Truth wasn’t always stranger than fiction. Or at any rate, fiction wasn’t always required to be more believable than truth. O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant were once allowed to tell stories with coincidences and turn-abouts that defy modern readers’ credulity.
Fiction has changed, but true life continues to deliver the goods.
A German couple, who discovered the husband was sterile, hired a neighbor to impregnate the wife. Alas, after 6 months of valiant effort, the wife still wasn’t pregnant. The couple demanded a refund, but the neighbor wanted to keep the money, as he had done the work promised–he’d tried to get the wife pregnant.
Now, why did the couple think the neighbor would be able to get the wife pregnant? Because the neighbor had two kids with his own wife. As a result of a lawsuit for breach of contract, this fact came out: the neighbor is also sterile, a fact he was unaware of. Turns out, his wife had to contract with somebody else to get pregnant.
A turn-about worthy of O. Henry or Maupassant. Imagine all the layers of such a story. The thing I can’t help wondering is why the neighbor’s wife ever agreed to such a thing. Didn’t she suspect that her own deception might be revealed when her husband failed to knock up the other woman?
Okay, okay, what am I saying? That seems like a secondary consideration. Why would she have ever given the okay for her husband to try to get somebody else’s wife pregnant? Even knowing that he wouldn’t be able to, isn’t the trying part what usually puts a strain on marriages? Was the money that good? Or did she figure it was just fair for him to have a little side-action, since she’d had hers?
Here is where learning more about the actual situation probably wouldn’t help me understand any better. What I need is a writer to turn this into a story that will help me understand. How convenient.
Bryn Greenwood 