Noah

by Allison LaFleur

  The pressure kept building. He never stopped the attention to my clit, but he knew he had me. Two fingers became three, and this time as he withdrew them, they curled up, finding my g-spot and rubbing it on the way out.

  Thrashing my head back and forth, I panted. I was so close I could taste it. My knees drew up, giving him full access as my hands reached to pull him into me, and still he resisted. My nub engorged, he rubbed it now, back and forth, a constant rhythm, building that coiling storm inside of me while he plunged in and out, finger fucking me. My juices dripped from his fingers, my inner thighs slick with sweat and wetness.

  “Come for me, baby,” he said, moistening his thumb, and then sliding it back to find that other hole. Three fingers plunged deep in my pussy as his thumb started to circle, pressing gently and lubricating my back door.

  “Oh God!”

  “That’s it, baby.”

  “Oh God!” He had never explored back there before, and the excitement of the forbidden threatened to push me over the edge.

  And then it did.

  His thumb popped past that rubbery ring, and the combined sensations were too much. The friction on my clit, his fingers filling me, and now that thumb pushing in and out, waking nerve endings I didn’t know I had made me come in a rush. Wave after wave rippled through me until I screamed. I couldn’t hold it in. The feelings overpowered me. The wave crested, and I broke into a million shiny pieces, over and over and over again.

  Lena

  “Noah?” I rolled over and propped my chin on his chest.

  “Mmmh?” He cracked open on eye to look down at me. After he brought me to completion, I had rolled over on top of him and rode him to his own release. He wasn’t quite back in this world, yet.

  “What if…” I trailed off. “What if…” I tried again.

  “Lena,” he opened both eyes, rolled onto his side and looked at me. “Talk to me, babe. What are you thinking?”

  “What if…” I bit my lip and then rushed ahead. “What if we could make this work?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what if we could make this work permanently? What if I didn’t move out, and we stayed together?”

  Noah’s eyes went unfocused, and I could sense him thinking.

  “I… I don’t know. I never really thought about it either way. I mean this works.”

  “I know it works, but you are engaged. We both know, as good as this is, it can’t stay this way unless we both want it to happen.”

  He flopped on his back and just stared at the ceiling.

  Lena

  The three of us settled into a routine. John coordinated the science side, Noah the business, and I kept the two of them organized, out of trouble, and meeting deadlines. The work was fun and challenging, and we developed a great comradery, but as the days passed, I became more and more concerned. My monthly visitor never came. A day late, a week late, then a month late, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

  “Noah…” I wandered into the living room, the little plastic stick held tightly in my trembling hand.

  “Yeah, babe.” We hadn’t discussed Haley since my father beat me. We had our routine here at home. Yeah, I was thinking of it as home by then even though it wasn’t really mine. I snuck half my paycheck to my mother every month, leaving it with her manager at the grocery store, and after paying for my personal necessities, I put what little was left in savings. I knew this idyllic life with Noah was temporary, that it wasn’t really mine.

  Noah looked up from the New York Times he was reading, sprawled out on the couch in his ever present sweats. His chest bare after his shower, a fine dusting of curly hair outlined his muscles. My mouth watered just looking at him.

  “I, um…” The words stuck in my throat and silent tears began to fall.

  “Sweetheart, what is it.” Concern flooded his eyes and he sat up, the paper falling forgotten to the carpet.

  I just held the stick out to him, the two blue lines glaring like a neon sign. Time stood still as he took in my expression and figured out what I was holding. I could see when it hit him, his face registering his shock.

  “Is that what I think it is?” His eyes practically bugged out of his head as he took in the blue lines on the stick.

  I mutely nodded, my eyes filling again. My chest tightened as I forced myself to hold back the sobs just under the surface.

  “Holy shit. You’re pregnant.”

  Noah

  I lay in the dark, curled protectively around Lena, who had cried herself to sleep.

  Neither of us had really discussed long term plans. I was focused with getting the biotech company up and running and turning a profit, and Lena was still emotionally fragile after the beating from her father. We tiptoed around discussions of the future.

  We both knew our living arrangement was temporary, but it was easy and comfortable. Our sexual chemistry was off the charts, and ever since the first time, I had been very careful not to get her pregnant. Too little too late.

  We were playing with fire. My place now looked like a couple lived there. Bras and stockings hung to dry in the shower. Little touches that were all Lena like flowers on the table and real food in the refrigerator were dead giveaways that I wasn’t alone.

  We couldn’t keep pretending. If we did, one day this was all going to implode, and the fallout wouldn’t be pretty.

  The red numbers on my bedside clock ticked away—01:32 , 02:47, 03:12, 04:59—and I lay there wide-eyed, trying to wrap my head around my impending fatherhood.

  Beep-beep-beep.

  Red eyed and sleepy, I felt Lena stretch in my arms, and that traitorous part of me twitched in response, telling me it wanted me to do more than just hold her.

  She would welcome me. I knew she would. She always did. We fit together perfectly. At work we could finish each other’s sentences, know what the other was thinking, and build on our ideas, making them far better than they would have been alone. At home, it was the same; we c-o-existed seamlessly, living together like we had been doing it all our lives instead of just a few months. There was no intrusion, no fighting for space when she began to stay there. It just worked. Now the space reflected not just my, but her personality too. And in bed, we were dynamite. We matched each other perfectly.

  Where was I going with this? I mean I had a freaking engagement party to another woman in two days, and there I was living and having a baby with Lena. My life was so screwed up.

  Noah

  “Have you seen my tie? The one with the—”

  “It’s hanging on the back of the bathroom door.”

  “Thanks, babe!” I rushed about, getting dressed and putting together a suitcase for that night. I had too much going on that day to come back to the apartment before the engagement party. I would have to get ready at the office and go straight from there.

  Lena hadn’t said a word since she suggested we make this permanent. Nor had she pushed me when she discovered she was pregnant. I mean, good God, here she was helping me get ready for my engagement party to another woman while she carried my child. How did I screw my life up this badly? My personal life, that is.

  Professionally, the biotech division was going great. We’d just broken ground on the new building, and we had a team in place starting up in temporary quarters. John was heading up the research part, working hands on with the scientists, and explaining his findings. He knew exactly where we wanted to test and get approval for the bioengineered chemo drug we’d developed. I excelled at my business, but I was a mess outside the office.

  There I was, still engaged, trapped in a fake engagement we were going to announce to the world if I didn’t end it. I needed to deal with my parents, Haley, and the engagement. I needed to figure out where Lena and the baby fit in my life.

  “What if I were to get you a place?” I asked, touching her arm as she passed. “Maybe even in this building. A place for you and the baby. I’ll take care of you both.” I turned her to look at me.

&
nbsp; She reached a hand up and touched the side of my face before walking away wordlessly. Lena retrieved the tie from the bathroom, folded it, and tucked it into the suit hanger with the rest of my engagement party clothes.

  Noah

  “Come here you two! We need an engagement photo!” Haley clung to my arm and followed me over to my mother where she sat at the head table, a queen bee among all her subjects. I stood behind her chair, accepting the accolades and well wishes with a false smile on my face. Haley simpered, smiled, and waved, all while clinging to me like a leech.

  “I am so excited!” she squealed. “Now we need to pick a date for the wedding!”

  “Oh yes,” her mother Roberta said. “I’ve always loved spring weddings.”

  “Winter.” My mother declared, as if the decision was final.

  “What?” I turned to look at her, Haley’s hand sliding off my arm.

  “You will have a winter wedding. January would be good.

  “Mom, that’s in three months.”

  “I know. We have no time to waste with your foolishness.” She calmly sipped her champagne as if she hadn’t just decided the rest of my life for me.

  “Winter would be so pretty,” Haley agreed, bouncing up and down. “I could do orchids… a deep purple maybe…or even poinsettias! Those would look great in the pictures.”

  “Tasteful, classy,” my mother said. “None of those hideous bridesmaid dresses.”

  “I can’t…” I choked, my tie suddenly feeling too tight. I couldn’t breathe. I pulled at it as the room closed in. Suddenly, I was running for air, fleeing the women who planned my life. None of them knew me or even cared what I thought.

  I ran outside, stopping myself when the porch railing wouldn’t let me run any farther. I stood in the shadows, gripping the railing, panting like I had just run a marathon, not fled a stuffy party.

  I wanted to be my own man, but with the responsibility of going it on my own, family expectations, the demands from my mother, and the personal responsibility I felt for Lena and the baby, it felt like more than I was prepared to handle.

  It was time to get my house in order.

  Lena

  Noah hasn’t asked me to marry him. I don’t know why I thought he would. I’m not a stupid woman. A poor one, uneducated, from the wrong side of town, but no one has ever accused me of being stupid. I guess living here has made me soft. It’s time to stop pretending. I have two lives in my hands now, not just my own.

  I wiped away a single tear and straightened my shoulders. I had no more time for crying. My hormones were off the charts, and my brain spiraled with my moods. My life was shit. I had to get it together.

  In a loose shirt of Noah’s, I bustled about, making us dinner. As my waist thickened, all my own clothes were getting tight, so I’d taken to pulling on one of Noah’s old t-shirts as soon as I got home. The fabric was soft from too many washings and felt smooth against my tender skin.

  It wasn’t anything fancy, but I had homemade spaghetti sauce, noodles, a light salad, and had garlic bread toasting in the oven.

  “Hey, sweetheart!” Noah blew through the door, and his energy filled the room, making me smile. “Mmmmh… What’s for dinner? Smells great!”

  “Nothing fancy. I just made homemade spaghetti sauce.” He smacked my ass as he walked by, nuzzling my neck a moment before going to change into his sweats.

  “Hey, I was thinking. What are we going to name the baby?”

  “Oh,” I swallowed a mouth full of tomato. The baby was hungry; that was my excuse. “Um, well I was thinking….

  “What about Ruth if it’s a girl?” He flopped down on the couch with a bounce, putting his feet up on the arm rest and hanging his head over the edge to look at me upside-down.

  “Ruth? Really?” I turned and shook my wooden spoon at him, tomato sauce dripping onto the floor.

  “Hey! It’s my Mom’s name. Maybe it would help her accept the baby.” He spread his hands wide, in a what-did-I-say? gesture.

  “You’re gonna tell your Mom about us?” I put one hand on my hip and rested the spoon over my shoulder like a baseball bat as I waited for him to answer.

  “Well, not right away, but, you know, eventually.”

  I frowned. “Are you still engaged to Haley?” I asked, turning back to the sauce bubbling on the stove.

  He sighed and rolled over to sit up on the couch, burying his head in his hands. “Yeah.”

  “I thought you were going to end it last night.”

  “So did I. Instead, my mother decided on a January wedding, and they sat there and planned it over champagne and smoked salmon.”

  I whirled to look at him, sauce slinging off the spoon and across the room. “A January wedding?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But what about me and the baby?”

  “Have you thought any more about what we talked about?”

  “You mean me living in a place nearby? A kept woman?”

  “Lena, it wouldn’t be like that.”

  “Then how would it be? You living with the wife you say you don’t want, and me waiting for you to come visit? Scraps of your time when you can sneak away from your real life? No, Noah. That’s no way to raise a baby, to start a family. I’ll go back home before I’ll do that. Being your mistress is not the same as being your wife or even your girlfriend.” I dropped the spoon in the pan and walked out, not even staying to listen to his protests.

  In the bedroom, I started emptying drawers in to a bag, stuffing things in haphazardly, surprised at how much I had compared to when I first came.

  “Lena… Lena, what are you doing?”

  “I can’t do this, Noah. I won’t be your whore like my dad said I was. I won’t.”

  “Lena, wait!” He followed me from the apartment as I grabbed my stockings from the bathroom, a book I was reading from the living room, and shoes from the closet. “Lena, STOP! Come on! Let’s talk about this!”

  “Noah, we’ve been talking for months. I’m done talking. I am growing this human inside me who needs me to have my shit together. I can’t do that if I am waiting on you to get yours together first.”

  “Lena, please. Look, I’ll take care of it tomorrow. I’ll tell Haley and my mom tomorrow. Just, please, just stop, stay here. One more night.”

  I stood, one hand on the doorknob, and stared at him, trying to decide if he was the man I needed him to be, or if I was looking for something that wasn’t really there.

  Noah

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

  I pounded the heavy bag, over and over and over again. My tape-wrapped fists throbbed. My abused muscles ached. Sweat poured from every inch of my body, soaking the thin athletic shorts I wore.

  Left, right, left, left, right. Combination after combination, I swung over and over again.

  “Noah?” I heard someone call my name. “Noah, you in here?”

  “John.” I stopped, my arms falling to my sides, and I turned. “Why are you here?”

  “Noah, it’s almost noon. You’ve missed three meetings already. The phones are ringing off the hook. Investors want to know what’s going on. Lena said she didn’t know where you were.”

  “What?” I looked up at the clock on the wall and squinted through the sweat running into my eyes. “Noon?”

  “Yeah. Come on, buddy. Let’s get you cleaned up. You know I’m no good with people.”

  I let John lead me to the showers where he shoved me under the cold water and left me there to come to my senses while he found my gym bag.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Noah, but you’ve got to get it together. “

  I braced myself against the wall, letting the cold water run over me and wash the sweat away, cooling my overtaxed muscles until I started to shiver.

  “Here,” he said. “Give me your hands.” I turned, holding them out to him and he began to unwrap the tape, exposing my swollen and bruised knuckles. “Shit. You’re a mess.” He shook his head “What’s going
on?”

  “I screwed up. Well, I didn’t exactly, but I’m in a bit of a mess, and I don’t know what to do.”

  John stayed silent, letting me talk.

  “My mother wants me to marry a girl I grew up with. She says I need to marry the right kind of girl to be senator.

  “Do you want to be senator?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t. I want to run this company and save the world.”

  “Then don’t be a senator.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Isn’t it? Look at me. I’m a simple guy with a simple background. I married my high school sweetheart. We have two beautiful boys. I have a great job, and right now we are poorer than church mice. Everything I have is invested in this company. But you know what? I am happy. It’s that simple.”

  I blew my breath out my nose and closed my eyes. John was right. He was so much wiser than I was. So what if I pissed off my parents? What would really change? We’d have to work a little harder? It would take a little longer? So what? Wasn’t happiness worth it?

  Now I just had to tell my mother and Haley.

  Lena

  Shit.

  I couldn’t get my skirt buttoned. I was down to one set of work clothes and right back where I started—washing and ironing my clothes every night before work the next day.

  I wasn’t going to be able to hide my belly much longer. I already avoided leaving the office when others were around. Sitting behind a desk, no one had a chance to notice, but walking the halls I would have been a target for the nosey.

  I wiggled a little, trying to unbutton the button at the waist of my skirt so I could breathe. No one would see it under the loose sweater I wore.

  Lena

  “Hi, Mama. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, sweetie. How is work?”

  “It’s good. Did you get the envelope I left you Friday?”

  “Mmmhmmm. Guess what! Your father got a new job!” I could hear the excitement in her voice. “He started last week. He’s working in an office and everything. It’s just a starting position in the mail room for the coal company, but it’s regular hours! Can you believe it? He hasn’t had a drink all week, either!”