Big Girls Don't Cry Ch. 04

The summer eventually fizzled out into the gathering gloom of autumn, and the kids went back to school, but they stayed close; most weekends they were with us, or we went to see them in Portishead, the seaside town in North Somerset Lizzie had chosen to live in, a short way down the M5 motorway. The beach at Portishead is a summer beach not too far from the mouth of the Severn Estuary, and so at the end of the season everything was closed, but it was nice to stroll along the miles of golden sand on the occasional sunny day and watch the big Atlantic rollers come in up the Bristol Channel as the weather in the North Atlantic gradually worsened at the closing of the year. I'd hoped to get some time off over Christmas, but as most junior consultant on the general surgery team, I drew the short straw in the Annual Leave lottery, which meant no real leave until probably near Easter, late March or early April. I got to spend Christmas at home with Lena, Lizzie and the children, and Aunt Doreen, and then they'd all gone to Cyprus, while I went back on rotation until after New Year; while everyone was busily singing 'Auld Lang Syne' I was knee-deep in work, learning the intricacies of triple-bypass surgery.

I did get some interesting and intriguing news, though; after my conversation with Emma about my aunt and missing cousins in London, I'd asked a few colleagues in the hospitals in and around south and south-west London if there were any correlations with the names Sandra Lois Jameson, Julie Jameson, or Mark Jameson. A Julie Jameson, aged 13, had been treated in St. Georges, Tooting Broadway, for a cracked cheekbone sustained during a volleyball game; that had been five years ago, so she was eighteen now. Her next of kin had been listed as a Mark Jameson, aged sixteen. That made me pause; the coincidence was too compelling. Julie and her brother had been in South London five years before, so there was a chance they still were. The next time I saw Emma I'd pass it on, and she could take it from there.

Lena, Lizzie and the children came home just in time for the start of school after the Christmas holiday, and I finally got Lena to myself at last. I was jumping with anticipation, as well as talking sternly to a cock that wanted to jump out and ravage her there in the Arrivals Lounge; I think Lizzie read my agonised expression, soundly deflecting Marcus and Allie's request to come back and spend some time with Lena and me, instead persuading them that Lena was tired after the flight and she didn't want to be entertaining after such a long flight. Lizzie insisted on taking a taxi back to Portishead, while giving me the dirtiest wink I'd ever seen...

So once again I was driving my baby home from the airport with an unruly erection not helped by the sight of Lena's smooth thighs barely concealed by the short, tight skirt she was wearing, but I did manage to get us home safely, unloaded her luggage sedately and carried it in, then leaped frenziedly on her. I think I broke my personal best for getting naked, with Lena not far behind, which was surprising considering she was wearing so much less than me; Clark Kent couldn't have got out of his clothes faster, phone box or not, and finally I had her delectable peach of a bottom in my hands. Lena was no less hot, rubbing her bare mound relentlessly against me as we kissed voraciously. We didn't even make it up the stairs, even though we tried; as we got as far as the bottom tread, I lifted her to carry her upstairs, her legs wrapped around my waist, and she just dropped herself down onto my straining cock, impaling herself on me in one move.

All thought and plans for a leisurely build-up to the Great Bedroom Seduction Scene went out of my head as her hot succulence engulfed me, my gasp matching her groan of fulfilment as she sank down on me, taking me in all the way. I spun around to put her back against the wall so I could pummel her, Lena moaning and biting my shoulder as I hammered into her, my senses all at full stretch as we fucked, the first time I'd ever done it this way with her. Lena was in a world of her own, little gasps in time to my thrusts into her was the only sound from her, but the pulsing, squeezing sensation in her pussy told me just how much she was getting from this. Those same sensations were doing things to me, making me hot, making me want to empty myself into her over and over again, need overwhelming conscious thought as we pumped and ground against each other, until;

"Ooooh God, yesss, yesss, fuck me, Darryl, yesss, YESS!" she screamed, her pussy clamping tightly around me as her orgasm roared through her, her whole body quaking and shuddering with the force of her release.

Her orgasm triggered my own, my cock swelling inside that succulent, velvety, vice-like grip as the ripples in her pussy milked and squeezed me, and my own orgasm crackled through me, centring at the juncture of my thighs, hot bolts of seminal fluid pulsing out of me in what felt like an endless stream, each pulse of my cock a sweet agony of sensation as I poured myself into her. My eyesight dimmed, and my ears rang with the force of my ejaculation, my whole being centered on the rigid cock jammed balls deep inside her, pumping my seed into her, my lover, formerly my sister and my aunt in one perfect package, now only the mother of my child and the love of my life, my only and forever.

Our mutual storm passed leaving us weak and drained, bodies and limbs twitching in reaction to the stress we'd put them under. I sank to my knees, taking Lena with me, leaning back on my hands as she knelt straddling me, her arms around my neck as she held herself against me, her heart beating a rapid tattoo against my own. We sat like that while we calmed and got our breath back, Lena stirring first, kissing the tip of my nose as she grinned happily, if a little blearily, at me.

"Holy Shit, Daryl, we have got to do that again before baby-bump gets too big!"

I grinned back, my eyes widening as I suddenly really saw what I'd been seeing all along; she was over four months along, well into the second trimester, and she was beginning to show; not a lot, still a barely noticeable curve and swell to her erstwhile flat tummy, barely a baby bump, and easily mistaken for normal feminine rounding, but it was there; there was my baby, finally making his or her presence felt! Nothing more would do but that I must slide her off and up a little so I could kiss her adorable rounded tummy and finally say hello properly to my baby. I'd seen the initial scans, but they had been unrevealing, showing little more than areas of dark and light and a fluttering little heart, doing nothing except confirm we were having a baby and that there were no detectable risks to mother or baby.

"Next Wednesday, Dar, my first 3-D Ultrasound scan at the Ante-Natal clinic, and this time, you'll be able to tell if it's a boy or a girl; that should make baby shopping easier!"

I continued to gaze adoringly at her belly, picturing her as our baby grew and developed inside her, imagining how she would look with a swollen belly, finding the mental picture stimulating and arousing; she was mine, and she was having my baby. My life was perfect, with only one cloud hanging over it; I was going to lose my dad, soon. But, he'd come to terms with it, and showed me how to do that as well. I was never going to be okay with it, but I wasn't skirting the edge of depression and despondency any longer, and I had Lena, and baby bump to look forward to in the coming months, and family we loved and who loved us. I wanted to do something special for her for dinner, and maybe celebrate baby Morgan finally showing up.

"What would you like to do for dinner, baby?" I asked, and her eyes lit up.

"I want a big slab of steak, seared on the outside, blue on the inside, glazed with blue cheese, smothered with button mushrooms fried in butter, duchesse potatoes, a warm salad, and lots of chocolate to follow, and I don't mean Death by Chocolate; I'm talking Genocide by Chocolate; clinically inadvisable amounts of chocolate, Dar, I want people on the other side of the globe to faint with envy when they hear what I had for dessert!"

*

The Ante-Natal clinic pronounced mother and baby in perfect health, and confirmed the probable sex to us; we were having a boy (in the considered opinion of the Radiologist administering the scan), poor Lena trying not to show her momentary disappointment after she'd set her heart on a girl.

"Never mind, baby, the next one will be a girl, and at least she'll have a big brother to look out for her, just like I did!" she grinned, consoling herself as we left the hospital.

That evening I got a call from Emma, asking if I was free for a couple of hours in the morning, there was someone she wanted me to meet. I was intrigued when she wouldn't say who, as was Lena.

The following morning Emma picked us up; Lena wanted to come along too, and we drove through Bristol, down through the Centre, past Temple Meads and along the Bath Road, finally turning into Arnos Grove Cemetery. I guessed where we were going, and Emma led us to a marble memorial, a cross with an inverted rifle carved into the upright, and a badge carved in high relief, a laurel chaplet surrounding a map of the world, surmounted by a pennon with 'Gibraltar' carved on it, supporting the Queen's State Crown bearing a rampant crowned lion and the words 'Per Mare, Per Terram'; the crest of the Royal Marines. At the juncture of the upright and the crosspiece of the monument was an inset picture of a smiling young man in the full dress blues of a Royal Marine. He was holding his white Wolseley Topee helmet under his arm, and Lena gasped as she looked closely.

"Oh my God, Dar, he looks just like you, look!"

I already knew who it was; the inscription gave his name. I felt oddly affected by seeing this; I had no connection to this man, and yet I literally owed my existence to him. I read the inscription further.

Robert Darryl Fraser, Lance-Corporal,

Company K, 42 Commando, Royal Marines

Taken from us 31st May, 1982 while on patrol on Mount Kent, East Falkland, Falkland Islands.

"PARUI REQUIEM MIHI ET HONORE"

It took me a moment to recall enough Latin to translate the inscription;

"I have served with honour and earned my rest"

Lena had tears in her eyes as she read the inscription, and knelt down to right the wreath of poppies placed there last November 11th, Remembrance Day. Emma knelt beside her and brushed away the wind-blown debris that had sifted over the base of the monument then placed a single poppy and a white rose there. Lena exchanged glances with her, then once more brushed her hand lightly over the poppy wreath.

"So young, look at him, he was just a boy...!" she murmured, a tear rolling down her cheek, "He was just a boy, Dar, he had his whole life ahead of him..."

Emma brushed her fingertips over the picture, her eyes distant, sad.

"A lot of boys lost their lives there, on both sides; some of them died the same day, and when I come up here I try and think of all of them too, of what their mothers and families must be doing now, and it's probably not very much different to what we're doing here and now. This is the real consequence of war, not the drums and trumpets and victory parades and medals; instead there's the empty seats at the family gatherings, the lost promise of lives not lived, and the grandchildren who will never be. I don't celebrate the victory in the Falklands; those boys who were killed by our troops, they may have been enemy soldiers, but they were also somebody's babies, somebody's brothers, too."

She stood up and helped Lena up, wordlessly handing her a tissue so she could wipe her eyes and blow her nose, before linking arms with both of us as we walked back to the car. As we walked, she told us of the reason for our visit.

"I come here every year on Lizzie's birthday because Robbie used to give her a white rose on her birthday; it was like his special gift to her. Today's her birthday, but she's never been here, I don't think she ever will; she can't face his loss, and this would just be too much for her. So I do it, I give him a rose from her, just to let him know she hasn't forgotten him."

We drove back in silence, busy with our thoughts, but feeling strangely up-beat; at least I was; now I had a real connection to my past, to the other side of the story mum and dad had tried to tell me all those months ago.

The next few months flew past; subsequent Ultrasound scans confirmed we were indeed having a boy, and Lena busied herself getting the house baby-friendly while work continued apace for me. Lena quickly acclimatized herself to my sometimes erratic work schedule, she understood that as the junior member of the team I was still in training; the Senior Registrar was very hot on all team members keeping their training and techniques up to date, so I was handed more, and more varied, surgical cases than my more senior colleagues. This was my 'make or break' time; if I caved in under the pressure, I'd fail my surgical elective and have to either revert to General Practice or leave medicine.

Lena was my tower of strength during this difficult period, keeping me going when I stressed out, and leaving me to sleep when I dragged in after marathon sixteen hour sessions in the Operating Theatre. I think if I'd shown the slightest hint that I was contemplating chucking it all in and becoming a GP she'd have supported me, but she would also have been disappointed with me that I'd given up, and I couldn't live with knowing I'd let her down in any way. This period was when most of my real growing-up happened, as my mind finally wrapped itself around the choices I'd made and showed me the real consequences of failure; I had a baby on the way, and a partner who depended on me, so there was no way I could allow myself to falter or fail.

As her pregnancy progressed, and her belly swelled, she became almost irresistible; her usual expression was serene, almost angelic; she looked like a Madonna from a Raphael painting, with her sweet expression and calm, unruffled manner; I couldn't get enough of her, and she felt the same way about me; night after night, when I should have been resting in preparation for another long day in the Operating Theatre, we would instead be pounding and straining against each other, everything about her drawing me in, pulling me closer, making me hot and her irresistible; I spent the last trimester with an almost permanent erection, and Lena was always wet and receptive, ever ready with her slippery, succulent pussy or hot demanding mouth.

My days passed in a whirl of surgery, diagnosis and surgical training reviews, and my nights an endless round of hot, sweaty, slippery sex. When she got too large for us to safely make love in the missionary position, she would instead have me take her from behind, her fingers strumming and rubbing her ever erect clitoris while I pounded into her as I rubbed and squeezed her swollen breasts and highly sensitive nipples.

However we did it, though, the sex was unforgettable, mind-blowing, incredible, and a whole lot of other superlatives. Lena and I couldn't stop; the things we felt for each other and that connection we shared was always the keystone of our lovemaking, the one thing that stood out for both of us; we really were a family, in all the important, subtle, and not so subtle ways there are to measure that connection we shared, and we felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to renew and explore that connection at every possible opportunity.

Lizzie was always there for us, and Emma, and Allie, surprisingly; she'd moved to the Catholic school in Lawrence Weston, not too far from either Clifton or Portishead, and had gotten into the habit of appearing on Friday afternoon after school and staying for the weekend, with either Lena or me taking her home on Sunday evening; I was pleased she'd attached herself to us, as it gave Lena some company when I was working through the night at weekends; I got used to coming in at 6 or 7 in the moring and finding Allie and Lena fast asleep in our bed, thumbs corked in their mouths, the TV still on and the debris of pizza and microwave popcorn scattered everywhere; when I wasn't working, having her there gave us a flavour of what it would probably be like to have a child sharing the house with us.

The day I was informed I had been put forward to sit the Intercollegiate Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons examination was the crown of my career to date, and a resounding slap on the back from the University Hospital. From then on my life became even more hectic, cramming time to study in between my surgical caseload and trying (and succeeding, somehow!) to have a family life with Lena. When I took the examination, Lena was serenely confident I would pass and be awarded my membership diploma and the right to carry the letters MRCS after my name; Dr. Darryl Morgan, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons; it had a certain ring to it!

And then one day in late May I got a panicked call from Lizzie. Lena was on her way to the hospital. They'd been out shopping in Broadmead, one last spree before she popped, and her waters had broken in one of the department stores. Luckily Broadmead is only a short way from The Bristol Royal Infirmary and I was already in the A & E when she was brought in by the ambulance, having broken most of the hospital Health and Safety rules in my mad dash to be there for her when she arrived.

Her face was twisted in pain as another contraction hit her, but she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, her skin glowing with the promise of impending motherhood. The contractions were still more than 5 minutes apart, so there was time to move her to the Maternity Unit and get her gowned and prepped. I was hovering, getting in the way, trying my best to stay out of the way, but trying to be involved at the same time, until the midwife pulled me to one side and dressed me down properly.

"Look, Dr. Morgan, it's quite simple; you can be the attending, in which case you can deliver this baby, and I'll go and have a coffee; Oh yes, you're not an obstetricianor a midwife, are you? Okay, that means you have no business being down at this end, so you get up by your wife, talk to her, help her, hold her hand, anything, just stay the hell out of my way, and keep your trap shut. Are we clear on where you want to be now? Good, now leave us to do our job and you make yourself useful and help your wife get comfortable!"

I slunk back to Lena's side, feeling foolish at being told off like an officious 8-year old, and Lena's grin didn't help matters any, either! Her grin quickly faded, replaced instead by a grimace and a gasp of pain as another contraction rolled through her; I looked at my watch and noted that it was five minutes since the last one, and also of longer duration. Her hand grabbed mine convulsively as the full strength of the contraction made itself felt. It swept through her for something over 30 seconds, then died away and her breathing eased.

"Dar," she tugged me closer, "Remember when I used to make fun of all those women in the movies, screaming like banshees when they were having babies? Well I'm sorry, I take it all back! Christ, those contractions hurt, it's like cramp but it just builds up and I can't stop it! Is it too late to ask for an epidural?"

I had to think before I remembered the procedure.

"Not until your contractions are regular and you're dilated 5 centimetres, if they give it to you too soon it may slow your contractions, so sorry, baby, you might have to wait an hour or so, maybe more."

She looked aghast.

"More of this pain, for another hour before they can tell whether I can have pain relief? How long is this labour likely to last?"