The Surrogate

Meanwhile, Dr. Jim was busy between Gloria's legs.

"I warned you," he said, but there was a chuckle in his voice. The nurse, the one whose name I still hadn't caught, was helping him, handing him something.

"Well, Chet," he said, still chuckling like a happy workman, "whattya think. An extra stitch or two?" And I realized he was tending to the tear I had seen as Gloria delivered that huge

faux

baby.

Chester was glowing with that special look of a new father. Hell, I expected him to start passing around cigars.

"Oh, what the hell, make it a dozen. Gloria wasn't a virgin when we got married, it would be fun to have her as one," Chester said and it seemed to me that was just about the funniest thing I had ever heard. I was laughing and massaging and then Nancy started giggling and pretty soon even the nurse got caught in the contagious hilarity.

I knew, in my head, that it was a reaction to the intensity of what we had been doing. That didn't make the laughter any less contagious. It was as if we had all done some very good pot. This was one of those waves of laughter that left you gasping, your sides aching with tears streaming down your cheeks. It was a release and we all embraced it.

Even Gloria broke into the lullaby she was humming as she held the baby to her breast, and giggled softly.

As I review what I've written I realize it seems like a significant period had passed since Chester and Gloria's baby made its trip into the world. In reality, it was only a few minutes.

As I was gently massaging, and got my laughter down to a few soft giggles, Nancy suddenly grunted and delivered the afterbirth.

God, that sounds so mundane, let me try that again.

As I was gently massaging, and got my laughter down to a few soft giggles, Nancy grunted and about five gallons of bloody mess poured out of her.

Okay, that's a little too much but it's sure the way it felt to me.

Once I got past the initial shock I realized it was the afterbirth but, Jesus, it was SO much messier than the delivery had been.

Her eyes were closed and she grunted and prolapsed again. I had a moment of panic. The bloody mess was scary.

"Don't you faint on me," she said, her voice calm, "get a hot wet towel, clean me up, and get back to what you were doing."

So I did.

I got one of those towels from the bathroom, ran the water hot and soaked it, and then went back and cleaned her up.

It was a combination of physiology lesson and sensuality. I gently wiped the bloody mess away, grabbed a second towel blotted her dry, and then went back to massaging her belly.

She smiled at me.

"I take it you're not going to file for divorce," she said, her smile the happy smile of a workman finishing a job well done.

I smiled back, supporting her uterus with my hand, gently massaging her belly, and watching, fascinated, as what I was holding started retreating back into her body.

"If you want to get rid of me," I said, chuckling, "I recommend dynamite or, I suppose, three or four big strong men would be able to drag me out."

She smiled, laid her head back on the pillow, closed her eyes, and said, very softly, "I love you."

It looked like she was asleep so I kept doing what I was doing and watched as Dr. Jim straightened up, patted Gloria's thigh, and said, "There you go, Chet. Tight as a 13-year-old virgin. Gloria, rest, you worked hard and you're in for a crazy 18 years so take a break while you can."

"Thank you," Chester said, his voice thick with emotion.

"Thank you," Gloria said, her voice breaking.

"You're both very welcome." Dr. Jim said.

Then he was at Nancy's side.

"How's my favorite broodmare doing?" he asked.

"I'm fine, Jimmy," she said and it hit me that this was the first time I'd heard him referred to without the "Doctor" as part of his name.

"Are you gonna need to spend the night?" he asked.

"You're kidding, right?" she said, "I'm taking my new husband home and having our belated honeymoon."

"Nympho," he said and I was struck by the casual familiarity they exhibited, two colleagues sharing a profession.

"Okay," he said, "Duty calls."

He turned to me and offered his hand.

I stood and we shook. He had a good grip but he didn't try for any knuckle crunching. Neither did I.

"You take care of my best mommy now, y'hear," he said.

"Bet your life on that," I said and then stepped closer.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" I asked.

He looked at me, giving me the one-eyebrow-raised look that I am genetically incapable of returning, and said, "Sure, come along."

"Be right back," I said to Nancy.

She just waved. She didn't even open her eyes.

We walked down the hall past a couple of doors and he led me into a tiny office.

"What's up?" he asked, and I noticed he didn't sit behind his desk, that trick so many executives use to establish their dominance.

"Two things," I said, and then, on second thought said, "No, three things."

"Shoot," he said.

"First, can she be a surrogate again?" I asked.

"Oh, hell yes," he said, grinning. "Nancy's a special case. She's unable to make her own baby because of the ovary thing, but she has the most welcoming uterus of any woman I know. We've never had a miscarriage with her. And she enjoys, as you have doubtless seen, being pregnant. Hell, I think she even enjoys the delivery."

I smiled and nodded at that.

"Second," I said, "that prolapse thing. Is that a problem?"

"Not really," he said. "She's worked her body hard, WAY harder than most women ever will, and some things just, well, weaken. But it's not a dangerous condition at all. Hell, give her a couple of weeks for everything to be tightened back up and she'll push it out and enjoy having you play with it."

Okay, I won't deny it. That image gave me a sudden rush in my belly.

When I looked at him, I guess the question was obvious on my face because he lifted his hands, palms out in the universal gesture of negation, and said, "No, David, I do NOT know that from experience, just what she's told me."

He paused for a moment, holding my eyes, and went on.

"Look, David, Nancy and I go back a long way. She was my first surrogate when I opened this place, and she's been reliable since." He paused, smiled, and went to the rack of filing cabinets that took up one of the walls, pulled out a drawer, did that flipping through the folders thing we've all done, well, all of us who ever worked in an office, and pulled one out. He came back, scooted his chair around so we were face to face, our knees almost touching, and opened the file folder.

"This was her first," he said and laid an 8X10 picture on my knees. Nancy was standing between two people and she was obviously pregnant. The next picture was her, naked, and pregnant. I guessed her at 20 or 21 in that picture, still very much a young woman, and she was slender. Oh, she wasn't skinny, I doubt she was ever that, but her toned arms clearly showed the gymnast and competitive swimmer she had been as a high school and then a college athlete. The third picture was Nancy and the other woman from the first picture, both naked, both obviously pregnant. Nancy wasn't the, well, the

hugely

pregnant she had been when we came into the clinic today. She carried this baby low, and it made a distinct hemispherical bulge against her athletic body. The woman beside her was, I guessed, mid-40s and one of the thick chicks associated with the PTA. And she WAS hugely pregnant. They were both smiling.

He went through her six previous pregnancies like that. After the first one, her body had changed. The "baby fat" as she liked to call it, obviously hadn't gone away, and with each pregnancy she was, well, more mature.

To me, with each pregnancy, she was more beautiful.

"You see," Dr. Jim said, "we go back a long way but we're friends and colleagues. We are

not

'friends with benefits,' if that's what you're wondering."

"Okay," I said, "thanks for these," I gestured, taking in the pictures."

Then I said, "Third, can we take one of those fake baby things home?"

He chuckled. "You don't like her without the belly?" he asked.

"I don't dislike her look," I said, saying a quick

"Sorry about that"

to Mrs. O'neil, my third-grade grammar teacher who had taught me that you should never use a double negative. Sometimes they're the best way to express things in English, "but I prefer her, well, big."

He chuckled again and said, "She is stunning when she's full term. Okay, hang on a second."

He left the room and then came back in a minute or so with a little black plastic case.

"Here you go," he said, and opened the case. "This," he said, holding up a tiny pink ball. It looked almost like a little ball of bubble gum, "goes into her uterus," he said, all professional and serious now. "You use this," and he held up a shiny rod, I assumed it was stainless steel, "to put it in. This," and he indicated the pink tube about six inches long that was attached to the pink ball, "is how you inflate it." He took a little rubber squeeze ball with a hose connected to it, it looked exactly like that thing the nurse squeezes when he takes your blood pressure, and attached it to the pink hose with a quick twist, some sort of a bayonet-style locking connection I assumed. He squeezed the ball a couple of times and the pink blob became a tiny baby. "Or," he went on, "If you want the weight too," he disconnected the squeeze ball and did the same thing with an oversized syringe, "you can use this and add water," he pushed the plunger home and the "baby" grew a bit.

He leaned back and smiled. "This is what we use with our 'mothers' going through the program, and it works very well as you saw with Gloria."

"Anything else?" he asked.

"No, I'm good," I said.

"Then get back to your bride, man," he said, "She should be ready to go home now."

So I followed him back to the delivery room and, sure enough, Nancy was sitting up on the bed, slipping the T-shirt on.

When she stood I couldn't help but notice the strange little belt she wore. It was kind of like a garter belt but it held a white pad between her legs. I later learned it was called a "sanitary belt" and it held a Kotex pad in place. She would be, not "bleeding," but there would be, well, God, what a crude word, "discharge" for a while, and she wasn't a Tampon girl.

She stood then, smiled, said, "Help me," and held out the pants she had worn.

"Panties?" I asked.

She laughed and said, "They kind of got lost. Commando for now."

So I got to my knees and held the pants while she worked one foot and then the other in and helped pull them up her legs.

Her belly, with the baby gone, hung loose. There were two distinct hemispheres, the dividing line running down from her navel. The stretch marks were livid after the work she had just done. I thought she was absolutely gorgeous as I worked the pants up past that sexy belly apron and got them buttoned and zipped.

She sat back on the edge of the bed as I got her socks and shoes on her.

And that was it. We had been careful and she hadn't brought any extraneous stuff with her. I had her ID in my pocket and that, as it turned out, hadn't been necessary. It's not like everyone here didn't know her but bringing it had been a precaution in case some odd complication happened and we needed to get her to the hospital.

She stood and we walked over to say goodbye to Chester and Gloria.

Gloria had that dreamy, blissful look of a new mother as the baby lay against her, holding Gloria's nipple in her mouth. I couldn't tell if she was actually latched on and nursing, but mother and baby sure looked happy.

"Would you like to hold her?" Gloria asked and Nancy visibly recoiled.

"No, Gloria, that's

your

baby," she said.

She turned to Chester, stood on tiptoes, kissed him on the cheek, and said, "Good luck."

"I don't know how to thank you," he said.

She smiled and said, "It was, literally, my pleasure and I'm well compensated for my services."

She bent and kissed Gloria on the cheek. "You have a beautiful little girl, there," she said, "enjoy her. She'll be grown and gone too soon."

Then she turned and started for the door.

I shook Chester's hand and gave Gloria a quick kiss, She said, "Thank you for coaching me through," and I said, "Happy to oblige."

And then I caught up with Nancy at the door.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"A little sore is all," she said but when she looked up at me there were tear streaks on her cheeks.

I kissed her tears away.

"You're beautiful," I said

She smiled and said, "Take me home and prove it."

We held hands, exchanged quick greetings on the way out, and I took her home.

Inside she said, "David, get me a beer, please. I've been non-alcoholic for nine months and I'd like a beer. Then draw me a bath. Come get me when that's done, okay?"

I smiled, walked her into the front room, turned on the TV, handed her the remote, and said, "Your wish is, quite literally, my command, bride-o-mine."

She giggled and sat and started surfing as I went into the kitchen for her beer. I poured the

Sam Adams Dark

into a chilled mug from the freezer and took it in to her. She was leaning back, eyes closed, listening to the news.

"Are you awake?" I asked.

She giggled and said, "It's been a long day, Honey, but yes, I'm awake."

I gave her the mug and headed into the bathroom.

She has, well, we have, a deep tub, I think it's called a garden tub, and I started the water running. While I waited for it to get hot a thought struck me and I looked in the little linen closet thing beside the bathroom vanity. Sure enough, there was a big blue box on the floor with

Kotex

emblazoned on the front. I filed that information for future reference and pulled one of her bath towels from the bottom of the pile, folded it in half, and laid it on the bed where I figured her ass and pussy would go.

The water was running hot by then so I fed in some cold until it was about as hot as I figured she could stand it and put the plug in the drain.

As the tub filled I did some more exploring and found some bubble bath, something labeled

Margot Elena

in "Lavender/Vanilla." I poured a healthy dose under the stream of water and watched as the surface of the water was slowly covered with a thick layer of bubbles.

I thought about it for a second and then stopped in the bedroom to strip before I went back to the front room to fetch her. I thought my erection would demonstrate my interest better than any words could.

"Your bath awaits," I said with a formal little flourish and bow.

She giggled, touched where I was hard, and said, "Lead on, Husband-o-mine."

In the bedroom, she started to reach for the hem of her T-shirt but I stopped her.

"Let me do the work," I said and started working the hem of the T-shirt up.

Sometimes my powers of observation are so weak that I wonder if I have any. I had the damn shirt up past her belly before I noticed the two wet circles at her nipples.

She hummed softly.

I worked the T-shirt past her belly and breasts. She held her arms up, helping, as I finished stripping it off of her.

And I damn near came.

Is there anything, and I mean that,

anything

, sexier than a woman's nipples dripping?

If there is, I can't imagine what.

Her nipples were dripping. I watched, as we stood there, her T-shirt in my hands, as a white drop formed on her left nipple, grew, and then dropped onto her belly.

She giggled.

"David," she said, "I just delivered a baby and my body is flooded with hormones. We can let them go dry if you want. It usually takes about two weeks for me."

I laid my palms on her cheeks and said, "You're kidding, right?"

"No, Honey," she said, "this ain't my first rodeo and I know how my body works."

"You really don't understand?" I asked.

"Understand what?" she asked.

"You are my dream," I said, and bent, touching the white drop on her right nipple now before opening my mouth, latching on, and taking my first drink from her body.

"Oh," she said.

I probably would have held that position, awkward, bent over, suckling, until I had sucked her dry but she patted my cheek and said, "Time for that later, Baby, but first, that bath."

So I released her breast, reluctantly I might add, smiled, and then helped her sit so I could get her shoes and socks off and then had her stand so I could do the pants.

And there it was again. It just hit me, right between the eyes, how damn sexy she was with the soft belly apron where the baby was missing, and that oddly attractive sanitary belt with the heavy pad between her legs.

It took a few seconds to work out the mechanics of how the belt and the pad were attached, but it was butt simple once I got it figured out, and then I got the pad free. There was a dark line down the middle of the white pad, more brownish than red, and the scent was earthy, verging on unpleasant. I worked the belt off, and then carefully lifted the soft belly apron and kissed where she was so stretched, her delicate inner lips were hanging free.

"You don't have to do that," she said softly.

I looked up, across the roundness of her belly apron, smiled, and said, "I like kissing beautiful things."

And I kissed her.

This close the scent was strong, earthy, close to unpleasant but not off-putting. And there was an odd taste to her. Again, "earthy" is the best word I can come up with to describe it.

I kissed my way slowly up her belly, licking the deep line between those two hemispheres, making her giggle when I probed her belly button with my tongue, and then stood and, with a final touch of my tongue on each nipple, took her hand and walked her into the bathroom where the tub was ready.

I helped her to step in, she moved a little awkwardly as she had to lift her foot over the edge of the tub and I kept hold of her hand as she slowly eased into the hot water.

I had a towel rolled into a pillow for her, and I watched as she slowly relaxed and closed her eyes.

"How," she breathed, her voice so soft and low I could barely make it out, "did I get so lucky?"

I laughed and said, "No, Nancy, I realize that I'm the lucky one in this relationship."

I tipped the beer up to her lips, smiled, and said, "Relax now, you worked hard today."

"Thank you, Baby," she said.

I could have just watched her, she was so beautiful, and relaxed, a hint of a smile on her lips, no makeup to hide the face I loved, and yes, her belly floating.

But I didn't. I thought I might distract her from just relaxing.

So I went into the bedroom, collected the Kotex pad, and then to the kitchen where I got a beer for myself. I thought about killing some bad guys on the xBox but knew I didn't have the concentration for that. I thought about doing some studying but just laughed at that thought. So I wound up looking at the TV, not really watching, while talking heads blathered on about something.

I finished my beer, realized there were different talking heads now, and went to check on Nancy.

She hadn't moved.

"I'm starting to prune up," she said softly as I walked into the bathroom. She hadn't opened her eyes and I wondered how she knew I was there. I tend to be pretty cat-footed.

Her mug was empty I noticed.

And the water had a bit of a pinkish tint.

I started the water running in the shower, letting it get hot.

I turned back to her, bent, brushed a few strands of hair away from her forehead, kissed her, and found her hand.

"Come on sleeping beauty," I said, drawing a smile from her, "let's get you rinsed off and to bed."

I had to pull to get her moving, she was so relaxed. But she rolled forward, got her feet under her, and stood. It was interesting, watching her stand, slowly, almost in stages, until she got all the way vertical.