by Cher Etan
Maybe it was being pregnant that made her feel this way…so hungry. Hungry for touch, for taste, for the sound of him moaning loudly in her ear as he gave his body to her; no holds barred. Perhaps that was the difference. That was what she was so hungry for. The utter surrender that she felt from him even as he dominated her, surrounded her, and fucked her into the ground – she felt like at that very instant when he was at the apex of his dominion over her, he was also completely hers to do with as she pleased. He was hers, as she was his. It was breathtaking.
*****
“Enough of that you two, you’re in a public place now,” Martha’s voice startled them out of the bubble they’d built around themselves that allowed them to forget where they were.
“Martha!”
“Gra!”
They both said simultaneously as they tried to untangle limbs and arrange bedding so as not to reveal any incriminating details.
“I mean seriously you two; you couldn’t wait one day? I just ran into Dr. Benson and he said he’s discharging you today,” Martha said putting her bag down on the bedside table and looking unperturbed at their perturbation. She began to unload flasks and mugs and containers filled with lovely smelling things and then she turned for the door.
“I’ll give you five minutes to straighten yourselves out; I’ll just go distract Dr. Benson – he’s coming down the hall and he doesn’t need to see this,” she swept her hand around to cover the bed and them in it as she said ‘this’ and then she tossed her head and walked out the door, closing it gently behind her.
Christine slumped back on the bed, laughing quietly.
“Well…that just happened,” she said regarding Max from beneath her lashes. Max smiled back at her.
“Yeah. So, get dressed?” he asked.
“Yes,” Christine said surging up and rooting around beneath the blankets to try to find her t-shirt. Max slid out of bed and picked up his pajama bottoms from the floor and put it on. He looked around, trying to remember where he’d put his shirt and trying to ignore his straining erection. No one ever died of blue balls after all…he was pretty sure. Christine had found her shirt and put it on so at least her boobs were no longer on display. She jumped out of bed and picked up her jeans from the chair and slung them on, her pretty ass on display for a bit too long for Max’s taste.
“Excuse me while I…” he trailed off as he hurried into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He divested himself of his clothes and stepped into the shower, taking hold of his penis as he did so.
“No fair, jerking off and leaving me high and dry,” Christine called as she banged on the door of the bathroom. Max just laughed. He was going to enjoy being married to her.
*****
When Dr. Benson came in, everyone was decent and respectable again, cups of coffee in hand and croissants on plates; having a civilized non-hedonistic breakfast. Martha came in behind him narrowing her eyes at them both as if to say that they did not fool her.
“So Max, how are you feeling this morning?” Dr. Benson asked.
Max grinned widely. “I am on top of the world Carlyle. I’m ready to go home.”
“Are you now?” Carlyle said returning the smile. “Well let me see.” He proceeded to conduct a thorough examination on Max and then accepted a cup of coffee from Martha as he summed up his findings and gave them advice for care, especially for the remaining three days but also going forward. He gave them all the signs they should watch out for in case of impending relapse and what to do should they notice this. He also recommended some supplements to take and food groups such as tomatoes to imbibe in order to ensure that his health continued to be good. Lastly, he gave them a check up appointment in two weeks’ time.
“Well, I think that’s mostly it. I’ll sign your check out papers and you can go home,” he said grinning at the delight on Max’s face.
“Thank you Dr. Benson. I really appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”
Carlyle put up a hand. “Don’t mention it. Its what I’m here for.” He turned to Christine, “And you Mrs. Lestrange, how is the baby doing?”
“Please. Call me Christine. And the baby is fine. thank you for asking. We had our first check up a few weeks ago.”
“Oh, that is great and your overall health? How are you feeling?”
“Nauseous,” Christine said with a smile.
Carlyle grimaced in sympathy. “Only to be expected. Your OB/GYN knows this?”
“Yes, I did tell her. She gave me some pills to take if it gets bad.”
“What is your doctor’s name?” he asked.
“Dr. Mulholland.”
“Mm, good doctor. I’ve heard the name,” Dr. Benson said nodding.
“I’m glad you think so,” Christine said with a smile. Dr. Benson nodded and then put down his emptied coffee cup.
“Well then, I’ll just get that paperwork for you and you’ll be home before you know it.”
“Thank you doctor,” Martha, Christine and Max chorused in unison.
Max smiled at Christine. “I’m coming home,” he grinned. There was a definite gleam in his eye.
*****
The question of which room she should sleep in remained unresolved. It was Christine’s day off so she was able to go home, air out rooms, get some fresh flowers in and change the sheets on Max’s bed. Martha had offered to do it as she still had a few days before she was an employee of Lestrange enterprises and not Max Lestrange, but Christine had promptly informed her that she was so fired and there was no way she was coming to clean the house.
“What if I came as your grandmother and not as housekeeper?”
Christine thought about it, biting her lip. “Nope. You go home, rest up. I got this,” she said.
“Okay…but I’m just a phone call away if you need anything,” she said.
“Did you get me a replacement housekeeper yet?” Christine asked.
Martha shook her head. “There really is nobody suitable. I don’t know if I will get someone,” she said. Christine smiled, knowing full well what her grandmother’s problem was. Letting go was hard, and maybe it shouldn’t be her job to get someone to replace her.
“How about I just call the temp agency for now?” she asked.
“Oh no child, those gals come in, they scope out your home and then they call their thievin’ cousins to come steal you out of house and home. You don’t want to be messing with no temp.”
“Then what?” Christine asked.
Martha put a hand on her shoulder, “Don’t worry child, I’ll have someone for you by the weekend. You can manage till then right?”
“I guess so,” Christine said. She made sure to sound uncertain so her gra wouldn’t feel dismissed.
“Good. Now you go on home and get ready for your husband,” she said. There might have been a naughty gleam in her eye when she said it, but Christine couldn’t be sure.
*****
Max called from downstairs when Stevens brought him home later in the day.
“Is it safe to come up?” he asked.
“I believe so,” Christine said.
She waited at the door for him so that when he rang the bell she was right there.
“Did you forget the keys?” she asked eyes shining.
He shrugged. “Hey, the house has a new owner now, I can’t just be walking in like I own the place.”
Christine smiled. “Oh. Well someone should have informed me because I’ve been acting like you own the place all day,” she said hand on hip.
Max smiled, “Come here.”
Christine raised a brow, “Why?”
“Just come here girl,” Max kind of growled still standing outside the door. Christine came expecting him to kiss, or touch or hold. She was very surprised when he lifted her up in his arms.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Are you sure you should be doing this?” she asked holding on to his shirt as he stepped through the doorway and walked with her toward the bedroom. His hold was surp
risingly rock steady for someone who’d been in the hospital not twenty minutes ago.
“Isn’t this how a bride is supposed to be carried into her new home?” he asked softly.
Christine just smiled.
Chapter 14
Christine came waddling into the room, her stomach getting there about five minutes before her. Max folded the Financial Times he’d been reading and smiled up at her.
“Good morning ma chère,” he said.
“Ma chère my ass. Which is aching just so you know,” Christine complained.
Max wrinkled his nose and suppressed a grin, “TMI.”
“Ha. No such thing when you’re this pregnant. You broke it, you bought it, you share in the pain of what a pain in the ass third trimester pregnancies can be.”
“You know there are thousands of women who-“ Max began sanctimoniously still trying to suppress the grin.
“I swear if you start up again with that ‘thousands of women who would kill to be pregnant’ crap again I will kill you. You will be deceased,” Christine threatened.
Max put up his hands and cowered laughing. “I’m so scared,” he said.
“Oh you better be,” Christine said pulling the plate of taquitos toward her. She’d developed a hankering for Mexican food in her last month of pregnancy which was very inconvenient seeing as she was also extremely prone to hyper-acidity. Max stood up, placing the container of cold yogurt next to her as she dug in. It helped with the acidity sometimes, other times she had to resort to antacids, a huge jar of which stood on her other side. Max had tried to persuade her to maybe not eat spicy foods instead of going through this circle of suffering and had almost gotten a blade to his heart as a result. He tended to be much more cautious in his approach these days. She was just pouring herself a large glass of yogurt when she felt a clenching sensation in her lower stomach. She bent forward clutching at it, trying to speak and finding that she couldn’t. Max had already left the room; was probably collecting his keys in readiness to leave for work. As she looked frantically around for something to call out with, a phone, anything, her eyes fell on the little silver bell that Craddock had got her. It was supposed to be a joke because she was constantly eating which meant she was constantly wandering over to the kitchen and bumping into everyone and everything. So Craddock had gotten her a bell to ring when she wanted something brought. She’d responded by ringing it every five minutes for the first three days but she’d gotten tired of his never ending patience as he answered it so she’d stopped…unless there was really something she wanted from the kitchen. She grabbed at it now and rang it frantically, hoping for someone to come quickly before she died of pain in her seat. She felt something vital loosen and liquefy and then warm wetness spread down her tights. Was she bleeding? Christine was now genuinely terrified.
“What?” Max’s languid voice inquired from the doorway and then his tone changed as he saw her hunched over in her seat. “Christine? What’s wrong?” he asked urgently hurrying over to shake her by the shoulder. That was not helping and she made an inarticulate sound of protest.
“Craddock! Sarah! Anyone!” Max shouted trying to straighten her up. But that just increased the pain so she resisted. Someone came hurrying into the room in response to the urgency in Max’s tone.
“Call an ambulance!” he shouted to whomever it was and they went scurrying off.
“It will be alright baby. What can I do?” he asked trying his best to be reassuring as he rubbed at her back but the fear he was feeling dripped through every word. Christine tried to say something but she was too breathless to speak and the pain was unbearable.
“Sarah! Did you get an ambulance?” Max shouted as he tried to lift Christine out of her seat.
“They said five minutes,” Sarah, the day maid said rubbing her hand anxiously as she hovered by the door. “Can I do anything else?” she asked then looked at the wet floor. “I’ll just wipe that,” she said hurrying off to get a mop.
The ambulance was true to their word and five minutes later they were at the building. Max was outside waiting with Christine in his arms. He had tried to wait but Christine’s continued distress got to him so much that he had to feel he was doing something. So he carried her down the stairs as she cried steadily.
“Is it supposed to be this bad?” he asked the EMT as they got her on a gurney and placed an oxygen mask on her.
The EMT did not deign to answer, stripping off Christine’s tights as the vehicle took off and examining the bloody fluid that surrounded her.
“It's just bloody show, perfectly normal,” he said aloud as he took Christine’s pulse. Her breath was coming in hitches and she was still trying to bend over double as the EMTs pushed her back to lie flat.
“She’s in pain, won’t you give her something for that?” Max asked in distress. Christine’s eyes were wild and unaware, staring into nothingness as she struggled for breath, her whole body hitching with every intake and lurching with every exhale.
“I can’t give her something right now. We need to find out what we’re dealing with first,” he said.
“She’s pregnant; can’t you see that?!?” Max asked on the edge of hysteria.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to please calm down. We are doing our level best to ensure that your wife gets the best care possible,” the other EMT said looking him in the eye. Max tried to calm down and let them get on with it but it was hard to see her like this and not want to beat somebody to a pulp for letting the pain continue. The ride to the hospital was thankfully a short one and Dr. Mulholland was waiting when they arrived. Max made a mental note to give Sarah a raise for ensuring that the ambulance and Dr. Mulholland were informed on where to meet them because his brains were scrambled right now. The doctor was right there as the gurney was removed from the ambulance, with Christine still trying her level best to hunch into a tight ball of pain.
“Christine? It's me, Dr. Mulholland. Show me where it hurts,” she was saying even as her stethoscope was out and she was touching Christine in various places to see her reaction. The gurney was hurried along past the emergency room and into an OR. A nurse stopped Max at the door stating that there was some paperwork to be done and could he step this way.
“My wife…I need to be with her,” Max said resisting her attempts to move him from the door.
“And you will. Just, you need to complete this paperwork and then you can scrub in. It won’t take more than a minute or two I promise you Mr. Lestrange.”
Thankfully they’d been taken to the fertility center where the staff were familiar with them so it really did not take more than a minute to fill in the forms. Then the nurse was leading him to a scrub room and showing him what to wear and how to wash his hands. He did as he was bid and then he was allowed into the OR where Christine was already sedated.
“Max,” Dr. Mulholland said as he stepped in the room, looking up quickly and then back down to her work. “It looks like Christine has suffered something called Placenta Abruptio. We must get the baby out as fast as possible and then stabilize both mother and child. If you are to stay in the room we’ll need you to be completely calm. You may hold her hand.”
Max said nothing. He didn’t think he was capable of saying anything but he stepped forward between two nurses and took Christine’s hand in his. Dr. Mulholland worked fast, she ripped into Christine’s uterus and pulled the baby out. The baby was then rushed to another station where a team of pediatric surgeons worked on it – Max didn’t even know if it was male or female – while another team of doctors worked to stem Christine’s bleeding and prevent her from bleeding out on the table. Max stepped back and let them work, praying to whomever was listening to just save his family.
There was a tense moment when the machines around Christine began beeping in a very alarming manner and Max wanted to scream at the doctors to do something; make it stop. But he didn’t want to distract anyone from their work. He looked toward the baby’s table, where things looked calme
r. They looked like they had done what they could for the child, so either it was okay or…
Max moved toward the child, his heart in his mouth. One of the doctors saw him coming and smiled.
“You have a baby girl,” he said and moved out of the way so that Max could see. A tiny child lay on the bed, with a head full of curly hair and dusky skin. She looked upset, was moving her head about as well as her limbs as if looking for something. Her mouth was pursed as if she was about to cry.
“Can I hold her?” he asked the doctor.
“Not yet,” he said indicating the various tubes and wires linked to the baby. Such a tiny thing to have so many things poking and prodding at her. Max leaned forward to stare at her; he willed her to open her eyes but they stayed willfully shut.
“Hey baby. It's okay. Daddy’s here,” he murmured softly. The baby stopped moving for a moment and Max’s heart literally stopped beating. Then she continued with her movements and Max’s heart swelled with a feeling he had never experienced before. It came from nowhere and suddenly he was its prisoner. A powerful need to protect this little person came over him and he hunched over the crib, surrounding her with his presence.
“You’re going to be just fine. And so is mama,” he told her and smiled. The little girl opened her eyes and seemed to look at him for a moment. She had honey brown eyes, just like her mother’s. It almost broke Max’s heart to see it.
