BBW ROMANCE: BWWM Romance: A Cowboy’s Southern Comfort (Military Cowboy Pregnancy Romance) (Interracial Army Contemporary Fantasy Romance Short Stories) (39 page)

‘I’m sorry Ash, I’m sorry any of this is happening. You don’t deserve this’

They stepped out of the taxi and headed towards the door of the building, keying in the code she had given Michael and walking along the carpeted hallway and into the shuddering elevator.

Ash’s mouth dropped open when he stepped into the apartment. Sylvia’s blonde hair looked tangled and unwashed and her belly was huge, she looked exhausted and sick. The room itself was freezing and practically empty, there was no sign that she had cooked or eaten anything in days. When he looked closer he could see that the air around her seemed to be moving, meaning she was surrounded by a sort of haze. She looked frantic, like she hadn’t shut her eyes in days. Instantly, he understood Michael’s concern. Regardless of what had happened, this girl was clearly very ill and ultimately the child she was carrying was the son or daughter of the man he loved, despite that he was angry with him at this very moment.

‘You need to come home with us right now’ he said authoritatively. Michael turned in shock, but looking in Ash’s face it was clear that he had made a decision and in keeping with the kind and gentle nature that had initially drawn Michael to him, wanted to take care of her. His statement hadn’t seemed to register on Sylvia at all, who was curled with her knees up and her fingers in her hair on the bed. The sheets were knotted at the end of the bed and as Michael reached out to touch her he almost flinched with how cold she was. It seemed to emanate from her like dry ice. As he moved towards her she started and seemed not to recognize him. She gathered herself up and without looking at anyone followed them out of the room. Moving made her feel sick. Being near them made her feel sick. She felt like she was caving in like a black hole.

She had tried to follow her grandmother’s advice, tried to accept what was happening around her, but it had gotten so big so quickly. She could feel everything, every movement of every person anywhere near her, catch glimpses of their thoughts and input completely new ones. She could manipulate time like it were just a video, running backward or forward or standing still. She had spent hours smashing and unsmashing a glass. Too afraid to leave the house for fear of hurting anyone, she had just stopped eating, stopped moving at all. She thought if she just stayed perfectly still, perfectly grounded, nothing bad could happen. There was no more damage she could cause. There was so much damage she could cause. She saw it over and over again in various permutations of various scenarios that she couldn’t quite distinguish from one another anymore. The drive to Michael’s apartment was a blur and she struggled to sense the boundary between herself and the outside world, feeling how she had at the canal, sensing with acute intensity everything around her. She felt her baby kick and ran her hand gently across her swollen belly, trying to comfort it in some way.

Michael sat in the front seat of the taxi, watching the cars weave in and out of the lanes as Ash sat beside Sylvia, watching her stare intensely at her belly. Michael was worried as to what would happen when they got home and hoped that Ash wouldn’t suddenly decide he had made a terrible decision and send her back home. Similarly, he hoped that Sylvia wasn’t genuinely dangerous and that they weren’t inviting some sort of evil force into their home that had taken root in Sylvia and she couldn’t control. The sun was beginning to set and the road was lit up red by the lights of cars. He could hear sirens in the distance and the whole city felt as if it was roaring directly at him. He closed his eyes to try to make it seem dimmer, but instead it just made it seem louder. He could swear he could even hear the heartbeat of Sylvia’s baby.

***

By the time the taxi had reached Michael and Ash’s apartment complex, Sylvia was asleep. She didn’t wake up for several hours, the exertion of holding her entire apartment in stasis (which she hadn’t quite understood she was doing) had drained her completely. Over the next few days, she quickly regained some of her strength, eating and sleeping more, but rarely speaking. There was still a massive tension in her, lightbulbs kept shorting out if she was too near them which she sincerely promised she would replace.

Ash’s anger towards her was dimming, but he was still unsure of how he felt towards Michael. It was difficult to be forgiving after such a betrayal, and one which had landed them with unusually severe consequences. It was still up in the air who would take the baby and Ash spent much of his time lying awake at night waiting to hear the sounds of Sylvia disappearing in the night. He wasn’t sure if that would be a good or a bad thing. He still felt in shock. None of it seemed real to him, it all seemed like some bizarre dream that he just couldn’t wake up from. He wasn’t sure what he could do for this strange, beautiful girl. He wasn’t sure what she was capable of or what this baby was going to be like or whether he and Michael would be able to get through this.

Ash decided it was time for a walk, he pulled on his jacket and the sky was heavy and purple. It looked like it was about to pour rain but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He could use something normal, even if it was an inconvenience. He was still slightly in shock from what he had seen in Sylvia’s apartment. His concern for Sylvia and her child had overtaken his immediate response of terror. It wasn’t just that several things in the room seemed to hover or that the air seemed to vibrate, it was that the room itself felt dark and dangerous. It felt like the borders between whatever Sylvia was feeling and the outside world had disintegrated. More than that, he was afraid of how drawn he felt to her. She was like some sort of fairy, pale and thin and glowing, her breasts swollen and her legs long and elegant. These weren’t feelings he had ever had for a woman before, he was a strictly gold star gay. Maybe the reason he had so quickly forgiven Michael for his infidelity was because he understood where he was coming from. He didn’t know what to think. He called into the convenience store and picked up some basics. He figured it might be worth picking up some baby things like diapers and formula. In all honesty, he had no idea what you would need for a new-born baby, particularly one which ostensibly had magic powers, but he though Sylvia might appreciate the effort. He left the store laden down in bags, his head buzzing with thoughts, and made his way back to the apartment.

When he got back Sylvia was up and walking around, smelling of rose shower gel and talk, her hair back to its normal glossy platinum.

‘Nice to see you’re in better form!’

She smiled weakly and went back to making toast, her hands shaking ever so slightly

‘Here, let me do that’ Ash said, putting down the plastic bags with a thud ‘I got some stuff for the baby, I didn’t really know what to get but I figured the basics couldn’t go amiss’

‘Thanks, Ash, you’re too kind’ she said, giving way to him as he picked up the knife and bread and flicked on the kettle.

‘I want you to know you can stay here until you feel better. I know things aren’t exactly ideal but I don’t want you to feel awkward’

She smiled again, leaning back against the kitchen counter. There was no doubt about it, she was incredibly beautiful, almost ethereal as the light from outside made her hair seem lit from within. Before he quite knew what he was doing he had reached out towards her face, sweeping a lock of her white blonde hair behind her ear and kissed her gently. Her silk nightdress felt cool and soft against his skin as it skimmed over her bump and she kissed him back, scratching her little fingers through his hair and on the nape of his neck. The kiss made Ash’s whole body feel warm, like they were one together. He pulled her up on the kitchen table and she wrapped her legs around him as he placed soft kisses all down her neck and sucked her nipples gently. Her breasts were round and full on her small frame.  It felt like they were melting into one another, warm and tender. They were on the couch by the time Michael found them, but rather than seem shocked or angry, it was as if he could read their thoughts, already able to feel the silk of Sylvia’s nightdress and Ash’s stubble. Quickly the three of them were entangled, not only their bodies wrapped together but their thoughts and experiences woven together. Michael’s hard, powerful body contrasting sharply against Ash’s boyish figure and Sylvia’s feminine curves, he found himself more and more aroused by the sight of this beautiful woman carrying his child and the lithe, flexible form of the man he loved. Sylvia’s breathy sighs of pleasure mixed with the lower voices of Michael and Ash, the three of them were completely consumed with the almost psychedelic and boundless sensations they felt coursing through them. The buzzing in Sylvia’s skin which had kept her awake and terrified for weeks had subsided, and Michael’s guilt ebbed away very quietly. Exhausted the three of them fell asleep together, and it was late at night before they woke up. None of them were quite sure what they had just gone through, but they knew it hadn’t been just sex. The three of them had shared in some of Sylvia’s consciousness, and her in theirs.

***

The next few days continued on like a sort of dream. They rarely left the house, Sylvia spent most of her time sleeping or whispering to her belly in words neither of the men could ever make out.  What had happened between them that night seemed to have erased any pre-existing tensions. While Michael and Ash reconnected, Sylvia however seemed to draw into herself, barely speaking except when absolutely necessary. She looked drawn and sometimes in pain but refused to admit it. This concerned Michael and Ash but whenever they brought it up to her she brushed it off. There was a sense that she had reached some sort of conclusion about herself, the baby and her powers, and why they had been amplified so much by her pregnancy.

Sylvia herself wouldn’t have characterized it as a conclusion, more a process of understanding. Gradually her powers were becoming more refined, easier to control and lest vulnerable to being shifted dramatically by fear or anger. She could sense that the baby was due soon, but also that once it did, she would have to leave to learn more about her powers, just as her mother had when she and her twin sister were born. Maybe she would try to find her mother, try to become her apprentice. For the first time in her life she felt as if she could understand her mother rather than just feeling bitter and abandoned. She felt her motivations and emotions, her grief at leaving her baby behind, traveling towards her through the years that had passed. She also knew she could trust Ash and Michael to raise her baby well, and that eventually she would come back to them when the time was right. Staying with them would be impossible, she was moving so gently between different spheres of existence, different times and states of being. It would be at best distracting for her in her practice or at worst dangerous for them to be around her while she trained. Her baby on the other hand deserved at least some semblance of a normal upbringing, to be around other children and to go to school and so on. She didn’t want her baby to have the same isolated existence she had, regardless of how much she loved her grandmother. It simply wasn’t an option. So late that night, she gave birth silently to a baby girl who was so tiny and perfect, her eyes blazing ice blue out of her little pink face. She counted ten fingers and ten toes, which seemed delightfully cliché given the circumstances. She cleaned up the baby with a towel and after feeding her she carefully wrapped her up in a soft yellow blanket, placing her in a little wicker Moses basket that Ash had bought the other day in the middle of the living room. She was already asleep by the time Sylvia closed the door behind her, confident that she had made the right decision.

*****

THE END

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His Secret Al
pha Seal
by Patricia Vanzant

Rob paused at the office kitchen counter. White speckled laminate covered in sticky instant coffee under fluorescent lights, it was the sort of backdrop Rob had never imagined himself in. A promising graduate of a business degree some years earlier, Rob had fumbled with post university life moving from job to job without any real career plan. While his equally high powered friends all now ran innovative start-up companies or were working on their latest product launch. Rob now worked as a fraud officer in an insurance company. While he was comparatively well off financially, and had the sleek suits and company car to match, his career hadn’t the creative spark he had once hoped for, and there was a part of him on these rainy March midmornings which envied his college friends whose small projects were now coming into bloom. He stirred his coffee and added a drop of cream and half considered starting on communal box of ‘organic’ snacks that had recently started appearing in the office in lieu of the usual doughnuts and bagels. Robs daze broken by the breathy, high pitched voice behind him.

‘I can’t believe it’s already 10.30, my train broke down and I was stuck between stations for an hour. I’m never going to get out of here before 7 now’

‘Morning Katie, sounds rough!’