Chapter 9
Sophia had never been happier. She had settled into her job, was getting along great with her co-workers, and was really enjoying going to work each day. Her writing was being well reviewed and she had recently been given a regular column to write about business executives and social events they attended. It was perfect! On her own social front, things could not have been better because she was dating not just one handsome, interesting, wealthy man, but two!
Things went swimmingly for Sophia, Adam and Blake for several months, with Sophia being wined and dined four or five nights a week. All that food and alcohol, however, were taking their toll. Sophia vowed to step up her exercise routines to match her increased calorie intake. She had been going to the gym a couple days in the mornings before work, but when she noticed a little pudge developing on her hips, she started going pretty much every morning.
Sometimes, however, when she had stayed out too late or was suffering from a bit of a hangover from the night before, Sophia missed her morning workout. On one such morning Sophia woke up feeling a bit queezy, which was strange because she hadn't had much to drink the night before. She had, however, been out with Adam and had consumed a tray of oysters, and so attributed her upset stomach to that. She felt better by the afternoon and so made up for her missed exercise by going to a hot yoga class after work.
The next morning, however, Sophia once again work up with a queezy feeling in her stomach but decided to fight through it figuring she would feel better once she got out for a jog. She was normally a very healthy and energetic person, and it was not like her to ever get sick, so after about the third day of nausea, Sophia made an appointment to see her doctor.
She had been seeing Dr. Martinez since her family had settled in New York. He was distantly related to them somehow, which is why they chose him for their medical care after coming to the States. Early in her relationship with Tony, when they first got engaged and began having sex, a good year before they decided to start conceiving, she had gone to him for birth control pills. Many times she had also visited him concerning her troubles conceiving, and he had always assured her that she was fine and that she just had to keep trying.
It was good to see his warm, kindly face again. He was a kind man. “Hello, Mrs. Garcia,” he greeted her.
“Dr. Martinez, Tony and I are getting divorced. It’s Miss Nueva now,” she replied. That felt liberating to say.
He did not seem surprised. Probably the news had already reached him since her mother and Angela both went to him almost weekly for various imagined health conditions they thought they had. He had probably only called her Mrs. Garcia out of politeness. “I am sorry to hear that.”
“It is for the best.”
“Well, what brings you in today?” He pulled out her chart. It was long, covering the past twenty-eight years, from her first baby shots to her most recent fertility tests.
“I have not been feeling well. I had oysters and think I caught some sort of stomach bug, I think. I was wondering if you could see what is going on and maybe prescribe me something to help. I miss feeling normal and I’m tired of being sick.”
Dr. Martinez asked a few more questions and they spent a few minutes going over her symptoms.
“And this is something that Vicks hasn’t cured?” He smiled.
It took Sophia a second to realize he was making a Mexican joke. Mexicans swore by Vicks to cure almost all ailments. “I doubt Vicks can help my stomach, but I suppose I should have tried that. Don’t tell my mother.”
He laughed. “Well, let’s take a look. I’ll do a couple of tests and see if you have the flu or food poisoning and we’ll go from there.” He got up to get his nurse, then paused. “Have you taken a pregnancy test?” he glanced at her awkwardly.
“No,” she responded quickly. Taking a pregnancy test was not something that she ever considered doing anymore. “There is no way I could be pregnant,” she added. She didn’t want Dr. Martinez to think that she was being a whore.
“OK. Well, just to be sure, we can do a pregnancy test.”
“You know that I can’t get pregnant, Dr. Martinez.”
He sighed. “We’ll just test to rule it out. It’s standard protocol.”
She nodded. She would get to endure yet another negative pregnancy test. Great.
The nurse came in and drew her blood. Then Sophia read a magazine as they ran the results. Dr. Martinez reentered the room suddenly and Sophia smiled. He would not look her in the eye as he took a seat.
“So? What is wrong with me?” she prompted.
Dr. Martinez still wouldn’t meet her eyes. She began to panic. Was something seriously wrong? He had never delivered bad news to her before.
“Sophia,” he said, finally looking at her. “I know you are not expecting this. But you tested positive for HcG.”
“What’s that?” She was bewildered. Was that some new disease? Did she contract some type of STD from the Franklin brothers? They were playboys before they met her!
“It is the pregnancy hormone. It means that you are expecting.”
Sophia gaped. Then she laughed. “There must be a mistake.”
He handed her a sheet of paper with the declaration of pregnancy. “There is no mistake.”
“There must be. Maybe you mixed up my blood sample with someone else’s.”
“You are welcome to take a second test or get a second opinion. But I assure you, there has been no mistake. You really are pregnant.”
“Oh my God.” She stared at the proof of pregnancy, just baffled. “This is unbelievable.” Then she looked up at him. He appeared to once again be averting her eyes and he did not seem approving. Clearly he was not interested in knowing who the father might be. And honestly, Sophia had no idea, either. What was perfectly clear, however, was that if somehow she really was pregnant, it would not be Tony’s. It had been over nine months since she had been with him last. So it had to be…
She left the office in a hurry, barely saying good-bye to Dr. Martinez and his secretary. She prayed that they would not disclose anything to her mother or Angela. The first place she ran to was the CVS down the street, where she picked up a First Response. Then she rushed into the restroom and used the test.
Two pink lines appeared.
“This can’t be real,” she muttered. She had to lean against the sink to steady herself as she almost fainted. The world spun around her. Again, she wondered if she was locked in some sort of dream state. This couldn’t be real, right? For years she had tried to conceive and gotten tests with only one line, one line that seemed to mock her. Sometimes she would hold it to the light, hoping to see some faint second line that was hiding from her because the test was too early. But now, that second line was glaring and there was no doubting it. The papers in her purse also screamed the same news: she had a baby forming inside of her womb! And clearly it was a Franklin baby, but whose?
Sophia had a date planned that night with Blake. But she was in no mood for a date. “Emergency meeting,” Sophia texted both brothers as she rode a taxi home. It was rush hour and the taxi was moving with infuriating slowness. “Meet me in my place in an hour,” she sent another text. As she typed, her fingers shook. It was hard to form words properly. Her mind was numb but her text came out jumbled and several times she had to use autocorrect to form her sentences correctly. Even the taxi driver asked her if she was all right, and she had to fake a smile and tell him that she was fine.
“Everything OK?” Blake texted back immediately. Shortly after, Adam texted the same thing.
“I am alnost home. We need to meet ASAP. Its importnt,” she wrote. Her hands were shaking. All of her body was shaking.
Finally, in her penthouse, she craved wine. But that was no longer an option. She paced and bit on the ends of her nice acrylic nails as she waited for the brothers to show up. They both said they were stuck in traffic back from the office as well.
When they finally came in, they both looked concerned. “What’s wrong?” they demanded when they saw what a nervous wreck she was.
Sophia didn't know how to begin. So she suggested the boys both sit down. She poured them each a stiff scotch. After a few moments of rambling and fumbling about what to say, Sophia decided she had better just show them, and cautiously pulled out the positive pregnancy test and the proof of pregnancy letter. She could feel how pale her face was, and she expected each of their faces would soon look the same.
“What?!” Adam cried. Then Blake sat down, rubbing his thighs.
“I thought you said you couldn’t get pregnant,” Adam went on.
“I really thought I couldn’t.” She gestured toward the paper. “I was feeling nauseous, so I went to see my Doctor. The blood test came back positive. At first I really thought it was some mistake. So I went to the CVS and bought another test. The First Response was positive, too."
“What?” both brothers repeated. They were in shock.
“I'm sorry,” she said. Sophia was terrified of what they were going to say. She held herself tense, even her vocal cords tight with apprehension. She searched their faces with terror, looking for signs of anger or abandonment or coldness. Coldness would be the worst possible reaction! Neither man was ever cold to her but that’s how Tony always was and she could not bear it. Coldness meant total abandonment and emotional detachment. It meant that she did not matter. And she prayed that that would not happen.
Neither brother looked cold or angry, however. They just seemed confused, making their faces unreadable.
Adam was the first to find his voice. “Sophia, it’s not bad news. It’s good news, actually. I’m just…I’m just really surprised right now.”
“Me too,” Blake uttered.
“So whose is it?” Adam asked without thinking. After all, it was the question that they were all wondering about.
Sophia threw her hands in the air. “There is no way to tell. I have been having sex with both of you. It could be either of yours.” She let it sink in for a moment. "The one thing for sure is that it's one of yours - one of you is the father."
“We could get a DNA test,” she finally volunteered when neither brother said anything. “They even do them in utero. We could find out soon whose it is.”
“I think it is mine,” Adam declared. “I always knew I would have a son first. And we had sex first.”
“You always knew that, huh?” Blake snorted. “That’s so dumb. Just because you came in first doesn’t mean that baby is yours. We have both doing that without any protection for the past few months.”
“I just know it’s mine.”
“I guess everything has to be yours, right? You always have to be the winner?” Blake’s eyes were hardened and he seemed to be antagonizing Adam. Sophia had never seen that side of him before.
Adam’s face turned red. “I’m so tired of you competing with me.”
“Stop!” Sophia spread out her arms. Both men froze, then turned to face her, surprised by the sudden shout.
“Do you really think arguing about who the father is is accomplishing anything right now? We will not know without a DNA test. And I frankly don’t care who the father is right now. I have bigger problems on my mind. We’re all in this together, or so I thought.”
“I guess that’s true,” Adam finally conceded.
“We are all in this together,” Blake agreed. He seemed sheepish, embarrassed that he had shown Sophia his ugly side. She sensed that some sort of brotherly competition existed between them and thirty years of that competition had caused him to become so bitter and heated so fast. Maybe even work problems were part of it. But she forgave him instantly.
“Right now, I just need both of you to be there for me. You’re both my boyfriends. I need your reassurance. I need you to promise me you will support me and that everything will be OK. I’m kind of freaking out right now so I can’t deal with this drama.”
“Really, it’s our baby. All three of ours,” Adam completed the thought. “We are a family together. We made this choice and now we will stick it out.”
Sophia stuttered. She could not shake her engrained idea that a baby had only two parents, a mother and a father. This was just mind-boggling. “So this doesn’t break us up?” she finally said. “We’re all going to be in this together?” She had demanded the brothers to be there for her but she was prepared for them to leave. She thought this would surely break up the happy thing they had enjoyed so briefly.
“Of course not,” Blake said, getting up to hug her. "I think its wonderful."
“We will support you through all of this,” Adam added, hugging her next.
“But we’ll have to tell people. We’ll have to explain whose baby it is. And everything is going to change.” Her mind ran a mile a minute as she considered how they would have to live together and someone would have to claim the baby. Who would she say was the father to her family? They would want to know who fathered their grandchild!
“I guess that’s something we will just have to figure out. But we have time.” Blake finally said.
“Yeah, we have lots of time to start to prepare. You’re not even showing yet,” Adam agreed, feeling her flat stomach.
“But I will be soon. And then we’ll need to come up with answers.”
“Well, let’s just wait for that time. Right now we all have a lot to process. So the first priority is getting you into a great doctor. And then we will think about all this other complicated stuff,” Blake suggested. His voice was so reassuring.
Sophia cupped her hands over her stomach as reality began to set in. There was a baby in there! She had always wanted a baby. The infertility that she and Tony had faced had weight on her so heavily and she had blocked it out of her mind for so long. All the frustration and guilt and sadness came rushing back, only to be replaced with immense joy. Sophia started to cry with happiness. Soon all three of them were crying.
And then she let out a bark of laughter.
“What?” both brother looked at her like she was nuts.
“Tony really is a prick. He made me believe that it was all my fault and I couldn’t get pregnant because something was wrong with me. He wouldn’t even go get his sperm tested because he was too proud. I’ve been believing that I’m infertile for years."
Both brothers shook their heads. “Tony really messed with your mind,” Blake said.
“But that’s what we’re here to fix. We want to make you happy. And the baby happy.” Adam cupped her stomach again and grinned. “This is our baby. We’re going to have a baby!” A new sort of excitement that she had never before seen in his face showed. He seemed to be genuinely glowing with anticipation of this baby. She could already tell that he would be an excellent father.
So would Blake. His face softened as he surveyed her stomach and pictured it getting larger with a baby. Both of them would be such loving, doting fathers, she was sure of it. She had picked the best two men to have a baby with!
Sophia had to sit down. All of this was happening too fast and she felt winded. Both brothers sat on either side of her and felt her stomach, talking about how excited they were to finally feel the baby kicking one day.
“You are going to be one sexy pregnant woman,” Adam told her.
Sophia just beamed. But she couldn’t still the quaking worry within her. These two wonderful men were making her feel so much better, but the bigger problems still existed. They could only put off those problems for so long. And Sophia was the type who wanted to deal with problems head-on and find fast solutions. The concept of figuring it out later was going to drive her crazy. “I bet he’ll have red hair,” she said, to quell her worry and distract herself. She imagined that the baby would turn out a perfect combination of the Franklin brothers, cute and red-haired.
“With your Spanish blood?” Blake asked quizzically.
“Some Mexicans have red hair,” she said. “My cousin’s baby has red hair and dark skin.”
“That’s true,” Adam shrugged. “I wonder how dark he will be.”“Or if it’s even a he,” Blake added.
Now that Sophia knew she was pregnant, she was amazed that she hadn't figured it long go. How could she have been so dumb? Anyway, she now felt she could already sense the baby’s presence, his little soul, as he grew inside of her.
This leap of faith she had taken had given her so many problems. But it had also made all of her dreams come true.
Blake and Adam spent the next couple of minutes touching Sophia's stomach, ridiculously expecting to feel the baby. As usual, the touching aroused all three of them. Sophia was so attracted to both brothers, and both brothers were so attracted to her, it was hard for them to touch without it turning into sex. They began to kiss and slowly remove her clothes.
“Should we even have sex?” Sophia laughed.
“I heard it’s good for the baby,” Adam said. “It helps you have a healthy pregnancy and it makes labor a breeze.”
“Wow, look who’s an expert on pregnancy,” Sophia teased. She had heard that, too.
“We will be gentle. But we don’t have to do this if you don’t feel comfortable with it,” Blake added.
“No. I want it. I think I’m even hornier than normal.” She laughed as she surrendered herself to both men. Her favorite experience was being taken by both and she let them take her now without shame or guilt. Since she was carrying a baby that belonged to one of them, there couldn’t be any harm in being with both of you.
Like they had promised, they were gentle with her. They did not hurt her in any way. The entire time they made love, they focused on her pleasure, stroking her and triggering her into orgasm. With their mouths and hands and gentle strokes of their hips, they made her feel amazing. She was even wetter and hotter than normal, and they loved this. Hearing them moan made her happy as she knew how much she pleasured them both. But knowing that she was pregnant distracted her, making it the oddest sex experience she had ever had.
This whole thing was still surreal!