2010
It was a sunny Tuesday afternoon in May. Bryan looked out the window of his above-the-garage office and reflected again on how lucky he was. A nice home in a semi-rural neighborhood of Novato and, financially speaking, the house was well above water. Back in the mid 90's when they'd bought, prices hadn't yet gone completely crazy and Carol was still a full time teacher. Her salary added to his had made the loan possible. Now with all the appreciation and in spite of the 2008 crisis, they were still okay, very okay in fact.
His career. Except for the shitty glitch at the beginning, he was satisfied with that too. After getting his B.S. in civil/structural engineering from Iowa State, he had proudly accepted an offer from a big prestigious engineering company in Chicago -- SMJ and Partners. They had planning and design contracts worldwide -- transportation, power, flood control, you name it. His starting salary at SMJ was way more than double what his Dad made as a farm equipment mechanic back in Eagle Grove, Iowa.
What he didn't know when he signed on was that he was heading for the same slavery that young lawyers got tricked into by big prestigious law firms. Slavery? What else do you call a 70+ hour work week plus take home work? The only difference was that those young lawyers earned 2 and 3 times as much as he did and their lifestyle reflected that: BMW's, nice 5 room apartments with lake view, etc. Bryan had to be content with a hand-me-down Buick Century and a 3-room apartment with a great view of the neighboring apartment buildings.
SMJ had been proud to offer him a job with fringe benefits like sick leave, sickness insurance, pension fund and two weeks paid vacation every year. The trouble was finding the correct time to take the vacation. After twice having to cancel a ski vacation in Colorado due to urgent work, Bryan had told his boss to fuck himself and went back to Eagle Grove with his tail between his legs. After a few weeks of renewing friendships with old high school buddies who talked about mundane shit that wasn't worth talking about, he had gotten in the Century and headed west on a road trip. Driving into San Francisco on a sunny day in February, he concluded that there were better places to live than in the corn and soybean belt.
Then the sweet voice of his wife, Carol, interrupted his reflections: "Bryan, Robin stopped by and we're having coffee. Couldn't you take a few minutes to join us on the patio in back?"
Robin and Carol's friendship went back to the time when they were both teaching primary school in Novato. Carol being almost a generation older, had been Robin's mentor when Robin started teaching and they had become close personal friends. A few years ago, Robin had married Ted, a manager type, fast tracking towards big bucks with a hedge fund in San Francisco. Ted's fat paycheck combined with Robin's teacher's salary had allowed the newlyweds to buy a nice condo in Mill Valley and had made it possible for Robin to join Carol in the ranks of substitute teachers. In spite of living almost 20 miles apart and their husband's lack of common interests, Carol and Robin had remained friends and saw each other regularly. At least weekly they jogged together, either in the forested hills behind Bryan and Carol's house, or when Carol drove down to Mill Valley, they jogged in Muir Woods or in Mount Tamalpais Park. On non-jogging days, they just got together for coffee.
"Okay, Hon. I'll be right down. I just have to save this set of calculations." Bryan was a structural engineer with a license to practice in California. For the past 17 years he had run his own one-man practice, working out of the office over the garage.
2009
Roughly a year earlier, Carol and Robin's friendship, had taken on a new dimension. That new dimension had to do with Ted and Robin's unfulfilled desire to have children. After screwing themselves half to death trying to get Robin in a family way, they had finally decided to take a more scientific approach and had had Ted's semen tested. The result was pretty devastating -- there just weren't enough viable sperm cells in Ted's semen to get Robin pregnant. Then what? Adoption? No, too much paperwork and bureaucracy and Robin really wanted the child to come out of her own body. They had looked into using a sperm bank, but before signing the contract, Ted had read a story about a bookkeeping error that caused a couple in L.A. to become the proud parents of a baby who was very obviously of a different race. Ted and Robin never signed the sperm bank contract.
Shortly after Ted and Robin had abandoned the sperm bank idea, Carol was having lunch with Robin in Mill Valley. The impossibility of pregnancy had been weighing pretty heavily on Robin and she never hesitated to unload her tribulations on Carol. Not being one who can endure a lot of negative talk, Carol had resorted to scurrile humor: "Robin, I really feel for you. Look if it's fertile sperm from a healthy male of the same race that you need, I know one hell of a good source."
"You mean a really super reliable sperm bank? The one that Ted and I didn't sign with was one of the most expensive and had such a good reputation. Carol, I just don't know. Anyway can you give me the name and address? I'll talk to Ted about it. No promises though."
"Robin, don't you know how lesbian couples get children?"
"I heard that most sperm banks won't serve them -- actually it's illegal in some states isn't it?"
"That's why so many lesbian couples get the sperm from a friend, often a gay friend I've heard. The guy has to masturbate and ejaculate in cup. Then they suck his semen into a syringe and the mother-to-be gets fucked with the syringe. It's that easy."
"Carol!"
"Robin, really that's apparently how it goes. Anyway, what's so wrong with it. These women know the biological father, his background, character and so forth. Isn't that better than getting your baby out of a freezer somewhere? When the donor is anonymous, for all you know, he might be been a career criminal, or even worse, a Republican."
"And you have a proper man in mind. a guy who's gonna ejaculate into a cup and pass it on to me?"
"Absolutely! My husband Bryan. He has plenty of semen, believe me, I know! After we fuck, it flows out of my pussy."
"Carol, you're impossible!"
"Robin, believe me, when he comes, he really comes."
"But didn't he get a vasectomy? I need sperm, not just semen."
"No, he didn't. I had my tubes tied. And does that mean you want to do it?"
"Carol, wouldn't it bother you if I were to bear the child of your husband?"
Never in her wildest dream had Carol imagined that Robin would do anything but laugh at the idea. Now she sort of wished she hadn't brought it up. At this point, she had to keep up the show so she answered: "No, it wouldn't bother me. I'd just look at the child as, well, maybe sort of a niece or nephew."
Carol thought she was on safe ground because she was convinced that Ted would never agree. She wondered though if Bryan would. Yeah, interesting question she thought. They had parted with the agreement to ask their husbands. Carol had gotten her answer from Bryan soon enough and it wasn't the answer she had expected. The final surprise was when Robin called to tell her that Ted had agreed.
2010
For the past year, the two couples had gotten together whenever Robin ovulated. The first few times, Bryan would go into the bathroom where he would masturbate and ejaculate into a sterile cup. Coming out, he'd hand the cup to Carol to take into the bedroom where Ted was waiting with Robin, already lying on the bed, naked from the waist down, thighs spread, knees bent and with a cushion under her hips to help keep her pelvis up. In preparation for her insemination, Ted applied Pre-Seed lubricant to her vagina. With both of them watching, Carol would transfer the semen to the syringe and hand it to Ted, who worked it into Robin and operated the plunger.
The first few times Carol had been present for the insertion and actual insemination. Recommended practice for a successful insemination is that after injecting the semen, the woman remain lying with her pelvis up for at least half an hour and that she have an orgasm during that time.
Carol and Robin were close but not so close that Robin wanted her to watch Ted finger her to climax so Carol left the room after Ted injected the semen. Once she became convinced that Ted was injecting properly, she would leave the room before he injected. Bryan had never been invited to watch the injection process, but Carol did tell him how they did it. Not that he wanted to watch. To him, the whole thing that they were doing was a rather cold mechanical process, not conducive to making babies. After a few months of no success, he had told Carol his feelings about going into the bathroom and masturbating. She had proposed an improvement - she would masturbate him and hold the cup too. Bryan had at least one thing in common with most of the other 4 billion men in the world -- they all enjoy having their wives/partners give their penis the attention it deserves.
Carol's expert hand-job improved Bryan's attitude but of course had no effect on getting a baby started and here they were a year down the road and what had they achieved? Bryan had received a bunch of really erotic hand-jobs. The relationship between the two couples had advanced to the point where Bryan and Ted actually enjoyed one another's company. But still, Robin was not pregnant.
Bryan's cell phone rang. It was Carol speaking in a disappointed voice. "Bryan, I thought you wanted to join Robin and I for coffee."
"Carol, I'm so sorry. It took longer than I thought. Be down in a jiffy."
To himself: "Could it be that I shot the silver bullet and they want to celebrate the pregnancy." The last masturbation/ejaculation/injection session had been 3 weeks before and that would have given Robin time to miss a period. When he joined the two women on the patio, Robin's sad face and teary red eyes told him that he hadn't shot the silver bullet.
Carol said the obvious, "Robin's not pregnant yet."
Bryan was about to relate all the efforts he had made -- sperm count test, reduced alcohol consumption, healthy food, exercise, generous load of semen -- but realized in time that that wouldn't comfort Robin, maybe just make her feel worse. Instead he asked: "Carol, when you transfer and Ted injects, are you sure of the procedure. I mean there must be different techniques and some must be better than others."
"Bryan, We've been following the insemination kit instructions religiously. Robin has even consulted a fertility specialist about the technique. As far as we can tell, the only thing that'd improve our probability of success would be to have actual intercourse."
