The Old Fashioned Way

The Old Fashioned Way

"Craig... have you ever thought about having children?" Brain asked his husband as they sat on their couch watching TV one Friday evening. Brian was an extremely successful and well-paid Ad Executive, while Craig had his own clothing line. They lived in a nice apartment in New York city, and never had to worry about being able to pay their bills at the end of the month. By some standards they were living the good life. But there was something missing. Something that they both knew would make their little family complete.

"Of course I have." Craig smiled as he leaned back into his husband's embrace. "Hell, when we were in high school I decided what our first son's name would be." He admitted which made Brian grin.

"And what did you pick?"

"Toronto." Craig said simply, which made Brian laugh out loud as he remembered the night the two of them snuck off to see a punk rock band, called New Found Glory, in Toronto for the weekend. It was a lot of fun until they came back home and they had both been grounded by their parents for two weeks.

"Nice name." Brian really loved that Craig still thought about those things. That he had known even in high school that they would still be together. But that begged the question... "So why have we never talked about them before? You know, us having kids?"

Craig turned around to look at his husband, while reaching for the remote to turn the television off. "Probably because we've both been too busy wrapped up in our careers." He said slowly. "Is that something you want to talk about? The idea of us having kids?"

"I don't know. Maybe." Brian had always wanted children in his life but he just wasn't sure how they'd fit in. Craig was in the office from dawn until dusk most days, even longer when Fashion week was a few weeks away. Brian flew off to meet clients and deal with his ad campaigns at least one weekend a month. Kids would be hard to fit into their hectic schedule, even though he really did want to be able to figure out a way.

"Well... we can talk about it now." Craig said, hoping it might bring them around to perhaps actually having one. "If... we were to have kids. What would you want to do? Surrogacy or adoption?"

"Well it seems cruel to bring another person into this world when there are so many out there that want and need a loving home... but at the same time." Brian's voice trailed off, wistfully. He'd always wanted a child of his own, one that was biologically his. He had resigned himself to giving up on that dream when he was in college.

"I've always dreamed about a small half-Greek child running around with a head full of black curly hair... just like his father." Craig, who himself was a natural blond, admitted softly, and Brian's eyes widened.

"What? You'd want me to father a child biologically?" Brian asked, and Craig nodded.

"I love you Brian... nothing would make me happier than to raise a child with you that has your looks and charm."

After another hour or two of discussing their options, and then a round of 'If we're gonna have a baby, we might as well get in all the sex we can' sex, they finally fell asleep together. Curled up into each other as they both dreamed of what the next day would bring them, and hoping that it might possibly bring them a baby.

They usually spent their evenings at home alone. Because of their careers, whenever they had a night when they weren't both busy doing something work-related, they wanted to spend it together. But every Saturday, unless there was a work-obligation such as a fashion shoot, or a business trip, they'd spend the evening with their best friends: Emma and Trish, a lesbian couple who lived close by, and had become their best friends.

The two women had gotten married about a year after Craig and Brian did with each of them stepping in as their "Best Men" It was an intimate and private ceremony - only close family and friends were in attendance as opposed to the large lavish affair that Craig and Brian had put on. Emma's Abuella had even come around a little bit. She wasn't so happy that her Latino granddaughter being so open about her relationship and love she had for her blonde haired, blue eyed lesbian lover, Trish, but she had been talked into attending by Emma's mother and father, and everyone was glad that she had.

Because when she saw how much love there was between the two young women, she quickly changed her tune and accepted their union. Trish wasn't a very bright young lady, but what she lacked in brains, she made up for with her big heart and beautiful features. She was very easy for anyone to fall in love with.

The two couples loved each other, without a doubt in the world. But they also knew that leaving Emma and Craig in the same room for too long would always lead to shouting, insults and a crying Trish. So they kept their distance throughout the week, unless there was a reason the two of them should be together alone. This Saturday night, it was Craig and Brian's turn to host as the ladies came over to their house for dinner.

Things had been going great for the first half of dinner, but Brian's excitement over the prospect of becoming a father won out over his self-restraint and he blurted out that they were searching for a surrogate right as Emma was taking a sip of her wine, which caused her to choke and spit it out, snuffing the lit candles adorning the table; which was a good thing because in her excitement at hearing this news, Trish knocked both the candles over onto the table in a clumsy attempt to give Craig and Brian a hug. "I'm so happy for you two!" She launched herself at them.

Emma was dumbstruck. "You two are having a baby?" She said after she got her coughing under control.

"Yes we are. We both want a child and we've figured now that we're both in an ideal place with our careers that its time." Brian said happily, Craig rolled his eyes at his husband. He wanted to keep it a secret for a little while, at least until they had found a surrogate, but Brian-the-Blurter couldn't contain his excitement.

"We just need to find a surrogate to carry the baby for us." Craig told them and then Trish said something that shocked every other person in the room.

"I'll do it!" She announced. "Let me be your baby baker." Emma unfortunately had just taken another sip of her wine and started choking again. Brian's eyes were alight with joy and happiness, while Craig began immediately trying to figure out a way of politely declining Trish's offer.

"Uhh, Trish. Don't you think we should discuss this first?" Emma said her voice rough from all the coughing she'd been doing the past few minutes. Trish just shrugged her shoulders.

"It'd be their baby Emma. After nine months, our lives would go back to the way they are now." Emma shook her head.

"It doesn't matter; we still need to discuss it..." Emma couldn't believe what her wife was suggesting. It's not like it never occurred to her that Trish would want to surrogate for Craig's child. Those two were incredibly close, and if weren't for their opposing sexualities, Brian and Emma might have been worried that they were too close, but as it was, they felt safe.

"Trish, we can't ask you to do something like this..." Craig said, not wanting Trish or Emma to feel that he was endorsing this in any way.

"Why not, Craig?" Brian asked, which caused Emma and Craig to stare at him as if he had grown a second head. "If Trish wants to do this for us... why can't we let her?"

"Because it's not something you just offer up to your friends without talking to your wife about it first." Emma hissed and Craig nodded in agreement.

"Not to mention that we haven't even decided what type of surrogate we wanted..." Craig loved Trish fiercely, he really did. He loved that she was able to go through life without seeing the horrors that life had thrown their way. He loved her imagination and her ability to be optimistic about any situation, but he wasn't. This was a big decision, and not one they could make so hastily. Yes he and Brian wanted a child, but Trish was also his friend. His best friend, and he cared about her too, and both pregnancy and surrogacy, were huge decisions that shouldn't be rushed into.

"Why would we want anyone besides Trish?" Brian asked, flabbergasted. "Trish is one of our best friends. She's willing to do this for us. It's better than having to pay some rando to carry our child... someone we don't know and can't trust like we do with her." Brian reasoned and Trish nodded.

"Plus this may be the only chance I have, to have a baby." Trish said softly. "I want to do this for you." She said, not looking at Emma as she did so. Emma looked at her wife, hurt tinged all over her face.

"What do you mean this may be your only chance?" Emma asked. They hadn't actually talked about children... and she wasn't completely opposed to the idea of the two of them having children in the future, but she certainly didn't want to have them right now.

"Well we've never talked about kids... I thought you didn't want them." Trish said, softly.

"Just cause I haven't mentioned wanting kids... doesn't mean I don't want them, Trish." Emma said softly. "But we're nowhere near ready for them." She argued. They didn't have as lavish of careers as Brian and Craig did, and sometimes they still had trouble paying rent at the end of the month.

"Maybe we should table this until you two have had a chance to talk..." Craig suggested, not liking the feeling that he's intruding in his own home.

"No. I want to do this." Trish was stubborn, and she didn't want to take back her offer, just because Emma was upset by it. "You two want a baby, and I want to give you one." She said and the two men sighed while Emma shook her head, dismayed.

"This is ridiculous. So you're just going to get knocked up by Baby Face, here," using the nickname Emma often used to tease Craig, "no matter what my opinion on the matter is?" Emma said incredulously. She couldn't believe that her wife was making a decision like this without her input.

"Brian's going to be the father." Craig interjected, but Emma and Trish barely noticed Craig's correction.

Trish nodded. "Yes. Craig and Brian have done a lot for us over the years. This is my chance to repay them." She said adamantly.

It was true, Craig and Brian had helped their friends out financially a number of times. Emma hated the fact that she and Trish couldn't always provide for themselves and occasionally had to rely on their friends to bail them out in tough times.

Refusing to give up her case, Emma said, "Trish... you realize this wouldn't be your baby right? It'd be theirs. You wouldn't be raising it." She said, trying to get her wife to see reason, trying to get her to understand why she wasn't okay with the whole situation.

"Yea, I wouldn't be its mother. I'd be Aunt Trish. Just like you'd be Aunt Emma. They'd do all the hard stuff, and we'd get to spoil the kid to death... where's the downside?" Trish said and Emma gave her a small smile.

"I just don't want you getting hurt once the baby is born and you can't take it home..." She said, knowing how depressed Trish could get when she didn't get her way.

"Besides, I'm sure we'll take it home at some point. Craig and Brian are going to need some nights to themselves...and we'll get to babysit!" She said happily. Craig and Brian had just been sitting on their side of the table looking at each other as if they were intruding on a private moment. Finally Craig spoke up.

"I think we all just need to think about this." He said quietly. "There's no need to rush into anything right this second, and it's not like we can get Trish pregnant tonight." Craig said jokingly. "Even if we do go through with this, we'd still have to find and hire a specialist doctor to inseminate her..."

"No!" Trish shouted from where she was sitting. "No clinical stuff. Science shouldn't go into making a baby." She harrumphed and crossed her arms in front of her. "We'll do it the old fashioned way.

"You want to do WHAT!?" Craig exclaimed not sure if he had heard her right.

"Not happening!" Emma told her outright. "You are not having sex with Brian!" Emma said, putting her foot down. "Absolutely not! She might not be able to convince Trish not to do this, but she definitely wasn't going to let her wife cheat on her with a man, any man, whether he was gay or not!

"Creating babies using science is unnatural." Trish said and refused to hear differently. "They're experiments, and I'm not going to give birth to a experiment!" She argued with them using her own special brand of logic that left the three of them flabbergasted. She was the only one in the room with any real experience with the opposite sex, so the subject wasn't nearly as taboo or awkward to her.

"Okay now we seriously need to talk about this as couples... individual couples. We can't make this decision right now." Craig said, looking at Brian for confirmation. He knew he had it from Emma.

"I'll do it." Brian says quietly and everyone turns to look at him - only Trish's face was excited about this announcement.

"You can't be serious, Brian!" Craig yelled, and Emma shook her head at the idea.

"Not happening!"

Ever since high school, Brian had been sure that he was primarily attracted to other guys. While he'd had a couple of girlfriends during his freshman and sophomore years, to try keep his sexuality a secret, he had gone no further than some heavy kissing with them. He could appreciate their physical beauty, from an objective point of view, but there was no real chemistry there. Admittedly, he had wondered, on occasion, what sex with a woman would feel like, but not enough to explore those thoughts further, and certainly not enough to betray Craig's trust in him. It was more of a mild curiosity.

"If Trish and I have sex...and She gets pregnant, and then we get to bring home a baby 9 months later. Where's the problem here?" He asked, oblivious to the reasons why his husband would object to the idea. It's not like there's any risk to our relationships involved. I am a gay man, and she's a lesbian. It's strictly about getting her pregnant.

Emma slapped her forehead. "There's a huge problem. I'm not letting my wife have sex with a MAN! " She shouts and Trish turned to look at her.

"So you decide what I can and can't do?" Trish challenged, to which Emma just scoffed.

"I don't decide what you can do, but as your wife, I get to certainly decide who you can't do, and what I'll accept as your wife." Emma tells her. "You're my wife, Trish, you havig sex with Brian would be cheating!"

"Not if you don't consider it to be cheating." Trish argued. "If you look at it like I'm just doing a friend a favor, with your permission, then it's not really cheating." She said simply and this made Craig and Emma both bang their heads against the table in unison.

"This is a joke, isn't it? Something you two have arranged between you to wind us both up? You can't seriously be suggesting that this ridiculous idea should actually happen?"

"I'm being serious." Trish informed them.

"Me too," replied Brian, who then turned to smile at her.

It took another 45 minutes for Emma and Trish to finally leave the gay couple's apartment. During those 45 minutes Trish had kept insisting that it wouldn't actually be cheating, no matter how much her wife claimed otherwise.

Afterwards however, Craig and Brian were busy cleaning up from dinner; neither one of them were talking to the other. They just had a huge bombshell dropped on them and neither of them knew quite how to approach the subject now that Trish and Emma had gone home. Every few minutes, one of them would stop what they were doing, take a deep breath as if they were about to say something, and then just shut their mouths without saying anything at all. Finally, it was Brian who broke the awkward silence between them.

"Will you just say what you're thinking? This silence is bothering me." Brian pleads with his husband. He doesn't want to be on the outs with Craig, but nor does he want to give up the great opportunity that Trish was offering them.

"I can't believe you want to cheat on me... and with Trish, of all people!" Craig said, shaking his head. "I could understand if it was with another guy or something... at least they have the right body parts." He told him bitterly.

"I don't want to cheat on you. This isn't a way for either of us... Trish or I to cheat on either of you. It's a way of creating a son or daughter, for you and I to share and raise together." Brian smiled gently, trying to reason with his worried partner.

"But you'd be sleeping with a woman, Brian. With my best friend. Doesn't that seem weird to you?" Craig asked and Brian shrugged.

"It's not like I've never been a little curious about what it'd be like." He admitted and Craig couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"What? So you really do want to have sex with her?"

Brian shook his head. "Don't think of it as me wanting to have sex with anyone other than you. Because I don't. I just... wouldn't be opposed to creating this baby the old fashioned way, they way Trish has insisted on us doing."

"I can't believe you!"

Across town from where Craig and Brian were having their argument, Emma and Trish were having one of their own, along much of the same lines as their friends.

"I don't want you sleeping with Brian!" Emma yelled at her wife as they walk across the threshold to their small apartment.

"But Emma... it's the only way to have this baby."

"No, it's the only way you have decided you will have this baby, which by the way no one has decided is happening!" She added to the fire. "Craig's not comfortable with this idea, and I'm definitely not comfortable with this idea..."

"But you're not the ones who are going to be having sex!" Trish argued. "Brian and I would be, and neither of us have a problem with it."

"But I do have a problem with it," said Emma. "I don't like the idea of my wife sleeping with a man. It scares me."

"But why, Emma?" Trish asked. She really wanted to do this and couldn't figure out why her wife didn't like the idea. All she wanted to do was help give Craig and Brian a child.

"What if you decide that you want to start having sex with men regularly, or all the time? I couldn't handle it if you decided to leave me because you realized that you liked cock better than what I could give you."

"That's never going to happen. I love you and no one else, not even Brian could get me to leave you."

"But how do you know that?" Emma asked quietly.

"Because I've loved you ever since the day we met. I've had sex with men before, and I have no desire to leave you so I can do it again. You are the only person that I love and nothing is going to change that."

The next day Emma and Craig went out for coffee. Brian had a business trip he had to go on that evening so he stayed home to pack. Trish had a shift at the diner where she worked so it was just the two of them, and for once in their friendship they were on the same side of an argument. By the time Emma got there Craig had already been waiting there for 20 minutes and had finished his entire frozen latte. She sat down at Craig's table after getting her own coffee and let out an exasperated sigh of frustration.

"Long night?" Craig asked after seeing his friend who looked frustrated.

"The longest." She said. "I can't believe they want to do this..this thing." Emma threw her arms in the air. "Are they crazy? I mean, seriously? They want to fuck around... with both of us knowing about it, even though neither of us wants this to happen?" She groaned.

"Brian tried to convince me last night that it'd be a good thing to use Trish as a surrogate... tried to extol all the benefits of using her.... But for some reason all I can think about is the two of them having sex together."