“If genetics play a factor, a very long pistol.”
Oh, hell. The last thing I need to know is how well-endowed Griffin is. My mouth waters as if the aroma of another cheeseburger had been floated under my nose. I can already feel the blood rushing downward.
“Uh, Erin,” I say. “I really don’t want to hear about your husband’s phallus.”
She laughs and grabs my hand, pulling me up and leading me out the door. “Okay, no more talk of Griffin’s incredible man member or his expertise where it’s concerned. Let’s go shop.”
Oh, God, she did not just say that. I swear it’s like she can read my mind and is deliberately making an effort to feed my atrociously inappropriate fantasies. Maybe she’s trying to torture me because she knows I lust after him. He’s the proverbial forbidden fruit—with a long, talented pistol, apparently. Why is it ingrained in human nature to want what we can’t have?
On the way out the door I remind myself that she’s only ever been with Griffin, having no comparison on the matter. Therefore I rationalize that he may not, in fact, be the sexual expert she touts him to be.
We walk a few blocks over to an upscale maternity boutique. The whole time, while Erin is talking about how glamorous she’s going to make me, I’m thinking about the fact that for several weeks she all but checked out of my life, save a few texts and an e-mail. But she seems fine now. Happy even. Carefree. Whatever it was, I guess she got over it. Maybe Griffin was right and she simply needed time to adjust to her new reality after seeing the ultrasound.
At the store, we’re greeted by a sales lady who proceeds to tell us exactly what’s in style. She shows me the dressing room which is outfitted with several sized ‘baby bumps’ that I can strap on to see what the clothing will look like as I grow bigger.
Erin picks out a crapload of outfits for me to try. She gets everything from yoga pants to cocktail dresses. I can’t even imagine filling out the front panel in the designer jeans she hands me. Surely these must be for women having twins.
The one thing I notice about most of the clothing she’s selecting for me is that they all show a good bit of cleavage, something I have a generous amount of for the first time in my life.
“Erin, is there some reason you think I need to flaunt my boobs to everyone?”
“Hell yes,” she says. I laugh because that’s as close to cursing as she gets. “You have awesome boobs now. Not to say you didn’t before, but you should enjoy your voluptuous curves while you’ve got them. You know, show them off a little.”
I roll my eyes at her. “Why would I want to do that? Men don’t even look at me now. And that’s fine—it was one of the points of doing this whole thing, in fact.”
“Are you crazy, Skylar? You’re oblivious. You turn heads all the time, everywhere you go. Including my own husband’s.”
I stiffen and hope to God she doesn’t notice the heat dancing across my face. “I never, uh, Erin, I don’t—”
“It’s okay,” she says, putting a reassuring hand on my arm. “You’re gorgeous, Skylar. Men are going to look at you. Griffin is going to look at you. It doesn’t bother me.”
“You’re imagining things,” I say. “He doesn’t look at me. Not that way. And not when he has you, I mean you are hot. Like, Sports-Illustrated-swimsuit-edition-cover hot. Plus, I think he hates me, actually. Didn’t he tell you about our fight the day he set up the bike?”
She laughs. “He did. I think it’s adorable how protective he is of you.”
“Maybe you think it’s adorable. I think it’s annoying,” I say. “Last week at brunch, when a guy followed me to the bathroom, Griffin jumped up from the table and made a loud comment about pregnant women having to pee all the time. The poor guy wasn’t even coming on to me. He was just going to take a piss.”
“You’re wrong,” she says. “After you left the table, we all heard the guy tell his buddies that he was going to come back with your phone number. Men do still want you, like it or not.”
“Well, just wait until I’m fat. Then I won’t need your cock-blocking husband.” I point to my stomach. “Cock-blocking Bean will take over the job.”
“Are you saying you want to sleep with a man?” she asks, tentatively.
“No, not really.” I lower my voice and look around to make sure nobody’s listening. “Except I’m really horny. As in—all the time. If there were a word for horny times ten—that would describe me.”
“You know there are ways to take care of that yourself, right?” She raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, I know. I already wore out my damn vibrator,” I say, shamelessly, walking into the dressing room and drawing the curtain as her laughter follows me.
I decide to strap on the medium-sized tummy that reads ‘six months.’ The large, ‘nine months’ one is humongous. There’s no way I will ever get that big. I pull one of the new dresses over my head as Erin talks to me from outside the room.
“I know I don’t have a right to ask anything else of you since you are doing this one, larger-than-life favor for me already, but . . .”
“What is it? Just spit it out,” I say through the curtain, already knowing I’ll do anything she asks. Erin is one of those people you don’t turn down. She gives so much of herself in everything she does. She’s compassionate, friendly, and selfless. It still shocks the hell out of me that she doesn’t have swarms of friends vying for her attention.
“Griffin can’t cook, but I don’t want to be burdened with it all the time after the baby comes,” she says. “I was hoping you could maybe give him some cooking lessons, you know, being that you work in a restaurant and have access to loads of great recipes and all.”
I sigh. “Not that I don’t want to—” okay, I sooooo don’t want to “—but, why don’t you just teach him yourself? You’re a good cook.” It’s true, she’s had me over for dinner a few times.
“You know our schedules don’t mesh very well. He works a lot of evenings and I know he’d never agree to it on the weekends, especially since he’s a little hesitant to do it anyway.”
“Hesitant? You mean, he hasn’t agreed to it?” I ask, peeking out of the curtain. “And, in case you forgot what you said two seconds ago, he works nights, so he couldn’t cook for you anyway.”
“Oh, he’s agreed to it alright.” She winks at me. “I was very convincing.”
The way she says it has me picturing him naked and against a wall while Erin gives him a blow job. I hide behind the curtain again, wallowing in my jealousy because she gets to see him naked.
“He’s just not exactly thrilled about it,” she says. “I was thinking he could help me by cooking during the day. Then I could re-heat it when I come home after work. You know, you could teach him to make casseroles and stuff.”
“Not thrilled?” I ask. “About learning to cook, or me teaching him?”
She laughs. “Learning to cook, of course.” I peek out and raise a brow at her to see if she’s telling me the truth. She gives me a pleading look. “Please, Skylar. I’ll pay you.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” I say.
“Oh, then you’ll do it?” Her face lights up.
Shit.
“He could come by the restaurant during your least-busy times. At say, two or three in the afternoon. Whatever works for you would be good. Or he could come to your apartment if that would be more convenient.”
Double shit. “No, no, the restaurant would be fine. We’d have a lot more options there than I have at home.”
She pulls me out of the dressing room and into her arms. Did I just agree to this?
“Thank you. I’ll owe you big time.”
I look down at the price tag on the designer dress I’m wearing. “You don’t owe me anything. Buy me this dress and we’ll call it even.”
She pulls back and holds me at arm’s length. Her eyes go straight to my belly with the artificially-augmented baby-bump. Her eyes tear up. She puts her hands on the bump as if it were really an extension of
me. “God, I hope I get to feel him move.”
I draw my brows at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure you’ll feel it, just not for a while yet, according to that gigantic book you have me reading. But you have my permission to grope me whenever you so desire.” I look around after I replay the words in my head. “That sounded wrong.” I giggle, but she doesn’t find it funny. I wonder if she even heard what I said.
She looks sad, eyeing my false tummy. Maybe she’s wishing that Bean was growing in her instead of me.
Of course that’s what she’s wishing.
She takes a cleansing breath and looks me in the eye. “You are positively glowing in this dress. And your boobs look completely drool-worthy. You should wear this Monday.”
“Don’t you think it’s still a little big for me right now?”
“Nobody will even notice the extra material at your waist. They’ll all be too focused on your boobs.” She reaches out to pull the dress even lower than it already dips between my more prominent breasts.
“Would you quit it,” I whine. “They’re spilling out enough as it is.”
“I just want you to feel pretty. Desirable,” she says. “Because you are. Any man would be lucky to have you. Don’t ever forget that.” She sighs. “So, Monday, okay?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll wear the damn dress on Monday. Geez.” Far be it for me to argue with a non-pregnant woman who seems more hormonal than I am. “Can I go try on the other stuff now?”
It takes a while to get through the piles of clothing she picked out for me. In the end we settle on the boob-enhancing dress along with six or seven other uber-stylish outfits.
Erin removes her wallet to pay, dropping it on the floor. She goes to pick it up and drops it again. And again. And another time after that. I finally reach down and pick it up for her.
“Sorry,” she huffs in frustration. “I seem to have butterfingers today.” She shrugs, getting her credit card out awkwardly with her non-dominant left hand as she fists and releases her right one over and over.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine, Skylar. My hand just fell asleep.” She gives the clerk her card. “I can’t wait to see you in these again. You are going to be the hottest pregnant lady in the city.”
I decide not to argue the fact that me looking hot is so not the point of this whole surrogacy exercise. But if she wants to live vicariously through me, who am I to stop her?
chapter six
Sunday afternoon, my doorbell rings and I look through the peephole to see a man holding a basket. Another care package from Erin, I imagine.
I thank the young guy who doesn’t stop grinning at me as he hands over the basket covered with dark-blue cellophane, completely hiding the contents.
I sit down on my couch and carefully remove the covering. My eyes bug out when I see what’s inside. It’s filled with sex toys. Vibrators of various sizes, a pocket-rocket, some egg-shaped thing, tubes of lubricant, and a few unknowns with names like ‘Rampant Rabbit’ and ‘Vibrating Bullet,’ that I’ll have to read about to figure out exactly what they are. God, just looking at the stuff makes me horny.
I laugh when I remember the comment I made to Erin about breaking my vibrator. She really does like taking care of me.
Guilt washes over me. If she only knew who I’ll most likely fantasize about when using these products, she not only wouldn’t have sent them, she would probably cut me out of her life, only sticking around to get the bean.
Maybe I could think about the bike delivery guy. Or the guy who delivered this—he was hot, too. Oh, duh, no wonder he had a grin plastered on his face. I’ll bet he knew exactly what was in the package.
We have a new waiter at work, Jarod. He’s only nineteen. Brown hair, strong dark eyes, a body built for sex. I should dream about him. Hell, even Trent, one of my bartenders, could provoke a pretty decent sex fantasy.
As I try to make a list of all the men who should replace Griffin in my fantasies, my phone rings, causing me to startle and drop the G-spot wand I was holding.
“Did you get it?” Erin squeals into the phone.
My lips twitch in amusement. “If you tell anyone about this, I will kill you and hide the body.”
She laughs. “Oh, good. You got it, then. I didn’t want you to be so . . . frustrated.”
“I don’t even know what half this stuff is,” I say. Oh my God, does she? “Do you?”
“Let’s just say yours is not the first basket I’ve ordered from that particular store.”
All of a sudden I’m having thoughts of the prudish school teacher coming home to her leather-chaps-wearing husband, who holds a whip while commanding her to perform sexual acts in front of him.
I hear a giggle. “You are totally picturing me and Griffin using that stuff, aren’t you?”
“No. Absolutely not,” I lie. “Oh, God, Erin. Griffin doesn’t know about this, does he?”
“Why, would it embarrass you to know that Griffin might think about you using those things?”
“Erin, shut up,” I say. “First off, yes, I’d be mortified. Secondly, he would never do that. I don’t know why you keep saying such things. Do you get off on your husband lusting after other women?” I tease. “Oh, shit, you don’t want to like, have a three-way, do you?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Would you be interested if we did?”
What the hell? I was kidding. She knows that, right?
It’s always the most innocent looking people who turn out to be the most perverted. Still, there is no way I’ve known Erin for over five months without becoming privy to this information.
“I’m kidding, Skylar.” She’s laughing. Hard. “Oh, how I wish I could see your face right now,” she says. “Listen, I’ll let you go. I know you have a busy day ahead. Or at least you do now.” She giggles. “But, hey, don’t forget to wear the dress tomorrow.”
“What is it with you and that dress?” I ask.
“I just think you look really pretty in it, Skylar. Pregnant women need to feel pretty, too, you know?”
“Yes, Mom, I’ll wear the dress,” I say rolling my eyes.
We say our goodbyes and I’m left thinking about how much she’s changed over the past few weeks. She’s different. She’s more open. Forward. Demanding. I’ve even heard her cuss a few times, something I thought she wasn’t even capable of. Whenever we get together, she wants to try new things. Last week, Griffin was working and she invited me to go on a carriage ride through Central Park. She said she had never done it before and wanted to treat me to the experience. Then she wanted to try sushi, something neither of us had ever tried, but that I got out of on account of being pregnant, and thus not allowed to eat raw fish. I figure she’s either getting more comfortable in our friendship or she’s wanting to cross a few things off her pre-baby bucket list.
Mindy walks out of her bedroom. She stares down at the contents of my gift basket, her eyes going wide as she takes it all in. We spend the next hour giggling while we read through the instructions of some of the more complicated battery-operated products.
Mindy leaves for work a few hours later. “Girlfriend, I don’t even have to ask what you plan on doing tonight.” She winks. “Just try not to wake the neighbors.”
~ ~ ~
I put the basket in my room and try to forget about it. I catch up on some episodes of ‘Top Chef’. I clean the kitchen. I ride part of the Appalachian Trail on my new bike. I do everything I can think of to keep my mind off the toys that keep beckoning me.
I call Baylor.
“What’s up, little sister? Miss me already?” she asks, having just seen me this morning at Sunday brunch.
“Uh, so does pregnancy make everyone completely horny, or is it just me?”
“Don’t get me started.” She laughs. “Gavin actually said he thought I was going to break his penis a few months ago. I’m thirty-five weeks along with a ginormous belly and still, all I can think about is sex.”
�
��Ugh!” I sigh. “So, it doesn’t get any better?”
“It’s different for everyone,” she says. “Some of the women in my Lamaze class claim they don’t even want to be touched anymore. Some of them never went through the horny phase at all. Consider yourself lucky, Skylar.”
“Lucky?” I spit out. “Baylor, I’m trying to stay away from sex, not think about it more. And I’m having very inappropriate thoughts about very inappropriate people.”
“You’re not masturbating to Gavin, are you?” She giggles. “Although I suppose it would be a nice compliment.”
“God, no! Of course not.” The thought of me getting off to her husband makes me vomit a little in my mouth.
“Well, then who is it?” she asks. “Wait. Let me guess. Trent, the bartender.”
“I wish,” I say.
“John, the liquor distributor.”
I didn’t think about him. I add him to the list. “God, that tight shirt he always wears,” I say, trying, but failing, to get myself hot and bothered over him. “But, no. It’s nobody, really. Forget it.”
“Hmmm,” she mumbles in thought. “Griffin’s pretty hot.”
I try not to blow out my deep sigh into the phone.
“Oh my God, it’s Griffin, isn’t it?” she shrieks. “You’re fantasizing about the baby daddy, aren’t you?”
“Ugh! I have to go.”
“Skylar,” she says, stopping me from hanging up. “It’s okay, you know. It’s okay to fantasize about him, or anyone, as long as you don’t act on it.”
“I would never—”
“I know you wouldn’t,” she says. “And that’s why it’s okay.”
I hang up the phone and go to bed, never having played with any of my new toys. And even though Baylor thinks it’s okay, I try my damnedest not to think about Griffin Pearce.
~ ~ ~
The doorbell rings. Once. Twice. On the third ring, realizing Mindy isn’t going to answer it, I crawl out of bed half asleep and stumble my way across my dark apartment to open the door. I’m too tired to bother looking through the peephole. I open it.
White Lilies (A Mitchell Sisters Novel) Page 5