When Brian tells me I’m easy to care about, watching as if my answer back is a matter of critical importance, I’m quick to smile.

“And you’ve been hard not to think about these past four weeks. Leaving aside your wonderful care today.” I squeeze his hand, which he places over mine.

He grins, broadly. “May I propose a first date suited to the woman who recently looked like she had an acute abdomen?”

“Go on, please.”

“But first, how are things for you after one of these attacks?”

I tell him I’ll be tired for the next twelve or so hours but will start to be hungry again, soon. And then either I’ll be fine until the next flare or, coin flip, wake up tonight in terrible pain with my intestines reacting inappropriately to normal stimuli, spasming around a pocket of gas that then can’t budge an inch.

His eyes widen. “You mean, after all this, there can be more?”

“It hurts but isn’t as bad as what you just saw. There’s no nausea, chills, or exhaustion. It’s just pain.”

He frowns. “What do you do?”

“Lie there until I can fall asleep. It hurts too much to move. Eventually the spasm calms.”

“Okay, here’s the date. Be prepared for maximum excitement. You’ll get dressed and come up to the house. I’ll make us the Austrian pancake soup my mother made when I was sick. Then I’ll put you to bed. There’s just the one since I moved the twin to the shop, but it’s a king and I’ll be a gentleman.”

“I’ll be there with you, and if you wake up in pain, wake me. There’s a procedure I’ve seen that could help. You wouldn’t even need to get out of bed. How does that all sound?”

“Like the single weirdest first date I’ve ever heard of. And also just what I want right now.”

I dress as he heads up to the house. I didn’t bring makeup and my hair is still wet, but this was too much to hope, let alone plan, for.

I walk past a vegetable patch, raspberry canes, an herb garden, a perennial border, a colorful annuals bed. Cicadas buzz and sigh in the trees.

The farmhouse has a wraparound porch and a dog-run hallway I can see through the screen door. I call hello and Brian beckons me into the kitchen, which has wide-plank floors, a high ceiling, bunches of herbs hanging to dry, and a homey round wooden table.

“I haven’t seen much of you in clothes,” he laughs. “You look nice.”

I thank him. “You look nice, too, and the kitchen smells wonderful.” I look through the doorways; the house is beautiful, with original windows and plenty of light, but also feels partially furnished. There’s a dining room with no table, a parlor with just a chair. Half the rooms are waiting to be lived in.

Brian is chopping chives that look cut from the herb patch. His knife skills are quick and sure and leave regular, bias-cut tubes.

“Is there anything you don’t do?”

“Shop for furniture, window treatments, and rugs,” he says sheepishly. “As you’ll see.” He washes and steels the knife, then returns it to a well-made in-drawer knife rack.

“Your gardens are above reproach. Did you design and plant them?”

He nods, modestly, and now I’m actively trying not to fall in love with someone I’ve met twice, which sounds like a very unhinged thing to do.

Brian ladles the soup into china soup bowls that he sprinkles with chopped parsley and chives, and motions me to the table where cutlery and water glasses await. I thank him. The soup is fantastic, savory and fresh with very thinly sliced strips of wheaty but delicate pancakes. It’s just what I need.

We talk about his journey from medicine to engineering to building custom nozzles and his larger market, designing mass-produced plugs and toys manufactured by other companies and people. He asks about my work and hobbies, and soon I’m drying the dishes he’s washed.

“I’ll put those away. I want you to rest and relax after your ordeal today.”

Following him upstairs I see more empty rooms but a lovely furnished master suite with big windows looking to the pine grove and window-seated dormers overlooking the barn and gardens. He hands me a wrapped toothbrush and asks if I need anything to sleep in; I’m wearing a full slip under my dress and explain I’ll sleep in that. He turns down one side of the large bed for me and asks if there’s anything else I need.

If there is, I can’t think of it. I get ready and climb into the well-made Shaker-style bed and draw up the pretty, thin summer quilt and soft cotton sheet. Still tired from the hard day, I fall asleep before Brian comes to bed.

It’s not clear at what time I awaken. It’s quite dark except for some moonlight, and Brian is next to me in bed, a decorous distance away. In one second I realize I’m awake because of a terrible pain in my abdomen, the usual one where my colon has decided to be a diva and freak out over a few bubbles of gas. I try to flex my back for counterpressure against the bed.

It doesn’t help, and I try another angle. The pain continues absolutely undaunted. I try to turn over, gently, but find that worse. Brian stirs and looks at me in the moonlight.

“Oh, no. The spasm pain? Is it bad?”

“Six or seven out of ten. It’s not fun.”

He asks to turn on the light, then grabs my hand comfortingly. “We’re going to try a procedure called a Harris flush. Normally it’s used on post-surgical patients with hypomotile bowels who are having gas pain, but I see no reason why it wouldn’t work for you.”

I ask how it works, and he explains it will start like a regular enema but use gravity and cycles of intentional backflow to serially inject and retrieve increasingly more water, removing more trapped gas each time until the patient feels relief.

“You can just stay in bed and we should have you fully out of pain before you need to get up and expel.”

“Brian, are you some sort of miraculous enema angel?”

“Thank me if it works. I’ve never administered one, just seen them ordered.” He disappears into the master bath, returning with lubricant and a large enema can that has wide tubing and a large-bore nozzle, which he sets on the nightstand. “Warm water and baking soda, as you like.”

He returns again with a hot water bottle. “This is for that painful belly of yours to help relax the spasms.” He helps remove my slip and underwear and nestles the hot water bottle against the worst pain. “How’s that?”

“It feels good, thank you. Where have you been all my life?”

“Right here,” he says, pressing a lubricated finger against my anus. The sensation of his bare finger entering me is a mix of delight and a jolt of referred pain. “Shhh, sorry. I wondered if you’d have that pain again.”

I feel him carefully withdraw the finger and press the nozzle against me. It also hurts at first but then seats and is comfortable.

“Okay, let’s give this a try.”

I feel water enter and soon the unusual sensation of it flowing back out as Brian sets the can on the floor. The next time there’s more water and the changing of the tides takes longer, but the pain is still with me. After about three more times I hear Brian click the clamp shut.

“I think we need you on your back,” he says, helping me roll over and repositioning the hot water bottle. “You doing okay?”

I nod. It still hurts but isn’t worse.

Brian reopens the clamp and starts holding the can much higher each time, and I begin to feel a little relief.

“Is it working?”

“Starting to, thanks.”

Over the next several cycles, I feel the pain diminish. Brian again sets the can on the floor and asks if he can massage me. I agree, and I feel him sweeping water out of my colon and the last of the pain breaking.

“Better now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, much,” I say.

“Let me turn you to the left and bring as much water out of you as we can?”

I nod, gratefully, as his warm hands sweep my belly. At last he remarks that the level in the can is almost what he started from, closes the clamp, and withdraws the nozzle.

I don’t feel the immediate need to expel, so Brian empties the can and washes the equipment, then returns to bed in his tee shirt and boxer briefs. I crawl next to him, spoon him from behind, and we both sigh. “You make me feel like I’m just in the right place,” I whisper.