11.
~ Ariadne tried to stay calm as Yuseff examined her at his little office that was also the clinic for the Demeter.
"Second pregnancy test has come back positive." he concluded as he concluded the exam. "It's still early, but there is no reason to think you won't give birth to a healthy child in November."
"It's still early." she breathed. "So, I mean... there's still time to terminate?"
Yuseff looked at her in alarm.
"Why would you want to do that?" he asked and scribbled in her chart.
"I've changed my mind, I don't want to have a baby." she pleaded as she sat up on the exam table.
"You've signed a contact." he told her.
"No, I can't... please. I can't have it, and then abandon it."
"A lot of mothers feel this way. You will hardly be abandoning it." Yuseff said soothingly. "There is a wonderful couple, already selected. Also, Arthur will be highly involved in the child's upbringing."
"But if I stay, I'll be able to be it's mother?" she asked hopefully.
"They have offered you a place here already?" Yuseff asked.
"I think so, I mean, not really." she said meekly. "But, but I'm not sure I'm ready to be a mom." she cried.
"It's going to be alright." Yuseff told her soothingly.
~ Arthur got a text message from Yuseff just as the doctor was about to start Ariadne's exam. One word flashed on his phone.
Positive.
He almost ran to the elevators that would take him to the little hide away clinic. By the time he arrived, Yuseff was finishing the exam.
"How is she?" he breathed as the doctor came out alone, with Ariadne's chart.
"Uneasy." Yuseff said. "She doesn't want to have it, but doesn't want to give it up. It's understandable, I've seen it before."
"But she's alright? The baby's alright?" Arthur asked.
"Of course. I recommend you stay with her, or hire a nurse for the next few months."
"Why?" Arthur asked.
"She made a comment about terminating the pregnancy. I'll send one of my staff to her apartment to remove anything she could use to do it herself with. Coat hangers, bike spokes, that sort of thing." he said.
Arthur cringed at the idea of such barbarism.
"She said she wanted to terminate?" he asked Yuseff weakly.
"Mentioned it as an option." the doctor confessed.
"It's not. It's not an option." Arthur told him coldly.
"I know. The group would never stand for it." Yuseff told him.
The doctor nodded to the door.
"I'm sure she wants to see you." he said. "Try to be comforting. She's very scared."
~ Arthur watched Ariadne for several seconds before she noticed he was there.
"Arthur?" she said as tears rimmed her eyes and started to fall. "Arthur, I was packing. I was getting ready to leave, because we agreed not to do this after all." she sobbed as he went to her. His arms wrapped around her as she buried her face in his chest.
"Then he made me take a test and..." she let out a sob. "And it came back positive."
"Ariadne." he said soothingly. "This is what we wanted. What we agreed to." he told her.
"I know, but we changed our minds." she argued.
"Ariadne, it's done. You're pregnant now and we have to deal with it." he told her as she pulled away from him.
"No, I can't." she said. "I was only thinking of the money. I... I can't have a baby and leave it to be raise by strangers. I'm not ready to be a mom either. My own parents were a disaster, I don't know how."
"Let's talk about it at my place." he told her.
~ Ariadne allowed Arthur to take her back to his apartment and put her to bed.
Yuseff gave him a strong herbal tea to prepare for her. It would calm her down without harming the baby she now carried.
"You need to try and rest." Arthur whispered after she drank the tea he had made for her.
She nodded numbly as she slipped off her shoes and pants, crawling into his bed the way a child would.
She liked the feel of his sheets. They smelled of nice, clean things. Of masculine soaps and expensive Egyptian cotton.
"I'm not sleepy." she said petulantly as Arthur covered her up.
"Try and rest than." he whispered.
"I just can't..." she manged to get out before drifting off to sleep.
~ Arthur must have checked on her a dozen times as she slept. Her sleep was so deep, he was worried the herbal tea might have been too strong. But she slept deeply and her breathing was low and steady.
It was strange for him to have a woman tucked away in his bed, and he wasn't sure what to do with her. Her apartment was where they would go when they wanted to be together. His apartment was his space.
He thought he had prepared himself for this news. The idea of a baby with Ariadne was so lovely, so desirable, but now that it was becoming real, he was afraid.
It was such a shock to him, he wasn't sure his mind had absorbed the fact. He wasn't sure how to feel or what to think. Before, everything had been contracts, and a future child that was yet to be. Now, the future was rapidly approaching.
Something else troubled him. Was it right to force Ariadne to have this child? Abortion was out of the question. She wouldn't even be allowed to leave the Demeter until the birth. After the child was born, Ariadne would only see the baby enough to nurse it; that would be it. The group would insist she not bond with her baby. They might even demand she wear the blindfold as well.
Arthur went to his piano. His mind suddenly tormented by the thoughts of how difficult all of this now was. It would have been easier if he had made her wear the blindfold. If he hadn't spent time with her, gotten to know her. He liked Ariadne. He wasn't sure if it could be called love yet, but he genuinely cared about her and didn't want her hurt.
It would have been easier if he had mated with one of his own kind. Or with a woman he wasn't attracted to. Ariadne had bewitched him from the moment he saw her and he felt a strange kind of protectiveness for her.
"That's pretty." a groggy voice reached him.
Arthur rested his hands on the piano, the music he was playing stoped.
He stood to see a bedraggled and sleepy Ariadne standing in the doorway.
"I didn't wake you up, did I?" he asked.
"Yes, but I've been asleep long enough." she said and came to sit beside him on the piano bench.
He felt himself grow tense with her so near. He wasn't used to people being in his apartment and news of her condition made him nervous.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
"No." she said. "Will you teach me to play something?" she asked instead.
"Like what?" he asked trying to laugh, but only sounding like he was mocking her.
"I don't know." she said as she sat beside him.
His hands found the familiar keys. A song he always played as a warm up. Greensleeves was the first song he had ever learned and he had always liked it. It centered him on the keys and after he played it, was able to play anything. He despised the fact it was usurped for a Christmas carol and preferred the Elizabethan version.
"You'll play with the right hand, key of G." he instructed as he lead her through the first twenty notes.
He watched as she fumbled over the keys and had to be corrected. It took the better part of an hour to have her play the first part of the song. She kept insisting on hitting one key when it didn't call for it, her lovely fave grimacing each time she did it, but she couldn't seem to help it.
Arthur seemed to summon patience he didn't know he had when teaching her. His old music teacher would sigh and berate him, thus sucking all the joy out of music when he got a key wrong. Arthur just silently corrected Ariadne and said nothing.
Their fingers touching each others as she tried again to play.
"Very good." he said after she got the chorus right three times in a row. "Now, you'll play your part, and I'll play mine."
She nodded and concentrated on her keys as he played left hand. The old world harmony coming together beautifully as her face lit up.
Over and over, they played the simple yet enchanting melody as if on a loop. Ariadne fumbling a few times to keep the rhythm with him, often losing her place and having to jump in with him again. Finally, they blended the music together well enough to sound like a real song.
Arthur stilled the keys and let the sound fade.
Ariadne looked at him happily.
He was surprised to find himself calmer. Surprised he was no longer worried or scared. This moment was perfect and peaceful and it soothed him.
"Look what we did together." he whispered.
