"Fuck." That was the right word. "Fuck this." Zack relished the way the words filled his empty apartment. He stared at his laptop's screen and marvelled at how the simple arrangement of letters could create the sensation of a kick in the gut.
He shouldn't have been surprised to find Colleen Madison's name on the list of the fertility clinic's clients who were willing to be contacted for an interview. Well, well, so the Madisons had eventually gone to professional donors.
Good to see outside confirmation that his own donation to Colleen and Tyler's breeding efforts hadn't taken. Thank God for little blessings--or lack of them.
Zack clicked from the page to a blank screen. He'd email a pitch to everyone on the list except the Madisons, and he began typing a bland note requesting an interview. The feature assignment struck him as pure fluff, not his favourite sort of story, but he needed the money and this magazine paid well.
Dear Parent, he began, then sat back in his chair and stared at nothing--and saw the gorgeous Colleen.
When he'd met her, all three of them had been in college and she'd been Tyler's girlfriend. Zack had been taking British Literature that semester and had decided her quiet beauty belonged in another century.
She wasn't like other women. Even the way she'd pulled up her brown hair and attached it to the back of her head with a complex arrangement of pins was different, old fashioned. The pile of hair looked right with her pale skin, small rosebud mouth, and delicate features. Apparently he had some desire to bang a Victorian because back then he'd get hard just thinking about her graceful throat.
Ha. Maybe if he hadn't lusted after her for years the whole stupid incident wouldn't still bug him.
He hit backspace and tried again.
Hello, My name is Zack Reese and I am writing a piece about the offspring of sperm donor number sixty-nine. I hope I can talk to you about your child.
"Lame." Backspace, delete.
He returned to the email with the list of names. Her phone number was local. Funny, he'd thought they'd moved. Maybe he should just see what they'd say ... No, he was not interested in calling.
He pushed back the chair and went into the kitchen. Rummaging around the fridge, he found a bottle of seltzer. He flipped the cap into the trash and gulped down half the bottle thinking about his one foray into a marriage bed. The best that could be said of the bizarre adventure was that it wasn't his marriage or his bed.
It had started without a hint of weirdness. Lonely in the new town, he'd run into Tyler at the gym. Tyler had never been Zack's favourite human--they had been on the college hockey team together--but he'd been glad to see a familiar face and they'd talked as they'd worked out.
After that, the three of them had gone out for dinner occasionally. Wolfing down pizza, Zack and Tyler had talked a lot about nothing in particular, sports, cars, sports cars, the usual entertaining but insignificant shit. Colleen had contributed the occasional quiet, dead-on remark.
At the gym, Tyler had soon become chummier. He'd creeped Zack out with all the questions about his sex life and health--until Zack had demanded to know why the hell Tyler wanted to know about his last AIDS test.
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