But it’s different. It’s totally different.
Just—fuck. I wish it weren’t.
I hear the toilet flush, but there’s no other sound from the bathroom. I push my misery back into its proper compartment and decide to focus on what matters right now, on the potentially amazing thing happening right this very second.
I knock on the door. “Liv? Everything going okay in there?”
“I’m fine,” her voices comes, muffled and a touch irritable. “I’m just doing another one.”
“Another test?”
“There’s three in the box, so I just…Oh.”
The oh is strange, completely devoid of emotion but also slightly stunned, as if the lack of emotion is because whatever has just happened has surprised her so much that she doesn’t know how to react yet.
I lean my head against the door with a thump, my heart flipping over along with my stomach. “Liv, does that oh mean what I think it does?”
She says faintly, so faintly I can barely hear her through the door, “There’s another blue line on the first test I took. There’s two lines.”
And I forget everything. Every fucking thing. The contract, my reasons for not wanting a family, the fact that this means Liv is about to dump me now that she has what she wants—everything. There’s only the chest-twisting joy and the renewed heat behind my eyes and a smile so fucking big my cheeks hurt.
“I’m coming in there—”
“Chase, no! I’m still on the—”
And I don’t even care, because I’m charging through the door and going to my knees and pulling Livia Ward into my chest, even though she’s still on the toilet, even though she’s still clutching her last unused test in her hand.
“Oh my god, kitten,” I breathe into her hair. I kiss her head and close my eyes. “We are having a baby.”
The word we comes out so easy, like a breath, like a tear, natural and gentle and warm, and Liv doesn’t correct me. Something I’m grateful for, because I want to pretend, want all those noisy reasons why there isn’t a we to stay forgotten. I kiss her hair again and pull back to study her face. “You okay, doll?”
She nods, biting her lip. There’s something distant in her face. Shock, maybe. The reality of getting something she wants so much. Maybe it’s sitting on the toilet still and having a big cop come in and smash you into a bear hug.
“Sorry,” I say, letting go. I offer a smile that she doesn’t return with one of her own. “I shouldn’t have come in. I’ll be outside.”
And I leave the bathroom even though the thought of being away from her—her and the tiny little baby bean in her belly—actually makes me ache. In my chest and even lower; it’s sinking in that I got Liv pregnant, and God, that’s fucking hot as shit. It makes me want to try to get her pregnant again and again and again.
I hear the toilet flush again and the water run, and then after a few minutes Liv comes out carrying the two positive tests. “I guess we should ask Bud for the extra vitamins,” she says numbly. “I’ve already got some pre-natals that I’ve been taking, but I’m almost out and…” She trails off, as if she can’t hold on to the thought.
I don’t push her, although I’m torn between wanting to figure out what’s wrong and pulling her into my arms and making love to her right here in the middle of the pharmacy. Instead, I call Bud back, who loads her up with all sorts of vitamins and ginger candies for nausea and several packages of dental floss for some reason. And then we drive back to her condo in silence with her sighing and staring out the window.
When we get back inside her living room, she’s still white-knuckling those tests, holding on to them the way you might hold on to a life preserver if you were drowning.
“Hey,” I say, ducking down to meet her eyes. “Look at me. What’s going on?”
She blinks down at the tests in her hand. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to feel. What to think. I wanted this so much and now that it’s happening…it’s like it doesn’t even feel real.”
I set the bag of vitamins and floss down on the table and then come back over to her and take the hand that’s not currently clutching two used pregnancy tests. “Come here, babe.” I lead her over to her couch, and then I sit, pulling her down onto my lap. And then I slide my hands up her thighs to reach her stomach under her dress.
She sighs again, this time one of pleasure, and I feel her flicker back to life under my touch. I also feel my cock harden underneath her, eager to stake its claim again. I’m going to fuck her at least once more tonight, I decide. Crawl between her legs and lick all of her worry away.
I rest my fingertips well below her navel, right where her panties meet her warm, soft skin. “It’s real, Liv. This is real right now.”
She looks at me, finally really looks at me, and I see all the unguarded fears pressing up against the inside of her. In the dusk-lit apartment, her eyes are huge and dark and pleading. “The last two months have been like some kind of…dream,” she whispers. “I don’t know if I remember what real feels like.”
Her words twist something inside of me. Suddenly I know I feel the same way, like this whole fantasy we’ve been letting ourselves act out has somehow become more real than the things we told ourselves we wanted at the very beginning.
And I don’t know what that means.
Although, as I slide my hands up to stroke her waist and the taut skin above her navel, I realize that it doesn’t bother me like it did before, the not knowing. The chaos of new feelings. The messy implications of how I feel about Liv and how I feel about this little life sprouting inside of her that’s half me.
I can’t stand it anymore. The woman who’s pregnant with my child is straddling me, all soft and gorgeous and everything I want, and I just can’t stand it any more. I withdraw a hand from her dress to reach up and thread my fingers into her silky, dark hair, and then I pull her mouth down to mine with an urgency that surprises even me. I devour her mouth, I claim it, I lick inside past her teeth and I bite at her lips and I keep her face tight to mine as she moans and kisses me back, just as fiercely, just as urgently.
“This is real,” I tell her, and now I don’t know if I mean the pregnancy or if I mean this—the chemistry, the connection, the us we’re both too afraid to acknowledge even to ourselves. “This is fucking real.”
“Yes,” she pants against my mouth. Her hands are down at my belt, her fingers brushing against the ridged lines of my stomach as she fights to work it open. “This is real.”
She gets my belt open and my jeans unzipped, and in a second’s work, I have her panties hooked to the side and her wet pussy slowly sinking over my dick. She groans as she impales herself, and I groan too, just watching her. Watching the flush creep up her chest, the sweet points of her nipples poke through her dress. The unabashed, naked pleasure on her face. She feels good, and I’m the one making her feel good.
“Is that what you needed, baby?” I ask, flexing my hips up to drive my erection in deeper. “You needed my cock?”
She nods, her hands almost frantic to push back my shirt, pull my hair, dig into my arms. “I needed it,” she whispers. “I always need it.”
“Yeah,” I grunt, wrapping my hands around her waist and moving her over me. “Fuck yeah, you do.”
She’s soft and tight, and I feel so fucking hard and big inside her. She always makes me feel so big, like a porn star. Like a god.
I move her the way she needs, the way that rubs her inside and out, and I pull her down for growling, hungry kisses, and I reach up to squeeze and fondle her breasts, and I keep her speared on my dick until she’s trembling and crying out my name, Chase, Chase, Chase.
But when I come, I only grunt her name once, Liv, and then pull her tight to my chest as I keep spurting my orgasm inside her cunt, murmuring in her ear, this is real.
This is real.
This is real.
15
Livia
A Danish study says that frequent sex can prevent preeclamps
ia.
I stare at the text I’ve written. Then, before I can talk myself out of it, I push SEND and set my phone on the library cart.
The ache between my legs is intense, but this text is not only an excuse to see Chase. There’s legit science behind it.
It’s just this is the third time legit science has been behind the sex-requesting texts I’ve sent him in the week since I found out I was pregnant.
The first time it was the study that showed that intercourse could lower blood pressure in pregnant women. The second time I’d read an article that orgasms were helpful for strengthening the muscles used in labor. Both times, he’d responded without delay or argument.
Both times orgasms and banging were had.
This time seems to be no different. My phone is already vibrating between the computer and the edge of the cart.
Preeclampsia is way bad. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.
No! I’m at the library, I respond.
Then, as my pussy throbs with reminding need, I send another right after. You better make it thirty.
It’s slow today. Surely we can slip off somewhere for a quickie.
Suddenly feeling guilty, I hide my phone behind the computer and look around to see if anyone’s watching me. As if anyone who saw me would know what terrible thing I’d just done.
Ugh!
I curl my hand into a fist and bang it against my forehead a couple of times. What am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing?
And why am I doing it?
I drop my hand and stare blankly across the library. My arrangement with Chase is absolutely definitely supposed to be over.
And it absolutely definitely will be.
Soon. Super soon.
It’s just that being pregnant hasn’t felt the way I’ve thought it would. It’s exciting and wonderful, but also strange and staggering, and Chase is steady. He steadies me. Keeps me solid and in place when it feels like the rest of my world has tilted. Reminds me what’s real, like he did with the words he whispered in my ear the night I found out I was pregnant.
That night he was so convincing; I almost believed he meant things about us—
deeper things. Permanent things.
But of course he didn’t.
With a sigh, I lean my head against the screen of the computer. Who am I fooling? I like him.
I mean, it! The sex. I like the sex. I want the sex. That’s all. Nothing else. I want the sex. And not permanently. Just for an unknown extended time.
Oh God, I’m an addict! A sex addict! Is that really what this is?
I open up the web browser on my computer and type in sex addict in the search box. The first article that appears lists characteristics of addicts, and thank the Lord, none of them sound like me.
Well, except for maybe having delusional thought patterns. Does this count as a delusional thought pattern?
I groan inwardly.
Whether I’m actually a sex addict or a Chase-sex addict, there’s no question that I’d be better off ending this as soon as possible. Pull the Band-Aid quick and all that.
Except.
Is there really any harm in a few extra rounds of Hide the Nightstick?
Yes. The harm is that it’s even harder to quit him later on.
I groan again, this time out loud. The old man who’s been camped out in the armchair all evening looks up from his book with a frown. My apologetic smile doesn’t seem to make him any less grumpy.
Great. Now Chase is interfering with my job.
Wait. I think “interferes with job” was one of the characteristics on the sex addict list…
This was exactly what I’d feared about Chase’s kind of sex—intimate instead of clinical and straightforward. I’d have had no problem saying goodbye if he’d fucked me like any one of the men I’d been with in the past. Chase made it too good. Chase made me into him.
It! Into it! The sex. I’m not into him; I’m into the orgasms.
They’ve seemed to feel even better since I’ve gotten pregnant. I wonder if there’s something to that.
Now I type pregnant and horny in the search box and hit RETURN. Before I have time to scan the results, a woman approaches the cart.
I minimize the browser at lightning speed—maybe this wasn’t a search I should have conducted at my workstation—and give the patron my full attention.
Rephrase: I attempt to give her my full attention.
Ever since the first stick showed two lines instead of one, I’ve found focusing has not been one of my better traits. I don’t know if it’s hormonal or if I’m just distracted. Probably a combination of the two. Because, seriously...the hormones…. My breasts hurt so much I can’t even stand the shower pouring water on them. I’m so tired, I can barely make it through Stephen Colbert, and oh my God, the peeing. I finally had to lie and tell my manager I had a bladder infection because I’m in the bathroom at least once an hour.
But also, I’m completely distracted. There’s a baby inside me. A baby. A baby I wanted and planned for, but now it’s actually here. Growing. Living. Being. And the wait to meet him or her seems so eternally long while the wait to prepare for his or her arrival seems so ridiculously short.
It’s a lot to think about, and I find that, no matter what I’m doing, there’s always a part of my brain dedicated to thinking about the huge miniscule thing going on inside me.
Like now.
“The computer says it should be on the shelf,” the patron says. I’ve already forgotten what book it is she’s searching for. “But when I looked, I didn’t see it there.”
“Hmm,” I say politely. Because nine times out of ten when the patron looked, they looked wrong. It’s the Dewey Decimal System. It’s not hard, but it baffles a lot of our patrons.
(Note to self: My baby will know the Dewey Decimal System as early as he/she knows his or her ABCs.)
“Let’s go take a look. It was probably mis-shelved.” I totally don’t believe it was mis-shelved, but I do believe in the “customer is always right” philosophy, even though the customer is generally always wrong. So I’m placating.
I leave my cart to help the patron find the book, and sure enough, the book is exactly where it’s supposed to be. Not only do I find it immediately, but I also find it while wondering if I should stop drinking coffee all together or if I can go ahead and drink two cups a day. I’ve found varying opinions on the internet, and while I definitely intend to ask my doctor when I see him, I don’t have an appointment for another week. I could quit until I see him just to be safe, but I’d hate to waste a week of Keurig enjoyment.
“I swear it wasn’t there when I looked before,” the woman says when I hand her the copy of The Modern Maker: Men's 17th Century Doublets.
“It was pushed back really far,” I lie. “Easy to miss. Is there anything else I can help you find?”
She kindly says no and thanks me for my help, and I head back to my cart thinking about how soon I should stop wearing heels and start wearing compression hose to avoid varicose veins, and I don’t even blink when I see Megan standing at my computer.
“Hey,” I say, genuinely glad to see her. “I haven’t seen you in a few days. What’s up?”
“Well, I’m not pregnant and horny. So I think my day isn’t half as bad as yours is.” She turns the monitor toward me, her brow raised in a gotcha expression.
I keep my features schooled even though I feel my face heating as I glance at the web page. According to the list of article titles that showed up from my earlier search (Very Horny During Pregnancy, Help! I’m Horny and Pregnant, Horniness During the First Few Weeks, Sex Toys for the Horny Pregnant Woman), horniness during pregnancy is definitely a common problem. That means there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for my addiction to Chase. This is good news!
That Megan has discovered this is not good news. Not good news at all.
But I don’t need to panic. I know how to solve this. “I was doing a search for a patron,” I say,
somewhat confidently. It’s false confidence, but it counts.
“Oh, really?” She clicks to a new tab, this one listing the browser history from my shift.
Ah, fuck. Megan’s been standing here a while.
I scan through the list, my cheeks getting redder as I read each new line.
Pregnant and Horny
Sex Addict
Coffee and Pregnancy
Your Baby at 5 Weeks
What to Expect the First Trimester
So You’ve Missed Your Period
How Far Along Am I?
Do Cheetos have any nutrients?
9 Benefits to Sex During Pregnancy
Sperm and Pregnancy
Megan pins me with her stare. “Should I scroll down further?”
“The patron had a lot of questions,” I say. Not quite so confidently this time.
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m a very helpful librarian.” I reach over and hit the link to clear the browsing history, nudging Megan out of the way so I can take back my station.
She still doesn’t believe me.
But that’s fine. She doesn’t have to believe me. I’m not admitting anything, and if I don’t admit anything, she can’t know anything.
Unfortunately, my nudging doesn’t get rid of her. She simply circles around the cart and plants herself where she can stare at me, her eyes wide and expectant.
I ignore her and focus on my monitor. There are serious things I have to be doing right now and all. Like, make a booklist. For teens. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve made a new one and suddenly it’s a crucial priority.
I open a new tab and start a page on the library website. I start typing. Books to Read If You Liked Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’—
Megan shakes the cart, disrupting my typing.
“What?” I ask, annoyed, as though there’s nothing left for us to talk about. Because there’s not.
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