H.W.C.

When I leave the hospital I check my messages.

Chicago’s called and confirmed our plans for Saturday. I’m deeply relieved to hear his message. To be honest, I spent a fair amount of the day fretting that he wasn’t going to call me at all.

Birmingham has also just called, leaving a message telling me I should meet him at the bar. So I drive to he bar and meet him.

We have a beer, have dinner in a dive Vietnamese restaurant nearby, and head back to my place. We dip into my Glenlivet 21. We’re both sitting on my couch, our knees touching, leaning forward to set down and pick up our glasses. I’m telling him about my clinic, explaining the way we performed certain tests.

That’s when he says something so perfect, so amazing, that had I been writing a script for him to read, I couldn’t have given myself a better gift. It starts like this:

‘I’m so amazed how much you have to know to be a doctor.’

Now this is below the belt because, much as I’ll deny it, if you fawn over my intellect, I’ll become a slobbering idiot for you. But then, he tops it with this:

‘You spend so much of your time teaching. I’d like to give you a day where you can sit back and relax.’ We live near a historical site and he majored in history, I knew this already. ‘Let’s spend the day there and let me show you some of the things I know about.’

Now, I’m not a fellow to talk about sporting wood or growing a chubby, but the combination of the fawning and the offering was too much for me. I set down my scotch and grab his collar, drawing him to me, kissing him.



One thing I’ve never heard talked about, but that I have experienced a few times, is that when men—men who don’t usually have sex with other guys—do have sex with a guy, their amount of ejaculate is tremendous. I mean beach towel tremendous.

Now understand, I’m a doctor, I’m used to people exaggerating about fluids. Patients tell me they bled pints, that they vomited gallons, that they coughed up liters of phlegm. But there’s a difference here: They’re not used to seeing blood on the floor, vomiting, and sputum production. I’m familiar with typical ejaculate: personally, clinically (3-5 cubic centimeters), and via video and photographs.

The amount of ejaculate in this situation is undeniably atypical and enourmous. I can see the puzzlement in his face and in his voice when he says, ‘where did all of this come from?’ while wiping his spunk off his chest, his shoulders, off his own face, off my pillows and headboard.

We shower off. I change the sheets and throw the pile of towels in the wash. I’m not sure how to deal with the headboard—Pledge? Murphy Oil Soap?—so I just use a fifth towel and warm water. I lay down next to him, throwing my arm across his chest and gently thumbing his ear as we talk and drift into sleep.