We Are Inevitable by Gayle Forman (read aloud txt) 📕

his fingers. “And good trunk control, so I can sit up on my own and I can tell when I have to pee or shit, which is good.” He pauses. “But there are . . . issues . . . in the performance department.”

“So can you not . . . ?” I gesture toward my lap.

“Get it up?” Chad says. “I can. Sort of. But not reliably. Or the way I want to. Or used to.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Not to toot my own horn, but before my accident, I was a boner machine. Ten seconds of porn. Boom, I was hard! The sight of Mrs. Newkirk’s bra. Did you have her for ELA? She was hot!”

I nod.

“That would get me a rod. The wind blew and I’d pop a woody. Thinking about a boner I’d had would give me a new one.” He sighs. “Ahh, the good old days.”

“And now?”

He sighs again. “Like everything else, it’s different.”

“How?”

“For one, I can only get a boner if someone touches my junk.”

“So?”

“Well, I get a boner anytime someone touches my junk. A cat could walk across my lap. I once got a boner when a nurse probed my dick. Which is not hot. And neither was she. But I got hard because something was touching my junk.”

“Like a reflex?”

“Exactly. It’s even called a reflex boner. But the problem is that’s the only boner I can get. And I wanna be able to get a psychogenic boner . . .”

“A what?”

“The kind of erection you get if you’re watching porn, or making out with someone, or feeling lust, or love, I can’t get hard from those. I need the manual stimulation.” He grimaces a bit as he shakes his head. “And then there’s orgasms.”

“Can you not . . . come?” I trail off, realizing I’ve never talked like this to a friend. To anyone.

“Kind of. I get that tensed-up feeling before you shoot off, but then nothing comes out. It’s frustrating as hell.”

“But if you can get hard, and feel like you’re coming . . . That’s good, right?”

“I mean it’s better than nothing. But it’s not the same. I can’t finish and even if I could, coming is like a physical thing, like sneezing. It’s not connected to desire.”

“Is that so bad?”

“Yeah, it is,” Chad replies. “Think about it: You wanna fall in love with someone and have all the physical and emotional stuff, and I can’t. It’s bad enough wondering if anyone can fall in love with damaged goods like me. But if they did, could I fall in love with them? Like if I can’t translate this.” He taps his head. “To this.” He taps his crotch. “Will it happen? I don’t know which is the chicken, and which is the egg, but I know I want that all-consuming love. The one that makes all the other shit in life worth it.” Chad looks at me. “I want that so much. Don’t you?”

By all accounts, my parents had that. And look what it led to. So there’s part of me that doesn’t want anything to do with a love that can make or break you.

Except here I am, heading to Seattle to see Hannah Crew.

“Yeah, Chad,” I say. “I think I do.”

I assumed Chad’s man with a dick would be a doctor but he turns out to be a super-handsome, white-toothed, hair-gelled guy in a wheelchair. He greets Chad with a hearty handshake. “So happy to meet you in person,” he says in heavily accented English.

Chad introduces me to Frederic, who he’s been corresponding with for nearly a year now but has only just met because Frederic lives in Budapest, Hungary.

“Oh, have you read any Magda Szabó?” I ask. “I think The Door is next on my reading list.”

Frederic looks at me blankly.

“I only mention it because she’s a Hungarian author.”

“Never heard of her,” Frederic says.

“Aaron’s very smart,” Chad says. “That’s why I brought him along.”

Frederic reaches for a leather attaché case and dials the combo, opening the lid with such a flourish I expect there to be a vial of some magical boner elixir inside. But what he pulls out is a glossy brochure with the words RESTORE YOUR ESSENTIAL SELF emblazoned on the cover.

Chad shows me the brochure. It’s full of images of men in wheelchairs, some holding babies in their laps, others with gorgeous women draped over them, all looking very happy. Beneath the pictures are testimonials, the before-and-after language queasily familiar: Changed my life. Restored my family. Gave me my future back.

Frederic is featured on page three, with a blonde woman sitting on his lap.

“Who’s that?” Chad asks.

“Lena. My wife.”

Chad whistles. “Your wife’s a stone-cold fox.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“Were you together before your accident?” Chad asks.

“Lena and I met after.”

“And you can . . . you know?” Chad seems suddenly shy. “Perform.”

“Lena has no complaints.”

Chad stares longingly at the couples on the pages. “If a genie came to me tomorrow and said I could walk again or have sex like normal again, I’d choose sex.”

Frederic smiles. “Consider Dr. Laszlo that genie.”

“Who’s Dr. Laszlo?” I ask.

“The doctor who restored my manhood,” Frederic says. He taps the brochure. “The inventor of the Stim.”

“Stim?”

“The Spinal Erectile Stimulator,” Frederic clarifies.

“What is that?”

“It’s a small device that is implanted in the spinal column, connecting the groin area to the non-damaged area of the spinal cord.” He turns to Chad. “I think of it as a man-made replacement for the neurological pathways SCI disrupts.”

“How does it work?”

“It’s in the brochure.” Chad turns to Frederic. “Did you talk to Dr. Laszlo about me? Does he do T-4s?”

“He’s had excellent success with T-4s, T-1s, even C-6s.” Frederic pauses. “I’m a C-6, incomplete.”

“Wow,” Chad says.

“Wow?” I ask.

“It means his injury was higher, less chance of recovering boner function, and it worked for him.” He turns to Frederic. “And how long until you noticed results?”

“Like most patients, I had improvements before I even left Bangkok.”

“Bangkok?” I interrupt. “As in Thailand?”

“Yes,” Frederic replies. “That is where the clinic is.”

“Can’t you have the procedure here?” I ask Chad.

“Naw, dawg. The FDA is slow as shit approving things like this