Certain Ideal Circumstances

Reaching over to hold both her hands, his face was deadly serious as he quietly continued, "Barb, we've never had secrets from each other and we don't want to start now. Trying to have a baby is the biggest challenge we've ever faced. I wish to God we hadn't had to bring Carl into this but we did and I think we have to be completely open about it with each other. It may be hard for you to understand, but looking at the choice between knowing everything and knowing that you are keeping secrets from me ... even the smallest secret ... I'll choose full knowledge. Also, a psychologist may have an answer to this, but your confession is helping me overcome the jealousy I've been living with this week ... it's been hideous. Hideous!"

"I understand Owen, at least I think I do," Barb responded. "This is tearing me apart but I love you so terribly much I'll do anything you want. Since you want to know everything I'll start all over again at the beginning."

"That first night was frankly awful but at least it loosened the tension between us. The next morning, he was trying to make amends and make me comfortable and I appreciated it. He asked me which position I liked and if there were any special little things he could do to please me. I told him I liked being on top. After we started I tried to sit up straight like I do with you but he wasn't familiar with that and just kept thrashing up and down." She smiled wanly, "Gosh, I had to hold him tight just to hang on and that's when his hair scratched me. The second night we were more relaxed. Neither of us slept and our coupling got better each time. Is coupling the right word for it? It wasn't love, I know that. Maybe affection. Definitely sexual attraction ... a strong attraction. But it wasn't fucking. Carl is too caring for that and I would have been repulsed. There must be another word but I can't think of it ... "mission" is as good as any, I guess. I had lost my inhibitions and I must have hissed each time I came. At least he said I did. He said that was a first for him ... silence during the buildup and then a hiss at the end. He tried to make a joke of it and said he thought a snake had slithered into the room."

"You're many things, Barb, but a snake you're not. You're just you and I thank God every day for it. One final question and we'll put this whole thing behind us ... unless we have to do it again next month. Did you" ... Owen stumbled over words and repeated himself as he searched for some right way to ask his question. "This is difficult for me to ask but did you ... you know, did you do anything orally to him? I hope you won't think I'm perverted but I want to know. Maybe it's like watching a NASCAR race on TV and hating yourself for hoping there will be a crash."

Frowning deeply, she said, "Gosh darling, do you really have to hear about that? Is it really necessary?" He persisted and she reluctantly continued without looking at her husband. "Well, you know that I like being topside as you call it and I told him I would show him how we do it. He laid flat on his back and I started to kiss his ears and neck, just like you like it ... after all, whatever I know I learned from you. Then I nuzzled down through that forest of hair to his tummy." Seeing an opportunity to avoid saying more, she said, "God, what a hard stomach he has, what muscles! You have a way to go to match him in that department Mr. Anderson. You should spend more time in the company gym." Owen made a mental note of his small inadequacy and vowed to do just as she suggested.

"Keep going," he said, "I'm not going to let you off the hook and change the subject to a comparison of his fantastic abs and my flabby gut. Anyway, I'm not as soft as you think. C'mon, hit me. Hit me as hard as you can. Right here." Smiling, he tensed his stomach.

"Very funny ... and who's changing the subject now, huh? Where was I? I still don't know why you have to know all of this but you asked so I'll try to answer. It was obvious that my ... what shall I call them ... attentions? ...were having their effect and his penis was more than ready to receive me when I finally reached it. The head was all swollen up like a ripe little plum ready to burst. Yes, I did kiss him. I'm sure you must have assumed that I did. I caressed him. I tasted him deeply. He held my head still with his hands and slowly moved his hips like you do sometimes so it felt natural. But still I wanted to rule the roost on top and ... well, you know the rest."

Solemnly, she went on. "The next night I did it again because he enjoyed it and I wanted to please him. No, that's not really the reason I did it. I did it because I wanted to thank him. Thank him for being kind to me. Does that make sense? Probably not. Also, I was having strange feelings. I did it because those feelings told me to do it. I couldn't fight those feelings. I had lost control of myself. Once he was very close and I would have accepted him but he wouldn't let himself finish. We were there to conceive a child and that isn't done that way."

Looking downward, Barbara was silent for several minutes before continuing.

The Terror

"So now you know everything except the most important thing of all ... why I refused to return on the third night. Yes, of course I was tired. Twice on Thursday and three times on Friday with Carl plus yourentre act performances and I was reeling. But that wasn't the real reason I couldn't go back."

She sat unmoving. The room was deathly quiet. Time ceased to exist.

"Do you remember when you first described this mission you used the word "donor"? Somehow, that word depersonalized what we were doing and made it sound like nothing more than a version of the in vitro process. I grasped at that word because it gave me an excuse not to be ashamed of what I had to do. It made everything sound so simple and rational and uncomplicated. But at the same time I was paranoid that regardless of what you said, your love for me would change. I know better now. Tonight you were angry. Your words cut me deeply. But once they were said, once you had confronted your jealousy and confessed it to me, I saw your anguish. I saw how much you had suffered and it was heartbreaking. Owen, you are the most caring person in the world and I respect you more than I can ever begin to tell you."

Looking directly into her husband's eyes, she continued quietly but steadily. "I don't know how to go on but there is more I must tell you. What I'm going to say will hurt you again and I'm sorry, truly sorry. I can only hope you will forgive me when I'm finished. We're both intelligent people. Both of us have always been able to deal with difficult things but this goes beyond anything I've ever faced in the past. It goes beyond anything I can understand and I need your help now more than I've ever needed it before."

"This last week the demons you were facing made you blind to me. I understand that and I'm not criticizing you for it but I've been suffering my own demons. I've had terrible thoughts and I have to tell you before I fall to pieces. I may need a therapist to get through this and I'll start tomorrow if you tell me to."

"I told you that I was having strange feelings that second night. When I said I was too exhausted to return on Saturday it was just an excuse. I was afraid. I was afraid of being with him again. I was afraid because Iwanted to be with him again. I've not become infatuated with Carl or fallen in love with him or anything like that. Absolutely not! My love for you will never change. But he was the key that opened a dreadful Pandora's box of feelings that go far beyond him. This is an evil thing that has happened to me. Evil!"

Struggling with her innermost emotions, her love for her husband and her determination to be totally truthful at this critical point in their marriage, Barbara hesitated again before proceeding.

"God help me, but something has happened to me that I can't begin to understand ... I found that being with a man other than you sexually excited me more than I can ever describe. I've never had these feelings before. I detest admitting this to you Owen but they are stronger than anything I've ever felt for you. Most of all, I detest admitting this to myself. For the last week, I've thought of nothing but sex. Maybe it's because I came to you as the perfect little naive virgin bride and never knew anyone else. But now that I have I desperately want more. I know this for what it is ... the excitement of being on the edge of danger even when I know it can lead to disaster. It's sex but at the same time it's beyond sex ... it's all encompassing. Every morning this week after you left I masturbated thinking of men ... unknown men abusing my body ... and I wanted more. I was hallucinating. I knew it even as it was happening. They were fantasies but my orgasms were excruciating! Sex with no love at all ... just dogs fighting over a bitch in heat. Just sex ... just to have a man take me and fill me. I know that sounds clichéd but I don't know how I can describe it any differently. This is something an intelligent woman should be able to see through and control in a minute. Certainly not surrender to! But I can't control myself. It's a cancer that has eaten into my mind. I'm ashamed of myself, totally ashamed. I hate myself! More than that, I'm afraid of myself because I know where this can lead. I'm terrified of my thoughts! Absolutely terrified! I'm terrified of myself!"

Barbara's lips trembled as she desperately tried to describe her indescribable emotions.

"Owen, I have always been protected. Overly protected. My father did everything he could to keep every danger away from me. Not only physical danger but every emotional danger that I may have faced growing up. He was afraid of what boys would do to me while I was a teenager. Remember years ago when I told you that Alvin Best did a terrible thing to me? That wasn't a terrible thing. He was just an inexperienced young boy expressing what nature told him to do. I thought I was repulsed because I thought that is what my father would have wanted me to be. I don't know if he was selfish about my affection or if he just wanted me to stay his little virginal angel forever but until I met you I was afraid of all men. I was taught to be afraid of men by my father. I may have hidden it well, but that fear haunted me for years. I know my father loved me in his way and I suppose I still love him for who he is. He's a product of his generation just as we are products of ours. But over the last week a little of that love has been lost. I've lost my hero worship of him. He's no longer my idol. He didn't prepare me for life as it really is ... for myself as I really am. Now I need your protection."

"I'm sure that when we first loved you thought I was giving myself to you freely without a thought of the consequences. Far from it. I was afraid. Deathly afraid. I was afraid that our friends would find out and look on me as an easy lay or worse. I was afraid of pregnancy. Most of all, I was afraid that once you had me, you would leave me. I may have hidden all of that well and you never left and I thought your love had conquered all of those childhood fears. I was wrong. Those two nights with Carl brought back those fears but turned them around into this dreadful need. I fear what they have turned me into."

Closing her eyes, she held his hand to her cheek. "I'm not the strong person you thought I was. I'm not the strong person I thought I was. I'm weak and I need your strength to overcome this obsession before it destroys me. Help me be the person I want to be and not some bewildered creature pitifully begging for sex with any man that will have me. It's despicable but it's close to where I am. This is a repulsive virus that's consuming me and it's going to annihilate me without your help. Protect me from this terror. Protect me from myself."

The Rescue

Owen drew Barbara's head to his chest and softly stroked her hair. She listened to his heart beat the one word that would save her ... protection, protection, protection.

Barbara's terror heard the same word. Like the virus it was it resisted, snarling and cursing as it crumbled under the power of his love. It slowly ebbed. Then collapsed. It was gone. They vowed it would never return. They were one again.

The Gift

Barbara bloomed with health during her pregnancy. The ultrasound promised a daughter and they debated long over names before choosing Julia. There was no reason for the name. No family relative. No close friend. Just that it captivated them both. Delivery was easy and Julia became the treasured centerpiece of the Anderson family.

Today Revisited

The late May weather was warm and the Denison campus was bathed in Big Red banners to honor the year's graduating seniors.

Exceeding her parents' records, Julia graduated magna cum laude. The three joined together on the president's dais when it came time for her to deliver her address as class valedictorian. Barbara was iridescent in a light coral-colored suit that perfectly accented her dark hair and olive skin. Twenty-one years had passed since Julia's birth and the only telltale mark was a few laughter lines at the corners of her deep brown eyes. Owen's lanky frame towered over his diminutive wife. His blue eyes squinted in the harsh sunlight and his sandy hair blew in the spring breeze. Standing five inches taller than her mother, Julia's wide smile, blonde hair, fair complexion and sparkling blue eyes charmed the large audience of parents and friends. Sitting in the second row, Amanda and Carl Gebhardt and their 17-year-old son Stephen joined the applause as Julia completed her speech.

Gathering his two women into a giant bear hug, Owen smiled softly at his wife. "Certain ideal circumstances do occur from time to time in this life, don't they?"

Her eyes were wet. She smiled back.