Chapter Thirty-seven
Vaginas are made to be fucked by one erect penis not four fingers; their flexible entrances recover quickly after being penetrated by even the largest cock but despite its capacious size, Peteâs forceful fingers had taken mine up to, if not quite beyond its elastic limit.
Anuses of course, arenât made to be fucked at all. Anuses can take time to recover, especially when their owners didnât insist on copious amounts of lubrication before allowing their prized ring of muscle to be penetrated and abused, even by a cock as slender as Peteâs.
So it was, that after my husbandâs considerable onslaught on both my orifices, I was too sore and battered to let anyone anywhere near my knickers for almost a whole week. Pete might have viewed the break in my sexual demands as a blessed relief, because he didnât put any pressure on me at all during that time. But then to be honest, most of the recent sexual demands in our house had been made by me anyway.
That was of course, if you didnât count our daughter Isobel.
With August about to end, she and her new boyfriend Jack were having to face the reality of going to different Universities in different parts of the country, Izzy to begin her final year, Jack to begin his second.
Jack is the youngest son of my best friend Julie and her soon-to-be-ex-husband-and-my-first-extramarital-lover Tony. He and Izzy had been friends all their lives so when she announced that, after an unexpected meeting on holiday, they were now a full-blown couple, I was more than a bit stunned.
Since they had first got together during Izzyâs all-girl fortnight in Torremolinos, I donât think they had spent a single twenty-four-hour period apart. Sleeping together every night either in her bedroom or in his motherâs house, the two of them had been practically joined at the groin for several weeks, when not at their respective holiday jobs.
How they would react to being so far apart remained to be seen. Izzy had already cried twice at the prospect of being separated and was emotionally unstable most of the time -- which in turn, meant she was never far from one of her most spectacular bad moods.
Worse still, Jackâs term started a week before Izzyâs, which meant that she would be home without him for seven full days.
I was dreading it.
The irritability in the house wasnât being helped by the hot weather that had decided to make its presence felt. British summers are notoriously unreliable and capricious. With my belly now uncontainable by most of my clothes and my ability to keep calm and cool decreasing, the weather chose that moment to raise the temperature into the high seventies or low eighties and whack up the humidity.
I know this is nothing to our friends in the US or Australia, but for a county famous for rain and built largely without air conditioning, it presented a challenge to a pregnant fifty-one-year-old.
With equal caprice, the pregnancy itself was going as well as could possibly be expected. My blood pressure was fine, my ankles werenât swelling, my skin was beginning to show the healthy glow it had last shown twenty years ago. My tiny boobs were showing signs of coming back to life after decades of inactivity too. Even my hair was joining in on the act with a soft sheen developing.
If it wasnât for the completely unmissable swelling in my belly, I would have been the healthiest I had been for many years. There was no visible reason why I should not carry my baby to full term.
The most recent scan had revealed no problems with the baby either. She -- for we now knew I was carrying another girl -- appeared fit and healthy, and within the bounds of development that would be expected.
My husband still said he loved me; everything seemed to be going well for us. So why had I spent the last three nights awake, crying as quietly as I could into my pillow?
The answer was inevitably, doubts; and doubts on a grand scale.
I suppose most soon-to-be-mothers have these feelings. I know I had them when about to give birth to our first child, Josh but for me, seeing my babyâs image on the ultrasound screen, so clearly defined that we could be almost certain of her gender brought reality in on me like a tidal wave.
We were really, actually going to have a baby! Another tiny human being was going to enter our lives.
Up till then, even after the first vague, blurry images of the growing contents of my womb, the whole thing had still been an adventure; an exciting if uncomfortable dream from which we would eventually awake.
It had all been about me too; about the accidental, unfaithful conception; the perils of being pregnant at fifty-one; the problems of fitting my swelling belly into my clothes and yes of course, the need to deal with a massive bay-driven rise in my libido.
Now, knowing I was carrying a girl, a girl who would soon need a name and a life, everything changed.
It wasnât all about me anymore.
Okay, the thought of going through childbirth again at my age was simply terrifying. Going to clinic was bringing back memories of agonies and indignities I had thought were well in my past but however terrible they would be, they would eventually end.
What would not end was my new daughter -- our new daughter, I corrected myself. Pete any my fourth child.
In a short time, there would be another life in the house; a tiny, demanding life that would need my full
attention. And there would be no choice; that life would have to get my full attention, come what may.
Pete had been amazing all this time. From the moment he learned that his wife of over twenty-five years had not only been unfaithful for months, she had also been knocked up by a boy young enough to be her son, he had stood by me and my illegitimate child.
But how would he feel when, like me, he realised what this was going to do to us and our life? We were only months away from being Grandparents too, for Christâs sake!
Now, thanks to me and my rampant, irresponsible infidelity we would be facing at least a year of broken nights, constantly awake and feeding a hungry mouth into the small hours. For at least two years we would be changing nappies -- well into our mid-fifties,
And then what? Doing the school run at sixty? Dealing with teenage angst and tantrums well after retirement age? Nursing stressed students through A levels, boyfriend problems and University entrance at the age of seventy?
And Pete would be doing all this knowing that the girl concerned wasnât even his child.
In the cold light of day -- or more likely in the small hours of a Monday morning after very little sleep, with the smell of milk and nappies all around us and a hard week at work awaiting him in only a few hoursâ time, might my husband decide it was all too much? That it was time to let his cheating wife lie alone in the metaphorical bed she had made for herself?
Might he not worry that she had only come back to him because her lover had dumped her anyway?
Might he not worry that she would cheat again given the opportunity?
Might he not decide to cut his losses, walk out of the melee she had inflicted on him and into a new life? Possibly even a new life with his only known lover, Julie; the china-doll-pretty friend who had been so complimentary about his performance in bed and who had introduced him to the joys of anal sex when I had been unable or unwilling to perform that act?
âCanât you sleep?â
Peteâs voice was soft and concerned as it blessedly broke my terrible train of thought.
âItâs three-thirty in the morning, Penn. Are you feeling okay?â
How could I answer that? If I told my husband about my worries, I knew he would reassure me, but would his reassurance be the truth? And how could he possibly know now how he would feel in a yearâs time when the baby was born and our lives had been changed irreparably?
âAre we mad Pete?â
âWhy do you ask that?â
âHaving a baby at our age. Are we completely crazy?â
âItâs a bit late to worry about that,â he sighed, rolling over to face me. âWe are where we are. Thereâs no changing our minds now.â
âBut sheâs going to change everything,â I protested. âRemember what it was like when we had Josh and...â
Once again, I detailed all the practical problems that had been spinning round my mind, getting more and more agitated and tearful with each sentence. For the moment, I kept all the worries about our relationship to myself, but they were still there, bubbling under the surface.
âWeâve done it before, so we know how to do it again, right?â Pete eventually interrupted, holding me close in his strong arms. âWe can do this, Penn. You know we can. Weâve done all it three times before and we werenât too bad at it were we?â.
I shook my head, the tears still flowing as my husband stroked the large swelling in my belly.
âOkay, weâll be the oldest parents at the school gate, but the gap wonât be anything like as large as is was first time round. Parents are getting older all the time; first timers are in their thirties now and even in their forties. The world has changed.â
He was right, had told me all this many times, but I needed to hear it again.
âAs far as being older is concerned; well, weâll just have to look after ourselves, wonât we? Weâll have to keep as young and fit as we can and try not to think too much like our friends.â He laughed. âI promise not to talk about golf if you promise to keep your cardigans to a minimum and never use curlers.â
I laughed too, despite my tears. Pete had always been able to calm me down and make me laugh. That night I needed it badly.
âAnd just in case you were worrying,â he continued. âIâm still perfectly happy being her Dad. Sheâs going to need one and though I say it myself, Iâm good at it. It might not have been my sperm that knocked you up but as long as only you and I know this, everything will be fine.â
âDo you think anyone suspects?â I asked.
âIâm sure there are a few suspicious minds,â he replied in the darkness. âWe know too many medics for there not to be. But as long as we play our parts, theyâll have nothing to work on and soon enough theyâll move on to other gossip.â He chuckled. âThatâs the one thing the NHS is never short of.â
I snuggled up to him, feeling his warm, reassuring body against mine.