My Attempt to Hijack Pre-Chemo Sperm

He said I freaked him out.

I was just trying to preserve his sperm.

The whole scene was sit-com material, and I was laughing as it was happening, but I’m not the one with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

He told me the reason he wouldn’t take me to his doctor’s appointment was because he wanted to be the one making the jokes—it wasn’t my place to upstage him.

The morning after his fundraiser, he called me. I had texted him because I was afraid he wasn’t going to make it home in one piece. He was inebriated that night, his friends telling him they were driving him to his car, taking his keys, and then hijacking him home. He had a cardboard box of cash, thousands of dollars, walking through downtown. I looked at his friend, “Make sure he gets home alright.”

I was headed to his neighborhood anyway that morning after for my dermatology appointment to burn off the skin tags on my neckline and zap my annual foot wart.

I brought him the chirping chick my mother had given to me one Easter. He was the one that had taught me regifting from years of giving me gifts he had lifted from catering parties. He could never get the stuffed chick to chirp in my apartment. I would show him how to just gently touch the metal prongs on the bottom of the feet so that the chick would let out little electronic chirps. My mother thought the chick was cute. I thought it was cute watching a guy from Washington Heights trying to make a stuffed bird chirp.

As usual, we were naked within minutes and he went to grab the condom.

I said, “Just get in me and see what happens.”

That is when he freaked.

He starts in, panicked, “We always use condoms.”

I said, “Well you didn’t always have cancer and what if you can’t have babies after chemo?”

He jerks away, “Have you lost your mind?”

I pause, “What? You don’t have HIV or anything, do you?

“Yes, I do. I have HIV!” He is totally freaking, and curling up in a ball away from me on the bed.

I’m laughing, “You liar! You do not.” I start to pin him down, straddling him with my legs.

“You’re freakin’ me out! You’re ruining the mood!” He says as he wrestles away from my grip.

“Did you ask your doctor about freezing your sperm?” I had offered to pay.

“He said they fixed that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The chemo doesn’t cause infertility.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” I acquiesced.

His biding of time worked. I am hoping his biding of time keeps working.