Chapter 3: The Fertility Protocol
The study smelled of old books and dying fire. Paul sat in the deep leather armchair by the hearth, a glass of his father’s whiskey dangling from his fingers, watching the embers pulse. He heard the shift of weight on the mahogany, the sharp intake of breath that wasn’t his. He didn’t turn. Not yet.
“Hold still.”
David’s voice, a low command, cut through the quiet. Paul took a slow sip, the peat smoke taste blooming on his tongue, and let his gaze travel over the spines of the law books lining the wall. Corpus Juris Secundum. A body of law.
He heard the clink of glass on wood. Then his father’s voice again, different now, a practiced, almost clinical tone Paul remembered from childhood lectures. “You’ll take one of these daily. With food. Until I see two lines.”
Finally, Paul swiveled the chair. The scene was framed by the heavy oak bookshelves: Sarah, her bare thighs pressed against the polished edge of the enormous desk, her sweater pushed up to her ribs. His father stood between her legs, fully dressed except for his opened trousers. In one hand he held a small plastic vial. Prenatal vitamins. Hannah’s, Paul presumed. The irony was so thick it choked him.
Sarah’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling, her jaw tight. She gave a single, stiff nod.
“Good,” David said. He set the vial down with a definitive tap. His other hand gripped her hip, his gold wedding band a dull gleam in the firelight. It dug into her skin. Paul watched that band, a tiny sun against the pale landscape of her body. His mother’s ring. A strange, cold curiosity settled in his gut, separating him from the room, from himself.
David moved then, and Paul didn’t look away. There was no passion in it, no seduction. It was an administration. A direct deposit. His father’s movements were efficient, powerful, his eyes fixed on Sarah’s face with an expression of intense, analytical focus. Each thrust rocked her body, made the desk shudder. The band glinted with every stroke, a tiny, punishing beacon.
Sarah’s hand flew out, gripping the edge of the desk, her knuckles white. A small, strained sound escaped her, part shock, part something else. Her eyes flickered, found Paul’s across the room.
He held her gaze. He lifted his glass in a silent, infinitesimal toast. A weird, electric jolt went through him. This was the agreement. The bizarre, sick equation they’d all signed off on: his sister-in-law’s baby for a baby of his wife’s, sourced from his own father’s line. A restoration of balance. He watched the man who raised him, the man he’d once seen as infallible, reduced to this single, brutal function. And he watched his wife, who had proposed this madness, receive it. He felt complicit. He felt powerful. He felt ill.
He was hard. The realization was a splash of cold water and hot shame all at once.
“Look at me,” David growled at Sarah, his rhythm never faltering. Not a lover’s request, but a supervisor’s order. Her eyes, wide and liquid, snapped back to his. “You understand the terms. You follow the regimen.”
She nodded again, a quick, frantic jerk of her head. “I understand.”
“The first test is in two weeks. You’ll do it here.”
“Okay.”
The dialogue was absurd. Contractual. It bounced off the oak panels. Paul almost laughed. He took another drink instead, the whiskey burning a clean path through the silt in his mind.
David’s pace increased, became more urgent, losing its clinical edge. His breath came in sharp grunts. The desk creaked in protest. Paul saw his father’s hand tighten on Sarah’s hip, the band surely leaving its own kind of brand. He finished with a shuddering, forceful drive, holding himself deep, his head bowed.
For a long moment, the only sounds were the crackle of embers and ragged breathing. David slowly pulled away, turning to adjust his clothing, his back to both of them. A transaction completed. Sarah lay back on the desk, one arm thrown over her eyes, her chest rising and falling.
Paul stood up. The spell broke. The cold curiosity curdled into something darker, more familiar. He set his glass on the mantel with a soft click.
David turned, zipping his trousers. He didn’t look at Paul. He looked at Sarah. “The vitamins are on the desk. Don’t forget.”
Then he walked out, closing the study door softly behind him, leaving husband and wife alone in the scene of the crime.
Sarah slowly sat up, pulling her sweater down. She didn’t look at Paul. She reached for the vial, her fingers trembling as she unscrewed the cap and shook out one small, horse-pill vitamin.
“Got any water?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
Paul walked to the sideboard, poured a glass from the crystal pitcher, and brought it to her. Their fingers brushed during the exchange. Hers were icy.
She swallowed the pill, wincing at the size of it. She took a long gulp of water. “Well,” she said, finally looking at him. Her eyes were exhausted, hollow. “That was… efficient.”
Paul leaned against the desk beside her. The heat from her body still radiated off the wood. “He’s nothing if not thorough.” He meant it to sound light, but it fell flat, heavy with implication.
“You watched the whole time.”
“That was the agreement,” he echoed his earlier thought. “I keep Hannah’s baby. You get pregnant by my dad. I get to watch.” He tilted his head. “Do you feel balanced yet?”
She flinched. A direct hit. She slid off the desk, her legs unsteady for a second before she found her footing. “Don’t, Paul.”
“Don’t what? We’re just exploring freedom, right? No boundaries. Just… fluid arrangements.” The words tasted like ash. The open relationship, his idea, their grand adventure, had metastasized into this grotesque parody.
She walked to the fireplace, hugging herself, staring into the dying red glow. “You liked it,” she stated, without turning around.
He didn’t deny it. The shame and the thrill were twisted together now, inseparable. “I don’t know what I felt. It was like watching surgery. Or a car crash.” He paused. “Why did you look at me?”
“I wanted to see if you were still there.”
“And was I?”
She was silent for a long time. An ember collapsed with a soft sigh. “I saw you. I saw you watching. It made it real.” She turned then, her face shadowed. “It made me hate you a little. And hate myself more.”
The honesty hung between them, more intimate than anything that had happened on the desk. Paul pushed off the desk and went to her. He didn’t touch her. They stood side-by-side, staring at the fire, two conspirators in a cold war they’d designed themselves.
“Two weeks,” he said.
“Two weeks,” she whispered.
Outside, a wind picked up, rattling the windowpanes in their old, wooden frames. Inside, the only light came from the embers, fading slowly from red to grey.