106: Life and Babies

ME: Please welcome my special guest this evening, Céleste d’Chevalier, the bestselling author of The Anarchist’s Cookbook. Céleste. [Applause. Nicki enters.]

I understand you have had quite a whirlwind tour this month. Thank you for taking the time to be on our show.

NICKI: It’s been insane, but it is over now. I’m home.

ME: And home is where?

NICKI: Where the heart is.

ME: You know I have a daughter named Céleste.

NICKI: You know she’s here. She’s been traveling with me for three weeks. Liz, bring our little girl out here. [Liz and Céleste come on. I kiss her and take my daughter in my arms.]

ME: Isn’t she fantastic. Did you have fun traveling?

CÉLESTE: Papa. I ... go! [Looks around, spots Nicki and holds out her hands. Nicki takes her.]

ME: You sure do, honey. [Liz gives me another kiss and manages to disengage the baby from Nicki. She turns, her baby bump is prominent at seven months.]

LIZ: Number two is on the way! [Exit.]

ME: So, Céleste, tell us about your book. What’s it about?

NICKI: It’s a funny story about a teenage girl who has rebelled against everything to become an anarchist—her parents, her school, meat, the dress code, and especially boys. She progressively isolates herself from everyone and everything that anyone else thinks is important.

ME: That doesn’t sound very funny. As a parent, in fact, it sounds terrifying.

NICKI: The humor is in her conflict. She still wants all the things that everyone else does. But she is caught in the embarrassing cycle of having made a big deal out of rejecting them. She wants her parents to love her. She wants to be popular at school. She hates the way she dresses. She wants to eat a steak. And she would SO like to have a boyfriend. Having to deal with both sides of her personality puts her into all kinds of somewhat embarrassing but always funny situations.

ME: I was fooled when I saw ‘cookbook’ in the title. You know I cook a little. I was looking forward to some revolutionary recipes. [Groans.]

NICKI: Have you been working on that line all month?

ME: Chuck and Frankie came up with it.

NICKI: Fire them.

ME: Why don’t we just look at the title. Tell me how it came about?

NICKI: Grace, the protagonist, complains early on that no one told her how to do what she was doing. After all, anarchists aren’t supposed to follow any rules. In one of her fits of pique, she throws down her phone after trying six times to dial the number of a boy she is interested in. “There needs to be a recipe for cooking up a relationship!” she screams. She ultimately decides that she’ll write her own recipe, and it works surprisingly well. So after several other failures, she begins writing recipes for all the major ingredients of her life. It becomes her cookbook.

ME: So is this a book that ends happily ever after?

NICKI: How would I know? It ends. But she’s young. The cookbook could last her whole life. Most of us need to add more recipes eventually.

ME: How much of your own experience went into writing the book?

NICKI: A lot. And not much. I’ve always suffered from a bipolar disorder, so my rebellion wasn’t just an intellectual one, it was affected by both the disease itself and the various treatments. When I say not much, I never saw anything funny about it. I was nowhere near as funny and witty as Grace. In fact, that’s the truth about a lot of writers and writing. Elaine Frost, who hosts Chick Chat, is funny. Not that she doesn’t have clever and talented writers who work for her, too, but she’s fast on her feet. She can think up a snappy comeback before you’ve finished speaking.

A writer thinks of that situation and then sits down to figure out an insanely witty response. It might take days to get the right one. Then we write it down and our character gets praised for how quick-witted she is. The writer isn’t.

ME: You don’t look much like an anarchist to me.

NICKI: I’ll have you know ... I guess I’ll have everyone know. Can we do this without exposing my entire left tit on television? [Pulls her blouse open enough to show the black rose tattoo.] I’ve proudly worn an anarchist’s black rose for years. I used to dye my hair black and wear it straight. Goth makeup. Black clothes or army surplus. Combat boots. The works. Then my hearthmate and the mother of your child—or children—Liz got hold of me and convinced me to go back to my natural color and curls. She redid my makeup and I became a comedy writer. Who would ever think anything I wrote was funny if I still dressed like an anarchist?

ME: Why the costume in the first place? Why all the dark makeup and torn clothes?

NICKI: It’s in the rules. That’s how you have to be in order to be an anarchist. [Laughter.]

ME: You’ll find out more of the rules of anarchy and some of Grace’s recipes after our break. [Commercial.]

The next Sunday, on my twenty-sixth birthday, Cassie and Mary announced that they were both pregnant. My birthday was forgotten amidst the congratulations and tummy pats. Cassie and Josh announced that they would finally be married the next weekend. Mary and I hugged the two of them together with all of us weeping. Mary announced that she had already filed the papers to officially change her name to Whitaker as well. It was sort of the way I always figured it would work out. Josh with his first wife and his second wife. Except none of them wanted to let me go. They just wanted more definition to their family unit. We all agreed that the babies would be Whitakers. Josh would be Daddy and I would be Papa, just like with Doug and Doreen. And by extension, the rest of the Swift babies. Neither Josh nor I were going to demand paternity tests and the birth certificates would show Josh as the father. There was a completely equal chance that either of us could have fathered either child.

Most of the time they spent at the Clinton house anyway. Inspired by the success of the Hamms’ house, the Clintons had done a little remodeling to divide their home so that, while they shared an entrance, there were actually two units inside. The Clintons had their master suite, kitchen, dining room, and living room. It was small and easily maintained. Cozy. The majority of the house was the Whitaker household. They had a master suite, two additional bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, and family room. There wasn’t room for much more in the way of kids. I wondered if the girls had plans for another baby or were stopping at one. Josh reminded me that there was a full finished basement with another bath and two guest rooms below. I guess the family was expandable.

I went to Casa del Agua Tuesday for the twins’ first birthday. They were growing like weeds. They were eating strained fruits and veggies, but were still sucking on Rachel, too. When the twins were full, there always seemed to be enough left for James to have a little dessert.

Liz and Céleste came to the party as well and it was fun to watch our six kids all together. Seven, if you counted the one that was about to pop out of Liz. I had fun playing with Matthew, C-Rae, Céleste, James, Claudia, and BD. My namesake went by his initials. When all the kids were partied out, we put them all to bed. Matthew had his own room, but C-Rae still slept with the younger kids. The twins had their own mattress and the other three shared a big mattress. Doreen, Doug, and Rachel had solved the problem of beds for little ones by simply putting mattresses on the floor. If a kid rolled out of bed, there was no harm done. Even though Céleste had no interest in Rachel’s milky breasts any longer, she and James cuddled together on the mattress. C-Rae held them both. It was sweet.

Liz and I took the other master suite. Since Jim and Jill were in Florida already, it was no problem. I expected Doreen would join us shortly as well.

Instead it was Rachel.

“Bri-an,” she sang as she came into the room.

“Rachel! How are you, honey? What’s up?”

“Well, Doug is stuffing his big old cock up Sandy and I needed a big old cock stuffed up me. Do you have a big old cock you could stuff in me?”

“Rachel? You want to make love?” I asked. I glanced at Liz. She was lying on her side giggling.

“Ye-es.” How the hell do girls keep turning one syllable words into two syllables? “The twins are a year old. I don’t want our baby to be too far behind them.”

“Our baby?” You would think that after living with a dozen or more women for ten years, I’d begin to understand how they think. I was clueless.

“Oh, Brian,” Rachel moaned. “Let me phrase this in a way that you will understand. I give you explicit permission to put your naked cock in my pussy and come—quickly and often—and to make me pregnant with our child. And I am explicitly asking you to do it.”

“You want to have a baby with me?”

“Apparently I wasn’t explicit enough.”

Liz snorted.

“Um...” I wasn’t getting anywhere. Rachel and Doug had been exclusive for four years.

“You know that I want a baby with you, Brian. We talked about it a long time ago. Doug’s babies first and then I’d want one from you,” Rachel said.

“I just assumed that now that you had three and you and Doug were married that you wouldn’t be interested in actually making love with me and getting pregnant again,” I said. Liz was giggling. “I mean you’ve been exclusive with Doug for a long time now.”

“Exactly as long as it took,” Rachel said. “Brian, if you don’t want me now because I’m not the sleek high school girl you fucked so long ago, I understand. No, I don’t, but I’ll pretend I do. I’m still one of your princesses, aren’t I? Don’t you want me anymore?”

“Oh, Rachel, of course I want you. And who said you aren’t sleek? I think you are sleek. And lush. And if you want us to make a baby, I’m all for it. Liz has already told me I wasn’t to come near her with this thing tonight,” I laughed.

“This thing?” Rachel asked, reaching for my cock. “This long, fat, hard pole of pleasure? You can come near me with it. Really, really near.” I pulled Rachel into bed and she squealed happily as I started peppering her face and neck and chest with kisses. It took us a while, but eventually that long, fat, hard pole of pleasure was buried where it would do us both the most good. Liz rolled toward us and held us both when we were joined together. What a feeling, to be in Rachel again! And without a latex shell. Feeling her juices actually saturating my cock was exquisite. I didn’t last long the first time, but it didn’t take long before I was ready for the second.

I spent my nights for the rest of the week at Casa del Agua.

“Josh, do you accept Cassie as your spouse according to the laws of Indiana?” Rose asked as we gathered in front of the fireplace. It was too wet and cold to hold the wedding at a bonfire and this was a family affair. Josh’s dad, Don Whitaker, stood behind him. Next to him was Mary’s brother, William. John and Bea Clinton stood behind Cassie. In a slight reversal, I stood next to Cassie and Mary stood next to Josh. Our casa was ranged around the family room.

“I do,” Josh said.

“Cassie, do you accept Josh as your spouse according to the laws of Indiana?”

“I do.”

“Brian, as cónyuge to Mary and Cassie, do you consent to the union of Cassie and Josh and commit yourself to support it?”

“I do.”

“Mary, as cónyuge to Josh, Cassie, and Brian, do you consent to the union of Cassie and Josh and commit yourself to support it?”

“I do.”

“Then I now pronounce Josh and Cassie to be husband and wife. You may kiss your spouse,” Rose giggled. Cassie and Josh kissed each other as the rest of our family clapped. Then Josh turned to Mary and Cassie turned to me with kisses every bit as hot.

“That is a kiss with promise, Brian,” Cassie whispered. “Just in case you couldn’t identify it.”

“What are you promising, love?” I asked.

“To kiss you with intent soon.”

“You know what’s strange?” I said softly as I made bread at Casa del Agua. This ritual of waking up in the morning early and talking to Rhonda while I made bread was so deeply ingrained that it didn’t make any difference what house I was in. Two days ago, I’d woken up to make bread at the Clinton/Whitaker house. Last week, I made bread when Dani and I stayed at the Wood house. And, of course, each day I woke up in the big house, I baked bread. It didn’t make a difference. I was thinking maybe I’d just become a baker when I finally grew up. “I’m part of three different households. Josh, Cassie, and Mary have pretty much established a household, but they don’t want to separate from Casa del Fuego. I guess it’s sort of a practical thing. Where would we put three more kids in the big house? And it’s not like the three of them spend every night at their new place. They are with us in the big bedroom half the week anyway.” I punched the bread down and poured a cup of coffee. Then I turned around and gave Matthew his hot chocolate. He sat quietly at the counter listening to ‘Papa talk.’

“I have four wonderful children with three on the way,” I said. “Four on the way if Rachel is right and she’s already caught. Of those eight, only three will have my last name. Of course, we won’t know for sure who fathered the Whitaker kids. But there’s a good chance that at least one of them got a start with me. The Swift children will all have Doug as Daddy. He’s got a houseful now. One or two more will be about as many as this house will hold. It’s a relief in a way. Can you imagine what the tabloids would say about eight kids with five mothers running around with the last name of Frost? They’d get hold of that story, for sure.”