August

May 3

"I need to get pregnant. Now."
The fertility counselor nodded and scribbled some notes down in the yellow notepad he had open on the desk in front of him.
"OK."
"No. Not 'OK.' I'm under a deadline here."
The counselor nodded calmly.
"And when is your deadline date?"
"Four days from now."
The man looked surprised.
"May 7??"
Sheridan exhaled.
"Yes, May 7. Four days from today. This is a rush job. Let's discuss."
The counselor stumbled over his words as he looked back down at the sheet in front of him.
"OK. OK, well, are drugs an option for you at this time?"
Sheridan shook his head in exasperation.
"Everything is an option for me at this time."
The man nodded and continued writing.
"OK. Well, let's talk about you. I'm looking at your chart and the results from your blood test, and I don't see anything which would indicate any major problems that we should be worried about. Have you been keeping track of your cycles?"
Sheridan rolled his eyes.
"I have been keeping track of everything. I have a sex journal, a body journal, and a fertility journal; I track my hormone levels, I take my temperature twice a day, I take every supplement the CEC will give to me, I cook all my own food so that I can monitor my intake, I eat garlic and honey and spinach and oysters, I won't go near tea, coffee, or wine, I drink exactly 8 glasses of water a day, I take disgusting prenatal vitamins, I rub some weird cream that my friend James gave me on my cunt twice a day, and I snack on so much fucking soy I feel like I should be standing on hooves out in a fucking field. Nothing works."
The counselor frowned seriously and wrote all this down.
"And has your husband been tested already for any possible health conditions which might impact his fertility?"
There was silence, and the question hung there, in the air, forming a pause between them which seemed to stretch on forever. Finally, Sheridan answered.
"He's fine. Aaron is fine." There was another pause. "But if there were some confounding issues between us..."
The counselor looked up at Sheridan; his eyes darted quickly over his patient's face, then went back down to the paper in front of him. Sheridan went on.
"I was wondering if there might be some discreet solutions available."
The counselor stopped writing and calmly put his pen down. He folded his hands on the desk and stared at Sheridan. Sher didn't blink.
"I was wondering," he continued, "If there might be some other avenues we could take. To ensure a successful pregnancy."

~

By the time he got home, Soyinka had already arrived. Sheridan found him sitting by the window in the office, his wire rim eyeglasses on, and his face contorted into an expression of deep concentration as he pored over a page. However, at Sheridan's approach, Soyinka looked up, smiled, and stood to offer him a kiss, setting his stack of papers aside. Sheridan accepted the embrace graciously; when Soyinka reached up to touch his face, Sheridan saw that his hands were stained slightly in red ink - he must've been editing. They broke apart and Sheridan picked up the paper from the top of the stack. Its first page was covered liberally with red markings.
"Students?"
Soyinka grinned wryly.
"It's only their first drafts. They'll improve."
Sheridan set the paper back down and wandered farther into the room. Soyinka watched him.
"How was the CEC?"
Sher shrugged.
"OK. Boring. There wasn't as much to do as I thought there might be."
Soyinka lifted one eyebrow and put his hands in his pocket, staining the corner of one slightly as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.
"Have you thought about taking some classes?"
Sheridan rolled his eyes, but his back was to Soyinka and so the effect was lost.
"I don't have time."
Soyinka quietly mulled this over, frowning as he pushed his glasses up a little farther on his nose, then lost patience with them and took them off completely.
"Well. Maybe it would give you something to think about besides - "
"What do you want for dinner?"
Sheridan interrupted brightly. Soyinka looked at him for a minute, then tilted his head and looked out towards the window, where the sun was just trickling down into the afternoon and the sky was dimming ever so slightly.
"Did you think about it, Sheridan? We only have three days."
Sher closed his eyes.
"Yes."
"And?"
"We can go."
Soyinka nodded.
"I'll call Femi tonight."

~:~