Baby Makes Four
Copyright© 2010 by Prince von Vlox
Chapter 7
Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 7 - The United States settled the Project 1950s as a lifeboat in case of a nuclear war. The founders picked an alternate time line where humanity died out with the Mt. Toba eruption of 75,000 BC. It is currently some 18,000 BCE, and the height of one of the periodic ice ages. Wendy van Veldt is an engineer-in-training. Her plans for the next few years are to start her career, and live happily ever after with her husband and her wife. Things don't quite work out that way.
Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Romantic Fiction Science Fiction Pregnancy
Amy slept in one of the other rooms that night. When I got up she was sitting in the backyard watching the sun come up. She was sipping a cup of tea, and smiling as the sun lit the peaks and light slowly crept down the mountains above us.
“I didn’t get outside except to go to the greenhouse,” she said. “This is lovely.”
“Yeah, it was one of the reasons we moved here. Well, that and to be closer to my job.”
“You mentioned something about that last night. What are you doing?”
“I’m a crew lead for a construction company.”
“As a woman? Aren’t there problems with that?”
“There were at first, but not anymore. I’ve earned my stripes.” I kind of laughed. “The guys don’t put up with people criticizing me, either. Every now and then, someone does, and then there’s a fight.”
“Don’t the other team leaders object?”
“Not any more. Like I said, I earned my stripes.”
“What was that you said about a job?”
“Think you could stand a job where you cooked? I know you said you cooked all of the time, but we need someone to cook for the guys. I don’t know the details; I’m usually too busy to eat lunch, but we need something. It wouldn’t be just my team; it’d be for everyone staying at the barracks.”
She looked at the house behind us. “What about the kids?”
“We have a neighbor watching Jenny. I’ll talk to her about Angel and Michael.”
“Michael’s old enough to start school.”
“We’ll get him started then. He’ll be safe there.”
She sighed. “Yeah, I know. When I think how you missed his being a little kid...”
“Well, you’ll get to experience some of that again. I’m expecting, and I’m about a month along.”
Her eyes widened, and she hugged me. “You’re sure? What am I saying? Of course, you’re sure. This is Three Valleys. The doctors here have forgotten more about conception and pregnancy than most doctors in Center even knew.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Let’s go back inside. We have to get the kids up and fed. We have church today, and we can talk to our neighbor afterwards.”
Sue didn’t have any problem watching after my “sister’s” kids. Of course, I doubled the amount I was paying her so she was properly reimbursed for any expenses. We’d never discussed money; it was one of those things that was “understood”, and every week I left a lump sum on her kitchen counter.
Afterwards, we had a family picnic. There was a band playing in the park; there were kids around that Michael was a little hesitant about approaching, but all in all, it was a wonderful afternoon.
On Monday, Chris took Amy and Michael off to enroll him in school. This would be a half-day thing at first, getting him used to the idea of school and getting him introduced to what he’d be doing for the next dozen years or so. He’d have some kids his age he could make friends with, and he would be safe. Chris talked to the school authorities and told them a little of what Amy had gone through. They agreed that only he or Amy could get Michael from school, though I was listed as an alternate.
While they did that, I asked my boss about Amy cooking for the guys. He wasn’t too sure until I explained some of her background. It was nepotism, pure and simple, but she would be ‘just’ a cook, and so he quickly reversed his opinion.
“Besides,” he laughingly told me, “it’ll give you another woman out there. You can’t be too happy surrounded by all of that testosterone.”
“It’s taken some getting used to,” I conceded and let it go at that. And it had. There were plenty of times I wanted to just kick back and relax. There were the guys, but I think I would have felt better if there’d been another woman to do that with.
I took Amy into the office on Tuesday. She spent the day filling out all of the paperwork and getting officially hired in. On Wednesday, she accompanied me to the site.
“Just you and all of these men?” she asked, teasing me as we got off the train at the site. There were men all around us, mostly those who lived in town. “How do you put up with all of it?”
“I won’t say there haven’t been problems, but in the last year they’ve mostly been from my guys getting into fights defending our reputation. Truth be told, they’re kind of proud of it. We call ourselves ‘Wendy’s Mud Wrestlers’.”
She smiled at the name. “If you say so.” She paused, looking at a couple of the guys, their shoulders, and the way they moved. “Great view.”
“I know. That’s one of the perks of the job, though I don’t let on.”
The cook was a rotating position. Tony, the kid who’d drawn it this week, was overjoyed when he learned he had a replacement.
“Show her the ropes,” I said. “If I find there are any problems, I’ll solve them in my own way. Is that clear?”
“Clear, ma’am,” he said, visibly swallowing. He knew what that meant. He turned to Amy. “I’ll assume you know your way around a kitchen, the boss never would have hired you if you didn’t. So let’s start with the ordering process. We keep a master list of the contents of the pantry, and...”
Tony was a pretty good cook in his own right, and would have had the job permanently if he’d wanted it. I secretly thought that if Amy ever was a chef in a restaurant, Tony would make a good sous-chef. Of course, Tony was a much better bulldozer driver, so we’d have to lose that talent. I figured Amy was in good hands.
Some people had come out from the main office, so I was too busy to eat a formal lunch—as I told the guys, my sweat saved theirs—but Amy sent me a sandwich. One bite was all it took; this was way better than what any of the guys had ever made. I crossed my fingers and hoped this was a sign of the future.
“I hope you don’t mind just being ‘a cook’,” I said when I stopped in on my way home. “I know you really want to be a chef.”
“I want to live my life in quiet and obscurity,” she said. “I like how anyone who shows up is immediately confronted by someone.” I’d earlier pointed out that she wasn’t really alone. We stored supplies and equipment next to the barracks, and so there were always guys around.
“Part of the job. We don’t want strangers wandering around the site. They could have an accident.”
She took in my disheveled experience and dirty hair. “What were you up to? I still don’t know what it is you do other than being ‘the boss’.”
“I have a river that needs taming,” I laughed. “I’m the engineer in charge of this part of it. And as for what happened, we had an incident, sort of a follow-up from what happened last week, and I slipped and fell in the water while I was directing some repairs.”
Amy laughed. “A non-answer that tells me everything, and nothing, except that last bit.”
“Just ask around. Team bosses aren’t expected to stand aloof and watch. We’re supposed to lead by example, and I was doing that.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
Her tone was a bit condescending, but I let it go. In time, she’d learn the truth. But while she was doing that, we had things at home that still had to be worked out.
Deborah Perrin showed up at the site on Thursday. This was a ‘normal’ day, no sudden emergencies to take me away, and I sat her down on the verandah for a private talk. After a few minutes, I called Amy and asked her to join us.
“Nice view,” Deborah said, looking around while we waited for Amy. The tops of the most distant peaks were sheathed in white, which contrasted with the green of the forest/jungle in the mid-distance, and the gray and brown of the river a few hundred yards away.
“Some days I can admire the view,” I said, “and some days I can’t. What’s up?”
“No sudden emergency to take you away?”
“I hope not. Of course, with a river, you can’t really tell. It can turn on you in a flash.”
“So I learned. I thought I’d update you on what we’ve been doing, and where we are with this investigation.”
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