It's too hot under the covers, so I pull them off of me, but I still feel a hot flush in my face and throughout my whole body. I don't think it really is that hot in the bedroom, it's probably just my hormonal flushes from being six months pregnant.
I'm wearing cotton panties and a loose t-shirt in bed, and I caress my swollen belly pensively as I lie sleepily on my side. Most of the time, I'm happy to be full of life again. I'd almost forgotten how exciting it is to have a new Human being growing inside me. It's almost enough to make me forget the night that Human being was conceived.
Almost.
I turn my eyes to the bedside clock and see there's still another fifteen minutes before the alarm goes off. I'm so tired I resent the idea of moving an inch, let alone getting up and getting ready for the day; but that might just be the hormones, too.
I hear a rustling next to me and feel the person with whom I share the bed sidling up to me and wrapping his arm around my body, his hand resting on my gravid stomach. The man to whom I'm lawfully wedded and the father of our two daughters leans in and kisses my neck.
"Did you sleep well?" he murmurs into my ear.
"Well enough," I grumble. We both want all the rest we can get before the new baby arrives.
He holds me in silence like that, stirring the part of me that feels guilt and shame. I never told him about that fateful night, and apart from denying him sex for over a week after he returned, he never sensed that anything was wrong.
He's always been a caring and attentive husband, even though our sex life had declined after the birth of our second daughter. He's just as caring and attentive as a father, and I know he'll be just as caring and attentive when I give birth to what he thinks is our third child.
At the same time, there's something in me that feels a perverse thrill at the secret growing in my belly. A sexy alpha male had fucked me and bred me, planting his potent seed in my fertile womb. Now his baby was making my belly swell, and my cuckold husband was none the wiser.
Maybe that's just a screwed-up way of assuaging my own guilt at the lie gestating at the heart of my marriage, but the secret knowledge of my unborn baby's true paternity gives me a feeling of perverse power. The kind of power only a woman can wield over a man.
"I was thinking," my husband spoke up, "would you prefer a home birth this time?"
"Definitely," I answer immediately, "I need to feel comfortable and calm for when I give birth, and I can't be that with a dozen strangers in scrubs examining my crotch with beeping machines and hot lights and telling me to push like I don't already fucking know what to do--"
I stop myself in mid-rant. I'd actually been meaning to tell my husband about the kind of birth I wanted to have, and I'd had that little speech prepared in my head for weeks now, expecting him to push back against it in case something happened which needed medical attention.
"I understand," he said softly, leaning over and planting another kiss on my cheek. "I was just thinking that because the doctors said the pregnancy is healthy and low risk it might be better."
"I'd much rather give birth at home with people I know around me." I reply, wrapping his arm around my pregnant belly like a blanket.
I also don't want him to leave me stranded at the hospital if the baby doesn't look like him.
"That would be wonderful." My husband agrees. "We can use the big jacuzzi tub as a birthing tub. There's plenty of space and you can relax in the warm water while you're delivering."
"You mean that jacuzzi you spent nearly two grand on?" I say with a grimace.
"I got a big bonus and wanted to treat the family." He justified himself unrepentantly.
"Well, at least it actually works," I respond, "unlike that ceiling fan that keeps breaking down."
I try to turn my head so I can scowl at the black plastic contraption bolted into the ceiling above our marital bed. It's too uncomfortable to twist my neck that much, so I end up scowling at his big nose and narrow eyes -- narrow because he has to squint without his glasses.
"That was over six months ago." He reminds me patiently.
Around the same time the event happened. The reminder makes me shift uncomfortably.
"I'll try and get the fan fixed." My husband assures me.
"I'd much rather we focus on preparing the baby's room and the other things we need." I tell him pointedly. "We should also focus on getting ready for the delivery."
"You're the boss, sweetheart."
He's so patient with me. It makes my guilt over the secret in my belly even more poignant.
"Would you like a doula?" He asks me, "I could hire a professional nurse who can be a doula but also step in if something happens."