method, we couldn't risk the presence of semen from another male other than mine and Hiram's. Also, the little hormonal adjustment treatment she would take to ensure extra ovulation would leave her highly susceptible to getting pregnant. Some women responded very well to this type of treatment, others, not so much. Other times, the problem was with the subject's sperm, which might have low counts or the swimmers were too slow, but that wouldn't be the case for me and Hiram. Soon: all our attention would be on Shelby.
"Not even with a condom?" She frowned as Hiram and I exchanged glances. "Not that I have ulterior motives, or that I'm in a relationship, but you just never know."
"If you become pregnant by someone other than Messrs. Hiram Joel Berry or Juan Ernesto Lopez, the agreement will be suspended and you would have to refund the amount referring to the first installment of the agreement, that is, 20 thousand dollars." Our lawyer explained during the reading of the new contract.
"Plus, you will be super fertile during the treatment period." I explained in a more human way.
"So..." Shelby smiled and winked at us. "They say practicing abstinence for a short time is good for your health."
I thought the contract was a little cruel to Shelby. That custody of the future child would be 100% mine and Hiram's was to be expected. But Shelby couldn't even approach without our authorization or without the explicit will of the child, if it was over 18 years old. Legally, Shelby could only request a meeting with the child when the child turns 18, if the child and we both agree. Violation of any of these items would result in a fine and a very fat lawsuit. Hiram was on board with the contractual fines, so was Shelby, but I thought things should be a little more flexible. Although I was in full agreement with custody being completely ours, I thought there should be a little more flexibility with regard to visits. Children ask questions and I think that eliminating the child's mother figure, especially in the early years, would be bad.
Anyway, there were the three of us, plus our lawyer and the doctor who would accompany Shelby to the insemination and prenatal care, sitting around a table, drinking water and signing papers. We could sue the clinic for facilitating the leak of our data to Shelby. Instead, the company offered us some interesting compensations, such as some discounts on the fees, and for the services legal assistance, although the clinic's lawyer was out of this case.
Shelby would receive $20,000 after the insemination, plus health insurance for a year, plus payment of her share of the rent on the apartment she was currently living in until the child was born. Then she would receive the total remaining $60,000 of the contract value after giving birth. I had to pull out all my cash reserves to secure the $90,000 it would cost us. Hiram didn't have a lot of money invested, but we had a mutual agreement that he would pay the health insurance and I would pay Shelby's rent. My family couldn't help much because of my father's intractable cancer treatment. My father wasn't looking for a cure, which wouldn't come, but the drugs to manage the progression of the disease and the palliatives weren't cheap. As for Hiram's family... well that was another story.
Hiram hadn't exchanged a word with his father in years, ever since he came out of the closet. My mother-in-law, Sarah Berry, had been in a secret relationship with Joel Berry's son all this time. Obviously, I was never introduced to Joel Berry. But I met Sarah Berry, who was a jazz musician and piano teacher. She was a beautiful and friendly woman, but a little strange, as if she had too many problems and secrets in her life. In that sense, I've always considered myself privileged. My family was far from perfect, but we love and accept each other with all our differences.
We signed all copies of the contract, and Shelby officially became the biological mother of my future child, whether it was biologically mine or Hiram's.
"Is everything already sacramented?" Shelby asked.
"Basically yes." Our attorney responded.
"Excellent! I want to have a drink. Does anyone accompany me?" I think we were a little startled to hear Shelby saying that sort of thing so openly. She rolled her eyes. "Don't be prude. In the next few days I'm going to have to have a bunch of blood tests and hormones. And I'm going to have to go 100% clean, even of caffeine, for the next nine months. So yes, sir, I want to drink today."
Hiram let out a laugh, which surprised me. He who had been the more skeptical and cautious of the two of us was suddenly letting himself go, as was his characteristic. I was even missing that lightness of my husband.
"You know what, Shelby? I know a place." How quickly the roles reversed. It was I now who was reluctant. "Have you been to the Angels?"
"The gay bar? No. But it looks like fun." Shelby smiled, but I saw that she wasn't very enthusiastic.
"Yes, tonight is drag's night."
Bar with bad music, that's for sure. Imagine this, the cities of Cleveland and Akron formed an important metropolitan center of Ohio. Now it doesn't mean that the LGB community was broad with many spaces available like in New York City. We were still in Ohio and Angels was one of the few established gay bars around. Hiram liked going to this bar because it was where he would hang out with his friends. Angels was one of the few places I could show Hiram public affection that no one would care. But there was a catch: the gay bar acted as a safe haven from the community, but that didn't mean I enjoyed going there all the time. I liked to see people, I liked the variety of people who didn't have a sign about sexuality on their foreheads. I wouldn't find that in a bar that played music I hated, whose clientele was 95% gay men, and after the third time, all the faces became familiar. I wouldn't want to take Shelby into a bar just because I could hug and kiss Hiram on the mouth on a dance floor… or have a quick in the restroom. I didn't think she would be embarrassed, since Shelby was a theater brat, which was a more socially open environment regarding different sexualities. I just didn't think it was mandatory to show her a gay bar just because Hiram and I are a gay couple. So I had another idea in mind.
"I also have a suggestion. How about some Latin music?" I saw that Hiram looked at me crossly. He didn't like that I'd made a counteroffer.
"Latin music?" Shelby was excited. "Caribe?"
"Yes, lady!"
"That restaurant is fantastic! They say the food is excellent."
"Never been there?" I asked.
"Going to a place like that doesn't fit my budget." Shelby said with a small smile on her face. "But I know a friend of a friend who used to play in the band. He's a fantastic musician."
"Well… you choose. Angels or Caribe?" Hiram asked in a challenging tone.
"Caribe!" Shelby said without hesitation. "Sorry, Hiram. I'm sure Angels is a lot of fun, especially on drag's night, but going to the Caribbean is an old wish."
Caribe was one of the very few decent Latin restaurants in Cleveland owned by a Cuban family. While it wasn't exactly a gay friendly place (as long as Hiram and I kept a low profile, no one would bother us), the food was excellent, the rum was top notch, and there was live music every Friday and Saturday. I went there only once with Hiram, and I always wanted to go back.
We said goodbye there, at the clinic, but agreed to meet again that night to go to the restaurant. Hiram didn't speak to me along the way. I knew he was angry and jealous because I made the counter-proposal, going over his will. Sign that I would have to compensate my husband later.
...
We picked up Shelby at her apartment (now that we had full access to her personal data, including addresses). I was a little concerned as the neighborhood was not the safest. It was a region with lower rents, which explained the large presence of students and broken people in general living there, in addition to the usual quota of bandits and drug dealers. You see, I lived in a poor neighborhood in Lima. But the poor in a city like Lima were different from the poor in a larger city like Cleveland.
We didn't go up to that apartment she shared with three other colleagues. I wasn't expecting much from this place either, nor was I curious to see it. I imagined it to be a small apartment with the typical problems of an old building. Shelby came down with a much more youthful outfit than in the contract signing meeting hours earlier, starting with the winter coat that had a hippie style. Her hair was tightly curled, as if she had washed it and let it air dry, and inside her coat, we could see a T-shirt with a dragon print. She was really pretty.
"Good night boys. I hope we can celebrate as we deserve."
"Only if it's now!" Hiram said with an excitement I knew was fake. He was a chameleon in that sense: if he hated someone, that person would never suspect it, because Hiram was just that socially very pleasant.
I drove to the Caribe, which was right in the bohemian area, close to the theaters. We parked the car and took a short walk to the restaurant. The decor was extremely typically Cuban, with a few hints here and there of Dominican and Mexican trappings. We were taken to the table we had reserved that afternoon, as it was always good to guarantee a place in a restaurant that used to be very full. We ordered some snacks to eat collectively, in addition to drinks.
"I hope you're not a vegetarian, Shelby." I said as soon as our order had several types of snacks in small portions, half of which had meat.
"I am not." She tried a fried yuca and made a face of gastronomic pleasure. We even had mini Cuban sandwiches, látanos, chiviricos, chicharrones and a portion of picadillo to eat with bread.
I just had a glass of beer as I was driving. Shelby and Hiram, on the other hand, ordered cuba libres and mojitos. The alcohol loosened Hiram. He used to be a fun drunk. Hiram began to tell some funny, if generic, stories about the time when he was in college and dabbled in amateur theater. Shelby wasn't far behind either. It was as if the two were disputing which experience was more hilarious. Ambient music gave way to a band playing salsa. Shelby got up and pulled Hiram to dance. I stayed at the table, watching them enjoying themselves. Hiram was a very so-so dancer who made up for lack of skill with extra energy. After a few songs, they returned to the table. And Shelby held my hand.
"Now it's your turn to dance!"
"I don't know..."
"Come on Juan. Show what those feet are capable of."
Drunk Hiram encouraged us, and I winked at my husband. He knew what it was about. I can be a surgeon-in-training, I can be a bit sullen most of the time, and I can be a little too dedicated to my work. But I say this: I know how to move my feet. If Shelby was the one leading Hiram, now she was the one who had to pay attention to keep up with me. I grabbed her around the waist and showed her how she swayed to salsa music. It was necessary to have synchrony, to trust the partner, to have intimacy. I looked at Shelby, and she was loose, letting me lead. Dancing with her was easy… it was good… she was so beautiful, so young. A 20-year-old girl with fire in her eyes and youthful hope. That's when I realized that, there on that dance floor, with my husband a few feet away, Shelby and I were having a moment. I felt like kissing her, and I also felt the blood pooling in the parts it shouldn't have. I was hard. I was sober and turned on by a woman, with a crazy urge to kiss her. Her dark green eyes, her naturally wavy hair, her firm, youthful body in good physical shape. I hadn't been sexually attracted to any woman in a while. Not like that. When she leaned her body against mine, Shelby noticed that I had an erection. By the smile on the corner of her mouth, I understood that she wasn't embarrassed at all.
"I need to go to the bathroom." I lied to discreetly get out of that situation.
I went back to the table and downed a bottle of water almost at once to go to the bathroom and give my excitement a break. It was a small trick with a temporary effect. That's because my desire was to empty my balls and not my bladder. After I got back to the bathroom, I saw that Hiram had resumed the fun part, until Shelby found another dance partner right there in the restaurant, allowing Hiram and me to do a little dancing. Dancing with a man in the Caribe meant keeping some space between the bodies, but it was still fun. My husband was horny, and so was I, but for the wrong reason. I saw Shelby dancing with the guy she had met right there. It was a regular white guy. Sometimes I would look at her, and sometimes our eyes would meet. I wasn't jealous that some guy was dancing with her… I was just jealous that that guy could have Shelby if he wanted to.
"Let's go home?" I asked my husband and leaned my body against his.
"What about Shelby? From the looks of it, I think she'll want to stay a little longer."
"We give her the money for the taxi."
Once we left the restaurant and paid Shelby a cab, I hurried home. We lived about ten minutes from the restaurant. I was so horny, I don't know if I would last even three minutes. Hiram just didn't do anything along the way because we had a rule: no sexual activity while the car was moving. As exciting as it sounded, it could be shit. I worked in a hospital, so I knew that traffic accidents for this reason was something relevant that statistics didn't dare to do.
"I love the effects dancing has on you." Hiram said before pulling off my pants and getting on his knees as soon as we entered the house.
I came fast, hard... and afterwards I felt horrible, because my hard-on at that moment wasn't for my husband. Because while he was working so deftly and aggressively with his mouth, I was thinking about her.
"Take those pants off." I ordered my husband.
Hiram took off all his clothes, and it was my turn to get on my knees.
...
(Shelby)
Juan Lopez. I hadn't spoken to him or Hiram in a little over a week, since the day the contract was signed and the party at the restaurant. It had been a little over a week since that Latino had been on my mind. I don't know what was happening to me. Perhaps it was the suggestion that I would possibly get pregnant by him very soon. Or maybe it was the fact that he really was a handsome man who could attract any woman. He had charm and he could dance. Men with this ability who weren't dancers were rare.
I tried to get it into my head that Juan was gay, but it was hard to believe. I wasn't convinced he was fully gay, and the fact that he definitely got a hard-on when we danced was pretty physical evidence of that. When I felt him get an erection on the dance floor, I confess I got wet too. I liked the idea, and when I got home, I had to take care of it myself in the only place I had privacy: the bathroom. I know it's wrong because Juan is unavailable and in a gay marriage with Hiram, but I couldn't help it. I've always heard stories about women falling in love with their gay friends. I thought all these girls were idiots for deluding themselves into wanting a relationship with someone who wouldn't be attracted to them. There I was, pathetically lusting after a married gay man.
After going to work (I switched shifts and started working in the mornings), I went to the hospital. Not because of Juan, but because of an appointment that was scheduled and to start the hormone applications. I went to the counter to pick up the laboratory tests I had done for the consultation with the doctor at the clinic who was accompanying me. The clinic itself operated in a building adjacent to the hospital, in a medical complex where there were dozens of other private practices. But my consultation wasn't at the clinic, but inside the hospital itself because that doctor, as they explained to me, had a kind of license there. I wasn't sure how it worked, but what I did know was that I would deliver the exams to this doctor at the same hospital where Juan worked.
I walked through the front desk and through the emergency triage hall to identify myself and be allowed to take the elevator to the second floor. I looked for the specific room and saw that the location was actually the hospital's own gynecological care center for non-emergency cases. I did the identification again and the secretary asked me to wait. To my surprise, two minutes later I see Juan entering the reception, dressed in the light blue scrubs and white coat that the resident doctors wore at that hospital.
"Hi Shelby." He said clearly embarrassed and sat down next to me.
"I didn't know I would have company at today's appointment." I felt my face heat up, but I tried to keep mine cool.
"The clinic told us that you would start the applications today, but if you want, you are completely free to enter the office alone. I just came to give you moral support if you need it. I can check the exams later."
I was ready to complain about the invasion of privacy, but then I remembered that one of the articles in the contract entitled Hiram and Juan to have access to my records and medical examinations related to the insemination process, including the gynecological ones.
"No, you can come in. Just be quiet, please."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, you are the possible father of the future child, so yes. You have every right to accompany me." I hesitated a bit, but I had to ask. "Hiram isn't coming?"
"Hiram is working right now."
"And you aren't?"
"Technically." He smiled and showed me his pager. "This annoying little device here can take me out of the appointment at any time if someone needs me in an emergency. For now, I'm free for a few minutes."
Juan smiled and I found myself surprised by his good-natured posture. But it was no wonder he was there, as he was a doctor and also the guy most interested in my uterus at the time. The doctor called me and we entered her office.
"Good afternoon, Miss Corcoran. Hey Juan!"
"Hi Lyanne." He replied.
I looked at the interaction between them, and it was clear that they were good friends, or that, at least, they were good co-workers.
"Good afternoon Dr. Daniels." I said.
"How have you been these days?" The doctor asked me.
"Very good. I'm not feeling anything unusual."
"What about menstruation?"
"Finished two days ago."
"Perfect, this is the ideal period to start hormone treatment." The doctor checked my test results. "Everything seems in place, Corcoran. Your vaginal flora is balanced, your cholesterol index is great, sodium too, potassium... hum..."
"Um good or um bad, doc?"
"You're a little low on iron, as well as on vitamin D. But that's nothing a vitamin-based food supplement can't solve. We can schedule the first insemination attempt for 18 days from now. Are you okay?"
"All good." I answered and Juan just nodded.
"Juan, it's good you're here, and if that's all right, I can tell you about your and Hiram's semen analysis results."
"You can say it, Lyanne. Is there a problem with us?"
"No, none. Your semen is in order, with good sperm count and good motility. Hiram's sperm are a little less mobile, which in a race, even if facilitated by the insemination procedure, may not be very fair. Are you sure she doesn't want to do in-vitro insemination to even the match between your sperm and your husband's?"
"Are there any other techniques that can alleviate this difference in mobility?"
"We can do the insemination without semen mixtures at different times, with Hiram's being inserted first and then yours. But I must warn you that this is not the most comfortable option for you, Miss Corcoran."
"I'm here for this. Fine by me."
"Okay, Miss Corcoran, you're going to have a dose of that shot today. I'm going to do this first application and you can choose to come here and do all the others or do the applications yourself at home. I will teach you how to do it, if you choose to apply it at home."
"I think I'll prefer to do the applications at home." As much as I wanted to see Juan more often, the truth was that commuting to the hospital every single day to get an injection would be very boring and labor intensive.
"Do you have any objections against it, Juan?"
"No, Lyanne. Shelby is a responsible woman and we trust that she will do everything right."
"Perfect." The doctor handed me a paper with some instructions. "We'll give you the first shot today and you'll continue to give the rest of the shots at home. Try to apply at close times. Now it's…" She consulted the clock on the wall. "4:40 pm. So try to apply the injections between 4:30 pm and 5 pm. These injections usually cause a little discomfort in your belly, and you're likely to experience mild cramping. But if you feel a stronger reaction, or a sharper pain, stop the injections and call me immediately. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Can we do the first application?"
That was my moment of privacy. Juan didn't want to see me get the first needle, which wasn't a big deal either. The doctor explained how to apply it and even scribbled my skin with a pen with a more resistant ink to show me the most favorable points. She cleaned the area with cotton soaked in alcohol, showed me how the needle needs to go in, and injected the hormone. What I imagined to be complex, in practice did not take even five minutes.
Juan and I left the office, and I carried the ampoules and syringes I was supposed to use. Juan was silent, thoughtful, but he insisted on accompanying me to the exit of the building.
"I thought it would take longer." I broke the silence to say goodbye.
"This will be the first attempt. The chances of success in the first cycle are 50%. Mainly because you were taking contraceptives and the chemistry of the medicine can interfere with this process. But the chances improve a lot after the second menstrual cycle." Juan wanted to sound technical and didactic, but the impression I got was that he was a little nervous.
"Actually... it's been a couple of months since I stopped taking birth control."
"Seriously? Why? Not that I think you're… well… you're pretty and must have suitors."
"I haven't dated in a long time, Hiram. I haven't had sex for three months except with myself." I didn't want to go into too much detail, but my tongue was faster than my brain. I felt a blush on my face and saw that Juan was a little embarrassed by the details. He's a doctor and must hear a lot of these things, but I think hearing from known people was different. "Well, since I wasn't getting involved with anyone else, I stopped taking birth control."
"One doesn't usually anticipate casual relationships, Shelby. It's important to prevent pregnancy and also use a condom against diseases... AIDS is still killing people and it's not a joke. Women are victims too."
"I know. It's just that..." Well, if he'd brought it up, why not talk about it openly? "After I came to Cleveland I only had one boyfriend. He dumped me for another girl and I never had the same interest in other guys again. I had some casual relationships, but it was a theater thing..."
"Oh… I see… and were any of those casual relationships… recently? If I may ask?"
"Do you want to know if I had sex with that guy at the restaurant?" I faced Juan, he was as red as a bell pepper. "No. He gave me his phone number, which I won't return. As I said, my sex life has been almost non-existent for about three months now."
"I understand..."
"Really?"
"I get it because I'm a relationship guy."
I would have loved for him to have given me more details about it, but his pager went off before our conversation could progress.
"Shelby, I have to go back..."
"Are you going to cut someone open with a scalpel?"
"Perhaps."
"See you another day then."
"Yes of course. Have a good afternoon, Shelby."
I watched Juan walk into the building. It was a confusing situation, as I didn't know if he was asking those questions just by chance, or if he was really interested in my sex life. Obviously getting involved with Juan sexually would be a huge rip-off. Firstly, the guy was gay, secondly, he was married, thirdly, we had signed a contract. Juan was forbidden to me. But did he have to be so damn charming?