“Sharpest yet. I pride myself on that. It’s the latest in digital radiography, straight from Switzerland. We use intensity isocontours to—”
“It looks good. That’s what counts. We win this round.
Good. Now what about the swimsuit?”
“Ah. A nice touch. Take a look.” Again his hands worked their magic. “See here. A red bikini with white polka dots.”
“The sunglasses look ordinary, Moe. Give her better frames, a little glitz, something that catches the eye.”
“I’ll have some choices for you next time.”
She shot a fingertip at him. “To hell with choices. You get the right ones first time, or I’ll go to someone else.” She’d heard rumor of a new ultrasound man on the horizon, Kip Johnson. He deserved a visit, just to check out the terrain.
Handsome fuck, scuttlebutt said.
“Yes, ma’am. But take a look at this. It’ll win us this round too. We show them the bikini, a nice tight fit that accentuates your baby girl’s charms. I’ve even lent a hint of hardness to her nipples, which will most likely net you a contract with one of the baby-formula companies. But watch. We flip a switch and…”
Eudora had her eyes on the screen, her nicotine need making more vivid the image she saw. It was as if the kid had been suddenly splashed with a bucket of water. No twitch of course. It was all image. But the swimsuit’s fabric lost its opacity. See-through. Gleams of moisture on her midriff.
Her nipple nubs grew even harder, and her pudendal slit was clearly outlined and highlighted. Moe, you’re a genius, she thought.
“Cute,” she said. “What else you got?”
Thus she strung the poor dolt along, though his work delighted her. Dissatisfaction, she found, tended to spur people to their best. It wouldn’t do to have Moe resting on his laurels. People got trounced by surprise that way. Eudora was determined not to be one of them.
When they were done, she left in a hurry, had a quick smoke, and hit the road. The Judge was due for a visit. There were other judges, of course, all of whom she did her best to cultivate. But somehow Benjamin—perversely he preferred the ugly cognomen “Benj”—was The Judge, a man born to the role.
Weaving through traffic, she imagined the slither of his hand across her belly.
Benj walks into the house without knocking.
In the kitchen he finds her dull hubby, feeding last year’s winner (Gully or Tully) from a bottle. The beauty queen from two years prior toddles snot-nosed after him, wailing, no longer the tantalizing piece of tissue she had once been. Her name escapes him.
But names aren’t important. What’s important are in utero images and the feelings they arouse in him.
“Hello, Chet,” says Benj.
Stupid Chet lights up like a bulb about to burn out. “Oh, hi, Benj. Eudora’s in the bedroom. Have at her!”
Benj winks. “I will.”
He winds his way through the house, noting how many knick-knacks prize money and commercial endorsements can buy. Over-the-hill, post-fetal baby drool is all he sees on the tube once the little darlings are born. It never makes him want to buy a thing.
“Why, Benjamin. Hello.” She says it in that fake provocative voice, liking him for his power alone of course.
As long as he can feel her belly, he doesn’t care.
“Touch it?” he asks in a boyish voice. “Touch it now?” He thickens below.
“Of course you can,” says Eudora, easing the bedroom door shut and leaning against it, her hands on the knob as if her wrists are tied.
Stupid Chet thinks Benj and Eudora do the man-woman thing. Chet wants money from the winnings, so he’s okay with it as long as they use rubbers. But they don’t really do the man-woman thing. Nope. They just tell Chet they do. Benj rubs her belly and feels the object of his lust kick and squirm in there, touching herself, no doubt, with those tiny curled hands, thrashing around breathless in the womb, divinely distracted.
Breathless.
Baby’s first breath taints absolutely.
“Touch yourself, Benjamin.”
He does. He wears a rubber, rolled on before he left the car.
Later, he’ll give it to Eudora so she can smear it with her scent and drop it in the bathroom wastebasket. Chet’s a rummager, a sniffer. It’s safer to provide him evidence of normalcy.
To Benj, normal folks are abnormal. But it takes all kinds to make a world.
His mouth fills with saliva. Usually, he remembers to swallow. Sometimes, a teensy bit drools out.
The baby kicks. Benj’s heart leaps up like a frisky lamb.
Eudora pretends to get off on this, but Benj knows better. He ignores her, focusing on his arousal, and is consumed with bliss.
July 12, 2004
Mummy dearest,
I’m so excited! Kip is too! The contest cometh tomorrow, so you’ll see this letter after you’ve watched me and the munchkin on TV, but what the hey.
I could do without the media hoopla of course, though I suppose it comes with the territory. The contest assigns you these big bruisers, kind of like linebackers. I don’t think you had them in your day. They deflect press hounds for you, so you don’t go all exhausted from the barrage or get put on the spot by some persistent sensationalist out to sell dirt.
Then there are the protesters.
Ugh! I agree with you, mumsy. They’re out of their blessed noggins. Both sorts of protesters. There are the ones who want the contest opened up to second trimester fetuses. The extremists even scream for first trimester. What, I ask you, would be the point of that?
Then there are the ones who want to ban pre-birth beauty contests entirely. Life-haters I cal them. Hey, I’m as deep as the next gal. But I was never harmed by having a beauty queen for a mother nor by winning the Baby Miss contest when I was three months old. Al that helped me, I’m sure—my self-esteem, my comfort with putting my wares on display, which a gal has just got to do to please her fella. I don’t mind if Kip likes me for all of me, and I sincerely and honestly believe he does. But that includes the packaging. The sashay too, though mine’s got waddle writ en all over it these days. Hey, I can work off the belly flab as soon as my baby’s born. I know I can. I’ll slim down and tighten up you-know-where even if it’s under the knife with sutures taking up the slack.
That’s a woman’s duty, as my momma taught me so well!
My point is that I’m all of me, the brainy stuff and the sexy stuff too. It’s all completely me, it’s my soul, and right proud of it am I. Well, listen to me gas on and on, like a regular old inner-lectual. What hath thou raised? Or more properlike, whom?
Wish us luck, mumsikins!
Kip was alone in his office, making final tweaks to his software.
Wendy had been by, an hour before, for one last run-through prior to their appearance onstage.
Five more minutes and he would lock up.
His ultrasound workstation, with its twenty-four-inch, ultra-high-resolution, sixteen-million-color monitor, had become standard for MRI and angiography. Moe Bannerman, last year’s winning ultrasound man, had copped the prize, thanks to this model. But Kip was sure, given the current plateau in technology, that whatever Moe had up his sleeve this year would involve something other than the size and clarity of the image.
Butterflies flitted in Kip’s gut. Somehow, no matter how old you got, exposure to the public limelight jazzed you up.
The outer office door groaned. Maisie coming back for forgotten car keys, thought Kip.
A pregnant woman appeared at the door. Eyes like nail points. Hair as long and shiny as a raven’s wing. Where had he seen her? Ah. Moe’s client, mother of the last two contest winners.