A Xmas Gift: The Sperm Donor (2 page)

Justin sighs. “I told Abby I won’t be able to make it for lunch today.”

Really, you’d think after that bout of lovemaking they had last night, she would be contented to leave him to his own devices. He hates to admit it, but such fanatical attention is getting to be cloying.

“It’s not Ms. Abigail Morton, sir,” Ferngully says rather pointedly. “It’s a Ms. Elise Ratner. She insists on seeing you without an appointment. She says she’s an old friend from America.”

Justin almost drops the receiver.

Elise?

He’s stunned. OK, he’s more than stunned. He’s gobsmacked/(insert whatever British term appropriate). What the hell is she doing in London? Has she moved here or is she merely a tourist? And how did she manage to find him?

The last memory he has of her was in their sophomore year in college. He had come home for Christmas, and they sat under her father’s porch. It was cold but dry, not wet and wintry like England. Still, it was freezing, and they huddled together on the wooden bench for warmth. Inside the house, her family was getting drunk on eggnog and brandy.

He could hear her father’s voice, singing a very tipsy rendition of ‘White Christmas’. He winced. He wondered if her old man knew they had been making out upstairs on her pretty white-and-blue bed, with all the sheets entangled around their sweaty naked bodies.

But tonight, she wanted to tell him something important. Their fingers were interlaced, and she was trying to avoid looking at his face.

His heart sank. He thought he knew where this was heading.

It wasn’t unexpected, but it still hurt.

He took the offensive. He said lightly, “Let me guess, you found someone else.”

She was still for a moment.

“No. But this is not working out . . . you and me.”

Of course it wasn’t. He only got to come home for occasions like Thanksgiving, Christmas and summer break. It wasn’t fair to ask her to wait for him, just as it wasn’t fair for her to ask him to wait for her. These things happened. The most wondrous of high school relationships might not survive a protracted separation, especially at that age.

And Elise was an attractive and vivacious young woman. She was bound to have a lot of boyfriends in college.

His chest was heavy. Intellectually, he knew it was the right thing to do, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. He felt as though a part of him were defragmenting – physically wrenched away.

“So you don’t want to wait for me,” he said, still in that light tone of his, as though he were talking about the weather.

“Do you want to wait for me?” she countered.

Truth be told, he had been so busy with coursework that it hardly occurred to him to have a girlfriend on campus. Being in an Ivy League school did that to you. He had worked hard to get into Princeton. He had won that academic scholarship on his own merit. This was not to say girls didn’t throw themselves at him. Back in high school, Elise kept them off. But he was fair game to everyone in college.

He kept telling them he had a girlfriend back west, but they weren’t buying it, going as far as to call him gay.

“I thought that was what we agreed to do. Wait for each other,” he argued.

“I thought so too,” she admitted, “but then . . . what’s the point? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over these past two years while you were away. I didn’t want to be the one who stopped you from realizing your dreams – ”

“You weren’t, and you never did. You pushed me to take that scholarship.”

“ – and I’ve grown up in the past two years. I’m not wide-eyed and giddy anymore.”

“You never were wide-eyed and giddy.” Elise was born grown-up, he thought. And sexually aware.

She was contemplative. “I just don’t want to wait forever, Justin.”

He opened his mouth to say something like ‘It’s not forever . . . it’s only two more years’, but he realized he would be making a promise he couldn’t keep. It would be Harvard MBA for him next. Internship in a New York firm. Then wherever his job might take him.

She was right. She saw the writing on the wall long before he did.

“I love you,” he said with feeling. He could feel the rush of painful emotion now, spearing his gut and weighing down his chest like a two-ton anvil.

“I love you too.” She clasped his hands. “But sometimes, love just isn’t enough.”

It was enough for me, he thought, but he didn’t say it.

Looking back, he understood it now. They were both young. They hadn’t really lived yet, and they were far too ambitious to be tied down to a first love they barely understood. He didn’t regret loving Elise. She was a rite of passage. A first girlfriend to whom he had given his virginity, and taken hers in return.

They never kept in touch with each other. There wasn’t a point in dredging up old memories.

So in the present, Elise Ratner showing up in his office in London twelve years later is nothing short of a phenomenon. His pulse rises to a tappity-tap in his neck, and he clenches his fists to control the rush of emotions.

No, she doesn’t want you back. She just popped in for a visit.

Of course. What else could it be?

He tries to suppress the tumultuous feelings – of anticipation, of excitement, of their last painful memory together – from overwhelming him.

“Of course, Ferngully,” he says with studied calm. “Show her in.”

“Very good, sir.”

The connection clicks off.

Justin stares at the door. He is as composed as he can be outwardly – even though inside, he feels like a little Dutch boy with his finger stuck in the dike, a one man army who is trying to stem the entire ocean from spilling in.

5

Elise is glad she freshened up in the restroom before striding into Justin’s office. She resembled a drowned rat after going through that maelstrom. Gad, was London weather always like this? It hadn’t stopped raining – not even once.

She notes that his office is set a little away from the rest, and that he has a male Personal Assistant who is now rising to his feet with undisguised curiosity.

“Ms. Ratner, I presume. I’m Ferngully, Mr. Morgan’s assistant.”

“So it says on your desk,” she says, smiling.

“Step right this way, please.”

He guides her to the door with a practiced knock, and opens it without waiting for the signal to ‘Enter’.

She can feel her heart thudding as she walks through the door. It has been twelve years. How would he react when he sees her after such a period of time? They hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms. She had called it off when he was willing to wait for her, but she recognized even then that he had not understood the concept of waiting.

She isn’t prepared for the sight of Justin Morgan – all grown up. She thought she would be, but she isn’t.

Not by a long shot.

He had been a beautiful boy even then, but as a thirty-three year old man, he is beyond striking. His thick chestnut hair – the hair she used to dig her fingers into when they were making love – is what hairdressers would describe as being artfully disheveled. His handsome face possesses arresting hazel eyes which turn mud-green as he gets up in the different plays of light from his floor-to-ceiling windows. His nose is a blade cut marvelously in the middle of his face, and his mouth is generous, sensual, and wide.

He is a man’s man now, not the pretty boy he once was. Every inch the gorgeous, impeccably-suited executive.

He is staring at her too, and the expression on his face can only be described as ‘strangled’.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” a voice interrupts them.

She jumps. Ferngully closes the door with a knowing smile.

Justin mutters something under his breath. “I swear one day he'll go too far,” he says aloud.

“Why? I think he’s endearing.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

She stares at him again, taking – no,
soaking
in the sight of him. My, but he is fine. And she had decided twelve years ago not to wait for
this
. Regret comes bubbling like a frothy witch’s brew, but she quells it by swallowing the lump which has suddenly bolted to her throat.

He might still turn out to be an asshole.

He is still flummoxed, disconcerted.

“So what brings you here, Elise? You on vacation?”

She has always been straight arrow.

“Actually, I have a favor to ask you, Justin.”

A funny look crosses his handsome features. She winces. She knows that look. It’s a ‘so you’re hooking up with me twelve years after we broke up because you want a favor from me’ kind of look.

“Shoot,” he says. Right to the point, as always. Their relationship had never been one where they had to pussy-foot around each other.

She clears her throat and tries to stem her own rapidly beating tide.

She says in a rush, “I want to have a baby, and I don’t want a husband. I want you to be my sperm donor. You don’t have to be responsible for the baby or anything else. I have the legal papers drawn up for you to sign that will absolve you from all responsibility. All you have to do is come to the fertility clinic and jerk off in a cup. They’ll shoot it up me.”

She is expecting him to be staggered, of course. But he practically is rooted to the spot. Frozen. Petrified.

His face twitches.

Uh oh.

He’s going to say ‘no’.

He says, still in that uncertain frame of mind: “Uh, you want to do lunch? Pret A Manger’s downstairs?”

*

“Oh wow, these are good,” Elise says as she bites into a ham-and-cheese sandwich.

“I know.” He is having a bacon, lettuce and tomato.

The sandwich café is crowded with the lunchtime throng, but they have managed to secure a half-cleaned table at the back. Not exactly the best place for conversation, but she senses that he takes comfort from the familiar surroundings. After all, she did drop quite a bomb.

“So why didn’t you get married?” he asks.

He’s ready to talk, she senses it.

“I did get married.”

He puts down his half-eaten sandwich. She is aware of several women at the other tables giving them surreptitious glances. They’re checking him out, she thinks with a smile. Same old, same old. Some things never changed from high school. She was checking him out plenty too before they got it on.

“You never invited me to the wedding,” he says, keeping his tone light.

She sighs inwardly. He’s hurt, and she knows him all too well. He did always have a predilection for masking how he felt. Justin grew up in a strict home. His father was in the military, and he always gave precise instructions to his boys to ‘handle it like a man’.

“It was a shotgun affair. Reno.”

“He knocked you up?” he says, surprised.

“Not exactly.” She shudders when she thinks of her marriage, but now is not the time to let Justin in on what happened. “It lasted for exactly a year and a half. Let’s keep it at that.”

He nods. He has always been one who respects other people’s privacy. She has always admired this trait of his.

“No kids?”

“Obviously.”

“Thought I’d ask, just in case.”

“What about you? Married?” She knows he’s not, and that’s why she’s here.

“No.”

‘Girlfriend?”

He hesitates before saying, “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” She laughs. “Either you have a girlfriend or you don’t.”

“It’s complicated. Let’s leave it at that.” He smiles without really smiling.

She ponders this. “So . . . would she mind if you . . . contributed your DNA?”

“I didn’t say I was going to do it. It is a huge responsibility.”

“Oh no, it isn’t. Not for you.” She delves into her bag and brings out a bound document. “Read through this and put your mind at ease.”

He scrutinizes the document carefully as she finishes the rest of her sandwich. He finally puts it down and looks up at her. She finds herself admiring his large hazel eyes again – so penetrating and beautiful.

“So why me?” he says. “Why not some anonymous donor from a sperm bank?”

She’s prepared for this.

“Let’s see . . . because I know what I’m getting? You’re handsome – ”

He laughs.

“You know you are, so cut out the act. You’re MENSA intelligent. You’re six-two.”

“What if the baby’s a girl? You want a giraffe?”

“So what if she turns out to be tall? You got something against tall women?”

“Noooo,” he says slowly.

“That’s settled then. And . . . you’re a pretty decent guy. At least, you were half a decent guy. Athletic. Nice. Dependable.” She trails off.

Is that all she remembers of him? Oh yeah, the sex. The sex was pretty good when they both quickly grew into it.

“I’m still a decent guy.”