---

Day ten of my cycle? Check.

More than thirty days since I last took the pill? Check.

Candles lit in the bedroom? Check.

Emotions in the right place so we can make mad, passionate love and remember our baby’s conception as a moment of overwhelming grace and deep, spiritual connection?

Well...

Six weeks ago, we said this was it. It’s time. I went off the pill exactly forty-three days ago, and we’ve been using condoms ever since. Returning to wrapping it after a few years of bareback is like eating a meringue with the parchment paper still attached. It’s still sweet and good but something’s a little off, and you end up gagging.

I rearrange the rose petals I’ve sprinkled all over the bed and survey the scene for any tiny errors I’ve missed. The sheets have been spritzed with an aromatherapy spray designed to enhance fertility. Amanda gave me a crystal she bought at a witch store in Salem, the talisman blessed with a spell for swift conception.

Candles alone would be enough. For Declan, they’re the sexual equivalent of airport runway personnel waving the 747 to the gate. Once I light candles, it’s like ringing the dinner bell.

And I’m the main course.

Before you even ask, yes–I’m wearing his favorite red garters. I’ve left nothing to chance.

Operation Billionaire’s Baby is ready to commence.

But I can’t do this alone. Literally can’t.

So where’s Declan?

Oh, sure, he’s here at home, but he’s not here. Next to me. Warm and naked and giving me as much of himself as he can in the most intimate of moments, where pieces of our separate bodies literally will forge together to make someone new.

Reaching for my babymaking provisions, I take a swig of the wine on the nightstand. I know, I know–no wine during pregnancy. I’m not pregnant yet, so it’s okay.

Besides, it’s not like I need the wine. I’m not drinking it because I’m nervous about donating my entire body for 288 days to the evolutionary equivalent of a parasite. I’m not drinking it because for the first time in my life, I’m having sex without any birth control protection whatsoever. I’m not chugging this delicious glass of red wine because my nerves are getting the best of me at the thought of committing to parenting a whole separate human being for the rest of my life.

Nope.

I’m drinking because my phone is buzzing like crazy with texts from seventeen women who attend my mother’s yoni yoga class and the sculpting class at the Westside Center for the Arts, where my husband is a nude model in his spare time.

Why would all those women suddenly start texting me, you ask? Now, of all times, as I’m about to embark on the biggest, most monumental journey of my entire life?

Um, have you met my mother?

Good luck, honey! reads a text from her. We’re rooting for you!

I freeze. I lick the edge of my wine glass to slurp up every drop. I eye the bottle. If I drink it all before Declan gets in bed, will he judge me? Can I recycle the bottle and make him think I’m just really excited and chill the natural way?

This is like that moment where you’ve eaten one half of the pint of ice cream. The point of no return. Either leave the rest for him, or destroy all the evidence.

I pour the rest of the wine in two glasses and race to the recycling container.

Oh, please. Like you leave half a pint?

My best friend’s ringtone makes my phone buzz in my hands. I shriek, throwing it in the air, where it falls on the bedcovers and slithers off the edge, thunking on the floor.

I bend down to grab it, one of my silk-stocking clips catching on the duvet, dragging it down over me as I fall.

“Yes?” I answer, breathless. “Oh, God,” I moan, seeing a long, vicious red streak from a scratch that runs up my newly waxed thigh.

“Did I catch you in the middle of sex?” Amanda gasps.

“No, sadly.” I disentangle myself. A pile of rose petals covers the carpet. I put her on speakerphone. “You’re on speaker now.”

“I thought you were, uh...”

“Making a baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Not yet. Declan isn’t here.”

“What do you mean, he isn’t there? Does he know?”

“Does he know what?”

“That tonight’s the night?”

“No, Amanda, he has no idea that we’re having a baby. I’ll wait until he’s asleep and harvest him.”

“That sounds like a dystopian fantasy show you binge watch.”

“Fantasy? More like nightmare.”

“Er, right. Nightmare. Sure. So where is he?”

“Somewhere in the house. He’ll come to bed eventually.”

“Of course he will. You’re offering sex. It’s like you and me being at Costco when they’re offering free samples of tiramisu. No way is he not coming.”

“Why are you calling me in the middle of... you know?”

“To warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“Your mom told her entire yoni yoga class that you’re trying to conceive.”

“That explains all the weirdly intrusive texts. How does she know? Did you tell her?”

“What? NO! I would never.”

“You can’t keep a secret, Amanda. You’re missing that gene. You’re the one who told my dad when I started shaving my legs in fifth grade without my parents’ permission.”

“Only because he found half your shin skin all over his razor and asked me if we’d been using it to dissect dead animals we found by the side of the road.”

“Right. That was just after he watched that Jeffrey Dahmer documentary.” I shudder. “Look, this conversation isn’t doing me any favors. I don’t want to conceive a baby while thinking about a cannibal!” I hear the water in the bathroom turn on. Aha. Declan’s in there.

“No kidding. You should do it the way nature intended, while being inundated by Good luck! texts from all the women in your mother’s vagina yoga classes.”

“When you put it that way, Jeffrey Dahmer doesn’t sound so bad.” I drink more wine. “How did my mom find out?” I ask.

“She told my mother that one of her yoga students saw you at a pharmacy buying an ovulation predictor kit.”

“She... has students stalking me?”

“No. Coincidence. Turns out one of her yoga students has a granddaughter who works at a store down the street from your place downtown.”

Boston is really a small town disguised as a major metropolitan city.

“Just my luck.”

“Sorry. Your mother is frighteningly well connected. It’s harder and harder to send her on mystery shops because store employees recognize her.”

I am ready to drink straight from the wine bottle now. “I’ll have to order my ovulation kits online.”

“Ignore the texts from her groupies. And have Declan’s assistant buy your ovulation predictor kits.”

“What assistant? Grace is officially gone. Dec’s interviewing people but so far, no one’s made it through his rigorous hiring process.”

“What’s made it so hard?”

“None of them is Grace.”

“I see. So he’s flying solo? No assistant?”

“None.”

“I am so sorry. No assistant for a guy like Declan is like, well...”

“He’s a little unmoored.”

“You guys have really bitten off more than you can chew.”

“Again with the Jeffrey Dahmer references. Stop!”

“No, no, I mean Declan bought you a coffee shop chain. He lost his longtime executive assistant. And now you’re trying to have a baby. That’s a lot.”

“Is it too much? Are we wrong?” I’m seriously wondering if we need to pull back and think. For months, we’ve talked about starting a family. Every conversation felt deeper. Richer. More full and vibrant as we looked ahead to our future. The idea of welcoming a baby, of becoming parents, of taking that step in our relationship seems natural. Not quite inevitable, but born of a desire to experience more with each other. Layers of life are out there that I cannot fathom.

I want to explore them with Declan.

Who is currently taking forever in the bathroom.

Bzzzz.

While Amanda and I talk, my phone continues to cut my libido like a machete. The constant reminder of my mother’s classes, filled with nice women with weird intentions, isn’t exactly helping me to maintain the mood for mind-blowing conception sex.

Declan’s absence isn’t helping, either.

“Can you call off the hounds?” I beg Amanda.

“Huh?”

“Find a way to get them to stop texting me? Maybe tell them you’re pregnant. That would get them to leave me alone.”

She snorts. “For about three seconds. Beside, don’t give Andrew any ideas. He’s already trying to get me to agree to have a baby.”

“Now? Now? You just got married!”

“I know! But it’s all Declan’s fault.”

“Explain.”

“Declan told Andrew you guys are going for it, and you know how competitive they are.”

“Babies aren’t like being CEO!”

“Tell that to my husband.” Her grin comes through in her voice. The word husband sends a thrill through me, two years after marrying Declan. It’s a kind of ownership. A change in who you are, to define another person by their relationship to you.

Husband is forever.

And when someone is your husband, it makes you their wife. You become someone else.

Someone more.

Like mother.

Declan and I are about to have sex so I can be someone’s mother.

Bzzz.

I look at my phone.

Hold your legs up in the air afterward. Put a pillow under your butt. You might need two, because yours is so big. Good luck!

Speaking of mothers.

“Just do whatever it takes to get my mom and her hens to stop texting me,” I tell Amanda.

“How about I tell them you were just mystery shopping for ovulation predictor kits, and it’s a false alarm?”

“Perfect! You are the best at creating cover stories.”

“It’s what I do for a living.”

A wave of nostalgia rolls over me. There was a time when we worked together. It’s been a couple of years. We’re best friends and married to brothers. Sisters-in-law by legal definition.

Sisters of the heart by choice.

Tears prickle at the edges of my eyelashes. Marrying Declan took me away from being my sister Amy’s roommate. Put distance between me and my parents. Not in a bad way, but the transition is clear.

Becoming a mother will change every relationship, too.

“Are you crying?” Amanda asks softly.

“What? No.”

“You can’t lie to me.”

“Damn it. How can you tell without looking at me?”

“Telepathy.”

“We determined conclusively in eighth grade that you are not telepathic. We blew off studying for our algebra final because you said you could figure out all the answers by reading Mrs. Caligari’s mind. Instead, you got detention for staring at her maliciously.”

“That was all part of the plan. I used my mind powers to shield you from the truth. Besides, Tommy Nelson was in detention that very same day and he gave me my first kiss.”

“The telepathy didn’t work.”

“It sure did. Just not the way you thought,” she says with a chuckle.

Laughter with an old friend has multiple tracks, all interwoven to produce an undercurrent you can’t easily name. It’s a sound inside you, a hum that is just there, like your heartbeat.

“Get off the phone, Shannon. Go have sexy time with your man,” Amanda urges.

“You make it sound like I’m avoiding cleaning the gutters.”

“Declan’s the one cleaning the gutters,” she replies in a suggestive voice.

“That’s... not at all arousing.”

“You know, like ‘cleaning your pipes’?” she explains. “It was meant to be funny!”

“You’re as funny right now as you are telepathic.”

“At least I’m not the one sucking down a second bottle of wine half naked, on the phone with her best friend while her husband stalls having sex.”

“Ouch!”

“Am I wrong?”

I look at the second bottle of wine, then at Declan’s full glass, still untouched. I trade glasses with him. “I haven’t uncorked the new bottle.”

“Yet.”

I sigh. My phone buzzes like a vibrator with dying batteries. “Why does conceiving a baby have to be so hard?”

“You haven’t even tried yet!”

“My ovaries are holding up protest signs. You know how I get when Mom does this. Whatever part of my life she invades, I turn around and do the opposite.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I fled my own wedding.”

“So you could get married your way. Don’t flee your own conception. Conceive your way.”

“There’s only one way to conceive, Amanda. Remember? The sperm find the egg and turn into jackhammers, and...”

“I don’t need a primer on sex, thanks. Andrew and I are just fine in that department. Sounds like you’re the one who needs a little help.” She clears her throat suggestively.

“I don’t need help conceiving. I need help keeping my mother away.”

“Shannon, get off the phone. Go. It’s time.”

Click.

---

---

It’s time.

We’ve spent four years knowing each other. One year engaged to each other. It took two weddings to actually get married, but we’ve now spent nearly two years as husband and wife.

Two months ago, we agreed to take the plunge. The best damn plunge I could ever ask for.

I’ve spent forty-three days having sex with my wife while wearing socks in a swimming pool. No, not literally, but after years of condomless sex, that’s what it feels like. We’ve ditched the pill and decided to take what is already perfect and increase it by fifty percent.

We’re going to have a baby.

Or, at least, we will once I rise to the occasion, and for some reason, that’s... a problem.

Hey. Hey. This has never, ever happened before. I’m a virile guy. Very virile. Like my cars, my helicopters, my jets, I expect equipment to do its job when I want it, where I want it, and how I want it to operate.

I’m staring at one piece of fine-tooled machinery right now that is not cooperating. Nothing’s wrong with the engine. Battery is charged. The motor is in top shape.

The starter, though, seems to be a little... off.

Eye to eye (his one, my two), I tell him softly, “It’s time.” Patience may be a virtue, but it’s not my virtue. Especially right now.

For the last three months, this is all Shannon and I have talked about. It’s left me in a state of perpetual hardwood. You try talking to your gorgeous wife about nothing but babies. Stopping birth control. Having sex for procreation. Using your genetic material to conceive. Being told you have to have sex for a purpose.

A purpose! Sex doesn’t need a purpose. I’ve spent thirty-four years having insanely good, non-goal-oriented sex. You make love for pleasure.

Not to close a deal.

Yet here I am, ready to sign the contract on the biggest deal of my life...

...and my pen is out of ink.

“You cannot do this,” I tell him, looking down. He doesn’t even bother with direct eye contact, gravity doing its job a little too well. Bracing myself against the counter, I lean in, the cool granite making my palms ache. I stare at myself in the mirror.

This is nothing more than pre-game jitters.

Images of babies I haven’t met yet, blonde and dark, sweet and pensive, run through my mind in a frantic rush, a fast-framed movie, Shannon holding each in her arms like it’s a casting call and we’re searching for the perfect daughter or son.

Daughter. Son.

That makes me the father.

Roles are part of life. We all have many. Boss. Employee. Leader. Follower. Husband. Wife. Too many to name. We swap them out countless times in a given day, sometimes mindless, sometimes mindful. How we shrug into those costumes and play our parts is a matter of volition. We shape who we are at the core by how we act in these peripheral situations.

Great. Now I sound like Tony Robbins doing a webinar.

I’ll assume the role of father by taking the incredibly simple step of making love with my wife. No barrier between us. We’re removing obstacles. We’ve spent our entire adult lives working hard not to conceive, and we’ve arrived at a place where the role of soul mate is about to expand.

To include a new soul of our creation.

“Get up,” I grunt at my groin, resorting to anger. “You have one job. ONE. And now you decide not to do it? This isn’t a union, buddy. You don’t get to go on strike.” Maybe Bad Cop/Good Cop will work.

Nothing. This is worse than negotiating with the ironworkers’ union over a new twenty-three story building in Fort Point, and those guys are brutal.

“Look, I know,” I say to my crotch, “it’s a little different. This time, you aren’t just aiming. You get to hit your target. Exciting, right? Of course it is. Challenging and different. Different just means using new tactics. Being agile. You’ve got this. Different is good. It’s how we grow.”

He says nothing.

“So... grow.”

He does not.

How about the power of suggestion?

“You’re a hard negotiator. I like that. Hard. Hard as can be.”

He’s not.

New tactic.

I whisper to him in a low voice, “Remember that time you and Shannon were in the back of the limo, on your second date, and you had sex while being driven to the helicopter? How her legs, so warm, so soft, cradled you while she rode you? Remember how her hair covered you in a rush of passion as she leaned forward and pressed her mouth against your shoulder so she couldn’t be heard as she came?”

He doesn’t.

And now I’m referring to my own penis as a third party.

“Being a father is the natural next step in this relationship. You’re not getting any younger, you know,” I inform him, chuckling.

Hold on. I feel movement.

Wait. Is he shrinking? Damn it.

“But you’re only thirty-four,” I say quickly. “Plenty of time. More than enough time. You’re at peak fertility. Clint Eastwood fathered a child in his eighties. Because he’s virile. Like you. Me. Us.”

No response.

“Come on!” I give him a little slap, a playful tap.

He’s not impressed.

“When did you turn into a donkey? Stubborn. You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

“Declan?” Shannon calls from the other side of the bathroom door. “Are you talking to someone in there? Are you having a business meeting... in the bathroom?”

Sort of.

I look down. “Performance anxiety isn’t in our vocabulary, buddy. Come on. You can’t choke now. Think scrum! Regroup on the fly! Look at project metrics and change strategy as needed. It’s all about agility. Flexibility. Imagine Shannon, flexible in bed, bent over with her leg in that crooked position where her thigh meets her nipple and–”

He doesn’t respond.

“I’m wearing red garters!” Shannon says, closer now, the door making a strange, muffled vibration, as if she’s pressed up against it.

I look down. He twitches.

“You are?”

“I am,” she purrs.

“Heels?” I call out.

“I could wear them, if you want.”

Blood rushes where it belongs. Where it should be. Where I tell it to be.

That’s right. The role of Declan McCormick, CEO of Grind It Fresh! coffee, requires that I harness my natural power and use it to dominate. Control is my middle name. Bold is my mantra. I go through life with a cultivated detachment that allows me to achieve every goal I set.

Babymaking is no different. I see the error of my ways. I’ve let my heart take charge when another body part should be at the helm of the ship that needs to dock in Shannon’s port.

And unload precious cargo.

Just like that, the mast rights itself.

Ahoy, matey!

I open the door to find my wife as promised, dressed in nothing but red lace and silky stockings. Making an entire separate human being with our bodies is just an advanced version of a merger, right?

I acquired her already.

Two incredible entities, when combined, potentiate each other. The result is orders of magnitude better.

Showtime.