We were making our way off the plane when Julius whispered in my ear, “After this trip, no more birth control pills.”
Man, I’m really gonna miss having sex with him.
I giggled the entire time as we rented a car. Every word out of the woman’s mouth made me laugh. She sounded so sweet when she asked if we wanted, ‘inshowaunts’ for the ‘caw’. I bet her stats were the highest in the company with her voice that sounded like shuga and huney. Julius told me it wasn’t nice to laugh, and I wasn’t laughing at her, I was laughing at how much I wanted to sound like her. Until Amos began using a southern twang, then I just wanted to vomit.
We drove to our hotel and met up with Travis and Sara. She was incredibly hyper and running her mouth from one idea to the next. Now I know why the Stovalls wanted a southern girl, northern girls talked too fast, and were quite annoying.
I noticed how quiet Travis was, but Julius appeared to know what was going on. He put his arm around his friend and said quietly, “Getting married is the best decision you will ever make.”
I opened my purse and pulled out my birth control pills and handed them to the young lady walking past our table. I guess she already had some, because her mother pulled them out of her hand and dropped them in the trash by the door. I would get right on the baby Budge project, since my guy felt marriage was the best decision of his life…. of course, he thought it three times, but it was only because he was a lemniscates.
We headed to our rooms to dress for the rehearsal dinner. As soon as the door shut, I jumped on Julius and kissed him passionately. He walked forward trying to find the bed, so he didn’t end up dropping me onto the floor. For some reason, sex felt different, and although I took a pill that morning, I knew there wouldn’t be any more pills taken, so it felt different.
I’m sure you don’t need to have the sperm directly implanted in the fallopian tube to get pregnant, I mean, sperm are Olympic swimmers, but I wasn’t taking any chances and pounded Julius’s dangler like it was made of steel. He was all for it in the moment, but when I fell to my side he cried out in pain, not profanity.
“Shit, Tobi, were you trying to tickle your tonsils,” he said and held his precious parts in his hand gently.
“I thought you wanted a baby?” I questioned and wondered if ugly Amy was making him change his mind.
“You’ll never get pregnant by punishing my balls, and even when you stop taking your pills, these things take time,” he said to enlighten me.
“How do you know, I could be….”
I couldn’t finish my thought because I knew how he knew and it was too disturbing to contemplate. I had never been jealous over his relationship with Jennifer because I never thought of her as anything more than a disease forming in a Petri dish. But this was too much.
I got up quickly and went right to the shower, not to wash off anything of Julius’, but to cry without his knowledge. But my guy was too smart for the screw and run. He followed me and opened the shower door to stand with his sad, guilty face.
“Tobi, I was trying to save my marriage, it was desperation not something I wanted out of love. I want you to have my babies, because I fell in love with you long before I looked over at your cubicle. I used to listen to you talk to your friends and I loved how unique you were. I can’t thank God enough for not giving me children with Ashley or Jennifer.”
“What if I’m not a good mother?” I whispered and hoped the noise of the shower would keep fate from hearing my fear.
“The moon would have to become square for that to be a possibility,” he said, because he was pretty much perfect.
“I’m sorry I hurt your dangler,” I confessed with as much heartfelt sorrow as I could muster.
“Sweetheart, you can say the word penis,” he said with a smile, and got in the shower with me.
We showed up on time to the Stovall’s manor. It was a huge estate, with a sprawling lawn on a street with large trees shading the road. “Oh wow,” Claire exclaimed, “I want to redesign my house.”
I looked at the square and huffed. The only thing remotely likeable about the house was the large pillars across the front, and the rest was just a white square.
We walked to the backyard to find a large tent filled with so many southern people I worried about the South seceding. Everyone called me darlin, and flowa, and I was beginning to feel like a pretty darlin flowa by the end of the night.
Travis stood with a glass of champagne and turned to Sara. “I watched ya frowm the moment you came to work at Carmichael Carporashun.” Yeah, he stared at her constantly like she was an appetizer for a cannibal. “I’ll always rememba ahwer first night togetha, you stowl my heart darlin,” More like she ruined his table, but whatever. “Do me the awna of becoming my wife tomorra.”
Sara jumped up and fell into his arms as he kissed her in a gentlemanly way. I hope Julius never kisses me like that. I mean, why have legs if you can’t use them to climb up your man’s body? Everyone clapped because it was what was required when you sit in a tent and listen to a man sink deeply into his accent and declare his love for a northern woman.
Sara took the microphone next and I was sure it would be much more understandable. “Travis, I dreamed of you and wished for you.” More like she masturbated to his picture, but maybe Southern women don’t do that. “We had a rocky start,” she said and glanced at me. What the heck, they were together because of me! “But my entire heart belongs to you, forever.” Okay, the last part was good.
She handed the microphone to Julius and he stood, causing my eyeline to be at his zipper. I wanted to give him a soft squeeze and make sure his dan… penis was okay. The crowd suddenly laughed, crap, did I say penis out loud? I’m sure it was said differently in the South, maybe ‘peanis’ or ‘penus’. Julius sat down, and I looked at him as everyone clapped.
“I’ll tell you what I said later,” he whispered, and I just loved my guy so much.
Sara looked at me with hesitation, and Travis’s mother looked like she just developed a case of the vapors. The entire tent was holding its collective breath and when Sara’s arm began moving the microphone toward me, Clair grabbed it from her and stood.
“Are you insane?” she whispered quickly to Sara and turned to face the audience. “Travis was so professional at work and never gave a hint he had feelings for Sara. When they finally got together, it was so obvious how much they loved one another. I wish them both nothing but happiness.”
When Claire sat down I grabbed the microphone from her hand. “I wasn’t going to talk about them having sex on the kitchen table on their first date,” I said angrily… oops… the microphone was indeed in my hand and the clapping had stopped. Sara broke into tears and I tried to cover by saying, “I mean, me, I had sex with Travis on his table on our first date.” I looked at Julius and gasped loudly. “No, I didn’t cheat, I was with you in my bed doing it twice, and Sara screwed Travis on the kitchen table.”
“Dudes, way to go,” Amos bellowed, and I realized I needed to get rid of the microphone as soon as possible. The Blackstones gave me a shocked expression, but the Stovalls looked like I would be burned in Atlanta. I hung my head, realizing I had indeed turned into Amos, so I might as well live by him.
Ugly Amy began fussing so I took her from Claire and left the tent. I’m sure everyone was much happier with me gone so I stayed on the porch swing with the baby while the evening continued. I heard a sound and looked behind me to see my gorgeous husband walking toward the swing. His hands were in his pockets and he had a smile on his face.
“I don’t know why I do that,” I said as I took a deep breath.
“You’re completely and unequivocally honest, that’s why. And I only love you more for it,” he replied.
“Do you want to hold her?” I asked when he sat next to me.
“Sure,” he said and took her into his arms. She smiled up at him and Julius laughed with joy. I leaned my head on his shoulder and sighed so he called me on it. “What are you
thinking, Tobi?”
“There are so many things that can go wrong. I mean, just thinking about getting pregnant made me hurt your dan…penis. There is pregnancy, childbirth, feedings, baths, school, bikes, cars, college…”
Julius laughed loudly, and I looked up to see if he was laughing at me. “Honey, I married Jennifer Staple, do you think anything could scare me now?”
He got me to laugh and I held my hands out for ugly Amy and she reached for me. “You are so cute, ugly Amy,” I said as Julius chuckled.
“Maybe Budge will date her,” he offered.
I didn’t care that Claire was my best friend and she was visually gorgeous. The daughter of the steroid king wasn’t getting anywhere near my Budgie. “He’ll date Sara’s daughter,” I said as a compromise. “Because she’ll most likely let Budge do her on a table.”
“Sara’s daughter it is,” Julius said and kissed my cheek.
We were way too inappropriate to have children.
The next day, we all showed up at the old mansion for the wedding. Sara walked down a huge staircase with a dress that weighed more than she did. It was cream colored, and I was sure the Stovalls insisted it not be white after hearing about her love of kitchen furniture.
She carried long-stemmed white roses tied with antique lace and she was absolutely stunning. Travis waited at the other end of the granite hall dressed in a traditional black tux, because life wasn’t fair, and men could screw all they wanted before marriage. Who did people think men were screwing if all the women were supposed to be virgins? Aw, now I get the whole Kev working his hips thing.
When they walked slowly past me, Sara’s father gave me a dirty look, probably upset he had to pay for a cream-colored wedding gown. I stuck out my tongue at him, because his daughter would be another battle Travis won on his table, if I hadn’t shown her how to win the war.
Julius put his arm around me protectively and I wanted to try for a baby again right there in the old mansion. But, it would be awkward when Julius pounded his hand on the pew and screamed profanities.
We really, really needed to give this whole baby thing more consideration.
Chapter 16
The last night on our boat was bittersweet. All our things had been packed and we threw an old blanket on the bed to sleep. It had been our home for ten months, but it felt like two. Julius let me pick a table from the club for our own kitchen table and our granite countertops had a slight S shape, which apparently makes the dang thing cost three times the price, but my guy loves me, so S shaped it is.
The hardest room to furnish was the nursery. We didn’t have any pending arrival to prepare for, but since we were battling over furniture we decided to get it all over with at once. I found a crib that was peanut shaped for twins, but all I saw was the lemniscates, so of course I had to have it.
I’ve always loved rocking chairs. They look like a chair with a secret, taunting you to sit, and then, wee, it leans you back. Life should be full of nothing but rocking chairs. I didn’t want our child to be alone, so I found siblings online to put in frames on the wall. I tried to pick better this time, since my sisters turned out to be quite the little bitches.
Colors for the nursery turned into a big battle. Julius wanted blue for a boy, or pink for a girl. I felt it was insisting our child be defined by a color, and he, or she, should be free to be pink as a boy, and blue as a girl. Did you know men think the color pink has the power to turn a baby gay? Blue never turned a girl lesbian, but pink must have something extra in the pigmentation that somehow drains testosterone from the seminal tubes. It must be something on a cellular level and I’m not really that into cell phones, so I let it go.
Our baby’s room was yellow.
I was never one to count down the days to my period. I even tempted fate many times and wore white for days in a row, which led most of the high school to know when I menstruated, but it was never a big deal to me. Julius made it his personal mission in life to know the exact moment I got my period.
He pulled me onto the old blanket, in our packed room, on our floating house, and smiled before saying, “You’re two days late.” I racked my brain to think of what appointment I was late for, but I couldn’t think of anything, so he added, “Is it too early for a pregnancy test?”
“Oh, that late,” I said, and then my eyes opened wide. “I’m late?”
The word ‘late’ becomes one of those words you are conditioned to fear, like the words grounded and audit. It took me a moment to realize I was a married woman, so I could be as late as I wanted.
“Do you think it finally happened?” he asked, and I could see hope written all over his face.
I sat up and felt a fear I had never experienced before. Usually I was only afraid of spiders, but this felt way worse than that. I turned to look at Julius and said, “If I’m pregnant you have to do something with your music, like send it to someone important or something.”
“Why?” he asked feeling his own fear set in.
“Because having a baby is terrifying and the only way you can understand what I feel like is if you do something terrifying, too.”
“Okay, you take the pregnancy test and I’ll record a song,” he bargained.
I nodded in agreement and was shocked when he reached over and picked up a box and handed it to me. He actually bought a test, like he was all anxious to be a daddy or something. I read the instructions and grew nervous. I needed to pee on a stick and had to think it through a bit. I had never purposefully peed on anything in my life. I spent time trying NOT to pee on things, so this was a paradigm shift for me.
I headed to the bathroom and managed to perform the test correctly. I came back out and handed it to Julius, but he refused to take it from me. “Put it on the counter and we’ll look at it together,” he offered, and I laughed at him.
“You just don’t want to touch my pee,” I said and waved the stick in front of him.
“Gross, stop,” Julius said and moved away from me.
I blocked his path and shook the stick, so he jumped onto the bed and ran to the other side. I ran quickly and blocked his path again. “Touch it, Julius,” I laughed, and he jumped back onto the bed. “You aren’t leaving until you touch it,” I threatened.
“Tobi, you’re going to be a mother, act like it,” he said and tried to sound angry.
“You don’t know that, yet,” I pointed out and lunged at him with the stick.
He screamed, actually screamed like a little girl and I fell onto the bed in laughter. He got whacked with my vagina right in the face but a little stick with pee scared him, jeeze, how did he ever kiss Staple?
I extended my arm and held up the stick to look at the word written across a little window. I sat up and glanced at Julius as tears formed in my eyes. “You knocked me up,” I said, causing his smile to fall.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously,” I answered, and he came over and held my face in his hands, obviously no longer afraid of a pee stick.
“I love you,” he whispered and wiped my tears away with his kisses. I put my hands on my stomach and tried to feel if there was any difference. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling for, but surely something should feel differently.
I expected to feel a bulbous head, or a little foot reach out and kick me, but I was still the same. Maybe pregnancy was going to be a cinch for me and Claire only complained because it was Gorp’s child she was carrying.
“Let’s wait until we’re settled into the new house before we tell anyone,” Julius said, and I nodded because I was pretty much too scared to move. What if Budge couldn’t hold on very well and if I stood he would fall from my uterus?
I scooted back onto the bed and lay perfectly still so my baby could jump around and not feel closed in. Julius moved to my side and whispered, “I want to make love to my child’s mother.”
I gasped and looked at him in anger. We were most likely never making love again. What would our child think when his warm cocoon was
suddenly filled with sperm and he heard his daddy screaming profanity? No, sex was definitely out of the question.
“We can’t have sex, that is disgusting. We’re parents now,” I pointed out to his Amos-like desire.
“Parents have sex, Tobi, how do you think children end up with siblings?”
“I don’t have any, so Budge won’t have any either. He can get them off the net, like regular people do,” I said adamantly.
He smiled and leaned in closer to let his hot breath rush across my skin, “I want at least six children.”
Hold on, Budge, I mentally warned my baby and stood upright. “You want six kids?” I screamed at poor ignorant, sexy as heck, Julius.
“Maybe seven,” he said with a smile and I looked around for anything that hadn’t been packed that I could use to beat some sense into him. He didn’t need a wife, he needed a dog, a bitch, hey… the Jennifer thing was starting to make sense.
“Julius, I can’t have seven babies. I couldn’t keep track of them, or remember to feed them, or remember what size clothes they wear, or remember their names….”
“I’m just teasing you. Set up a doctor appointment and well talk to him about sex. I’m sure he’ll tell you it is fine.”
I calmed and lay back down, so Budge could relax, and felt better knowing I wouldn’t have to entertain big daddy tonight. We snuggled up together and he quickly fell asleep while I stayed awake and tried to imagine having a baby. It was a long night.
The best part about being pregnant was the fact Julius wouldn’t let me lift a thing during the move. He was at my beck and call through the entire process, when I said ‘jump’, he said ‘how high’. Okay, maybe not to that extent, but when I pointed at a box, he would lift it for me.
Claire noticed right away. “Is your back hurt?” she asked.
“No, I’m not old,” I protested.
“Why is Julius lifting everything?” she pressed and watched me closely, because she was a mom and knew how to watch closely.
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