Mother’s Milk

January

I awaken long before my young wife Linden. Our bedroom is only beginning to emerge from the long late January night, and outside the glass of the single bay window that faces our bed, the world appears dark gray, then dark violet, and finally lavender. The shadowy light of predawn falls on Linden’s nude form (the covers have slipped off her during the night), and as the day is born, it is as if her body is being sculpted out of the darkness itself. Sometimes when I gaze at her sleeping, I can’t believe she is real. She is too beautiful; I have never grown tired of looking at her or marveling at her perfection. I know many newlywed men feel as I do about their brides at first, but after a time start to take them for granted; their relationships lose that sense of lightness and mystery; romance and magic fades into a wasteland of unpaid bills, car repairs, emotional baggage, excess weight, ill health and constant worry. They start to see the excess flesh on their wives’ thighs, smell their morning breath, see the crow’s feet that rim their eyes, or notice that their breasts droop. But even though we have been married only a year, I cannot fathom ever taking Linden for granted, not liking her, or finding her dull or unattractive. I know she will not remain young forever; her body will not always look the way it does now, but I will never grow tired of looking at her or loving her. She will be as lovely when she is old as she is now at age 23. I can’t imagine ever loving anyone else. I have never loved anyone else. She is my soul mate; I have never felt happier.

I listen to Linden’s even breathing and try to synchronize my own breathing to hers. My erection is growing; in a sense we are already making love. I need to join my body with hers again, but I am enjoying watching her sleep and don’t want to awaken her too soon. We have only been sleeping several hours; we made love many times last night, I can’t even count how many times. She is the only woman I have been with who can bring me to orgasm and yet keep me wanting more. After release, I am still erect and usually only require a few minutes of rest before beginning to make love to her again.

As the room begins to brighten to pink and gold, I drink in the smoothness of Linden’s golden skin, inhale her scent, contemplate the reddish highlights in her fine neck-length chestnut hair. She has shifted into a fetal position, her slightly concave, slender back facing me, her knees drawn up almost to her breasts. At the junction of her thighs, I glimpse the evidence of our recent lovemaking: tucked neatly under her rump, her opening is visible and still wet. The delicate, slightly ruffled petals that frame her cunt are dusky and swollen, protrude slightly from her body, and flare out stiffly, especially when she is aroused. I feel myself harden more and turn toward her, spooning her. My cock presses into her crack, searching for purchase inside her, trying to find home. It’s as if it has a mind of its own. Linden’s skin feels like cool satin against mine. Her breath catches wetly and she moans slightly. I move away from her a bit and slide my hand to her smooth ass and cup her right cheek in my palm, squeezing gently. Her thighs press together now, one, two, three times, she sleepily murmurs my name and smiles slightly, and I know she too wants to make love. I slide my hand between her legs and feel the wetness on the tops of her thighs. She squeezes them together tightly and then relaxes. Gently I insert a finger inside her, and pull it out. A long strand of clear mucus is drawn out with it, uniting us with its promise of Linden’s fertility. Last night Linden told me she was ovulating. As if to solidify that promise, the strand now catches and reflects the pale morning sun before it finally weakens and breaks. I lick my finger; her secretion tastes both sweet and milky. After a year of diligently taking the Pill, Linden has finally thrown them away. The day her last period ended, we finally decided to go ahead and and try to conceive a child. We are both only 23 (we met at a party a mutual friend threw while we were juniors in college), but I don’t believe in waiting until my thirties or later to have children. I want to still be young and active when the kids are in their teens; I think that would make it much easier to relate to them. Linden also feels it’s better to have kids young; too many women, she says, who have had kids at later ages in order to pursue careers while young, find that when their children finally leave the nest, they no longer have the energy or desire to resume an old career or pursue a new one. They are just too old. Better to be a young mom, she says; you can always pursue a career during your forties but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to have children then.

So Linden celebrated our decision by allowing me to give her a douche after her menstrual flow stopped, something she did every month, and something I had always wanted to do for her, but she had never allowed before. Too private, she said. I countered her objection with the fact that not only had I seen her vagina before, I had been inside it, smelled it, tasted its secretions, and even seen her menstrual blood flow from it. So what could be more private than that? She saw my reasoning, and reluctantly agreed to let me douche her.

So watching the water pour from between her parted legs like a warm waterfall and splash onto my hand that held the nozzle inside her felt like a sacrament. After this cleansing ritual, I was as hard as stone and we immediately made love. I immediately sensed the difference between making love without contraception and making love with it. Even though the Pill, unlike a condom or diaphragm, provided no actual physical barrier between our male and female equipment, it created a psychological one, and the sex, as good as it was, never seemed quite complete. Losing myself inside Linden, and knowing my come, normally such a messy and inconvenient byproduct of sexual pleasure, now was so much more, with its potential and newly designated mission to create a life, I felt closer and loved her more deeply and completely than ever. Making love with with Linden ceased to be recreation and became a solemn and sacred ritual.

That first time we made love unprotected was two weeks ago, and now Linden is definitely fertile and we are about to make love again. I am sore, very sore, from last night, and the skin on the head of my penis is raw, but it doesn’t matter. I still need to be inside her, I need to feel the intimacy of her sex embracing and molding itself to mine, making us one (making us three?), as she holds me in her arms and makes it possible for my soul to melt away and merge with hers.

Now as she turns toward me and enfolds me in her arms, kissing me softly and then with more urgency, I feel the familiar tears burning behind my closed eyes. Since my adolescence, like most American men, I have always been so controlled, taking pride in hiding my true feelings, pretending I’m incapable of tears. In Linden’s arms, not only do I feel free to release them, I relish doing so. Weeping in her arms, especially now while we try to start a pregnancy and everything is so raw and elemental and intimate, feels not only safe and warm but cleansing and sacramental. Our collective tears are like holy water, anointing us both, joining us together. They are sexual and alive. Now, as Linden moves her delicate hand with its unpolished nails to my cheek and touches the wetness there, her own tears begin. Even before they pool in her dark brown eyes and finally overflow, I can detect a telltale pinkening of her nose and around the rims of her eyes. She is lying on her side, so instead of streaming down her cheeks, they spill across them at a diagonal before splashing, drop by drop, onto the soft skin of my inside upper arm. Linden’s medium-sized, soft breasts push against my bare and still mostly hairless chest; her lips, slightly dry but soft and partly open, are touching mine (but we are not kissing). I can feel her warm breath, slightly stale from sleep, caress the insides of my mouth. Before we both close our eyes and kiss again, a huge tear that had been quivering on the end of her nose falls onto my lower lip. I lick it off, drinking in the sight of her soft, moist pink skin, vulnerable as a baby’s, her spiky wet eyelashes with a few jewel-like teardrops still clinging to their tips. The delicacy of her breathing breaks my heart--it makes her seem so vulnerable—and induces another brief shower of my tears. Once more I synchronize the rhythm of my breathing to hers. I move my hand to Linden’s left breast and rub my thumb tenderly against her swollen nipple. Her right breast is pressed against the inside of my upper arm, her perfectly smooth, now-flat belly curved toward and against my pelvis. Our breathing becomes deeper, more urgent; feverishly I pull myself up and roll her onto her back, kissing her over and over, and she opens her legs, her pretty knees raised, ready to receive me. I come up for air for a moment, raising myself on my forearms, and am blessed with the sight of the river flowing from its lovely source between the two fleshy mountains of Linden’s thighs. Like a slow-motion waterfall, her wetness oozes down the crack of her ass onto the pure snowy white of the bedsheets (Linden refuses to use any color other than white for our linens). For a moment I hover over her like this, allowing her to stroke and fondle my turgid cock with her delicate hands. I move closer to her so the swollen tip is brushing against the soft dark brown thatch that guards her sex. Linden is arching up, trying to take me inside her. I won’t let her—yet, in spite of the enormous amount of self-control it takes to keep from plunging into her right now. I tease her a little, brushing myself against the dew-laden petals of her opening. Sweat drips off my chest and face onto her glistening body. Feverishly, I notice the sun is streaming in through the window, making her skin look even more golden than it already is. Linden is beginning to thrash side to side on the bed, squeezing her legs together instinctively, trying to find relief. Her calves tense as her feet point downward, her toes digging into the bedsheets, flexing open and then curling into themselves. Her hands are on my shoulders; she is digging her unpolished oval nails into the soft skin of my shoulderblades. Her face is contorted in an expression that in any other context would appear ugly or tragic, the damp curls of hair that frame her oval face are plastered to her skin, her flattened breasts quiver like twin jellyfish. Watching her in heat like this, like an animal, always astonishes me. She is amazing, beautiful, powerful, and as attuned to her natural self as any jungle or forest creature.

Giving no warning, I now plunge inside her, but with care not to hurt her (or myself, for that matter, as I am pretty raw). Linden’s breath catches, like a swimmer diving into a cold pool, and her vaginal muscles close immediately and tightly around my throbbing, turgid penis, her core taking on my shape. She is holding onto me tightly, every muscle in her quivering little body tensed; her legs are drawn up now and wrapped like a vise around my hips. Holding myself still inside her for a long while, I suck on Linden’s swollen breasts and kiss her savagely.

I thrust only a few times but can no longer delay my release; I try to warn her that I’m coming (I can tell she is very close too), but I am breathless and can barely speak. Suddenly my orgasm is upon me, and I’m shuddering convulsively with its force, which originates not so much in my groin but seems to be radiating from my entire pelvic area into my belly, down the lengths of my limbs, and all the way up to the top of my head. The release is so total and the force of my orgasm so intense it is nearly painful. Linden comes moments after I do, her cries and gasps merging with my own in a kind of primal harmony.

I collapse into Linden’s arms and she holds me the way she always does. I am still inside her, still hard; I feel our fluids mingling inside her. I can feel some of it seeping out of her, onto the bed and onto her thighs. I’m not sure why, but this strikes me as very sad, and I find myself in tears again. Linden strokes my head.

“Sean, Sean. It’s alright, baby.”

I look up at her, sniffling, my eyes streaming.

Linden smiles softly and kisses my running nose.

“I love you, Linden.”

“I know, Sean. I love you too.”

“Please don’t ever leave me.”

“Of course not, silly. We’re married!” She ruffles my hair (which is dark and wavy, and long for a man’s), and pulls my head down to rest on her chest. I relax in her warm embrace and as I begin to fall asleep, I think what a great mother she’ll make.

I am awakened by the sensation of my softening penis falling out of her. This makes me sad too, but I don’t cry this time. I’m too tired.

I just hold Linden tighter. I don’t ever want this to end.

February

I come home from work one snowy evening, laden down with new layouts to go over for the regional magazine I publish. I am tired and grouchy, and hungry to boot. It has taken way too long to get the old Ford Taurus home in the snow. I detest driving in snow. Next year, I vow, we will have a four-wheel drive vehicle instead of this death box.

Linden seems not to notice my foul mood, and cheerfully tells me about the teriyaki chicken she has prepared for our meal. I don’t expect Linden to always cook; I am no male chauvinist. In fact, sometimes I insist on cooking, but Linden loves to cook, and her food always tastes good, so lately I’ve been letting her take over that chore.

Linden seems even more cheerful than usual, and tells me over dinner that her period is a week late, and today she purchased a pregnancy test at Eckerd. She also tells me her breasts feel tender, but isn’t sure if that is due to being premenstrual, or being pregnant. I notice her sweater does look a little tight around her breasts, and say a silent prayer that she has conceived. I am afraid I will cry if she hasn’t. Rationally I know that the first try usually does not result in conception; it usually takes several times, but I worry about it anyway. It’s become the most important thing in my life, outside of Linden herself.

The next morning, right after we make love, Linden summons me into the bathroom. Usually this is her private time, but today I’m allowed to join her. She opens up the little box and takes out a plastic stick with two windows in it. My heart is pounding so hard I feel like it’s inside my throat. I can hardly swallow; I am such a nervous wreck. I have been waiting for this day for weeks, playing it over and over again in my mind. I have never imagined it to turn out anything less than victorious, but now reality has kicked in, and I realize the large possibility of disappointment. I don’t think I can handle it.

Linden sits down on the john. She is naked; her breasts do look heavy and the nipples look darker than usual. I can’t tell if this is only my imagination or not, but decide that I’m just being obsessive.

Linden holds the plastic stick between her thighs, under her vagina, and pees onto it. I try to see the window there but I can’t; there are too many shadows.

“It takes a few minutes anyway, Sean,” she says.

Her forceful urine stream finally diminishes to a trickle. She removes the test wand and places it on the vanity. She wipes her fingers with some toilet tissue, then we grasp hands tightly and wait.

Within moments two fine blue lines appear in the test’s window.

We look at each other, and then back at the window, as if we didn’t believe what we saw the first time.

“Sean?”

“Linden?”

“I’m pregnant.” Linden’s brown eyes are swimming and her lower lip is quivering like a little girl’s.

I’m grinning like a fool. My own tears gather behind my eyelids. I don’t know what to say, and I’m too full of emotion to talk anyway, so I just fall to my knees on the hard tiled floor in front of Linden, gather her in my arms, and hold her tightly, tightly, the mother of our baby. Her legs are still parted, and I can still detect the slightly acrid smell of her morning urine. I’ve completely forgotten that I need to go, too. I nuzzle my face in her smooth fragrant hair, anointing it with my tears.

I can’t remember ever being this happy, not even two years ago when Linden told me she would marry me.
We go back to bed and make love again. Our bodies feel like pieces of a well-made jigsaw puzzle, the fit is so perfect. I decide to stay home from work today to celebrate our victory, to spend a perfect day with the woman who makes me complete.

March

The morning sickness has begun. Or, I should say, the evening sickness. Linden cannot eat the meal I have prepared tonight, salmon steak with tartar sauce and asparagus. She tells me the smell of fish makes her queasy, and when I urge her just to taste it, she gags and runs to the bathroom, her hands clutching her mouth. Linden has been moody and morose the past week or so, almost depressed, and it worries me. I know these are normal symptoms of pregnancy, but I can’t help taking them personally, taking her revulsion at my cooking personally, too. I know I am being selfish and irrational, but I can’t help it. I place Linden’s dinner in a Tupperware container and close the lid, then put it in the refrigerator.

Linden comes back, her skin ashen and waxy, her hair slightly damp. She smiles wanly. Her lips look pale. She is still slender and her stomach is flat, but her breasts look large and heavy. I notice she has a few pimples on her forehead and one next to her nose. Probably from all the extra hormones raging in her system.

“Feel better?”

“A little,” she says. She goes over to the tea kettle and puts it on. She opens the ceramic cat shaped cookie jar next to the stove and takes out two sugar cookies.

“I’m sorry, Sean, I know you worked hard cooking. But this is just about all I can handle right now. I should be back to normal in a couple of weeks.”

“I hope so. I’m worried about you.”

“It’s perfectly normal, Sean. Pregnant women get weird about food. It’s only the first trimester, though.”

“Okay.” I know she is right, but I’m not entirely convinced.

I think about the baby growing inside her, and feel a fleeting twinge of anger that this intruder is making my wife feel so bad. I shake off this selfish thought, and instead go over to where Linden stands by the stove and held her against me, my hand covering her flat, soft belly.

“I only want what’s best for you and the baby.”

“I know,” Linden murmurs into my neck.

The tea kettle is whistling and Linden breaks our embrace to turn it off and pour us both some tea.

April

Linden is showing now, just a little. Her smooth belly, flat last month, has now taken on a very slight roundness, right below her navel. Its hardness surprised me at first; I was my mother’s only child (she was never very maternal), and so had never touched a pregnant woman’s stomach before. Linden told me that I wouldn’t feel anything move for another month or two; the fetus (no longer an embryo!) is still too small. That doesn’t stop me from trying to feel movement there, however: my hand is on her belly almost constantly. Pregnancy is fascinating and mysterious to me. Women’s bodies are amazing, pregnant or not. But this, this is magical and sacred. I am jealous of Linden and of women in general for being so close to the beginnings of life, for their ability to create within themselves a new being.

But of course, she reminds me, I had a part in this too.

Linden and I read pregnancy books together, poring over the drawings of pregnant tummies and fetuses at different stages of growth. It is so amazingly sexual.

Linden has never looked more beautiful and alive. Her breasts have blossomed, they are heavy and full now, and rather hard. Their nipples have darkened to a deep brown and grown larger. The areolas look slightly puffy. Her thighs looks a trifle more lush; she tells me this is due to the pelvic bones actually widening, preparing the body to give birth, rather than to weight gain. Her hair looks fuller and shinier; she seems to have more of it. Her skin looks healthy and glowing. Her eyes sparkle.

Her evening sickness is nearly gone, and her acne has receded, except for the stubborn pimple next to her nose.

We are entering the second trimester, she tells me, and in another month she will need to begin wearing the maternity clothes we have purchased together.

When Linden and I make love now, she feels more open inside, softer and hotter, and her secretions are more abundant and feel different, thicker. Her orgasms are more intense than ever (as if they weren’t to begin with!), and sometimes it seems I cannot satisfy her enough. I am hard all the time, and we can’t seem to stop making love, and still it seems she cannot get enough of me. On several occasions I have come home to find her naked on our bed, masturbating. This bothers me, but I don’t tell her this. She will think I am too obsessive and jealous.

I am convinced that Linden, at least, is at her best, really in her element, when pregnant. It’s the natural physical condition of a young woman. Non-pregnancy, not pregnancy, is the aberration, the deviation from the feminine ideal. I am no medical expert, but it occurs to me that periods are probably pathological by nature. A woman’s ovum begs to be fertilized, but if it isn’t, her body literally undergoes injury from neglect, and her womb bleeds, much as any injury may cause bleeding. That could explain why many women feel sick and depressed during their monthly periods. If they are literally ill, it all makes perfect sense. For the first time in my life, I can almost understand the Catholic idea of shunning birth control. It makes the natural and primal so clinical and modern. It removes the mystery and beauty from life’s most natural and creative function.

Of course, I am just talking out of my asshole. I know I sound crazy and most people would laugh at me for saying these things, call me a sexist jerk. I am being unrealistic. Idealism is for a perfect world or for lunatics, and neither is the case here. Heady ideals usually clash with mundane everyday reality and cause even more problems in the end. I’m not crazy; I know what’s real and possible and what is just fantasy. I may not like the way things are or how they have to be, but I’m not stupid.

All that doesn’t matter now anyway, since Linden is having my baby. God, she is so beautiful. I can’t wait to taste her milk. I always wondered what human milk tastes like.

June

Five months, only four to go. Linden is well into her second trimester, and her stomach is blooming. Now there is a mysterious brown line that runs from her navel all the way to her thick brown thatch. She tells me it’s hormonal, but I think it’s magical. I love the cute way her navel protrudes a little now, too. I love nibbling on it when we make love.

She has put on a little weight, but I don’t mind. She looks so lush and languid, like a Renaissance painting. Now that the weather is warm, she has taken to wearing high-waisted sleeveless sundresses with flirty, full skirts in soft fabrics that caress and emphasize her blossoming figure, rather than covering it. Linden’s hair is full and shiny, shot through with reddish highlights from the sun, and she’s grown it out long. I could spend all day running my fingers through its silky strands. Linden’s breasts are huge now, and tender looking; a latticework of blue veins crisscrosses beneath the milky skin. Sometimes I wonder if her breasts hurt. She says they don’t, but they are tender and she can’t lie on her stomach anymore. Linden’s sex drive is as strong as ever, though. We have had to alter positions somewhat to accommodate Linden’s growing tummy. Making love with her is spiritual, pure ecstasy, and intensely emotional. We always wind up as wet from our tears as from our sweat and secretions.

The baby is starting to move now. In the evenings while we watch TV or read, I sit next to Linden with my hand pasted to the hard bulge of her belly. It’s strange, feeling it moving under her skin. I can’t tell which body parts are moving; Linden just laughs when I ask her if that was a hand or a foot, and tells me it was probably the baby’s butt.

Last week we went in for an ultrasound. Once Dr. Freeman pointed out to us where the baby’s arms, legs, and head were located, I could easily make out the beautiful curve of its spine. It looked like a delicate pearl necklace, and I burst into tears right there in the office. We have decided not to find out the baby’s sex; we would both rather be surprised this first time. Dr. Freeman said he probably wouldn’t be able to tell anyway, because of the way the baby was positioned during the ultrasound. Modest baby.

The only thing that bothers me a little is all the attention Linden is getting. Not only acquaintances, but total strangers walk up to us, totally disregarding my presence, and put their hands on her bulging stomach. It makes me mad; it feels like a violation of her body. How dare these people, who don’t know her at all, touch her so intimately? Yet that’s par for the course, I suppose. Linden just laughs when I object, saying I have to expect things like that, and it won’t always be like this. Everywhere we go, Linden is treated like royalty, or worse, like an invalid who can’t do anything for herself. It makes me feel annoyed and slightly jealous. I know I am being silly and shouldn’t feel this way, but my emotions keep overriding my common sense no matter how much I try to convince myself that I’m wrong.

We have decided on a name. Justin David for a boy, Rachelle Marie for a girl.

August

Linden has quit her part-time job at the bookstore. We don’t really need her income, which wasn’t very much, and we both have decided it’s best for her not to be on her feet all day while she is pregnant. Her feet have been swelling and sometimes she complains they feel numb. Sometimes she gets cramps and says she feels like she’s going into labor. False labor, Petra and Dr. Freeman call it, and perfectly normal during the last trimester, as long as it doesn’t go beyond mild uterine contractions, a sort of rhythmic tightening and relaxing of her belly. I make more than enough money at my publishing job for all of us, at least for the time being. Linden’s health insurance is covered. Since she is in the house nearly all the time now, except to go shopping or run other errands, she doesn’t usually bother getting dressed. So she’s practically living in her thin cotton spaghetti strap gowns now, which are sheer and gauzy enough that her naked body is visible beneath them. She doesn’t wear panties in the house, as that would be pointless: when I am with her, we are nearly always in one stage or another of making love.

One of my favorite rituals is bathing Linden. She is in her seventh month, and now has difficulty rising from the tub on her own. She has always loved long bubble baths and sometimes oil baths, and now she requires my help. I am delighted to oblige.

Tonight I decide to join her in the tub. Partly because I simply want to, but also partly because Linden has decided on a water birth. I was against the idea at first, thinking it flaky and probably unsafe, but Linden’s midwife Petra has assured us of the method’s safety, and explained that it’s far less traumatic and painful for both the baby and the mother. The plan is for me to join Linden in the birthing pool. As I will be naked myself and holding Linden in my arms during the entire birth, in a way I will be going through the process of birth myself, and thereby be able to bond with both Linden and our baby more easily than if I was merely coaching her.

It makes sense to me.

So I fill the tub for her, and pour in two capfuls of aromatic oil. The strong herbal scent wafts into my nostrils, and even before she has removed her thin summer gown, my cock is standing at attention under my boxers.

While the tub fills, I turn toward her and enfold her in my arms. She is naked and feels vulnerable under her gown. I hike it over her hips and cup her bare ass in my hands. The humidity in the room has made her skin warm and moist. My erection presses against her pubic mound, and we hold each other like this for a long time, breathing in each others’ scent. I step back and she lifts her arms, allowing me to remove her gown. Her heavy breasts quiver, and I can see a rippling movement under the taut, shiny skin of her stomach. I place my hand over it and close my eyes. When I open them, she is smiling at me.

I wrap Linden in my arms again and kiss her savagely, desperately, then lean over to turn off the water. Linden slides my boxers down my hips and they fall to the floor, I step out of them and I help her into the tub, getting in after her so I am sitting behind her, my arms wrapped around her belly, my turgid cock pressed against the small of her back.

The fragrant, silky water sloshes against both of us like amniotic fluid. I feel like we’re twins in some giant mother’s womb. I want to be inside her womb; I envy the baby she carries. The feel and sound of the water arouses and relaxes me at the same time. My breathing deepens, and so does Linden’s. Her skin feels soft and buttery. I find the washcloth and wring water over her back, and then begin to scrub her gently. I shampoo her long hair, which looks almost black when it’s wet. From the back, I notice, she really doesn’t look any different. Except for a slight increase of body fat, she could just as easily not be pregnant at all.

She scootches back on her behind so I am pressed even more tightly against her. The oil has made our skin slippery; I rub against her, enjoying the seal-like slickness of our bodies. I draw up my knees so they are supporting Linden’s sides, then I reach around to her front and run the soapy washcloth over and under her breasts several times, and heft them in my palms, marveling at their weight and fullness. I wonder if there is any milk in them yet. My cock is throbbing now; I thrust against her back, and she sighs softly.

We stay like this until the water becomes too cool for comfort, and then I help her out of the tub and wrap her in a huge fluffy towel, and then take her to our bed and immediately begin to make love to her.

We come quickly and the orgasm is mutual. Then, exhausted, we fall asleep in each other’s arms.

September

Linden is huge; she can barely move anymore. She can’t even bend down to buckle her sandals, so has taken to wearing slip-ons if she goes out, or just going barefoot the rest of the time. It seems like she needs to urinate every five minutes. She is tired all the time, and always hungry. There are only a few positions she can comfortably make love in, and I am afraid to penetrate her too deeply. Our lovemaking is careful and feverish. We’ve pretty much settled on the spoon position--I can just slide my penis into her from behind. This seems more comfortable for her, and doesn’t require any physical effort on her part. The really nice thing is I can even make love to her this way while she sleeps, and I have. Sometimes when she wakes up, I’m already inside her. It’s always very sweet and gentle.

One night after dinner she is taking an unusually long time in the bathroom, and I begin to sense that something is wrong. I hope it has nothing to do with the baby.

“Everything all right in there?”

I hear the toilet flushing and then the water in the sink running.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

The door to the bathroom finally opens. Linden is naked, as she usually is these days, and looks sweaty and irritated. At this stage, her pregnancy makes her look clumsy and off balance. Beautiful in an overripe way.

“I can’t shit,” she complains.

I almost laugh, partly from relief and partly because it’s just plain funny.

“That’s it? You’re just constipated?”

“Yeah. I hate it.”

“I could give you an enema.”

“What?” She laughs. “You’re crazy.”

“No, really. Don’t we have one of those disposable ones?”

“Well, yeah, but there is no way you are giving me an enema. I can do it myself.”

I was getting turned on. It never occurred to me to do anything like this with Linden or anyone else before, and I was surprised to find the idea of it was really making me hard.

“Are there two of them in there?”

“Huh?”

“I could give you one, and then you give me one. Would that make it less embarrassing?”

Linden laughs. “God, Sean, you really are crazy.”

“Crazy about you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Well, I don’t know…”

“Linden, listen, we’ll do it together. It’s not like we haven’t done intimate things together before.”
”There’s only one toilet in this house.”

“It’s big enough for both of us.”

“You mean we’re going to sit on the toilet and shit at the same time?” She looks incredulous.

“Yeah, of course, why not?”

Linden shakes her head and smiles. “Well, alright, then. Let’s do it.”

We are in luck: there are two Fleet enemas in the linen closet with the other medications. They look lonely there, as if they were waiting for us. I take them down and hand her one.

“I think we should use a little lubricant. ”

“Good idea.” I get the Vaseline out, too.

We lay down on the bed, facing each other, the enemas and jar of Vaseline on the towel between us. I apply some to my finger and reach between Linden’s legs. She lifts the one on top to allow me access to her asshole. Gently I insert my lubricated finger into her tight, puckered hole and move it around in a circular motion. I can feel her sphincter contract at my touch. I draw my hand back out, brushing it against her opening: she is sopping wet. Mmmmm, she moans.

Then she does the same for me. Her slender finger with its Vaseline topping enters me, and I can feel myself involuntarily tightening my asshole. My already hard cock springs up like a buoy. My balls are as tight as drums, and a little sore.

“Okay, you ready?”

“I guess,” she says.

I take the cap off the soft plastic bottle and gently insert the nozzle up her puckered little asshole. “Ouch,” she said.

“Relax. Breathe deeply.”

She does. I start to squeeze.

“If you start to cramp, just breathe and hold it inside you.”

“Okay,” she gasps.

While I hold her against me, squeezing the bottle’s contents into her body, Linden slides the second tube into me. I can feel the mixture enter my colon and it feels like cold oil. Immediately I feel like I have to shit. Not yet, I tell myself, gritting my teeth and taking deep breaths. Linden’s bottle now emptied, I let it drop on the towel, and close my eyes. I feel as swollen and pregnant as Linden. I’m cramping terribly, shaking with the effort to not shit all over the bed, but I’m incredibly aroused. I am afraid if I so much as move, I will come explosively. My balls feel like they’re on fire. So I keep breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth, concentrating on my intestines.

Finally my bottle is empty too, and Linden removes it and holds me close against her. Our legs intertwine; her thighs catch my penis and hold it between them, and I almost come. I am whimpering and trembling.

“Just breathe with me,” Linden whispered. I did.

“We’ll lay here a few more minutes.”

I match my breathing to hers, and feel myself relax.

“Better,” she says.

I can’t stand it any longer.

“I have to shit, right now,” I announce.

“Good, so do I.”

We make it to the toilet without ruining the carpet—but only barely. She scrambles on first, and I get on, facing her. Feverishly, she lifts her legs so they are on top of mine, and wraps her thighs tightly around my waist. My cock is purple and throbbing. Linden strokes it tenderly as if it’s an infant’s head.

“Don’t do that,” I hiss.

“I want to feel you inside me,” she says.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

I slide into her like a knife through soft butter.

And then we both let loose, the retained water gushing out of our bodies like twin waterfalls. I come almost instantly, and cry out from the intensity of my orgasm; the sensations and incredible intimacy of what we are doing overwhelms me. I feel like I’m being electrocuted by angels; the force of my orgasm radiates pulses of light and energy from deep in my pelvis to the top of my head and the tips of my extremities, out into the universe, and deep into Linden herself. Time has lost all meaning; I cannot tell if my orgasm lasts for moments or for an eternity. I sense Linden can feel this exchange; and am vaguely aware that she is coming now too, and as intensely as I am. She screams and shudders. I sense the release of tension from her body into mine. We melt into each other, and then I collapse, panting and gasping, into Linden’s soft arms like a deflated blow up toy. I begin to weep uncontrollably and rain sweat and tears all over her.

“You’re very beautiful, Sean.”

I am unable to speak. I think I’ve just been to heaven.

We take a warm shower and go to bed, curled against each other like newborn puppies.

October

Linden goes into labor on a rainy night shortly after midnight. It’s a few days before her due date, but I am not surprised, because for the past week she has been unusually energetic, busying herself with domestic things like cleaning drawers and closets, arranging things in the baby’s room (which is decorated in yellow and green, as we do not know the baby’s gender), and cooking gourmet meals for us every night. Where this “nesting” energy comes from I have no idea. She reminds me of a pregnant stray cat I had been allowed to adopt as a child, who feverishly arranged blankets, towels and newspapers into a sort of nest for her kittens days before she gave birth. I suppose this instinct must be hormonal, and I know from our reading about pregnancy that it’s normal and heralds labor.

When Linden tells me she is having contractions, I immediately jump up and start throwing things into our bags for the birthing center, but she tell me to relax and do nothing yet.

“It could be hours, even days,” she tells me.

Days?

We fall asleep finally, my hands spread over her stomach. I can feel her uterus tightening and relaxing, about every 15-20 minutes.

In the morning she is still having contractions, but they are not much closer together. She wants to make love.

“But you’re in labor. I could rupture something.”

Linden laughs. “Oh, you’re too silly. The sac is going to rupture anytime now anyway. Petra says that making love during early labor can actually speed up contractions and help the baby come out faster. The prostaglandins in the semen act like Oxytocin, which is what they give you in the hospital to speed up contractions.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re so smart.”

“That’s why you married me.”

I take my lovely pregnant wife into my arms and make love to her gently, sliding into her from behind. Even though Linden has assured me nothing bad can happen, I still take care not to penetrate her too deeply. We come gently together, more of a sigh than an explosion, but no less satisfying. It’s a very sweet moment, and I feel my throat tighten with emotion. I love this woman and the baby inside her so much that it hurts. I close my eyes and tears leak out, wetting my eyelashes. Linden turns toward me and kisses my lashes. Her face is wet, too.

Petra’s suggestion has worked. Just minutes after we come, Linden has an intense contraction, and then another one. She begins to breathe in the way she’s been shown in Lamaze. I start to coach her through the contractions.

“Should I go ahead and pack our bags?”

Linden is holding onto the doorframe with one hand, her other hand on her belly. Her lips are white and the muscles in her face look tense. I can tell she is in pain. “Yes,” she says quickly.

After I get our bags packed, I quickly dress, then I help her dress. Every so often she needs to stop and concentrate on breathing through a contraction. The pain is beginning to overwhelm her. I feel terrified and energized, and very, very excited.

As I pull her dress down over her body, Linden suddenly stiffens and yelps slightly.

“What’s wrong?” My heart is slamming like a jackhammer inside my ribcage.

“My water broke!” Her voice is thin and shaky.

“Keep breathing through it.”

On the tile floor between Linden’s sandaled feet is a rapidly spreading puddle of clear fluid, and more is coming. It’s rushing down her thighs.

I take control.

Her legs and panties are soaked. The fluid feels strange—not quite oily but not really like water. It feels warm and has an odd odor that’s impossible to describe.

I remove her panties and grab a towel to mop her up with. I sit her down and place another small towel between her legs. The dress she has on is still dry so I pull it over her hips and legs as best I can, and tell her to keep the towel where it is.

“I don’t think you need panties. You’ll be in the car, then we’ll be there. No one will notice your bare ass.” I grimace at my lame and slightly insensitive joke.

“I don’t care, I don’t care, whatever. Just get me there quickly!” She is capsized by another intense contraction. I wish I could absorb her pain inside myself so she doesn’t have to feel it. Watching her like this breaks my heart.

“Stay right here.” I rush out into the chilly October afternoon. The sky is bright blue, a stiff breeze is blowing, and the trees are beginning to don their Halloween colors. A perfect autumn day. I jam my keys in the ignition of the Taurus and start the engine running.

I load Linden into the backseat so she can recline and move about as she needs to, and cover her with a blanket. I kiss her damp forehead. Her hair is plastered to her forehead in little ringlets. She looks so adorable and fragile.

“I want to make love to you right now.”

“Get out of here, you’re sick. Just shut up and drive!”

I smile nervously as I toss our bags on the front seat and floor and climb into the driver’s seat.

In the center’s lobby, Linden is loaded into a wheelchair by a nurse and rushed down a long hallway to the room where she will be giving birth. It’s an alternative birthing center, and midwives and non-medical birthing techniques are the norm. Laboring women are encouraged to move around as they need to, even take showers or walks, rather than lying flat on their backs with their feet in stirrups, as is done in traditional hospitals. Some, like us, opt for birthing in water. Several rooms are equipped with large birthing tubs for this purpose. Petra meets us at the cheerfully decorated tropical plant-filled reception area. A rock filled fountain is burbling near a plate glass window. Two very pregnant women are conversing quietly; a man, presumably one of the husbands, is talking to a nurse who sits at the circular desk at the center of the reception area.

“You ready?”

Linden groans, clutching her stomach. “Guess I have to be,” she says. Sweat is pouring down her face; she looks waxy and miserable. Her hands are shaking in her lap. I take one of them and squeeze it.

“You’re doing fine. Just keep breathing. Remember to relax.”

“I’m trying.”

Linden is checked by Petra. She is dilated to 8 centimeters. When she reaches ten she can enter the tub and begin pushing. It should be fairly soon. I help Linden undress and then remove my own clothing. Naked, we lay down on the room’s bed and I just hold her, trying to absorb the pain of her contractions into my own body. After a few moments Linden is checked again, and is told she can begin to push. Petra and I help her into the tub, then I slide in behind her. We have taken many baths together like this, so the feeling is familiar to me. We are private; the only other person in the room is Petra, who is now sitting by the window, reading a book to allow us privacy. Dr. Freeman will only come in after the baby is born to check on things, or if a problem develops and more traditional means become necessary.

She pushes for over an hour.

“My back,” she moans.

“Don’t hold back. Lose yourself in it, embrace the pain. Groan, scream, cry, put your whole soul into it! It’s easier that way,” Petra instructs her.

Linden does just that, and I moan and grunt along with her. I have an erection; I am getting perversely turned on by how primal the birth process is. When a human female gives birth, she is connected to every other living thing in nature; she is no different than a birthing lion or a bear or a horse. I am jealous of women for their ability to enter that ancient and eternal realm. I try to in my mind, and it helps being naked with her in warm water at such an intimate time, but I am male and can never really be part of a woman’s experience in the same way.

Fleetingly I wonder if Linden can feel my erection pressing against her lower back, and quickly shake my head, as if trying to shake off an annoying fly.

Minutes later, blood gushes from between my wife’s legs, and she pushes our dark-haired son Justin David out into the water and into the world. I am breathless and speechless; we both are. Petra lifts him from the water and wraps him in a towel. He gasps, gags, sputters furiously, and finally wails as loud as he can muster in his thready little voice. Linden and I weep along with him. Even Petra has tears in her eyes.

“He’s a feisty one,” Petra says. “He’s a beauty, alright. Congratulations.” She places Justin on Linden’s stomach. The umbilical cord still attaches them; I can see the ropes of red and blue veins still pulsing blood from her body into his beneath its translucent covering.

Instinct kicks in, and Justin roots around blindly, his big beautiful head bobbing weakly on his neck.

“He’s looking for his dinner,” Linden says. She touches his cheek gently, and guides his mouth toward her nipple. He latches on and sucks greedily.

I am jealous of him, but have never loved anyone so much, except my lovely wife.

Linden is giggling.

“What is it?”

“He peed on me!”

The cord is cut, Linden and I dry ourselves and dress, and Justin is checked by the pediatrician.
”Nice healthy boy,” the doctor assures us. “Good reflexes.”

The next day, armed with baby care booklets, coupons for baby products, and lots of big sanitary pads for Linden, we are allowed to go home with our son. The brilliant fall trees on our block look like they have dressed up for our homecoming.

Early November

Justin David is feisty, alright. The first couple of days at home, he was quiet and slept most of the time, waking only to nurse. Linden lets him sleep with us in our bed rather than in his crib, explaining that a newborn needs the security of knowing his mother is always there. They are like animals, she says, and have only smell and touch to rely on. I don’t necessarily disagree with her, and at first I didn’t mind him sharing our bed—in fact, I enjoyed it, since Justin is such a marvel of nature and part of both of us. But it’s been almost two weeks now, and while I could tolerate and even enjoy Justin sleeping peacefully in our bed between us, the picture has now changed.

By his third day home, the crying started. He commences his nightly crying sessions with mere whimpering, but the whimpers gain momentum, and within a half hour or less he is screaming and wailing so loudly I can’t believe his tiny body is capable of such sounds. His normally sweet little face turns as red as a ripe tomato and his whole little body looks like it’s convulsing with intolerable pain. It breaks my heart to watch him, and it breaks Linden’s too, though she tries hard not to show her frustration and concern. Linden and I hold him and rock him, carry him around the house, bounce him up and down, sing to him, talk to him in soft tones, but nothing helps. When he gets like this he refuses to nurse, which upsets Linden. Last night I walked into the bedroom and found her sobbing right along with him. Her swollen breasts were sore looking and dripping milk into Justin’s wispy brown hair.

“He won’t nurse,” Linden sobbed pitifully. I gathered them both in my arms and let my tears fall too. I felt so tired and helpless; I had no idea what to do.

“Just let him cry it out,” Linden’s mother suggested at one point. “Go into another room, do something else, listen to some music.” I wondered if Linden’s mother ever went through this with Linden or her siblings, and if she had did she truly remember how painful it is and how impotent it makes you feel?

I also tried the old trick of taking Justin out to the car and running the engine. That doesn’t help either. Linden assures me that the crying will stop by the time he is three months old, and though it isn’t a very long time, it seems like an eternity when you have work you need to do at home that requires quiet (I took a month paternity leave so I could bond with Justin and help Linden take care of him), and you haven’t been able to get a wink of sleep.

I finally tell Linden that I need to get some sleep, and Justin will have to sleep in his own room from now on.

“I can’t do that to him,” Linden protests.

“Why the hell not?”

She bursts into tears. “Because then I won’t be able to sleep. I’ll hear him cry and my breasts will fill up and start dripping and I’ll have to go to him.” She pauses, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I suppose I could sleep in his room with him,” she says. Could she possibly be serious?

I bristle. “You’ll do no such thing,” I say.

She looks up at me as if I have slapped her.

“You are my wife, and belong in bed with me. I didn’t marry you so I could spend nights by myself in a double bed. I love Justin, but dammit, Linden, he is tearing us apart. Sometimes I wonder who you love more, him or me.”

Linden’s eyes narrow. “I can’t believe I heard you say that.”

“Well, I just did.” I slam the bedroom door and leave the house, tempted to not come back. But of course I do.

I love Justin David with all my heart. When Linden holds him to her breast and he actually nurses, working his fat pink cheeks that are as soft as butterflies’ wings, his long lashes resting peacefully against his tender skin, nothing in the world is more beautiful or touching. I admit I’m a little jealous of their closeness, but my jealousy is overpowered by my love for them both, and my awe for the tiny person that our love for each other created.

But his crying is tearing me apart, it is tearing us apart. Linden and I never argued like this before. I know it isn’t Justin’s fault, he knows nothing; he is just an infant. But I know I have to do something or I’ll lose my mind. There is no way I can wait this out and stay sane, and no way I can leave Linden either. I would die without her.

Much later that night I let myself in the house quietly, and go upstairs to our room. Linden is fast asleep, her chestnut hair spread out like a halo over the white pillowcase. Her mouth is slack, slightly open, and she is snoring softly. Justin is lying face down on her chest, wearing only a diaper. He is breathing evenly; he too is asleep. Linden’s nipple, still soft and moist from nursing, has fallen out of his mouth. I am tempted to carry Justin to his room, but I’m terrified he’ll wake up and start to cry again. I climb into bed beside her, but turn my back away from them.

Late November

“Sean!”

I startle awake. I hear Linden’s panicky voice coming from the direction of Justin’s room.

I rub my eyes and shake away the dregs of nightmares. What the fuck?

“Sean! Something’s wrong with Justin!”

Linden is being overly dramatic. A few nights ago Linden finally allowed Justin to sleep in his own room, primarily so we could resume our lovemaking (we couldn’t make love for a month after she gave birth), but she has been nervous about him ever since, always imagining that some terrible harm is about to befall him. She is constantly getting out of our bed to go check on him, which irritates me. Last night, just as I was about to come, she suddenly had to stop to go check on the baby.

I get up and pull on my robe. It would be nice to at least have some coffee first, but I guess that isn’t possible.

“Sean!” Linden is sobbing now, hysterical.

“I’m coming!”

Linda is standing by Justin’s crib in his sunlit green and yellow teddy bear-motif room, clutching to the side of his crib, sobbing uncontrollably. Her robe is open and her breasts are dripping milk steadily down her slack belly. She points to the inside of the crib but is unable to speak. Justin is lying face down in his terry suit with the little racecars on it; he appears to be asleep. His tiny fists are balled, one against his side, another pressed to his cheek. I lean over to look at him, touching his downy brown hair, which is in need of a trim.

“He won’t wake up, Sean.”

I touch Justin’s tiny back and shake him a little. He doesn’t move. I look at Linden, who is feverishly biting her nails, an old habit she had abandoned shortly after we met.

I look back at Justin and turn him over on his back. His body is limp, and his eyes are closed. His skin feels cool and clammy. I pick him up and his head flops against my shoulders. I begin to sob into his downy hair. Tears are racing down my cheeks, splattering into his sweet smelling scalp. I reach out for Linden, pulling her toward me, toward us.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I keep saying over and over. Linden says nothing, but just leans against me, letting me hold her. She does not wrap her arms around me. She seems very far away.

Outside the bedroom window, a cold gray drizzle is falling.

December 1

Shortly after we arrive home from Justin David’s funeral, I find Linden standing naked in front of the full length mirror on the bedroom closet door, palpating her breasts in an attempt to remove the milk from them. Her cheeks are wet with tears, and more fall on the hard globes of her breasts.

“They hurt,” she says. “I hurt.”

“I know.” I sit down on the edge of the bed near her.

I do too,” I say, as much to break the deadly silence of the room and the house without Justin, as to comfort her.

She begins to sob again. Milk is dripping steadily onto the floor.

“I can’t stand this, Sean.”

“I can’t either.”

“I loved him so much.”

“So did I.”

She comes over and sits down on the bed next to me. We are silent for a long while but our hands touch, just the fingertips, the way we touched when we were first dating.

“Do something,” she says. I touch her breast. It feels as hard as a basketball. I pull my hand away quickly, disturbed by its engorged feel. It reminds me of an overripe fruit.

“I don’t know what to do. There isn’t anything to do except get through this the best we can.”

“I hurt.” She slides a hand under the breast I just touched, and slides her thumb over the nipple, moving it back and forth over it. I watch as a large droplet of blue-white milk suddenly emerges. It looks like skim milk. Somehow I had expected some sort of opening, but it appears to just ooze out from under the skin itself.

I know what Linden wants me to do. I want to relieve her pain, and mine. I want her to nourish me, take care of me.

Linden falls back onto the bed, and I fall into her embrace, closing my lips over her poor swollen nipple. I close my eyes and lose myself in her. Slowly at first, almost shyly, and then with more abandon, I drink. Her milk tastes sweet, not like regular milk, and it is warm and thin. If love had a taste, it would taste like this, it would taste like mother’s milk.

I’m Linden’s baby now.

Please email me with your comments: [email protected]

Back