Chapter 19

She woke up all at once with her heart hammering in her chest and a gasp emitting from her lips. Her back was arched and sweat trickled down her skin between her breasts. Her hands were curled into fists in the sheets and her entire body was trembling. Slowly, she opened her eyes and the true reality of the situation began to sink in. Patrick wasn’t there with her. She was alone, in her bed in her tiny apartment and the orgasm that had awoken her had been produced entirely by her imagination.

“Fuckity fuck shit,” she moaned as her body began to relax into that boneless state that afterglow usually left her in and she closed her eyes and tried to will herself back to that place, to the feel of the tiles in the shower against her back, the water from the shower beginning to cool as his body pressed hers’…no slammed hers’ against the wall of the shower as his long, thick cock filled her completely and utterly and….

And it was gone. She could picture it, picture him, but the feeling, the belief that it had been reality, that she could feel him between her thighs, his hands holding her legs up and apart…it was all gone.

With a groan, Tabby rolled onto her side and brought the blanket with her. Would she, could she ever get over him? Her hand slid down and she placed it over her stomach. She couldn’t feel anything yet, not from the outside, but there was a certain kind of heaviness that she’d been labeling water retention for weeks now. Now that she knew what it really was, she curled herself around and squeezed her eyes shut. She pictured the little tadpole like creature inside of her and felt a smile grow on her lips.

“I’m sorry little guy.” Despite Trina’s protests, she’d felt sure, almost from the moment that the test had confirmed her worst fears, that it was a boy. “I’m sorry you won’t have a father,” she whispered, stroking her stomach with the flat of her hand as she apologized. “And I’m sorry I’m so fucking horny,” she added biting down on her bottom lip as she did. “Oops, gonna have to learn not to swear so fucking much too,” she giggled.

It was a strange feeling, she’d decided as she’d tried to explain it to Mel over lunch that day. She felt like she’d been carbonated, like her stomach was full of tiny bubbles. That was the best she could do, other than to say she felt a bit like she’d swallowed an entire baked potato whole. She had her first scan in the morning and maybe, she hoped, it would all feel a little more real then.

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“Okay that was one tasty little chickita banana,” Jordan stared after the third girl that Sid had turned away, his mouth literally agape as he watched her booty sway in a pair of painted on jeans. “I know you got a little unlucky once Creature, but you can’t let that turn you off all women,” the tall forward continued, his gaze still glued on the formidable junk in the girl’s trunk. For himself, Sid’s gaze was back on the ice in the bottom of his drink.

“Give it up Jordo,” Max sighed, draping his arms around his teammates’ shoulders, or at least over Sidney’s and somewhat near Jordan’s. “He’s still mooning over his summer romance.” Sidney narrowed his eyes at his friend but there was little point in arguing the point. Besides the fact that it was true, arguing with Max rarely had any benefits.

“Really?” Jordan turned and stared at Sid, his sky blue eyes filled with the sort of wonder of a five year old who had just figured out that Santa doesn’t really exist. He looked sort of confused and sad all at the same time. It almost made Sidney smile; almost. “Really?” the big forward repeated again, and this time there was just the hint of a challenge in his voice. Sid could merely shrug. Again, there was little point in arguing. For Jordan it was always a case of out of sight out of mind. That was a way of thinking that Sidney wished that he could cultivate, but in this case, he’d tried and he’d failed, miserably. “What is it about this chick?” Out of the corner of his eye, Sid thought he saw his roommate, Dupes, giving the sign not to go there, but it was too late and having told Duper hadn’t seemed to get it off of his chest.

“She’s like no one I’ve ever been with,” he began to which Max muttered something about her ‘not only seeing him as a walking wallet stuffed with hundreds’. He glared at his fuzzy faced friend and then continued. “I felt…simple, free with her. I felt more like myself, not ‘Sid the Kid’,” he made bunny ears around the nickname he most hated in the entire world and then shrugged. “When I was with her I felt the most real I’ve felt in…well, let’s just say I haven’t felt like that in a long time.”

“The thing I’ve been trying to explain to nos ami,” Pascal interjected, “is that it was pretty easy to feel like someone else when he was being someone else and he was pretty fortunate to be in his own community where people know him well enough to give him some space and let him play make believe.” Sidney had heard the argument and he understood its merits but on the other hand….

“When have I ever had the opportunity for a girl to just get to know me? Not,” he raised his hands to make the bunny ears again when Max snorted and shook his head.

“But she didn’t, did she mon ami? She knows Patrick, not Sidney. She doesn’t know about you and hockey et sans savoir de tu et d’hockey, elle ne tu connaît pas du tout, d’accord?” Max tilted his head and gave him one of those looks that said he knew so much more about the world of women than Sid was ever likely to and it made him squirm. “Even if you found her, and I am assuming from your mood that she has still not called, oui?” Sid sighed but nodded. There was little point in lying about it if it was that obvious. “Well, even if you do, and then, say you bring her to the ‘Burgh…then what? As tu pensé à ce sujet?”

The fact was that he had, over and over again. He’d gone over the idea in his head so many times that it nearly felt real to him. As soon as he explained who he was, she would understand the rest and she’d forgive him. Or at least that’s the way it went in his imagination.

“It doesn’t matter. She’s not going to call,” he said aloud, though in his heart he refused to believe it. They’d had something. They’d shared something real. He had to find her.

“Then why give up on that grade A piece of ass?” Jordan asked, his face contorted in a way that said it hurt him to watch the girl disappear into the crowd. Sidney could merely shrug in response. They didn’t understand. None of them did and he didn’t know how else to explain it. He was going to find her and it was going to be fine. Happily ever after in fact, but if someone asked him to tell them how he knew all he’d be able to say is that he did and for these guys…that would never be enough.
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“If you’d just like to jump up on the table and scoot down to the end,” the technician smiled and turned on the machine next to the examination table. Tabby eyed it suspiciously as she lay down and opened her jeans, pushing them down over her hips. “This might be a bit cold,” the young woman added as she squeezed some kind of cold gel over her abdomen and Tabby winced. “I did warn you,” she added with another warm smile. Did this kind of woman go into Obstetrics because they were nice or did nice girls just end up here, Tabby wondered as she tried her best to relax, even though every muscle, every fiber in her body seemed to be strained to the breaking point and when her phone began to vibrate in her pocket, she almost fell off of the table.

“Sorry,” she apologized, digging her phone out of her pants pocket and staring down at the display. “Damn,” she hissed.

“If it’s important,” the technician eyed her with that jaded look as if to say ‘damn girls and their phones’.

“No, it’s just my agent,” Tabby explained, shutting her phone off. Between her art editor and the useless real estate agent who still hadn’t been able to sell the house, she was beginning to wonder why she’d let Mel talk her into buying another phone. “So, you’ll be able to tell how far gone I am?” Tabby asked, her gaze already glued to the static laced screen.

“Mmmhm,” the technician replied noncommittally as she placed the magic wand in the cold gel and began to move it in small, slow circles. Tabby wanted to ask ‘is that it? Is that it?’ every time she thought she could see something solid on the screen. She was now wishing very much that she had taken up Mel on her offer to accompany her but instead she took a deep breath and tried, again, to relax. She watched the tech readjust the knobs and dials and did her best to stay calm and not interrupt or act like one of those super excited moms to be. “See this,” the technician said at long last, hitting some button that made the image on the screen freeze before she pointed to what, at first, looked a hell of a lot like a peanut. Tabby peered at the black and white image and then at the technician helplessly. “Wait,” the tech made the image bigger, or clearer, but suddenly there it was, a perfectly formed little alien with tiny feet and hands and a giant head.

“Oh my god,” Tabby breathed, seeing the little being staring back at her. It took her a moment to realize that there was not only an image but a sound as well. “Is that…is that my heartbeat?” she asked.

“No, that’s the fetus,” the woman replied without looking away from what she was doing. Tabby continued to stare at the image on the screen, her mouth agape. She wanted to fold her hands over her stomach. She wanted to cry.

“I didn’t expect it to be…anything…I mean not yet.”

“Looks about ten to eleven weeks,” the woman replied, moving the little wand once again to change the picture. Tabby stared at the image, watched him tumble and stretch and felt her breath catch in her throat. “The magic number,” the technician added, tilting her head to one side and regarding Tabby with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s that?” Tabby asked, her gaze still riveted to the image on the screen.

“Well,” the woman stopped moving the wand and reached for a cloth to clean the gel from Tabby’s stomach. “It’s the point that most surgeons will put on the decision timetable for termination.” Tabby blinked and then turned to stare at the woman in her clinically white lab coat.

“Because I’m here alone?” Tabby asked quietly, reaching down to do up her jeans.
“That’s why you’re saying that, right?” The woman continued to clean her instruments and put them away but she shrugged and nodded.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” the woman replied, setting the printer humming and, after a moment, she turned to hand a small black and white print out to Tabby, who held it in both of her hands and stared down at it. “You’re young. It’s not as easy and fun as you might think,” she added. Tabby slid off of the examination table and headed for the door.

“I’m under no illusions,” Tabby replied quietly as she pushed the door open, “at least I don’t think I am.” Her hands shook as she said it and she wasn’t sure she believed it, but what she did know beyond anything else was that she was madly, deeply and irrevocably in love with the little being in the grainy photo in her hands.

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Sid sat alone in the dark of his room, staring out at the leaves on the ground and wondered where in the world Tabby was right now and what she was doing. It was hard for him to believe that months had passed since they’d fought and parted because the pain of that separation still felt raw to him. His heart felt bruised and he still felt confused and lost when he thought of her and yet he couldn’t stop doing it.

Right now he was supposed to be napping. He had a game in a few hours and this was the time he should be conserving energy, emptying his mind, not punishing himself and filling his head with thoughts over which he had no control. His hand balled into a fist and he slammed it against the wall, wincing as the meat of his hand split against the solid wood wall. He shook his hand and grimaced as he turned to lie on his back, to stare up at the blank ceiling.

She hadn’t called. She probably wasn’t going to call and he probably wasn’t ever going to see her again, which meant he really should do what it seemed like all of his teammates were suggesting…forget her and move on with his life. With his hands behind his head, Sid let his gaze go unfocussed and tried to will her out of his mind except as soon as he did that, she was there, with that long mane of ebony hair, the colour of a raven’s wing, fanning across his pillow, with her cute little nose all wrinkled up as she giggled.

He closed his eyes and the specter of her took on a more solid form. He could smell paint thinner and lavender soap. He could feel her hair shrouding him like a waterfall. He could feel her ivory skin under his fingertips as she straddled him, her strong thighs alongside his, her full breasts teasingly close to his mouth.

Sidney moaned as he felt her body press down over his. She liked to tease him, stroking her warm, wet pussy over his aching cock until he couldn’t stand it anymore. She would giggle as her lithe fingertips traced the lines of his chest, making patterns that only her vivid imagination could see. He would reach for her, wanting to tease her back, but she would shake her head and sit up, holding her breasts just out of his reach and then….

Sidney wriggled out of his shorts and took his now throbbing cock in his hand as he watched her bite down and drag her bottom lip into her mouth as she teased her own nipples, rolling the hard, pink buds between her fingers as she looked down at him, knowing the sweet torture it was only to be able to watch. But there was one thing he could do and her head tilted back until all that black hair fell down her back and tickled his thighs. He stroked her clit, his hand between his pelvis and hers’ as she pushed down and rocked against him. With a little ‘come hither’ motion of his fingers he could make her cry out, her eyes squeezing shut, her body giving into a shudder that would end the teasing.

She would look down at him then, her dark eyes alight with a fire, her full lips parted in a smile and they would come together, her body raising just enough to slide down over him, and she was so hot and wet and tight….

Sidney’s cock jerked in his hand as his balls pulled in tight to his body and a stream of jism arced into the air and up his stomach. He heard himself call out her name as his entire body went taught and bowed as the orgasm held him in its grip.

How could he forget her? He asked himself as he reached for a tissue beside his bed and did his best to clean up the mess her memory left him with. He’d just have to find some other way of finding her, even if it took hiring a private detective he’d do it, he vowed silently as he wiped the last of the sticky white substance from his stomach, because there was no forgetting her.