"Porno mags and wet wipes."

Continuing from here. Have a read.

So, the day of my appointment to spend some quality time with myself eventually arrived. It was the weirdest, most oddly terrifying experience I’ve encountered in my adult life. I think the thing that made it so weird was the fact that I was given a time and a place to do it. I mean that’s fairly odd, right? Being told when and where you have to have a wank.

Also my wife was with me.

My wife.

Accompanied me.

To the hospital.

For my wanking appointment.

I know that we were doing this because were trying to find out what (if anything) was wrong with either of us because we weren’t conceiving but it was still pretty fucking weird.

For starters, the person behind the counter in the department I was going to - Masturbatory Ward? - was a woman. Now I know she was a doctor/nurse/medical professional and wasn’t nearly as embarrassed as I was, but when I dinged the bell (not a euphemism) and said I was here for my appointment I felt like she was judging me and made me think that I was doing something seedy and immoral. I think I might even have winked on the word ‘appointment.’ And this wasn’t even the first person I had told that morning. Before reaching the correct part of the hospital, I had to say to the girl behind the counter at reception. Hospitals being what they are, I imagine they know what kind of appointments occur at certain times of the day, so when I told the girl at reception I was here for my appointment, she may have said “3^rd floor” but what I heard was “I know why you’re here, you dirty beggar.” This sort of thing doesn’t exactly relax one before you have to perform an act of onanism. 

Anyway, we sat in the waiting room for about ten minutes and then my name was called for me to have the most organised wank in history. The nurse walked me to the room, provided me with my receptacle and sort of…instructed me on what to do. I didn’t interrupt with any variation on ‘don’t worry, love. I’ve done this plenty of times’ mostly because I was worried about the size of the container. It was tiny. I wasn’t entirely sure of the logistics of how this would work. Do I place the tip into the cup? Do I vacuum seal it to the end of my penis? And what if I…missed the target? What if, in the heat of the moment, I forget why I’m there and accidentally spaff all over the wall? It’s still fairly early in the morning and I highly doubt I have another one in me. The only thing that would come out would be dust. And if I did miss, I’d have to wait at least twenty minutes before I physically could try again. Would I just stay in the room that whole time or go back out into the waiting room, ashamed and dirty, and then go back in again? Just to reiterate, not exactly relaxed.

The room itself didn’t help matters. There was a cavalcade of things in there that made the task in hand (ha!) infinitely more difficult. The drab décor and unremarkableness of the small room reminded me of the store that the huts in school had. You know the ones that were usually behind the teacher’s desk. Only instead of the extra jotters, stationary and sweets that normally live there, there were porno mags and wet wipes. Oh, and the chair. The chair that one assumes they expect you to sit on while you’re going about your business. I didn’t know much at this stage but I knew that I was definitely not going to be sitting in that chair. God knows what amount of bodily fluids that chair has absorbed over the years; it’d probably squelch if I sat on it. It made me wish I had a blacklight, and then immediately made me glad that I didn’t because I likely would have run out screaming and gone home to shower with bleach.

Anyway, the nurse left to let me get on with it but not before telling me about the “materials provided” to help me with “providing my specimen.” That’s “porno mags” to help me “cum in a cup” in layman’s terms. They were collected in a box file, which instantly made me think of where my dad used to keep all the bank letters and tax return forms. Not really the sexiest of thoughts. On the top of the box file there was a little note stuck to the front (with sellotape, you filthy bastards!) that said “To help the process along, pornographic materials have been provided. However some may find these images offensive so please return all materials to the box after use and close tightly.” I don’t care how offensive you might find them; if they weren’t there and I just had to rely on my own imagination, I’d probably still be in there now.

I opened the box. I thought of asking for gloves before handling any of the contents, but that might have looked like I was into some weird sexual shit with rubber gloves and a ball gag.

And I don’t think hospitals stock ball gags.

Inside was a variety of your standard nude-y magazines. Like…loads of them, in various states of disrepair; some were still mostly in tact, others were ripped to shreds while in some cases there were just loose pages. I wondered to myself how furiously one would have to masturbate to completely dismantle a magazine, then decided it was better not to think about other men wanking when I was just about to. I laid the magazines out on the horrible horrible chair of bleurgh, and went about doing what I came to do. Or doing what I did to come. Either works.

After a while, and when I properly focused on the task instead of being distracted by reading the small print on the sex lines ads - “Two minute long intro. £1.50 for the first minute. 75p for each additional minute” seemed to be the norm - or being worried about the fact that I still had to go to work straight after this appointment - “They’re all going to know. Oh God, they’re all going to know. I don’t know how but they will” - the…moment arrived. Or was arriving. It was close to getting here is what I’m saying. Past the point of no return. I grabbed the receptacle. I stuck my thumb under the lid and tried to pop it off. It appeared to be stuck.

I looked at the lid. There was a safety seal on it.

Fuck! Fucking fuck!

It was basically a race against time now to see what would get off first. Me or the lid. I frantically grasped at the seal to ping it off, each second ticking away I was becoming ever closer to my earlier fear of accidentally spaffing all over the wall. Or worse, the chair. I would be adding my DNA to the melting pot of hundreds of other men before, particularly the furious masturbator. And no-one wants to be associated with him. After what seemed like an eternity the lid came off and I, rather unceremoniously and after pointing my old chap in the right direction, deposited my specimen with mere moments to spare. Sweating and exhausted, through fear more than exertion, I slumped down on the chair. I didn’t care anymore about the melting pot of DNA and hoped the magazine I had set on it was a suitable barrier between me and it. I popped the lid on, pulled my trousers up and exited the room.

Holding the sample in my hands I walked towards the window where the nurse was. All of this couldn’t have taken anymore than ten minutes. There was no-one in the corridor when I went in, but when I came back to hand in my sample, it had filled up considerably. The corridor, I mean. Three people were standing there talking as I exited the room, cup of sperm in hand, visible for all to see through the clear container. I smiled a defeated smile and walked to the window to hand of my cup to the nurse. I dandered sheepishly back to the waiting room where my wife was still sitting. It’s an odd experience knowing that while I was doing what I was doing my wife was sat metres away at the end of a corridor also knowing exactly what I was doing. Thankfully, she didn’t bring it up.

For about ten seconds. After which she just started laughing at me and my obvious awkwardness. I suppose that was fair enough, she’s been poked and prodded at countless doctors’ visits and had a barrage of tests and the like done to her what with blood tests, urine samples, internal examinations and never once has she complained. All I had to do was wank in a cup.

We left the ward soon after, passing by the people who’d just seen me hand in my specimen. I tried my hardest not to look at any of them in the eyes. Their judgemental disapproving eyes. 

I’ve never been so glad to leave a hospital in my life.