Scarsdale, New York: Friday 21st September 2018

Doctor Okafor handed the buff manila envelope to Grace. She looked small, vulnerable and more than a little unwilling. By far the youngest of the four, but the one who hospital protocol said had to accept the test results. Her tummy, her prerogative. Never mind who was paying for the test.

She hesitated, nervously holding the envelope in her hand, like some opposite world Oscars envelope. ‘And the winner is … and I’d like to thank ….’ Finally, she slowly pulled it open and extracted the two sheets of paper.

Rather than read it herself, she simply put the two sheets down on Francis’ desk and read the results at the same time as us.

Like most men, it was the first time I’d ever seen a paternity test. I’d always thought these things were for moral reprobates who got women pregnant and then welched on their responsibilities. I’d never imagined that something I so looked down on would have such a huge impact on my life. But here I was, trying to make sense of a complicated document I’d never seen before.

My nature impatient, I didn’t want to rush the navigation and reading of this document. But nor did I want to be the slow ass, the last one in the room to get to the punch line.

How do you read a report like this? (My dad had always told me ‘never trust a man who doesn’t start a newspaper from the sports pages, and then read forward. A sure sign of bad priorities.) I started from the left-hand sheet, which seemed general boilerplate words about method and liability. Nothing specific about me and the unborn baby in Grace’s tummy.

Turning to the right-hand sheet, I saw a complicated table showing various numbers I’d never understand.

But there, below the table was some statistical blurb and a section headed conclusions. I took a deep breath and steadied myself to read what I felt must be the key words.

‘The probability of Mr. Peter Jones being the biological father of Unborn Child Kayuni > 99.9999%. Conclusions: Based on our analysis and the biostatistical evaluation of the results, it is practically proven that Mr. Peter Jones is the biological father of Unborn Child Kayuni’

I felt like time was standing still. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the closest comparator I can think of is maybe how a patient feels when the doctor sits them down and tells them it’s terminal. And no, there isn’t any cure, no prospect of reverse or wrong diagnose. When a doctor just tells you to make the best of it and live as full a life as you can.

Looking back now, I’m deeply ashamed of how I felt. We were talking about a new life and a young girl who was scared and needed my love and support. But I want to be honest with you. I felt like the terminal illness guy. Mentally picturing the implosion of my twenty-year marriage, like one of those jerry cans that crushes in as the air is sucked out. Crushed by the atmospheric pressure. Crushed by the life-changing news.

Judging by the looks between us, we’d all read the same crystal-clear words. Breaking clear of my own navel-gazing for a moment, I looked at the others, trying to read their reactions. Grace seemed to have mixed feelings, her expression mixing fear and apology. Sue just looked sad and tired, finally resigned to the news she’d first heard weeks ago, now proven true beyond all doubt. And Francis’ face seemed to be a poker face, showing little or no emotion. An experienced oncologist, accustomed to remoteness and emotional detachment. At least that’s what I thought I saw in those three faces. But who knows, I’d got so much else wrong these last few months, maybe I was imagining or projecting my own feelings. The fear and resignation I thought I was seeing weren’t exactly emotions a long way from my own heart.

As we got home, each of us seemed to want our own space. Space to process our thoughts and adjust to what we’d thought was true but now knew to be true beyond doubt. 99.9999% is a difficult number to ignore.

I sat in the garden enjoying the pleasant low-seventies warmth, happy to have space but at the same time feeling a little abandoned and disappointed that neither Sue nor Grace had joined me. Sometimes I just looked blankly at the sky or at the beauty of the trees and flowers we’d nurtured in the ten years we’d lived here. At times I was philosophical, wondering if Sue and I would still be here in another ten years. Or, for that matter, even another one year.

At heart, I’m a loner, but after an hour I felt the need to go inside and see how the others were feeling. Maybe seeing if there were storms that needed to be headed off or dealt with. No one was downstairs. I couldn’t hear any sound from upstairs but I guessed they’d both be up there. As I stood at the bottom of the stairs, I was struck by a terrible dilemma. Who should I go and check on and talk to first? My wife, dealing with the final reality of her husband having sired another child? Or Grace, the young woman now confirmed as carrying my child?

With a heavy heart, I knew this single moment and choice was a microcosm of what my life would be for the next many years. Torn between two women. Torn between competing priorities and needs.

For a time, I could do nothing more than sit on the lowest step and ponder the unsolvable dilemma. Knowing full well how Solomon must have felt having to make a decision between two competing women. Whichever way I turned lay problems and disappointment, someone pushed down as a secondary priority.

Overwhelmed by exhaustion and depression, I trudged up the stairs and headed to Sue. Sue was my wife and the woman I loved more than life itself, and I’d taken a sacred oath to hold her until death parted us. Yes, I had responsibilities to Grace. That’s what the table and percentage had made clear to all of us. But both my heart and conscience told me I needed to see Sue and talk to her. To check in and see how she was.

I quietly opened the door to our bedroom to find the lay of the land before speaking or acting. Sue was under the duvet, curled in a fetal position with the sound of quiet sobs clear. All our years together, I could never stand the sound of Sue crying. Whatever the cause, it always made me feel a failure and made me want to comfort her and so, do absolutely anything to stop her tears.

I quietly walked to my side of the bed and snuggled under the duvet, approaching Sue carefully and slowly as you’d approach a hurt or wounded animal. My face slowly placed inches from hers, I reached out to stroke her hair, seeing whether she wanted me there or would push me away.

I felt her arms spring out and around my neck with the speed of a Jack-in-the-Box, pulling herself closer to me, her flow of tears increasing. As if she could truly let out her feelings now that I was here. As if she’d been holding herself together until I arrived, having to stay strong for herself as I wasn’t there for her.

But now I was here, Sue’s fears, sadness, and tears flooded out. I held her close, knowing that she had to let it out, waiting for the storm to pass. I knew it was too soon for words. Too soon for thinking and planning. Holding her and just being there for her was all I could do for now.

Sue’s tears and sobs went on and on, each fresh wave stabbing a fresh dagger into my heart. Making me curse my inability to heal her pain, and every stupid decision I’d taken which had nudged us bit by bit to this dark place.

Just as I thought the rain was about to stop, I saw Grace’s bashful face. A pale shadow of the confident and sassy young woman I’d known these last months.

She didn’t speak, she just lifted the duvet behind Sue and snuggled into Sue’s body as a young child would do during a bad thunderstorm. I held my breath to see how Sue would react, fearing Grace’s cry for help might be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Time moved so slowly as I waited to see Sue’s movements.

She moved her head back a fraction, and then rubbed her head against Grace’s face, like a feline telling someone they love them. The feintest of actions saying it’s okay, I’m with you, I love you.

This almost imperceptible movement caused Grace’s own emotions to break like a winter dam, as she wrapped her arms around Sue like the big-sister figure, she’d become these last months. Or maybe the mother who Grace no doubt wished was here with her.

And all the tears and sobbing started off again, only this time my sense of guilt and powerlessness was multiplied twice over. Although I wasn’t crying, I felt doubly inadequate, not just one person failed and desolate because of me. I was the author of two sets of tears. Two hurting hearts. Desperately hoping the hurting hearts wouldn’t become irretrievably broken.

The crying slowly gave some sense of healing to the girls, and like even the worst storm, finally came to a gradual halt.

It was Sue who spoke first, turning to face Grace. “I’m sorry Grace. Forgive me, but honestly, I was hoping the test would show it wasn’t Pete’s. I didn’t mean to doubt you or insult you. It’s just, well, life would have been a lot simpler,” as her words trailed off, embarrassed to finish her sentence.

Grace could tell Sue was embarrassed and ashamed, her expression telling us she understood and forgave Sue, the hug she gave Sue giving the same message.

Seeing the look of love and support between these two friends, I had a moment of vivid clarity. How could I ever live with this situation? Forever having to disappoint one of these two wonderful women. It wasn’t fair to either or in any way right. Both wanted a man who could be there for them whenever they needed. Not whenever they needed, provided it didn’t clash with me being with the other. What kind of a love or life would that be?

With this hardest of realizations hurting my head, I momentarily tuned out, lost in a different world for a moment, suddenly tuning back in to hear the end of a conversation, hearing Sue’s words to Grace.

“… give Pete and me a few minutes please, then he can come to you.”

Maybe this was some guy’s secret fantasy, tossed between two women, but at that moment it was my idea of hell. It broke my heart not to be fully there, fully loving and supporting both Sue and Grace. At that moment I’d have given almost anything to turn back time, to a simpler time where I’d not be hurting and disappointing both of these wonderful human beings.

As Grace quietly lifted her body from our bed and timidly left the room, Sue turned back to me. She could see the hurt and pain in my face, and I felt a warmth through my whole body as she smiled at me and gave me the softest of kisses.

For a while, neither of us said a word, content just to look into each other’s eyes. Sue broke the spell by giving me another gentle kiss. And then another kiss, less gentle and a little longer and more insistent.

I knew where this was heading. That’s why it’s called making love. Two more kisses followed before Sue finally spoke.

“Make love to me, honey.”

Nothing else was needed, or fitted. We both needed the medicine of the physical act which was part of the glue, familiar and comforting for the last twenty years. Feeling for all the world the villain to both these innocent women, I felt I needed Sue’s permission, even if I was her husband.

A great weight lifted from my chest, I hungrily returned Sue’s kisses. With interest. An interest born of pain, need, and desperation. My heart soaring as I felt Sue’s fingers working at my belt and zipper. The most inelegant and speedy of men as I wriggled my way under the heavy duvet to shed my pants and boxers, feeling overjoyed to be half-naked with Sue’s cool touch on my hard cock.

It was the old Sue back as her hand worked and teased me, as I continued my urgent schoolboy actions, pushing her skirt up and pulling her panties down her legs. I was so desperate to be deep within the woman I loved, I couldn’t be bothered to throw back the duvet. I pushed forward in the right general direction, seeing Sue smile as she understood my need and guided me home. Thrusting up and home and deep in one satisfying movement, feeling Sue’s warmth and tightness enveloping and comforting me.

For a moment we just looked at each other, a lock and a key mated and knowing it was meant to be, each completing the other. I fancied I could read Sue’s mind. I wasn’t the biggest key she’d known. But I was her key, a key she loved and who she knew would always put her before anything or anyone else. With the possible exception of the child we’d made together – but hey, that was a priority she’d mirror, like the tiger mum she’d always been.

Sue gently broke the moment, gently pushing back at me, telling me what she wanted, her hips pushed slightly wider in case I’d missed the hint. After locking eyes to tell her how much I truly loved her, I kissed her with a hunger and need borne out of all the stress and tension of the last few hours. She seemed surprised but responded, pushing her tongue and lips back, moaning as she felt me push back into her as hard and fast as I could.

I don’t think either of us wanted tender and gentle. It wasn’t one of those times. I lost my face in the smell and feel of her hair, the same as all those years, but somehow fresh and new and exciting. Each time thrusting hard and deep, each stroke wonderful and as exciting as the first time we’d made love.

With all the stress of the last few days, we’d not made love since Monday. But in my mind and heart, it felt like we’d not made love for years. It was like the first time black and white had instantly turned to high-def color, the excitement and sense of wonder couldn’t be described any other way.

If every night had been like this, who would ever have played and tried other people? Why would Michael Jordan play in the college leagues?

It seemed every part of both of us was involved in this wonderful act of mutual re-discovery. Our mouths still fighting and locked together as our hands touched, stroked, dug, and scratched. Sue’s legs tight around my back, locking and pulling in a way that increased pleasure for both of us. Sue’s nipples both harder and more swollen than I could ever remember, grazing my chest as I rode her hard.

After twenty years, we knew where to touch, but still, the excitement felt like first love. Sue’s neck always was a key to making her moan and sigh more and more, her fingers stroking and marking my belly and flanks.

There was precious little talking, just two lovers using their bodies to reconfirm their love and commitment, knowing the gentle tenderness would come after the release.

On and on we rode each other, both as fast and needy as the other, our frenzy building up until the room was full of moans and cries, as finally I pushed one final time and cried out as I flooded Sue’s body with my seed. The ultimate release and statement of love, feeling Sue’s hands on my ass pulling me the extra inch, our mouths gasping and kissing in perfect union, all our muscles locked in that orgasmic spasm.

As the tide went out, we both still clung tight, neither wanting the moment to end, both sensing the symbolism and importance of our loving act after such a day and such weeks of stress. With a sense of relief, I let my weight fall, pushing Sue deep into the mattress. Both of us enjoying the sensation, sharing a childish simple pleasure, enjoying puerile smiles and kisses.

I eased my weight off Sue, propped myself on an elbow, and happily gazed into her beautiful green eyes. Just for these magical moments, we’d managed to push behind us all the challenges and difficulties the future held. Sue smiled back at me, thinking the same, I was sure. Remembering simpler and happier times.

I inched over and kissed her softly. “I love you, honey.”

“Love you too. Always.”

Sue gently pushed me to my side and rolled over with her head on my chest. The weight of her head, it’s warmth and the softness of her hair felt wonderful. Somehow emotionally completing me and giving the warmest of inward glows. We were both still hanging onto the moment, pushing tomorrow’s problems to tomorrow and living for the moment and the memories.

I let my hand tease through Sue’s hair, like a teenager marveling at the exciting differences. She was wonderful, and she was mine.

We must have stayed like this for some time, each happy to just be with the other. No need to talk for now. Until finally Sue twisted and kissed me.

“Darling, go and see how Grace is.”

She said it with such softness and such love, I didn’t for a moment think to say no. I didn’t for a moment question, I just went, giving Sue a last, fleeting kiss.

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Sue’s always been more sensitive with a bigger EQ, and she was right. Grace was laying there in bed, her body language shouting out her loneliness and isolation. Carrying a man’s child, she’d just had to listen while that man, made love to his wife, taking second place despite what was happening inside her womb. Even in the near darkness, I sensed a gentle rocking to-and-fro. As if Grace was trying to rock herself to sleep.

I said nothing but just snuggled up to Grace. Almost immediately the rocking motion stopped as she felt my presence.

“I’m glad you came. I need you. I need to feel close to you,” she said, her head half-turned to face me. Then she fully turned and her soft brown arms brushed my ears as they locked around my neck.

“I’m here now. Sorry, I know it’s hard,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.

“Don’t talk, just hold me, darling,” she quietly commanded me and I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her soft, warm body close.

Maybe to some men this was their idea of heaven. If it had just been physical, maybe I’d have been okay with it. But this was way more than physical. This was two women, both wanting a man totally focused on them in their time of hurt and emotional need. It was emotional bed-hopping, and I felt guilty as hell. Guilty to both of them, like I was cheating on both of them.

Just as the feeling of guilt was building up, I felt Grace’s hand on my cock, followed by a girlish giggle. “Someone’s been busy. I hope you saved some for me.”

Another day I might have laughed myself. But a forty-nine-year-old man beset by stress on all sides, I was seriously worried whether I could get it up again to meet Grace’s needs. Thankfully, despite her tender years, Grace and her skills were equal to the task. By hand, by mouth, my smiling little minx had soon got me ready for action. I was pleased to see something of her normal spark return to Grace, but my guilt weighed heavily on my shoulders. I knew she wanted me to make love to her as a free man, but as I lay between her welcoming thighs, I was more making love out of duty. My guilt squashing any lust, as I pushed myself to make love as I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the girl carrying my child.

Physically, it felt good. Strangely, it was softer and more gentle than I’d been with Sue. That seemed to be what Grace, in her condition, wanted; the comfort and reassurance of slow and tender love-making. Having come once already with Sue, there wasn’t urgency from my side and this seemed to suit Grace, as she enjoyed my gentle up and down motion. The soft kisses and eye contact, the stroking of her long hair and caresses of her pert little breasts, soon to feed our child.

As we rode up and down, my sense of guilt disappeared into the rear-view mirror, as we looked at each other more and more, my mind was occupied with the thought that in seven months Grace would be holding our child in her arms. That we’d be holding our child in our arms.

It was an emotional game-changer, helping me to see that Grace needed me just as much as Sue, maybe her need even being the greater. Where was the guilt in making love to the woman carrying my child, especially when my wife had sent me from our bedroom to do just that?

Grace enjoyed two quiet and subdued climaxes from our lovemaking, and even this seemed fitting to the tender and loving act the two, or three, of us shared.

When I finally came, it felt good to be shooting my essence into Grace’s tight little body, knowing that this was a continuation of a job already done. It felt fulfilling in the most raw and basic way. And the sense of oneness and union as we lay cuddling together was wonderful. I don’t think I’d ever felt so close to Grace before, as we just held each other, sleepiness from the stressful day soon clawing at my eyelids and my brain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was woken by the warm rays of the sun of a late summer Saturday. The warmth of the sun and of Grace’s young body next to mine felt wonderful.

Grace was still asleep, no doubt just as exhausted and worn down as I was from the strain of the last few days. I decided to let her carry on sleeping and to go downstairs to make coffee and breakfast for the two women in my life.

As I donned my robe, looking at my tired and very limp cock, I was relieved that my overwhelming feelings of guilt from the night before had passed. I seemed a new man, on this bright new day. I didn’t kid myself that all the challenges of two women had gone through, but I sure felt a lot better about it than I had the night before.

As I quietly padded out of the room so as not to wake Grace, I decided I wanted a peek at my sleeping wife. I’d always loved watching Sue when she’s asleep, she always looked so peaceful. I opened our door as quietly as I could, my heart already warming at the thought of her beautiful sleeping form and the soft kiss I’d give her.

But that warmth turned to shock, anguish, and worry. Terrible, terrible worry. Because as my head peeked around the door there was no sign of Sue. The bed had been made, and there was absolutely no sign of Sue. Instead, I just see a letter on the pillow, her handwriting clear. ‘Pete’.

(Thanks again to cbears52 for his diligent and patient corrections.)