I.
Holly was the first to bring it up, whispering it softly one night as they stood together under the stars. They'd spent the day with Leo and Holly's nephew Silas, taking the boys out to play paint-ball and then to a nearby restaurant for pizza and arcade games. That night, after they'd dropped off Silas with Holly's sister and Leo at Traci and Steve's house, they'd changed into the clothes they wear to lounge around the house. Then Holly had opened up a bottle of wine and taken Gail by the hand into the backyard, where they'd sat in the two comfortable Adirondack chairs Holly's father had given them, and watched the last light of the sunset fade into darkness, laughing over the antics they'd witnessed that afternoon.
It was a nice night in late summer, with just the slightest hint of a chill in the air and stars bright in the sky above. Seeing Holly's body gently shiver, Gail got up to grab the quilt they kept in the mudroom for nights like this. But instead of returning to her own chair, she took the empty glass from the doctor, putting it down on the ground. And then she stood tall, blanket gathered over her out-stretched arms, before moving to straddle Holly's lap, the brunette shifting just the slightest forward to accommodate Gail's legs wrapping around her middle. She set her hands on Gail's ass and pulled her in closer.
"Well, hello, Officer," Holly said with an amused smile, shivering again as she felt the familiar weight of Gail's body settle against her own.
"Lunchbox," Gail answered back, her voice low and sultry, a look of playful hunger burning in her eyes.
Holly could feel Gail's hands beneath the blanket, could feel her exploring the space between their bodies. With one hand, Gail gently cupped at the doctor's breast over the fabric of her thin sweatshirt, rubbing the pad of her thumb over the nipple beneath until she could feel it harden and plump under her ministrations. Holly's eyes drifted closed. With the other hand the blonde traced teasingly up and down Holly's stomach, tickling at all the most sensitive spots, until Holly opened her eyes to look her partner in the eyes, Gail's name escaping from her lips.
"Gail," Holly said in warning as her wife dipped playful fingers under the fabric at her waist.
The blonde smiled down at her. "Holly," she replied, all faux-innocence.
The hands playing with the waistband of Holly's yoga pants began to tease lower.
"My, my," Gail said in amusement, "going commando, Doctor? How scandalous."
Holly hummed. "Indeed, Officer. You may just have to take me in. I'm certain somewhere on the books there's a public indecency law that I'm breaking." Holly felt the muscles of Gail's ass tighten as she kneaded at the soft flesh, felt the woman in her lap shift, bringing her center flush against Holly's soft belly.
"Oh, I would, Lunchbox, but I'd have to bring myself in too," Gail smirked, "because I plan to get plenty indecent with you tonight."
She leaned in to capture Holly's lips as her fingers slipped out of the woman's pants, smiling around the kiss as she heard the noise that escaped from the back of the other woman's throat at the loss. But the little whine turned into a soft moan as Gail tugged playfully at the hem of her shirt, and then traveled up against Holly's warm skin, until they reached her naked, hard nipples.
Holly closed her eyes, her senses slowly overloading with everything that Gail was doing to her, everything that was Gail. She could feel the chill in the evening air, but under the blanket, in the space between their bodies, an inferno raged. She was on fire, her desire for the woman sitting astride her fueling the desperate burning inside her head, her heart, her very center.
"Gail," she said as one of the blonde's hand slipped past the waist of her pants again, questing fingers dipping deeper and deeper towards the patch of neatly trimmed curls at the junction of her legs. Gail's other hand was still busy at her breast, gently squeezing and running the pad of a thumb over the hard point of Holly's nipple. "Gail," she said again with a gasp, sharper this time, "we should stop—"
Gail licked at the sensitive skin along the side of her neck.
"—go inside and—" Holly tried to continue, fighting the moan that threatened to slip from her throat. She inhaled with a shudder as she felt Gail's teeth drag along the line of a tendon, and then retrace the path with her tongue.
"You want to go inside, baby," Gail asked in a low whisper, tugging on the lobe of Holly's ear with her teeth, "Should we stop right now? Get up and go inside?" She dipped her fingers into the wet heat between Holly's legs, cupped the other woman's sex in her palm.
Holly couldn't hold back the moan in her throat any longer. Any thought left in her head flew away on the lightning bolts Gail was causing to strike behind her closed eyes. Her head tipped back to rest against the high back of the chair behind her, and Gail took advantage of the vulnerable flesh, dropping wet, open-mouthed kisses along the line of the brunette's jaw.
"Fuck," Holly gasped, drawing the word out as she felt Gail tease around her entrance, and then slip so smoothly inside, dragging the tip of her thumb in tight circles around Holly's clit. Holly's hands clenched tightly against Gail's thighs, and as the blonde worked her up she began to try and raise her hips up to meet the other woman's thrusts. Gail shifted closer, changing the angle of her thrusts.
Holly could no longer be quiet, but began making those little noises that Gail so loved to hear. Fully aware of where they were, Gail dropped her head down to capture her wife's lips in a deep, full kiss, swallowing the sweet sounds. The stroke of her tongue against Holly's matched her harder, more determined thrusts deep inside, and she could feel the darker woman begin to pant into her mouth as her muscles began to clench and release around Gail's fingers.
Gail took her through a powerful orgasm, waited until the quaking of Holly's body eased, and then kept going, gathering some of Holly's wetness and seeking out her swollen, hooded clit once more. She slowly, gently started to tease at the slick bud, barely touching at first, and then adding more and more pressure, until she could hear the first notes of that familiar keening in Holly's throat, and feel her begin to buck and tremble beneath her again. With her second release Holly's breath grew ragged and her limbs languid. She collapsed forward into Gail's body, her forehead on Gail's shoulder. Gail held her there, supporting Holly's tired, sated weight even as the last aftershocks of the brunette's orgasm echoed through her bones, and reverberated against the hot ball of arousal in Gail's own belly.
They stayed that way for a while, until the chill of evening slipped under their blanket to nip at the bits of exposed skin. Until Holly shivered against Gail's chest, and the blonde realized that now they really should go inside.
"Hey, Hol," she said, and tilted her head to place a kiss on the crown of her dozing wife, "let's get you inside." But Holly just hmmm'd and snuggled in closer, burrowing her nose into Gail's sweatshirt. "Come on, babe, if you fall asleep I'm leaving you out here," Gail tried again, poking gently at Holly's side.
Holly arched her back and lifted her arms over her head, stretching out her shoulders before leaning back in to cover Gail's lips with her own.
"It's cold out here," she said as she pulled her head back just the slightest bit.
Gail snorted. "Yes," she smirked, "it is. Watch out, Lunchbox. Someone might get the impression you're a scientist."
Slowly they stood and gathered themselves together, Holly giggling just the slightest as Gail wrapped her in the blanket and then pulled her in close for a kiss.
"Gail," Holly asked quietly as they stood together in the backyard, swaying gently on the patio.
"Hmmmm," her wife responded.
"Let's have a baby."
II.
First they talked about it. A lot.
They spent months talking about it, the different scenarios. What they wanted, what they imagined. Who would carry, whose egg. That sort of thing.
Then they researched it. Or, Holly researched it. Gail made a lot of supportive sounds and nodded her head a lot like she was listening. She was absolutely in this, one hundred percent, but the research and the questions and the pamphlets? That was Holly's thing. Gail was ready for a decision to be made and to get on with the baby-making already.
And then finally, almost six months after Holly had first brought it up, they made a plan. Holly would carry the baby; it only made sense considering the different requirements of their jobs. Holly had suggested, facetiously, that maybe Gail be the one to get pregnant, but only for the amusement of seeing the look of terror on her wife's face. They both knew that, of the two of them, it should be Holly.
They had decided to ask Steve to donate his sperm, and if he said no they'd already picked out a donor from the catalog on the sperm bank's website. It was this point that caused the longest and biggest disagreement. Holly had wanted to ask Steve from the very start; if she was going to carry their baby, she told Gail, she wanted it to be their baby. She wanted to give birth to a part of Gail, and outside of using Gail's egg, which would have made the whole thing much more complicated, using Steve's sperm was the best option. Eventually Gail had come around to the idea, as long as she didn't have to be the one to ask him. It may have had something to do with the fact that she could tell people that her lesbian lover was giving birth to her brother's baby. She did cackle with glee the first time she said the phrase aloud. And after that it was decided. They'd ask Steve or use donor sperm and try insemination first, hoping that it worked. And after a few tries, if it didn't, they'd consider moving to the next step.
So Holly made an appointment with an OB-GYN that her regular gynecologist had recommended and made sure Gail remembered to ask for the afternoon off. The idea was to get her body ready for pregnancy, which meant a pre-prenatal exam just so they could be sure everything was in order.
But the thing about plans is that they often go awry.
More often than not, really.
It certainly didn't take long for this one to derail.
It only took as long as that first appointment.
After Holly got dressed the nurse had led them into the doctor's office—a room full of pictures of happy babies and children. And when the doctor came in, she'd dashed away the whole first part of their plan.
Holly, she'd said, based on what she'd seen in the physical exam, would likely have a hard time conceiving and carrying a pregnancy to term. It wasn't impossible, but it would involve a lot of medical intervention—possibly even surgery—and there would be risks to both her own health and the baby's. It was, the doctor said in a kind and sympathetic voice, her recommendation that Holly not attempt to carry a child.
They'd left the office quietly, Holly blinking back tears. Gail was having a hard time not crying herself. Because in her most secret of hearts, she'd been dreaming of a little baby with Holly's eyes and crooked smile, and Steve's stupid ginger hair. She'd been seeing their child everywhere for months now, always just out of the corner of her eye. She'd grown attached to the idea, to the dream. She'd spent months grinning stupidly at babies on the street and imagining what Holly would look like all big and round with their baby.
And now there was nothing. Now there was just sorrow and loss.
Holly made it as far as the car before she broke down. She gave Gail the keys and then buckled herself into the passenger seat. And as Gail had turned the keys in the ignition, as the engine roared into life, Holly started to weep.
Gail held her hand the whole way home, laced their fingers tightly together as she navigated the way through the late-afternoon Toronto traffic. Neither said a word.
Inside the house, she Holly up to their bedroom, and slowly removed her wife's clothing as Holly stood motionless in the center of the room. She pulled a soft, worn sweatshirt down over Holly's head and arms, letting the too-large shirt hang on the crying woman's shaking frame. And then she pulled off her own clothes, and dug out an old pair of flannel pajama pants and one of Holly's well-worn uni t-shirts and put them on.
And then Gail pulled Holly close, and wrapped her arms around the crying woman in a tight embrace. She felt Holly's shuddering sobs against her body, the wet of tears falling on her neck. Holly let her wife lead them to the bed, and then down into a nest of blankets and pillows and sheets. And then they lay together in their bed, a place so full of beautiful memories and tender moments, and clutched at each other, as Gail finally allowed her tears to fall, let herself weep with the woman she loved.
III.
Holly spent the entire weekend in bed. Gail called her in sick on Friday, called them both in sick, and spent the day with Holly as they had spent the night before—holding each other and mourning the loss of the beautiful possibility they had just really started to believe in. She rubbed her wife's back with firm, loving strokes, and kissed away Holly's tearful apologies at not being enough, not being able to give them what they'd been dreaming of.
The rest of the weekend Gail devoted herself to caring for Holly and starting to outline a new plan. She brought Holly tea and sandwiches, and turned to the familiar gentle admonishments the doctor had used time and time again on her to cajole the other woman into eating something, anything. And as they cocooned themselves in their bed, as Holly tucked herself into her wife's body, as she slipped in and out of fitful sleep, Gail thought, and pondered, and weighed the possibilities.
By Sunday afternoon, Holly was ready to leave their bed. Gail helped her into the shower and washed, with tender strokes, the body she knew almost better than her own. Neither woman could help but remember a familiar scene, so many years ago now, when their positions were reversed; How carefully Holly had taken care of Gail that night, how lovingly Gail took care of Holly now. And after she had washed Holly's body, and rinsed the last suds of conditioner from Holly's hair, Gail stepped forward to lay her mouth over her wife's. She kissed Holly deeply, from the heart, trying to pour everything she was feeling into the space between their lips, hoping her wife would understand what she was trying to say. After a moment's pause, Holly responded, meeting every movement of Gail's lips with her own.
Gail pulled back just the slightest, and reached for the brunette's left hand, bringing it up to her mouth. She kissed the sensitive skin at Holly's wrist, her palm, before placing a delicate, beautiful kiss at the base of her wife's ring finger, right over the warm metal of Holly's wedding band.
"Gail," Holly said, the quiver of tears still teasing at the edge of her voice.
But Gail shushed her, and kissed her lips again.
"I love you," she whispered against Holly's mouth.
"I love you," she whispered against Holly's chin, the hollow of her neck.
"I love you," she whispered down Holly's chest, placing a soft kiss on each breast, over her heart.
"I love you," she whispered as she knelt before Holly, and lingered over her wife's soft belly.
Gail painted Holly's skin with kisses, trying to translate her love into something more than words, into pure and holy feeling. And with every touch of her wife's lips against her, Holly felt something loose within her, felt some of that aching sadness, that loss, slip away. Dissolve away into nothing. And as Gail nudged her thighs apart, as she dipped her head in and laid the sweetest of kisses over her clit, Holly felt the very depths of her wife's love and was made whole again.
Gail laved her tongue over Holly's swollen clit and then traced it through her folds. And then, bracing the brunette against the tile wall of the shower, Gail thrust her tongue shallowly into her wife's slick opening. As Gail licked and suckled and teased at her, Holly reached down to weave her fingers into her wife's honey-blonde hair, gently tugging in pleasure, feeling her heart pulse in time with Gail's ministrations.
And when she came, when she climaxed against Gail's mouth, it was with a whisper-soft gasp, and a whimpering of her wife's name.
They stayed that way for a few moments, Holly looking down with teary, loving eyes at the woman kneeling before her, while Gail pressed soothing kisses against her still-trembling belly. They stayed that way, the water sluicing down over them both, a holy, loving baptism to wash away the shadow of the days before.
IV.
On Monday morning Gail woke early, turned off the alarm, and called them both in sick again before climbing back into bed behind Holly and wrapping her arms around the sleeping woman once more.
When she woke again, she opened her eyes to see Holly's deep brown ones staring back at her.
"We overslept," Holly said softly, reaching up to brush a bit of hair away from Gail's eyes.
Gail smiled at her. "I turned the alarm off," she said, "called us in sick again."
Holly looked at her curiously, and Gail was glad to see that the haunting sadness in her eyes had mostly disappeared. She tilted her head forward and kissed the tip of Holly's nose.
"Lunchbox," Gail said, "I've been thinking."
Holly gave her a small smile. "Oh no," she said as if scandalized, "not that."
Gail stuck her tongue out and then rolled into her wife's body, flipping them so she was on top, and braced herself up on her elbows above the smiling brunette. Holly's hands reached down to cup at Gail's ass.
"So, wife," she said, and gently kneaded at the blonde's flesh, "you were thinking?"
"I was," Gail groaned softly, arching into Holly's touch, "you know what's so great about being a lesbian?"
The brunette beneath her laughed loudly. "No, honey," she said, "what's so great about being a lesbian?"
Gail slowly lowered her body until she was settled into the cradle of Holly's hips.
"Well, Dr. Stewart, as I'm sure you're probably aware, it means that there's," she paused to shift onto her elbows, bringing their chests flush against each other, "double of a lot of things."
Holly didn't seem to understand, and Gail smiled down at her.
"Two sets of lips," she said, "two sets of breasts, and," she swirled her hips into Holly's, "two sets of baby-makers."
Holly looked up at her with a familiar half-smile, the one Gail loves to put on her face. The one that means I'm not exactly sure what you're saying but I know I'm going to love finding out.
"We have an appointment with the doctor in about an hour and a half," Gail said, "for me this time."
"Gail," she said slowly, but the blonde interrupted her before she could say anything else.
"I know what I said about me being pregnant—"
"You said dinosaurs would sooner return to walk the earth," Holly reminded her with a grin.
"Yes, well, okay, I said that. But Holly," Gail said in the soft, sweet tone she reserved for Holly and Holly alone, "I love you. I love you today more than ever. And tomorrow I'll love you more than that. It's that simple, Lunchbox."
Holly brought a hand up to lay against her wife's cheek. "Gail," she said in a breathy voice.
But again, Gail silenced her, this time with a chaste kiss along the gorgeous line of her wife's cheek.
"It's that simple. I love you. And I love the thought of having a baby with you, of raising a child with you." She dropped another kiss just at the corner of the brunette's eye, where a tear was forming. "It's just biology, Hol, that's all. Just biology. So we go to the doctor and have her give me the exam. And either I'll be given the all-clear to try and get pregnant, and then we can talk about whether to ask your brother or use a donor. Or she'll tell us that I might have problems getting pregnant too, and if that happens then we start talking about other options. Okay?"
But Holly didn't answer. Instead, she grabbed at her wife's sleep-shirt and yanked it up and over Gail's shoulders. And Gail, seeing the desperation in Holly's eyes and feeling the urgency in her movements, took it the rest of the way off and threw it across the room. In an instant, Holly attached her mouth to Gail's breast, tonguing first at one nipple, and then the other, and her hands ranged up and down her wife's strong back, grasping at her naked shoulders, slipping under the flannel pants she'd worn to bed and smoothing her palms over Gail's bare ass. And then she was pushing the blonde's pajama pants down, and Gail was kicking out her legs, trying to kick them down to her ankles, and off entirely.
"Jesus, Hol," Gail moaned, feeling the brunette's neatly trimmed nails scratch at her naked belly.
Her wife just gave her a sexy grin, and the next thing Gail knew, she was on her back looking up into the deep, dark pools that were Holly's eyes in the heat of passion.
"Hey, there, beautiful," Holly said with a smile.
"Hey, there, wife," Gail answered back, thrusting against the thigh that Holly had slipped between her legs.
Holly smirked and placed a line of quick kisses over the gentle planes of the blonde's face. "How much time do we have," she asked with a quick look over at the alarm clock next to the bed.
"Enough."
V.
"You," Holly said as she kissed Gail's naked belly, "are going to look so beautiful pregnant."
It isn't the first time she's said this.
This is their third time trying to get pregnant. Gail had been given the all-clear from their OB-GYN, and had been sent home that day with a prescription for pre-natal vitamins and some pamphlets on tracking her ovulation cycle. Gail had handed both over immediately to Holly; she might be giving up her body for nine months, but she sure as hell wasn't going to be the one doing all the work.
It had occurred to Gail pretty early on after that first morning that being the pregnant one, while it wasn't going to be easy, might actually end up being the better job. She wouldn't have to run out for weird food things at all hours of the day and night. She would have an automatic excuse to be lazy, to sit on the couch and eat cheese puffs while everyone else waited on her hand and foot. To be honest, she was actually kind of looking forward to it, to the back rubs and foot rubs. To the way she already knew Holly was going to look at her, and love her. She was ready.
It had taken four months after that second appointment, after they'd made love in their bed and then returned to the doctor's office in hopes of better news, before they were ready to try for the first time. But it was a busy four months. They'd had to track Gail's cycle—though Holly had unofficially been tracking both of theirs for years now—and they'd had to talk to her brother. And then they'd sat down with Holly's twin Henry and asked him if he'd be willing to donate his sperm. Then they'd had to wait until Henry had visited his doctor and been given the "all good" on his contribution, and after that there was a low-key meeting between the three of them and a lawyer just to get all their legal ducks in a row.
And then finally, finally they'd been ready to start.
Of course, it hadn't worked the first time, and they hadn't really expected it to. So when Gail's period came as usual that month neither woman really thought twice about it.
The second month, well, they'd gotten their hopes up a little bit. And so when, right on time, Gail's period started, they'd both been a little disappointed. But not discouraged.
By the time their third window rolled around, they kind of felt like pros at the whole thing. Henry dropped by early in the morning to … make his contribution. That's how Holly referred to it, anyway; Gail had another, less pleasant term for it, one that Holly had forbidden her to say in front of her brother. And then Henry left, shouting a hearty goodbye up the stairs to deliberately annoy Gail, who refused to leave their bedroom until he was gone.
And then Holly came upstairs to their bedroom, where Gail was hiding out.
"You ready for this," she said to her wife, who was stretched out on their bed, completely naked.
"Oh, Lunchbox," Gail answered, "you have no idea."
The first time, they'd just followed the directions: sample, syringe, hips elevated for thirty minutes. Nothing fancy. But their second time, after Holly had read that sometimes an orgasm increases the chances of conception, she'd asked Gail if they should give it a try. And Gail Peck never turns down an orgasm. So after getting the syringe ready, Holly kissed her way down Gail's body and then gently licked at her wife's clit until the blonde was quivering beneath her. And then she'd slipped the syringe into Gail's still-quaking center, and with a soft, tender kiss to her thigh, depressed the plunger. Then, after her orgasm-induced nap and the thirty minutes of elevation, Gail had repaid the favor.
Gail watched as Holly laid everything out on a tray on the bed—the sample cup, the syringe, a towel—and thought, not for the first time, how glad she was that she wasn't the one in charge of that end of the business. If things had been reversed? If Gail had been the one trying to get Holly pregnant? They'd probably have been doing all this in the doctor's office. And Gail would be at the head of the bed holding Holly's hand. Because there was no way she ever would have been willing to try and impregnate her wife with her brother's stuff.
"Hol," Gail asked as she watched the brunette reach into the bedside drawer where they kept their collection of toys, "what's with the vibrator?"
Holly smiled down at her. "Oh," she said with an excited grin, "I was reading last week about how the stronger the orgasm, the bigger the vaginal contractions, which means that more sperm gets taken up into the cervix, and the more sperm, the better our chances of conceiving. So, I figured that we'd try the vibrator because I know how—"
Gail sat up and stopped her with a kiss, stroking the inside of Holly's mouth with her tongue.
"You are such a nerd, babe," she said when they broke apart. "You're totally geeking out over this, aren't you?"
Holly just gave her a knowing smile, and then pushed her back onto the bed, straddling her wife's hips.
Gail wrapped her hands around the brunette's thighs, drawing little circles with her thumbs. "Hey," she said, "you don't have any of your lab coats here at home, do you? Because I'm thinking you, me, the lab coat and the syringe? We could play a little doctor and patient…"
Holly laughed out loud and then bent down to give her wife a chaste kiss. "You are ridiculous," she said, "ridiculous and adorable."
"Yeah," Gail smirked, "but you love me."
"I do," her wife replied, "Lord help me, but I do."
They lay there for a moment, Holly looking down at Gail, filled to the brim with love for the beautiful blonde woman beneath her, for the baby they were trying to make. If there was ever such a thing as a perfect moment, ever such a thing as the moment between what's been and what will be, it was this one. This moment here in their bed, poised together on the precipice of a great and terrifying adventure.
"Hey," Holly said, brushing the hair out of Gail's eyes with a delicate hand, "you ready for this?"
Gail looked up at her with a wide smile.
"Absolutely, Lunchbox," she said, trailing her fingers under the fabric of her wife's shirt, "third time's a charm."