The Oracle

Maria was starting to show, and by now she knew about when the baby would be coming. After all, she was pretty sure what day she got knocked up. There was a lot she wasn't sure about, like whose baby it was growing inside her, but she'd been ovulating that day at the motel, when she took multiple strangers inside her, without protection, their seed basting her insides, so much of it that it spilled out onto the sheets.

In the immediate aftermath, she'd been mortified about how far she'd gone searching for the man her visions showed, and vowed to herself that she wouldn't lose control like that again. She noticed the way strangers leered at her in the grocery store, in the library, hoping for a repeat performance. She hated the way it lit her loins, how she felt the pull of it back there, to make the same mistake all over again, and that was why she was extra careful, extra reserved after that. Even though in her private moments between her and her body, she relived that day over and over. And then she missed her period.

She felt nauseous as he went to her boss's office, to talk about her upcoming maternity leave. Maybe it was partly morning sickness, but also she was dreading this conversation.

She knocked on the doorframe and Brenda looked up. A forced smile spread across the manager's face.

"Maria! Come in. Please sit down," she said, and Maria heard the extra solicitousness in it. Was she already that big?

"So...I wanted to let you know that I'm expecting in September," Maria said. This part she had rehearsed.

"Yes. Right. Congrats! To you and...Mark, was it?" Brenda said.

It took the air out of Maria's chest. Things with Mark hadn't been that serious, and he hadn't stuck around to raise a child that was most likely someone else's. Maria wasn't sure she had ever told Brenda about him, which meant that there had to be more chatter about her in the office than she was aware of.

"Just me, actually," she said, trying to sound more confident and happy about it than she entirely was, and not like she was asking for Brenda's pity. That would really grate on Maria's nerves.

"Right," Brenda said smoothly. "Let's plan to have all your accounts reassigned two weeks before the due date. Preferably more, just in case. And then, if everything goes according to plan, we'll probably be seeing you again in January or so."

Maria nodded, tight lipped. Unsure what else she should be saying. Did Brenda want an explanation? It certainly wouldn't be work-appropriate.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" Brenda asked, in the way Maria was used to. The way that meant Brenda was hoping Maria didn't have anything else to ask of her.

"No. I guess that's it," Maria said.

She kind of expected it to be more complicated than that. The complication to her career was one of the reasons Maria had been wary of motherhood before. It was one factor among many, but she was surprised it wasn't as complicated as she'd feared. Of course, she still had a lot to deal with before the baby even came, and then that would only be the beginning of it. But she was glad that at least part of this could be simpler than she expected.

It was a couple weeks after that, when she got an email from Andre, a coworker who she say often in the break room but didn't usually work with directly.

"Hi Maria,

I was going to wait and say so at the baby shower, but congratulations! I'm here for you in any way you need. Don't hesitate to reach out.

Sincerely,

Andre"

It touched her more than she was expecting, and Maria put her hands to her face to hide that she'd started to cry. Partly that was just a symptom of the hormones her body was awash in, but it was real nonetheless.

Maria hadn't even noticed the lack of any planned baby shower, but now that she thought about it, any time one of her coworkers got pregnant, the office made a big deal of it, with cake and presents and balloons. But not for her. Probably because aside from Andre, nobody else was really sure whether to offer congratulations or condolences, in the case of a single mother carrying an unplanned pregnancy.

That's what it was, she realized. An unplanned pregnancy. Even with her visions of the future showing herself getting pregnant, she hadn't expected it to happen the way that it did. But from her visions, she knew she was keeping the baby, and she knew the joy that her daughter would ultimately bring. To Maria, this was a pregnancy worth having, and worth celebrating, and so it really meant something to her that Andre reached out to congratulate her. Even so, she was kind of relieved not to have to deal with the awkwardness of a baby shower, and her coworkers' oblique questions trying to suss out how she got in the family way without an obvious male partner in the picture.

That night, Maria's mother was there at her humble home, getting things ready for the baby.

"You know, if you'd wanted to keep it the first time this happened, you could have," her mother said.

Maria's mother was referring to how Maria got pregnant her first time having sex at age eighteen, because her visions had misled her into thinking it would be safe.

"That was different," Maria said defensively. Yes, her visions had led her astray again, but not in the same way. "I didn't want a baby back then."

"Hm," her mother said. "You didn't want a baby a year ago either. What changed?"

"I've been getting a preview of what it'd be like," Maria said.

Her mother knew about the visions--they seemed to be hereditary--but Maria was being intentionally vague about what her visions showed her. What they still showed her, actually, whenever they occurred. Sometimes it was scenes of her with her infant daughter. Sometimes it was that white-hot moment of conception, a moment that was still somewhere off in the future, and not the moment of conception for the baby already inside her.

Her mother nodded thoughtfully. "I've found that my visions are sort of templates, that can be filled in a number of different ways."

Maria blushed, thinking of the number of ways she'd been filled in. Was that what her mother was referring to?

"...I guess your vision didn't show you a man."

No, that was the one thing her visions were vague about. Even in the vision where a man was ejaculating deep inside her, he was thrusting into her from behind, and she only knew what his cock felt like inside her, what it felt like when his semen erupted into her vagina. That was the knowledge she had clung to, when she was desperately trying to find that man, and she was pretty certain that none of the men she'd encountered so far were him.

But her mother's questioning was getting too close to that truth.

"Why would I need a man, when I have you?" she asked, somewhat sarcastically.

This was how it always went. Maria was glad that her mom was there for her in her time of need, but her mom would often ask these probing questions that seemed designed to make Maria blame herself for what happened, as if her mother hadn't gone through something very similar in giving birth to Maria. When they spent too much time together, it got harder and harder to stay grateful, or even civil.

The doorbell rang.

"Who could that be?" her mother asked, as if Maria never got visitors, which was largely true.

Maria didn't dignify that with a response, and went to open the door. Her doorstep was already piled high with things. Blankets, a crib, a mobile, a car seat, a baby monitor, a box of diapers.

Andre was there, setting down a few more items. He was tall, and though he didn't seem buff, he hadn't adapted to the sedentary office worker physique. He wasn't particularly striking, but he wasn't ugly either.

"Brenda gave me your address," he said. "This is all left over from my youngest."

"Andre, I don't know what to say," Maria began. "Just...thank you. Thank you so much."

She started to bend down to start moving things inside, but a strain in her back made her stop short. Then Andre was there, giving her a hand back up to standing.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Invite your friend in!" Maria's mother called out.

Maria rolled her eyes, knowing what her mother might be scheming.

"Let me help you bring all this in. I wasn't thinking," Andre said, moving quickly.

"Please, come in," Maria said, feeling useless.

They made quick work of it together. Although Andre did most of the lifting actually. After they had everything moved inside and piled up in the living room, he made a quick exit.

"He seems nice," Maria's mother said. "He almost acts like the baby's his."

Maria laughed, feeling it take the edge off her tension. "It's not his. He's just paying it forward. The people I work with are all very supportive."

Though it wasn't entirely true. Andre really was the outlier in that regard, but Maria didn't want her mother speculating more than she already was. But what her mother said did get Maria wondering. Why was Andre going to such lengths? What would it be like, with him? She knew he had kids, but she didn't know much more than that. He was often very professional about keeping his work like and family life separate.

Her due date was approaching, and Maria was starting to feel ready. Or at least done with the being pregnant part. It hadn't felt all that different at first. She was naturally a curvy woman to start with, so even when her baby bump started to show, it didn't change her outline all that much. But over time, her already-wide hips started to strain at the waistband of her pants and her underwear. Her breasts filled out more, testing the limits of her bras. And the weight of the baby in her belly started to be a noticeable burden.

She didn't want to be a burden on Andre, but he kept finding ways to help out. Like repainting the room she was going to use as a nursery. Maria was grateful, and reluctant to question it while it lasted. She figured she would take whatever help he wanted to give, and he could stop whenever he wanted.

Whatever his motives were, he had never made a move on her, for better or worse. Maria wasn't sure what her feelings towards him were--it was a complicated time to even try to unpack that--but there were definitely nights alone when she needed the relief of an orgasm and wished she had someone to share it with. There were even times when she let her imagination wonder what it would have been like to be with Andre, back when she wasn't already in the family way with another man's baby.

He was over at her place one night, when her due date was drawing near. Knowing that, they were working together to prep and freeze meals, so that she'd have some easy sustenance in the first weeks of parenthood.

That was when her water broke, onto the kitchen floor. Andre only freaked out a little--less than she did--and drove her to the hospital. She expected him to drop her off and leave, but he was there, holding her hand throughout. He was there when her daughter was born, doughy and covered in placenta, but he beamed at her. He was eager to have a turn at holding her.

Looking at her daughter's face, she still wasn't sure which of the men from the motel had sired her. Was it Sergei, the one whose cock had plungered all the other men's semen out of her? Maria couldn't be sure. Maybe it would become clearer when she was grown.

Maria had once been dead-set against ever having children, and in recent years that had evolved into skepticism, then reluctant acceptance that she would someday be a mother, then a proactive search for the man who would knock her up, and she'd gotten knocked up by someone else along the way. Even as she carried her baby to term, she was expecting that actually seeing her, holding her, would radically change her attitude towards children. Maybe that would be the moment she fully embraced motherhood.

Now, in that moment, she definitely felt a blossoming affection for her daughter, but she saw how much Andre genuinely liked kids, and she admired that about him, but she also recognized that she didn't quite have that in her. She still had mixed feelings about how her daughter came about, and she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to look back on that debauchery in the motel with unreserved pride. And while she loved the daughter she now had, and she looked forward to the future together that her visions showed her, Maria wasn't so sure about that vision showing her getting knocked up again. As much as that vision always got her off, she wasn't sure that bearing another child was something she wanted. That vision had also misled her into this situation, and she wasn't sure how much to trust it.

The first weeks were hard on her. She was up at all hours, in a state of constant exhaustion. When she wasn't breast-feeding or changing diapers, she was trying to rock her daughter to sleep, or at least lull her to a momentary silence.

Every time Maria's mother tried to help, it made Maria wonder how she had ever survived infancy. Maybe her mother had just forgotten how to do things over the past decades, or maybe they'd done everything differently back then.

Andre was always there now, when he wasn't at work. Maria knew it wasn't fair, that he was putting so much effort into this, without even getting paternity leave. But she was so wrung out to the bone that she couldn't question it. She felt like she couldn't have coped without him.

The first time he passed out in her bed, well after midnight, Maria could hardly blame him. It wasn't like she had a spare bed, and he probably wasn't safe to drive home. But one morning she awoke from a sexual dream, and felt his erection pressing against her from behind. It had been so long, nearly a full year, since she'd been fucked. To her mortification, she realized she'd fallen asleep without putting underwear on, and her slit was hot and tingling and soaking wet. And at her back, she could feel that his erection had worked free of his boxers, from the heat of his skin against hers. And there was some fluid on the small of her back where they touched.

Maria slipped out of the bed, and let him sleep. She wasn't entirely sure if the dampness of his erection was precum, or vaginal fluid. Had he penetrated her in the night? She slipped a finger into herself, and it came away clear. She was familiar with what it felt like when her vagina was filled with a man's semen, and she was pretty sure that wasn't the case here, but not entirely. Whether she would've minded was another unresolved question in her mind, but one thing she knew for sure was that if it happened, she didn't want to be unconscious for it.

When he joined her in the kitchen for breakfast, she asked, "Did we...um...have sex last night?"

He blanched. "No, of course not. You were asleep! Heck, I was completely out myself. Why...?"

"Well, I could feel your..." she began. "I just wanted to confirm."

"Oh!" he said. "I'm so sorry about that--"

"Andre, it isn't the first erection I've dealt with. Obviously."

Having taken a sip of coffee, he choked on it, in a sudden burst of laughter. She had never told him how she got pregnant, and that hung between them now.

Maria wasn't sure where she wanted this to go. She still wasn't sure what they had, or what her feelings for him were, or what possibility there even was for the two of them. And she felt like she'd already made it awkward, and didn't want to make it worse and drive him away when he'd been so kind to her. Whatever they had, maybe it didn't need the complication, although it was clear that they both had needs that weren't being met. So she wasn't sure where that left them, but she was afraid to voice her desires, and let the topic drop there.

One night she felt his erection pressing against her again, and could tell from the subtle shifting of his weight on the mattress that he was having trouble going to sleep. If they didn't do something about that, it was going to keep her up too, and then they'd both be wrecked the next day. Without a word, she rolled towards him, and laid a hand on his cock, through the boxers at first. She gently teased the length of it, waiting to see how he'd react, and when she felt him lift his hips, pressing himself against her hand, she knew this was something he wanted.

She freed it from the confines of his underwear, and gave it a proper stroke, and felt a gush of fluid from the head of it. Was that all it took, she wondered? His abdomen still seemed tense, his breath shallow and ragged. Leaning down, she licked up a bit of the fluid, and recognized it as precum. It was just surprising how much of it there was. It made her wonder how long he'd gone without sexual contact, without even jacking off. But then again, he'd been staying over with her a lot lately; when would he have had opportunity? With the smell of him in her nostrils, she licked again, right at the source, and he put a hand gently on her hair, his chest rising and falling with an intense arousal. Encouraged, she brought the head of his penis to her lips, slipping him into her mouth a little more at a time with every stroke of his shaft.

"Oh god!" he gasped, his hips lifting up off the mattress, and she took as much of him as she could into her mouth.

Her pussy was aching and wet, and she wondered what it'd feel like to take him down there, but...her menstrual cycle had been out of wack since she gave birth, and she knew she'd be fertile again sooner or later, but she didn't know when that would be, or whether it was still safe or not. Her vision showed her getting impregnated again, but she knew she couldn't rely on that now any more than she should have before.

His hand found its way to her slit, and she moaned into his crotch. His touch was gentle, delicate, almost too cautious. With a free hand, she reached down and gripped his hand hard against herself, pushing his fingers against her clit. And in that moment, he ejaculated into her mouth. She knew there could be a lot of it--there had been so much precum, after all--but it was still surprising as it poured into her mouth in wave after wave. She managed to swallow some of it down, but some ran down his shaft onto his lap, and she was struggling to breathe through the pleasure of what his hands were doing to her. She hadn't gotten off with him, but she wasn't far behind either. The entire year without sex was catching up with her all at once.

When his climax subsided, he rolled her onto her back, and shifted down, putting his face between her legs. She had kind of just expected to jack each other off to get some sexual tension out, and it was a pleasant surprise that he was willing to eat her out.

"Should I be careful about--" he started to ask.

"No, I'm ready," she assured him.

As his tongue worked its way into her folds, he found the spots that gave her the most of a jolt of pleasure. Despite what she said, he very gradually explored her with his fingers. Maria wondered what he'd find--whether she was still the same down there as she'd been when she had sexual partners before, or if giving birth had permanently changed her. But once he was comfortable that he wasn't going to hurt her, he was able to bring her to an all-but-uncontrollable climax. She barely bit back her cries, to avoid waking the baby, but this was something sweeter than she realized she'd been missing out on. Her hips bucked on their own, and she reached down and pressed his face to her slit, as the shakes ran through her.

He sensed when her breathing slowed, and naturally came to a stop. Maria worried whether they'd be able to go to sleep after this, after awakening such a mutual desire between them, but soon he drifted off with his arms around her, and Maria found it surprisingly easy to drift into a deeper sleep than she'd had in weeks.

When she woke, it was early morning, but Andre had already taken care of one bottle feeding for her.