Chapter 1: The E-Mail

He could barely move in his weakened condition. At first they thought it was something he might have eaten on the flight or shortly beforehand. But the doctor had come to see him after he had finally found the wakefulness to perceive what was going on around him as more than a fever dream. As far as he could comprehend he’d been in this hospital bed for two days now. This wasn’t really how this was supposed to go. Rather, he had expected that by this time he would be sitting at a desk looking at company finances.

He received the e-mail from his father some weeks back that was unexpected to say the least. He hadn’t heard from the man himself for nearly 20 years; At least not directly. Oh, he didn’t abandon him, not by any means. He may have left his mother when he was five years old, but he had never missed an alimony payment. They were never without and his education was paid for. Once he had started university Mom had re-married and moved from Pittsburgh to Florida. In some ways it was like a shedding of skin, a new stage in his life.

Granted this outreach wasn’t the first time he had contact with his father’s new circumstance. Since the divorce he had done quite well for himself. His Badlands Sunrise investment fund was one of the bright young stars of the current market from what he understood. Like his mother he too had re-married, a Dutch woman by the name of Marielle. She had a daughter, Alicia. He had met them for the first time two years back when they had been in town for a couple of days. The first was closer to his age than his father’s but that really wasn’t a surprise, to be honest. She had looked him up on their way to Nashville. Apparently the road trip was a Sweet 16 birthday gift for the girl.

He was hired by Winrose and Heller out of St. Louis just after graduation. He’d been working for the accountants for just about three years when his father popped back up in his life again. According to the correspondence Austin Allenby wanted to take his long neglected son under his wing and try to build their relationship up once again. He knew more about him than Samuel thought he would, being away as long as he had been. It was one of the things that convinced him that he was serious. He did have to think about it some. He had a life in Missouri and a decent one at that. His bosses liked him, he had just started dating a girl named Devon, and he had a modest but nice apartment with a somewhat distant view of the river.

Still, in the end, he needed to give his old man another chance. He was only five when it happened. He really could not comprehend the situation at that time, not really. And his father had always made sure the two of them didn’t suffer financially from the lack of a breadwinner in the house. He was 26 now. He had heard his mother’s side of the story. He was old enough now to hear his fathers, which was what he had intended on doing. Until this happened.

“So, we’re not sure exactly the cause, Mr. Allenby, but there was some internal inflammation in your urethra,” Doctor Bergeron explained, holding the sippy cup in front of him so he could hydrate before putting it in the holder next to his head. “We were actually lucky we caught it when we did, you would have been on a pretty painful spiral had we not.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“Well, according to your stepmother you were feverish when you got off the plane already so she brought you straight here,” the tall dark skinned woman revealed. “You don’t remember that?”

“Not really, no. I remember her picking me up at the airport. After that everything is a blur.”

“So you remember snippets,” she nodded. “That’s a good sign. You mentioned something about abdominal pain on the way in, so that is where we started. We had to open you up to fix the problem. Normally we would have waited to talk to you first, but time was of the essence and you weren’t in any condition to give informed consent. As your father’s wife she could on your behalf.”

“Why? What did you do to me? Am I still whole down there?” he probed lethargically trying to move his arms, suddenly a bit more frantic than he had been.

“Relax, Mr. Allenby, relax,” she smiled warmly holding his hand firm against the rail of the bed. “Yes, you are indeed whole down there. Some might even say better. We treated and rerouted your urethra and created an artificial port between your testicles and your anus. For now on, you’ll need to sit down to urinate, but now your penis has one purpose and one purpose only. And there will be no more abdominal pain.”