Unholy Birth Read online

  “You’re not going to start talking politics now, are you?”

  She laughed.

  “You have to admit it’s pretty ironic…all of us living here in the bastion of conservatism.”

  “There are the Log Cabin Republicans.”

  “Please. That’s like black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy.”

  I laughed. It was such a relief to do so.

  She rose, took the cup of tea from my hands, and kissed me softly on the lips. I moaned.

  “Maybe an hors d’oeuvre before dinner,” she whispered, and slipped under the blanket beside me, kissing my neck, sliding her hand under my blouse. I moved to make more room for her. “My,” she said, helping me undress, “I hadn’t noticed, but your breasts look two sizes bigger.”

  Braless, I hadn’t felt my inflated bosom and didn’t realize it for some reason until this very moment.

  She pulled back and smiled.

  The phone rang before I could comment. She picked up the receiver, said hello, and then handed it to me.

  “Dr. Aaron.”

  “Hello.”

  “Kate, Lois Matthews just called concerned about you. I’m sorry about what happened. How are you feeling now?”

  “A little shaky,” I said.

  “It’s no wonder.”

  “I was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you,” I said, “But besides the weight gain,” I said, eying Willy. “I’ve been having some strange symptoms.”

  “Like what?”

  I hesitated.

  “It’s almost as if I’m in my third trimester, according to the pregnancy chart I downloaded on my computer. That’s why I asked you to check again on my results.”

  “What specifically are you referring to, Kate?”

  “I…my breasts are larger,” I blurted.

  “Really?” Her voice dripped with skepticism.

  “Yes. You know I downloaded one of those charts on the stages of pregnancy and…”

  “I hate those charts,” she said. “That’s why I don’t give them out. They make it all seem so mechanical, as if everyone is exactly the same. We’re all different. That’s what makes us interesting. But getting back to my reason for calling, I want to be sure you don’t get yourself upset because of these wackos. They’ve called here with threats and profane remarks, as well.”

  “Oh, have they? Do you have security, too?”

  “We do.”

  “I didn’t notice any,” I said.

  “Imagine if our patients saw armed guards about my office. I’d be a starving physician,” she said, laughing. “So, I’ll see you then at two tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Two tomorrow?” I looked at Willy.

  “Eve will drive you,” she whispered.

  “Okay.”

  “Great. For now, take one of those pink pills I gave you.”

  “Pink pills?”

  “Oh, right,” Willy said. “Tell her I have them.”

  “What pink pills?” I asked Willy.

  “She gave them to me for you when you were in the bathroom at her office getting her a urine sample. I forgot. They’re in the kitchen.”

  “What are they?” I asked Dr. Aaron.

  “They just mild sedatives to help you relax. Just don’t drink any alcohol with them,” she advised. “I’ll see you tomorrow and we’ll make sure everything is all right.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank you for calling so quickly.”

  “No problem. We’re all interested in you eventually having a successful pregnancy,” she said.

  I hung up. If one more person said that to me…

  “I’ll get you the pill,” Willy said, rising.

  “How could you have forgotten to tell me about them?” I asked her.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “I think I’ve had a little on my mind, too, Kate. What’s the big deal? You didn’t have any need for them before,” she added. “Right?”

  “I don’t like taking so many pills.”

  “What’s so many? One pill? You can’t count the pill that enhances your chances of getting pregnant as you would an ordinary pill. You heard her. It’s made up of natural ingredients, herbs.”

  “Lois gave me that sedative before the insemination,” I reminded her.

  “So? That was then; this is now. It hardly constitutes taking a lot of pills, Kate, and the doctor knows best, right?”

  “I suppose.”

  She went out and returned with a glass of water and the pill.

  “Don’t fret. I’ll be close by,” she said. “Take a rest.”

  She fixed my blanket, kissed my cheek, stroked my hair, and left me.

  I didn’t want to fall asleep yet, but the pill was amazing. It was almost an anesthetic. My eyelids closed, and in seconds I was gone.

  I didn’t wake until morning and was shocked I had slept clear through the night. At least I woke early enough so that Willy wasn’t yet gone. She was sleeping so soundly herself that I made every attempt not to wake her. After all, I thought, she’s surely overdoing it and now I’ve added additional stress and worry to her plate.

  I slipped out of bed and went to shower and fix myself to face the day. When I stepped out of the bathroom, I was surprised to see that Willy had still not woken. Practically tiptoeing, I went out to the kitchen and started to make some coffee. I thought I would prepare some scrambled eggs as well. Glancing through the patio door that faced the pool, however, I paused.

  Eve was talking with an African-American man built like a football player. He had a shaved head and was wearing a suit and tie. They both stopped talking as if they sensed they were being watched and turned to look at me through the patio door. Neither smiled. I had no reason to be afraid, but I felt a cold chill, and then a hot shiver rippled down my spine.

  I opened the patio door.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Eve smiled, glanced at the man and then nodded at me. They both approached.

  “This is Sterling Plunkett,” she said with obvious excitement. “I recognized him immediately.”

  “Well, who is he?” I asked, not hiding my annoyance. Why was she having a visitor this early in the morning? And why didn’t she tell us someone was coming?

  “I work for Genitor,” he said, smiling. “I was just waiting around for y’all to get up, when Eve here spotted me. She’s pretty good security herself.”

  “I saw him patrolling the property.”

  “Just learnin’ the lay of the land,” he said. “With your gates and wall, we got a pretty good situation. You have good lighting, too. I’ll check out your alarm system and see about intercepting any alert.”

  “Sterling is in the Football Hall of Fame,” Eve said. I could see she thought she was in the glow of some major celebrity.

  “I’m running interference for you, back to blocking,” he quipped, and they both chuckled softly.

  “Lois Matthews sure moved quickly,” Eve said.

  “I thought she would,” I said. I was still upset about her not warning me that such people existed and were a threat to my well-being.

  I considered Eve, dressed, looking fresh and awake.

  “You were up early. You don’t seem to sleep very much,” I said.

  She smiled.

  “I never have. I’m like Napoleon. I read he needed only three, four hours of sleep. I think he was about my height, too. Maybe that’s got something to do with it. I’m sure I have his personality.”

  “You going to conquer the world, too?”

  “Just a little piece of it,” she replied.

  “C’mon. I’m making some scrambled eggs.” I looked at Sterling Plunkett. “I’ll throw on some bacon.”

  “Sounds like this is going to be a perk and not another job,” Sterling said.

  They followed me into the house.

  Willy had risen and come out wearing a bathrobe.

  “Lois Matthews didn’t waste a moment,” I said and then introduced Sterling to he
r.

  “You look familiar,” she told him, and Eve recited his biography, rattling off his amazing statistics as if she were a walking sports encyclopedia.

  “How long have you been in the security business?” Willy asked him.

  “About two years. They made me a junior partner. So far, it’s been an easy buck,” he told her.

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” I muttered over the eggs.

  While we all ate, Willy and Eve gave him our work schedules and locations. He took notes but said he would mainly be sticking to me and watching the property. When he heard about my doctor’s appointment, he volunteered to take me.

  “I’m going to put some sensors of our own around your property as well,” he said.

  “Have they hurt anyone?” I asked, now more concerned than ever because of all the preparation and attention he was giving me.

  “Not that I know, ma’am, but we don’t take chances with a client’s safety and well-being.”

  He reached into his inside pocket and produced a device no bigger than a playing card.

  “I’d like you to hold on to this. It couldn’t be any simpler. If there is any reason you want me right beside you, if anything disturbs you, you just press the red button in the center here and it sends a signal to me.”

  “I thought you said you would be sticking to me.”

  “Well, sure I will, ma’am, but there are places you’ll go that are private,” he said, his ebony eyes glittering impishly.

  “I’d hope so,” Willy said.

  I took the device.

  “Besides,” he added, “if I do my job correctly, neither you nor anyone else should know I’m around. I’m going to disappear and you might think I’m not here anymore. Thanks for breakfast,” he said, pushing away from the table. “I want to finish looking over the property and the neighborhood. Y’all going to the plant this morning, then?”

  “Yes,” I said before Willy could suggest I take off the day.

  “Why don’t you just rest until you have to go to see Dr. Aaron?” she asked.

  “I have to keep myself busy, Willy. I don’t want to sit here and shiver all morning.”

  “Okay, okay. Yes, we’re all going,” she told Sterling.

  “Fine. Y’all shouldn’t do anything different. Patterns are what the bad guys look for, but that’s good because they give themselves away when they get into the same groove.”

  “How many times have you guarded someone against these people?” I asked him.

  “Oh, it don’t matter who the intruders are. Intruders are intruders, threats are threats. Let’s just say, I’ve been busy,” he added smiling. “You know what they say…without criminals, cops be out of work. I’ll be there about 12:30 to take you to the doctor,” he said, then rose and left.

  “How did he know what time I had to be at Dr. Aaron’s?” I realized and wondered aloud.

  “Oh, I told him,” Eve said. “I thought he’d better know as much as possible as soon as possible.”

  “Good thinking,” Willy told her. They exchanged a smile so conspiratorial it made me jealous. “I’d better get a move on,” she added, then rose and went into the bedroom to dress for work while Eve cleared the table and helped clean up the kitchen.

  “Sterling’s a pretty intimidating man. I wouldn’t want to have him breathing down my neck,” she told me. “I hope it makes you feel better, Kate.”

  “Yes,” I said, but the truth was, it didn’t. The very fact that I found myself needing such a man in my shadows heightened my tension and stress.

  Willy insisted we go to the plant in two cars.

  “I want you to be able to go home if you feel the need to rest, Kate. We’ve got this thing under control. You have to take care of yourself,” she said. “Make yourself as comfortable as possible.”

  When we left, I looked for Sterling, but I didn’t see him or his any car that might be his. It was a very quiet, warm morning. There was an unseasonable heat wave sweeping into the desert on the back of what we called Santa Ana winds. It didn’t bring humidity, but the sun seemed to draw itself closer to the earth. We were headed for triple digits.

  At the plant I dove into my work. Eve had loaded in almost all the invoices, but I had to prepare the information for payroll and that was now more work because of the added employees. Willy wasn’t wrong about my needing to find ways to make myself more comfortable, however. Suddenly, I was developing lower back pain and had difficulty sitting in the same position for long period.

  I hadn’t thought again about my enlarged bosom until I was at the plant either. None of my bras were comfortable. My stomach remained bloated and my legs felt as if they were filling with more water every hour. I had to get up and pace about and soon found myself doing it every twenty minutes. It put me in a small panic.

  Through the window, Willy saw me when she was passing by.

  She came into the office.

  “Something wrong?”

  I shook my head, bit down on my lower lip and then just started crying. I couldn’t help it. In the middle of all that was happening, I hated myself for being such a mess. She rushed over to embrace me and move me to the settee. She sat with me.

  “I can’t sit; I can’t work. My body feels as if it’s expanding every minute, my boobs, my waist, and now my legs,” I said lifting my skirt to show her my thighs.

  “They don’t look any bigger than they have, Kate,” she said softly. “Except for your breasts and waist, I don’t see any dramatic changes in you.”

  “Oh, it’s all in my mind? Even the ache in my lower back?”

  “I’m not saying that,” she replied, speaking as if she had to be careful, as if I were some sort of mental case. She checked her watch.

  “It’s not right. I’m going to stop taking those pills.”

  “Why don’t you wait until your doctor’s visit? Are you hungry?”

  “No.” I looked at her guiltily. “I ate three of those damn bars,” I confessed, and she laughed.

  “So? That’s why we made sure the cabinet was restocked.”

  “What do you mean, we?”

  “Eve likes them, too,” she said. “All right, take it easy. Sterling should be here any minute. You’ll see Dr. Aaron and get some answers, I’m sure.”

  I could see from the way she was glancing into the plant that she was concerned about the work and I was distracting her.

  “Go back. I’m okay,” I said.

  She kissed my cheek and left. I tried to do some more work, but the aching was so intense, I found myself taking deep breaths. The moment I saw Sterling enter the plant, I grabbed my purse and headed out even though we would be going earlier than I had planned.

  “I just came early to looking things over here,” he explained.

  “That’s all right. I want to see the doctor as soon as possible.”

  “But don’t you have a specific appointment?’

  “I want to go now,” I said firmly. “If you can’t leave yet, I’ll drive myself.”

  “No, it’s all right. Let’s go,” he said. “Things quiet here?” he asked me as we headed out.

  “Hardly,” I said, nodding at the machinery and the employees scurrying about.

  He laughed and opened the door for me. His car was right there, a black Town Car, the engine running. He opened the rear door for me.

  “I’ll sit up front,” I said.

  “Oh, sure.” He opened that door and I got in quickly.

  I knew it was selfish of me, but I wished Willy were taking me, instead of a stranger. I would even rather it were Eve, but to take either of them away from the plant today would be mean. The party was less than a day away now. The preparations were bigger than anything we had done or even contemplated doing and we had handled some sizeable weddings in the past, too.

  “I think it’s pretty nice, you two planning a family,” Sterling said as we drove off. “Seems to me more people than ever are running away from family responsibilities, not ru
nning toward them.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “I was born in Dallas. After my mother deserted us, my father moved us to New York, where his sister and brother-in-law lived. As it turned out, me and my sister got brought up by them. I won a football scholarship and got picked up by the Giants. Being tough and fast saved me from the street life.”

  “What about your sister?”

  “She was always a good student, a real reader. She became a nurse and works private jobs in Los Angeles.”

  “Does she have a family?”

  “Nope. Never got married. She ain’t gay,” he added quickly. “She’s just scared of it, I think.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Thirty.”

  “Well, maybe she’ll meet someone. That’s far from too old.”

  He looked at me as if I were a dreamer.

  “Can’t you drive a little faster?” I asked him when I felt that stirring in my stomach again. “You’re not even going the speed limit.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. He accelerated, but he didn’t look happy about it. The way he was driving, however, we would have been late for my appointment instead of early.

  He almost made a wrong turn, too, when we exited the freeway.

  Finally, we arrived at Dr. Aaron’s office. Like a chauffeur, he got out quickly to open my door for me.

  “I’ll be out here, waiting. And watching,” he added.

  “Thanks,” I said, pressing the door buzzer. When I heard the buzz, I entered the lobby. Eve’s sister was not behind the counter. There was no one waiting in the lobby either, so I went up to the window and called for someone. Who had let me in? I wondered when no one responded. I waited, realized I had broken into a sweat, and then called again.

  Suddenly, the door opened and I looked with surprise and shock as Janet Madison stepped out. The sight of me brought a look of pain into her face.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I instantly demanded.

  “Oh, damn,” she said. “I was hoping to keep it a secret for a while.”

  “Keep what a secret?”

  “I’m going to be a surrogate.” She leaned toward me to whisper. “I’ve been offered twenty-five thousand dollars and with the new rules at the school, even unmarried women can take a maternity leave.”