“I have to tell you something,” I said.

Amy looked up from her salad,

“What?”

“It’s a secret …”

” … “

“But it’s not a bad one. I think,” I added.

“What is it?”

Then I told her.

It was my intern year. I got a letter in my resident mailbox from a “Cryogenics” company. They were just looking for a few good men …

TO DONATE SPERM.

Up to $350 a month.

What sort of hedonistic research was this? I was curious. Plus I was an underpaid intern. Plus I was already doing the deed on a near-nightly basis. Might as well get paid for it, right? (Amy was still living an hour away back then.)

A couple days later, I arrived at the “Cryogenics” office / lab in the fashionable downtown district. It was a very nice office. No lewd photographs or nurses walking around in high heels and white uniforms opened down to here. Quite the opposite, unfortunately.

The Milk Lady interviewed me. She was obviously the head of the operation. Tall and built like a pyramid from the ground up. She wore librarian glasses and had a motherly quality about her. She asked lots of questions.

Questions about my family history. How old were my relatives when they died and how. My interests. My ambitions. She was very nice, and the questions weren’t particularly embarrassing. No questions about penis size or masturbation, although that part was probably a given.

Then she took me into the lab. It was roughly about ten by ten feet. Plastic sample jars. Two microscopes. A centrifuge machine. And that’s when I met Der Fraulein.

She was … definitely not there to enhance my donating ability. She was a very serious-looking regimented older Germanic woman. She reminded me of the SPECTRE agent Rosa Klebb in “From Russia With Love” (James Bond movie with Sean Connery). The evil one with the poisoned knife in her shoe.

She drew my blood for the various blood, hepatitis, and HIV tests. With a needle. Not her shoe.

They called me back a week later. I was in.

Der Fraulein showed me the two “donor suites” upstairs. Each had its own key with a huge white plastic tag on it, just so the secretaries I’d pass would know exactly where I was going and what I was going to do.

The “monkey-spanking room” was dimly lit and comfortably furnished. There was a nice couch for sitter-uppers and a beanie chair for more horizontal-self-love, I guess. On one wall was a tasteful nude of a woman’s backside. Between the couch and beanie was a table with the past 12 months of Playboys on it. (I had brought my own just in case, dating back to my high school dumpster-rummaging days.) The only thing missing was that BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-BOOM music in the background. And a porn queen. I could probably have used a pizza delivery uniform too.

Der Fraulein was visibly anxious just showing me the room. I remained professional as if she were showing me my new office rather than a room where I was going to be ejaculating in shortly (maybe “short” isn’t the best word here). She started breathing rapidly and blushing and left in quite a hurry.

I bolted the door shut from my side and almost laughed. It was almost surreal. After searching for hidden cams and/or microphones Mulder-style I started leafing through my 12 months of air-brushed siliconized inspiration.

It took an hour the first time, mostly because of nervousness and the ghastly look on Der Fraulein’s face that haunted my poor penis for awhile. Plus, just the fact that I was trying to do something extremely private in a public building felt really strange. There was also part of a thrill in that. Anyways, I think Miss January became my masturbatory muse that night. Getting the “money shot” into the little specimen cup was the hard (sorry again) part. Half of the ejaculate completely overshot the cup, but they had scented handi-wipes for just such an accident. The kind you use for babies I think. So I zipped up, headed downstairs with my cum-containing cup in hand, and gave them my first “specimen.” I felt like a porn star.

It was easy money, at first. They paid about $30 dollars for each sample, although technically it was for “my time” and not “my sperm” they said.

I had a codename, “22 RF“. I had to sign in with this and labeled my specimen cups with it too. Real names were never used.

And everytime I ran into the Milk Lady while depositing my cup, she would politely say “thank you.” Having a woman say “thank you” AND paying you for giving her your sperm is an odd experience, I tell you. Although, it’s not altogether unpleasant, I must admit.

Some days one of the more attractive lab techs was there in place of Der Fraulein. Heidi was tall, blonde, and a couple years older than me. She had none of the discomfort that her colleague displayed. She probably knew that she was also good fantasy material for the “donors.” Now that’s product placement.

Twice a week was the limit. Every 48 to 72 hours, they said. Sperm usually needs a good 48 hours to replenish itself. Earlier than that, you’re still making semen, but it will have a lower sperm count temporarily. And they didn’t like that. Especially Der Fraulein.

I got a lot faster. Sometimes I’d go in, say hi, grab a cup, go upstairs and return in 10 minutes. Albeit, a bit more flushed with a silly careless grin on my face. The younger secretaries would often say “hi” or smile … they knew what I was there for. But I didn’t care. I was getting paid for this. I was The Stud Bull. I was Da Man. Or maybe a gigolo. It wasn’t a bad deal though.

The problem with the whole situation was that I was “limited” to just twice a week. This was a bit more self-control than I had at the time. Sometimes Amy would visit over the weekend, and I’d go in 18-24 hours later. Other times, well, call me a “freak” but masturbating just twice a week was not going to happen.

I thought it wouldn’t make a difference. But I did notice the “flocculence” was less dense, as was the seminal amount sometimes. Der Fraulein noticed it under her microscope too, and she let me know about it often.

“Yah counts ah low, 22 RF!” I would imagine her saying while clicking that poison-tipped knife-shoe of hers.

They were high when I started out. So she knew I’d been jack’n the beanstalk too frequently at home. She told me to only come in after abstaining for a full 72 hours. That’s three whole days. I managed it sometimes, but other times I would just lie on the form where it asked “hours of abstinence.”

Once I walked through the front entrarce instead of using the backdoor key. I was chastised for this by Der Fraulein again. Privacy and all. They didn’t want the infertile couples to see exactly who or where the sperm was coming from.

Occasionally, I would see another “donor” going up or returning from the room. Once I think it was a surgical resident. Other times it was another young man about my age. We mostly would avoid eye contact and pretend we weren’t carrying semen samples in specimen containers. No hetero guy wants to be too close in time or space to another guy’s ejaculate.

A few times, the adjacent “porn-suite” would be occupied. This bothered me a bit. I definitely did not feel good about masturbating “shotgun” to another guy, even if he was in the next room. And it was even more unsettling when you knew a guy had just been IN the room you were in. I would look around carefully before sitting down when this happened. This is not a turn-on.

And eventually, certain choice pages would be found ripped out of the magazines. My favorite calendar girl, Miss January, had been abducted. The end was near.

Over the course of a year, I got pretty good on the technical side of things. No longer did I have to practically stand on my head to get everything into the little plastic cup. This was also a good thing for the furniture and carpet in the room too.

Sometimes it really became a hassle though. I would be sore if Amy was over the prior night. It was difficult finding time to go at all during many months my intern year. And what was left of the magazines was getting old.

I noticed things about the semen quality itself. For instance, when I had a cold or was a bit dehydrated, the semen would be really thick and sticky. On better days, when I was adequately hydrated, it was much thinner and liquid-like. This works the same way with a woman’s juices (with variances due to the hormonal cycle). Sometimes it would be odorless. Sometimes it would have almost a sweet smell to it – I think this was on days I abstained longer. Sometimes you could almost see the glittery white thingies swimming in there. Liquid life in a cup.

But that is as far as the analysis or my curiosity went. Really.

And this was just from looking at the cup. Der Fraulein had a real microscope at her disposal, and she knew how to use it….

“So why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Amy asked.

“I tried to. Remember when I joked about sperm donation? You said you NEVER want anyone else to have my ‘seeds’. And you said you wouldn’t want me to do it ever. I was already donating for almost a year then,” I answered.

“So when did you quit?”

“I didn’t exactly quit. I’m getting to that ….”

After almost a full year and many disapproving looks from Der Fraulein at my non-abstaining samples, The Milk Lady called me into her office.

She gently and kindly explained that my year “obligation” with them was up and that they didn’t think they needed anymore samples. She was very careful in explaining that it was because of my blood type, B+. That was a very common type for them and they needed rarer types. Plus the original deal was for a year anyways, unless they needed more. She reiterated that it had nothing to do with my manliness or the quality of my sperm (although I knew I rarely abstained for more than 36 hours).

She also mentioned how I was to never know how or if my genetic material was used. And that I, like any donor, was prohibited from donating sperm with any other company or organization for the rest of my life. This is to prevent too many “half-me’s” running around I guess.

I picked up my last check two weeks later and that was it.

“I remember those checks. You said it was for research. I guess you weren’t exactly lying when you said that” Amy recalled.

“I’m sorry, baby. I just couldn’t tell you at the time. I thought you’d be against it. But I wanted to tell because this is the only secret I have,” I told her.

“I’m not mad. I’m glad you told me … that you felt like you could tell me.”

And that was my last and only secret from Amy.

Just think, I might be a father and not even know it.

I guess I wouldn’t be the first.