Chapter 20

It was when Trudy took the third sheet of cookies out of the oven that Chuck glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost midnight.

“It’s late,” he commented. “How long does it take to have a baby?”

Trudy snorted.

“It’s not like you can unzip things and lift the baby out. Babies have to be pushed out of a woman’s body through her vagina. Vaginas are typically much smaller than a baby, so it takes some time.”

“What a wonderful image to think about,” muttered Chuck.

“Men love making babies, but don’t want to think about the hard parts the woman has to perform.”

“Makes you wonder why women are willing to have sex at all,” he said.

“Well, the first time, it’s because they’re ignorant and buy off on cultural ideas that a woman needs a man to make her whole.”

“And she has the second child because...” he prompted.

“She’s either stupid, or in love,” said Trudy.

“So Chastity’s going to be gone all night?”

“I’m sure of it,” said Trudy. “I was in labor with Chima for fourteen hours.”

He goggled.

“You spent fourteen hours with a baby stuck in your vagina?!”

“Yes. If a woman ever does that for you, it’s because she loves you a lot.” Trudy held his gaze for a few seconds longer. “Or because she was really stupid and let you knock her up accidentally.”

“I wonder if the others know how long it will take,” said Chuck.

“Why?”

“Because most of us don’t have fourteen hours in our schedules to spend at the hospital while Chastity pushes a bowling ball out of her vagina.”

“It’s her third. It might go more quickly. You can leave if your busy schedule demands it.”

“I didn’t say I want to leave,” he said. “Don’t be so prickly. Sometimes I just say what I’m thinking. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I said I’d stay and help you with the kids, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“I can take care of the children myself,” she said. “I do it fairly frequently.”

“Do you want me to leave?” His words and tone suggested a little anger, but he reached for a cookie and took a bite out of it.

She paused. Again, her mind dithered. She was attracted to him, but the last few men she’d been attracted to were bad for her. While she was concentrating on that, her unconscious mind supplied an answer to his question.

“No.”

“Okay, then,” he said. “The couch looks comfortable. If I’m not up when they wake up, get me up and I’ll help with breakfast, or whatever kids need in the morning.”

He left the kitchen, going through the opening that led to the living room. Then he came back. He picked up three more cookies.

“You make really good cookies. Where are the blankets?” he asked.

“I’ll get you one,” she said.

Chuck had never changed a diaper. He’d seen it done from afar, and was familiar with the concept. He’d seen the comedy sketches in which a diaper was undone and the adult reacted to the odor as if it were poison gas.

His first diaper was Maeve’s, and he literally reeled back, staggering, when he undid it and saw the thick, gooey brown mess that was all over the diaper and her body. The odor hit him like a fist in his solar plexus. Trudy was standing right beside him, doing Chima’s morning diaper, and she chortled as the big, strong man almost lost it.

“It’s just poop,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him. Maeve was happily kicking her legs around in the air.

“I need a gas mask,” he said, moving forward, slowly.

“The baby wipes are in that container,” said Trudy, pointing. “It might take more than one.”

“More than one? If I had a baby wipe the size of Delaware I’m not sure it could contain all that,” he groaned. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You have to. It’s not acceptable to make her run around all poopy like that. Besides, it would get all over everything. Remember, after breakfast, she’s going to want to sit on your lap while you read her a book.”

“Fuck,” he said, his voice only partially hushed.

It took him five minutes and seven baby wipes, but finally he was able to roll up the old diaper and drop it in the bin. Trudy did an inspection and pronounced the little girl ready for a new diaper. She let Chuck figure out which end of the new diaper was “up” and did not correct him when he got it backwards. As soon as he fastened the last tab, the little girl kicked as he spent another ten minutes getting her dressed. When he set her on her feet, she dashed off to the kitchen, where Brendan was already eating and Trudy was breast feeding Chima.

“She gets oatmeal,” said Trudy. “There are packets in the cupboard and you microwave the water to mix with it.”

“Right,” said Chuck, his eyes straying to where Chima’s lips were pulling at her nipple. He was actually almost full, but didn’t want to let go of the food source. As a result, the end of her breast flesh was stretched tightly. It looked painful to Chuck. He forced himself to look away and opened the cupboard. Trudy told him where the Pyrex measuring cup was, and told him to just heat the water in it.

Three or four minutes later, Maeve was happily eating cinnamon-flavored oatmeal. Brendan was almost finished, and Trudy was feeding Chima little spoonfuls of applesauce.

“We normally get them to daycare by eight,” said Trudy. “I called in and told her I’d be late, today.”

“I’d like to call Chastity and see what’s going on,” said Chuck.

“She might be a little busy right now,” said Trudy.

“Maybe she’s asleep.”

“Why would you say that?”

“It’s got to be a lot of work pushing a baby out. They left twelve hours ago, so she’s bound to have gotten tired by now.”

“You can’t sleep during labor,” said Trudy. “Your body keeps having contractions until the baby is out, and contractions are extremely painful.”

“You mean you have to stay awake for the whole thing? What about drugs?”

“Some women use them, but that can extend the process by hours.”

“Shit. I’ll never think about pregnant women the same way again.”

“Then you’ve learned something. Good.”

Breakfast was over and Chuck, after changing Maeve’s diaper, was suddenly okay in her book and she was no longer shy around him. When Chuck baby-talked to her, asking her if she wanted him to carry her to Janet’s, she held her arms out to him. Brendan, who already liked him, demanded that Chuck also provide transport for him.

“You can walk,” said Trudy. “You’ve done it a hundred times.”

“But I’m too tired,” moaned the boy, drawing out the ‘i’ sound and turning it into a two syllable word.

“If you’re so tired after just waking up, then we obviously need to move your bedtime up,” said Trudy. “Maybe to seven-thirty?”

“No!” yelled Brendan. That was his little sister’s bedtime and he already cherished the extra half hour he got at night. Actually, he never wanted to go to bed. “I’m not that tired!” he said, running away as if it were bedtime.

“He was up late last night,” commented Chuck. “Cut him some slack. Have you heard from Chastity?”

“No. Bob hasn’t called, either. I expected some kind of update from him, by now.”

She picked Chima up out of the wind-up swing he’d been deposited in after breakfast and handed him to Chuck.

“Here, hold him for a minute while I chase down Brendan. We need to get going.”

“I’ll find him,” said Chuck. He immediately started stomping around and growling, saying he was a T-Rex and was hungry for a boy named Brendan. Within a minute Trudy heard Brendan’s squeals as he tried to flee in half-real terror and Chuck swept him up, holding him upside down.

Twenty minutes later Chuck and Trudy walked up Janet’s sidewalk. Brendan was perched high on Chuck’s shoulders, with his legs around Chuck’s neck and holding onto Chuck’s hair like a free climber gripping a knob of rock to avoid a fall of a thousand feet, while Maeve was face down, lying on her stomach on Chuck’s right forearm, as he “flew” her along. Both were having a wonderful time.

Ten minutes after that, Chuck and Trudy walked out of Janet’s and back towards Bob and Chastity’s house. Neither spoke.

“What now?” asked Chuck. “Do you have to go to work?”

“No,” she said. “I already called them and told them I was taking a couple of days off.”

“Go to the hospital and check on Chastity?” he suggested.

“She’ll be exhausted by now,” said Trudy. “The last thing she needs is more people, hanging around.”

“I really am clueless about how this having a baby stuff works,” said Chuck.

“Except the part where you make the baby,” said Trudy. “You men know all about that part.” Her voice was acid-filled.

She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and covered her mouth.

“I’m sorry!” she gasped. “I had no call to say that.”

“No problem,” he said, coming back the few steps he’d gone after she suddenly stopped. “I get it. I think any woman who had gone through what you went through would be bitter. I understand.”

He reached for her hand and started her moving again. His grip, tenuous to begin with, slipped away very slowly, until their fingers finally drifted apart.

“I don’t think you do understand,” she said, softly.

“Of course not,” he said. “I know I could never truly understand how you felt ... how you feel, but I can grasp that it was hard, and that there might be some PTSD, or something.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. Her shoulder bumped his as she swerved from her “lane” of travel, and back. He glanced at her and saw her eyes were full of tears. He reached for her elbow and stopped. There was no place to sit down, though, so by instinct, he pulled her into his embrace.

“I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable,” he said. “What do you need me to do?”

She was limp, at first, but then her hands came to his waist and circled to the back. He just held her.

“I feel like such a whore,” she mumbled.

“That’s silly,” he said. “And that part of your life is gone, over, a world away.”

“That’s what you don’t understand,” she sobbed. “I liked that life!”

He didn’t know what to say.

“I loved being treated like a queen, having men panting after me all the time. Sometimes, when one would finish, there were two more standing there, ready to go, actually fighting to see who could have me, next. I loved the sex. It wasn’t awful. What ruined it all was finding out it was all lies ... that they had used me ... that to them I was a whore, instead of a queen. To them, I was simply a whore they didn’t have to pay. I bet they’re still laughing their asses off.”

He still didn’t know what to say, so he just held her.

Eventually she stopped crying and her hands came to push him away. Again, he reached for her hand to pull, to get her moving again. The house was only two blocks away. This time, he kept holding her hand, and hers exerted a little pressure holding his, back. Nothing was said, the rest of the way to the house. When they went inside, she maintained her grip on his hand. She turned to face him.

“Can you stay a little longer?” she asked.

“Sure,” he responded. “I have a class in an hour, but it’s in environmental law and I already know that subject pretty well.”

“I don’t want to be the reason you do poorly in a class,” she said.

“You’re not. Chastity is the reason I’m missing this class. She’s having a baby, and I have responsibilities, as her friend.”

“So I’m a responsibility, now?” One eyebrow climbed on Trudy’s forehead.

To read this story you need a Registration + Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In or Register (Why register?)

Support the author's future writing by purchasing this book from Bookapy

Dancing For Daddy

Lubrican

$4.50