Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
I groan and close my eyes, pressing my fingers to my temples. The date with Rob went haywire, but that doesn’t bother me. Bad dates are par for the course, and I’ll forget the man himself in no time. But his words have lit a fire within me, and this lingering doubt about my pussy size is torturous. What if somehow, I am deformed now? What if no man can reach the peak of physical ecstasy within me because I’m too big and loose down there? What do I do?
Rob’s the first man I’ve slept with since giving birth, so I don’t have other points of comparison. What should I do? Should I post an ad on craigslist and try to find someone else to sleep with? Or maybe I could look up one of my old hook-ups from the past, and ask him to come over and service me? It would be pretty awkward, but then again, men are dogs. Even though I haven’t talked to some of these guys in years, I bet they’d come over at the promise of sex no matter what.
I can’t do it. It’s too awkward, and besides, my son is sleeping in the next room. I really don’t want to have some fly-by-night hook-up occur with my precious Danny innocently snoozing mere feet away.
I sigh. There just don’t seem to be any good options. Suddenly, my cell rings and I snap it up.
“Wanda,” I hiss into the phone. “It’s eleven p.m. You know Danny’s sleeping!”
My best friend giggles.
“Oh sorry,” she says. “I forgot because you’re the only one of my friends with a kid. Soooorrry,” she sings in a low, musical tone.
“It’s fine,” I harrumph, rolling my eyes. To be honest, I’m grateful for Wanda’s friendship because she’s one of my only friends who stuck around after I gave birth. Within our friend group, I was the first to have a baby. In fact, I’m the only one. We were a group of about eight girls from college who all came to NYC after graduation, and at twenty-five, most of them are still living the high life. They party until the wee hours, stumble into work the next morning hung-over, and spend all their money on booze and SoulCycle classes.
I don’t judge them because once upon a time, I was like that too. We’d stay out and party all nights of the week with nary a care in the world because when you’re in your twenties, your body can handle it. But then, my life changed on a dime. I got pregnant by a guy I’d been casually seeing, and I didn’t want to terminate. It was a scary time, to say the least.
“Oh my god, you’re going to be a mom!” squealed my friend Lindsay, her blonde hair glinting in the sunlight. “Wait a minute, is Chris going to help you raise him?”
My friends all knew that Chris was the father. He was a guy I’d met a couple weeks ago at a bar.
“Um, no I think he’s going back to England,” I said.
“He’s going back?” added Kendall, nonplussed. “But you’re here. And the baby’s going to be born here, right?”
“Right,” I said, nodding while also rubbing my stomach protectively. “Chris isn’t … um, really into the idea of having a child, and you know, the U.K. is where he’s from. His friends and family are all there. He was just in New York on a temporary work assignment.”
My friends stare at me.
“So are you going to move there then?” asked Lindsay in a confused voice.
“Is he going to pay you child support?” added Briana, putting down her fork to stare at me.
I felt like I was being grilled by the Inquisition, but fortunately Wanda sensed my discomfort and stepped in.
“Bethie just doesn’t know yet, okay ladies?” she said in her queenly voice. “She’ll figure it out. In the meantime, let’s get some more mimosas!”
The mention of champagne distracted the girls, and sure enough, the conversation turned to other things. I wasn’t showing yet, so out of sight, out of mind. But as my second trimester became my third, I started to look like a lumbering whale, much to the shock of my friends.
“Oh my god, you’re huge!” whispered Lindsay.
“Absolutely ginormous,” agreed Kendall, staring avidly at my bump.
“Well, this is what pregnancy does to you,” I said in a wry voice while putting my hands protectively around my tummy. “You gain weight. In fact, I heard Kate Hudson put on seventy pounds during her first pregnancy. Isn’t that crazy? She was only like a hundred pounds before, so she almost doubled her body weight.”
The girls’ mouths opened and closed without sound as they continued to stare at my belly.
“Huge,” whispered Lindsay again.
“Enormous,” agreed Briana, unable to tear her eyes away.
I sighed. Pregnancy was just too much for my group of twenty-five year old fancy-free friends to appreciate, much less identify with. Here in New York, women often wait until they’re in the thirties, or even forties, to get pregnant and have a baby. It’s called the Sex and the City effect: you stay sexy and party hard for as long as you can before giving into the call of maternity (if in fact you ever do).