Did it bother me that a lot of it seemed to revolve around sex? Not really. First because the sex was, as previously reported, amazing. But also because that was what it was like at the start of a relationship: that passion, that desire, that craving to be with the other person. And ‘relationship’ was a word that I was now comfortable using to describe what Andrew and I had, and I was sure that he’d comfortably do the same. Sure, we’d jumped a few steps in the normal relationship, but maybe that was what happened when you met the right person. The bottom line was that, while to anyone observing it might have looked like two people enjoying casual sex on a regular basis, there was nothing casual about it.
Not at all.
Perhaps, if I was forced into a corner and put on the spot, I’d admit to disliking all the sneaking around and hiding, because it made me feel that I was doing something wrong…although I guess I was. But had it not been for that unfortunate necessity, then our relationship wouldn’t have developed in the way in which it had, a way that I was very happy with. I tried not to think about the future, about being found out or coming clean ourselves, but I was increasingly sure that when that day came, Andrew would be beside me. I trusted him.
Life, I considered as I lay back in bed, was pretty damn good.
A moment later, I leapt out of bed, ran to the bathroom and hurled my guts out. It wasn’t the best end to a nice morning, but life was still good aside from that. There’d been a bug going around the staff at the palace recently, and it seemed I was the latest one to fall victim to it. Luckily, I’d heard that it was a twenty-four hour thing—one day of horrible vomiting and diarrhea, and I’d be back to normal.
When the vomiting and nausea happened on and off for the next three days, however, I became unsure. I looked back over what I’d eaten in the last week, and I checked to make sure my fridge was working and got rid of a bunch of food. But the next morning I was sick again, and an unpleasant feeling claimed my stomach that had nothing to do with my nausea. After a grueling day of work while feeling nauseated, I Skyped with Sarah.
“Do you think I’m just sick?”
“I think you wouldn’t be talking to me if you thought you were just sick. You’d be talking to a doctor.”
There was some truth to that, and I fought to suppress the real reason that I’d called my friend and not a doctor.
Sarah, however, preferred to take the bull by the horns. “You guys have been using birth control, yeah?”
She was evangelical about birth control, for obvious reasons.
“Of course,” I replied.
“What kind?”
“Condoms.”
“And you guys use them every single time?”
“Yes. I even keep some on me every day just in case he doesn’t have one.”
“You’re telling me man-whore Prince Andrew isn’t always packing condoms?” asked Sarah. “Not buying it.”
“Well, he’s been getting through quite a few recently.”
“And I admire and respect you for that, but…well, you know the things aren’t one hundred percent effective, Keira. I think you need to do a test.”
“Yeah. I do.” I’d pretty much known how this conversation would end, but I’d still wanted to talk to my friend. “Sarah, what am I going to do if it’s…you know…”
Sarah smiled as best she could. “Well, shit…you always said you wanted kids, right? I know this is earlier than planned, but you’ve still got some time to go look at museums, then…”
“I meant what do I say to Andrew? Or anyone else? He’s a friggin’ prince, for god’s sake, and I’m just a palace maid! The media would have a field day with the news…or more like a field century.”
“Just do the test first. You could be worrying about nothing. So get that out of the way before you start to worry about any massive royal baby scandals.”
I knew that was good advice, but I couldn’t help thinking that once I took the test, the whole thing was so much more concrete. For the present, the possible baby was in a state of simultaneous existence and non-existence—Schrodinger’s baby, as it were. Once I took the test, and if the test was positive, then its existence became an absolute. I knew that if it existed, it existed whether I took the test or not, but the uncertainty made it much easier to ignore for the time being.
On the other hand, this wasn’t the sort of thing I could ignore forever. I found myself wishing that Andrew was with me, and with that I realized that that was what was missing—I didn’t want to take the test alone.
I wanted to take it with the potential father.