The First Moms Club (S&P)

Finally, when the movie was over, Lori rose to turn it off. She had kept most of Mike's juices inside her body, but some of his cream trickled down one of her thighs. Mike's lap was a mess from mingled semen and pussy juices.

"Let's go look in on the girls," Lori said quietly. Then she grinned. "I know you don't want to, but you better put your pants on."

A couple of minutes later, with Mike fully dressed and Lori back in her blouse and skirt – the camisole, bra and panties would go to a special extra-gentle laundry – the proud mother and father walked into their little ones' room. The girls were sleeping soundly. Mike took Lori's hand in his and reveled at the sight. What a woman Lori was to have conceived the two little girls, not to mention raising them. Then he let go of her hand, walked over and kissed Stephanie on the forehead. Lori was already over at Carol's bed, caressing her gently. Carol woke up.

"Mommy?"

"Daddy and I just came to wish you good night. We didn't mean to wake you."

"You're the bestest mother in the world, Mommy."

Lori smiled. "Thank you, sweetheart. But there are lots of good mommies around. You may meet some of them someday." She kissed Carol on the forehead. "Give Daddy a hug and then go back to sleep."

Carol obliged, and was asleep almost immediately. Lori kissed Stephanie, who hadn't awakened (thank heaven!), and started for the bedroom. Mike came behind her. He held her hand.

*********************

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned."

Father Al Cunningham, an assistant pastor at Saint Theresa's Church and, on the side, the Chaplain to the Sheriff's Department, sighed a little bit as he sat in his side of the confessional, recognizing Mike Gibson's voice. He had known Mike a long time. Mike attended every Mass on Sunday and did everything he thought was required of a good Catholic. Lori had been raised Baptist and only came to the church occasionally, although she had raised no objections when Father Al had asked to baptize the girls into the faith. The girls came some of the time, when Mike could get them into the car. But they were still a little young to have the devotion Mike had, and Father Al hoped Mike wasn't forcing it on them.

"What is this sin?"

"I have treated my wife wrongly."

Father Al sighed again. He liked Mike, but sometimes Mike's moral senses got warped. If Mike had cheated on Lori, or had succumbed to corruption, that would have been something. But Mike confessed few faults – too few, in Father Al's opinion. He knew there had been an allegation that Mike had raped Lori the first time they had made love. Father Al had checked the rape allegations thoroughly when Mike brought them up during a premarital counseling session. Lori hadn't been the accuser. An outside witness had been, and he had trespassed onto the scene in order to get a very good look. He had been a military policeman on the lookout for a good scalp, and Mike's taking Lori's cherry had been the perfect excuse. Father Al also knew that Lori had taken Mike's cherry at the same time, and neither of them had had any other lovers.

At the next counseling session, Father Al had chided the lovers about pre-marital sex, sent Mike off to say his Hail Marys, had talked with Lori about what she might do to make peace with God as she saw fit, and had presided over the marriage ceremony and the girls' baptisms. Still, Father Al knew that Mike had never made peace with God on that score, because he hadn't made peace with himself.

"Would you wish to go into detail, my son?"

"Father … we made love a few nights ago." Pause. Father Al wanted to say, "That's what married couplesdo, youtwit." But he kept silent until Mike said, "I'm pretty sure I hurt her."

"How did you do that? Did you injure her physically? Did you say something careless to upset her?"

"Physical. We were going along and all of a sudden –" Mike chose his words carefully – "I reached my peak too early. And then, when I tried to stimulate her, she thought it was too rough and made me stop."

Is that all?, thought Father Al to himself. "Did shesay it was too rough? Did you get carried away? Were you taking out frustrations on her?"

"No," came the reply. "I tried and I tried. Maybe I did get frustrated, but I didn't try to injure her. I just wanted her to be happy."

A long silence from the other room. Then Father Al finally spoke. "Is that all you are willing to confess today?"

"Yes. I have tried to lead a wholesome life other than this."

"Then here is your penance. I direct you to step outside this church, stand on a street corner, balance yourself on one leg, and with the other leg kick yourself in thebutt until your heel gets tired. Put that leg down, rest it until you can stand on it, and repeat with the other foot."

"What the …?" Mike was genuinely shocked. Nobody except his drill sergeant, now a tearoom owner downtown, had ever talked to him in that fashion, and the drill sergeant's words had not included "butt" or instructions on what to do to it.

"Michael, you've been my parishioner since you moved down here, and you and Lori and the girls have been friends since your engagement. But my marriage counseling must have gone right through your ear canals. Now turn around and look at me. I've taken a vow to keep your confessions secret. Now I'm going to confess to you, and you either take the same vow or go back to your penance."

A rather startled Mike took Choice #2. Father Al administered a quick version of the priest's vows to him, adding the joke threat of the 10 plagues of Egypt to descend on Mike's head if he ever broke them. Well, nine of the ten, anyway. Father Al knew about Lori's miscarriage of her son, and – with a widowed Abbess with children and grandchildren - had counseled her. She had taken it almost too well, but her grief had finally poured out until she was on the road to recovery.

"Mike, do you know how much work it entails to become a priest in the Society of Jesus?" The Jesuit order, one of the highest orders in Catholicism. Father Al seldom talked about it, although he had a Bible trivia game on his office computer -- the squad officers loved to play it -- and regularly contributed questions for people playing online.

"Nine years, isn't it?"

"That's right. Nine years of the most rigorous study and discipline you could expect from a seminarian. Do you know when and why I went through all that training?"

"Well, if I remember right, you were consecrated three years before Lori and I moved here. Hadn't you just been assigned to this parish?"

"Correct on the when, but you missed out on the why. I took these orders to bury myself. I blamed myself for the death of my wife. It was a brain aneurysm, something they could have found, but she never knew about it and I never looked. The doctors told me it was incurable anyway, but if they had found it earlier they might have been able to control it. Guilt drove me away from my entire family. My three kids, seven grandchildren to date, and an army of brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces. They're scattered to the four winds, so I rarely see them even now."

"Have you stopped blaming yourself, Father?"

"Call me Al, we're equals now --for the moment, anyway. Yes, I did, once I started treasuring the good times we had together. Even her throwing a saucepan at me once, when she was pregnant and had a mood swing. I learned to duck. Later, I learned to stand still, because we would still get into arguments and she would throw things at the spot where she expected me to duck to. But we always made up for it. And not just in the bedroom, either. We genuinely cared for each other. That is the kind of thing that just doesn't go away, even when somebody dies or you have a fight or you feel like you haven't lived up to your responsibilities."

"There are a lot of nasty divorces," Mike replied. I'm going to be a cop. She may get tired of worrying about me all the time and take a hike."

"Well, if she does that, I've gravely underestimated her and I've pretty badly underestimated you. God really does know how many couples I've counseled where the marriage couldn't be saved and the two of them hate each other. But there was always something there, a love that exists under the surface. No matter what happens, there will be something deep inside that bonds you, and not just the girls either. Unless you go totally psycho and turn your back on God, He'll watch over you." The priest paused to let Mike think it over, and then continued.

"So, do you want to do the special penance, or do you want to talk with Lori and see what might have been wrong that night or any other night you feel guilty about? From my own personal experience, when a wife complains of hurting when her husband does what 's normal, she's probably ill and doesn't know it, or has some stress that she doesn’t want to talk about, or her vision of the husband is just a slight bit blurred. Don't ask me to define that last one, you'll know it yourself."

"Thank you, Al – I mean, Father Al," replied Mike. "I won't say anything to anybody about what you told me. God bless you and your family."

"Your intercession is gratefully appreciated," replied the priest. "Now get your butt out of here. Lori called me, knowing you were coming here, and wanted you to pick her up at the hospital when you got through with this confession business. "AND," Father Al fired at Mike's back, "you bring those girls around here more often. I know that to four- and two-year-olds, Mass is more boring than a Psychic Friends Hotline infomercial, and we don't have Sunday schools like the Protestants do, but we have all sorts of youth groups and play groups for them whenever you want them to meet some good Catholic kids."

Mike grinned, gave the priest the high sign and left. He had gotten as far as the vestibule when the church secretary came hurrying up to him.

"Mr. Gibson?" the secretary inquired, out of breath. "Mrs. Gibson telephoned the office a few minutes ago. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong, but it sounds really bad. She said for you to meet her at the hospital ASAP."

*****

Mike double-timed it to the hospital. A patrol officer actually pulled him over, heard his story and gave him an escort. He got to the reception desk and was told Lori was over at the oncology clinic.Oncology?, he wondered as he got directions to the waiting area. Once there, he was given directions to an examination room. Lori was there, wearing a hospital gown and nothing else. A doctor was with her.

"Do you want to tell him, or should I?" the doctor inquired of Lori.

"You tell him. I'd stumble over the definitions. But I'll show him the spot."

Lori's gown was the usual almost-backless type. It was no trick at all for her to raise it and show him the mole.

"Mr. Gibson, you are looking at a malignant melanoma. One of the worst types of cancer you can find."

Mike sank into a chair. Lori picked up the story.

"The doctors told me it had …" she searched for the word "metastasized," which the doctor gave her. "I've got it in my spine and my uterus as well. That's why I was hurting the other day when we made love. It's probably why we lost the baby."

"Oh, dear God," Mike murmured.

"I'd like permission to perform a hysterectomy, and start Mrs. Gibson on a course of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. I've spent the last hour talking to her about all it entails. Mrs. Gibson, would you want to tell him?"

"Later," Lori said. "It'll be bad. But they think they can cut or bombard everything. I want them to. Every moment is precious now, with you and with the girls."

"There are no guarantees with this type of cancer," the doctor said. "We may be buying time at a terrible cost in pain, nausea, weakness, fragile bones, you name it. I can tell you she'll battle this for the rest of her life. I can't tell you how long that will be. But," turning to Lori, "you have an indomitable spirit. That makes a lot of difference, I promise you. From what you and others have told me, you have enough happiness and love for several people, and enough desire to fight for your life to make it worth trying."

A long pause.

"We'll try," Mike finally said.

***************

They had gotten two years.

Two years could be excruciatingly long or agonizingly short. As Lori lay in the hospital bed, she knew Mike had felt it was the latter. Especially the last few months, when the spinal cancer had returned and she could no longer walk or feel sex. She had broken several bones. And the pain … Lori closed her eyes as she remembered it. The worst part was how it had hurt Mike.

Mike had moved up quickly in the ranks, becoming one of the most respected men on the beat. Lori had worked until this most recent crisis. They had managed well enough financially. And now the girls were six and four, old enough to know their mother, not yet old enough to feel the pain Mike had felt.

There had been some good times. Lori loved remembering the trips to activities at the Catholic preschool for the girls. She had never converted, and the girls were still too young to make a personal commitment to the Lord, the way Lori had been raised. But that was a minor detail. They enjoyed play and story time and arts and crafts, and Carol was starting to play T-ball. She was pretty good at it.

And there had been some good times in bed too. One lovemaking session in particular came back to her. Mike had been so concerned that Lori would break, he had been extra gentle and caring. What a surprise he got when Lori rode him like a racehorse, dragged his face into her pussy and made him lick the combined juices, gobbled his cock like it was the best chili dog man ever made, got on her hands and knees and lubed up her bottom, and a few other things – all in the same sex session. It must have been the hormone replacement therapy, or maybe one last effort at teenage love. That night, she didn't break – although she bent like a gymnast several times. Mike had finally fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion, having set a personal best for orgasms in one night. Lori had had twice as many, maybe more.

Mike wasn't here at the moment. He was working a long shift, trying to string work times together so he'd have all the time in the world to spend with her when the end came, which wouldn't be long now. He was scheduled to come in, with the girls, in the early morning. Lori offered a silent prayer of thanks that the hospital supplied its own beauty stylists for women. She had lost so much weight during her illness, and pain had etched itself so deep into her face, that without her wig and without lots of corrective makeup she would have traumatized Freddy Krueger, not to mention little girls.

Lori had a television and plenty of reading materials in her room, and she used them fairly often, but sometimes she needed human companionship. She thought for a little while, and then pushed the call button for the nurses' station. She wondered what was going on tonight, if they were busy or if things were slow.

The answer was not long in coming. Sandy Kendall, the charge nurse, came into Lori's room. Sandy was pretty young to run a ward, but she had a friendly and easygoing manner that reminded Lori of herself … back when. Lori's eyebrows – recently grown back after a round of chemotherapy – went up when she saw Sandy was carrying a big book and a well-thumbed spiral notebook under her arm.

"I hope I didn't disturb you, Sandy," Lori said.

"Oh, no, not at all! It's very slow tonight and I thought I would get some studying in. I'll just put these on the table and pull up a chair."

"What are you studying for … re-certification?"

"Actually, I'm in pre-med." Sandy lowered her voice and continued. "You're lucky in one way. Doctor Butler isn't an asshole. He's about the only one who isn't. I swear, I could do a better job with patients than almost any doctor affiliated with this hospital, and I'm going to try and prove it."

The complaint didn't surprise Lori at all. She'd seen more doctors in two years than most people saw in months at a golf course. Some of them were nice. Others were very brusque. Sometimes the brusque ones were very efficient, and she appreciated that, but some of them didn't see her as a person at all.

"The reason I called you in, Sandy … there is one thing Mike can still do for me, but he's not here. My neck still gets stiff. Could you rub it?"

Sandy was happy to comply. As she rubbed Lori's neck, the two women chatted quietly, as if one of them wasn't going to die very soon. At one point, Sandy's wedding ring got turned around and the stone dug into Lori's flesh. Lori put her hand up. Sandy realized her mistake and took her hand away, but Lori took hold of the hand and admired the wedding band.

"What does your husband think about you becoming a doctor?"

"He's not happy about the cost, or about being the only wage earner in the family, but other than that, he likes it. I think he thinks he's got his in-house physician for free. Or at least, at a price he can afford." Sandy giggled, then told the truth. "Actually, he's had his share of bad doctors. He got burned in an accident while we were dating – fifty percent of his body, including much of his face. He couldn't believe I still wanted to marry him. I told him, are you kidding? He had learned so much about suffering that he was the world's most compassionate lover."

"I challenge you on that," Lori said, waggling a finger playfully. "I still have Mike."

"I know, but Mike carries his sorrow around with him. I've seen him sitting by himself in the waiting room when they're working on you. I don't know when he'll be truly happy again."

I do, thought Lori as her neck muscles relaxed.When he learns to love again, and someone loves him as much as I do. Thank God he loves the girls and his work.

"Is that enough?" Sandy asked. "I think I got the knots pretty well this time."

"I didn't notice," said Lori. She swiveled her head around. "But it doesn't hurt a bit. Sometimes you forget the good things. Thank you so much. Now, get back to your studies. And tell your husband hi for me."

Lori must have dozed off very soon after Sandy finally left. When she woke, she realized it was only a few minutes until her beauty appointment. The door to her room was already open. Lori realized Mike must have gotten there earlier than usual and looked in on her sleeping. And then – of all things – she heard Stephanie's voice out in the hall, responding to something.

"I want to be a doctor too someday," Stephanie was saying clearly.

**********

Apparently those out-of-body stories are true, Lori thought. She was standing at the entrance to a long tunnel. She could see people at the end of it, but they were too far away for her to recognize.

Lori turned around and saw herself in bed. She had been sedated two days earlier. She still had an oxygen tube. Her memories of the last days were fragmentary, but she thought she remembered a discussion about whether to take her off the ventilator. Mike had finally said no. "I don't want her to smother to death." Lori was grateful for that. In the very last stages, the pain had abated and she had had some peace.

Lori looked around and realized the tunnel was shorter. There was a young man standing at the edge of it. Lori stared until she recognized him. Danny Bergen! He had been the class nerd with crushes on all the pretty girls, the subject of lots of teasing and bullying. But he was smart, and he had helped Lori out with her homework a few times. She hadn't returned his puppy love, but she had liked him. He had decided to try to go macho in his senior year at high school, had bought a motorcycle, and had died in a crash. Lori remembered his funeral, the largest ever seen in the county. He waved hello. She waved back.