Carter
What. The. Hell.
My beer bottle slips from my fingers and tumbles to the porch, the sweet, malty smell wafting up as the beer foams through the floorboards and drips to the ground underneath. I’m stunned. Beyond stunned. Did Dale just ask me what I think he asked me?
“Dale, I…uh…”
“Just listen to me, okay,” Dale says, “It makes sense to me. With you as a sperm donor, the child would have DNA that’s genetically the same as mine.”
“I guess…”
“And I don’t think I could take the idea of a stranger, Carter. But if it was you, it…it would be okay.”
“You serious?”
He nods. He sure looks like he means what he’s saying, as crazy as it all sounds.
“You want me to knock up your wife…” I shake my head still not really believing that we are having this conversion. I don’t know how to get my head around what he’s thinking.
Dale nods and the look on his face is so earnest, so open and raw, that I almost give in.
Almost.
Dale stands up and starts to pace the porch, his feet thumping lightly on the floor. I twist around in my chair and watch him as he makes one circuit up and back before stopping in front of me again.
“Just, I want you to understand this, Carter. Any baby that was part you and part Sadie…that would be a baby I could love, that I could raise as my own because it almost would be.” Dale says, an edge of begging bleeding into his words. I understand what he’s saying because any child of his would feel like my blood too, but this is his wife.
“I don’t know, Dale, it just seems so fucking odd, man. It’s your wife we’re talking about.” I fish my dropped bottle off the floor and set it on the table, wiping the spilled beer on my fingers onto my jeans. I don’t meet his eyes. I’ve seen and heard a lot of shit in my time deployed, shit that would make peoples hair grey faster than a goose shits, but what my brother has asked me to do? It’s actually left me floored.
“It’d be the best thing, Carter. I know, we could adopt, but deep inside, I’d never feel the same about an adopted child or one from an anonymous donor as I would this way, and you could be in the baby’s life! Big Uncle Carter, awesomest uncle on earth. Imagine teaching our son how to hunt. Or watching our little girl at her first ballet recital. I’d want you there, every step of the way.” Dale’s eyes are burning brightly in the twilight, the hope there so stark my heart hurts. “And,” he goes on, “I can’t say cost isn’t a consideration. It’d be much less expensive with you as the donor. Money isn’t exactly pouring in around here.”
“I…just…you…and Sadie? You want me to fuck your wife?”
Holy hell, it feels like the entire neighborhood just dropped into complete silence. I don’t even hear the peep of the evening crickets anymore. And Dale is stock still, his eyebrows arching high towards his hairline. Finally, his jaw ticks and grinds slightly. And he snickers. And it builds into a loud guffaw. Dale tumbles back and tips into his chair, his hands crossed over his shaking gut.
And I’m laughing too because I know that isn’t what he means. He wants me to jerk off into a cup and pass it to him so he can turkey baste it into somewhere that I really shouldn’t be thinking about. I’m a terrible brother for thinking about Sadie’s soft light brown hair and I’m not talking about on her head.
Dale wipes the tears from the corners of his eyes, his shoulders still spasming with laughter. “You remember that redhead, down in Dallas?” He makes a low whistle and chuckles.
“How could I forget.”
“Well, you didn’t have such a problem fucking my girlfriend then.”
“She wanted to fuck us both at the same time.”
“Yeah.” He looks almost wistful about it and I’m confused for a moment. Is this just a beer induced trip down memory lane or is he really thinking something else? My cock stirs from all the sex talk. Poor bastard is sick of my hand. He needs somewhere warm and slick.
“We had some wild times back then,” I say, trying to put this all back into the past. Reminiscing is one thing, but Dale is married now. I time for those kinds of shenanigans is done. “How about another beer?” I get up and head towards the kitchen door which is definitely for the best. Dale makes an agreeing sound in his throat but I would have got him one anyway. Dude needs something to take his mind off the worry of his bad news.
In the darkening kitchen, I open the refrigerator door and pull two more bottles out. With the door open, light spills across the room and I look around. Everything in the room says, Sadie. The colors, the curtains, the table, it’s all got her touch on it and it’s so homey. Sadie and Dale have made a home that’s waiting for a family. One that they may never have the chance to have.
I kick the refrigerator closed and head back towards the door. I can see Dale through the window, sprawled in his chair, his arms tucked behind his head. What he’s asking me to do is weird as fuck but there is nothing I wouldn’t do for my brother and if this is what’s gonna make him happy, I guess my cock will have to put up with my hand a few more times.
If I can give Dale and his wife what they need to fulfill this life they’ve made for themselves then maybe it’ll go down as a point in my favor. I’ve got so many against me right now. For a second I’m back there. The darkness, the dust, the constant adrenalin spiked mania. Waiting for something bad to happen. I shake my head. This is America. This is Dales home. Quiet, secure, with no need to constantly look over my shoulder or sleep with my hand on my rifle waiting for the sirens that signal an incoming attack. I breathe in the scent of cleaning products. So different from the smells where I was stationed. In Iraq, all the surfaces are coated with a fine film of sand, a grit that works its way into every crack, pore, and seam it can find and everything smells like sweat and baked rocks. Here, the surfaces gleam and it smells like lemons, vanilla, and freshly cut grass.
I want in on this life. It sounds fucking selfish in my head. I know it is. I should be thinking completely altruistically. I could give Dale what he’s asking for and head on out to make a life for myself. But giving Sadie a baby will give me a really good reason to stay. This town could be my home too.
I elbow the back door open and hand Dale his beer before dropping back into my seat. I take a long, fortifying slug from my drink before I look at Dale and finally say, “This is really what you want. For me to be the one to donate.”
“Yeah. It really is.”
“You don’t think you need to think about it some?”
“No. But I do need to talk to Sadie.”
I nod. I’m sure she’s going to be as rocked by this idea as I am. Maybe even more. I’m a stranger to her and what Dale is thinking couldn’t be more personal. It’s about her body. She’d have to be willing to have my cum put inside her. My cock kicks again. That is such a weird and awkward thought but there is something so fucking primal about shooting your load up inside a nice wet pussy.
“You talk to her then,” I say.
Dale blinks. His mind is working over what I’ve said.
“So you’ll do it?”
I nod, and he almost knocks me over when he jumps up and grabs me in a tight bear hug. He’s pounding my back and squeezing me. “You mean it?”
“Yeah, I mean it.”
“I don’t know how we’ll thank you.” There’s a catch to his voice. I finally pull him off me, hold him off at arm’s length.
“Take it slow, brother,” I say. “Just because I agreed doesn’t mean Sadie will.”
“Sadie really likes you and she really wants a baby. I think she’ll be okay with it. How could she not? This means the baby will look like me.”
“Except better looking,” I jab at him.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dale grins, “I can’t believe it though, a baby. We’re gonna have a baby, the three of us. I should go and tell Sadie. I need to talk to her about this.”
“That might be a good idea.”
When he walks off to wake up Sadie with this weird and kinda wonderful piece of news, I stare off into their manicured backyard. The sun has finally set and the darkness has crept over the neighborhood. I can already picture a little toddler splashing in a wading pool in the yard, Sadie with her dress pulled up around her knees, standing ankle deep in the water with a little girl with bright blue eyes. It tugs deep in my chest. This is a feeling I’ve never had before, thinking about a family. My child.
But, I would just be the uncle. This would be Dale’s family and I’ll always be on the outside.
That’ll be something I’ll have to accept.
This is about Dale and finding a way to complete his life.
And even though I know I’m making the right decision, there is still a nagging feeling in my gut that nothing will ever be the same again.