by S. Ann Cole
“They’re family. Just tell me.”
Clarissa shrugged, then beamed at me. “You have nothing to worry about, dear. Results show that you are around seven weeks pregnant. Your sudden fainting was on account of low iron deficiency that rendered you anemic. This can easily be solved by a prescription of iron supplement —”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you just say pregnant? How?”
She arched a brow at me. “Oh, Miss Blacksille, must I sit and illustrate to you how a woman gets pregnant?”
Shooting upright in the bed, I glared. “Not like that. I mean, I’m on the injection. I can’t be pregnant.”
Clarissa pursed her lips and tapped her clipboard. “Oh, but you are. I’m sure you know that contraceptives are not one hundred percent effective. Sometimes those little buggers weasel their way through that bulwark, Miss Blacksille.”
“But-But wouldn’t I have known sooner, like four weeks in or something? Seven weeks?”
“Well, it’s always different when you get impregnated while on contraceptive. Especially with the injection where there is no monthly bleeding, you can get pregnant and don’t even realize until you’re as far as three months in. Such has happened on numerous occasions.” She pinned me an accusing stare. “But I’m thinking you’ve been getting the symptoms and have been overlooking them.”
Ignoring her, I tried to rip the IV drip from my hand.
“Wait, wait, Miss Blacksille,” she said, rushing to take over the work of freeing me. “You don’t want to do an ultrasound?”
“No,” I snapped. “I don’t care for it.”
“And here I was thinking this was going to be good news,” Clarissa muttered, more to herself than to me. That would explain why she’d been so cheery.
I cut my eyes over to Tish and Trudy, who both stood frozen and wide-eyed, seemingly more shocked than I was. “Tish, phone Marian. Let her know there’s an emergency. Give her my penthouse address and have her meet me there in an hour.”
Tish nodded and left the room, while Trudy’s eyes bulged further, knowing what that meant. “Axia, you’re being impulsive. Think about —”
“Piss off, Trudy. This is not your life, it’s mine.”
I leaped off the bed when the nurse was finished with me and went to the bathroom to change out of the crumpled blue cape. When I returned, I took second note of Trudy’s gym wear. If she was here and not at work, then … “What was your reason for not turning in to work today, Trudy?”
Trudy winced and lowered her gaze. “That you fainted…”
“Dios mío, what part of ‘do not give out any information about me’ don’t you understand?!”
“What was I to say? I reported to the manager of my floor that I can’t come in today because of an emergency. The next thing I know, he’s phoning me himself, demanding to know what’s so much of an ‘emergency’ that I can’t make it to work.” She gave me her famous ‘please forgive me’ expression. “Axia, you don’t understand, he’s been extremely hard on me of late. It’s actually a bit frightening. It’s like he has everything I do under close observation. This is what I was afraid of when I told you I didn’t like it that you two were —”
“Whatever,” I dismissed.
Tish popped back into the room. “Marian says she can be there in forty-five.”
“Perfect.”
Marian perched upright on the edge of my uncomfortable white sofa. Her middle-aged features were smooth with subtle make-up, her dark brown hair wrapped in a neat coiffure, and her slender frame was clothed in a sharp, charcoal pants suit. She pursed her lips, folded them, unfolded them, tapped the docket in her hand, brushed and patted her coiffure. I was sitting across from her, erect, hands folded on my lap.
Soon she had no choice but to address the topic on hand. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do, Axia?”
Before I could answer, she continued her speech of persuasion. “Most women take at least a week to think about such a decision. You’ve only found out less than an hour ago. Perhaps you could sleep on it and see if your view changes in the morning?”
“My view won’t change, Marian. This baby doesn’t have a father and I’m not raising it on my own. Better yet, I don’t want a child. Anyone who knows me knows that much. What the hell am I going to do with a baby? This baby thing has never been in what I envisaged for my life. Let alone being a single parent? Hell. No.”
Marian continued in the same vein as if she heard me not. “A decision like this may lead to profound guilt and remorse in the future. Strong enough to induce suicidal thoughts. Also, the harmful —”
“I don’t want it!” I bellowed, my voice and composure finally crumbling as my eyes brimmed with tears.
Marian sighed. “Axia, I think you’re just frightened and making this decision impetuously. I don’t know the graveness of the situation with the child’s father but —”
“I don’t want it. I don’t want it. I don’t want it,” I repeated, slapping my palms over my ears and slinking down to the floor from the sofa. The mantra repeated in my head as a profusion of scorching hot tears gushed from my eyes, dampening a tiny area of my Persian rug. The words whirled around in my head then poured out of my mouth. I tried in vain to stop myself from saying them. “I don’t want it. I don’t want it.”
I became vaguely aware of Marian crouching beside me, rubbing my shoulders. “It’s okay, Axia. Calm down. Breathe … breathe, Axia,” she crooned, trying to get me to stop my sputtering mantra and heavy heaving. “Breathe, Axia. I’m your doctor, and I’m here to fulfill your requests. I shouldn’t have tried to be your counselor, too … Breathe, sweetheart, breathe … shh … sit up.”
It took her all of ten minutes to get me out of my inexplicable breakdown. Marian reclaimed her position across from me, withdrawing a pad from her briefcase. “Okay, there are various methods of —”
“What’s the most expeditious and effective?”
“Well, medical. I insert a drug inside you vaginally. The termination is usually completed within four to eight hours — in very rare cases it takes up to twenty-four hours — but you will bleed heavily for roughly two weeks.”
“That one, then,” I muttered around the fingernail I was nibbling on.
“Because you are so far along, I suggest we do this as soon as possible if you want to use that method,” Marian said as she scribbled on her pad. “Eight in the morning sound good?”
I made a furious nod of my head.
“Would you prefer to come by my office or do you rather I come here?”
Glancing around the cold lifelessness of my penthouse, I suddenly felt lonelier than ever. I’d be sleeping at Crissida Cove tonight, for sure. I missed my home. And I missed Timo. “Your office sounds good.”
Marian scribbled that last bit on her pad, then tapped it with her pen. Lifting her head, she looked straight at me and said, “You know, of all the years I’ve known you, Blacksille, I’ve never seen you vulnerable. You’re always so tough and sure and final. Seeing you like this now, it kind of scares me.” Shaking her head, she picked up her briefcase and stuffed her notepad inside. “When there’s something in your life subverting you, debilitating you, nibbling away your strength at every turn, you don’t run from it. Because then you’ve allowed that thing to be the victor. Have allowed yourself to be conquered. And who likes to face defeatism? What you should do is stand up and face it. Stand valiantly in the face of fear, speak to it in its own language and fight back. Let fear be afraid of you.” Marian stood to her feet and bore her eyes into me. “If there’s even a jot of Axia Blacksille left inside this stranger I don’t know, convey my message to her that the world misses her.”
And with that, spine stiff, she stalked out of the house. Leaving me as the only patron at my pity party.
“Are you done?”
The question was directed at Marian, who’d been taking her precious little time in apprising me of the side effects I might face with this procedure.
; Because I’d spent the majority of my night sitting up in the middle of the bed crying, worrying and driving myself into insanity, I’d gotten next to no sleep and had made it to Marian’s office half an hour earlier than our agreed time.
For heaven’s sake, I was pregnant.
First of all, I had not even an inkling about being a mother. Motherhood wasn’t for me. Second, the father of the child was no longer a part of my life, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to go through the whole ‘lawyer and court’ craziness to discuss financial issues, who gets to spend whatever amount of time with the child and when. No way. Third, I’d known the man under six months. Even if we were still together, having a child at this stage would be utterly fatuous. Fourth, he might not even believe that the child is his. Or even accuse me of using this pregnancy crap as a ploy to get him back.”
Inside my head was a horrible mess. It felt like a war zone with bombings and killings, dead bodies and inflamed debris littered everywhere. And with every explosion, a burst of tears gushed through my eye sockets. Yes, it was as loud as hell in there. So each time someone like Marian tried to persuade me from what my mind was set on, all I could do was shout at them, because their nagging voice only added to the chaos of the battlefield in my mind.
“Um, yeah. That’s it,” Marian said through a resigning sigh. It was evident she’d been hoping I’d have a different view this morning. “I guess we should get started, then. Come with me.”
She stood up from around her desk and led me into a room painted in pale green. Clinical, with stainless steel furniture crowded with a variety of scary-looking apparatuses. Frightening charts of sores and various kinds of diseases were pasted on the walls. Doctors’ offices are seriously creepy.
Marian pulled a white roll of paper over the narrow leather-covered bed, inclining the bed to her desire. Opening one of her stainless steel drawers, she retrieved one of those papery blue gowns and turned to me. “Here, change into this, then lie on the bed over there.”
When I took it and nodded, she walked towards the door. “I’ll give you a few minutes.”
A few damn minutes for what? Why this woman kept drawing out the process was beyond me. I’m not going to change my mind, I mentally yelled after her as she slipped through the door.
Gripping the gown, I trudged up to a square mirror on the wall opposite and stared back at the pale, bloodshot-eyed, frightened and craven woman who I didn’t recognize. There’s much to be said about being a bitch. Bitches like me did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, however they wanted, without a care for anyone else. They regarded their own opinions and disregarded those of others. Friends’, family’s and associates’ opinions held no value or effect. This they knew, so they tended to keep their opinions to themselves. Because bitches like me jumped the deliberating process and acted instead.
That’s how I’ve always lived my life. Moratoriums and second guesses only leave room for remorse and disasters. I acted on instant. Drank my tea when it’s steaming hot. So in the end, all that can be said is, “what’s done is done”, then move on, geared and prepared to slay new obstacles.
The more I thought about this, the scarier it got, the harder I cried, and the more I felt. Which is why all I wanted to do was get this shit over with. There was no room for a baby in my life right now, and the sooner I trampled this obstacle, the sooner I could move on with my life.
I nimbly undid my shirt buttons and was just reaching for the zipper of my jeans, when I heard Marion shriek. “Listen, you can’t just barge in here like —”
“I don’t give a shit! That’s my child. No one sought my permission on this!”
At the unmistakable voice, my body went rigid. Holy shit! What’s he doing here? And how the hell did he know?
“Decisions like these don’t require the permission of the —” Marian squealed as a loud scraping of furniture sounded, followed by a clamor of tumbling paraphernalia.
The door burst open and I spun around on a gasp, backing up against the wall and clutching the papery gown to my chest.
Lovello Nelson stood like a Big Bad Wolf in the doorway, the tall build of a man that he was. Disheveled and shuffled, his suit jacket was missing, his tie loose around his neck, and his white shirtsleeves folded up to his elbows. Just short of steam blowing from his ears, his face was as red as beetroot, his nostrils flaring, his formidable chest heaving high then slamming heavily back down. This was one angry chunk of a man.
“How dare you, Axia,” he gritted out. “How. Dare. You.”
Seeing him standing before me like this, so gloriously beautiful — albeit trenchantly irate — added lust to my already complex amalgam of emotions. Making me more of a wreck inside and leaving me speechless. I silently sent an invocation to the Father above, begging him to make the wall behind me open up and swallow me whole. Pinching my eyes shut, I counted to ten and waited for the miracle to happen, but when I opened them again, Lovello was still standing there in the doorway.
Darn it. Thanks a lot, Big Guy.
Lovello took three firm strides to close the distance between us. Ripping the gown from my hands, he tossed it to the floor and began redoing my shirt buttons. I kept my left hand pressed to the upper side of my shirt so that the tattoo wouldn’t show.
“You’re coming with me,” he said in a tone that left no room for rejoinders.
But I would not be dominated. The strength to slap his hand away came, somehow, with a resounding, “No.”
Lovello cocked his head to the side with a perfectly arched brow, his penetrating gaze conflagrant. “How typical of you, Axia, to think you have a say in the matter.”
“Yes, I do! It’s my body and —” the rest of the sentence was forced back down my throat when Lovello suddenly gripped my face, squeezing my jaws so painfully hard that I couldn’t speak.
He bent at the waist so his eyes were level with mine. “No, you don’t have a say. You have a Nelson growing inside you. Nelsons are too prized a gene to be aborted, you silly, silly girl. Now grab your stuff. You’re coming with me.”
I gave a garbled, incomprehensible version of “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Releasing his grip on my face, Lovello sighed and slowly straightened up. He swept his gaze around the room, his eyes landing on every item. Then in the next second, I was being tossed over his shoulder in one easy move. He stalked over to the chair where I’d left my handbag, snatched it up and marched with me out of the room, breezing past an aghast Marian and straight out of the doors.
“Put me down, you odious man!” I yelled, pounding my fists on his back. “Put me down!”
But the detestable man ignored me, marching purposefully with me out of the building. As he descended the steps outside, I spied a wide-eyed Tish pacing on the sidewalk next to Lovello’s Bugatti. She was all but trembling, no doubt worried about the repercussions of what she’d done.
“Of all people, not you, Tish!” I barked at her from upside-down Lovello’s high shoulder. “I would’ve expected this from Trudy. Not you!”
Tish opened her beak to defend herself, but she was angrily shoved out of the way and I was being stuffed into the passenger side of the car. “You try to get out of this car, Axia, and I swear I’ll make today the worst day of your life … Or the last day of your life,” Lovello threatened. He slammed the door and rounded to the driver’s side, then stopped to glare at Tish. “Get in the goddamn car, Tish.”
“B-but where? It can only fit two people.”
Lovello regarded his Bugatti Veyron as if he’d never before considered this. “Squeeze in next to Axia. Her ass isn’t that big.”
When Tish hesitated, he grabbed her arm and hauled her around to the passenger side, stuffing her in next to me. Then folded his tall frame into the car and sped off like a madman down the main.
Tish awkwardly turned to me. “Axia, I’m so sorry. But I’m not the one who told him. He just came to the gym and demanded to know where your doctor’s office was. H
e already kn —”
“Tish, when you get back to the gym, you will cancel all Axia’s classes,” Lovello authorized, chopping through Tish’s apology. “Let her clients know that she’s physically unstable to instruct any classes for … a while. I suggest shopping for a new instructor to take over her classes.”
Tish raised her brows at me, not knowing how to respond to the man’s commands. But all I could do was remain as immobile as I’d been since he stuffed me into the car with his threat. Everything was happening so fast, it’s like I was having an out-of-body experience.
“Don’t be looking at Axia for approval, Tish!” Lovello barked, as he swerved around a corner. “Listen to me, because I’m the one you’ll be reporting to. You’re now the manager of PSFC. If you think you need an assistant, then get one. For the next couple of months, you won’t be reporting anything to Axia about the gym. You report to me, okay? All problems, financially, mechanically or otherwise come to me. Understand?”
When Tish merely stared at him, dumbfounded, Lovello turned his head to cripple her with his glower. “Understand, Tish?”
“Y-yes,” she stammered.
“Yes what?”
“Um, yes I understand. I’m now the m-manager and I report to you.”
She avoided my eyes, wringing her fingers in her lap, uneasiness radiating off her.
“Are you afraid of this punk, Tish?” I asked in disbelief. “You don’t have to take his shit, you know. If he manhandles you like that again, you call the cops so they can teach his ass —”
“Shut the hell up, Axia,” Lovello hissed, as he pulled up to the curb of PSFC.
“Don’t you dare tell me to shut up, you arrogant, domineering —”
“Shut. Up. Axia!” he bellowed, making me jump. That shut me up. “I don’t even want to hear you breathe right now.”
Tish hurriedly clambered from the car and scurried off into the gym. Lovello blew a steaming breath and gassed off down the street. An angry vein bulged prominently on his temple. He was pissed. Crazy, crazy pissed. Did he hate me even more now? He had never before been this overseeing or dictatorial. And it was somewhat frightening. But if his rage was induced by hate for me and love for his child, then that would be saddening. I wanted him to be in love with me.