by Vivi King
“How long have you known?” he asked quietly.
I told him.
“And you’ve kept it secret since then?” he asked.
I nodded.
“How did you find out? It’s very early on.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth; that it had been an accident; that his precious daughter had thought her own careless promiscuity had landed her in the same boat. So I lied.
“I’ve had three children already. I could feel something was changing inside me. I did a test and I was right.”
I began to cry. It was completely unlike the calm, competent Penny who held the important, responsible research post in the hospital but after all that had happened, I knew that the tough Penny was only skin deep.
To my eternal relief, far from being repulsed by the idea of his stupid, unfaithful wife having another man’s child inside her, Pete demonstrated again why I loved him so very much by wrapping my trembling body in his strong arms without hesitation.
“It’s okay... It’s okay,” his voice was calming as he hugged me. “We can deal with this. We can deal with it together.”
It was exactly what I needed to hear. I lay in his arms for a long time, feeling the heat of his well- muscled chest against my tiny boobs, his strong hairy legs against my skinny smooth thighs.
“Have you thought what you want to do?” he eventually asked. “Or is it all still too much to take in?”
“I... I don’t know,” I snuffled. “It’s not just my decision.”
“It’s your body,” he said softly, kissing me on the forehead.
“It’s our life,” I replied. “Our marriage.”
“That’s true.”
We hugged for a while longer. My head was spinning, so God knows what was going through Pete’s mind. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask the question that had been in my mind since Friday morning.
“Could you live with me having another man’s child? Could you live with another child at all?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he said and I believed him. “My first reaction isn’t positive I have to say but there’s more than just my wants to think about.”
It was characteristically generous of him.
“Does anyone know it isn’t mine?” he asked. “Did you say anything to the consultant?”
“No, nothing. And he’s the only other person that knows anything at all.”
There was another pause as we both adjusted to the new reality. The obvious and permanent solution was buzzing round my mind but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. The same idea had to be going round Pete’s mind too but he showed no sign of mentioning it either.
“What would everyone say?” I asked eventually once it became silently clear that neither of us was going to propose the unthinkable route out. “What about our family and friends? Some of them know about your vasectomy; you’ve even joked about it in the past. They’ll know the baby can’t possibly be yours.”
“You’re right,” he replied. “We could say the operation failed,” he suggested after a few moments. “That my tubes re-joined. It does happen.”
“After all this time?” I asked. “Most of our friends are medics. They’ll know that’s practically
impossible.”
“Never mind them,” Pete exclaimed. “What about the kids?”
'Oh my God; the kids!'
The idea of our three adult children realising what kind of parents they really had was far worse than anything our friends might say or do.
“Do they know about my vasectomy?” Pete asked.
“They’re not stupid. And they’ll have overheard; you’ve never made a secret of it.”
“Shit!”
“So what’s the alternative?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I just don’t know. Maybe we just have to have another baby and face the consequences.”
“Having a baby at my age is no joke. The risk of birth defects is high too.”
“That’s true,” Pete said. “But Darren’s at the prime of life. His sperm would be extremely viable. And effective,” he laughed hollowly. “As we now know, right?”
He squeezed my hand to show it was a supposed to be a joke, however weak. I squeezed his in return before a cold feeling of fear washed over me.
“Maybe nature will find its own solution and take the decision out of our hands,” he suggested.
This was no answer. As this story has shown, up to then my life had been characterised by taking action – however inadvisable that action turned out to be - not just sitting and waiting in the hope that something would turn up. In this case the hope would be that I would miscarry naturally.
“Oh God! All those sleepless nights?” Pete eventually moaned, rolling onto his back and covering his face with his hands. “We can’t go through all that again, please no!”
“There’s only one alternative,” I stated.
We looked at each other in silence, neither of us wanting to be the first to use the ‘T’ word. Apart from the pain and morality of such a decision, given my husband’s professional specialism, if it became known that his wife had gone through a termination his career might have been severely damaged.
Indeed my own career would be harmed too, though for different reasons, to say nothing of the profound effect it would have on my emotional and mental wellbeing.
No, a termination could only be a last resort; that much did not need to be said.
“Do you want to have another baby?” Pete asked softly. “Whatever I feel, it would have to be your decision in the end.”
“You know I don’t,” I replied honestly.
“How long before we have to decide?”
“A month - six weeks maybe. The sooner the better if... ”
I let the words fade away. Pete sighed, rolled alongside me again and took me in his arms.
“So we wait and see?” he said, his voice unsettled and doubtful.
“We wait and see,” I repeated.
“But whatever happens,” Pete continued. “We face it together, right?”
***
“Will you book us both into the clinic?” Pete asked the following morning as we stared listlessly at our unappealing bowls of breakfast cereal.
Neither of us had slept much the previous night. Instead we had talked into the small hours, going over the same ground again and again, agonising over what to do.
Though neither of us dared be the first to mention it, we both knew that termination was the obvious solution. We both also knew that it would involve a moral compromise on both our parts that neither of us was yet prepared to make.
To his credit, at no time did Pete even hint that my predicament either disgusted him or made him want me any less. Indeed by mutual consent we had made love again in the small hours, gently and caringly, falling asleep in each other’s arms straight afterwards. Without that physical manifestation of his continued love, I doubt I would have enjoyed even the few hours of sleep that I had.
With such an enormous ‘elephant in the room,’ there was inevitably a strange atmosphere between us that morning that is impossible to convey in a few words. We had been woken by the alarm and, our heads thick with lack of sleep. We had showered and dressed in a near silence which, though not in any way threatening was still unusual for us and therefore unsettling. I was glad of the distraction even the prospect of STD tests brought about.
“If you think we need to,” I replied.
“It’s just a precaution, Penn. I’m sure there won’t be a problem. We just need to get tested for safety’s sake.”
Irony was getting popular; it was exactly the attitude I had taken with Izzy after her night of infidelity with Simon when he had still been a stranger. Of course my husband knew nothing about this; as far as he was concerned, his pretty, sweet daughter was pure as the driven snow. As far as Pete knew, I was the only slut in the household, a position my unwanted news had just reinforced with a vengeance.
&nb
sp; Given all I had said to Izzy about her unwise all-night fornication with Simon, my stupid, thoughtless, unprotected fuck with Darren had been an extraordinary lack of judgement on my part.
But then my life had been full of extraordinary misjudgements, hadn’t it? Little did I know this wasn’t to be the last of them.
“Okay,” I replied without enthusiasm.
We kissed our goodbyes more slowly and tenderly than usual and went off to our respective jobs.
***
Two days later the two of us went to an anonymous clinic – the same one to which I had taken Izzy only a few weeks ago – and had ourselves tested for sexually transmitted diseases. They found none straight away which was a relief and did not expect any to emerge - a conclusion confirmed a few weeks later when the final results came in.
At least I had escaped one possible consequence of my stupidity.
***
Unable to make a decision one way or the other, there was nothing else Pete and I could do but try and get on with our lives as if nothing had happened. Paradoxically this proved easier to do than to choose what to do about the baby growing in my middle-aged belly.
This early on in my pregnancy there was nothing about my body to give away my terrible secret to family and friends and, apart from an hour or so of blessedly mild nausea every morning, there was little to remind me as I went about my usual work, home, gym and social routine.
If I hadn’t accidentally taken the test I’m sure would never have guessed what had happened.
For a week, life outwardly returned to normal. When things at work were busy I could spend whole mornings or afternoons without remembering the time bomb inside me that might any day blow my whole work, social and family life apart forever.
At home though, things were very different. Having got over the initial shock, the idea of another man’s baby having been implanted in his wife’s womb completely dominated Pete’s behaviour towards me. I had expected jealousy, I had expected anger and resentment and yes, these emotions were present on a daily basis.
What I had not expected was the massive surge in arousal and desire that my condition would evoke in my hitherto calm and relaxed husband. It was almost as if, with another man’s child in his wife’s belly, he had lost his alpha male status as badly as a man possibly could. As a result he was being instinctively and irresistibly driven to reassert it by inseminating me as often and as passionately as he possibly could – even if it was much too late.
But an even bigger surprise was the equally powerful surge in my own libido that arrived, matching my husband’s new sex drive blow for blow and fuck for fuck if not actually orgasm for orgasm.
Nature red in tooth and claw? Once again, my psychology students would have had a field day!
The wife sharing fantasies we had enjoyed for so long continued but now with a much sharper edge. Just as my affair had shown us what it was really like to live a Hotwife-cuckold lifestyle, so my actual conception showed us how it really felt to have your wife impregnated by another man.
As Pete explained one night after marking me badly on the neck with his teeth during a particularly
energetic fuck on the lounge sofa, the mix of anger, jealousy and enormous arousal were beyond anything he had ever imagined any emotions bringing. The desire to hurt me; to punish me for my betrayal could only be controlled by repeated and passionate sexual conquest of my body even though his conscious mind knew it was far too late.
The orgasms he enjoyed, his head only inches above mine were, he said, the most intense of his entire life.
From the expressions that crossed his handsome face as he came, I believed him.
Meanwhile we were a week further into my pregnancy and no closer to knowing what to do about it.
***
“Mrs Barker! Hi!”
I turned towards the vaguely familiar voice to see a slim, athletic young man in his early twenties walking down the corridor towards me dressed in a smart, sporty uniform of dark green trousers and polo shirt.
He looked familiar but for a moment I couldn’t quite place him
It was eight thirty the following Wednesday evening and I had just emerged from the Ladies’ changing room at the sports club to which Pete and I belonged and where my one-off lover Darren still worked. In my hand were my car keys and gym bag, just recovered from the locker where I had put them for safekeeping during the spinning class I had just completed. It was the second class of the day for me; I was pink and sweaty and was looking forward to having a long soak in the bath when I arrived home.
Pete was in London on one of the interminable conferences he and I had to attend and would be away for two nights. Although my husband could be trusted to remain faithful in a way I had proved I could not, I couldn’t stop myself wondering whether any temptation in the form of female company had come his way.
I had been filling the time by catching up both on my work and on my exercise. Apart from distracting me from Pete’s absence, if I was going to carry my growing baby through at my age then I needed to keep as physically fit as I could.
“Mrs. Barker?” the young man repeated.
“Hi, errr... ” I replied, wondering why the sight of his young face should unnerve me so much.
“It’s Will, Mrs. Barker,” he smiled pleasantly but with a twinkle in his eye. “I share a house with Darren. We met the other morning, remember?”
An icy cold wave washed over me. 'Oh my dear God!'
Will was Darren’s housemate; the one who had let me out of the front door when I was trying to sneak away unseen the following morning on my ‘walk of shame’. Given the circumstances and the freshly-fucked condition of my body at the time there was no way he could be in any doubt what I had been doing in his friend’s room.
“Um... er... ” I stammered.
Will smiled a sweet but knowing smile.
“I hope you got home alright,” he smiled.
“I... yes thank you,” I stammered.
“The buses aren’t too good round our way. I would have been happy to drive you.”
“That was sweet of you but I was fine.”
“Darren said you left before he woke up,” he continued. “He was a bit upset; he was hoping to have breakfast with you.”
“I... I had to get ready for work,” I floundered. “I had a meeting... ”
“I’m sure,” he smiled.
There was a brief pause during which my head buzzed with all the possible directions this conversation could go. None of them were in any way appealing.
“Did Darren tell you I work here too?”
“He did say something about it,” I mumbled awkwardly.
“I’m on the maintenance staff. At least I am now – I’m actually qualified as a personal trainer.”
I wondered where this conversation was going.
“I hope you make it,” I smiled, using my motherly voice. “Sorry; I’ve got to go.”
I made to leave but Will touched me on the arm. I turned back to face him, my eyebrows raised in question.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I... I wondered whether you fancied a drink later,” he continued in a direction I was not expecting. “I feel like I know a lot about you already; it would be nice to get to know you even better.”
The words sounded innocent and might even have been innocent but their potential implication was obvious and could not be ignored. Now he and Darren knew who I really was, the risk to Pete and my future had just jumped up to a new level.
A knot came into my stomach so tight I thought I would be sick on the spot. If Will had been in the house all night it was possible – indeed probable that he had heard my orgasmic wailing including, if I was really unlucky, my breeding frenzy begging for Darren to make a baby in my belly.
Little did any of us know as I thrashed wildly beneath my lover, his huge, erect cock spurting semen against my pulsating cervix for the umpteenth time, that my professed wish was about to come true.
“I’
m not sure I can tonight... ” I began, desperately searching for some way out.
“My shift ends at ten,” he persisted. “I’m locking up tonight. I’ll be the only one here. From what Darren said, we have a lot in common. We could have a drink here or there’s a nice pub we could go to, not far from where I live. I think you know it already.”
“My... my husband’s expecting me.”
I was lying and very unconvincingly; Pete would be away that night and the following one. The rest of the evening was entirely my own.
“That’s a pity. I thought you and I might get on really well. Husbands, eh?”
Will countered with just the slightest hint of menace, stressing the word ‘husband’ strongly. He looked very disappointed but again his voice was so calm and sweet that the hidden threat – if it was
there at all - was almost unnoticeable.
“Why don’t I go and see him then come back?” I suggested, my heart thumping in my chest.
“Good idea,” Will replied with an almost childish beam of pleasure. “If you come back around five past ten, no-one will see you. We could go to the pub afterwards.”
'After what?' I wondered, but there was no way of asking.
What on earth could I do? There was no mistaking the unspoken threat in all Will had said no matter how soft and friendly his words. The boy was in a position to ruin my reputation, my social standing and possibly my marriage. If it ever got out that I was pregnant, he would be perfectly placed to reveal who the father was too.
There was no way I could simply ignore the danger. I had to find out what it was he wanted.
“I... I’ll be here,” I replied, my voice so low it was almost inaudible.
“See you later. You look great by the way,” he said cheerfully as he continued on his way. “Really great!”
I felt faint and reached out to the wall for support, my head spinning as I tried to take stock of my car- crash of a life.
A few short months ago I had been a normal, professional PhD scientist and happily married mother of three grown up children.
Since then, and with a momentum I found hard to believe, I had been seduced, fucked, adulterous, exposed, abandoned, dumped, fucked again, cheated on, knocked up, mistrusted by the man I loved and was now trapped by a boy with God knows what intention in mind.
