by Amy Daws
After living together for a couple of years, we decided to stop using birth control and let Mother Nature decide when the right time was for us to get pregnant. Even though we were acting like we didn’t care when it happened, I couldn’t help but get my hopes up every time we made love that nine months later, a piece of us would arrive.
When nothing happened for nearly a year, I became a little obsessed with finding ways to help it along. Brody humored me with acupuncture and psychic visits, herbal treatments and abdominal fertility massage. He about cut me off when I told him I wanted to talk with a shaman healer, but it was nothing a little sexual manipulation couldn’t overcome. Never mind the crazy shit that lady told me! “Bury a piece of your hair with a piece of his hair in the oil of the ellipsis and chant this chant to the Gods of the Moon every night for a fortnight.” Holy balls, even I knew that sounded crazy! But those were the acts of a hopeful woman with her head in the clouds.
I became increasingly worried there was something seriously wrong with my body, preventing us from conceiving. I’d always had irregular periods and heavy cramps, so nothing felt natural to me down there.
Without telling Brody, I scheduled an appointment to have a private consult with a fertility specialist. I didn’t want Brody to know. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I hated the idea of him sitting with me in a waiting room full of other reproductively-challenged women. I was perfect in Brody’s eyes. I didn’t want him to see me as anything less if I could help it.
And he was always so optimistic. He never seemed concerned with the fact that we hadn’t been preventing pregnancy for over a year and achieved no results. He knew I took a lot of pregnancy tests…probably way too many. He’d always put on a happy face and do whatever he could to cheer me up. If I had to hear “Maybe next month” one more time from him, I was going to scream.
I wanted the cold hard truth from a specialist. After a couple months of exams, tests, blood draws and procedures, the doctor scheduled a consult with me. As soon as the nurse placed me in the doctor’s office, instead of an exam room, I knew I was done for.
The words infertile and adoption tumbled out of his mouth. I was seized with panic. I wanted to run out of his office right then and there, but I sat there and listened to him talk about my hostile uterus and how I will never be able to carry a baby and blah, blah, blah. I was sick to my stomach. I couldn’t contain the trembling in my hand as he passed me an adoption agency’s pamphlet. To think about adopting an unknown child, when our whole love story is based on this crazy us theme, seemed unfathomable!
I decided I couldn’t handle a life with Brody and no us baby. So when Leslie asked me to come out and visit her for a week, it seemed like fate was telling me my next move. I knew there was no way I could break up with Brody and continue living near him, in the same town. The temptation would be too much. I loved us way too much to trust myself to do the right thing and stay away.
So I shattered his heart instead. I moved as far away as humanly possible. I tried to prepare him by pulling away a few weeks before my flight. He picked up on it and tried to pull me back into us by being goofy and playful, like we always were. But I couldn’t get past all the issues of my new diagnosis. Even surrogacy sounded terrible to me. I couldn’t fathom using some other woman to carry our baby.
The fundamental gift a woman can give a man is a baby. It’s the ultimate evidence of love. The longer I stuck around with Brody, the less like a woman I felt. I made arrangements with my sister to help me by picking up my car at the airport and storing it at their acreage in Marshall. The rest of my belongings I’d deal with later, once Brody moved on maybe? I don’t know. I didn’t think it all through.
Brody didn’t know until the day I left that I was ending us. I honestly thought he’d fight harder for me to stay. Sure, he tried, but he still let me go. Maybe he was ready to call it quits, too? If that were the case, I don’t think he’d be showing up at my sister’s house drunk and cantankerous. He’d be moving on.
I hugged the blanket closely to me, aching for the warmth of his familiar arms around me, and I eventually drift into a restless sleep.
CHAPTER SIX
I awaken later in the afternoon and hear voices below me. Holy crap, its 2:00 p.m.! I can’t believe I slept this long. I’m bursting to pee, so I crawl up off my mattress to make my way out the door. Looking down when I open the door, I am surprised when I slam right into Frank’s chest. He smells strangely like cinnamon.
“Morning, love!” he announces, brightly.
“Uh, hi?” I reply, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and inspecting his outfit. He is covered in denim, head to toe. Tight, Skinny Jeans, a denim button-down shirt and a denim jacket. He even has a denim ball cap on with the bill tilted up high, revealing his frizzy orange hair.
“The Lezbo went to a meeting with the gods of photography and requests our presence at Shay Nightclub promptly at 10:00 p.m. tonight,” he says, with a curt nod of his head. “I’ve been instructed to escort you there and make sure you don’t look like a dopey Midwestern hussy. Her words, not mine, love.”
“Okay, so…the all-denim look,” I lean back to examine him more fully. “Is this considered fashionable here in the UK, or are you headed to a hoedown later?”
“Oooo, what’s a hoedown? I want one!” he asks, eagerly.
“Never mind,” I say, moving past him toward the bathroom across the hall.
“For your information, there’s a denim surplus here in London and I’m just doing my civic duty to help the community. It’s a real epidemic!” he remarks, seriously.
I squint my eyes at him, speculatively.
“Not as gullible as the Lezbo when she came to town. Pity. We had a ball feeding her full of crazy crap.” He begins walking down the creaky wooden staircase. “Food and refreshments in the kitchen if you’d like to refuel that juicy ass of yours!”
I laugh as I walk into the bathroom. Frank is definitely going to keep me on my toes.
After a long, sort-of-hot shower, I dress myself in a pair of comfortable leggings and a college hoodie. It’s a chillier fall here in London than it is back home. I glance down the hallway of the second floor, wondering who occupies each room, since I still haven’t received a grand tour of the house. Leslie, Frank and I were a bit too buzzed to care when we got home last night.
They had both noisily, and albeit a bit drunkenly, pounded their way up the narrow staircase with all my suitcases to show me to the only room on the third floor. I had flopped straight down onto the thin mattress and passed out within minutes, in the same nasty clothes I’d been wearing for more than 24 hours.
In the light of day, I’m able to see more of the home and appreciate the beauty of the old finishes and woodwork.
As I make my way through the dining room and into the kitchen, I walk in on a couple in the midst of what looks to be an intense conversation.
“Oh! Sorry, I can leave,” I state, annoyed at myself for interrupting them.
“No, no. You’re fine! Don’t leave,” a small Asian girl says, looking over her shoulder and extracting herself from between the man’s legs where he sits perched up on the wood countertop.
The girl looks back to the guy and whispers something incoherent, he looks back at her, angrily. I avert my eyes because I feel like I’ve interrupted either a fight or a make-up session, I’m unsure. I look out the front window behind the small kitchen-nook table and notice the cute patio set surrounded by a wrought-iron fence covered in ivy. It looks like the perfect place to sit and read.
“You’re Leslie’s mate, right?” the girl asks, widening her slanted eyes at me in question. “I’m Julie, and this is Mitch.”
Mitch is in the process of inspecting his shoes, apparently deep in thought. Or perhaps he is contemplating buying a new pair? He’s cute in a petite skater-boy sort of way. He has chin-length blonde hair tucked neatly behind his ears.
“Our room is the first door on the right, upstairs,” Julie offers.
“Right. Well, let’s bail then,” Mitch says, sullenly. He’s obviously pissed about something; I hope it’s not my presence. Maybe he’s mad about his shoes.
“Okay. Well, nice to meet you! We’ll see you around a bit, I hope,” Julie announces apologetically on her way out. Mitch drags her tiny frame out of the kitchen.
I make my way over to the counter and see an assortment of pastry items next to a plate of tiny sausages. My stomach is churning at the smell of it all. I nibble on a piece of what looks like a sweet roll when Frank pops his head in.
“Thank the Lord, you’ve showered! I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, but I could literally smell your pitties last night at the pub. I nearly vomited in my lager. It was a travesty!” he says, popping the top off the can he just grabbed out of the fridge.
My reaction must be a good one, because in the midst of his drink he busts out laughing, spraying pop all over himself and the refrigerator door! “Bloody hell, Finley! I’m only messing with you!” he says, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his denim jacket. “Had to get back at you for the denim crack upstairs, ye bitch!”
My shocked reaction turns to scorn. I look him hard in the face and say, “You have pop boogers coming out of your nose.”
“Fuck me!” he shouts, turning into the stainless-steel fridge door to get a look at himself.
“Now who’s the gullible one?” I ask, with a sneaky smirk spreading across my face.
Frank looks me up and down, “I think you might be a bit of fun after all, Finley, my dear.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, Frank and Beans,” I reply.
“What. The. Fuck. Are frank and beans?”
“A Midwestern delicacy. And in your denim outfit, I think that’s exactly what I’ll be calling you from now on. I can see you sitting around a campfire right now with a horse tied up to a tree behind you, munching on your frank and beans.”
“As long as it’s a fire on Brokeback Mountain, I’ll be any kind of Frank you want!” He looks at me proudly for a moment, “Fine, fine, Finny. Let’s go explore some sights while Lezbo is off doing God knows what. Maybe we’ll even find you something to wear that’s not so…university. Blech.”
***
I look down at my hoodie I’ve been wearing for the past five years, and frown. I love this hoodie. I loved my college days. They gave me Brody. Brody. Damn. I was just starting to feel a little better.
Frank and I have an amazing afternoon together. He walks me around the neighborhood and shows me all the best local places to shop for groceries, clothes, and typical odds and ends stuff. We walk by the pub we went to last night and he informs me they spend the majority of their time there because they keep the old geezers in check for poor little Zoey.
The city is beautiful. It’s a huge juxtaposition of different architectural structures from centuries long gone. Definitely not something I’m used to seeing in Missouri or Kansas. Everything here seems so much greener, too. Lusher, despite the constant grey overcast sky. There are also tons of parks dotted around the place. I’ve never seen so many tiny parks all in one place.
I’m taking it all in with wide eyes full of wonder. I can’t help but mourn this experience a tiny bit because I’m not doing it all with Brody. Brody would have loved this stuff. He never spoke much of travel like I did, but he loved pretty much everything I loved. If we were together, he was happy.
We pass a couple of women with tiny babies in strollers. My heart hurts just looking at them. I wonder how they got their precious little miracles. Was it easy? Was it hard? Do they know what a true gift they have? Do their husbands know how lucky they are to have fertile wives? The more I look at them, the angrier I get because it’s quite likely they don’t appreciate all they have been given, and I would!
Frank must have picked up on my wandering thoughts because he quickly rushes us to the next street over to show me the tattoo shop where we can watch artists tattoo people in the window. It’s cool, so we purchase a basket of fries. Chips. Whatever the hell they call them. We watch a guy getting a huge eagle tattooed on his back for nearly an hour. Frank is easy to talk to; he says the most outlandish things. I laugh and feel happy that I like my new roommate so much.
We make our way back to the house and Frank rummages through my four suitcases until he finds an outfit he thinks is passable for our evening ahead. By the time he starts rifling through the fourth suitcase, I’m beginning to fear he won’t find anything suitable. I sure as hell won’t fit into Leslie’s clothes!
“This will do. Now, tart yourself up so I can escort you to the club and make all the men envious of my new bitch,” Frank says, with flair, as he exits my room.
Frank has selected a long red high-waist skirt with a cropped, tight cheetah t-shirt. The t-shirt is a spandex material and a totally impulsive purchase I’d picked up in a thrift store back home. I actually never found a place to wear it, so I am excited Frank put these two pieces together for me.
I throw my long brown hair up high on my head into a cute topknot that looks effortless, but chic. I jazz up my makeup a bit thicker than I normally would, drawing out my eyeliner into a bit of a cat-eye look. I throw on a long gold-pendant necklace and make my way downstairs.
Frank must be impressed because he doesn’t scream at me to run upstairs and start over. “You look decidedly fuckable, my dear.”
“Oh?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.
“I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole, and believe me, I’ve got one under here,” he says, gesturing toward his crotch. “But if I were a betting man, I’d bet you’ll draw some attention tonight.”
“Aw, Frank, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me!” I answer, smiling gaily at him. “You look rather fetching yourself!”
“Thanks, my dear,” he says, adjusting his skinny black tie over his denim button-down. Thankfully, he’d swapped the denim jeans for a pair of skin-tight red slacks. It’s still nothing I’ve ever seen back home, but I can definitely see some style going on in there.
“If I had a dick,” I pause, wondering how he’ll react, “…I’d stick it in you.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You and Leslie are definitely friends. Two bitches in a bloody pod. Let’s fucking go.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
As we walk into Shay, the music is roaring. I’m surprised to hear several American pop songs playing loudly over the grand room. The British music scene is pretty awesome, but it’s nice to hear songs from home that I’m familiar with.
We walk around for what feels like a good twenty minutes before finally finding Leslie. She has a table on the upper level that surrounds the packed dance floor. She already has three mixed drinks sitting in front of her as she turns to me with eager and excited eyes, obviously appraising my outfit.
“FIN! Who knew you had it in you?” she stares at me with mock appreciation.
I self-consciously cover the exposed four inches of belly above the high waist of my skirt, and frown at her. “Oh, come on. You’re not the only one who can have cute clothes, you know!”
“I know! But you’re already a good foot taller than me, the least you could do is throw me a bone and let me win the clothing contest,” she laughs, incredulously.
Leslie looks gorgeous. She’s sporting a trendy little black dress with pointy shoulders and triangular cutouts on the sides. She’s painted her pout a deep matte-red and her bob is fluffed with extra body.
“You made that, didn’t you?” I ask, touching the shoulder point on one side.
“Yep!” she replies, proudly.
“You are too fabulous,” I say, grabbing her hand and t
wirling her so I can inspect the back—or should I say, no back. Three silver chains drape across an open back and dangle sexily toward her bottom. I give her ass a good smack and she squeals in delight.
“What about me, Lezzie?” Frank asks, looking rather forlorn.
“Frank, you know I love your wacky style. You look cool, as always,” she says, kissing him on both cheeks, “Now, let’s drink!” she announces loudly, handing us our beverages.
Since the music is so loud, we do a lot of drinking and people-watching, but not much talking. I’m glad for that though; my thoughts seem to be getting darker and darker the more vodka tonics I’m served. I never have done well with hard liquor, but Leslie bought the first round and it seems easier to stick with what we have.
Frank takes over and starts buying all the drinks.
I yell over to him, “Frank, let me buy the next round!”
He shakes his head at me, “Stuff your money, I got this. Just drink. I like you better pissed anyway.”
I laugh and oblige him by sucking on the straw of my drink again.
“Who’s ready to shake their tail-feathers?” Leslie hollers at us over the music.
Frank shoots up out of the table, grabs both of our hands, and begins pulling us through the crowd. He shouts to the people next to us to hold our table and offers to buy them a round in return, so they quickly spread themselves out over our table and look eager for our return.
As we rub up next to the crowds of people, I can see men’s eyes on me and it feels so strange. I’ve been with Brody for five years and just being here feels like cheating. I silently chastise myself and remind my brain that I am single now and this is like early college days all over again. I loved flirting in college and was really good at it. I can be that way again. So instead of feeling uncomfortable, I let the vodka’s liquid-courage help me shake my round ass directly into Frank’s crotch. Leslie laughs as Frank gives me a look like he’s about to be sick. I giggle and continue dancing. Eventually, Frank finds a couple of guys that seem to catch his eye and leaves Leslie and me to our own devices.
