Baby Bump

"Yes. The charm of your drug-addled candor knows no bounds." He closed the door.

"You know, people think you're this weird nerdy robot man who's so needy all the time, and you totally are," she crept under the bed sheets he opened for her, "but then it's like that movie Wall-E at the end. You're so full of love, and you can save a plant and get fat people out of the floaty chairs." She was lying on the bed.

He draped the sheets over her body. "That's a fairly labored metaphor, but I appreciate the sentiment behind it."

"Come and lie next to me."

He climbed into bed and laid next to her under the sheets. She pressed his back against his chest. He spooned her and she quickly fell asleep after two minutes. He held her body cozily and he could smell the fragrance of her shampoo. Because they were close together like that, he didn't realize when he slept off.

He was riding a bicycle. He felt a hand on the small of his back. Someone familiar spoke to him and she said, I can go a little longer, and he lifted a shovel and sank it into the earth. A group of children whistled and clapped. And then he was running his hands through a girl's hair and she took his wrist and they moved through a corridor where rows of dresses hung from the ceiling. Those dresses turned into the sea. Calvin? Calvin?

"Calvin?" Mia's voice whispered softly.

"Ugn.."

"Calvin?"

"Yeah?" He croaked.

"I'm hungry."

"Right now?"

"Yes. We didn't eat dinner."

He sluggishly rolled out of bed. His t-shirt was moist with sweat. He walked warily out of the room, passed the hallway and down the stairs. He got Austin Cheese Crackers with Cheddar Cheese and a diet coke from the vending machine and headed back upstairs. He tried to get some sleep while Mia ate beside him. He rolled so he was facing the other way and covered his ears with the pillow.

"Calvin?"

He pretended he didn't hear her.

"Calvin?"

"Hmm..."

"I'm thirty."

"What about the coke?" He voice muffled through the pillow.

"It's not water. Please, my shoulder hurts so bad."

He would do anything for her, all she had to do was ask, but he had been driving all day. He was tired to an extent that he didn't care for food even though he too was hungry. He went downstairs to the vending machine and got a bottle of water and went back upstairs to Mia. He was asleep before she emptied the bottle of water.

"Calvin?"

He heard her voice in a distant part of his subconscious mind.

"Calvin?"

"Yes?" He answered half awake.

"I'm horny."

That woke him up faster than an electric shock. "What!?"

"I'm wet down there and I know I didn't pee on myself."

"You're wet?"

"My shorts are soaked. Do something."

It was quiet for a bit. He was clueless. He didn't know what to do and he hugged her, holding her tightly against him, an embrace still on the right side of propriety, one that could still be considered friendly, but only just. When they broke apart, her face was flushed, her eyes shining.

"I hope it won't be another seven or eight years before we see each other again."

Instead of answering, Mia reached for him, putting her small, warm hand on the back of his neck, pressing her lips to his. They kissed, first lightly, then more urgently, his tongue in her mouth, her hips tilted against his, her breasts against his chest, her whole body sending a message that was undeniable.

"Was that wired?" She asked.

As soon as her lips were shut they started kissing again. Her tongue fluttered against his, and his hands were deep in the softness of her hair, and it was like time stopped and carried them right back to when they were barely teenagers. He pulled her against him, thinking that he'd never get her close enough, that if he could fold her inside of him, like a mother tucking a baby into her coat, he'd do it. He'd keep her warm, he'd keep her safe, he'd keep her with him, always.

She nibbled at his chin, his ear, touching his face with her fingertips, sighing, whispering, "You feel so good."

He propped himself on his elbows, and asked, "How long has it been?"

Mia knew what he was asking, and it wasn't how long it had been since they were separated. She thought back to her last romance if she could even call it that, ten minutes of undignified fumbling in the bathroom of a bar downtown with a darling bimbo.

"It's been a little while," she said.

That girl—God, she wasn't even sure what her name was—she had scribbled her phone number on her hand in eyeliner if she remembered right after neither one of them could find a paper or a pen. The next week, when they'd met for drinks, Mia realized that they had absolutely nothing to say to each other and that, when she didn't have alcohol inside her, she looked like an eel.

She realized, now that she was in Calvin's arms again, her lush curves and her soft skin, her beautiful hair wanted him to take her.

She felt him slip down the bed. He eased her shorts down her slender legs to her ankles.

He didn't go straight for her clit. He started licking her vagina lips. He went further down. She wriggled to move her pussy to touch his tongue, she was trying to show him where to start licking. His saliva was mixed with her juice. He was tasting her sweetness, the sweetness he would protect and it was good. He wanted more.

He started again with a languorous broad stroke from the bottom of her pussy up past her clit. He did it again. Slowly. Then he licked everywhere. She was turned on and she knew her pussy was wet. She knew she must be tasty and he swallowed her girl-cum, but it didn't flow out—it slowly oozed out and he licked and sucked and used his tongue to smear her juice around.

"This is amazing..." She gasped. "What are you doing to me?"

He used his tongue in a lovely broad stroke to bring her juice up from the entrance of her warm pussy to her hard clit. He gently sucked on her left lip, played with it with his lips, pulled on it, let it go, picked it up again. He played with her right lip, which is bigger than her left lip, and did the same. He gently sucked her clit. Took it between his wet lips and gently sucked it and he was dexterous enough to keep sucking while using his tongue to glide across the tip of her clit.

He pressed his lips right up against her bald pussy so that his tongue didn't have to strain out. He got his nose in her, too. He got dirty.

"You're doing it right. Don't fucking stop what you're doing!"

He was doing what he was doing amazingly; licking up and over her clit and it was divine. She was wriggling, moving her hips, grinding her pelvis, moving her legs. Her muscles started trembling. She started holding her breath and making weird noises. They were all positive reinforcement signs. That means he was doing something right and he kept doing that.

Perhaps she had never realized that it was nice to be fingered while her clit was getting hard, engorged, and increased in sensitivity. He did and he quickly licked his finger before putting it in her. Her vagina muscles clamped around his middle finger as he slowly and teasingly stimulated her. She couldn't take it anymore and her whole body tensed up. He felt his hands being pushed out by something warm and before he realized it, her pussy was squirting out streams of girl cum. She had bathed his face with her juice.

He straddled her so she was under him and he slid his hardened penis between her legs. He nuzzled against her, his lips on her neck, nibbling and kissing his way up to her earlobe, where she'd always been ticklish.

"Ooh," she whispered. "Ooh! Oh, oh, oh."

He worked his penis against the slick seam and then she forgot about trying to look good and lost herself in her own pleasure. Calvin watched her squeeze her eyes shut as she clamped her thighs against his waist and snapped her hips up, once, twice, three times before she froze, all the muscles in her thighs and belly and bottom tense and quivering, and he felt her vagina contract against his penis.

Before she could recover, he had slipped inside her. After the first thrust he had to hold still, knowing that if he kept moving, if he gave himself up to the exquisite tightness, the heat, he would explode. He wanted her to come at least once more, with him, and he didn't want her to tease him. But he wanted it to be good that night. He wanted everything to be perfect and awkward was thrown out the window.

He reached down and stroked her cheek, then her hair.

"I can feel my skin." She breathed. "Don't let me go."

"Never." His breath quivered at the thought of leaving her.

"Ughn." She moaned. "I can feel you. Oh, my God, I can't take it. I want you inside me."

He started fucking her. "I'm so putting myself into you. I'm inside you. All the way inside you."

"I can feel you." She wrapped her arms around his neck. Her shoulders started to hurt but she didn't care. "Yeah... We're here together."

He kissed her. She had one hand on his shoulder, the other slowly stroking his back, from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine.

"You feel so good," she whispered.

Calvin couldn't hold back any longer. He plunged inside her, deep into that maddening clutch, that heat. Mia moaned, her hands locked onto his shoulders, her breath against his face, her voice in his ear, urging him on.

"Oh, baby," she gasped as she put her lips to his ear, whispering his name over and over, like a chant, or a song, or a prayer.

If there was going to be awkwardness, it would come when they'd finished; when they looked down and saw that he was still wearing his socks and she still had her shorts hooked around one ankle. There would be the strangeness of a girl, his best friend, in his bed not just to cuddle, but she took his virginity, and Mia would surely have something to say about his amazing skills at oral sex. But as soon as they were done, Mia rolled into his arms, curling herself against his chest.

"I was just somewhere else with you. Just lost."

"Yeah," Mia said softly.

"It was just you and me."

"I know. I... Everything else just disappeared and I love that, Cal."

They had been closer than ever before after a month that passed. She didn't just love him enough to sleep with him anymore, she was sure if he had proposed, she would accept. She would have followed him to the ends of the earth and back. For him, it was like she had opened a new way of life. He was more confident around other people and he certainly knew how to express himself.

He displayed certain characteristics towards her that made her feel like she belonged to him and nobody else. They were not dating and it wasn't awkward for them. They made it so. They were just friends who had sex once and they needed to so they would discover a hidden part of a dark affection they had for each other. But there was still no words to describe their queer and wonderful relationship. Perhaps friends with benefits who loved each other and are not dating? It was not their business what anyone thought of them.

"Are you ready?" Calvin asked Mia.

"Totally."

He pushed the huge glass doors of the mall open and they walked in.

"Are you kidding?" She was physically amazed.

"Told you."

He ran ahead of her as she walked slowly. Mia was Astonished at how big the mall was. It was something she had never really noticed whenever she went there. Now, it was empty at midnight. They had the whole place to themselves. She was with him and it was fine. She didn't care for sleep.

"Wait," she called Calvin's attention, "what about security?"

"Oh, um. Arthur owed me one and I had to collect."

"Arthur?"

"Yeah. He works security here. He had to call up some favors. He's trying to scramble up something before college."

She came close to him where he stood in front of a carousel. "Okay."

"This looks fancy." He looked at her. "Wanna try it?"

She reluctantly entered the carousel and mounted a flying unicorn. "Yah!"

"Ready?" He pushed the start button and the unicorn started moving.

"Whoa whoa whoa," she laughed. "Calvin, come here."

"No, you got this."

"What the heck? This is awesome." When the pleasure ride made a complete rotation, she said "come on, get up here. Sit next to me."

"Alright. Wait up!" He entered the carousel and chased after her. He mounted the unicorn beside her and the ride slowly stopped turning. "Aw men."

"I guess someone had to keep it going." He sighed.

"Well, I loved it so, there."

"Oh, I got something else." He brought out a small book from his pocket.

"What is that?"

He cleared his throat. "What did the triangle say to the circle?"

She gasped. "What is that?!"

"You're so pointless."

"Fuck you. You kept that pun book, didn't you?!"

"What did the cannibal get when he showed up to the party late?"

"Um."

"A cold shoulder."

She chuckled.

"Here." He handed her the book. "It's for you."

"You know you might just be my favorite person in the world."

He came down from the unicorn. "Just saying. I know my girl. Just saying."

She came down and they stepped out of the carousel.

"Alright. Are you ready?" Mia asked as they started strolling. "I heard two peanuts walk into a park... one was as-salted."

"That was a good one."

"A boiled egg in the morning is really hard to beat."

They laughed together. "That's funny."

"I like that one." She continued, "I'm reading a book on antigravity and it's impossible to put down."

"Nice."

"Yes. That one's awesome."

"It's not that the guy didn't know how to juggle, he just didn't have the balls to do it."

"Ohhh." He laughed.

"I once heard a joke on amnesia," she laughed with him, "but I forgot how it goes."

"Good one."

"When the power went out in the school, the children were de-lighted."

"Meh."

"Hm. Those two men drinking battery acid will soon be charged."

"Ugh. That one's kinda dark."

"What's a pirates favorite later?"

"Oh, I know this one; Rrr."

"Naw, tis the C."

He laughed heartily.

"Oh! Cause the sea, cause the water, the ocean."

"That's the best one so far."

"Yes."

"Awesome."

"I'm inclined to be laid back."

"That's true. I actually feel like that about myself."

"That's it."

"That's it? That's the whole joke?"

"Yeah, the whole joke. The newspaper headline reads: cartoonist found dead at home. Details are sketchy." She laughed.

"That's cute."

"Oh man, I love this book."

"Hey, let's get our pictures taken."

They had walked to a photo booth and they went inside.

She pushed the power button. "And off we go."

The screen chimed alive and displayed on it were three options: love, friends and cool.

"What's cool look like?" She pushed the button.

"How's that guy cool?"

"Well, his wearing shades and he's a bunny."

"Touché."

"Nah, let's go back. Maybe love?"

"Are you trying to woo me?"

She snorted. "In your dreams. What else was there? Let's try friends."

"Wow. That's adorable."

"I'm the frog."

"You can't choose a character."

"You're the rabbit."

She pushed start. " Okay, smile."

There was a flash and their picture was taken.

"Here, closer, closer, closer," she was genuinely excited.

He put his arm around her shoulders but quickly made bunny ears on her head with his index and middle fingers before the flash appeared.

"No, no bunny ears" she pushed him. "Okay, something creepy."

"Eerrr..."

"Rrrr..."

"Dinosaur!" She pointed and the flash appeared.

"Oh, let's make an ugly face."

"Mmm..."

"Ooaa..."

"Squishy face, squishy face." She pushed her cheeks together and pouted her lips. "Alright. Be all sexy."

"Ooh. So sexy."

"Ah, it's all done."

"Alright."

"Wanna post it on Facebook?"

"Okay."

"And then we print it."

After the machine was done, they sighed, laid back and looked at each other.

"So..."

"So..."

"You wanna keep exploring?" Calvin asked.

"Hell, yeah."

They walked out of the photo booth and went up the escalators. They found the boutique store and Calvin thought they could try on some stylish clothes.

"You know what? We should head back."

He stopped and looked at her.

"I need to head back."

"We've got plenty of time."

"Calvin, tomorrow we'll just pick up where we left off."

He looked down and sighed. "I can't."

"Well, we'll just do it another day then."

He shook his head.

"Okay, Einstein, when?" She chuckled a bit.

"I got into Oxford."

"Oxford?"

"In England. I'm supposed to be on a flight to London tomorrow." He came close to her. "I honestly didn't think I'll get in."

"Why?" The smile on her face started to fade. "You're very smart after all."

"Mia?"

"It's okay, really."

"That's it?"

"Well, what do you want me to say?"

"I don't know. How about some friendly advice?"

She chuckled sarcastically.

"I'm serious."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"I wanted to see you."

"No, Calvin, why did you bring me here?"

"I don't know." He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know..." She sighed bleakly. "You want my advice? Go. C'mon let's just say our goodbyes."

"I'm gonna go check out the store."

"Calvin? Calvin?!"

She walked despondently into the store, to where he stood to look at a manikin dressed in a plaid button-up shirt.

"Have you ever seen a shirt that fine?" He didn't look at her.

"Are we just done talking?"

"I don't know. Are we?"

"You don't get to be pissed off at me. I'm pissed off at you."

He turned. "For what? Asking you what you think?"

"When have you ever cared about what I think? We were good. We were better than good and you just told me to not give a fuck about you!"

He said nothing.

"This whole day," she sighed, "you feel guilty? You want an out? I—'m giving it to you."

"I'm supposed to be packing, excited that I'm one of the selected few to get into Oxford on a scholarship. I don't make it to London tomorrow, I don't make it at all. Guilt didn't make me risk my future for a moment with you, Mia. And yeah, I did some shit that I don't know how to take back, but I'm trying." He took off his bag pack and threw it on the floor. "Those water guns we had when we were little? It's in there. That was the happiest day of my life and I thought I could relive that one more time with you. Surprise."

Mia looked down at the bag, she picked it up and brought out two water guns. He gave him one of them. "Okay, first, I'm gonna destroy you and then we'll talk."

"You're about to get drenched."

She smiled. "Let's see what you got Einstein."

Calvin took a few steps away from her. He pumped the gun and fired at her. She did the same but got wet. He was too quick for her so she ran for cover.

"There's nowhere to hide!"

She hid behind a shelf and waited for him to walk past her. He didn't. He knew where she was, her flat shoes peeked out and gave her away. He swiftly fired at her, bathing her the more as she laughed and cursed at the same time.

"Aw man."

"Boosh! I just fucked you up."

"What? You nearly even hit me."

"Mia, you're drenched. Okay, you count to five, I'll go hide and we'll hunt each other. Whoever gets hit first, loses."

"Fine."

"Close your eyes."

She did. "One, two, three, four, five." She opened her eyes and he was gone. "You ready?!"

He was hiding in the changing room, patiently waiting to hear her footsteps. Mia pumped her gun and looked for him. Whenever they played hide and seek, he would always win because he knew all the perfect places to hide. She wasn't going to give up this one to him. If it was the last thing they did together, she wanted to win. Just as she was about to check behind the counter, she heard footsteps behind her and she quickly turned, her finger on the trigger, she pushed and bathed his clothes.

"Oh shoot!" She bragged. "Oh shoot. What did I just do? Did you see those skills?"