Adopted

Dinner went very well and Kelly attempted to be laid-back and impressive. It obviously worked in the end because Vince called her three weeks later for a date.

"But you have a girlfriend."

"Not any longer."

They went to a movie and dinner and after desert Kelly said, "Do you wish to invite me back to your apartment for coffee?"

"Um we have only just met."

"I met you three weeks ago."

"My mother would be horrified if..."

"Vince please, let's be friends and not be too worried about protocol."

The corporate financial analyst's face burnt but he gamely held Kelly's wide-eyed gaze and said, "Kelly, shall we have coffee at my place?"

"Oh Vince, how charming of you. Yes I am delighted to accept."

Kelly knew there were some guys that a girl like her could say she hadn't had sex for a couple of months and was aching for it. And they were some guys a girl would be courting disaster if she was so upfront about it like that and this was a very gun shy guy. Vincent had only just severed relations with that woman Rachael and probably was still regretting becoming involved with such an unsuitable woman. She must not push it... well, not be too obvious.

She sat in the apartment with her legs crossed and waiting till Vince was watching when she then deliberately pulled her hem back two inches from her knees. When they were drinking coffee she twice pulled at a bra bra strap, adjusting it slightly, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do in front of a near stranger.

That's enough Kelly, stop right there, she warned herself.

She almost fell off her chair facing Vince when he said, completely unexpectedly, "You have lovely legs."

God how should she reply to that? Be yourself girl, an inner voice yelled.

So perfectly calmly, or hoping that was the impression she was giving, Kelly hitched up her skirt much higher, looked down at her legs and said, "Yes I think in recent years they had taken a rather nice shape. Other women often comment, like when I'm trying on a new dress or a bikini. I suppose I shouldn't say this but I get similar comments about my breasts."

Vince was looking at her chest when he replied, "You are welcome to say such things to me. I don't mind at all."

Kelly waited but nothing happened. All Vince did was when she was about to get into the cab he kissed her, liked perhaps a guy would kiss a female cousin, and said he'd enjoyed her company immensely. She traveled home happily, convinced she'd made a big impression on Vince. That was confirmed an hour later when he called.

"I'm calling to say good night."

She hoped he was going to say more than that.

Kelly said, "Good night. I really enjoyed myself this evening. You are a lovely man."

"Kelly are you ready to consider having sex with me?"

She cut to essentials. "Yes I'll have sex with you. Let's date this Saturday and I'll stay the night with you. I share with two other females here."

"That is wonderful Kelly. I'll look forward to next Saturday. I'll call you Thursday night to discuss arrangements."

"May I suggest you book somewhere to eat and we'll go home early. It's been about two months since I've had sex Vince. I'm longing to resume."

"Great idea Kelly. I'll call Thursday. I really like you Kelly. Good night."

Kelly thought that's unless she'd frightened him off with her less that subtle forwardness.

Vince turned out to be a careful, slow and sensitive lover, quite unspectacular really, but his technique, if it could be called that, was sufficient to send Kelly into a splendid climax, that left her laying in deep satisfaction knowing he had fallen asleep already. Well it had been two months without bedroom action for her so her expectations of a guy were temporarily set low anyway.

In the morning Kelly went to the bathroom and when she returned noticed Vince's dark eyes fixed on her.

A little embarrassed she said, "Oh you're awake."

Ignoring that obvious statement, Vince said, "Your entire body is beautiful."

Kelly squeezed her breasts and lifted them towards him.

Vince threw the coverings off the bed and to her delight Kelly saw he had a very stiff erection in his hand.

He said, "I-I wasn't sure whether you'd be interested in the morning after what we did last night."

God wasn't he used to real women?

Kelly knew not to throw herself into action and begin gobbling him. She wondered where he'd been at college when all the hot action was going on. Writing homesick emails to mother?

Slowing she snuggled in against Vince and kissed him, feeling little shakes of his body and she became excited, realizing he was stroking 'it'.

She whispered, "That was so lovely last night I could go again."

Vince's reply was to take her upper hand and place it on his erection. She closed her hand round it and slowly began jerking. He closed his eyes and breathed with a rush through his open mouth. God, he was shy of her!

"I-I'll take your in my mouth if you wish."

"That's expecting too much of you Kelly."

"You have been so lovely to me. You deserve a reward."

Kelly struck like a snake and went down on him, giving him no time to push her away.

After three quick lengths she closed her lips round it and went to work.

Vince groaned and almost pulled out two handfuls of her hair and panted, "This is the ultimate in sex for me. Many woman won't do it."

Later as Kelly wiped her face and lips Vince said almost accusingly, "You swallowed."

She said sorry and he said no, he was speaking to her in admiration. Didn't she realize that was the ultimate for a guy... to have a woman who'd swallow his semen?

That confused Kelly. She understood guys only felt that way about a woman who'd take it anally. She decided to say nothing.

"What would you like me to do to you now Kelly? You appear a little tentative and perhaps a little experienced. Perhaps I can tutor you."

She was delighted to find Vince apparently thought it necessary to be democratic in bed but was astonished to find him calling her inexperienced. God he must be thinking she was only a little short of being a virgin.

She spat out a stray bit of semen and sat astride Vince and reached behind to slide him into her dripping pussy.

Kelly knew by lunchtime she'd have Vince not seeing straight and ready to sleep the afternoon away. She then she would go home and do her share of the apartment cleaning and would then wait till the bathroom was free to color highlight her hair in preparation for the new working week. It would be far more convenient living with Vince. Guys had no idea of the demands on a bathroom by three females who cared about their appearance.

* * *

Three months later Kelly took Vince to Toronto to visit her mom's grave. After her brief quiet moment at the graveside, she said, "Mom this is Vince Belet. We became engaged three weeks ago."

She was deliriously happy when Vince, without being prompted, began speaking. "Connie, you have a beautiful daughter, beautiful in so many ways and I love her."

Before too long in working in family law Kelly's interest and knowledge in adoption became apparent to the head of department and more and more adoption cases were being given to Kelly and soon she was servicing adoption clients fulltime. Nothing was ever said by Kelly or her firm that she'd been adopted as a child. People just couldn't help notice her warmth, clarity of explanations to clients and in submissions and her knowledge of adoption law. She would explain passionately her belief in the founding principles that make adoption work best, namely love, honesty and trust. That more that anything appealed to her mostly nervous and apprehensive clients no end and slowly as word spread her reputation as a legal adoption specialist grew.

And then came a scheduled Family Court hearing that captured media attention. The spotlight fell on the attorney at the center of the case, Kelly Armstrong, when an enterprising reporter digging into the background of this young attorney appearing to attempt the impossible for her clients in this petition, found Kelly had been adopted after being left an orphan at the age of three weeks following the tragic death of her unmarried mother.

A married couple, aged thirty-one and thirty-two, both permanently relying on wheelchairs as their principal form of mobility, had been pre-approved as being suitable to become adoptive parents by the court. Now they had filed to adopt a widower's child offered for adoption. They knew the recently bereaved man well and he favored them adopting his child.

The news and magazine media learned of this unusual adoption and that it would be opposed by a number of social organizations they must have collectively licked their lips. When the radio news reporter broadcast her disclosure that the applicant's attorney was herself an adopted child in tragic circumstances, media personnel must have drooled.

Kelly refused to be interviewed by reporters as did her parents and grandmother and Kelly called her three half-sisters and they agreed to close ranks. But as Kelly's father had said, the media would burn the midnight oil until they found people in the know who would talk and most would be called 'unidentified sources'. And that's what happened; the whole story came out.

Annoyed at that unnecessary and, in her mind, irrelevant exposure, Kelly kept her focus and built what she believed was a compelling case.

At the hearing the judge made it clear she did not want outrageous submissions or even ill-considered claims presented to her court. She watched, as part of Kelly's opening submissions, was a video that showed the wheelchair couple playing wheelchair basketball in their respective divisions. And then on the cleared basketball court the female petitioner, in her modified wheelchair, went up to a friend's baby sitting on the floor crying and lifted the infant into her lap and comfort him. The male applicant's father, a store fitter, then appeared on camera explaining how easily it would be to further modify the couple's apartment to make baby care easier. The film then showed how the petitioner could safely carry the child on her wheelchair.

Kelly called six couples who also owned apartments in the same apartment building as the petitioners. All testified the couple played an active part in the building's community and that they would be on hand if called to assist and to act as mentors to the couple and to check on them periodically.

The joint petitioners then gave evidence of their desire to be parents and Kelly produced evidence that both were irreversibly paralyzed from the waist down.

Attorneys representing the opposing parties called for a five-minute recess and the judge granted that. When she returned the five attorneys representing the parties wishing to oppose the petition, approached the bench and advised the judge that all clients had withdrawn their objections.

There was a media frenzy outside the court when the adoptive parents emerged after the judge had granted their petition to adopt the baby available to them. Kelly posed in various positions beside her two clients and that evening and next morning those images were widely used in newspapers and news broadcasts. The media were given only two short statements from Kelly, who continued to refuse to be interviewed. Kelly said, "We have had a just decision" and "I and others who know Trish and Benny believe they will be great parents."

When Kelly called her Gran with the news of the decision, Virginia said, "We have just watched the special news announcement on TV. "Your reputation in New York law is established darling. Congratulations."

* * *

Kelly and Vince were married in New York four months later on the day she was born thirty-three years earlier. She believed she was completing an important cycle in her life and from now it was time to begin thinking as a parent.

The Shutter's considered they were a big family and all were invited to the wedding but Kelly's invitees included her parents and their friends, her grandmother and her friends, Kelly's closest friends (and partners) from work, best school friends, best friends from college and from university, her three half-sisters and husbands and children and several people she was closely associated with in her work in child adoption and their partners. Vince and his parents' invitees added another forty-eight people to that mix.

The wedding was held in a hotel where most of the out-of-town guests booked to stay.

Kelly's bridesmaid was Vince's unmarried sister Galina. Ella Shutter and Virginia Ricardo's other granddaughter Milly Greenway were the other bridesmaids and Jacki Shutter and Sandra Wilks were two matrons of honor. Vince's younger brother Lars was best man and the other groomsmen were Vince's friends.

The wedding was a glittering, joyous affair and early next morning Vince and his bride flew to Toronto where they picked up Monique's car left at the airport and went up to the cottage at the lake for their five-day honeymoon.

On the day of the wedding Kelly was already a month pregnant. She and Vince agreed they didn't care if it were a boy or girl, mindful of Kelly's arrival into the world as a girl when a boy had been expected and the grief that had been triggered by that disappointment.

* * *

Simone Connie Belet was born a beautiful baby and had checked out perfectly. Only Kelly and her grandmother were aware Kelly had all the time been sure the baby would be a girl, because that had been what Kelly really desired. But unlike her birth father she'd been prepared to accept a boy if her choice had not worked out and even had a name she preferred. Perhaps Alfie would arrive next?

THE END