One Last Thing Before I Go

chemical lubricants, in the name of science, and for the weekly seventy-five-dollar stipend.
    The drug trial in which they are enrolled—Jack found it online—is purported to be a new nonhormonal treatment for low sperm motility. Possible side effects include mood swings; dizziness; and, strangely, decreased libido, a fact the test administrator told them during the twenty-minute orientation without the slightest hint of irony.
    You don’t want to hear about his deposit, about the small room overwhelmed by the liberal spraying of industrial-strength disinfectant, about the weathered porn magazines he won’t touch because of all the sticky hands that have already handled them. About the depressing little television on its teetering IKEA stand, and the small stack of DVDs, each case marked with either an
H
(etero) or a
G
(ay). Or about how he doesn’t sit in the chair or watch the discs, but just kind of stands in the center of the room with his pants around his ankles, calling up the images of girls he slept with back when he was young enough to be wholly consumed by a deep, passionate kiss, the sight of a freshly unsheathed breast, the smoky half-closed eyes of a girl in heat, looking up at you as she hungrily takes you in below.
    But as always, just before his ejaculate hits the bottom of the specimen cup with a soft plastic burp, no matter how determined he is to avoid it, he sees Denise, frowning at him with her customary scorn, depleting the moment of whatever lingering molecular pleasure it may have retained.
    A last sad grunt and squeeze, the cold damp of the baby wipe, and then the warmth of his semen against his fingertips through the thin plastic walls of the cup, more alive than anything coming out of him has any right to feel.

CHAPTER 2
    O ut in the lobby, Jack, already finished, is chatting up the receptionist. She isn’t his type—mousy-looking with a light smattering of adult acne across the edge of her jaw—but Jack likes to stay sharp. You never know who might be in the market for a house.
    Jack is a real-estate agent, always with a business card tucked between two fingers, slipping it into your hand like a reverse pickpocket before you even realize he’s done it. He carries himself with the cocky swagger of someone who is always closing, whether he’s trying to talk someone into bed or a center-hall colonial. In fact, he is somewhat famous for often accomplishing both simultaneously. This went on back when he was still married, so it was only a matter of time, really. There was a Puerto Rican bartender. She showed up to his house at dinnertime, cursing at him in Spanish. His wife went after him, first with a meat tenderizer, and then with a team of lawyers from her father’s white-shoe law firm.
    “There he is!” Jack says, announcing Silver’s presence to the entire office. “What, did you have to buy yourself dinner first? I was about to send Vicki here in to expedite things.”
    Vicki smiles, embarrassed, maybe even offended, but somehow flattered too. That is Jack’s gift.
    “I’m fine.” He hands Vicki his deposit without making eye contact, she hands him his check, and just like that, he has sold his seed. The cup is opaque, but still, the act of handing your sperm to a woman is one of those things that will never stop feeling creepy.
    “Good job,” Jack says, slapping his back as they step out of the office into the afternoon sun.
    This is my life, Silver thinks to himself, and, as always, tries like hell not to panic.
    * * *
    Mistakes have been made.
    It’s hard to know where to start. Things have been a mess for so many years that trying to pin down a starting point is like trying to figure out where your skin starts. All you can ever really know is that it’s wrapped around you, sometimes a little tighter than you’d like.
    But clearly there have been some mistakes. Bad ones. You can tell that just by looking at him.
    For one thing, he has gotten fat. Not obese, not
People
magazine fat, but still. He has been on an extended hiatus from any kind of physical fitness. Do they even say “physical fitness” anymore? He isn’t sure. He hasn’t quite fallen apart yet, but the cracks are fast becoming fissures: an increasingly pronounced gut, incipient jowls, and the strategic application of baby powder in the warmer seasons to avoid chafing.
    So as not to smell like baby powder, he uses excessive amounts of deodorant and generous helpings of Eternity, by Calvin Klein.