Michael - His life

We showered and got dressed and after making sure that we were ready to be seen, we left the hotel. We never kissed in public or showed any sign of affection beyond what might be normal for two people that worked for the same law firm. I walked out the front door, turned right and walked the two blocks to my office. Jake went in the opposite direction and took a cab to meet a client. Life carried on.

That night I heard my phone beep and saw that Michaels flight had landed. He sent a text: 'In a cab on the way to your apartment.' I had already prepared by having some wine chilled for him and some food ready for us. I had picked up Chinese take out earlier in the night and it was waiting to be eaten after he got in the door.

My plan was to welcome my husband home with a drink and some food and then pass him the pregnancy test and tell him that he was going to be a father. And then I was gong to take him to bed and fuck him to death. And never let him go.

***********

Michael

I managed to get a flight on British Airways direct from Heathrow to JFK airport. It left in the late afternoon and since it was heading west it meant that I got back in NYC in the early evening. I got on the train to Grand Central Station. It's a tedious way to get to the city but it's cheap and probably the best way to get to the city if you don't have a shit-ton of luggage to manage. I had a small carry-on bag along with my old leather briefcase, so luggage wasn't an issue. I'm used to public transportation; it's the only way to get around in big cities, and the ride into the city on the train didn't bother me.

At Grand Central I got a cab to Amanda's apartment. I still think of it as hers, not ours.

When I got to the front entrance, I was greeted by the doorman who recognized me and let me know that Chinese food was likely waiting for me. I grinned and thanked him for that heads-up.

I got out of the elevator and started down the hallway, not knowing what surprises waited for me. When I rang the doorchime, the door swung open almost immediately.

My wife of just over a year greeted me with a huge smile. I stepped inside, dropped my bags and took her in my arms and kissed her. "I heard that you got Chinese takeout for supper, any leftovers? I'm starved."

Amanda laughed, "I see that Roger gave me up. I haven't eaten yet. I was waiting for you."

I used my foot to close the door. The rest of the night was pretty much as I expected. The food came after the sex. The sex was hot and urgent and sweaty and explosive all at the same time. Amanda knew how to please me, and she did.

It was two hours before we got to the food. I poured us some wine while Amanda nuked the food. When we clinked glasses and took a drink, I noted that she barely sipped hers. In fact it hardly wet her lips.

She looked me square in the eyes and said, "Honey, I have some news."

I looked at her, she had my full attention. "What's going on with you?"

"This isn't about just me; this is about us."

Amanda put her glass down. Now she really had my undivided attention.

She reached in her pocket and pulled out a small white plastic tube about 4 inches long and she slid it across the table to me. I looked at the piece of plastic like it was a grenade and ready to go off in my face.

"What's this?"

"For a smart guy you can be clueless sometimes. It's a pregnancy test. I'm pregnant!" Amanda, her eyes wide and her eyebrows arched high, raised her voice just a bit to emphasize the words.

Holy shit! My mouth opened, but the words that were in a jumble in my brain didn't come out. Five seconds went by and finally my response was uttered, "Holy shit!" I jumped up and grabbed Amanda and pulled her to me and kissed her. "Wow!" And then thinking that I needed verification, "Are you sure?"

"Of course, I'm sure, I peed on 10 of these test sticks. And I went to the doctor two days ago. So, yes, I'm pretty sure that I'm pregnant."

The planner in me was working at a million miles an hour as thoughts flooded my brain. I knew now that this was the game-changer for us. I knew now that I needed to make a change in my work. I needed to be home and I needed to live a lot more with my wife. No more weeks away from home at a stretch. I had new responsibilities now and needed to put Amanda and the baby first.

This was a game-changer for me.

*********

Amanda

Telling Michael that I was pregnant was incredibly stressful, and I didn't really realize that until I was with him and handing him the pregnancy test stick. There were a million things running through my mind and chief among them was, is Michael the father of my baby? I prayed that he was. I had looked at the calendar a million times and calculated the date that I got pregnant and I figured that Michael was likely the father. But a small part of my brain was still worried that he wasn't.

Medical science has just about nailed down the ability to record the date of conception, but my doctor said that even with all the science, the exact date of conception was still a best guess. It could be off by as much as as a week or more. The date of conception was based on the date of my last period. I was likely at my most fertile time about two weeks after the start of my last period. But damn, how the hell did my IUD fail. I mean, I was planning on getting the thing removed but hadn't done it yet. Doesn't matter now. Now I have to manage the men in my life. Now I need to keep control of my life and get my husband home, full-time, as soon as possible.

**********

Six Months later

Michael

Amanda is now about seven months pregnant and is getting bigger every day. I can feel the baby kick and poke when I'm next to her. I lay in bed at night with my arm around her counting the movements. The baby sleeps when Amanda sleeps and moves when she's awake; or so I think. That's a bit absurd, I know, but it seems to be that way.

I've pretty much stopped my travelling for work. I went to my bosses and told them that I needed to make a change. If they couldn't allow me to modify my travel schedule, I was happy to simply leave my job and they could replace me. Oddly, they really didn't squawk too much but agreed that I could ratchet-back the travel part of my job and work more remotely from Washington or NYC.

After some long discussions, Amanda and I agreed that we would live in Washington while she was pregnant and that she would also work remotely from home.

It took a little getting used to, and we both still had to travel a bit, but ninety percent of our time was spent together. It's been different living full time with my wife. I mean, being together this close was a challenge for both of us. I made a point of forcing us to put away the laptops and cellphones and for us to get outside for some physical activity twice a day. We walked several miles twice day and it was a time for us to put aside work and think about each other.

Our sex lives ramped up as we were together more. We were less 'urgent,' now it was gentler and loving. I wanted to spend time catering to the needs of Amanda, and it was common for us to spend time during the day naked in our bedroom. I would massage Amanda and then attack her body starting at her feet and working my way up.

I loved the feel of her body and she responded to my touch. It's so different being with her full-time. In my own defence, I grew up as a very independent person and my Army training reinforced that sense of independence. I had to rely on myself first and foremost. I always knew that I had a dedicated team of professionals behind me to support me but at the end of the day, it was my responsibility to make sure that I did what needed to be done. My current job was just the same. Travelling the world, as I did, was another reinforcement of that skill that I had honed to a one edge. Now, I had to learn new skills. Yes, this was a new world for me. Being a full-time husband and father was new terrain that I needed to get a grip on, otherwise things would be chaotic, and my role in the world was to make sense of the chaos and sort it all out.

***********

Six Months Later

Amanda

Oh my god! I'm exhausted and need a shower so bad. I can actually smell myself; I think. The baby is down for a nap and Michael is trying to get caught up with his email traffic. I'm going to jump in the shower and freshen up and get a bite to eat. Motherhood is a lot of work. How did my mother and father do it? A baby changes everything for us. Emma Victoria is now four months old and hungry all the time. Breastfeeding was something that I found a bit challenging at first. I mean, to have my own body produce the milk that feeds my child is weird, in some illogical way. As a New Yorker, I'm used to eating out a lot and to think that my body is the restaurant for my child is...well, different. I don't think it's so weird anymore. I just do it. The baby is going to transition to bottle feeding in another month and start that lovely blendered pureed food. Creamed carrots and other vegetables should be just yummy. Ah, parenthood.

Michael is taking to being a father like a duck to water. He organizes things so well and puts problems into nice manageable compartments. That and his ability to operate on next to no sleep. I don't know how he does it. He makes a point of getting out for a run every day. He goes out about 4:30 AM for a run. I don't know how far he goes but when he gets home, he showers-off and slips into bed with me and pulls me into him. His cock gets hard and before you know it, the man is inside me and making me orgasm. All that and its still only 7 AM. Jesus, i'm gonna be pregnant again in no time.

I have pretty much forgotten about my occasional daytime 'activities' in NYC with Jake. He's a good lover, but he's got his own life and I have mine, so that part of my life is over and done. The firm wants me to get back to work soon. The managing partner calls me weekly to check in and see how I'm doing, but it's clear to me that he wants to know when I will be coming back to work. He wants me to go to work in a different part of the firm. Contracts possibly, or maybe criminal defence work. I think that contracts might be a better fit for me just now. We worked out an agreement that I could work from home a couple of days a week and spend three days in the office. So, my maternity leave is about to end. Time to hire a nanny. But where do we live?

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

Michael

Life with a baby is starting to fall into place and I worked out a deal that I could work out of the NYC field office for the next few months. Amanda and I bought a bigger apartment in the city, closer to her office, and arranged for a nanny. She wasn't a live-in nanny but would stay overnight from time-to-time if needed. She was a part-time student at. CCNY and was taking a combination of classroom and online courses. She wanted to be a paralegal so she figured that working for Amanda might give her an edge in a full-time job after she graduated.

Me, I'm working in Washington still, but will be staged out of the field office in NYC. My many bosses are keen for me to get back to full duty and have told me that my first task will be to get back to London to help the British Security Service. That won't be for another month. We have a lot of work to do to get settled in the new place in NYC and make sure Emma and Amanda are both good-to-go. Me, I'm used to living out of a duffle bag. I need very little to survive. Maybe that's a hangover from my Army upbringing. Whatever, it means that I'm easy to please when it comes to a place to live.

***********

Rebecca

I had heard that he was back in the country. We had set up a new operation in Manchester since taking out the nasty buggers that we tracked outside Heathrow Airport. Those fuckers folded easily and so we have been questioning them daily to get a handle on the others. After a bit of 'persuasion' they began the process of giving up others in their network, and so, we were now working on the next spoke in the terrorist wheel.

This wasn't James Bond type work. It was a lot of surveillance and a lot of boring days and nights waiting for someone to make a mistake. It also involved a lot of communications surveillance, and so we had lots of technology at work to eavesdrop on what ever they were saying. Cell phones are easy to listen-in to, but they used gaming systems that allowed players to 'chat' with each other. That was a lot more challenging to infiltrate. But we kept at it and slowly we got tidbits of information that allowed us to close in.

Michael didn't know that I had been part of the Manchester team. He was staying in a small hotel and his cover story saw him doing academic research into local history. With the addition of some charming black horned-rim glasses, he fit the image beautifully.

I knocked on the door to his room. I heard some movement on the other side and seconds later the door opened. There he was. Complete with glasses and a book in his hand. A smile broke out on his face and he stepped back and took off the glasses. "Come in, please."

Michaels room was large by comparison to most hotel rooms. "The agency must be happy to have you back on duty, by the looks of this suite." I laughed as I said it.

"They did say that they were 'pleased' that I was returning to field work. I'll probably end up paying for a bit of the bill out of my own pocket, but what the hell, I can't stay in those tiny boxes that you folks call hotel rooms."

Michael offered up a drink and I accepted. We sat for a few minutes and chatted about his being a new father and then, just as I expected, he got right down to business.

The next two hours were spent talking about our current little project and what we had planned to do and just how we were going to go about it. To infiltrate terrorist rings, it takes time, and always lots of money. Always with the money. People can be bought with money, especially when they see how those with money live compared to those without money. Few actual terrorists give two turds about the 'cause' that they are working in aid of. No, most are in it for the money that they can send home to try and feed the folks back in whatever lovely little hovel they came from. Ideology rarely buys food and medicine and things. Ideology usually buys pain and misery and death. That's the way of the world. Has been for several millennium and will be for more.

I could tell that Michael was getting down to business and his thoughts of family were now pushed to the rear of his brain. He's highly analytical and it's his ability focus like a laser beam on a problem that makes him so good at what he does.

We went and had some supper and of course since we were in the public our talk changed to mundane things. I wanted to find out how he was getting on coping with being a dad. I knew that the paternity of his daughter might be in doubt since his stupid wife was fucking another idiot that she worked with. The dumb cunt didn't know what she had and couldn't keep her legs together whenever her husband was away for more than a few days. I knew that Michael knew, or at least I was pretty confident that he did. But we're all civilized people, so it was never actually said.

The man was so controlled. How he did it was beyond my comprehension. I was fucking furious when I found out that my husband was fucking a nurse and had gotten her pregnant. But being the proper English woman that I am, we solved it all cleanly and without emotion clouding the plan. We divorced with little fanfare and I moved on to reconnoiter what I really wanted. And I'd been successful.

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

Michael

I had expected the knock on the door, eventually. I knew that Rebecca was part of the team for this mission, and so I was happy to see her. I donned the glasses and held a book in my hand to pretend that I wasn't expecting her to visit quite so soon. I couldn't pretend for long and so took the glasses off and put them, and the book, on the table. I smiled when I saw her. I knew what would eventually happen that night. And it did.

I was hungry so we went out for bite of supper and a pint. I used that as an opportunity to tell her some of the stories of me changing diapers and managing a newborn. I can shoot a gun while free-falling from an airplane but changing a poopy diaper is something that the Army never prepared me for. If she could handle my telling her about being a father, then she could handle everything else. Thing was, I wasn't a father.

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

Amanda

Michael was back on the road for a while and I was back in NYC. This time in a bigger apartment and with a nanny to help manage Emma. The baby was growing fast. I was getting back in shape and lost almost all of the pregnancy weight. My boobs were still a bit bigger than they had been, but that was normal. I know that the first time I saw Jake, he stared at my chest with eyes that said he would love to get my tits in his hands and suck on my nipples. The thought of that had me wet. Michael did that same thing almost every day and it caused the same reaction in me every time. It's a wonder that I'm not pregnant again considering how often Michael and I had sex.

I quietly told Jake that we couldn't keep doing what we had been doing any more. Sadly, that part of my life was over, at least for the time being. I knew, from gossip around the office, that Jake had moved on to a cute red-headed intern that was working in the tort department. He was very good at keeping that part of his life separate from his family. He had been doing it for a few years now, and his bedpost had a few notches in it. I was now one of those. That was life at the firm, and everyone played the game, and everyone made a shit-ton of money. Welcome to the legal profession in NYC.

Right now my job was to be a good mother first and be a faithful wife, also first. Could I do it? And for how long? Jesus, there was always that 'itch' that needed to be scratched. As long as Michael was here to scratch it, I was good. When he and I were apart, well, that was another thing altogether. That is when I was a troublemaker; no, make that trouble seeker. That was when I used that part of my brain that was the other Amanda. The Amanda that was ruler of the universe. The Amanda that was in charge. The Amanda that said what it was I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it and who I did it with. I set the rules. Jesus! I'm gonna be in so much shit. I just know it.

*********

One Year Later

Michael

Amanda and I just welcomed another baby to our family. The nanny is proving to be indispensable as we combine family and work life together. Recreation comes along once in a while, but a lot less than I would like. The new baby is a boy. Michael Jr. I know what you're thinking.

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

Amanda

Now I have a son. We named him Michael Jr. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to have the kid's DNA tested. I know that eventually that might be necessary but right now it's not what I want to do. If Michael is happy as a father, then I'm happy as a mother, and his wife. No need to rock that boat.

I know what you're thinking. I'm a stupid bitch who can't keep her legs together when her husband isn't around. And you're right. But you don't know me, and nobody owns me. Nobody.

Michael is my husband and the man that I want to be with for the rest of our lives. I have a need and sadly, it seems that fate has conspired against me, twice. My need to be in control dictates what I do, and when I do it, and who I do it with. The fellow that I have been seeing about twice a month since I went back to work after Emma, was a new lawyer that I was attracted to and after some preliminary chit-chats and the occasional lunch together I decided that I wanted him. He didn't disappoint me. He's not better than Michael, just different. He's not a better lover, just different. He's not better looking, just different. And so, I started something that I may live to regret, but I did it anyway.