Episode 8
Careless Whisper
"Livvie, I love you"
"I love you"
"I love you"
"eyeluvyeeeeew."
An in-luck Olivia pulled into the vacant space in front of her childhood home. Exiting the car to face the frigid mid-December air, she remembered the presents on the back seat. It was midday on a Sunday, hours earlier than she would normally arrive for her bi-monthly dinner with her father. She and Fitz would be entertaining little Ella that evening, freeing up Cyrus and James to throw an adult Christmas party. Clients of Wannamaker and Beene, and other people they wanted to impress would be there. Liv did not want to be at such a public event before telling those closest to her that she was pregnant. Her face remained slim; she could still hide her emerging bump with peplums and other strategic fashion choices. It being winter, and she being known for fashionable coats, helped her sail through undetected. She did not want the scrutiny nor the questions. She sent Abby and Harrison in her stead.
Holding the modest stack of presents directly in front of her, Olivia stood with her back leaned against the passenger door, taking in the image before her. The white window shutters gleamed against the barely blue siding of the house. The massive red door, with its lion head knocker seemed less intimidating that it once did when she was a child.
"Do you plan on coming in, or are you just here for the view?"
Olivia shook her head, knocking distant memories back into their box. Though he had not lost his imposing aura, Olivia had to admit that, physically, her father appeared almost diminutive in comparison to the door he held open for her. Wordlessly, she marched towards him.
…
"Dad, what are all these boxes? Don't tell me you're selling the house?"
"Child, of course not. This is your inheritance. These are from the basement." he gestured to the litany of boxes before him. "I was hunting for the Christmas decorations last week and got a little carried away. I haven't looked at any of that stuff since Maya…" he trailed off.
"Why now?"
"I'm retiring," he declared.
"Dad, you already did that four years ago," Olivia said as she walked to an open box marked 'Olivia's toys', next to the living room's fireplace."
"I mean from everything else—the Boards, steering committees, private consultation. All of it." Eli declared, as he stared at his baby girl who was enamored with the plush, black and white toy in her hands. Olivia looked at Dutchie with the same affection in her eyes as when she played with him as a child.
Lost in her own nostalgia, smelling and examining Dutchie's near perfect balance of black and white markings, she had not fully registered her father's renouncement. The only wear and tear she could find was a bald patch on the bunny's left ear-caused by her rubbing it constantly whilst sucking her thumb. Why did she remember there being eyes? There were no eyes, just pieces of black thread, interlaced to make Xs where the eyes should be.
"Your mother removed the eyes. Not safe for babies and their curious mouths," Eli offered.
"Do you mind if Dutchie comes home with me?" Olivia hugged the plush version of the Dutch rabbit to her breast, making the looser fabric of her dress cling to the emerging motherly shape of her second trimester body.
"We knew you would be a girl. But I wasn't going to fill the nursery with a bunch of pink nonsense, and certainly not a pink bunny, which doesn't even exist."
"Neither do unicorns, but you bought me one of those."
"You were a very convincing child," he said, a rare affable smile gracing his strong features made sharper by weight loss. "What can I say?" he shrugged dismissively. "I bought Dutchie in black and white because new-borns can't see very well, especially soft colors. They see in grey scale first. So high contrast toys are best. Even red is fine. Eventually, after five or six months, they can see a spectrum of color. So don't go buying my grandchild a bunch of pink or blue crap."
Olivia froze momentarily. She had every intention of telling him today, but like with so much of her life, his omniscience once again intervened her plans.
"Will I be having a grandson or a granddaughter?"
"How did you… We… We don't know yet. We find out this week."
"What are you…. about three and a half, four months along?"
"Fourteen weeks."
"Don't you think it's time to start telling people?"
"That's what I came here to do, but you didn't exactly give me the chance."
"The way you looked at Dutchie. I knew that look. Your mother got emotional over the littlest things when she was pregnant with you. I can't explain the look on your face other than to say it was motherly. I've never seen that look on you before. My baby is having a baby."
Olivia was relieved that he saved her the effort and made it easy.
"Why are you limping?"
Eli made his way toward her. "It's just my hip playing up a bit. Olivia, I'm 74, things start to deteriorate."
With some labor, from which he tried to distract, Eli gathered Olivia in his embrace, one she let herself sink into, trying not to notice the increasing frailty of him. She was nearly at her wit's end with his obfuscation. A man who had earned a doctorate in palaeontology, of course, had an answer for every pointed health question she threw his way. She was working on a different approach.
…
When lunch was through, father and daughter explored more of their shared past, digging into boxes of yore.
"How did mom tell you about me?"
""Simply. A thing your generation seems poised to abandon in favor of narcissistic enterprise. You can't just deliver news without narrative. No, you must release cannons and start forest fires—all to say, hey, folks! We're having a boy!"
"Dad," Olivia rolled her eyes, knowing that beneath the Baby Boomer self-righteousness, her father had a point. But all she wanted was a real answer, not a generational read. "Be serious, please."
"I am serious."
"I mean about mom. Tell me."
"We were in bed. Maya couldn't sleep, but thought I was. She began talking out loud, whispering, really. It's something she would do when she had too much on her mind. She'd say things aloud to release them, and then eventually drift away. This mostly didn't bother my own sleep. I woke up the next morning and had it in my head that being pregnant was one of the things she said the night before. So, I asked her. I remember exactly her response. 'I think I did because I think I am.' That was it. Doctor Johnson confirmed the rest."
Despite the anger she had carried for many years, she was still ravenous for these stories about her parents, especially before her arrival. "Were you happy? Did you want a boy? Do you still want a boy?"
"I wanted you—the best thing to come out of your mother and my's marriage. Of course, before you were born, I thought about having a son, but when we learned you were a girl, I got on board. I just wanted the chance to be the father I needed but never had."
There was something softening in him, like leather after years and years of wear. "And what kind of grandfather do you imagine yourself being?"
"A present one," he whispered to himself.
…
Olivia was washing her hands in the upstairs bathroom, combing through her conversations with her father during lunch. She was looking for clues of illness he might be hiding from her. Instead, she found Icy Hot packs and a bottle of Tylenol-Codeine, which she reasoned were for his hip. But medicine like that was for serious pain, not routine decay. Closing the cabinet, she noticed two toothbrushes where there used to be one. She wiped her hands on the towel next to the slightly opened shower curtain. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a bottle that read 'Coconut and Hibiscus Illuminating Body Wash'. 'Illuminating' Olivia repeated to herself, a new determination in her step as she made her way back downstairs.
"That's not going to work," Fitz complained.
"It's two days more than I can afford right now. It's too close to Christmas, and I have a donor crisis I'm trying to navigate before things shut down. Mostly, I'm really uncomfortable leaving Liv right now."
"Nothing's wrong, I just can't get away. Cara, please. I need you—"
"I know, I know. This is a huge favor." Fitz held the devise to his ear as he looked from left to right at the monitor in front of him. "I trust you. It'll be fine."
"Listen, Liv will be back from her dad's soon. Mmhmm, yeah." He loved her, but she was endless with the questions and needed a lot of placating tonight. "Cara, dearest, please can we talk about this when you get here? It's just easier that way."
"That's too bad. I'll give her a call. Promise me you're still coming, though? Yes, I promise we'll sort this out then. We'll slip into my study. I'll figure out the timing."
"Ok, I'll see you when you get here. Love you!" Fitz said as he hurriedly put down the phone, returning to his screen.
He happened upon her one weekday afternoon, not expecting that she, like him, would be at home.
"Mind if I join you? Or am I disturbing you?"
Olivia was in the sitting room, remote control in hand as she expertly cycled through the pause-rewind-play functions. Taking Olivia's smile as invitation, Fitz crossed the threshold and made his way over to his lounge-wear-clad wife.
"Hi."
"Hi."
Their lips met in a sumptuous, unhurried greeting. "I'm nearly finished with this." Olivia gathered the papers and laptop lying next to her and patted the empty space beside her. "Then I'm all yours."
Olivia had given her full attention to analyzing the facial expressions and phraseology of the man being deposed on her screen. Finding patterns and anomalies in his responses would help with a case she had been dying to close for weeks. The soon-to-be ex-wife of the man on screen was convinced he was withholding financial accounts and assets in their divorce proceedings. The trouble being: she had no proof of this when engaging OPA's services. Olivia may be out of the business of family and legal separations, but she was expert at uncovering that which people sought to hide. Especially the exceedingly wealthy.
An unexpected soft kiss at the base of her neck called every peachy whisp of hair to attention. It was only then that Olivia registered being between Fitz's thighs, her back against his chest as he reclined on the chaise end of their sofa. A sniff of her hair. A graze of teeth against her exposed shoulder. But the whisper in her ear, that was too much to ignore.
"Fiiiiiitz," she whined in partial protest.
"What? I thought you said you were all mine?"
"Not yet."
"Ok." He settled on holding her non-writing hand. "This is wholesome. I'll behave." And he did, for a time.
Minutes later, Fitz relinquished the hand he held, opting instead for a more precise play: the queen's gambit. Years earlier she had confessed he had ruined her life the first time he drew lazy circles in her palm, much as he was ruining her work now. She was all but through and did not at all mind. The circles being drawn in her palm—like the first time she discovered this feeling—made her feel erotic, hypnotic on the verge of surrender. This time, unlike the first, there would be no tears, no fleeing; only the thrill. Accepting the gambit, Olivia's legs began to part, flooded in a sea of her own desire. Grinding her hips, she bit her lips. Her agony and her ecstasy called to Fitz, as he stared down at her.
He bit the fleshy part of her ear. "Am I distracting you? I can leave, if you prefer?"
"Shut up," Olivia managed to moan. Aren't you supposed to be working?"
"I'm supposed to be a lot of things." He darkly chuckled. "But now I'm here with you." Knowing what he was doing to her, he innocently caressed the side of her face with his free hand.
That warm low chuckle of his voice, so close to her ear, made Olivia groan and arch her back in invitation. All those years ago, he could not have known then what the palm circles did to her. It had been a mere instinct to touch her in a way that would not frighten her. But it did. Relishing his touch over the years, the palm circles became a secret language—appearing innocent from the outside, it bloomed a sensual garden, winding and sticking to the trellis inside Olivia. Her nipples, like her breasts, were changing, preparing themselves for service. But in the meantime, he could not get enough of their swelling bounty beckoning him. He massaged them dutifully, pulling gently on her right nipple in the way she liked.
"You don't need this, do you?" He continued in a compeling whisper.
Instead of answering she raised her arms to be rid of the top. His hand ran down her body. The curve of her abdomen was beginning to reveal itself. He found himself utterly enthraled with the shape of her, knowing that parts of the two of them were merging into something beautiful inside her.
When his hand reached their destination in her pants, Fitz's litany of hedonistic hymns in Olivia's ear ratcheted up the mood for them both. His nimble fingers bathed in the slippery web of her wanting, making his dick turgid against her lower back.
"I want you to come, just like this. Because there will be more," he said as the rhythmic slip and slide of his fingers brought her to chorus. And when Olivia did let go, Fitz grabbed her mouth, capturing her tongue, swallowing her screams as he kept massaging her until she cried mercy.
He had flipped her so he was hovering above. "Do you want this?" Punctuating his question with a thrust of his hips to make it plain. "Because I wanna fuck you. Right here. Right now."
The rawness of his manner made electricity pulse through her body. "What's stopping you?"
"These pants."
"Then take them off, she teased. "With your teeth."
Slow seduction had no place in this moment. He wanted her in a primal way. The unartful tug of her silk pyjama pants, followed by the snatching of his own turned Olivia up higher than she already was—even as her body still hummed from her earlier orgasm.
From nestling between his thighs to straddling them, Olivia slowly impaled herself on Fitz's dick. Nice and easy she rocked, at first. Their kisses synchronized with her body's waving to and fro. Finding the rhythm of the moment, Olivia caught her breath every time up turned to down on that beloved dick of his.
"Fuck. You feel so good," he said before taking a nipple in to his mouth.
Nice and easy felt good. But the spirit of raw and rough was in her now. He rocked and she rocked. Rocked and rocked and rocked. Until rockets made waterfalls. The deluge of her pleasure threatened to take him over the edge, but the ride was too good, and he did not want it to be over.
"Tell me again what you want to do to me," Olivia demanded.
"Fuck you?"
"Are you asking for permission? Or are you gonna show me?" Olivia was running her nails through Fitz's curls and down to the hair dusting his pecs, until she was circling his nipples with her fingertips. He responded by speeding up, watching her bounce on top of him. Soon he was burying his face between the valley of her swelling breasts.
Keening from his vigor, Olivia arched herself away from him so that he followed her lead, until her back was resting on the floor.
"Fuck me like this."
Still limber, Olivia welcomed the imperious impaling of her husband athletically driving into her from above. His gritted teeth said you wanna be fucked? I'll give you everything you want. She did want this. Perhaps more fueled, in some way, by a fear of losing something as her body grew to accommodate more than just her own needs and desires. She did not want to think about that. She wanted to relish being the Jane to his Tarzan in this raw animal fantasy.
When nature turned to nurture, the two lay sticky and sated, coiled around each other. They stayed like that until their breathing behaved as normal.
"Are you OK?" Fitz muttered.
She purred. "I'm more than that, my forever toy," Olivia said, patting her husband's manhood.
"I'm so lucky to be the only one who gets to enjoy you this way," a still glassy eyed and satisfied Fitz chuckled.
"Until you get too old-"
"Hey!"
"…and I have to sneak Viagra into your drinks"
"Livvie, I love you"
"I love you"
"I love you"
"eyeluvyeeeeew." From sweet to swampy, the voice transformed as sweat beaded on Olivia's forehead, dripping down into the shallow valleys of vexation forming between her eyebrows.
"Mom! Promise me you'll come back!" Seated at her childhood dining table, her hand reached out towards the now closed door. And with its closing, a change to the room and her body. Girl turned to woman. That's when she saw the black leather cuffs on her wrists. On a naked arm. Studded with brass gromets that morphed, grotesquely into hundreds of miniature eyeballs with myriad-colored irises. They slowly merged into one large aspersion-casting eye. Frightened, but unable to scream. Her mouth caged and her neck colared, Olivia's neck muscles strained in vain. Her voice could not be heard. Distressed and panicking, the motherless woman-child's hands leapt to clutch her bump, which-like the rest of her body—was without cover. Unable to move in that chair, naked and swelling from face to feet, as if a rogue air pump was holding her hostage from within. Her breasts, they grew and grew. Her areolas expanding their diameter until they colonized beyond their boundary. Even her abdomen grew right before her eyes, stretching to capacity, in every direction. First the wrist wear flew off. Then the muzzle and the collar. She could breathe again, but the swelling did not cease. She felt like a blow-up balloon about to explode. And then she did. A bang right from the centre of her body shot out all over the room.
"Livvie! Livvie!" Fitz took a firm hold of her jaw in his hand. "Olivia! Please…" his hand persistently moved her jaw back and forth, trying to wake her from distress.
Here large eyes flew open, followed by her mouth vacuuming up all the air in the room, until she was coughing. And coughing turned to crying.
"Shhh, shhh. It's Ok. Baby, I'm here." Fitz scooped her up into his arms, cradling her head against his un-shirted chest, as he rested his back against the linen headboard. Between soothing words and tissuing her nose, he dried her eyes and kissed her tears.
Eventually fluids ceased and hiccupping breaths calmed to a steady rhythm. Olivia's eyes fluttered open, revealing concern and sadness. Her plump lips, wearing their morning puffiness, frowned in solidarity with her eyes.
Fitz's lips greeted hers as his thumb glided across her cheekbone. "There you are. You scared me. What happened?" His other hand splayed itself, instinctively across Olivia's molehill of an abdomen. "Are you OK? Is the baby Ok? Should I call Doctor Wilson?"
Olivia put her tiny palm over her husband's to ameliorate his rising concern. "I'm not in pain." She looked down at their hands. "I think he's fine, too".
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. Will you do something for me?"
"You know it."
"Toast and ginger tea?"
He tapped the end of her nose. "Only if you promise to talk to me about your nightmare when I get back".
She nodded assuringly.
…
Olivia tried piecing together, for Fitz, the disjointed memories of her nightmare, all the way to its disturbingly abrupt end.
"Nightmares are almost always about our fears, our regrets. Whether we are conscious of them or not. Sometimes both," Fitz offered.
"Are you going to ask me what I'm afraid of, doctor? Because it seems pretty obvious."
"Is it obvious?"
"On some level, I must be scared about delivering this baby."
"I can see that. But what about the hyperbolic swelling, and constraints? And why was your mother there, do you think?"
Olivia's head began to swirl in dizziness trying to make sense of the layers. She was such an intuitive person, using it as a powerful tool in her arsenal—one that almost never steered her wrong. At least not when she allowed it to guide her knowing about others. A twinge of insight about the swelling and constraints gnawed at her before flitting over the subject of her mother's presence in her dreamscape. That part was easy, she thought.
"I used to re-live, in my dreams, our last encounter. Over and over and over again. I was twelve." For years after last seeing her mother, Olivia combed through the details in her dreams, trying to discover there, clues that it would be their last. Could she have pinpointed the exact moment? Maybe she could have stopped her or did something to ensure her return. Something that would have prevented her from, weeks later, dying in an airplane explosion.
"Do you think your exploding body, in the nightmare, is about your own mother's death?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure. I asked my dad how she told him she was pregnant with me. So, maybe the nightmare was a hodgepodge of past pain and future fears," Olivia shrugged.
"Should we bring this up with Doctor Wilson?"
"It's one bad dream, Fitz. I don't think it rises to the level of her concern."
"Ok" Fitz said, holding up his palms in surrender. "What about the sex of the baby. We can find out now."
"I don't' know. I'm still unsure about finding out. Do you feel strongly about it either way?"
"I wouldn't say strongly. But I'm excited about knowing something firm about our child. It would be nice to know. We can start on the nursery."
"We don't need to know the sex in order to do that."
Fitz thought for a moment too long before finally saying "No, that's true. But I do want to start telling people. The holidays are a good time for great news. Besides," he glanced down at her abdomen. "You're blooming."
She slapped him in jest. "I just don't want to have a hundred conversations to share our news."
Doctor Wilson moved the sliding notch to the position last recorded in Olivia's records with the expectation that two weeks later she would be moving it further to the right. Instead, a quiet "oh, dear" slipped from her normally professional lips, as she briefly paused. Doctor Wilson had to move the slider to the left.
"Olivia, you should be gaining weight, not losing it. You are down four pounds in two weeks, when you should be going in the opposite direction."
Because Olivia's pregnancy was confirmed at nearly ten weeks, Doctor Wilson wanted her to maintain the typical check-up schedule of every four weeks until week twenty-six but because of Olivia's anaemia diagnosis and shaky blood pressure, and the impending Christmas holiday season, Olivia was booked in for an unusual fourteenth week appointment and would maintain a normal schedule in the new year.
"Doctor Wilson, I hadn't even-"
"It happens, Olivia. First trimester nausea leads some women to subconscious appetite suppression, hence the weight loss."
"It seems to be waning. I've been sick only twice in the last week."
"Good. You're entering your second trimester so you should begin to feel better."
"I'm thankful it hasn't been worse, frankly. I've been able to maintain normalcy at work."
"You're right. A small percentage of my patients experience hyperemesis gravidorum, which is a rather violent and persistent vomiting that lasts for the duration of the pregnancy." Slightly shocked, Olivia raised her eyebrows before relaxing them in relief at having escaped such a fate.
"Olivia, whilst your weight loss is not abnormal, it isn't good either. Coupled with your history with anaemia and your blood pressure remaining on the upper end of normal, I'm afraid working with the neonatal dietitian is no longer a suggestion; it is now a requirement.
"That's for premature babies," Olivia stated as protest.
"Yes. Based on your health concerns we have to intervene now to circumvent that possibility. The sooner the better."
Olivia's shoulders deflated at the news. Allergic to strict instructions, she tried reminding herself that it was only food-one of the less complicated sacrifices she would be making as a mother. Sharing her body with this tiny human inside her was still an adjustment she was making and each week as she watched her body change in ways she did not control, she had to remind herself of what it took to create a family she previously thought would never materialise. From 'nobody likes babies' to creating one, possibly two of them, with her favorite person in the world. How much had her life had changed in the last six years, and still there was more to come.
"Ah, here's Sheena." The sonographer entered backwards into the exam room, pulling the ultrasound equipment with her. "So, we're ready for your scan. Shall I invite in Mr. Grant now?"
…
Olivia could hardly believe her eyes as she watched the screen. In nearly four weeks, their little blob had grown from the size of a large olive to a small lime. Fitz met her eyes with the same sense of amazement, leaning down to give her a brief peck on the lips.
"Baby looks to be a little shy. If he would just turn slightly…"
Fits interrupted excitedly at Doctor Wilson's choice of pronoun. "We're having a boy?"
"I'm trying to uncover that, but baby won't turn to the right - just a few degrees so that I can give you confirmation."
Olivia chuckled. Already her child was asserting itself by cheekily turning its back and maintaining its genital privacy. "I think she's telling us exactly what she wants us to know: nothing."
"We can get a more accurate reading in the new year, if you prefer?" Doctor Wilson offered.
Still holding Olivia's hand, Fitz met her eyes, recalling their conversation just days ago about this subject. With only their eyes their discussion continued to a mutually agreed denouement. Fitz brought her knuckles to his lips before declaring, "We've decided not to know."
…
Back in Dr Wilson's office, she summarised Olivia's progress along with what to expect during the coming weeks.
"So far our tests reveal no chromosome abnormalities, which is encouraging. We can test for Down's Syndrome later in your pregnancy, if you decide you want that. Overall, I am mostly pleased with yours and the baby's progression, Olivia. The baby is slightly smaller than what is typical for this stage, but we've discussed a course of correction. Once we bring your anaemia and blood pressure to a more satisfactory level, I will be more confident."
Ears pinged, Fitz, having not been in the room for the prior discussion, turned his head between Olivia and Doctor Wilson, expecting to be made wiser.
The doctor filled in the gaps of Fitz's unknowing. He made sounds confirming his understanding. Olivia watched her husband's noble profile as his hand supported his clenched jaw.
…
Olivia snapped her seatbelt into place. "Are you happy not to know?"
"I wouldn't say 'happy', but I'm resolved about our decision to find out when she gets here."
"Thank you. I just don't' want to go down the pink or blue route. I want to think less restrictively about our baby's arrival. He's going to have so many expectations placed upon him. I don't want to start before she gets here."
"I agree. Besides, we have more pressing concerns than the sex of our baby," Fitz said as his steely pools looked straight ahead. A murmur of unease radiated off his body. Olivia could sense where this was going, fighting against a defensive instinct. "Livvie, I do love you. So, so much…"
"But?"
Fitz turned off the car's engine. Navigating his emotions and Friday's evening traffic, from the southern edge of DC to its most northern pocket, would be too distracting. The longer he went without words, the longer Olivia held her breath. She crossed her arms, hugging herself, hoping it would ease whatever disappointing sentiment was sure to escape her husband's mouth.
Mistaking her body language, Fitz said, "You're cold. I'm sorry. I'll turn on the heat and we can head home."
"No," she said as she reached for the ignition before he could, removing and palming the key fob. "I can see you're not happy. I can't live in your silences. Just say it. Please."
"I was trying. But I can't find the right words."
"Try the wrong ones," Olivia turned in her seat to look at her husband. "Either way, it feels like we're going to argue."
"Is that what you want?" He said with a raised brow.
"It's not, but" she sighed resignedly.
"…It's what you're prepared for".
Olivia turned to look out of her own window. Three cars to her right a blonde woman who looked to be about six months pregnant—possibly seven—hurriedly approached a late 1990s Nissan that had seen better days. Olivia watched her get in and collapse into tears on the steering wheel held together with duct tape. A pang of sympathy, and then a sense of intrusion, tugged at her before she turned back to Fitz.
"I want to know what you're thinking."
"I've been trying to reconcile two things you said when we sat in this same parking lot weeks ago. You said, and I agreed, that parenting starts before the baby gets here."
"Yes."
"But you also said this pregnancy was happening to you and not me."
"Yes, but I was speaking of the impact on my body. I'm the one who suffers the consequences."
"And I had no objections. Until today."
"What do you mean?"
Fitz started a roll call of Olivia's medical challenges. "Let's see. There's your weight loss. The blood pressure could be lower, and the anaemia…"
"Don't you think I want to be in perfect health, have the perfect pregnancy, and delivery the healthiest baby that I can—without killing myself? Do you think I'm trying to sabotage this? Do you think that little of me!?"
From zero to ten. To be fair, she was at two before he said what he was thinking. If he had found the right words, perhaps, he could have been negotiating with her from level five. The right words may have helped him avoid hair triggers with which she had struggled with since adolescence. You never diffuse a bomb by panicking.
"Livvie, look at me," Fitz said evenly. When her arms remained crossed and her perfectly sculpted chin tucked into her chest, he dipped his head and used his forefinger to raise her face towards him. "Please," he whispered. Her eyes opened to him, and in them he saw a translucent veneer of defense shielding her well of fear.
"Fitz, I'm really trying. You have to know that."
"I do know that. I do. I know that your body is going through a lot and will increasingly go through more that may overwhelm you. I will never know completely what it's like."
"What about Mellie's pregnancy?"
"Olivia." He paused, not wanting to lose sight of his point nor open Pandora's box. "I am entirely focused on you, my wife, and this pregnancy, and raising a family with you. What I was trying to say earlier is that it is your body, but our child is currently in it. If parenting starts before they get here, then I'd like you to think that attention to your health and the safe, successful delivery and survival of our child is a collaborative effort. It's not a judgement on you. I don't want to tell you what to do, but I want an active role in helping you take care of yourself, to ease the stress on your body. I know it will sometimes feel intrusive, annoying and inconvenient. I'm going to try my best. But, please, I need you to think of this as a joint parental decision." He kissed her lips sweetly. "Will you do that?" One hand moved to cover her abdomen. "For us?"
Olivia took in the earnestness written all over his face, knowing behind it all was a silent plea choking off the ghosts of his past. No matter how firm a boundary she thought she had constructed, Fitz could find a point of flexibility. He saw in elasticity not capitulation, but expansion. There was always room for more. She put her hand on top of his. "I can't promise it will be easy."
"I didn't marry you for easy…"
"Shut up!" She cracked a smile. "But I will try. I promise you that."
"Thank you."
Fitz started the engine, carefully reversing out of his parking spot. "One of us has to change our car for something bigger."
"We're not getting a minivan."
/6 years ago, Maroon Bay/
Tuesday nights were reserved for the Lover's Rock theme at Maroon Bay. Often her first full evening back in DC after long weekends in Florida with Edison, Tuesday nights became a subdued escape for Olivia and Fitz—a time in which they would suspend reality and pretend, with great effort, that the chemical romance nipping at their heels and hiding inside their throats did not exist.
Tonight, the peering intensity of his gaze rendered her naked. Right there on that dancefloor. Lurid and expecting he was not. Were he, she would still feel fully clothed. Holding her with a respectful gap in between them, he gazed down upon her not wanting to miss a moment to study her face. Olivia girdled her illicit wanting, leaning away from him, afraid to discover in one night something as silly as love. Without so much as a kiss.
Sasha crooned about her absent lover, Sean Paul. She was still in love with a man who was more absent than present. Olivia and Fitz moved in time to the beat, their hips improvising a call and response to the other.
"I didn't expect you to move like this," Olivia teased, though slightly dumbfounded at herself for thinking and voicing such a thing.
He took the liberty of pulling her a little bit closer, his right hand making a home of her hip. "Oh? Tell me what you expected," he whispered in her ear.
The timbre of his baritone blazed a shivering trail through her, its energy exiting through her nipples as their erection met the firm plane of Fitz's chest.
His low, knowing chuckle exposed her once more and she thought of easing out of his embrace lest she betray her own self. Just then the Jamaican DJ interrupted the song, as they often did.
"Dis one is a classic. Fih all the lovahs dem, we ago slow it down one more time. Selector!"
The high-pitched longing of Janet Kay's "Silly Games" enveloped the room. The space became a little darker, filled with more yearning and vulnerability. Lovers—long established and newly cobbled together—rocked around the nucleus of Fitz and Olivia. The would-be lovers held each other tight, trying to satisfy in each of them that very human desire to be wanted. To feel treasured.
'I've been wanting you for so long, it's a shame…'
The hide and seek they played between their almost weekly meetups at Maroon melted away on the dance floor. It pooled around them in a puddle, no match for the heat of their bodies, now melded in a slow gentle grind. She turned her head against his chest, her eyes squeezed tight—shutting out what she didn't want, letting in that which she secretly craved. Her delicate hands ran up the muscled expanse of his back, trying to make him part of her. Then she'd never have to let go.
"I know," he said, feeling in her grasp what she would not say a loud. His hand cupped the swell of her ass instinctively, so suspended was he in the magic of the moment. One in which he was hers and she was his. To be fused meant she would never have to let go. He would be a part of her, she would be a part of him. Olivia's tissue-thin fabric of pretence broke, right there in her jeans, blighting the dam of her desire.
"I'm sorry," he said, easing back ever so slightly after feeling the ephemeral passing of her resistance. Saying nothing and everything at once, Olivia vanquished the space between them, fusing herself with him once more. She had left her rational mind. All that mattered to her was on that dance floor.
...
"That's what I need right there. A petite shorty with a phat ass," Trey said as he looked on at one of the couples on Maroon's dancefloor.
"It ain't that phat. White dude seems to be managing OK."
Trey kissed his teeth. "Man, these white niggas is all over the city. First, the neigborhoods, now our women? Can't believe somebody as fine as her is with him."
"I mean…he ain't exactly dorky lookin. He aight," said Ace.
"Nigga, that's not the point."
White Mike slunk into the background, not wanting to volunteer an opinion in this discussion. Though there seemed to be a few sprinklings of white, recent DC transplants at the lounge, he was very aware of being the odd one out in this group. Mike had jumped at the chance, when Ace asked, to experience happy hour at some place other than the Capitol Hill and Union Square haunts teaming with interns, like himself, and lowly Hill staffers. But he kept looking toward the dancefloor, now covertly. Something about the two people compelled him, though he struggled to identify why. The more he stared, the more he thought he'd seen that man before. Becoming obsessed with figuring it out to the point of opting out of the chatter around him.
"The point is, she don't belong to you or nobody else except that dude right there. Maaan, you are hatin' so hard right now. Charlene finally left you, didn't she." Ace accused, punctuating his lines with "'bout time" as he sipped from his straw.
White Mike snorted louder than he thought, turning the attention of the other three men his way.
Big Mike, who—up until now—was Switzerland to the conversation by immersing himself in email triage whilst nursing a Vodka tonic, followed White Mike's gaze, joining those of Trey and Ace. "Trey, I think you might have to fight two white dudes to get close to shorty. Mikey here looks interested, too."
"Oh, you getting real comfortable around us, huhn," said Trey.
"I'm not looking at her. I'm looking at him. I-"
"Ohhhh…at him. Ok, ok. Some things are starting to make sense."
"No, you idiot."
"Ayy, man. Watch who you talkin' to," Trey retorted.
White Mike held up his hands in surrender. "It's just that I swear I've seen him somewhere. I'm like, right on the verge of it coming to me," he said as he snapped his finger, willing his mental rolodex to find the answer faster.
At that moment, the woman of the couple turned her profile, briefly, resting her head on the man's chest, making her face more visible. It didn't stay that way for long before she had withdrawn it. Her features receded behind her fringe and dark curtain of soft curls. But it was enough for Big Mike to make a recognition of his own.
"Oh, shit. I know her. Well, sort of. Meena works for the Davis campaign. I'm almost certain that's his girlfriend. She's with the campaign practically every weekend in Florida."
"Ha! She sure as hell don't look like Davis' girlfriend right about now. You sure they're still together or if that's even her over there?"
"Looks like her. Meena said she's certain Davis is gonna propose before November, with all the off-hand comments he's been making. Sounds 'together' to me."
Realization dawned for Trey. "Ohhh, that wanna-be-Senator nigga. They would make a good-looking couple. Too bad she don't look like she's gonna say 'yes'.
"That's it! He's a Senator's son. Senator Grant."
"Ambassador Grant, now."
"A US ambassador's son canoodling with the soon-to-be fiancé of a would-be Senator?"
"Escandalo!"
A/N: Hi, everyone! Thanks for reading this update. As I mentioned on my Tumblr/Twitter ( ADotPetunia), the next two updates won't take months. That I can promise. You'll get episodes 9 & 10 in within the month of May because we're going to go on a little flashback quest. Thanks for your support and patience.
OK, please let me know what you think and if you have any questions. I love hearing from you-wether it's a few words or paragraphs. It's affirming-even if there is stuff you don't like.
Also, please let me know if you find the dream sequence disturbing enough to warrant a warning at the top of the chapter. I wasn't sure how people would take that.