It all began about a year ago or two. Jenn and Tom just celebrated their third anniversary and decided they were ready to start a family. But after two years of failure, Jenn's OB-GYN referred them to a fertility specialist. The doctor promptly ordered an exam for both. It turned out that scar tissue from an ovarian cyst, in conjunction with the low motility of Tom's sperm, made it unlikely that they'd ever have children naturally.
During the time they were dating seriously, they daydreamed often about the kinds of kids they would have...even picked out a list of 5 boy and girl names they could both agree on. Jenn dreamt of being the mom in the neighborhood who was known for having the best chocolate chip cookies; Tom, of being a t-ball coach. But to learn all that was for nothing...
They rode home from the doctor's office in silence. Without saying a word, Tom went straight to the kitchen and after getting two wine glasses, opened a bottle of pinot noir. Silently, he filled the two glasses and walked over to Jenn, who was in the living room, hidden in the far right corner of their loveseat, almost fetal, her dark tresses completely obscuring her face.
Setting the wine down on coasters, Tom climbed over to his silent wife and without a word, began massaging her shoulders until soon, the tears began to fall. Jenn turned to him and for a long time, they just held each other in the corner of the loveseat as the sobs came faster and faster, stifling them both until there was nothing left in them but the anguish. Finally, the sadness reached a decrescendo and they returned to quietly mourning the future that was lost to them now, desperate to comfort one another but too scared to speak and unable to breathe.
Tom leaned over and caressed her cheek slowly, tenderly, for agonizingly long minutes until Jenn finally cracked a half-hearted smile.
"Hey, we have each other, you know," he smiled, but not entirely convincingly.
Desperate not to stay miserable for the entire night, Jenn seized the conversational lifeline and held on to it with all her might. She smiled equally unconvincingly at her husband. "That we do," she said and put her hand on his as he continued to caress her face.
She could see that Tom was working up to saying something, and uncertain whether she should say something to prompt him or stay silent and let him get there, simply looked at him quizzically. It was her way: nurturing, not confrontational.
"Baby," he began, "this is my fault. I'm so sorry for bringing this on you."
Shocked, Jenn looked at her husband. "What in the world are you talking about? It was me, the cyst—"
"—but you didn't know you had the scar tissue. That wasn't your fault. Who would have known that it was there? No, this is my fault."
Confused and now slightly frustrated at not getting an answer, she said, "How is that possible?"
"Well, you know how we're supposed to visualize all the wonderful things we wanted for the kids while we were trying?"
"Yeah?"
Tom flushed and looked at his feet. "Well, I—when we were—I...I was sometimes thinking about something else," he almost whispered.
Jenn couldn't help feeling a bit betrayed and hurt, and Tom became the target of her frustration at their joint infertility. "You what?" she demanded in an uncharacteristically icy tone.
Without looking up, Tom passed her the wineglass, which she accepted impatiently. Taking a long drink out of his, he said softly, "I fantasize about you being with someone else. Some
ones
else."
It was Jenn's turn to take an extended pull from her glass. She started slowly. "So all the times we were making love, keeping that stupid damned schedule, taking temperature, all that crap, as we tried to realize our dream of starting a family, you were envisioning me as some kind of cheap slut?" Something in Jenn snapped in that moment. Her voice rose as she continued, "Every time we were trying to bring children into this world, you were thinking of me as a whore, you asshole?! You pathetic—just what the hell is wrong with you?!"
Jenn knew she was screaming now but didn't care. "I'm your fucking wife, Tom, not some drunk, frat house groupie, or one of those porn actresses trying to break the world record for taking the most cocks––your fucking wife!"
Tom gaped at his wife as she continued on her tirade. "How dare you think of me like that? Here I am, trying to make you a father, and you're thinking about how you wish I were some cum-guzzling whore who spreads her legs for any random dick? Is that what you want?"
As she stared at him in her rage, she noticed that his cock, never particularly large but always big enough for her needs, was straining the front of his jeans, and bigger than she ever saw it.
Tom's eyes are glazed over for a moment then noticed where her eyes were. He adjusted, to hide the commotion in his jeans, but it was too late.
Repelled, Jenn asked coldly, "So is that what we've come to? Now I'm just another pussy to you?"
"No, no, no! Jenn, it isn't like that!"
"Then just what the fuck is it like?"
"It's that...baby, I love you, and only you. You know that, right?"
Jenn rolled her eyes and snapped, "Yes, I know that. So?"
Tom opened his mouth several times, but no words came out. Frustrated, Jenn demanded, "For fuck's sake, what the hell is this about?"
Finally, Tom said quietly but firmly, "I want you to feel like the beautiful, pretty, sexy and gorgeous woman that you are." He became louder as he continued, "I want the lights on when we make love. I want to see you as you are. And damn it, I want you to see in you what I see every time I look at you."
"What the hell does that have to do with fantasizing about me with other men?"
"Do you remember how you told me once that you never felt more loved than after we have sex?"
Jenn saw where this was going. "So more sex equals 'Jenn has a healthier self-esteem'? And from there, I suppose it's reasonable to extrapolate that 'Jenn in the middle of a gangbang' equals healthiest self-esteem? Is that it?"
"Well, OK, yeah, if you put it that way, it sounds stupid, but..."
"Save it, Tom," Jenn snapped as she finished the rest of her glass in a swallow and retrieved the bottle from the kitchen. After filling her glass, she set it on the coffee table. She sat forward, glass still in hand, swirling the wine and admiring its rich color, trying to make heads or tails of his bizarre revelation.
Tom followed suit, remaining silent, uncertain what, if anything, to say.
After a painfully pregnant silence, Jenn looked at her husband again; the front of his jeans was still impressively swollen. "Well, I can see that you really like the idea, darling." An idea began to take shape in her mind.
Tom gave an awkward smile. "Yeah, um...sorry about that, but—"
And for the first time in the past six hours, Jenn laughed—he just looked so innocent and child-like. The countless moments of anxiety, the years of hurt and frustration, all of it came spilling out, a storm-swollen river finally bursting through the dam. Tom soon joined in, caught up in the swell of relief, and his frustration and guilt also washed away. He lay against Jenn as they both continued laughing for a few minutes, the decrescendo of the laughing fit now upon them.
Tom leaned over to his wife. "I'm sorry I ever mentioned it, all right? It's really unfair to you, I know that. I was being selfish, I shouldn't have said anything, it was just my guilt—"
Jenn shushed him with two fingers over his lips and rolled on top of him. "I guess I should be glad that you're being honest about it. But you know, that really doesn't have anything to do with our infertility. Our, meaning, you know, the both of us?"