When I left the Six Hammers and drove home, I honestly thought the story was over. Yet as I pulled into my street and saw Maddie sitting on the low wall which ran along the front of my apartment complex, that also made a kind of sense. There was no bag and she glowered at me as I parked the car. I got out, locked it and headed along the pavement which led towards her. She sat on the wall as I approached and I guess she was expecting me to stop and talk to her. Instead, I said, ‘Hi, Madeline’ and walked on, taking the keys out of my jacket pocket.
‘Jason!’
I kept walking and arrived at the front door. I turned the key in the lock and pushed the heavy door open, then looked across at Maddie. She was still sitting on the wall, aghast that I hadn’t stopped.
‘You coming in?’ I called.
Maddie clearly wanted to scream, ‘Fuck you!’ A blind man could have seen that. But we both knew that if she actually said, ‘Fuck you!’ I would say, ‘Fair enough’ and go inside. And that was the last thing Maddie wanted.
Probably grinding her teeth, the young woman forced herself to her feet and walked stiffly over to me. I held the door open and she went in, uttering a fierce ‘Asshole!’ as she entered the building. I followed her up the stairwell, admiring her bum in her mustard-yellow jeans, and then reached past her to unlock my apartment door. I hung my jacket up and Maddie handed me hers, dumping it in my arms before stalking past me into the living area.
The way my apartment is laid out, there is a narrow section near the front door which opens up into a large space. There is a kitchen section to the left as you walk in, demarcated by a marble-topped breakfast bar. Beyond that is the main living room, with a dining table and chairs on one side and the couch, armchair and TV on the other. Maddie stood in the middle of the room, her back to me, her hands on her hips. I came in and turned left into the kitchen section, heading for my fridge.
‘Want a drink?’ I said.
Maddie whirled around to face me.
‘You’re a bastard, Jason!’ she declared.
I opened my fridge and took out a bottle of beer.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Put that back!’
‘Ordering me around in my own house is not a good move, Madeline.’
Maddie marched up to the breakfast bar, facing me across the counter.
‘I’m not trying to order you around,’ she said. ‘I just want us to talk.’
‘I can drink and talk at the same time.’
‘And I want us to fuck and talk.’
That took me by surprise. I rested the beer on the countertop, still holding it, and looked at her.
‘Say that again?’ I said.
‘You heard.’
‘I’d like to hear it again.’
‘I bet you would! God, you men! Is there no limit to your ego?’
I opened a kitchen drawer and took out a bottle opener. Maddie snarled in impatience.
‘Jason, you’re the one who said you wanted me to be “your Woman”!’
‘Yes, and your actions said no.’
‘That’s just your interpretation!’
I positioned the bottle opener on the cap and gave her a look. Maddie got flustered and cried:
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I don’t care, so long as it’s honest,’ I said. ‘But ghosting me for over a week and then saying I’m interpreting that as a no is textbook gaslighting!’
‘Jason, were you seriously expecting me to toss my whole life away just to move in with you?’
‘I didn’t get the impression you had much of a life to toss.’
‘You arrogant prick! What do you know of my life?’
‘Madeline, if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. In which case, I apologise for my mistake and wish you a happy life. Goodbye. The end.’
I popped the cap which skittered over the counter and took a long drink of beer. The cold fizz hit the roof of my mouth and felt absolutely perfect. I did love that first pull of a cold beer. I gave an appreciative ‘Aa-a-ah!’ and looked back at Maddie with a satisfied smile. She scowled and grabbed the bottle off me, putting it to her mouth and turning it upside-down. I watched her swigging my beer, smiling at her attempts to goad me. She really was like a kid and it was kind of fun to piss her off with my infinite patience.
‘Aa-a-a-ah!’ said Maddie, impersonating me.
I saw that the bottle was now empty and she was looking at me with a glint in her eye. It gave me a hard-on. Her gaze flicked down to my crotch, then back up again.
‘So…’ she said. ‘Are we going to fuck or what?’
* * * * *
It was strange. As Maddie and I undressed in silence, I kept thinking about all the reasons she was wrong for me. She dressed like someone trying to be kooky, with her punky hair and loud clothes. I cringed at the thought of introducing her to friends and family as ‘my girlfriend’. Whenever I pictured my ideal woman, I had always imagined an attractive working-class girl who knew something about real life, not this entitled brat who quoted feminist principles without actually living by them.
My mind was busy with these thoughts even as Maddie and I climbed naked into bed. I felt her hands on my back as I positioned myself on top and then I pointed out that she was still wearing her glasses. ‘Oops, sorry,’ she said, taking them off and stretching her arm to put them on the bedside table. I smiled at how unsensual and mechanical it all was. There was no way this was going to work.
Then I pushed my erect cock into her already wet vagina, and suddenly I was incapable of thought. That first rush of entering Maddie’s hot and juicy cunt blew my mind, and as I buried my cock all the way to the root, our mouths and hands began ravaging each other. We fucked passionately and thoroughly and when I came deep inside her, my body jerking as I ejaculated, Maddie hooked her arms around me and gasped, ‘God, I love you!’
I held Maddie close, my cock engulfed in flesh and juice and semen. All that existed to my senses was woman, woman, woman. My skin was surrounded by woman, my nose filled with the scent of woman sweat and cunt, my ears tuned in to the sound of a woman breathing. My eyes were closed, but I no longer needed them. I had again that feeling of never wanting this moment to end.
Then I felt Maddie swallow and take a deep breath, steeling herself. I guessed what she was about to say before she opened her mouth.
‘I don’t really love you,’ she said quietly. ‘Sorry. I got carried away.’
I heard her, released a long, long outbreath and held the woman close to me.
‘I love you, too,’ I said.
When I’m this physically close to a woman–cock inside her, limbs wrapped around each other–I can literally feel changes in her emotions. Maddie barely moved, yet I felt a surge of feeling; a burst of longing like a whirlpool of emotion. She may not want to say ‘I love you’, but my God she wanted to hear it. I pressed the palms of my hands onto her skin and said again:
‘I love you.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I want to say it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I feel it.’
‘Yes, but–‘
I shifted my position so I could look down at her. Maddie fell silent. Our hips were still solidly joined, cock inside cunt. Our bodies weren’t going anywhere. But looking into her eyes, I saw that our minds were far from connected. We were circling each other like rival birds of prey. I cleared my throat.
‘Let me be specific,’ I said. ‘My body absolutely loves your body. But my mind has no idea what to do with that.’
Maddie smiled. I felt her legs relax on my backside.
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she said.
We looked at each other. It occurred to me that there was a ton of things we could talk about. That scene in the pub, her relationship with Conall, my offer to have her move in which, to be honest, I still wasn’t sure about. Yet the way it felt to be both inside and surrounded by her womanliness, all that felt irrelevant — stuff to be dealt with in the morning.
I kissed her.
Maddie’s mouth opened, her tongue inviting me inside. We didn’t stop until her urge to climb on top and fuck me took over and made kissing physically impossible.
* * * * *
It was early morning when I awoke, the grey dawn light filtering through the curtains. Maddie was still fast asleep, her body turned away like before. I liked seeing her there. It felt good.
I slipped out of bed, put on a bathrobe and went to the toilet. I took a quick shower, brushed my teeth, then went to the kitchen area to put on some coffee. Checking my phone, I saw that I had some time before getting ready for work. I drank a glass of fruit juice, then took a couple of coffee cups down from the cupboard.
I heard the bedroom door open and Maddie came barefoot into the kitchen area. She wore her glasses and one of my T-shirts, and she was bleary-eyed and yawning. We kissed and my hand found a bare buttock under the T-shirt — she wasn’t wearing any knickers. My cock started to get hard.
‘Hmmm… you brushed your teeth,’ mumbled Maddie. ‘I should brush mine.’
I took her face in my hands and kissed her deep, my tongue making a meal of the slippery inside of her mouth. When I was done, Maddie let out a deep sigh and hugged me with both arms around my waist, her head under my chin.
‘God, Jason, what are you doing to me?’
‘Want some coffee?’
‘In a minute.’
Maddie hugged me as though wanting to absorb some masculine energy by osmosis. I hugged her back, loving the feeling of a woman who loved being held by a strong man. Was I strong man? The way Maddie held me, I felt like one.
Then it was time to stop.
I relaxed my hold, kissed the top of her head, and slowly moved to separate. There was coffee to be drunk and work to be got ready for. Maddie seemed to understand, yet she was reluctant to let go. She stood close to me, hugging herself and trying to sound casual.
‘Is your offer still open?’ she said.
‘What, for you to move in?’ I said. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Jason, are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
I poured Maddie a coffee and handed her the cup. There was cream and sugar on the counter, but Maddie sipped it black. It was clear she was still unconvinced.
‘Look, I know it’s a risk,’ I said. ‘We might end up hating each other. But it’s a risk that I’m comfortable taking. Besides, it’s not exactly unconditional.’
‘Let me guess. Regular sex?’
‘Not just that,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be sharing you with Conall.’
Maddie gave me a look. I busied myself putting cream in my coffee, stirring then sipping it. We looked at each other over our coffee cups. Finally, Maddie spoke.
‘You want me to break up with my boyfriend?’ she said.
‘I want you to choose for whatever makes you happy. If that means you stay with Conall — if that is honestly where your happiness lies — then I’m fine with that.’
‘And what if my happiness lies with having both of you?’
‘What, like in the pub last night?’
Maddie glowered. I returned her glare with a shrug.
‘Madeline, you do what you want. But my offer stands.’
‘Yeah, but only if I break up with Conall!’
‘Of course! I’m not going to make an offer without conditions.’
‘But shouldn’t love be unconditional?’
‘Not for grown-ups,’ I said. ‘Besides, there is a difference between fair conditions and stupid conditions. Don’t you make it a condition with Conall that he not shag Serena Smith?’
‘That’s different!’
I looked at Maddie. She looked back, defiant. I kept looking, not saying a word. Maddie’s defiance started to show cracks. Before she could say anything, I finished my coffee and rinsed the empty cup under the kitchen tap.
‘I have to get ready for work,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to drop you anywhere?’
‘Is that your subtle way of telling me that you don’t want to leave me alone in your apartment?’
‘Yes.’
Maddie let out a snort of disdain.
‘Men!’ she said. ‘You’re all the fucking same!’
She slammed her coffee cup on the counter and stormed off to the bedroom to get dressed.
* * * * *
After I dropped her off, Maddie went on to repeat her disappearing act. I didn’t bother with an ‘Are you alive?’ text this time. If anyone was going to get hurt, it was Conall.
In the days that followed, I had internal debates about the whole Maddie situation. Part of the problem was that I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. Or rather, I already knew what people would say if I did: That I shouldn’t invite a girl to move in just because of the sex. The bottom line was that I was in love with Maddie’s cunt more than Maddie herself, and I knew that my female friends would be offended and my male friends would say I was ‘pussified’.
Yet every time I thought of sending Maddie a text to say ‘The deal’s off’, every cell in my body screamed ‘No!’ I didn’t want to end this. I didn’t mind her ending it–in fact, I would have been relieved–but I didn’t want to end it myself. I liked her. She was an entitled little cow and I liked her. I wouldn’t trust her to keep a promise in a million years and I liked her. She would probably turn my life into a chaotic mess and I liked her.
I liked her.
And I liked who I was when I was around her. I would never have put a past girlfriend on the spot the way I did with Maddie in the pub, but then none of my old girlfriends had ever behaved as badly as she did. Maddie clearly expected her men to give her what she wanted, and it was kind of fun to thwart her at every turn.
And here’s the thing: I think Maddie secretly likes it too. She really is a smart girl and I think she knows, deep down, that getting what she wants when she wants it does not necessarily translate into happiness. I think she knows how almost comically unreasonable she can be. And I think she needs a man who understands that; a man who is willing to stand, not necessarily against her, but for Reason. Yet there was no point talking to her about it. Not because Maddie lacked the intelligence to understand–certainly not–but something in her doesn’t want to be reasonable. And maybe she’s right.
I remembered the moment I had taken a beer from the fridge, fully expecting a drawn-out fight on what had happened at the pub. Hell, I had half my arguments prepared. Yet Maddie had sidestepped the issue by insisting we fuck and… I liked that. I liked how things had worked out. I liked it, even taking into account her present ghosting. I recalled a past girlfriend who insisted on ‘talking things through’ before I was even allowed to touch her, and I much preferred Maddie’s approach.
Still, maybe all this was me justifying to myself why I was in love with a woman’s cunt. Maybe I was thinking with my dick all along. But all my past relationships had been entered into sensibly, with the full participation of my thinking brain, and none of them had made me particularly happy. Most of them hadn’t even been interesting.
So, let’s think with my dick for a change… and see what happens.
* * * * *
‘I’m pregnant.’
I nearly dropped the phone. It had been over a week since Maddie had left my apartment, no contact at all in that time, and then she calls out of the blue to tell me this. I said the first thing that came to mind.
‘Congratulations.’
‘Congratulations yourself! It’s your baby!’
‘And how do I know that?’
‘Because Conall and I always use condoms!’
I remembered Conall’s face when Maddie made that offhand remark about having her period. Yes, I believed her. Still, the timing seemed a bit weird.
‘How do you know you’re pregnant?’ I said. ‘We only had sex about a week ago.’
‘And three weeks ago.’
‘But you said in the pub that you’d had your period?’
‘I only said that to piss Conall off. But the fact is I’m two weeks late and my breasts have ballooned. You’re going to be a father, Jason! What do you think about that?’
I stared out of the café window where I was sitting when I took the call. I was expecting to feel panic, anger, an inner voice screaming, ‘No-o-o-o!’ But there was nothing. Well… I had a hard-on at the thought of her breasts.
‘We should talk,’ I said.
‘Damn right, we should talk!’
‘Do you want to come round to my place or would you prefer “neutral territory”?’
‘Don’t be a prick! We’ll come to yours.’
‘We?’
‘Yeah, Conall wants to be part of this.’
I stood up, saw that the café was too full to pace, and sat down again. I wanted to swear loudly.
‘Madeline, are you kidding me?’
‘Would you stop calling me Madeline! How many times do I have to fucking tell you?’
I wanted to shout down the phone that there were more important things to worry about. I wanted to tell her that a grown-up name was, in fact, appropriate for a woman having a baby, and that she was going to have to fucking grow up, whether she wanted to or not. But trying to use reason with Maddie was a fool’s errand at the best of times, and the cocktail of hormones that was currently pinging around her system would just make things worse. I took in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly.
‘Isn’t Conall upset?’ I asked.
‘Well, of course he is! How would you feel if some guy impregnated your girlfriend? Luckily, he’s man enough to get past this.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes, really! It’s called “unconditional love”!’
‘Well, it’s unconditional something.’
‘Fuck you, Jason!’
‘I love you, too. Eight o’clock this evening?’
‘Fine!’
Maddie ended the call and I stared at the phone, wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. Still, I was in it now, up to my neck. I looked down at my crotch where my semi-hard cock was hiding in my pants.
‘I hope you know what the fuck you’re doing,’ I said.
* * * * *
Maddie and Conall arrived fifteen minutes late. I buzzed them in, opened my apartment door and waited nearby. Maddie came in first with Conall following, carrying a disposable plastic bag which clinked with beer bottles. His rock star hair half covered his face and his eyes made nervous glances around the room.
But it was Maddie who had my full attention. Bigger breasts looked good on her and she walked like a woman who knew it. Her pink-and-white pullover was tucked in at the waist, emphasizing the hourglass figure effect and I saw that her hairstyle was less spiky. She no longer looked like a girl trying not to look ‘girly’; she was unambiguously a woman.
‘Wow!’ I said. ‘You look fantastic.’
Maddie went pink in the face. Conall’s face went red and he glared at me in sullen rage. His mood wasn’t helped when Maddie turned to him and said:
‘You see?’
God knows what argument prompted that — maybe Conall had made a disparaging remark and Maddie was now ‘educating’ him. But my respect for Conall, which was never that high to begin with, was plummeting with every second he put up with this. As I waved them into the room and went to the fridge to get myself a beer, I realised that I was beyond holding Maddie accountable for anything. There was simply no point.
Maddie headed for the dining table and waved for Conall to sit as though it were her place. She even told him off for putting the bag of beers on the table. I came over with a bottle opener and some coasters while Conall handed Maddie a bottle from his bag and took one for himself. I sat opposite them, put the coasters on the table–which Maddie made sure Conall used–and opened my own beer first.
‘So, Madeline…’ I said, putting the opener on the table. ‘You’re pregnant.’
‘I am!’
As Conall opened their beers, I looked at Maddie’s chest and smiled. I opened my mouth to say something, shook my head and took a swig of beer.
‘What?’ said Maddie.
‘I was just thinking,’ I said. ‘The very first thing I ever said to you was a comment about your tits.’
‘Oh, my God! That’s true!’
She laughed and leaned towards Conall.
‘We met at a poetry evening in a pub,’ she said. ‘Jason was there with a friend.’
‘And you were wearing that awful jumper,’ I added.
‘What jumper?’
‘It had those woolly, dangly things.’
‘Oh, that one!’ She leaned towards Conall. ‘He means the one my grandmother found at the Salvation Army shop. She said it was–‘
‘I don’t give a fuck about the jumper!’ burst out Conall.
He looked almost deranged, his hair hanging in strands. The easy banter between Maddie and I was clearly torture for him and he lost it. Conall started ranting at Maddie about how she had lectured him on birth control and responsibility, and yet now she was having a laugh with a man who had knocked her up. Maddie countered by saying that a woman might need different things from different men. Conall demanded to know what the fuck she meant.
I sat and watched–part fascinated, part appalled–as Maddie recounted in excruciating detail the night I had stopped mid-fuck to decide whether or not to come inside her.
‘You’re a man, Conall,’ she said, ‘so you have no idea what it’s like to have your vagina full with a man’s erect penis, and to feel your entire body begging him–begging him–to ejaculate inside you. It’s like something else takes over–some primal need–and nothing is more important than holding that man close and taking his sperm into your body. It’s not just about sex, Conall. When Jason came inside me, it was like tasting Heaven. And you would have deprived me of that experience just because it “hurts your feelings”.’
‘But you’re pregnant!’ he cried.
‘Yes!’ said Maddie. ‘And if you were a real man, you’d understand!’
I looked at Conall and thought: Surely this is the moment he tells Maddie to go fuck herself? This is the moment he tells both of us to go to hell. This is the moment he upends the table and storms out of my apartment.
But no… Conall stayed and went on arguing. He insisted to Maddie that he did understand and that he was a real man and that he was mainly upset because she had been hypocritical. Maddie denied it and, as the two argued back and forth, I sat there wondering why one of them didn’t just say: ‘Fuck it, it’s over!’
‘Because…’ said a little voice in my head, ‘neither wants to be the one to deal the killer blow.’
That’s when I got it. That’s when I understood. If Maddie broke it off, then she was a bitch who had taken an impressionable young man away from his family and home, only to dump him when she met someone better. If Conall broke it off, then he was an ungrateful bastard who had used a young woman’s crush on him to escape his home village and set himself up in the big city. Both of them were wracked with guilt, yet neither had the guts to finish it.
I sighed, lifted my beer bottle and tapped the side of it with the opener, making an approximation of the ‘ding-ding-ding’ for announcing a dinner party speech. Maddie and Conall stopped arguing and looked at me. I addressed Conall.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I know you and Madeline have things to talk about…’
‘She doesn’t like being called Madeline!’
‘Conall, for fuck’s sake!’ said Maddie in exasperation.
Conall looked at her as though she had stabbed him. And now it was my turn.
‘Conall, the woman sat next to you is pregnant with my baby. We need to talk about that.’
‘Fine!’
‘No,’ I said. ‘When I say “we”, I mean Madeline and myself. Alone.’
Conall swallowed and looked at Maddie. She sat, legs crossed, arms folded, staring at her beer bottle on the table. Conall looked back at me.
‘You’re going to fuck each other, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
‘Well, what if I refuse to go?’
‘Then I suggest we clear a space and settle this the old-fashioned way.’
‘I don’t believe in violence.’
Maddie gave a snort of derision. Conall stared at her as though she had stabbed him a second time. He was almost in tears.
‘Maddie, you’re the one who said that women aren’t prizes to be won!’ he said. ‘That’s what you said!’
Maddie winced, but more at the whine in his voice than the reminder. I took a sip of beer, then put my beer bottle next to the one Conall had given her. The meaning was obvious and Conall’s gaze was suddenly fixed on that bottle. I looked over the table at Maddie.
She glared at me.
I returned her look, daring her to back down this time. I wasn’t going to do all her dirty work for her. Finally, she sighed and reached for my bottle. She put it to her lips, upended it and drank every last drop of beer. She licked the rim, then put it back on the table and looked at Conall. His bottom lip was quivering.
I turned to him.
‘Take your beers,’ I said, ‘and get out of my house.’
* * * * *
Maddie and I sat in the silence following the slam of my apartment door. I was wondering whether Conall knew which car was mine and whether he would key it. Apart from that, I felt okay. Not good, not bad… but okay.
‘We’re not very nice people, are we?’ said Maddie.
‘Did you want to be a nice person?’
‘I want to be a good person.’
Conall had left his beers behind after all; his version of a fuck-you, I suppose. I opened one and took a drink.
I said: ‘I’m not sure you can be a good person and a woman at the same time.’
‘That’s bullshit!’
‘All right, let me put it another way. Being a good person means honouring a moral code of some kind, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘But if you’re a woman who values her womanhood, doesn’t that mean honouring your innermost feelings?’
‘Um, ye-e-eah…’
‘So what happens when what you desire as a woman clashes with your moral code? Should you choose to be a moral person? Or should you honour your innermost feelings as a woman?’
Maddie put a hand on her belly. She frowned and looked at the door through which Conall had walked out of her life.
‘I never wanted to hurt him,’ she said.
‘I believe you,’ I said. ‘But neither did you want the responsibility of not hurting him.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about–‘
‘No, stop! I don’t want to know!’
Maddie stood up and turned her back on me. She stood with her hands on her hips for a few moments, then turned to face me.
‘Jason,’ she said. ‘Do you want to see my new, improved tits?’
* * * * *
Maddie stayed the night and that marked the beginning of us living together as an official couple.
My family and friends were appalled at first, especially when they heard the whole Conall story. More than one of them took me to one side to mutter, ‘How do you know she won’t do the same to you someday?’ And my answer was always the same: Given the right circumstances, I knew that she would. Maddie was ruthlessly self-centred. Her own personal happiness would always trump whatever morals she claimed to believe in, including her feminism. But knowing that was my protection.
About six months after she moved in, the two of us were naked in bed. Maddie’s belly was now huge and she was lying on her back looking down at it. I lay on my side next to her and I thought she looked absolutely beautiful. We had just made love, I had finished inside her and my aching penis was still leaking cum. I reached for a tissue and wiped myself off. Maddie let out a deep sigh.
‘Jason… why am I so happy?’
‘You make it sound like a problem,’ I said.
‘Well, it kind of is,’ said Maddie. ‘I have a baby literally inside me and I’m thinking, “How the fuck did that happen?” I never decided I wanted this. I never decided I wanted you. And the feminist part of my brain is going apeshit. It hates the fact that I’m cooking for you, taking care of your home… even the fact that I think of it as your home rather than our home sends it spinning into some kind of temper tantrum. And yet…’
She leaned back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.
‘I have zero desire to go back to the way I was with Conall. I was the provider in that relationship. My name was on the rental contract. Although we were supposedly equal partners, he basically did things the way I wanted them, and I cringe when I think about it. I’m so much happier with you. And it doesn’t make sense because you’re basically being the traditional breadwinner and I’m not supposed to be happier with you.’
She looked at me then, worried that I might be offended. I wasn’t. I knew exactly what she meant. She reached out her hand and I took it.
‘The way you’re looking at me,’ she said, ‘is the way I used to look at Conall. And I’m realising that I’m much happier being the receiver of that look than the giver. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘And it doesn’t bother you?’
‘What, that I’m the giver and you’re the receiver? That’s it’s not “fifty-fifty”?’
Maddie pulled a face. I put a hand on the side of her face and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed me back and, as we kissed, I felt her hand reach down, cup my balls, then wrap its fingers around my cock. It stiffened at her touch and she broke the kiss and looked into my eyes.
‘Any chance I could receive some more?’ she murmured.
Those were the last words she spoke that night. I told her to be silent and got her to perform every sex act I ever wanted to see a pregnant woman do. By the end of it, Maddie was so off the world that I don’t think her brain was able to formulate words. She went to sleep with a huge smile on her face.
But I stayed awake awhile and gazed at her, thoughts swirling in my head.
For better or worse, this was the woman I would be having children with. I suppose I would be marrying her at some point, but right now I didn’t feel like a man looking at his future wife–I felt like a caveman looking at his mate. She was wild, this woman. However smart she may be, her animal side was in charge. I would never have consciously chosen her. Yet the past six months had been some of the happiest in my life — living with Maddie was a blast. Yet it wasn’t her love which touched me. As Maddie had said, love was something which I gave to her.
No, what touched me was her gratitude.
Maddie made me feel every day that she was grateful to have me. She was grateful that I was sharing my home with her, grateful that I took care of the money, grateful that I was embracing our future parenthood in the way I was doing it. I never realised what an extraordinary thing it was to be a man on the receiving end of a woman’s gratitude. It made me want to do more for her. And all my past girlfriends, who took for granted what I offered and continually gave me the feeling that they were entitled to ‘more’, entered that part of my memory reserved for bad dreams.
Maybe Maddie would change over time and resurrect those memories. But, right now, she was pregnant and perfect, and I went to sleep next to her feeling like the luckiest man in the world.
* * * * *
Postscript
I was in the supermarket pushing a trolley. My two-year-old son, Jake, was in the child seat, demonstrating his ability to fall asleep absolutely anywhere. His little body was slumped forward, arms hanging over the push-bar, his chubby face directed at the floor. I was getting lots of smiles and disbelieving shakes of the head from other shoppers, especially women. I was glad Maddie wasn’t here. She tends to get jealous and now that she’s pregnant with our second child, her hormones are once more all over the place.
I was pushing my trolley down the aisle for sauces and spices, when another trolley turned the corner and headed in my direction. I moved mine to one side so we could pass, but not before noticing that the other trolley was being pushed by a woman of stunning sexiness — long, black hair, dark eyes, long legs wearing knee-high black boots. The man she was with was handsome rather than sexy, dapper in a tailored jacket and with a strong, well-defined face. His haircut was short at the back and sides, and floppy at the front, which was probably why I didn’t recognise him at first glance. Then he looked right at me and spoke my name in that distinctive Scottish brogue.
‘Jason!’
I stopped in my tracks and stared. The man seemed delighted to see me, leaving his lady friend to come over, his hand already stretched out. I was shaking it before I could bring myself to speak.
‘Conall… you look great!’
‘Thanks! My goodness, it’s incredible to see you!’
I was bowled over by his enthusiasm. Didn’t he want to punch me? Still, as the dark-eyed lady manoeuvred her trolley adjacent to mine, I didn’t get the feeling he was losing much sleep over Maddie anymore. The woman’s name was Philippa and she spoke like a country club debutante.
‘Oh… my… God,’ she said, looking at Jake’s slumped form. ‘What did you do to that poor urchin?’
‘I put gin in his milk bottle,’ I said.
For one second, I think she believed me. Then her mouth made a little twitch of displeasure and she tossed her hair in a gesture of dismissal. Meanwhile, Conall was looking at Jake and smiling. There was something reflective about that smile.
‘He’s definitely mine,’ I said.
‘How did you know I was thinking that?’ said Conall.
‘Because I had the same thought myself at one point. So, after he was born, I did one of those DNA home tests.’
‘Fuck! How did Maddie react?’
‘I did it without telling her. She would have considered it a “breach of trust”.’
Conall laughed and said:
‘Yeah, that’s her, all right. Carrying on with two guys at the same time is somehow okay, but to doubt her word on something… hoo, boy!’
‘Wait!’ said Philippa, staring at Conall and pointing at me. ‘He’s that Jason?’
I smiled thinking, ‘She catches on quick.’ Conall looked embarrassed. The two of them exchanged a few brief words, then Philippa huffed and stalked off pushing the trolley.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Conall.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘It’s me who should apologise to you.’
‘What, for kicking me out of your apartment?’ said Conall. ‘You did me a favour, man! Maddie gets pregnant by someone else and I still want to be “part of it”? What was I thinking?’
‘Well…’ I turned to look at Philippa’s rather tasty behind receding down the aisle. ‘You seemed to have bounced back.’
‘Oh, it’s not serious with Philippa. To be honest, I’ve been a bit of a slut since breaking up with Maddie.’
‘And are you enjoying it?’
‘You bet! I think monogamy is well overrated.’
I looked at Conall’s firm jaw and blue eyes and thought, ‘Yeah, if I looked like you, I’d probably think the same.’ Highly attractive people live in a different world to the rest of us.
‘Look, I’d better go,’ said Conall. ‘But it was great to see you!’
‘You too,’ I said, and meant it.
We shook hands one last time and I watched Conall return to his lady friend. He looked completely at ease, giving the woman a quick kiss, then turning away to ponder the rows of condiment jars. I turned away myself and saw a chubby little face with Maddie’s green eyes look blearily at me from its place in the child seat.
‘Well, hello, sparky!’ I said. ‘Welcome back to the world!’