CHAPTER 5
Ford
I lean to the right and whisper, “Seriously, Leary… did I really need to come here with you today?”
“Yes,” she hisses from the side of her mouth. Her eyes are glued to a large, flat-screen TV at the front of the classroom. The blinds are closed and the lights are off, but it’s not totally dark in the room as some of the morning light filters in. “I didn’t want to be the poor pathetic woman all by herself in the first class.”
“But this is something your husband should be doing,” I mutter, knowing it’s pointless to argue since I’m already here and stuck for the next hour.
“And he would be here if he hadn’t been called into court for an emergency restraining order,” she replies. I knew this, too. Reeve needing to bail on his and Leary’s first Lamaze class couldn’t be helped.
Leary being Leary just marched right into my office and said, “I need your help.”
I thought she was talking about a legal case, so I readily agreed. Next thing I knew, I was at a community center in a small classroom with ten other pregnant couples hoping to gain some sort of Zen perspective on childbirth.
I guess there are no lengths people won’t go to for their best friend. And Leary is undoubtedly mine. We are partners at the law firm of Knight & Payne, and we are also former part-time lovers. The lovers part changed two years ago when she met Reeve Holloway and fell head-over-heels in love with him. I had known Reeve before they met. He’s a really decent guy, so I wasn’t bent out of shape or anything. I’m also beyond happy for Leary, but I do like to grumble about some of the shit she puts me through.
There’s an instructor standing at the front of the classroom making some welcoming remarks. Leary is seven months pregnant and because her husband is in court, I am the substitute father today. Leary assured me I would not have to do anything stupid because the first class was usually informational.
I lean toward Leary again. Pregnancy has filled out her face some and despite the obviously rounded belly, she’s still an incredibly beautiful woman. But that beauty does nothing for me now. There was a time I lusted after it, just as she did me. It all seems so long ago, and I’m grateful our friendship always stayed intact over the years while we were on again and off again.
We chose the table at the back of the classroom, and I’m speaking low enough I can’t be heard. “Didn’t you get enough humiliating satisfaction when you made me the maid of honor at your wedding to Reeve?”
Leary snickers and leans into me. “You were not a maid of honor. I just asked you to stand by me during the wedding. I even called you the best man to everyone.”
That was true. It wasn’t even awkward.
“Besides,” she adds with a chuckle. “If I had wanted to torture you, I would have made you wear a peach dress with big puffy sleeves and a satin bow on your ass.”
My answering soft laugh lets her know that I really can’t be mad at her for much. Leary is about the best person I’ve ever known, and I’d pretty much walk through fire for her. So, if she wants me to attend a Lamaze class, I’m going to do it.
The instructor is not what I expected. I thought somebody a little bit younger would be teaching this class. Instead, Mrs. Craig is matronly and old-fashioned looking. It has to have been at least three decades since she’s given birth—if she has, in fact, actually experienced childbirth. I just assume they would have someone teaching this class with practical experience. Still, I guess most of this is just medical and scientific. Anyone could probably teach it.
“Okay,” she says in a calm, serene voice. “How many of you in here have actually seen a child being born?”
Being at the back of the class, I can tell exactly who is in the same boat as I am. Practically no one raises their hand.
Mrs. Craig beams. She has found her fledglings to teach all the mysterious ways of childbirth. “Well, we’re going to rectify that right now. I have found that often our biggest fears stem from the fact that we don’t know what to expect. Now you can read textbooks, literature, and talk to your doctor and friends who have given birth, but there is nothing like seeing it happen, so you know exactly what you are facing.”
Another whisper to Leary with a tinge of faux fear to my voice. “We’re going to watch somebody give birth?”
“I suspect it’s going to be on the TV,” she returns sarcastically.
Well, I suppose this could be interesting. I’ve always been fascinated with how the human body works. There was even a time while I was an undergrad that I was torn between law school and medical school. I think I would’ve been a good doctor. Of course, knowing what I know now and having had an amazing legal career, I know I made the right choice in going to law school. A lawyer is what I’m supposed to be.
Mrs. Craig walks over to a laptop sitting on a small table below the TV. It’s apparently hooked up with an HDMI cable, and that means Mrs. Craig isn’t as old-fashioned as I thought. She taps a few keys on the keyboard, and a video starts running on the screen.
At first, I’m all into it. This is clearly a professional production, and I’m assuming it was shot with the idea in mind to be instructional. There is a husband and wife in a private room, and she seems to be okay. She’s not doing any of that huffing and puffing breathing I’ve come to associate with the term Lamaze, and she and her husband are smiling at each other.
The video goes to show the doctor coming in to check how far along she has dilated. Her feet go up in stirrups, and the cameraman walks right around so I get a good shot of what pregnant pussy looks like. Other than the fact the pregnant woman doesn’t do much maintenance down below—although I will chalk that up to her probably not able to reach it—it looks like any other pussy.
I lean toward Leary and whisper, “That’s a brave woman right there.”
Leary mutters, “You’re not kidding. I’d never let anybody put a camera that close up between my legs.”
The video continues, and I start to get bored. As has happened several times since last night whenever my brain is given some respite, I start to think about Viveka. In particular, I keep replaying over and over again that amazing fuck followed by the best hand job I’ve ever had in my entire life. At forty-three, I can say it’s not natural for a man that age to bust a nut twice so close together.
And because I’m thinking about sex and how sweet her pussy was, my dick starts to get hard.
Even though I’m sitting at a table at the back of the darkened room with my crotch out of sight, I do not want to go full-blown hard-on. For one, it’s just icky sitting next to Leary now that we are only in the friend zone. I also don’t want the frustration of having a hard dick and not being able to do anything about it.
I prepare to cycle through my usual storage of memories or images of horrific things to get rid of my pecker problem. Nuclear war, starving children, and that one time I watched the film Xanadu. All of those have proven to be effective in the past, and I decide to think about Olivia Newton John. But then my eyes seem to focus on the TV screen, and I realize the woman is now in active labor.
I know this by the fact that she is sitting with her legs spread wide and held up on one side by her husband, and on the other by a nurse. Her face is beet red as she pushes. The doctor is sitting on a stool that’s rolled up right in between her legs, and the cameraman deserves some kind of Oscar because he has managed to find an angle over the doctor’s shoulder so everything that’s happening is visible.
And it’s absolutely fucking horrifying. The woman’s vagina is stretched beyond limits. Bile coats the back of my throat when the doctor uses a scalpel to cut her open even further—as in he widens her vagina with a scalpel.
I swallow hard to avoid vomiting.
There’s a lot more coaxing, a lot more bearing down by the poor woman who seems to be in excruciating pain, and then something starts coming out. Dark hair, blood, and nasty clotted yellow shit. The doctor starts easing the baby out, and the woman pushes so hard she starts shitting herself right there over the edge of the table.
“Holy fuck,” I mutter, and it’s loud enough even Mrs. Craig heard it. I lower my voice and tell Leary, “That is the most disgusting fucking thing I have ever seen.”
“I’m right there with you,” she says, her voice sounding awestruck and horrified at the same time.
The baby comes out. After a few more pushes, what I’m guessing is the placenta slithers from her. I start to gag and squeeze my eyes shut. I try to think of Viveka and will my hard-on to come back, which had been deader than a doornail once the doctor took the scalpel to that poor women’s pussy.
The image of Viveka’s beautiful, model-esque face helps. Thankfully the nausea subsides. I take deep breaths—the kind I expect Leary will receive instruction on at some point during this course—and I start to feel a little better.
I’m absolutely terrified though, of what Leary is going to have to go through when she gives birth in a couple of months. I grab her hand and whisper, “Please get drugs. Don’t try that shit without them.”
She turns to stare at me with wide eyes and nods. “Oh yeah… I’m asking for all the drugs.”
♦
Leary walks through the café carrying two cups of coffee. After sitting through what may have been the absolute worst hour of my life, I felt the least she could do was buy me a cup.
I have to admit, she looks apologetic when she sits in the chair opposite of me, pushing the cardboard cup of an Americano toward me.
“I’m thinking I definitely want an epidural,” Leary says with a huff as she eases back in the chair.
I nod. “Can’t they just knock you out or something?”
“I actually think I can schedule a cesarean section and be completely unconscious through the entire thing,” she says, and I can’t tell if she’s joking or not. Given that Leary is probably the strongest woman I have ever met, I know she’s not going to be afraid of a little birthing pain. Still, I guarantee you she doesn’t want to shit herself in front of everybody either.
Leary picks up her cup and takes a sip. She grimaces and sets it back down.
“What’s wrong with it?” I ask.
“It’s not coffee, that’s what’s wrong with it. I can’t have caffeine, so I’m stuck with some decaf herbal tea shit.”
I grimace in commiseration. That would suck to have to give up coffee.
“What’s new with you?” she asks as she puts her elbows on the table and rests her chin in the palms of her hands. Leary’s face is not only fuller from the weight she’s put on with the pregnancy, but her features are softened in a way that’s almost magical. Like she’s filled with some type of weird inner peace that makes everything in her world rosy. She’s going to be such a good mother. I can just feel it.
I toy with the edge of my cup. “I had something interesting happen to me yesterday.”
“Does it have to do with Drake Powell getting shut down at Swan’s Mill?”
My eyebrows shoot up. “How did you hear about that?”
Leary smirks and pushes from the table, settling back into her chair. “Who do you think? Midge.”
Of course. Midge Payne, the senior partner and matriarch of the law firm. She knows everything that happens within that practice, although how is quite the mystery. She never leaves her office, rarely talks to any of us, and is reclusive. Yet, she knows things.
But then it hits me how Midge found out. She has a financial interest as she is a silent investor in the Swan’s Mill development. In addition to being one of the best lawyers the state of North Carolina has ever seen, Midge is also real estate royalty when it comes to the capital area. She actually owns the building that houses our law firm, which is one of the larger ones downtown. Like she herself owns a fucking twenty-six-story building.
“So what happened?” Leary asks.
“Apparently, there’s a woodpecker on the endangered species list nesting there. The attorney got a temporary injunction to stop Drake from progressing on the construction.”
“That doesn’t sound all that interesting,” Leary says, and she makes this observation because she can tell by the tone of my voice and the set to my body when a legal case really excites me.
And I’m sorry, but helping Drake in this scenario doesn’t interest me all that much. I couldn’t give two fucks about the red-cockaded woodpecker.
“There was a woman…” I hedge. She nods in acknowledgment of the fact that with me, it’s almost always about a woman.
“Go on,” she urges.
“She was chained to a pine tree when I got over to the site.”
Leary’s eyebrows shoot up so high they almost disappear into her hairline.
I grin. “A really sexy, blonde Swedish woman.”
Her face twists in disbelief. “You’re making that up.”
“Am not.”
Leary starts chuckling and shaking her head. “Only you, Ford.”
I laugh right along with her for a moment before it fizzles. My tone gets serious. “She represents an animal rights group, and she’s the one who filed the injunction. I fucked her last night.”
I’ll give Leary credit. She has one of the best poker faces around. She doesn’t so much as let a facial muscle tick in response to that.
I continue, “And I really don’t want to get involved in this case.”
That causes Leary to have a slight reaction. By that, I mean her expression gets very worried. She tilts her head. “Because there’s a hot woman involved who you fucked?”
I muster up as much professionalism as I can. “It’s a serious conflict of interest. After last night, I really have no business staying on this case.”
Leary just cocks an eyebrow.
“It would be the professional thing for me to do… step down from the case. Let another attorney handle it.”
Leary leans across the table and murmurs, “Do you intend to continue to see her?”
I shrug. I have no clue whether I should or shouldn’t. I believe Viveka Jones could be very dangerous to get involved with. There’s just too much I actually like about her.
“Maybe,” I admit.
“If it’s just about fucking, there really isn’t a conflict. You can continue to bang her and still represent Drake adequately.”
I snort because Leary is wrong about that. It would be a huge conflict of interest. The reason why she’s downplaying it is because that’s how she met her husband. She and Reeve were on opposite sides of a case, and they were doing a whole lot of hanky-panky while battling each other in the courtroom.
And truth be told, I’m not much for the rules either. There has been an occasion or two over my career that I’ve banged opposing counsel. Never lost a moment’s sleep about it.
Leary’s gaze narrows, and she gives a slight shake to her head. “There has to be more to it than just a conflict of interest. What is your real hesitation?”
I hate to admit anything that makes me seem vulnerable. Then again, this is Leary sitting across the table. There’s no one safer for me to let in on my secrets. “Maybe I don’t want her to lose.”
“You’re not much of an animal lover, Ford. So I know you’re not looking out for the woodpecker’s best interest.”
“I’m aware of that,” I reply dryly.
“That means you like her then,” Leary surmises.
“I don’t even know her,” I return blandly.
She levels me with a knowing smile. “You know her enough.”
She would be right about that. In the last twenty-four hours, I learned enough about Viveka Jones to know she’s different from any other woman I’ve been with. I would like to say it’s probably because she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, but that’s not exactly it. I’d also like to hypothesize that her beauty in combination with her clear intelligence and passion about what she does makes her attractiveness unparalleled.
But that’s not quite it either.
I think it all boils down to that one moment where she took my hand, shoved it roughly between her legs, and asked me to get her off. It was probably the first time I remember feeling needed by a woman.
I’m talking about a true, genuine need that wasn’t exaggerated or done with any ulterior purpose. It was a pure request.
And for some reason, I really like that feeling.