Chapter 26: Let’s Get It Started In Here

San Luis Obispo, California

April 29, 2004

It was the early hours of the morning—3:38 AM according to the alarm clock—when Massa Wu suddenly awakened from deep slumber. He was in the bed he shared with wife Meghan, both of them cuddled together and naked, both smelling of sexual musk as they had enjoyed a nice session of marital sex before retiring the previous night. Massa felt a sudden urgency in his bladder, a throbbing that insisted he relieve the pressure immediately or it just might relieve itself.

What the fuck? he wondered to himself sleepily. He was a good sleeper and could usually make it through the entire night without having to get up. And something about this urge to urinate did not feel quite right. He pulled his arm from around Meghan’s warm body and rolled onto his back. This brought Meghan a little out of her own contented slumber.

“Wuzzit?” she mumbled, a little whine in her voice.

“I gotta pee,” he told her. “Be right back.”

“Kay,” she replied, already mostly back to sleep.

He put his feet on the floor and the urge to pee doubled down, threatening to burst forth immediately. He groaned a little and quickened his step to the master bathroom of the two bedroom apartment they shared. He flipped on the light, wincing at the brightness, and pushed the door shut behind him so the light would not bother Meghan. He then lifted the toilet seat and took aim.

As he released the muscles that controlled urinary continence and began to pee, a sudden, intense pain went rippling through his urinary tract. It felt a little like someone had inserted a wire in there and then applied heat to it. He had never experienced anything like this before in his life and it caught him completely off guard.

“Gaaaa!” he cried out desperately, feeling sweat break out on his forehead. “What the ... Owwww, my God! This hurts!!” He dropped to his knees the pain was so intense. This took his stream off target and he ended up peeing all over the floor. There was a foul odor to the urine.

His cries and screams brought Meghan on the run. The door burst open and she looked at her husband kneeling on the floor, a look of pain on his face, a puddle of urine on the floor around him. “Massa! What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.

“Something’s wrong with my dick!” he cried, breathing heavily now. “Oh my god, this fucking hurts!”

“It hurts to pee?” she asked.

“Yesss!” he grunted as the jerking stream of urine finally came to an end. “Holy shit! What the hell is going on?”

Meghan sniffed the air a bit. “You have a UTI,” she told him. “I can tell by the smell.”

“A what?” he asked.

“A urinary tract infection,” she said. “I’ve had them a few times before. They hurt.”

“No shit they hurt,” he panted. “Oh my God, what a mess! How did I get a urine infection?”

“They just kind of happen,” she said, pulling a towel from beneath the sink. She handed it to him. “Here. Soak it up with this and I’ll mop in here later.”

Numbly, he put the towel down on the puddle and slowly came to his feet. The pain was not as intense now that he was done peeing but it was still there. “Thanks, hon,” he told her. “How do I get rid of it?”

“You have to go to the doctor and get antibiotics,” she said. “There’s also a medicine that makes it hurt less.”

“When am I going to be able to go to the doctor?” he asked. “I have to be at the Campus at nine o’clock.”

“You can go to the urgent care over by the hospital,” she told him. “They open at seven. You should be able to get in and out and still be able to get to the studio on time.”

“Okay,” he said, already dreading the next time he would have to pee.

He was able to quickly shower off and then get back into bed with Meghan. She would be getting up at 5:30 AM so she could make it to clinicals at Baptist Hospital by 6:45 AM. The life of a first semester nursing student was a busy one. He cuddled up to her and went back to sleep, only to wake up when Meghan did with the urge to urinate again. Once again, it was an experience in pain to do something he had done quite easily all of his previous life to this point. At least he was able to brace himself this time, which did not lessen the pain in any way, but kept him from peeing on the floor again.

Meghan, freshly showered and wearing the dorky student nurse uniform they made her wear, made it out the door at 6:10 AM. She would grab an egg McMuffin, hashbrowns, and a cup of coffee on her way to the hospital and consume them while she drove. Massa, feeling generally miserable and specifically sore in his urinary tract, left the house at 6:45 AM, heading to the Baptist Hospital campus as well. The urgent care building was not part of the hospital itself, but sat independently on the far side of the campus. There were only a few vehicles in the parking lot when he arrived and he was checked in right away.

“Urinary tract infection?” asked the middle-aged nurse who triaged him. “What makes you think you have one of those?”

“It hurts when I pee,” Massa told her, “and the pee smells bad. Also, wife says it’s a urinary tract infection. She’s a student nurse.”

“Uh huh,” the nurse said with a clear air of skepticism in her tone.

“She really is a student nurse,” Massa told her, figuring she disbelieved that part of his story (after all, what else was there to disbelieve?). “She’s in her first semester over at Cuesta College. She’s doing her clinicals right here at Baptist Hospital.”

“I’m sure she is,” the nurse said. “Now, how long have these symptoms been going on?”

“Just this morning,” he replied.

“Uh huh,” she said, typing something on her keyboard. “And uh ... is there any chance you might have an STD?”

“A what?”

“A sexually transmitted disease,” she clarified. “You know? Gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, something like that?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m married.”

“Uh huh,” she said, tapping her keyboard a little bit more.

She gave him a urine cup and led him into the main treatment area. In here was a bathroom. She told him to go inside and provide a sample for the lab so they could check for this mysterious UTI of his.

“Mysterious?” he asked. “What do you mean by that?”

“Let’s just say that UTIs are pretty rare among young, healthy males,” he was told.

“How come?” he asked. “Women get them all the time.”

“But young healthy men don’t,” she returned without explaining her logic. “Such men usually get infections that mimic UTIs, but they get them from other things.”

She really thinks I have an STD, he suddenly realized. That’s ridiculous. “That’s not what I have,” he insisted. “I’m married.”

“So are lots of other men who develop such symptoms,” she told him. “Go ahead and pee in the cup, please.”

He peed in the cup. It hurt quite badly and he was only able to squeak out a few milliliters of dark urine. He washed his hands and then handed the sample cup to the nurse. She took it with gloved hands and put a label on it. “I’ll send this to the lab,” she said.

She then led him to a small, cramped exam room. She handed him a hospital gown. “Everything off except your socks,” she told him.

“I have to undress for this?” he asked, feeling a wave of extreme modesty.

“Yes,” she said simply. She then left the room, pee sample in hand, and closed the door.

He got undressed, neatly folding his clothes and then stacking them on the chair next to the table. He put on the gown and then sat on the exam table, his bare legs dangling off the end. It was cold in the room and he had been given no blanket. Soon he was on the verge of shivering.

After perhaps ten minutes the door opened and a woman in her fifties entered. She was dressed in sky blue scrubs and had a name badge that identified her as a physician. There was a black stethoscope around her neck and a clipboard in her hands. She was a battle-axe looking woman and Massa had no problem envisioning her burning her bra during some protest in the 1960s. She was looking at him as if he were a cockroach on her wedding cake.

“I’m Doctor Nifty,” she told him matter-of-factly. “I understand you’re having painful urination and a foul smell?”

“Yes,” Massa said. “I...”

“Are you heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual?” she asked.

“Uh ... heterosexual,” he said softly.

“Uh huh,” she said, making a note. “And how many sexual partners have you had in the past two months?”

“Just one,” he said. “I’m married. My wife is a...”

Dr. Nifty did not care what his wife was. She just wanted to know about her recent sexual history. “How many partners do you estimate your wife has been with in the last two months?”

“Just me,” he said, starting to get angry now. She thinks we’re fucking swingers! “We’re a monogamous couple.”

“Uh huh,” she said, clearly not believing him. “Well, I’ll tell you that males your age who are in good health—as you appear to be—rarely get urinary tract infections.”

“That’s what your nurse told me,” Massa said. “I guess I’m just one of the lucky ones. My wife and I are a monogamous couple. I am quite sure of that.”

“I will put that in my note,” Dr. Nifty told him. “Let me just ask a few more questions.”

She asked her questions. They revolved around his normal urinary patterns and his recent sex life for the most part. She touched only a little on his general health and well-being.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to get Lynn back in here and then I’m going to examine your penis and take a swab from it.”

“A swab?”

“I will put a cotton swab into your urethra and take a small sample of the fluid there. That’s so we can make sure you do not have any of those STDs you say you don’t have.”

“I don’t have them,” he insisted. “I am quite sure of that.”

“Then you won’t mind my checking,” she said. “Prudence requires that I rule them out in such a circumstance as yours.”

“Do you check for that on women who have the same symptoms?” he asked.

“Not unless they clearly suspect an STD might be the cause of the symptoms,” she said. “Women get simple UTIs all the time. It’s part of our anatomy, unfortunately. Our urethra is located inconveniently close to the anal opening, which is where the E coli bacteria live. E coli is found in feces primarily and is the source of ninety-five out of a hundred UTIs in healthy women.”

“But not men?”

“As I said, most young healthy men do not get UTIs. The male body is blessed with a much longer urethra that has a meatus unlikely to come into contact with feces from the anal tract.”

“Oh ... I guess that makes sense,” Massa had to agree. “But I still don’t have an STD. I don’t cheat on my wife and she does not cheat on me. We’re not swingers or anything.”

“That’s why we’re checking your urine for UTI as well,” she said. “Just to rule that out as a cause and cover all the bases. Now then, I’ll go get Lynn and we’ll get this thing done. In thirty minutes, we’ll have the answer.”

He was generally a meek person by nature so he protested no further. He allowed Lynn the battle-axe nurse to accompany Nifty the battle-axe doctor into the room. He laid back on the table and exposed himself to both of them. His schlong was looking far from impressive at the moment and he blushed in embarrassment. Dr. Nifty used her gloved hand to palpate and squeeze and otherwise fondle his member before she stuck a long Q-tip down the pee hole, screwing it in until it was close to an inch deep. The pain when she did this was excruciating, easily the worst pain he had ever felt in his life. He nearly screamed during the height of it. Both women looked at him without an ounce of sympathy.

Once the exam was done, Dr. Nifty put the Q-tip in a little clear plastic tube with a white lid. She fastened a label to it and then dropped it into a small plastic Ziploc bag. He was told he could get dressed again. Shivering, his dick screaming at him, cold sweat on his forehead, he took off the gown and put his clothes and shoes back on. He then sat back down on the exam table and waited.

Fifty-one minutes went by. He wanted to call Celia on her cell phone and let her know that he was likely to be a few minutes late but there was a sign on the door that read NO CELL PHONE USE IN EXAM ROOM. PLEASE SILENCE OR TURN OFF YOUR PHONE DURING YOUR VISIT. He was nothing if not obedient so he kept it in his back pocket (though he did not silence it. He was a raging rebel in some ways, he told himself).

Finally, the door opened and Dr. Nifty came back into the room. Her expression and demeanor were different now. Instead of the battle-axe expression, she actually looked a little bit embarrassed. “Uh ... well ... as it turns out, you do have a urinary tract infection,” she told him.

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “That’s why I came in here. My STD swab was negative, I assume?”

“It was,” she confirmed. “Sorry for the assumption on our part. Having a young, healthy male get a simple UTI is very rare.”

“Like I said,” he told her, “I guess I’m just the lucky one.”

“Apparently so,” she said.

“How does this happen though, doc?” he asked her. “I have good hygiene. I don’t see how my poop could have gotten into my urethra.”

“Uh ... well ... you said you were married, right?”

“Right,” he said. “My wife is a nursing student. She’s over at the hospital doing clinicals right now.”

“I see,” Nifty said. “Well ... the fact of the matter is that ... well ... it doesn’t necessarily have to be your poop that gets into the urethra to cause the infection.”

This caught him by surprise. “Uh ... it doesn’t?”

She shook her head. “Do you and your wife, by chance, engage in any alternate sexual practices that could introduce some of her feces to your urinary tract?”

He did not have to answer. The way his face paled told Dr. Nifty all she needed to know.

Massa tried calling Meghan while he waited in the pharmacy for the Keflex and Pyridium Dr. Nifty had prescribed for him to be filled. That was in addition to the shot in the left butt cheek he had been given to jump start the antibiotic process. The needle itself had not hurt a bit but the liquid being injected into his gluteus maximus muscle had burned like fire for the better part of ten minutes and he now had a knot of soreness at the spot.

Meghan did not answer the phone. It did not even ring, just went straight to voicemail, indicating it was turned off. He had expected that—she was not even allowed to have her cell phone on her person during clinicals—but had tried anyway on the hope she might be on break. He did not know how to tell her that they would have to halt or at least modify one of her favorite sexual activities. Meghan straight up loved to have her butthole violated. Having him do it with a finger or two was standard in pretty much any sexual encounter—especially cunnilingus, which both of them loved. Having him put his entire cock in there was not a daily or even weekly occurrence but it was regularly done as “a little treat for you” on his birthday, or her birthday, or Christmas, or the anniversary of their first date, or, lately, even on minor celebratory days like St. Patrick’s Day or even Arbor Day. And, though vaginal intercourse with her felt physically much better than anal sex, he enjoyed the latter immensely for the psychological aspect. In both of their minds having him stick his schlong up her naughty place and having him rut inside her until he came in her bowels was an act even more intimate than regular sex. Both had experienced regular sex a number of times before with other people, but had only performed anal sex with each other. The thought of not doing it any longer or doing it with a condom on had him bummed out and was serving to enhance what was shaping up to be a rather shitty day.

He left no voicemail, just sent her a text saying he would call her later. He bought a bottle of water when he paid for his prescriptions and used it to wash down one of the Pyridium pills. According to Dr. Nifty, this would coat his urinary tract with numbing medicine the next time he peed, giving him relief and turning his urine bright orange in the process. He sincerely hoped the shit worked as advertised, orange pee and all. He would gladly deal with some fluorescent orange stains in his BVDs if it meant a little relief from the pain.

He pulled up to the gate of the Campus at 9:35 AM, thirty-five minutes late. He had not managed to get hold of Celia on her phone but had called the security lead and asked him to pass on the message to her. He did not go into detail of any kind, just said he had had to make a doctor’s appointment for an acute illness and would be able to fulfill his duties but would be thirty or forty minutes late.

“Everything okay, Massa?” the gate guard asked him when he checked in. “Heard you had to see the doc.”

“Just a little minor infection,” Massa told him. “Nothing a few days of antibiotics won’t clear up.”

“A cold?” the guard asked, though it was rather late in the season for such things.

“Something like that,” Massa told him before driving on toward the main building.

He parked in the main lot and left his car unlocked, as was everyone’s habit at the Campus. There was not much worry of someone entering the grounds and stealing things out of the vehicles. He walked up to the front door and used his access card to swipe it open. The main part of the lower floor was deserted as everyone had gone to work. He headed immediately to the studio that Celia and the rest of the band were using to do their workups on the new material. He swiped in here and opened the door. As soon as it cracked open more than half an inch, the sound of music came rolling out. It was Celia on her acoustic guitar. She was strumming out the rhythm for Boundaries of Love, the song they had planned to work on for the first part of this day, while Beat and Tony set down the rhythm of the melody.

The music stopped when he entered the room. Everyone looked over at him.

“Hey, guys,” he greeted. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Is it anything serious?” Celia asked him.

“No, just a little infection,” he said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Is it the flu?” asked Teach, who was sitting in a chair, saxophone in hands. “It’s a little late in the year for that, but things happen.”

“Something like that,” Massa said. “Nothing contagious though. I’m good to go.”

“All right then,” Celia said. “Glad you could make it. We were just doing reps on Boundaries to get started. Not much else we can do with it until Liz and Little Stevie get here on Monday.”

“Let me just get tuned real quick,” Massa said, heading for the instrument racks on the far side of the room.

“Before you do that,” Celia said, “I need to have a quick word with you.”

A word with me? he thought, uneasy. What for? Have I done something wrong? Is she upset about me being late for the session? That did not ring true. This was his first time working for Celia and they had only been at it a few days, but he felt he had a pretty good grasp on her personality by this point. She was not one to be upset by a trivial matter such as late for work due to a doctor’s appointment.

“Okay,” he said carefully. “Where at?”

“Let’s go up to the kitchen,” she said. “I could use another cup of coffee.” She then turned to the rest of the band. “Keep working the reps, guys. Teach will keep her ear on you and we’ll start doing some serious work when I get back.”

They grunted out their acknowledgment of the orders. Celia then led him out the door, down the hall, and up the stairs to the second floor. The kitchen was deserted. The coffee pot was still on, however, keeping a half a pot of Costa Rica’s best hot and ready. She poured a cup for herself and then offered one to Massa. He accepted. He had had neither coffee nor food yet on this day.

“Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to play?” she asked him once they were both sitting at the table.

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her.

“Anything serious going on?”

He sighed. “I have a UTI,” he told her. “Woke up with the symptoms early this morning.”

She raised her eyebrows a bit. “A UTI huh? I thought guys didn’t get those because your urinary tracts are longer than ours.”

“That’s what the doc told me,” he said sourly. “I’m one of the lucky ones, I guess. Anyway, I’m fine. I got antibiotics and that stuff that makes your pee turn orange.”

“That stuff is a lifesaver,” Celia said. She had experienced the occasional UTI in her time—being on the road made women more prone to them for some reason—and could totally sympathize with Massa’s situation (though she still thought it was very odd that he had caught one—as someone who had never been a fan of anal sex or anything resembling it, she had not an inkling that that could be a risk factor).

He took a sip from his coffee. “So ... uh ... what did you want to talk about?”

“I heard from Liz last night,” Celia told him.

Liz, he knew, was her longtime keyboard player. He had never actually met her before but had heard a few tales of her from Meghan and Jake. She was an older woman, almost fifty if he had his information correct, who was getting it on with Celia’s lead guitarist, some guy they called Little Stevie, who was twenty years younger. Apparently he had mommy issues, was how Meghan had termed it. The two of them had been unable to assume their positions in the band when the rest of them had started but would be joining them next week. “Okayyy,” he said slowly, unsure why this was news he needed to hear personally. He knew that some medical issue had caused the delay in the two of them reporting for duty but did not know what the specific issue actually was.

“Liz is not just my pianist, she’s my soprano backup singer,” Celia told him. “Her voice is very important to my cause and she will be unable to use it during the workups and recording of the new CD.”

“How come?” Massa wanted to know, mostly out of curiosity. He had no idea why Celia was telling him this.

“She has nodules on her vocal cords,” Celia said. “A job hazard for those who sing for a living. She cannot hit any high or extended notes without her voice cracking. She just went to an ENT doc who specializes in vocal cords and he confirmed the diagnosis and gave her the cure. No singing or loud talking for the next three months at least, probably longer.”

“That’s a rip,” he said, using a Jake-ism he had picked up in his travels with the man.

“Indeed,” she said. “Liz is still able to play the keyboards for me, but I need someone else to fill in for soprano backup.”

“Sopranos are kind of hard to find, aren’t they?” Massa asked. He remembered hearing that somewhere in his musical travels—maybe from Jake himself.

“They are,” Celia concurred, “but I already have such a person lined up. Someone KVA has worked with before. Someone who has proven herself to be reliable and with a beautiful soprano singing voice.”

Massa felt a little burst of adrenaline go through him as he realized who she was talking about. “Tif,” he said. “Are you talking about Tif?”

“I am talking about Tiffany Moreland,” she confirmed. “Jake touched bases with her a few days ago when we realized that Liz’s issue might be more serious than we thought. She has been working over at Haybecker Studios singing for TV commercials and the odd film score. She is willing to take a leave of absence to work with us and Haybecker—a subsidiary of good old National Records Incorporated—is willing to grant such a leave in the interests of getting my next CD out ASAP so I might potentially sign with National for my next tour.”

“So ... Tif will be working with us?” he asked, just for clarity. He and Tif had worked very closely together during Jake’s Millennial Tour of 2000—likely too close for both his and his wife’s comfort. He had not been together with Meghan then in that way (though he had been quite in love with her from pretty much the moment he met her—a feeling she assured him was mutual) and had carried on a nearly year-long affair with Tif Moreland, who had been working as Jake’s soprano backup singer for the project. It had started with blowjobs. Tif was beautiful and sensuous, she sang like an angel, but she was as dumb as your average houseplant since her beauty had carried her through most of her life and she had never had the need to develop her brains. She was under the impression that she needed to swallow semen at least once a week in order to keep her singing voice healthy and no amount of logic could dissuade her from this belief. Massa had been her natural go-to for her ‘singing ointment’ as she called it and that had led to a more conventional sexual affair later in the tour. He had not seen her or heard from her in the four years since.

“That is the plan,” Celia said. “What I need to know is if you will be able to work with her after the ... uh ... history that the two of you share.”

He knew that everyone on the tour, even Meghan, had known about he and Tif and what they did together on certain days and nights when they were between shows, between cities. Everyone knew everyone else’s business out on the road, even if they tried hard to keep their business private. Everyone had known he and Tif were getting it on months before they even really had been. The relationship had started out and maintained itself for months with only blowjobs to deliver the singing ointment she believed she needed. And presumably she still required weekly ointment milkings. And who would she be likely to turn to for such a service?

“That’s a tough one,” Massa said slowly. “What happens if I say no?”

“Then you say no,” Celia said with a sigh. “Jake and Teach and I talked this over. If you really can’t work with Tiffany Mooreland as part of the band, then we’ll find another soprano singer.”

“You will?”

“We will,” she said, “but we do not really want to have to do that. It will take time to find someone else who can sing and who can fit in with a motley bunch of musicians for eight or ten months. That is time that could much better be used putting things together quickly and efficiently. We would much rather you say yes and at least give it a shot.”

He was picking up what she was laying down. They would, if push came to shove, keep Tif away and find someone else to be a soprano backup singer, but they really wanted him to suck it up and let them bring her aboard. To ask them to do otherwise would not keep him in their good graces. They would do it, but they would be upset with him for doing so. And he likely could kiss any hope of touring with Celia after the CD was released goodbye as well.

“I’ll make it work,” he told her. “I’ll just let her know that I am off the table for all things, particularly her singing ointment.”

Celia did not even bat an eye at this term. It was obvious that she knew about Tif’s beliefs about the magical properties of male semen. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I’m sure.”

“What about Meghan?” Celia asked next. “How is she going to react to this?”

“I don’t know,” he said with an anxious shrug. “I guess I’ll find out.”

“You told that doctor that we have butt sex?” Meghan asked in horror when he told her the news about his urinary tract infection later that day. They were home, Massa having just arrived from rehearsal, Meghan having been there since four o’clock when she got home from her clinical rotation. She had made the two of them hamburgers for dinner, making the patties Jake-style with garlic butter in the middle and then grilling them out on the Costco gas grill that had been one of their wedding presents to themselves.

“I didn’t come out and say that, no,” he said firmly. “She never mentioned it either. She just suggested that ‘certain alternative sexual practices’ can cause UTIs in otherwise healthy, monogamous men. She never used the words ‘butt sex’ in any form.”

“But that’s still what she was talking about,” Meghan said, exasperated. “What other kind of ‘alternative sexual practice’ results in feces inside of your dick? Feces that is ‘not necessarily yours’?”

“It doesn’t matter if she knows what we were talking about,” Massa insisted. “She’s a doctor. She’s not going to go around telling people or putting it on her Myspace page.”

It was obvious that Meghan had not considered the Myspace angle. Her face erupted into fresh horrified embarrassment. “She better not!” she cried. “We’ll sue her for every fucking...”

“Megs, honey-bunny, love of my life,” he told her, deliberately using her favorite terms of endearment he routinely laid on her, “I seriously doubt she even knows what Myspace is. She’s a doctor, remember. She doesn’t know anything for sure and she’s not going to tell anyone about what she might suspect.”

“But she knows that about me,” Meghan cried. “She knows that I like to ... you know ... have you put it up in there on occasion.” Something else occurred to her. “And does this mean we can’t do that anymore?”

“She didn’t say that,” Massa said, “but she suggested ... uh ... you know ... that maybe a condom would be appropriate during alternate sexual practices. That would keep my urethra away from any ... uh ... stuff that may be up there.”