OUR SURPRISE BABY

by Paula Cox

  “I wish I’d never mentioned this,” I murmur.

  “But you’ve mentioned it now,” Zeke says, and I can tell he’s just going on about it to twist the knife. “I really can’t believe that Rust Springfield, of all people, has fallen head over heels for a woman. I never thought I’d see the day when you got all doughy-eyed over a woman, and yet here you are. I guess you do have a soul after all. So, when’s the wedding, eh? When’s the big day? Look, I understand if you don’t want me as your best man; I guess I could give a speech which wouldn’t be too flattering in front of your blushing bride.”

  “Such a prick,” I say, but I’m smiling at how stupid he’s being. The image is funny, I have to admit: sitting in my leather at a white table, this strange woman beside me, Zeke half-drunk blabbering about all the jobs we’ve been on together.

  “The club is all the family I need,” I say. “I’ve got my brothers, I’ve got my work, I’ve got some sexy women now and then. That’s all I need. You’re the one who’s got a new girlfriend every New Year, like it’s your goddamned resolution or something.”

  “Maybe I don’t see the club as the be all and end all of family and closeness and all that bullshit.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Zeke shrugs. “Maybe there’s more, like a proper family, like a wife and kids and all that stuff.”

  I grunt out a laugh. “For us? For Damned enforcers? I don’t reckon I see that, truth be told.”

  “Yeah, maybe I don’t, either,” Zeke says quietly, and then knocks back a slug of whisky straight from the bottle.

  That adds an aspect of darkness into this otherwise cheery drinking session. We sit and drink for another hour or so before we’re called out on a job, but neither of us talk, just sit here listening to the pledge cleaning the bar, scrubbing the pipes, dusting the counter, vacuuming the offices. I sink into my thoughts, thinking first of my mother, the way she stared at me matter-of-factly, as though it was to be expected that she would move in and start a new family with the man she cheated on my father with; as though it was expected that I should just leave, find a new family. And then I find myself thinking of Allison, which Zeke is right about. I never do this. I never think about women like this. It never even occurs to me that I might. Is it because I didn’t fuck her? Is it because I want to feel those pert peach-like breasts, those long legs, that pussy, which I bet was wet for me earlier?

  Or is it something else, something less plain than that? I tell myself that that’s ridiculous. I am not a man who thinks about women like this. I am not a man who sits around pining over women. I don’t give a shit, ever, when it comes to women. I like their bodies, their moans, but that’s about it.

  But Allison …

  Shit, man, I just don’t know.

  Chapter Six

  Allison

  For the next few days, as I go about my regular work, I feel as though there are two women living inside of me. I remember when I was younger, in the days when I wanted to be a librarian but was convinced I would end up becoming an accountant, when I read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the first time; I related to it immediately. Two parts of yourself, both pulling you in different directions. Only back then I thought that doing what my parents wanted made me a good person, and doing what I wanted made me a bad person. Now, I feel the same sensation, only about Rust. One part of me is sure that I did the right thing, that giving myself over to passion like that, in public, with a man I barely know, would have been a mistake. Another part of myself is furious: furious that, after all these years spent reading steamy romances, I didn’t give into my passion and let him fuck me right there. I think of it often, in the exhausted minutes before sleep takes me, or when I’m standing in the shower, water clinging to my nipples, trickling down between my legs. Hot water I can imagine is his hands.

  I lie on my back after dinner, in bed, reading one of my romance novels. I skipped the billionaire romance, and grabbed a barbarian sacking a medieval village out of my to-be-read pile. He takes a village woman as his prize. At first, it’s just passion that pushes them together: wild, animal passion. As I read the description of the passion, I find myself reacting far more viscerally than I normally do, my clit aching, my nipples throbbing, and pretty soon I discover that I am not reading the barbarian’s name. My mind is superimposing the name ‘Rust’ over the barbarian’s; I am imagining that Rust is the one fucking this woman. Only he is not fucking this woman; he is fucking me. In these moments I am the angriest with myself. Why didn’t I just let him do it? Why didn’t I just throw myself into it? I’ve spent so long fantasizing about these alphas, and yet when a true-to-life alpha comes into my life, I push him away; I am unsure. Why?

  Because at work, tomorrow’s appointments include helping a freshly sober guy understand how to build a life that has nothing to drugs, talking to a woman who just out of prison after drug charges that were really about her boyfriend, and talking to a young woman who was looking for alternatives to abortion. Plus whatever walk-ins needed our service over the course of the day. That’s why I need to be responsible and professional, all the time. People have to trust me, trust that I will help them. A professional social worker does not fuck a man in an alleyway. A college girl, sure—not that I ever had!—but definitely not a professional social worker. How could I come into work with my professionalism intact after that? How could I stand in front of the mirror every morning, secure in the knowledge that I am capable of what the day will bring?

  Ah! I slump down on the couch after work, and the pendulum swings in the other direction; on one side there is passion, on the other, there is reason. Passion is furious with reason for being such a prude, and reason is furious with passion for being such a whore. I think I would be able to deal with this if I had my mind made up. If I could just say: okay, that was a mistake, I never should have kissed him like that. Or if I could just say: okay, that was a mistake, I never should have pushed him away like that. If I could say either of those, alone, without interruption from any other interfering feelings, I could return to my normal life without this tearing in my chest: tearing of two opposing emotions, using my mind, my body, my everything as a battleground. But I cannot choose one position; the pendulum invariably swings back, and forth, and back…

  I think about the way he could make me laugh without seeming to even try. That’s often the problem with other men. They try too hard. They’re too eager. They’re like schoolboys who have been dared to come and approach you, fumbling, nervous, all too keen to please. Perhaps that isn’t fair, but my body doesn’t care about fair. My body only cares about passion. And these men, fumbling, awkward, never produce any passion within me. But Rust—Rust—Rust—

  Days go by, and I often wake up whispering his name into my pillow, my body feeling scorched and alive, truly alive, my fingers digging into the bed sheets so that bits of the fabric rip loose under my fingernails.

  One day at work I’m eating my ham and cheese sandwich on my lunch break and reading a romance novel. This one’s a little tamer, without as much heat as my usual selections. After all, I don’t want to be squirming in my pants all afternoon. Says the girl who almost fucked a muscular, sexy, charming biker in a grimy alleyway. I’ve just got to a steamy scene when Marjorie, the head librarian, comes over with a crooked smile on her face. Marjorie is a tall, wide black woman with gorgeous, natural hair she wears in a twist out, and dark brown eyes. She is often smiling, even if she can turn into a tornado of rage if something in the library—more of a new-fangled modern-media center—goes wrong. Now, she grins at me as though she knows a secret, and at once I feel a pit in my belly. Have they cancelled the social work program? Am I in trouble? This job is my life; my work is the most important thing to me.

  But when Marjorie comes and stands over me in the breakroom, I see that there’s no malice in her smile. She makes a whistling noise between her teeth, and then pulls up a chair and sits opposite me. She glances around briefly as though surveying the sur
roundings—the bulletin board with various charitable and work events, the posters of famous book covers, the sink and the fridge—and finally leans close to me.

  “Uh, hey, Marjorie,” I say. Marjorie and I aren’t enemies, but by no means are we friends. I place my book on the chair beside me and wait.

  Finally, Marjorie says, “Heard you got yourself a new boyfriend.”

  “What?” I snap, way too quickly, way too sharply. But I can’t help it. It never occurred to me that anyone at work would know about Rust taking me out for a drink. Detroit is big, after all, and it’s not like I’m someone important. No paparazzi following me around.

  “Woah, calm down,” Marjorie says, squinting at me as though confused. “Cassandra just told me. Tom, your 11 o’clock? He came in earlier when you were on outreach and gave Cassandra this.” Marjorie reaches into her pants pocket and brings out one of those toy plastic rings you find in gumball machines.

  “Oh,” I say, taking it, and smiling. Yes, her comment threw me off, but Tom’s a sweet guy who’s really trying to get his life together after a bout of serious depression and a suicide attempt. It was nice of him to leave something for me.

  Marjorie tilts her head at me. “Hmm,” she mutters, before getting up and leaving.

  After that, it’s incredibly clear that I’ve got a problem. I know I’m thinking about Rust too much. I know that there is something dangerously wrong with the way my mind keeps turning to him no matter what I am doing. Dangerous, because if I allowed my mind to do totally as it liked, I would never think about anything else. I am furious with myself, completely enraged that I can’t just put this man out of my mind. Although I suppose I should be familiar with the problem; god knows no one ever got together in a romcom because they considered the other person so forgettable. But I’m a real person in a real life, and I’m supposed to be able to focus.

  Over the next few days, I decide to do the only thing which seems like it will have any results. I decide to turn myself against Rust, instead of toward him. Like a form of strange meditation, every time my mind turns to him, I force my mind to turn to a different aspect of him. My mind tries to turn to his muscles, his clean-shaven, strong-featured face; I force myself to think about what a Neanderthal he is, a violent enforcer, someone completely unsuited for a woman like me. I wake up moaning his name—and I start to think about all the horrible things he must have to do on a day to day basis, the blood, the pain. He was attractive to me back in the alleyway, fine, but in the long-term, or even the mid-term, he would swiftly become unattractive, more of an animal than a man. What sort of relationship, real relationship, could a woman like me have with a man like that? And even if I gave into what a part of me clearly wants, what after? How will I feel about myself?

  No, I tell myself, over and over, until it becomes a reflex every time my mind turns to him: I will not give into my animal desires with a man who is completely unsuited to me. It is cruel, but one night when I wake up in a hot sweat with the bed sheets sticking to me like pathetic imitations of his warm hands, I begin listing his negative attributes: uncaring, distant, arrogant, selfish, emotionally stunted, most likely just using me for sex. I have no evidence for some of these, and yet I am sure he is uncaring. I picture the way he just left me, hands in his pockets, whistling. An emotional man, a man who gave a shit, would not have done that.

  When a week has passed since I saw him, I’m sure I’ve succeeded in changing my mind.

  I stand in front of the bathroom mirror early one morning, hands on the edge of the sink, the enamel cold on my palm, and stare at myself wide-eyed, blood-eyed, and I mutter: “I do not want Rust, I do not want Rust, I do not want Rust.”

  I envision him approaching me from behind, appearing in my bathroom doorway, filling it with his massive shoulders—and then I envision myself spinning on him and screaming: “You’re a cold, unfeeling, uncaring Neanderthal and I want nothing to do with you!”

  Then I go into the kitchen and make myself some cereal, muttering under my breath as I pour the milk: “If a social worker can’t master self-denial, who can?”

  Chapter Seven

  Rust

  I remember when I was a little kid, before Dad died and before Mom sent me on my way, sitting on the grass with one of my friends and talking about soul-mates. It’s odd to think about it now, but back then I really believed in that shit. I really believed that there were these things called souls inside of you and that your soul was meant to be connected to somebody else’s soul. I really believed that there was a special person for everybody. Fuckin’ ridiculous, but I was a kid. I stopped believing in it pretty damn quick when I learnt about Mom cheating on Dad all those years, when I learnt that it was Mom who gave Dad that heart attack.

  Which is why it’s so strange that during the week I keep thinking about Allison, as though there really is something in this soul bullshit—though I know there’s not, that it’s absurd. If I keep thinking about her, it’s ’cause she is damn hot and nothing more. That’s what I have to remind myself every day. But still, she’s persistent in my mind. I’ll be out with Zeke, either tailing some unpatched or questioning one of their members, and she’ll be there, lurking at the peripheries of my mind, sometimes seeming to lurk at the peripheries of my vision. A couple of times, I feel like a real crazy person as I turn to glance and see that it’s just the way the sun is reflecting off the handlebars of my bike or a streetlamp or something like that. Not Allison, ’cause of course it’s not.

  I know nothing about her; I only met her once. Sure, she is hot, and her body felt amazing pressed up against mine, but that’s it. There are plenty of women I’ve been with who I could say the same about: hot, sweet-feeling, their bodies offering pleasure for the taking. But for some reason it’s this specific woman who keeps coming back to me, day after day, night after night. Once, we’re having a party at the club and one of the club girls comes onto me. Hot enough, willing enough, the sort of girl I’d normally fuck for a night and then forget about. But tonight, I make some bullshit excuse about needing to go outside to make a business call and then I just lean against my bike smoking a cigarette.

  I watch the smoke curl into the summer evening air and then dissipate and I think about Allison, try and pinpoint exactly what it is about her that keeps her lingering in my mind. Her looks are the obvious answer, but the girl in there has looks. So what else? We only spoke for a couple of hours, if that, so I struggle to believe we could’ve made any sort of connection, even if making a connection was something a man like me could do. But then …I search and search, and come up with nothing. Souls? I laugh harshly at the thought. No, not that. Maybe it’s that ‘spark’ people are always talking about; maybe we had ‘chemistry’. But I don’t think I was doing much else than being my usual self.

  I have never loved a woman. I know that much. I’ve seen men who were in love—Zeke thinks he’s in love with every other new girlfriend—and I know I’ve never felt that. They get all soft, start saying unrealistic shit like this girl is the most beautiful girl in the world, that they can never imagine being with anybody else. They turn into bitches half the time. I’ve never got far enough with a woman where I could even get close to feeling that. And I am definitely not in love with Allison. But—no, it’s stupid, way past the point of stupidity. But what if this is what the start of that love stuff feels like? Thinking about them all the time? Wondering what they’re doing? Missing them even though you know nothing about them.

  “Fuck’s sake,” I mutter, flicking my cigarette to the concrete. “Don’t be a fuckin’ idiot.”

  I go back into the party, but I find myself heading for the corner with Zeke and a bottle of whisky, and ignoring the club girls for the rest of the night, probably the first time I’ve done that in damn-near a decade.

  Toward the end of the week, Zeke and I are scouting out one of the unpatched at a train station in a rundown part of town. The station’s floor is more chewing gum that tiling, squashed faded pink a
nd blue and white circles under our feet, and the walls are all chipped wallpaper and exposed metal and brick. A few homeless people crouch in the doorways, and poor working folk walk to and fro, heads down, as though wanting to blot out their surroundings on their way to work.

  We’re watching the crowd for Trent, though this lead is weak, leaning up against the wall and just watching for an hour or more.

  At some point, Zeke mutters: “So, that was pretty strange the other night, man.”

  “Huh?” I grunt, not wanting to get drawn into it. I know he’s talking about the party, and I have no interest in talking about the party.

  “The party,” he says, and by the way the bastard smiles I know he’s enjoying it.

  “Don’t know what you mean,” I murmur.

  “Yeah.” Zeke’s bastard grins gets wider. “Of course you don’t. So—you meet this girl once and now you’re going steady, that it?”

  “I haven’t even talked to her since, you asshole.”

  “But she’s playing on you, eh, up there?” He taps the side of his head.

  “Nope,” I say.