Fulfillment(6)

Look, I know they say you possess a radiant glow when you are pregnant and that you are the essence of beauty when carrying a child. Well, excuse me for bursting that incredibly bogus bubble, because when I was last pregnant, I felt nothing but frumpy, moody, sore and highly undesirable. Don’t get me wrong, I am not the type of person to degrade myself or put myself down, but in the past during my pregnancies, all self-esteem went out the window.

He noticed my sudden dread and pulled my head in closer, kissing my neck as he spoke. “You are the most beautiful and exquisite creature I have ever laid eyes on. That is not going to change. Yes, you are going to grow in size, but that just means there will be more of you to worship and enjoy. And trust me, my love, I am going to worship and enjoy every single bit of you.”

***

Bryce made good on my request that he make up for refusing to have sex with me for the past two weeks. Let’s just say the man has stamina and he was eager to exploit that talent many times throughout the day and night—my sexual deprivation being temporarily fulfilled.





Both of us had made the decision not to inform anyone of my pregnancy, having no plan to do so for at least another month. With so much happening in our lives in recent times, announcing another addition to our family at that point would probably be just a bit too much for my children to have to comprehend. Deep down I knew they would be excited, especially Charli. I just didn’t want to overwhelm them any further for the time being, due to both of them having already had to dissect and cope with more than enough change in such a short space of time. My baby-bump was not yet visible, and the vomit-express only visited me once a day. So there were no obvious signs that I was harbouring a teeny-tiny human inside of me, therefore spilling the beans that I was expecting was not yet a necessity.

Keeping our pregnancy quiet was terribly difficult though, because Bryce had obviously wanted the whole world to know our exciting news. He literally wanted to shout it from the roof top, and in fact, had done just that the night after he found out I was pregnant. Bryce had stood out on the balcony and shouted to the city skyline ‘I’m going to be a fucking dad’. He was over-the-moon happy, making me laugh as he repeated it over and over. But as excited as he was, he also knew that keeping it a secret for the time being was the right thing to do, which initially, had not been an easy task to accomplish. We would get comfortable mentioning it to each other when the kids were not around and then when they were in our company, minor slips of the tongue were irrepressibly spoken.





Nate and Charli had been spending Saturday afternoon till Tuesday morning with Rick, their father, and Tuesday after school till Saturday afternoon with me and Bryce. I had found this arrangement terribly difficult at first, because I was not used to being away from my children for such a considerable amount of time. But this particular agreement wasn’t a strict schedule, and we could change it up whenever we wanted. This suited me just fine, as the nights I couldn’t tuck them into bed were absolutely dreadful, and I hated it.

Being away from my children for consecutive days on a regular basis had been challenging, possibly even the most challenging thing I have ever had to endure. But I continued to face life’s challenges, jumping over the hurdles that were put in place before me and, because of that, my hurdling skills were becoming world-class ranked. I also had to allow Rick to have his quality time with the kids. As hard as it had been for me—after finding out his sordid secret past—I had made the executive decision to bury my feelings of anger toward him for the sake of our children. The kids were innocent in this entire life changing situation, and keeping the peace so that they could adapt a little more easily was what I as their mother had to do—whether I wanted to or not. At the end of the day, Rick adored his children and they adored him back.

Nate, however, still refused to meet his half-brother, RJ—Rick’s five-year-old love-child. He had been so hurt and upset after finding out his father had another son that he chose not to speak to Rick for days, having refused outright to have anything to do with either of them. During the past week though, Nate had relented just a little of his anger toward his dad, but was still adamant he wanted nothing to do with RJ. Charli, on the other hand, had met her half-brother very briefly during a trip to a cafe for a milkshake. She had mentioned to me afterwards that ‘he sort of looks like Daddy’, except RJ was not as tall, and ‘he doesn’t have little bits of hair on his face like Daddy does’. She had also said ‘he’s quiet’ and ‘he likes caramel’. I stopped asking questions after that.