My wife Cindy and I had just celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. Life was going great for us. I had a great career that paid exceptionally well and had phenomenal benefits. Recently, Cindy had quit her job as a social worker to focus full-time on her self-improvement blog which in the past few years had become remarkably successful. We had a enormous house and a fantastic lifestyle. The only thing we were missing was kids.

We had been trying off and on for the past several years to get pregnant, to no avail. At first, we hadn’t tried that hard. But, as the years went by, our desire for a child grew exponentially. We tried everything, but after several uneventful years, we were still childless. At one point, when Cindy thought she might be the reason why she could not get pregnant, she suggested we use a surrogate. I balked at the idea. For one, I knew I could not handle my baby growing in another woman.

One evening, Cindy and I had a few glasses of wine with dinner and discussed the situation. She suggested we adopt a baby, as there are a lot of unwanted children in the world. “Maybe God is trying to tell us something,” she offered.

I could have handled adoption, but I knew that Cindy wanted to have her own baby, to get pregnant, feel it growing inside her, and to give birth. With great apprehension, I decided to go to a doctor and find out what might be happening. Was I the problem?

It turned out that I was, or it was my sperm count. I didn’t have one. The doctor said I had testiclar azoospermia. That meant that my balls were defective and produced almost no sperm cells. I was devastated and felt like a failure at being a man. God had put me on the Earth to do one thing, and I couldn’t do it. How could I tell Cindy that I would never be able to give her children? I was so humiliated. I couldn’t bring myself to reveal my failure to her. So, I kept the information to myself.

I put it out of my mind, compartmentalized it and tried to move on with life. I think Cindy must have sensed what was going on. I never had a very good poker face. To her credit, she never once suggested I might be the problem. She never even suggested I get checked. Maybe she didn’t need the test to know that I was not a man. Cindy gradually stopped bringing up adoption or even wanting to have kids. She seemed to be resigned to staying with me and living a childless marriage. I loved her beyond imagining, but harbored a deep and lingering feeling that I was no longer good enough for her.

My feelings caused me to pull back from her. I became distant and less affectionate. When we tried to have sex, all I could think about was my lack of sperm and my inferiority as a man. I started having performance issues and struggled to get hard. When I could get hard, I often would lose my erection in the middle of sex. Cindy never complained. She would slide off, tell me it was okay, then get herself off with one of the toys in her collection.

My inability to make her cum only added to my feelings of inadequacy. I started working extended hours so that I could avoid coming home and facing my wife. I was working late on a Wednesday evening when my semi-estranged sister called me from out of the blue.

“Mike, it’s Terry,” she said, waiting for me to recognize her voice.

I knew who it was immediately. I hadn’t spoken with my sister Terry in over five years. The last time we talked, she had been hitting me up for money to help get Christmas presents for her five kids. Her deadbeat husband had lost the money they had set aside for the holidays on a series of lousy football bets.

“Yeah,” I replied coldly, “what do you want?”

“Mom’s dead,” was all she said. I hung up and called my parent’s home. My Aunt Meg answered and confirmed what my sister had reported. My mother had suffered a heart attack during her sleep and never woke up. My father was a mess. He depended on my mother for almost everything in life. I don’t know that he even knew how to pay bills. My mother always handled them.

Cindy and I were on a plane the next morning, heading home. We found my dad lost in a world of sadness and whiskey. We stayed there for the next several days. I had to help organize the funeral as Dad just wasn’t up for it. Afterward, Cindy and I helped get dad sober and tried to straighten out his life. It became clear he couldn’t take care of himself.

My sister was no help. All she cared about was reading Mom’s will to find out how much she was left, which wasn’t much. She refused to do anything to help my father. Once she realized she was not going to get anything worthwhile from Mom’s estate, she packed up and left.

Cindy and I considered putting Dad into a retirement home, but neither of us thought it was a good idea. He was not that old. He just needed some time to get his shit together. So, we decided we would invite him to come and live with us, for a while.

We knew he would refuse, and that it would be hard to convince him to leave the home he had shared with my mother for the past 30 years. We had to try. Cindy cooked a great dinner, and I thought maybe some whiskey would help loosen up his resolve.

As the evening progressed, I had to drink heavily to keep up with Dad. His liver must have been half dead or something because he could drink and drink without much effect, whereas I was getting slammed. We were right. He refused. I tried my best to convince him, but the booze was making me slur my words, and I struggled to put two cohesive thoughts together. Cindy took over the negotiations.

The room was spinning a bit for me. Cindy gave me a dirty look. I was disappointing her again. That only made me drink more. She moved over and sat on the sofa next to my father. I felt like throwing up and excused myself, then went to our room and collapsed on the bed. I was out cold in thirty seconds.

At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up. I instantly knew that my earlier fear of throwing up was about to become a reality. I jumped up and ran to the adjoining bathroom, spewing my guts into the toilet and on the floor. I puked until there was nothing left to barf up. My stomach wasn’t satisfied, so I dry heaved for several minutes before I was finally able to stand up. I splashed cold water on my face, rinsed my mouth out and then forced myself to drink a glass or two of water. I nearly threw that up, but choked it down and stumbled back to my bed.

As I fell back onto my childhood bed, I had a vague realization that Cindy wasn’t there. I assumed she was in my sister’s room as the bed was small and I doubted she wanted to sleep next to me in my drunken state. I went back to sleep, trying to keep my head from splitting open from the pain I felt between my ears.

When I woke again, it was daylight. Cindy had just come out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, smelling of soap. She was drying her hair with another towel.

“Can you do that a little more quietly?” I asked, groaning as I tried to cover my eyes to block out the light.

“Do what more quietly?” she asked.

“Dry your hair,” I replied, chuckling softly. I immediately regretted laughing as it caused my aching head to shake.

“You’re too funny,” she said. She didn’t sound happy with me, but by now I was getting used to her disapproving tone.

“Oh, fuck,” I sighed, “why did you let me drink so much?”

She picked up a bra and panties from the floor. They looked exactly like the ones I had seen her put on yesterday. She put them into a plastic grocery bag and rolled them up, then pushed the bundle into the bottom of her suitcase.

“So, what happened after I went to bed?” I asked as I rolled onto my side to face her. Her head jerked to the left as she stared at me with a somewhat surprised look on her face.

“What do you mean?” she asked. Was she acting weird or was it just my hangover.

“I mean with my Dad,” I responded, puzzled by her reaction.

She looked down at her lap. “N-nothing happened,” she replied, “why?”

I lay back down, “So, you weren’t able to convince him to come with us?”

She let out a breath, then seemed to relax a bit. “Oh, actually I was,” she stated. “Your dad wants to move back here once he feels up to it, but I got him to agree to stay with us for at least a few months.”

I nodded. “What did you have to do to get the stubborn old bastard to agree to that?”

She gave me a dirty look, which surprised me. “You shouldn’t say that! Tom just lost his beloved wife. Give him a break. If you gave him a chance, you might see he’s not all that hard to get along with.”

Fuck, that was all I needed. Now, not only was Cindy against me, she was defending my father. That was more than I could handle.

“Yeah, ok,” I said, then rolled over, turning my back on her. “It’s bad enough we’ll have to put up with Tom in our home for God knows how long, now I have to put up with you taking his side, too.”

Cindy put a hand on my hip and spoke softly, “Baby, I’m not taking his side. The situation is difficult for all of us. I’ll always have your back, no matter what.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but I let it go.

“And you will always have my back,” she said as she turned away from me, pulling her towel up to show me her naked ass. She continued to spin slowly and as she resumed facing me. She opened the towel showing me her nude body. “and my front, and everything in between.” I stared at her full breasts and her perky, erect nipples, the little patch of pubic hair that she left over her pussy, and the way her labia puffed out from her slit. In spite of my hangover, I could feel myself growing hard.

She dropped the towel and climbed in the bed with me, kissing me passionately. “I need you to fuck me, baby,” she said breathlessly. Her hand gripped my cock and stroked me, trying to pull it to her needy little pussy.

I resisted. “Dad will hear, Cindy, these walls are paper thin.”

She started kissing her way down my body, “So,” she countered, “let him hear. Show him who the man of the house is and who owns this pussy.”

Fuck, what had gotten into her? I’d never seen her act this way before. I was about to protest more when her mouth wrapped around my cock and began to suck me. She gave me little choice, aggressively sucking me rapidly up and down. I let out a moan and relaxed into the bed. She suddenly stopped, and I would have begged her to continue if she hadn’t immediately straddled me and guided the head of my cock to her hot pussy. I slid in surprisingly easily until I had wedged my entire girth inside her.

Cindy let out an animalistic growl, then began to grind her hips, working my cock into her exceptionally wet pussy. “Fuck,” I gasped, “your pussy is on fire.”

I could feel her juices running down my balls and thighs as she slammed her body up and down, literally ramming my cock as deep as it could go, over and over again. I could feel the head of my cock hitting her cervix. It was a shame I shot blanks, I thought. As my mind drifted to my masculine failure, she bucked her hips, and I felt a profoundly intense jolt of pleasure rising inside of me. Three more slams of her hot cunt and I cried out, shooting my impotent seed into her depths, splashing pointlessly on the mouth of her uterus. My orgasm triggered hers, and she screamed, through what seemed like several minutes of gut-wrenching pleasure.

As she came down from her orgasmic high, she collapsed on top of me and lay there in silence as our breathing returned to normal. “We should probably go talk to your Dad about the plans.”

I wasn’t thrilled that she wanted to break the magic of the moment so quickly and even less since the reason was to talk to my father. Begrudgingly, I got up out of bed and got a shower. When I finished, I found Cindy and Dad in the kitchen drinking coffee and making small talk.

Eventually, we worked out the details. Cindy and I flew back home. Dad drove his van out two weeks later. When he arrived, he gave me a quick, stiff hug, then wrapped Cindy up in an overly affectionate bearhug. They went inside, leaving me alone to bring in his luggage.

That night, Cindy cooked my Dad’s favorite meal and pampered him like he was the king of the castle. When I got a moment alone with her in the kitchen, I expressed my concern to her. She told me I was overreacting and that he was a guest in our home, not to mention that he was still in mourning. She hit me with a massive guilt trip. It ruined my already bad day. In frustration, I went to bed early, leaving the two of them with a bottle of wine.

Cindy woke me up about three in the morning when she stumbled into bed. She said she had fallen asleep on the sofa after having one too many glasses of wine.

I found even more reasons to work late over the next few weeks. I couldn’t stand being around Cindy, and with my father there, it was even worse. All my old feelings of inferiority from my childhood had all come flooding back. He had a way of making me feel like the little boy who was never good enough.

I was at work one afternoon when uncharacteristically Cindy called me. I almost didn’t answer my cell phone when I saw it was her. I let it ring and was about just to let it go to voicemail when I picked it up and slid the screen to answer.

“Hey, Cindy, what’s up?” I asked brusquely.

“Hey, baby,” she replied. She hesitated for a moment before speaking. “Uh, can you come home on time tonight. I have something important I need to talk to you about.”

“Can you just tell me now?” I asked. I wasn’t interested in a long, drawn-out conversation.

“No, baby. It’s imperative, and I want to talk to you about it face to face.” She sounded like she was crying. Suddenly, I felt like shit.

“Are you okay, honey? Is something wrong?” I asked, concerned about her.

“I’m fine,” she replied, then hesitated. “It’s crucial. Can you be home by six?”

“Yeah, I can,” I said, giving in. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” she answered, “just please be here on time.”

I promised I would. The rest of the day, I couldn’t concentrate at all. I finally gave up and packed up my stuff and left work. I got home about 5:30 and found Cindy in the kitchen, sitting at the table next to my father, hands interlocked on top of the table. She was crying. When she saw me, she looked shocked, pulled her hands free, then tried to wipe the tears away.

My father gave me a look that was hard to read. It seemed to be one part concern, two parts smugness. I felt awkward in my one home. Cindy spoke before I could ask what was up.

“Oh, hi honey,” she smiled, but I could still see tears welling up in her eyes. “I have an important announcement to make.”

“What,” I asked sarcastically, “did else someone die?” I knew my comment would remind my father of my mother’s recent passing. That was my intention.

Cindy looked surprised and glanced at my father, “No,” she began, “nothing like that.” She took a deep breath and then continued, “We’re pregnant.”

I felt an immediate shock hit my body like a massive punch to the gut. I could tell my mouth was hanging open. I started to protest, knowing the state of my sperm. “That’s not... , “ but I cut myself off. I wasn’t ready to reveal that little bit of information. Instead, I replied in a way that I was sure would hurt.

“Who’s the father?” I asked, staring at her intently.

Her face turned red instantly, and she stammered to answer. “Y-you are, of course! Why would you even ask me such a thing?” I wasn’t comfortable discussing it in front of my father.

“Why are you here?” I asked him coldly.

“Just to give you two my congratulations,” he responded getting up and patting me on the shoulder like I had done an excellent job chopping the wood when I was ten.

“So, you already knew?” I asked, then turned to Cindy, “You told him before you told me?”