The Perils of Love Ch. 05

I climbed out and helped Sunny exit the spa. I helped her into her bathrobe then put on mine. I picked up our empty cups after turning off the heater and resetting all the controls. Sunny retrieved our swimwear and towels from the pebbled concrete deck.

We went back inside. Sunny deposited the wet mass of swimsuits and linens in the bathtub, and we enjoyed a shower together to rinse the chlorine from our skin and hair. All it required to dry my hair was a brisk scrub with a towel, but Sunny needed five or ten minutes with a hair dryer to tend to hers.

When she saw me dressing for bed, she said, "Gary, please don't. It's only you and me tonight. No one is going to be knocking on the bedroom door, right?"

I removed what I'd put on and settled into the warm bed with my naked wife snuggling with me.

"Oh my god, Sunny, I can't tell you how much I've missed this," I said, both of us seeking to find a position which afforded us the most skin-to-skin contact. We found it as she spooned into me and nestled her bare bottom against my thighs with our legs intertwined.

"Sweetheart, I want to tell you something which might sound bat-crap crazy."

"Wouldn't be the first time, right?"

"I'm thinking we should try again to have a baby."

"Gary, why are you messing with me?" she lightly whined, "That's mean."

"I'm being serious. We've been in a holding pattern long enough, don't you think? I know we haven't talked about it in a long time, but consider this. Suzie's starting out on her own. We can convert her room into a nursery.

"I know, I know, leave it to me to nerdify everything, We've been parents now for five years. At this point, we've had a child in our household at every age from three to nineteen, so we have tons of experience. The only ages we haven't experienced are from conception to three years old.

"I really, really want to feel what it's like to parent my own child. Don't you?"

"Of course I do! You're going to make me cry!"

"Oh, sweetheart, don't do that!" I said and pulled her closer to me. "Let's not go through all the rigmarole we went through before. Maybe … stop your birth control, and let's see what happens. And, if nothing does, well … we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Then I need you to do something."

"What, sweetie?"

"I want you to fucking fuck the fuckity-fuck-fuck out of me right this minute."

I laughed hard at her vulgar demand. "Sunny said a fucking curse!"

After she worked me up using her mouth again, I penetrated her forcefully and we screwed each other noisily, not giving a shit what the neighbors might hear. We knew it would be "fruitless," other than the hot-sparked renewal of marital passion.

Suzie moved out of our house and into a modest apartment in August. She even gave me a hug after I helped her unload the last of her belongings from my truck.

Later in the year, Sunny, the boys, and I spent the Christmas holidays at my parents' place. Suzie stayed behind because her LPN curriculum required "shadow" rotations of nurses on the job. The holidays left enough holes in staffing due to vacations, so it was easier to find opportunities.

On our last night in town, my two sisters challenged Sunny and me to a game of dominoes. We'd been playing for at least an hour when the conversation went weird because Sunny was fidgeting in her seat.

Terri, my eldest sister, jokingly asked, "What's wrong, woman?"

"This bra isn't fitting me right. It's making my boobs hurt."

My sisters laughed with her in a manner which made me think such problems must be universally understood among women, despite being inappropriate fraternal conversation, and laughed even harder when they saw my eyes roll.

That's when I gave my seat to my mother and went down to the basement to watch TV with the guys.

An hour or so later, Sunny came downstairs and told Martin and JJ to head to bed. After the brief argument was resolutely stomped out by my wife, she tapped me on the shoulder, looking strangely giddy.

"Come here. I need to talk to you for a minute," she said, leading me into the bedroom. She closed the door behind her and sat on the bed.

"Hey, guess what?" she whispered.

"Tell me."

"I think I might be pregnant."

"What?" I laughed in shock at the surprise.

"I'm being serious. After you left the table, Terri said maybe my chest is tender because I'm pregnant. It's how she began to suspect she was with her first. I thought she was kidding around, and I waved her off. But it got me thinking. It's probably not my bra's fault. I've had this one for like two years, and it's never bothered me before. Gary, I think Terri might be right!"

Her gleeful, joyous giggles almost made me weep. Though she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, she was bouncing on the mattress with excited energy.

"Hold on. Didn't you just have your period? How's it possible?"

"It was really light, and it was a little late, so it might not have been menstrual. I didn't think about it at the time, but spotting is a common sign, too. That's two signs! Oh, god , Gary, holy cow!"

"Are you sure?"

"No I'm not sure! The first thing we're doing when we get home tomorrow is stopping by the drug store. Oh god oh god oh god!"

I'd not seen Sunny so happy in a long time. She was near manic.

I thought for a couple of moments. "Couldn't we go to the drugstore here and buy a pregnancy test right now?"

"Yeah! Well, no! I've been drinking a lot of tea and water today so it might not work. My pee is probably too weak."

I watched her bouncing in her cross-legged position. The box spring was squeaking, and it made me laugh.

"What ?!" she yipped.

"The noises the bed is making sounds like we're trying to get you pregnant right now!"

I still remember Sunny and I sitting on our own the next afternoon after we got back from the airport. We were both staring at the clock, waiting for five minutes to pass. Sunny had made use of two tests and handed me one of them as we started the countdown.

At 3:17pm, we looked at the one test we each held. We looked up at each other wide-eyed. They were positive! We were going to have a baby! We laughed at the irony. When we tried to conceive the first time, we had sex once or twice every day for seven months with no results. Then we cast our fate to the wind with success after only four.

I started crying when the rush of emotions flooded over me. My tears made Sunny cry, and we held each other tightly, kissing each other's tears and lips. It was the most joyful I'd felt since the day Sunny said "Yes!"

Oh, holy hell, the next eight months were a wild ride. Sunny's hormones raged at both ends of the spectrum. I never complained when they led to delightfully amorous events but tried to stay out of her way when they were at the other end.

It might sound weird to say pregnant sex is fun, but it is. We particularly enjoyed experimenting with different positions to find those which were comfortable for Sunny. She preferred having me enter her from behind, which I always enjoyed.

Her dietary cravings weren't too bizarre. She didn't crave any of the stereotypes like pickles with ice cream. She craved peppered bacon with a tiny dollop of ranch dressing to dip it in.

One night, as we prepared to settle onto the couch to watch a movie, I started nuking a bag of microwave popcorn. The rich, buttery aroma forced Sunny to the bathroom where she lost her dinner. She made me throw away the unopened pouch and air out the house. It was years before she could stomach that smell again.

Despite all the trials and tribulations, our beautiful baby girl, Anna, was born seven and a half months after we saw the blue lines.

Oh, holy cow I couldn't imagine the extent to which love could exist. That beautiful little baby grabbed my heart so furiously!

I'd heard so many horror stories from new parents about how exhausted they were when they had a baby. And it was absolutely, positively true for us, too. But what not one single soul told me was how nature intervenes and prepares one to deal with it.

Yeah, I was awakened multiple times per night. Sometimes I would only need to fetch our daughter from her crib so Sunny could feed her. Other times it'd be so I could. She was as contented with a breast as she was with a bottle, which afforded me the ability to cuddle my child against my chest and feed her myself.

I adored the experience. The exhaustion was like a medal. I was exhausted because I was a freaking father ! Samantha felt the same way. We absolutely delighted in the recognition that our fatigue was due to nurturing the tiniest, most perfect little baby we'd created together. We were also exhausted for months after "The Event," but the new experience was so fulfilling.

It happened again, quite by surprise, almost two years later to the day, with the birth of our second baby.

Our second daughter was brought into the world via Cesarean because she was a big girl. She was a big girl. It shouldn't be too much of a spoiler to note she was already five foot eight at twelve years old and was still growing. My youngest earned my height genes.

The surgery was when Sunny had her own crisis similar to the one I went through after we'd been married about two years. During the procedure, the assistant surgeon mentioned to Sunny's obstetrician that he saw something "unusual." I heard him use that exact word as I sat behind the drape, at Sunny's head, next to the anesthesiologist.

After our daughter was delivered, I went with the nurses to the infant receiving station at the side of the surgical suite. As I watched the neonatal nurse clean, measure, and weigh our baby, I overheard the obstetrician tell the surgical nurse, "We need to leave her open. Get this tissue to the pathology lab."

I heard Sunny call my name. "Gary, what's wrong? What's happening?"

The surgeon tried to reassure her. "Samantha, you're doing fine. Your baby girl is doing fantastic, but we've found something we need to check on."

I sat with Sunny again, trying to calm her, stroking her hair as the surgical team kept her "in limbo," waiting for news from the lab. I tried hard not to telegraph my own terror. The thirty-minute wait seemed like forever, of course, and the sound of the phone ringing in the suite startled me. The nurse removed her gloves and answered it.

She stepped over to the surgeons and spoke to them quietly.

"Yeah, okay," Sunny's doctor said. "Get the on-call oncologist up here for a consult, stat."

My blood ran cold. I didn't know anything other than understanding that an oncologist is a doctor who specializes in cancer treatment. Sunny knew it, too, and started justifiably freaking out.

"Doctor, talk to us. Please !" I demanded.

"The lab has confirmed what we found is a form of uterine cancer. It's progressed only a little and appears to be completely contained and encapsulated."

He stepped to where we could both see him despite the surgical drape at Sunny's chest. He explained the specifics in some detail.

"This might not sound like good news, but it really is. This form of cancer is very, very treatable. Given what's happening now, you have more choices.

"If you want to conceive again, it's going to set a course of action involving hormone treatments and possibly chemotherapy. That's what I want an oncologist to evaluate.

"But, if you two think your family is complete, I think the wisest course of action is a partial hysterectomy. We can do it right now. In all likelihood, you won't need any other medical intervention."

Sunny and I talked about it for a few minutes with the oncologist when he arrived. My wife chose the second option, and I supported her decision.

I was ushered to the nursery to cuddle the baby while the surgical team finished what they needed to do. It was more than an hour later when they sent Sunny to recovery. She spent four days in the hospital before she and our baby were discharged, and we finally brought Amanda home.

At that point, I was forced to admit how mathematics is ignorant.

Mathematics says there is no quantity larger than infinity. I believed it so unquestioningly that, when Samantha informed me she was pregnant again, I couldn't imagine loving a second baby equally because I'd already devoted all the love I had to my first child. Well, either mathematics is wrong, or somehow, we're miraculously endowed with more to offer.

Sunny was, to put it mildly, very reluctant when I attempted to resume amorous attention toward her. She explained being worried that sex would be painful, and that, somehow, she felt she was less a woman because she lacked a uterus. I told her how, in my eyes, she was more a woman every new day watching her nurse and nurture our children with tenderness and affection. It was the purest demonstration. I mean, hell ! Sunny was the one who brought the first deep belly-laugh out of Anna, and we both bawled with joyous howls of laughter of our own.

One evening, I'd finished doing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. I was watching a muted television with the closed captions turned on and was helping Martin with his homework while the girls were being settled into bed with a book Sunny read.

Sunny returned and sat next to me on the couch, snuggling under my arm, coaxing it around her shoulders. Martin was fixating on an algebra problem and wasn't paying attention to us in the slightest.

"I want to try tonight. Take it slow, okay? Be patient with me," Sunny said to me quietly.

I didn't have context for her statement, so I was confused until she reached between my crossed legs and cupped my crotch, fondling the contents of my shorts for a few seconds.

"Martin, you good with finishing your homework on your own?" I immediately asked him.

"Yep," he said, without even looking up.

"It's almost time for bed. Can you finish the rest in your room and hit the sack when you're done? And don't forget to brush those teeth, dude."

"Okay."

He closed his textbook with his pencil marking his place then came and gave each of us a hug.

"G'night, Gary, G'night, Sunny." He collected his stuff and carried it to his room.

"Wow, you make that look so easy," she commented. "Never have figured out why he doesn't argue with you like he does me."

"I guess I kinda have him like you have Suzie." I smiled.

As to him calling us by our first names, that was learned from his older siblings. We never pushed any of the three surrogate kids to call Sunny or me Mom or Dad. It felt as awkward to us as is it must have to them. We were content to simply be acknowledged at all. When they talked with their friends or teachers, though, JJ and Martin would usually refer to us as their mother and father only to avoid confusion. They knew what was what, and we were okay with the arrangement.

Suzie had no internal conflict at all. I was definitely her brother-in-law and Sunny was her sister. No doubt, no questions.

Martin, without fail, described himself to others as Amanda's and Anna's big brother, even though he knew he was technically their uncle. Yes, it confused the hell out of a lot of people. Only a few asked us for clarification and were almost always visibly relieved to hear about the situation. I guess the ones who didn't ask for information might have thought we were some offshoot of a hidden clan from Appalachia.

Sunny and I adjourned to our room after securing the house for the night.

"Baby, you lead, okay? I'm here for you, but I want you to control things yourself until you're confident again. As long as you're in charge, you don't need to worry, right?"

"Gary, I don't need foreplay," she said as she began removing her clothes. "I don't mean to sound unsexy. I know I have no problem getting physically ready or getting wet, but I'm not looking for an orgasm. I'm tired of being scared. I just have to know if it all … still works."

I kissed her as I removed my clothes and laid on the bed.

She stared warily at my erection, positioned herself above me, rubbing my knob against her entrance, lubricating my glans. She moved slowly, carefully. I could see the worry on her face increase the deeper she took my penis into her body. I think it shocked the hell out of her, when she found her pelvis in contact with mine, that my dick hadn't been folded in half.

She smiled in surprise. "Oh, wow," she sighed. "It doesn't hurt!"

"That's good news," I grunted as she began rocking her pelvis around me. She wasn't kidding. She was gloriously and profusely wet. I can't imagine what she'd been thinking about to get her so horny, and I didn't care. The velvet-like slickness felt marvelous, and totally, completely unchanged.

"Does it feel good?" she asked.

I smiled at her. "Hell yes it feels good."

"I want you on top of me."

"Oh?"

"Why not?"

"You're testing yourself, right? Cowgirl like this takes me really deep into you. That's why I love it so much. What else are you wanting to try?"

"I'm afraid you'll laugh at my answer, baby."

"Sunny, tell me. Just say it."

"I want you to … uh … I want to see what it feels like when you … um … you pound me."

"Holy crap. That is the hottest thing you've ever said to me," I said as I pushed her body off of mine.

I placed one of my pillows under her hips, and one of hers behind her head and upper back. I pushed her knees up toward her shoulders and she held her thighs with her hands. I wanted a treat, so I licked into her pussy, savoring the unmistakable, completely familiar, unchanged flavors and scents.

I slowly pushed my cock into her as far as I could. She grinned. I pulled out until only my head was inside and thrust into her with a little more force. I received a nod in addition to a wider smile. I repeated the test several more times.

"Oh, yeah. Yes!" she hissed. "Do me as hard as you want."

And I did. I rammed myself harder into her body than I ever had before. I watched her with a smile as she covered her mouth with both hands. I plunged into her so forcefully it became uncomfortable for me, so I slowed to a stop.

"You okay, honey?" I panted.

"Totally. I changed my mind. I want to cum, baby. God I want to!"

"Turn over. I want you from behind."

She rotated onto her tummy, then pointed her incredibly beautiful ass at me. I pushed my glans inside. Her perfectly circular rim distorted as her pussy stretched wide to accept my cock. It caught my eye, and I stroked the fur around her tiny butthole as I began to screw her. I penetrated her ass slightly with my fingertip.

"Oh, god, you're so naughty. I like it when you're naughty!" she cried into a pillow.

I began to draw near to my climax. I angled myself so my cock would push firmly against the front of her vagina, feeling the incredible texture as I ground against it.

"Oh, fuck, Gary, fuck me. Fuck me, baby!"

Her pussy made lovely noises as I pushed into it and squeaked around my cock when I'd bury myself. I felt heat dripping from my sac. I looked down and saw dribbling from my wife's pink flesh underneath my dick. Her pussy spritzed me every time my balls smacked her clit and withdraw my cock a little. The visual was more than I could handle, and my body began pumping its contents out the end of my shaft. My finger felt the almost synchronous squeezes of Sunny's butthole as her own orgasm arrived.

I slowly pulled out and watched her cunt drool my stuff into the already wet spot on the sheets. I fell over sideways and pulled Sunny into me, kissing and pawing at her as we both breathed heavily in utter satisfaction.