Dominic
The fertility clinic gives me a plastic cup, points me toward a private room, and reduces my part in creating a child to directions printed on a laminated sheet.
I knew exactly what today would require. Elena and I reviewed the process with her doctor, signed the forms, completed the testing, and agreed to begin this way before either of us knew what her mouth tasted like.
Knowing doesn’t stop me from hating it.
Elena sits across from me in the waiting room with her coat folded over her lap.
She chose a black dress and low heels for work, and her hair is pulled into the neat knot she wears when she wants every piece of herself contained.
Nothing about her suggests she was naked beneath me less than forty-eight hours ago.
Then she looks at my hands.
Her eyes lift immediately, but I saw it. She remembers what those hands did on her couch. I remember her fingers around my cock and the sound of my name when she came against my mouth.
A man near the reception desk turns a magazine page. The television mounted in the corner runs a morning show with the captions on. Elena uncrosses her ankles and crosses them again.
“Did you sleep?” I ask quietly, noting the faint shadow under her eyes her makeup doesn’t quite hide.
“Enough.”
The same answer she gave me during the contract negotiation.
“That means no.”
“It means I’m here, on time, with every instruction followed. Sleep wasn’t on the list of requirements.”
I almost smile. “You checked.”
“Of course I checked.”
The receptionist calls my name and ends the conversation for us.
Elena’s fingers tighten once on the sleeve of her coat. “I’ll be here.”
“I know.”
I follow the receptionist through a locked door. She confirms my identity twice, checks the label against my wristband, and explains a process I could repeat from memory. Everything is careful, private, and efficient.
It also has nothing to do with Elena.
That was the point of choosing the clinic. A medical procedure allowed her to pursue pregnancy without making sex part of our agreement. It protected her right to decide what happened to her body and kept my position at work from influencing her.
Then Elena asked me upstairs Saturday.
I complete what they need, wash my hands, and return the labeled cup at the designated window. My part is finished within minutes.
Elena is still in the same chair when I return, although her coat is beside her now and both hands are locked around her phone. She glances at me, then at the hall I came from.
“Everything okay?” she asks, her voice carefully neutral, a tone I’ve heard her use right before challenging a number in a meeting.
“Yes.”
Color moves into her cheeks, and she looks away. “Good.”
I could make that answer sexual. Saturday night, I would have done it just to watch her react. Here, with other patients waiting and Elena about to carry every physical part of this attempt, I sit beside her and leave the opening alone.
Our shoulders are separated by a few inches. After Saturday night in the elevator, it feels like miles.
The nurse who calls Elena’s name checks both our IDs again and leads us into a consultation room. She reviews the monitoring results with Elena, confirms that the procedure is aligned with her verified ovulation window, and points out the projected dates for the next cycle in the file.
I don’t like seeing a second window documented before we have completed the first attempt. I understand why the clinic plans ahead. Elena needs clear dates, and neither of us benefits from pretending one procedure guarantees anything.
I still don’t like hearing it.
“We’ll place a tentative hold based on this projection,” the nurse says. “The actual timing may change when we monitor the next cycle.”
Elena nods. “That’s fine.”
The nurse looks between us. “Do you have any other questions?”
I have several, none the nurse can answer.
Elena says, “No,” clipping the word off. It’s the same finality she uses to shut down a negotiation.
The nurse gives us the instructions for the twelve-day wait, confirms Elena’s follow-up appointment twelve days from now, and tells her they’re ready for the procedure. I stand when she does.
“I’ll be outside,” I say, the words a poor substitute for what I really want, which is to go with her.
She meets my eyes. “Okay.”
She follows the nurse through another door, and I return to the waiting room.
This is what Elena asked for. I agreed because the clinic lets her decide how close I get, and I meant every promise I made about consent. Saturday doesn’t change that.
I still hate sitting in a chair while strangers take her into another room.
I provided a sample. Elena gets the appointments, the monitoring, the procedure, the waiting, and every consequence if this works.
The contract can divide our legal responsibilities evenly.
It can’t move any part of the procedure into my body or make her carry less of the risk.
The locked door opens again, and Elena walks out with her coat over one arm and the instruction packet in her hand. Her face is composed, but her fingers have pressed a crease into the edge of the packet.
I take the packet when she offers it, then hold her coat while she slips it on. My knuckles brush the back of her neck as I lift her hair free from the collar.
She goes still for half a second.
So do I.
“Ready?” I ask, my voice steadier than I feel.
“Yes.”
We leave the clinic side by side without discussing Saturday night. In the elevator, she looks at my hands again.
The clinic tells us to wait twelve days before the test.
Elena follows the instruction exactly. She doesn’t ask me to speculate about symptoms or give anyone at work a reason to know we’re waiting for a result. I know because I pay attention, and because she manages the distance between us with exhausting precision.
The morning after the procedure, she sends me the revised acquisition analysis before seven. At the executive meeting, she challenges two projections without looking at me any longer than she looks at the other people around the table. I do the same.
By Wednesday afternoon, we’ve worked alone in my office for nearly an hour.
She sits across from me with her laptop open and the clinic’s folded instruction sheet visible inside her notebook.
Neither of us mentions it. When she finishes reviewing a marked-up report, she places it on the desk instead of passing it directly to me.
I take the report after she withdraws her hand.
On Thursday evening, we attend a client dinner at a restaurant three blocks from the office. Elena orders sparkling water with lime. No one at the table questions it, and I make certain my own drink order doesn’t draw attention to hers.
She notices. Her eyes meet mine over the rim of her glass, and for one second, I’m back in the West Loop bar with my hand at her waist and her thigh pressed against mine. Then the client asks her about integration costs, and Elena answers without missing a beat.
The following Monday, I add a private hold to the personal calendar Evan maintains for me. The clinic’s tentative appointment for her next cycle is scheduled for just over two weeks after we’re supposed to receive the result. I don’t ask Elena whether she still intends to use it.
She stopped us on her couch, saying sex would change what existed between us. I keep the appointment on the calendar because she hasn’t said otherwise, even if I hate what it means.
By the eighth day, even an ordinary meeting with Elena requires effort. She pauses at my office door, then comes in. I move to let her pass and catch the faint scent of her perfume. She keeps walking. I close the door without touching her.
We discuss a staffing decision for twenty minutes.
When the meeting ends, she gathers her papers and says, “You can stop being careful every time we’re alone.”
“Can I?”
Her fingers stop on the edge of the folder. “Professionally.”
“That’s the only way I’ve touched you here.”
“I’m aware.”
The way she looks at me brings back her legs around my shoulders, her hand at the back of my neck, and the moment she said wait and trusted me to do it.
I lean against the edge of my desk instead of closing the distance. “Then tell me what you want me to change.”
She opens her mouth, but footsteps sound in the hall. Elena reaches the door before the person outside can knock.
On the eleventh day, I see her standing at Maya’s desk with her phone in her hand. She checks the screen, puts it facedown, and asks Maya a question about the next morning’s schedule. Her confirmation appointment is before work. She has followed every other instruction, so I trust her to wait.
We finish the day without being alone again.
On the twelfth morning, Elena comes into my office and closes the door. She keeps her phone in one hand and doesn’t sit. I know what the clinic told her.
“The clinic confirmed it,” she says, her voice so devoid of emotion it’s a performance. “It didn’t work.”
Disappointment lands somewhere in my chest and stays there. I knew the odds. The clinic made sure we understood them, and Elena made sure she understood every number twice.
I still wanted a different call, and she did too. Her thumb rubs hard across the edge of the phone case while she waits for me to answer.
I walk around the desk, then stop a few feet away. “What do you need?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t have to give me something to do.”
Her eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”
“It means you don’t have to manage my reaction. Just be upset, if that’s what you are.”
She opens her mouth, then closes it and looks toward the glass wall, where people move through the executive floor on the other side.
Her gaze fixes on the glass wall. “I knew one attempt might not work.”
“So did I.”
“I was prepared.”
“I know.”
“You’re agreeing too easily.”
“Would you prefer I argue?” A corner of my mouth almost ticks up. It’s the kind of logical trap she’d set for someone else.