SEX AND FERTILITY AGENT

Michael Robinson is not the real father of her super teen daughter, Terri Robinson. They were joined together in holy matrimony twenty-something years ago, but there’s an intruder sometime, somewhere, somehow. Impregnated, but no one suspected that he was not responsible. The baby was born and grown up under his roof.

‘’Michael’’ She whimpers.

She only calls him Michael when something is serious or she’s done something very wrong.

‘’There’s something I need to tell you’’.

The next door, leading to their room, half-open, unmindful.

 She sucks in her breath and her eyes filling with moisture.

The lights are dim and Mic. sits beside her on a wide couch with his arm awkwardly around her shoulder. His body warms.

‘’Sarah, what is it?’’

A small tremor shudders through her. Her apprehension deepens. The words go rusty in her throat. Sarah is not sure of what would happen next if she should tell him the secret. What if I lost him? What if he kills me? Her heart starts to beat really fast. She clutches his hands tight.

She looks outside the window; it is night but not late. They just left the dining after feasting on the vegetables, noodle dishes and steamed dumplings.

‘’I’m sorry, Mic.-‘’

She sees awe and fear in his eyes.

He listens impatiently to her story, the whole story, including how she was dutifully screwed by the hiring agent or employee of Sow the Seed Fertility Agency till a bulge grew out of her flat stomach.

The hiring agent- most of them don’t usually disclose their real names to clients- is tall in stature and very erect, with great depth of chest and breadth of shoulder, a large and shapely head, and a handsome countenance.

Even though he combines qualities which make a great mercenary, four or five times they did it, on different days, no emotion, no pleasure, and certainly no orgasm.

‘’It was a nuance of the moment,’’ she whimpers bitterly, tears, mascara streaking her face.

‘’I don’t understand’’.

‘’What are you trying to say, Sarah?’’

Mic. pours champagne and takes a deep sip, as he tries to compose himself. His entire body, every damn molecule pounding a tattoo that says ‘’shoot her, shoot her now, she deserves it, she’s a damn cheat...........’’

But he couldn’t.

Not without allowing her finish with this confession first. Not without thinking through her reasons first, while he still could. Mic. does not want to spare Sarah. And he does not want to deny her of fair hearing.

Seven years, or thereabouts, of bareness drove her into engaging the agency. She glances up. A revealing confession follows: Mic’s preference for career development over fruitful marriage is much and bitter, and may still persist till the world ends. His libido, particularly, is wholesale low and never a concern to him. He consummates the marriage only on first Sunday of every month.

’’Uh’’; Terri peers through, but none of them knew she was hearing or seeing them because of the way the door was open.

One more thing, however. Sarah’s younger ones are all women, all with their kids; and one is even done with child bearing after three cycles of painful delivery. Or perhaps she had to stop for Sarah would refrain from paying her visit if she had another baby.

Since her fourth year in marriage, Sarah left her church where babies were christened every week and ignored greeting newborns or lactating mothers. ‘’They usually brought my unfruitful state into my pores and subconscious......... I would never go near babies’’. Sarah was ridiculed by her sisters as a result, but she felt a compelling curse present in her life ever since her second year in marriage when the mother-in-law would name and shame her as ‘’she is a man’’.

 And so? Mic. is now more furious. He raises eyebrows.

‘’Is that enough reason for you to sleep with dog?’’

‘’ It is’’- she lurches up off the couch as she jabs her finger towards the portrait of a group picture hung by the side of the window’s curtain- a magnificent woollen cloth of gilt and gold colours, almost fit for a royal palace- ‘’...this your....?’’

‘’So what’d you and the Gynaecologist, my friend get up to?’’, he crisply cuts in.

‘’Not him, just that he gave a piece of advice and made me do it’’.

‘’Ass-hole’’!

Mic. rakes his hand through his hair. Rage built inside him like cooker.

One footstep. Another.

Terrifying words escape from the next room, weirdly and strangely and in seeming dying speech. Together, they struggle with the entrance, as they crash the door back against the wall, needing to know the hell out of there.

 ‘’T-E-R-R-I!’’. Sarah screams. Her only child lies scattered at the foot of the old standing fan, with a knife glinting in her hand. The room is a little less than an abattoir, already full with blood.

Quickly, Mic’s hands- tanned with lots of dark hair on it- reach down and lifts her.

Terri is dead! She’s gone forever. She cuts her throat by herself.

Sarah’s throat constricted. She couldn’t say a word, she could hardly breathe. Her blood runs cold, like ice. She couldn’t talk anymore. She simply takes firm hold of her dead daughter, and can still remember how he repeatedly yanked her hips up hard against his, thrusting deeper and deeper till he released into her. The fertility agent didn’t take it easy with her, even though she paid a huge sum on any fixed appointment.

‘’Bitch, see what you have caused?’’ Mic. growls as he stalks towards the exit. He didn’t say good bye. He didn’t say, ‘’see ya, Sarah’’, and he certainly didn’t say I’ll be back soon.

But his action speaks louder. He twists the gold from his finger and hurls it at her, the recycle knot of their twenty-something years old love.

 Sarah watches him go, and the tears come hot and fast.

Wind lashes outside suddenly, accompanying by riotous thunder as rain drums against the window in waves. The palm trees swish eerily glass passes and the curtain billows.

She feels spooked, guilty for everything.  She regrets not reasoning well before her action. Now she has lost everything to the sex and fertility agent. She squeezes her eyes very tight, hoping all happen just in a dream.