1 Chapter 1

It had been two months—two months since he had signed the decree dissolving the marriage of Dr. Christine Parker D.V.M. and Dr. Daniel Parker D.V.M. and Dan felt he was ready to embark on a new life.

It hadn’t been the veterinarian’s decision to get divorced. It had been his wife’s. Christine wanted children, and Dr. Dan seemed to be the culprit in their inability to conceive. He had a low sperm count. In fact, it was so low that his little swimmers were nearly extinct in his seminal sample. Not only that, those that were found were deformed and didn’t do much swimming, seemingly content to wiggle in place or paddle around in circles.

He had suggested in vitro fertilization. However, because of the condition of his meager sperm supply and their lack of motility, the chances of it being effective would be nearly zero.

Dan next suggested adoption. Christine wanted children which were biologically hers. She suggested a sperm donor. He nixed that, saying he didn’t think he could raise a child that was hers but fathered by some other man. So, citing her need to be a momma and the ticking of her biological clock, she presented him with divorce papers. The split was amicable enough. He and Christine were still friends. Each received custody of one of their dogs, Lad and Lady.

Now that he was a single man, the nagging suspicions he’d had ever since high school clamored to be examined. Today was the day he would begin that process. Dan hoped he didn’t have too heavy a schedule of appointments because he planned, that very night, to screw up his courage and go to a gay bar in a city several miles from where he lived, to see if what he had been suspecting was indeed true.

In high school, when all of his friends reached puberty and began going all crazy for girls, he’d wondered what all the fuss was about. He’d had lots of girlfriends and did his share of necking and petting. But while he enjoyed it, he didn’t seem to have the same reaction to girls other boys of his age did. Instead, Dan found that seeing his buddies in the showers after gym class caused him to tingle in ways he never did when fooling around with the girls he dated. Those male-induced tingles often manifested themselves at night as full-fledged hard-ons, which he attended to regularly.

He dismissed these homoerotic flights of fantasy as something he would probably grow out of. After all, his fantasies did not contain thoughts of him doing anything with a male, but rather, in his imagination, he pictured his buddies doing what males do, screwing a female.

He knew perfectly well that was what sex was about. He’d been raised on a farm and had seen all manner of copulation among the cattle, hogs, sheep, and chickens. It would just be a matter of time before he would be the one doing the fucking, rather than the image of the horse-hung quarterback and captain of the football team, banging one of the big breasted cheerleaders.

However, when the expected evolution to heterosexuality didn’t materialize in college, Dan immersed himself in his studies. Once in vet school, he was too busy to think about the fact that he was still not experiencing what other men were in relation to the opposite sex. So, he was rather surprised when a pretty young woman, who was also studying veterinary medicine, was able to seduce him on their very first date. Relieved that he was finally able to function as a male, he’d impulsively asked Christine to marry him.

They’d had a satisfactory sex life. Although it occurred to Dan there might be something amiss as he was usually the passive actor, while his wife impaled herself on his cock as he lay on his back and she straddled him. It also seemed odd that just as his body was wracked with the ecstasy of orgasm, his mind was filled with the image of some handsome man doing the nasty with his wife.

But now he was free, free to find out what all these shadowy thoughts and desires might mean. Tonight might just be the night.

* * * *

Dr. Dan pulled into the staff lot of All Creatures Great and Small Veterinary Hospital and Clinic where he worked as an equine specialist. Until their divorce had gone through, Christine had worked in the small animal branch of the hospital. A month earlier she’d quit and moved out of state. So there was no hiding the fact that the two had split.

Dan entered the building and went to his office. After checking his voicemail and email, he returned a few calls to clients, answering their questions and checking on the condition of horses he’d treated in the past few days.