AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Please sit back down,” the man implored. “I’ll do what I can.”
He left abruptly, taking his overly-creased shirt with him. At least his tie was ironed, but the rest of him looked like he’d stepped on a wrinkle-bomb.
This place could be run a hell of a lot better.
It was one of the many curses of owning your own business: too often you saw fault in everything and everyone. I’d tried to calm down, to be patient and understanding. But the more ineptitude and unprofessionalism I saw, the harder it was to bite my tongue.
Forcing myself to relax, I settled back, unfolded my arms, and went over thealmostunfortunate events of last night.
Booty-calling Wayne had been a bad idea from the start. Not because of the sex, which I desperately needed, but because of the attachment on his end that would inevitably come along with it.
But no, even worse was the idea that I should somehow utilize an ex-boyfriend to bring a child into this world. It was lame, it was stupid, and it was fraught with a thousand future problems. Not to mention trying to get pregnant without even discussing it with someone felt wholly shitty and undeniably wrong.
I’d tried blaming the wine, but the wine was only part of the problem. The real issue was I felt slighted. The clinic left me feeling wronged; cheated out of my choice of sperm donor, to the point where I almost did something cataclysmically stupid.
Luckily I’d had the sense to send Wayne home. After that I’d called up the old profile pics of the man I suddenlycouldn’thave, and I’d stared at them with all new levels of obsession and infatuation.
I couldn’t stop gazing at the young, gorgeous hunk attached to the donor’s bio. Who was he? What was he doing right now? If he donated sperm here in the City, it stood to reason he probably lived here as well.
True or false,thatlittle deduction sent me down an endless rabbit hole until the wee hours of the morning. Did this guy live only a few blocks away? If so, did we visit the same restaurants? Ride together on the subway? Had I unknowingly jogged past him in Central Park, while he was reading a book?
All these fantasies converged on me at once, heightening my other, more baser needs at the time. Soon I was stretched out on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. My eyes fluttered closed as I’d allowed my fingers to wander, giving myself at least some of the pleasure Wayne hadn’t… while calling up the best angles and favorite images of my now mysterious father-to-be.
Of all the in-depth bios and corresponding medical histories I’d studied, the one thing that got me was the really sweet essay attached to this one man’s file. It was written by the donor, and intended for his future biological offspring. He talked about his own childhood, and growing up shy. Very gently, he told his potential son or daughter that if he or she were also shy that they shouldn’t worry, because they’d eventually grow out of it.
The rest of the essay talked about friendship, and family, and confidence — all good things, with positive spins on each. He ended it by telling his future offspring how excited he was for the amazing journey they had ahead of them, because the world was full of so many incredible, wonderful things.
It was this essay that truly resonated with me, and really sealed the deal. Any man who could write something like that would pass on traits of love and happiness and laughter. Whoever he was, a man like that undoubtedly had a very big heart.
“Why hello there!” a sugary-sweet voice called from my left. “Ms… Emerson, is it?”
The tall woman who’d entered the room was already wearing a saccharine smile. She slid into the chair wrinkle-man had left unoccupied, then stared at the screen for several moments.
“You’re not the director,” I stated flatly.
“No,” she continued, her smile not fading a single centimeter. “But I’m the assistant director, Sarah Fields. I’m told you had a question?”
I punched my phone to life, then slid it her way.
“This man,” I said, tapping the screen. “I was wondering if you could tell me his name.”
She didn’t even look down. Instead she folded her hands.
“You realize that man is no longer in our system,” she said coolly.
“He shouldn’t have been in your system at all,” I shot back. “But being that hewasin your system, I was wondering if maybe he’d donate again.”
“That’s up to him,” the woman said. “Not us.”
“Fine,” I agreed. “Did you contact him to tell him his sample had been thrown out?”
“No,” the woman allowed. “That’s not part of our protocol.”
“Was accidentally defrosting the specimen part of your protocol?”
Her saccharine smile devolved into a frown. “Of course not.”
“Then why not go a tiny bit out of your way for me and contact him?” I asked. “The worst he can do is say no.”
