Chapter 18

Mike

“Double date time,” I hollered as I used my key to get into Julia’s apartment. I knocked slightly as I entered, but she knew I was coming. We had finally managed to arrange a date with Nathan and Mary to talk about the joys of parenting multiples. They were such a great couple so I couldn’t wait to hear what they had to say to help Julia with some tips for what was to come.

“I’m not going,” Julia said from her bedroom in a muffled voice.

“What are you talking about? You have been looking forward…” I stopped when I saw her hiding under the covers and did my best not to laugh. “Julia, what are you doing?”

“I’m not going. I’m hideous,” she said peeking her head out from the covers for just a second.

“I happen to know that isn’t true. You look amazing. You still have six weeks to go, babe. You can’t hide in here for a month and a half.”

“I can and I will.”

“Julia, we have been trying to schedule something that worked for all of us for months. Come on, let’s get you dressed and get to the restaurant. I’m sure it was very hard for them to find a babysitter for triplets.”

“Don’t play that guilt game with me, mister,” she said finally coming out from under the covers. “Nothing I have fits me. Or if it does fit me I look like a house wearing it.”

“How about this dress? It’s nice and flowing, I’m sure it will fit beautifully.”

“House.”

“Okay, these leggings with this shirt?” I tried again.

“House.”

“Maybe you’ll just have to go as a house then,” I said frustrated at her stubbornness. “We really do need to get going. I don’t want them to be waiting for too long.”

“Fine,” she grumbled at me as I left the room and she finally got up to get dressed.

Julia threw on the first dress I had offered and pulled her hair up in a messy bun. When she opened her door she looked absolutely adorable, except for the grumpy expression on her face of course.

“There,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“You look beautiful.” I stopped to pull her in for a kiss and she pulled away from me. “Stop it, you look beautiful and I’m going to kiss you.”

She finally smiled a little bit and let me kiss her. Then she liked the kissing so much that she wrapped her arms around me and we were full on making out. Her hormones were large and in charge and in any other situation I would have happily put her to bed and taken care of all her needs, but we were late and I really wanted to get moving.

I pulled her off of me as softly as I could and held her hand hoping that she wasn’t going to get emotional about it. Emotions and hormones were a tricky combination for us guys to navigate around women during this time of the pregnancy.

Sometimes I wondered how she and I were going to get along for the rest of the process. It was getting dicey at times with our little arguments and trying to be there for Julia without stepping on her independence.

“I know. I know. We need to get going,” she said reluctantly.

It was a relief when we arrived at the restaurant to find Nathan and Mary still waiting for our table. I hated being late for things, especially when I was the one who had planned them. Luckily, Julia perked up once she met Mary and the two of them hit it off instantly.

They were off in their own little corner talking about pregnancy and babies while Nathan and I caught up a little over a beer at the bar. It was nice to be around a guy who knew a little bit about what I was going through at the moment.

“So, hormones. Wow, they are a trip,” I said taking a long swig.

“Yeah, and get ready for them to get worse after the babies. Then you’ll have crying and happy and crying all over the place.”

“Thanks for meeting us. I know Julia has been really nervous about the babies and I thought Mary might be able to help her get used to the idea.”

“Of course.”

When our buzzer finally sounded Nathan and I waved for the girls to join us and we all made our way through the crowded restaurant to our table. Once we managed to get past the crowd at the front of the restaurant, it was actually rather quiet in the back.

“So this is exciting for you guys. I never thought of you as a family man,” Nathan said when we first sat down.

“Oh, I guess I should clarify. Julia is my friend. She’s having these babies on her own, I just thought it would be nice for her to talk with Mary a little,” I said. Instantly, I regretted my comment. Julia went from looking happy as could be to scooting her chair out quickly and rushing off to the bathroom. Mary followed closely behind and I sat there with Nathan feeling like a total ass.

“I thought they were your kids?” Nathan asked.

“Technically they are. She used me as her donor. But she was always talking about how this was her chance to be a mother and she was going to be independent.”

“When was the last time she said something like that? Because from the look on her face I think she was expecting more from you in the involvement area.”

“It’s been a few months, I shouldn’t have said it. Damn, now I feel terrible. I do want to be involved. I just don’t know where I fit in. She has her own apartment. She has her own plans for the babies. She doesn’t include me in this stuff. How am I supposed to know what to do?”

“I’m sure she will be fine. Mary will calm her down and they will come back and we will all have a great evening. Nothing to worry about just yet.”

“Yet?”

“No, not until there is yelling involved,” Nathan said without cracking a smile at all. “That’s when you need to worry.”

I appreciated the tip. And when Mary returned with Julia I jumped up and told her I was sorry as I pulled her chair out. She shook her head in agreement and we continued on with the evening as if the comment hadn’t happened at all. Well, sort of.

The conversation stuck to what it would be like for Julia to take care of two babies at a time. Mary was delicate when she talked about breast feeding and having a helper around when possible. She did look over at me but never specifically said that I should be there to help her.

“The hardest part is the night time. You’ll be tired and it would be helpful to have someone there to occupy one baby and change them while you breast feed the other. And then you could rotate. But you can do it on your own too.”

“I’m not sure I can breast feed twins. I know it’s healthy and I’ll give it a try, but it is really overwhelming to me.”

“You can do it for a few weeks and then supplement with bottles. That’s what I had to do. Nathan went back to work after two weeks and I had my sister come stay with us. She was a lot of help.”

“I’ve only got brothers,” Julia said and rolled her eyes. “But I have a couple girl friends who are really excited to help out. I’m sure I could get them to come over a few nights at first.”

I just stayed quiet. I didn’t want to say anything that would make her feel bad again. We could talk about it all a little more in the next few weeks. I would be happy to help out where she wanted me to be. Hell, I liked the idea of having us be together and raising the babies together. The only reason I had brought up the statement that they were hers was because of how the pregnancy had started. She didn’t want a baby daddy. Julia didn’t want anyone telling her what to do or how to raise her babies and I was just trying to follow along with that and be supportive.

Of course, I did see how that might have changed for her over the past few weeks since we had been spending so much time together. It was more like a relationship than our situation had ever been. We should have talked about it before dinner. I should have asked her how we were going to explain things. It was all my fault. I took full responsibility, well I would after dinner was done and the two of us were able to have a good conversation.

“Have you decided on your birth plan?” Mary asked Julia.

“I’m just going to the hospital and letting Doctor Simon do his thing. My biggest fear is that I’ll have to have a c-section. I just don’t want to go through that recovery and have the babies at home. That sounds really hard.”

“Maybe your mom could come stay with you?”

“That wouldn’t be helpful,” Julia laughed.

“I know what you mean, that’s why I had my sister. But start working on lining up your help for those first couple of months. You’ll need to get some sleep so you have to have a few extra sets of hands. Even with Nathan, we still had two or three people at our house helping us out at times. These little ones require a lot of time and attention.”

“I’m a shit,” I whispered to Nathan as the women talked.

“You’re in shit, that’s for sure,” Nathan laughed.

“Maybe I could help out?” I said to the ladies as they talked.

“No, I wouldn’t want to force you to help care for MY children,” Julia said with a stare that looked like she could have killed me.

“Yeah, you’re in trouble,” Nathan leaned over and whispered.

For the rest of the dinner I did the best I could to lay low. I laughed at the jokes Mary told and tried to appear sympathetic to the plight of the pregnant woman, but the whole time all I could think about was that I needed to talk to Julia in private, so we could straighten this whole thing out. Certainly, I wanted to help with the babies. I wanted to keep seeing Julia. And I wanted to be part of her life and their lives; we just had to figure out how that was all going to work.

When dinner was over, and we finished saying our goodbye’s, I helped Julia into our Uber and tried to hold her hand while we pulled away. She yanked it away from me though. She was upset and I had done this to her.

“I’m sorry. I thought you wanted to do this alone. Tell me what you want.”

“You’re right. I do want to do this alone. It’s okay. I’m just emotional,” she said suddenly softening up a little. “We can figure it all out later. I was just caught off guard and a little embarrassed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If you want to be involved in their life and my life you can. If you don’t want to be you don’t have to be. I did this for myself and I was the one who wanted to have the babies. I understand if you want to move on with your life and not be a co-parent.”

“I didn’t mean…” she interrupted me by grabbing my cock and rubbing it hard right there in the back of our Uber.

“Did you mean it when you asked me what I want?” she asked.

Julia looked like a woman who had been possessed by hormones as she eyed me like a piece of meat. We definitely needed to talk more about everything that was going on but at this point I was pretty sure I needed to give her a few orgasms to calm this lust that had taken over her body.

If I wasn’t a physician the rapid change in her emotions would have worried me much more than it did. But I knew she was using sex as a coping mechanism for all the emotions that were going on inside of her. I also knew that trying to talk about it at that moment would be a very bad idea. She had primal needs that needed met before we would ever be able to flesh out how much parenting involvement I was going to have.

When we got back to her apartment she practically threw me on the bed as we walked into the bedroom. She had her own clothes stripped off long before I was able to get mine off. And she was climbing on top of me before I even managed to get my pants all the way off.

She slid onto my throbbing cock and rode me so hard I thought for sure she was going to break me in half. She was a beast as she pressed into my chest and thrust her hips against me and I fucking loved every minute of it. Watching her beautifully round body on top of me was a sexual turn on that I wouldn’t forget any time soon. Making love to Julia throughout her pregnancy was much more erotic than I’d imagined.

My patients often talked about how turned on they were all the time or how they couldn’t get enough of their man during the pregnancy. Seeing it first hand with Julia was a treat for me. I was lucky to be there with her and wished I wouldn’t have made her feel so bad at dinner.

“Grab my nipples,” Julia suddenly ordered of me. “Hard.”

I did as I was told and squeezed both of her nipples as she moved faster and faster against me. She yelled out with pleasure and I throbbed with lust. It took everything I could muster not to cum right then and there, but I didn’t want to have the wrath of my primal woman turn on me.

Her fingers dug in and I thought for sure she was about to release when she jumped up off of me. She moved to the side of the bed and bent over. She motioned for me to get behind her and I dutifully did as she asked.

My hand rested on her soft ass as I slid into her. Slowly, gently, I moved as I enjoyed every moment of being inside of Julia. Her head was on the bed and she moaned with pleasure with each of my thrusts. It was a huge turn on to see her so engrossed in the pleasure of the moment. I grabbed her hips as my thrusts got deeper and she pressed hard back against me. There was no way I could hold back any longer. I had to feel the sweet release of letting go as I thrust hard a few more times and then finally couldn’t handle it another second.

I came hard inside Julia and she pressed back against me with delight at the explosion. We both crawled back up onto the bed and I knew right away that Julia wasn’t finished with her own primal explosion.

Her hands played with my exhausted body. She teased me and was already working to see if she could get me excited again. Oh no, that wasn’t about to happen so fast; I knew my body well enough to know that.

I also knew that she wasn’t going to stop until I had utterly satisfied her needs. So I pressed her back onto the bed and let my fingers touch her softly.

“Yes,” she groaned as I played with her.

Julia pulled me down to kiss her while I played. It was exciting to have her in my mouth while my fingers played with her wetness. I titillated her clit and rubbed on her in every direction as I worked up her excitement.

When I finally slipped inside her Julia grabbed my lip and bit down on it as she thrust her hips toward me. I was pretty sure she’d drawn blood with that lustful move but I didn’t care.

I stroked in small circles, feeling her body react to my fingers. Feeling the excitement growing more and more for her. She was getting close and I knew what I needed to do to help bring her over the edge.

Slipping away from the delicious taste of her lips. I kissed down her body taking my time to suck on each of her nipples for a just a moment. I then moved over her sweet belly and touched the right and left sides with my kisses for the babies growing inside of her.

When I made it to her center, she was dripping with pleasure and I took her in clit and held onto it. My fingers stroked hard and deep as Julia grabbed the sheets and propelled her clit farther into my mouth.

Then it happened, the sweet release that Julia had been dying for. Her whole body tensed up and her back arched. I didn’t stop doing what I was doing but continued on in an effort to prolong her pleasure as much as possible.

“Yes, she moaned, “fuck, yes,” she finally fell back to the bed in total exhaustion.

I moved up beside Julia and put her head on my chest as we wrapped up in each other’s arms. For weeks we had been making love and hanging out together. It had been the best time I’d had in a very long time. I was so happy to have her there. So excited to see what the future might have in store for the two of us.

“Are you thirsty? Do you want me to grab you a drink?” I offered.

“Sure,” she said as she rolled off of me and curled up on her side of the bed.

I hurried into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and placed it on Julia’s side of the bed. I was just about to get back into my side when she sat up and looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“I think you should sleep at your place tonight,” she said looking so utterly sad that I didn’t know what to say or do.

We’d just made love for an hour. She’d been so into it. We were both into it. What had happened? What had gone wrong? Was this just a burst of hormones? I didn’t want to leave her there like that. I couldn’t leave her in that state.

“Honey, what’s the matter? We should talk. You don’t want to go to bed upset.”

“I’m tired. We can talk another time.”

“Julia, is it about that crack I made at dinner? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. We should talk about it. I want to be here for you if you want me here.”

“But you don’t want to be here, so let’s not worry about it. I will abide by the contract. I’ll make sure you get your yearly cards and a visit if you want to.”

“Julia, I know you’re hurt, but we have time to talk this through. I’m going to go because I don’t want to make this more of a thing than it needs to be. But I’m open to being a part of this if that’s what you want.”

“Again with what I want? When are you going to step up and tell me what you want? What about saying that you want to be part of my life, of the babies lives? Just go,” she said as the tears rolled down her face. “Just go.”

As much as I wanted to explain my position, it just wasn’t the right time. Julia was clearly very emotional and she had to be exhausted after all that we had just done in bed. I decided to leave and give her some space. We had weeks to work through this before the babies arrived and I was certain we would come to a solution once we were both able to have time to think about it.

“I’m going to go, but I want to talk more about this later.”

I leaned down and tried to give her a kiss but she turned away and I was only able to kiss her cheek. For a moment I stood in the doorway of her apartment contemplating not leaving at all. I thought about sitting in the living room and just waiting for the morning so we could talk, but I decided to do as she asked and I left.

All the way up to my apartment I felt sick to my stomach. Julia meant a lot to me. She was important to me. I didn’t want to lose her. I wanted to be in her life. This was all just a big miscommunication and I was sure we could straighten it out.

I didn’t sleep much at all that evening and had to go to work the next day. I tried stopping by to see Julia before I left but decided not to wake her up. Instead, I send a text message, hoping that it would calm her nerves a little.

MIKE: Julia, I care about you a lot and I would like us to sit down and talk soon.

At work I went about the day as normal seeing patients and dealing with our business troubles. Both Bruce and Sheryl noticed I wasn’t myself that day but I wasn’t in the mood to talk with them about what was going on either. It was more of a self reflection sort of day as I figured out what I wanted in this relationship and how that was going to look for me.

“Hey, hospital just called. We have an emergency patient in there,” Bruce said.

“Who?”

“No name yet. I’m waiting for a call back. Is it your turn or mine?”

“Let’s see who the patient is,” I said as we waited for the call back.

I had a few patients that were getting close to full term and I knew Bruce had a couple that were past their due date. Either one of us could be the lucky doctor who was going to be up all night long delivering a baby.

The phone rang and the look on Bruce’s face told me that something was wrong. He was not longer smiling or light hearted at all. Instead, he was serious and took some notes as the person on the other end talked.

“Yes, get her stabilized and I’ll be right there,” he said and then hung up. “It’s Julia.”

My heart sank. She was still very early along. She had two months before her due date. There were so many things that could go wrong at this point. So many things that could go wrong with her and with the babies.

“I’ll take care of things here,” Sheryl said as she motioned for the two of us to get out of there.

It was the middle of the day and we would have to cancel all the patients for the rest of the day. But at this point I didn’t care and I could tell Bruce didn’t either. He knew how important Julia was to me. She wasn’t just his patient. She was a friend now and we rushed to the hospital as quickly as we could.