“Probably true.” He moved on to washing his hair and I admired him while his eyes were closed.
“Just think, next year we’ll have two of them to take to the Met.” I was still trying to get used to the idea. “Think a baby will appreciate Picasso?”
“The Picasso exhibit will be gone by then…” TJ rubbed water out of his eyes and looked at me. His expression had changed. I could tell he was really worried.
“I heard you talking this morning.”
“What did you hear?” His frown deepened, and the look in his eyes-he wasn’t just worried, he was downright frightened-made me put my arms around him. It was a look I didn’t think I’d ever seen on his face before, unless you counted the time Beth accidentally inhaled an M amp;M and I was the one closest, the one who grabbed her and lifted and squeezed her little chest and made her spit it out. It was that same blind look of panic I saw in his eyes now.
“Why are you so scared?” I kissed his chest, beaded with water.
His arms went around me, tightening, holding me so close it was hard to breathe.
“I nearly lost them both, Janie.”
“How?”
He stroked my back. “Pregnancy just doesn’t agree with Ronnie.”
“What do you mean?”
“She had pre-term labor with Beth,” he explained. “You know, when you have contractions way before the baby’s ready to live on the outside?”
I nodded. I had a few girlfriends back home who had kids already, and had heard enough on Facebook about their pregnancies-from morning sickness to hemorrhoids-to last me a lifetime.
“Everything was restricted.” His arms enveloped me, his hands sliding downward. “She had to stay in bed for half the pregnancy. We couldn’t even have sex.”
“Is that what this is about?” I exclaimed, my eyes widening as I slapped his hands away from my behind.
“No.” He smiled sadly. “If it was just that, we’d have ten kids.”
“What, then?”
“She developed preeclampsia,” he told me. “Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head. Maybe I knew less about pregnancy than I thought I did, I realized.
“It’s when the mother’s blood pressure goes way too high. If it goes on, it can cause seizures and even death. For both mother and baby,” he explained.
“Can’t they fix it?”
He shrugged. “The solution is to get the baby out. But they don’t want to do that until the baby is old enough to survive.”
I tried to imagine how scared Ronnie had been, how scared TJ must have been.
“So what happened?”
“They finally decided it was too bad and they had to induce labor,” he went on.
“They tried that… but Ronnie had a seizure during labor.”
“Oh no.” Seizures I knew about. My uncle had been epileptic and I’d seen one once. It had scared the pants off me.
“I thought she was dying.” TJ blinked fast and I thought there might be tears in his eyes, but it was hard to tell with all the water. “All these doctors and nurses were going crazy, pushing me out of the way, putting stuff in her mouth to keep her from biting down on her tongue. They wheeled her out of there and down to the operating room and I was just…left…standing there…”
“But they did the c-section,” I urged, knowing the end of this story at least had a happy ending. “It turned out okay.”
“Yes.” He stared at the tiles as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. “That time, it did.” He looked at me then and I’d never seen such a deep expression of sad and scared like that before. It made my heart clench. “But what about this time?”
“Can it happen again?”
“Yes.”
“But it might not,” I argued, swallowing hard.
“That’s true.”
“But you’re still scared.” My arms went around his neck.
“Yes,” he whispered, his voice sounding choked and I knew there were tears in it.
“Now I’m scared.” I shivered in spite of the heat of the water.
“Ah, Janie girl, I’m sorry…” He kissed the top of my head, stroking my wet skin. “I didn’t mean to scare you, too.”
“I don’t want to lose her.” Even saying the words felt like a dream. It couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t let it.
“I don’t either.” He kissed my cheek, my mouth. “I don’t want to lose either of you.”
“She’ll be okay,” I insisted, kissing him back. His tongue was warm, probing, his hands moving on my ass again. This time I didn’t push them away.
“God, I love your body,” he said against my ear, nibbling there, his thigh sliding between mine.
“Easy…” I groaned as his fingers probed between my legs.
“Are you really that sore?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
“Uh huh.”
“Well I’ll be gentle…” He grinned, sinking to his knees and pressing me back against the tiles. “How about I kiss it and make it all better?”
“Oooohh.” I moaned softly as he carefully spread my lips. They were already swollen, and not just from the night before. I’d been thinking about Josh, lazily rubbing myself, when TJ interrupted me. Now his tongue pressed flat against my clit, moving back and forth, making me rock my hips in response.
“Oh yes,” I murmured, my hands in his hair. It was cut short and there wasn’t much to grab onto-not like Josh’s dark curls. And I had to admit, I was imagining it right then, thinking about shoving Josh’s face against my wet pussy. I couldn’t help it.
“Oooo, god, no,” I protested when his fingers probed between my lips, sliding up inside me. I was so sore from the fucking Catherine had given me from the strap-on I could barely stand it. “Not inside, please…”
“You poor baby.” He slid his fingers out and used them to spread my lips wider. I put one foot up on the edge of the tub, giving his mouth better access. “How about I just fuck you with my tongue?”
“Oh!” I rolled my pelvis forward when he made his tongue hard, like a tiny cock snaking its way into my cunt, his nose rubbing against my clit. I looked down to see him, water dripping over my breasts and belly, his eyes turned upward to mine. “Oh god, baby, that’s good! TJ, yes!”
“Mmmm!” was his only successful response.
I grabbed the back of his neck, grinding my hips, my clit throbbing, my pussy already wet from the shower, but slicker from my juices as he thrust his tongue in deep.
I mauled my breast in my other hand, pinching my nipple, sending delicious shockwaves down through my belly. All the sensation was centered between my thighs as I tottered against him, rubbing my clit into the hard press of his nose.
“TJ!” I moaned when he slid a finger past my pussy, probing further back, pressing against the tight pucker of my ass. “Oh! God!”
“Did she fuck you here?” He broke away to ask me the question and I whimpered, not wanting him to stop.
“No,” I panted, propelling him back toward my pussy.
“So I can do this?” His finger, wet and soapy from the dispenser on the wall, slid easily past my sphincter. I clenched, but it was no use.
“TJ,” I begged, shaking my head but quivering anyway, my body responding even though my head told me not to. In the year or so we’d been together, I still hadn’t
let him fuck my ass. Ronnie had encouraged me, and I’d watched him do her that way, but I just…couldn’t.
“Just my fingers,” he assured me, sliding another one in, making me cry out.
“Ohhhhh god,” I whispered, feeling him begin to fuck me, slow, not deep, just easing his way in to the knuckles and then back out again.
“You like that?” He leaned in to kiss my clit like it was my mouth, exploring with his tongue.
“No,” I lied, mewing, careening. “No, please… don’t…”