Read Maybe Baby for Free Online

person who would snap me out of it and make me react. I wished she was with me. I should have asked her to come along for moral support. No doubt she would have criticized the outfit I was wearing—black capri pants, black ballet flats, and a silk pullover sweater—and said it was too boring, too Euro Corporate. That I'd pulled my hair into a bun would have made her grimace, but I had to dress for work, and I'd come to the clinic straight after my last meeting, so at least I had an excuse.
    When Ida came out to greet me, I was struck by how young she looked. She didn't seem like she was much older than Siri. She was probably only a few years her senior. But she carried herself with a self-assurance that was enviable. I pegged her at twenty-five. When I was that age, I could only fake confidence. I was good at working it and making people think I was cool as a c ucumber, but inside I was shaking. And now, as we greeted one another and shook hands, I tried to channel a little of Eddy's confident persona. Ida led me to her office, which was just as stylish and Danish cool as the reception area. Instead of sitting at her desk, Ida and I sat on the black leather Exposition sofa. On the rosewood coffee table in front of the sofa were several binders and a sleek MacBook Air. From unseen speakers, ambient lounge music streamed in, giving her office the feel of a trendy hotel bar rather than an office at a clinic.
    " Now, tell me," Ida said in an encouraging voice. "What sort of man speaks to you?"
    " Speaks to me?" I asked. "You mean on a daily basis?"
    " No, sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant what sort of man interests you."
    " Oh! Well..." I tried to picture Niklas in my head. He was the man I loved so, surely, he would be the man who spoke to me. Instead, I saw a completely different man. Someone a little taller, a little less serious. Someone who didn't slick their hair back every morning with hair gel and who didn't clear his throat whenever he wanted me to hand him the Culture section on a Sunday morning. "I like men who are creative." It was the only thing that came out that wouldn't sound like a withering putdown of Niklas. And he didn't deserve that. Where had all of this criticism come from?
    " That's a good start." Ida started taking notes on her computer. "Tell me more."
    I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. I thought of the walk I'd taken from the Jensen, Fogh & Ogilvy office in Væsterbrø and envisioned the men I passed. There was a café I passed just as I came up Øster Søgade. It was situated on the corner, and I remembered seeing a man sitting by the window, reading the newspaper. I'd paused long enough to catch his eye. I hadn't meant to. I got a bit distracted by how relaxed he looked, how his reddish-blond hair waved around his face. He wasn't classically beautiful, but he had an interesting face and such kissable looking lips that I could almost feel them on mine just thinking about them. Then I had to stop myself... damn, I already felt guilty, and all I'd done was daydream about another man.
    " I'm sorry," I said. "This just feels weird."
    So Ida took over and began telling me about why C openhagen Cryo insisted on potential parents meeting the men who could help them in their quest to become parents. "We wouldn't just let anyone in our homes, so why shouldn't we be selective about whose sperm fertilizes our eggs?"
    She made it sounds so normal, so logical. She talked about Dr. Mikkelsen, the woman who'd founded the clinic and who'd come up with the idea of making a sperm bank as transparent as dating. How she thought you ought to know as much as possible about the men involved—even have access to their medical records or police records so that you could be assured you were getting superior genes. It all started to sound a bit like eugenics, and maybe Ida sensed my reticence, because she assured me that this wasn't about creating a master race or a super baby, just making sure that the man