Chapter Seventeen

Conrad

“Hey,” I said when Mason came out from the back.

“I have to go get an ultrasound,” he said, his eyes watery and his mouth in a frown.

“Oh man.”

“There’s a mass in there.”

“Jesus. Did the doctor say anything else?” I got up and threw my arms around him.

“Um.” Mason lay his head on my chest. “I might be part girl.”

“What?” I asked. That was not what I had expected to hear at all.

“He thinks I’m intersex.” He looked up at me and blinked.

“Fuck, what?”

He sucked on his bottom lip and nodded. “Yeah. He seems to think a lot of the stuff is from menstrual symptoms.”

“Holy, what?” I was trying not to sound too shocked, but I couldn’t help it. I was.

“The bloating and fatigue and sore nipples because I have boobs. Boobs because I’m part girl.”

“Oh, Mason.” I tightened my arms around him as his tears flowed.

“What the holy fuck?” he asked, his voice jumbled from having his face smashed into my chest.

“Is the mass unrelated?” I asked.

“He didn’t really say. I was too shocked to ask many more questions. He says the ultrasound should tell us more. The nurse gave me this bottle of water to drink.”

“Let’s get you down there.” I rubbed his back. And we drove over to another medical building for his ultrasound.

***

“Mason Donnelly,” a nurse called.

“Can my friend come with?” he asked. Which I was so grateful for. Sitting there, waiting, it would’ve driven me nuts.

“Of course, this way.” The nurse gave Mason a sweet smile. “I’m Belinda.”

Mason stood and bent over a bit. “Hi. Oh Jesus, I have to pee.”

“You think you can hold it?” Belinda asked.

He shook his head.

“Just let out a tinkle, okay?”

“I’ll wait right here for you,” I said as I watched Mason walk away. He held the small of his back with his palm and ran off to go.

My hands shook as I waited for him.

Nothing had gone as expected.

I thought maybe they’d say he had some kind of something that could be taken care of with some meds from the pharmacy and not anything about having to get an ultrasound for the mysterious mass in his stomach.

Once Mason made it back out, Belinda led us down to a small dark room where Mason hopped up onto the table.

“All right, just lay back and pull up your shirt.”

“Okay.” Mason looked at me, his eyes wide. I took his hand in mine as he lay back, and I studied his stomach. Why did we let it get that far? I just kept telling myself he gained some weight. That was all. But seeing how round his stomach was, it sure as hell didn’t look like regular weight gain. I had been so preoccupied the past few weeks with concern over why we weren’t having sex, thinking that starting something with my best friend was a bad idea, that he was pulling away, and so I ignored something bigger that was going on.

“This might be cold.” She took a big bottle of blue gel and squirted it all over his stomach. “Can you tug your pants down some?”

Mason pulled down his pants to his hips, and she tucked a blue napkin over the top of them. She squirted some blue gel below his stomach, too. She then took what looked like a scanner and began to rub it over him. I squeezed Mason’s fingers. I wondered if he could feel me shaking. Belinda didn’t say much at first. I looked at Mason who had his eyes glued to what she did to his stomach.

 “Interesting,” Belinda said.

“What does that mean?” Mason asked.

“See right here, you have no testes.”

“None?” Mason scrunched up his nose and squinted at the computer.

“If you had some and they weren’t descended, this is where they would be,” she said, pointing at the computer screen.

“I don’t have any?”

“No testes, but you do have gonads. If I move this over here, this is where one is, and due to its placement, I do believe it’s an ovotestis.”

“Oh, God.” Mason pressed his lips together and puffed out his cheeks.

“And then if I move over here, you can see your other gonad which is an ovary.”

My mouth dropped open, but I quickly snapped it shut so Mason wouldn’t see my reaction. When he told me he was possibly intersex, it was so unexpected, didn’t seem to make any sense, but there was the proof up on the screen.

“What? I know you’re pro, but how do you know?” Mason asked, glaring at Belinda.

“Because, see here, these are your fallopian tubes.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, this just keeps getting worse,” Mason whispered.

“And see right here?” She pointed at a sort of circular shape on the screen.

“Is that my tumor?” Mason asked.

“You don’t have a tumor,” Belinda said in a soft tone.

Mason jerked his head back. “Then what in the hell is it?”

Belinda smiled. “Your uterus.”

“What the holy fuck?!” I had never heard Mason swear so much before. But he did have a lot to be surprised and swearing about.

“Dr. Adamson called ahead and coupled with these ultrasound results, Dr. Ballard will have to confirm it, of course, but you are intersex.”

He put his hands over his face. “This can’t be happening.”

“It’s a lot to take in when you first find out.”

“No shit.”

Belinda laughed. “Shall I finish your ultrasound?”

“You’re not done yet?” Mason asked, his eyes wide, darting from me to the screen to Belinda.

“No. Almost.” She scooted around the scanner thing a bit more and pointed to a blob inside a blob on the screen. “And see that?”

“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” Mason said.

“That right there is your baby. Congrats. You’re pregnant.”

And Mason passed out, and I had to steady myself on the table. Words couldn’t make their way from my lips. My fingers gripped the leather of the table Mason lay on. The nurse smiled at me, looking pleased as punch and underneath Mason’s nose, she cracked a smelling stick.

He coughed, and his eyes fluttered open.

Mason looked up at me, his eyes bugging out of their sockets.

“I’ll be right back,” Belinda whispered. “Going to get the doctor.”

“Hey there. You passed out,” I said, trying so hard not to freak out.

I needed to stay calm for him.

Help him get through this.

“Was I just having some kind of super vivid dream?”

“No. Unless I was, too. Maybe we both are.”

“This can’t be real,” Mason said.

“The nurse will be back in a minute. A doctor is coming down,” I said, squeezing his shoulder.

Mason shook his head. “It has to be a tumor with teeth or something.”

“Mason, looking at it, I gotta say, it maybe looks like a baby. Sort of like a bean with a giant alien head.”

“Aliens. That’s it,” Mason said, clucking his tongue.

“Mason.” I took his hand in mine and entwined our fingers.

“I have girl parts and something growing in me, so don’t Mason me.”

“Dr. Ballard will be down shortly,” Belinda said, coming back in the little room. “Until then, want to hear something?”

“My man card going out the window?” Mason asked, closing his eyes and letting out a deep breath.

Belinda smiled, holding up the tube of gel. “A little bit of cold again.”

“Okay,” Mason said softly. She scanned something else over his stomach and reached over and turned a knob on a machine. “Hear that?”

“What am I listening to?” Mason turned his head to the side.

“Your baby’s heartbeat.”

“Mason,” I said. “Don’t pass out again.”

Big tears plopped from his eyes. “How did this happen?”

“The doctor will help explain all of that,” Belinda said, wiping off Mason’s stomach.

“I’m pregnant, Conrad. I’m fucking pregnant. I’m nineteen and pregnant. Oh, God.”

He threw an arm over his eyes and continued crying. I petted his hair and rubbed my thumb on his forehead, thinking how I was the one who impregnated him.

Holy shit.

I got someone pregnant and not just anyone, my best friend.

My head became woozy as the realization really hit me. I was going to be a father.

A stocky man with warm brown skin and a short afro came into the room. “Hello, I’m Dr. Ballard.”

Mason snorted up some snot.

“Quite the news, and I’m sure you’re wondering how exactly did this happen? We were wondering that, too. Let me show you.” More cold jelly and scanning of Mason’s abdomen. “Here off of your rectum, you have this.” Dr. Ballard pointed to something on the computer screen that looked like, well, nothing. “You have a vaginal canal off of your rectum.”

“Oh God, what?” Mason said, looking like he was about to be sick.

“We’ve never seen this before. Sometimes, if people with your condition that present as boys, there’ll be a vaginal canal, but it’ll lead to where the vagina would be or won’t even be complete. Yours is misplaced. It’s almost at the base of your rectum, and when you had intercourse, your partner must’ve breached it.”

I felt woozy again.

I did this to him.

Jesus, I was the partner who breached him.

“And they swam upstream,” Mason said.

“Exactly. And if you look here, this is your cervix.”

Mason let out a whimper. “Well, crap. So, I’m pregnant and all my innards are girl parts.”

“You do have the necessary reproductive organs for one to become pregnant most obviously.”

“This is unbelievable,” Mason said, tugging on fistfuls of his hair.

“It’s incredible is what it is,” Dr. Ballard said, further studying the pictures on the screen.

“I’m a nineteen-year-old guy in college. Furthest thing from it.”

“You are quite young.”

“Ya think?”

“I know you were expecting nothing like this.” Dr. Ballard turned toward Mason. “Let me help you up.

“I’m a fucking girl,” Mason said as Dr. Ballard grabbed his hand and pulled him up to sitting.

“You identify as a boy, so that’s who you are. You’re a man.”

“Not a full one,” Mason said, frowning and letting out a deep sigh.

“You are, but if you ever feel differently, we’ll help you out.”

Mason’s eyes went wide. “Hell no. Wait a minute. How am I going to get my baby out of me?”

“You’ll have to have a cesarean,” Dr. Ballard said, rubbing his jaw with his hand.

“Remind me again what that is.” Mason tipped his head to the side and looked at the doctor.

“Lie down again for a sec.” Mason lay back. “They cut your abdomen open right about here,” Dr. Ballard said, drawing a line right beneath Mason’s stomach. “And then they gently pull the baby out.”

“That sounds kind of horrific.”

“People have them all the time. Okay then. We’ll get you in for your first prenatal checkup tomorrow so you can get your vitamins and more exciting stuff. And then we’ll also set up an appointment so you can learn more about your intersex disorder.” He grabbed Mason’s hand and pulled him up to sitting again.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes. So, go home rest. Maybe take class off tomorrow. I can imagine how overwhelming this is. Think about the baby.”

Mason put a hand on his stomach. “I’m a circus freak.”

“You’re not a freak. You just have unique anatomy.”

I took his other hand and squeezed it. He started crying again. “I can’t control it.”

Dr. Ballard smiled at Mason. “It’s the hormones. You might find yourself crying at everything.”

“That’s just fantastic.”

“Go home and rest. Nurse Belinda will be back in a second with your appointment time.” He patted Mason on the back and left the room.

Mason stared down at his stomach.

“You’re pregnant, Mason.”

“I know,” he said, again with the waterworks.

“This is like wow.” I hugged him, and he smashed his face into my chest.

“All right, you two. Tomorrow at eleven AM,” Belinda said, coming in and holding out an appointment card to Mason. He just stared at it, so I took it from her instead.

“Thank you,” I said.

“And congrats. You’re going to be great dads.”

I blew out a breath and another.

Holy shit.

I was going to be a dad. My chest clenched thinking about it, and I tightened my grip on Mason for support because my head felt woozy for a moment.

“I’m going to be a dad. Should I be a dad? I’m only a sophomore. What am I going to tell my mom? Just a couple of hours ago I was a guy. Oh my God, you, too. I’m pregnant with your child, Conrad. This is your baby.”

“Let’s go. We’ll talk about this more at the dorms.”

“I have your baby in me.”

On the way home, we didn’t say anything. It all still whirled in my head. I got a man pregnant. My Mason was pregnant. What the hell would we do after the baby was born?