© 2019, All rights reserved -- mimaster
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"We need to stop," Ann quietly alerted Neil, her eyes nervously looking in his direction in anticipation of a negative reaction that didn't come.
"Okay," he nodded calmly, quickly scanning the road for their current location, mentally recalling what might be nearby on the road they were traveling so they could pull over. "There's a town about a mile ahead."
"Thanks, baby," she sighed.
She was amazed at his patience. While she'd found a way to help control her morning sickness; one that he was particularly happy about, traveling was proving to be a bit of an adventure. And not in the way she usually liked.
Entering a small town they would normally just pass through in western Ohio, he pulled into the only gas station it had. It was the last week of June and they were on vacation, heading to Indiana on a ten-day trip over the Fourth of July holiday to visit with their parents and friends.
They'd be staying at the Franklin home, having decided before they were married that they'd alternate where they'd stay whenever they went back to visit. They'd stayed with the Thomas's over Thanksgiving, so it was Jean and Marlin's turn to play host.
Ann wasn't necessarily looking forward to it. In fact, she dreaded the idea. Not of staying with her folks. Her relationship with her mother had gotten so much better since she married Neil that it was hard to believe she and Jean barely got along before he walked into her life. And it wasn't that they were going to be staying in a hometown she loathed growing up. She looked at it much differently now; it was the place where fate brought her and Neil together. What she hated was the idea of driving because of how she was feeling physically, and because of that, it was taking a lot longer to get there than normal.
Neil was pumping gas, even though he really didn't have to. He had more than enough to make it to their final destination, but to him it was the right thing to do. After all, Ann was using their restroom. He felt it only right to buy something from the business. In this case, it was four gallons of regular unleaded.
"Hopefully we won't ever have to stop
here
again," Ann groaned as she returned to the car, pulling out a sanitary wipe from the door holder to clean her hands.
"That bad, was it?" he smiled.
"Baby, you know it's bad when I have pee without sitting on the toilet. That was awful."
"Maybe next time we'll just stop on the side of the road," he joked, continuing the banter they'd been sharing throughout the trip.
"You think it's funny, but that was gross at a whole new level."
She had been lamenting earlier about how men have it so much easier than women do when they have to urinate.
Neil countered her complaint, reminding her how hard it was to always have to be tucking a big dick back into his shorts. She laughed, of course, but her point had been well made, then and throughout the day.
It was an odd conversation to be having, but that was pretty much what had been the topic of discussion to that point. It wasn't an exaggeration to say they'd had to stop every forty-five minutes or so for her to go to the bathroom. And it proved to be a challenge finding a suitable place for her to go. She was quick to point that out after the first stop they made in Maryland, where she'd gone into another gas station bathroom only to come out saying she couldn't go there.
He ended up taking her to a McDonald's down the street, buying a Diet Coke so he didn't feel guilty. It was a silly reaction, and he knew it. Hell, he'd spent so much money at the 'Golden Arches' in his lifetime that he deserved a lifetime pass to use their restrooms if he needed to, but something inside compelled him to buy the drink anyway.
"That one was much better," she said at the time as she came back out, a happy smile on her face.
At that point, it became a game of sorts. Ann would say she needed to stop, and then when she came out she'd absentmindedly comment on the cleanliness of the place she'd just visited. Neil began kidding her about it, and the frequent stops they had to make, calling it the 'Restrooms Across America Tour,' and asking if the information she was compiling was going to go into some book for travelers she was writing.
That's when she first commented about how men have it so easy when the go to the bathroom. When she complained about the latest bathroom in Ohio, he laughed.
"Uh... have you ever seen the inside a men's public bathroom?"
"Well, no. But I can imagine."
"No, you can't. Trust me...
you
wouldn't go into one without wearing a hazmat suit."
"How can it be that bad?' she asked naively. "You don't even have to undress... you just unzip."
"Men are animals, babe. Like I said before, we'd be better off just going on the side of the road. We'd be doing the world a service killing the weeds."
"Stop exaggerating."
"I'm not. Most men don't bother to aim, at least if you go by what you'd find in a public restroom. I know that's gross, but it's the truth."
"
You've
never done that."
"Because I'm not most men... you should know that by now. My mom would whip our hides if Gene or I did that. We were taught to clean up if we made a mess. And by god we cleaned up, because she was damn serious."
She giggled, thinking about how his mom had three men in the house, and how messy things might have gotten if she hadn't laid down the law. "Well thank god Betsy raised you right."
"Don't laugh. You'll be doing the same thing if we have a boy," he winked.
Ann giggled again; her usual response to whenever he reminded her that they were now expecting a baby. Her hand went to her tummy, the hint of a small bump showing. At thirteen weeks she was just starting her second trimester, but it still seemed so hard to believe she was finally pregnant.
The fact that she was already beginning to show bothered her at first, the idea of gaining weight being something she hadn't come to grips with quite yet. But she reasoned her way out of that. If she was anything like her mom, which she was in so many ways, it would just be her breasts and her stomach that would get big. The women in her family didn't traditionally gain a lot of weight when they were expecting. In fact, most of them didn't seem to get that big at all.
She was hoping for that, but she was willing to accept whatever would happen to her body. She wanted a baby, and she knew there would be some sacrifices she'd have to make along the way. Her petite, girlish figure might just end up being one of them.
Still, she was happy as she settled back in her seat, ready to resume the trip. As Neil pulled out, she finally changed from the subject that had strangely dominated their conversation most of the day.
"So, if it's a boy, what would we name him? I know you don't want a junior."
"No, but I told you... I don't care if Neil is the middle name."
"I think it should be," she nodded. "Do you have any thoughts on a first name?"
"Not really. What about you?"
"What about Aaron?"
"Aaron Neil?"
"Uh huh."
"No."
"Why not?"
"The same reason you didn't like being Anna Renee Franklin. His initials would spell a word."
"Fine. But there's a big difference between
ARF
and
ANT
."
"Not to a seven-year-old boy on the playground. Getting teased is getting teased."
"I was a barking dog!"
"And now you're a work of ART," he laughed, thinking of her new monogram. "But we should still shy away from initials that spell anything, don't you think?"
"Aw... I've always loved names that begin with a vowel."
"You still can. You just have to pick one that doesn't spell a word. Any of the other vowels would work."
"Like a 'U'? I don't think so."
"Still three other one's babe."
"Well there's too many that start with an 'E'. I wanted something different."
Laughing, he shot her a quick glance. "Aaron is different?"
"It's not
that
common. I don't want to make up a name, but I also don't want one that every kid would have. I don't know that many men named Aaron."
