by Cynthia Dane
“Ménage relationships happen all the time. It’s the simplest form of polyamory to ever exist. Really, Judith, it’s perfect for you.”
“Perfect would be letting me…”
Monica cut her off. “Every relationship expects compromise. You can’t expect these men, no matter how in love they are with you, to let you do whatever you want. They are going above and beyond with offering you money and their exclusivity. Judith, these men would probably marry you if they could!”
She was quiet for a while. She’s right. Seth was more the marrying type no matter what he proclaimed, but Miguel? He had already started to introduce her as his girlfriend. The thought of them getting along for the sake of their love for her gave her chills. I don’t have to choose. Shouldn’t that be the most liberating thing? That her love triangle would end with everyone happy? Including her?
“It’s asking me to make a huge change with little warning,” Judith finally said. “I don’t think I’m being unreasonable by saying it’s a shock.”
“To be fair, I’m shocked as well. I’ve never heard of something like this before. If it works, then you could end up a happy woman. Besides, I’ve been wanting you to cut back your on-site work hours so you can start taking over more around here. I don’t know how demanding this baby is going to be. Trust me, Judith, there is going to be plenty of work for you to do. To have two men who deeply love you and support your career goals? What the fuck are you waiting for? A third man to add himself to the mix?”
Judith didn’t want to admit that she had a point.
They called Miguel and Seth back in to discuss more points. How would they split up Judith’s time? Were they willing to commit to at least a year of this arrangement? (Both assured that they wanted this to last as long as possible. Wasn’t that how most relationships were supposed to work?) Was Judith okay with the more serious aspects of these relationships? She stuttered to say “I love you” in front of Monica – let alone the other man – but when pressed, Judith couldn’t not say it, either. I hate what you two have done to me. She thought that with as much affection as possible.
Miguel said he had to go to Europe for about two weeks starting that Monday, which was perfect for postponing the signing of any contracts. This would give Monica time to rewrite them and to give Judith time to ease into the transition of letting some of her other clients go. Many of them hadn’t come to call in a long time, anyway.
She was metaphorically holding a little black book of names and numbers over a flame. Gone soon would be the days of seducing every man who came her way in the name of making a living. She would still be one of the slyest women around, but in a different fashion.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized…
This was exactly what she needed, even if she wasn’t coming around to wanting it yet. Major life changes tended to work that way, though.
Before he left, Seth kissed her and whispered into her ear, “I want to be happy with you, Judith. I hope you can be happy with me.”
Something watered in the corner of her eye. When Miguel put his arm around her and suggested they start tonight’s date with dinner on the balcony, she hid her tears of swelling happiness in his chest. Monica pretended not to notice.
Chapter 36
SETH
“You’re seriously telling me that nobody’s told you about this before?”
Judith swatted Seth’s hand away, leaping out of bed so she could investigate his allegations for herself. She picked up a hand mirror, lifted up her skirt, and inspected the reflection in her vanity mirror. “What the fuck? When did I get this thing?”
“I’m no dermatologist, but I do have a medical degree.”
Judith tossed her mirror down and sent him a sour glare. “And?”
“Probably half your life. Probably also benign.”
It amused him that she had never known about the mole on her ass. He could already see her making a doctor’s appointment and insisting that it must be removed. Immediately.
Judith pulled her skirt back down, much to Seth’s chagrin. He had arrived to find her dressed in a slinky plaid mini-skirt – no underwear, ahem – and a sheer white blouse. After an arousing game of “Did You Know?” in a lazy attempt to get sex jumpstarted, Seth made the mistake of asking, “Did you know you have a mole right here on your ass?”
So much for sexy games.
“Did you know that you have a huge bump on your neck?”
“Uh huh. Let me guess.” Seth flung his arm across the bed so Judith could go back to snuggling in his embrace. She loved to pick at the top button of his flannel shirt. “It’s my head.”
“You’re the doctor.”
“I am, and I insist on giving you a thorough check-up, Ms. King.”
“Finally! You agree to a role-play!”
“Finally? You make it sound like you’ve been begging for one.”
“In my head, yeah. Only a matter of time before I got you to play doctor with me.”
“To think, I studied gynecology.”
“I expect a competent exam, Dr. Christens.”
He was going to give her one! Eventually. For now, he was content to make her wait. There were things he wanted to talk about, anyway.
His work. Her work. A trip to Mexico as soon as the papers of patronage were signed. That wasn’t happening for another week, at least. Monica and Miguel both continued to push the date back for one reason or another. Miguel had spent much of the last two weeks flying around Europe and staying out of contact. Poor Seth. He had to keep Judith happy and satisfied all by himself. Now he wanted to whisk her away to paradise.
It was everything he wanted: Judith and her love, her promises of devotion, and the ability to treat her like a real girlfriend, maybe more. Seth was happy to take things slowly. Not only for Judith’s sake, but for his as well. The other man didn’t matter, as long as he was good to her too. After many, many conversations with Miguel Bolivar, Seth felt confident that the man understood what it meant to love Judith King and treat her as she deserved.
Of course, it meant not getting to see her whenever he wanted, but that was true in any other relationship.
“You know,” he said, while watching Judith close her eyes and snooze against him, “I’ve never seen the Rec Room around here. I hear you have one of the biggest TVs ever.”
Judith opened her eyes. “It’s mostly for sports and porn.”
“What else would it be used for?”
“Video games. We’ve got a crazy collection of them.” Judith sat up. “You should see Grace and Chelsea playing Mario Party. Things get ugly.”
“I don’t want to watch them. I’d rather watch you play DDR in this outfit.”
“We’ve got that too.”
“Then what the hell are we waiting for? I’ll give you a kiss every time your breasts break these fragile buttons.” He tugged on her blouse.
Judith studied him carefully. “You’re getting kinkier as the weeks go by.”
“I’ve always been this way. You’re drawing it out of me.”
They both got off the bed and prepared to head down the hall to the Rec Room, assuming it wasn’t already busy. Judith assured her boyfriend (which was such a strange thing to be thought of now) that it was one of the slowest Sundays ever and if anyone was in there, it was staff wasting time. On that note, did he know how to play billiards? She could put on a good show with a cue…
Judith locked her bedroom door behind her as soon as they were in the hallway. Hands entwined, they strolled at their own languid pace, and Seth didn’t think twice to say hello to Monica on her way to her chambers.
He looked at her again.
“Yes, good evening, Dr. Christens.” Her teeth were gritted and her stature tense. Monica assured them that it was the pressure on her back, and she was on her way to rest. “She’s going on maternity leave starting next week,” Judith told him earlier. “Don’t you think it’s pretty late? She’s due sometime around now. I ca
n’t remember when.” That was not good news. Seth may have been retired from his practice, but it was difficult to forget years of training and experience. “I hope you’re enjoying your evening.” She continued down the hall.
“Come on,” Judith said a few seconds later, tugging on Seth’s hand. “Before someone beats us there.”
They walked, although Seth’s mind was far away. “Did she look okay to you?” he asked.
Judith shrugged. “She’s been looking like that for a month now. I don’t know how she moves without dying. Why?”
“Uh…” Seth stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Because she’s in labor.”
Judith’s expression told him to never, ever joke about that again.
“I am 100% serious. I would bet my medical degree on your boss being in labor right at this second, whether she knows it or not. She should call someone.”
Mouth dropping open, Judith turned on her heels and pulled Seth down the hall. When they reached Monica’s chambers, Judith pounded on the door. Hard.
“What is it?” asked Matilda. “Lady Warren is resting and has asked to not be disturbed unless it’s an emergency.”
“It’s an emergency!” Judith nearly bowled the girl over. “She’s in labor, dumbass!”
“E – excuse me?”
Judith was already heading to Monica’s bedroom. Seth remained out in the hall, apologizing to Matilda. “If I may go in there, please. I’m actually an obstetrician when I’m not paying women for sex. I know, I’m a complicated guy.”
Matilda was too shocked to say or do anything. It probably didn’t help that an overly-sexual woman was standing next to her lady’s bedside, insisting that she knew her body better than anyone else.
“Can I call someone? Who should I call? Where’s your midwife? Isn’t she around here half her life now?”
Seth entered as Monica retorted with, “Would you bug off? I’m not…” She sat up and promptly grabbed the small of her back, pain wiping out her complexion. “I’m not in labor!”
“What’s the nearest hospital?” Judith asked Seth, as if he would know. “Could you drive her there? We’re too far out to wait for an ambulance!”
“I said I’m not…”
Seth had heard that terrified cry too many times in his life. Usually in a hospital, but women went into labor all the time at home.
Matilda raced to her lady’s address book on a coffee table and flipped it open. “I’ll call her midwife right now!”
“Unless she lives down the road,” Seth said, going to Monica’s side and helping her sit up, sweat already cresting her brow, “she’s not going to make it here in time. This baby’s coming fast.”
As the only calm one in the room – let alone the only medically licensed one – Seth soon had to take over.
While he delegated Matilda to call this person and for Judith to go into the master bathroom to grab this and that, he finally coaxed details out of Monica’s mouth. Like how she had been cramping for the past three days and fighting back waves of nausea that she hadn’t felt since her first trimester. When she admitted that the cramps didn’t let up no matter what position she was in, Seth said, “I need to please get you off this bed.”
Seth knew nothing about Monica’s pregnancy, but he knew about many things, like, oh, the signs of active labor. Cramps that didn’t go away no matter what was not a good sign. Nor was the water starting to run down Monica’s legs when she finally got up again.
“Holy shit!” Judith exclaimed, coming out of the bathroom. She would’ve looked comical with her breasts pushing through her blouse and half her ass hanging from her skirt if it weren’t for the seriousness of the situation. “She’s dying!”
Both Monica and Seth sent her a warning look.
“Hand me my phone, please,” Monica said to Seth. “I need to call my husband.”
She may have been in labor, but Seth figured they still had an hour to go before she was ready to deliver. That wasn’t enough time to drive her to a hospital. Nor was it enough time for the midwife to arrive before a baby had crowned its head into the world, but it was enough time to gather his bearings and send Matilda out to find a couple more helping hands. Within twenty minutes Chelsea and Grace, neither of whom had any work that night, arrived with another maid in tow. Monica grumbled about having an audience, but didn’t tell anyone to leave.
“Shut down the Château,” Judith told Chelsea. “No new clients except to honor appointments. If there’s a problem, come get me. Tell the bouncer that we had to close early tonight.” Chelsea looked more than happy to leave the scene of a birth. Seth later found out that she didn’t handle “gross” well. Things are about to get gross. Hopefully not too gross, but there was no such thing as a clean delivery.
Seth made Monica walk around her room with Matilda’s help. After calling her husband, she started texting, her face reclaiming its poised, no-fuss demeanor. Except for when she had a contraction, of course. Since Seth had to go in and out of the room to delegate responsibilities, he made Matilda track the time between contractions.
He didn’t share any concerns he had, such as the size of the baby and any complications that Monica’s doctor may have foreseen. Seth briefly took over walking duty to give Matilda a break. Really, it was a guise to get Monica to fess something up before it was too late. The midwife was on her way, but Seth wasn’t counting on her getting there in time. If she did get there and Monica was still in labor… it probably wasn’t a good sign.
Monica said that, aside from a large baby, her doctor never said anything. She had planned on a homebirth anyway, just not… here. While it was good to know that there may not be any special equipment or monitoring necessary, Seth would not be relieved until this was all over.
“You’re going to need more towels than that,” he muttered to Grace. She was then sent to start stealing towels from the guest bathrooms. Preferably, Monica said, not the white ones.
When Matilda took over walking again, Judith grabbed her boyfriend and hauled him to the bathroom. Somewhere in the chaos she had changed into yoga pants and a black T-shirt.
“Can you do this?” she asked, hands grasping Seth’s arms. “Maybe it’s a sign that you’re here when this is happening.”
“Hon,” Seth said, letting slip a pet name he hadn’t intended to use on her yet, “I’m already doing it. I’ve seen hundreds of births in my life. I remember every single one. They’re all different, but a lot of them are the same, too. I do need you to help me, though. Can you do that?”
Judith assured him that she could. We’ll see.
Suffice to say, Seth had not expected to spend his night helping his girlfriend’s boss deliver her baby. Yet once things started rolling, they were impossible to stop. Seth had to call upon his years of being in the delivery room to do this for the first time in, well, years. Luckily, a lot of it was reflexive memory. Things he thought he had forgotten started coming back to him. The hardest part was not having a team of competent nurses at his beck and call. They were good for doing small tasks, monitoring, and keeping the patient as calm as possible. Instead, he had a ragtag team of working girls and cleaning staff running around and raising Monica’s blood pressure. He finally had to evict everyone but Judith and Matilda. Then replace Matilda with Grace, because for some reason the lady-in-waiting could not handle biological issues of this magnitude. She’s going to be a nanny? Good luck with that.
It was messy. It was painful. It was a miracle in the making and all Seth could do was pray that the baby faced the right way (it did) and nothing went terribly south (it didn’t, except for Monica hurling her phone across the room when husband Henry said he was still a half hour away.) Grace stayed at Monica’s side while Judith did whatever Seth told her to do. Which included seeing parts of her boss’s body she never wanted to see. To her credit, she didn’t pass out or throw up… although she did have to walk away a couple of times.
“One more push, Monica, I promise.” Seth, with his sle
eves rolled up and still splattered with God-knew-what, had half a baby in his hands while Judith and Grace tried to keep the mother sitting up in the desired position. The bed was doused in sweat and the miracle of life. The size of the baby caused Monica to come dangerously close to some serious, surgery-inducing complications, but she somehow managed. Her being the type of perfectionist she was? No surprise. That baby was already following mother’s orders! “You can do it. Give me one big push and this baby will be out of there.”
A scream unlike even he had ever heard erupted from the petite woman. At least there was no cord around the baby’s throat, and nothing important had torn. Just a big red baby landing in Seth’s hands right before he thought he would collapse too.
The only thing that screamed louder than Monica was her baby the moment Seth tapped its foot and Judith grabbed the scissors to cut the cord.
***
Just because the baby was born didn’t mean things calmed down. Much to everyone’s chagrin, there was still stuff to do and bodily functions to keep track of. Matilda made herself useful again by taking care of dirty linens. Chelsea heralded the arrival of the midwife and, way too late to be of any real use, Mr. Warren.
By then, Monica was half passed out in bed, although thankfully not suffering from any major complications. Seth still made a call to the nearest hospital and suggested to Mr. Warren that his wife and baby go there as soon as possible for a check-up. The new father was too shocked to argue with him.
“It’s so cute it makes you want to gag,” Judith said, peering into the bedroom to see Mr. and Mrs. Warren in absolute awe of what they had made. The little girl was already big enough to be three months old, or so Seth swore. Then again, it’s been a while. “I’m afraid to gag, though. If I start, I may not stop.”
“Same.”
Judith looked askance at him. “Says the doctor.”
“I saw things then, and I saw things tonight.”
“Don’t ever tell me a detail. I will barf.”
“I don’t want you doing that.”