I tell my kids I work logistics. Military-adjacent. Procurement division. That I help protect our future. That's what it says on the website. "Helping heroes continue their legacy, one sample at a time."

My real title is Recovery Technician. If that sounds clinical, it is. You want it clinical. You want white coats and latex gloves. You don’t want to think about the mechanics. You don’t want to imagine me in a silent room with a dying man, coaxing out the last of his reproductive willpower with a sterile syringe and a vial marked Property of the Department of Defense.

I started at thirty-two. I'd been working pharmacy supply, shipping antiepileptics and lithium to bases overseas. I was good with paperwork, better with people. My boss called it “empathy,” but it wasn’t that. It was distance. I could smile at any tragedy and keep my hands clean.

Then the job opened. Better pay, government benefits, classified work. They flew me out to a facility in Nevada with no signage on the fence and more cameras than windows. Inside: hallways like hospitals, offices like morgues. And the Collection Rooms. Each one tiled and lit like a luxury bathroom, minus the luxury.

I’d harvest two to five samples a day. Usually with a kit. Sometimes, when they couldn’t do it themselves, it was assisted. And sometimes, when they were already gone but the body was still warm, it was surgical. The first time I had to extract postmortem, I didn’t speak for twenty-four hours. My wife, Claire, thought I had the flu. I let her believe that.

She doesn't ask questions. She likes order. Uniforms. Lawns mowed diagonally. Matching socks. Three children, one of each kind. Girl, boy, and the soft quiet one who still wets the bed. We named him Benjamin after her father. She said it sounded presidential. I didn’t say anything.

I have a little room in the basement. Just a desk and a monitor and a filing cabinet nobody touches. It's where I watch the tapes. Not those tapes—the official tapes. Security footage. Procedure reviews. Training sessions. Rows of men in recliners under fluorescent lights, watching the same three videos we pipe in to encourage production: a brunette, a blonde, and an animated figure with exaggerated anatomy that gets requested more than you’d think. I screen the tapes for compliance. I take notes. I flag anomalies. Men crying. Men laughing. Men who don’t finish. Men who finish too quickly. The system wants predictability. You sit with that long enough, and eventually, it sits with you.

#

There’s a name for the men who don’t respond. They call them non-compliants. I flag them in the system, annotate their file, and notify Counseling. Usually it’s trauma. Sometimes religion. Once, a guy claimed he didn’t believe in masturbation because he thought it made your soul leak out of your fingernails. But more often than not, it’s shame. The same kind I taste every morning before I brush my teeth. That dry, sour film on the back of the tongue. It smells like old sweat and hospital bleach. It’s not guilt. It’s older than guilt. Pre-language. Pre-sin.

I remember being twelve and hiding magazines under my mattress. Men’s Fitness. I told myself it was for the workouts. My father found them and said nothing. Just left a Bible on my pillow the next night open to Leviticus. That’s how men are raised. Not with answers, just implications.

Now I spend my days watching other men jerk off on camera. For the flag. For the future. For wives and girlfriends who wear gold cross necklaces and smile through Skype calls. For babies they’ll never meet. And some days—days when I’m particularly weak—I watch a little longer than I need to.

It’s not about arousal. Not in the way people think. It’s about proximity. About permission. About living adjacent to desire without ever stepping into it.

Claire says she’s proud of me. That I’m “serving in my own way.” That I’m doing “the Lord’s work.” She doesn’t know the things I’ve held in my gloved hands. The twitch of a soldier’s thigh when the clamp goes on. The way their chests rise when I tell them we’re going to start. The look in their eyes when they realize I’ve seen them in the most intimate, sometimes final act of their lives.

One night, about a year ago, a private came in with shrapnel in his spine and third-degree burns on his thighs. His face was intact, but his jaw was wired shut. He blinked once for yes, twice for no. I explained the procedure. He blinked once and I began.

Midway through he started to cry. Not loud. Just steady tears running into the bandages on his cheeks. I kept going. That’s the job. He never blinked twice. Not even once. After, when I labeled the vial, I saw he’d written a name on the emergency contact line: Eric. No last name. Just that. It stayed with me.

When I got home that night, Claire was already asleep. The dog had chewed the corner of the rug again. I stood in the kitchen for fifteen minutes staring at the open refrigerator, my hand still smelling faintly of hospital soap and latex. I didn’t cry. I haven’t cried in twelve years. Not even when my mother died. I don’t think I know how anymore.

#

Dinner is meatloaf. Claire slices it neatly and places the pieces like bricks on the plates. There are mashed potatoes, too—whipped stiff, no lumps, the way her mother taught her. The children sit in silence except for the sound of forks against Corelle.

“We prayed for you before you got home,” Claire says. She smiles like it’s a gift I should unwrap.

I nod. “Thanks.”

“How was work?” she asks, even though she doesn’t really want to know.

“Quiet,” I say. “Usual paperwork. Some processing delays.”

“That’s the war, I guess,” she says, scooping peas onto Benjamin’s plate. “I’m sure they’re glad to have you there. They need steady people.”

Benjamin pokes his food. He’s seven, soft-bellied, sensitive. The kind of child people call “delicate” before they call them something else. He still likes to hold my hand when we walk, but only in the dark.

Claire watches him too closely sometimes. Like she’s waiting for a sign. Like she’s hoping he’ll grow into something solid and angular and rough. Something father-shaped. Something American. “Eat,” she tells him. “Daddy works hard.”

The middle child, Morgan, mutters, “What even is your job, though?”

I freeze mid-chew. Claire answers for me. “He helps soldiers. Medical work. Support staff.”

Morgan frowns. “So like … a nurse?”

Claire’s smile falters. “More technical than that.”

I stare at my plate. The meatloaf is cooling, congealing at the edges.

Benjamin pipes up: “Do you help them when they get shot?”

Sometimes, I want to tell them. Not because I think they’ll understand, but because I want someone else to carry even one percent of the absurdity. I want to sit them all down at the kitchen table and say:

Your father helps young men jerk off into government-issued cups so their semen can be frozen and stored in stainless steel vats underground in the Utah desert. Your father massages the dead. Your father has a list of emergency contacts more intimate than anything your mother’s ever whispered in the dark.

But I don’t say any of that. I just reach for the ketchup.

Later, when the kids are in bed and Claire is loading the dishwasher with military precision, I go to the basement. My little room. No locks. No secrets. Just a screen and a chair and the soft whir of the fan inside the tower. I queue up footage from earlier that day. Room 4. Private first class, mid-20s, calm, polite, tattoo of a falcon on his left wrist. He sits in the chair, headphones on, eyes closed. At minute three, he opens his eyes and looks directly into the camera.

It shouldn’t mean anything. Most of them do that. There’s nothing else to look at. But something about this look—about the way his mouth twitches like he’s about to speak, like he wants to confess something he doesn’t have words for—it gets to me.

I pause the feed. The image freezes: him, half-undressed, eyes wide, skin flushed, looking straight at me through the glass of the screen.

Claire knocks on the doorframe. I jump. “You coming to bed?”

“In a bit,” I say.

She lingers. I don’t turn around. “I could … warm you up some milk?”

I nod. “Maybe.”

She leaves. I hit play. The soldier closes his eyes again. And I sit there watching him, wondering how much of my life I’ve wasted trying to be a person who could survive his own reflection.

#

I’m not supposed to be present for the collections—not usually. Unless the subject has special clearance, language barriers, or medical restrictions. Today’s subject had a note in his file: Anxiety-related noncompliance. Technician presence approved.

His name is Lance Corporal Ethan Voigt. Twenty-three. Blonde in the boy-band way, not the corn-fed way. Long fingers. Soft around the eyes. The kind of soldier who always looks like he’s about to apologize for existing. He walks in with a nervous smile, holding the hem of his shirt like it’s the only thing keeping him from floating away. I hand him the release form. He reads it like it’s a pop quiz.

“You can stop at any time,” I say. “This isn’t mandatory.”

He laughs. “Nothing feels optional in the Army.”

I hand him the standard issue headphones. “There’s a screen. Choose whatever you like. I’ll be behind the partition if you need anything.”

He sits. I step back. The divider gives about half a room’s worth of visual privacy, but I can still see his legs. Hear the chair squeak as he shifts. The video starts. A woman in heels. A man in uniform. Ethan watches for maybe twenty seconds before pausing it.

“Can I … ask something?”

I round the partition. He’s still dressed. Elbows on knees. Avoiding eye contact. “Sure.”

“Is there, like, a different kind of … material?”

I pause. There is. Folder 9G. Restricted. Nonheteronormative samples, used for psychological desensitization or special request. I’ve never had anyone ask before—not out loud.

“I can authorize it,” I say. “But it’ll go in your file.”

He smiles, tight-lipped. “Everything already is.”

I enter the override code. The screen refreshes. Male-on-male now. Tasteful. Sanitized. Government-approved intimacy. He nods, grateful, and starts again. I return behind the divider, but I don’t sit. I watch the silhouette. His hand moving slowly. His breath catching. A soft, involuntary noise escaping his throat. I should leave. I should shut the door and mark the session as active and take a walk around the perimeter. Instead I stay.

And then—he speaks. “You ever think about it?” he says. Not loud. Not even to me, maybe. “Like, what would happen if you just stopped pretending?”

My heart does something I don’t recognize. Not a leap. Not a drop. More like a clench. I say nothing.

He keeps going. “Sorry,” he says. “That was out of line. I’m just nervous.”

His voice is thick now. Raw. He’s not even looking at the screen anymore. Just staring into the middle distance, like the air between us has formed a mirror. I step out from behind the partition. He sees me and his hand stills. The air goes taut. For one long, warping second, the room forgets what it is. Then I break it.

“Finish the session,” I say. Voice flat. Cold. Professional. “I’ll be outside if you need anything else.”

He nods. Face red. Shame blooming like blood in water. I shut the door behind me and stand in the hallway, hand still on the knob. The camera above me hums. In my pocket, my fist is closed so tight around the access badge that the corners leave little square welts in my palm.

#

That night I lie in bed beside Claire while she dreams whatever Claire dreams—soft, rust-colored things. Pottery Barn catalogues. Church potlucks. A future where all the kids grow into correct shapes. I stare at the ceiling like it might offer a verdict. Beside me, the room hums with domestic machinery. The fridge compressor kicking on. The HVAC sighing through the vents. The white-noise machine Benjamin can’t sleep without whirring faintly down the hall. All of it calibrated, adjusted, perfected. I’ve built a fortress out of normal. And all I can think about is the sound Ethan made. That soft, almost startled breath when his body betrayed him.

Not the lust. Not even the moment of exposure. But the calm afterward. The way he looked at me like I wasn’t just a technician, but a participant. Not in the act—just in the knowing. The shared silence between people who’ve stopped lying to themselves, even for just a second. That’s what I can’t shake.

I haven’t touched Claire in weeks, save for hugs. She hasn’t asked. Our intimacy now is administrative. Lunches packed. Forms signed. Backpacks checked for snacks. We pass each other like coworkers on shift.

I could live this way forever. That’s the scariest part. I’ve arranged my life so carefully that I almost forget it isn’t mine. I move through it like a man in a wax museum, posing for tourists, hoping nobody notices the faint heat behind the glass eyes.

I think about Ethan asking “You ever think about it?” and I want to scream. Not for being asked. For knowing the answer. For knowing I’ve thought about it every day since I was fourteen and caught myself staring too long in the locker room mirror. For knowing that I built an entire career—an entire identity—around standing adjacent to desire without ever crossing the line.

But it’s not a line. That’s the lie. It’s a wall. One I poured myself into brick by brick, until I couldn’t tell where the cement ended and I began.

I close my eyes. For a second, I imagine saying it. Out loud. Just once. To Ethan. To Claire. To no one in particular.

I am not what I pretend to be.

But the words catch somewhere. Not in my throat. Deeper. In that hidden place where shame lives like a tapeworm. Feeding on the years. Growing fat. I roll over and watch Claire’s back rise and fall beneath the comforter. She smells like lavender and dryer sheets. I reach out—just barely—and let my fingers hover above her shoulder. I don’t touch her. I don’t want to wake her. I just want to feel what it’s like to be that close to someone without lying. Even for a moment.

#

The next day, the building smells like ammonia and fear. Fluorescents buzz overhead like they’re tired of pretending to be sunlight. The break room coffee tastes like burnt socks. Nobody makes eye contact for longer than three seconds. Same as always. I nod to security, scan my badge, and step into the Collection wing.

Room 2 is empty. Sanitized. Chair wiped down. Floor mopped. On the counter: a new stack of forms. New name, new body, new mission. Just another soldier.

Ethan’s file has already been archived. I check, just to be sure. His name is grayed out, reassigned to a new unit. Transfer complete. No complaints logged. No disciplinary flags. Just a note: Session successful. Good for him.

I walk the corridor, clipboard in hand, pretending to read. There’s nothing on it. Just a printout of my own calendar, blank except for my initials in neat block letters.

When I get back to my office, I close the door and pull the blinds. I sit at the desk and unlock the restricted database. I key in Folder 9G.

The thumbnails load. I don’t pick anything. I don’t touch myself. I don’t even lean in close. I just sit there, watching the loop. Men with other men. Some of them tender. Some of them rough. All of them real. Honest in a way I’ve never allowed myself to be.

And this thought rises—simple, plain, unadorned:

Maybe this is enough.

Maybe I don’t have to torch my life. Maybe I don’t have to destroy my family or move to some condo in a city with better brunch options. Maybe I don’t need to come out at all, in the way they write about in memoirs with coastal blurbs and six-figure advances. Maybe I just want a little dick on the side. Maybe that’s not a crisis. Maybe it’s just … true.

There are men who want husbands. Men who want freedom. Men who want to dress in leather and dance on floats. Me? I want a quiet, boring life with a half-lit corner that belongs to no one but me. I want Claire to keep packing the kids’ lunches. I want to keep this job, weird and morbid as it is.

And I want, every so often, to take a detour. A quiet detour. Something soft. Something safe. Something I can carry in my pocket like a smooth stone. And maybe—just maybe—that makes me whole. Not pure. Not saved. Not righteous. Just whole.

I close the database. Wipe the logs. Straighten my collar. Outside, the next donor waits. Tall. Nervous. Hands in pockets. I open the door. “Room 4,” I say. “You’re with me today.”