Epilogue

Stuart

I'm almost afraid to ask her if she's ready yet. Rose and I have been married for almost a year now, and it has been heavenly. But the past few weeks, something changed. She became so moody and sensitive. We're tumbling into fights that I didn't even foresee being a thing, and now I'm actually scared—in my own home—to open the bathroom door.

I hear a clatter on the sink and hear Rose's voice utter a low curse. I know when she swears that she's either very angry or very horny... and I'm not sure she's going to be horny this early in the morning but I'm leaving on business tomorrow and she insisted on going out for the day. "Since you're about to leave me all alone for almost three weeks," she sniffed.

Now I tap at the bathroom door, hesitate, and wonder, "Everything all right in there?"

"Everything is fine!" Rose bellows, sounding completely unlike herself.

I twist the doorknob and open the bathroom door. Her makeup looks a little off, like she's been applying it while also being upset, and her complexion is blanched.

"What?" she snaps.

"We're going to be late for our brunch reservation if we don't leave now," I inform her, keeping a measured tone. A smart man does not want to set his wife off, and I'm a genius.

"I'm almost finished," she mutters, letting her tube of lipstick clatter and fall into the sink again, betraying how little she truly wants to go to this brunch now that it's upon us. "I just... I..."

I think she might cry when she suddenly lunges for the toilet and heaves up her light breakfast.

I go to her, and even though things between us have felt strained lately, I easily pull her hair back for her and gently stroke her neck and her back. She's a good woman and she deserves my help, even when she's being a little moody.

But this is odd. She already skipped out on all the sausage and bacon and eggs. "I don't know, in the trash," she said when the chef asked her how she wanted her eggs. "I can't stand the smell right now."

"I think I'm done," she says, shakily clambering up from the porcelain tiled bathroom floor. I stand with her and pass her a warm, damp cloth to wipe her mouth and face with. She groans, pressing her face deep into the terry cloth. "There's something I need to tell you, baby. I was trying to wait for the perfect opportunity but... I'm such a mess, I don't think anything will be perfect until after this baby is out of my damn body."

"What?" The words come catapulting out of my mouth. "You're pregnant?"

"I think so," she says. "I missed my period this month."

I sweep her up into my arms and squeeze her tight, until she groans with nausea and I immediately loosen my hold.

"I'm sorry I've been so, you know," she grumbles against my shoulder.

"Oh, baby," I say, pressing a kiss hard onto her forehead. I don't think I've ever loved her more than I do right now but then again, I think that all the time. And I'm always wrong. "You've been perfect. Don't worry yourself." I kiss down her cheek and down her neck, cradling her delicate body against my own, fascinated with the image of our child, nestled inside her womb right now. "Let's cancel brunch and get back in bed. I want to rub your feet."

*

The next eight months pass in a blur. I thought they would move too slowly and I'd be more prepared for the birth of our son but all the appointments and the classes and setting up the nursery—not to mention my usual business plans—unravel our preparation time and leave us sitting just a couple weeks away from her due date, still not even sure what to name him.

The bathroom door opens and steam from a hot bath comes rolling out. Rose enters the room, still dressed in her classic filmy white negligee, no panties, no bra... but she looks completely different now. She no longer seems so young. She's huge, first of all, which she hates to be told... but it's true. She's huge, and she has a new strength in her every gesture that she didn't have before. You can tell that being a mother changed her before our son has even been born.

"Hey, Rose," I say, watching her cross the room. I'm already in bed. I'll be in meetings all day tomorrow, which I hate, but it needs to be done. I'll have an acting director in my stead for a few months after our son is born but right now, I'm still tying up all the loose ends. "You look beautiful, darling."

"Oh, shut up," she says but she does offer me a grin to let me know that my compliment did worm its way into her heart.

"Why don't you come over here and cuddle with me?" I invite, even as she settles down at her vanity to apply a barrage of midnight creams to her face. She's only twenty-three, and already, this is where we are. I think motherhood freaks some women out. They suddenly think they're fifty. She's not fifty; I'm the one who's hedging in on fifty. In eight years but still.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Rose wonders. "Am I ever going to get too big to be fuckable?"

"Do you want to be unfuckable?" I retort.

Rose pauses in the middle of dabbing on her eye cream and then shakes her head. "No, I guess not. I just feel so unattractive. I feel like a fucking planet, baby."

"You're the planet our son is living on," I tell her, stretching out a hand and beckoning her toward the mattress. "Come to me. You look beautiful and I want to be with you right now."

Rose purses her lips and stands, obviously self-conscious as she semi-waddles toward the bed. It's adorable!

Not to mention those swollen breasts... the thickness of her thighs...

"Come here," I growl, gripping her hand when she makes the mistake of sliding it into mine. "You're mine now." I pull her on top of me and hitch her negligee, grabbing her knee and forcing her to straddle my waist. She yelps, as if uncomfortable with this position, but then she settles.

"I don't want to crush you," she says.

"Babe, even totally pregnant, you're like one 150 pounds," I remind her. "It's nothing. Nada. Put your full weight on me."

She places her hands on my chest and I feel her ass pillow like a cushion. My cock straightens itself out and beats insistently between her legs.

"I'm such a cow," she pouts but I shush her and press my finger to her lips.

"Let me do all the work," I say, and slowly grind against her pussy. She might be talking like she doesn't feel comfortable but her wetness says otherwise.

As I thrust against her, feeling the erect ridge of her clit with the tip of my dick, I ask breathlessly if this feels good to her. Her eyes are busy rolling around in her head and she doesn't answer me at first, except to let her head fall back and to lick her lips.

That's one great thing about sex with a pregnant woman. No matter how unattractive she feels, as long as she's not nauseated and she doesn't currently hate you for doing this to her, it's easy to convince her to have a little fun.

"It's so sensitive," Rose whimpers, and I place my thumb firmly against her swollen nub while my other hand straightens my cock and lets him sink into her hole.

The entire world flowers open in pleasure and my head goes back on the pillow, my eyes back in my head. My thumb works on Rose's button and she unleashes quickly and easily over my dick. In preparation for childbirth, Rose started doing Kegel exercises every day, and now her muscles feel like a kung fu grip around my cock.

With my thumb working overtime on her button, she whips her head from side to side and comes hard all over me. I feel her clutch and twist over my dick and waves of tingly heat wash over my body. I can't come, I command myself. Not yet. Make it last. Even though she's so unbearably hot, it's like walking on the sun... I still have to make it last.

Rose rocks back and forth on me and I open my eyes again, taking my now free hand and ripping open her negligee. I have to see her. I have to see her whole body. This is such a magical and fleeting time... I'm not going to miss it like some assholes do. I'm not going to let this slip through my fingers.

Rose's eyes open, cloudy with lust and satisfaction, and she creeps forward on her hands and peers at me with a kinky little smile in the corner of her lip. "How about you?" she pants. A light sheen of sweat develops on her chest. "You feeling good?"

"I love you," I say, because it's so true. I have to say it right now. "I love you, Rose Parsons Goldman."

The smile fades away from her lips and something more somber and tender touches at her eyes. "I love you, too, Stu," she whispers, then blinks hard and jolts upright.

"Are you okay?" I'm a little surprised at the expression on her face, because it was almost one of pain. "I didn't move. I wasn't really moving."

"I just..." She takes a deep breath and unsheaths me. I almost cry out in disappointment as the cold air embraces me. "I just felt something a little... weird."

“Weird how?” I wonder, sitting bolt upright. My heart squeezes immediately. We’ve been anticipating this moment for months now. Is this it? “Weird like funny, or weird like bad?”

“Like a cramp,” Rose answers me shortly. She paces next to the bed and holds her big belly at the bottom. My heart softens at the sight. She could be a picture. I love to see her holding her belly… like she’s already holding our future child in her arms.

I stand and go to her, placing my hands over her belly, too. The baby rolls beneath her skin and my heartbeat kicks up a notch. It’s coming. He’s coming!

“Two weeks early,” Rose says, as if reading my mind. “Maybe it’s just Braxton Hicks.”

But I have a feeling that this is a legit and go for our overnight bag. “I don’t want to risk it. Let’s get to the hospital.”

Rose argues with me down the entire staircase, which I almost want to carry her down, until she cringes downward and water spills all over the marble.

I stare in awe and then wrap my arms around her, heart stampeding out of my chest but… suddenly overcome with a nearly spiritual calm.

“My water broke,” she whispers. And I know she’s scared. She trembles in my embrace.

“We’re doing this together,” I promise her, rocking her back and forth and burying my face against her wild blond hair. “You’ll never be alone again… and we’ll be great parents, baby. We’ll be the best.”

“All your meetings tomorrow,” she says against my chest, and then groans with another contraction.

“Canceled,” I tell her, no hesitation.

“I think his name should be Stuart Goldman Jr.,” Rose says, and I have to laugh. I thread my fingers through hers and press a kiss to her head, guiding her down the stairwell with our overnight bag slung over my other arm. None of this is going according to plan but that’s all right.

“We’ll figure that all out tomorrow,” I say, and we keep moving.