Chapter 8

“Sharon, I think it’s time we had a talk. Are you busy?” Al said to his wife.

“No, I’ve got time. What’s up, Honey?” his wife of twelve years asked.

“It’s time to address the big old elephant in the room. Sharon, I know you want a baby badly, and though we’ve tried hard, lately, it just isn’t happening. I believe we need to explore other avenues. What are your thoughts?” Al inquired.

“Well, we’ve tried hard during my purported fertile periods. You say you’ve checked your sperm count and it’s within normal limits. It could be me, but my OB/GYN says he doesn’t see anything wrong. Maybe we’re just not supposed to have any babies. It would break my heart if that were so, but I don’t know what else to do.” she said, morosely.

“Maybe we need to increase our odds, by maybe using sperm from a donor?”

“You mean ‘artificial insemination’? That’s frightfully expensive, and sometimes you really don’t know what to expect. I’ve read that drug addicts sometimes donate sperm, to make money to support their drug habits, and some of the others are derelicts who are ugly as sin. I’m not sure that’s a good alternative.” she supplied.

“Well, hell, I’m a Navy Corpsman, and I have qualifications which would allow me to perform the actual insemination. I also know several men who are relatively good looking, if I had to admit it. I think I could get them to get me a supply of their sperm and I can make a cocktail by combining those different donors, then inject it into you during your fertile period and it should increase your chances at least ten-fold. If it would make you feel any better, I can be one of the donors, so my wigglers would have a chance to penetrate your ovum. What do you think about that idea.” Al proposed.

“That is a distinct possibility. It sounds a bit cold and clinical, but it definitely has its merits. Oh, hell, Al, I know I’m not a beauty. I sometime wonder why you married me. I guess I have something that attracted you to me. You’ve stuck it out for all these many years, so you must love me. Don’t get mad, but I have a friend, who’s married to one of your shipmates, and I will never reveal who it is, so don’t even ask. Anyway, I have it in good authority that you have been unfaithful to me, while overseas. I have no evidence of any philandering here in port. Don’t try to deny it. I don’t care. You must need it, and I’m the first to admit that I’m not great in bed, but you keep coming home to me, and I’m thankful. The point is, maybe some quid pro quo is in order. I mean, instead of this ‘sperm cocktail’ you want to shoot up my vagina, in hopes of the sperm still being lively enough to penetrate any possible egg I may have waiting to be fertilized, why don’t we just do it the old-fashioned way: find me some strange cock! A number of them! Flood me with semen, until I have it running out of my ears!” she giggled hysterically.

Looking askance at his wife, Al commented:

“Okay, who are you, and what have you done with my wife?”

“Oh, Al, don’t you see? I am desperate to be pregnant. I see women all around me, with baby bumps and some so pregnant they can hardly walk, or those who have their babies in strollers and playing on the grass at the park. I want to bawl, when I see them and know I have none of my own. I even want grandbabies, already. I would love to have your baby, but right now, I’d almost take any man’s baby, just to carry one, birth one and raise one. My maternal instinct is driving me mad!” Sharon Tory sobbed.

“So, just be clear: you are willing to have sex with other men, just to get pregnant?” Al stated.

“I won’t, if you don’t want me to, but I think you owe me, with all the strange stuff you were getting overseas, if my information is correct. Do you deny having affairs while deployed?” she accused.

“Okay, I admit I had a couple flings overseas, but I wouldn’t call them affairs. They were more correctly ‘one-night-stands’. I admit it. I’m a sailor, and that’s what sailors do, when they’re away from their steady sex source.” Al blustered.