The Big "O": A Romantic Comedy (27 page)

Finally, the puppets disappeared and Max, Emily and Craig took a seat as the music ended. The poster for Emily and Max's book,
Ka-Ching
!
Manage your Money and go Toe to Toe with Modern Day Loan Sharks (to Prevent Credit Card Companies from Sucking your $ and your Soul!)
was displayed behind them.

“Please welcome best-selling authors, and husband and wife team, Max and Emily Roman,” said Craig Ferguson to the audience.

The audience applauded.

“Welcome to the show. I love that your book is Maxinating that creepy sexpert hottie's orgasm book,” Craig said.

“Thanks, we're committed to helping as many people as possible and so incredibly happy we've moved up the New York Times best seller list,” Emily replied.

“Me too, because my wife and I read your book and it turns out it's going to save our marriage…” Ferguson said and grinned hugely.

“How so?” Max asked.

“We made a deal. When she can balance her checkbook and stop blowing out her budget, I'll learn to give her that 16-minute orgasm, followed by another one,” Ferguson said.

“We're happy we can help 'cause it's like the song implies, most of us need to be money conscious, because we're all working hard for the money, not getting money for nothing…” Max said.

“...And we're not getting our chicks for free,” Ferguson added.

“Speaking of free, gotta plug my fab frock by a new designer and close friend. What do you think of my ensemble? It’s by Isis Jones, LA’s hottest new boutique couture designer,” Emily said.

“It’s fabulous,” Ferguson said and mock-squealed with girly joy.

In Max’s and Emily’s back yard, the guys and girls hung out. They all sat around the patio dining table. Max Jr. was asleep in his playpen.

“Saw you on Ferguson, man. Ku-fucking-does,” Victor said to Max.

Isis squealed happily. Max and Emily smiled hugely.

“Who? What?” Edwin asked, getting that there was subtext in Victor’s words.

“Who and what is our man and his Mrs. beat the fucking "Multi-Orgasmic Woman, Oh-Wow." We'll see your purported multiple orgasms and raise you a debt-free life, bee-yatch,” Victor said.

“Victor,” Juliette said and mock frowned at her husband.

“Sorry,” he said to Juliette. They had agreed to baby-proof their conversations and life, as well as strive to be kinder, more positive people, and gently remind each other when one of them forgot.

“You're number one on the NYT non-fiction best sellers list?” Edwin asked. He’d seen the show, and knew that they were moving up the list, but he didn’t know for certain where they were on the list.

“We're not number one, but we're on top of the multi-orgasmic woman,” Max admitted.

“Well done!” Edwin said.

“Bravo!” Isis said, then added, “and thanks again for the shout out, Emily, you wouldn’t believe how many clients have mentioned it to me.”

“Of, course,” Emily said and she and Isis exchanged a smile, “you won’t believe how many of my clients have been obsessed with learning who my vintage couture designer is.”

Isis laughed and didn’t see Edwin fumbling with a tiny box.

“We all knew you'd do it!” Juliette said then turned to Isis, “and I loved your design, it was professional, yet hip. Maybe I should have let you design my thesis defense outfit.” Isis laughed.

“You looked hot in that dress,” Juliette said to Emily.

“You did,” Emily added.

“What do you guys think about IJ for the label logo? I’m finally ready to commit to something. I thought I’d use my monogram,” Isis said.

“I don't like it,” Edwin said and Isis turned to look at him.

Victor and Max tried to keep their expressions serious as Juliette and Emily glared at them. It was next to impossible for them not to burst out laughing, as Edwin was obviously about to propose and, for once in her life, Isis was oblivious.

“You don't?” Isis asked, truly perplexed.

She would have figured that, out of everyone there, Edwin would go for something simple and classic like her initials. Victor, she expected, would probably suggest some curious image or icon, maybe with letters, maybe without.

She figured that Emily and Max would believe that her name was the only way to go, when it came to self-branding.

She wasn’t sure that Juliette would have an opinion on the topic.

Edwin seemed to have dropped something and Isis watched him fumble for it and tried to figure out why he didn’t like her idea about using her monogram as her logo.

“But why?” Isis finally asked Edwin when he didn’t respond to her earlier words. He kept trying to pick something up off the ground but couldn’t quite reach it.

Isis felt exasperated with him. He was arguing with her, about something that had to be fairly trivial to him, and he wasn’t even looking at her.

“I think you should use IJ instead,” Edwin said firmly.

Isis didn’t get it. What did he mean?

“Like I said, IJ… for Isis Jones,” Isis said more loudly, wondering if Edwin’s hearing was going, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t heard her.

Edwin squatted down, as if to pick up what he dropped.

“What about IJ for Isis Jamison…” Edwin said and dropped to one knee. He opened the box that he had finally picked up, “…If you would do me the honor?”

Emily, Max, Juliette and Vic watched as Edwin took a huge ring from the formerly elusive box and held it out to Isis.

She stared in shock. Oh, my God, she could hardly believe it, after all this time, when she least expected it, Edwin had proposed.

Emily finally nudged Isis and she realized that everyone was silent, waiting for her to respond.

“Oui,” Isis finally replied.

She extended her hand to Edwin, and noticed how handsome he was, his face so sweet and earnest and her love for him burned like a flame in her soul.

Isis was shocked and elated as Edwin slid the ring onto her finger.

“You… you're right as usual,” Isis added, “IJ est supérieur à IJ.”

Edwin laughed and passionately kissed Isis, as their friends cheered, hugged, and congratulated, them.

Victor slapped Edwin on the back.

“Good man!” Victor said.

“Congratulations!” Juliette said.

“We love you both so much!” Emily added.

“It's about time,” Max added and everyone laughed.

Edwin got up and slid back into his seat. Isis jumped onto Edwin's lap and showed off her ring.

“What do you think?” Isis asked the girls

“Like a famous Jane once said, it looks like it oughta have a highball around it."

Isis admired her shining, beautiful rock.

“Well, I agree with Marilyn, ‘it can never be too big,’ she said happily.

Juliette laughed and withheld comment.

Max got Emily’s attention and then nodded to her. She smiled and he got up and entered the house. He was back in a jiffy.

“Max has a surprise, everybody,” Emily said as Max returned.

“Two surprises,” Max said and held out an adorable puppy.

Everybody "Oohed" and "Aahed” as Emily explained that they’d gotten a Bichon Frisé because they were very intelligent, hypoallergenic, and a good family dog choice.

“It's so cute,” Juliette said.

“What's the other surprise?” Victor asked.

“We're pregnant,” Max said.

Isis started laughing and couldn’t stop. Juliette jumped up and hugged Emily as Edwin and Victor stood.

There was much back slapping all around, as Edwin and Victor pounded Max on the back and then Max and Victor pounded Edwin on the back in return.

Juliette picked up baby Max, as he was just waking up.

“Congratulations, ma chérie,” Isis said to Emily and hugged her.

Juliette cuddled the toddler.

Somebody's getting a baby brother or sister,” Juliette said to Max Jr.

“Anyone want to help me bring out some food?” Emily asked. The girls all went into the house with little Max.

The guys watched the girls through the sliding glass doors.

Emily looked beautiful, happy, healthy and fit. Isis appeared to be ecstatic, and, quite possibly, a bit in shock. She kept looking at her engagement ring. Juliette glowed.

“So, Vic obviously gave her the Big “O,” man,” Edwin said to Max.

“No, better… it was the "Big One,” Victor said.

“What's the Big One?" Edwin asked.

“The Big One is the Big “O” on steroids, fuckin' Mt. Vesuvius,” Victor replied.

“Sex so good the eruption petrifies?” Max asked and laughed. Victor punched Max in the arm. Max winced.

“No, fucker. Explosive and intimate... life-changing,” Victor said.

Edwin and Max then pounded Victor on the back and high-fived him, repeatedly.

“What?” Emily asked, as the girls returned carrying picnic food.

The guys just laughed and didn’t say a word.

Emily, Isis and Juliette exchanged a look and rolled their eyes.

I
T WAS ONE OF THOSE rare Southern California days when rain fell. Inside of a hospital birthing room, as drops of rain slid down the glass of the windows, Edwin supported his very pregnant screaming wife Isis in childbirth.

“You got this, honey. Breathe,” Edwin said and gently massaged his wife’s shoulders.

Isis screamed loudly.

“Baby, I love you,” Edwin said.

Isis screamed and cried out in agony, almost as if in response.

A doctor and two nurses huddled over her; her feet were up in stirrups.

“On more push, mama, he’s almost there,” the obstetrician said.

With a grunt and a groan, and a scream of relief, Isis pushed and breathed her way through the pain.

“It’s a boy, it’s a boy,” the doc said and the nurses sprang into action as the baby slid all of the way out and the doctor delivered a squalling baby boy.

“You got this, honey. Breathe,” Edwin said to Isis.

He stared at his wife. It frightened him a little. Her strength. Her majesty.

He knew, watching her give birth, that if reproducing were dependent upon his ability to give birth… they would have remained childless.

There was no way he could suffer like that. It was a miracle. A little person had slid out of his wife. His wife had grown a new person, a being that they’d made together.

Edwin felt alternately numb, terrified, and ecstatic by what was happening.

Isis was damp with sweat and groaned with pain and emotion.

Edwin was just beginning to wonder what the doctor was doing, hovering so long, so silently, nurses by her side, down near his wife’s nether regions.

Then the physician shifted, turned and faced Isis and Edwin, holding a tiny infant.

“It's a boy!” the obstetrician said as she handed the tiny child, covered with birth matter, to one of the nurses. With the infant, both nurses left the room.

Edwin felt an intense wave of concern as the physician turned back to his wife and began to palpate her abdomen. What was taking so long? Was something wrong?

Perhaps the placenta hadn’t expelled properly.

Edwin's heart and head began to pound. A nurse had taken his son away before he got much of a look at him, apparently to clean and measure and weigh the child.

Edwin felt his heart in his mouth as the doctor called a nurse.

“Surprise, surprise, folks. Looks like we've got a second act,” the doctor said as she felt Isis’ belly.

“What?” Isis said to Edwin and he shook his head.

He wasn’t sure what the doc meant. Isis moaned as she felt another contraction.

Edwin wondered if this was normal. Did women still feel contractions, once the baby was out? He supposed they must, until their body had expelled the placenta and such.

“Another big push, you can do it,” the doctor said to Isis.

“Come on baby,” Edwin said to his beautiful yet exhausted wife, “one more push.” He figured maybe it was the afterbirth.

Oh, God, he prayed that Isis wouldn’t get some kind of mass infection. It was a terrible thought.

Isis moaned and started screaming again.

“Honey, what is it?” Isis said with a little scream, not understanding, “I'm pushing and pushing, mon Dieu!”

Edwin could hardly stand to hear her scream like that but he hadn’t said more than a few words to any of the medical professionals. He preferred to let them, the experts, do their jobs without interference.

“It’s okay, darling,” he said to Isis and wiped her brown forehead with a damp cloth. He grabbed her hand and she squeezed it hard as she cried out again.

Then, to Edwin’s shock a second baby sort of popped and slid out of Isis and the doctor grabbed it.

The first baby had come out so fast, and Edwin had been focused upon Isis, that he hadn’t gotten much of a look at it.

Isis was seriously out of it. The pain appeared to put her into a deep altered state of consciousness. So this time, he held her hand and stared at the child.

Covered with vernix and blood, their child was a beautiful, precious alien thing and Edwin literally felt his heart melt.

He felt woozy with emotion, like he might pass out, and he saw everything in the room with incredible clarity.

A nurse came running, followed by a second, as the doctor held up the baby.

The baby squalled just a bit.

“And… it's another boy!” the obstetrician said and laughed.

The nurses said a few unintelligible words and Edwin tried to process that he was now the father of twin boys. He gripped Isis’ hand tighter and kissed her.

“Honey, darling, Isis,” he said, “I love you. You’re amazing, just amazing.”

He knew that she couldn’t hear him.

She was obviously so focused upon her body that she hardly noticed him. He stared at her, fairly mesmerized, by this incredible woman. How had his mother done this? How did any woman do this?

He looked up in time to see the second baby being taken from the room. As he passed, the nurse spoke quietly to him.

“When they’re cleaned up, we’ll bring you all back together.”

Edwin nodded and wiped Isis’ brow again. He looked over at the doctor.

It was all taking so much longer than he had thought that it would.

Maybe now Isis would expel the afterbirth and they would be nearly done. The tension of the moment was getting to him.

“Doctor, is everything okay?” he finally blurted out.

The obstetrician ignored him and continued feeling the inside of Isis’ womb and palpating his wife's belly. Finally, to Edwin’s great relief, she spoke.

“Surprise, surprise, folks. Don't go anywhere just yet,” the doctor said.

“One more big push, mama, you can do it,” she said to Isis.

It was miraculous, Isis was somehow still in the place where she was solely focused on her body, her pain, and giving birth. She panted and pushed.

“Edwin! Is something wrong?” Isis whispered, her eyes darting back and forth. He knew that what she meant was, why wasn’t this over?

She screamed even louder with another contraction.

“Are you sure?” Edwin asked the doctor. He couldn’t believe that she was so calm.

He stroked Isis’ brow and glared at the physician. How much more could his wife take? He felt more anxiety than he’d ever felt in his life.

“I've been doing this for a little while. This is your wife, she just pushed out two infants and her uterus isn't empty… trust me on this,” the physician stated drily, then called for another nurse.

Machines beeped, Isis made noises and reality slipped sideways for Edwin. Everything became surreal and numb didn’t begin to cover his emotional state as Isis screamed, grunted and pushed until a third baby, number three, slid out and the doctor handed it off to a waiting nurse.

Edwin glanced at the baby, it appeared to be smaller than the other two. Edwin thought that he might pass out right then and there when the gynecologist spoke, palpated his wife's abdomen, and checked her uterus and womb again.

“Wait for it, wait for it… is it a quartet?” the physician asked as she slid her gloved hand inside of Isis. It seemed to take forever for the doctor to check.

Isis let go of his hand and Edwin took a couple of steps toward the doc. His wife’s face was a mask of strength but Edwin knew that she had to be exhausted. He held his breath and waited for the doctor to speak.

“No, it's merely a trio… of boys,” the obstetrician said to Edwin as machines beeped and nurses and other staff ran back and forth and began the clean up.

“You're done, honey. Good work,” the doctor said to Isis.

Isis' face glowed and tears streamed down both cheeks as Edwin stepped back toward the front of the hospital bed and took her in his arms.

She appeared to becoming back from wherever she had gone; the place of strength that allowed her to give birth. Edwin wiped her brow.

Isis didn't seem like she'd understood what had happened.

“I want to see my baby, where is it?” she asked.

“Which one?” the obstetrician said and grinned at her.

Isis wrinkled her forehead in confusion.

It had been a terribly long 36 hours. She felt dizzy and disoriented and very much confused about the sequence of recent past events and what was happening now.

Quite out of it, she turned to Edwin.

“What's she talking about, honey?” Isis asked and began to cry. She had never felt so tired and strange and in pain in her entire life.

Before Edwin could answer, the delivery room doors swung open as three nurses brought three clean and swaddled, apparently all tested, measured, and weighed, tiny little baby boys into the room.

Another nurse was efficiently cleaning Isis up. He removed all of the bloody bedding and disinfected everything and was gone in a flash.

“We... we had multiples,” Edwin said softly to Isis.

She stared at him uncomprehendingly and even shook her head a little. She felt grumpy and exhausted; she really needed a nap but first she'd hold her child.

“I love you so much, darling,” Edwin said and a tear slid down his cheek as the nurses brought the three sleeping babies, their eyes tightly shut, to Isis and Edwin.

Isis looked from one baby to another and up at Edwin.

He grinned and then wasn't entirely surprised when she passed right out.

Inside of Victor & Juliette's kitchen, late at night, Juliette rummaged in the fridge. Vic entered, rubbing his eyes. Terribly sleepy, he hugged his wife.

“What are you doing up? Can't sleep from the exciting news?” Victor asked.

Juliette snuggled into him.

“I'd love some pickles and ice cream… can’t think why we don’t have that combination in the fridge,” she said and grinned.

Victor stared at Juliette. Was she shitting him? Was she for real? Did this mean what he thought it did?

“For real?” Victor asked.

“I’m thinking kosher dill spears and a giant container of Cherry Garcia,” Juliette said happily.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Victor said, entirely stunned.

“I couldn't sleep, thinking about Edwin and Isis and how surprised they must be. Then I thought about my period or lack thereof,” Juliette admitted.

“But without a test… you can't be a hundred percent, can you?” Victor asked, worried. He felt confused. They hadn’t really been trying all that long. Could it actually happen that fast?

“I've missed two periods and I feel like I could eat our fridge,” Juliette said, “And, haven’t you noticed, but I finally am getting real boobs.”

Juliette motioned to her chest. Victor reached out and gently felt one boob. It was true, her tatas were swelling.

“It's safe to deduce… I'm preggers,” Juliette said and laughed.

Victor held her tight, happier than he'd been in ages, except for when he’d figured out how to give his wife the Big “O.”

Nine months later...

Inside of the university psychology lab, in a study room, Edwin, Max, Victor, and their wives, observed their children through the glass.

They watched baby Max, who was now four, his one-year old baby sister Cherie, and Isis and Edwin’s crawling triplets, playing together.

Juliette, seriously pregnant, kept close watch on the children.

“Saw the list man. Ku-fucking-does,” Victor said to Max.

Edwin and Isis turned to look at Emily and Max.

“Your new book's number one on the NYT non fiction best sellers list?” Edwin asked, happily surprised.

“Yup!” Max said.

“Second week,” Emily said proudly.

“Well done!” Edwin said, deeply impressed.

“We knew you'd do it!” Juliette said and it was clear that she meant it.

“Bravo!” Isis said overjoyed for Emily and Max.

“Not to distract from celebrating you guys, but look at the kiddos,” Victor said, obviously incredulous.

Max, Emily, Juliette, Isis and Edwin turned to look at the children, who were entirely engaged in their creative endeavor. Isis started laughing.

“Oh, my,” Emily said, feeling more than a little overwhelmed, nervous, and, perhaps, for the first time, understanding exactly how freaked out Max had been by the baby genius situation.

The toddlers, led by baby Max, were constructing some kind of .

Little Max and the other kids were obviously off the charts in terms of intelligence, creative and other expression. What would the future hold for all of them? Emily wondered.

The parents reacted to the structure the kids were building with shock, excitement, and a bit of absolute wonder. It was so incredible that, for the longest moment, the parents merely stared.

“Jeez, that is freaking amazing,” Victor said, “Maybe they'll be a group of international architects?”

“Or conceptualize an international political structure to create world peace,” Max replied.

“Or solve the world's hunger problems,” Isis said happily and wiped away a tear. She still couldn’t get over how much she loved her boys. Their boys had Edwin’s bone structure, her eyes and hair, and a mixture of their coloring.

“Or something better... something we can't even fathom,” Emily added speculatively. It was astonishing, to think that these children might create something unfathomable.

“Something we might not understand but that we'll support them in,” Edwin said and pulled Isis tightly against his body. She looked up at him and smiled happily.

“Hey baby, your pals are waiting,” Juliette whispered to her large belly. Victor embraced and kissed his very pregnant wife.

###

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