Dream Guy Ch. 03

'What jumper?'

'It had those woolly, dangly things.'

'Oh, that one!' She leaned towards Conall. 'He means the one my grandmother found at the Salvation Army shop. She said it was--'

'I don't give a fuck about the jumper!' burst out Conall.

He looked almost deranged, his hair hanging in strands. The easy banter between Maddie and I was clearly torture for him and he lost it. Conall started ranting at Maddie about how she had lectured him on birth control and responsibility, and yet now she was having a laugh with a man who had knocked her up. Maddie countered by saying that a woman might need different things from different men. Conall demanded to know what the fuck she meant.

I sat and watched--part fascinated, part appalled--as Maddie recounted in excruciating detail the night I had stopped mid-fuck to decide whether or not to come inside her.

'You're a man, Conall,' she said, 'so you have no idea what it's like to have your vagina full with a man's erect penis, and to feel your entire body begging him--begging him--to ejaculate inside you. It's like something else takes over--some primal need--and nothing is more important than holding that man close and taking his sperm into your body. It's not just about sex, Conall. When Jason came inside me, it was like tasting Heaven. And you would have deprived me of that experience just because it "hurts your feelings".'

'But you're pregnant!' he cried.

'Yes!' said Maddie. 'And if you were a real man, you'd understand!'

I looked at Conall and thought: Surely this is the moment he tells Maddie to go fuck herself? This is the moment he tells both of us to go to hell. This is the moment he upends the table and storms out of my apartment.

But no... Conall stayed and went on arguing. He insisted to Maddie that he did understand and that he was a real man and that he was mainly upset because she had been hypocritical. Maddie denied it and, as the two argued back and forth, I sat there wondering why one of them didn't just say: 'Fuck it, it's over!'

'Because...' said a little voice in my head, 'neither wants to be the one to deal the killer blow.'

That's when I got it. That's when I understood. If Maddie broke it off, then she was a bitch who had taken an impressionable young man away from his family and home, only to dump him when she met someone better. If Conall broke it off, then he was an ungrateful bastard who had used a young woman's crush on him to escape his home village and set himself up in the big city. Both of them were wracked with guilt, yet neither had the guts to finish it.

I sighed, lifted my beer bottle and tapped the side of it with the opener, making an approximation of the 'ding-ding-ding' for announcing a dinner party speech. Maddie and Conall stopped arguing and looked at me. I addressed Conall.

'Listen,' I said. 'I know you and Madeline have things to talk about...'

'She doesn't like being called Madeline!'

'Conall, for fuck's sake!' said Maddie in exasperation.

Conall looked at her as though she had stabbed him. And now it was my turn.

'Conall, the woman sat next to you is pregnant with my baby. We need to talk about that.'

'Fine!'

'No,' I said. 'When I say "we", I mean Madeline and myself. Alone.'

Conall swallowed and looked at Maddie. She sat, legs crossed, arms folded, staring at her beer bottle on the table. Conall looked back at me.

'You're going to fuck each other, aren't you?' he said.

'Of course.'

'Well, what if I refuse to go?'

'Then I suggest we clear a space and settle this the old-fashioned way.'

'I don't believe in violence.'

Maddie gave a snort of derision. Conall stared at her as though she had stabbed him a second time. He was almost in tears.

'Maddie, you're the one who said that women aren't prizes to be won!' he said. 'That's what you said!'

Maddie winced, but more at the whine in his voice than the reminder. I took a sip of beer, then put my beer bottle next to the one Conall had given her. The meaning was obvious and Conall's gaze was suddenly fixed on that bottle. I looked over the table at Maddie.

She glared at me.

I returned her look, daring her to back down this time. I wasn't going to do all her dirty work for her. Finally, she sighed and reached for my bottle. She put it to her lips, upended it and drank every last drop of beer. She licked the rim, then put it back on the table and looked at Conall. His bottom lip was quivering.

I turned to him.

'Take your beers,' I said, 'and get out of my house.'

* * * * *

Maddie and I sat in the silence following the slam of my apartment door. I was wondering whether Conall knew which car was mine and whether he would key it. Apart from that, I felt okay. Not good, not bad... but okay.

'We're not very nice people, are we?' said Maddie.

'Did you want to be a nice person?'

'I want to be a good person.'

Conall had left his beers behind after all; his version of a fuck-you, I suppose. I opened one and took a drink.

I said: 'I'm not sure you can be a good person and a woman at the same time.'

'That's bullshit!'

'All right, let me put it another way. Being a good person means honouring a moral code of some kind, right?'

'Yes.'

'But if you're a woman who values her womanhood, doesn't that mean honouring your innermost feelings?'

'Um, ye-e-eah...'

'So what happens when what you desire as a woman clashes with your moral code? Should you choose to be a moral person? Or should you honour your innermost feelings as a woman?'

Maddie put a hand on her belly. She frowned and looked at the door through which Conall had walked out of her life.

'I never wanted to hurt him,' she said.

'I believe you,' I said. 'But neither did you want the responsibility of not hurting him.'

'What the fuck are you talking about?'

'I'm talking about--'

'No, stop! I don't want to know!'

Maddie stood up and turned her back on me. She stood with her hands on her hips for a few moments, then turned to face me.

'Jason,' she said. 'Do you want to see my new, improved tits?'

* * * * *

Maddie stayed the night and that marked the beginning of us living together as an official couple.

My family and friends were appalled at first, especially when they heard the whole Conall story. More than one of them took me to one side to mutter, 'How do you know she won't do the same to you someday?' And my answer was always the same: Given the right circumstances, I knew that she would. Maddie was ruthlessly self-centred. Her own personal happiness would always trump whatever morals she claimed to believe in, including her feminism. But knowing that was my protection.

About six months after she moved in, the two of us were naked in bed. Maddie's belly was now huge and she was lying on her back looking down at it. I lay on my side next to her and I thought she looked absolutely beautiful. We had just made love, I had finished inside her and my aching penis was still leaking cum. I reached for a tissue and wiped myself off. Maddie let out a deep sigh.

'Jason... why am I so happy?'

'You make it sound like a problem,' I said.

'Well, it kind of is,' said Maddie. 'I have a baby literally inside me and I'm thinking, "How the fuck did that happen?" I never decided I wanted this. I never decided I wanted you. And the feminist part of my brain is going apeshit. It hates the fact that I'm cooking for you, taking care of your home... even the fact that I think of it as your home rather than our home sends it spinning into some kind of temper tantrum. And yet...'

She leaned back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

'I have zero desire to go back to the way I was with Conall. I was the provider in that relationship. My name was on the rental contract. Although we were supposedly equal partners, he basically did things the way I wanted them, and I cringe when I think about it. I'm so much happier with you. And it doesn't make sense because you're basically being the traditional breadwinner and I'm not supposed to be happier with you.'

She looked at me then, worried that I might be offended. I wasn't. I knew exactly what she meant. She reached out her hand and I took it.

'The way you're looking at me,' she said, 'is the way I used to look at Conall. And I'm realising that I'm much happier being the receiver of that look than the giver. Do you know what I mean?'

'I know what you mean.'

'And it doesn't bother you?'

'What, that I'm the giver and you're the receiver? That's it's not "fifty-fifty"?'

Maddie pulled a face. I put a hand on the side of her face and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed me back and, as we kissed, I felt her hand reach down, cup my balls, then wrap its fingers around my cock. It stiffened at her touch and she broke the kiss and looked into my eyes.

'Any chance I could receive some more?' she murmured.

Those were the last words she spoke that night. I told her to be silent and got her to perform every sex act I ever wanted to see a pregnant woman do. By the end of it, Maddie was so off the world that I don't think her brain was able to formulate words. She went to sleep with a huge smile on her face.

But I stayed awake awhile and gazed at her, thoughts swirling in my head.

For better or worse, this was the woman I would be having children with. I suppose I would be marrying her at some point, but right now I didn't feel like a man looking at his future wife--I felt like a caveman looking at his mate. She was wild, this woman. However smart she may be, her animal side was in charge. I would never have consciously chosen her. Yet the past six months had been some of the happiest in my life -- living with Maddie was a blast. Yet it wasn't her love which touched me. As Maddie had said, love was something which I gave to her.

No, what touched me was her gratitude.

Maddie made me feel every day that she was grateful to have me. She was grateful that I was sharing my home with her, grateful that I took care of the money, grateful that I was embracing our future parenthood in the way I was doing it. I never realised what an extraordinary thing it was to be a man on the receiving end of a woman's gratitude. It made me want to do more for her. And all my past girlfriends, who took for granted what I offered and continually gave me the feeling that they were entitled to 'more', entered that part of my memory reserved for bad dreams.

Maybe Maddie would change over time and resurrect those memories. But, right now, she was pregnant and perfect, and I went to sleep next to her feeling like the luckiest man in the world.

* * * * *

Postscript

I was in the supermarket pushing a trolley. My two-year-old son, Jake, was in the child seat, demonstrating his ability to fall asleep absolutely anywhere. His little body was slumped forward, arms hanging over the push-bar, his chubby face directed at the floor. I was getting lots of smiles and disbelieving shakes of the head from other shoppers, especially women. I was glad Maddie wasn't here. She tends to get jealous and now that she's pregnant with our second child, her hormones are once more all over the place.

I was pushing my trolley down the aisle for sauces and spices, when another trolley turned the corner and headed in my direction. I moved mine to one side so we could pass, but not before noticing that the other trolley was being pushed by a woman of stunning sexiness -- long, black hair, dark eyes, long legs wearing knee-high black boots. The man she was with was handsome rather than sexy, dapper in a tailored jacket and with a strong, well-defined face. His haircut was short at the back and sides, and floppy at the front, which was probably why I didn't recognise him at first glance. Then he looked right at me and spoke my name in that distinctive Scottish brogue.

'Jason!'

I stopped in my tracks and stared. The man seemed delighted to see me, leaving his lady friend to come over, his hand already stretched out. I was shaking it before I could bring myself to speak.

'Conall... you look great!'

'Thanks! My goodness, it's incredible to see you!'

I was bowled over by his enthusiasm. Didn't he want to punch me? Still, as the dark-eyed lady manoeuvred her trolley adjacent to mine, I didn't get the feeling he was losing much sleep over Maddie anymore. The woman's name was Philippa and she spoke like a country club debutante.

'Oh... my... God,' she said, looking at Jake's slumped form. 'What did you do to that poor urchin?'

'I put gin in his milk bottle,' I said.

For one second, I think she believed me. Then her mouth made a little twitch of displeasure and she tossed her hair in a gesture of dismissal. Meanwhile, Conall was looking at Jake and smiling. There was something reflective about that smile.

'He's definitely mine,' I said.

'How did you know I was thinking that?' said Conall.

'Because I had the same thought myself at one point. So, after he was born, I did one of those DNA home tests.'

'Fuck! How did Maddie react?'

'I did it without telling her. She would have considered it a "breach of trust".'

Conall laughed and said:

'Yeah, that's her, all right. Carrying on with two guys at the same time is somehow okay, but to doubt her word on something... hoo, boy!'

'Wait!' said Philippa, staring at Conall and pointing at me. 'He's that Jason?'

I smiled thinking, 'She catches on quick.' Conall looked embarrassed. The two of them exchanged a few brief words, then Philippa huffed and stalked off pushing the trolley.

'Sorry about that,' said Conall.

'Don't be silly,' I said. 'It's me who should apologise to you.'

'What, for kicking me out of your apartment?' said Conall. 'You did me a favour, man! Maddie gets pregnant by someone else and I still want to be "part of it"? What was I thinking?'

'Well...' I turned to look at Philippa's rather tasty behind receding down the aisle. 'You seemed to have bounced back.'

'Oh, it's not serious with Philippa. To be honest, I've been a bit of a slut since breaking up with Maddie.'

'And are you enjoying it?'

'You bet! I think monogamy is well overrated.'

I looked at Conall's firm jaw and blue eyes and thought, 'Yeah, if I looked like you, I'd probably think the same.' Highly attractive people live in a different world to the rest of us.

'Look, I'd better go,' said Conall. 'But it was great to see you!'

'You too,' I said, and meant it.

We shook hands one last time and I watched Conall return to his lady friend. He looked completely at ease, giving the woman a quick kiss, then turning away to ponder the rows of condiment jars. I turned away myself and saw a chubby little face with Maddie's green eyes look blearily at me from its place in the child seat.

'Well, hello, sparky!' I said. 'Welcome back to the world!'