One Night Three Hearts (2 page)

Jason took a sip from his glass and said, “It’s not going well with Rose.” That snapped Matt’s attention back to him.

“What are you talking about?” Matt looked incredulously at him.

“We were diagnosed with ‘unexplained infertility.’ What kind of diagnosis is that?” Jason said. “Anyway, we tried everything for two years and nothing happened. She really wants to have a kid now. She thinks we’re running out of time. It’s just getting more and more expensive with the treatments and we can’t do it.”

These dark thoughts were rare, but they crept back whenever Jason focused on the situation in his marriage to Rose. His love for her caused him to bottle up these daily undercurrents, and once he started talking about them to Matt, he couldn’t stop its powerful release.

Jason lowered his voice a few notches above a whisper. “We haven’t had sex in months, and real sex in over a year. Do you have any idea what it is like to basically fap into a cup every morning and then run it over to the clinic before going to work? That’s what it was for a really long time, and your mind gets crazy after doing that. I hate to dump all of this on you…”

Matt stared intently back at him. “You’re not dumping anything on me. I just don’t understand.”

“Do you have any idea how much IVF costs? We got quoted $18,000 by the clinic. This is after the thousands we put in for artificial insemination,” Jason said.

Matt looked down at his glass of ice water. “Are you asking me for money?”

“No,” Jason answered quickly. “It isn’t that at all. I need a different favor from you. It’s hard to ask.” His palms started to get sweaty and he rubbed them nervously on the top of his thighs.

"I need you to help us father a child."

Matt’s eyes lifted from his glass to confront Jason with them. “You can’t be serious.”

Jason swallowed. “I am serious.” Matt sank back into the booth’s bench with a thunk as he hit the wooden backing.

“Look, I know about the calls between the two of you. I know she still has fantasies about you,” Jason said, trying to keep his delivery in a matter-of-fact tone instead of an accusatory one. “A husband of ten years would be a complete idiot not to figure it out. I got the phone bills. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife. For heaven’s sake, I was in the dorm bunk above you listening to you with how many girls?” He finally brought forth the unspoken, the taboo, and the topic that neither of them ever spoke to him about.
 

“That was early on,” Matt weakly protested. “That ended years ago.” Jason noticed Matt’s eyes shifting around uncomfortably, and that he started his old nervous habit of playing with his watchband. The familiar clicking sound of the watch clasp used to drive Jason crazy. Matt used to call it a “tic,” and Jason felt he knew better than anyone that Matt had a really big collection of “tics.”

“I’m not angry. Seriously, I’m not. That is why you are the only one on this earth who can possibly do this and I would not turn into some jealous asshole over it,” Jason pleaded for understanding. “We both know you are never going to change. You are never going to settle down with one person. It isn’t in you to get married. I know you, and you know me. More importantly, you know Rose. You love her.”

“I wouldn’t call it love,” Matt said. “There is something about her that I could never put my finger on.”

“Literally,” Jason finished his thought for him. “I just want Rose and I to have the insanely hot sex like the stuff you and her said to each other in the chat logs. Yeah, I saw those too. During the rough patches of our marriage where we didn’t have sex for months at a time, those chat logs provided a ton of mental candy for those early morning sessions with lab cups.”

Jason didn’t want to pause and give Matt any opportunity to defend himself or react to what he was saying. “I want to end this life sucking stress with the Baby One Point Oh project,” Jason continued. “I want her to be a mother, and I have to admit, I really want to be a father. I know this whole idea sounds nuts, but I really think this could work.”

Matt furrowed his brow and sighed. With that, Jason assumed Matt wouldn’t walk out disgusted. Jason stared intently at the drops of condensation slide down his untouched beer glass to the coaster it rested on, desperately trying not to think about the consequences of his proposition whether Matt accepted it or not. He overstepped a line in their years of friendship once before they never discussed afterward, and that unspoken tension resurfaced in his thoughts. Best not to think about that, Jason thought to himself. This is about Rose.

“That all for you two?”

Jason snapped his head up to see their waitress standing over them. “We’re almost done here,” he said to her. She scribbled something on her receipt pad, ripped off the paper, and placed it next to Matt’s side of the table out of Jason’s reach. Matt picked it up, read it, and then pulled out his wallet.

“I’ll get this one,” Matt said as he half-smiled at the hovering blonde. He laid some bills on the table and tucked the receipt into his pocket. She winked and smiled at Matt as she picked up the bills, then sauntered towards the bar register. Matt stared after her, and she gave him another smile from across the room. Jason watched the familiar scene he repeatedly witnessed throughout their friendship with a touch of melancholy.

Jason’s palms felt clammy as Matt turned away from eyeing the waitress and focused on him.

“I’ll do it.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Jason had to consciously prevent his jaw from dropping at Matt’s acceptance.

“Look, I’m only here for a few days. Her birthday is Saturday, right?”

“Yes. Hold on, she has this ovulation calendar app thing she makes me sync to,” Jason said excitedly as he rummaged for his phone on the table. He flipped through the touchscreen with his thumb until he found what he was looking for. “It was the bane of my existence when we were doing it natural. Let me see if this works… yeah… awesome… she should be ready on Saturday according to the app.”

Matt cleared his throat. “I have some conditions because this is a serious thing you are proposing, and we need to discuss these details,” he said as he finally looked directly at Jason with his confidence visually regained. “I don’t want Rose to get hurt, and I want you to understand the full scope of what I will require.”

“Well, yeah. I can understand your concerns,” Jason said nervously.

Matt’s eyes turned into a vaguely familiar calculated stare. “I don’t think you do. Here are my terms…”

Jason patiently listened to Matt explain and rationalize his conditions. He secured his agreement for each criteria with a nod.

Matt finished off his water to signal he was finished. “I’ll have my lawyer send over the documents to your office with a notary for you to sign tomorrow. Rose will have to sign it if there is any implantation, but we can spare her a few days of over-thinking this just in case.”

“Implantation?” Then it dawned on Jason what Matt was talking about. “Yeah, you should probably drop off a sample at the fertility clinic. I will text you the address. It is on San Carlos.”

Doubt crept into Jason's mind as Matt stood up from the booth. “Hey,” Jason said sheepishly. “Just remember she is my wife.”

The icy stare returned to Matt’s face. “You’re going to have to remove the word ‘my’ from your mental dictionary when it comes to Rose after Saturday. See you then.”

“Yeah, you’re right. See you Saturday,” Jason replied meekly as he watched Matt stride confidentially towards the front door of the pub, push the door open to let the sunlight stream into the pub for a final time, and walk out.

He remembered knocking at the hotel room to deliver the gift, and was very surprised that she answered the door.

Wide smile on her face when she saw it was him. Her eyes sparkled. White flowers in her perfectly curled hair with half of it piled on her head. She laughed excitedly as she turned to walk into the room.

He imagined her naked thighs rubbing together under the layers of cream satin, crystals, and ribbons as she walked to the dressing table. She told him yesterday she wouldn’t wear panties on that day; just simple blue garters to hold up her stockings.

He caught a glimpse of the brown skin that surrounded her nipple; it peeked above the corset that cinched her tight under the gown.
 
Her breasts overflowed the gown’s bodice. It wasn’t fully tied; she asked him to pull the top tight. She explained they forgot to tie it before they left to go downstairs for the ceremony.

He stood behind her and breathed in the mixed scent of hairspray and perfume emanating from her smooth neck decorated with only
 
a simple strand of pearls. His rod pressed rock hard against the tuxedo’s trousers, and he could sense her wetness waiting for him under her the skirts. He wanted to press up against her so she would know what he had for her. He put the small gift box on the table as she turned so her back would face him.

She sucked in her breath. He reached for the ribbons and pulled them tight. He wanted it to hurt her just a bit. He wanted her to remember the gown’s seams cutting into the flesh of her breasts and her back.

He looped the ends and tied the bow. He couldn’t stop his hands from touching the braided ribbon along her spine. She was going to turn around; he had to act fast.

He grasped her hips. He wanted to bend her over the table, and…

The sharp angles poking his hands snapped Matt back to reality.

“What’s wrong?” the girl asked over her shoulder as he let go of her boney hips and backed away from her.

Recollection flooded his mind; she was the waitress from earlier. “Nothing,” he stammered. “Jet lag. Really tired. You should go; I have early meetings to attend tomorrow morning.”

He pulled the condom off his flaccid penis and tossed it towards the waste basket next to the dresser. She him a confused look as he watched her try to button her shirt with whatever remaining buttons he left her.

“Just get out,” he said exasperatedly. “GO!”

He saw a flurried gathering of belongings and the hotel door slammed shut. He stepped over things on the floor in a daze as he walked to the hotel room’s minibar. One micro bottle of Johnny Walker Red left; he reluctantly poured it into the empty glass that didn’t have the lipstick mark on its rim, and walked over to the wall of glass to look out over the skyline.

Matt took a swig from the glass and relished the burning sensation in his throat. His eyes scanned the windows of the neighboring buildings and saw a darkened figure at a window.

The mobile phone vibrated from the desk area. He strode over to it, noted the incoming number on the home screen, and proceeded to set the phone to block any future incoming calls from the waitress. He tossed the phone back onto the desk, and almost knocked the lab sample cups contained in their paper bag to the floor.

“Stupid bitch,” he muttered to himself before knocking back whatever was left in the glass.

A bit tipsy from the bottle of wine they shared at dinner, Rose leaned on the elevator’s cool stainless steel interior walls. Bass from the hotel's nightclub thumped softly in her ears. She raised an eyebrow as she watched Jason select the penthouse floor.

“You’re kidding,” she said. “Honey, we can’t afford this.”

Even though Jason told her to relax, it was her thirty-fifth birthday, she deserved it, and there was more waiting in the room for her upstairs, Rose couldn’t refrain from silently tabulating the cost of the five course dinner they just finished downstairs in addition to the financials of a Saturday night penthouse suite. Her husband rarely got this extravagant, and she wondered what he was up to as the elevator silently sped past thirty floors and arrived at their destination.

Her husband grinned as he opened the double doors to the opulent suite. Rose immediately walked past the living area’s contemporary dark furnishings over to the wall of glass that displayed an unparalleled downtown city view, and she tried to take in everything.

Thirty-five roses placed in a huge crystal vase dominated the oversized coffee table. Rose thanked her husband for the traditional gift after they both sat down on the luxurious sofa.

“Hey, I still have another present for you.” Jason reached over to the end table hidden by the sofa's arm and handed her a box wrapped with robin’s egg blue paper and a wide satin ribbon.

“Really honey, you shouldn’t have,” she said. “This whole night is really too much.”

Jason laughed and told her to take the box to the bathroom off the living room after joking they’d be in the bedroom soon enough. Outfits were the thing that turned Jason on the most, and he generally just paid for whatever she ordered online, so she suspected something of that nature was the gift. The “guest bathroom” was bigger than one of their secondary bedrooms in their home, and she carefully navigated the smooth marble floors to open the box on the vanity.

It was a long, black, and sheer lingerie gown with matching crotchless panties. The tag said 18W, and she was a little relieved Jason remembered her size. She quickly got undressed, slipped on the panties, placed the gown’s halter strap over her head, and then she proceeded to figure out how to arrange her breasts within the two panels and successfully close it.

Why do they always use one tiny hook and eye to close these things?

Rose finally got the band to close and sit beneath her breasts for flimsy support, and admired herself in the full length mirror. She could see why Jason picked it out; it hung to her ankles and the whole front hung open to the empire waist held up by the halter. There were black fabric appliqués to seductively hide her nipples, so she arranged her breasts a second time to make sure everything was where they should be. The crotchless panties were a little too big but at least they weren’t cutting into her. Feeling sexy and irresistible in the gown, she didn’t want to wait another minute to see Jason’s reaction.