Choices - John and the Dragon

On her second day back home, Ronnie took me by surprise yet again. I entered the house to the smell of steak frying.

"I got you a nice steak from the butcher today, John. It is medium rare that you like it, isn't it? Ronnie said.

It went on like that for the next week or so. I got home from work every night and Ronnie was cooking a dinner for me of some kind. Well, if she wanted to cook, who was I to object?

At the end of the second week that Ronnie had been out of hospital, I came home from work and when I opened the garage door I found that I couldn't get my car inside. There were a couple of beds stacked up against the wall.

"What's that junk in the garage?" I asked Ronnie when I went inside the house.

"The old beds from our room. I've brought one of those king-size ones for us. They delivered it today."

Yeah, that's what she said, "Our room" and "king-size bed for us."

"Something definitely smells in the State of Denmark," I thought to myself. Well, can I help it if I'm a bloody pessimist? I really wasn't sure what game Ronnie was playing by then, but I figured the bitch was setting me up for a fall.

We ate dinner, then Veronica fed Otterley again and put her down for the night, or until she decided she wanted to chew on mummy's nipples again. Actually I was beginning to get quite jealous of little Otterley; those tits of Ronnie's had swollen some, what with all the milk they were producing and looked even more tasty that they had done the one and only time I'd managed to get my lips on them.

After Veronica had put Otterley down for the night, she didn't come back downstairs like she normally did. I was sitting there watching the news when I heard Ronnie call out to me. This wasn't an unusual thing, so without answering I looked for what she'd forgotten; you know, Otterley's changing bag and the like. Picking up a spare nappy or two I headed for the bedroom, where I found Ronnie lying on the new bed waiting for me.

No, for some reason I hadn't been up to the room to look at the massive bed Ronnie had purchased. I'd figured that she'd ordered a king-size one, so she had more room to stay away from me in it.

The sight before my eyes when I entered the room was interesting if not particularly sexy. Veronica was draped on the bed seductively -- I suppose - dressed in nothing but a pair of briefs and her nursing bra.

"Sorry about this damned bra but these things have got so heavy I have to keep them under control somehow. Anyway I thought you might like an early night," she said smiling at me.

I'm not sure what I said, something like, "Oh! Ah! Um!" I should imagine. I think I was in shock; Veronica was inviting me to get into the same bed as her.

"I'm sorry but the doctor said that we shouldn't do 'it' yet. But we could just cuddle up together," Ronnie said pensively and reached out her hand towards me much as she had done at the hospital two weeks before.

For a moment I didn't move, then I saw Ronnie's facial expression begin to change to one of sadness and a tear formed in the corner of her eye.

"You don't want me because I'm all fat and ugly." She began to wail and that kick-started my brain, back into action.

"It's nothing of the sort, Ronnie; you just took me by surprise, that's all. Come on, you have hardly wanted me in the same room as you since we... well, since we conceived Otterley," I said, climbing on the bed and taking her in my arms.

"I told you I was all mixed up, John. I didn't expect to fall pregnant the first time I ever had sex. All my friends were saying that they had sex all the time and none of them ever got pregnant. You know, I think I knew that Otterley was on the way when we woke up together in that bed."

She stopped speaking long enough to let out a couple of pitiful sobs. "I was angry with you because we hadn't taken any precautions. Don't ask me why; it was up to me as well as you."

"Christ. Ronnie, I thought that you were annoyed that it was me you'd gone to bed with. I've always believed that you were so drunk that you thought you were with Billy."

"What, Billy Troon? You must be joking. Any girl would have to be off her head to get into bed with that idiot."

"But he was your boyfriend at the time!" I reminded her.

"Like bloody hell, he was!" Ronnie almost screamed at me. I thought she might have woken Otterley.

Veronica suddenly jumped up and sat on her knees looking down at me, lying on the bed.

"John, Billy Troon is a stuck-up little prick. He thinks his parents' money will buy him anything he wants, and that includes most of the girls in town as well. Do you know he's got a little book that he keeps details of all his conquests in. The dumb shit showed it to me once. Did the idiot think that I wouldn't realise what a little sketch of a cherry beside any particular girl's name meant?"

"No, John; once Billy Troon goes to bed with a girl she's history and has a reputation to match. I just strung the bugger along for a while. You know it was handy having that car of his mum's to run the girls and I around. But rest assured Billy Troon was never going to be my first."

Ronnie sat there looking down at me; I believe she expected me to say something. I'm not sure but I think the best I could muster was another round of "Oh Um Ah's." Or something like it.

"Johnny, I sought you out at the party that night. I was drunk or I'd never have had the guts to do it. But it was you that I always wanted; when I saw you there that night, I had every intention of sleeping with you."

I think this time I managed to fit a few "But, buts" in, but I won't swear to it.

"I'm sorry, John, but to be honest the first two times weren't anything to write home about. Silly really; why I'd thought that you'd be an experienced lover I don't know. But I think I was a little disappointed with the result. But the third time we did it that night, was really something; I'm sure that was the time we made Otterley. But then you fell asleep and when we woke up I realised that we hadn't taken any precautions.

"Then you got up and left and you never called me again. I was pretty devastated about that, I'd been having all these dreams about Johnny Hope being my boyfriend and you never called once."

Now I got my tongue back.

"Veronica, as I remember that morning, you... you told me to fuck-off, in no uncertain terms. I just got the hell out of there and kept my bloody head down."

Now it was Ronnie's turn to look pensive again.

"Yeah, I know I did. I was a bloody stupid bitch that morning, and I'm sorry. But having sex for the first time is a big step. And when I woke up, somehow I knew that I was pregnant. It was me who seduced you that night, John, not the other way around. It was me who should have thought about contraceptives, but it was easier for me to blame you. I'm sorry I can get quite stupid when I'm emotional. Are you going to forgive me?"

"I don't know. What about how you've been treating me since? You haven't been the nicest person to live with, you know."

"I know, it was just... oh, I don't know, I got the idea that you didn't want us to be married and were only here with me because of that 'duty thing' that your father keeps going on about."

"But when I was screaming obscenities at you the other day, I could see the man that I loved every time I managed to look down between my legs. I saw the love in your eyes when you washed Otterley and you still had that look for me afterwards. I'm mad about you, John. Please, god, be as mad about me as well."

You know, that's when I realised what I hadn't done! I hadn't admitted to myself that I was. Mad about Veronica, that is! Somehow I'd fallen head over heels in love with the girl. And guess what, twenty years and another three children later we've haven't looked back since.

Ah, well, that isn't exactly true; all marriages have a couple of blips in them now and again, but nothing that you'd call drastic. And for whenever Veronica forgets herself and starts to behave like her mother, we have a safe word. All I have to say is "Dragon" and Veronica will stop speaking, come into my arms and try out her suffocation technique on me again. It seems to end most of our disagreements.

Life goes on.