Twelve

 

 

We were now back at the Townsend’s ranch. I missed Fin, but I knew that I’d see him again soon, and I did love this ranch and the family that owned it. They were eccentric and their sanity was definitely questionable, but I wouldn’t have them any other way. Well, maybe with less shared bodily functions.

 

One night, not long after we’d gotten back, we’d gone to the local bar, Jilly’s, and Tony had mentioned the new facility he’d seen on television. Apparently, they were claiming that it could help a man experience labor so that he could understand and assist the woman more when she had the baby. Cole had obviously then booked the men into the labor experience center that was closest to where we were. I’m not sure if I’d have said ‘I do’ if they’d done this before we got married. However, it was about to become something that I’d definitely never forget.

 

 

A week later…and about to experience what it feels like to expel a watermelon through the opening of a straw…

 

Pulling up in front of the building, I looked over at Brett and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

 

Grinning at me, he pulled me into his side and kissed the top of my head. “Absolutely. I want to be the best and help as much as I can be when you have the baby.” He sounded so confident, but I was pretty sure that that would be changing soon enough.

 

“I can’t believe that Luke and Ren didn’t look into this shit while Maya and Isla were pregnant,” Cole was saying to Ebru as he got out of his car. “Total slackers.”

 

Everyone, and from that I mean - Ren’s friend Mace, Luke’s brother Adam, Coleman and a couple of his men, Hurst and even Brett’s dad had all come along to watch the show too. The only one missing was Tom as he’d decided to go back to college at the same time as Layla. Apparently, he had a crush on her best friend, Sonya, so he’d been eager to get back. He’d be disappointed that he missed this, but I had a feeling he’d have enough video footage to watch given that each spectator had their phones with them.

 

The room that we were led into inside the building was huge, and then the men were shown to beds that were placed quite far apart with a machine next to each of them. We all stood out of the way watching as the electrode pads were put onto the specific areas of their torsos by the nurse. She was smiling widely at all of us as she prepared them, but then I reckoned her job must be incredibly satisfying as she tortured the men. Brett was now healed from where the bullet had hit him, but the scar was still an angry red mess and I noticed that she made sure to keep the electrode pad away from it and put it in a different location than the others had theirs on that side.

 

Once all of the men were lying out on the beds in just sweat pants, what they were about to do hit me again and I started giggling nervously. it was just bizarre seeing a group of big men all hooked up to the machines and knowing that they were going to be experiencing labor pains. I tried to guess what each man would do the worse the pain got, but they just weren’t predictable men so who could say?

 

“Ten bucks says he shits himself,” Hurst whispered loudly to Ebru. He was a Townsend and for some reason that bodily function was a reappearing feature in so many situations and events so, sadly, the odds were in his favor that he probably would do that.

 

“No way, it’ll be a pee if he does anything,” she whispered back.

 

All around me, bets were being made with what would happen to each one of the guys. After a second’s hesitation, I decided to join in. YOLO and all that!

 

“Ten bucks Cole soils himself,” I whispered to Mace. “Ten Ren passes out. Ten Luke starts crying. Twenty that Brett starts screaming.”

 

“Are y’all betting on us?” Brett snarled from the bed as we passed over our money. I could see he was getting nervous now that he was attached to the machine. It was understandable, but he’d insisted on doing it, so whatever happened was his own fault.

 

Not one of us lied as we all nodded in response. I felt no remorse whatsoever, and obviously neither did any of the others.

 

“Okay, we’re going to start. Are you ready?” The technician asked from her computer over in the corner of the room. The boys answered with confident yes’s and we saw her reach over and start the machine with a click.

 

“This isn’t so bad,” Cole laughed out, the rest of the guys on the table’s joining in and joking with each other. Soon enough, though, the levels and degrees of pain started to increase and I watched as Brett broke into a sweat. Still refusing to admit that it hurt in any way shape or form, they all laughed it off even though the chords in their necks were standing out.

 

“You okay, Brett?” I asked as another drop of sweat dripped off his face and onto his chest, just as his torso tightened with another contraction. He didn’t speak, just nodded as he panted slightly through it.

 

“Is this the last one?” Ren asked, sounding a bit breathless, as another pulse had all of their stomachs tightening visibly.

 

“Shit, this looks like torture,” Mace muttered from behind me, earning himself a glare from Maya and Isla who had already gone through the hell of childbirth, but making me and Ebru look at each other nervously. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. Seeing it happening in front of us was making what we were about to go through in a few short months incredibly real. Ignorance was bliss, and ignorance to this really would have been much better.

 

A whimpering Cole got up off his bed and wheeled his machine in the direction of where Ren was now sitting upright and holding his stomach as he panted. Half way there, there was another click and Cole fell to his knees letting out a tiny little squeak.

 

Looking over at Brett, I saw that he’d also sat up and was making little noises now with each contraction, which were coming closer and closer together. The sounds reminded me of a calf I’d seen once shortly after it had been born. It had been lying on the straw making squeaking honks as the mother licked it and for some reason that’s all I could picture as he continued to honk out.

 

“No, we have another nine to go,” the technician informed them in a cheery voice, answering Ren’s earlier question. The part of me that was going to go through this in five months was delighted with this news. The part of me that hated seeing her husband in pain though, winced.

 

“He’s gonna shit, you wait and see,” Hurst chuckled as he recorded it all and zoomed in on Cole.

 

The current went up again and all of a sudden, the men started screaming. That was when the pregnant woman who was going to face all of this won over the sympathetic wife, and I burst out laughing. It got harder to breathe the harder I laughed as the screams and analogies started pouring out of them.

 

“It’s in my ass hole,” Ren shouted as he held his hand between his legs. I heard Maya howling from where she was standing, obviously enjoying every second of his torture.

 

“It’s coming out of my dick!” My husband howled as tried to get off his bed. Through the tears that were streaming down my face, it looked like he was humping the air at the same time. I’d have to watch it back on one of the videos to see what I’d missed.

 

“Oh, Jesus Herbert Christ, I can’t take this. It feels like it’s the size of a fucking Buick,” Cole whimpered as he knelt on the floor.

 

Luke was the only one who had managed to stay on his bed, but he was rolling around making animal sounding noises as Isla cheered on from the sidelines. When the next increase happened though, he rolled too much to one side and hit the floor. I expected Isla to go and help him, but instead she zoomed in on the screen of her phone, not bothering to wipe away the tears of laughter running down her face as she recorded every second.

 

After the next increases, the men broke.

 

“Please! I’ll buy you whatever you want,” Luke screamed at the technician who looked over at us to see if she should stop.

 

Isla shook her head as she continued to record. “Just remember, baby, I went through this twice in one sitting.” Luke just gaped back at her before there was another click and he launched himself up and back over the bed with his backside in the air.

 

“Oh, fuck me. I think I just felt my dick snap,” my husband yelled as he grabbed his crotch and squealed. I was now struggling to breathe and stand at the same time because I was laughing that hard, and I was pretty certain that there was snot now involved in the mess on my face, but I couldn’t find the strength in me to deal with it. I had the peace of mind knowing that nothing could be more humiliating than what was happening in front of me, so I was fine with my choices and limitations at that moment.

 

“I need the toilet,” Ren panted as Cole moved across the floor on his backside. Hurst’s analogy that he was like a dog trying to get a piece of shit off his ass wasn’t far from what had crossed my mind the second that he’d started doing it. All that was missing was a tail!

 

This continued on, and by the time that the highest setting was hit, the group were screaming so loudly it’s a miracle that the Police hadn’t turned up.

 

“I’ll never look at you the same way again,” Luke screamed at Isla who gave him the middle finger in return.

 

Ren was still yelling about shitting himself as Maya walked over to him and recorded him closer up, not wanting to miss anything. Cole was now standing near him and doing a funny dance as he hooted with the pain. It was truly bizarre to watch, especially when you were laughing as hard as we were.

 

At that moment, Brett threw his legs off the bed and started doing what Ebru gasped out was called twerking. He was bent over and his bum was moving back and forth at such a quick pace that it was a wonder he could still stand.

 

“He’s twerking,” Mace howled. “He’s fuckin’ twerking!”

 

“Interesting,” Tony murmured from over my right shoulder. He’d been recording the whole thing for his boyfriend who couldn’t join us today, but now that I knew he was there, I allowed my legs to give out and leaned against him as I laughed.

 

“Turn it off!” Cole suddenly screamed.

 

“He’s gonna shit,” Hurst crowed and pumped his fist in the air.

 

The technician flipped the switch and all of them tried running toward the room with the toilet sign on it at the same time, until the lady yelled that there were other toilets and pointed in the direction that they should go in.

 

There was a surge of panicking men, and Cole got yanked back by the wires that he’d forgotten to take off in his haste. Thankfully, they all made it to where they needed to be before they lost control.

 

By the end of it, I’d made forty dollars - not bad for a day of humiliation.

 

Brett

 

I’d thought that getting shot was the most painful experience of my life, but that paled in comparison to the pains in my abdomen after going through labor.

 

When we’d gotten home last night, I’d gone straight into the shower to wash the sweat, and everything else, off me. We’d all come to an agreement that none of us, not one, would ever discuss what happened in those restrooms after the machine was switched off. No one wanted to relive any of it ever again.

 

After about an hour of standing under the hot water, Sabine had come to find me and had managed to get me out of there with the promise of Tylenol and Motrin. Yeah, I’d fucking needed painkillers, I hadn’t even been able to drive us home. I also hadn’t missed the fact that Coleman couldn’t look me in the eye without laughing, either. The big fat shit! When it came to his time going through all of this shit, I was going to make him suffer.

 

Now, it was the morning after and every breath hurt the muscles that had been abused. Sabine had gone out with Maya and Ebru this morning for breakfast which had allowed me peace and quiet to die with a modicum of dignity.

 

As with every plan though, it was ruined by my family. This morning, it was Ren and Cole who didn’t even knock on the door, they just walked into my home. Actually, no, walked isn’t the right way to describe the hunched over turtle like movements that they were making as they shuffled their feet along the wooden flooring.

 

“We were gonna go to Mom’s, but it was taking for-fucking-ever,” Cole groaned as he tried to sit down. “So, we came here.”

 

I knew sitting down was agony, so I just lay on the couch and waited until he figured it out. I was still pissed at the guy for booking us into that torture chamber - otherwise I’d tell him that if he used the back of the couch to lean on, then lifted his knees onto the cushions, he could collapse backwards and it was less painful. Let the shit face figure it out himself.

 

After a couple minutes of him squealing and trying to sit down normally, he crawled over the back of the couch and fell face down sounding like a heifer in labor the whole way. Ren had long since figured out how to get onto the couch and was lying out watching the show playing on the television with me.

 

“You should do it – he said. It’ll help you connect more with Sabine – he said,” I growled suddenly. “What he didn’t say was that my guts would come out of my dick and my brain out of my ass hole.” The last time came out as a shout and ended on another groan as I tensed the muscles in my poor abused stomach. “I swear that this hurts more than when I got shot,” I gasped. I mean, had the bullet not been enough?

 

"I didn't fucking know," he snapped back. "I've never had a fucking baby before. How was I meant to know it hurt that much? In fact,” he tried to sit up, but couldn’t do it with the pain and fell back down. “I think that the technician chick did it on purpose. She looked mighty trigger happy to me!”

 

“You fuckin’ idiot,” Ren grit out through his teeth. His jaw was clenched to tightly that I was surprised the muscle didn’t snap under the pressure. “Were you not there when my wife had Crystal? Were you not there when Isla had the evil spawns of Hell? Of course, it fucking hurts!” He yelled.

 

A chorus of groans filled the room as Cole and I jumped and pulled the muscles in our stomach’s as Ren whined when his own pulled from yelling. It was justified, but fuck me did they have to do all of this today?

 

“My poor wife’s vagina,” Cole muttered once the whining and groaning had died back down. I was with him on that one, I had no idea how Sabine was going to go through all of that.

 

“Brett, have you got any pain pills?” Ren groaned out. I did, but they were upstairs.

 

Reaching over for my phone, which I’d kept within reach once I’d made it down onto the cushions of the couch, I rang the one person who I knew would help. Putting my phone on speakerphone, I placed it on my abused stomach and waited for her to pick up.

 

“Mom,” I made sure to let her hear the pain I was in the second that she picked up her phone. “I need you!”

 

With no questions asked, she agreed to come over and hung up. That was the perks of being her favorite kid.

“What about me?” Cole whined. He had an adverse reaction to most medications, they made him into an even bigger mouth breather than he was normally, so he was banned.

 

“Tough shit!” Ren snapped.

 

“Fucking sucks to be you, you big pussy,” I sneered. It was his fault, after all, that we were in this situation.

 

We lay there for a couple of minutes while Cole sulked, until the most amazing woman in the world came through my front door.

 

“Where are the painkillers?” She asked, only just stopping on her way through the house. Pointing upstairs and knowing she’d understand, she carried on, only stopping to throw a bottle at Cole. “There you go, Sweetie.”

 

Peeking open an eye to see what she’d given him, I watched as he held up a bottle of kids Tylenol.

 

“Is it grape?” He had the audacity to ask in a sulky tone.

 

“Yes. And I brought the bubblegum flavored Ibuprofen in case you needed something on top of it.”

 

“How many can I take?” He asked as he opened the top of the bottle and started tapping them out onto his stomach.

“Fucking take all of them,” I snapped. He was holding her back from getting the painkillers that Ren and I were going to die without. Fortunately, Mom hadn’t hung around after throwing them at him and was already almost at the top of the stairs and closer to the miracles of medication that I needed.

 

Once I was pain free and able to move, I was going to shove that bottle so far up his ass that it would take one incredibly skilled surgeon and a whole hospital of nurses that knew what the fuck they were doing to remove it from his colon. Ren could hold him down for me.