Coed Turned Housewife, Ch. 8 - "The Flower in Bloom"
The eighth in a series about innocent Chelsea Pelham and her handsome professor, Dr. Mark Benning.
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January marked not only the beginning of a new year, but of a new life for Chelsea.
After leaving her parents house that holiday break, she and Mark had begun to plan how to merge their lives together in earnest. They needed to plan a wedding, buy a house, furnish a nursery - in short, to accomplish all the tasks of adulthood in a few very brief months. The stress drove a little wedge between them.
Prior to undertaking the home search, he had moved Chelsea into his apartment and explained that he expected her to start practicing the habits of a wife and mother. "What do you mean?" she had stammered. "I already do a lot of the wife stuff?" she added flirtatiously, thinking of their humid couplings that had grown less frequent of late.
"You're going to be Mrs. Benning soon, Chelsea," Mark responded evenly. "That means managing a household: laundry, shopping, groceries, chores, and laundry," he repeated. He gestured toward a neatly folded stack of shirts. "I expect my shirts to be ironed for work each day. I expect to see you do your part," he said over the tone of protest that came from her lips, "because I will be supporting the household."
To that end, Chelsea had practiced sprucing up Mark's apartment, locating the mop and broom, doing her best to keep the sink clear of dishes, watching Youtube channels to help her master the ironing. By the end of the winter break, she knew this would be hard to keep up with if she were to return to the full courseload she had registered for last semester - before the pregnancy, before Mark came into her life.
She brought it up one night as they ate bland spaghetti she had ambitiously constructed via box and jar. "Mark, it's almost time for school to start again and I need to figure out how to handle my classes. If I'm going to attend, I need to buy my books. Or I have to withdraw, I guess..." she trailed off, as his expression was unreadable.
He slowly nodded. "I think it's time we schedule your first ultrasound. We need to know when you're due, and how many children are IN THERE." He said the last words with emphasis, indicating his belief that the multiples pregnancy was inevitable. They had not discussed this possibility with her parents, but she knew it worried him.
He attended the first doctor's visit with her, and all went according to plan. She was very healthy - her wide hips built for childbirth - but when the specialist brought up the ultrasound she drew in a sharp breath.
"And Ms. Pelham, have you been receiving fertility treatments?" she asked with professional decorum.
Mark looked up at her quickly. "Why do you ask? Is there a problem?" Chelsea was silent, tense with fear as the jellied wand floated across her slightly curved tummy.
The specialist gestured vaguely to the screen. "I'm seeing here...three fetal heartbeats. Yes, definitely three." Mark let out a breath. "Triplets?" He asked.
The specialist nodded. Chelsea grew pale. Mark had been right. Her life was about to change utterly: from virginal college freshman, to married mother of three. She felt a sob welling up in her chest, but breathed deeply to quell the emotion. She didn't want the specialist or Mark to see her fall to pieces.
The upshot of the doctor's visit was that Chelsea was facing a higher-order multiples pregnancy, with danger of needing bedrest by the second or third trimester. They pegged her due date at July 1st, a little earlier than she expected. She was instructed to limit her activities and stay close to home to monitor her movement and weight gain as carefully as possible. Mark had offered to withdraw her from all of her classes, and she nodded gratefully, hoping he didn't notice she was blinking back tears. It was really over, her education.
That night, while Mark snored softly next to her in bed, Chelsea thought about the due date and her initial encounter with Mark. He had been only "Dr. Benning" to her then, a professor whose ethics she held in question, since she had covertly learned that he was using drugs to conduct research on the unsuspecting young women who developed breast growth from exposure to the compounds in his lab.
Something about that had always sat ill with her, but - since she had fallen so fully in love with him - her mind had never allowed herself to explore the possibilities. Now she wondered.
Using drugs on the undergraduates to conduct research. Using drugs. That first date. She had met him in order to get an audio-recording with her confrontation about the illicit breast research, to expose him to the administration and stop the research. They had met at the diner. She had ordered a regular Coke, but had received a Diet Coke. It had had a strange bitter taste. Had it really been diet soda at all? Then she had become disoriented and he had taken her to a bar. She remember the two small amber drinks he had playfully forced her to drink, wrapping his hand around her own to help her swallow the fiery liquid in one gulp. Had he dosed those drinks? Or was she served something previously that made her more susceptible to alcohol? She knew other women drank often without completely losing their memory. Yet somehow she never was able to remember what happened that night after the drinks - after the bar. That was the night she had lost her virginity, and - it seemed, based on her due date - most likely the night she had conceived three children.
The following week, Mark left town for a conference. Chelsea put on her sleekest maternity wear to visit his lab. Her fashionable black sweater, jeans and tailored jacket did little to downplay her figure. At 11 weeks, her petite frame carried the babies fully forward, giving her all too early the distinctive silhouette of a woman with child. She sighed and her chestnut curls fell around her face as she ran her hands over the spreading belly. She would love to be with child, to be facing marriage with Mark, to be his wife and a mother for the rest of her life - but he had been so remote lately! And she had to know more about the lab's research. Was she simply (she felt sick to consider it) a guinea pig for his hormonal research?
Her reception in the lab was awkward. The female students' eyes widened - they had known her only a few months before as an athletic, even mousy, undergrad with A-cup breasts. Now she had zoomed up to a DD cup size in less than six months, had become engaged to their professor and was quickly growing heavy with child. A tasteful small diamond glittered on her finger as she waved nervously to some of her old cohort. Candy approached her, examining the ring.
