We both work, two kids. Putting sex on the calendar saved our marriage. 9pm every Wednesday. A midweek jolt to look forward to, a tangible daydream in after-daycare traffic.

Last night, 9:01, I pass gas bad due to my big dinner. I pinch, try to wrestle and choke it, but it’s greasy and quiet and it sneaks into the sheets.

A moment’s delay. Maybe it died. Maybe it–

“No,” she says. “No.” And then, from behind the bathroom door: “Unacceptable.” No other sounds in there. Doing nothing but standing at the counter, remembering the smell.

Dinner tonight, the boys finger-painting ketchup, she finally speaks to me. “Wednesday night is my one release. You cannot do what you did.”

“It was an accident.”

“I’m this close to snapping.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not doing that at that time ever again.”

“I’ll try, but…”

“But?”

“I had a work dinner. The menu wasn’t up to me.”

“Tuesdays and Thursdays, four o’clock.”

“What?”

“Block off a half an hour.”

“For what?”

“Getting them out. All of them.”

“I can’t just… Are you joking?”

“If you need more than an hour a week to get them out your system, you need to see a doctor.”

I laugh a little. She doesn’t. “Do you want this to work?”

Corey dabs a Rudolph nose on Hank. They smile, oblivious.

“You know my sister has two empty bedrooms.”

She’s made the threat before. What am I going to do, give up this life I work so hard to afford and live in a furnished hotel?

And so I nod and on my phone I add the recurring meetings to my calendar.

*

My first Tuesday appointment isn’t a home run. Tepid grumblers forced out with my stomach folded over the back of my office chair.

Wednesday I struggle to keep them inside me, but I manage to hold the line during our evening sex appointment.

Thursday’s session is an improvement — foot propped on my desk; several fat and satisfying rips.

By week three, the routine clicks. Our sex life recovers and my blocked-off calendar has caused no work issues. In fact, my boss and colleagues believe I’m doing head-down focused work, bathed in white noise, and they’re impressed. But behind my office door I’m curled on my side, slacks folded into a pillow, pumping liters of fumes from my colon into an odor-absorbing bag of charcoal.

Saturday I run errands alone and I know I could get away with it. Hide a soft silent at the farmer’s market. Leave one by the mulch at Home Depot. She’d never know. But there’s something about adhering to these rules. My life had few principals, but now I’ve got structure. Dogma, purpose. And so I remain devout, by my own choice. I uphold my vows and the urge to pass gas evaporates outside of my time blocks. I forget about the need entirely until Tuesday and Thursday at 4pm, when I open my asscheeks and set off putrid firecrackers for half an hour.

My eyes roll back and my body quakes as the air rumbles out of me. I moan and gasp and slam into my desk, my cabinets, my windows. Bruised and beaten as the blows launch me in unpredictable directions. The tornado is inside me and I am the cow. By 4:30 I am clean and empty and ready for the balance of the work day.

I had no idea how much time I had wasted passing gas without structure. I complete the Macy’s presentation early and Mr. Heffernan likes it so much he asks me to start attending client meetings.

“But those are only for VPs and above,” I say.

“Whatever you’ve been doing lately, it’s working.”

Wednesday night’s sex session is tremendous. She’s relaxed, fearless.

*

“Hey, bud,” Mr. Heffernan says from the door frame as I finish a big cabbage and cauliflower salad for lunch on Tuesday. “The Bloomingdale’s buyer had a schedule change and she’s coming in this afternoon. I want you to lead.”

“Wow. This is a huge opportunity.”

“It’s at four today. Millions at stake if she likes the new line. And bonus season is coming up.”

“Four this afternoon? Tuesday at four?”

“You can move your focus time, right?”

I look at the few beans left in my bowl; the empty glass of milk. “Can she do 3:30? Or 4:30? Maybe we take an intermission from four to four-thirty?”

“This is a massive account. We work on her schedule.”

“Of course.”

*

I prepare the perfume samples for the buyer while failing to pass gas all afternoon. I push and pump and manually open my hole, but there’s nothing. It’s not just that the urge no longer strikes; my body has forgotten how to break wind at any time but 4 o’clock Tuesdays and Thursdays.

4:28, knock on my door. The receptionist: “Ms. Dubois from Bloomingdale’s is here for the 4:30.”

I pull my knee to my chest, one last attempt to jackknife a rip, but my ass won’t start.

The door swings open, Mr. Heffernan gestures to me. “There’s our superstar importer; the best picker in the business.”

I lower my leg, pretend to stretch. Ms. Dubois smiles. Her nose is bandaged. This might be good.

“Forgive my appearance,” she says. “Sinus surgery, to expand my nostrils.”

She unwraps the bandage. Two gaping manholes.

Jesus Christ. A bullet of sweat fires down my asscrack. I nod and lead her into the conference room, pinching my cheeks tight.

4:31, we sit down. My glutes mash into each other, vibrating. Focus. Mr. Heffernan tees me up: “He’s assembled six of the finest perfumes from untapped regions in South America.”

She smiles, inhales through those giant pipes. “One moment, please,” she says, and then swallows four white pills. “Sudafed. To keep the nasal passages as spread-open as possible.”

“Go on, let her smell,” Mr. Heffernan says.

4:33 and the pressure assaults the inside of my ass. I tense every muscle from my toes to my scalp, ventriloquist my lips just enough to squeak, “You may help yourself to the bottles.”

Heffernan glares at me. I’m being rude. I know. I must look strange – quaking in my seat, grunting, sweaty chunks of hair flopping side to side while my intestines balloon and I pull my sphincter up toward my ribs to stifle the steam that’s been gestating inside me for five days. A rankness stings the inside of my nose; the sour vapors have bubbled up through my organs, breached my throat.

Ms. Dubois approaches the table, uncorks a bottle. Her eyes stay on me as I bite my lip and squeeze my eyes shut and slam against my armrests, spinning in my chair, fighting this cage match with my bowels.

“His skin is turning green, no?” she says.

“Hey,” my boss says. “What’s wrong?”

I open my eyes; they gasp.

“Jesus Christ,” Heffernan says. “Your eyes are brown. The white parts. They’re all brown.”

It’s like I’m underwater in a swamp, my vision stained sepia with the condensated gas.

“Call an ambulance,” my boss shouts to the receptionist.

The cloud of shitsmoke pushes against the back of my asshole; dilating it open. It’s so warm. It feels bright and natural. An angel climbing out of me. But if it emerges I will be fired, I will lose my home, my wife may leave me. Its hot fingers press the seat of my pants and I roll onto the table, cork my ass with the cone-shaped bottle of Colonia Inglesa 451.

The hot demon knocks and raps and pounds but the bottle is wedged in tight. I can do this. I can keep the hell inside me for another eleven minutes and the darkness will fade at 4:30.

But what happens tomorrow night? I will have missed my window. Betrayed my oath. I will cut the cheese during sex and my wife will leave me. Who will I be? I’ve found myself in an impossible bind. Each path equally fraught.

But in times of strife one must find solace in his faith. Trust the schedule. Commit.

The growing sun behind my cheeks blooms, stretching me open, and I lay back and stirrup my legs and I push that bastard out hard, sniper-shooting the bottle through a glass wall. The sinful beast roars out of me, moaning, wailing, crying, furious. The live birth of a full-grown ape. Diarrhea fills my shoes. Screams from everyone.

Eventually it ends. My eyes clear. I reach across the table, spritz the Fueguia 1833 into the air. Perhaps its botanical essence will —

No, they’re both vomiting. She’s crying. It smells very bad in here and I have lost my job.

*

I bury my clothes in the yard and fail to build the courage to tell my wife what’s happened.

On Wednesday the sex is tremendous, charged with my fear it is our last time.

Thursday morning she walks the dog, comes inside holding my diarrhea shoes and asks me what’s going on.

I break down. “I tried to hold it in during an important meeting, but I couldn’t. I had to pass gas at that time. My body cannot function any other way. I lost my job. We can’t afford our house anymore. I am so sorry.”

She sits down and holds me. “It will be okay.”

“You’re not leaving me?”

“You upheld your vow.” She kisses my cheek, still pinching the wet shoes.

*

Two weeks later we live in a furnished hotel. Sold the boat, the iPads. My nightmare a few months back. It’s not so bad. We live simply and with purpose, and I rarely miss the trinkets. The kids sleep in the room next door while my wife and I have sex — now on both Wednesdays and Saturdays.

And during the week I stick to the schedule, driving around handing out resumes, anticipation building for Tuesdays and Thursdays at four, when I get to lock the SUV’s doors, roll out my towel in the trunk, pull down my pants, kneel and close my eyes and press my hands together, and detonate rotten ass gas through my brown chapped cheeks for thirty sacred minutes.

The best way to familiarize your potty-training child with the bathroom process is to let him watch you use the toilet. When he shows an interest, leave the door open and let him see how you unbuckle your belt and sit. Let him watch you dig your elbows deep into your thighs and roll your spine forward until your eyes touch your phone. Allow him to observe you push, strain, and search eBay for out of print DVDs. He should watch you check your email, check your other email, click a link, skim the headline, open the eBay app again, struggle to remember which movie you wanted to look up, mutter “god damn it” at the Offer Rejected notice from an eBay seller, moan, and pass gas. Let him hear you grunt and cough. Let him watch you pull your ballbag to the side and peer between your legs and say, “Jesus.” Let him watch you wonder if you ate beets. If you ate grapefruit. Show him how you realize you’ve eaten neither. Let him watch your head jolt when the doorbell rings. The electrician to install the ceiling fan. Let your son hear you mutter, “The one fucking time this prick is early.” As the doorbell rings again let him watch you bite your bottom lip and go purple straining to get the bulbous monster out of you. Let your son watch you push again, and wheeze, and fail. Fail to rid yourself of this poison, fail to deliver. You sweat and pant. Let him see it. Let him see you wipe your wet hair with your t-shirt. A third chime and then your phone rings, the electrician. “Fuck,” your son should hear, and he should see how you fumble and drop your phone. Let your boy observe how you rush through sopping up your mess. Show him how your eyes widen when you see the only color on the paper is red. Let him hear the knock on the door, you screaming, “Give me a minute, I’m on a work phone call.” Let him watch you attempt to stand on your sound-asleep legs. Allow him to see your knees collapse, your body buckle and crash into the door frame, cracking your temple, falling to the ground cracking the back of your skull. Let your son watch the electrician peer through the window, ask if you need help. Let your son open the door and watch the man perform CPR on you while your dick and balls bounce. Let your son hear the electrician say that you are not breathing and might be dead. Have your son watch the electrician call 911 and resume chest compressions. Your child should see the paramedics enter the home and feel your belly and say it’s like a brick’s in there. You child should answer when they ask how long this man was on the toilet by telling them it was a normal two hours. He should see their concerned looks, watch them feel the arteries in your blue legs and say there is no pulse, that the nerves and vessels look like they’d been run over by tires the width of forearms. Let your son watch them rev their grizzly bonesaws and slice off your bloodless legs. Let him see the blood spray when they cesarean your stomach and reach inside to grip your turgid log. Allow him to watch them work the rock down your colon until its cracked crown emerges from your nest of ass hair. Let him see them wince and gag. Let him see them drown the duke in lubricant and pinch it with their instruments and pull it hard until the black branch is out and your boy should see how you gasp back to life, choking and crying. Let him see the paramedics wipe you and let him hear you yell at all these pricks to get the hell out of your house immediately. Show him how you buckle your belt and hobble on your stumps to the sink and wash your hands with soap. And then give your son a high-five as you tell him that you did a good job going to the bathroom, and that tomorrow morning we get to do it all over again.

In the movies it’s constant. Diaper opens, little boy smiles and sprays; father leaps back shocked and damp and together they laugh. But the reality of raising a son is more mundane. Only a handful of times have I unwrapped the flaps and been assaulted by gushes of hot froth into my open eyes. These comic scenes of new fatherhood unfold rarely. Does my son roll back his legs in the bathtub, carefully aim, and pressure-wash my teeth with his evil soda? Of course he does. But this is a four or five times a week event, not a daily one. And does he stand over me while I sleep, hosing me head-to-foot with his vinegar, refusing to stop until I’m nose-deep in his rotten puddle? Yes, but it’s not all the time like on television. This takes place but once per night. The endearing slapstick scenes we see on screen unfortunately do not occur as often as I’d imagined they would. So when my baby boy finds me at the office and pins me down on my desk to waterboard me with his foamy brine while my boss and colleagues cheer over the wall of my cubicle, and I choke and wheeze and cry, fading from consciousness, meeting the Devil as I’m baptized in poison, I savor it. Fatherhood is joyous and invigorating, but the clock ticks. I hold on tight to these charming moments that happen only seven or eight times a day.