Chapter Seven Summary: - It's been five days since Sam moved in with Daniel, and they became lovers. Now Lantash must tell them about the new baby that will be joining their family. He will tell Sam first and then they will have a special dinner for Daniel and tell him. But, how will Sam see what he had done? And what will she and Daniel discover while seeing things through Lantash's eyes?
"Italics - Symbiote-Host communication
Authors's Note: This chapter is a little more light-hearted.

Always Be Ours

Chapter Seven

Seen Through Lantash's Eyes

Sam sat back and looked around the room. She and Daniel had decided that this house would be all right for a while, but they really needed to get a bigger one. They were starting house hunting soon; the problem was what to do in the meantime.

They had to do something with most of her belongings because her house was now on the market, and it looked like it would sell fairly quickly. In order to get it in good order to show, they had moved all the non-essential furniture and belongings to Daniel's and into storage.

They were in a catch twenty-two. There was no point in moving everything into Daniel's and unpacking because they would just have to repack and move again. But, they couldn't wait to move Sam's stuff until they had the new house, either. They compromised. They filled every spare space in Daniel's house with boxes until they could find a better place for them.

Then, there was the storage unit they rented. It was taking anything she was sure she wouldn't need in the immediate future. Stuff from the basement, the attic, and excess furniture, well, almost all of her furniture, things like that.

She had her eye on Daniel's garage as the boxes' temporary home, and she insisted yesterday that the guys clean out Daniel's garage, throw out useless junk (although her idea of useless and theirs were obviously not even in the same country), then move all of these boxes out of the house and into the cleaned out garage. They had managed to do most of it in one evening.

Finally, she had the last one out. Well the last one from this room. The rooms that were left that had boxes in them didn't matter yet; although, they still might have to be cleared out. Daniel's den and library had mattered, and they had been emptied of boxes last night.

The guest rooms mattered. If her father or anyone else came to stay, they needed those rooms. Hence, the cleaning and removal of the boxes from this one. She had just finished doing that herself today. There hadn't been a lot of boxes in there, but some of them had been heavier than she expected. It was a good thing that Lantash had been able to increase her strength, even if he did complain incessantly the entire time.

She walked down the hall to the bedroom that she and Daniel now shared and flopped onto the bed, arms outstretched. She'd been so tired the last few days. She and Daniel had only been in his house five full days, and they had spent all of them packing her belongings during the days, and moving them in the evenings. Two weeks from this weekend, they would all be gathering here on Saturday for a cookout. Jack would cook, he said, all they had to do was get the beer and supply the furniture. She sure hoped she'd have a little more energy by then.

"Lie down and take a nap, Samantha."

"I'll be okay, Lantash. I just need to go get something to eat and a glass of juice or something," Sam stated as she started to get up from the bed.

Lantash sighed. "Samantha, my statement was not a suggestion, or a request."

Sam sat back down on the side of the bed. "Lantash? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that you have been doing more than I should have allowed you to do, and I now must see to it that you do no harm to yourself. The truth is that if you wish to be up and about for us to go house hunting or to look at baby furniture, then you will need to spend some of your time in bed today and tomorrow."

"Why is that?"

"Because the little one you carry is trying to became stable. I do not want you to lose it. Now, perhaps, you should shower, and get into a nightgown, and then we will talk. We will go get you something to eat and drink as well. The situation is not desperate. If you nap now, by this evening you will probably be able to be up all you desire. It is only a precaution."

"All right. But, as soon as I am settled in bed you are going to explain this to me. I want to know what is going wrong."

"Of course. I will be happy to. But, Samantha, there is not really anything "going wrong" there is simply a little instability."

Sam snorted and headed for the bathroom. Unfortunately, with Lantash as her symbiote, she couldn't even get upset and worried, he just calmed her with whatever it was he used to calm her with.

An hour later Sam had showered, eaten, and was ready for a nap. She stretched out in the bed and realized just how good it felt.

"Do you know when Daniel will return, Samantha?"

"Mm, later this evening, I think. He said something about finishing packing up the things in the basement at my house, and then he was going to put it into storage, before going on to the realtors. I don't expect him until about six or so. Why?"

"Well, I thought you might want to fix a nice meal and have candlelight, some romantic music, and flowers. Is that not what Tau'ri women do when they have an announcement to make to their mate?"

Sam frowned. What, in the world, was Lantash talking about? "Well, yes, sometimes. But why would I do that? You want me to announce I got the boxes out of one of the guest bedrooms? Or do you mean a celebration type thing? Like celebrate our getting a realtor and looking for a house? I guess I could do that."

"No, there is something else for you and Daniel to celebrate. Or, at least, I hope that you will consider it something worth celebrating."

From lying on her side, Sam rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed. "Tell me, Lantash, is there something that I should know that you have not told me that, perhaps, you should have?"

She closed her eyes as she waited for his answer. "Yes, I suppose there is. Samantha, there is not, as we all supposed, going to be only one baby."

Sam's heart leaped. "Twins? I'm having twins? Why didn't you tell me before now, Lantash? You said there was some problem. That I needed to rest because the little one was—come to think about it—you said "trying to get stable". What did that mean? Is one smaller than the other one? Is there a serious problem? What should I do? I'd better call Janet, right away."

Taking control and stopping her to get her attention, Lantash laid her back down on the bed. "Samantha, you must promise me that you will listen to what I have to say before you say, or do, anything else. Please, stay quietly in the bed." He slowly released control back to her and when she made no other move to leave the bed, but simply sat up against the pillows and made herself comfortable, he decided he could continue.

"First, you are not having twins. Yes, before you question me, I know what I am talking about. Let me continue." When she made no move to say anything more, he said quietly, "Thank you."

"No doubt you remember the first night you and Daniel became intimate with each other. Something happened that night. That night, Daniel became a father. You see, Samantha, you had another egg almost ready to emerge. My blending with you pushed it into ripeness. Well, actually, I had to, ah, continue its ripening because your body had stopped producing the hormones needed to continue it once you became pregnant with Martouf's child."

"Therefore, I encouraged it to ripen and release. I allowed it to meet and mate with Daniel's sperm and today, it settled into your womb. I have watched over it since that night. It is a little unsteady today, so I am asking you to rest for its sake. I want to make sure it attaches firmly. That is all. This is the most delicate time for the new embryo and it is often within the first few weeks that babies are lost. Therefore, although everything is perfect, I wish to take precautions to be sure that it continues to be perfect."

"Daniel's."

"Yes, that is correct."

"You encouraged and allowed me to become pregnant with Daniel's child."

Lantash sighed, "Yes, exactly, Samantha." Lantash hesitated and Sam could have sworn he was squirming. "Martouf's is the first, the eldest. This one is younger by approximately six days."

Sam sat stunned as emotions ran through her. Two. There were two tiny beings growing in her. Two. She swallowed, feeling panic rise. How could she take care of two infants? She didn't even know what to do with one!

"Samantha, I promise you that it will be all right. We will hire nannies to help you. You will not become worried about that."

Sam nodded as the idea finally penetrated her mind. It did not take her long to realize that, with a little planning, it could be done. Then the scary thoughts of two tiny beings gave way to the wonder of the fact that this one was Daniel's. He would be thrilled, she knew.

She started to smile. "What a sweet thing to do, Lantash. You wanted Daniel to have this, didn't you? It's a gift from us to him?"

"Yes, it is, but, Samantha, I must be truthful, there is more to it than that, and I believe that it will not show me in so favorable a light."

Sam nodded to him understanding that there was more to come. "All right," she said quietly, "I'm listening. Why is what you have done so terrible?"

So, Lantash began to explain how he had used certain substances from Daniel and from her and, that through a rather complicated process, he had insured that no test now done on Earth would show any DNA other than Daniel's and hers in either of the children. He had masked Martouf's DNA. It was still there, nothing had actually been changed. However, it had been masked, and by their present methods, it would remain so. In addition, if one child of her womb was Daniel's, it only made sense that the other one was as well.

As she listened, Sam realized what one thing was that was bothering him, so when he finished his explanation, she said softly, "Lantash, you think I'll be angry because you didn't ask me."

"You have a right to be, Samantha. I did not protect you the first time, and I deliberately arranged for it to happen the second time. I am sorry if you are unhappy about what I have done."

"Lantash, I am so thankful and grateful to you, for both times. I love you. And, trust me, I will love your children, our children. I am not now, nor will I be, angry about this. I'm very happy and pleased to be carrying not only Martouf's child, but Daniel's as well."

"And, Lantash, I understand that you are willing to do anything to protect us. You are doing everything you can to assure that neither these children, nor Daniel, or I, will ever come under scrutiny, and I could never fault you for that. I love you for the caring being that you are, more than I can possibly tell you. Don't ever doubt that. Please." She reassured him by sending as much love to him as she possibly could. He had nothing to be worried about. He was doing everything he could to protect them all.

"Now, help me to sleep, because if we have a celebration dinner to fix, er, well, maybe we'll call in some take out; I should take a nap."

"This calling in of taking out makes no sense to me, but I will lull you to sleep regardless, my beloved."

Sam awoke to find herself on the phone ordering flowers. Deep red roses and carnations. Three dozen. Good grief, didn't Lantash realize how many roses a dozen was? She sat back quietly and watched him as he dug through her shoulder bag throwing things onto the bed and muttering to himself about little plastic cards and what good they were, if one could not find them. After ransacking her entire bag and scattering its contents across the bed, he finally decided to look inside her billfold and came across them.

Then it was decision time. Still she made no sound, no move that would alert him that she was no longer asleep in her body. He discarded the driver's license deciding it was not the correct thing. Sam made a mental note of where he threw it in case she needed to find it later. Finally, he returned to the phone and asked what they needed again before returning to the cards muttering visa, visa. Ah, here it was. Of course, visa. He returned to the phone to announce that he had discovered it in his billfold. Then he sat and waited. And, obviously, they waited.

They finally asked for the number, and he asked what number? They told him, and he began to read it off at once. They were satisfied. She would be embarrassed when they delivered the flowers because they would think she was an idiot, but considering he was an alien being in an alien environment, he had managed quite well. She wondered what he would attempt next. She did not have long to wait. He had been busy while she slept.

He must have called Janet because he had the number of a place that did really nice take out on fairly short notice, if you were willing to pay for it. Evidently, he felt that her plastic was willing to pay for it, because he called, and proceeded to tell them what the occasion was, explained the situation, as far as not being exactly sure of when the meal would be served, asked what they suggested in that type of situation, approved their suggestions, and told them when to deliver it. Five thirty. So, it would go in the oven to be kept warm. She could do that and it would keep well.

She found herself wondering what good it did her to sleep if her body was up and moving, but then realized that Lantash had probably not been up for very long. It had been several hours since she had lain down according to the bedside clock. She had slept for a very long time.

Then she found herself on her feet and looking at herself through her own eyes, but not through her own eyes, exactly. She watched as she went to the closet and began going through every dress she owned, none of which seemed to satisfy Lantash. He took out every one, examined it, tossed it aside and reached for the next until he had searched through them all.

He stood with her hands on her hips obviously disgusted. Then he seemed to remember something and headed down the hall to another closet. The one where Daniel had put her really good clothes. He looked through them, frowning, and then stood contemplating them. He proceeded to look at the grandfather clock at the end of the hall and turned back to the closet. He sighed and shook his head.

Finally seeming to come to a decision, he grabbed them all and hauled them back to the bedroom. He again went through the exercise of examining and discarding, but this time there was a second pile that grew beside the original one of dumped dresses.

When he finished, he shoved the discards off onto the floor, and from there, as an afterthought, he picked them up and deposited them in a chair. When a portion of them repeatedly slid off, he picked those up and threw them into another chair. As many of those fell from the pile, due to the slickness of the materials, he continued to find unused surfaces and haphazardly placed them upon them. Sam was afraid she was going to shriek or cry soon and let him know she was awake, so she mentally counted quietly and averted her eyes as she was learning to do.

She watched herself strip and then she became embarrassed. There was no doubt, whatsoever, that Lantash was the one looking at and touching her. She could see the longing in his eyes and feel it in his touch. He wanted her so much it was almost more than she could bear. And, she wanted him. She couldn't have moved, or made a sound, if she had wanted to let him know she was awake, but she didn't. Never had she seen such naked yearning and need. She felt the shudder of his desire shake her and knew exactly how he felt because she felt his desire as well, but not as a woman, as a man. It was sharp and aching and so deep with longing she was surprised he did not go to his knees with it. Their breath burned in their lungs as he tried to control the need and finally he exhaled. This yearning was tearing him—and now her—apart.

At last, he closed her eyes and turned to the drawers that contained her undergarments. He was breathing slowly and deeply forcing his desire to retreat. She had never appreciated his iron will and control so much before. Having this intimate view and learning how very much effort it was taking was enlightening. Little by little and step by step, he was forcing the emotions back and getting them under control, as he forced himself to begin the ritual of dressing.

By the time he found her garter belt and stockings, something she only did on special occasions and he would be aware of that, he was once again in command of himself. He began trying on the dresses he had laid out on the bed. He suddenly stopped, looked down at himself, and took a deep breath, before turning back to the pile of dresses. He appeared to come to some momentous conclusion, before once again quickly going through not only that stack, but also all of the others scattered around the room. When he finished, the entire bed was covered with clothes as was every other available surface and the pile he was trying on now contained only blue dresses. Sam had no idea why.

He finally picked out a simple deep blue gown with a deep scooped neckline in the front and plunging scoop in the back. He had to take her bra back off, but that was okay because the gown had one built in. It enhanced the blue of her eyes. He found her earrings and a necklace that went well with it. Then he found blue heels that matched the dress and he spent some time walking around the room in them. Realizing that it was almost 16:45 hours, he scooped the scattered contents of her shoulder bag into a pile and dumped them haphazardly back into it, before throwing it on top of the dresses. Then he sat down on the bed and turned his attention to her.

"Samantha, my love, you must wake up now," He nudged her gently and spoke softly.

"Lantash, beloved, I am awake now," Sam said, gently and easily back, obviously wide awake.

"So, you are. Um, how long have you been awake, Samantha?" Lantash sounded distinctly uneasy. It was obvious he was wondering how much she had seen and heard.

"Oh, since about the time you trashed my shoulder bag looking for my credit card to pay for the flowers and our dinner." Sam grinned at him unabashedly as she literally felt him squirm. Ah, yes, he was definitely feeling the heat. Maybe she should turn it up? No, that wouldn't be fair. He might get some from Daniel tonight, if he took part of the news the wrong way, though she didn't think he would. She was looking forward to telling him that, since he had made this second child possible, he was the one that would be telling Daniel that he was going to be a father for real. In nine months. Sam smiled serenely at him. She really thought that if symbiotes could sweat he would be doing it right now.

"Oh. You were sleeping when I checked, and I didn't want to disturb you. I thought you would tell me to give your body back when you woke up." Lantash was asking her how much she had seen of his inner demons, and that was something she would not let him worry about. She realized that Lantash would be uncomfortable if he knew that she had seen his hunger and need of her. He would not be ashamed of it; he would just prefer that she remain unaware of just how much his enforced stay within her body was costing him.

It would be kinder to let him think she had been sleepy and dozed through part of the entire dressing scene. "I was still dozing on and off. Actually, I got bored with the fashion show, since I already know what dresses I own, so about the time you took off down the hall for my good ones, I dozed off again. I don't really know what you finally picked out. Which one is it?"

"So you were not awake when we were getting dressed?"

"No, not really. I was kind of curious as to how you would do, without outside help, so I kind of deliberately let myself sleep. Can I see now?" Thank goodness he was preoccupied with other things and wasn't picking up that she was lying. Normally, that was something it was very difficult for them to do with one another. Lying to each other just was not something that either of them could do very well.

"Certainly." He sounded much more like Lantash should. He was back to his confident, in control, self.

"You did very well, Lantash, but you'd make a terrible woman," Sam finally pronounced firmly.

"And why is that, if I did well in my choice?"

"Because you left the wreckage of a class five tornado behind you," she retorted as she turned around and surveyed the disaster that used to be Daniel's, and was now their, bedroom. "And you forgot all about make-up and hair."

"Make-up and hair? But you have hair, Samantha, and I do not know this make-up."

"I rarely wear more than a little lipstick, so you probably wouldn't know that, but by hair, I mean fixing it up a little. You'll see." Sam headed for the bathroom and did her hair and make-up, which Lantash declared a pointless waste of time because she was beautiful without it, but he agreed that next time he would allow more time for it and hair. Luckily, Sam's hair was not difficult at the best of times and with a little imagination and a couple of pretty clips she had something dressier than her normal do rather quickly.

Still, she was rushed once the food and flowers arrived in order to get the food in the oven, the table set, the flowers set around, the soft music on, and the candles lit before Daniel walked in the front door. She had hoped that she would have the table finished and the music on long before the food and flowers arrived. Unfortunately the longer than normal dressing time put everything later than it would normally have been. However, the scent of the roses and the rose scented candles she had chosen helped to set a romantic mood. The room looked and smelled wonderful, and no one could have known that having everything ready on time had been a near-run race.

"Lantash, are the babies all right? Have I been rushing around too much? Is there any problem? I mean, I feel fine, but I felt fine this afternoon too."

"I am monitoring them closely, Samantha, and I would tell you if I felt there was a problem, I promise you. I see no problems at all after these first few days, really, although the first few weeks can also be delicate. However, everything is going quite well, and I foresee no problems at all. You were not lifting so much the other days as you were today. I simply felt you should rest for a while and let things settle. Once you did, I was sure the babes were still all right."

Sam sighed with relief, saying, "I love you, Lantash." Then there was no more time for anymore talk because Daniel was walking in the door, and when he did, he stopped dead in his tracks. "Sam? What's going on?"

She cleared her throat before saying, "I just thought we might like a nice dinner instead of hamburgers and take out pizza for a change, Daniel."

Sam was nervous now that the time had actually come to be with him in a more romantic setting. Her nervousness getting to her, she rushed on into speech, "Listen, the food is in the oven. Why don't you go shower and change, and then we'll eat, all right? I just thought we should be together in a, kind of, celebration type of way, you know. Do you mind?"

"No. Actually, you beat me to it by a day or so. I was thinking of doing something like this, kind of like a more normal dating kind of thing, or not even that, more of a newly married kind of thing. So, I'll start it. Hey, honey, I'm home. Wow. This looks great. Mind if I take a quick shower? Are we celebrating something, or is this a just us home alone and up close and personal night?"

Sam picked up their game at once and answered in her role of young academic's wife at home, "Yes, sweetheart, you have time for a shower, and yes, we are celebrating, but that's a surprise for later and then maybe we'll add the up close and personal if you think you're ah, still 'up' to it." She tossed him a teasing look as she went to get the wine. Would you like some wine?"

"Sure, I'll have some to take up with me if you don't mind. I think I'm 'up' to that and a whole lot more." Daniel walked to the sideboard and poured himself a half a glass of wine, and dropped a swift kiss on her lips. Then leaving his role, he said firmly, "I really won't be long, Sam."

Answering in the same normal tones, she looked at him and nodded, "That's okay, Daniel. Go. The sooner you get back the sooner we get fed."

"That," he agreed, "is a true statement."

He bounded up the stairs and came to a screeching halt in the bedroom door. "Sam? What happened in the bedroom? Were you attacked? Did someone start to ransack the place, but only got as far as this room? I know, there was an odd meteorological phenomenon in our bedroom, and a tornado formed here without rain, right? What happened? Are you all right? Where's the blood? Should I call the police? Did you file a report? Should we call the insurance company?"

"Daniel that is quite enough," Lantash said from behind him. "I will clean it up as you take your shower. I am afraid that I am responsible for the somewhat untidy appearance of the room."

"Lantash? You did this? What, you couldn't find your pantyhose? You misplaced your lipstick?"

Lantash frowned at him, but since it was Sam's face, it didn't have the same affect that, say, Teal'c's, might have had. "I was trying to dress her, while Samantha was sleeping. She was tired from moving all the boxes from the guest room to the garage. I told her to take a nap, but since the special dinner was to be tonight, I took it upon myself to prepare her. I do not yet know women's clothing needs, likes, or dislikes. Additionally, Tau'ri clothing is somewhat different than those worn by the Tok'Ra, or most other worlds that we know."

"It appears that when women prepare for a special occasion there are multiple choices to be made, the majority of which I was unaware before I began. Not only as to which color one will wear, but in the same color. Did you know that Samantha owns seven gowns that are black, and yet each one of them is different? How can one decide which black gown to wear? Why not simply have one black gown?"

Daniel sat on the bed and stared at Lantash. "How many blue ones does she have?" He asked, seemingly fascinated.

"To which shade of blue do you refer?" The lights, the mediums, or the darks? And to which type of fabric are you referring? Some are obviously much more formal than others. It was the same with the black. Some of them were obviously quite formal while others were very much not, so it is a complicated question to answer. If you want all blue articles of clothing then it becomes even more complicated. The process of dressing is unlike a man's as well."

"First one must decide which color of undergarment to wear. They come in all colors. At least," he sighed deeply, "I assumed that was what one did first, but then I realized that I was wrong. I realized that one probably matched one's undergarments to ones outer clothing. Since I had already chosen Samantha's undergarments, that choice cut down on my selection of gowns. I had chosen dark blue undergarments, and rather than change them, I matched her gown to her undergarment."

"Aha," Sam thought, "now I know why we had the frenzied revisiting of the dresses and then only had blue gowns from which to choose." It was all she could do to keep from laughing.

"And after all that trouble, when I put the gown on, I realized that with this gown she could not wear the top part of the undergarment, so I had to remove it." He turned around to show Daniel the back of the dress to prove his point and heard the sharp intake of breath that said Daniel was impressed with the expanse of bare skin. "It seems that this gown comes with its own undergarment already matched and attached to it. To me that seems to be a much more logical solution than to have separate undergarments. Although," he murmured thoughtfully, "the separate undergarments do look very nice, I must admit."

Lantash stopped picking up and sorting dresses and looked at Daniel as he stacked another dress. "You must shower instead of helping me with this, Daniel. I will be finished by the time you are ready to eat. It looks much worst than it is."

Daniel sighed and handed over the dress he was holding up and looking at through new eyes. He should shower, but he had found the glimpse into the feminine world through Lantash's eyes fascinating.

"What else, Lantash? Talk to me while I shave, at least."

"As I told you, the first thing I tried to do was the undergarments, which I matched. Then I had to figure out the—the—I am sorry I do not know the name, but it holds up the stockings."

"Garter belt"

"All right, the garter belt. I had to determine how it went on, for sure, though I remembered Samantha wearing it for us, so I was fairly confident I knew how it should look, and I remembered unsnapping the little holders. Then, I did not understand the stockings. She had stockings that only came up partway on her legs when we saw them, but all I found, at first, were odd looking little things that looked like children's leggings, but were made out of the material of the stockings."

"Pantyhose," Daniel interrupted.

"What?"

"Those stocking things are called pantyhose. They are stockings that don't need anything to hold them up. They are all one piece. Convenient for women, not a big turn on unless she wears French cut without underwear, which can be pretty darn sexy, and we won't go there right now, so go on with your narrative."

Lantash nodded accepting his remarks and filing the information away for later contemplation. "I knew those, the pantyhose, were not right, so I continued to look until I found the correct stockings. Do you know how long it takes a woman to get dressed, Daniel? It took me a very long time to find and don those stockings. One must be extremely careful that one does not snag one's fingers in them and cause a hole to develop. If that happens, then a distressing tear begins and will not stop no matter what one does."

"It is a good thing that Samantha keeps more than one pair of these stockings here. I had to try three times before I managed to get a pair on without ruining them. What is worse, they come in different colors that are only subtly different. At one point, I had on two stockings one of which was beige and one of which was sand. These," he said, as he unemotionally contemplated them, while holding out his leg for Daniel's inspection, "are a light suntan. I prefer them to the lighter colored ones. The only pair of this color she had are these that I am wearing, Daniel, so if I had ruined one of them, I would have had to wear one of the other colors."

"It is a nerve wracking situation to be in. I never realized before now how stressful dressing to go to a formal, or semi-formal, event can be for a woman. One false step and you must begin over, perhaps from the foundation up. If the dress you choose has something wrong, you may have to change completely all the way down to your undergarments. All of this takes time."

He sighed, obviously disappointed in himself. "I did not allow enough, and Samantha had almost none in which to do hair and make-up. I did not know about them, so I allotted no time whatsoever for their accomplishment. Fortunately, Samantha is very quick and did not take long to do them. She did not, however, she informed me later, as we set the table and found the candles, have time to do nails, toes or fingers."

He frowned as he once more contemplated his error in timing, and then sighed again, as it was too late to do anything about it now. He looked up and realized that Daniel was still there. "Daniel, you should be shaving, as you said you would. I will continue with this. You must stop and get showered and dressed."

Daniel grimaced and sighed. "All right. Take those down to the closet and come back. Then you can tell me the rest while I shave. I promise I'll be started by the time you're back."

Lantash nodded and finished picking up the gowns, taking them down the hall and hanging them up. Daniel was good to his word and was shaving when he returned, so Lantash took up his narrative where he had left off.

"The last thing I had to choose was shoes, Daniel. The only ones that Samantha has that matched this gown were those." He nodded to the shoes sitting on the carpet near the door.

"Have you ever tried to walk on a piece of material no larger than the end of one of your pencil erasers that is three inches high? It is extremely difficult. I had to practice for at least fifteen minutes, before I could get across the floor without twisting one of Samantha's ankles. Do you know what is even worse?"

Daniel grunted a negative from behind his shaving cream, as Lantash came to stand behind him in the open doorway his hand still holding Sam's shoulder bag after re-stuffing all of its contents back into it from where he had spilled them during the cleanup. "When Samantha took over her body and stood up, I was on full alert to take over at once, as soon as she wobbled the first time, but Daniel, she never even wavered. She walked all over the house—down the stairs, across the tile in the kitchen, over small loose rugs on slick hardwood floors. She carried things, turned, twisted, bent, and stretched with ease. When she started the music, she danced. All with these shoes on and without as much as a falter. It was alarming at first, and then it was quite lowering."

Seeing the look of bewilderment in Sam/Lantash's eyes, Daniel wiped the rest of the shaving cream from where he had finished shaving, turned, and smiled at him. "Lantash, on earth, from the time little girls are, oh, wow, I'm not even sure how young, probably three, four, five years old, they start playing in their mother's high heels. That's what those shoes are called. Obvious, huh? High heels. They also get little "princess sets" that have little high heeled shoes. Our little girls learn how to walk on those things practically from the beginning. Don't feel bad about it. Really. It's a woman thing. Most of them can do it. Don't worry about it."

"Truly, Daniel? Female children are taught to walk on these small areas?"

"Truly, Lantash."

"But, for what purpose?"

"Well, see that's the part that really kind of sucks. They learn it because it makes their legs look so damn sexy, and men love to see a woman in a pair of really high heels walking across the floor. Think about it. I'll bet Sam did it for you, didn't she? Didn't you notice her legs and hips? Her ass? The way it made her body curve? Her back? Her shoulders? How great they looked? It's because of what the high heels cause the muscles to do. It can throw their entire body into certain positions that look, well, hot."

"Men, in our society, have engrained it into our women, and that's why they all know how, practically as soon as they can walk; yes, that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea. It's a sad statement about the male of the species, isn't it? It's too bad that women don't tell us to go take a hike instead of trying to please us and getting hurting feet and bad backs in the process."

"I'm going to shower while you finish up in the bedroom, if there is anything else that needs straightened up."

"All right, Daniel." He paused, obviously deep in thought, then turned back to ask, "Daniel, will our daughter be taught to wear these high heels?"

"That's a hard question to answer. I'd love to say no. But, it's not fair to a girl-child to deny her what all of her peers will learn to do. I would guess she will, yes."

Lantash nodded. "Then, she will have a very good teacher. Her mother is very sexy in these high heels."

Daniel laughed, as he stepped into the shower. He couldn't argue with that. Not the least little bit.

Daniel showered as quickly as he could, but Lantash was true to his word and everything was cleared up by the time he was finished. It had been more scatter than true mess. Mostly dresses that needed hung up. He shook his head. It was a good thing Lantash wasn't staying female. He just didn't seem to be cut out for it.

Daniel dressed nicely in a pair of dark blue slacks and gray shirt with a very thin dark blue stripe. He left the collar open and put on a matching dark blue blazer. Not extremely dressy, but definitely matching Sam.

Daniel wasn't sure what had brought this on tonight, but he had a feeling it was more than just a romantic dinner for three. Sam had something to tell him, and it must be something good, or she wouldn't have gone to all this trouble of the traditional good news kind of romantic dinner. His lips quirked. Maybe she was going to propose. Considering the ring he'd brought home, he hoped not, because he had planned to do that. He should ask Lantash if he thought she would like it before he offered it though. Yeah, he'd do that sometime before he actually asked her. All right. Well, that was for later. At the moment, he needed to be heading down the stairs.

He needed to find out the honor for which this romantic dinner awaited below. He was becoming anxious and excited. Maybe Lantash knew the sex of the baby? That would be exciting. The only thing that would be more so was if it was twins. Maybe it was! Suddenly feeling more nervous, Daniel started down the stairs. He was looking forward to this evening and whatever Sam and Lantash had to tell him.

TBC