by Kaylee, Katy
I gently brushed her hair back out of her face, tucking some of it behind her ear. “Hey, sweetheart, isn’t this what you wanted? And if it’s not what you want, that’s okay. You’re allowed to change your mind. But if this is what you want… then who cares if it came a little early? Better six months early than six years, right? You’re in a good place right now. Even if you don’t believe that you are, I promise, it’s true. You just need to believe in yourself the way that I believe in you. Because I see a woman who’s going to be an excellent mother. Most importantly because you want to be.”
“What if I mess it up?” Veronica whispered. She seemed pale, her eyes sparkling unnaturally with stress and tears.
“I asked my therapist about that a lot,” I admitted. “I was scared about being a father because I didn’t want to be like mine. I didn’t want to repeat his mistakes and continue the cycle of abuse. And you know, she said that of course I was going to mess it up. I’m human. I’m always going to make mistakes, we all are, there’s no way that we can be perfect all the time.
“And just like when I made a mistake anywhere else in life, I was going to own up to it, and apologize, and work through it. So of course, you’ll make a mistake. And you’ll patch it up. What matters is that your child knows that you love them, and that you’re always there for them, and that you’re willing to admit when you’re wrong. That’s what’s important.”
My mother hadn’t wanted me. Or at least, she hadn’t wanted me enough to come back for me or take me with her. My father hadn’t wanted to give me up to foster care, I think either for the state child support or out of some kind of pride, but he was controlling and never admitted when he was wrong. He certainly never gave me the impression that he loved me.
But Veronica? Oh, she would make sure that child felt that love. I knew it. Her own parents were pretty damn controlling and always thought that they knew best. They overrode Veronica’s own desires. They refused to admit when they might be wrong. It had been that way her entire life. All through high school, and before, and since. Veronica knew what that was like. And I knew, she’d do better. I believed that, one hundred percent.
“You want to be a mother, don’t you?” I asked her. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? Your big dream?”
Veronica nodded. “I mean, of course, but I wasn’t expecting it to turn out like this, I guess.”
That scared me, I can admit that. I was afraid of what that meant. That Veronica didn’t want it this way because she didn’t want me to be the father. She didn’t want me to have anything to do with her family. That I was just… a temporary thing to her. She had wanted to go slow, after all.
I didn’t want to put pressure on her by demanding answers, though. She was practically vibrating already. Instead I focused on what I was thinking and feeling. I wanted to make it clear what she meant to me, and then she could take it or leave it.
“I’m excited,” I told her. “I know that it’s not how I planned it, or how you planned it. I know that we’re going slow, and I respect that. We can still go slow in any other aspect, if you want. But I want to be a father, and I’m glad that I’ll finally get that chance.
“Ultimately, this is your baby. You’re the one who wanted a baby and set about looking for treatment for that. But if you’re okay with it, if you would let me, I would love to be the father to this baby - in every sense of the word. I want to help raise the baby with you.”
Veronica gave a shining, silvery laugh, one that seemed to be startled out of her.
“What is it?” I asked, concerned that she might be getting hysterical.
She seemed calm, though, when she looked at me. “Nothing, I’m… it’s just… so much for taking it slow, right?”
I laughed too. “It may not be what we expected, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a blessing. This is something we’ve both wanted for years, and now it’s here.”
Veronica looked down at our joined hands. I couldn’t even remember when we’d interlocked our fingers. It just felt that natural. “I wanted it to be you,” she whispered. “All the time I was married to Chad, I just kept thinking - oh God, if only I’d stood up to my parents and stuck with Ted. And when I was looking at the donor options, I just kept thinking about how they compared to you.”
I squeezed her hands. “I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t, I was so scared… and I was letting my fear control me. I kept thinking that I was so… I had just won my independence, and I was scared of losing it again.” She looked up a me. “I should have known that with you, I’m never losing anything. I can still be myself, independent, and be part of something bigger.”
“I think it’d be ridiculous if we weren’t a little independent. If you’re so conjoined with your partner… it’s almost like becoming one person, and combining too much and then… you’re almost alone all over again. Because they’re the same as you.”
“You’re right,” Veronica said slowly. “I never thought of it like that.” She squeezed my hands. “I’ve always loved how different we are. And I… I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For… for being so scared. For making you wait. I’ve known for a while, but I didn’t want to face it, and last night I… I knew, like, like I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I wasn’t sure how to say it but I felt it so strongly and I feel it now and… and Ted, I feel like I should be scared and I am sort of but at the same time I’m not, I’m really not.” She gave me a blinding smile, tears leaking out the corners of her eyes. “I love you. I love you, and it feels so right. Like this whole time I’ve had something in me missing and now it’s finally back. I finally have it back again, and it’s you.”
I pulled her into me, hugging her tightly. “I love you,” I promised her. “I’ve loved you this whole time, even though I was sure that it was madness. That it was stupidity.”
Veronica clung to me. “This isn’t how I planned for this to go,” she admitted.
“Yeah, I personally pictured a violin, some flowers…”
She laughed. “You don’t have to wine and dine me or impress me.” She pulled back so that I could see her face. “You never have.”
“I was actually thinking more along the lines of some good pizza, and going out stargazing,” I told her. “And telling you that way. I didn’t plan to tell you, that night, when we first had sex, but it just slipped out, and now… now I wanted to plan it and make it right. But I hope this is an okay substitute.” I winked at her.
Veronica kissed me, taking my face gently in her hands. “Of course it’s okay,” she whispered. “I’m just so relieved I’m not… I’ve been so alone, but in all the wrong ways. Now I’m not alone, in the right ways, and I’m myself, the way that I should be.”
“The way that you always should be. Any man who tries to snuff out your light is an idiot.” I kissed her again, and again, unable to stop myself. I felt like I was walking on air. I was going to be a father. I was having a baby with the love of my life. What could possibly be better?
Veronica laughed into my mouth, the kind of laugh that people gave when there wasn’t anything particularly funny, they were just wildly happy and couldn’t hold it in anymore. I could feel myself smiling back, breaking the kiss because we were too busy smiling like idiots to be of any use.
“I’m going to be a father,” I blurted out, the reality continuing to sink it. Part of me was waiting to wake up from this dream, wondering how this could possibly be reality, how I could’ve stumbled into my perfect life like this. The rest of me was giddy, and hoped that if this was a dream, I never woke up.
“You are,” Veronica promised me. “You are, we’re going to be parents, together.”
“Together.” Forever, if I had anything to say about it.
I kissed her again, and this time, I couldn’t stop the hunger that I felt rising in me. This beautiful, wonderful, sweet woman was my lover, and she was carrying my child. The idea of that made heat course thr
ough me, and I deepened the kiss, my hands starting to roam over her body. I wanted to slip inside of her and imagine that I knew what I was doing, that we were planning on this baby, and that this was when we were doing it. Our official joining to create something new.
I rolled her over and Veronica wrapped her arms and legs around me, as if she wanted to join us immediately, like she couldn’t wait a second longer. I rolled my hips, letting her feel how hard I was for her. She was carrying my baby, and it turned me on like nothing else.
We were still in our pajamas, so it was easy enough to get them off, the silk and cotton sliding away to leave nothing but warm, bare skin. Part of me wanted to slide down and get my mouth on her cunt, get her aching and dripping with need, but I also couldn’t bear to stop kissing her, or to pull away from her. Instead I slid my hand down, lightly stroking her, tender and soft. She was so soft, my Veronica, my darling, and I could feel so much emotion welling up in me that I nearly choked on it.
Veronica shuddered in my arms, but I didn’t let her come. Not yet. I moved my fingers back and forth inside of her, building her up, getting her stretched and ready for me, but I didn’t let her come. That would be later. I wanted it to be together.
I wanted us to be together in everything.
28
Veronica
I gasped and arched in Ted’s arms as he covered me, stroking me. I could feel my need, my orgasm, building slowly inside of me, much more slowly than usual. Ted was holding back, making sure that I was turned on, that I was ready for his cock, but not doing enough to give me release.
I didn’t mind. I just wanted him to be connected to me. I wanted him inside of me.
I almost wished that I knew which time it was that had gotten me pregnant. That I could pinpoint the moment that we had joined together inexorably. I hadn’t been thinking about pregnancy when he’d fucked me before, even though I probably should have. So now I pretended, as he slid carefully, deliberately into me, that this was the time. That this was when he was filling me with his seed and making me pregnant.
With Chad, I would’ve been ashamed to think such… naughty, dirty thoughts. I knew he wouldn’t have approved of them, even if he went off and did whatever dirty thing he wanted with the women he was cheating on me with. But no, I was his wife, I was a Southern belle, I had to be pure and better than that.
Ted, though… with Ted I might not have said it out loud, but I knew that if I had, he would be okay with it. He would go with it. Because Ted let me be myself.
I felt so safe with him, safe to tease, to be naughty, to be whatever I wanted. Whoever I wanted. As I looked up at him, Ted moving back enough to be able to enter me, I realized… he had all of me. My whole heart.
We both gasped as he slid into me. It was far from the first time we’d done this but in a way it felt like the most intimate. We were joining together, becoming one, just as we had become one in a way when we conceived a child together. I gasped soundlessly as he moved inside of me, feeling every inch of him shifting in me, and it was such exquisite delight, I never wanted to leave this moment. I never wanted him to leave me.
Ted moved slowly, deeply, making sure I felt all of it. My orgasm was still building inside of me, like oncoming wave, but not an explosion like usual. It was gentler and deeper than that. It felt like we were truly making love.
I wrapped my arms around him and encouraged him with whispered words of affection. We kept kissing, our mouths rarely leaving each other, even for a moment, and only then enough to murmur sweetheart or darling. I felt so incredibly loved and valued.
When I came, it was with his name on my lips.
Far too soon afterwards, it was time for us to pack up and head home. Our romantic weekend getaway was over and we had to return to reality.
I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay here forever with Ted. But we couldn’t remain in this perfect little bubble and I had to start preparing for the baby coming.
The baby. Our baby.
On our way home, we were just going to ride together in Ted’s car. None of this international woman of mystery stuff. We were already planning that, but now it felt even more significant, knowing that there was a baby inside of me. We didn’t talk much, the car ride passed mostly in silence, but I felt as giddy as I had as a teenager, sneaking out to see Ted. No, more than that. Because now there was no fear of getting caught. Just euphoria.
Ted held my hand tightly almost the entire way home, driving one-handed. I could practically feel his love for me with each beat of his pulse against my palm. I was filled with this overwhelming wave of love, like I wasn’t standing on the beach with the tsunami but rather riding the gigantic wave, enjoying it, embracing it.
“I thought I was ready to be a mother on my own,” I said. “And I… I’m scared, or I was scared, but I was determined. I knew I would find a way to make it work because I wasn’t going to give up on this dream, no matter what. But the fact that… that I’ll have someone so supportive by my side. You’re so supportive and I don’t think you even realize just how much, and how much I appreciate it. And I know I’m not the only one in your life who feels that way. To have that - it makes all of this even better.”
Ted squeezed my hand again, smiling at me for a split second before focusing back on the road.
I grinned. “Not to mention you’re a doctor so that helps.”
Ted laughed. “Oh good, glad to know I have a few useful skills. Here I was hoping that I’d be completely useless.” He paused, and I could feel him weighing his next words on his tongue before he spoke them. “This might seem like a rush, and I don’t want it to feel that way, and you can always say no. This is entirely your choice. But I’d like you to move in with me, if you’re comfortable with that.
“You built your own home and I’m so proud of you for that. I think you’ve got every right to keep it, if you want. But if you’d like… I don’t want to miss a moment of the pregnancy. I want to be there for you. You want your feet rubbed, or need someone to run out at midnight for a weird food craving, to carry things, you need someone to yell to come here quick when you feel the baby kick… I’ll be there. I want to be there. For you and for the baby.”
I was touched and surprised. Not that Ted wanted to help. Of course he did. But that I was so eager for it to be true, for it to happen. I had put so much work into my home and I was proud of it. But it wasn’t what I really wanted, it was me making the best of a bad situation. I wanted a home with someone that I loved, I wanted a life partner, and the few times I’d been to Ted’s house I had loved what I’d seen.
I wanted a life with him. I wanted that future that he was talking about, the two of us, together and united for the baby, for each other.
“You’re so sweet,” I said, trying to keep my voice from reflecting my rapidly beating heart. I had to be logical about this, and not let emotion completely carry me away. But oh, how I wanted this. “I’m really touched, and I’ll consider it.”
I knew in my heart, though, that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, refuse him. I wanted that future. Us.
I wanted us.
29
Ted
Tuesday morning, I called a moving company to see about having someone on standby. I didn’t want to have Veronica just move into my house where nothing was hers and it was all mine. I had a lot of attachment to the things in my house but I knew she’d put a lot of care into picking out everything in her home and I wanted her to be able to move that all into my house if she decided she did, in fact, want to move in with me.
This wasn’t going to be her just coming into my domain. I wanted it to be a blending of our two lives, our two personalities. A true partnership. And that included having as much of her things in the house as I had mine.
As I hung up, I got a knock on the door. Bridget stuck her head in. “Sorry to bother you, but there’s a man who’s badgering everyone insisting on seeing you.”
Well, that was odd. I didn’t know of any husbands of my clients
who were angry over treatment or how things had worked out. Who could it be?
“Sure, show him back.” This would be interesting.
The man who entered my office wasn’t someone that I recognized. He looked like he was made of money, though, the kind of guy who was used to always getting his way, usually by greasing a few palms and by being more ruthless than everyone else.
“Dr. Winters.” He gave me a predatory smile, one that I’d seen plenty of times before. It was in the military recruiters who’d come to my school to try and recruit me and all the other poor students by promising us a solid career and paying for our college. It was in the smarmy rich kids I went to college with who thought they were better than I was because they had trust funds. It was in the abusive husbands who thought they had their wives on a tight enough leash, and I had to slip their wives cards to the women’s shelters and hotlines while I was alone with them in the examination room.
“I’m Preston Andrews,” the guy said, passing me his card as he sat down, and I realized - this was the lawyer who was blackmailing Veronica.
Seemed that Veronica’s lack of a response to him had made him decide to up his game and go after me directly.
The thing was, the guy didn’t want to actually expose us. That would put a stain on Veronica’s record, drag her down into the mud of public opinion, and if he wanted her for his wife then that would seriously damage his ability to use her for his own social gain. He’d have to move onto someone else, and I was sure he didn’t want to do that if he didn’t have to. So he was trying to scare the both of us into complying.
Yeah, right. Like I was ever going to give up Veronica, especially not so that she’d have to be with this asshat who’d manipulate and use her just like Chad had.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of some of the cases that I’ve fought and the clients I’ve represented,” Preston went on. He took some paperwork out of its briefcase and slid it across the desk towards me. “I’ve called for an ethics inquiry into you with the state medical board, turning over evidence of a relationship with one of your patients.”