"Well, Cha-" Nicky started as she stood in the doorway of Alex's office breathing heavily, as if she had just searched the whole building for me, before I flashed her my best Vause glare, "Doc is right, you do that too good."
"Sometimes I fear for your patients. It's well. I do that too well," I fired back as I stood by the couch in Alex's office.
"Sorry, College. My patients like my junkie philosopher aesthetic. And it's working which means I'm bringing money into the practice, so I don't know why you are complaining. I'm the head sheriff around these parts," Nicky declared with her fingers looped in her slacks.
"Oh, I dare you to say that in front of my wife," I fired back with a mix of true anger and sarcasm.
"Barf. I never thought I'd miss the days of coming into work to hear about Vause's latest exploits. Now I'm starting to wonder if she's running a therapy center or a Gymboree," Nicky said as her eyes fell on a pile of toys in the corner and the area she had recently cleared to start putting together a mini-nursery for our daughters in her office.
"She's running neither."
"Yes, since you came around Doc has all these expansive ideas about saving the world and is full of big dreams that sound nothing like her. She wants to save the world and thinks she can. I was happy providing therapy to lesbian women and helping them cope with childhood trauma and abuse. And the little thing we built used to be enough."
"Why shouldn't she use her platform for something?"
"That word didn't use to be in her vocabulary. Now she's this lesbian health care activist taking meetings with lawmakers and powerful people in health care. She's on the board of NYU Med Center. That was never something she wanted. She was never political. She was driven by sex, now she's driven by advocacy. She's got all these big dreams. She used to believe dreaming was a useless activity, a mental flight of fancy. If she couldn't touch it or taste it then it didn't exist. Now she's doing press on conversion therapy bans and talking about how to create queer and trans inclusive spaces in healthcare."
"Is your problem the queer or the trans part," I asked, knowing the answer.
"I don't get it. It's a sickness."
"And fifty years ago, so was lesbianism. It was used to take children from their mothers. To force their mothers to stay with men they didn't love out of fear that they would lose their children. That they would have to choose between the child they created and their true selves, the woman they loved."
"Less than that," I husky voice declared behind Nicky.
"Where did you come from," I asked as I finally realized Alex was standing just behind the doorway of her office.
"How, how long have you been there," Nicky asked as Alex brushed past her, the brunette passively fuming as the crazy-haired younger woman, making sure to bump shoulders with her as she walked over to me.
"What, I can't be a good wife and surprise my beautiful new bride on her first day back to work after our honeymoon?"
"Of course, you can," I told her with a kiss as I felt the stirring in my belly, Baby B had woken up from her nap but her sister was still resting, for the moment anyway. Earlier that morning I had been rubbing my belly and felt a sensation against my hand that I barely remembered. As her kicks became stronger, I decided not to quiet my wild child so that she wouldn't awaken her favorite sparring partner. I knew Alex had been so busy between the practice, the hospital and preparing for this year's conferences and seminars since we came back from Hawaii and had also been struggling now that I could finally show off my growing belly. My pregnancy was real to me and to anyone who saw me but not to her. Since we returned from Hawaii nearly a week ago, she had started wanting to touch my bump less and less because it had started making her feel crushing sorrow instead of happiness as each day passed that I could feel her babies but she couldn't. I knew she felt she couldn't have the feelings she was having for a million reasons and that she needed to go off to the place I hoped she would make it back from.
A part of her still held onto a dream only I knew she had ever had. The true plan A. She had started the process of freezing her eggs intending to bring her daughter into the world on her own from start to finish. She wanted to be feeling what I was feeling and I wanted her to. As amazing as growing our daughters felt, I already knew that feeling and wished she could know the most amazing feeling a woman can, the moment when life stirs deep within her and makes it's presence known. The moment she realizes she is now two. I already knew what it felt like and how amazing it was.
How it reminded me that women were powerful, blessed creatures because our bodies held the secret to life itself. We alone could sustain life. Plan C was at least better than Plan B but nothing could ever be Plan A. I felt guilty and she felt guilty, so we retreated into work and our son. We passed in the hall, doing what we had to do for the things we were creating in the world. We talked to him but not each other. I relaxed in front of the TV in our room and she sat in her office drowning her feelings in a bottle and doing things I had no desire to know about after our son was in bed. Sure, we could have and probably should have talked but neither of us quite knew how to put the loss we felt into words.
To put it out into the world that the time during which we should be at our happiest, newly married and preparing to welcome twin girls, we were at our most disconnected and sorrowful. Every kick I felt just made me feel worse. Every kick I was certain was their way of saying: It should be her. You aren't my real mother. I should be in her belly. I was sure they were angry that they were in the wrong womb. I wondered if this was how she felt sometimes when she looked at Geo. That biology would always ultimately win out over love. That loving a child like a mother and genetically being that same child's mother were two different things. Could it truly be possible for a child to have two mothers? Two real mothers? What would come of this sociological and biological experiment? Was it even a good idea? Was if fair to our kids for them to have a genetic mother and a birth mother, essentially two biological mothers? When it was just us it sounded like this amazing way to both shoulder the load of babymaking and a way to connect us at the deepest level possible for two women. But it wasn't just the two of us anymore. Lately, all I could see was the day our daughters came home crying because some kid told them they couldn't have two mothers or worse. I still remembered coming home from school and flinging myself into my pillow because I got called a dyke in front of the boy I had a crush on and had heard liked me too. My parents saw me crying but I let them think I was just heartbroken over being rejected by a boy I liked. Which wasn't totally untrue because after that he did reject me. Eventually, I put on my running shoes and went for a long run and when I still wasn't feeling better the next day, I cut study hall and went to the spot where the queer kids went to make out near school with a girl I knew liked me. Even then, I wasn't willing to deny it or act like it was a bad thing to be. It's just not who I am. Thinking of that memory again, I realized with their mommies and aunties around to teach them how to handle adversity they'd be fine. And so would I.
As her kicks grew stronger, I felt her telling me, Mommy, you are a ridiculous human…you aren't the first. This is all society and science's greatest modern advancements rolled up in one.
"Still here," Nicky hollered as Alex moved closer and checked out my tits that were barely contained by my tight pink v-neck sweater, "Should I remind you why College's tits are poppin' lately, boss?"
"I know why they are. I put a baby in that hot, young runner's body and it decided to do a human cloning experiment of its own. Cause her core is just that strong I guess."
"Gross. Those are for uhm, well you know. And just talking about it makes me throw up in my mouth."
"It's not gross, it's amazing and you aren't supposed to be up here," Alex challenged as she ran her fingers through my hair and looked into my eyes for the first time in days.
"Whatever, Boss. I miss you. I miss the old you," she responded with a chuckle and I could tell she was crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame just by her tone.
"I don't. I stand for something and I'm helping create a better world for my children, for the young girls realizing their sexuality and fearing it will prevent them from reaching their dreams or that they will be subjected to horrific abuse at the hands of adults they once thought they could confide anything in. Kids who think something is wrong with them. That they can't be who they want to be because of a piece of who they are. There are more important things in this world than sexual fulfillment. I have a bigger purpose than that. This is me, Nicks. I like this Alex. No, I love her. I never loved myself or felt good in my skin but now I do. This is who I am, who I've always meant to be. The party was fun but it's over for me. I just want to be a good wife and mother. I have the smarts, money and power necessary to change things and you better bet I will. I want to use all the things I built in my last life to leave this world a better place than I found it. I don't see how that's a bad thing. People take my calls and listen to my ideas. I have respect. I'm somebody important. I've done what I've set out to do but I've got a few years in me yet. So I'm making the best out of them."
"How can you not miss it? Remember when we used to run the bars and swear that we'd never be monogamous. I meant it and I thought you did too. And you know how I feel about your new protégé. She's not one of us. She never will be. She's a dyke with a dick," Alex glared at her with a look that could wake the dead, so Nicky corrected herself, "a dyke with a surgically created pussy or whatever. It's weird."
"You can go," Alex commanded and I knew what she meant but wasn't sure Nicky did. Although, I didn't know how she couldn't. She could get on board and accept Alex unconditionally and her vision or she could leave. Leave Artemis. Diane. Her life.
"I'll shut the door, boss. Should I put a sock on it?"
"Yeah and while you're at it why don't you get a shovel and dig your grave?"
I listened to Nicky's footsteps drifting down the hallway before turning to face the wreckage as our wild child reminded me of a foolproof way to cheer Alex up. After the past few days and the fight I had with Nicky then the energy it left behind that made the tension that had been steadily building between the two once lovers who managed to become more than friends, to become sisters. Maybe it was true, I couldn't do anything to cheer her up in this moment. But I couldn't say that nobody could. Our daughter who had inherited her mother's spirit and maybe even her very soul was the only thing that could make her mother feel better. Could make her stop drowning her feelings and fears in a bottle alone and bring back the closeness we had before our relationship peaked. Or at least seemed to have peaked. I rubbed my belly where I could feel our daughter kicking, as if she had a bigger purpose than waking her sister so they could play. For the first time, she seemed to have no desire to wake her sister. 'Don't fail me now baby girl,' I whispered as if I had felt her kick against my hand more than once, well now two times. I took a deep breath and acted like I always did when they were kicking wildly and it was causing me pain and breathlessness.
"Are you okay, Babe? Is something wrong with the girls," Alex asked in a worried tone.
"It's our wild girl. She's really kicking my side."
"Can I get you anything? Do you need to lay down?"
"Can you get me something carbonated? Maybe a Coke? And help me down on the couch."
"How much coffee have you had today?"
"Well, that ended fast, Dr. Vause."
"Okay, okay. I'll go back to being the woman who enjoys spoiling the shit out of her wife."
"Could you do that literally?"
"Still…wait I'm feeling like I'm walking into a trap? Why do I feel like I'm walking into a trap?"
"I didn't mean it as one but I can't expect you to leave Dr. Vause begins when you're not only in a doctor's office but your personal office. The one that says Dr. Vause MD/PhD Medical Director. And you can still worry about me being backed up and just be a loving wife since your egg is the reason I'm constipated and a human being is angry at my lungs for existing."
"Yes, and that's why I'm not going to give you an enema even though I safely could."
"And I wouldn't let you. There's only one reason I want you that close to my asshole. Besides, I'd hate for my ass to become unappetizing, you do not need to see that. But I know you are good at it."
"And there's only one reason I want to be that close," she teased and I was certain our wild girl was saying ew, gross at her moms talking about eating ass as she kicked my ribs so hard it knocked the wind out of me.
"I think someone thinks we need to change the topic."
"It's still a little too early for her to know and even if she could hear us how would she know what we're talking about?"
"Well, she is your daughter."
"So, should I be preparing my shocked face for when she tells us she likes girls? Or maybe she'll be like her Mommy and like people. With a strong preference for those people having vaginas."
"I don't care who they love as long as they know that nobody will ever love them as much as the women who endured so much to create them," I told her as I sat down and she handed me a glass bottle of Cola from the mini-fridge.
"You know, I felt her finally. I was rubbing my belly and felt a little kick."
"Can you feel her now?"
I just smiled the toothy grin that I knew made Alex melt and shook my head as she gasped and embraced the widest part of my bump. I felt her push up my sweater, undershirt and then fold down the panel of my jeans as I felt her flip as if her foot was searching for the perfect spot to make contact with her mother. I somehow missed the moment they connected but maybe that was on purpose on some level beyond my comprehension. I didn't know it happened until I saw her eyes get wider and brighter than I'd ever seen them as she laughed and her red lips turned from a twisted look of concern to blissful happiness, "was that? Did I just feel?"
"If you really don't know what you are feeling right now then I'm calling the ACOG and telling them I know about an incompetent licensed obstetrician."
"Yeah, I've felt it a thousand times just not when it mattered. Not when it was my wife's belly. The baby in my wife's belly."
"Don't you mean your baby, not the baby?"
"Shit. That's my baby. That's my flesh and blood daughter who I've dreamed about for so long. She's alive. I'm finally going to have my baby. That's our little girl," she pressed her hands firmly on my bump and kissed her little foot then kissed and tickled along my bump until she got to her head. I felt her tears hitting my skin. I thought they were happy. I never expected what came next. I heard a weak voice whisper, "I'm sorry." I'd never heard that tone and rarely heard those words unless she was worried that I was about to walk out the door. But she couldn't stop crying and saying it as her face pressed against my belly and I reached out to rub her back because that's what you did when someone you loved broke down emotionally. If they were a normal person but Alex never cried like this. I didn't know if I should ask why or try to get her to talk. I knew what I would do if it were anybody else but with the one person I should know best how to deal with their emotions, I didn't. I figured she was sorry for being so distant since we got home from Hawaii and back to our normal, boring lives. I wasn't mad. I was struggling with the reality of Alex's babies growing in my belly, being pregnant again and actually wanting people to notice my unmistakable baby bump and inability to figure out where and how I fit into this new modern American family. What did I do when people congratulated me now that I was finally able to show off my belly. Now that I had a ring on my finger. What does your husband do? Is this your first? Is it twins, it looks like twins? Is it boys? Or one of each, one of each is so perfect. Or obviously straight pregnant women wanted to bond or ask what traits I hoped my babies would get from me. How did I say I didn't expect them to get anything but life from me? And that I was fine with that.
The one time I did tell a seemingly nice woman the truth she told me about her sister who was a mother thanks to a surrogate as if it were the same thing. Or the woman who told me when she was in college, she donated eggs to a gay couple. These babies were mine to keep but they also weren't. I hadn't yet met anyone who knew exactly how I felt as my wife's babies grew inside me. We didn't plan them together. I wasn't there when my wife stuck a syringe full of hormones and fertility meds in her abdomen for the first time. When she experienced the heartbreak of two failed donors after putting her body through hell to make eggs for IVF. When she nearly died because she wanted to make sure she had enough eggs. Because that was more important than her own life at that moment. But my spirit was there as much as hers was there during those moments I was scared and alone when I was pregnant with Geo.
"It's okay, Al. I'm not mad. We've both had some shit to sort out lately. This is not a normal situation. The things we feel are going to be hard to talk about sometimes. I forgive you."
"I know. I'm not worried. I know no matter what you'll love me. I'm just sorry for the way I used to be. For being this womanizing asshole of a whore that I spent nearly thirty years being. I'm sorry for the negative things about this world I've contributed to. For forgetting that I did those things to somebody's daughter. For not being the sort of woman my daughters needed me to be. If I had maybe things would be different."
"Or maybe this is meant to be. Maybe even if your wanton ways hadn't ruined your uterus we would still be here in this exact position. Not that I would mind if it were reversed. As much as I miss taking a nice long shit, I still wouldn't pass this up for anything. And they will see who you are. And when they do find out about your past and the things you used to do we will work together to help them see why you did the things you did, that you had to do things to survive, to fit in. That you were scared of rejection so you never let people get close. You hurt them before they could hurt you. You torpedoed everything good in your life. You were desperate to prove you weren't your father but you became the worst parts of him. You got lost. But then you got found. You deserve these girls. You are the person I want to have as their main female role model. And I know you wish it were happening to you and while I wouldn't wish pregnancy-related nausea and constipation and all the other forms of torture a fetus imposes on one's body on my worst enemy, I wish you could know what it feels like to be pregnant. I would go to the ends of the earth to figure out a way, just say the word. Cause we're smart and rich, nothing is impossible. I've been thinking, I want to tell people the truth about who the genetic mother of our future children is. I don't want to hide any part of me and these girls are as much a part of me as they are of you. Even the embryos, the maybe babies, we have in an LA freezer are a part of me. I don't care what people say or that it's not easy and I don't think our girls are unaware of who either of us are to them. Actually, I think they know better than we do."
"I thought that's where you were going with that. But I'm scared."
"You'd rather let everyone think you were in the same room as me and live sperm? Cause that's less improbable than you putting your fertilized egg in me?"
"Yeah. I am kinda tired of people thinking I'm kidding when I say that I knocked you up or that you are having my babies. I'm being dead serious."
"So you're okay with it?"
"Yes. I'm done with secrets and hiding parts of myself. It only causes me pain. That I then anesthetize by way of a bottle."
"Same, baby."
"So have you felt big sister too or just little miss wild child?"
"Just her so far, from the outside anyway. I feel her sister kick pretty often but she's always been our quieter baby."
"Let me see if I can wake her up. I used to be the pro at that," Alex felt along my belly until she found our other daughter and soon had her awake as well. We both kept cheering her on as she swam around until finally, I felt the thump, thump of her kicks connecting with Alex's hand pressing against me. The moment I realized Alex was the first to feel her from the outside, even before me, I pulled her up into a kiss that quickly became steamy and if anyone had chosen to break rule number one at Artemis and come up to the attic unless they were named Piper Vause, I was the only one in the world, believe me I checked, they would get an eyeful they could never unsee as we celebrated the moment the only way we knew how. My pants down by my ankles and Alex on her knees in front of the couch with her head between my legs as I moaned her name and told her how amazing her tongue was, how perfect she was until I didn't have a drop left in me to give her and she pulled her head up and kissed me until I could no longer taste myself on her mouth. She pushed me against the back of the couch, unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor while I freed her from her thong. Then she went back to kissing me and using my body for her pleasure, eventually taking my hand and placing it on her wet pussy when rubbing against my skin wasn't doing it for her anymore.
"I love when you make yourself all wet for me, Al."
"Nobody makes me wetter than you do."
"Nobody fills you like I do either," I teased as I stealthily stuck two fingers inside her and started pumping hard as her walls tightened around the unexpected intrusion, "You like to get fucked. You like it when I give you a sneak attack you dirty woman. Some big dyke top you are."
"Never said I was made of stone. Leather maybe. Steel once upon a time. Sure."
"Now you are just full of soft mush," I teased as I pushed past her walls tensing and found the spongy spot inside her as her tits brushed against mine perfectly. When did my three levels of tops come off? When did hers? How? But I had to admit I was glad they had as I felt the buzzing surge from my nipples to my clit as I felt her orgasm rumbling like a Midwestern thunderstorm after the rain. I felt her clit against my skin as I slipped in a third finger just before her orgasm peaked, which made her cum uncontrollably and her orgasms became uncontrollable until I felt her break out in a cold sweat and her skin prickle.
"I needed that," Alex said as she tried to regain her normally cocky, controlled demeanor, "Thanks, Babe."
"You are so cute when you try to be an asshole when you have that just fucked glow on your skin. And it's real cute when you walk crooked for so long that you start to worry about your period being so much as a second late."
"I never do that."
"Sure, right, baby. You know I fuck you good. Not quite that good but damn if I could," I ran my hand down her tighter than normal abdominal muscles until I was right at the point her slit began as she sighed and moaned, "Does the little wife want some more of her woman's nice strong hand?"
"Not here. Raincheck?"
"The kid?"
"Can't we drop him off at the pound?"
"Yes, reason for surrender owners got new baby. You are an asshole but we both know you aren't that much of one."
"No, I'm not. I'm sorry about the way I've been and how we haven't been communicating. I don't want that kind of a marriage."
"Me neither. Talk to me. Even if you stumble or it hurts and I promise to do the same."
"Deal, Pipes. We should get dressed and light the candle before anybody figures out what we were doing."
"As if anybody doesn't know what we do up here or somebody didn't get uncharacteristically noisy."
"You know what you fucking me without warning does to me everytime."
"Nope."
"What you just did."
"I've already forgotten."
"Keep it up, Piper Elizabeth. You know what happens to misbehaving pets and I want to cuddle you tonight."
"Dom handler fail."
"You just wait until we get home."
"What are you going to do? Give me a bone to chew on? Cause you know how much I hate having a bone in my dirty, disobedient bisexual mouth."
"You would like that wouldn't you? Can you still get on your knees with that litter in your belly weighing you down?"
"Try me, Vause. Go ahead."
"I could say the same about you, Vause," she taunted before grabbing my puffy bottom lip in her teeth and pulling until my body tensed up and she pressed her tits into mine while I squirmed underneath her from the pain and pleasure radiating through me, "You are lucky I'm in no mood to find a dick right now," she hissed against my ear as she pushed three fingers as deep inside me as she could with one forceful thrust just as my body was nearly fully recovered from the last orgasm she gave me then pulled out just as quickly as she thrust herself inside me and I forced a whimper.
"Good, puppy. Let's get you a treat. You want to go to the French bakery? Or we could get cupcakes."
"You don't have more work?"
"I always do but right now, I want to take my freshly fucked wife on a day date. Not that she deserves it but she's making people and knows when I'm being a bitch because I need to cum so I guess she does."
"I could never say no to a date with the hottest goddess on earth wife of mine who fills my pussy and my womb with her love."
"That's my girl, Mrs. Vause," I teased as she lifted herself off me and quickly got dressed before helping me get mine on and then we walked out of the clinic and into the air that already held the promise of an early spring.
