by Vivi King
The risks both to the unborn child and the mother were greatly enhanced with older parents but with my baby’s father most likely being Darren, only one of us was significantly older than normal. If a woman my age could conceive naturally with the sperm of a much younger man, she could carry the baby through to birth and there was a fair chance that the child would be healthy.
There was, however a strong possibility that the baby would spontaneously and naturally abort within a few weeks of conception. Usually when this happens it only feels like a very heavy period and the mother usually doesn’t know she had conceived at all.
The fact that this had not yet happened to me did not mean it would not happen in future. I was probably no more than five weeks gone; twelve weeks was considered the minimum period to be
considered ‘safe’.
Early in the afternoon I made a few anonymous enquiries through acquaintances followed by an important phone call making an appointment for early the following morning.
When I arrived home, Izzy had already made dinner for the three of us. This was such an unusual event that it spoke volumes about the relieved state of her mind. I tried hard to greet her and her culinary creations with the appropriate degree of enthusiasm but still she asked me several times if anything was wrong.
I was off-hand and distracted with Pete too when he finally came home from work and joined us at the dinner table. Something within me was desperate to tell my story; to share the terrible news and ease my mind but with Izzy home it was impossible.
As well as being revolted by the idea, telling my daughter would simply let the cat out of the bag as far as my sex life was concerned and I couldn’t have Izzy-Oh-God passing judgement on my morals as well as my husband. Despite her own considerable sexual misadventures, I was sure that, like most of her contemporaries, my daughter would be highly judgemental where her parents were concerned.
No, if I was to tell my husband at all, it would have to be in an air of absolute privacy with time to talk things through. With Izzy in the house this would be impossible so I had to keep my terrible secret to myself; at least until I was sure there was no alternative.
Pete wanted to have sex with me that night but I couldn’t face it. I could feel his disappointment and knew he would be a little suspicious of my motives in refusing but he didn’t force the issue.
I did see him checking my phone just before I dropped off into a rather fitful sleep.
***
“I’m afraid it’s true, Mrs.... er, Doctor Barker,” the young man corrected himself, not knowing whether to smile encouragingly or frown in sympathy. “You are most definitely pregnant.”
I looked at him as blandly as I could when what I most wanted to do was burst into tears. I felt terribly sick and had done since I had woken that morning, as if there mere knowledge of being pregnant could bring on the morning sickness that had apparently been missing so far.
“Congratulations!” he said, apparently deciding a professional noncommittal expression would be the
best option.
It was eight o’clock on Friday morning, forty-eight hours after the shock of my entirely unexpected test result. I was sitting in the private consulting rooms of a well-respected gynaecologist in a quiet area of a city some thirty miles away from the one in which we lived.
Before driving there, I had dropped my daughter off at the railway station shortly after seven to catch the first train of the day. At this stage of her University course she could not afford to miss any more lectures. If I was lucky, there was just time to have my appointment, drive to work and be in time for the regular Friday morning meeting at ten.
But my luck wasn’t too good at the moment.
I looked at the bearer of this bad news, stunned, as he flicked through the small wad of test results before him. In his trendy, open-necked shirt and rimless glasses, he looked a good twenty years younger than me. 'Given I would be fifty-two next birthday, this was actually possible,' I thought wryly.
“I didn’t think a woman my age could...” I began.
“Conceive? Certainly! If you’re still menstrual you can still conceive. It’s unusual but by no means exceptional; you are the fifth naturally-pregnant patient in her fifties I have seen in the past three years. There are plenty of precedents.”
“Could I carry it through to term?”
“You’ve had three successful pregnancies in the past, you’re still in good physical shape – very good in fact. Your bloods are fine; there is no history of problems. I would say yes, you could well carry this child through to a natural birth – if you wanted to.”
My heart was thumping. I didn’t know what I had wanted to hear but I knew this wasn’t it.
“How healthy the child might be is a different question,” the consultant added.
My mind reeled as he began a well-rehearsed speech explaining in terms even I with my medical background struggled to understand, exactly what effect eggs and sperm from older parents might have on a developing embryo.
It did not make good listening, even though it only partly applied in my case but I didn’t correct his assumption. Even in the privacy of a consultant’s office, I couldn’t tell him that the sperm involved was
not from my husband or indeed any man my age; that in fact it had come from the body of a boy young enough to be my son.
He went on to explain what I had already discovered online; that if there were any foetal abnormalities then my body would most likely abort the pregnancy of its own accord. This wasn’t uncommon in older mothers-to-be.
“We can of course test for some of the more common problems as you will know from your previous pregnancies,” he continued. “But even now these tests are not without risk to the unborn child. It would be better to wait until we know whether the foetus is viable.”
My mind was spinning now as I tried to remain calm and as professional as I could.
“And finally, though I am prevented from recommending it, you will of course be aware of a more significant and permanent alternative,” he left the statement hanging in the air.
He didn’t need to finish; although I had tried not to think of it, the word had been on the tip of my tongue ever since the terrible test result. Abortion; termination: words hardly ever uttered in our household.
On the surface he was right; a termination would indeed make the immediate physical problem go away and life could in theory carry on. But, as I knew only too well from my long career in medicine, even if I could bring myself to do such a thing it would bring with it physical and emotional complications that would last the rest of my life and might seriously damage my already-weakened relationship with Pete.
But then how might having another man’s child affect my marriage?
And what about our careers? If it ever became known that I had had a termination, it could have a profound effect on both my career – even more on my husband’s.
“I suggest you have some professional counselling,” the consultant concluded. “To help you consider the options. I’m not permitted to recommend anyone in particular but we do have a list of properly accredited professionals we have used in the past. My secretary will give you a copy.”
He passed me a letter. It had my name and date of birth horribly clear and unambiguous on the page along with the dreaded words confirming my pregnancy.
“Shall we make an appointment for six weekstime?” he asked.
***
I was a little late for my morning meeting but I wasn’t the last to arrive. The meeting itself was noisy and full of controversy which helped distract me from the issue at the front of my mind. Even so, every now and then I would find my hands had moved unconsciously to my lower belly. Whenever that happened I would angrily move them back to the desktop and join in the discussions with renewed vigour.
Eating at lunchtime was impossible; I was still feeling nauseous and no amount of paracetamol would ease the discomfort. Distant memories of my three previous pregnanci
es began to filter through my subconscious mind; now I actually felt pregnant it was easier to believe the result of the test if not to accept it.
I needed support and I needed it badly. There was no alternative; I would have to tell my husband and tell him soon, picking my moment with great care.
I prayed to God that he would still be the Pete I had known and loved for so long.
***
“How big... was his cock?” Pete panted above the knocking of the headboard against the bedroom wall.
His handsome face was merely inches above mine as his powerful hips thrust his long, slim erection deep into my loose, unresisting vagina over and over again.
“Thick! Long and thick!” I hissed in return, my eyes wide to convey the surprise I had genuinely felt when my vagina had first been penetrated by the young man’s member over a month ago.
It was Sunday night and we were in bed having our usual, pleasant-but-not-very-satisfying end-of- the-weekend copulation. As had become common since the Geneva Convention, our lovemaking had been dominated by explicit talk about my one night stand with Darren; a very brief episode at the very end of my previous months of infidelity but one with which my husband had become completely obsessed.
The night I had spent with the twenty-nine-year-old personal trainer had indeed been the most exciting, most satisfying sex of my life up till then but Pete’s constant stream of detailed questions and assertions had forced me to abandon my real memories some time ago and embark on a series
of increasingly vivid fantasies to keep my husband’s excitement at the sky high levels he was now enjoying.
That night, of course, the fantasies had a much sharper edge for me. Deep in a breeding frenzy and close to my third or fourth orgasm of that amazing evening I had begged my young lover to knock me up; to fuck a baby in my belly; something I had begged my original seducer and previous lover Tony to do many times.
Knowing that with Darren this had actually happened and that my young lover’s child was even then growing in my womb made it difficult to concentrate on anything else, especially as at that moment the head of my husband’s cock was separated from the baby only by the meaty ring of my sealed cervix.
Pete as yet knew nothing of this as he fucked me with an energy and passion that before my infidelity had been very rare in our lovemaking.
“Did he make... make you cum?” he grunted as his thrusts grew faster.
“Yes! Yes he made me cum!”
“Did you cum hard?”
“Yes I came hard! The hardest I’ve ever cum!”
This might not have been true but I couldn’t remember ever cumming harder than I had with Darren.
“Did you... scream... as you... came?”
“The loudest I’ve ever screamed, Pete!”
Pete’s thrusts were getting painfully hard and deep now, his smooth end battering my cervix brutally as he bottomed out within me at the end of every stroke. Having had three babies already I knew it would cause no damage to the child inside me but still it was unnerving. I tightened my pelvic floor as hard as my middle aged muscles would allow in an attempt to bring him to orgasm quickly.
“Oh God... That feels good!” he growled, his back arching as his thrusts began to lose their rhythm. “Did you beg, Penny?”
“Yes I begged!” I replied, tightening again. "I fucking begged!"
“What did... did you beg him for?”
“To cum in me! I begged him to cum in me!”
“Where Penny? To cum where?”
“In my cunt! In my married, cheating cunt!”
“Oh my God, I’m going to cummm!”
He didn’t need to tell me; after over twenty years of marriage I could tell when the father of my children was about to ejaculate. 'Well the father of three of my children,' I corrected myself.
“Cum in me Pete! Let go and cum in me!”
I urged him on, faking my own approaching climax as convincingly as I could. Fortunately, my husband was too wrapped up in his own orgasm to notice anything amiss.
“Did he cum in you when you begged, Penny?”
His voice was half choked as the peak of Pete’s orgasm was reached, his hips slamming into my spread thighs jackhammer fast.
“Yes! Oh God yes! He came in me so many times!
“Fuck Penny! You’re. Such. A. Slut!”
And with that, his climax broke and he began to ejaculate, his semen spurting against my cervix barely centimetres from where the baby was developing inside my womb. It was a powerful climax by Pete’s standards, his erect cock throbbed and pulsed in my belly and his hips ground hard against my inner thighs, his pubic hair rasping against my sparse triangle as rope after rope of warm sticky fluid was pumped into my body.
“Oh my God, that was intense,” Pete eventually gasped once the pulsing within me had slowed to a halt.
He was still above me and inside me, his cock taking much longer to soften than normal. I looked up into his eyes and tightened my pelvic floor once again. There was still resistance; his cock was barely
softening at all.
A smile crossed his handsome face, the eyes warm, dark and adoring.
“You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever known, Penny Barker,” he whispered then kissed me on the lips. He tasted salty.
A surge of emotion washed over me; a wave of love for my husband. Suddenly I knew the right moment had arrived; I had to tell him; that I couldn’t keep my condition secret any longer. However frightening it was, the only right thing to do was to let him know the truth and to do it now.
“Pete...” I began falteringly.
“I know; you’re too tired to do it again,” he grinned, wriggling his hips, his cock still refusing to deflate. “I’ll just stay here until you feel up to another round.”
I smiled wanly.
“It’s not that. There’s something I need to tell you. Something important.”
I froze, his body tensed. The last time I had said anything like this had been followed by the news that I had been cheating on him with his best friend for over a month.
“What is it?” he asked anxiously.
His erection was suddenly gone; his cock slid from my body and he sat up on the bed alongside me, clearly dreading unwanted news.
“Have... have you been seeing someone else again?” he stammered, clearly expecting what he considered to be the worst possible reply.
“No, Pete,” I said, stroking his arm as reassuringly as I could manage.
“Thank God for that,” he smiled. “You had me worried then.”
I sighed at his apparent relief. It was premature; 'the real news wouldn’t be much better. But how to break it?'
“No, Pete,” I tried again. “I haven’t broken our agreement. I’ve been faithful but...”
“But?”
The words ‘old sins cast long shadows’ came through my mind but I didn’t say them out loud.
“I’m afraid the old days aren’t over yet,” I said instead.
“What do you mean?”
I took a deep breath.
“There’s no easy way to say this Pete.”
“To say what, Penny?”
I took another deep breath and steeled myself before changing the rest of our lives.
“I’m pregnant!”
“You’re what?” he laughed, rolling onto his side and kissing me on the shoulder.
“It’s not a joke,” I said calmly. “I’m pregnant.”
Pete sat up with a start and stared at me, his eyes wide, suddenly stone cold sober.
“Seriously? Pregnant?” he asked in a stunned, disbelieving voice, the beads of sweat on his forehead quivering.
“Yes, pregnant,” I repeated slowly and clearly. “It’s not a joke, Pete; I’m going to have a baby.”
“But you can’t be,” he stated in the ‘don’t be silly’ voice he used to use on the kids.
I reached over to the bedside table and passed him the letter from the consultant. He read it in s
ilence.
“Jesus, Penny! I can’t believe it!”
“YOU can’t believe it?” I hissed. “How do you think I feel?”
“How far gone are you?” he asked.
“Five or six weeks I suppose.”
“Is it his?” Pete asked.
I assumed he meant my original lover Tony.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “He’s had the snip like you.”
“So it’s Darren’s,” Pete deduced, looking at me suspiciously.
“He’s the only possible alternative,” I said a little angrily. “There’s no one else it could be. I haven’t lied to you Pete. Not about that.”
“But how did it happen? Didn’t you use protection?” Pete asked incredulous.
I shook my head in shame.
“I just didn’t think about it,” I replied, my voice cracking with emotion. “It’s been so long since I’ve needed to. It didn’t even cross my mind.”
“Jesus! I can’t believe you could be so careless. After all you’ve said to Izzy over the years!”
He was angry and I couldn’t blame him. Just when our relationship was getting back on an even keel, I had landed him with this unbelievable complication. I didn’t reply; Pete was quite right but it was hard to hear.
Then he sat bolt upright in bed.
“Shi,t Penny! You could have caught something from him too. Who knows who he’s been tomcatting about with?”
My blood ran even colder; I hadn’t even given a thought to the possibility I might have picked up an STD. Being pregnant was awful enough in itself but again Pete was right. And if I had picked up an infection, by now Pete would probably have it now too.
“Please, Pete. Don’t make me feel any worse than I do already,” I pleaded, tears running down my cheeks.
He lay back down on the bed. For a moment I felt more alone than ever in my life before. Then I felt him take my hand in his and squeeze it.
“I’m sorry, Penny. It must have been a terrible shock.”
I turned to face him and a moment later was wrapped in his strong, reassuring arms. The tears rolled more determinedly down my cheeks now but the fear of having to face alone whatever ordeal lay ahead had lessened considerably.
