Sincere Apology

My sweet gentle Noah had destroyed John's face with one punch.

I should not have been happy.

I should not have been impressed.

I should not have been horny.

They prepped me for surgery. Shots, blood, urine, tests. It was just the last joint of one little finger, but they were treating it like a heart transplant.

The surgeon came to talk to me before I was put under. He consulted his clipboard and reassured me that this was a routine thing and the chances of success were high.

At the end he turned the top page.

"Oh, by the way, congratulations."

I had a dreadful flashback. He looked down at me, questioning.

"You didn't know you were pregnant?"

I don't know what he expected, but I know he did not expect that I would grab his coat with my free hand, IV tubing and monitor wiring snaking crazy after it, and ask in a panic, "How far along?"

He was taken aback, but like a pro he took another look at the chart.

"About four weeks." He did not ask why. A pro.

I collapsed back into the bed and cried with a mix of relief, joy, and horror.

**********

Lawson

It would be romantic to say that I planned it out, that I prepared the bed with satin sheets and scented shit and lit candle and other shit that women seem to love for some reason men will never understand.

Nope, it was a Saturday, about noon. The kids were all at either soccer or baseball, taken away accidentally and coincidentally by other parents who owned minivans or large SUVs.

When the last kid ran from the door, Betsy turned to me and I took her in my arms.

We kissed. The kiss got harder and wetter and we danced into the bedroom where we fell onto the unmade bed.

I unhooked all her hooks. She unbuttoned all my buttons. We panted and pawed. I was on top of her and inside her before I could make a plan. Our hips trust against each other. She mewed and moaned but it had just been too long and she was just too damn sexy. I came in her.

I pulled away, onto my knees, and looked down at wet mussed hair slick and moist. I thought about the woman I loved. I thought about how she was willing to endure months of pain and discomfort so readily. For us.

I said to myself. Fuck it.

And I ran my tongue up her hot wet slit. The demigods of manhood did not strike me down for it. It was salty and did not poison me.

She grabbed my hair and moaned.

I had done my homework over the last several months. I had learned a whole lot about the female orgasm and the female anatomy.

I had learned about the cervical dip.

I had my tongue on her clit, licking, sucking, and she was making familiar movements and noises.

Too familiar. Too much like the last few times. I thought about stuntmen who try to jump their loud growling motorcycles over ten busses and only clear nine and the night ends in dead silence and frustration.

I had an inspiration.

I got up and found her little battery-powered friend.

Her eyes followed me. They told me that she did not realize I knew she owned it, let alone that I knew where she kept it. They were a little embarrassed.

But she said nothing. I think she trusts me after all these years.

I returned to my station and got her back into the flow for a minute, then I stiffened my tongue muscle, landed it on her clit, turned on the vibrator, and pressed it against the side of my tongue.

I could just make out her face in the very top of my peripheral vision. She opened her mouth in amazement, her eyes wide.

It started like the whistle of a train approaching. Long drawn-out vowels starting low, low, then pitching up slowly, then a glissando unhurriedly up the scale, all the way up an impossibly steep scale to frequencies never before explored.

She started to contract. The whistle turned around and began to slide back down the staff as her pussy clenched, her thighs stiffened and relaxed and stiffened again. Her feet hammered the mattress. Her hands pulled my hair. Her abdomen rippled ocean waves and the whistle ran all the way down to silence. In the silence her whole body went rigid and then relaxed like she had lost consciousness.

The room was quiet. I rolled over onto my back next to her.

"Oh, Law." she breathed. "Oh, god, Law."

**********

Mia

I lost it.

The tip of my finger.

They had high hopes for me, but in the end it turned a deep purple-black and they took it off for good.

I have it in the freezer. I looked online and there are companies that will take the meat off and make the bone into a necklace. I think I might like to wear it as a reminder.

I have gone through the looking glass. Noah used to tail me around, keeping close when I was in my crazy. Now I find myself following him around like a kitten. I am afraid to let him out of my sight. I know I threatened to run from him. I could not survive if he ran from me.

Dr. Wynne had to change my meds to protect the baby. To protect the baby!

I had stood with the unopened bottle in my hands. Shaking in terror. The old pills had been keeping me out of that winding tunnel where the bright lights came flashing by terrifying me without warning and I tumbled into dark spaces and drowned in airless agony.

I choked one down and went to bed. My body begged Noah to make love to me, and he did. One handed for him, one handed for me, careful not to press too hard on the other's injury or on our own. Our coupling was slow and careful and absolutely necessary.

It might be the last.

If the new pills abandoned me, we did not have much slack left between us to get past.

I woke up thinking there was something I needed to do. I remembered. I needed to see if I was still sane.

Noah was sleeping. I still loved him.

The sun was rising. I still wanted to see it set.

The baby inside me-

I had a baby inside me. And I felt almost like the old me. There were bruises and marks on my body. There were torn edges and raw spots on my soul and my brain.

But I knew I could survive like this.

And I knew, I absolutely knew why. The baby was pumping out happiness into my bloodstream. Noah's baby was like Noah. Generous and kind. Looking out for me before it could think how.

We would make it.

**********

Betsy

What is that song about you only know what you've got when it's gone?

I had lost my orgasm for so long that I could not remember what they were like. I couldn't go back into my memories and recall more than general pleasure. The specifics of contraction were not there, like they were ephemeral beings that were never captured and had to be regenerated from scratch each time.

Then Law, my darling Law, gave me back the feeling. He did it with persistance and fingers and tongue and vibrations and a whole lot of love.

He put his searching hungry mouth on me and it was hot and liquid. The output of all my nerves collected in that back compartment of my brain and danced around with each other, cheering each other on, getting coordinated and in synch, then jumping up and rushing for the door.

This time, this time, this time. River Lee was there. Looking on as I streaked for the goal. River Lee wrapped love around me and guided me out into the light.

**********

Noah

It could not have been planned or calculated, but it damn well worked.

Mia was right. When I looked at her, naked or not, I had visions of another man on her. In her.

Part of me that defines how to be a man says she cheated. That part absolutely hated her. It tried to command me. The end. Love over, marriage over.

Another part of me said she had acted under the influence of a real illness, an illness that resulted from my insemination of her. I was not blameless here.

Could I ever fully trust her again? No. She was still sick. That monster could still rise in her and destroy her. Or it could hibernate forever.

I had to choose. To forgive or to follow those hot jealous impulses and tear us apart.

I will forgive, but I can't forget. I will always keep her close, protect her, watch over her.

But I already promised to do that before all this. Sickness and in health, as I recall. Jealous thoughts or no, that would not change.

But since the day she hacked her little finger about off, those jealous thoughts had diluted to insignificance.

All I saw now was the redness of her. Droplets falling through the air in a morbid monochromatic rainbow. They wobbled and flew onto me. They got into my eyes, into my mouth, into my nose. I tasted her. I smelled her blood, her life fluid. It coated me. It infected me with her thoughts. The hot fluid of her arteries seeped into my skin and left its message there to be transported into my veins.

With absolute certainty I knew she loved me. Me only. Me forever.

Her blood had transmitted to me truths directly without the confusing intermediaries of brain and mouth and emotion.

It was almost a religious experience. I do not recommend it for everyone.

**********

Lawson

The code of the West is much the same as the code of the playground. If the fight is fair, the loser has no complaint. Man up and shut up.

The DA threatened to see the world differently. He wanted to charge Noah with assault, but when Betsy swore both men had their fists up, his worldview began to get less support. He dropped the charges pretty quick.

I thought I might have to have a talk with John whatshisname about making better life choices. Well, talk was not entirely accurate. It would have been more like a monologue. But I never got to say a word. He fled the state. I don't think his targeting of vulnerable patients was something he just started up. The law firm in Conner City that represents the two hospitals agreed with me when I took it up with them. They are going to track him down and make sure that the relevant board of whichever state he tries to practice in next is alerted.

I broke a hammer the other day. It was an old one I had used too hard and let go uncared for too long. I decided to treat myself to a new one and drove into town. In the tool aisle at Goodwins, I noticed movement through a gap in the shelves. Noah was kissing Mia. And Mia was very obviously showing. I coughed politely.

They broke apart and smiled at me. Then they smiled at each other.

I told you I have been studying on several matters, and one of the interesting facts I ran across is that the chances of a successful live birth after two miscarriages are very good.

The chance after one? Even when the mother is over 40? Okay, slightly over. Don't tell my wife I said that. The odds are still well with us.

And we play the odds almost every night. I have high hopes. I got the cervical dip going for me.

Like I said, broken things can't ever be made new.

We just tied up the broken ends and we hope for the best.

**********

Mia

Every night I touch my belly and I say, "I love you, little one. Thank you for staying inside me one more day. Please stay one more night."

Then I get into bed with Noah. Sometimes we have sex and sometimes we just hold each other until we sleep.

And every morning I touch my belly and I say, "I love you, little one. Thank you for staying inside me one more night. Please stay with me one more day."

Then I get out of bed and try hold life together for my husband, for my baby, and for myself.