Midlife Woes

31. Damon

The work is finally done. I waited until she woke up in the morning and carried her to the elevator she’d been bitching about for weeks. I should get her a chair or one of those things that glide up and down the banister, but she’d only give me shit if I mentioned it.

I led her down the hallway once we got off the elevator and grew nervous as hell as soon as we stopped in front of the door. I opened the door with a flourish all the same and hoped for the best.

“Oh wow, oh dear, oh my.”

“Is that good?”

“Oh, that is more than good. Why does this look so familiar?”

“It’s the nursery from Father of the Bride part two, just a little bigger.”

“A lot bigger, or my gosh. What’s all this?” I walked her through the rooms, which were the sleeping area, a changing area, a bathroom, and a play area for when they got older.

“Did I remember everything?” She opened the closets that our moms, along with Savanna, Sheila, and Maeve, had spent the last few weeks organizing.

She ran her hands over the hanging sweaters and tee shirts before pulling open the glass-faced drawers to look at the stuff that was folded in there. Each kid had his own little wardrobe and drawer set that had been built into the walls in the changing area, while the sleeping area had the cribs strategically aligned.

“Looks like you thought of everything.”

“I’m sure I forgot something, but we’ve got the basics so far.” I had bought thousands of diapers in varying sizes because I read that they could outgrow those really fast. Even their clothes had been bought in graduating sizes, as well as their shoes.

I’ve been on autopilot for the last few weeks, trying to beat the deadline in my head. Now that most of it is out of the way, I can breathe. “I feel so guilty; you did all this on your own.”

“Well, yeah, you’re doing all the heavy lifting, so this is the least I could do.” I patted her tummy, and she started to get frisky.

I had to sidestep her without her realizing what I was doing. It’s been hell keeping my hands off of her, but there’s no way I’m going to hurt her. I go to bed late after she’s gone to sleep so I can avoid getting close to her because of that fear and leave before she wakes up, though I want nothing more than to hold her until she falls asleep and be there when she wakes up in the morning.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

I started to lie to her but thought better of it. Lying is something I never want to do with her, not even about the littlest thing. I’m ever conscious of the hurt she’d suffered right before we met, so that’s one road I won’t go down.

“Yes, because I want you, but I won’t risk hurting you or our babies.” She got closer, and I swallowed hard and tried to get away from her.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” One kiss, just one kiss, I promised myself.

One of the kids kicked my palm when our lips touched. We both laughed against each other’s mouths. “Again!” I know I said one, but I’m fascinated by anything her body does while my kids are in there.

Somehow, I got lost in the feel of her tummy under my hands and the taste of her tongue, and before you knew it was I leading her to the big cushiony divan in the kids’ room. She raised her arms in the air, and without thinking, I lifted the short maternity dress over her head.

She’s the one who rolled her bikini panties down off her ass while we were playing tongue tag. It was she who shoved her hand down my pants. I started to call a halt again, but she tricked me, which I didn’t realize at the time.

“You don’t have to do anything just sit. I wanna thank you for my beautiful surprise.” I looked at her askance because she’s kinda slippery, but I saw no artifice in her gaze. So I sat and helped her down when she tried to kneel in front of me.

Well, I stopped thinking altogether when she started licking the precum from my cockhead. And when she started making love to my cock with her tongue, teasingly taking as much as she could into her mouth while massaging my balls, I closed my eyes in bliss. That was my mistake.

Those damn yoga classes she’d started back taking made her kind spry, so I wasn’t quick enough to catch what she was doing when she popped my cock out of her mouth and stroked me a few times with her hand, which made me believe she just needed a break to breathe, but the next thing I knew she was straddling me and had a pregnant pussy full of dick.

“Fuck, Jo,”

“Well, yeah.” I glared at her for being smart, but who can stay mad at her for long? But, when all is said and done, there might be something to this terrified sex thing. One minute I was sure I was going to fuck her into labor, and the next, I wasn’t thinking about anything other than nutting. It’s its own kink, I guess.

* * *

JOLENE

* * *

I thinkI’ve been looking at this thing all wrong. Here I am surrounded by all the women in my life, except my ex-mother-in-law, propped up by a million and one pillows, which my delightful husband threatened everyone within an inch of their lives if they moved even one. I’m not sure what his deal is with pillows.

Anyway, as I sat there listening to their pregnancy stories and reminiscing about my own, I realized that none of us ever had it this good. I don’t think I’ve lifted a finger since moving in with him. I couldn’t tell you the last time I washed a dish or even saw the sink, come to think of it.

Now, I know most women might grumble about their freedom and whatnot, but when I compare the attention I get from my husband compared to my other four pregnancies, he has them all beat hands down.

Once I realized that he wasn’t doing this because of my age, it was easy to just let go and go with the flow. How do I know it’s not about my age? Well, last week, Savanna caught a cold. She called, and I had her on speaker because I was stuffing my face with California rolls, and Damon was painting my toes.

She sounded miserable and wanted her momma, and her dorm mate was making her crazy. I know my child, and when she’s sick, she’s worse than a dude who stubbed his toe. You know what I mean, it’s the end of the world.

Well, unbeknownst to me, he had her picked up and brought home. She was allowed to wave to me from the doorway because Damon would’ve had ten fits if she got near me with the sniffles, but she was set up in her room with everything her little heart desired.

According to him, he did it so I didn’t worry about her and besides, the girl sounded awful. His Mom, who was here at the time but over at their place, was shanghaied into playing nurse, something she lives for, and everyone was happy.

Anyway, I digress. Listening to them talk, I realized how good I have it and that it’s not just my guy being nuts. We were all laughing and having a blast when the doorbell rang. I needed the bathroom, and since Damon was around back with the men who refused to have a catered BBQ because it was a bitch move, according to my sons, who never stop teasing him relentlessly every time he does something like that, and the women know that I’m not an invalid, so no one objected when I said I’d get it. They should have objected.

I opened the door to see a vaguely familiar-looking woman standing there. “Hello, may I help you?” She looked me up and down, her eyes focused on my belly.

“So you’re the bitch.”

“Excuse me?”

She tried pushing past me, but I blocked her way, and that’s when things went south. She hit me. Just hauled off and smacked me across the face. I was too stunned to react at first, but once the dust cleared, I slapped her the hell back.

She tried to retaliate, but that’s where things took another turn. Unbeknownst to me, Damon had bribed my daughter into keeping tabs on me. She and her boyfriend get to use his box seats and the next four games of their choice.

Anyway, she’d seen the first slap but didn’t get there in time before I returned the favor. But when the woman raised her hand to slap me again, a ball of fire moved past me out the door, and all I saw were arms and legs moving.

The men heard the noise from the other side of the house and came running. She was screaming for her life, so I’m pretty sure the people in the next county over could hear her.

Damon pulled Savanna away and looked down at the woman, “Tara?”

“She attacked me.”

“You slapped my mother bitch.”

“She did what?”

“Oh shit!” I couldn’t get to him fast enough.

Dalton, Dennis, that’s my new father-in-law, by the way; my sons, Sheila and Maeve’s husband, his ranch hands, and a few of his football buddies, along with some cops from his old precinct, had to hold Damon back from going after her. And then, my water broke.

All hell broke loose. As soon as Damon realized what was going on with me, he forgot all about Tara. I think he ran with me in his arms to his truck that he already had set up with pillows. He barked out orders as he went and all I heard were running feet behind us.

Our moms jumped into the other seats while he sat with the driver and there was a motorcade of cars going down the driveway within five minutes. I had a million questions running through my head but couldn’t focus on one because I was trying not to freak out.

“What the hell was she doing at our house?” I guess I found one.

“I’m not sure, she’s never been there before. Don’t worry, I’ll find out how she knew where to find us and I’ll make sure she pays for what happened today, don’t worry about that. Right now your only focus should be on the babies and yourself.”

“Don’t tell me what to think about asshole. Sorry mama, mom.” I apologized to the two ladies who were holding hands and pretending not to hear their children go at it. Mama has become very protective of Mom and the two of them would usually be against the two of us, so now that it was us at each other’s throats, they probably didn’t know what to do with themselves.

“Yes ma’am, do as you please.” Why did he sound like he had something up his ass?

“What the hell is up your ass?”

“Your foot ma’am. I believe your foot is up there. Let me ask you a question, since you’re all bright and bushy tailed. What the fuck were you doing at the door?”

“Ow, ouch, ooooohhhhh.”

“What?” He jumped out his seat and pushed through the two moms to get to me in my mountain of pillows. “Hold my hand squeeze baby.” I hated misleading him but there’s no way I’m gonna let him yell at me for what that twit did. He’d only regret it later anyway, as I almost make him regret pissing me off.

He”d only just told me a couple days ago that he only does that because I’m carrying his children but as soon as they were in the clear, he would be sure to make me pay for every blip I make. I thought I had more time but since today is my last pass I might as well put it to good use.

“Go back to your chair, you can’t ride like that. Carl would have my ass.” Carl is Maeve’s husband and Damon’s physical therapist.

“He’ll get over it. Just concentrate on squeezing my hand. We’re about to meet our babies. Are you excited?” He brushed my hair back and I forgave him for yelling at me.

I nodded my head and started to tear up but decided it was best if I put on my big girl panties and suck this one up because if I let even one of those tears fall, this nut would lose his shit in a moving vehicle.

I was surprised that there was no real pain as yet, just a constant pressure on my bladder and my stomach was like a volcano ready to erupt with all that movement going on in there.

“I think they’re fighting to see who comes out first.” He sounded so proud. “Baby, we didn’t get any girl stuff, so no girls. All boys. I’ll teach them how to play the game like their dad.”

“What if they want to read books instead of do sports?”

“Then we’ll build them a library.”

He wouldn’t stop kissing my forehead and being cute. If he’d said anything about my boys liking books more than sports I’d have had to remind him of the apron he wears around my kitchen. It has frills and is the only one he can find because I hide the others. A girl’s gotta get her kicks somewhere. He hinders my movements; I make his life hell.

It”s a win-win for everyone involved, because tormenting him makes me happy and he loves to see me happy. I know we were both just trying to distract each other from what was going on with me, the proverbial elephant in the room.

We passed sirens going hard in the opposite direction, and I wondered if someone had mistakenly called the ambulance, something Damon swore I would never ride in because they’re full of germs.

I finally got him to go back to his seat the second time he almost fell over. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” The moms reassured him as well and I think I started to dose off from some strange reason because I hadn’t even been tired.

My mind was filled with the upcoming scenario at the hospital. Sheila had already called the doctor since that was the job given to her by Damon. Our mothers were trying to keep me calm and my kids were no doubt still taking bets as to what we were having and in what order.

There was someone in charge of making sure the house was locked up, but I can’t remember whose job that was at this point. What I do know is that there was no one in charge of scraping a bitch off my driveway.

Oh shit, there were cops at the house. “They didn’t arrest Savanna, did they?”

“Of course not. You don’t need to worry about that right now; Savanna is in one of the cars behind us.”

For someone who’s been ranting and raving this entire pregnancy, he sounded very calm. I didn’t trust it, but there was nothing I could do. I knew he was pissed off when we reached the hospital, and he carried me while an orderly tried to get him to put me in the chair they met us with, and he almost took the poor man’s head off.

“It’s policy, sir.”

“Well, carrying her is mine; now move.” But his jaw was so tight I could hear his teeth cracking. The specialist he’d found met us at the hospital. I won’t tell you why this man was spending his vacation in our hometown or how much my husband was paying him to do it.

But between the two of them, I had been able to carry my babies for more than the twenty-nine weeks my original doctor had quoted; also, because of Damon’s excessive bed rest, I never had to get my cervix stitched or whatever. That shit sounds horrendous.

I was relatively calm myself for some reason, maybe because I half expected Damon to give birth for me. That thought cracked me up so much I started laughing like a maniac which made him speed up his step, which only made me laugh harder.

Once again I was taken to a room that looked like it belonged at the Four Seasons and I have to say, for someone who only knew about an hour ago that I was coming in, the specialist had her shit together. I wasn’t afraid or jumpy because she’d taken the time to explain everything to me in terms that I understood, instead of trying to get me on the front page of her medical publication.

The only thing I was dreading was the C-Section because I’d never had one before and the thought of someone cutting so close to my kids was freaking me out just a little bit. I know most….

“Ooh”

“Ooh, what? What ooh?”

I felt something warm and wet slipping out between my thighs and once again in the space of about three hours, all hell broke loose. “I think they’re coming.”

Thankfully I didn’t have time to freak out. Damon was already in his scrubs so all he had to do was washup, not that he was helping with the delivery, he just wanted to be prepared.

I kid you not, it took fifteen minutes for them to come flying out. As fast as they left my body they were transferred to NICU, the biggest was about one pound eleven ounces. They looked like little pink rats, sorry, all wrinkled and the size of their Daddy’s palm.

I was in shock, not because of their size or the fact that they were so hastily whisked away, I’d already been prepared for that, but because of how easy it was compared to what I had heard.

Poor Damon was torn between what to do. Should he go with the babies or stay with me? “You should go.” In the end he chose to stay with me a little longer while our parents and kids rushed the NICU like they thought their little bundles of joy were going to be taken.

I got cleaned up and was feeling pretty good. I’m a boss bitch. “Six boys in fifteen minutes, not bad for an old bitch.” I think that’s what Tara called me before I left. I probably shouldn’t have reminded him of that because he was back to tensing his jaw.

I was thirsty as hell all of a sudden and the room was emptying fast since everyone was more interested in taking care of the babies who I had been assured were doing as well as could be expected given the circumstances.

Now, I was already happy that they were all alive and as close to the weight the doctor had guesstimated. That was my biggest worry, one that I never voiced out loud because I knew that my pregnancy was some kind of weird phenomena to begin with and poor hubby was barely holding on by a thread.

That jaw had relaxed a bit but he still had that glazed look in his eyes. “I think I want a….” I was about to say smoothie because the thought if the icy drink going down my throat sounded really good, but somehow the words got jumbled in my brain as pain hit me so hard I almost bounded off the bed.

“What the fuck?” Damon screamed and the last of the labor team that was about to leave called everyone back into the room so who didn’t need to be with the babies were back on me trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

I knew it was too good to be true, that things had gone too smoothly and now I’m gonna die and leave those poor babies. I know the women would take care of them but still. “I’m sorry!” I started to apologize to Damon when the doctor yelled for me to push. Push what?

Damon lost his shit. I’ve never heard someone ream a roomful of people out without raising his voice an octave while rubbing my hand for comfort. He threatened all kinds of mayhem if anything happened to his wife.

All the while the labor team was back at it and I was wondering why the placenta I thought I had already passed was now trying to kill me.

* * *

She was biggerthan her brothers and damn near gave her Daddy a heart attack. That little miss is a whole three pounds four ounces. She came out screaming bloody murder, looked around the room like we had interrupted her nap, stretched and went back to sleep.

What the fuck just happened? There was pandemonium in the other room and Damon and I were in a daze. “Is that a girl?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Well fuck!”

“Yup!”