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Episode 8: The Brain Bowl Incubation


It was the fingersnapping that did it. Even before the stomping and the slapping and the arm movements. Instantly, a part of Amy's nether region started thumping along to the tempo of his dance, sending pulses through her. Each slap and whip and crackle from his body and his sultry eyes jerked her desire closer to the surface, tearing it out of the place where it was hiding beneath her outrage.

The idea of seduction itself was not outrageous to her. Sheldon, in his own way, excelled at seduction. Telling her that her eyes were more dazzling than kryptonite? Yes, please. But today it had been his assumption and his clinical explicitness that had turned her off. Having one's reproductive organs and actions compared to farming techniques was not romantic. Most infuriating, though, was the way he never asked her opinion, never once used the word love.

And then what was he trying to prove with his hand cupping the sniffer of brandy like a breast? Ugh, it was like he'd asked Howard and Raj for a suggestion, filtered it through the most sexist episode of Mad Men he could find, and stirred it with wild animal pheromones. Okay, yes, there'd been the moment when he stood, putting his hand in his pocket with uncharacteristic smoothness, towering over her with those broad shoulders, the very manliness of him filling her personal space . . . and the spaces between those spaces.

Hooooooo. She'd had to leave immediately. So maybe it wasn't the fingersnapping after all.

Now, her pulse racing, she paced back and forth and back and forth in the narrow space between the blue love seat and the coffee table in their apartment, sighing and first crossing her arms and then uncrossing them and grumbling about what was taking him so long. Was he doing the whole dance for their neighbors?

Finally, the door swung open and Sheldon marched through, griping on his own. Again, she was halted in her tracks by his appearance; he was always attractive, but he looked especially fine with the bow tie draped rakishly around his neck, the cut of the crisp white shirt, and especially the way the plaid pants clung to the curve of his posterior. Oh, she had looked. She had looked until her thighs ached. The hair was just the icing on the already delectable looking cake. And Amy was very hungry.

"- and it seems that the ancient art of the flamenco isn't all it's cracked up to be -" he grumbled, reaching up to grab the bow tie.

"Stop!" Amy yelled, putting her hands out.

Sheldon looked up, his blue eyes blazing, his long fingers still on the tie, his dark eyebrows raised. Hooooo.

"Don't take it off," Amy said, softer.

"But you said it was ridiculous. Don't worry, you've made it very clear that you don't want to carry my exceptional seed in your above-average womb."

"Not the -" she waved her hand "- outfit, it's not ridiculous. The dancing was."

"I assure you my moves were based on an actual Andalusian baile -"

"I'm not doubting the credibility of your source or your form. I meant it was the publicity that was embarrassing. What was I supposed to do, rip my skirt off right in front of Leonard and Penny so you could take me on the island?"

Lowering his hand, his eyebrows dipped down in the opposite direction of where they were. "I don't understand. I was publicly wooing you. You specifically asked for that."

"What? When?" Amy crossed her arms.

"Last week, when you said you wanted to nullify the Coitus Non-Disclosure Agreement. You said, and I quote, 'maybe one of us will want to publicly woo the other sometime.'"

"Oh." She had said that. "I guess I was thinking more along the lines of flowers and chocolates."

"Flowers! Your very path was strewn with rose petals!" Sheldon pointed to the hallway, his voice rising.

"I know. I know!"

"I thought you turned me down in the lab because it wasn't romantic enough, and now you tell me roses aren't flowers and flamenco isn't seductive. Next you'll be telling me gravity isn't a force of attraction, either." He sighed deeply, and Amy could feel his frustration.

"No." Amy walked closer to him, closing the distance between them. "I understand that you're frustrated -"

"Of course I'm frustrated. My girlfriend doesn't want my body or my child!"

"Listen!" Amy swallowed as he jumped, and then she spoke more gently. "I do want your child. Just not right now. You're not listening to me, you never once asked me my opinion. That's what I'm upset about. At first, I said no because we were at work and it would have been both unprofessional and unsanitary in my lab. Plus it was all too sudden and surprising. I was hoping we'd come home and talk about it. When we did, I would have told you that I don't want to have a child right now, Sheldon. But that doesn't mean I never want to."

"We're not getting any younger," he pointed out calmly.

"I know. Believe me, I am fully aware of the ravishes of time on my eggs. I'm just saying we should discuss the timing. We just moved in together, we haven't decided if we're staying here, we haven't even moved our stuff in yet." She swallowed. "I want to be married first." She lowered her eyes. Amy didn't want it to seem that she was always wanting more than she had. While she understood that was human nature, Sheldon had come so far recently that she didn't want him to think she was dissatisfied with the status quo. And, yet, she knew there was a ring and had been for months . . .

"Oh. Yes," was all he said.

"Also," Amy said timidly, worried about where this conversation was headed, not wanting to muddy the waters with other issues for other times, "when we decide to have a baby, I want it to be because we love each other, not as some sort of science experiment. There will come a time in our child's life when it will become aware of how it came to be created, and I want to say honestly that it was made by mutual consent, that it was wanted at that time, that it was planned with care, that we eagerly awaited its arrival, that we agreed to make it with love. I want -" she took a deep breath "- I want you to want to want me as the mother of your child, not just a human incubator for your next experiment."

This time it was Sheldon who took the step between them, reaching and running his index finger down the front of her orange cardigan, stopping just above her belly button. "I'd love to see you pregnant, knowing that you're growing our beautiful baby. Please don't think otherwise," he said softly, glancing back up at her. "I apologize for my behavior. I should have asked your thoughts." He pulled his hand away and reached up for his tie yet again, as though he couldn't wait to remove it.

"Wait," Amy said softly, reaching to still his hand. "I apologize that I didn't explain my actions fully to you. I can see now that my refusal to be intimate with you might have been confusing, that I should have stayed in the lab and explained myself instead of walking away, especially as I've rarely turned you down before."

Sheldon shrugged. "I don't do well with mixed messages. I thought you wanted seduction."

"I'm sorry." Amy smiled at him. He really was so handsome. Why had she complained so much to Leonard and Penny? Why had she insulted him by saying he looked like a Rat Pack Pee Wee Herman? While the resemblance couldn't be denied, once he had started his dance, she realized she had it all wrong. "Here's a decidedly unmixed message: I love this look. You look like a brainy Antonio Banderas."

"Antonio Banderas?"

"Yes." Amy reached up and fingered the pleats in his tuxedo shirt. "Remember that dance in Mask of Zorro? Like that, but with science instead of swords. I always like you better with science."

"The dance that ended like this?" Sheldon grabbed her and bent her backwards. The sensation of almost falling was arrested by his lips upon her, forceful and deep and passionate before he pulled away. "Your love whips through me like glutamatergic whipping through my synapses." He reached down and pulled her leg up as he buried his nose in the placket of her blouse.

"Dios mío," Amy hushed out.

"¿Sí? Sólo porque te amo*," Sheldon said, the deep voice he had used earlier having returned, as his nose trailed the side of her face up to her ear.

"Sí."

Gently, he helped her upright, but his aching voice continued in her ear. "¿Vamos al dormitorio*?"

"Let's stay here," Amy replied, all the blood rushing from her brain having taken her Spanish with it.

"Very well." He sat on the sofa, taking her hand and pulling her down to him. Then, once more, he reached up to his tie.

"Stop trying to take that off!" Amy gently smacked his hands, causing him to look up at her. "You're leaving it on. All of it. Especially those pants." What was it about those pants? Maybe the pheromones wafting off of them were more effective than she initially realized.

"I realize my mating dance has apparently succeeded, but surely even in your aroused state you remain aware that mating cannot take place while I am wearing pants."

"Who said anything about mating?"

Sheldon pulled his head back and furrowed his brows. "I'm confused again. You don't want to mate because you don't want a child right now, then you agreed to mate with me for love, but now you're telling me we're not mating again. I'm not sure what you have in mind."

She gave him a devilish grin. "There are all sorts of things we can do that don't involve actual mating." Amy reached over for his forgotten phone on the arm of the love seat and she started the flamenco music.

"You -" Amy stood -" are going to -" she pressed his shoulders back into the sofa "- leave all those sexy clothes on -" her fingertips walked down the front on his tuxedo shirt "- while I unzip your fly -" she knelt down between his legs "- and pet you . . . with my tongue."

"Amy, you can't!" he protested.

Now on her knees, Amy looked up at him. "Why not? You did it to me, and, take it from the voice of experience, it was quite enjoyable. My neurons were flooded with glutamatergic."

"Think of the mess! And the germs!"

"It won't be any more than usual."

"Well, I - oh!"

Amy had interrupted him by tugging on the zipper to his pants, but then she stopped and looked up. "Sheldon, in all seriousness, is this okay?"

A pause, a gulp, and then he nodded. Amy gave him a smile, one that she hoped conveyed her confidence in this task despite the fact, now that she was actually unzipping his pants, she wasn't really sure if she could carry it out properly. She thought she'd have to tease what she wanted out of his underpants, but she almost jumped back when there was no teasing whatsoever needed as he sprang free. The scientist in her studied it for a moment, having never actually been this close to it before.

Looking up again, she saw Sheldon watching her. He still looked sexy, but his face had softened in something similar to concern. He spoke softly, "Amy -"'

She put a hand on his stomach, and he covered it with his own palm, squeezing slightly. It was then she realized he was just as nervous as she was, that this was another unknown bridge from them to cross together.

Taking a deep breath, she brushed her free hand along his plaid trousers, grabbing a handful of them near his hip, licked her lips and leaned forward, slowly taking him in, tasting the salt of his skin. Sealing her lips tightly around him, she raised her eyes, meeting his before they rolled up into his eyelids and his head fell back against the sofa as she drew her mouth along his length, his hand squeezing hers.

"Ay Dios, esto es mejor que montar en una noria en la luna*!" he moaned.


*English translations:

Yes? Only because I love you?

Should we go to the bedroom?

Dear Lord, this is better than riding a Ferris wheel while on the moon!


Muchas gracias to the ever helpful Rgbcn for her assistance with the Spanish phrases! Any errors that remain are mine alone.

As always, thank you in advance for your reviews!