BBW ROMANCE: BWWM Romance: A Cowboy’s Southern Comfort (Military Cowboy Pregnancy Romance) (Interracial Army Contemporary Fantasy Romance Short Stories) (38 page)

Slowly, Michael began to drift off, running his fingers across the edges of Ash’s collarbone, savoring his smell. Maybe he had been sleepwalking. Ash now seemed much more real than Sylvia had, warm and inviting, barely stirring in the growing light.

***

Sylvia lay very still in the half morning. The room was cold and she could hear the beginnings of rain tapping on her window.  It was comforting and made her feel sleepy, distracting her form the rumbling shivers that ran through her every few minutes. It had been a couple weeks since she’d paid the heating bill so they’d shut it off, but it hadn’t really been much of an intrusion for Sylvia. She drew the covers up over her and turned on her side, looking at the space Michael had left behind him. She had pretended to be sleeping as he snuck out the door, not bothered to engage in any awkward excuses as to why he couldn’t spend the night. Sylvia knew the effect she had on men and could never decide whether or not she liked it or not. It was a combination of feeling powerful yet embarrassed for them, and maybe even a bit guilty.  She traced the outlines of the brick wall behind her bed with her fingers and then shut her eyes, trying to get back to sleep. The pursuit was quickly abandoned and she dragged herself up, rolling her shoulder blades back to ‘open the heart’ as her yoga teacher had advised. Sylvia wasn’t sure if there was much to be done about her heart but her back made some satisfying crunches and clicks as she stretched it out. She stood up, still naked and went to turn on the kettle, pausing there to watch the plume of smoke rise up and around the room. It was red and shiny, the one brightly coloured thing in the apartment and it made a happy rumbling noise as it reached the boil. She rolled her feet on the floor appreciating the semblance of warmth from the wood floor, possibly rising up from the apartment below which still had heating. The one room apartment was small and cold, but Sylvia found how streamlined it was comforting. She knew exactly where everything was, exactly how everything should be.

Over the last few months she’d tried every sort of holistic therapy she could get her hands on, anything to get  ‘in touch with her body’ that seemed to operate entirely of its own accord. Her body had been taken over by intense, vivid dreams and strange, ghostly sensations which were all attributed by her and everyone else as stress. There was a biting voice at the back of her head that said they call everything stress when they don’t have a better answer, and then another  voice that wheedled that they were doing their best. She was stuck in the back and forth of these two voices, wanting to rip her disobedient body to pieces and shout at anyone who told her not to. Her skin felt too small, she felt echoes of something massive and frightening coursing through her but couldn’t even begin to say what it was. So it was stress. It’s all just stress.

She poured the tea very slowly, watching the gold coils travel up through the water watching closely for anything that looked out of place. Any sudden, angular movements. Trying to track the convective heat patterns and hoping they stayed how they were meant to. Last night she couldn’t tell if Michael had acted of his own intention or if she had lured him outside the capabilities of his own self-control. There had been those who compared Sylvia to Eve, luring men out of Eden, past what they knew how to reject. Sylvia didn’t want that, didn’t want to be the one exerting some sort of unnatural influence on these men, but also didn’t want to be the one responsible for all of their moral failings. It was very difficult to determine where Sylvia’s seemingly undue influence ended and where their lack of responsibility began. There was an element of what Sylvia was accused of that all women were accused of. There was an element of Michael that was still aware and still wanted her desperately and without that Sylvia had no power at all. She knew very little about herself but she knew that.

Sylvia had grown up with her sister and her grandmother in a small rural house. School was fairly optional and for the most part her sister and grandmother were in control of her education. They covered everything from botany to the classics to contemporary poetry to physics and maths, nothing was left uncovered. While she had spent much of her childhood alone, the times she did socialize weren’t much of a challenge for her, though it did always did feel like an effort to put on the personality of someone who could talk to other kids. That discomfort had faded a little bit with time, but not to any great extent. Sylvia was most comfortable here, in her little box apartment with its little clouded window contained in her little blinking back at her overlooking the busy city and other buildings lit up like thousands of eyes blinking. She curled up on the couch and drank her tea, scrolled through her phone and checked some emails. She was thin these days, underfed according to her grandmother who had arrived without warning recently. She was pale, even by her own standards, because she wasn’t leaving the house so much these days. The outside world felt overwhelming, like her body was exploding with the white noise of traffic and talking and movement. Last night had been an exception, an attempt to investigate whether being alone so often had amplified what she was sensing. Moving to the city, away from anything with anything natural was an attempt to dispel those surging and warping sensations that moved through her like ocean waves. They were dulled but not gone. Sometimes Sylvia wanted them to express in some physical form, just to verify they were still there, that she wasn’t just going crazy this time.

***

Over the next few weeks, Michael tried to proceed as if it had all just been a dream. Both he and Ash went to work as normal, watched TV, hung out with friends, slept together. Did normal things. Sylvia drifted into a corner of his mind (or rather was placed there by force). Everything was ok. The less Michael thought about it, the more he could reason with himself that this was one of these terrible mistakes he could write off as just a mistake. This was his get out of jail free card.

He and Ash chose a bright Saturday afternoon to head to a local food market for a wander round. The air was brisk and smelt like grass and walking hand in hand around the stalls and tasting jams, Michael felt decidedly wholesome. There is something to be said for a boring gay couple, after having spent significant parts of his life being the radical queer activist, it was relaxing to just exist with someone he loved and do something pleasant and unchallenging. Ash was wearing a blue sweater and a grey coat and his skin was pink in the cold spring air.

‘We should look into getting a dog’ Ash said absentmindedly with a skewer of chicken something or other in his mouth

‘We don’t have a garden, a dog would hardly fit in our apartment’

‘It would if we got a small one’

‘They’re so yappy though’ Michael said, shoving his hands into his pockets ‘And our landlord would kill us’

‘The apartment below us has one’ Ash said, seeming slightly miffed at the suggestion being thrown out so quickly

‘Like it’s not totally out of the question’ Michael tried to backtrack ‘we could ask them what sort of dog they have that’s happy to live in an apartment.’

‘A little terrier I think it was. Coffee?’

Michael nodded enthusiastically, happy the conversation was directed somewhere else. It wasn’t that Michael didn’t want a dog, just that he was always worried about getting a dog that then turned out to be completely uncontrollable. He hadn’t grown up in a family with pets, so the concept was a little foreign to him and stirred up more feelings of hard work than of fuzzy companionship. Still, he’d do most things for Ash’s benefit, so sure enough over their coffee’s they were already looking up dog for sale ads online. They sat on a bench together sipping from their warm cups and discussed breeds and size and what kind of dogs Ash had as a child. Michael liked listening to his stories, once he got started he could talk for ages on the smallest of stories. Ash got up to go get more coffees and as soon as he left, a blonde woman sat down beside him on the bench. It took a few seconds for it to register with Michael who it was. Sylvia was almost sparkling in the light of day and he was instantly reminded of why he had been attracted to her. She was wearing a delicate lace top and a blush pink cardigan, flecks of blue veins barely apparent through her near translucent skin.

‘Michael’ she said, in what must have been an attempt in an introduction. Michael was panicking, what if Ash saw them, what would he say?

‘He won’t see us’ she said without missing a beat, and Michael seemed to trust her instantly.

‘I have to tell you I’m pregnant’ she whispered, still looking straight ahead.

Michael’s stomach dropped and his vision swam. He couldn’t remember wearing a condom. In fact he was almost certain he hadn’t. How could he have been so stupid? How, at 32 years of age, could he have made such an idiotic mistake?

‘I don’t want money’ she said, Michael still speechless ‘but I need you to take the baby when it’s born. I can’t keep it. And I can’t give it to a stranger’

‘I’m barely more than a stranger am I? And how can I possibly take the baby? I’m completely unequipped to handle a baby! And I haven’t told Ash!’ Michael’s breathing was becoming shallow. He was panicking.

‘I can’t force you. But I’m afraid there isn’t really any other option. You have to tell Ash. I can’t have this baby born into a lie’

How did she know his name? He had definitely never mentioned Ash.

‘There won’t be much time. It will be faster than a normal baby. You have to be ready. Sooner or later. I can help with Ash’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Have you not noticed yet’ she said, turning her steely eyes towards him, again looking almost angry ‘look around you.’

So he did, and if he hadn’t felt near delirious before he certainly did now. Everything in the ten feet circumference around them had stopped. It was as if they were vibrating, hovering between two moments. There was a noise like a whirring hard drive barely perceptible underneath it.

‘What are you?’ Michael asked, his voice almost inaudible.

‘I don’t know what to call it. I’ve always been like this. And I don’t know if this baby will be like me too. I don’t know if my mother was like this, my grandmother certainly was and maybe my sister, but I haven’t heard from either of them in years’

‘How do you expect me to take care of a baby that can do this?’ Michael stuttered ‘ and how do you expect me to let you cast some sort of spell or whatever this is on Ash so he’ll be okay with it?’

‘I don’t know what my powers will be like when this baby is born. I can feel them already accelerating the longer I’m pregnant’ she said, her voice high and anxious ‘I don’t know if it’s safe for me to be around it. I don’t know why my mother left but I can imagine she must have had a good reason’

Michael didn’t know what to say. He felt sorry for her. She looked fragile, afraid, and helpless. She wasn’t out to cause harm, whatever her intention, whatever she was or could do. Part of him wanted to protect her, and his next thought was how could he tell which pieces of these thoughts were put there by her and which were his own.

‘I need time to think’ he said. She nodded, gathered up her bag and left without another word.

***

Sylvia walked away from the market, pulling a canvas bag up on her shoulder. She was nervous. The conversation hadn’t quite gone how she had hoped and she wasn’t even quite sure how she had hoped it to go. In a sense, maybe that was a good thing, maybe this meant she could be sure that she hadn’t somehow exerted some weird mind control power over him. It sounded like a bad joke when she said it to herself. She didn’t even have proper terms for what was happening to her, just tropes from movies. She ran her hand across her stomach, which was showing far more than your average two month bump. She could already feel it kicking. Her heart was beating too quickly and she felt faint, watching tiny bits of paper and leaves and the ground seemingly move in geometric patterns along the ground like a glitch in a video game. She closed her eyes, listened to the sound of the water in the canal but it made her feel sick and dizzy. Her fingers felt like they were long tendrils reaching out to touch the water and she had to stop, dropping to her knees to retch. Once it passed she stared at her hands, her face clammy and her eyes hot with tears. They were just hands. They were covered in little cuts and dry skin. They weren’t pretty, but they were hers. They belonged to her and didn’t do anything she didn’t understand, which currently was high praise of her body. She picked herself and kept walking, trying to breathe deeply and evenly. She thought about calling her grandmother. There were a lot of questions she had to answer, or even just questions to try to phrase before she even got to the answering part. She felt overwhelmed by all the things she didn’t know.

Before she knew it she had walked home. It had started spitting rain and this had calmed her, the cool humidity of the air made her feel solid and alive. She keyed in the entrance code to her apartment and walked along the red carpeted hallway before heading into the elevator and pressing the round button for her floor. The elevator smelt metallic and bitter and the mirrors were bended metal rather than proper glass. She kept her eyes to the ground and listened to the gentle lilting voice through the speaker read out the floors. She reached her apartment, and closed the door quietly, it was only a few steps to her bed and she curled up in a ball and slept for what must have been hours.

She had a series of dreams, each almost connected but also completely disparate. The rules kept changing between each one and were convoluted an intense. She dreamt of an old friend returning to her with crutches made out of feathers, and then of finding everyone she had ever known living in a massive lab facility and then of herself, in front of all of them, and somehow they had seen her for who she really was and she was being cast out. It was unclear who she had hurt or if she had hurt someone, but they threw her out, her new-born in her arms and she woke up feeling terrified and out of control. She tried to comfort herself by listing all the things in the room, remembering how they had not moved since she left. She felt a kick in her belly and her fingers pressed back against it, like a tiny handshake. If nothing else, her pregnancy itself didn’t feel like it posed an immediate danger to her. She didn’t feel possessed by anything new. It was an old power that she had hoped was just a dream that was now crawling into waking. It was all she could do to try to keep her baby safe. It was the only thing she could even begin to understand how to do.

It wasn’t that she had meant to scare Michael, she only needed time to talk to him. Knowing that she needed time was what had frozen the people around her. It hadn’t been a conscious decision on her part and she was worried that Michael would assume that she was about to mount a campaign of terror against him until he took the baby. At least she didn’t intend to, but as had been evidenced her control over her powers was not exactly fine-tuned. She was at this very moment trying to see if she could deliberately freeze certain objects. A ball falling off a chair, a particular person in a crowd that she could see from her window, but it wasn’t much of a success. Once she instead managed to smash about three windows next to the person she froze, then panicked and hid despite the fact it was highly unlikely anyone was going to be looking up at her 10th story window for the culprit. It wasn’t nice to experiment on people, but Sylvia figured she needed practice. Several hours into these experiments, it dawned on her that it might be time to call her grandmother.

Her grandmother was a tiny, wizened lady who was surprisingly strong for her 90 years. She farmed a tiny plot of land outside their house, fished when the weather was nice and was the finest shot Sylvia had ever encountered. She was a fabulous cook, but mostly of sweet things, and was currently sporting a denture after losing most of her teeth to that notorious sweet tooth. Sylvia’s grandmother was her favorite person in the world, but they had never spoken about why her mother had left because she was too afraid of the answer. They had never spoken about the strange rumors about their family and why some families wouldn’t let their kids play with Sylvia. There was a lot that had gone unexplained and unasked. Most of Sylvia had hope it would always stay that way. She didn’t believe a whole lot could be helped by too much explanation or pondering, that it was best to focus on the present, but it made her feel rootless and lost. Even between herself and her twin sister, they didn’t have the strange unity that so many twins seem to have. No secret language or secret games, Sylvia preferred to keep her distance even from the people she loved.

She picked up the heavy plastic receiver, which was highly out of date for the rest of the apartment but it’s cool solidity felt nostalgic and familiar so Sylvia kept it. It

‘Hello? Grandma?’

‘Sylvia!’ her grandmother’s voice was rattled but excited. She was old now, and certainly constantly worried not just for Sylvia but also for her sister and her mother. There were a lot of lost girls in the family. They exchanged small talk over the phone, her grandmother sounding worried about how much she was eating and the lack of heating, Sylvia returning her concern about whether she was safe if her sister wasn’t around so much anymore. Then, Sylvia took a deep breath, knowing what she had called to do

‘Grandma, I’m pregnant.’ She said gravely, trying not to give her grandmother any false impressions that she might be solely excited about the news. Her grandmothers faltering voice made it obvious that she knew exactly why Sylvia was calling.

‘I presume it’s started’ she said ‘Are you scared? Don’t be scared. Your mother was so scared when she had you and your sister’

‘It’s just gotten so beyond what I can pretend to ignore. It seems so random, and I’m so much further along than I should be’

‘That’s good. Otherwise you would have reason to be worried. I can’t pretend I know what to call this Sylvie, I can’t tell you there are vast networks of people like us. In the past we might have been called covens or similar. I can’t give you any sort of vocabulary for what you’re going through’ her grandmother sounded worried, but not so worried as Sylvia felt she should panic. Part of her wanted to cry because she could hear in her grandmother’s voice that she couldn’t face losing anymore of her family.

‘The important thing is to stay calm. Accept each power as it comes to you. Don’t fight it, take it in and then you can learn to utilize it.’

‘I’ll try’

‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. I’m sorry I can’t come out to be with you but you know I can’t handle the city’

It was true. At her age, Sylvia’s grandmother found the city painful to be in.

‘I know, it’s okay. Thank you grandma, I love you’

‘I love you too’

The phone clicked out and Sylvia returned it to the cradle. She sank down against the wall and started to cry, the whole room seeming hiked with energy around her, flickering gently like a candle

***

Michael sat across from Ash, who had his head in his hands. It had been almost two weeks since Sylvia had met Michael in the park and after that it didn’t take long for Michael to realize he had to tell Ash, and sooner rather than later. He had spoken to Sylvia and he had agreed that he would ask Ash about the possibility of taking in the baby when it was born. He was unnerved by Sylvia’s accounts of how fast the pregnancy was progressing. He was worried about what sort of baby he was going to get, if this baby was causing Sylvia’s powers to grow so rapidly, then surely it must be incredibly powerful in and of itself. It was all just so bizarre it seemed like a bad joke, Michael didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he finished telling Ash the entire sorry story. Most of all he was swallowed up with guilt for Ash, who still hadn’t said anything.

‘Please say something Ash. I know this all sounds crazy and I’m so sorry’

‘Yes it fucking does sound crazy to be frank Michael. I don’t know which part of this story I prefer, the bit where she snake charmed you to bed and you were perfectly happy to go along with it, the bit where she’s a fucking witch or something or the part where apparently we’re getting a baby’ he shouted, slamming his hand on the table and then pulling it back through his hair ‘What do you want me to do with this sort of information, Michael, how can you expect me to process this?’

Michael couldn’t think of an explanation. Ash’s tone was harsh and mocking and very unlike the Ash he knew. Even when he was angry he wasn’t sarcastic. The way Ash put it made Michael sound like an asshole, making up this fabulous story to explain why he had cheated. Because at the heart of it that was what had happened. He knew that whatever influence Sylvia had had on him, it certainly hadn’t been great enough to make him go home with her. Michael was in at least some capacity responsible for the situation they found themselves in now. 

‘I just…need some time Michael. I can’t deal with this right now’ Ash said, picking his coat up off the rack.

‘Please don’t go Ash!’

‘I’ll be back in a couple days’ he said, slamming the door behind him.

Now Michael was the one with his head in his hands at the kitchen table, knotted in his curly dark hair, his head swimming with what he had done and what was going to happen. Suddenly his whole life had gone from being completely perfect to a complete mess and from what he could tell it was only going to get worse. He picked up the phone to call Sylvia, who answered on the first ring

‘So how’d it…’

‘You fucking bitch this is all your fault. He’s gone. He’s the love of my life and he’s gone and it’s your fault’

‘I’m sorry Michael, I’m sure he’ll come round. I can help. But this isn’t entirely my fault and we both know that’

Instantly Michael felt even guiltier. He did know that, she was in an equally if not more frightening situation and now she had him shouting down the phone at him. He just hadn’t ever seen any of this coming so quickly. He hadn’t been expecting to go from one night of infidelity to looking at adopting a baby in less than a few months, possibly with no boyfriend. He couldn’t understand why Sylvia couldn’t keep the baby, but she was insistent and the more he pressed the more frustrated she got, meaning more things started to explode or shake around her.

‘Look… I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m an asshole for shouting at you. Just I don’t know what I’m going to do if he leaves. I don’t know how to go on without him, he’s my whole world’

‘Don’t worry about it. This whole situation isn’t ideal for anyone. Look I’ll see if maybe I can talk to Ash, reason with him’

Michael continued to talk, swaying back and forth as to whether that would be a good idea, until eventually they both decided it was time for sleep. Sylvia, in reality, had no idea whether Ash would come back. She could only hope, the same way Michael did. In spite of how cold their relationship had started, Sylvia was starting to grow attached to him, and felt guilty for her part in the entire situation they found themselves in. Still, later that night, she dreamt of the intense night they had spent together, Michaels strong thighs hitting against her as he held up her legs, she woke up hot and her panties wet through. Michael at the same time, woke from a similar dream, and got up to get himself a shot of whiskey. He simply couldn’t muster up enough guilt to completely extinguish his feelings for her. She was too special.

A few days later, Ash held to his word and returned. He met Michael at a coffee shop and apologized for walking out, saying he instantly wanted to come back the moment he had left (Michael somewhat concerned that Sylvia might have had some impact on this sudden change of heart but not wanting to question it he tried not to think about it too hard). They struggled to make eye contact over their cheap, bitter black coffee. Ash looked exhausted and hungover, Michael not much better. They felt uneasy together, exposed and angry and hurt. They spent a long time sitting together in silence, drawing several disapproving glances from the other customers and the staff who were sick of them occupying a table for so long but neither of them had the courage to suggest they go home.

Eventually Michael suggested that maybe he should meet Sylvia, that they had very little time to decide what to do with the baby and under the circumstances it might be better not to wait. Ash seemed uncomfortable but agreed, Sylvia was holed up in her apartment so they met her there. The taxi ride there was silent, the driver initially tried to make conversation but seeing the looks on their faces very quickly gave up.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to say to her’

‘Look she’s in a very vulnerable position, she doesn’t need any more stress than she is already under’

Ash wanted to respond bitterly, saying that he also didn’t need any more stress than he was already under. He had gone from being a successful guy with a hot artist boyfriend to suddenly being the potential adoptive father of the baby that was the result of his partner’s infidelity. Frankly, he had extremely little patience for how stressed Sylvia was. What he wanted was to scream and shout and break everything she owned. Instead he said nothing, staring forward and gritting his teeth. The taxi was grimy and loud and the radio was blaring terrible top 40 tracks. It was enough to make anyone pissed off, Ash thought, regardless of the circumstances.