6 posts tagged “preggers”

While Elle (who was quite pissed about the me-and-Theo thing... and the fact that her gorgy boyfriend just CAME OUT) and Bert (who was being quite nice about the whole me-being-preggers things... and the it-might-be-Tom's-or-Bert's thing) waited in the kitchen, I squatted awkwardly with the pregnancy test between my legs, yet again. This time, my bladder was full, as I'd just downed two litres of orange juice.

Never thought orange juice would be so awful to drink without vodka in it...

I leaned against the bathroom wall while the plastic, pee-covered stick did whatever it is that pregnancy tests do. I was reminded of that American movie with the teenage girl who got pregnant after having sex just once.

Poor thing. Can't believe she didn't win the Oscar for that movie.

After two and a half minutes, I slowly approached the counter and looked down at the stick. One blue stripe stared back at me, mocking me. I immediately burst into tears.

Elle peered in. "So?!"

"I'VE GOT A BLUE STRRI-I-IIIIPE!!!" I wailed. I sunk down to the floor and sobbed into the top of my knees. "This can't be happening!! I'm not ready to be a mum! I've got my whole life ahead of me!! What am I going to do?!?"

Bert pushed the door open and saw me on the floor. He frowned. "What if we got married?"

I stared at him, my vision blurry from the tears. "Wot?"

"Elle said that Tom wouldn't be..." He hesitated. "...the good dad. And who knows, it's quite possible that it's mine, you know." He shrugged. "I mean, we did shag..." He swallowed, a shadow of fear passing quickly over his face. "What if... I married... you?"

I almost considered it. Good GOD, I almost considered it.

Elle plucked the pregger-ancy test from the garbage and read the back. "Two blue stripes means you're pregnant. One stripe means you're not." She looked down at me. "Stop crying. No need to marry Bert this time."

I have never been so relieved over anything in my life. I just looked at Bert and smiled. "Let's not shag again, alright?"

Bert grinned. I think he was more relieved than I was. "Agreed."

I celebrated that evening by getting pissed at the pub with Elle, Bert, Manny, Fran and Bernard. Elle, fresh from her recent break-up, was back to being uncomfortably chummy with Bernard. I was happy to see Manny flirting with the waitress (who seemed quite uninterested and repulsed by his drunken advances). I've been told a few times that it can be quite hard to get over me, but I was glad to see that he was on his way.

Bert was still feeling a little awkward about what had happened earlier and he made an early exit. He said something about going to some comedy thing later and meeting some friends.

As for Fran, she was pissed before we even got to the pub. She ended up snoring away, her head down on the table for most of the evening.

I called Tom from the pub. I told him about my pregnancy scare and told him that there was no baby in sight. He picked me up in his car and we had a celebratory shag in the back seat.

Life without a bun in the oven is quite nice, really.  

What a right mess.

Before Bert shared his doubts about their…romp…, I hadn’t even considered the information he had just presented.

“The baby’s not Tom’s, is it?!” I asked, slightly astounded.  Elise gave me a distressed look, before she pushed Bert out of her way and ran up the street.  “Elise!” I ran to the door and out onto the street, shouting after her.  It was useless.  There wasn’t even any point in running after her.  She was probably half-way to Russell Square already; she didn’t win every track meet she’d ever been to for nothing. 

I heard a strange gurgling sound behind before I remembered that Bert was there.  I whirled around to face him…well his chest anyways.  I looked up at his face and pointed an accusing finger at him.

“This is all your doing, you…you promiscuous tranny!” I blamed him.  I stomped away from him, but stopped myself.   I turned back around to say something, but Bert’s face was completely blank.  I waited for a few seconds before I tried to get his attention.

“Bert?” I ventured, stepping slowly towards him.

“Is she really pregnant?” he asked me suddenly.  He sounded concerned.

“I dunno,” I replied, sighing.  “She hasn’t taken the test thing yet.”

“Oh,” he replied softly.  Seconds later he asked, “So we don’t know for sure if it’s…it’s mine…or…?”

“No,” I replied, trying to understand what Bert was thinking.

“Even if it’s…his…,” Bert started.

“If there even is an ‘it’,” I pointed out.

“Yes, if there is…a baby…he wouldn’t stay round, would he?”

“He’d probably be on the first ship to Amsterdam,” I replied.  Bert nodded.  He rubbed the back of his head in thought.

“I’m…I’m gonna go see if I can find her,” he said quietly.  I nodded, unable to think of anything else to say.  Just as he headed out the door, I thought of something.

“Bert!” I called.  He stepped back inside. I ran for her coat and handed to him.  “Could you tell her…tell her I’m not mad or anything?  I’m just…you know…worried about her?”  He nodded, taking the coat and holding to his chest.  “I just wanna be there for her, that’s all.”  Bert left quietly and I was left with the empty, cold and dark shop.

Then it was “later” and Theo came round.

“Hey Elle,” he called, coming into the shop, just as I was clearing up the remnants of this afternoon.  I hid the Clear Blue boxes as quickly as I could, without him noticing.

“Look Theo, I’m not really in the mood for going out tonight…” I started.

“Ah…that’s alright,” he replied, hunching his shoulders.  “I wanted to talk to you about…something, anyways.”  The hesitation in his voice caught me off-guard. 

I sighed. 

The end was coming soon.

“Yes?” I prompted.

“Maybe you should stay away from the cutlery…,” he chuckled nervously.  My stomach felt sour, knowing what was coming and my throat felt thick.  I just looked at him, feeling the blood draining from my face.  “I…ah…don’t really know how to say this…but…and I feel really terrible about it…” he babbled, words streaming out of his mouth in disorderly confusion.

“But what?” I managed to say.

“Well…you were right about me,” he sighed heavily.  I blinked. 

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Are you sure?” I asked, realizing milliseconds too late how stupid I sounded.

“Sort of?” he replied, shrugging.

“Sort of?  How can you be “sort of” sure that you’re gay?” I demanded, trying to keep my voice level.

“I…I dunno.  Simon and Julian told me to make sure that I was absolutely positive about being gay…so…so they prompted me to get a girlfriend,” he explained, staring at the ground.

“And so you led me to believe that you were straight as an arrow and lied to me point-blanc when I asked you if you were?!”  I couldn’t believe it.  I could not bloody well believe it.

“I didn’t know how you’d take it…”

“I was ready to except it if you had of said yes!  But then you lied to me!  And I even had sex with you!!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms in the air.  I tried to calm myself down.  Pinching the bridge of my nose, with my eyes closed, I said quietly to him, “Maybe you should leave.”

“Yeah,” he shuffled to the doorway.  Before he left, he turned around.  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, before slipping out the door.

“And so is the fucking Pope for being Catholic!” I yelled at the closing door. 

I screamed some more, before grabbing my coat and heading to the door.  Maybe I could jump off a bridge.  No, no.  Too drastic.  That’s it!  I’m giving up men and sex!  I’ve had it!  I fumed as I slammed the shop door shut.  I began marching up the street not noticing that someone was approaching me.  It was Bernard.

“Where you goin’?” he asked, staring at the sidewalk as he walked next to me.

“Pub,” I grunted.

“Can I come?”

“I don’t care.”

I leaned against the bathroom door, staring at the pregger-ancy test in my hand.

What if I am preggers? What if there's a little baby inside me?

More importantly: What if it's Bert's? I will not have my little baby girl (or boy) see her (or his) father wearing women's clothing! No! I won't have it!

Thus, I'll say she (or he) is Tom's. And that is that.

But having a tiny baby in my life might be quite nice, really. Name it. Dress it in cool little outfits. Be all motherly and whatnot. Maybe Elle could get preggers too and we could get matching strollers and then the babies could grow up together and be best friends. That would be so fab.

But what if Tom bolts? I'd be all alone. A Single Mother. No. He wouldn't do that, not to me.

...Would he?

Oh, God. He would. I know he would. He can't even stay loyal to me when we're just having a casual thing! He would go sodding bonkers and leave the country if he knew I was with child!

I wiped furiously at a stray tear that escaped from the corner of my eye. No. No, no, no. I cannot be pregnant. I can't be. That's all there is to it!!

I sat down on the toilet and stuck the pee stick between my thighs. I was all nerved up and anxious, I couldn't even make myself go pee. I slapped the dry test on the counter, marched past Elle into the kitchen and reached for the wine.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Elle shouted.

I pulled the cork out of the bottle. "Wot? I can't pee!"

"Liquor might hurt the-the-the..." She gestured to my abdomen. "The thing! You sodding twit!"

"Oh..." I put the wine back in the cupboard. "Right." 

It was a little ironic, in my mind: Liquor had gotten me into this mess in the first place.

"I'll have to go buy some juice or something," I said. "I'll be back in a minute."

I ran into Bert on my way to the door. Shit. I dared not meet his eyeline.

"Elise, I remembered something else about last night..." he said. "...Did we or didn't we use a condom?"

I stared at him. Oh, fuck.

I turned around. Elle's eyes were as big as saucers. "What the..." She looked at me. "The baby's not Tom's, is it?!"  

Oh, double fuck. 

What a horrible, wretched day.

After I walked in on Bert and Elise in their couch of love (which I’m never, ever sitting on again), I started screaming.  It must have been a reflex.  At least I didn’t throw up. 

Bert and Elise seemed to be quite beside themselves.  Elise pushed Bert off the couch, while she was screaming.  He fell, completely starkers, onto the floor.  He tried to be quite casual about it.  I guess I kind of guess stared.   But then two days of drinking caught up with me.

I bolted upstairs and hurtled into the loo.

Two hours later, I was surprised I wasn’t dead.

I felt like I had thrown up most of my vital organs. 

I struggled to get up from the floor, using the toilet to boost myself up.  Then I wobbled downstairs to get the awful taste out of my mouth.

I was having a long, cold drink of water, when I turned away from the counter, to see Auntie Madge’s couch, with the blankets still strewn everywhere, making me remember what I had seen this morning and I gagged on my water.

I wobbled out into the shop, shielding my eyes from what little amount of sunlight shone through the windows.  Elise and Bert were no where to be seen and I could feel a headache building.

Like sodding hell I was opening the shop today. 

I went to pull my sunglasses out of the desk drawer, but they weren’t there.  Just a mouldy sandwich, half-eaten chocolate bar and…a full package of rubber johnny’s.  My stomach began churning again as I slammed the drawer closed.

Maybe Elise has them, I thought, getting up.  I stumbled back into the kitchen and nearly did a face plant into her door when I stopped short.  She was talking on the phone to someone.  I’m not completely sure what I was thinking when I did it, but I grabbed a cup off the table and stuck it against the door, and my ear against it.

“Tom,” she was saying, “we have to talk…”  She’s breaking up with him?!  ‘Bout bleeding time.  “I think I might be pregnant.”

I dropped the cup on my foot in surprise.  My stomach began heaving again, but there was nothing to come up.

I was surprised.  But…at the same time I was surprised that I was surprised.  I mean it is Elise, after all.  The way she spends her free time was bound to have this kind of outcome.

I threw Elise’s door open.

“You’re WOT?” I exclaimed.  She turned around on her bed, still holding the phone, to glare at me.  She muttered something into the phone and slammed it down.

“Extremely pretty?” she prompted.  I stumbled down the stairs to reach the foot of her bed.

“Are you?” I asked.

“Of course I am,” she said, frowning.

“No, you know…pregnant?”

“Well, no…I dunno, it’s a possibility,” she replied carelessly.

“You just told Tom…”

“I tell Tom a lot of things,” she said pointedly.

“Yes, but…c’mon,” I said, dragging her off the bed and into the shop.

 A quarter hour and 50 complaints later, we headed back to the shop with at least 10 Clear Blue pee sticks and five bottles of iced tea and Fanta.  When we got back in I had to force Elise to start drinking at least half of one bottle.

Then the phone rang.

It was Theo.

“Hey luv…can we get together later?  I wanna talk to you about something.”

“Ah, yeh, sure…,” I replied, watching Elise expertly down an entire bottle of Fanta as soon as I moved away from her.

“Say seven?”

“Yeah, sounds gear.  I gotta go, Theo.”

“Right.  Later then?”

“Yes!” 

Elise was pulling the thing out of the box when I hung up.  She made a face.

“It looks like a thermometer,” she commented, holding it at different angles.  I pushed her towards the stairs.

“Just go piss on it, Mother Duck!”

When Elle got back from shagging her quite attractive boyfriend, she burst into the shop. She started screaming like the lunatic that she is. She woke me up, actually. I was uncertain where I was at first. Yes, I have woken up with someone else's foot in my face, but never in the shop. (Come to think of it, I once woke up with my own foot in my face... That was an interesting night...)

I started screaming with Elle when faint memories from the night before crashed back into my mind. Bert. Wine. Search for condom. Giving up on the search. Wild, mad, rabid, drunken shagging.

Oh, good God.

I pushed Bert's leg off me and he toppled onto the floor. "Oy. What the..." He winced around, the mid-day sun hitting his sleepy face. He looked at me, looked at himself, looked at the blanket that wasn't doing a great job covering his skinny, naked body.

"No," he said suddenly. "We didn't."

Elle wasn't saying anything. Her mouth just hung open. She looked a bit like a fish, really. I just wanted to shove a sandwich in her big open gob.

I didn't say anything. I knew for a fact that yes, sadly and unfortunately, we had. This is me, here. Pissed or sober, I do enjoy shagging. But as I was blind drunk, I would want to shag anybody... and in this case, it was Bert.

Bert the Trannie.

Bert slowly rose to his feet, holding the blanket around himself. He glanced at Elle. "Morning."

"You two shagged!!" Elle shouted. "On Auntie Madge's couch!!"

I cringed. Oh, what an awful thought.

That afternoon, I called Tom. Some guy answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Hi. Is Tom there?"

"Yes, baby. Just a sec."

Jesus. I shag a trannie and Tom goes gay? What on earth is wrong with this day?! ...That rhymed. Fab.

"Hey Elise! How are you? Get into any trouble last night?"

Yes.

"No. Just sat home watching EastEnders... Who answered the phone just now?"

"Oh. That was Billie."

I blinked. "You've gone gay. Fab. Could this day get any worse?"

"Billie's a girl, you twat!"

"Yeah, I bet." I scratched the back of my neck. "Tom, we have to talk..." I bit my lip. "I think I might be pregnant."

Yes, call me a bitch, whatever you like. At that moment, I didn't care. I didn't even know if I was preggers or not. However, I would much rather say Tom is the father of my pretend baby than recognize Bert The Trannie as the dad.

Although, a little baby might not be so bad...

As pay back for having to come and get me after spending the night with Jim- er, Tim, Elle made me work the next day. This job really is God-awful dull. I actually caught myself reading a dictionary to pass the very slow-moving time.

I wander if I could just give myself a severe paper cut across the throat and DIE.

I was spying on Black Books through the window when the little bell above the door jingle, letting us all know that a customer was coming in. Nobody had been in all day so it gave me quite a start.

It was Tom.

And he didn't even notice me.

So, I had to make him notice me.

I grabbed a book off a random shelf, opened it and "accidently" bumped into Tom.

"Oh, gosh," I exclaimed. "I'm so sorry!" I looked up at him, batting my eyelashes discreetly. "Tom!"

He raised his eyebrows. "Elise. What the bloody hell are you doing in a book store?"

I glared at him. "I can read, you know!"

Tom glanced at the cover of the book I had in my hand. It was, unfortunately, The Black Man's Guide to Understanding the Black Woman. Just my luck. It couldn't have been something like The Da Vinci Code or-or-or... 1001 Ways To Tell If Your Lover Is A Complete Fuck-Up Named Tom. Oh, yes. That would have been a really good one.

"Interesting choice," he said with a laugh. "So. How long have you been a black man, anyway? Not long."

I tossed the book onto a nearby shelf and crossed my arms over my chest. "Well, you would know!!"

It was about 0.5 seconds later that I realized that that wasn't actually a come-back. Bugger.

I glanced at Elle for a little assistance. Maybe she would toss the wanker out on his ass. But no. My dear sister was asleep, her head on her desk, an empty bottle of wine sitting on some old books. Great.

Tom just smirked. (Prat.) "I think we should go to lunch."

"It's half ten," I said.

Tom looked at Elle. "Think your boss would mind if you took off a little early?"

"She's not my boss!" I huffed. "She doesn't tell me what I can and cannot do!" I grabbed his hand and lead him out of the shop.

We went to the nearby pub and had some lunch. We talked about everything. Mark. Trish. Us. The whole complicated mess. But, there had been an update since the whole blow-up happened.

"Mark and Trish have been sleeping together for over a year," Tom explained. "And Trish is pregnant."

I gaped at him. "Well, is it yours or is it Mark's?"

Wow, I thought. That is exactly what happened on EastEnders yesterday. 

"Well, the doctor told her she is four weeks pregnant," he said, looking like he didn't give a fig. "So, it has to be Mark's." Tom sighed and sipped his lager. "Needless to say, Mark and I are no longer chums. And Trish is now at his place."

"Do you miss her?" I asked softly.

"Not really," he said with a shrug. "I do miss you, though."