Tats Too

by Layce Gardner

  I sigh and nuzzle my face between her whipped cream tits. I think of her tits as whipped cream because her skin is a delicious milky white and right now everything reminds me of food.

  “You’re a perfect example of what happens if you don’t breast- feed a baby. They grow up to have an oral fixation,” she says.

  “I can breast-feed the baby while you breast-feed me,” I say, nibbling her strawberries. I run my fingers up the inside of her thigh, under the leg of the boxers, my mind hungry with thoughts of pudding when Vivian steps back. Her eyes are wide and scared.

  “What…?” I ask.

  She looks at the floor then back to me. “Your water broke.”

  ***

  I fork in my breakfast as fast as I can. I stop shoveling to pour more sugar-free syrup on my stack of pancakes, but Vivian snatches Aunt Jemima out of my hands, pops her head back on and sticks her back in the cabinet.

  “She’s sugar-free,” I whine. But before I can work myself into a good lather over it, another contraction hits. I white-knuckle the edge of the table with both hands and clench my thighs together like a vise-grip. Vivian squats down beside me with her hands on my belly, breathing deep ragged breaths like she’s the one going into labor not me.

  When the pain subsides, I draw in a couple gulps of air and stab some more pancake with my fork.

  “Let’s go, Lee, your contractions are four minutes apart,” Vivian orders, clicking her stopwatch that she bought special just for this occasion.

  She also bought a pedometer. She says I have to get enough exercise and checks daily to make sure I take at least five thousand steps. I wear it, but just to fuck with her, I walk backwards when she’s not looking.

  “Lee? We need to go before I’m delivering this baby myself in the front seat of the El Camino. And that’s not a story I want to be telling her when she’s a teenager,” she says, tapping the toe of her high heel at me.

  I ignore the threat of her high heels, her weapon of choice. “But I’m not finished with mein pancakes, Herr Vivian.”

  She pulls the plate away from me before I can stab another bite and tosses it all in the sink. “There. Now you’re finished.”

  The Führer has spoken.

  ***

  “You’re going too slow,” I mutter between clenched teeth.

  I’m not the only one that this baby has changed. Vivian used to drive like Ben Hur with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth and her left elbow poking out the opened window. She couldn’t drive without smoking and a window open even if it was twenty degrees outside and sleeting. It drove me crazy. Now she makes me crazy because she drives like she’s guiding a Buick boat to church on Sunday.

  “I’m going the posted speed limit,” she says, tapping the brake pedal.

  “Pull over, please,” I say with as much calm as I can muster. A contraction hits and I damn near bite my tongue off from trying not to scream.

  “I want to get us all there in one piece,” she says.“Just hold on, okay?”

  I straighten up and gulp down some air. “Pull over,” I order, pointing at the side of the road.

  “We’re almost there,” she soothes.

  “PulloverpulloverpulloverpulloverISAIDPULLOVER!”

  Vivian slams on the brakes and the seat belt cuts into my belly, sending me into another contraction.

  Goddammit to hell, it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch.

  “Whatwhatwhatwhatwhat?” Vivian asks. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “I. Can’t. Do. This,” I stutter.

  “You really don’t have a choice, Lee.”

  “I’m not going to do it. I’m too scared.” I cross my legs just to show her how much I mean what I said.

  Vivian frowns at me sympathetically and pats my thigh. “It’s a scary thing. According to Dr. Spock all new moms are scared.”

  “You’re not scared.”

  Vivian checks over her shoulder at the road behind us, then looks back to me. “I’m scared shitless, are you kidding?”

  “I’m serious about this, Viv. I’m really, really scared.”

  “Well, I’m scared that I’m not going to get you to the hospital in time and you’re going to give birth right here in the middle of the road.”

  I open the door and unbuckle.

  “What’re you doing?” she yells.

  “I told you I can’t do this,” I mumble.

  She unbuckles and leans over me, pulling me back inside and slamming my door closed. She glances over her shoulder again, then guides the car to the side of the road. She throws it in park, punches in the emergency flashers, turns sideways in her seat, crosses her arms across her chest and glares at me. “Okay. I’m scared. I’m scared of everything about a whole lot of stuff. What exactly are you scared of?”

  “You go first,” I say.

  “No, you go first,” she says back.

  “You.”

  “No, you.”

  “Let’s go at the same time,” I decide.

  She nods.

  “On the count of three,” I say. “One. Two…”And we both start talking, overlapping each other:

  “The baby’ll be born deformed—”

  “She’ll grow up to hate me—”

  “We’ll never have sex again—”

  “I’ll stay fat and you won’t touch me again—”

  “You’ll get bored with me and leave—”

  “You’ll run off with a man—”

  Vivian finishes last, saying, “I’ll get breast cancer and they’ll cut off my tits and you won’t love me anymore.” She pooches out her bottom lip like she’s going to cry.

  “Cut off your tits? Viv, that’s a horrible thing to think.”

  “Well,” she pouts, “sometimes I think you love my tits more than me.”

  “Nonono,” I say, pulling her into my arms. “I love you, baby, not your tits.”

  “What’s wrong with my tits? Aren’t they good enough for you?”

  It occurs to me that somehow she has turned this whole thing that was about me into being about her. How exactly does she do that?

  I toss her an evil grin, saying, “I love them so much that if they did have to cut off your tits, I’d ask the doctor to put them in a hermetically sealed bag so I could take them home with me. They’d be my very own personal funbags. I wouldn’t even have to wake you up to play with them.”

  We both laugh until I double over again. “Shitshitshitshitshit,” I pant.

  She throws the car back into drive, asking, “Can we go have our baby now?”

  “Okay. But if you keep punching the brakes all the way there, I’m going to spew sugar-free pancakes all over you.”

  ***

  “In slowly. Out slowly,” Vivian demonstrates with long, exaggerated breaths.

  God’s big mistake was making the genitals for both procreation and recreation. Because this procreating thing is really going to put a damper on my recreating. In fact, by the time this baby finally gets done with my hoo-ha, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use it again.

  I’ve been lying here for four hours. Flat on my back on a hospital birthing table, feet in cold, metal stirrups, wearing a thin paper dress. Dr. Drywater and a nurse are between my legs.

  Vivian stands beside me, rambling on and on about breathing techniques. If she doesn’t shut up, I’m going to knock the breath out of her and the doctor both.

  Jeeezzzuuuussss. I scrunch my face into a fist and try to see past the red flashes of pain.

  A far-away scream pierces my left ear, sears through the tender part of my brain and punches its way out my right ear.

  “Will somebody please make that lady stop screaming!” I scream.

  “Honey,” Vivian says softly, bending down over me. “That lady screaming is you.”

  Oh, my God. It was me. I’ve had my nose broken at least twice, been knocked upside the head too many times to count and even been shot in the chest, but that pain doesn’t even begin to compare to this.

 
“I changed my mind! I want the drugs!”

  Dr. Drywater looks up from between my legs and says earnestly, “Lee, I’m sorry, but it’s too late for the epidural.”

  “Then get that thing out of me NOW!” I pant.

  Dr. Drywater wiggles her fingers to get Vivian’s attention, then mouths silently, “Distract her.”

  “I’m right here,” I say. “I can read lips, too, you know.”

  Vivian quickly unbuttons her blouse and pops open the front doo-dad on her bra. Her tits spill out.

  “What the hell…”

  “I’m distracting you, baby,” she answers, holding out her tits on a silver platter.

  Another contraction hits. Completely by instinct I reach out, grab a tit and squeeze.

  “Ow!” Vivian yells, wrenching my grip away.

  “Dammit…” I pant, “you don’t give me a squeeze toy then take it away.”

  Vivian turns her back to me and wrestles her girls back in their cage.

  An even bigger contraction hits. “Oh, my God!” I scream. “Get it out of there!”

  “Hey, Lee,” Vivian says, taking my face between her hands and forcing me to look at her. “I was reading the other day about these women who actually have orgasms while giving birth. They said it was the most incredible orgasm ever.”

  “I have no response to that,” I say between pants.

  “Do you think you could have an orgasm?”

  “Good idea, honey,” I drip, sarcastically. “I’ll try to come while this baby rips my vagina to shreds!”

  “It was just an idea.” She gives up. Her face lights up and she tries again, “Hey, I saw on the TV where a woman in California gave birth to an octopus. Weird, huh?”

  “Huh?” I breathe. “Not an octopus, stupid. Octuplets.”

  “Oh. That’s not nearly as interesting as an octopus.”

  “Vivian, your distracting me is annoying me. Why don’t you go boil some water or something.”

  “You know what the plural of octopus is?” she asks.

  “Octopi!” I scream through another seizure.

  “Actually, it’s octopuses. You’d think it was octopi, but it’s not, it’s octopuses.”

  “I think either one is correct,” the doctor says from between my legs.

  “I don’t give a shit about pi or pusses!” I shout.

  Vivian purses her lips. The corners of her mouth twitch. I’d hit her right now, but she’d probably hit me back. “It’s not fucking funny,” I growl.

  She laughs. “Yeah, Lee, it’s a little bit funny.”

  “It’s not either. It’s not fucking funny.”

  “Gloria?” Vivian asks the doctor. “That was funny, right? Pi and pusses?”

  “Yep,” she answers. “I laughed.”

  “Well, I’m glad you all are bonding over all my fucking pain. Next time one of you are in pain, I’ll do the laughing. How about that? When you’re in the hospital, I’ll laugh my ass off.”

  “Okay, now you’re just being bitchy,” Vivian states matter-of-factly.

  Dr. Drywater pops up between my legs like the weasel in the song. “You’re dilated to an eight, Lee. You can start pushing now.”

  “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing?”

  Vivian squeezes my hand. Hard. “Lee Anne, you can scream all you want…but maybe try to cut down on the cussing. You’re creating a hostile environment for our child to born into.”

  “Fuck the environment. The baby doesn’t know fuck from duck.”

  “Good idea, honey.” She smiles and snaps her fingers. “Use the word duck instead.”

  “You know how you can help? Get this ninety pound bowling ball out of my vagina!”

  She has the gall to laugh. Not only does she laugh, but she places her fist under her chin like she’s thinking real hard, looks at the doctor and asks, “Hey, Gloria, you haven’t seen a bowling ball in there have you? Because I misplaced mine and can’t seem to find it anywhere.”

  “Vivian, so help me God…” I stop to scream, swallow some air, then continue, “…this is all your fault.”

  “Oh no,” she says, poking me in the boob with her finger. “You can’t blame me for this. I’m not the one who seduced a fat cowboy.”

  “You got me pregnant by inference!”

  “Puhleeze…”

  “If you’d just admitted that you wanted to fuck me in the first place, there wouldn’t have been a fat cowboy!”

  “Oh and I suppose I’m the one who got you drunk and stuck your ass in the air for him!” she spits back.

  I can’t put words on the anger I’m feeling, so I yell the only thing I can think of. “Duck you, Vivian! Duck you!”

  “You haven’t ducked me in a month!”

  “That’s because I’m ducking pregnant and having your baby!”

  “It’s a girl!”

  We both look to the doctor. She’s holding a bloody, slippery, squalling thing in her hands. We’re quiet for a long moment, then Vivian leans down and wraps me in her arms. “We have a baby,” she coos. “We have a little girl!”

  The doctor and the nurse start to work on my baby and cleaning me up and whatever they’re doing down there, and I can’t believe it. I’m a mother. Whoever thought a big, ol’ dyke like me would ever give birth and be an honest-to-God mother?

  I’m crying now. I just burst into tears, partly from relief, partly from exhaustion, mainly because my heart is so full it just sloshes out.

  “I love you so much, Vivian.”

  “I love you, too, you big goofball,” she says.

  Dr. Drywater comes back with my baby, all wrapped up tight and puts her right in my arms. Oh my God…

  Oh my God…

  Oh my God, she has red hair. My little baby girl, Georgia, has a full head of thick red hair. Unfuckingbelievable.

  Vivian and I stare at her in utter disbelief, then laugh.

  “Told you I was the father,” Vivian says.

  “It’s just from all the carrots you were mooshing up and putting in my pancakes,” I say.

  “Oh good, my evil plan worked,” she teases.

  I fill my eyes with this new little life in my arms. She’s red and purple and scrunchy and wrinkled, and she kind of looks like the Planters Peanut Man without the hat and monocle, and she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  “Was it worth all the pain?” Vivian asks softly.

  “What pain?”

  “Ooooh… She’s so smart. Look how smart she is, Lee.”

  “She’s the spitting image of you,” I say. “Absolutely beautiful.”

  I lean down and plant my first kiss on my baby’s head. And just like that, she balls up her tiny fist and socks me in the mouth.

  “She definitely takes after you,” I say to Vivian. “Wanna hold her?”

  She sits on the bed beside me and I put Georgia in her arms. Looking at my two red-headed girls, I feel the tears coming on again. I’ve never had a real family before. How’d I ever get so lucky?

  It takes Georgia maybe all of five seconds before she finds Vivian’s tit, opens her mouth and clamps down on it.

  “Hah!” Vivian barks. “She’s your kid, all right.”

  Chapter Two

  The past six months went by in a tornado of shitty diapers, chapped nipples (mine, not Vivian’s), sleepless nights, and moments of love so strong they left me gasping. We took Georgia over to Delia’s this morning. It’s the first time Viv and I have let our baby out of our arms in six months. The first thing I did was fall into bed and go straight to sleep. I haven’t slept more than three hours at a stretch since Georgia was born.

  I slept for six straight hours in the middle of the day and probably wouldn’t have woken up now if the sound of the vacuum cleaner hadn’t jarred me out of hibernation.

  I sit up and feel like shit warmed over. My boobs are too full and my arms are empty. I have groggy nap brain, and it sounds like Vivian is using her energy to clean the house. I think it helps keep
her sober. Our house is always spotless.

  One morning about four months ago, I woke up at three a.m. hearing weird squeaky noises coming from the kitchen.

  I jumped out of bed and grabbed my mad stick. (No guns allowed, but Vivian does let me keep a good-sized dowel rod next to my side of the bed, and she dubbed it my mad stick.) So, I inched into the kitchen with my mad stick ready to swing at kneecap level and found Vivian mopping the ceiling.

  “Honey?” I asked, tentatively.

  Vivian looked at me and wiped her sweaty bangs out of her eyes. “Hi.”

  “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”

  “The ceilings are gross. I can’t sleep with gross ceilings,” she said.

  I leaned the mad stick in the corner and pretended to study the ceilings. “You’re doing a good job.”

  “Thanks,” she responded and sucked in a giant, shaky breath.

  That’s when I knew that her cleaning was more about staying sober than it was about gross ceilings.

  I walked over to the sink, opened the door underneath and pulled out a bucket. Vivian watched silently as I filled the bucket with soapy water, threw in a sponge, and grabbed a chair. I stood on the chair and swiped at the ceiling with the sudsy sponge.

  Vivian watched me work for a long while. Finally, I looked at her and said, “Get back to work. I can’t live in a house with gross ceilings.”

  She smiled and dunked her mop back into the sinkful of water. And I’m not real sure about this, but I think I heard her mutter, “I love you, too.”

  But this time I woke up from my nap with the sound of the vacuum cleaner roaring in my ears. I ease into the living room and skid to a stop when I see Vivian.

  Holy shit.

  She’s vacuuming all right. And she’s wearing nothing but a black lace bra and panties and fishnets and garters and high heels. She looks like Donna Reed gone bad. The only thing missing is the pearls.