Confusion Ch. 01

Chapter 1: The Beginning

It started innocently enough, at least for Don. His best friend and next door neighbor, Joe Morgan, stopped by one Friday night and asked if they could talk. He said he had a family problem, and hoped Don could help. That is, it took Joe two beers to get up the nerve to talk about it. After hemming and hawing half an hour he finally got to the point. His problem was, Joe was firing blanks in bed.

Don had known Joe and Jenny were trying to have kids. It seemed to be the only thing Jenny and Don's wife Diane could talk about. Anyway that was all Diane reported to Don. No man could be privy to all two lifelong best girlfriends talked about. Jenny getting pregnant had been a prime objective for over a year now, and the Jenny was getting pretty depressed.

After the third beer, Joe confessed to Don that he had gone to a Doctor and checked his own ability to have kids. Bluntly, if he was expected to father a child, the best they could hope for was another divine conception. Joe had a ridiculously low sperm count. It was so low, the Doctor called it a negative count. It could have been from one of several things that had happened to him as a teenager. But the exact cause wasn't important. The bald truth was he wasn't going to give any woman a kid.

He loved Jenny, and she was getting desperate to be a mother. Joe was afraid when she learned about his being sterile, Jenny might be so despondent and desperate she would consider leaving him. Jenny tested fertile. She tested very fertile. And she wasn't stupid, so she already suspected the problem had to be with her man.

Joe and Jenny had discussed, talked over lots of solutions. Adoption was one, which was Ok for Jenny, but Joe wanted any kid of theirs to have at least one of their genes. Artificial insemination was way beyond their means, so Joe had started thinking of -alternatives.

"Don," Joe finally said, turning to his buddy, "this is going to be hard to say, and you've got to think of all the aspects. I have a proposition for you, and if you get cute and joke about this you and I may have some serious trouble. But I read about this on the net, on one of those sex sites. Some guy had the same problem I have and he asked his best friend to put a kid in the guy's wife. They had a real sneaky way of going about it, and neither wife knew what was going on. It started me thinking, and damned if it didn't make a kind of sense."

Joe wiped the wet off the can and then popped the top off another beer then continued, "You and I are pretty alike. I'm taller, but our coloring is pretty much the same and people are always joking about how we look like brothers. I think it would work, and I know I could trust you. But there could be some problems, if you did it. For one, you'd know the kid was yours. 'Course your son thinks I'm his second daddy anyway, and I figured any kids I had would feel the same way about you anyway. All I ask is for you to think about it. Let me know next week. Jenny and I are heading over to her folks tomorrow for the weekend, so think it over and let's talk about it next Saturday."

Don sputtered a bit. He had choked on a mouthful of beer when Joe told him what his solution was. They talked for a bit, until Joe figured the best thing was for him to leave and let Don think it over. They could rehash it next weekend. He was pretty sure Don would say yes. He knew his buddy would never make a move on Jenny, but she was a stone fox. And guys were guys, after all.

And Don did think about it. Jenny was a fox, almost as much as his Diane. Like happens in all marriages sometimes, Diane and he were in one of the down phases right then. They had known one another for ages, dating all through high school and married now for eight years. They had gone through spots before where they found one another less exciting, but something always happened and the thrills came back. He knew that, so wasn't worried that the fun had left their marriage. It was just that they were going through the motions in bed the last few months. Working too many hours, a couple of things had come up around the house, all straightened out now. It would just take time, but eventually they would be salivating after one another again.

Another thing, he wasn't sure how his conscience would rest if he made it with another gal. He supposed it would work out OK under the circumstances but he couldn't be sure. He didn't want to do it and then find out he had screwed his marriage in addition to Jenny. Another problem was how he would be able to behave to Jenny, knowing he'd stupped her. The biggest problem, maybe, how would he handle knowing Joe's kid was really his. The thing was, they were next door neighbors and it was true David, his son, while loving him as his daddy, treated Joe like a second father. It gave the kid an advantage over the other kids in the neighborhood because Joe was around to help when Don couldn't be. No matter who knocked Jenny up, he knew he would be almost as close to Joe's kids as Joe was. So maybe that wouldn't be that much of a problem.

He decided to talk to Joe next weekend, and make his mind up then.

Jenny called Diane during the week inviting them over to dinner Saturday and to go out to a movie afterward. As usual they had a good time that evening, and after the movie Joe invited them in for coffee. The gals headed to the kitchen as usual to talk and make the coffee while Don and Joe sat in the living room.

Don immediately brought up the subject he had been wrestling with all week, and threw out a bunch of questions for Joe to answer. When the gals came out with the coffee half an hour later they were still a ways from Don being able to make a decision. One of the things making it so tough was that he couldn't discuss it with Diane.

After coffee, Joe asked Don to come over Sunday afternoon to help him with a make a repair to his fence in back. Don said yes of course, and then Diane suggested Jenny come over and help her on some curtains since the guys would be out of their hair.

The next day, Joe handled all of Don's questions, but refused to discuss how they could work it until Don agreed to the plan.

Don, though he still felt uncomfortable about it, finally agreed.

- - - - -

Joe's plan was really pretty simple. Joe claimed he lifted most of it intact from the same story on the web that had given him the answer to his problem. In a nutshell, the two couples would take a long weekend together. That was something they did a couple times a year anyway. He'd even picked out the small lake resort. They would go to Lake Hanson, a place the girls had been talking about for a while.

They would get adjoining rooms, then party all afternoon, getting both girls smashed. After Joe put Jenny to bed and she was asleep, he and Don would trade rooms and Don could do his thing. Diane couldn't handle her drinks as well as Jenny could, so she would never know Don had left. Joe figured Don could get the job done in less than an hour, maybe an hour and a half max. When he was done, he'd leave and Joe would slip back in and spend the rest of the night with Jenny.

It sounded simple enough to Don, but he quizzed Joe pretty hard on just how he would feel knowing Don was in doing his wife. Joe told him first of all it was something he, Joe, was setting up so he couldn't get mad at Don. And Jenny wouldn't be aware of the deception so he didn't feel it was like adultery, just a more personal way of getting her PG.

The two were quiet for a time, then Don told Joe he'd go along. He vowed to himself, he would not make any of the sly little innuendo the two of them threw into all their conversations, even to reply to one of Joe's. He'd just laugh and let it go.

Some three weeks later Joe and Jenny showed up on Don's doorstep on a Wednesday night. Jenny was bubbling over, Joe had won a three night stay for a party of four at Lake Hanson which was a three hour drive north of them. Joe explained it was a small resort, trying to get their name out in the public, and wanted to bring people in during their slower season. Jenny and Joe wanted Diane and Don to come with them if Don could get the time off. It had to be Friday through Sunday the weekend after this one. They had a small nightclub attached, golf, fishing and a lot of relaxation. Even had an indoor pool, if it was too cool for the lake. It was an easy sale, because the gals had talked about how much fun some of their friends had when they visited Lake Hanson.

Diane jumped up, threw her arms around Don and kept kissing him until he said yes. It was a quiet time at work, and he had a lot of comp time coming so that shouldn't be a problem. The guys made sure not to hint they had already set everything up last Friday.

Joe said he would make the arrangements and they spent the evening planning, the girls getting themselves excited over the unexpected holiday. Diane called her mother that night and made arrangements for David's grandma, her mother, to take care of him while they were gone. They would leave Thursday right after work, and eat dinner on the way up or maybe at the resort. They would come back Sunday afternoon. It looked like fun.

While the women were out in the kitchen chattering, Joe told Don that Jenny would be at her most fertile period the three nights they would be at the lodge. He was a little worried that Don hadn't had enough time to get time off. Don assured him it would be no problem. They decided to make the final preparations after they had seen the rooms.