Chapter 14
MADDOX
“So, what brings you in today?”
Okay, I had practiced this. I had my cover story. Stress and overwork. That happened to other guys. Regular guys. It was plausible.
“So… I mean… it’s probably just… but I was wondering… I’m stressed… the job…” Oh fuck. This was the worst possible start. Talk like a man, damn it!
Sitting across from me in the exam room, Dr. Milton was patiently waiting for me to sort myself out. He was well into his fifties, and you could see his decades of experience in his perfectly relaxed bedside manner.
I forced myself to just spit it out. “I’vebeenhavingsomeerectiledysfunction.” The words rushed out in one strangled, mashed-together sound.
“I’m sorry?”
Take a breath. Talk normally, idiot. “I’ve been having some…
erectile dysfunction.” As I finally got the words out, I was keenly aware of how pitiful my body language was.
Slumped low in the chair, shoulders sagging, my head fidgeting and looking everywhere in the room except at the man I was speaking to.
I had been expecting him to suppress a snicker or something, and I was at least spared that indignity. Probably silly to have feared that. Obviously, doctors knew how to maintain an unruffled demeanor with people’s embarrassing medical issues.
Of course, I was sure that inside, Dr. Milton was guffawing. If he’d allowed himself, he would have been slapping the table in hysterics.
But outwardly, his only response was to pepper me with follow-up questions, typing my responses into his notes.
I knew notes would be taken, but I hadn’t quite thought it through. Who else was going to see these? And computer records could be hacked. Anyone could get at this information!
I fought the impulse to just get up and walk out the door. Possibly smashing the computer as I went. Fuck, I felt pent up.
“How many occurrences?”
I flinched. “Five.”
“Over what period of time?”
“The last week.”
“All with the same partner?”
Driving right in on that point. “All different.”
Dr. Milton’s eyes flicked to my file. “Your wife and four additional partners?”
I sank deeper into misery. “None of them was my wife.”
Despite how sure I was he wanted to reprimand me for my adulterous ways (join the club), Dr. Milton maintained flawless medical composure. “Did you experience any other unusual symptoms around the onset of the ED?”
“Yes,” I replied hesitantly.
A silence stretched as he waited for me to continue. I supposed there was no reason to pull any punches now. “I felt a weird tingling sensation—”
That hit him immediately. “An unusual tingling sensation?” He peered at me through his narrow spectacles as I shifted uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair. “Did your wife only recently learn of your other partners?”
I nodded.
“Is your wife a witch, by any chance?”
That had me suddenly sitting up ramrod straight. “How did you know that?”
Dr. Milton stopped entering notes and leaned back. “Oh, I’ve been at this long enough that I can recognize a witch’s penile punishment curse when I see one.”
I shot to my feet, stumbling back against the wall. Hearing those words (penile punishment curse!) spoken so bluntly and clinically, it just burned through me. “What?! How widespread is this?”
“Not very, but I see a handful of cases every year. The onset symptoms are consistent. The unusual genital tingling sensation, coinciding with the witch’s discovery of her partner’s infidelity.”
“So there are other guys out there who have been cursed with…” I struggled to continue the sentence. To actually speak the word might finish me.
“Impotence? Sometimes, but that’s not always the effect.” Dr. Milton’s eyes darkened, and now he was the one to look away. “You’d be surprised how many ways there are to curse a penis.”
I shuddered. “What are… what are the other ways?”
He turned back to me smoothly. “Oh, I’m afraid disclosing those details would be a HIPAA violation.
” He paused for a moment, weighing the wisdom of his next statement.
“I must confess, since we learned witches were real, I’m a little surprised you young guys are still catting around like this.
I was a young man once too, but we didn’t know witches were real then.
When you know that any woman you meet might have that much power…
pretty risky to step out on her, isn’t it? ”
As I despairingly dropped back into my chair, I hated how much he had a point.
“I didn’t know this was a risk. I wasn’t thinking.
” I looked forlornly down at my dick. He had been doing all the thinking.
Why had I given him the control? Why had I always thought it was such a great idea to leave him in the driver’s seat?
But as my initial shock wore off, I realized what Dr. Milton had said was actually fantastic news. The best I could have imagined! This was a doctor who had treated exactly my current problem before with other patients. I had come to the right place.
“So you’ve been able to help other guys with this?” My voice rose with hope.
“Oh no, I’m sorry. There’s nothing medical science can do for any of you.”
“But there has to be! There are so many medications—”
“There’s no ED meds that can do anything for this. Trust me, the men who have come before you have tried it all. Every medical treatment, every form of alternative medicine. None of it has any effect. Medicine simply cannot treat magic.”
“But… no… that can’t be…” I sputtered, struggling to suppress the urge to throw up.
“The insurance companies even established a billing code for this.” He squinted at his computer monitor.
“Ah, here it is. Code 99247. Magically inflicted illness or injury, no further medical treatment available.” He typed in the numbers, each keystroke banging loudly in my head as if it were another shovelful of dirt being tossed on my grave.
That was how over my situation was. Nothing further even to say to me, my doctor was simply moving on to billing my insurance for telling me there was no hope left.
I wanted to get up and yell and scream and drag him to his feet and demand he do something.
But even standing up seemed impossible. All I had in me was to slump there motionless, regarding the wall with a bleak thousand-yard stare.
“But even though medicine can’t help you, I have some knowledge that might be useful to you,” Dr. Milton unexpectedly continued.
“What is it?!” I hadn’t intended it, but the words came out as a booming howl.
“Two of my patients were able to restore their sexual function by satisfying the release terms of the curse. An inherent part of all curses is that even the witch who cast them can not directly undo them. But there will be something the cursed himself can do, some condition he must meet, and then the curse will be lifted. But it will be something almost impossibly difficult to achieve.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but only a strangled croak came out.
“Did your wife already tell you what you must do to lift your curse?” he asked, as he surreptitiously edged a box of tissues closer toward me. This man was preparing for me to start bawling!
My head dropped, and I sat in shameful silence for a moment. “I have to get her to forgive me.”
“And I imagine that’s going to be a pretty tall order?”
I gave a small nod.
“Well, the only advice I can offer you is this: if you ever want to enjoy an erection again, you better hope you can get your wife to forgive you. It’s that, or a lifetime of impotence.”
His blunt, plainspoken demeanor was too much.
I knew Callie would never forgive me. On some level, I had always known that she would find my behavior unforgivable if she learned of it.
And now… because she had…
I was never again going to look down and see a woman struggling to take my thick cock into her mouth.
I would never get to finish on another woman’s tits.
I would never get to fuck another pussy, or another ass.
My dick would never be inside another woman ever again.
I was never even going to be able to jerk off to images of anyone other than her!
I was twenty-nine! This was too cruel. This was beyond my worst nightmare. How could this tragedy have struck me?
My sex life was over, in every form, forever.
I couldn’t hold it back anymore. The tears erupted. For the first time in decades, I was crying. My body was seized with forceful sobs that had my shoulders heaving violently.
Dr. Milton compassionately handed me a tissue as I cried and cried.
Eventually, I had cried so long he couldn’t wait any longer, and excused himself to go see his next patient. I tried to say goodbye, but only incoherent blubbering came out.
I stayed in the exam room for a while, continuing to cry—until a nurse came in and awkwardly told me they needed to turn it over for another patient.
I pulled it together enough to (barely) turn off the tears and endure a brutal walk of shame, out through a crowded waiting room, every person there staring at my puffy eyes and wet, flushed face.
They all knew they were seeing the worthless shell of what used to be a man.
As I stumbled toward my car, I realized this was it: I had no choice but to crawl back to her.
I hated the thought of facing Callie again in my current state. It would be unbearable. I didn’t know how I could swallow the mistreatment she was planning to subject me to.
But it was my only option. There was one path left for me, and this was it. I had to go home to my wife and grovel like my life depended on it.