by April Lust
As soon as she left the room, I pulled my clothes off quickly and tried to wriggle into the paper gown. It was cold and scratchy against my skin, and I shivered, hopping up onto the examination table and crossing my legs. My pregnancy bump felt bigger than ever.
The door swung open and the nurse came back in. “Hi,” she said kindly. “I’m Linda. I’m a nurse practitioner. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about why you’re here today?”
“I’m pregnant,” I said miserably. “I don’t know what to do.” I looked down at my lap. “I’m twenty-two, and I ran away from an abusive relationship in California. I…” I trailed off. Tears came to my eyes and I found myself wiping them away before I knew it. “And I don’t really believe in….um….in getting rid of it, but I don’t want to be a mother,” I confessed. “Maybe I can have it and give it away for adoption? But I don’t think I can have this baby,” I added. “I’m not in a good place to be a mother right now.”
I glanced down, afraid Linda would judge me for not wanting a baby. After all, all women wanted babies, right? And because I didn’t, I was some kind of a freak, right?
“Let’s go over some basic things, and then we can talk about your options,” Linda said. She gently took the clipboard from me and started thumbing through the papers. “I see you’ve never been tested, or had a Pap smear?”
I shook my head, letting my brown hair hide my face. “Jack wouldn’t let me,” I mumbled. “My ex, I mean. He didn’t want me getting tested. He…. he said I could lie about sleeping with other men that way, and that I wouldn’t catch anything from him if I stayed faithful.”
Linda let out a low whistle. “Well, that’s factually not true,” she said in a light voice. Her face had dropped the hopeful smile, but she didn’t look unkind. “Let’s keep talking. Have you ever been to a gynecologist, Nicolette?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said softly. “I haven’t.”
Linda nodded. “Well, you’re going to have a Pap smear today,” she said. When she saw my wide, horrified eyes, she smiled. “STDs can cause a lot of trouble for a pregnancy, and we’re going to test you and make sure you’re free and clear. As well as a Pap smear, that’s normally part of your first prenatal visit, anyway.”
“But I don’t want this baby,” I added, my voice rising high to a fevered pitch. “I don’t want this baby! I don’t want to keep it!”
Linda nodded. “I know,” she said. “But this is all part of the procedure. We need to make absolutely sure you’re safe before we begin any kind of process, okay?”
I bit my lip and nodded. “Okay,” I said softly.
“Go ahead and lie back, put your feet in the stirrups,” Linda said. I followed her instructions, but felt her cold hand on my knee a second later. “Go ahead and scoot down more,” she said. “I need to be able to see.”
I was burning with shame and embarrassment. As many times as Jack had looked at my pussy, I’d never had anyone’s face this close before. Aside from Charlie, I thought. And when he was licking me. The memory made me burn bright with shame and I clamped my legs together even more fiercely.
Linda let out a little laugh. “You’re going to have to relax, Nicolette,” she said calmly. “This will all be over in a minute. You’re going to feel a little bit of pressure,” she added. “It might sting, but it’s not going to hurt for long.”
There was a sharp pain deep inside me, like I was being scraped. I yelped and dug my fingers into the sides of the fake leather examination table.
Linda sat back. “Okay, we’re done,” she said. “I’ve got everything I need for your tests.” I watched as she put two cotton swabs into two vials and marked them with my name. “Now, I’m going to give you an ultrasound. Do you have any idea when your last period was?”
I shook my head. “It was always irregular,” I confessed. “I don’t know. Maybe four months ago? Five?”
Linda frowned slightly. She let me put my legs together, then gave me a sheet to cover my lap while she pulled my shirt up to expose the slight bump on my belly. I cried out in surprise as she squirted cold gel onto my belly, and rubbed it around with a plastic device that was hooked to a cord. She reached up and flicked a switch on the wall, making a screen come to life with grainy, weird-looking images. “This is your baby,” she said, moving the device around. “Can you see it?”
I closed my eyes. At first, I didn’t want to look. But then I finally opened my eyes and gazed at the picture. It didn’t look like a baby. It looked like a blob in a bigger blob. But the more I stared, the more I thought I could start to see features. “What is it?” I asked softly. “You’re not saying anything. Is that bad?”
Linda made a little noise and pursed her lips together. “Unfortunately, Nicolette, you’re over twenty weeks pregnant.”
“So? Can’t I still have an abortion?”
“Well,” Linda said slowly. “In Colorado, abortion is legal until the twenty-sixth week. But at Planned Parenthood locations, we don’t perform abortions after the nineteenth week. That’s considered a health risk to the mother, and it’s an inpatient procedure at a hospital.” She glanced down at me. “You would need insurance, and a good hospital appointment.”
I bit my lip. “I don’t have insurance,” I confessed. “I…I don’t have the money for any of that.” Tears welled up in my eyes and I blinked. “It’s not that I think abortion is right,” I said. “I just…I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Linda switched off the monitor. “Would you like to think about adoption? We have some paperwork, and you could do some reading, then come back in and speak with one of our counselors about the matter at hand.”
I nodded, feeling numb. “Okay,” I said softly. “I guess I can do that.”
Chapter 10
Charlie
I trailed Nicolette all week long. I was half-expecting her to leave town and try going somewhere else. Deep down, I dreaded that possibility. I knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do to Jack if she left, and I couldn’t handle that right now.
But thankfully, everything went pretty fuckin’ well, all things considered. Nicolette didn’t try shit – she stayed put, she went to work on time, she didn’t even go to lunch during the week. I watched her from a distance, carefully plotting my next move.
I couldn’t fuck with her car when she was at work. That was the first big problem. She parked in a big parking lot that was watched all day by a guard. And get this? The parking was free! I laughed my ass off the first time I saw that. After living in California for a while, believing that anything was free seemed pretty fuckin’ impossible. But that guard never left the lot, either, and I had a couple of days where I thought about trying to get rid of him.
I wouldn’t have known how to do it, though. He kept a close eye, and I didn’t think I could take out a man, then wait for Nicolette to leave and snatch her off the street. Durango was a small town, but as I’d learned over the years, sometimes small towns were harder to work in than bigger ones. In a small town, everyone knew everyone else’s business. Hell, your neighbor could probably tell everyone what kind of a shit you took after eating Mexican food. Big cities aren’t like that – they’re crowded, but anonymous. It’s easy to get away. It’s easy to hide.
So instead, I was stuck waiting for Precious Miss Nicolette to make another move.
Jack called me nearly every day, wanting to know how it was going, wanting to know if I’d bagged her yet. He got angrier and angrier each time we talked, but I promised him I had everything under control. I told him I was tailing Nicolette, sleeping during the day while she worked and then staying up all night watching her cottage. He always asked me if there were guys there, if she brought any men home, if she was fuckin’ anyone else.
I always, always told him no. Sometimes I wondered whether or not he’d find out what had happened. I’d gotten over the fear of Nicolette telling him. After all, if she hated him as much as she pretended, it was likely only a
matter of time until she’d run off again. And then, obviously, I wouldn’t be able to go catch her. It would have to be some other innocent, some other man Jack needed a favor from.
On Saturday, I was shocked as hell to see Nicolette up and at ‘em before nine o clock in the morning. She’d always struck me as sort of a lazy girl – the kind of chick who stays in bed with girlie magazines all day, eating ice cream straight from the tub, like a fuckin’ pig. But instead she walked out to the car, dressed in a baggy shirt that hid that perfect figure and a pair of jeans. I waited until she was a block or so away before I followed her.
Nicolette turned out of town, and I felt my first real note of fear. If she tried running now, I wasn’t sure I could catch up. The car I was driving only had a pint of gas left, and I didn’t trust that bitch not to try losing me on the highway. So you can imagine my real intense relief when she pulled into a shopping center outside town. It was a real dumpy place, with some outdated supermarket, a dollar store, and a discount shoe place. But the final sign made me freeze right in my tracks.
It was a Planned Parenthood. And Nicolette, in her baggy fuckin’ shirt, was goin’ inside. My hands clenched the steering wheel and I screamed “God damn it!” as loud as I could. Fuck! This is bad. This is real, real bad. If she gets rid of that kid, Jack is going to fucking kill me. I’m going to be ruined. I’m gonna get kicked out of the Gods, and be homeless again. Fuck!
I knew right then and there I had no time to lose. As soon as Nicolette was inside, I pulled up next to her car and pulled my tools out of the back. I popped the hood and went to work. A few seconds later, I had the spark plugs disconnected, in my hand, with the wires fraying around. I grinned to myself – there was something so satisfying about doing what I’d just done, knowing I was smart enough to figure it out. Jack’s gonna be really proud of me, I thought. But when I thought back to Nicolette, crawling inside the building like some kind of human parasite, my brief feeling of cleverness with myself disappeared.
I was filled with anger, that felt strange and alien. I could have throttled Nicolette! She was carrying Jack’s child, the heir to the Steel Gods, and she was getting an abortion like some back-alley slut? I couldn’t fucking believe I’d slept with a woman who would do a thing like that. I shook my head as I slammed the hood to Nicolette’s car and pocketed the spark plugs.
At least this espionage shit was easier than I thought.
As soon as I was done with the car’s “maintenance,” I climbed back into my car and sped away towards the nearest gas station. I had to be close when Nicolette would inevitably call and ask me for a ride. My lips curled into a smile. Oh, I’ll give her a ride all right, I thought as I cruised down the road. I’ll give her a ride she’s never gonna forget.
Chapter 11
Nicolette
After I’d gotten dressed and paid (fifty bucks! Just for a measly ultrasound and a painful prick in my pussy!) I cleared my throat and went outside. To be honest, I wasn’t doing a real good job of thinking just then. I was scared, and nervous. I didn’t want to have a baby.
Back in high school, when I thought Jack was the perfect man, I’d wanted a baby. Not then, of course, but when we got older. My eyes filled with tears as I realized I’d always thought I’d be a mother by now. But now, I was starting to doubt myself. I didn’t want to bring a baby into the world and think of Jack every time I looked at her sweet face. Or his handsome face. It didn’t matter – as long as the baby was Jack’s, I didn’t want it. I know that sounds cold. It’s not like it was the baby’s fault, after all. But I knew I’d go the rest of my life hating my ex and wishing I never had to see him again.
Plus, there was the question of parental rights. I’d read some horror stories in women’s magazines before, about women who had babies with men they hated. They had ugly custody battles, uglier fights for child support, and sometimes the end result was the ugliest of all.
I remembered my old friend from high school, Clara, telling me that her parents had gotten divorced when she was only four years old. They’d fought over her even though neither one of them really wanted her; they only wanted to spite each other. She said she’d spent her whole life trying to be heard by her parents, but they’d only heard their own screaming instead.
I didn’t want my baby to have to deal with that life. Furthermore, I wouldn’t have trusted Jack with custody. After the way he’d abused me for so long, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave him alone with the baby for a second, much less a weekend or a whole goddamn summer. And taking him to court would be expensive, which I couldn’t afford, and painful, which I didn’t wanna deal with.
I was in a real situation.
I climbed into my car, relieved that soon, I’d be going home and everything would be okay. Or at least, I could pretend. I could take a long bath and maybe order a pizza for dinner. But when I stuck the key in the ignition, nothing happened. I gritted my teeth and tried again. The engine started, but it wouldn’t turn over. I tried over and over again. Just as I started to see wispy grey tendrils of smoke emerging from the hood, I climbed out of the car and felt tears well up in my eyes.
The first person I called was Brenda. She answered after the second ring, and her voice was thick and clogged with sleep. I bit my lip as I waited for her to take a drink of water, then put the phone back to her ear and answer.
“Hello?” There was a pause. “Nicolette, is that you?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said quietly. “Um, Brenda, I need some help.” I cleared my throat and willed the tears to go away, but they began to fall down my cheeks instead. My eyes burned in shame and I realized at that moment, that I felt more helpless than I ever had before. Even before I’d left Jack
“What is it?” Brenda cleared her throat again. “What happened?” There was a loud sound of crying behind her and she winced loudly. “Hang on, Nicolette,” Brenda said. “I have to put the phone down real quick.”
By the time she’d picked up the receiver again, I’d about lost all the nerve that I had. I didn’t want her knowing where I was – not that I felt like she would judge me, but I didn’t want to explain it. I closed my eyes and sighed.
“What is it?” Brenda asked. She sounded breathless and heavy. “Nicolette, what happened?”
“Never mind,” I said in a falsely cheerful voice. “I’m fine. I thought I had a question about work but everything’s fine! I’m fine.”
I hung up before Brenda could ask anything else. My heart was pounding slowly in my chest and I crawled into the backseat of my car, lying down like I was sick. I’d felt like everyone in the parking lot was staring at me, like I was some kind of freakshow.
There was only one person left to call, and I really, really didn’t want to call him.
Charlie picked up on the first ring. He sounded jaunty, exhilarated, like he was off doing something much more fun and exotic than hanging out in Durango, Colorado on a Saturday morning. “Hey, Nicolette,” Charlie said. “You chill out yet? You want me to come over?”
I shook my head and bit my lip. “Um, no,” I said. “Actually…I ran into a little bit of car trouble.” I glanced up at the other stores. “I was out at this shoe store and when I got back in the car, it wouldn’t start.” I sniffled, suddenly worried that I was going to start crying again. “Can you come pick me up and take me home?”
“Yeah, sure,” Charlie said. My heart soared – I was glad I’d called him. “Do you have an address?”
I sniffled again, then looked for the scrap of paper in my purse with the Planned Parenthood address on it. “I’m in the Red Apple Shopping Mall, just outside of town,” I said, wiping my nose on my hand. “Thanks, Charlie.”
He pulled up five minutes later and honked the horn. I thought that was kind of weird – where was he that he’d been so close? Durango was small but not that small. Still, I wasn’t about to ask any questions for my new Knight in Shining Armor. He’d really helped me when I couldn’t have asked anyone else.
“Hey,”
I said as I slid in the car. “Thanks.” I smiled at him.
Charlie looked just as handsome as ever. He was wearing a denim shirt with a patch on the back and big, mirrored sunglasses. His blonde stubble had grown out even more, and I was tempted to reach over and touch him. But thinking of the baby in my belly stopped me cold in my tracks.
“Not a problem,” Charlie said. “So, did you buy anything?” He glanced down at the floorboards of the passenger side, locking all doors as we cruised out of the parking lot.
“What?” I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Charlie chuckled. “You went shoe shopping,” he said. “Did you buy any shoes, Nicolette?”
I shook my head. As we drove along the picturesque side streets, I began to feel oddly nervous. Chill out, Nicolette, I thought. This is Charlie. He’s not a complete stranger. You’ve slept with him, for god’s sake! So chill the fuck out!
“Hey,” I said. “Where the hell are we going, anyway?”
