My sister says she gets horny when ovulating, so I’m on the lookout for my own set of horns. They’re hard to see through the dots and lines on my graph. I’m doing what I swore I wouldn’t do a year ago: charting my basal body temperature—plus checking my panties for fertile mucous.

“I think I’m ovulating,” I tell my husband over the phone at work, staring at a tiny, penciled peak.

He beats the traffic. I rush dinner.

But when one beer becomes six, my tongue tweaks into a dart, his belly the board—and before we know it, we slam our window of opportunity—two bulls locking horns.

Bio: Bella Mahaya Carter