When Calvin dreams, it’s rarely about his husband. But on the rare occasion he does, he makes sure to tell Gil every detail. The champagne sea of disco lights. The tinny siren song of the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” beneath the crashing waves of bowling balls obliterating pins. At the next lane over, a family of four gathers around the automatic scorer desk — father, mother, brother, sister — all dressed in their Sunday best. Calvin looks down and realizes he is also wearing church clothes meant for a little boy. He’s at a kid’s birthday party. When his ball emerges from the retrieval machine, it’s not a ball at all, but a human head. Filipino-American, wearing tortoise-shell glasses and hair slicked back with pomade. Calvin realizes he has white gloves on and hesitates to touch his husband’s head. And before he knows it, an old man snatches up Gil’s head, plugging his swollen fingers into his nostrils and mouth.
“You feel like you’re competing with my father for my time and affection,” Gil says the next morning as he pours coffee into his mug with a New Yorker cartoon of a dog on a therapist’s couch, Calvin’s gift for their first Christmas.
Calvin doesn’t argue, continues recounting the dream. Mr. Paredes holds his son’s head to his chest, like he’s about to roll a strike for the church league championship. But something shifts in the old coot’s face, and he lowers Gil’s head down to his crotch and unzips his cargo pants.
Gil chokes on his fair trade coffee. He has to set down his mug.
“What do you think that means?” says Calvin. “Think it’s clinically relevant?”
“I’m late for my patient.” Gil snatches his coffee and leaves the kitchen. “And don’t play your Switch on the TV. I can hear it in the office.”
“Okay, Dad,” Calvin calls after him. “Just don’t make me suck your dick.”
#
When Calvin and Gil have sex, it’s more like they smash their bodies together. Like two pieces of raw sourdough. Gil takes charge, giving commands like, “Turn around,” as he helps Calvin reposition himself. They trade oral sex like they’re passing notes in class — quick, furtive, hoping not to get caught. When they’ve both cleaned up with the rags Gil bought specifically for this activity, they lay side by side, still naked.
“What are you thinking about?” Gil asks.
Calvin inhales their mixed musk.
“How much sex we’ll have once the baby is here.”
Gil clears his throat and remains silent. Outside, a garbage truck empties a bin.
“What are you thinking about?” Calvin asks.
“How you never let me see you.”
In the room that will be the nursery, Calvin sits cross-legged with crib parts scattered around him. The walls are half-painted in a sample called “Verdant Green.” His phone buzzes. A calendar notification slides down: “Zaddies Support Group – Topic: Managing Fear & Judgment (Zoom). Organizer: gilparedes@gmail.com”
The notification vanishes, replaced by “Event Canceled,” but not before Calvin catches the recurring meeting icon.
“Honey,” Gil calls from his office down the hall. “I’m gonna Amazon some lube before I forget. Need anything else?”
“Pine Sol. And wet wipes,” Calvin answers, staring at the blank space where the notification had been.
A few moments later, Gil walks into the nursery carrying a gift from his father: a Santo Niño statue with painted rosy cheeks and a tiny gold crown. Calvin wants to say something about his accidental discovery, but instead just watches his husband move around the room with the statue, testing each surface — window sill, dresser, shelf. Calvin recognizes this ritual. It’s the same way Gil arranges his father’s framed pictures before every visit.
“Hey,” Calvin says. “Maybe we just put it wherever. Let the kid decide if they want it later.”
Gil stops. He sets it down on the changing table with an air of finality. He sits next to Calvin and watches him consult the crib instructions.
“I’m sensing anxiety,” says Gil.
“Yeah. You’re sitting really close and staring at me like a weirdo.”
Calvin’s phone buzzes, saving him in the moment. He takes a glance, then puts it back in his pocket. Gil just wants to hear his husband express his feelings, even if the feelings are “freaked out” and “annoyed.” Calvin hates when Gil treats him like a patient. Sometimes the line between husband and therapist blurs like their bodies when they smash in bed.
Calvin’s phone buzzes again, and Gil asks who it is. Calvin doesn’t share that the text he receives says: Can u come over? Instead, he cracks a joke. Nancy Pelosi is asking for the fifth time this week to help her save democracy. Gil is not amused. Whenever Calvin jokes, he’s hiding something.
“You don’t want to tell me, don’t,” says Gil. “But don’t poke fun at Nancy.”
#
Down the block from the abandoned rollerskating rink, the First United Methodist Church provides a daycare for toddlers, who are not Methodist, but on the verge of converting. On the welcome wall, above the row of hooks for the tiny backpacks, a construction paper mural of the Garden of Eden embraces all. In this safe space, the bunny can be the same size as the giraffe. The flamingo can be purple. The lion can be named Lisa.
Calvin arrives with a greasy In-N-Out bag, and Suzie waves him over to a toddler chair that barely holds his weight. Normally, she’d tear into her Animal Style fries, yelling “Animal!” like the Muppet. Today, her tie-dye hoodie droops low over her eyes, her hands a bit unsteady as she tries to stab a straw into her milkshake.
“Think they had sex in Eden?” she asks.
“What?” Calvin unwraps his double cheeseburger, glancing at the toddlers waddling past and looking up with mischievous smiles. Each time she texts him, he tells himself it’ll be the last.
Suzie stirs her thick milkshake. “God didn’t curse Eve with childbirth until after the fall, right? What did Adam and Eve do all day? Name animals? Masturbate? Eat fruit?”
“Sounds nice,” he says. “Burning Man for two.”
“And then the snake shows up, and everything falls apart.”
He watches her separate the grilled onions into neat piles.
“Why did you text me?” he asks. He wants to be sure they’re on the same page, to confirm what he already suspects. Last time they swore it was the last time. Ecstasy, poppers, and a lapse that felt like stepping into quicksand. Suzie could’ve been anyone in that moment, even a sack of old mangoes. But now she’s here, slouched in her funky-smelling clothes, pushing fries around her wrapper. And Calvin realizes it’s not about him.
“I’m not sleeping,” she says.
He leans back, exhausted. She glances at the Garden of Eden mural, her eyes darting over the animals like she’s searching for a specific one. “I’m crushing Melatonin like M&M’s. Nothing’s working. I have night terrors.” Her voice breaks. “About snakes.”
Calvin doesn’t move.
“I can’t lose this job,” she continues, staring at her strawberry milkshake. “If I get fired, I’m back in Grand Rapids, in my mom’s basement. You’re all I’ve got here. Please, Calvin.”
He hates how she says his name, how her desperation hooks him every time. He sees the dark circles under her eyes, the slight wobble in her hands. He knows he should walk away, but instead he mutters, “I’ll think about it.”
#
“You’re so tight,” says the personal trainer. Calvin agrees, repeating that he’s so tight, like some sordid mantra. All around him, men are grunting, sweating, hugging, chatting, eyefucking. Near the locker room, a sign taped on the wall informs all guests to please refrain from having sex in the sauna. The Pump Fitness Gym in West Hollywood is like a social club, if gay orgies were allowed.
Nick’s Apple Watch beeps, and he says, “Okay, sexy. Good work today.”
As much as Calvin hates it when he calls him that, he still feels that small tingle in his groin. Before they hug and part ways, Nick wants to confirm their place tonight, even though Gil’s already done so with Andre through their group text.
At game night, Gil panics and can’t stop making the same vague gesture over and over while Andre, the heart surgeon, bellows guesses with the authority of a Greek god. Calvin nurses his drink, watching his husband flounder. Unable to find a coaster, he uses a copy of a baby name book with the “Traditional Christian Names” section dog-eared.
During the second round break, Nick and Andre guide Calvin and Gil through their completed nursery. A designer mobile of wooden endangered species hangs above a cherrywood crib. Andre gives them the low-down on their surrogacy as Nick demonstrates the monitor, which tracks the baby’s micro-movements on his phone.
“She even agreed to prenatal music classes,” Andre says.
“Amazing,” Calvin says, sounding like he means it.
Nick taps his phone. The feed flickers to life. He places a baby’s doll in the crib, its blank eyes staring up at the monitor. “Watch — it follows facial features.”
Calvin notices Gil blanking at the screen.
“But we’re talking your ears off,” Andre says. “Guys, how’s your surrogate doing?”
Gil seems at a loss for words, so Calvin answers for them: “Great. Saint Beatrice is great.”
“I’m telling you,” says Nick. “Our surrogate? A literal saint.”
“Canonized and everything?” Calvin asks, but Nick is already pulling up another feature on his phone.
#
Calvin peels off his work clothes and draws the black-out curtains tight to shut out the morning sun. After his graveyard shift at the sleep clinic, it’s now time to do what he watches others do all night. He grabs his phone, even though he knows it’s poor sleep hygiene. It’s a losing battle to fight against the pull of doom-scrolling, and soon he descends into the molten soup, drowning in post after post of outrage, FOMO, and porn.
Muffled voices vibrate from the adjacent room. Sometimes Calvin places his ear against the cool plaster to make the voices bloom, even though he knows he shouldn’t infringe on Gil’s patient confidentiality. Usually it’s just the familiar cadence of middle-aged women sobbing on the couch, complaining about their shitty husbands and children. But this time, it’s Gil’s voice that carries through: “Sometimes I freeze up. I see them and they’re like they’re tiny aliens. I don’t know. Maybe my father was onto something. Maybe some people aren’t meant to –”
Calvin pulls away from the wall, his cheek cold. He lies in bed, staring at his phone until Suzie’s text blurs: Still up? He replays their encounter at his work that night. Suzie ventures into the Hollywood Sleep Lab and finds Calvin at his desk, announcing that she needs a good night’s sleep.
Calvin watches her heart rate spike on the monitor as he attaches the electrodes.
“So. Sleeping position,” she says. “Do I lay rolly-polly or tits up?”
The jagged lines of her breathing dance across the black screen.
“Do you know why the Sandman threw sand in kids’ eyes?” she asks.
“To help them fall asleep?”
“Yeah in the fairytale. In the original? Naughty kids got their eyeballs ripped out. Then he’d take them back to his home on the moon to feast on.”
She tries to fall asleep. Her pulse quickens. She coughs and the sensors jump and scatter. Calvin stares at the chaos on his screen. She sits up and coughs more. He should tell her to lie still, to follow protocol. Instead, he watches the wild dance of her vitals and feels a strange relief.
“You get a masters in education. To land a good teaching job,” she says, drinking the coffee he made for her. “Then you realize it’s all about connections. And the daycare gig you settle for doesn’t even have health insurance. And it’s a church for chrissake. My whole paycheck? Goes to either rent, student loans or Uncle Sam. I’ve maxed out my credit cards. At this rate, I might have to move back to Hudsonville.”
“Wowzer,” says Calvin.
“And then I think of my privilege,” she says. “Billions of people are drinking dirty trash water. And here I am, sipping my Nespresso Bold latte with oat milk. How’s that right?”
“They didn’t pray to Jesus,” he says.
“Heathens!” she says, howling in laughter. “Those who believe in me shall not perish but have free shipping and delivery.”
“Blessed are the WASPs, for they shall inherit daddy’s trust fund.”
“Praise be, Pastor Wong. Praise be.”
They laugh together. The sensors jump and dance. Calvin misses this old rhythm. She takes his hand and tells him sorry for being a shitty friend, which he’s grateful to hear.
#
Gil likes to complain about the surrogate. St. Beatrice my ass. She doesn’t like the Airbnb they got her, even though it has a Walking Score of 9. There’s even a Whole Foods and a taqueria on the same block. The case manager nods, then asks Gil and Calvin if they would like to join her in her office.
“I thought we were clear on how much we were willing to spend with Beatrice,” says Gil.
Janice suggests they continue the conversation in her office.
The news is grim. The leather of the Eames sofa creaks as they shift. Calvin focuses on the dying fiddle leaf fig in the corner, its leaves curling inward like burning paper. The air conditioning hums at a pitch that makes his teeth ache. How could this be? She’s passed every test. Months and months of physicals, genetic tests, blood tests, embryo tests, you name it.
“But we saw a heartbeat on the ultrasound,” says Gil.
“I know,” says Janice. “Still, there’s no way to predict. I know this is devastating. It must feel like… PTSD or something.”
“PTSD?” says Gil. He hates when people toss around the term like they’re armchair therapists. “I’m sorry, are you a trained psychologist? Do you have a PhD? No? Then I wouldn’t go around diagnosing people.”
“Gil,” says Calvin, before telling Janice, “Sorry.”
“I’ll give you two a moment.”
Janice gets up and leaves. In the sterile silence of the fertility clinic, Calvin takes Gil’s hand. But instead of giving Calvin the comfort he needs, Gil goes into problem-solving mode.
“They made a mistake.”
“Gil, would you just please.”
“You know how many gay couples they take here? They don’t know us. We’re just piggy banks. I’ll tell them. They made a mistake.”
The next day is Saturday, and there are two missed calls from Mr. Paredes on Gil’s phone. When Gil picks up, he paces the kitchen: “Yes, Papa… No, you don’t need to… I understand what you’re trying to… We haven’t told anyone yet…” Gil sets the phone down like it might detonate and retreats to his office.
Left alone, Calvin opens the cupboard and stares at the prenatal vitamins they’d been sending Beatrice, lined up in containers like little soldiers. He’d insisted on buying the expensive ones shaped like tiny animals, imagining her smiling at them each morning. Now they look like a child’s stupid party favor. He takes one out and places it on his tongue, letting the artificial grape flavor dissolve. The taste reminds him of those candy cigarettes he used to pretend-smoke in middle school, playing at something he didn’t quite get.
When Gil returns, Calvin is slaughtering the vitamin animals in the garbage disposal. The grinding drowns out whatever Gil was about to say. When Calvin flips the switch off, he suggests they move on with their weekend plans and live their lives.
They treat themselves to an afternoon out by the pool. They stare at the surface, and when Calvin checks his phone, Gil jumps in the water and sinks to the bottom. Calvin watches his husband’s form blur like a penny he’d toss into the fountain at the Chinese restaurant he’d have to go to for family reunions. Just a week earlier, they are in their rented Airbnb kitchen, choking on sage and myrrh. Beatrice brews chamomile tea, her movements deliberate like a priest performing communion.
“My mother used to say a baby chooses its family,” she says, setting down three mugs. Her cross necklace dangles over her swollen breasts as she leans over. “Like little souls floating around up there, picking where they want to land.”
Gil shifts in his chair, and Calvin recognizes the way his husband’s guard goes up when others venture into spiritual territory. But Calvin finds himself leaning forward, drawn to the warmth in her voice, the easy way she cradles her belly.
“That’s beautiful,” Calvin says. He imagines these floating souls, wondering if they peer down at all the potential parents below, hoping to be chosen. He wonders what they see when they look at him and Gil. Do they see all the paperwork, the medical procedures, the planned arrangements and fees? Would a soul choose that?
“My mother’s father baptized all three of his kids himself,” Beatrice continues. “In the stream behind their house.”
Calvin catches Gil’s eye. When they discuss this after the first time she brings it up, Calvin is willing to entertain the thought. Maybe they just do it. It’s just some water and words. But Gil is adamant. It starts with baptism. Then it’s Sunday school and conversion therapy.
“We want to honor traditions,” Gil says. “While creating our own.”
Beatrice nods, hand drifting to her belly. “Of course. It’s just…” She pauses, searching for words. “Some things carry weight. You know?”
Now Calvin watches Gil’s heavy body grow still at the pool bottom. He wonders if their unborn baby’s soul is floating up there somewhere.
For lunch, Calvin makes tomato sandwiches. Gil makes gin and tonics. They chew and slurp without words. They go out with their friends and don’t protest when Andre buys them another round of margaritas. They throw themselves onto the packed dance floor, grinding against sweaty body parts. Hot and alive, defying death. They order junk food at an all-night diner. Calvin stuffs his face with chili fries. Gil slurs about how that barren bitch made a hundred k disappear. Poof. They cry in the back of an Uber. Gil snores in the bathtub. Calvin wakes up hugging the toilet. Staring at dried vomit with a pounding head, he realizes that he forgot to ask the case worker how Beatrice was doing with the miscarriage.
#
Suzie studies the wooden crucifix as she waits to get paid. She always finds it strange that the death delivery device has become such a revered symbol. Like everyone putting little electric chairs all over their homes, praying to giant sculptures of electric chairs, wearing little electric chairs around their necks. The pastor walks into the office with a venti Starbucks cup.
“Miss DeBoer. How’re the tots?”
“Beautiful children of God,” she says.
The pastor smiles and nods with a hint of concern. “Doing alright?”
“Trouble sleeping. Insomnia.”
“Well if you ever want to talk, my door’s always open.”
The pastor heads into his office. His secretary rips the check out of the checkbook, which Suzie attempts to immediately deposit with her phone. It’s a challenge to capture both sides of the check while she’s walking to her car, but she’s insistent on depositing it right away. She almost misses Calvin there, waiting for her with puffy eyes.
“Suzie.”
“Calvin? Everything okay?”
They sit in his car, and he tells her everything. She listens like a good friend and hands him old tissues from her jacket pocket.
“Damn,” she says. “Better start swiping.”
“What?”
“You know. The whole ‘this lady has good teeth and went to Yale so I wanna harvest her eggs like caviar’ thing? Swipe right.”
“Oh god. We can’t. Not again.”
“This time maybe pick an Olympian?” she says. “It’ll save you in therapy bills.”
Calvin blows his nose hard. “It’s not fair. Any hetero jackasses can make a baby with a cheap bottle of wine and poor judgment.”
“Exhibit A,” she says.
Calvin forgets that she was married. She even gave birth. It’s a painful subject. Suzie shows him the Ambien she was able to pick up after the sleep study. She shakes the vial like a maraca, her grin loose and mischievous.
“Here’s the plan: you stay awake. I slap you if you don’t. Deal?”
Calvin hesitates, staring at the pills. “That’s not… unsafe?”
“You’ll be fine,” she says, already tipping one into his palm. Her eyes sparkle, like at their college dorm parties. The naked parties, to be exact. Suzie hands out fruit to strangers, asking, “Are you the one?” while Calvin panics in a corner, after losing a bag of coke he kept in his stolen pants. She has him try shrooms instead. He calls her insane. She calls herself fun.
Now, with a pills in her palm, Suzie tilts her head at him, as in: ready?
“Still insane?” she asks.
“Still fun,” he mutters, swallowing the pill. He leans back and closes his eyes.
Suzie’s laugh shimmers like a Sparkletts water delivery truck sign, as she pulls him down an empty street. The lamps flicker like strobe lights at a club.
“I can’t believe we dated,” she says.
“Just a college fling.”
“You proposed to me.”
“On shrooms.”
“Still counts,” she says, beaming. It’s that smile again—warm, unguarded. He doesn’t remember when it stopped being that for him.
“Stay awake,” she says.
Calvin blinks. They’re on a playground now, suspended in midair on a see-saw that tilts like a pendulum. He falls upward, soaring past stars. Suzie catches him with a laugh and pulls him back down, snowflakes melting in her hair. They bounce across an endless soccer field and recline on the goalpost net, staring at an aquarium that fills the sky.
“Tell me about the dream,” he says.
“What dream?”
“The snake dream.”
Suzie stiffens.
“Nevermind,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m in the desert, dying of thirst. I find this well sitting in the middle of nowhere. I go and I pull up the bucket, and there’s a snake in it.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah. I try to run, but I’m like stuck there. And it begins to swallow me whole. I feel my whole body get crushed like paper. It gets to my neck, and then…” She trails off, staring at the shimmering ocean sky.
“And then?”
“I wake up.” Her voice cracks. “Crying.”
Calvin reaches for her hand, but the stars tilt, and they’re back in the church classroom. The mural of Eden glows in rainbow hues, the animals shifting and prowling. Calvin holds an apple, its skin cool and smooth against his palm.
“Are you the one?” he asks, his voice soft.
When he opens his eyes, sunlight floods the room. Suzie is curled up naked on a bean bag. Calvin sits up pantsless and all he can think is fuck fuck fuck.
#
When Calvin tries to watch a Youtube video on Ambien side effects, an ad begins playing for overpriced SUVs. A happy perfect family sings together in the car. Calvin furiously taps on the skip button on his phone. When he realizes he still has to wait another eight seconds, he chucks his phone into the passenger seat well. He takes a moment to realize that was dumb. He reaches over to get his phone, when someone taps at his window. Calvin lowers the window for the In-N-Out employee with an order tablet.
“Two fries, Animal style,” says Calvin.
”Rough night?” asks the employee.
“That’s right, Kenny. Rough night.”
9:00 am is song time. Suzie gathers the toddlers in a circle and takes her guitar out of the case. Her hair’s a pigeon’s nest and she’s wearing the same clothes as the day before. But the kids don’t care, so she carries on like everything is fine as wine.
“Swallowed the cat to catch the bird… Swallowed the bird to catch the spider… Swallowed the spider to catch the fly…”
Suzie stops singing. She looks green. But the toddlers continue on.
“I don’t know why she swallowed a fly. Perhaps she’ll –”
And right when they all yell DIE!, Suzie vomits into the hole of her guitar.
Calvin creeps through the front door, his In-N-Out bag stuffed in a neighbor’s trash bin on the street and his shoes left by the mat. He pads into the atrium, but Gil is already waiting.
The sight of him stops Calvin cold. Gil is perched in his therapist chair, legs crossed, arms resting on the sides.
“Have a seat,” Gil says, motioning to the other chair.
Calvin hesitates, but there’s no escape. He sinks into the seat.
“How are you feeling?” Gil begins.
“Fine,” Calvin says. “How about you?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” Gil replies, and Calvin knows this tone. “Where were you last night?”
Calvin’s mind is a haze of Ambien dreams and guilt. “I don’t… I was at work late. I’m sorry, I should’ve texted.”
“Suzie. Do you like her?”
Calvin’s heart hammers. He searches Gil’s face for a trap, but all he finds is something worse: hurt.
“I’m your husband, Calvin. And a clinical psychologist. Give me a modicum of credit.”
Gil sits back in his chair, his expression unreadable. His hand drifts toward his New Yorker mug, stops. His fingers tremor, almost curling inward.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re still seeing her?”
“I’m not seeing her,” Calvin says. “She’s a friend.”
“Then why hide it from me?”
“Because I knew you’d get crazy like this!”
The silence that follows is unbearable. Calvin shifts in his seat, but Gil doesn’t move. Calvin follows Gil’s gaze to their wedding photo on the wall. Two men in white, smiling like a couple of dumbasses in love. The doorbell rings.
Gil rises, his movements stiff, and opens the door.
Suzie stands there, pale and trembling in yesterday’s clothes. She clutches the doorframe, her knuckles white like church gloves.
“I’m pregnant,” she says.
#
Chris Wu, a writer from suburban Texas, grew up as the son of Taiwanese immigrants. His fiction has been featured in Hobart and Litro Magazine. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband, their daughter, and a cockapoo.
