"What are we going to do about Nicky," I asked Alex as I watched her take a series of Pyrex containers out of the fridge and bags of vegetables to throw together a quick weeknight dinner after we got home from taking Geo to martial arts class the next night after our fight and spending a day with an obviously discontented Nicky Nichols. She could be a bigger asshole than the one I married at times but she was the friend you wanted in your corner on your worst day. She was the one you could rely on to tell you as it is without caring whether it's what you want to hear all while holding you in her arms. Nicky was a never-ending foundation of wisdom and wise-ass commentary and I found her refreshing. She was the one who made me believe I could be more than the proper wealthy lady I was raised to be. That I could be the intelligent, passionate queer woman I wanted to be and embrace every part of me and my desires. She was the one I went to when I discovered I enjoyed being Alex's play partner and didn't know how it fit into the narrative I had created as a Smith grad, full of feminism and girl power. I loved women. But really, I loved powerful women and longed to be cherished by my lover. Nicky told me pretty much to let my freak flag fly. Leather was never her thing and she was pretty simple when it came to sex. She just liked a lot of it with as many women as possible. She considered herself a collector, a connoisseur of female orgasms.
"I don't know. I can't lose her. We've been through too much. I'm not asking her to change her ways. If it works for her than it does. She enjoys being Peter Pan and staying on Neverland. And I can accept that."
"I don't want that to happen either. I like her a lot. I get that sometimes she can get resentful at me for existing and blame me for things that in truth were set into motion long before I was involved in your life."
"Nicky loves you. She would do anything for you. She knows we weren't right for each other romantically. She only thinks she's jealous. I mean, every time she sees your belly or I start talking about kids and home remolding she tells me she's glad she dodged that bullet. We weren't right for each other as lovers. We couldn't fulfill each other's deepest desires."
"Al, her feelings are real. Just because she doesn't want my life or the things you want from yours doesn't mean she isn't jealous. When is the last time you two spent some time just the two of you?"
"I don't even know. Once we made the decision to start the business that became the center of everything. It's our baby."
"Yes, and now your baby is a toddler and it's mommies need to take a vacation so they don't end up getting a divorce. Go up to the cabin. Fly to Vegas for all I care but you two need to remember why you love each other, that just because you chose to live a suburban soccer mom life with a quiet twist doesn't mean you aren't still the same person."
"So remind her I can still drink her under the table and beat her smart ass at poker?"
"Yeah, just without seeing who can bag the most bitches."
"Because I got the kill of a lifetime already. I'm all about quality rather than quantity these days."
"Don't you dare forget it. I'm not saying I won't remind you if necessary, just that you won't like my methodology, Dr. Alex Pearl Chapman Vause. It'll probably be a while before you guys can spend time alone together for a while with the girls coming in a few months."
"Yes, birth giver of my children. So, what are you going to do while I'm off spending time alone with Nicky?"
"I was thinking about spending some time with Cal. Taking Geo up to see his new tiny house upstate."
"Don't you have friends? Of the female variety?"
"I used to but I can't go back to those straight Brooklynites and their trendy new haunts that they claim to have rescued from the horrible fate of obscurity."
"Oh, I'm not suggesting you go back to girls you have nothing in common with except for coming from the same boring suburbs where you didn't even have the same experiences. Cause growing up a queer kid in the suburbs will never be the same, I came of age in one because it was supposed to be better suited to my needs. You need some queer friends who aren't over thirty-five."
"Technically, I have Nicky, she's thirty-four," I responded with child-like indignation.
"Yes and she doesn't count. She's our mutual friend and our unofficial middle sister," Alex replied teasingly as she wrapped her arm around my hips and kissed my cheek then turned back to chopping vegetables like nothing sweet and romantic had just happened. Like I wasn't blushing like a schoolgirl with a crush.
"Well, Jess did invite me to come up to her house near Northampton and spend the weekend with her and her wife. I want to rebuild that friendship and so does she. We had a lot of anger but now I know it came from love and pain," I replied as the soft moment passed and I got more turned on than any woman should watching my wife run her fingers along the grooves of a bell pepper. A year ago she would have looked and smiled that cocky, seductive smile that made my panties drop every time but we were past the point of her needing to see my body language to know what her seduction was doing to me.
"And you know what I say about that," Alex responded as she put the vegetables in a hot frying pan and I listened to the oil sizzle loudly and pop.
"Yeah love is pain. But is it always? Can't it be beautiful and amazing and freeing," I asked assertively.
"Once in a while, maybe. I think that would be good for you. And you were no more right for each other than Nicky and I were. You both found your perfect person. You have a love and there's a reason she's in your life. And she seems really nice. I think she was nervous meeting me," Alex added as she kept her eyes on the vegetables sautéing but I knew she just didn't want to acknowledge that she was feeling vulnerable and was still the little girl who just wanted to be liked, to know why her daddy didn't love her mother if not her enough to stay or even give them a dime.
"Is that really all that unusual," I asked as I sized up her perfect curves and ageless skin.
"No. Why do chicks find me so intimidating," Alex asked as if she truly had no clue but her laugh melding with mine suggested she knew why better than anybody as did I.
"Have you looked at yourself lately? You are lesbian catnip," I taunted as I came up behind her and ran my hand just under the waistband of her sweats as her mouth began to tremble as it did when she was being dominated and didn't want to admit she liked it. Then came the head shake as I rubbed higher instead of lower, running my hand along her soft skin that hid just how toned she was from her love of MMA and UFC.
"I don't think it was that. Well, not just that. I don't think she expected me to not hate her. And why would I? Give her a call and I'll give Nicky a call and we'll see if we can't spend a weekend reconnecting with our closest friends now that life is quiet and settled for the moment," Alex added as she tried to get our conversation back on track but never doing the one thing that would have actually stopped it. She didn't say the word. She didn't grab my hand and dig her nails into my wrist until I drew blood and felt the rush of that moment. But I wanted to have an actual conversation with her, I could have her cock for dessert later. After we successfully fed our son an edible dinner and put him to bed clean and with a full belly. So I stopped and longed for the days I could hop up on her counter. Alex watched me trying and rolled her eyes while she grabbed a stool from the bar and snapped her fingers and made her best attempt at spurting fire from her eyes into my soul. It wasn't really effective but my need to keep her happy enough to put her cock on later was. So I sat because I was a pro at beating Alex Vause at her own game.
"Jess was talking about having a team reunion the first week of August, before schools start up, since most of the girls work in collegiate athletics now. It would just be the core group of the five of us and our wives. Now that everybody is out and married. I may have lost my college friends but did I really?"
"No, you didn't you lost years with your true friends but you gained the cutest boy in the whole world and they all congratulated you when you announced you had a wife and were having twin girls so it all worked out."
"I was expecting at least one of them to say it's about time but nobody did."
"Expect more from the people you surround yourself with, babe. It's about time you have nothing but the best, cause, well, you are, my love," Alex told me as she paused her cooking and pulled me to her lips, "my princess and my little princesses," Alex cooed as I looked at her with a combination of sweetness and shock. She didn't respond but instead rubbed my bump before returning to her cooking like she never deviated from her typical script for so much as a second. I had to admit she had a point.
After dinner, while Alex was giving Geo a bath because he always chose her for that task, as he said with rapidly increasing clarity, "Momma lets me play," I called Jess and she quickly picked up.
"Hi, uh Piper, how's married life," she asked when the phone stopped ringing. She, like Nicky, was still getting used to calling me Vause and it made me realize I had been a little harsh with her earlier but we were sisters and friends so I knew all would be forgiven without saying sorry.
"It's an adjustment all around but I love it. I'm still getting used to saying my wife. I was thinking about coming up there this weekend if your offer still stands. Alex is having a much needed weekend with her best friend who is struggling with the whole marriage thing and how different Alex is so I thought it might be the perfect time to spend some time together."
"Of course, Piper! I meant it when I said come over anytime, I'd love to see you soon! Would you need to bring your son? I mean if you did need to that would be okay. We can figure out a toddler safe sleeping arrangement and put up anything he might choke on. Or whatever you two need. It'll be good practice for when we have a couple of our own.
"I would probably drop him off with his grandma."
"I forget that Chapman married a Townie. Oh sorry, it's Vause now."
"Very funny. She hasn't lived there in over twenty years. No, it's fine, You have known me as Chapman way longer than you have as Vause and our other friends all kept or hyphenated their names."
"She's still a Townie and you're still a Smithie, Vause. Oh well, that mythical occurrence couldn't happen to a better person. When do you want to come up?"
"Friday afternoon work?"
"Yeah."
That Friday morning, Alex and Nicky loaded up a rented four-wheel drive SUV while Geo and I set off in the Range Rover. Now he knew that the iPad meant a trip to Nana's house and so he gleefully took the tablet and put on his headphones while he scrolled through the few apps and games that we allowed on it. Three hours later, we got to Diane's house.
"Well if it isn't my two favorite people," she hollered from her front porch as we approached the house. She folded Geo into her arms and drowned him with kisses while he squealed and squirmed in her arms. Eventually, she let us into the house with him still attached to her hip.
"What are you going to do when there's three?"
"I never imagined one. I mean sure I did when Alex was a cute little pink thing in a white blanket who was only interested in my tits," she deadpanned as she locked eyes with me and ran her gaze down to the only tits Alex was truly interested in now.
"Mom, not in front of the kid," I hollered at her as if I thought the woman who taught my wife how to survive as a woman in the world would ever do anything I told her to.
"I've been around the botha yous long enough to know he already knows that vocabulary word better than he should. Do I need to remind you about the time he asked about the p-word and then why his mommies use it if they don't have a cat," she asserted before bouncing Geo in her arms and kissing his nose, "But I think it's time somebody goes and explores the treasure chest."
"You get new things, Nana," he screeched.
"Maybe. You won't know if you don't go see," Diane responded playfully.
"Okay, Nana. Mommy, say bye before go, right," he asked me while pulling at my black leggings after Diane set him down on the floor.
"Always, sweet boy," I answered as we gave each other a quick kiss and then he ran down the hall to Diane's closet where she kept a stash of toys and books she found on sale or at dollar stores, garage sales and flea markets.
"You want a drink?"
"Margarita with an extra shot."
"Not with my grand babies in your belly you don't."
"You know I don't really. Well, not too much. I'd probably get sick from the smell anyway. Do you have lemonade?"
"Uhm, my favorite daughter calls and tells me she wants to drop my grand baby off for the weekend of course I do. You want a snack or do you have to drop off the kid and run?"
"No, I can stay for a minute. I've never been here without Alex, it's kinda weird," I told Diane as I looked around the house as if I had just arrived on a previously undiscovered planet.
"You know you are always welcome here. You're my baby girl. But yeah, it is a bit weird. I never imagined this scenario. But I'm glad my daughter has you and that I have you. You are that piece that was missing from both our lives. You are so radiant," she complimented as she watched me get settled on the couch before heading towards the kitchen.
"That's the girls, not me," I hollered as I checked my work email one last time before I officially unplugged for the weekend.
"No the girls only make it more so. How are they? I don't know if you are just showing off the belly more or they have gotten a lot bigger."
"I definitely feel like they've gone through a growth spurt recently but I'm also more comfortable showing them off now that I'm married and my parents are okay with everything. I can wear tight sweaters and dresses. I feel so much sexier this pregnancy even if I am gaining everywhere, like even in my face. That never happened with Geo. I was all bump with him."
"Yeah, I should have known Alex was just a very big baby girl. Everybody said oh the baby is big so it must be a boy. Nope, just a nine pound twenty-two-inch baby girl. But I totally carried her like a girl. And when she was born, I had it in my mind that my baby's name was Alex so that's what it was. So, my dear, the fruit of my loins behaving herself," Diane asked as she set down two glasses of lemonade and parfaits, how she guessed what I had been craving lately I didn't know and then I remembered she would know better than anybody else what a growing baby girl Vause would desire.
"Mostly. We've been going through a rough patch with Nicky and the pregnancy but it's getting better. It was just hard when I could feel her babies but she couldn't. She still wishes she could carry them more than she'll admit. I think she wanted that linkage with you."
"I would have loved to have seen my only birth daughter pregnant. It's what you dream about when the doctor tells you 'it's a girl.' You'll find out soon enough. I know you've seen them on a screen a few times but nobody will ever convince me that it's the same as the first time you and your daughter look at each other. I know her heart and she would have been amazing at it. And of course, I'd never make her think it's her fault. Cause again I know her. She already blames herself."
"I know. I just wish when she got that way she would talk to me instead of a bottle. Sometimes it's so hard to reach her. But she's worth it and I love her."
"If only she believed those things about herself."
"I'm not giving up. She is the most amazing, gorgeous woman I have ever met. She's better than the best dream I've ever had. She's the love of my life. She's my children's other parent. She's the biological mother of these girls and our future children. Who just woke up."
"Did they? Can I?"
"You are one of the two people who don't have to ask."
"Who's the other one," Diane teased.
"Who do you think," I asked with my best Alex Vause style eyebrow raise.
"Still needs practice but then again so does hers," Diane flashed me that same trait, proving just who invented it, "So where do I? How do I," she reached her hand out in an extremely rare moment of nervousness, I had seen Alex skittish more times than I had her mom. I pushed up my sweater so she could feel it better then I moved her hand to where I felt baby B kicking and pressed it deep into my skin until I saw her smile wide, "oh my God. That's amazing. She's got quite the kick, just like her mother. I used to think Alex was an octopus crossed with a pony. Sometimes she'd be so all over the place I was convinced I had two in there cause I was so much bigger than most women, even of a similar size and age to myself, and I would feel kicking in one spot and seconds later feel it in another. I was actually relieved when I went into labor and turned out it was just one nine-pound baby girl who would grow up and make me think quadruplets would have been easier than her. I'm probably the first woman to be relieved immediately after pushing out a nine pound, two feet long two weeks premature baby. I can't imagine how big she would have gotten if I carried her to term or she was overcooked."
"Do you want more than three grandchildren? Cause telling me about your nine-pound preemie is not the way to do it."
"You know I do. I want as many as possible. You chose to mate with a soft giant, that's your problem, not mine. At least you got practice with a baby on the small side of normal, I didn't even get that. I don't know how she came out so big, neither me nor Lee were very tall. Vause babies are larger but not where the doctors tell me if I had gone to term, she would have been a ten pounder, maybe bigger. So enough about the daughter who ruined my bladder in addition to everything else down there and left me looking like a zebra. Cause, knowing everything, I would do it all again. Tell me more about my granddaughters and what it's like carrying them. How do they act? What are their personalities?"
"This little one is like a little dolphin fox. She's camera shy from day one but she has her own way of making her presence known."
"Reminds me of a little girl I used to know."
"Yup our Alex. I have to bribe her to take pictures worse than I do our toddler. Unless it was her idea then she makes love to the camera. These girls are definitely hers."
"Have you felt the other one yet?"
"Alex has. This girl only has eyes for her real mother."
"I don't ever want to hear you say that again! You are both their real mothers. You both made a sacrifice and would have given your lives to give them theirs. A child can have two mothers who each had a part and I think it's so magical. So where is Baby A? I hate calling them that. Why won't you even tell me their names?"
"We don't want to commit to a first name until they are born and we see them. We have our top six, three we like for each baby. And we have their middle names," I told her as I moved her hand over to where I felt baby A kicking.
"Which are?"
"You won't tell Alex or give her any idea you know?"
"Send me videos of them moving in your belly? I used to love watching Alex dance. If she had been an easier kid, I would have had another just to see that moment one more time."
"Of course. I didn't get any videos or even any bare belly shots with Geo and now that he's firmly in kid territory I wish I had. So they are Mavery and Eliot, after our middle names. We haven't decided who gets which name but we knew from the beginning our daughter's middle name would be Mae. Then we really loved the name Avery and I saw Mavery on the top of a list of invented girl names. Alex liked the connection to the word maven so we went for it. Eliot, I liked for Geo for a second and we like the idea of claiming a boy's name for a girl and we chose to spell it like George Eliot so she'd be named after a badass female writer. I considered naming him after me but then it didn't feel right for him. I loved Atlas but thought he needed a normal name, so I chose George but to call him Geo because he was my whole world already. And at the time, I thought he always would be."
"I love those names. And I'm sure I'll love the names you choose. I understand why you wouldn't want to share your runner up names, since this hopefully isn't you girls' last pregnancy. I still can't believe my daughter's babies are in there. It's still totally surreal."
"Alex's babies in my belly is still surreal to me too. If you want something to make it more real, we have our big level two ultrasound on Wednesday. I'm kinda nervous about it cause it's going to be super long. They have to check everything twice, once for each baby, in depth. You could come. Be my support person."
"What about Alex?"
"She provided some crucial biological material, so she's of course invited but she's not much help. And she could use someone who still possesses the energy to put her in her place and remind her where that is. That she's not my doctor, well, not anymore."
"Pretending I didn't hear that, Piper Elizabeth Vause!"
"Oh but you know you did mom. Should I remind you that I was born in 1990?"
"That's the other thing we don't discuss. But I would be honored to be there. I was kind of hoping you would invite me to your appointments but I know my place. I'm not going to be that mother-in-law who thinks she has a right to her daughter-in-law's womb because it's carrying a part of something that was once part of her in it."
"You are always welcome at my appointments, mom. Or anything else. I want you around. I need you around, mostly so Alex doesn't give our daughters her designer clothes and shoes addiction," I hugged her after she got done rolling her eyes at me blaming Alex for something she was merely more guilty of doing and then we got a snack and sat on the couch talking about her pregnancy with Alex and raising daughters. She told me how proud she was to be a girl mom, to have raised a daughter who was strong, passionate and warm-hearted, who was a mix of traits most would think contradicted each other but she managed to pull it off flawlessly.
